BH Bulletin - Friday 4 December 2020

​Thought for the Day by Phil Washington (Member of BH)

‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’ – Luke 18:13

There is a clear pattern that's repeated through all the pages of scripture, from start to finish, and it's Judgement and Mercy.

In the garden of Eden after Adam fell came the judgement of physical death, banishment from the garden and the curse that pervaded all of life. But, alongside the judgement was the mercy of God's promise of redemption. Then the flood - God's judgement upon an ungodly world, and the mercy of deliverance for Noah and his family. Soon after we read of the judgement of God upon the depraved people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and again the mercy upon Lot. Keep going through the Old Testament - The Exodus, the 40 years in the desert, then the exile. Judgement and mercy are pretty much in every situation. As for Lord Jesus, it was judgement like no other that He bore on the cross, and it was mercy like no other that came as a result of that sacrifice. The mercy of forgiveness and redemption still held out in the gospel today.

At the end of our Bible comes the final judgement. The Lord Jesus returns in glorious splendour and ushers in the darkest and the brightest day in the history of humanity. Judgement and mercy will be realised in fullness on that day.

So how do we escape judgement? We do what the Lord Jesus and His Apostles tell us to do - we repent. We turn away from sin, and then we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can (and does) rescue us from the wrath that is coming. Cry out to God to be Mercy-full to you today.