MERCY – MERCY

Ps.118:1 – Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;

For His mercy is everlasting.

One of the key themes in David’s Psalms was mercy. David was painfully aware of the constant need for the mercy of the Lord in his life. If you read through Ps.118 you will see David’s constant dependence on the mercy of God. David said that he called to the Lord from his distress and the Lord heard him and brought him into a wide place of deliverance. He spoke about the sounds of shouting for joy resulting from the mercy of the Lord. He also said that he had entrance into the gates of righteousness, the presence of the Lord because of His mercy. He continued to say that the stone that the builders rejected would come to us by the mercy of the Lord. Here is how Charles Spurgeon describes this passage.

“Mercy is a great part of his goodness, and one which more concerns us than any other, for we are sinners and have need of his mercy. Angels may say that he is good, but they need not his mercy and cannot therefore take an equal delight in it; inanimate creation declares that he is good, but it cannot feel his mercy, for it has never transgressed; but man, deeply guilty and graciously forgiven, beholds mercy as the very focus and centre of the goodness of the Lord. The endurance of the divine mercy is a special subject for song: notwithstanding our sins, our trials, our fears, his mercy endures for ever. The best of earthly joys pass away, and even the world itself grows old and hastens to decay, but there is no change in the mercy of God; he was faithful to our forefathers, he is merciful to us, and will be gracious to our children and our children’s children….The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the grand incarnation of the mercy of God, calls upon us at every remembrance of him to give thanks unto the Lord, for ‘he is good.’”

So I would have to say that the people of God are in a tight place in the times that we live in. There is animosity against the Lord’s plans, His governing moral laws, and against His anointing. We can learn from David’s Psalm today, call out to the Lord from your place of distress, trust totally in His mercy. He will bring you out into a wide place of deliverance.