God's Mercy and Love

Review: The Two Great Contrasts and God as the Exclusive Author of Change

0:03 I would encourage you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, and I trust you do not grow weary of hearing the reading of this portion of the word of God, for I trust if nothing else finds its way into your remembrance, it will be the words of God himself as he speaks in the words of scripture. Here, Ephesians chapter 2, and I shall read just the first ten verses, And you did he make alive when you were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh. Doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

1:16 But God, being rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace have ye been saved, and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God aforeprepared us. That we should walk in them. As you have been reminded repeatedly, this second chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians is the chapter of the two great contrasts. The first ten verses, which have been read in your hearing, are a contrast of what the Ephesians were before and after the grace of God came to them, but particularly regarded as individuals in their relationship with God.

2:38 What they were individually before and after the conferral of grace. Verses 11 to the end of the chapter are the before and after of what the Ephesians were as a corporate entity in relationship to the visible community of God's people. And the hinge in both paragraphs is to be found in these words, verse 4, but God, and verse 13, but now. And if you will remember the chapter in terms of the two great contrasts and the two phrases, but God, and but now, you will have retained the basic structure of the apostles' thought. We have studied that graphic picture of the before in verses 1 to 3. The sad but accurate picture of what the Ephesians, were and what all of us are by nature, dead, bound, and under a canopy of divine wrath. But from verses 4 to 10, we have the after of grace.

3:53 And in our study in these verses, we noted last Lord's Day that Paul is careful to underscore in the first place who is the exclusive author of this change. How does a man, how does a woman, how does a boy, how does a girl move from the before of verses 1 to 3 to the after of verses 4 to 10? And Paul's answer is it will only be if there is the activity of the mighty, living, sovereign, gracious God of Holy Scripture. But God and everything that follows, particularly in verses 4 to 7, is a description of His activity in making the change. Paul even omits the means which he uses, the gospel, the instruments, the ministers of God. He even omits the faith which is part of the whole complex. In verses 4 to 7, he is careful to put all of the focus upon the activity of this great God, for he wants us to understand that it is God and God alone who brings us into the world.

5:07 who brings us into the world. He brings man from the before of verses 1 to 3 into the after of verses 4 to 10. And we concluded our study by noting that an understanding and a believing reception of this truth, that God alone is the author of this change, forms the taproots of all true praise, true humility, true prayerfulness, and holy confidence in the living God. So much for that brief review.

The Question: Why Would God Make This Change?

5:40 We move now in our study of verse 4 to a consideration of the reasons as to why God was moved to produce this change.

5:53 We look at verses 1 to 3, and there is that terrible picture of our deadness, of our bondage, of our guilt, of our exposure to divine wrath. We have already seen that the only answer, to that dilemma, must be found in the activity of God. And so the author of the change is set before us in the words, but God. But we may respond to that by saying, but why?

6:26 I see that it is God who alone can make the change, but God. But in answer to the but God, I ask, but why? Why should he? Why should he ever deign to make such a change?

6:42 Why should God bother himself with the spiritual deadness of his creatures? Why should God concern himself with the bondage of his creatures? Why should God concern himself with turning away his own wrath from the creature, a wrath which the creature has brought upon himself? And it is that question to which Paul addresses himself in the next part of the book, in verse 4.

The Answer: God's Mercy and Love (Ephesians 2:4)

7:11 Having set before us the author of this change in the words, but God, he now sets before us the reasons why God effected this change in these two parts of the verse, being rich in mercy because of his great love wherewith he loved us. And so our concern today is with the second, the second division of the apostle's thought in the after picture having underscored the author of the change he now gives to us the reasons why this author, God himself, was moved to effect that change. Now some of you may sit here this morning and say, well I could care less. My friend, may I plead with you for a careful hearing. Whether you like it or not, God has taken your picture in verses 1 to 3.

8:09 And if you don't like the cameras that we use that will reflect on the print that we send to the developer, whatever came through the lens, whatever image came through the lens and touched that sensitive paper, that's what comes out when we pick up our pictures at the photo shop. And if it was your face coming through the lens, that's the image that was captured and your face will be in the photograph. If it was my countenance, someone else's. And the pictures will be as diverse as the images that came through the lens.

