W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New

Chapter 4

 

THE DELIGHTFUL DECLAMATION:
THE MAGNIFICENCE OF PURE MERCY

Light that Exposes ...

SOME SCRIPTURAL DIMENSIONS ON  FORGIVENESS

DAVID and SHIMEI – an ILLUSTRATION – II SAMUEL 16

This episode occurs when Absolam, David’s pet son, with his vanity and vainglory, given permission too long, attacks his own father and seeks to overcome him, as he invades Jerusalem. David is delivered, and so great is his glory in this deliverance at the wise and longsuffering hand of the Lord, that when he is back in state, he forgives Shimei, with a full heart of gratitude to the Lord. Indeed, David did not even have the man killed, as one of his followers offered to do, WHILE Shimei was cursing him, as with a sad flock, he left Jerusalem, rather than have civil war in it.

PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN FORGIVENESS

This is a type, an example of the Christian heart in forgiveness. So great is our glorying in the pardon, peace and kindness of the Lord, that it is not really so very hard to forgive those who in the most execrable, heartless and vicious kind of ways, have offended, hurt or assaulted us. This is not at all the same as blindness to danger, or moral indifference: it is all the more worthy and Christian when despite acute sensitivity to the WRONG done to us , BECAUSE it was wrong, we yet forgive. 

If the party repeats offence, in WEAKNESS of heart, slackness of mind, slowness of spirit, and shows real evidence of REPENTANCE, then we show a wise and patient tolerance in continuing to forgive. We are not to be sensitive, far less sensationalistic on wrongs suffered. If however the party is repetitive and does NOT repent (Luke 17:4), then this is not the 70 times 7 case (Matthew 18:21ff.) as fully described in the New Testament. In Luke you see ‘if he repent’. This does not mean that we do NOT forgive even in that case, and that we DO seek vengeance, for VENGEANCE IS MINE, says the Lord, and we are forbidden to take over  HIS role. It does however mean that we have no desire to act as final judges for anyone (except to note that without Christ they WILL, like all others, be judged), or to bring evil to others for the sake of our wounded spirits.

When the repetitive act is frequent, and the evil is plain, as with a murderous heart or a dishonest spirit, then of course the law takes its course; but NOT because we are going to ‘show’ that wretched fellow. Rather is it that when with much evil, the one sunk in evil and being evil, shows his endless hypocrisy, cunning or deceit, the hatefulness is such that the end of the Lord’s mission of mercy for that person must come at length (Isaiah 57:15), and we hating evil, find it harder and harder even to see the former human being, now a son of hell, that once was there.

Even then, consider how Christ did NOT take it out on Judas, when at the supper He VERY quietly confirmed that yes, it was this Judas that would betray Him. People in general did not even realise that this had happened, so great was the  RESTRAINT of Christ (John 13:28).

Fundamental in all this is the fact that there IS a time of judgment, and it WILL  come,  but we seek to avoid ACTING as if we were that one (do not try to take out the splinter in your brother’s eye, while you have a plank in your own, was Christ’s deliciously humorous show-down with pomposity and self-elevation – Matthew 7:1-6), and in love HOPE for the one who has fallen. Yet it DOES and must mean that we WARN people of wolves in sheep’s clothing, lest they attack the lambs: but in this case, it is the scripture which judges the one who twists its truth and leaves its graces, as a ‘false prophet’ and so must be exposed (II Timothy 4:14). When in this way the very mercy of the Lord is dishonestly twisted, and many are brought to ruin, warning is necessary as you see here (cf. Hymenaeus and his associate, Philetus, in II Timothy 2:17-18,  and the principle in II Timothy 4:2)

In the spirit of the matter, the idea is to help the sinner find Christ, without specialising on acrimonious criticism. Human beings have enough tics and tit-for-tat mentality, which is low and small in spirit, without being encouraged to pursue it. If however people insist on indulgence in what is legally condemned, the time comes when mercy on this earth, is taken over by law, and they find their just sanctions imposed by those whose business law is.

When even the State becomes immoral and lax, it may be tempting to take over, and try to SHOW that person; but EVIL is better left to the Lord, when He sees fit, that is evil in the sense of calamity, to bring it: and in the meantime and in the midst of all this, we must seek to PROTECT, as in Dafur, the innocent from their predators. In this, George Bush’s recent insistence is good.

