Mercy and Truth Together

I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people. I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens and thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth. Let’s pray together. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this psalm and thank you for the truths in it. Lord, help us to take something away from your word tonight that would help us and strengthen us and grow us up in the faith.

We know that we grow by the word of God. And so Lord, help us to grow, give your grace and help to each person that’s hearing the word tonight. Help me, Lord, to say just exactly what you’d have me to say and in the way that you’d have me to say it. And Lord, strengthen and help our church. Lord, help us to be faithful. Help us to be diligent.

Help us to be hard workers. Help us to be compassionate people as well. And Lord, we just, we need your grace every single day. We need you to hold us up. We need you to cause us to stand. We need you to help us to walk. So please do it, Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, what I want to look at tonight is in verse number three and verse number 10.

The Bible says this, he shall send from heaven. Now, of course, we know that this is David speaking in the context of his flight from Saul. So right now he’s in the cave, the cave of a doolm, I believe, and he’s running from Saul. And so you have that going on. And just as a side note, and I mentioned, it seems like each time we cover what is essentially a lot of the same type of Psalms, right?

You’ve seen this over and over and over. But you notice these Psalms are written within or out of one of the difficult points in David’s life. And that’s usually how it works is the difficult marks in your life are the times where there’s like the Lord stamps something in you that is permanent, right? In those times where he doesn’t do it in other times is these difficult times.

And in David’s life, that stamp is the Psalms. And so it comes out of the perplexity of David’s life here. And so David’s fleeing away and he’s asking for God’s help and salvation and protection from Saul, verse 3. He shall send from heaven, speaking of God now, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. So when I saw that, verse number 3, he shall send from heaven, my question was immediately this, what is God going to send from heaven?

That was my question. What is God going to send from heaven to deliver David from the trouble that is chasing him? He says, say la. Here’s the answer. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. His mercy and his truth. Now here’s what’s interesting. This pair, mercy and truth, you can find in your Bible over and over and over again. In fact, at least 18 times in scripture, the pair, mercy and truth are found in the Bible.

And every single time that they occur as a pair in this way, it’s in the Old Testament, never in the New, at least not in those words. But this passage, if you’ll go down to verse number 10, look at what it says. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens and thy truth unto the clouds. So here, mercy and truth is mentioned a second time in this psalm.

Now this is the only time in scripture that of the 18 times that mercy and truth is found in the Bible, this is the only chapter in which this pair is found more than once in a single chapter. And so this is a thing. This is a thing. And most of the time, not every time, but most of the time, the mercy and truth as a pair occur in reference to God’s character.

And that’s what we’re going to look at tonight. We’re going to see it in reference to God’s character. And when you see this pair together, you see mercy and truth together, you almost always, there’s one small exception in the Minor Prophets, but you almost always see mercy and truth in that order. Not truth and mercy, but mercy and truth. Now if you know anything about studying the Bible, you know that when God puts things in certain order, in a certain order, and especially when He repeats that order over and over and over again, it’s significant.

He doesn’t do that, it’s not just words on a page, He has done that on purpose. And this is true in the occurrences of mercy and truth. Is it not notable that of the 18 times that’s found in the Old Testament, all but one it occurs, mercy first, then truth. Mercy first, then truth. There’s a significant point to that. Now mercy and truth occur together, as I said, and they occur frequently describing God’s character.

Verse number three, God shall send forth His mercy and His truth. Verse 10, for thy mercy is great, and thy truth is unto the clouds. So this pair goes together, and together, mercy and truth describe the character of God. Both of them together. Now I know you could look at truth, and you could look and examine how God’s character is related to truth. You could look at mercy, and you could see how God is a merciful God.

And that’s all fine and good, but what I’m saying is these two come as a pair. Now they do occur separately, but there’s a reason why God puts them as a pair, and that’s what I want to look at tonight. Psalm 105 says this, Psalm 100 verse 5, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting without end, and His truth endureth to all generations. Mercy and truth.

But in that case, it’s kind of like what it says in verse number 10, which says, for thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. That is, it is without boundary. God’s mercy, now we know His mercy endureth forever. Now we’re familiar with that terminology. God is a God who has endless compassion. Endless compassion. Endless compassion. You say, how can God put up with certain things when He sees things?

