THE INCREDIBLE MERCY OF GOD

 

I think we tend to minimize or overlook God’s mercy. Peter didn’t, but he did not mince words as he preached to the crowd about their sin of killing the “Righteous One.” However, then he said something that really surprised me. Peter softened the blow by claiming that they had acted in ignorance:

·       Acts 3:17 “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.”

Hadn’t their rulers acted in full awareness of the miracles Jesus had performed? Even after the rulers had seen Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, they had plotted to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (John 11). How could they have been ignorant?

Even during Peters first sermon, he reminded the crowd that they had been made aware of Jesus through the signs and wonders He had been performing (Acts 2:22). How could they have been ignorant?

It also seems that Paul too had hardened his heart against the evidences of Jesus’ Personhood. Yet he too had claimed that he had been forgiven because he had acted “ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13).

Do these examples represent a contradiction? No! Why not? Because our God is incredibly merciful. He regards unbelief and ignorance relatively. In His mind, ignorance isn’t complete ignorance. Similarly, unbelief might not be regarded by Him as complete unbelief:

·       Hebrews 11:29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 

Did the Israelites truly trust in God? As the Egyptian chariots approached them, they rebelled against Moses and God, claiming that they had never wanted to leave their Egyptian slavery. Nevertheless, stuck between a rock and a hard place, they ventured out through the pillars of water. Was this faith? Well, God regarded it as faith, even if it constituted the smallest measure of faith.

For another example, Jesus had warned that if anyone denied Him, He would deny this person before the Father (Luke 9:26). However, Peter had denied Christ three times, and yet, after His resurrection, He appointed Peter to oversee the welfare of His flock (John 21:15-17)

This very same paradox is found throughout the Scriptures, indicating that it is intentional. Lot had lived a very compromised life in Sodom. Even after witnessing the horror of its destruction, he had even allowed his daughters to get him drunk so that they could be impregnated by their father on two successive evenings. Yet, three times he is referred to as a righteous man:

·       2 Peter 2:7-8 “and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard).

Could this represent a contradiction or an oversight? It cannot. Instead, we encounter this same “contradiction” throughout. Let’s look at two more examples of “exemplary” faith, where we do not find faith when we examine the original accounts in Genesis and Exodus:

·       Hebrews 11:20 By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.

However, the Genesis account indicates that Isaac had been deceived and blessed Jacob rather than his favorite son Esau.

·       Hebrews 11:27 By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

However, the Exodus account indicates that Moses had fearfully fled Egypt. In the next account, in God’s eyes, Israel crossed the divided sea by faith:

These accounts and many others can be easily harmonized once we realize that our Savior is incredibly gracious. He sees faith and righteousness where we fail to see it.

I derive two lessons from this. God is more gracious with me than I can imagine. While I might see myself as a spiritual failure, my Savior sees me as a spiritual giant.

The second lesson is as the first. I must also regard God’s children as righteous men and women of valor, even if I don’t see them in this light.

However, after Peter extended to his audience God’s gracious judgment that they had killed Jesus in “ignorance,” he then delivered the needful warning to repent:

·       Acts 3:23 “‘And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet [Jesus] shall be destroyed from the people.'”

Peter demonstrated the principle that it is the graciousness of God that is supposed to lead us to repentance, without which we face destruction.

The History of Humankind

 

 

The history of the human race can be summarized in these three ways:

1.    We want to be exalted. However, we inevitably fail to achieve this.
2.    Instead, we realize that there is something terribly wrong for which we deserve punishment.
3.    We suppress this awareness by self-deception trying to prove ourselves worthy.

We find all three of these elements at play in the account of the Fall (Genesis 3). The tempter promised Eve (and Adam followed along) that they would become like God by eating the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree of  “The Knowledge of Good and Evil.” However, instead of becoming God-like, they embarked on the path of death.

Ironically, God had intended to give them what they lusted after but in His way, by trusting in Him, according to His timing (Psalm 84: 11-12). However, by refusing to trust in Him, their sin had immediate and profound effects:

•    Genesis 3:7–8 …they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God...