We all have different gifts and we seek to use them as the Lord leads us, not concentrating on the evil, but on the good; and if we  MUST cover the evil, expose it, so that the truth of the Gospel more brightly appear, or victims be delivered, then so be it; but it is not with relish, for love does not rejoice in iniquity, but in the truth.

But perhaps you want to follow the Lord in the very strength of desiring mercy, knowing how you yourself could so readily fall. This is a good Christian spirit. You seek not to ‘rub it in’ if you can well avoid too much exposure when a fault occurs, because you love mercy (Galatians 6:1). If someone is ‘overtaken in a fault’ we seek rather to restore than to trumpet it.

To be Christ’-like is always an aim as to the quality of spirit one shows (cf. I Corinthians 11:1), and one remembers always that expression from the heart of God… in Micah 7.

“Do not rejoice over me, my enemy;

When I fall, I will arise;

When I sit in darkness,

The Lord will be a light to me.

⁹           I will bear the indignation of the Lord,

Because I have sinned against Him,

Until He pleads my case

And executes justice for me.

He will bring me forth to the light;

I will see His righteousness.

 

¹⁰          "Then she who is my enemy will see,

And shame will cover her who said to me,

“Where is the Lord your God?”

My eyes will see her;

Now she will be trampled down

Like mud in the streets.

 

¹¹          "In the day when your walls are to be built,

In that day the decree shall go far and wide.

¹²          In that day they shall come to you

From Assyria and the fortified cities,

From the fortress to the River,

From sea to sea,

And mountain to mountain.

 

¹³          "Yet the land shall be desolate

Because of those who dwell in it,

And for the fruit of their deeds.

¹⁴          "Shepherd Your people with Your staff,

The flock of Your heritage,

Who dwell solitarily in a woodland,

In the midst of Carmel;

Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead,

As in days of old.

¹⁵          As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,

I will show them wonders.”

¹⁶          "The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might;

They shall put their hand over their mouth;

Their ears shall be deaf.

¹⁷          They shall lick the dust like a serpent;

They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth.

They shall be afraid of the Lord our God,

And shall fear because of You.

¹⁸          "Who is a God like You,

Pardoning iniquity

And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?

He does not retain His anger forever,

Because He delights in mercy.

¹⁹          He will again have compassion on us,

And will subdue our iniquities.

You will cast all our sins

Into the depths of the sea.

²⁰          You will give truth to Jacob

And mercy to Abraham,

Which You have sworn to our fathers

             From days of old.”

There are several sections in this glorious testimony to the mercy of the Lord. Let us pursue them with the text above before us.

 First notice the HOPE in the Lord, despite the punishment for their sins. Then see the ADVICE to their enemies, not to GLOAT, for the Lord will  deliver them who wait on Him, and here you see a picture of faith as it waits for its deliverance. Then see that in the interim, before the nation does return, there is to be judgment from the Lord, until the time comes when there is a repentant heart in that nation.

Next we see the call for those who DO know the Lord, to look after their people with spiritual grace and solicitude. Finally, we see that the Lord WILL act (7:15ff. - we are in this case looking at Israel, the SINNER-type among the nations, who even killed the Lord as Messiah), and does not forget all His promises. Instead, He will bring the nation back to the land promised, despite all their sins, just as He brings back the failed heart that did not in fact believe, but only had a form of faith, when it actually and at last comes to a living faith in the living God, and KNOWS Him (cf. Jeremiah 9:23-24 – look this up! – it speaks).

Lastly we see, that having acted for Israel as at the Exodus, as the Age draws near to its end, the Lord will bring them back to their covenant of love (see the parallel in 7:15, and reflect on what that means in times to come!). This time, however,  it is IN Christ, the very One whom they killed (see the change of heart in Zechariah 12:10-13:1), and here is shown the MERCY of God.

Mercy! This is always the desired option instead of judgment, and lies at the heart of FORGIVENESS.

He DELIGHTS in mercy (Micah 7:;18), as some delight in scoffing and scorn, and HE in MERCY will even  also SUBDUE their iniquities and cast ALL their sins into “the depths of the sea”! There is the summit of forgiveness and the grace of its wonder. Study this Micah 7:8 to the end of the Chapter, for here lies the heart of forgiveness: it even has DESIRE … and it stems from His lovingkindness, His mercy. This is the quality we should deeply delight in, seeking to follow Him in this, as in brotherly love, we conduct ourselves in the Church of the Lord.

