Let's Work on Showing Mercy

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matthew 5:7). The Roman world did not admire mercy. The philosophers called mercy "A disease of the soul." Something to be abhorred if you expected to be a success. Slaves were treated like pieces of used furniture. If a woman gave birth to a daughter or a sickly son, the father could reject the child and have it destroyed. A temperamental master could in a fit of anger maim or kill a slave. The best enemy was a dead enemy. Jesus Christ taught and practiced mercy. Instead of being a sickness of the soul, mercy is the health of our Christian experience. Our world today is not too far removed spiritually from the Roman world in which Jesus gave the beatitudes. People are still treated like things, power is the supreme deity and success is the most important thing in life. I trust you will benefit by this study of mercy. First, God has two kinds of attributes. Absolute and relative. Absolute describes what God is like in Himself. God is truth, meaning He cannot lie. God is Holy, meaning he cannot sin. God's relative attributes relate to man. Trust becomes faithfulness. "Great is Your faithfulness."Holiness becomes justice. Justice demands punishment for sin. Love becomes grace and mercy. Mercy is a spiritual bridge that God has built so He can relate to us and a bridge we must build if we are going to relate lovingly to others. Mercy pities and grace pardons. There are several factors involved in the experience of mercy. It begins with pain. Somebody hurts us unjustly and we must respond to this hurt. If we have the power to retaliate, then we must decide what to do. You cannot show mercy unless you have the power to hurt. Suppose the person deserves to be hurt? We feel we must teach them a lesson. At this point love enters the picture, not to conceal truth but to control it. When we show mercy, we do not give the offender what he deserves. This act demands faith. We must leave the offender and his offense in the hands of God. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves" (Romans 12:19). What is the result of this painful experience? Growth! We share in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings and become more like Him. We do suffer because of an other's sin, but we choose to use our power for growth instead of retaliation. When we show mercy we are practicing one of the attributes of God. This beatitude begins with a right attitude towards myself, I am to be poor in spirit. The next step is a right attitude towards God's Word, "Blessed are the meek." This creates in me a desire for God's righteousness. When we by faith receive the righteousness of God, we then begin to be like God. "Blessed are the Merciful." Second, the best way to understand mercy is to see it in action. The first example is Abraham's courageous rescue of his nephew Lot. You probably remember Lot had no business being in Sodom. Remember he pitched his tent toward Sodom. Look at a sinful place long enough and it becomes attractive. Sodom was attacked by the enemy kings, and Lot and his family were taken captive. Have you noticed when you sin you usually take someone with you. When Abraham heard about it he went to battle in order to rescue Lot. This was an act of mercy. Abraham had given Lot first choice of the land. Lot had been the foolish one. Why rescue him? Because it was the merciful thing to do. Lot had hurt Abraham and Abraham had the power to hurt Lot, but Abraham choose mercy (Even though Lot went right back to Sodom). Many a person rescued from sin, returns to become a slave again. Another example is Joseph. In Egypt the tables were turned. Joseph could have killed his brothers. He went off and wept and then came back and showed mercy. Joseph was not a prodigal son who yielded to the sins of the flesh or an elder brother who yielded to the sins of the spirit. Joseph was like Jesus Christ who prayed, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." The third example is David. Saul tired to kill David, David had been anointed king by Samuel. David knew that real power was in showing mercy. Don't bury the hatchet with the handle sticking out of the ground. David believed in the sovereignty of God, He knew God was in absolute control of every event in his life. Third, the greatest example is seen in our Lord Jesus Christ. The strength of Christ's mercy matched the intensity of the hate of His enemies. He did expose their sin. Mercy does not sweep sin under the rug. There is a counterfeit mercy. It goes like this "I am just as sinful as you are so I will show mercy to you because you show mercy to me." This is the equivalent of honor among thieves. False mercy has led some pastors to stop preaching against sin and compromise. God forgives us and shows us mercy on the basis of Christ's sacrifice, and we should show mercy to others on the same basis. Counterfeit mercy always inflates the ego of the believer, but true mercy humbles you and gives God the glory. Forth, you cannot extend mercy until you have received mercy. Mercy begins with salvation. Submission is required. David knew that it was not his privilege to exercise vengeance, so he left Saul in the hands of the God. Our Lord is the perfect Judge. The one who extends mercy suffers because he experiences the hurt caused by his enemy. The one receiving mercy suffers as he realizes what he has done and repents of his sin. This is seen in the woman who was taken in adultery. This shows there are several ways of dealing with sin. There is Moses way, the Law demanded death. Then there is man's way, the Pharisees exposed the sinner to accomplish their own selfish purposes. Christ said "He that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone at her." Then there is the Masters way. Jesus did not deny the fact of sin. But mercy and truth met together and she became a forgiven sinner. Think about what that cost Jesus, His own shed blood. There can be no mercy without suffering, no pardon without pain. Fifth, what does it mean to obtain mercy? The believer is surrounded by mercy. "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." Jude 21 "Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." God responds to us on the basis of the condition of the heart. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.

