“The least mercy from God is a miracle.
That God does not crush our sinful race, is a surprising mercy. That you and I should have been spared to live,—even though it were only to exist in direst poverty, or in sorest sickness,—that we should have been spared at all, after what we have been, and after what we have done, is a very marvellous thing.
The explanation of the marvel is given in the Book of Malachi: “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6)
If God had possessed such a short temper as men often have, he would have made short work with us all; but he is gracious and longsuffering, and therefore he is very patient with us.
The very least mercy that we ever receive from God is a very wonderful thing; but when we think of all that is meant by this blessed word “lovingkindness”—, which is a compound of all sorts of sweetnesses, a mixture of fragrances to make up one absolutely perfect perfume,—when we take that word “lovingkindness”, and think over its meaning, we shall see that it is a marvellous thing indeed that it describes.
For, first, it is marvellous for its antiquity.
To think that God should have had lovingkindness towards men or ever the earth was, that there should have been a covenant of election,—a plan of redemption,—a scheme of atonement,—that there should have been eternal thoughts of love in the mind of God towards such a strange being as man, is indeed marvellous.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4-5)
Read these words now with the tears in your eyes: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee;” (Jeremiah 31:3) and when you know that this passage refers to you, tell me if it is not “marvellous lovingkindness.”
God’s mind is occupied with thoughts concerning things that are infinitely greater than the destiny of any one of us, or of all of us put together; yet he was pleased to think of us in love from all eternity, and to write our names upon his hands and upon his heart, and to keep the remembrance of us perpetually before him, for his “delights were with the sons of men.”
This antiquity makes it to be indeed “marvellous lovingkindness.”
After that, think also of the self-sacrificing nature of his lovingkindness,—that, when God had set his heart on man, and had chosen his people before the foundation of the world, then he should give—what? Himself.
Ay, nothing short of that;—that He should not only give us this world, and His providence, and all its blessings, and the world to come, and all its glories; but that, in order to our possession of these things, He should give His own Son to die for us.
Well might the apostle John write, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
It was not that Christ died for us when we were righteous, “for scarcely for a righteous man will one die:” “but God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Isaiah had long before explained the mystery: “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: He hath put Him to grief.”
You who love your children, to lose one of whom would be worse than to die, can realize a little of what must have been the Father’s love to you in giving up His only-begotten Son that you might live through Him.
Dwell on this great truth, dear friends, meditate on it, and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into its heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths, for these lips cannot fully speak of its wonders.
As you think over the Lord’s ancient lovingkindnesses which were ever of old, His distinguishing love towards His redeemed, and His self-sacrificing love in giving up His Only-Begotten, you will be obliged to say, ‘It is marvellous lovingkindness; it is marvellous lovingkindness indeed.‘”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Marvellous Lovingkindness,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 46 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1900), 46: 554-556.
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