You have to remember that God is a God with endless compassion, like the clouds. It is everlasting, the Bible says. And so, God’s compassion far exceeds ours. You look off into the distance and you don’t see the end of God’s compassion. But that same thing that we are more familiar with also applies to His truth. His adherence to, if you want to say adherence to truth, His faithfulness, His, His, the Truth in all of its description.

God is a God of truth. Now what does it mean though to have, what does it mean for God that God is a merciful God? Let me look at a few verses here. Look in the book of Luke chapter 10. I want to look at mercy and I want to look at truth, and I want to show you from scripture what we mean when we say that.

Because if God is a God of mercy and God is a God of truth, we have to understand that to understand why the two go together. Luke chapter 10, verse number 37, we will not spend very long here.

Luke 10 verse 37, this is the parable of the, I’m in Luke 9 so I was like, that didn’t make sense. Luke 10 verse number 37, this is the parable of the Good Samaritan. So the Good Samaritan in verse 37, well we see in verse number 33, he had compassion on the man who fell among thieves. He said, in verse 37, notice this, because we’re familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan, and he said, he that showed mercy on him, then said Jesus unto him, go and do thou likewise.

So he’s talking about the Good Samaritan showed mercy on the man who fell among thieves. Now when we think of mercy, what we usually think of, you know, you’ve heard these sayings, grace is when God gives you what you don’t deserve, mercy is when God doesn’t give you what you do deserve. And that is one way you can view mercy, but actually if you look at mercy, that’s one definition, but the definition in scripture is actually a bigger definition that includes that.

But it includes other things as well. For instance, in this case, this man, this Samaritan is not showing mercy in the sense of not giving the man what he deserves because he had no relationship to this man. The mercy being described here is the man’s compassion. In other words, he had pity upon this man who had fallen among thieves. And that’s what the Bible means when it says mercy.

That’s the definition of mercy. Now if someone is caught in a sin or a judge is, an offender is before a judge and he shows mercy, he might not give the man the sentence he could impose because of his pity. But it doesn’t always have to involve a sin. Let me show you another example. Luke 18. Luke 18. Look at verse number 38. Luke 18 verse 38.

This is the story of the blind man as Jesus passes by in verse 37. Verse 38 says, and he the blind man cried saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. He’s not asking Jesus, the blind man is not asking Jesus to not punish him the way he deserves. He’s asking Jesus for compassion and pity to heal him. You see that? That’s compassion. So what I’m saying is I’m saying that mercy in scripture is very closely tied to compassion and pity and tenderness.

Look at James chapter 5. James chapter 5. Verse number 11. James 5 verse 11 says this, behold, we count them happy which endure, that is endure trials and temptations. Ye have heard of the patience of Job and seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. See again, compassion. Compassion. Now as you might have guessed, truth is kind of the opposite of compassion.

Truth is different than compassion. You know the definition of truth, but I’ll just say it because I think I’ve actually read this to you before. Truth is simply something that conforms with fact or reality. Truth says this is right and this is wrong. Truth says this is true and this is false. Truth doesn’t care about how you feel about it. Truth doesn’t care about compassion because it’s true.

You understand? So it doesn’t matter if someone, for instance, say someone committed a sin and as a result of that sin they have messed up their life. Compassion is moved at a case like that, but truth is not because that person did the deed. In other words, you could say truth has no feelings at all. Truth has no sentiment at all. Truth is rigid. Truth is unmovable.

Truth does not bend. Truth does not bow. Truth does not get out of the way. Truth is not affected whatsoever by the way it affects others. Truth is truth and it doesn’t care if you like it or not. Would you say that’s pretty much the opposite of compassion? Yeah. See compassion is moved. Compassion bends. Compassion bows. Compassion is tender. Truth is the opposite. God is a God of truth.

Let me show you this in the Bible. Look at Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32. This is why the whole idea of the trans movement is so, that people who are involved in that get so angry and offended. It’s because truth rigidly will not bend to them. You cannot change chromosomes. You cannot change your genes. You cannot change your biology. No matter what you do, how you mutilate yourself, what drugs you take, you cannot change that.

You know what that is? It’s truth. It’s immobile. And they just absolutely destroy themselves, beating themselves up against it. And it just stands there. And is it possible for a person to destroy himself or herself against the truth, slamming themselves, fighting against it? Absolutely. Because it doesn’t have any compassion. It’ll just stand there where you beat yourself to death. Deuteronomy 32 verse 4. The Bible says, he is the rock.