Do You Lack Courage

Please read Zechariah 4:1-10. During this time period (the above verses) God called two prophets on the scene, Haggai and Zechariah. They came in a time of extreme national discouragement. God has instructed the people to rebuild the Temple. But after 14 years it still lay in ruins. The nations was in a spiritually demoralized state of being. They had lost their heart for God and His work. In this context God said "It's not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts." Note three truths that apply just a well to the times we live in. First, a view of fruitless times. It was a time of drought, spiritually and in the land. During dry times we need to get thirsty for the power of God. I remember hearing an old evangelist say "I would rather be a back alley bookie than a preacher without the power of God." It was a time of discouragement. In the spiritual realm discouragement will bring the drought. It was a time of division. The nation was divided and it was a time of defeat. There had been 14 years of no blessing from the Lord. Second, the writer point out the vanity of fleshly efforts. Might, refers to human resources, strength, ability and wealth. Power, refers to personality, flesh, mental strength. We will never win spiritual battles in the flesh. Third, the victory of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Our problem is not with the lack of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will do His office work if we would just give Him office space. "If our churches have not the Spirit of God it is better to nail shut the doors and windows and put a black cross over them saying "God have mercy on us." A church in the land without the power of the Spirit of God is more of a curse than a blessing. Charles Spurgeon said "Failure follows on the heals of self confidence." Beware of worshiping the "god of common sense." That is relying on what others say rather than on what God says. A young preacher did a good job on the Sunday morning sermon. As an older believer walked out he complemented the young preacher on the message. The young preacher said "It was Jesus." The older saint said "No, it wasn't, it wasn't that good." The power of the Holy Spirit gives us staying power. Discouragement comes and fellows want to quit. When the things go wrong as they sometimes will, The road your trudging seems all up hill. When the funds are low and the debts are high, You want to smile but you have to sigh. When cares seem to press you down a bit, Rest if you must but don't you quit. Life is clear with its twists and turns, As everyone of us sometimes learns. And many a failure turns about, He might have won had he stuck it out. Don't give up though the pace is slow, You might succeed with another blow. Often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering heart. Often the struggler has given up when he might have gained the victors cup, and learned too late when the night slipped down how close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out, The silver tint in the clouds of doubt. And you can never tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far. So stick to the fight when your hardest hit, When things seem worse you must not quit. Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.

The Joy of Discipline

Please take the time to read Psalm 94 in it's entirety. The subject of being Chastened comes up in this psalm. David was a man after God's own heart, however he did not get a pass when it came to God's discipline. The Lord was faithful to him in that "He disciplines every son He receives." In the context of being chastened David was able to write “When I said, "My foot is slipping," your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”- Psalm 94:18-19. God loves us far to much to let us wander off in sin and to go our own way, which ends in destruction. In His faithfulness He brings us back to Himself, and He corrects us with His holy discipline. "The psalmist calls the chastened one a "man" in the best sense, using the Hebrew word which implies strength. He is a man, indeed, who is under the teaching and training of the Lord" (Charles Spurgeon). What should we do when we are under discipline? Praise God for His love and faithfulness toward us. We then realize God's love is supporting us, and in the midst of child training it's His consolation that brings joy to our soul. Where is your anxiety level on a scale of 1-10. David said when his anxiety was great (a 10),What did he do? He looked to the Lord, and the Lord supported him and brought joy to his soul. Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferances, and local church meetings.

