Merciful — Anton Bosch

The Beatitudes and the Promise of Mercy

Matthew 5, let's read the first 12 verses. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus Teaches With Authority

Now, just by way of introducing the importance of the Beatitudes, you'll find that verse 1 says,. And seeing the multitudes who went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him.

And the rabbis would be seated in order to teach authoritatively. And so they may have discussions as they walk and as they stand around, but when a rabbi would sit down, it means that he was now going to speak with authority.

He was going to declare that which is the will and the purpose of God. You'll find the same happening in Luke chapter 4, when Jesus goes into the synagogue, and it says that he was given the scroll and he reads.

Now, he would not have been the only reader. There could have been as many as seven people who read. But the last rabbi to read, the last teacher to read, would invariably be the one who would then expound the word, who would then make the word plain.

And you'll see that when he had closed the seal, or when he had closed the scroll, he gave it back to the attendant and it says that he sat down. And he then begins to say, today the scripture has been fulfilled.

Again, you see the concept of sitting down in order to speak with authority. We find the same concept carried forward today. So that today we find that when you speak about a professor, you'll find that they speak of him occupying a chair, a chair of philosophy, or a chair of science, or a chair of something or the other, meaning the position of authority on that particular subject.

And so professors today occupy a chair. You find also that the Pope, this cathedral, apparently he is infallible, said that the earth is flat, those guys were heretics, well then he couldn't have made a mistake.

And of course that took them many hundreds of years to change their mind on that one. But the word ex-cathedral means from the chair, from the seat. And so when he speaks from the seat, he carried forward to today.

And so it's very important to understand that when a rabbi sits down to speak words. Now at the end of the Beatitudes, this is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, and it goes through three chapters to the end of chapter 7.

And at the end of chapter 7 when he completed speaking, verse 28 says,. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

And so these three chapters contain very authoritative statements. And the people teaching in a different way to the way that the scribes, now you'll see they compare it to the scribes, now the scribes would teach those who are encouraging this form of teaching today again.

I don't believe that that is God's intention for us in teaching. But what they would say is that Rabbi Hillel on this subject says so and so. But Rabbi Gamaliel says so and so. And Rabbi Moshe says so and so.

And people to make up their own minds as to what way they would follow. So they would present the different points of view and the different arguments from the different sages in the Hebrew. Jesus doesn't come with that kind of teaching.

You'll see that he says that, You have heard it said of old, You shall not murder, but I say to you. And so he was speaking the word of God. Now we cannot as men always speak with that same authority.

But we have to speak the word of God. And we have to declare the word of God. We can't just present the arguments and say, Well, you know, this is one option and that's another option. And you make up your mind which one you want to believe.

We have a message to declare. We have and we need to preach that word. Maybe not with a kind of a human authority that some men like to preach with. But if we believe that this is the word of God, that this is the truth, we need to speak it with confidence knowing that that is the truth.

And that was the difference between the Lord Jesus. So these sayings of the Lord Jesus are very, very important. And they lay the foundation for the whole of the church and of the kingdom. Now we're dealing this morning with verse seven.

Becoming Merciful by Nature

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Again, there are two very important statements we have to make before we begin to speak about this. The first is that he's not saying blessed are those who show mercy.

Blessed are the merciful. What we obviously, if we are merciful, we will show mercy. But we can't add on. We spoke last week about these things that we add on to our lives. And so we add on grace, we add on mercy, we add on love.

But these are just things that we add on and they're not really part of who we are. Jesus says, blessed are the merciful. We need to be in our very being, mercy and merciful. The same way as we'll see this morning that God is mercy.

That is the very nature and character of God. And so the acts of mercy that come from God are not just things that he chooses to do from time to time, but they are an expression of his person and of his character.

And so when Jesus says that blessed are the merciful, we need to be merciful by nature. Now, the problem, the second problem we have is that some people are more, shall we say, soft by nature. They are more kind by nature.

They are by nature, and I mean by nature the way that they are without Christ. Even before they were saved, they were kind people. They were gentle people. Now, that's not what he is speaking about here.

This is not a natural thing because then God is partial. Then people who are born with a natural gentleness have an advantage. But it doesn't make that kind of distinction. And so what he's obviously speaking about here is not my natural ability, but he is speaking about my born-again nature and a work, natural birth that bring us into, and our relationship with the Lord Jesus should bring us into a place where we are the Lord Jesus in this respect.