Instead of confessing their sin, they foolishly believed that they could handle it on their own by merely covering themselves with fig leaves. We have been doing this ever since through pride, power, and possessions—all of which were denounced by Jesus:

•    Luke 16:15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

Even worse, they could no longer face the truth about themselves and their sin. Their Creator gave them opportunities to humble themselves by confessing the truth, but instead, they blame-shifted:

•    Genesis 3:11–13 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Sin had taken charge of the human race, and we have been hiding from God ever since:
•    Romans 2:15 (NLT) They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

Consequently, we feel guilty and ashamed of ourselves. Instead of confessing our sins, we try to justify them through many devious devices. Since God’s laws are written into our DNA, unless we find His mercy, we will continue to experience inner turmoil. Therefore, we resort to self-justifications:

•    Proverbs 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.

We suppress the truth about ourselves and cannot tolerate exposure by the One who judges us:

•    Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

We have been running from God and His terrifying and revealing light ever since, covering ourselves with the fig leaves of money, power, attainments, and sexual conquests, whatever might make us feel worthy and entitled, while our conscience has been declaring the opposite. In view of this, Christ pronounced His condemnation upon humanity:

•    John 3:19–20 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We are condemned by what we love—the darkness of self-deception—and we know it:

•    Romans 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We cover this awareness over with the fig leaves of self-righteousness and shake a defiant fist at heaven. Some will even punish or maim themselves to experience a brief reprieve from the punishment they know they deserve.

The Remedy—Reconciliation

We suffer from alienation from our Creator and need to be reconciled with Him. None of us can be good enough to earn anything good from Him. Our only hope is in His undeserved mercy. What then does He want from us?

•    1 John 1:8–9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We just need to be real with God and acknowledge our sins, trusting in His mercy through Jesus’ payment for sin on the cross.

AM I SAVED?

 

 

We've probably all asked the question, "Am I saved?" Why? For one thing, we still struggle against our shameful sin nature:

 

Galatians 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

 

Scary Verses: Matthew 10:33 “But whoever denies and disowns Me before men, I also will deny and disown him before My Father Who is in heaven.”

Nevertheless. Peter was forgiven even after he denied Jesus three times. This points out how ready Jesus is to forgive and to restore.

 

Therefore, constantly, we fall short.  it is very important to understand that our Lord is so gracious that He receives all who come to Him:

 

Romans 10:12–13 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

 

Faith is a Decision: John 3:14–16 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Joshua 24:15 …”choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD

 

All we need to do is to believe, confessing our sin with the Intention of Repenting: Jeremiah 3:12–13 Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, “ ‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the LORD your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.

 

He receives the worst sinners: 2 Chronicles 33:9–13 Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel. The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.

 

The Lord is always ready to forgive those who repent: 1 John 1:6–9 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

We all fail to “walk in the light,” even daily. However, whenever we cry out for God's mercy, He forgives us.

 

He looks at us Graciously: 2 Peter 2:7–8 …He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.

 

Lot had been living a very compromised life. He even had sex with his two daughters on two successive evenings after getting drunk. Yet, our Lord regarded Lot as righteous. This assumes that he must have repented of his sins, pointing to the fact that our Lord will forgive and save all who turn to Him:

 

Revelation 22:17 The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Justice

 

Is there such a thing? One atheistic friend confided, “Since we do not have freewill, we couldn’t have acted otherwise, and this insight has helped me to deal with my guilt and shame.”

In essence, he was saying that he cannot be truly held responsible for rape or of breaking his wife’s arm.

Others who have adopted a cultural Marxist perspective deny justice in another way. The insist that what we call “justice” is no more than a tool that the white ruling class has invented to maintain control and to protect their own interests. Consequently, there is no moral truth, no right and wrong. Everything is just an exercise of power of the oppressing white elite.

It should be no surprise that since Marxism has reduced everything to the exercise of power, which Marxists have no reservations about using to secure their goals even as they justify it as the pursuit of “justice.” Just look at their placard, “No justice, no peace!” However, for them, “justice” is a matter of destroying the present system. Think “Cancel Culture.”

