Mercy Withdrawn...Pt 3 of 3

15 Minutes

What is this withdrawn mercy? All light in the heavens will be extinguished, and there will be great darkness over the whole earth. God will allow an orchestrated implosion and explosion of evil and corruption. The warning has been given in the midst of great turmoil. The time to call out to lost souls ended with the final test disregarded. God’s patience worn and His warnings were not taken seriously. The Lord was merciful, but of this there could be no repentance. This is the very terrible chapter of humanity. This is the very portion of the wrath of God where there is no measure of repentance acceptable for forgiveness. Unjust and filty are the recipients. These thought it their fancy to escape from God’s divine judgment. Boastful worldlings without prayerful forethought of their vice and prodigality. Thinking their sins safer as to put them out of reach of the knowledge of God. These boast themselves in the glory of their strength, and in the hardness of their hearts. These are the men who sit aloft, thinking to be beyond the reach of the arrows of Jehovah. What folly!

No man is at any moment beyond the reach of the vengeance of God. The Lord has but to remember the callous and secure, and straightway the joints of their loins shall be loosed. We know not how many doors of wrath the Lord will come at the guilty, but come at them He will. All are debtors of divine favor but when ceasing to acknowledge the God of heaven you are reckoned an adversary upon whom He will dispense justice. You should have run to God for the power of His mercy. Sinful behavior is the destruction of the wicked. Mercy repeatedly warned the world. But it is time for God to work. The world loved violence, so, God Himself instigates this violence...His wrath. This judgment of God is dreadful, but it is not capricious or arbitrary. It is the consequence of wickedness. Have regard to the truth of God’s Word. This is how God shows His love for His faithful people. The judgment of God and His grace are brought together at the end. God has laid the judgment without mercy upon those who rejected every appeal and His grace upon His obedient ones who ceased to sin. This is how God showed His love for people who had fully deserved this judgment yet found in Christ, the way, the truth, the life. This is the only way that we could see who God is, in His judgment and in His compassion. Ironically, as God’s people, we offered truth to save lives. How providential that truth dismissed or denied could lead to an all destroying judgment.

The way of God in history is inseparably joined to His election, and to His judgments over His own people and His own Son. None can deny the unique situation that took place in Calvary on Golgotha at the cross. From here, in both the old and new testament, from the debate in heaven to the expulsion of Satan, from the admonition given at the tree to the eating of the fruit, from the sounding of the three angels message to the Sunday law, earth and heaven viewed the wrath of God so that none are without excuse to turn, to turn. There are some people so hard of character that they are scarcely moved to consider the information concerning God’s wrath. In this they grieve the Holy Spirit. For God and His people, this grief is a sweet combination of anger and of love, for it is the wisdom of knowing the consequence. It is anger, but all the gall is taken from it. Love sweetens the anger, and turns the edge of it, not against the person, but against the offense of sin not regretted, sin not renounced, and sin unrepented of. The Holy Ghost is God, and the inspired word of warning is this; do not excite his loving anger, do not vex him, do not cause him to mourn? He is a dove; do not cause him to mourn, because you have treated him harshly and ungratefully. From these is mercy withdrawn as they ignored the love of the Spirit, the sealing of the Spirit, and entered upon grieving the Spirit.

The mercy seat symbolizes God's throne in the holy of holies, where He judges men's conduct, and its name reflects the basic nature of His judgments, which rest on mercy. God designed ways to help men so He can be merciful. There is this principle which is assisted in making natural men sensible of their desert of wrath, it is natural conscience. Though man has lost a principle of love to God, and all spiritual principles, by the fall, yet natural conscience remains. Now there are two things, which are the proper work of natural conscience. One is to give man a sense of right and wrong. A natural man has no sense of the beauty and amiability of virtue, or of the turpitude and odiousness of vice. But yet every man has that naturally within, which testifies to him that some things are right, and others wrong. So, if a man steals, or commits murder, there is something within, which tells him that he has done wrong. He knows that he has not done right.

