Thy mercy, my God, is the theme
of my song. Welcome, friends, to another
broadcast of Morse's For Zion's Poor. The scriptures tell us
that the one true and living God is beyond the comprehension
of men, who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. He singularly dwells in
a realm into which no man can enter. For thus saith the high
and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity. He alone is eternal
and immortal. Thus he says of himself, I am
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last. When Moses asked to see his glory,
he replied, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man
see me and live. Yet he did hide Moses in a cliff
of the rock in order that he might behold the backside of
his glory as he passed by. Thus he manifested himself as
a God of sovereign mercy. As he said, I will make all my
goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. In this, he revealed that his
glory is in his sovereign mercy, which is the exact characteristic
of the true and living God, which the natural man hates the most.
Men will line up to speak about the general mercy and love of
God. Yet when the Lord reveals that he dispenses mercy not to
every individual, but to those whom he wills, then rebellion
begins to simmer and the carnal understanding of man recoils
at the thought. And men grow angry and are ready
to cast those who would so proclaim that truth off of the nearest
cliff. Natural religious men love to
speak of God and His love and mercy as long as they can do
so in sort of a generic sense, where all men get a fair chance
and a square deal. Yet the declaration that God's
mercy is dispensed to whom He wills and withheld from whom
He wills will generally generate fits of bitter rage among them.
Since men cannot comprehend Him who is incomprehensible, they
do often make the mistake of thinking that He is just like
them. Yet He is not like men, as we read in Isaiah. For my
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. Because of man's innate rebellion
against the absolute authority and power of God, he often imagines
that there are some limitations which he, being a creature, is
able to impose upon him who is the creator. Some men honestly
believe that God is powerless to do anything unless they will
to allow him to do so. Thus they believe that man can
tie the hands of God. This is sheer folly of the highest
order. God has no limitations, except those which are the result
of his own purpose and character. He is an absolute God, whose
will and way cannot be overturned or even questioned. The only
limits that there are upon the true God are those which exist
in the fertile imaginations of men, because of their unbelief,
complaint, and rebellion against Him. The psalmist said they remembered
not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy.
This is a damnable trait which is found in all men by nature.
He is faithful and true unto his people, yet in the flesh
they constantly doubt his mercy and longsuffering to them. The
love and mercy of the Lord to his elect people is completely
without condition or limitation of any kind. Why should we ever
doubt it or question his goodness except that we think he is like
unto us? Thus the gospel of free grace is to be proclaimed without
reservation. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ. He said, My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. Begone fear and unbelief! Has
he not both promised and demonstrated his purpose to redeem his elect
by suffering and dying in the behalf of those he has come into
the world to save? Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord, who being the brightness of his glory,
and the express image of his person, and upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. He is
an unlimited God indeed. If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at forthepoor at windstream.net.