This is not a small part of the teaching of the scriptures, and yet one will hear very little preaching and teaching on it. It's a very important part of the scriptures. In Micah chapter 6, you'll find that he says, what does the Lord require of you?

We know that verse off by heart, I'm sure. To do justly and to love, what does the Lord require? Micah says, this is the sum of God's requirements. It's first of all that we walk justly. That was the one we dealt with last week.

Justice, Mercy, and Faith as Weightier Matters

Secondly, that we, Matthew chapter 23, if you'll turn with me there, we find that, with the Pharisees, and Matthew 23, the whole chapter, most of the chapter is Jesus' dealings with the Pharisees and showing them for who they really were.

In Matthew 23 and verse 23, he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, you strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel. And so he's not saying that the 10 commandments and the 613 or the 10 and the other 603 are not important.

But he's saying more important than all the 613 commands in the Torah and the Old Testament is the commands or the instructions or the spirit behind these things, justice and mercy and faith. Justice and mercy and faith.

And so we can know all of the scriptures and we can apply all of them in a very legalistic way. But if these weightier matters, Jesus calls them the weightier matters, the heavier matters, the more important matters of the law, if these are absent within us, we have failed.

And so they are justice in the same principles that Micah illustrated or used. And so Jesus says that you can keep all of the commandments. These are the commandments. He's not saying forget the 613. He's not saying to them those were not important.

He says those you should have done, but this you should have done first. And so he says you strain at a camel, sorry, you strain at a gnat, you take little issues out, but you leave the major issues. And so keeping the Sabbath, if I use that as an example, you worry about keeping the Sabbath, but you're not showing mercy.

Now in that context, he's saying the Sabbath is really a gnat if you don't keep the Sabbath. But if you don't show mercy, that's a camel that you're swallowing. In Exodus chapter 34, we find that he healed himself to him.

God’s Mercy and the Harmony of Justice

It's fundamental to the person of God. This is who God is, not just in the New Testament. Again, we get this impression sometimes that God in the Old Testament was a God of justice and of law and of punishment, and that the God in the New Testament is a God of love and of mercy.

But God was always and always is. In Exodus 34, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, that's Moses, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

And so in the Lord's revelation to Moses, the first statement that God makes, the first revelation that comes to Moses, is the fact that God is merciful, that God is merciful. Now, in this passage, just notice because we're going to come back to this concept, but not back to the scripture a little bit later, you'll find in verse 7, he says, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty.

Now, the point that I'm going to make once I've dealt with God's mercy, is the fact that justice and mercy are not opposites, that mercy does not set aside justice, that justice and mercy have to come together.

And here you'll see that even though God is merciful, twice in his revelation to Moses, he declares that he is merciful. And yet at the same time, he says that he forgives, but he does not clear the guilty.

Now, obviously these are not contradictions. If he forgives, he forgives those who come to him on the right conditions. But those who do not come to him remain guilty, and therefore their guilt remains upon them, and they have to suffer the consequences of their guilt.

And so he has been gracious to us if we've come to him. Those who are unbelieving today and have not come to him, remain in their sin, and the wrath of God abides upon them. And God is not, and this is the problem, is that the world look at God and they say, well, God must set aside his justice, because he is the God of mercy, and so he must save everybody.

Everybody must go to heaven. But that is not the nature of God. We'll talk about that a little bit later, but just to bring your attention to this verse that he speaks here about the fact that he forgives, iniquity and transgression and sin, but he does not clear the guilty.

Mercy does not set aside his justice. In the tabernacle, you remember that the focal point of the tabernacle, although not physically, if you measure it, not in the center of the thing, because it was towards the back, but was the Ark of the Covenant.

And upon the Ark of the Covenant was the mercy seat. And that was where God's Shekinah, or God's glory was manifest, was revealed. And so even in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, central to God's revelation of himself is the concept of mercy.

He reveals himself seated, not on the judgment seat, but on the mercy seat. And that's a wonderful concept, because even when we look at the Old Testament, we say, well, surely he was a God of judgment, but he reveals himself as seated or present.

We know that he is not a man, he's not physically a resident in one place, but that he reveals his glory to be in the place of mercy. To be in the place of mercy. And of course, that was that mercy seat, which really was just a slab of gold.

And then there were the two angels, or the two sheriffs that covered. And that was the area that was sprinkled with blood once a year. In Hebrews chapter 2, it speaks about Jesus as being a faithful high priest.