8:43 But when God puts upon us the lens of the truth of what we really are, it matters not what you think you are, the print will always be Ephesians 1 to 3. It's your picture my friend. Dead, in bondage, under guilt. And therefore you have the deepest personal interest in verses 4 to 10.

9:07 For unless... Verse 4.

9:08 Verse 4 to 10 is also a picture of you. It were better for you that you had never been born. And in verses 4 to 10 we are told how we are changed from that terrible picture of verses 1 to 3. And so I plead with you to listen carefully as we attempt to open up the words which point to the reasons which lay in the heart of God, moving Him to produce the change.

9:38 And as we consider this, you will notice that immediately we are confronted with three of the most blessed words in all of Holy Scripture. But God being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, by grace have ye been saved. When we ask the question, but why would God make the change? The answer comes to the following.

10:07 1. Love comes all bound up in the words mercy, love, and grace. And these three words are the royal family in the vocabulary of Zion. They are all blood brothers, but each with his own distinct features in its countenance.

10:29 Mercy, love, and grace. Love being the most broad of those qualities. 2. The prime moving cause of the change, and we may view mercy as love in the midst of human misery, grace as divine love in the midst of human guilt.

10:53 And in that love expressing itself in a way of grace and of mercy is to be found the answer to the question, but why would God quicken dead sinners? Why would God forgive guilt? Why would God liberate sinners who are in a self-imposed bondage? And the answer is to be found in these words, mercy, love, and grace.

11:23 But since mercy and love are the only words that come before us in verse 4, and since I am committed to a verse by verse exposition, we shall limit ourselves this morning to these two words. 1. We are asking the question, but why should God so deal with sinners? The apostle says it's because God is rich in mercy.

Defining Mercy: Pity Joined to Action

11:51 It's because God is great in his love. What are those commodities? What is mercy? Well, briefly let me state that mercy is revealed as an essential attribute of God, or we may say, an unavoidable excellence.

12:07 2. It's an exercise of his other attributes. You remember that in Exodus, Moses prayed, God, show me thy glory. And God said, I will only give you a glimpse of my glory.

12:21 And the Lord hid him in the cleft of a rock and passed by, and Moses saw the hind parts of God. And there was the declaration, the Lord merciful and gracious. 3. Jesus could not look upon, as it were, the naked essence of God, but as he is given to see something of the skirts of God, something of the outshining of his being and his ways, God proclaims himself in Exodus 34, 6-8, as the God who is merciful.

12:59 4. We read in 2 Corinthians 1, 3 that he is called the Father of mercies, either pointing to him as the Father, whose essential characteristic is one of mercy, or as the one from whom all that is merciful comes, and in either case you have mercy bound up in the very nature of God. 5. And mercy, as it comes into the context of human sin and need, is basically this.

13:31 6. Mercy is pity joined to the appropriate action calculated to relieve the objects thus pitied. 7. Mercy is pity joined to action, but it is action suitable to the need of the one pitied.

13:50 8. For instance, in the Gospels, you remember in Matthew 9 and verse 27, a blind beggar cries out, Son of David, have mercy upon me. 9. A blind beggar cries out, Son of David, have mercy upon me.

14:01 10. A blind beggar cries out, Son of David, have mercy upon me. What is he pleading for? Is he simply asking that the heart of the Son of David be filled with pity?

14:10 No! A blind beggar needs more than pity. He needs sight. He needs sustenance.

14:18 And so when he says, Son of David, have mercy, he is saying, Son of David, exercise pity with the actions appropriate to my need. 11. It is a pure heart of God that hears no plans, for the Lord has been very gracious to him. 12.

14:41 33. Our Lord is giving a parable to teach the necessity of forgiveness. You remember the instance the man who had a great debt and his master forgave the great debt? Then he comes to his own servant who has a lesser debt and he will not forgive him. Shouldest not thou also have had mercy on thy fellow servant even as I had mercy on thee? You see mercy was not just pity. He did not say to the man I have pity for you. I feel badly that you have a debt. Sorry. Go to the debtor's prison. No, no. Mercy was pity upon the man in his need with the appropriate action to that need. He forgave him. Now he says you should have shown mercy to the man who also had need of pity joined to what appropriate action? Forgiveness and the cancelling of the debt. That's the essence of mercy.