Our present administration seems to be relying on the Marxist playbook. From this POV, our prisoners are not the guilty but the oppressed. Consequently:

•    President Biden on Monday will commute the sentences of nearly all of the 40 murderers on the federal government’s death row, in another move to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s stated goals. Under Mr. Biden’s order 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — all of whom had been convicted of murder — would have their sentences reduced to life imprisonment without parole.

•    On Dec. 12, the outgoing president commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people, including a woman who killed two of her ex-husbands and another lover; a woman who stole $54 million from a small town in Illinois; and a Pennsylvania judge who sentenced minors to harsh prison sentences for petty crimes in exchange for kickbacks from the prison operators. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/23/joe-biden-commutes-sentences-37-murderers-death-ro/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHff0tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHT-7X5egS5mCBR8SmPoVHxER0255o52mTwxgucTLlZ_PxgfKYQc42j2w4A_aem_W1R6yMI0jl6DGCgRBZdPhw

A concern for justice and the welfare of the innocent victims and for the safety of those who had testified against their perpetrators should have required Biden to keep them interned. It should have also caused him to bar the entry of many criminals into this nation. Aren’t our elected officials bound to protect to innocent against the guilty! Not if he believes that the guilty are the white oppressors who are allegedly trying to keep down the oppressed colored minorities and sexual non-conformists!

Unfortunately, those with this POV had largely gained control of the centers of influence. Of course, Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) has long been in the making. Derrick Bell argued in his article about Brown v. Board of Education [1954, “Segregation Unanimously Rejected”] that critical race theory asserts that the majority will only secure civil rights for minorities when it serves the majority’s self-interest. When whites adopt black children, they are accused of doing so to prove that they aren’t racist—no consideration of virtue.

This is a good example of Marxist deconstruction of the Christian West. According to CRT, any good that comes out of the West “serves the majority’s self-interest.” No wonder many college students want to see the destruction of the West. However, black scholar, Voddie Baucham, has written, “According to CRT, everything is merely a struggle for power.”  He provides an accurate portrait of CRT’s strategy to vilify the “oppressors”:

•    “Systemic racism is the cause of disparities. If you doubt that, it is because you are a racist who wants to protect your power and keep those disparities in place. This has to be true because, if you were not racist, you would know that the cause of disparities is… racism.” (Fault Lines)

Under CRT, Justice is no longer about  individual guilt or innocence. A CRT founder, Derrick Bell, wrote, "The whole liberal worldview of private rights and public sovereignty mediated by the rule of law needed to be exploded." https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2021/06/23/the-movement-against-critical-race-theory-is-deeply-necessary-n2591397

Ibram X. Kendi, the author of the best-seller, How to Be an Anti-Racist, has ironically written that: “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Only power speaks. CRT will resort to violence and coercion. Even the cultural Marxist of the Frankfort School, Max Horkheimer, had written “It is not economics that creates oppression but rather the nuclear family, traditional institutions, and concepts of race, gender and sexual identity. These are the chains of tyranny which must be broken by revolution.”

Instead, the real oppressors are one’s own conscience, whose accusations of guilt are projected on those who disagree. Consequently, It is easy for them to conclude that their opponents are the oppressors.

What has happened to our concept of justice? Under CRT, justice is no longer a matter of the guilt and innocence of the individual but one’s group identity. The only ones who are safe are those who are deemed to have the right identity or affiliation. Any opponents are to be destroyed. After all, they are the oppressors who have kept the oppressed in bondage.

Indeed, our nation had been guilty of systemic oppression. However, there is little recognition and appreciation that the situation is now radically different. Shelby Steele is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, Steele argues that the black community now suffers more through paternalistic programs and the victimization narrative than from their Jim Crow legacy:

•    What I've encountered in my life, most often in the white world, is good will, is people have who have wanted to help me. When I was younger and starting a career, people who mentored me, who really felt it was important to give me the best opportunity to pursue my dreams. And my sense is that that's really been an experience for most blacks who have tried to venture out and develop themselves…

•    One of the most remarkable things in all of human history is the degree of moral evolution, that white Americans have made from the mid-60s to this day. No group of people in history have morally evolved away from a social evil that quickly and to that degree in this sort of short span of time. And very often, in our calculations in thinking about race, we don't give whites credit for that.