Christ’s Merciful High-Priestly Ministry

So not only does he reveal himself in the Old Testament, from the beginning, as being a God of mercy, but he reveals himself now in his ongoing high priestly ministry. What Jesus is doing today, as a face pairing Jesus to the earthly priesthood, the people and their problems and their weaknesses.

They lived in their own little world, supported by the finances of the people, not having to work, not having to make a living, not having to deal with the day-to-day problems. And so they lived in this unique little world, and in a sort of relationship with God for the people.

But he says, Jesus is a merciful high priest. He is touching. So when we struggle, he is merciful towards us. Mercy and grace. And we don't have time this morning, and I'm not going to try and separate the two for a long time.

But there is a difference between mercy and grace. Grace has to do with saving us from sin. Mercy has to do with supporting, strengthening, helping us in our weakness. Gratitude displayed towards those who are struggling, to those who are weak.

Full and a merciful high priest. In Titus chapter 3, you'll find that mercy goes with forgiveness. Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, just before Philemon in Hebrews. Titus chapter 3, verse 5, verse 4,. But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared.

Notice there, the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the spirit.

When he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, and having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, he saved us according to his mercy.

And so God's mercy towards us stems from his love towards us, and results in forgiveness. And so he doesn't just feel sorry for us. Notice he doesn't use the word pity, although as a father pities his children, so the Lord is gracious to them.

We know that verse. And yet at the same time, God doesn't just sit there and say, I really feel sorry for you. But in showing mercy, showing mercy is not just a feeling, showing mercy has to result in some action.

And God in his mercy gives his Son the Lord Jesus to die for us. And so he does something to save us, to bring us out of our pitiful situation. And so God moved by his kindness and his love towards us, displays his mercy in saving us.

But mercy does not just deal with saving us. Mercy does not just deal with forgiveness. God's mercy even results in us being alive and being here this morning. The book of Lamentations says because of his mercies, we are not consumed.

We are not consumed. Now, this is one of the accusations that the unbelievers bring against God. And they say, well, if God is who he is, then how can he allow the world to continue with all of the murder and the rape and the robberies and the death and the wars and all of these things going on?

But Lamentations, Jeremiah, I believe, says that it is because of his mercies that we are not consumed. God's righteousness and God's justice would require that the earth just be consumed with one word of his power, just the whole thing just blown away because it is so rotten and it is so diseased and it is so sick.

But because of his mercy, because he is not willing, Peter says, that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so because God is merciful to the world, because God is merciful to the unbelievers, because God is merciful to Christians who are half-hearted, he is extending the time of grace and he is waiting for more to come into the kingdom.

And so because of his mercy, we are not consumed. Because of his mercy, we are able to come into his presence and we are not wiped out. And so mercy spares us. Mercy gives us forgiveness. In Ephesians chapter 2, a few books back, you will find that mercy is rooted in love.

Mercy Revealed in Salvation and at the Cross

Ephesians chapter 2, touched on this in Titus, but it is clearer here. Verse 4, Ephesians 2, 4,. But God, who is rich in mercy, God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

So God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us. God, who is rich in mercy, because of his love for us. And of course we can talk about the mercy of God and we can talk about how God is merciful and how this works for God, but obviously this needs to work for us.

And so just looking at this in theory is of little value to us. What we need to see is how that this mercy needs to work within us and how that the love of God needs to be shared abroad in our hearts so that we too may be merciful the same way as he is merciful.

And then of course the mercy of God is clearly manifest on the cross of Calvary. There is that hymn, in fact we sang it on Thursday night, Mercy there was great and grace was free, Pardon there was multiplied to me, There my burdened soul found liberty.

And so we see on the cross of Calvary God's mercy revealed to us as Jesus dies in our place upon that cruel cross. But we even see the mercy of the Lord Jesus as he says, Father forgive them because they do not know what they do.

No reclamation, no words of reviving again. Remember Peter says that he though he was reviled, reviled not again. He doesn't revile again. He doesn't bring judgment upon. He doesn't bring fire down. He does nothing but he just pleads for their forgiveness.

And we say well that is supernatural. That is something that is not human. And that's exactly what we are talking about. We're not talking about human kindness. Human kindness would not be able to do that upon the cross of Calvary.

It is only God's mercy that would be able to bring us to a place where we're able to say Father even though they've nailed him to the cross, even though they did whatever they did to him there, he says Father simply forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.