Romans 2:14, 15

And the other work of natural conscience is to suggest the relation there is between right and wrong, and a retribution, a judgment, a justice, a wrath. Man has that in him, which suggests to him, when he has done adverse to right, there comes a relation between that doing wrong and penalty. If a man has done that which his conscience tells him is wrong, is unjust, his conscience tells him that he deserves to be disciplined for it. So, natural conscience has a twofold power; a teaching or accusing, and a condemning power. The Spirit of God, therefore, assists natural conscience the more thoroughly to do this, its work, and so convinces a man of sin. Conscience naturally suggests, when he has done a known evil, that he deserves punishment, and being assisted to its work thoroughly, a man is convinced that he deserves no mercy. Though natural conscience does remain in the man since the fall, yet it greatly needs assistance in order to its work. It is greatly hindered in doing its work by sin. Everything in man is hindered and impaired by sin. A faculty of reason remains since the fall, but it is greatly impaired and blinded when not seated with God’s word. So natural conscience remains, but sin, in a great degree, stupefies it, and hinders it in its work. Now when God convinces a sinner, He assists his conscience against the stupefaction of sin, and helps it to do its work more freely and fully. The Spirit of God works immediately upon men’s consciences. From this the history of salvation progressed that everyone was granted faith to be saved. It is in this designed doctrine that God’s mercy was inherent from the beginning that its richness must be found in His love for His creation made to praise, reverence, and serve God. By accomplishing this we are saved, we are brought into the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2:4

It is the will of God that the discoveries of His terrible majesty, and awful holiness and justice, should accompany the discoveries of His grace and love, in order that He may give to His creatures worthy and just apprehensions of Himself. God is not a God who plays with sin. Neither God nor time can tolerate sin. God is eternal. Time was brought to bring sin to its end. Mercy is granted to the sinner seeking forgiveness, not to the sin. Wrath is upon the one who rejects mercy as the love of God. Continual, persistent, conscious rejection of God's mercy makes men accountable to God's wrath. Simply put, sin is a rejection of God. It is a rejection of God as love, mercy, goodness, beauty, and truth. Because of this, sin is the path to the doorway shut to mercy and opened to the wrath of God. It is the glory of God that these attributes are united in the divine nature, that as He is a being of infinite mercy and love and grace, so He is a being of infinite and tremendous majesty, holiness, and awful wrath and certain justice. The perfect and harmonious union of these attributes in the divine nature, is what constitutes the chief part of their glory.

The mystery of divine condescension opens to view God’s awful and terrible attributes in light of sin, and His mild and gentle attributes, reflect glory one on the other, and the exercise of the one is in perfect consistency and harmony with that of the other. If there were the exercise of the mild and gentle attributes without the other, and if there were love and mercy and grace in inconsistency with God’s authority and justice and infinite hatred of sin, it would be no glory. If God’s love and grace did not harmonize with His justice and the honor of His majesty, far from being an honor, they would be a dishonor to God. Therefore, as God designs to glorify Himself when He makes revelation of the one, He will also make revelation of the other. When He makes discoveries of His love and grace, it shall appear that they harmonize with those other attributes. Otherwise His true glory would not be discovered. If men were sensible of the love of God without a sense of those other attributes, they would be exposed to have improper and unworthy apprehensions of God, as though He were gracious to sinners in such a manner as did not become a Being of infinite majesty and infinite hatred of sin. And as it would expose to unworthy apprehensions of God, so it would expose man in some respects to behave unsuitably towards God. There would not be a due reverence blended with love and joy for God.

Such encounters of love, without answerable discoveries of awful greatness, would dispose the soul to come with an undue boldness to God. The very nature and design of the gospel show that this is the will of God, that those who have the discoveries of His love, should also have the discoveries of those other attributes. We are to know that to love God is to keep His commandments and to sin is to warrant His wrath. For this was the very end of Christ’s laying down his life, and coming into the world, to render the glory of God’s authority, holiness, and justice, consistent with His grace in pardoning and justifying sinners, that while God thus manifested His mercy, we might not conceive any unworthy thoughts of Him with respect to those other attributes. Seeing, therefore, that this is the very aim of Christ’s coming into the world, we may conclude that those who are actually redeemed by Christ, and have a true discovery of Christ made to their souls, have a discovery of God’s terribleness and justice to prepare them for the finding of His love and mercy. God, of old, before the death and suffering of Christ were so fully revealed, was ever careful that the discoveries of both should be together, so that men might not apprehend God’s mercy in pardoning sin and receiving sinners, to the disparagement of His justice. God is careful even in heaven, where the discoveries of His love and grace are given in such an exalted degree, also to provide means for a proportional sense of His terribleness, and the dreadfulness of His displeasure, by their beholding it in the miseries and torments of the expelled angels, at the same time that they enjoy His love. Even the man Christ Jesus was first made sensible of the wrath of God, before his exaltation to that transcendent height of acceptance in and of the Father’s love. And this is one reason that God gives sinners a sense of His wrath against their sins, and of His justice, before He gives them the discoveries of His redeeming love.

