The LORD's Mercies

Book Study. 26th of June. 2021
 

Your near and dear mercies were first the LORD's before they were yours - and always the LORD's more than they were yours. When God gives mercy, he does not relinquish His own right in that mercy.

1 Chronicles 29.14 Everything comes from You, and we have given You only what comes from Your hand.

The sweet of mercy is yours, but the sovereign right to dispose of your mercies is the LORD's. Whatever you are, you owe to Him who made you; and whatever you have, you owe to Him who redeemed you. You say it is but just and reasonable that men should do with their own as they please, and is it not just and reasonable that God, who is LORD paramount, should do with His own as He pleases? Do you believe that the great God may do in heaven as He pleases? And on the seas what He pleases? And on the nations and kingdoms of the world what He pleases? And do you not believe that God may do in your house what He pleases, and do with your mercies what He pleases?

Job 9.12 "Behold, He takes away", or He snatches away, it may be a husband, a wife, a child, an estate, 'who can hinder Him? Who can say to Him, what are you doing?' Who dares cavil against God? Who dares question that God who is unquestionable, that sovereign LORD who is uncontrollable, and He may do with His own whatever He pleases? Daniel 4.35 "All the people of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the people of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: what have you done?" Where is the prince, the peasant, the master, the servant, the husband, the wife, the father, the child, that dares say to God, 'What have you done?' Isaiah 14.9

Thomas Brooks

Ezekiel 24:16-18  Son of man, behold, I take away from you your wife with a stroke: yet neither shall you mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down. Do not cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of your head upon you, and put on your shoes upon your feet, and cover not your  lips, and eat not the bread of men. So I spoke to the people in the morning: and at evening my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded. 

In this age, God's true servants are on a seemingly futile errand void of visible results. They are displayed as spectacles of ridicule. (Judgement is always ridiculous to its recipient before it falls on their heads.) And as if rejection was not enough, a divorce from the world is called for, a divorce from men's opinions, and a divorce from common passions as well. Sometimes, a divorce from common reason too. There is never a time in any public proclamation that I was without severe apprehensions, and many things manifest in the physical that the mind tries to justify to itself. But the will to obey overrides these things, in the end God always delivers. He commands, and He provides. He gets all the glory. I get to go home safe and do it another day.

If we do not question God on the things we accomplish under His grace, why question God on things He does under His sovereignty? Father gave me His word early in my walk, when I surrendered the sin that was very dear to me. It echoes the very words of my soul. Psalm 39:9  I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

In His mercy, He pried me away from darkness and death, and into Light and Life. It was no gentle prying, for I bled, I wept, and I died. And though it may not have been gentle, yes, but it was surely merciful. What great liberty and comfort it brings me to know I need not question God on whatever He pleases to do, for He always does what is right.