Mercy Does Not Cancel Justice

Now we have to bring the balance and we said we're going to speak about mercy and justice. And we cannot because there are Christians who want to emphasize the mercy of God and say well because God is merciful and because we must be merciful to one another, because we must be merciful to those who are weak, what we need to do is we need to just look over any form of sin and any form of iniquity.

That doesn't matter because we need to be merciful. Now that is not being merciful. It says about that in Psalm 85 verse 10, I'm sure you know the verse, it says mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed.

Mercy and truth. When we have poverty in the world and we just ignore the fact, we just say well that doesn't, you know we just close, you know the way that we sit at the robot and the beggars come and we just don't see them.

Now that's not truth. But we try to not see the issues. And so in our relationships with one another we have the same problem. Some of us just try to not see the issues. And we say well, you know it's not there.

But that's not truth. Mercy and truth have come together. And so truth deals with the reality. Mercy is part of the response, but not the entire response to that truth and to that reality. If we go to Exodus chapter 20, in fact we don't have to, I'll just tell you about that.

But remember in Exodus chapter 20 we find the 10 commandments. And after the, I think the third command, the Lord reveals himself again and he says that he is merciful and that he shows mercy to thousands.

So he gives the law and at the same time he says that he is merciful. But then at the same time he says that the soul that sins it must die. Now these things are not in opposition to one another. They don't cancel one another out.

And so God shows mercy to those who avail themselves of his mercy. But his law and his justice still stands and he will continue to punish those who break his commands and do not avail themselves of his grace and of his mercy.

Saul, David, and the Limits of Misplaced Mercy

If one looks at the Old Testament for instance, we can find two examples. And we can find examples in the New Testament. But you remember that Saul is sent to the Amalekites and God says to him, destroy the Amalekites because of what they did to Israel when Israel came up from Egypt when they attacked the weak of Israel.

And Amalek is a picture of the flesh. And so we know the story how that Saul goes against the Amalekites and what does he do with Agag, the king of the Amalekites? He shows him mercy. He spares him. And we say, well that's commendable.

That's good. He's doing what we're talking about. He's being merciful. And was he commended for that? No, he loses his kingdom for that. God rejects him. Not the first time, but ultimately, finally now God rejects him.

Because he showed mercy. And of course, unbelievers and Christians who are not, who don't understand the word have difficulty with this. They say, but how can God condemn a man because he showed mercy?

But you see, justice had to be done. And justice required for the Amalekites to be destroyed. And because Saul spared Amalek, because he spared Agag, Agag remained a problem, although he was then killed by Samuel the prophet.

The descendants and that which was spared becomes a problem for Israel and remains a problem for Israel for a long time after that. You find the same happening with David. Remember, David had a son. Scripture says that he was handsome.

He was beautiful. That there was, from the tip of his toe to the crown of his head, there was, he was absolutely perfect. And yet, Absalom had a nasty streak about him. And Absalom kills his brother. He felt that he was justified because his brother had raped his sister in an unjust way.

And David is very angry with Absalom. But then there are those who plead for Absalom and it takes two years and eventually David forgives Absalom. Now, the law required that Absalom should have been killed because he had committed murder.

But Moses does not fulfill the justice or the judgment of the law. He shows mercy to Absalom because he was his son. If it was anybody else, David would probably have had him killed. But because it was his son, he spares him.

And you remember the end of the story. That Absalom then, it doesn't take Absalom very long to gather people around him and to bring about a rebellion against David and eventually brings Israel to civil war.

As Israelite fights Israelite. Israelite as Moses, as David has to defend his kingdom against his own son. The one that he had shown mercy to. Now, God required of him not to show mercy in that case. Now, how do we know the difference?

Well, I can't give you a formula. That's a very difficult thing. There is no formula between when do we show mercy and when do we extract justice or when do we apply the justice of God. But if we go back and we remember when we spoke about meekness.

Meekness deals with the issue of justifying and defending my rights. And when I'm defending my rights, invariably I don't show mercy. And yet somehow when I'm defending God's truth and God's justice, we tend to be very merciful, which is in fact the wrong way around.

I should extend mercy when it comes to my things and my rights. And I should be absolutely true to the word and to God's requirements when it comes to his things. But the difference between the two, there's no easy formula.

We need to know God's direction. And even in the application of justice, it needs to be done with mercy. And of course, these are very, very difficult things for us to do in the natural. Matthew chapter 25.

Mercy Toward Those in Need

Now, when we speak about mercy, mercy, as we've said, deals with pitting those and helping those who are in need. Now, that need can be a spiritual need. It can be a physical need. It can be in many, many areas.