To exalt the love of God the Father, in giving His Son to us, and to exalt Jesus Christ by our praise, who laid down his life for us to redeem us from all iniquity. This we say, “how miserable should we have been, had not God had pity upon us, and provided us a Savior! In what a miserable condition should we have been, had not Christ loved us, and given himself for us! We must have endured that dreadful wrath of God; we must have suffered the

punishment which we had deserved by all that great sin and wickedness of which we have been guilty.” The word of God will discard us who do not magnify the name of God. The scriptures are very clear that God cannot tolerate sin with the least degree of allowance. In doctrine and covenant we are shown both sides of this issue. The law giver cannot tolerate sin in any way. Breaking commandments is completely unacceptable. There is a deadline that will invalidate God’s mercy. His Spirit will not always strive with man. Each of us must make a choice concerning the final decree, and that choice will be for eternity or for ultimate end.

Mercy withdrawn is part of the eternal progression of salvation. When we are willing to continually accept more light and intelligence from God, which can happen because we repent and bring our lives into agreement with His commandments, He will continue to enlighten our minds and bless our lives. Our wisdom will increase. But when we declare, through our disobedience or rejection of truth, that we are no longer interested in progressing beyond where we are, then we start to slide backwards. It is actually God’s mercy that causes this backwards slide. If we know something and don’t live it, then we are held accountable for it. When we can know something and reject the additional light and truth God has available to give us, we gradually lose the ability to comprehend those truths we currently understand, so we no longer hold responsibility to the same degree for the truths we once understood clearly. And we are, however, still held accountable for rejecting the truth. The history of the judgment and the grace of God leads to the coming of His Son Jesus Christ. As the great Substitute, Jesus placed himself under the judgment of God, and in God’s wrath, mercy abandoned. In Jesus, the love of God for man, for the whole of creation was revealed in all its fullness. We are so impressed with God’s mercy that we know that the purposed reason for mercy is the necessity of God’s justice. The promise of entering into His rest stands. For this reason, and for this reason alone, we can love the God who reveals Himself in His word, and entrust ourselves completely to His express will. Mercy withdrawn shows the seriousness of sin and the greatness of our salvation. Ours is the awe, the thankfulness for the love of God. We, who know the truth of God, intertwine the reality of His wrath and the heavenly comparison of His love. And though we do not fully understand God’s wrath, we do know that without it, we cannot have God’s love. God’s wrath forms our indignation for sin that has corrupted human souls in the very world in which we live. And God, in His holiness, hates that sin perverts the creation in which He loves. If His mercy is not withdrawn and His wrath not brought forth, the corruption from sin would wipe out all the inhabitants of the earth. We must reason both God’s love and God’s wrath. They are

interconnected. God loves us, and God hates sin. Because of God’s holiness and pureness, whenever we sin, we have defiled ourselves and cannot be in the presence of a holy God. The shock of even brushing against a holy God, sinful as we are, would simply kill us. God wants to dwell in direct and eternal communion with us. He will unleash His wrath. It matters that the faithful people of God talk about God’s wrath. We cheapen God’s love if we don’t show what fate He has spared us from by dying for our sins and allowing us to come into eternity with Him. By talking about God’s wrath, we understand the gravity of our sins. We realize just how much God had to do to gather us home. We have a greater understanding of God’s love and can love Him all the more for it. When we obtain a knowledge of divine love, divine truth, and divine justice, we will speak of divine wrath as a function of our living. In our peace and being perfected we will allow nothing, no one to defile the truth of God’s word. We will withstand all who seek to fault God for His wrath. Love is intrinsic to who God is. And without love at the center of our relationship with God, worship is pretty well impossible. Our love is a response to all that God does. And we have no opposition, no disassociation to any attribute of God. Our love effectively favors the withdrawal of mercy to affect the wrath of God that sin may be forever done away with. In our reasoning with the wealth of biblical texts, we see the portrayal of God in all His long suffering, His graciousness toward us, and the depth of His tender mercies. And we pause in silence that speaks a thousand words to recognize God’s benevolence. Wrath is the inevitable experienced consequences of man’s own actions. Wonderfully, it is the wrath of God that removes the distance that sin caused. Yet it is still the mercy of God that is giving us the time to bring others to wisdom as the day of God’s wrath is yet to come. Wrath is the condition everyone is under but can be redeemed from, due to the loving initiative of the triune God revealed in incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The written story of the bible is about God performing to redeem, restore, forgive, heal and warn so that those He loves will not face His wrath after the judgment.

Let’s personalize our understanding of the wrath of God, taking into account a God who is passionate about justice and personally committed to overcoming all powers that destroy and corrupt His good creation. His wrath is directed against behaviors that are destructively contrary to His eternal purposes. Multiple prophetic forewarnings present individual choice to avert an ultimate self-destructive experience of wrath. That makes wrath a self- chosen cause and effect decreed by God to bring sin to its logical end. It's the outworking of God’s theology of divine sovereignty in the theme of holiness. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter...