Matthew 5 now. Matthew 5. These beatitudes, blessings,
what that means, big name, a blessing, have been a blessing to me. I
hope they have been to you. I've learned so much, I hope. I know I have. But I need to
learn more. I need to put in practice what
I've learned. Look at verse 7. And again, I
was going to deal with verse 7 and 8, but we'll just deal
with one at a time from here on because there's so much here.
Matthew 5, 7, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy. How truly blessed we are, as
I prayed, as the Lord said in Revelation
1, to read God's Word, to hear it. hear it preached. That's
what he said. Blessed are your eyes, your ears. Blessed are they that read the
words of this book and hear them. We've been blessed to hear from
our Lord these blessings. It was his disciples who he was
speaking to on the mountain, and they recorded these words.
Matthew, he wrote these down. You know, he's a publican. He
was sure blessed, wasn't he? Mercy, Lord, merciful to that
old publican. He never forgot it. How blessed
we are to hear this, these blessings. And we're blessed to be put in
a heavenly place, aren't we? Heavenly things in Christ. In everything our Lord said,
He said to His disciples. And He says to them and to us,
blessed are. the poor in spirit. Blessed are
they that mourn. Not you should be. You're blessed if you are. Blessed are. Are. Not should be, though it's true.
We should be poor. We should be mourn. But God's
people are. All of them are. It doesn't say
blessed were. You were blessed to be, to find
out you were poor. No, you are poor and more. You're blessed if you know, if
you found out you are poor, you're blessed to mourn over your sin. And you're blessed if you still
think you're poor and still mourn. Blessed are, present tense. And these are not conditions. When you look at this, you hang
your head and say, blessed are they that the merciful shall
obtain mercy. And there's not a person in here
who thinks of themselves as being very merciful. Not a person,
starting with me. But these are not conditions
that if you be merciful, God will be merciful to you. That's
works. Isn't it? That's the denial of
the gospel. It just is. No, God makes all of his people
poor, mourn, meek, hungry and thirsty, and yes, merciful. How? They've obtained mercy. The only thing, and we're going
to see this, and I'm getting way ahead of myself, but I've
got to. is you got to see that the only truly merciful people
are those whom the Lord has had mercy on through the Lord Jesus
Christ. They've heard the gospel of sovereign
mercy, and that makes them merciful. Let me just say this at the outset. There are some people in the
world who are unbelievers, who are very nice, tender, kind,
People seem to be sweet and even merciful, don't they? That doesn't
mean they're children of God, does it? No, it doesn't. What is that? That's the mercy
of God. That's the restraining grace
of God. You understand? Nobody's born
that way. What do we have we have not received?
And even the unbelieving. And my dad used to say this,
so many people mistake the restraining grace of God for their own personal
hole in it. And so many people think that
about people, that she's so nice, she's so sweet, she's so sincere,
he or she or whatever, they must be, let's say, a Christian. No,
that's not true. And I tell you this from these
verses, I tell you, who is a true child of God is those who are
poor in spirit. We just read, don't think too
high of yourself. There's no believer who thinks
this high of themselves. I told you about that fella I
was trying to talk to about the gospel, and I asked him, what
do you think of yourself? He said, I think I'm a pretty
neat fella. There is not a believer on the
top side of God's earth who doesn't, when asked about himself, does
not say, I'm the chief of sinners. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You've got to go back. All these
go together, you see. They all go together. Our Lord didn't
say things haphazardly, disjointed. They're all connected. If we
had the understanding, we'd see how everything he said was perfectly
connected and went together, inseparably connected. All of
God's people will always be, they are and will always be poor
in spirit, knowing in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. We have no righteousness. None. It's filthy rags. And I told you what that meant. And that just defends our sensibilities. Well, that's what the Word says,
doesn't it? No righteousness. We have no
goodness in ourselves. Paul said, there was not a finer
man on earth than Paul the Apostle. But he said, in my flesh. Me? No good thing. Isn't it? Not one good thing
in solitarsis. He says, if there's any good
in me, it's not me. It's the grace of God. It's Christ
in me. And that's my hope of glory. No goodness. No ability. None. No ability. No wisdom. None. If left to ourselves, we'll
still act like a fool. Ask David. David, not a wiser man on the
earth. But the Lord left him to himself one time and he acted
like a madman. Do you remember that story? We
have no wisdom. None. We are nothing. You see your calling, brethren?
