The Compassionate Heart of God

Now, brethren, Isaiah 58, that's what I had my brother read tonight. I want to tell you what I want to do. I want us to think about the compassion of God.

Now I was asked to preach five messages on the attributes of God in the Netherlands in June. And so, I was thinking about these things and the compassion of God was the first one and I thought I want to develop that first for the Fellowship Conference here. Brethren, I want us to think of, I was just thinking of three windows that we can look through into the heart of God, the compassionate heart of God.

Now, I don't know what kind of Calvinist you guys are, but I can remember when I first got saved and I'm being introduced to, you know, you remember those days when you wondered if somebody denied election, John Wesley certainly couldn't be saved, right? He jumped on board with all the Arthur Pink and the sovereignty of God and if people didn't believe in limited atonement, they couldn't be saved and if they didn't understand Romans 9, they couldn't be saved and remember those days? And it was surprising, it was almost as though something like John 3.16. Did any of you come from circles like I did where in those early days is embracing the truth. I didn't hear American Calvinist preach on John 3.16. Maybe my circles were different and undoubtedly God was different than I ever thought as a phenomenal Catholic. But going to the Netherlands and dealing with a lot of hyper-Calvinism and a lot of views of God that go hand in hand with that, I thought compassion, the compassion of God would be a tremendous place and I've got these three windows that I want us to look at right now and think about what's a window? I want us to look through three windows into the compassionate heart of God.

What's a window? What do windows do? This is not rocket science folks. I'll tell you this, when I lived in England, you know what windows were good for? Letting the light in. Here in Texas, maybe you want to keep it out because it's hot light, but there, you want to let it in.

What windows do is they allow us to see what's on the other side and just thinking about this whole idea of windows, I recognize, brethren, we're thinking about looking into the heart of God, but you never want to think that I'm somehow on the large side. I'm in the outside looking on the inside somewhere. No, it's not like that.

I was picturing when I lived in England, I had this Honda CRV and of course it had the windows all the way around it and it had a sunroof and Ruby and I, especially in the summertime, we drive out into the peak district. Brethren, that's what it's like. We're on the small side of the window.

We're on the inside. Brethren, we'd drive out through those peaks. You never saw green.

Texas is green right now, but England, there were a thousand shades of green and that vivid blue sky and sheep scattered the dots across the side of the hills and the, oh, sometimes Ruby and I would drive through there and it often rained and we'd drive through there and it'd be sunlit, a sunlit land. You have the heat like beautiful, beautiful, and streams are flowing. Brethren, that's what this is like.

It's like I said, we're on the inside. We're on the small side of the window and it's like God's heart is out there. It's like the peak district in England in the summertime.

And that's what you want to imagine. And I've got these windows and brethren, we're going to look at those, but I just want you to think brethren, the compassion of God. Don't you? Wouldn't you all agree? The compassion of God just sounds good.

To have a compassionate God, one of the most precious realities in the world and a very obvious theme in the Bible. And if brethren, if we want to know who God really is, if we want to see into the window of his heart, it's not just wrath in there. It's not just justice in there.

It's not just purity in there. It's not just sovereignty in there. Of course, those things are there, but brethren, compassion, I don't know if this has really jumped out at you, but compassion is not just some incidental thing.

It's not just some peripheral thing with God. It's not some defect in his character. Compassion.

If we let Scripture speak, God conveys a tenderness. And listen, you come all the way through your Bibles and you get to the place where Moses in Exodus 34, he wants God to show him his glory. Now, look, I'm not going to make any kind of argument that you can't prove certain attributes of God in Genesis and maybe in the first 33 chapters of Exodus.

But one thing that we have to admit about Exodus 34 is it's God's first stated attribute. And it's this, the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God compassionate. And I know that's the New American Standard reading, but that is the word for compassion, sometimes translated merciful in many of our translations, it is that, is the word rakum.

Now the significance of that is that it's derived from the same root word. Here you have the first stated attribute of God. This highlights God's deep stirrings of care and tenderness towards humanity.

And you've got this verbal connection between rakum and rekem, which is womb. There is a verbal connection here between the two. And what you have in the Hebrew language, why would there be a connection between compassion and womb? Brethren, there's an obvious, it's conveying a depth of emotion associated with compassion that's drawing on the parallel of a mother's intense feelings for a child that she has in the womb.

Romans 9, I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion. God shows compassion with absolute intentionality and strength. And you know, we think of vessels of mercy there, but brethren, I was just reading Isaiah this week.

