The Magnificence of Mercy

Adrian Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers was made, and he begins each one of them with the word blessed. The word blessed is almost hard to translate. We could say happy, but it means more than happy. It means fulfilled. It means with joy. It means complete.

It may mean to be congratulated. All of those things and more are wrapped up in that Greek word, mekarios, and that brings us to the beatitude for today, verse 7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. This is a God-like characteristic that is in the heart and mind of those who have been born again, and the way it shows is by having a heart full of mercy. Those who have received mercy beyond the shadow of any doubt of peradventure will show mercy.

Now, what is mercy? Well, mercy is not just softness. There are some people who are so soft, they wouldn't hurt a fly. I was in a meeting the other day, and they were discussing somebody that they wanted to do something that took a little courage, and they said, don't get him.

He wouldn't kill a snake in a nursery. Well, that's soft enough, but that's not necessarily mercy, and then mercy is not just mere sentiment. It's not seeing somebody hurting and somebody in trouble and shedding crocodile tears.

That may be sentiment, but it is not mercy. I heard of a preacher who was preaching, and he was talking about how we need to be compassionate, and he said, I was walking down the streets of a town, and I looked over there in a doorway, and there was a derelict, and the sand and the newspapers were blowing up around his body. He'd passed out. He was just lying there, and he said, all down that busy street, people were walking, well-dressed, going about their business, and they looked down there, and there was a piece of humanity on the ground. He said, nobody was stopping. Nobody did anything, and then he said, after we had gone to dinner and came back, he was still there, and nobody had done anything.

Isn't it amazing how we always think that the other man ought to do it? And there he had not only softness but maybe sentiment, but he did not have mercy. What is mercy? What is this quality of mercy? My dear friend, it is compassion in action. That's what mercy is.

Not softness, not sentiment, but compassion in action. Now, I want us to think about this beatitude, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. First of all, think with me, if you would, about the beauties of mercy. Did you know that the quality of mercy is one of the most beautiful characteristics of God? And when you're merciful, you're acting like God. Lamentations chapter 3 and verse 22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed.

You think about it. Because his compassions fail not. There God links mercy with compassion. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. His compassions, they fail not.

And then he goes on to say they are new every morning. Every morning you can wake up and greet the mercy of God. Have you ever thought about the fact that for you to fail to live this day, God doesn't have to take your life?

All he has to do is stop giving it. Every day is a gift from God. His mercies are new every morning. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. And then put this verse in your margin. Ephesians 2, verse 4 and following. But God, but God, who is rich in mercy, for or because of his great love wherewith he loved us. Do you know how God counts his riches? Not in silver and gold, but in his mercies.

And so, my dear friend, what are the beauties of mercy? When you're merciful, you're God-like. To be unmerciful is not to be like God. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 1, Therefore be imitators of God. Imitators of God. Not in the bad sense of imitation, but actually the King James says, Be ye therefore followers of God. And the word literally means imitators of God.

Be God-like. And my dear friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated that so much in the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel of Luke, there was a lawyer who came. Luke chapter 10.

I think most of you know it. And he said, Good Master, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? What do I have to do to be saved? Well, Jesus said, You know the law. What does the law say?

Well, he said, and this man was a good lawyer. Well, he said, The law says you're to love God with all of your being, and you're to love your neighbors yourself. Jesus said, You've got it right. You've got it right.

You just do this and you'll be all right. Well, this man, he was not only a good lawyer, but he was a bad lawyer. I mean, he got the answer right. But he didn't know the Lord, and Jesus knew he wasn't saved. You see, he was looking for a loophole in the law. And so did you know that you can be 100 percent right and still die and go to hell?

Did you know that? I mean, if I were to ask you how to be saved, you could give it to me just like that. When you die, you're going to hell. You say, Well, now, wait a minute, pastor. I know the plan of salvation. You're not saved by the plan of salvation.

You're saved by the man of salvation. Have you ever thought about it when Herod wanted to know where Jesus Christ was going to be born? He went and asked the scribes, Where is Messiah to be born? Oh, they said, You go right down there to Bethlehem.

That's where he's going to be born. But not a one of them went down there to bow the knee to him. They knew, and yet they missed him. Here was a man, this lawyer. Wait, he had it all just right.

He was a good lawyer, but he's a very bad lawyer. So he says, But now wait a minute. Who is my neighbor?

Just who is my neighbor? In other words, I don't want to love anybody I don't have to love. I don't want to show mercy to anybody I don't have to show mercy to. I mean, as far as he was concerned, God wasn't really around. He didn't have to worry about God but his neighbor. That was something he had to worry about. And Jesus told him that story of the Good Samaritan.

You remember that story? Jesus said, A man went from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves. Now, if you know anything about the topography of the Holy Land, you know that Jerusalem is set on a hill. Jericho is down in the Dead Sea, the rift there on the banks of the Dead Sea, 1300 feet below sea level.

