Bowing To God's Mercy

Here is the Scripture text, about God’s mercy, which is still controversial to many a disciple and believer. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Romans 9: 15.

We’ve already noted that these words of Paul to the Roman Church, must have been met with great scepticism, deep queries and questions about God and His mercy. If we are honest, what we are hearing, puts God in some suspiciously sad light. It simply does not compute with a God who is just and right. On the contrary, when we come to this text on our own, it is the perfect picture of a God who is downright and outright unfair and unjust. But we follow in trust and faith, as Paul seeks to keep us on the straight and narrow. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!

Paul has just mentioned other texts, which are hard sayings to feed upon, swallow and digest. Can you imagine, telling people, who have grown up all their lives as descendants of Abraham, Jewish people, born of Jewish blood that their human birth does not in any way qualify them to be called children of God? He tells them plainly, through revelation, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. Romans 9: 8b. He even gets deeper into this, by mentioning a still more upsetting and totally dismissing fact, which many explain away, or just ignore, as though it does not exist.

Here, Paul is speaking of the twin boys born to Rebekah. Even before those boys were given birth, before they had done any work, whether good or bad, in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works  but by him who calls, - she was told, The older will serve the younger. Romans 9:  11b – 12. These are all tough words and because they will never be understood, comprehended or received, except through the revelation of Father God, through His ever present Holy Spirit, we become all mistrusting and doubt the given word of God.

Paul is not about to change anything, which has been taught and revealed to him, to suit the fancies of his hearers. He is Jesus’ student, in every way. Like Master, like student. He speaks God’s truth, whether his hearers accept or reject. May we not turn aside to the right or the left, and submit ourselves to the Spirit of our Holy God.  

Here is a reminder of our main text. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Romans 11: 32.

One of the sure positions, which this verse of Scripture makes clear to all and sundry - Jew and Gentile, bond and free, rich and poor, schooled and unschooled -  is this. Every single human being has been bound over to disobedience. There is not one human being who can claim to be obedient, on his or her own merit. Every single person has already been given over, or consigned to disobedience by Creator God, so that we all stand in the same place in the eyes of Almighty, Sovereign God. Now, if this does not remove every ounce of self-righteousness, pride, haughtiness and self-aggrandizement from each of us, we are of all people, most desperately lost. Regardless of my inner pride, secret self-elation and carefully guarded inner thoughts about my status, that I am not like other people – the murderer, the thief, the rapist, the adulterer, the forger, the necromancer – God bundles me in with them as a sinner. Do you accept this about you, or don’t you?

Has not our heavenly Father done this, so that we may see our depraved states, our utter wicked and filthy lives and seek Him?

The image of the lost son, the prodigal child, who was living the life of debauchery, wickedness, idolatry and self-gratification; the child who denounced the father’s will, to live according to the will of the self; the child who left the father’s house to find other houses of abode, brings us this present truth.

Tomorrow, we shall pursue this in new and different light.