I came across this verse, joy and gladness are taken away. And this is God speaking about Moab. Joy and gladness are taken away.

No songs, no cheers raised. God says, I've put an end to the shouting. God's responsible.

Therefore, my inner parts moan like a liar for Moab. And I read that and I thought, here God is doing this, his inner parts. Brethren, one of the things I want us to, if we're going to get a glimpse into who God really is, look beyond, yes, there's sovereignty, yes, there's righteous judgments, but brethren, there is a true gentleness in our God.

Did you know God grieves over the wretched state of sinners? We've read that. As I live, says the Lord, as I live, he says, you think about what pleases God, what he takes pleasure in. He says, I don't take pleasure in the death of the wicked.

When you watch the types of things that are said, God's soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. God's soul, it couldn't endure. In all their affliction, he was afflicted.

We read things like this. Brethren, it's here that we're going to get one of the deepest glimpses of who God is. We read things like this, a KJ version reading of Psalm 119, 156, great are they tender mercies.

Or you know this verse, Hosea, how can I give you up O Ephraim? My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. Brethren, to think God is devoid of feeling, which we too often do, is to deny the being of God as truly and really as it's set forth in scripture.

It's only when we learn how profoundly God does feel that we're going to deal and have a right conception of the God with whom we have to deal with. And brethren, you think about this. Take the compassion away from God and what are the rest of his attributes? What are the rest of his attributes without that reality? A vast majority of them are very frightening attributes.

So three windows, and I want you to imagine these things. The first one is a parable. How the Son of God creates a parabolic picture for us.

So imagine it, you have the window, we imagine the window frame, we're looking through it. What do you see when you look through this window? What I see is the back of a man. Maybe I see just his shoulder and a half of his head through this window.

And there's a road, and the road goes off all the way to the horizon. Maybe not straight, maybe it winds, maybe it even rises, maybe there's hills out there in the distance. You see the picture.

Jesus Christ develops this parabolic portrait of his heavenly Father. And we know the story, the miserable prodigal, he squandered his father's wild living and prostitutes and the whole crazy thing. But you can see, we see through this.

Now brethren, Jesus is describing the Father for us. How do you see the Father? This is one of the most glorious, compassionate pictures presented to us in Scripture of the Father. This is what Jesus wants us to think about when we have conceptions of the Father.

And you see the speck on the road. Now he may be rehearsing to himself what he's going to say after he's squandered and he's now under conviction and he's come to his right senses in all of this. But the thing is, you have the back.

Why is his back to us? But because he's watching. And he's watching that speck that's approaching. We have a watching Father.

And we have a feeling Father. And we have a running Father. And we see him running and he's going after and there's the prodigal and he's an embracing and a kissing Father.

And there's compassion being shown, not contempt. After all the things that older brother felt the contempt. And we might rightly feel that if somebody did that to us as well.

But Jesus is painting this whole picture. He wants us to have this conception of the compassion of the Father. The Father is moving towards his half-dead son.

And he goes to him and he embraces him and he wraps him and he kisses him. And the son is trying to say something to him and confess something. But it's like the Father doesn't even hear that.

He's past that. And brother, don't you find that? That we have a Father that is always running to his prodigals. Brethren, I didn't know anything.

I came across John MacArthur's Gospel according to Jesus. And I'll tell you what I saw in there. He dealt with the prodigal.

And I saw that if I would lay down my weapons of rebellion, I had no question about it. He would come and he'd save me and he'd run to me and he'd embrace me and I'd be saved in a moment. And brethren, I found it to be exactly... He always runs for his prodigals.

And there is, if we're honest, there is nothing sweeter to the poor sinner, the needy sinner that is under conviction than pardoning mercy that gets expressed in kisses. Brethren, have you ever been in that place like the prodigal where you feel broken, you feel like you need to go to God, but your guilty conscience is kind of keeping you hesitating, kind of keeping you back, and you're not so inclined to run to him because of the guilt that you feel. And here he comes in grace.

I mean, brethren, can you imagine being weighed down with sin and you had to go to pitiless Allah? But brethren, that is not the picture that we get. The tender compassions of God are exactly the thing that woo us. Brethren, have we not found it to be so? Something in our conscience is telling us we can't really go to Him.

It's guilty and the devil's right there. You can't go to Him. You think He wants anything to do with you? Brethren, have we not always found that when we come down that road like the prodigal, we have found God to be always better and softer and sweeter than all of our whatever we anticipated? We have these ideas.