Here's a man. He starts on a mountaintop. He's going from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jericho was a heathen city. Remember, it's where Rahab lived. Jerusalem was the holy city. And this man pictures mankind going away from God, from the holy city to the hellish city.

He's going down, down, down. And Jesus said that on that road he fell among thieves. Now, a lot of limestone caves there and precipitous places.

A lot of wild animals used to be there. And it was a place where marauders and muggers and robbers and thieves, cutthroats, they would stay in those caves just waiting for someone to come along. And this man came along and the Bible says that they beat him, they stripped him, they robbed him, and they left him half dead. And then Jesus said to this lawyer who wanted to know about who his neighbor was, Jesus said to him, then there came along that day a certain priest. And the priest saw him and he passed by on the other side. Now, you know, the priests, they were the religious people of that day. They were the teachers and they performed all of the rituals and the sacrifices. He represents ritualism. Oh, there's so many churches today that are so filled with ritualism. They stand, they sit, they kneel, they pray, they sing, they do this, they do that.

Then they go out and just as lost as a goose in a snowstorm. This priest represented ritualism and he just passed by. Then Jesus said, another man, this time a Levite.

He walked by, he saw him, and he passed by. Well, they were keepers of the law. So if the priest represented ritual, he represented rules.

You know, the law can condemn us and the law can describe us, but the law can't redeem us. Maybe this Levite said, look at you, boy, you're in a mess. What were you doing down here anyway? That's not a safe place to be traveling alone. You should never have been here.

You're getting just what you deserve. And he went on and passed. And that's what the law does, dear friend.

All the rules in the Old Testament, they can describe us, they can condemn us, but they don't save us. And then Jesus said a third man came along. He was what? A Samaritan. Do you know who the Samaritans were? They were a mongrel race.

They were the ones that were left behind after the captivity, and they intermarried with the pagan heathen people around them, and the Jews despised them. Jesus said, a certain Samaritan. I know who he had in mind.

He had in mind himself. Because Jesus was despised, rejected, hated of men. And this man, this hated one, this despised one, he's coming along, and Jesus said he saw the man, he saw him where he was, and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, he went to him, he found the man's wounds, and Jesus said he poured in oil, and he poured in wine. You know what oil represents in the Bible? Symbolically. This is a parable.

This is a, all of this is highly symbolical. What does oil represent? The Holy Spirit.

Comfort. He's the comforter, and this man needed comfort, and there with the oil in the balm, the healing oil. Then he poured in wine. What does wine represent? The blood of Jesus Christ. It was the wine to cleanse the oil to comfort. Representing the precious, I believe, blood of Jesus.

Representing the wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit. And then the Bible says that the Good Samaritan took this man and set him upon his beast and brought him to an end. Now, when the Good Samaritan met that man to begin with, the Good Samaritan was riding, and the man was on the ground. But after the Good Samaritan met him, the man was riding, and the Samaritan is walking.

What a picture of substitution. Jesus takes my place, and I take his. He set him upon his beast, and he brought him to an end, and he said, you take care of him.

Here's some money, and whatever else it costs, when I come again, I will pay the price. What a picture of salvation. I am so grateful that Jesus came to where I was. I am so grateful that he had compassion upon me. I am so grateful that he has brought me to his house of mercy. I am so grateful that Jesus Christ paid the price, and in that same chapter, verse 37, Jesus asked that lawyer a question. He said, now, which of these showed mercy? Which of these showed mercy? Listen, Jesus Christ has shown every one of us mercy, and mercy is not softness. It's not sentiment.

It is compassion, compassion in action, and oh, how we need to learn the message of mercy, not with the indifference of the priest and the Levite, not with the iniquity of those who beat up the man, but with the involvement that life calls for. I don't know where you live, my dear friend, but in your city, I want to tell you, there are three classes of people. Let me tell you what they are. They are the beater uppers, the passer uppers, and the picker uppers.

That's all the world's made out of. The beater uppers, those people who would rob and kill and destroy, every pornographer is one of them. Every beer baron and liquor dealer, as far as I'm concerned, is one of them. Every abortionist is one of them.

Those are the beater uppers. I'm telling you, we have people today who have been bruised and battered. Some are wounded domestically. Some are wounded psychologically, little children who have been abused and battered, some of them sexually abused. Some of them are wounded economically. They're victims of slum lords, unfair economical practices. Some are wounded spiritually. They've been caught up in the cults and false doctrine and liberalism. When they're gotten into those movements, they're twice full a child of hell. I'm telling you, the bruised and the battered and the beat up are all around us.