God has chosen things that are not Nothing, no thing in my flesh
does no good thing. Nothing. Utterly helpless. We are utterly,
completely helpless, powerless to do any good whatsoever. Is that you? That's what it means,
poor, poor. It means poor. And so you mourn. Every one of God's people mourn
over their sin. They mourn over their unrighteousness. They mourn over it. The Spirit of God convicts. He
never quits convicting of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
You know where that's found, don't you? John 16, 8 through
11. And we sorrow over what we are. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from me? Do you know anything about that? I want to be delivered from sin
all around me, but I want to be delivered from this old fellow
in me. We mourn over what we are, over
what we do, over what we have done. Remember, David, don't
remember the sins of my youth? When was that? Today, we mourn
over what we haven't done. And so we repent. We're constantly
repenting. And for what do you ask for more
than anything else? Mercy. Do you not have mercy
on me, O Lord? Every child of God knows exactly
what I'm talking about. Good morning. And sometimes I
don't know what to pray. We don't know how to pray or
what we should pray for. We want God's will be done. And
sometimes all I can pray is, Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on so and so. The
Lord might not save this person. You've been begging and pleading
with Him. And sometimes, Lord, why won't You save this person? He just might not. So all I can
say, Lord, please have mercy. Please. Forgiveness. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me.
Forgive me. Which makes us meek. Yes, it does. Humility, we saw,
is a little bit different than meekness, but they go together.
You can't be humble and not be meek. Humility is not thinking
very highly of yourself, but low thoughts of yourself. And
meekness is, if you know yourself, meekness. Did you learn anything
from that message, meekness? Oh, I did. True meekness is,
if you know yourself, your sinfulness, then anything
bad that happens to you, you think, it should have been worse.
That's meekness. I deserve it. I deserve worse. That's meekness. Moses was the
meekest man on the earth. Why? He spent 40 years in Egypt.
Never gave God a thought, didn't he? He aspired to the throne.
Yes, he did. Riches. He saw those slaves. He didn't have mercy on them. What happened? The Lord showed
mercy to him. The Lord chose him. The Lord
revealed where he was and what he was doing. He had mercy on
him. So what did he do? He started
having mercy. He received mercy. But meek. If anything bad happens, you
think it should have been worse. He hath not dealt with me according
to my sins. That's meekness. Meekness is
anything good that happens to me. I didn't deserve that. I
can deserve that either. Right? It's of the Lord's mercies that
we're not, what? Consumed. But it's compassions that fail
not. And new every morning. You know anything about that?
Only God's people do. Mercy is the sweetest word God's
people have ever heard. And it's sovereign. You know
that? It's sovereign. God said, I will
be merciful. Oh, our Lord is merciful. He
said, I will be merciful. To whom I will. It's His prerogative. It doesn't
have to be merciful to everybody. But it's a command to us. It's
sovereign. It's not sovereign with us. You
hear me? It's not sovereign with us. He
tells us you'd be merciful. To who? Everybody. But why? Look what I've done for you. And meekness is anything bad
people say, just be glad they don't know everything about you.
or any bad treatment. I've brought this up before.
David, you know, the terrible sin of killing that woman's husband
and taking her to be his wife Bathsheba. Before that, there
was a man named Nabal. His name means fool. Before that,
he came and they needed food. And he sent some young men to
go get food from Nabal, who was a rich man. And Nabal said, I
don't know who he is. I'm not giving my food and my
this and my this and that. Not to him. He's not my king.
Isn't it? You remember what David said?
He said, boys, strap on your swords, all of you. Go down there
and kill everybody. Kill them all. Isn't it? And there's a young lady named Abigail.
That old fool's wife was a believer. And she came and pleaded with
David for mercy for that fool. What a picture she is of Christ
Himself. Right? And the believer that
pleads for those. Had mercy, he didn't kill them
all. Well, after David's sin, great sin, with Bathsheba and
Uriah, remember that? After that happened, a man named
Shimei came out and was cussing David and throwing rocks at him. And one of David's captains said,
let me go take his head off. David said, no. The Lord sent
him to curse me. I deserve it. I deserve worse. I deserve worse. Is that you? If not, it will be, if you're
one of God's people. That's meekness. So any bad treatment,
you think, I might not have deserved it from them. I might not have
done anything to that particular person to deserve their real
treatment of me, but God did it, and I deserve a whole lot
worse from Him. And He did it for my humility
and to show me what I did to Him, what I did to Him. Knowing what I am, knowing what
I have done, knowing what I have not done, Makes me hunger and thirst for
righteousness. I don't have any. I need one. I'm naked and ashamed, guilty
as charged. I need a recovering, don't you?