We have these pictures in our minds. But brethren, we come to Him. Have any of the rest of you been there where you feel like I deserve the rod? And you come to Him and He kisses you.

Anybody else been there? And that is exactly what Jesus is wanting us to. I mean, He just dispels our fear. He reassures our hesitating heart.

We come to Him and He bears us up in His arms and He kisses us and He braces. And brethren, as He embraces us in His arms, what do we see? I mean, how is one of the greatest ways that He kisses us? It's like the songs that we're singing. We kind of look over as He's embracing us.

We look over His shoulder. And what do you see in the background? His Son with a thorn crown and the shame and the suffering. And brethren, He did that.

He laid Him to grief. That Father did that. I mean, brethren, we want to bask in this compassion.

Brethren, we just want to immerse in the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness. Brethren, religion without compassion is what? It's religion without soul. It's without life.

Lost men come under conviction and yet that conscience stirs up. And brethren, when people come under conviction, oftentimes they have hard feelings of God. Oftentimes they feel like they are more willing to be saved than God is to save them.

As often, imagine God's severe and not willing. That was my father's response. My father got cancer.

I thought God used the Gospel according to Jesus in my life. I bought him the book. My dad read it.

After my dad died, I found his copy. The thing was dog-eared all over the place. My dad read that, read that book.

He called me one time and he said, Tim, after everything I've done, I don't think God wants anything to do with me. He had that, I said, Dad, you read about the prodigal. I said, which son did the father embrace and kiss? And it's like a light went on with my father.

I don't know if he was saved, but I have great hopes of it and eternity will tell. Brethren, Calvinism often conjures up just a picture of God that we're willing to have forgiveness, and God isn't so willing. But how does Jesus portray the father here? It's the very love and compassion of God that makes God so beautifully attractive.

Do you remember what Spurgeon said? I thought that Christ was cruel and unkind. Oh, I can never forgive myself that I should have thought so ill of Him. But what a loving reception did I have when I went to Him.

I thought He'd smite me, but His hand was not clenched in anger, but opened wide in mercy. His eyes were full of tears. He fell on my neck and kissed me.

I entreat you to stop and consider. Do you know what it is you're neglecting this morning or this evening? Brethren, I know there's many in this room that found it exactly that way. He fell on our neck.

And that is the picture that Jesus gives us of the Father. So that's one window to look through. The next window is this.

It's the Son of God Himself. And I was just thinking about this. Very often, don't you find this? How many of you have ever had to correct people who have this idea that the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament are different? You ever had to correct that? You ever heard that? Brethren, you know, we correct people like, well, that's a great error.

No, the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament, they're the same. But brethren, it ought not to surprise us that people think that. Why? Brethren, because in the New Testament, God Incarnate comes.

And how does He come? What does He look like? Jesus embodied the compassion of God. Did He not? I mean, you follow Him, follow in His footsteps, follow alongside Him. I mean, if you will, you can make me clean.

I will. What do you want me to do to you? My sight. Have you ever gone through the Gospels and just noticed all the text where the crowds came to Him and it says He healed them all? You just ever gone through and circled those or underlined those? Every person that came, can you find where anybody came to Him with a need that He turned away? Jesus' heart was made of tenderness.

He looked out across the people and He felt for them. They were like sheep. They were no shepherd.

He looked at them and He groaned and there were tears. I mean, brethren, what a wonder that when God Himself takes on our own flesh and blood and walks in our fallen world, what's He known for? He's known for compassion. And for people to actually think that the God of the New Testament is different than the God of the Old Testament, it really shouldn't surprise us because the New Testament has something that the Old doesn't.

It has God incarnate walking among us. And He came. He came known for His compassion.

And folks, we might not expect that. Why? Because He came in perfect holiness. He came in perfect holiness and He got right down next to wicked, defiled sinners.

I mean, we might not expect that He would have dealt with them. Holiness and sin don't mix. And Jesus didn't just perform compassionate works without the heart behind it.

I mean, you follow Him and you look at Him. He shed tears. You take the compassion of God and join it to humanity and it produced tears.

And I know I've heard people say, well, you know the tears in the crying of Jesus, that was all His humanity. Brethren, I'll tell you this. God joined with our nature and it produced tears.

And tears are a universal language. You may not speak the language, but you watch somebody. And it wasn't just at Lazarus' grave.

It was condemned Jerusalem. And their day was passed and He would have gathered them. And the tears came and it's much like God in the Old Testament, bemoaning Moab.

God not taking pleasure in the death of the wicked. And it's expressed this way. Incarnate compassion walked in our midst a window into the very heart of God.

Precisely because He was an incarnate display of the Father, and in Father's tender compassion for sinners, we get the sort of life and the sort of works from Christ that we get. I mean, that's what you have to recognize. He and His Father are one.

He is the radiance of the... When you follow Him along and you see all the things that He's doing, think about it, of all the things that God could have sent Him into the world to do, to express His power. He could have stopped storms like these that are coming. He could have just thrown them back.

I know He quieted the sea there. But I mean, He could have come and just shut down the hurricanes and shut down the tornadoes and stopped all the earthquakes. And He could have left buildings in a single bound.

He could have dried up the oceans. And He could have done all sorts of things to display power. But isn't it amazing? He came and He shed tears.

This is another window I'm wanting you to look through. We can stand and look through this window and just behold Jesus. Lord, if You will, You can make me clean.

And He was moved with compassion. Moved. He didn't just do compassionate works.

He felt the compassion. It produced tears. It produced a moving and a stirring within Him.

You recognize that what we see in Christ, all these excellencies of God and all of His attributes, and they come and they come. And Philip, have I been with you so long? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Do you see the Father's heart? Again, we're looking through these windows.

You've got Jesus' description of Him in the prodigal. And then you've got the Son of Man Himself, the Son of God. God sent His Son into this world to be a revelation of Himself.

And that's what we see. We see from the Son how deeply God feels. God incarnate approaches us.

Look through this window. See Him coming down the road towards you. God incarnate comes at us not hurling bolts of lightning.

He comes to us as a friend. And so that was the second window. The third window, and this is what takes us to Isaiah 58.

Brethren, not only does God have His Son come into the world and create this picture for us, a parabolic picture in the prodigal. We have this display of the Son of God Himself and the compassion. But think about how God views compassion in His people.

Brethren, this is no small thing. In fact, this is the point that I want to take the most time with. God finds it to be a very precious thing, this compassion that characterizes Him, that is the first stated attribute that He states about Himself.

Dracum, closely connected with womb. He presents Himself this way. Now when He surveys His people, we survey the cross.

He surveys us. And He is pure and undefiled religion. He is surveying it.

Isaiah 58, He is surveying the religion of His people. And Scripture tells us this, Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts. You know what's interesting? You go to the Sermon on the Mount, you know these verses.

You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now what I want to do is stand back just a second. What's He talking about there? Is He talking about, well we need to be perfect, and the only way you get that is through imputed righteousness? That's not what He's talking about right there.

He's talking about perfection. Brethren, do you know how often the New Testament talks about perfection? I find that we tend to fear that. You know Conrad Merle? Where's Mack? Wasn't Mack over there somewhere? Did Mack disappear? Mack, go home.

Where's Mack? I'm going to give that guy some thoughts later on. Conrad Merle, how many of you have you read all his gateposts? Anybody read all his gateposts? You know he's done one on perfection. Let me have a hand back there.

He says, I think he said in that one, he is going to be misunderstood, and people are not going to like what he writes, but you know what he did? He basically surveyed perfection in the New Testament. Oh brethren, boy, it gets a rise out of reformed people. They even catch a hint or a wind about perfection.

But do you know how often the term is used? And it's actually expected that it's something that we're chasing after. This perfection is a very practical reality. And I mean just in the context here, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute, be sons of your Father in heaven.

He makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, sends rain on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what reward? Tax collectors do the same. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

You know what he's saying there? We need to be a people that have compassion, even on people that don't love us. Just like our Father lets his sun shine on the just and the unjust, sends his rain. You know what? Those storms are going to come through and they're going to water the wicked man's field.

And he says that when we are like our Father, we show that kind of compassion. That is our perfection. That's amazing.

So we're looking through this window. Compassion on those who don't love us. Perfection.

And here's the thing. If you have never really studied Isaiah 58, the thing about compassion found in God's people is God attaches, in my estimation, the most remarkable set of promises found anywhere in our Bibles concerning our life here. Not in the future.

Not future glory. But as far as the promises that God gives to his people here in this lifetime, I don't think you've got any greater set of promises found anywhere than connected to the compassion that God wants us to show as expressed in Isaiah 58. And so let's turn in our Bibles there.

If you haven't turned anywhere yet, turn to Isaiah 58. So pleasing is this compassion showing that He attaches the most glorious promises. And again, I'm making the case, no better promises in this life.

Isaiah 58.3 Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? And brethren, what's the answer? In short, knowing the context, no compassion. Brethren, do you realize that God actually said something in Scripture like this? Speaking of a king, a good king, God says He judged the cause of the poor and the needy. Then it was well.

Is not this to know Me, declares the Lord? To judge the cause of the poor and the needy, that is to know God. Here's these people, Isaiah 58. Hey, we worship.

We come to the prayer meeting. We have the right doctrine. We have the right Puritans on our shelf.

We do all the right things. Why isn't anything happening? And what does Isaiah tell the people regarding their question? Verse 6 Is not this the fast I choose? To loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the straps of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry? Now you see, what I'm wanting to do is this third window, is I'm wanting you to look into the heart of God to see in His compassion as He examines His people.

What is it that He wants to find in us? What is it to know Him? And we do put a huge emphasis on right doctrine. Brethren, I want you to see as important as that is, as absolutely essential as that is, God is looking for us to be perfect as He is perfect and display that heart of compassion as He displays it. So, is this not it? Undo the straps of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke.

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry? Bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. The perfection of compassion. Brethren, expressions of benevolence.

How important is this to God as He surveys our religion? And brethren, like I said, He does survey our religion. And it's much like Matthew 25 as He surveys people's religion on Judgment Day. Isn't it amazing? There is no, well, you guys were Calvinists and you guys weren't.

I was hungry and you fed me to those on His right. I was hungry and you did not feed me. Isn't that amazing that when you have Judgment Day boiled down, the six things that Jesus references there, and they all come back to this.

They come back to us expressing this compassionate heart of God. Brethren, this is volumes about God's character itself. Our Father's compassionate heart looks for compassionate in His people.

And this is so precious and pleasing to Him that notice the result. He fully commits Himself to such compassionate people. Verse 8, Then shall your light break forth like the dawn.

I mean, hear me. The power of God to make us shine. How often? I heard it.

I heard it on Wednesday. Some of you prayed for revival. Brethren, I'm going to ask you a serious question.

Look with me at the promises guaranteed to the compassionate here in Isaiah 58. And you tell me that if God was doing all these things that He promises, if that doesn't equal revival. See, sometimes we think, well, we basically have to wait for revival.

Why Revival Terry's? Maybe you've seen that book. Sometimes we have this idea that and I recognize there are things God does and He doesn't check in with us. He doesn't.

Brethren, there are times God moves and we don't know why He did it this time or that time. Or one reason from another God. God is sovereign.

God does what He does. God is in control. We're not in control.

But brethren, I'll tell you this. Sometimes I think maybe we're praying for something that God has given us the formula for in Scripture. If we had eyes to see.

And it's got to do with His compassion and the desire that He has. Listen to this. See His heart, brethren.

Verse 8, And your healing shall spring up speedily, your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. Now, did you get that? Then you shall call.

Brethren, if there's one thing we want in our prayer meetings, we want to call and have God answer. Do you recognize what's happening? It's like, I can remember one of those old Puritans. Was it Jeremiah Burroughs or something? I was reading him years ago on Isaiah.

And he likened it to this. He had us imagine the courts of heaven. And suddenly there was a shout.

Hark! A compassionate man cries. And he just shows all of heaven and God coming and bending His ear towards him. And that's the picture you have.

You will call and God will say, Here I am. He's showing up. He's coming.

But brethren, look at this. Your light shall break forth like the dawn. Healing is promised.

And brethren, you've got to think of not just physical healing, but spiritual healing. And it's spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you.

That's the kind of idea that you have a reputation. It's going before you. It precedes you.

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. You shall call. The Lord will answer.

You cry. He'll say, Here I am. Why doesn't God do more? Why doesn't God answer our prayers more? Why isn't there more revival? Why isn't there more life? Why isn't there an expanded blessing? But brethren, compassion brings more.

That's the promise. See God's heart here. I mean, brethren, what are you going to do? You can't say, Well, no, it's not.

If you pour yourself out, verse 10, for the hungry. Satisfy the desire of the afflicted. Then shall your light rise in the darkness.

Your gloom be as noonday. The Lord will guide you continually. Satisfy your desire in scorched places.

And see, I see scorched places like the rest of the land is barren. But here we are. We're prospering.

Here we are. We're growing. It's kind of like we've seen in the past.

Brethren, like in other places, they're scorched and they're not seeing much. And suddenly God's working over here. And, you know, sometimes we can just chalk that up to providence.

Well, God's pleased to do that over there. But brethren, there is a connection to compassion here that you cannot get away from. And I don't think we want to try to get away from it.

He'll make your bones strong. You shall be like a watered garden. Brethren, that's what we want to be, like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters don't fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You should be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Brethren, we pray for revival and I would say here it is. And what's the key? Brethren, this is another view into the heart of God. Do we want to rebuild the ancient ruins? Brethren, I'm not talking about just simply being reformed.

Do we want to really rebuild the ancient ruins? I'm talking about going back to the book of Acts and looking at the power that was unleashed in those days and the age-old foundations of the early church, divine power, repair of the breach. And brethren, there's lots of breaches today. There's lots of broken things.

What unleashes the power of God? We see God's heart, brethren. Let's not persuade us that it's not only loving in word, it's loving in deed and in truth. And if any man thinks himself to be religious, brethren, we know God comes along and He says, religion, pure and undefiled, before God the Father is this, to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction, keep oneself unstained from the world.

God's looking for those that not only have His truth, but brethren, that have His heart. If there's anything that ought to convince us about the heart of God Himself, He's looking for this perfection in His people where just like He causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, we are also reaching out to the just and the unjust and we're pouring ourselves out. Brethren, there's a man that stood in this pulpit.

I said, brother, you went into the Middle East, you took the Gospel to the Muslims. I said, tell me. And you've heard some of his testimonials from this pulpit.

Brethren, he went to writing for me. He said, the list is going longer and longer. You know what? When he first went to the Middle East, he was of this mindset.

I'm going to go among these Muslims. And he went in with the mindset, we're going to show compassion. Do you know one of the first ways that God gave him inroads into these Syrian refugees? There was a man who had a child with a heart defect, a hole in the heart.

And they began to pray. And they took the father and the child to a cardiologist. And when they got there, the hole was gone.

And this guy was so elated. It was the first time that this missionary had access into the home. He said it opened access to him.

It wasn't just that seemingly a miracle had been done, but it was the fact that they invested. And as I was listening to his reports, it's interesting. You know what they're constantly looking for? Opportunities to pour themselves out for the hungry.

So they have an earthquake in Syria. And they're quick. Food, blankets.

They have winter. And you've got a lot of homeless people without. And so what do they do? They provide warm clothing.

They provide fuel. War is common. And what do they do? They take people in.

They provide beds. And as he goes down through this, just opening door after door after door, they sent a group over to Syria to help out in this quake. And God wonderfully saved a guy.

Just watching people walking the roads in the wintertime, picking them up and helping them. And one of the things they communicated to me, the team over there that's operating in the Middle East, they said that in the Muslim realm, that if you do something for somebody else, there's an automatic expectation of being paid back. They said when these Christians came in and did not expect anything, they marveled.

It opened so many doors. It shook people. And actually, and you know the story, some of those imams got fed up with this.

And they went to the mayor's office and they said, shut these people down, kick them out. We don't want a church here. And the mayor's office said, why? They have as much right to be here as you guys do.

And they're loving your own people far more than you guys ever do. That was the testimony that they had there. But the stories, cancer, all the medical, I mean, he tells stories about, they had medical needs come up and they had no funds.

They had no way of meeting these things. But they took the responsibility on anyway. They said, I mean, the missionary told me, there was one time we had this huge medical need, the cancer, chemo treatments were needed.

And he said, we didn't have it. But the woman was so desperate. They said, okay, we'll help.

And God had somebody in America send exactly the right amount of money on exactly the right day. And they were able to take care of that need. Things like that happening all the time.

Of course, you know the story. Some wicked guy hired a hitman to take out the missionary. Well, it never happened.

In fact, the hitman went to the police rather than executing the hit, informed the police, and the police actually arrested the guy that tried to hire the hitman. Missionary was told, you know, that hitman works over there at that gas station. Missionary says one day he happened to be running out of gas right by that gas station.

He wheeled in there. He said, the guy came to his window and said, you know who I am? And he said, no. He said, I'm the guy that was hired to kill you.

And he was thinking, well, I hope you haven't changed your mind. And the truth is, he said, do you want to know why I didn't? Rather, I went to the police. And he said, you helped one of my family members.

And he said, there was no way I could do that to you. And you know, the missionary said, we've helped thousands. He couldn't remember who it was.

Brethren, we have a team over in Asia. And I remember going and John took me down by the railroad tracks. Poverty, unlike anything you can imagine here.

And there was a mother who was in bed there and she was sick and she died. And John took the two little girls in. And these little girls, one after another, he began to bring them in.

And I'll tell you what, God has been saving them. God has saved them. Now he's into the second wave.

Now these younger girls have grown up. Almost all of them have been saved. We don't take that cheap.

They have been well saved. But as many of you know, the Flores family from our church, they're over there, they're pouring themselves out. Brethren, I am not saying that we get involved in these mercy ministries at the expense of the gospel.

What's happening is the gospel is being preached in the midst of all of this. And what it's doing is it's opening a door for it. It's making the righteousness go before us.

And it's just opening up all these opportunities. Our light is shining. The light of the gospel just shines.

They see these followers of Christ. They're not like you go over there to Nepal and India and you've got all these Hindus in it. Brethren, you recognize God has put us in a cold, hard world.

It's that way here, but you get among that. It's amazing how heartless the people are. And then you stick somebody like the Flores family over there.

Oh, they're just giving and giving and giving. And they're giving so many medical things. And they get this crazy, radical Hindu guy that delivers water to their house.

And there's a whole testimony in there. And he's given the gospel of John. And God has saved this guy.

Now he's an absolute zealot for Christ. And it's just like as this missionary in the Middle East, he said he's speaking about another missionary who's also stood in this pulpit. You know him.

He was in China at one time. Seasoned missionary who labored for decades in China once well said, unless there is a demonstration of the love of God, often there is no reception of the truth of God. It's the needle that pulls the thread of truth.

A proclamation of God's truth without a demonstration of God's heart often leaves us powerless and ineffective. Brethren, what we need is we need an expression of this very heart of God. This is what he wants.

This is what he's looking for. Go through the promises in Isaiah 58. And just ask yourself, do I want that? Do I want those things to be a reality? Brethren, I said this before, but now that we've looked at all of them, would anybody not agree that is the greatest list of promises that you have available to you in this lifetime anywhere in Scripture? Well, you can argue that.

But who doesn't want this? And isn't this revival? And what is it contingent on? What is God looking for? You see it. Brethren, God help us to have the grace to not just be those who are so accurate and precise in our doctrine, but we have no heart of God to let our reign fall on the just and the unjust. And to give consideration of this, God help us to have the grace to get down to where the real need is.

Because brethren, if we go back to that window of the Son of God, that's exactly what he did. What did he do? Brethren, he didn't stay up in heaven. Just toss the track down to us.

He came down to where sinners were, and he went into the back streets, and he got there next to tax collectors and lepers. And that's what he did. If we're not willing to get next to sinners and their need and get out of... Brethren, we can get into our little subculture and become so comfortable.

I want to break out of it. I want to make some real efforts in these days. Brethren, I just turned 60.

I want to... Brethren, there's needs in this world. And God is calling us to share his compassion. And it's that same missionary that was in China.

He said, we shall sit and soak and sour forever and curse the darkness and wonder what's wrong. Brethren, the compassionate God, he has put his people in this cold world where the devil, prince of the power of the air. I mean, we're in his realm, whole world.

And brethren, we have to admit, a lot of times the world out there just is not paying attention to our Calvinism. But brethren, there seems to be something. When you take the truth of that gospel and you combine it with the heart of God and the heart of Christ, that compassion, brethren, it does something.

It causes people to take notice. It's possible we don't have their ear, brethren, because we don't have their heart and their conscience. God is calling us to get next to the wretched with these expressions of compassion.

God's looking not only for those that have his truth, brethren, but have his heart. I would just say this in closing. Compassion.

Come with passion. Compassion. Brethren, I'm just aware as I look around.

I've lived long enough. I've been a Christian for 35 years. You can argue this, but have you ever noticed it seems like the world's turned by the fanatic? I mean, usually people who come along in life who really are making a difference, they tend to not be indifferent, disinterested, the neutral, the cool-spirited.

Brethren, it tends to be the passionate people. And I'm talking about whether you look in military endeavors or you look in political endeavors, financial endeavors, whether you look at Christian endeavors, if you look around, brethren, it's not the passionless. It tends to be the compassionate, a compulsion, compassion, an inner drive.

That's what Jesus felt. He was moved. He was stirred.

When people are stirred, when there is a moving within us, something that drives us to do what others, they only sit on the sidelines and they simply watch and they look at it. But brethren, if we look around at life and we look around at history and we look at everything great, everything worthwhile, every massive change, the significant, the supremely impactful things that happen in this world, brethren, isn't it always the fulfilling of somebody's passion? Undeniable, unstoppable passion that comes out. The neutral, the cool, the disinterested, the apathetic, they just kind of sit there and they go along and they may smile and they may have the right thing and the right book on the shelf.

But brethren, the endeavors that just stand out in human history, they're always marked by certain valiant efforts of men and women that are driven by something from within. And it's like, don't you see that in Jesus? I mean, what drove Him? Jesus was not just the average ordinary. Something drove Him.

He was able to look and see needs and weep over them. Brethren, how often do we drive by needs and we don't weep? We don't think. It's just a blob, a guy on the side of the road or a blob in the checkout line.

Brethren, we need to be able to have the eyes where we can see an orphan, see a widow, see a homeless person, see a wretch and believe God for Isaiah 58. Brethren, we've got to get out of our comfort zones. We've got to get next to people.

That's the reality in all of this. But you find that historically, the world's always been turned by some fanatic. It's by the passionate people.

It's no less true for the compassion of the church. Every missionary advance. I mean, I think of William Carey.

I never went there to where his church was, but I can see him standing in front. He's looking at those maps. Why would he pack up and go? Brethren, something drove him.

He's almost ready to leave his wife. Passion's always driven the church. Whether reaching off to the far countries, every new strategy, endeavor to take the name of Christ, the compassion of Christ.

Brethren, it's the result of somebody that's got a burning heart that presses forward with these new endeavors. Burning heart. Brethren, it's the burning heart that sustains those endeavors.

It is impossible to maintain the compassion of the church for long in just a simply mechanical fashion. We need people that are feeling. Brethren, one of the ways you get feeling is you start looking through these windows at God's compassion.

Because haven't we found that there's something very similar to what happened to Moses? Isn't that what we find in 2 Corinthians? It's like as we behold the glory, we behold the shine, we behold this and that perfection that God is looking for in his people begins to get emblazoned into the very fabric of our being. Brethren, we need people out of the ordinary. And you know what happened when our passion died? All the learning, all the money, all the program, all the theatrics, all the talk, all the intentions, all the analyzing, it does little good.

And God give us compassionate people. Let them be simple, let them be poor, let them be insignificant, lowly, despised, and foolish, and weak. Just let them burn with a God-like, God-given fire.

And without it, I'll tell you, Duncan Campbell said, we shall at our best appear to a mad world as a crowd of common people in a common market babbling about commonwares. Brethren, I just call you to this, see into God's heart. He has a compassion.

Brethren, something of that has to burn in us. Or you know what happens? You don't lose any sleep. You can sleep sound and you wake up and vast masses of this world are going to hell and you don't feel anything.

May God ignite a fire to be perfect as He is. Brethren, this is just three windows into this compassionate heart of God. The portrait Jesus creates for us in the parable and then looking at the Son of God Himself and then thinking about just what is behind God giving us something like Isaiah 58.

Brethren, to tie such glorious promises to expressions of compassion ought to tell you something about His heart and what He desires to see and find in us. And brethren, if there's anything that ought to resonate there, oh boy, that if we demonstrate that heart, what should our expectation be? If all those promises become a reality in our churches, just crying out and God is saying, here I am, that is a promise of answer and help. Brethren, I think if we're going to be honest before God, we have to be honest.

We are far too unfeeling, far too cold, far too apathetic to the people who are called to be light and salt in this world and to demonstrate. Brethren, you want to be like your Father who's in heaven. Be perfect like Him.

And brethren, that requires us to open our eyes and look around. I came across this as I was looking at this. One of the things that stands out, if you will notice the times that Jesus showed compassion or even when the Father in the parable of the prodigal showed compassion, oftentimes it says the Father saw Him coming.

Oftentimes Jesus saw. Brethren, sometimes we just have to open our eyes. There is a connection in Scripture in the New Testament between seeing and showing compassion.

And sometimes it just requires us to open our eyes. And we can go about our lives with our eyes open, but really not see. Sometimes we just need to look around.

The compassion of God, brethren, is very real. It's the first thing God wants us to know. I am the compassionate God.

I am the compassionate God. Father, I ask You to... Lord, I so want to live Isaiah 58 the remainder of my life. I want the reality to resonate.

Lord, I want to be more like You, perfect like You. Lord, I want Your compassion to move me and change me and change us. We thank You.

I indeed was that prodigal. And I found Your kisses so sweet. And Lord, I want to walk worthy.

And I know there are many here that resonates in their heart. They want to walk worthy of the calling to which they've been called. They want to walk worthy of that glorious name of Jesus Christ.

Lord, we pray for greater grace. May great grace fall upon us as it did the early church. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.