There are the beater uppers, they're the passer uppers, and many of them, God help us, have their names on church rolls somewhere, but then they're the picker uppers. And you're one of the three, my dear friend. Either you like those thieves who said what's yours is mine and I'm going to get it, or you're like the priest and the Levite who said what's mine is mine and I'm going to keep it, or you're going to be like the Good Samaritan who says what's mine is mine, but you can have it if you need it. And I'm here to share and I'm here to serve and I'm here to minister. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Quickly now, I want you to think with me not only about the beauties of mercy, I'm telling you, my dear friend, that mercy is a beautiful thing because it is God-like. But what is the basis of mercy? The basis of mercy. How do you show mercy? Well, my dear friend, let me say this. There can be no mercy without proof.

Did that sink in? There can be no mercy without truth. I'm talking to you about the basis of mercy. Now let me give you a verse. Psalm 85 and verse 10. Mercy and truth are met together.

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. I took my concordance and I looked up place after place where God links mercy and truth together. I knew it was there, but I was amazed at the verses in the Bible where God conjoins mercy and truth. All real mercy is rooted in truth. Now what I mean by that is to show mercy is not to minimize sin. Mercy is not sentiment. When you show mercy, you withhold judgment. And when you withhold judgment, that means that judgment is really needed, really expected. Mercy is the withholding of judgment. Have you ever heard anybody say, is it fair for God to do this or fair for God to do that?

Or have they ever gotten into a silly discussion with you about whether God is fair or whether God is not fair? Praying God is not fair. Don't ever expect God to be fair. God is not fair.

Now wait a minute, I'm not finished yet. God is not fair. Do you know when I expect somebody to be fair to me, that means I have it coming to me.

Give me what I have coming. Be fair. In other words, I deserve this. See, that's fairness. You give me my part.

It's like children arguing about a will. It's not fair that you get this and I don't get that. That's fairness. God doesn't deal with us on the basis of fairness.

God deals with us on the basis of mercy. We don't deserve anything. When a man is looking for fairness, he's not happy when he gets what he deserves because he figures I deserve it. He's only mad because he didn't get it sooner and doubly mad if somebody else gets more.

I mean, that's the object. That's fairness. God is not fair. God is just and merciful. The justice of God says that sin must be punished.

That is truth. And once you see that truth, then you cry out for mercy. Then you cry out for mercy. God is not some maudlin sentimentalist who just says, oh, tut, tut, yeah, you've sinned, but I'm a merciful God. I'm a merciful God. That's all right.

Friend, let me tell you something. If you refuse the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no hope for you. Don't think that you're going to come to the judgment one day. You refuse Jesus. You trample underfoot the precious blood of Jesus. And then you say, well, God is merciful.

I'll just come to the final judgment and I'll just stand before God and I'll say, well, yeah, God, that's right. I denied you. I refused you. I cursed you.

I ignored you. I went my own sinful way. Here I am at the judgment. Have mercy, Lord. You think you'll get mercy? Let me give you a verse of scripture.

Listen to it. It's one of the most frightening scriptures in all of the Bible. Hebrews 10, verses 28 and 29. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. In the Old Testament, when a man saw the law of God and he said, I don't give a rip about the law of God, and he sins, God says he'll die without mercy. Well, you say, that's Old Testament. All right, now let's continue to read in verse 29.

Listen to this. Now, you think that was bad? Of how much sorer, S-O-R-E-R, of how much more radical, deep punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? Do you think, do you think that Jesus Christ could have died in agony and blood for you and you sit in a church building and hear a preacher preach about the love of Jesus Christ, that he died for you? And then do you think, my dear friend, that you can walk out without Christ, refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, and trample beneath your feet the blood of Christ?

You say, I wouldn't do that. My dear friend, everybody in this building will walk out either under the blood or over the blood, put it down big and straight, one way or the other, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace. The Holy Spirit of God is speaking to you. He's the one who is speaking. I'm just a Western Union boy, that's all.

He's the messenger, the message. You say, well, I don't want that. I refuse that.

Then do you think you're going to come to the judgment and say, oh, God, have mercy? Suppose you get sick and you call your doctor and your doctor comes to you. Your doctor looks very worried. You say, well, doctor, I don't like that look on your face.

Give it to me straight. The doctor says to you, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you've asked me and I'm going to tell you, I see no hope for you. You're going to die. You say, well, now, wait a minute, doctor.

I don't want to die. Doctor, you've got to do something. Isn't there something that the medical art can do that will save my life? The doctor says, well, I have read of a new serum, a medicine that may work in your case.

It's very, very, very new and very, very, very expensive. Well, you say, doctor, it's my life. You've got to do something. Well, the doctor says, do you have much money? Well, no, doctor, I don't have any money. But, doctor, you just can't let me die because I don't have any money. Doctor, can't you do something? The doctor says, well, let me see what I can do. You're there in your home languishing upon your sick bed.

After two or three more days, the doctor comes back. His hair is disheveled. His beard has a two-days growth. His eyes are sunken back in his head with dark circles under his eyes. His clothing is torn. There's blood on his shirt. His hands are trembling. You look at him and you say, doctor, doctor, what has happened to you?