15:40 It has its roots in the affection or the emotion of pity, but it never stops there. It is pity joined to action, action appropriate to the need of the one thus pitied. Put it in the context of Ephesians 2. Why did God quicken the debt? Why did God liberate the bound?

Defining Love: God's Essence and Selfless Purpose

16:06 Why did God forgive the guilty and bring them into acceptance? The apostle says it's bound up in the fact that he's a God of mercy. The God whose pity moves into action perfectly suited to the needs of the one pitied. And so for our death he quickens us. For our bondage he liberates us. For our guilt he freely forgives us in Christ Jesus. Well then what about the word love? One almost wishes that we could perform some kind of semantic magic and scrub the word love from people's minds and then come to men with that word as though they had never heard it before and seek to pour into it its biblical richness, strip it of all of its tawdry, carnal, fleshy, sensuous connotations with which the poor word is burdened in our own generation. What is love? Well you can't define it because the Bible doesn't. But certainly the Bible

17:18 warrants the assertion that love is not only an essential attribute of God. We can go further and say that it is of his very essence. For God is love. Now love is not God. You can't reverse the statement. God is love. The same scripture that asserts in 1 John 1.5 that God is love. God is love. God is love. God is love. God is love. God is love. God is love.

17:43 God is light. In other words, holiness is essential to his very being. John goes on to say in 1 John 4.8, God is love. How should we attempt to define it? Well we could make some efforts and speak of that selfless purpose to will and seek the good of its objects. But defining love is like trying to define or describe or dissect or analyze the sun. You know what the sun is far better by what it does. You know what the sun is far better by what it does than by trying to understand it in its naked essence. You know what the sun is by the warmth of its rays upon your body. The light that your eye discerns by its life-giving power upon the countryside and in your garden and on the face of the earth. And so the love of God is known by what it does far more than by what it is in itself. For the scripture says, herein is love.

18:42 That is love. That is love. That is love. That is love. That is love. That is love.

18:43 That he sent his son, we know that love by what it did. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And of course, 1 Corinthians 13 is an extended commentary on this. When the apostle would give this treatise on the love that must pulse through the exercise of every gift, he does not define love philosophically, nor does he even make efforts to describe love conceptually. Love is this.

19:13 Love is that. Love is that. Love is that. Love is this. Love is that. Love is that.

19:13 Love is that. Love is that. Love is that. Love is that. Love is that. Love is that.

19:13 that. What does he do? He says, this is what love does. This is what love does not do. He describes love and defines it in its function. And so when the apostle brings us to the question, why should God quicken dead sinners? Why should he liberate bound sinners? Why should he forgive dead sinners? He points us not only to God's mercy, his pity joined to appropriate action, but he points us to his love. That love that takes full awareness of the condition of the sinner and yet moves in irresistible power to confer upon him that which he does not deserve. And so if any of us this morning would begin to understand anything of the answer to the question, why should God so deal with us? We must begin to think in terms of mercy and love, divine mercy, divine love, mercy and love that are of God in

The Precise Setting of Mercy and Love in Ephesians 2:4

20:20 their origin, like God in their dimensions, and reflect the power of God in their accomplishment. So much then for this brief attempt to focus the meaning of the words. Now look at the setting of these words in the verses. For Paul does not simply say, but God, account of mercy and account of love quickened us, but he uses the words mercy and love in a very peculiar and distinct way. And here is the problem of the preacher who would take the word of God seriously. He may spend hours poring over the verses in the original, seeking to understand the precise meaning of the text, only to come away with the conviction, I think this is what God is saying. And let me give you the two. The two possibilities as to how we may understand mercy and love in the words connected to them in the verse. Look carefully at your Bibles. I'm reading from the 1901 edition. But God, being rich

21:28 in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Now some would say the way to read the verse and to catch the thrust of the apostle's meaning is to read it like this. Now listen carefully as I read with certain areas of stress and emphasis. But God, parenthesis, being rich in mercy, on account of his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead, quickened us.

