Psalm 52:8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. I. WHAT MERCY IS. 1. Mercy, as an attribute of God, is not to be confounded with mere goodness. Goodness may demand the exercise of justice; indeed, it often does; but to say that mercy demands the exercise of justice is to use the word without meaning. Mercy asks that justice be set aside. 2. Mercy is a disposition to pardon the guilty. Desert is never the rule by which mercy-is guided; while it is precisely the rule of justice. 3. Mercy is exercised only where there is guilt. The penalty of the law must have been previously incurred, else there can be no scope for mercy. 4. Mercy can be exercised no further than one deserves punishment. If great punishment is deserved, great mercy can be shown; if endless punishment is due, there is then scope for infinite mercy to be shown, but not otherwise. II. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN TRUSTING IN THE MERCY OF GOD. 1. A conviction of guilt. 2. That we have no hope on the score of justice. If we had anything to expect from justice, we should not look to mercy. 3. A just apprehension of what mercy is — pardon for the crimes of the guilty. 4. A belief that He is merciful. We could not trust Him if we had no such belief. 5. A conviction of deserving endless punishment. 6. A cessation from all excuses and excuse-making. III. THE CONDITIONS UPON WHICH WE MAY CONFIDENTLY AND SECURELY TRUST IN THE MERCY OF GOD FOR EVER. 1. Public justice must be appeased. Its demands must be satisfied. However much disposed God may be to pardon, yet He is too good to exercise mercy on any such conditions or under any such circumstances as will impair the dignity of His law, throw out a licence to sin, and open the very floodgates of iniquity. Jehovah never can do this. 2. We must repent. 3. We must confess our sins. 4. We must really make restitution, so far as lies in our power. 5. Another condition is that you really reform. 6. You must go the whole length in justifying the law and its penalty. 7. No sinner can be a proper object of mercy who is not entirely submissive to all those measures of the government that have brought him to conviction. 8. You must close in most cordially with the plan of salvation. IV. SOME MISTAKES INTO WHICH MANY FALL. 1. Many really trust in justice, and not in mercy. This is a fatal rock. The sinner who can do this calmly has never seen God's law and his own heart. 2. Many trust professedly in the mercy of God without fulfilling the conditions on which only mercy can be shown. They may hold on in such trusting till they die — but no longer. 3. Sinners do not consider that God cannot dispense with their fulfilling those conditions. He has no right to do so. They spring out of the very constitution of His government, from His very nature, and must therefore be strictly fulfilled. 4. Many are defeating their own salvation by self. justification. Pleas that excuse self and cavils that arraign God, stand alike and fatally in the way of a pardon. Since the world began it has not been known that a sinner has found mercy in this state. 5. Many pretend to trust in mercy who yet profess to be punished for their sins as they go along. They hope for salvation through mercy, and yet they are punished for all their sins in this life. Two more absurd and self-contradictory things were never put together. 6. Persons who in the letter plead for mercy, often rely really upon justice. The deep conviction of sin and ill-desert does not sink into their soul till they realize what mercy is, and feel that they can rely on nothing else. 7. Some are covering up their sins, yet dream of going to heaven. Do they think they can hide those sins from the Omniscient Eye? Do they think to cover their sins and yet "prosper," despite of God's awful Word? 8. We cannot reasonably ask for mercy beyond our acknowledged and felt guilt; and they mistake fatally who suppose that they can. ( C. G. Finney.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. |
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