Here is what makes for the stature of what could, without revulsion, be called MAN! Here is
strength, not to be superior rats heartless, scurrying and worrying in the realms of rapacity and pugnacity, contumacy and inflation of spirit, but lowly and waiting on the Lord, seeking GOOD, yes good things for all. Here is the way to seek to act in the very spirit which the Lord of creation showed when He sent His Christ.

                                  'Your God reigns!' "

That led on to the glorious godliness of Chapters 52-53 where love and mercy secure the tribe of truth, paying for its entrance, made free to those who enter (Isaiah 55), who delight in the God who delights in mercy, and in the Creator whose kindness makes for life a lustre nothing else can give, a meaning that madness can only curse, and a matrix which like the heart of a good apple, has no worms in it.

It is here that one finds spiritual life and meaning, gratitude to God and a reasonable spirit,  and not in hallowing hatred, in proud rumbustiousness and rambunction seeking to SHOW all what is so far from the imagined greatness, that it is the very opposite: that littleness of spirit of which the cursed creation is the prototype and outcome, a mockery resultant on sin (Romans 8:18ff.).

In mercy and forgiveness, grace of spirit and holiness of heart, giving glory to God and seeking to shed light, and not blight on mankind, and love on one's enemies, with the utmost reluctance dealing with threat and that without self-acclaim, and this as the Lord leads: it is here that man becomes man and not miserable relic. The nations spread their wings, and fail; morality seeks the abyss, however, in the hearts of the ruined, but rebounds without them, and rules anew. It does not fade.

It is pride which fades, and the fads of mankind, as ever new ways of showing a horrible heart so that people might be afraid, luxuriate under the pained sun and the gloomed moon; and will they declare it is of their 'god'! God ? Such sham and shame is not for the Creator, but for the crushed. A man must first find control over his own heart, before he takes a city; for the former, as Proverbs declares, is the greater victory.

What child cannot seek revenge, to show others its cleverness! Is man to become an ungrown child, that its politics may prove the desolatory horror of irreligions that are founded on void, and religions that do not work, while they mock the Christ who does!

It is so. That is precisely the agenda. It is not however something to look upon with joy, but with the same sense of horror that one reserves for the snake pit. Survival of the fittest, that ludicrous tautology, is nothing other than a shameful pretence, as if to allow every immoral quarrel, ludicrous seeking after lordship on the part of particles of protoplasm, their spirits inflated, sedated, or both, as they seek their unillustrious housing in the halls of hell.

Is it to be imagined that God is mocked ? Consult history. Use the sword as your means of livelihood, and you'll surely find your mastery at its tip. Make proud boast and unfounded thrust your goal and glory, and your end is merely around the bend.

God is simply not like that. It is necessary to grow up into Christian manhood and womanhood, not to scurry in the rubbish-tips of self-acclaim and self-importance, grasping and grabbing, until the earth cannot contain so wayward and intoxicated a race. It is necessary to find in one's own forgiveness, the spirit of forgiveness, and in the Cross of Christ the exposure of sin that is the other option to its composure, and in the light of life, to live without making incessant chatter and prattle about pride and revenge, the occasion of living.

On the other hand, if this world is intent on the fallen faith of deception, using what is not to substitute for what is, then its end is as prescribed; and it comes (Matthew 24:35, II Peter 3), soon enough. It is in the interim that one seeks for some who finding the Saviour, in whose Cross one should glory, that whole panorama of the love of God (Galatians 6:16) and His sacrificial redemption, that very manifesto of God, the manifest of mercy, will live. It is here that life is to be found from the Maker and Giver of it;  and not in crossing the line to emptiness of spirit and vacuity of mind, basing life on what is as clear as mountain mist, and useful as a broken heart, that will not be healed.

That ? it is the outage from life. it is like those swampy areas shown in Ezekiel 47, where the waters of life, coming from the altar, that type of Christ whose altar was the Cross, sweep in glorious power and liveliness to many places; but not there.

There. in those sullen sites,  was a sad combination of slush and mud, places of bog and blight where what had been dead,  remained as it had been, while the waters brought life as they flowed into the open way, where repentance is flushed and salvation courses.