The Power of Forgiveness

The message God gave the world is the promise of forgiveness. The fall of man brought sin into the human race and it brought God's curse on the earth. Death and decay became standard fare. Struggle and sweat is now the lot of man. However "Where sin abounds grace does much more abound." David rejoiced when he penned, "If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared." (Psalm 130:3-4). The truth is when we come to the cross the record of our sin is wiped away, it is blotted out, gone. I have been forgiven, stand forgiven and will remain forever forgiven because of the blood of Christ. I believe the Evangelical Church has the message of grace in salvation down pat. We preach that by grace through faith is the only way to get to heaven. We would scorn any teaching that added anything to the Gospel. We also are quite accurate on grace getting us to heaven. When a believer dies we assure his or her loved ones that this saint went into the arms of Jesus because of the grace of God. However, I have a lot of evidence that we don't always do so well in between salvation and heaven concerning the message of grace. One of the first things we do to a new convert is to tell them how to dress, act, live, think, talk, who to hang out with, where to go, how often to read the Bible etc. I remember many years ago I led a man to Christ who had waist length hair and huge hoop earrings. He came to church and a couple of weeks later asked to be baptized. I baptized him with waist length hair and hoop earrings. He had an insatiable hunger for the Scriptures. He told all of his friends about Jesus. In time, he took out the hoop earrings and replaced them with crosses. One Sunday he came to church with short hair and the earrings were gone. Nobody said a word to him about these external things. How he looked did not make the man, what was in his heart did. He later told me that he believed the Lord was telling him his witness would be greater if he dressed more like others around him. Early in his Christian life he grabbed hold of grace. Do you really believe you have been forgiven. You and Jesus can work on your sinful habits and tendencies together, and the process is much easier when you know you have been forgiven. There is a positional holiness which we have in Christ. There is a practical holiness that is worked out in our lives as we walk in the Spirit. The Bible tells us as we "walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Have you accepted God's forgiveness? Do you believe you have been forgiven? Do you live a life that extends forgiveness to others? Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.

Self Promotion

The Scriptures are quite explicit concerning self promotion. "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth, someone else, and not your own lips." Prov. 27;2. We inherited from Adam the desire to promote ourselves. The consequences of self promotion is getting ahead of God's desire for our lives. Public recognition may be part of God's will for our lives, however when it comes through self promotion we will suffer the consequences. Promotion is to come from the Lord and not from ourselves. Many a "Self made Man" ends up worshiping his creator. King David never promoted himself. He did fall into sin more than once in his life, but he would always repent and turn back to the Lord. His life was marked by an absence of idols. Self promotion and self worship go hand in hand. When one worships self, that person has become an idol worshipers. When we worship the Lord and Him only we will be empowered by the one "...Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us." Eph. 3:20. Who are you worshiping (promoting) today?

Sin Makes You Stupid

A friend of mine got involved with his hairstylist a number of years ago. As their "relationship" developed he determined in his heart to leave his wife and move in with the other woman. Being a man of some means he purchased a house and loaded up his goods. The woman left her husband and packed her belongings into the same moving van. My friend backed the van up to his new home and began unloading it. At this time some intervening "angels" from his local church showed up with baseball bats. The leader of this group of men said "We may go to jail tonight, but you will go to the hospital unless you leave this woman." Being a fairly intelligent individual he chose to leave the object of his desire. He broke off the relationship, but the woman remained an object of worship in his heart. His wife could sense this and she would not let him come home. A wise counselor instructed him to go to prayer and ask the Lord to cut this idol out of his heart. After a time of prayer he was set free of her and able to fully turn his heart to the Lord and his wife. Within days his wife invited him back home. He, with the Lord's help began to rebuild his marriage. He and his wife developed a relationship of honesty and openness that had not existed before. He won his wife heart and true love flourished in their marriage. In time a wise pastor and church elders invited him to join the church staff as a marriage counselor. Some 20 years later this good buddy and his wife are continuing to minister to broken people, with broken marriages. At this time my friend and his wife are traveling to churches to help counsel believers with troubled marriages. They have been commissioned as missionaries to the wounded through their local church. In a recent visit with this friend I asked him what lessons he learned from his past moral misstep. He said above all "Sin makes you stupid." The good news is that repentance is the cure for stupidity. What is the Holy Spirit telling you to repent of, what sin have you been tripping over?

