Ezra chapter 3. I'm going to read a few verses
beginning in verse 8. Ezra 3. Now in the second year of their
coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month
began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Josedach,
and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites,
and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem,
and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward,
to set forward the work of the house of the Lord. Then stood
Jeshua with his sons and his brethren Cadmeel and his sons,
the sons of Judah together, to set forward the workmen in the
house of God, the sons of Hinnadad with their sons and their brethren
the Levites. And when the builders laid the
foundation of the temple of the Lord. They set the priests in
their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of
Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord after the ordinance
of David king of Israel. And they sang together, by course,
in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is
good, for His mercy endeareth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with
a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation
of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests,
and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men,
that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house
was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted
aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of
the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.
For the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard
afar off." I'm afraid that sometimes we
forget something that we ought never
to forget. And that is that the heart of
the king, the heart of the ruler, whoever he be, and whenever it
be, is in the Lord's hand. And like rivers of water, he
turns it whithersoever he will." These Israelites, having been
in great conflict and then in great captivity, and thinking
that maybe all hope was gone, they heard a decree from the
king. And Ezra begins with these words,
"'Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word
of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made
a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also
in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord
God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and
he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem which is
in Judah." And then he asked this question, he said, "'Who
among you, who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let
him go up to Jerusalem and build the house of the Lord." I'm sure
as far as these people were concerned, it came out of the blue. But it was always the purpose
of God. concerning this people to do
so, and to show us His purpose of grace and mercy to His spiritual
people in every age. In the second year of their return
to Jerusalem, when the builders had laid the foundation of the
temple of the Lord, They stopped all work. They halted everything,
and they did so to praise and to give thanks to God. That tenth verse in chapter 3
says, And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple
of the Lord, They set the priests in their apparel with trumpets,
and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise
the Lord after the ordinance of David king of Israel." And what I want us to notice
this morning is the reason for their singing. Some, it says,
of the older men, the older people, they were weeping with joy. And others were singing with
loud voices, praise and thanksgiving to God. But why were they thanking
Him? And why were they praising Him? Was it because He had enabled
them to be such good people that they could once again be favored
of God? Was it because they had been
so obedient, or were at that very hour so prayerful to God
for His goodness to them? Look at what it says in verse
11. And they sang together by course,
in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is
good, for His mercy endeareth forever toward Israel." They
stopped everything. And they joined together as a
host, and in one accord, though some weeping and some singing,
they praised the Lord for His mercy, for His goodness and His
mercy toward them, which they acknowledge endures Forever. I thought about it this morning
that I really wanted to speak to everyone here based on what
I know about you. We're everyone different in so
very many ways. Some are younger, some are older,
some are male, some are female, some are from one place, some
are from another place. But there are some things that
I know about you. And the reason that I know them
is because God has said these things. And what He has said
concerning you, lest you get the idea that I'm speaking down
to you, what He says and causes me to know about you is the same
thing He says about Me." We know this is the case because God
says it. And I know this, all of us are
living souls. We have a body. Most in our day
think that our body is what we are. But we are living souls
that have a body. Eternal souls. And not only that,
but all of us are sinners. We, according to this book, because
God viewed us in our representative Adam, we all sinned and thus
became sinners in Him. in Adam all sinned. And then it tells us that we
were born in sin, shapen in iniquity, and that we all have a nature
of sin. We come forth from the womb speaking
lies. Our natural minds are enmity
against God. And not only that, but our sins
have brought us in ourselves to a state of death, spiritual
death. The day Adam ate of that fruit,
he died spiritually, and we in him. And we are all facing physical
death, some of us closer than others, But we are not only facing