His work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Do you notice any words of feeling in that verse? Are there any words of feeling at all? No. Because what’s being emphasized is God’s truth. That’s related to judgment. That’s related to righteousness and unrighteousness. That’s related to God being a rock. You know what a rock is?

A rock is like truth. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t bend and it has no compassion. You run your car into a rock, sorry, your car is going to lose that battle every single time. And that’s the way truth is. God has called that. Look at Psalm 33. Psalm 33. Verse 4. Psalm 33 verse 4. Says this, for the word of the Lord is right and all his works are done in truth.

That’s pretty rigid. The word of God doesn’t care about what you think or I think or anybody thinks. The word of God doesn’t care. In God’s works, God’s not going to change what he’s going to do because of us. You’re right. Because we don’t really like him doing that. He is going to do truth because he is a God of truth. God of truth. In the same way that he is a God of compassion and pity and mercy, he is also a God of truth.

Look at Psalm 54 for our last one here. Psalm 54. Verse 5. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies. Cut them off in thy what? Truth. See, truth answers to judgment. In other words, the exercise of truth is not mercy. The exercise of truth is the opposite. It’s stiff, rigid, unwavering, unfeeling judgment. That’s why he says cut them off in thy truth. Not mercy, truth. And God does that.

So here you have two attributes, two characteristics of God. Both of them are attested as fact in scripture and they’re put together. That’s what I want you to see. God is not one or the other. We have to get, listen, we have to get this about God. This I promise you, if you let this percolate into your brain, it will affect your life. It will affect the way you view God and it will affect the way you try to emulate God, as I hope you are, in God’s character.

This is big. Two attributes that appear on their face to be contradictory are put together in scripture, blended. Many, many times, mercy and truth. And it’s not just mercy and truth as ideals or as concepts, but God’s mercy and God’s truth put together in scripture. So mercy and truth do indeed come together. You might say that mercy and truth are north and south pole. They’re the opposite ends of the spectrum, if you will.

So maybe we could think of mercy and truth as kind of like a balance, right? You have one on one end and one on the other. Tenderness, hardness, compassion, judgment. God has all of those, all of that. But I want you to remember though, that because mercy occurs first, God’s priority and emphasis is placed on mercy before truth. In scripture, those things that occur first in lists are the things that the Lord emphasizes.

And when you’re looking at the pair, mercy and truth, it is not truth that gets the emphasis. Now I did not say truth is removed because they’re together. You can’t take them away from each other. They occur together. But because they occur together, one has the priority over the other. And the one that has the priority is not the truth, but the mercy. And I’ll show you how that’s true.

You see, mercy, I’m sorry, truth demands hardness. You see, when God exercises something from his character of truth, the result is judgment. But when God exercises something from his character of mercy, the result is compassion and pity. So where truth demands hardness and rigidity and sternness, mercy responds with compassion. And this is exactly the way the Lord deals with us. And it’s so vitally important that we understand that these two terms, though they seem contradictory, occur together.

They’re needed together. Because if you isolate truth from mercy, you get out of balance. That’s what happens. You get out of balance. Because mercy, if it doesn’t have truth, discards justice and judgment. And that is wrong. But on the other hand, if all you have is truth, and you don’t have compassion, and you don’t have mercy, truth without mercy is harsh and hopeless to the person who’s on the receiving end of truth.

And you and I both, you and I have all been on the receiving end of truth. And justly so when the stern look of God’s displeasure is on us, right? But aren’t you, are you not glad that God was not only a God of truth, but he was also a God of mercy? But I’ll be honest with you, though. I am thankful that God is a God of truth also.

I would not want God to just be a God of mercy. Because what would that do to our universe? What would that do to our universe? You need both. You need both. Look at Psalm 61, if you would. Psalm 61. We’re just going to take a walk through the Psalms, and I want to show you something that We see in Psalm 57. Now you remember, in Psalm 57, David cites God’s mercy and God’s truth when he’s asking God for deliverance from Saul.

Look at Psalm 61, verse 7. He shall abide before God forever. O prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. Notice mercy and truth related to preservation. Look at Psalm 69, verse 13. Psalm 69, verse 13. But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time. O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me in thy truth, in the truth of thy salvation.