22:05 Now you see where the emphasis is? In this way, the phrase being rich in mercy is sort of a little aside. The apostle really has his eye fixed on the greatness of God's love. And he says, but God, and just gives this little aside which points to one of his essential attributes, being rich in mercy, on account of his great love wherewith he loved us. Then it emphasizes, even when we were dead, he quickened us. So you have God in the exercise of his love, finding its place in the love of God. And he says, but God, parenthesis, being rich in mercy, on account of his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead, quickened us. So you have God in the highest expression in that he quickens dead sinners. Now this would do justice to the words. This would do no

22:51 violence to what is taught in other portions of the word of God. Therefore, if I were to expound the text in that way, I would not be guilty of resting the scriptures. However, there is another way that the verse can be understood. A way that is true to the arrangement of words in the original.

23:13 It's this. Now listen as I read and see if you can catch the differences. But God, being rich in his mercy, the words to us understood. But God, being rich in his mercy to us because of his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead, has quickened us together with Christ. See the difference?

23:44 Now the little phrase, being rich in mercy, is not a little aside. It is the opening up of the swells of the organ of praise to God. But God, being essentially rich in his mercy, not mercy in abstraction as an attribute of God, but mercy to us. Paul was not at this point dealing in an abstract treatise on the attributes of God.

24:17 He's talking to people who were dead. He's painting a picture. You were dead. Now you're alive. How come? Why? What brought it about? He says, but God, he did it. And he did it because he was rich in mercy to you. And his mercy to you was rooted in his love to you. And the greatness of his love is to be seen in that it took full cognizance of what you were. It was love to you even when you were dead.

24:47 Well, you see, it doesn't make much sense to say even when you were dead, he quickened. You have to be dead before you can be quickened. So we must attach the phrase even when we were dead, not to the magnitude of the quickening, but to the magnitude of the love. He loved us even when we were dead. And his love cut a channel of mercy that conferred precisely every single thing we needed as dead sinners.

25:18 Oh, beloved, I believe that's what the apostle is saying. It's taking many hours to come to that conviction, but I believe that's what he's saying. That's the thrust of the verse. In answer to the question, but why? He says, behold, the richness of God's mercy.

25:37 And when you say, but whence that mercy to me? For remember, mercy is sovereign. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. The idea that mercy is some kind of an attribute that wrenches God to extend it to all who come within the compass. No, no. His mercy is sovereign. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. His rich mercy was to us. Why did I get mercy and not justice?

26:10 It's because of his great love wherewith he loved you even when you were dead in your sins. And when you ask, but why should he have so loved you? He loved me when I was dead to the end that he showed mercy to me. At that point, the answer of Scripture stops. And you have to fall in worship, lost in wonder, love, and pray and say he loved me and showed mercy because he chose to love me and show mercy.

The Amazing Nature of God's Love: Measure, Source, Duration, Objects

26:43 Well, having spent a little time on the meaning of the words, the precise setting of the words in the text, now we come to. Let's really dig into the table as it's spread before us. Consider in the third place the amazing nature of this love and mercy. And in this little phrase, the apostle gives us four distinct things concerning the amazing nature of the love of God.

27:11 Now look, I'm not giving a general dissertation on the love of God. We're in Ephesians 2. We're dealing with love that quickened the dead. Love that liberated those that were bound and forgave the guilty.

27:27 And notice how the apostle squeezes all these things together in the richness of this phrase. For or on account of, and that's the force of the preposition there. It is on account of his great love wherewith he loved us. And since it was the love that cut the channel for mercy, we're going to start with the love and then we'll deal with the praise on mercy.

27:51 Afterwards, notice in the first place what the apostle says about the measure of this love. He says it was on account of his great love wherewith he loved us. What kind of love is it that is the cause of this great transformation?

28:11 What kind of love is it that causes the Godhead to respond to all that is demanded upon itself? What kind of love is it that is the cause of this great transformation? In securing the salvation of sinners, the apostle calls it great love. This word great, if it's used with numbers, means many.

28:32 But when it's used with a noun such as love, it speaks of measure and degree. Now you meet some people, they're always tossing off superlatives left and right. Everything's great. Thank God we've gotten beyond the terrific stage.

28:46 Everything was terrific. Our dear British friends, went through the fantastic stage. Everything was fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. And you had so many fantastic things that nothing was ordinary anymore.