Where have you been? He said, I went to get this medicine for you. He said, I went to several foundations and I got some money, but I didn't get enough money. Then he said, I went to my own bank account.

I took all I had out of my own bank account. Have you ever known a doctor do that? And then he said, I didn't have enough, so I mortgaged my house. And then he said, I got the medicine and on my way over here, I had my precious son in the car with me and I was driving in such a way to get to you in time that I wrecked my automobile.

We've had a tragic wreck. The blood that you see on my shirt is the blood of my little boy. My son, I've just come from the morgue.

My son has died. But here it is. Here's the medicine.

Take it. I believe you'll live. Suppose you took that vial of medicine, whatever it may have been, precious as it is, looked at it for a while and then threw it on the floor. And it broke.

And the contents ran out in the rug, never to be retrieved. And then suppose you pointed a finger in the face of that doctor and said, Doctor, if I die, it'll be your fault. Have mercy on me, doctor. Don't let me die. You say that's unthinkable.

That's unthinkable. I'll tell you something else, mister. It'll be unthinkable for you to come to the final judgment and say, oh, God, have mercy upon me and don't let me die when God put his darling son on the cross and bankrupt heaven in order to buy you salvation. Amen? Listen to me.

Oh, listen to me. God is a God of mercy! And if a man despised Moses' law and died under two or three witnesses without mercy, of how much sore punishment shall he be thought? Who has trampled beneath his feet the blood of the covenant counted in an unholy thing and is done despite unto the Spirit of grace? The basis of mercy is truth?

Listen. The Bible teaches us that mercy and truth are linked together. Let me talk to you for just a moment about the blessings of mercy. Oh, the blessings of mercy. You see, Jesus here is giving blessings. And Jesus says, blessed, blessed, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst.

They'll be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Now, that doesn't mean that we are forgiven because we show mercy. It means we show mercy because we're forgiven. And the more mercy we show, the more mercy we get.

It's just a cycle. And you show mercy because you have received mercy. The more mercy we show, the more mercy we get. But we can't get it until, first of all, we have come the route of being poor in spirit, repenting of our sin, yielding to God, receiving Jesus Christ, God's righteousness.

And when we receive that mercy, then we show it. A man was blinded in an accident. He was a young man, spent most of his life with perfect eyesight. And then in an industrial accident, he was blinded. He was bitter, hurt, filled with remorse, confusion. After a while, he knew he had to go to a school for the blind.

He dreaded it. But he went into this school and went into the president's office. The president talked to him for a while and said, We're glad to have you here. We want to be a friend to you. We want to help you. And you can live a very wonderful life.

Not as though you had sight, but the many things that the blind know that others don't know. We're here to help you. Then he said, There's someone here who, an instructor who's going to show you around the campus. An instructor came in and they greeted one another and this instructor said, Come on out on the porch with me. They went out on the porch and he said, Listen, I just want to help you to get acclimated here. And said, Here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to walk you around the campus, first of all. He said, Now we're going to walk down the steps. There are ten steps. He said, Count them as we go down. There are ten that come out of this building. Count them.

Try to remember how many there are. Then he said, When we go down the steps, he said, We're going to turn right. And as we turn right, we're going to go out through the garden. And he said, We're going to walk through the garden and we're going to circle the campus. And said, I want you to get acquainted. So they began to walk and he said, And don't worry.

I'll be right here at your elbow in case anything goes wrong. That gave the young man some assurance. They went down the ten steps. They turned right. They went out into the garden.

They took their time. The man felt the flowers and smelled them. There's a water fountain there. He got a drink from the water fountain.

Then they sat on a stone bench there in the garden. And then they continued their route around and when they made the entire circuit of the campus, the young man was feeling better. He felt like, You know, I know where I am.

I feel a little bit at home. Then he said, Let's go up to the dormitory where you'll be staying. Let's go in the room. They counted the steps into the room. He went into the room, showed him where all of the furniture was located, where things were put up, where things were kept, and then said, Listen, I'm here to help you. I'm here to show you.

It won't be too long before you catch on. By this time, the young man was feeling at home. He said, I want to thank you so much. He said, I had so much fear when I came here. But you've been such a friend. You've helped me so much.

I want to thank you. He said, You've been very understanding. He said, You know, it's hard for someone to understand how you feel when you're blind. Oh, he said, I can understand.

I'm blind also. You know, those who receive mercy know more how to show it than anybody else, don't they? If you haven't received mercy, no wonder you don't show mercy. Oh, my dear friend, if God in love has forgiven us, how much more should we forgive one another? Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, I want to pray for you. Father, I pray for many today that they might say an everlasting yes to Jesus, that they might, oh, God, receive His mercy. In His dear name I pray. Amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org, or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.