And in Matthew 25, I don't have time to go into detail about that, but there's an incorrect teaching that speaks about this as the judging of the nations. He's not dealing with nations, although it says that he brings the nations before him.

The scripture does not support the concept of judgment of nations as nations, but the judgment of individuals for their individual actions. That is the principle that the scripture gives us over and over.

The soul that sins, it shall die. We shall give an account every one for himself, it says in Corinthians. And so, the principle of judgment is of individuals, not of groups of people. God is not going to judge denominations as denominations, or churches as churches, or nations or countries as countries, but he judges individuals.

But when it says that he brings the nations before him, he's simply saying all the people. And in judging, what is the issue? What is the basis of judgment here? Be with mercy. Because he says in verse 34,.

And the king will say to those in his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was hungry and you gave me food. Now, what will cause us to give food to those who are hungry?

It's mercy. It's mercy. It's seeing someone in need and being extended in mercy to help that one in being hungry. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. It's mercy driven. I was stranger and you took me in.

I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. He's speaking about the application of mercy. This is the basis of this judgment. Now, I think that we touched on this before, but let me just clarify this point again.

Mercy as Evidence, Not the Basis of Salvation

This will then seem to give or indicate then that salvation is based on works. And so if I am showing merciful works, and so if I'm running a charity, then God's going to save me. If I never give to the poor, then God is not going to save me.

That is not the basis of salvation. We understand that the basis of salvation is on the basis of the finished work of the cross of Calvary. That if I believe in him, I will not perish, but have everlasting life.

So what is he dealing with here now then? What does this got to do with it? Well, remember that we said that mercy is the result of a changed nature. Mercy is not something I have by nature. Mercy is something, the mercy of God is something that comes when I'm born again, and the nature of God is imparted to me.

So why did these people show mercy? Because they were changed. Because God's mercy became real to them. Why did the others not show mercy? Because they were not born again. They were unchanged. They were unregenerate.

And so there was no pity. There was no softness in their heart towards those who were in need. And so these things that he is speaking about here are simply consequences or results or fruit being born again.

And so if I am born again, you'll find the same principle in the book of Revelation when it says that outside are liars. Does that then mean that that's the basis of salvation? If I don't lie, I'll go to heaven, and if I lie, I won't go to heaven.

No. Those who are outside and who are liars and whoremongers and all of the other things that he mentions there, that is simply a consequence, that is simply evidence of the fact that I'm not born again.

If I do not speak the truth, if I find that I have a difficulty with the truth, and I trust I'm not putting a burden on you this morning, but if I have difficulty with speaking the truth, there is a question mark as to whether I'm born again.

Because the essence of being born again is that I'm brought into truth, and that I come to know Him who is the truth and the life and the way. And so lying, sin, is evidence of an unregenerate nature.

Unmercifulness is evidence of an unregenerate nature. Showing mercy, on the other hand, loving holiness, is evidence of being born again. That's simply what, and I know that this is a huge subject, and I just want to introduce that to you, but to try and explain this passage.

And so why are they commended? Because they are showing evidence of the fact that they've been changed by the Lord. And so they are showing mercy. And so judgment is based on showing mercy. In the book of James, chapter 2, verse 13, it says, Judgment is without mercy to the one who shows no mercy.

Judgment is without mercy to the one who shows no mercy. And so showing mercy must be evidenced in our lives. It's not an optional thing we can screw on and bolt onto our lives, you know, like we spoke about putting a bull bar on and a tow bar and a radio.

It's just one of those nice extra things you put onto your Christianity. No, mercy is the essence of what it's all about. And so he says that judgment is without mercy to the one who shows no mercy. Let's go to Matthew, chapter 6.

Showing Mercy Through Generosity

What I want to do is briefly look at the various ways then in which mercy is evidenced. How do I evidence mercy? How do I show mercy in my life? Matthew, chapter 6. And this is still part of the Beatitudes.

In verse 22, the lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

Now, what does that got to do with mercy? It's got everything to do with mercy. The problem we have with these two verses is that because most people haven't bothered to interpret these two scriptures by other scripture, and have tried to give it an interpretation outside of scripture, most Christians have an incorrect understanding of what these two verses mean.

So I need to take a few minutes just to try and explain what these two verses mean. You'll see here that he is speaking about material things. Verse 19. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Verse 21. For where that your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Then there's these two verses, verses 22 and 23. And then verse 24 says, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate one and love the other, else he will be loyal to one and despise the other.