Again, mercy and truth. But now we’re brought to what we saw preserved. Now we see the word salvation. Psalm 85. Just go a little bit further. Psalm 85. Verse number 10. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. We’re going to come back to that in a minute, but notice the verse right before that, verse 9. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.

Then he says, mercy and truth are met together. Again, the mention of salvation. Psalm 86, verse 15. But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth. O turn unto me and have mercy upon me. Give thy strength unto thy servant and save the son of thine handmaid. You see salvation once again in association with mercy and truth.

Last one, Psalm 98. Everybody still with me? All right, Psalm 98. Verse number 3. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. You know what I noticed when I was reading Psalm 57, trying to do my observation? I noticed mercy and truth occurring together two times in the Psalm. I noticed that mercy and truth occurring together.

I noticed that mercy occurred before the word truth, and that was consistent in the Bible. And I also noticed that mercy and truth occurred in the Bible and in Psalm 57 in relation to salvation. So it got me thinking. How is mercy and truth related to salvation? Go back to Psalm 85 that we just read. How is mercy and truth, the pair, related to salvation? I love this.

This is beautiful. 85 verse 10. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. You know what verse 10 tells us? That that whole mercy and truth phenomenon in Scripture is on purpose. God puts them together. They’re kissing. They’re kissing. They go together. Just like Joshua and Martha. They go together. And they kiss. Say amen right there. They go together. So here’s how our mercy and truth, when they are paired, even though they’re opposites, how does that relate to salvation?

Now we can look at the salvation of David in that temporal problem he had, but in the broader context, look at the salvation of Christ that Christ has given to us. Remember it was truth that made our salvation necessary. Here we were. The law of God was rigid. Unchanging. Unbending. No matter who violated it, it didn’t care. And here we found ourselves on the wrong side of the law of God because it didn’t bend for us.

And we found ourselves guilty of sin, of transgressing God’s law. And so truth demanded, truth demanded judgment. We’ve already seen that, right? So it was truth that made salvation necessary. But on the other hand, it was mercy that brought salvation to us. If God was only a God of truth, we would have destroyed ourselves up against God’s law and that would have been it. So we needed salvation and the reason we needed salvation was the truth of God and it was the mercy of God that brought salvation to us.

Titus 3 5, somebody quoted, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost. That compassion of God was moved toward us. Yes, his truth condemned us. We deserved it, but his compassion was there too. Both are needed. Both are, you know what? If you didn’t have truth and you only had compassion, then that, you know what that leads to?

Universalism. Everybody goes to heaven. But what’s the expense? Truth. Judgment. Which is right. Which is right. You see the truth had condemned us because we had sinned and God, who is the God of truth, had to judge us, but the mercy of God was extended to us also. In his mercy, he sent Christ and upon that cross, God’s truth, judgment for sin, kissed mercy, God’s compassion for sinners, on the cross.

Mercy and truth kissed each other. Did you know that if there’s one place, one moment in history where that is true, the moment where mercy and truth came together. It was always together in scripture, right? It was always together in the character of God, but in that moment, it was visually demonstrated in Christ accomplishing our salvation for us when he bore our judgment that truth had given to us because of his compassion.

Man, that is amazing. First John, listen to this. First John, in fact, let’s go there. John, I’m sorry, John chapter 1. Look at John chapter 1. John chapter 1 verse 14. John 1, 14. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now the word grace is a little bit different, but would you say that the word mercy and the word grace are probably somewhat related?

Yeah. Verse 17. Here it is two times in the same proximity, in the same context. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth. Note the order in both cases. I’m not making this stuff up. There’s a reason it’s in this order. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Jesus was not just a Christ of compassion. On Sunday we’re probably going to get into Matthew 23, and you’re going to see the truth part.

We’re all going to see the truth part. But with Jesus came grace and truth, mercy and truth. You see, this is our salvation. Christ is the living embodiment of the kiss between mercy and truth. Isn’t that awesome? But there’s one more thing I want you to see as we finish. Look in two places. First James 2, verse, James chapter 2. Let’s look at that. James chapter 2.

