Lack of Mercy

Hosea 4:1 tells us that three things are destroying us. Lack of knowledge of God was what we looked at first. Mercy is actually the 2nd problem listed in verse 1. This is the problem leading into the first revival in the Bible. We haven’t even gotten out of the first book and God has had to destroy the entire earth with a flood except for Noah and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire except for Lot all due to our problems with obeying. You would think we would learn faster. This shows the problem and chapter 35 goes thru the solution. This is the first revival in the Bible.

Genesis 34

1Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. 2And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. 3And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. 4So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, "Get me this girl for my wife." 5Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. 6And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. 7The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing must not be done. They were angry. That is ok. We are not to take our own vengeance tho. 8But Hamor spoke with them, saying, "The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife.

9Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. 10You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it, and get property in it." Sounds good but wrong. You shall dwell with us – devil told Jesus he would give him all he saw – land will be open to you – it is all God’s anyway – anyone outside the fellowship of God wants anyone inside fellowship to conform to them because they do not want to obey and conform to God 11Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, "Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give. 12Ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife." The world is always looking for acceptance. They will pay anything to feel accepted. To not feel guilty for what they know are wrong actions. If they truly did not care to be they would not try so hard to talk everyone in to saying there sin is ok. They will do anything to get what they want.

13The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. 14They said to them, "We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. Response starts good. 15Only on this condition will we agree with you—that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. We can not conform to you, but if you will conform to God we can become ONE people of ONE God. 16Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people. Division kills. If they conform then they should be treated as all the same. 17But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone." Even if they did not agree this would have been the correct response. We are not to get even.

18Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor’s son Shechem. 19And the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. Now he was the most honored of all his father’s house. They were excited to be accepted by God’s people even when they had to do the conforming. 20So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, 21"These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters. 22Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people—when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. 23Will not their livestock, their property and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us." 24And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city. They were so excited they went and shared and all obeyed and were accepted. They obeyed immediately and with joy! The seed is growing!

Here is where is goes wrong. 25On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. 26They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. 3 days later instead of welcoming their new brothers they brought death. Opposite of 3 days later Jesus bringing life. 27The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. 29All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. Started with two brothers and spread to all. If these people were so bad they should not have needed all their stuff? We will never turn down what seems to be a prize even when we killed to get it. Something is always growing. Awfully quick how the thorns can grow and kill the seed.

30Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household." Jacob brings judgment, “you have brought trouble on me”. Their sins affected more than just them. Romans 5:18-19, Genesis 3:7-19 and 2 Samuel 12:10-12 also show this. They now stink to unbelievers because they said one thing and did the total opposite. NO MERCY. Nothing different from the rest of the world. Jacob worried the world would see their weakness and strike. He understood that they are many and without help from God they would be destroyed. With God’s help there is never too many. 2 Kings 6:15-19

31But they said, "Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?" The two son’s response is far too familiar. Should I not strike back because someone wronged me? All about me feeling vindicated. If I had any real love and mercy I would always swallow my pride and accept and teach anyone God has brought. No matter if I felt wronged or not. This is the sole purpose of the church. Make disciples! They acted like Jonah, like the prodigal son’s brother. Angry that what they looked down on was accepted/forgiven so easily. They acted opposite of how Christ did. Christ never fought back! Most anger he ever showed was against the so-called church. He always loved the lost. His mercy and forgiveness in the worst wronging in history saved the thief beside him. Luke 23:42-43 All because he did not fight back like everyone else before. Exodus 22:21-24 and 23:9, Proverbs 4:16, Jeremiah 32 and Acts 16:25-34 are other places were fighting was not the answer.

Here is my personal experience with this. I have a bit of a temper. Many of you that know me are laughing at my gross understating of this. As I grew and learned about fighting and my temper I realized I must control this. That was fine until I got in high school and boys like to try each other, but I always stayed away from the opportunities to fight. After a few times of feeling picked on and God not doing anything about it, I guess I decided to fix this on my own. By the time college started I was sick of people thinking they could pick on the nice guy. I started fighting back. Always! I justified most of them, but if you wronged me I got even. If you talked back I verbally assaulted you worse. If you were a guy and stood up to me or talked back too much I figured I would teach you to listen to me. I quickly realized what I feared as a child. I was extremely talented at inflicting pain. The fights were mostly when drunk, which is yet another reason to not drink, but it didn’t really matter anymore. I was going to be listened to one way or the other. What I see now is most people just ended up scared or hating how violent I could be, not coming to the crazy mean guy for advise and help. The last fight I ever picked was when some total stranger had talked back to me in a bar and when he left I followed him out. He ended up having a friend, but that wasn’t a big deal. I do not remember much of this, but a friend told me this story about a year ago. I remember picking a fight with the two guys and winning and then all the sudden they had a lot more friends that I saw when we started. I got my hiney kicked. Lol. My friend said the problem came when one of their girlfriends jumped in and hit me too. I do not remember, but he said I hit her back pretty hard and that is when this guy’s entire crew jumped in. My friend said he even got beat up because of what I started and did. There are to lessons that I want to talk about. First is easy. Violence and anger are sins and are not to be messed with. Like all other sin if not controlled it will grow into something you would swear could never happen. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles I would never hit a girl and I did. That shows me I am capable of any evil whether saved or not. We all must control our thorns.

Second lesson is I only stopped the physical fighting when that happened. I never really gave all that anger to God. I just started verbally and emotionally fighting back next. I believe this is a major problem with the church today. NO FORGIVENESS. The first failure these two brothers had was not forgiving and not accepting. Sure we do not physically kill as much as the Old Testament, but I believe our lack of acceptance is a much more painful death that we are placing on people. I want this real clear. The Bible is for everyone. Any that believe and ask are saved and are equal heirs. Our limiting of Christ’s mercy is what this chapter is all about. Those two brothers took away the opportunity to know God. They executed their own judgment because they were wronged and they will answer for that one day! Think about that when you want to get even. We are to never repay evil for evil. Eye for an eye is not an option. We are not acting like our example! Our sole purpose is to love God and then each other and make disciple. If we run everyone off, these are hard to accomplish. Then everyone is wrong. They are still held accountable for run away and we are for running them off. See how easy it is for everyone to be out of fellowship. Lets forgive a little quicker!

This old quote from a DC talk album has always stuck with me. “The single largest cause of atheism today is when Christians say they believe one thing and then walk out the door and do another. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable!”

I love you cause Jesus loves us both and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that!
BEZ