29:01 So all the fantastic things became ordinary. You see, the worth of something is in direct proportion to its availability. Well, when everything became fantastic, there was no longer anything that was truly fantastic. When everything is great, but you see, the apostle was not one who just tossed off superlatives carelessly.

29:19 This word is used only once in the book of Ephesians. Now, how you and I could ever get through dealing with the concepts he dealt with only used the word great once. That takes great discipline.

29:29 But the apostle did it. The only time he uses the word great in this epistle is right here. He reserves that adjective to describe the love of God. The measure of that love, it is great love.

29:45 And oh, that God will help us to catch something of the glory of it. Why was it great love? Because our need was great. We were not merely sick, deaf, blind.

29:57 We were dead. Our need was great. We were in bondage, walking according to the course of this world. We were the dupes of the devil.

30:06 We were the slaves of our own lust. We were the children of wrath. Our need was great. And what shall answer to such great need?

30:14 Well, it's got to be a great God. With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. But my friend, it is not impossible in the greatness of God in isolation that our need will be met, for His greatness could have been magnified in leaving us to our sins.

30:32 But it's the great God who sets His great love upon great sinners that brings about so great a salvation. It's a love that he later on describes in chapter 3 as that which passeth knowledge. But lest we think we ought not to seek to plummet depths, he said, I'm praying that the Spirit of God will assist you, that you may know what is unknowable. Well, what kind of double talk is that?

31:03 Know the unknowable. He's saying, O child of God, the love of God to you in Jesus Christ is the main spring of all the holy responses in your heart to Him. Study His love. Meditate upon His love.

31:19 Pray for enlarged capacity to appreciate, to understand, to lay hold of the height and depth and breadth and length and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. He says as to its measure, it is great love. But then notice what he says as to its source. And here again, there are emphases that cannot be carried over into the English translation unless they started underlining.

31:49 And what the Apostle Paul said was this, On account of His great love wherewith He loved us.

32:01 In other words, the pronoun is bound up in the verb He loved us. But he puts in a separate one. On account of the great love of Himself wherewith He loved us. In other words, the Apostle points to the source of this love as being the heart of Christ.

32:24 The heart of this great and sovereign God. Therefore, His love is to be understood as free, uncoerced and sovereign. Never forget that God speaks in Deuteronomy in these terms, I did not set my love upon you because...

32:44 And then he mentions all of the things that men might say are the grounds of God's loving them. But it's the little phrase, I did not set my love upon you. Any idea that human need is like a powerful magnet and God's heart must as it were without any exercise of His will respond to that magnet that is foreign to the teaching of the Word of God.

33:16 God is free and sovereign in the exercise of His love. And so the Apostle says the amazing nature of this love is that it was involved or involved the conscious deliberate activity of the living God in setting it upon it. It's the love wherewith He loved us. All of the activity, all of the motions of His love flow from His own holy being.

33:46 Oh, think of it this morning. The God whose righteous wrath burned against us is the God who freely loved us. And so, and this love moved Him to conceive and to execute a plan of deliverance from that very wrath and unto a position of favor and of blessing. And so the Apostle says when you ask me, but why is there a but God in the text?

34:15 He said it's because of this amazing love. It's measure, great. It's source, God. What about its duration?

34:23 Look at the text. It does not say for His great love wherewith He is loving us. Well, does He presently love His own? Why, of course He does.

34:35 One of the peculiar titles of the children of God is this blessed little word,

34:41 the beloved.

34:43 The agapitois, the beloved ones. Nobody can claim that title but the people of God. They are the beloved ones, presently loved. But notice in the text, in all of the translations, convey the idea where His great love wherewith He loved us.

35:03 We would say in English the past tense. And the force of the original is not so much time but kind of action. It is a love wherewith He loved us. And what is the Apostle doing?

35:14 He's pointing us to the duration of this love. Not so much to be viewed as a past and completed action. He loved us but no longer loves us. But in the durative sense, if we try to describe His disposition to us, from the time we were conceived of, what is it?

35:35 It's the disposition of love. He loved us.

35:40 Perhaps the best commentary is Jeremiah 31 in verse 3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. But we need not go as far back as Jeremiah.

35:53 Just go back to chapter 1 of this very epistle. And he says in verse 5, in love, having predestinated us, unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself.

