Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3317
“He delights in mercy.” Micah 7:18.
Sons of men, rejoice that such a God has revealed Himself to you! This should cause a universal Hallelujah, the whole world over, as soon as ever it is heard! “He delights in mercy.” Clap your hands and rejoice before Him! Yes, exceedingly rejoice! The heathen did not find this out. Although they had many gods, differing one from another in character, none of them were ever gods of mercy! They were usually fierce demons—some of them only rejoicing in the exaction of human blood. Go this very day to Hindustan and see what gods man makes unto himself—gods more beastly, more cruel, more devilish than himself! Such is not the living and true God! Far from taking pleasure in the sufferings of creatures, He tells us plainly that He delights in mercy. It is not enough that He is merciful, but He delightsin this high prerogative! While we may well suppose that every attribute of God gives Him pleasure in the exercise, mercy is supremely singled out as being especially His favorite! Mercy is the last attribute openly manifested—He exercised His power in making men before they sinned or needed mercy—and He displayed His wisdom in balancing the clouds and piling the hills before He needed to show mercy, for sin as yet had not come into the world. If I may say so, mercy is God’s Benjamin and He delights most of all in it. It is the son of His right hand, though, alas, in bringing it forth, it might well have been called the son of sorrow, too, for mercy came into this world through the sorrows of the Only-Begotten Son of God! He delights in mercy, just as some men delight in trade, some in the arts, some in professions—and each man, according to his delight, becomes proficient in pursuing a work for the very love thereof. So God is proficient in mercy. He addicts Himself to it. He is most Godlike, most happy if such a thing may be said of Him! When He is stretching out His right hand with His golden scepter in it, and saying to the guilty, “Come to Me. Touch this scepter and you shall live!” He delights in mercy!
Now, surely it would suffice were I to sound this trumpet again and again with its celestial monotone. If you heard nothing but the same unvarying notes and did but remember them, believe them and come to God in consequence of them—there would be enough of a sermon in the text without further exposition or comment. “He delights in mercy.” Nevertheless, as you are willing to listen, it will not be grievous to me to speak on such a lovely theme. Let me, therefore, mention some facts which prove it, answer some objections that are raised against it and warn you against some perversions of it and then endeavor to push home the great lessons which spring from it.
I. Facts Which Prove that God Delights in Mercy
This is clear from the first dawn of promise. When our first parents sinned, He might, if He had pleased, without straining the words which He had spoken, have destroyed them both and so at once have put an end to the race of rebels. He had said, “In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.” If He had chosen to give to that a literal as well as a spiritual meaning, He might surely have put on the black cap and condemned our parents to perish on the spot! But why did He permit them to live and to become the parents of an innumerable race? Why, from that single pair, has He allowed the millions of the race to spring? Because every man that is born becomes a sinner and in everyone of these millions there is space for God’s mercy—these all furnish so many platforms, I might say, on which God might display His mercy—so many millions of black foils against which God shall put the sparkling sapphire of His mercy that its brightness may be more clearly seen! Surely, it is only because He delights in mercy that He spares this earth to swarm with sinners and to be covered over with multitudes of transgressors!
That He delights in mercy is clear from the fact that oftentimes after His anger has grown hot, He has spared the offender when he has repented. God determined to destroy the race of Israel in the wilderness. “Let Me alone that I may
destroy them.” But the prayer of Moses touched the tender part of God, namely, His mercy—and He said that He would spare the people for His Covenant and for His Prophet’s sake. Even Ahab, that most cruel of kings, when he had been threatened, humbled himself and God said to Elijah, “Go and say unto Ahab, Because he has humbled himself, this thing shall not be in his day.” And that great city of Nineveh, which had been given up to all manner of evil, God had said to Jonah, “Go and cry, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” But when they put themselves in sackcloth and repented at the Prophet’s warning, the Lord would not destroy the city, but spared the multitude for a season. Oh, I tell you, the tears and cries of men move the heart of the Most High! Not a prayer that ever comes from the most guilty breast, if it is but sincere, fails to enter into the ear of the God of Mercy! The tears of penitents force their way into His soul. He has a bottle for those precious drops! He has a ready record for all their groans and sighs. He has proved this in innumerable cases. He has drawn the sword from its scabbard and put it back again when the man has repented. He has lifted the axe, yet laid it down again when the farmer has pleaded and said, “Let it alone this year, also.” His sparing, even when His anger has grown hot, proves that He delights in mercy!