physical death, but apart from the mercy of God, eternal death. Separation from God. And that's what eternal death
is. It is eternal, unending separation from God, from His presence,
from His blessings, from all good, from the glory of heaven,
from the people of God, and all of these things, knowing them
to be true, I would have to conclude this, we need mercy. We need mercy. And thankfully, It's almost more than I can say. But thankfully, amazingly, and
wonderfully, there is mercy with God. But we have another problem
in our day, and that is that most people, Though we find that
word mercy used time and time again in the Bible, most people
have no idea of what mercy really is. And one definition of mercy that
I found Webster described mercy in this way, the compassionate
treatment of an enemy. The compassionate treatment of
one who has shown themselves or acted as your enemy. And I can't help but wonder,
I was reading a more modern translation this morning, just to see what
it said. But because this is the true
definition, it makes me wonder why in so many translations now, Because men and women don't want
to hear anything about the possibility of them having acted or shown
themselves to be the enemies of God. We'll just say His love
endures forever. And the Bible does say that the
love of God is everlasting love. The love of God does endure forever. But the Bible also speaks, as
these gathered themselves to sing about and to praise God
for, the Bible speaks about His mercy. You see, the truth of
the matter is, Even the people of God, they have acted as enemies
to God all their lives, left to themselves. The apostle describes
us as being enemies to God in our minds by wicked works. What are they? They are every
work that is ever done by a sinner in order to gain the favor and
blessing of God. You see, mercy shows us that
could never be right. That could never be true. As a matter of fact, Paul writes
in Romans 5, he says, for if when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled,
we shall be saved by His life. How could God ever reconcile
us unto Himself through the dying of His Son, because of His mercy. He treated us, though we acted
as His enemy, He treated His people for what they really were
and always have been in His sight, His friends, His children. And an old preacher made this
statement concerning mercy. He said, is that adorable perfection
in God by which He pities and relieves the miserable. Mercies for the miserable. And men are in this state of
misery because they are in defiance against God, and as sinners they
deserve infinite, eternal punishment. And mercy implies that nothing
can be said by the sinner or any other sinner concerning him
by way of his defense. You couldn't defend me in my
sinnerhood, and I couldn't defend you in your sinnerhood. There's nothing that can be said
in our defense. And rarely do you ever hear in
our day that someone threw himself on the mercy of the court, You see, mercy implies that one
is guilty and has no merit to plead before the law. Someone
said, what is your position on the law? I only have one. It's
a one-word one. Guilty. Just plain guilty. I don't want it for a rule of
life because all it can ever do is condemn me. All it can
ever do to you is condemn you. All it was ever meant to do is
condemn you. And mercy is like grace, and
yet there is some difference. You see, grace looks at a man
without merit, and mercy looks at him as just miserable. And
grace meets one who is undeserving, and yet mercy meets him as ill-deserving. Grace can be exercised where
there is no sin, but mercy can only be shown to sinners. Isn't that right? Mercy. Mercy is like love, but there's
some difference. Love can be shown to an equal,
but mercy can only exist for an inferior. Mercy gives relief
from misery. And sadly also it is to say that
many mistake the patience of God for the general mercy of
God over all His creation. But that kind of mercy is not
saving mercy. The psalmist said, the Lord is
good to all. And His tender mercies are over
all His works. He's constantly giving, helping
those who do not deserve it. That's not saving mercy. You
see, this mercy is only temporal. But the covenant mercy of God
is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you see, these people on
this occasion, they praised Him, this particular people praised
God, the Lord Jehovah, for a particular mercy to them. He says, "...his
mercy endureth forever, toward Israel." And this Israel, if
we are taught of God by His Spirit concerning the things of this
book, we know that this Israel was simply a picture and type
of spiritual Israel, the elect of God. And these people, these
chosen sinners, saved by the mercy and grace of God, they
praise God for a particular covenant saving mercy to them. It's not some general mercy.
We're not throwing our hands up and saying, Lord, have mercy
on me. No. This is particular mercy. And when you read this book and
you begin to learn something about the mercy of God, there's
one thing you're going to hit head on. And that is, this mercy,
this saving mercy of God, is sovereign mercy. Somebody says,
what in the world is sovereign mercy? Well, sovereign mercy
is from the God who will have mercy on whom he'll have mercy. Turn over to Romans chapter 9,
that most often avoided passage of Scripture in the New Testament. Romans chapter 9, where the apostle
Paul is simply recounting by Old Testament illustrations how
God over and over again had mercy on whom He would and hardened
whom He would. Look at verse 18. He has just
used Pharaoh as the illustration. He says, "...therefore hath he
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."
That's not hard to see in that verse, is it? That is not even
hard to understand. But apart from the grace and
mercy of God, We will not ever be able to accept that and receive
it and praise God for it. They didn't sing on that occasion,
praise and thanks be to God for His mercy to us, even though
we wished He'd had mercy on everybody else, or even though we think
He should have had it on the Canaanites or whoever it was. No, they praised Him that God
had been merciful to them, because they knew they didn't deserve
it. They knew He would not have been merciful upon them unless
He had just simply in His own sovereign will determined to
have mercy on them. Look down in verse 21. Paul quotes the prophet Jeremiah,
"...hath not the potter over the clay of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if
God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his
glory on the vessels of mercy which he had aforeprepared under
glory." has made of one lump, the same
lump of clay, Adam's race, vessels unto dishonor, left them to their
own selves and to the just punishment of their sin. But at the same
time, he's been pleased and determined to have mercy on these he describes
as the vessels of mercy. You don't make yourself a vessel
of mercy He doesn't make us out of a vessel of dishonor into
a vessel of mercy. The potter from the beginning
determined these and determined who he would show mercy and grace
to. Paul continues, "...even us whom
he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles." You see, we ought to ask ourselves,
can we thank God for His special saving, redeeming mercy to us
as ill-deserving, as hell-deserving sinners? You see, this is in
reality His greatest glory. I always think about this. What
Moses the man must have seen! What awesome sights! What glorious miracles! What unbelievable works of God! And yet there in Exodus 33, he's
asking God, show me your glory. Haven't you seen enough Moses?
Show me your glory. Do you have any idea, do you
have any desire to see that which is central and chief of all that
is glorious about God? What is it? The Lord says, I'll
make all my goodness pass before thee. and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy." I'm thankful for the day that
the Lord broke my heart and bowed my heart and brought me to bow
before His throne and acknowledge His right to do whatever He will
with me and all people. And then I thank Him because
rather than saying, I can't, or rather than saying, I won't,
The sovereign of the universe concerning some of the sons and
daughters of Adam said, I will have mercy on whom I'll have
mercy. I can just hear the devil say,
well, you can't have mercy on them. They're just like the rest. But the sovereign of the universe,
he said, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy." And when you
go back in the Old Testament to the beginning book at the
first use of the words merciful and mercy, guess who he speaks
it concerning? Lot. Lot? If there was a more ill-deserving,
as he showed himself to be, if there was a more ill-deserving,
hell-deserving sinner, where would you find him in all of
Scripture being spoken of? And to show us that mercy is
more than God's willingness to have mercy on you. Let me read
you the first use. The Lord had sent the angels
down to Sodom. But it says, Lot lingered. Man, God is going to bring a
judgment on this place, destroy every living soul in all the
cities of the plain, and you're standing around twiddling your
thumb, acting as if you're not in a hurry, you don't see the
danger of it. And while he lingered, the man
laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and
upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto
him." When the man was so stupid, so blind, so foolish, to what
was about to happen. Mercy didn't just wish him well.
Mercy reached out and took him by the hand and led him out of
Sodom. And they brought him forth and
set him without the city. And from that time, all throughout
this book, The word mercy, as it pertains to God, is described
by so many ways and examples and adjectives. It's said to
be great. Solomon said, Thou hast showed
unto Thy servant David my father great mercy. David, after doing what he did,
could lay down on this deathbed and talk about everything being
all ordered and sure because God had made with him an everlasting
covenant. Covenant mercy. And then it is
also described by this word, For thou, Lord, art good, and
ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call
upon thee." As a matter of fact, if a sinner calls on the Lord
for mercy, God has already dealt mercifully with him. Isn't that
the way it is? The cry of mercy is the mercy
of God. And then we read this, it says
that it's tender through the tender mercy of our God. Nothing harsh about God's mercy,
tender mercy. Great mercy. Then it is described
as, "'Abundant, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten
us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead.'" Abundant mercy. That means sufficient
mercy. Then it's described as rich. Paul describes how we are there
in Ephesians chapter 2, and then he puts that word, but, in there.
He says, but God, who is rich in mercy. And it's everlasting. But the
mercy of the Lord. is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's
children." That's God's mercy. But although I know, and I know
these things as I said because God said so, though I know all
these things are true, there's one thing that I know, if it
can be said so, even more surely than them. That is that God's mercy, His
saving mercy, His mercy to sinners like us, is only in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Only. And not only that, this
mercy in Christ that He gives has long been active and has
always preceded us, not only in our lives, but before the
world began. And it was because of God's mercy
to His people that Christ came into this world to die for them. You see, mercy is not an afterthought
with God. We didn't just do so bad that
He decided the only thing that could be done for us is to send
Christ to save us. No, that was mercy's plan all
along. God's never taken by surprise. I say this again and again, He
has no need for any contingency plans like preachers set forth
before people in our day. His glory is that mercy has gone
before us. And the death of Christ makes
it right for God to righteously give all these coveted mercies
to His people. He's right to show us mercy. Because all His justice, all
the demands of the law. What does the law demand of us?
There's only one thing it can demand. It demands death. That's
why I just do not understand people labor again and again
over that law that Paul said, all it can do is condemn us.
He said, you that are of the law, don't you hear what it says?
It says death. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in
mercy, came into this world as the burden bearer, the sin bearer,
the surety of His people, of these objects of mercy. And before that law, before that
strict and inflexible justice of God, He bore the penalty of
their sins in His own body on the tree. The greatest picture of mercy.
The indescribable picture of mercy is the Lord of glory hanging
on a wooden cross outside of Jerusalem, suffering for sins
not His own personally, but because He voluntarily made Himself our
surety, He bears that sin on the tree He acts in that mercy
that before the world began, God in mercy determined not to
impute our trespasses to us. Mercy acts in imputation. God in mercy said, I'm not going
to impute their sins to them. Mercy acts again. I'm going to
impute their sins all to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Substitute. Mercy says again, I'm not only
going to do that, but I'm going to impute His righteousness to
them. Now you think about that. That's
mercy. That's mercy. Because if you
notice, at the center of Israel's worship, certainly so in the
tabernacle, and then in this temple that they were building
again on this occasion, at the center of it was this mercy seat. was taken by the high priest
once a year into that Holy of Holies and sprinkled at that
appointed place where God said He would meet with His people.
Where was that? It was on the mercy seat. That
golden lid on the top of the Ark of the Covenant He called
the mercy seat. And he demonstrated in that,
that the only way that God could be merciful to sinners such as
we are, is through the shedding of perfect blood. We as sinners are a part of a
race. We're men and women. who would come and die in our
place and be the mercy of God to us. Has to be bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh, and yet at the same time as being
one able to die, he has to be God so as to add infinite worth
and value to his sacrifice and his death be salvation for a
multitude. But that mercy pictured simply how God shows mercy. And when you come to the New
Testament, what we find is that the mercy of God was always in
this person and through his death, the Lamb of God. Turn over to Luke chapter 1. You know, you grow up in religion,
you hear these chapters read every Christmas and all these
things. But I want you to look at Luke
chapter 1 at what Zacharias, who was filled
with the Spirit of God." It says that in verse 67. And what the Spirit of God said
through Zacharias, who was Elizabeth's husband, "'Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. and
hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant
David, as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have
been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us." What does that next
verse say? To perform the mercy. to perform the mercy promised
to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Now, this mercy, while it is
without a doubt in this person he's talking about, the Messiah,
it is a mercy performed, accomplished. And this is what the Lord Jesus
Christ did on that cross. He accomplished the mercy that
God promised to His covenant people long, long ago. And in the New Testament, the
mercy seat, which is made reference to, like in Hebrews 9 where it
says, "...and over it the cherubims of glory, shadowing the mercy
seat." It has applied this same thing to the Lord Jesus Christ
and His death. Romans 3, Paul says, "...whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation." Now, technically speaking, you
had the mercy seat, which is the propitiatory. And then you had the sacrifice,
the blood that was sprinkled on it, which was the propitiation,
the propitiatory sacrifice. And Paul says, God set forth
Christ, the propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare
His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. He describes Christ as being
a merciful and faithful high priest. He's the priest of mercy. He's the sacrifice of mercy. He's the mercy seat of mercy. He's everything. You see, God's wrath is appeased,
and that's what a good portion of propitiation is all about.
It means to turn away disfavor and to restore unto favor. And
that was all accomplished through the doing and the dying of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so here are these people.
And you know, Israel scares me a lot. You know why Israel scares
me? Israel scares me because they
do things just like me. There never was a time that the
nation of Israel, these very people we're reading about this
morning, there never was a time when they ever did anything to
merit God's blessing. Oh, they were always saying,
Moses, tell us what to do and we'll do it. The law was always
saying, do this and the Lord will bless. They never got one
blessing that way. Instead, they're characterized
by unbelief and failure and all that. And so when this occasion
comes, and here they've been in captivity and bondage and
the worship of God just almost made non-existent, and now the
Lord has turned the heart of this King who has conquered them. There's any among you of this
God, you go back to Jerusalem and build the temple. And now
they look out there and the workers have worked, and some old stonemason
or something, I don't know what he was, but he laid that last
stone in making that foundation that will be the whole foundation
of this temple. Just like Christ had laid one
foundation. And they had to stop. And knowing
that they didn't deserve it, knowing that they had failed,
knowing that there was no way that they could in any way deserve
it, they had to stop and praise God for His mercy that endures
forever. Their faithfulness hadn't endured. My faithfulness doesn't endure.
but His mercy endures. But before we can ever take our
place as one of these singers, praisers for mercy, we've got to take ourselves into
the character of the publican. You remember the publican? Luke 18 says that one day two
men went into the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other
one was a publican. One was a man who could stand
before God and this was his prayer. I thank you God that I'm not
like other people, such as this publican. He was just how Christ
described him. and others like him, saying that
they trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others." Here he is. But God save us from being like
him. But rather being like this publican,
where it says, "...and the publican, standing afar off, would not
lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but he smote upon his
breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner." God, be merciful
to me, THE sinner. And guess what that word merciful
is there? Propitiated. God be propitiated
toward me, the sinner. Have mercy on me in Christ. If you read Psalm 136, you just go home and read Psalm 136,
that whole chapter states something that God did And then the repeat,
the refrain is, for His mercy endures forever. Sometimes I
think that there never has been anybody who's ever tried, tested
the fullness of God's mercy like me. But this is His promise. His
mercy endures forever. You can't wear it out. I've tried. You can't plumb the depths of
it. You can't spend it out. Because it is as infinite as
His glorious Son. And so every day, it seems like,
finds me calling out to the Lord for mercy. I never reached a
state where I could say, Don't you bless me today and help me
today because I was a pretty good guy yesterday. No. Richard, I'm still calling for
mercy. Mercy. Look over in your hymn books.
In Hymns 6-14. You're familiar, I'm sure, with
a man by the name of Augustus Toplady. Most everybody has sung
Rock of Ages at one time or another. Good hymn. But this hymn on number 614 is
called, A Debtor to Mercy Alone. And in it he says, "...a debtor
to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing, nor fear with thy righteousness
on my person an offering to bring. The terrors of law and of God
with me can have nothing to do. My Savior's obedience and blood
hide all my transgressions from view. The work which His goodness
began, the arm of His strength will complete. His promise is
yea and amen and never was forfeited yet. Things future nor things
that are now, not all things below or above, can make him
his purpose forego or savor my soul from his love. My name in
the palms of his hands eternity will not erase. Impressed on
his heart it remains in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I to
the end shall endure as sure as the earnest is given. more
happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven. Every one God saves owes it to the mercy of God in
Christ crucified. Father, this day we In our unworthiness,
thank you, and we join this group to sing praise and thanksgiving
to you that your mercy endures forever toward that Israel that
is spiritually the people that you chose and gave to Christ,
made Him responsible for, caused Him to bear each one of them
in Himself through death and into resurrection. We thank you
for your Spirit, which alone can show us our need, alone can
mightily and effectually bring us to confess the Lord Jesus
Christ. To thank you for that mercy in
Him. All glory and all praise be to you, all honor, worlds
without end, because your mercy endures forever. We ask and pray all things through
our one Mediator and Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus. Amen.