James 2, verse 13. Look at this verse carefully if you would. For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy. And mercy rejoiceth against judgment. You know, I was talking to you a minute ago about how mercy in scripture, mercy occurs first in priority to truth. It’s preferable. It’s emphasized more because of its order. This is what we’re talking about right here. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

You cannot have a situation in which you have only one or the other. You need both. But if we are going to err, if we are going to emphasize anything, one or the other, the emphasis should be on the first. Mercy. Not truth. Mercy. Again, that doesn’t mean truth doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you get rid of the truth. No. You keep it. But the emphasis is on the mercy.

All right, look at one more place. Proverbs 16 verse 6. Proverbs 16 verse 6. By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged. By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. Now notice the last part of this verse. The second part of this verse that talks about men departing from evil, that’s talking about keeping men from doing evil. But the first part of the verse, by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, it means the sin’s already been committed.

Right? So the second part talks about how not to sin. The first part talks about what to do when the sin’s already been committed. That’s water under the bridge now. And how is it purged? It’s purged, number one, with both mercy and truth. Both are needed. Listen now, if someone sins, whether it’s you or anybody, if someone sins, they do not need someone to just pat them on the head and act like it’s not a big deal.

They do not need mercy with no truth. But they also don’t need truth with no mercy. Because truth with no mercy, if you do not have both, iniquity is not purged, you have to have both. And mercy is first. So if you’re going to lean into one or the other, you lean into the mercy. This is what it means to be a gracious and a compassionate Christian.

Not a hard-nosed, harsh Christian. To be honest with you, hard-nosed and harsh Christians, and I can name some names, but I’m not going to, just because it’s vain. Hard-nosed and harsh Christians, it is not that they lack compassion. No, they have it. But they’re just leaning into the truth part. I would say that the scriptures say that we should lean into the mercy part. You understand what I’m saying?

We should lean into the mercy part. When you’re dealing with somebody who’s messed up, and that’s primarily what we’re talking about here. When you and I are dealing with somebody who’s messed up, somebody who’s wayward, some issue, you got to have both. You can’t just cast away the truth for their sake, because you feel for them. You cannot do that. You know what, often, I’m just stating a matter of fact, because of the way ladies are built, ladies are more prone to do that, because ladies have a stronger sense of compassion and sentiment than men.

That’s just a fact, right? Men tend to want to lean into the truth part, ladies to the mercy part. When you have somebody that’s messed up, there is such a thing as toxic compassion. You’re actually harming them. What is that? I know that’s a catch phrase these days, toxic empathy. They say toxic empathy. But what is that? That is just another way to describe compassion without truth.

But you’ve got to have the truth part. But it can’t just be truth, because your spirit matters. Your spirit might, you know, when someone’s messed up, it could be that they know they’re messed up. And if you come at them with truth, not that you forsake truth, for sure you don’t forsake it or hide it, but if you come at them with truth and only truth, they already know that.

Maybe the thing they need is some compassion, where you remind them there is a path back, like the prodigal. Would you say that the father of the prodigal son leaned on, all right, let me ask you this. Would you say, from what you know of that story, would you say that the father of the prodigal forsook truth for his son’s sake? No. He didn’t. The son left, and he waited.

There’s no indication that he approved of anything. In fact, he didn’t. I mean, the whole story tells us that he did not approve of what his son was doing. But you also do not see the son returning. What you see is the son returning to a father he knew was compassionate. See, you don’t have to forsake truth to be compassionate. And see, the son knew his father would receive him again.

And that’s why he returned. If he knew his father was truth and only truth, he wouldn’t have come back. He came back because he knew that the father would have compassion. And he did. But he also, because everybody leans a little more on one or the other, right? Harder-nosed people, harsher people, sterner people, lean on the truth side, people with more sentiment lead on the compassion side, that’s true.

So we want to look at the prodigal son and we want to say, well, his father was compassionate. But the son also knew that the father had rules in the house, and if he was going to come back, he had to come back in repentance, which is what he did. He did not come dragging back in expecting the father to support his drug habit. No, he came back having repented, knowing that because he had repented, the father would receive him with compassion.

The father would not abate and abet him in his evil, but he would receive him with compassion. That’s why I say it’s a balance. That’s why I call it poles on opposite sides. And this character of God, this is the balance that God himself strikes when he blends these two characteristics together. And this is the balance that the Lord wants you and me to have as we deal with other people.

Let’s pray.