Dealing with Difficulty Through Mercy (Part 2) by Dr. Rod Mattoon

About this sermon

In part two of this message, we continue to examine Bible principles about mercifulness in the life of the Christian. Mercifulness involves perceptiveness and patience. God demonstrates patience with us everyday in spite of our faults. Mercifulness involves pleasure. Showing mercy is not to be a drudgery. The late Corrie ten Boom recalled in her book The Hiding Place, a postwar meeting with a guard from the Ravensbruck concentration camp, where her sister had died and she herself had been subjected to horrible indignities. This camp was an awful, horrifying place. The meeting with the guard was at a church service in Munich where she saw the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of the actual jailers that she had seen since that time. She said, "And suddenly it was all there in my mind—the roomful of mocking soldiers, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face. He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing and said to me, 'How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein. To think that, as you say, ‘He has washed my sins away!' His hand was thrust out to shake mine and I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of those thoughts. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? 'Lord Jesus,' I prayed, 'forgive me and help me to forgive him.' I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer, 'Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.' As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me." Corrie was continuing to learn what it was to be merciful toward others. We close the message by providing principles that show you how to develop mercy in your own life. This 35-minute message was preached on Sunday night, October 12, 2022, at Lincoln Land Baptist Church.

Topics

• Love & Compassion