I need a sin covering. I still need a covering. I'm
still a sinner. The sins of believers are worse
than unbelievers. You know that? Sinning against
love, sinning against mercy, sinning against knowledge, sinning
against grace. Him that knoweth to do good, doeth it not. And the sins of adult believers,
the older we get, they're worse. They're worse than the sins of
our youth. Yeah, they are. We ought to know better. How
can we repeat those things? So, it makes me hunger and thirst
for righteousness. The righteousness of God is only
one. All of God's people know what
righteousness is. It's not a what, it's a who,
it's a person. It's covering. It's Christ. Christ my righteousness. Christ my acceptance. And we
hear the gospel. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, they'll be filled. What really
fills your heart and soul? It fills the heart and soul of
every true believer. The only thing that really fills
their need is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It really
is. We're not playing games here.
When we say we preach Christ and Him crucified, why? Because
God demands it. Because that's what the Scripture
is about. From Genesis to Revelation, it's
Christ and Him crucified. How Christ came to suffer for
sinners. The gospel. Paul said, Woe is
unto me if I preach not the gospel. Every time. It's what God demands,
what sinners need to hear. And it's what fills God's people.
We don't need anything else. We don't want anything else.
Don't give me fleshly entertainment. Give me the gospel. This is how you know if you're
a true child of God. You're blessed if you hunger
and thirst for this gospel of Christ and His righteousness. David over and over. We love
the Psalms, don't we? Just look how many times David
talks about righteousness. Not a doctrine. It wasn't a doctrine
to David. It was a person. He said, I'll
make mention of thy righteousness and thine only. It wasn't a doctrine to Paul.
It was Christ covered me in his own blood. made me righteous. I had a righteousness, a filthy
righteousness, I didn't know it. But bless God, he revealed
unto me that Christ is my righteousness. And he said, this is the one
thing I want more than anything. I want to win Christ and be found
in Him, not having my own righteousness. In this very sermon, in Matthew
7, it says many people will stand before Him in the judgment and
say, we did this, we preached in Jesus' name. We won many souls
in Jesus' name. We got so excited in Jesus' name.
We were zealous in Jesus' name. He said, I never knew you. What
do you mean? You'll be shocked. What do you
mean you never knew me? All of God's people. Hunger and
thirst for this righteousness. And there's one thing that fills
them. One thing that satisfies them. One thing satisfies God.
And one thing satisfies God's people. Christ. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness. What does that mean? You know
what that means. He's all. That's not a slogan. When we say we preach Christ,
that's what we do. We really do. Those who know
Him, preach Him. Those who know Him, worship Him.
Those who know Him and love Him, that's who they want to hear.
That's who they come to meet with. And once we're filled with this
Gospel, you know what we have obtained? We have obtained mercy.
Where is the mercy of God? Where is it found? In Christ. In Christ. Do you remember? Is
your not your favorite story in the Bible, Mephibosheth? Is
it not one of them? Do you remember what that is
all about? That David had purposed to show mercy, kindness, same
word, kindness, to the house of Saul. That's his enemies. That's those that want to be
king. That's free will, people. Anybody that believes free will
is a want-to-be king. That was Satan, and that was
Adam and Eve, and that's everybody that doesn't bow to and want
God's will only, and denounces free will. It's not a doctrine. It's believing God is sovereign
and we're not. It's saying that salvation is up to the Lord.
Nothing to do with us, not our decision, our acceptance, nothing.
