22 Mercy and Salvation Sought
Mercy and Salvation Sought "Show us Your mercy, O Lord, and grant us Your salvation." Psalms 85:7 The church recognizes God’s goodness, and pleads the grace He has displayed. She pleads that He has been favorable to His land, has brought back the captivity of Jacob, has forgiven the iniquity of His people, taken away all His wrath, and turned from the fierceness of His anger. Then she prays that He would turn her, revive her, rejoice her heart, and do so by showing His mercy, and granting His salvation.
We should look back to see what the Lord has done, to encourage us to seek and expect blessings at His hands. If the Lord has given us one spiritual blessing, He intends to give us more. Each is introductory to some other. If He begins a good work — He will carry it on. If He has a favor toward us — He will bring us to His feet, teach us to pray, give us penitence, produce faith in our hearts, enable us to wait and hope, and then grant us His salvation.
"Show us Your mercy, O Lord." Reveal, display, and exert it. Mercy supposes misery — and misery supposes sin; for all misery flows from sin. Sin is the source — and misery, in its various forms, is the stream which flows from that evil fountain. Mercy is the antidote of misery — God’s antidote. Mercy removes misery by a free pardon, inward sanctification, and holy employment. It blots out our sins, changes our dispositions, and sets us to work for God and His glory. Mercy is from God. He is its Author, and he exercises it as a Sovereign and a Father.
There is no sovereignty in divine justice, God is just alike to all; there is no sovereignty in divine punishment, for every one is punished just in proportion to his guilt; but divine mercy is sovereignly exercised. Do we refer to the object? "I will have mercy — on whom I will have mercy." Or do we refer to the exercise of it? "I will be merciful — because I will be merciful." As a Governor — God is strictly and impartially just; as a Father — God is freely and sovereignly merciful. Mercy is sometimes peculiarly displayed. To particular persons, as to David, Manasseh, Jonah, and Saul of Tarsus. To a particular people, as to Israel especially in Egypt.
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God’s mercy will satisfy the longing soul, and fill the hungry soul with goodness. If we drink of this stream, let us follow it up to its source, which is the God of mercy. It flows from Him freely, plentifully, continually; and whoever will, may come and take of these waters of life freely.
Reader, do you feel the need of mercy? Have you sought it? Have you found it? Do you enjoy it? Do you praise it? Do you commend it to others? Do you desire salvation? a salvation from all sin, all wrath, all penal sufferings? a salvation full of blessings, as free as the air, as lasting as eternity? It may be had. It may be had by you. It may be had by you now. There is nothing to hinder your enjoying it — but your own unbelief and hardness of heart. You must be saved — or lost. You must be unspeakably happy — or inconceivably miserable, and that forever! Which shall it be? O which? Let your prayer, your heart-felt prayer, your daily, yes hourly prayer, be, "Show me Your mercy, O Lord; and grant me Your salvation!" Then will you soon have to own, "He has saved me, and called me with a holy calling; not according to my works — but according to His own purpose aid grace which was given me in Christ Jesus before the world began."