36:07 Why is there a but God? It's because He loved us. And in the mysterious counsels of the triune God in eternity, when that covenant arrangement was established, we were given to the Son and the Son committed Himself to undertake all that was necessary for our salvation. We were loved of God.

36:31 You say, how in the world can we be children of wrath and yet loved of God? My friend, don't entangle your mind with questions that none can unravel this side of eternity. Just throw yourself into the wonderful sea of this blessed mystery. I was loved from eternity.

36:51 Well, what about the objects of this love? Notice, on account of His great love, that's the measure. The author, it's His own love. The duration, He loved us, has ever loved us.

37:07 And the objects, He says, wherewith He hath loved us. Now, who are the us in the text? Well, clearly, it is Paul and all former Jews who are now Christians and the church comprised mostly of Gentiles there at Ephesus. Because He started the verse by saying the sentence, verse 2, and you, when you were dead, you Ephesians, that He included Himself and you, verse 4, God being rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead, He has quickened.

37:41 He's obvious, including all Christians, Jew and Gentile, then living. Now, would we want to limit the us simply to all Christians, Jew and Gentile, then living? No, no. Because anyone who fits the before and after picture has a right to say this applies to Him.

37:59 Were you dead? Were you bound by your sins and lusts? Were you bound under a canopy of wrath? Are you now quickened in union with Christ, raised up with Him, seated with Him, saved by grace, now manifesting that you're His workmanship, walking in those works that He before ordained for His glory through you?

38:24 Then you see the objects are as broad as the pictures. And every single person who has come from the before into the after is the object of this love without one aspect of it being deleted, depleted of any of its awesome and amazing scope. The most recent believer in this assembly who still is staggering with the grave claws of his past life hanging on him has every right to take to his bosom every precious aspect of this text as we've opened it up this morning. You don't have to wait until you've attained to some great degree of attainment in personal holiness to revel in the fact that the cause, the reason which lies behind the transformation is God's own great love. The love wherewith He has loved even you, loved even you from eternity. The objects of this love are all of the people of God. It is that distinguishing, that particular redemption, that distinctive love of purpose that brings the death to life and the guilty to forgiveness.

39:45 May the Lord help us to stand in holy amazement before that love this morning. Think upon it, Christian.

Love's Demands: Removing Hindrances in God Himself

39:54 That love is what moved God to do everything necessary to remove every hindrance in the way of your salvation. You know where the greatest hindrances lay? Not in you, but in Himself.

40:07 The greatest hindrances to the salvation of God and the salvation of dead, bound, guilty sinners lay not in the sinner, but in the God who would rescue the sinner.

40:20 You say, what in the world are you talking about? Precisely this. How shall a holy God who has committed Himself to uphold His holy law which says, this do and thou shalt live, this fail to do and thou shalt die, how shall that God maintain the integrity of His holiness and His justice and do anything other than condemn every guilty sin? To give life to a dead sinner is no problem for God.

40:49 He's the author of all life. To open blind eyes is no problem to God. But how shall He remove the hindrances in Himself? How can He be just and yet let guilty sinners go free?

41:01 That's the problem.

41:05 And eternal love conceived a way for the resolution of that problem.

41:10 You know what it demanded? The enfleshment of one of the persons of the Godhead. It demanded that the second person of the Godhead become true man. That in that humanity he might render to God's holy law every just due.

41:28 And that in that true humanity he might go to a cross and there have heaped upon him the wrath and anger of that holy God that burned against us by nature. We were by nature children of wrath. I say it reverently. The Son of God in mercy and love became a son of wrath.

41:49 And the billows of God's anger broke over his holy head until he cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What was God doing removing the hindrances in Himself to your salvation? That's what He was doing. Removing the hindrances in Himself.

42:08 So the Scripture says He offered Himself without spot unto God.

42:18 Oh, child of God, when you ask the question, but why? Thank God. But God has happened to me. I'm no longer in the before.

42:28 I'm in the after. But why? The answer is this amazing love. And oh, child of God, it's only as you and I grow in our understanding of that love that there will be the expansion of our love to Him.

42:43 We'll love Him in direct proportion to our present appreciation of His love to us.

42:52 May I repeat that? It's a simple statement, but oh, it's the heart of the practical outworking of the gospel. We love Him in direct proportion to our present appreciation of His love to us. Love is the main spring of our obedience, of our devotion.

43:14 And when obedience and devotion are what they ought to be, everything else takes its place. But from when shall this obedience and devotion come? Not by the coercion of law.

43:28 Not by the thunderings of threat. Nor even by the dangling in front of us of juicy promises. It is the love of the living God in Christ Jesus to rebel sinners,

43:45 believingly appropriated to the heart that drives the wheels of obedience and causes us to maintain by His grace that sensitivity to His claims over us. But then just briefly, what about the mercy? And Paul only tells us one thing about that mercy.

The Amazing Nature of God's Mercy: Richness

44:08 Look at it. But God, being rich in mercy,

44:16 He understood words to us. Being rich in mercy. In other words, He says this pity joined to appropriate action is a rich mercy. It is a wealth of mercy and it's the common word used in the New Testament for superabundance.

44:37 When we talk about the rich young men, this is the common word. When it says in Luke 12, 46, 16, a certain rich man had many goods, that's the word used. It's used as the antonym of poor in Revelation 13, 16. Rich and poor along with bond and free.

44:57 And therefore the mercy that God shows to us is rich mercy. Thank God that He has such a storehouse for poor sinners. For remember, mercy is not mercy unless it exists for the needy. Mercy can only be mercy in the context of that which demands pity joined to appropriate action.

45:23 Blessed be God, He's rich in mercy. His storehouse of mercy is never exhausted. Why? Because it flows out of His love which like Himself is infinite.

45:35 And so the Apostle loves this word riches. He talked in chapter 1 about the riches of His love. His grace. In chapter 1, verse 18, the riches of the glory of the inheritance.

45:47 3.8, the riches of Christ. 3.16, the riches of glory.

45:51 He loves this word. He cannot think of God in the context of grace without thinking of plentitude. Plentitude. So as we ask the question, why were we quickened?

46:02 We must not just think of mercy. Pity joined to appropriate action, but richness of mercy. And my friend, we needed richness of mercy. Look at the demands that were upon the mercy of God.

46:16 Mercy to rebels who stood in defiance of Him. Mercy to slaves of the world, of Satan, of the devil. Mercy to the dead who couldn't wiggle a finger to give themselves life. And if they could, they wouldn't.

46:34 No man by nature wants the life which God imparts in Jesus Christ for it is life unto God and that's the last thing He'd want. He'd rather have His death and live to Himself.

46:46 Oh dear children of God, think of His mercy but never mercy alone, but it is richness of mercy.

46:56 Therefore, putting the two words together, we see that it was His love that cut the channel for His mercy. And therefore, it is sovereign, distinguishing mercy.

Reaction of the Self-Righteous and Indifferent

47:10 As we bring the message to I trust the inner bosom of every person here this morning, I think it is accurate to say that few things are a more certain index of where you are spiritually than your reaction to an exposition of divine love and divine mercy. Now let's do a little reflecting, shall we? What has been your heart reaction to this exposition of divine love and divine mercy this morning? As we've been considering the second line of thought in the text, why should God put forth His arm to quicken dead sinners?

47:49 And the answer the apostle has given us is great love, rich mercy. What's been the reaction? Well, no doubt there are some amongst us who would rightly be described as the self-righteous and the indifferent. And you've probably sat there this morning saying, so what?

48:05 God's love, God's merciful. I've known that all my life. Why is the preacher getting so excited? Does he think he's telling us something new?

48:12 Or is he just trying to bluff it because he's telling us something old? Oh, my friend, listen. If you've been able to sit here during the past 35 to 40 minutes with a spirit of indifference, it's because you're still in verses 1 to 3 blinded by your own estimation of your own virtue. You've not seen yourself dead.

48:37 You've not seen yourself bound. You've not seen yourself as under a canopy of divine wrath. Therefore, there is no appreciation of divine mercy. You think there is nothing that needs pity joined to action.

48:53 You can't stand amazed at love. You think love is something God owes to you simply because you've dirtied this earth with your footsteps. My friend, there's only one thing God owes to you. And that's given to you in the latter part of verse 3, divine wrath.

49:09 That's all God owes to you. That's all. We were by nature children of wrath. If your reaction this morning has been one of self-righteous indifference, I plead with you, give yourself no rest until God makes the words mercy and love sweet to your ears.

Reaction of the Unstable and Doubting Believer

49:32 On the other hand, there may be some who I could describe this morning as the unstable and doubting child of God. With a weak and a trembling hand you've laid hold of Christ, but as you sat there this morning and heard of great love, of riches, and mercy, you say, I can't lay hold of that. I've got so many areas of inconsistency. I've got so many areas of failure.

49:59 I have so little assurance of salvation. That's all right and well for the preacher to talk about that. He's been a Christian X number of years and some of these other people, they know their Bibles like the palm of their hands. But for me, oh my friend, listen.

50:16 Paul was not writing to people who'd been in the way for 20 years. He was writing to people who just a few short years before had come out of raw paganism in our own family worship. We're reading through the book of Acts. We were reading last night that motley crowded Ephesus.

50:32 Dabbling in their witchcraft and the occult and they had this big bonfire. These were raw Gentile sinners just like you were a raw Gentile sinner. And Paul did not feel that, well, we must not give such wholesome food to babes. They might abuse it.

50:50 You know, Paul never did this with great truth. He didn't hold them back and just give them a little stingy amount here and say, all right, now you be a good boy and you eat your little potato well and I'll give you a big one. He spread the banquet for the humblest, the meanest of the saints of God.

51:09 And he dared to tell them they were beloved of God. They were the objects of richness of mercy. For listen to me, Christian. You will grow in grace not as you think your performance earns new dimensions of God's love.

51:28 You'll grow in grace as you dare to cast yourself upon the full measures of His love right where you are.

Reaction of the Believing and Maturing Child of God

51:41 And that will stir you to get on with growth and grace and obedience to your blessed Lord. And then there is the reaction of the believing, the settled, the maturing child of God. And you know what his reaction is as he sits here this morning? And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior's blood?

52:03 Amazement on the one hand that he should be included in the little word us. On account of his great love wherewith he loved us. And he dares to personalize it in the words of Galatians 2.20.

52:18 The Son of God who loved even me. And because he loved me, a swath of mercy was cut to me in my deadness, in my bondage, in my guilt. I have been quickened. I have been pardoned.

52:32 I have been accepted. And coupled with that amazement will always be that expressed in the words love so amazing, so divine, demands and shall have my soul, my life, my all. Listen, if you're a true Christian who in some degree has been able in faith to lay hold of what's been expounded this morning, an inevitable accompaniment of that without your even knowing it and only now do you recognize it as I articulate it verbally, your heart has run out with new understanding of the demands of that love upon you. And you've said, God, how could I treat your precepts so lightly when you've loved me so freely? How can I be indifferent to your claims over me when you've showered such mercy upon me? Has that been your reaction this morning? Child of God, every exposition of divine love and mercy ought to have that reaction in your spirit.

Reaction of the Awakened Sinner: The Path to Mercy and Love

53:39 And then last of all, I may be speaking to some whom we could describe as an awakened sinner. That is, you're no longer indifferent. The matter of your spiritual death and bondage is very real to you and it's a matter of deepest concern. You say, preacher, you've laid out a wonderful spread for the children.

53:59 But I'm just a beggar outside the door. Is there anything for me? Ah, listen, my friend. How did these people get included in the us?

54:10 Well, you just go back to chapter 1. And he said, Having heard, ye believed, ye were sealed. And when you read the account in the book of Acts, you see that they came from the before to the after by the proclamation of the gospel. The gospel proclaimed that Jesus Christ came to save the neediest, the vilest of sinners and all who repent and believe the gospel will find a welcome in him.

54:40 My friend, the orbit of God's mercy and love is his son and the path to his son is the gospel heard and believed. And so I entreat you this morning, do not trouble your mind with such questions. Was I included in the circle of those, upon whom he set his love in eternity? My friend, trouble your mind about one issue.

55:07 Will I go on in impenitence and unbelief? Or shall I today believe the gospel and live?

55:18 Why should God quicken dead sinners? The answer of the word of God in the portion before us,

55:26 because of the great love wherewith he loved us, love that cut a swath of mercy. Even to you and to me. May God help us to plumb some new dimension of the height and the depth and the length and the breadth and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Let us pray.