The Extent of Demonic Control

There are many questions today about demonic control. One well known pastor when asked about demons and the Christian said "Don't worry about the little green men." In other words totally ignore the issue. On the other hand some believers have become fearful of the enemy. They believe everything that goes wrong in their lives must be the work of the enemy. Both extremes are unbiblical. Under the direction of Satan, demons seek to attack and harass Christan's. Satan is not bound today to use the same particular set of strategies that he used in New Testament times, and his strategies can be expected to be tailored to his audience. How much influence can a demon have on a true believer? In seeking to answer this question, we must keep in mind several basic principles: 1. Satan's power was broken at the cross (Col. 2:15). 2. Scripture is not exhaustive on the subject of demons. God did not tell us everything about every subject. Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong to the Lord our God."3. Satan is able to influence a believer, or else there would be no reason for the many New Testament warnings to resist him. The questions is not his ability to influence us, but the extent to which he is able to do so. 4. Do not confuse spatial relations (the physical location of a demon) with spiritual ones. A genuine believer can allow a non-Christan person to control him-why not a demon? The issue is one of control, not ownership.5. Once we become believers, we still face the lingering consequences of sin from our past.6. We must carefully define our terms. However we define the term in relation to demons and the Christian, in the final analysis all believers are Christ's possession, and nothing (angels, powers, and principalities) can change that. A person having a demon is not the same as the demon "having" him (i.e. controlling his eternal destiny). While the person may yield control to demonic forces through sin, he cannot yield his eternal status as a child of God, which Christ fully controls. 7. What, then is my conclusion? I feel that, though demons can display a remarkable amount of control over the body and actions of a genuine Christian, nonetheless they cannot "possess" him in the sense of controlling his eternal destiny (see I John 5:18). The extent of the control given to any demon(s), however, is determined by the believer, who has the authority to yield his own life to whomever he wishes (whether the Holy Spirit, evil spirits, or even human beings, including cult leaders.) Sin in a believers life open a door to enemy influence. Repentance and confession of sin closes the door. Sin is Satan's ground, repentance is ours.

Spiritual Warfare and Holiness

In our day there has been a movement away from holiness. Certainly our culture promotes such a movement but I believe in some ways the church does also. There are a few, (thankfully), modern writers who proclaim that a believer does not need to confess their sins because the sin issue was taken care of at the Cross. That is a half truth, the sin issue was taken care of at Calvary, however the Scriptures are clear on the subject of repentance and confession of sin. The issue of sin is of great importance in the life of a believer. We know that plants grow where conditions are favorable. The same is true of the evil in us. The more we indulge in evil, the more powerful the evil becomes. Eventually, we may reach the point where evil controls us. There are many myths concerning holiness. Myth 1: I could never be holy. Response: You already are. Myth 2: Being holy means that I will be so heavenly minded that I will not be any earthly good. Response: Jesus was so heavenly minded that he did the most earthly good. A genuine "heavenly mindedness" will enable us to overcome earthly circumstances and fears. Myth 3: Being holy involves a complete denial of all of my own personal desires and hopes. Response: Those hopes and desires are submitted to the Lordship of Christ. He returns a thousand-fold on them by molding them in a way that glorifies Him and then meeting them beyond our wildest expectations. Myth 4: Since all my sins are forgiven in Christ, holiness is not an important issue for me. Response: God grants us holiness in Christ, but calls us to a lifestyle that expresses what we are. Why should those who are holy return to unholy living, unless they are deceived that such living is of greater significance (or fun) than righteous living. We must come to grips with the "beast in the basement" of our own house. Two passages in Romans are significant in this regard: Romans 6:12-14: "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Paul exhort us to to let sin reign in our bodies. As people, we have two options: 1. Place the parts of our bodies (i.e. any natural capacity we have) as weapons or instruments of sin. Sin is a General that uses our natural capacities as weapons in the battle it fights. Paul exhorts us to stop placing ourselves at sin's disposal in this war. 2. Offer ourselves to God and our "members as weapons in the service of righteousness". The "war" vocabulary is a reminder that this is as genuine battle that we face. Romans 7:14-25 tells us of the reality of the Christian's struggle. 1. Paul's central idea is that this passage refers to mature Christians. 2. Paul addresses whether the law is evil. He concludes that is is not, but that sin utilized the law to work its evil in man. Indeed, that is why the law was given-to show sin for what it is. 3. The believer exists in tension-(s)he is a saint who still wrestles with sin. Hendriksen remarks: "For the present, the Christian is living in an era in which two stages, the old and the new, overlap. There was a time when Paul was exclusively a sinner. There will be a time when he will be exclusively a saint. Right now, as he is dictating this letter, he is a sinner-saint. A "saint", to be sure; but also still a "sinner", hence the tension, the inner conflict. It is a struggle which every true believer experiences" (Hendriksen, Romans, p232). Let's examine Satan's enticement to evil. Satan is not so much creative as discreative-he takes the good that God has created and perverts it (e.g., love turns to lust or protectionism or control over another). There are several sources of enticement to evil which include the world (or domination system), the flesh, and the devil. While Satan may use a "back door" approach (by enticing us through the world or our flesh; we must recognize that he is not the only source of the temptations we face. Our own former participation in the ways of the world serves as a constant drawing force against which we must fight. There are three major sources of sin: 1. Pride. "There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty" C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity pp 108-9. Pride: the attitude that says we can do it on our own. Ultimately it is a denial of our dependence on God for life itself. Proverbs warns against pride. Proverbs 8:13 "To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech." Proverbs 29:23 "A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor." Pride is woven into the very fabric of our culture. Few of us ever realize its existence, let alone its extent. Curiously, pride is the very quality we try to inculcate into our children for their good. We define it, to be sure, as self-respect. In other words we teach our children as we were taught ourselves-to overcome weaknesses and vices by pride. Pride is at heart competitive-it gets no pleasure out of something, only out of having more of it than the next man. Ultimately, to be fulfilled, pride must even look down at God. Thus it is viewed as the core of sin and at the heartbeat of evil. 2. Anger: (linked to pride) the emotional response to dealing with someone who has blocked me in my pursuits. All of us have experienced anger, and anger that is left unresolved over past hurts forms a motivational core that drives the way we live our day to day lives. 3. Lust: All of us want to avoid emptiness and find satisfaction. Often we think of earthly things as essential to meeting this need. Lust is when we allow these desires to control us and lead us away from God's provisions. In I John 2:16, two types of lust are noted: 1. Lust of the flesh: the appetites of the flesh (physical needs including food, drink, sex, sleep). 2. Lust of the eyes: the things of life that we do not need yet want (greed or coveting things aroused by seeing them-materialism is a basic idea). This form of lust is aroused by visual stimuli-such as advertisements that entice us pictorially to purchase a product. Most generally speaking, lust is essentially unbridled appetite or desire. It is not ever really conquered for all time. Rather, it is held in check on a moment-by-moment basis. For example, we do not conquer hunger by stuffing ourselves once-as soon as the food is digested we are ready for (and in need of) more. Maintaining holiness: Confession and repentance. "Mercy is persistently meaningful only to the degree I am silenced by the enormity of my refusal to love God and others with my whole heart, soul, strength, and mind" Allender and Longman, Bold Love, pp. 80-81. Confession: We cannot deny our own sin and have fellowship with God (I John 1:8-9). Sin here probably refers to our nature and not just our individual sins. Those who make this claim deceive themselves and the truth is not in them-they have lied even to themselves. Those who confess their sins, however, are assured of God's forgiveness. Confess their sins (note the plural), not just their sin nature but the sins themselves. To "confess" (to say the same) is simply to agree with God concerning our sin. The present tense indicates that it is a continuous process. The promised result is a sure cleansing, because God is faithful to do as He promised. He is faithful to His covenant promise to forgive. He is just-He forgives us on the basis of Christ's death (a judicial act). This does not demand moment-by-moment introspection based on the idea that every single sin breaks fellowship. The focus of the perfect tense is a continual problem, i.e., giving into sin. This could be individual sin or it may be a series of sins leading to a continual defeat. In light of the promise given here, the sense is to admit our sins to God and to rest in the assurance of His promised forgiveness. God will never, ever refuse to forgive us when we repent of, and confess our sins. We can be confident that our confession will be heard and we will be cleansed as a result. Repentance: Repentance is intimately intertwined with confession. It is the act of turning away from sin. Genuine confession cannot be separated from repentance. We not only repent before God, we must also be willing to repent before the other who has been sinned against. Unholy living gives our common enemy an opportunity to influence our lives. We need a revival of holiness starting in our lives and spreading to our churches.