I found this simple but effective song on Youtube that spoke to my spirit about God’s mercy line. The main question it raises is “how long will God put up with our wicked and dark ways”?
While an obvious truth of God’s word is that “His steadfast love endures forever and ever” (stated 26 times in Psalm 136), it also is a biblical truth that God’s mercy is dependent on man’s submission and acknowledgment of what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.
The story of God’s chosen people, the Jews, is rife with their unreal levels of doubt and disbelief. Even after God brought them out of Egypt by parting the Red Sea, feeding them in the desert from the sky, and revealing Himself and the 10 Commandments on Mt Sinai, they rebelled and complained and built themselves idols at the drop of a hat.
Numbers 14:11-12 records God’s response, “The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.
God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their exceeding evil and Satanic ways. He only spared Lot and his wife until she looked back at the destruction against God’s specific instructions NOT to do so. She turned into a pillar of salt.
God is a loving God, but he is also fearfully righteous and just to His word. He demands our submission and obedience. At the same time He knows in the flesh we cannot measure up or deserve His mercy, so He sent His son to die and take on our punishment on Himself so that the punishment of death would not fall on us, but would be satisfied in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Modern religion paints God and the trinity as all-loving, all-forgiving, and somehow subject to what WE think of Him. Man continues to strive to bring God down to their level of understanding…but this false gospel will not stand.
Romans 1:18-32 probably describes God’s wrath and judgment better than any other scripture I have found.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
We are living in an age as evil as any. Wickedness and perversion are everywhere we look. We cannot escape sensuality and perversity in every direction we look. The masses are living totally for themselves and even professing Christians are justifying any sin or perversion of God’s commandments by proclaiming a false gospel that “surely God didn’t mean what He said” and has changed His mind about sin “because He loves us so much”. What a huge twisting of God’s truths for all times.
Psalm 94:1-7 describes the wickedness of today…
O Lord, God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O judge of the earth;
repay to the proud what they deserve!
3 O Lord, how long shall the wicked,
how long shall the wicked exult?
4 They pour out their arrogant words;
all the evildoers boast.
5 They crush your people, O Lord,
and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the sojourner,
and murder the fatherless;
7 and they say, “The Lord does not see;
the God of Jacob does not perceive.”
Amazingly, this passage can easily be attributed to today’s governing powers at all levels. Politicos are prouder and more corrupt than ever before. They persecute righteousness while liberating criminals and justifying lawlessness. They “murder the fatherless” which for me easily alludes to the sins of unbridled abortion. “Killing the widow” could allude to the coming justification of euthanasia which is the next dark logical step of population controls. Meanwhile, they laugh in derision at those who speak truth to power from a Biblical and spiritual position.
God is merciful, but not to everyone. “He who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Those who don’t will face the everlasting consequences of their arrogance and unbelief. The day will come when it will be too late to qualify for God’s mercy and grace. Some He has already given over to their lusts and passions. Others He has chosen for His own purposes for redemption and given them faith to qualify for eternal life with God. There is no room for argument in God’s word on these truths.
So if you are reading this and not sure which side of “God’s mercy line” you are on, there is a very simple but supernatural solution. Call upon Jesus Christ to save you from your sin. Claim the promise of His love and forgiveness to those who confess their sins and who ask Him and the Holy Spirit into their lives to help them live as God has designed them to live. If you truly have the faith to do this, you will have a whole new life. All the old will pass away, and all will become new. HE will empower you to overcome sin and live in service to your maker.
God’s mercy endures forever to those who seek Him before He returns to rule and reign forever and ever. At that point, it will be too late to decide. Choose this day whom you will serve.