MERCY

Excerpt from C.J. Mahaney's sermon "When Someone Doubts," Resolved Conference, June 2011. [Roughly transcribed from the audio MP3 by yours truly (begins at approx. 23min)]

"If you are a Christian this morning, it is because God, who is rich in mercy, has been merciful toward you by substituting his son on the cross for your sins and revealing this sacrifice to you through the proclamation gospel. If you a Christian, that is why you are a Christian! If you are a Christian, it is because you have become an object of the mercy of God. If you are a Christian, it is because, in the mystery of this mercy, he sent his only begotten son, and he crushed him, he crushed him! with the full weight of your sin and his righteous, furious wrath against your sin on the cross. If you are a Christian today, it is because of that mercy on full display on that cross. If you are a Christian today, it is because, in the mystery of his mercy, his son became the sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing substitute for you and your sins on the cross. If you are a Christian this morning, it is because God has had mercy on you by substituting his son: "in my place on the cross he stood."  If you are a Christian this morning, it is because in the midst of his mercy, somebody, at some point in the time, proclaimed the gospel to you, and God opened the eyes of your heart and you, once dead in your trespasses and sins, an object of the righteous and furious [wrath] of God, were, in an instant, made alive! And you, by grace, turned from your sin and trusted in the Savior for the forgiveness of sin. You were forgiven; you were forgiven for all your sins! You were justified, you were reconciled, you were redeemed, you were adopted. If you are a Christian, it is because God has had mercy on you."


Dang. Amen.

I need to hear this all the time, over and over, unceasingly.

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love..."

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
By Ro­bert Ro­bin­son, 1758


Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;

How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

http://grooveshark.com/s/Come+Thou+Fount/1Yr0IC?src=5

Sometimes, when I get a chance to actually get over myself, I find myself thinking... "It's insane and appalling how much hate I have in my heart." And then, I can just barely begin to comprehend how much more infinitely insane it is that Christ showed mercy and died for that hate (and the rest of my deplorable soul) so that I could live and come to know salvation; so that I could be an heir of GOD and a fellow heir with the Son of God...

Complete madness. Complete gospel.

The nature of mortification

When men are wounded by sin, disquieted and perplexed, and knowing that there is no remedy for them but only in the mercies of God, through the blood of Christ, do therefore look to him, and to the promises of the covenant in him, and thereupon quiet their hearts that it shall be well with them, and that God will be exalted, that he may be gracious to them, and yet their souls are not wrought to the greatest detestation of the sin or sins upon the account whereof they are disquieted--this is to heal themselves, and not to be healed of God... When men do truly "look upon Christ whom they have pierced," without which there is no healing or peace, they will "mourn" (Zech. 12:10); they will mourn for him, even upon this account, and detest the sin that pierced him. When we go to Christ for healing, faith eyes him particularly as one pierced... when [faith] goes for healing and peace, it looks especially on the blood of the covenant, on his sufferings; for "with his stripes we are healed, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him" (Isa. 53:5). When we look for healing, his stripes are to be eyed--not in the outward story of them, which is the course of popish devotionists, but in the love, kindness, mystery, and design of the cross; and when we look for peace, his chastisements must be in our eye.

Owen, John, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor. Overcoming Sin & Temptation. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006. 119-20. Print.

The nature of mortification

More often than not, I take my sin way too lightly, and either ignore it completely or take the Lord's sacrifice on the cross for granted. And then I flip curiously to this page I bookmarked many months ago, and I'm immediately brought to my knees.

"Bring your lust to the gospel--not for relief, but for further conviction of it's guilt; look on him whom you have pierced [Zech. 12:10; John 19:37], and be in bitterness. Say to you soul:

What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father to his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus require the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value, that for this vile lust's sake I have scarce left him any room my heart? How shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation? In the meantime, what shall I say to Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation--I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of naught, that I might harbor a lust in my heart. Have I obtained a view of God's fatherly countenance, that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed, that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavor to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?"

Owen, John, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor. Overcoming Sin & Temptation. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006. 105. Print.

"when i am tempted to despair..."

Out of the Depths
By Bob Kauflin

Out of the depths, O Lord, I cry to You
When I am tempted to despair
Though I might fail to trust Your promises
You never fail to hear my prayer
And if You judged my sin
I’d never stand again
But I see mercy in Your hands

So more than watchmen for the morning
I will wait for You, my God
When my fears come with no warning
In Your Word I’ll put my trust
When the harvest time is over and I still see no fruit
I will wait, I will wait for You

The secret mysteries belong to You
We only know what You reveal
And all my questions that are unresolved
Don’t change the wisdom of Your will
In every trial and loss
My hope is in the cross
Where Your compassions never fail

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

"Sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains!"

There is a Fountain Filled with Blood
by Will­iam Cow­per (1772)

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.