Not a doctrine. You're attributing salvation
to who saved you. You say, I didn't have anything
to do with it. No, I didn't accept him. That
preacher, there you go again. Yes, I do. I've got to. We've
got to lay this stuff in the dust. Mercy is for the merciful. Mercy
is for those who have retained mercy. Sovereign, electing, saving
mercy. That's who's going to be merciful. Merciful. Mercy. Mercy means pity. You know, we've
always looked at it as, and it's true, it's not getting what we
deserve, but it's so much more than that. So much more than
that. If you look up the word, it actually
means pity. It means compassion. To feel
for someone. Pity. Oh, my. Because of God's great
mercy to me. See, we have not a high priest
that cannot be touched with the feeling of our firmness. What
was it that made Christ come to this despicable place? Mercy. Pity. He had compassion. Whom he would. You know, the
scripture says he's tender mercies over all his work. That God is
kind to the unkind and makes his rain fall on just and unjust. It doesn't mean he loves them.
But God is pitiful. God is merciful. But he's going to throw a lot
of people in hell. You can't love somebody and do
that. He's merciful to whom he will. But he came because of his compassion. He said, I will have mercy on
whom I will. Nobody deserves it. Right? Brother Scott Richardson was
at a court trial for a a young man who was an habitual offender,
and the judge, Brother Scott, went up to him, I think before
or after, I forget, and he asked the judge to please have mercy
on the young man. He said he doesn't deserve mercy. But Brother Scott said, well,
isn't that the meaning of the word? Not getting what you deserve
and pity and compassion be shown and kindness being shown. So
mercy with God is sovereign. But if you've been shown great
mercy, you should and you will be merciful to others. And Martin
Lloyd-Jones, I've got an article by him in the bulletin coming
up. Having been shown mercy by God, you now see men as they
really are. You see them as you. Those who are blind, you once
were blind. Those who are lost, you once
were lost. Those who are captives, held
captive by Satan and sin and these things of this world, you
were. You were. People are unable to hear the
gospel and believe. God gave you ears to hear. See,
blessed are the merciful. They've obtained mercy, and they
will show mercy. Spurgeon said one time, he said,
if you've been pulled out of the ditch, if somebody came along
and pulled you out of the ditch, And that's what the good Samaritan
did to us. He came along and pulled us out
of the ditch. He said, then you shouldn't get a stick and start
beating everybody in the ditch, beating them over the head with
that stick. He said, what are you doing down in that ditch?
What's wrong with you? And, you know, this shames me
because I remember looking back, looking at people that don't
come to worship the Lord and give God no thought and just,
you know, disdain. That's God's prerogative. But I am to show mercy, and I
need to remember that God had mercy upon me. That's the only
thing that will make me merciful. That's it. The only thing. I must be merciful to them. That
was me. That was me. Mercy means pity.
The greatest display of mercy, the greatest show of mercy is
Christ's crucifixion. Isn't it? At the cross we see
many things. Number one, we see the holiness
and the justice of God. When he found sin, Christ made
sin. This is what God thinks of sin.
This is what God will do to every sinner outside of Christ. This
is what He'll do. He'll forsake them. He'll pour
out His wrath upon them. We see the utter, utter, utter
depravity and wickedness and hatred of man for God for holding
us for the truth. They killed the most merciful,
loving, kind, gracious, peace-loving, peace-speaking. He went about
doing good. One of the next blessings is
blessed are they that persecute. For what? What? Righteousness sake. Whose? Christ. Well, he was, wasn't he? He was. Have we seen this all along? He who was rich, yet for our
sakes became poor. None poor. He mourned not over
his sins, he had none. He mourned over the sins of those
who were not yet mourning. The man of sorrow was acquainted
with grief. They weren't sorry. Yet, they will be when they see
him mourning. When they finally, when they
see him mourning for them, and they never gave him a thought.
The goodness of God. Meek, he said, oh, did he take
unjust treatment? Consider the great contradiction
of sinners against himself. Lest you be weary in your mind.
You haven't resisted under blood striving against sin. He did.
He took it all, didn't he? He knew who sent it, didn't he?
God did. He took it. Hunger? He hungered
to do God's will for righteousness. Do His. Whose? Ours. Thirst? On the cross, he cried, I thirst,
going through hell. Merciful? Was he merciful? Oh, my. The first words that
he cried from the cross after they beat him beyond recognition, spit in his face, sat back and
mocked his pain and derided him and jeered at him and laughed
and scoffed at him and all his friends deserted him. His first
words on the cross, and these are the words that broke my heart,
Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. That's mercy. That's mercy. Oh, how I need to hear this.
I need to be reminded, lest I forget. We need to be reminded. Turn
to Psalm 106, and I'm going to close here in a minute. Psalm 106. We need to be reminded
of mercy. Sovereign mercy. that God sovereignly
chose us, elected us, passed by many to show favor to us,
to tell us this gospel, gave us this faith we believe. We
really do believe, don't we? Yes, we do. You do. It's not
pride or presumption to say you believe. You either do or you
don't. And He passed by many who don't
love this gospel. We need to be reminded of God.
This was God's sovereign mercy. We have obtained the greatest
mercy of all. Look at verse 1. Praise ye the
Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his
mercy endureth forever. You know how many times it says
that. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show
forth all his praise? Verse 6. We have sinned with
our fathers. We've committed iniquity. We've
done wickedly. Haven't we? Or said, our fathers
didn't understand. They understood not thy wonders
in Egypt. We really haven't either. We'd
never murmur or complain one time if we understood exactly
how merciful the Lord's been to us. He said, they, verse 7,
remembered not the multitude of thy mercies. They forgot. But provoked Him at the Red Sea. Do you know how long they'd been
walking in the wilderness at the Red Sea? I think it was three
days? Was that what it was, Melanie?
It wasn't long. They hadn't been out there three
days until they were murmuring and complaining. Four hundred
years they were in slime pits. And the Lord in great mercy and
kindness came down in pity and grace and said, I'm going to
bring you out. I've come down to bring you out, bring you up,
bring you in. You're going to have to walk
a little while and endure a few things, but I'm going to take
you, I'm going to bring you into the promised land. We're in the
land flowing with milk and honey. Out of the slime pits. Why? I didn't do it for your
sake. I did it for my sake, because
I'm merciful. to whom I will be merciful."
I didn't do it because you're many, or you're few. I didn't
do it because you're better, but because it was my good pleasure. And they weren't out there long
at all until they forgot. How long does it take us to forget
before we start complaining? Read on. Nevertheless, verse
8, He saved them for His name's sake. You see? What's His name? Remember, Moses would tell us,
show me your glory. He said, I'm going to proclaim
the name of the Lord, the Lord, the Lord God. Merciful. That's his name. Merciful. He's not saved him for his namesake. He's merciful. Look at verse
12. Then they believed his words,
they sang his praise. They soon forgot. We come in
here and, boy, we hear the gospel and we go out of here just singing
His praise and, you know, somebody pulls in front of us in the car. We're a sorry bunch, aren't we?
We really are. We still are. But God, they waited not for
His counsel. That's verse 13. Running ahead. Lest it exceedingly in the wilderness.
Anybody lust about after anything in the wilderness? After all
these years, anything, you still lust after? God gave him a request. Leanness
of soul. You ever feel leanness of soul? Envied Moses. They got mad at
Moses. The earth opened up, verse 17. The earth opened up and swallowed
him. It still happens. And people leave the gospel.
You know what happened? The earth swallowed him up. The
world swallowed him up. Verse 21, they forgot God, their
Savior, had done a great thing. We hadn't learned much, have
we? We really hadn't. Verse 23, and he said he would
destroy them had not Moses, his chosen, stood before him in the
breach. Oh my, is that Christ? and him crucified, to turn away
his wrath, lest he should destroy them. You see, we still need
to see Christ our mediator. Verse 25, they murmured in their
tents. They had tents. They had everything. Sister, they had food and raiment
and a tent. We all live in tents. Food and raiment, he said, be
content. Food and raiment, with such things as you have, why?
Because he said, I'll never leave you. There's great mercy in it. And he's murmuring and complaining.
And they weren't working, just walking. They weren't taking care of themselves.
They weren't providing for themselves. And we're not either. Brother
John Chapman told me that This was years ago. He got laid off.
He was a machinist. That had been his job. He worked
hard and he had a home and a house payment and maybe a truck payment. But he got laid off and, oh,
you know, like anybody is, you're somewhat concerned. You got laid
off from J.P. Stevens after all those years,
just a couple of years short of retirement. My, my, that hit
you hard, didn't it? And John thought, oh my, what
am I going to do? He told me, he actually told me, John said,
you know, and I still don't understand it to this day. He said, we paid
off our house while I was laid off. He said, I still don't understand
it. Because you didn't buy that house.
You didn't provide that house. You weren't paying for that house.
How am I going to, how am I going to, you ain't going to do nothing.
When it says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,
does that just mean for your sins? That means for everything.
It's not yours. It's His. It's not your own. It's bought with
a price. He takes care of His own. Verse 29, It provoked Him
to anger with their inventions, and the plague broke in upon
them. Anybody remember that? Plague? I was reading today, a fellow
said, Bill Gates. Well, everybody sits up and listens
to Bill Gates talks. Why? Because he's got money.
Well, big deal. My Heavenly Father owns all the
gold and silver and all the mine. He gave that fellow every dime
he owns. He's going to take it all away. He's a nobody from
nowhere. Well, he said, there's going
to be another plague, guaranteed. Sure there is. We know that, don't we? Who sent it? Who sends them all? Who gets us through it? Who's
our salvation? Who are we going to look to?
The Surgeon General or the Great Physician? Huh? Who are we? We'll see, won't we? We're going to see. And we forget. Everybody's already forgotten
that plague, pretty much. Until the next one comes along. We wait. We belong to the Lord. Whether
we live or we die, we are the Lord's, aren't we? I told Earlene,
I said, that would have been wonderful if you had not woken
up from that anesthesia. It would have been tough on John. It would have been wonderful
for you. We have obtained mercy all our
lives. Every day of our life has been
nothing but sovereign mercy, pity, kindness, compassion. So good does it. That ought to
make us merciful. It does. Oh, not like we ought
to. Tender mercies. I was going to
read the rest of this, but look at verse 43. Many times did He
deliver them, but they provoked Him with their counsel, brought
low for their iniquity. Oh, my. You know what brings
me lower than anything else? It's not everybody else, what
everybody else does to me. It's my own iniquity. I do it
to myself when I'm not merciful. When I get lifted up with pride,
when I forget God. Nevertheless. Isn't that the best word you
ever heard? Nevertheless. Where sin did abound,
grace did much more abound. Grace is never less than our
sin. It's always greater. He regarded
their affliction when He heard their cries. He's still going
to hear us after all these years of murmuring and complaining?
Yes, He will. Why? For Christ's sake. He remembered
for them His covenant. We love that verse, don't we,
brother? And repented according to the multitude of His mercies. And see verse 46, He made them
to be pitied of all those that carried them captive. God makes
people pitiful courteous and kind and merciful and all that. Why? For God's people. For their
sake. That's right. Tender mercy. Continual mercy. New every morning.
They should and they will make us merciful. And the promise
is in our text, he said, Blessed are the merciful. Those
who have obtained mercy, they shall obtain mercy. We're going
to need more mercy. This is a promise that we're
going to receive more mercy. We will need it till the day
we die. We all come short of being merciful
as we should. But the fact is, If we don't
show some mercy, if we don't have some pity, some compassion,
like poor and mourning and hunger and thirst, we haven't obtained
mercy from God. Nor shall we. For with the merciful,
he shall himself have mercy. And let me read this to you in
closing. Luke 6. I promise you these are
the last verses. Luke 6 is the same. We read it
last week. But look at this. The Lord goes
more into detail about this mercy and pity. Look at Luke 6. Look at it with me. Verse 27. You have it? Luke 6, 27. I say unto you. Who is he talking
to? Love your enemies. Do good to
them that hate you. Bless them that curse you. Pray
for them which despitefully use you. That's difficult. It's impossible. But with God,
all things are possible. I can do all things through Christ. That's what he did on the cross,
didn't he? They haven't treated me like
they treated him. And to him that smiteth thee
on one cheek, offer also the other. Him that taketh away thy
cloak, forbid him not thy coat. Forbid him not to take away thy
coat also. Give to every man that asketh
it. Him that taketh away thy goods,
ask them not again. As you would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them, likewise. For if you love them
which love you, Thank or congratulations have you. Sinners love those
that love them. If you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have you? Sinners do the same. If you lend to them of whom you
hope to receive, what thank have you? Sinners lend to sinners
to receive as much again. But love ye your enemy and do
good. And lend, hoping for nothing
again, and your reward shall be great. Ye shall be the children
of the Highest, for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the
evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as
your Father also is merciful. Okay, stand with me.