If you have your Bibles with me this morning, or with you this morning, take them and turn to the 16th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. 16th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. We're going to look at, I was reading a commentary this week on this particular chapter and we're only going to look at the first few verses of it. Ezekiel is an interesting prophet if you really read and study his writings. He's probably, when you consider all of the prophets and everything that they wrote, his message isn't any different in terms of what he was trying to do and the message he was trying to give to Israel. But his prophecy is unique in that it is very, very graphic. The Book of Ezekiel has some of the most graphic language in all of the Word of God. And because of that, you just about will not hear a lot of people or messages preached out of the Book of Ezekiel. Especially not out of these more graphic portions. And this particular chapter, chapter 16, is one of those graphic portions. Chapter 23 is another graphic chapter. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why God wanted those things put in his word? Could it be because our sin really makes us worse than what we've been led to believe? And could it be that our sin really is heinous in the eyes of our Lord? And that's the entire point of Ezekiel's prophecy, is to try to get the nation of Israel to understand how grievous they were in the sight of God. And I'm going to invite you to stand this morning out of reverence to the Word of God, and you're going to see that in these first couple of verses of Ezekiel chapter 16. And then we will pray, and then you can be seated. The Bible says, beginning in verse 1, Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee, thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. Now that particular verse doesn't make a lot of sense to us because that's not a custom that we do in our country. But even today in the ancient Near East, in the Middle Eastern nations, a lot of times when children are born they will immediately take salt and they'll rub their bodies in salt. and then they will swaddle them, and the salt is supposed to help purify their skin, it's to make their skin fatter, puffier, fairer in terms of their countenance, so that is still a practice that goes on in the East today. Verse 5 says, None I pitied thee to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field. to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born." The imagery that the prophet is trying to get you and I to understand is this. Imagine taking your brand new baby, looking at it, being utterly disgusted with what you see, and throwing it out into the nearest garbage dump you can find. That's the imagery that the prophet is trying to get you to see and to understand. And when I, verse 6, passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood, live. Yes, I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood, live. Now the attribute of God that we're looking at this morning is not named in any of these six verses that we've just read, but the idea is perfectly conveyed in these six verses. And what I want to look at today is the mercy of God. Our Father, as we come to you this morning, Lord, it truly is a privilege to be in your house. It truly is a privilege to be among your people. I've thoroughly enjoyed just getting to sing with them again, just getting to listen to them sing, watching the smiles on their faces, seeing those who've raised their hand in worship and praise to you. Lord, we ought to feel like we missed something huge not being here last week. We ought to feel like we're missing a limb to our body. That's how important this place ought to be to us. That's how great the privilege to be able to be here is. And Father, I thank you for allowing us to be here. Father, thank you for healing those who have been sick enough that they could be back among us. I know that there are people who still don't feel well, still have congestion, and they're still stopped up, and they're still trying to gain their strength back. You know that, Father, and I pray you'll lay your hand on them according to your will and continue to strengthen them and heal them day by day. But thank you, Father, for those who you have gathered here. And now you know, Lord, the text that is before us, Father. You know that I have struggled for two weeks trying to figure out how to say this in love and how to say it in perfect honesty. because you are perfectly honest and you are perfectly truthful and you don't mince words with us. Help me not to mince words with your people this morning because all of these things, Father, that I believe you've given me to say, you first said to me. And so, Father, I pray that you will give my heart and you'll give my mind the right words to say in the right time I truly wanted Your Word to speak louder than I ever could because my words, my interpretation of what Your Word says is not going to save anybody. Your Word will save, and Your Word alone. Father, You alone can take the Word of God and create faith in the lives of those who are here who are lost. Those who are watching online, Father, who are lost, Our world, our churches, Father, are full of people who are not saved and they think they are. And Father, we know that we cannot be saved until we see that Jesus Christ is absolutely everything that we need. And Father, as we go along this way and you continually teach us what we are by birth, by nature, It should make us hope in thy mercy more. Father, there are thousands upon thousands of scriptures we could have looked at this morning on the mercy of God. We could have talked about so many things with the mercy of God. But very, very, very few of them did you lead me to, and this is where I couldn't get away from. And I'm asking you, Father, in the name of Jesus, arrest the attention of your people. And if there are those who are lost here, if you do not arrest their attention, Father, they'll go right on in their way. If you do not cause them to see, they'll forever remain blind. God, it ought to absolutely wound us to think Am I blind also? Could I be blind also? Could I be deaf? That's a question we all ought to ask ourselves. And then, after asking that question, we ought to be prepared for you to give us an answer, whether it's an answer that we want or not. If it's an answer of peace, we ought to rejoice. If it's an answer of conviction, we ought to fall on our face before you. Eternity is far too long, and it is far too real, and life and the world are just quickly passing away for us to play games, because you do not play games. And Father, I pray, Lord, please give me the words. Put them on my tongue. Help them to be simple. Help them to be direct. And let the anointing of our Lord not just be upon me, but be upon your people, be upon this congregation. And arrest them, Father, and help them to see your word. And Father, let thy great and glorious mercy be praised from every single one of our lips all the days of our lives. And we will give thee the praise and the glory in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. You can be seated this morning. I want to read you something this morning from a little book, On the Mercy of God, and this book, I've quoted from it before, and I know that Brother Charles has read it, and this book is called The Knowledge of the Holy, written by the late A.W. Tozer, and I would highly recommend, if you truly want to learn more of the character and the nature of God, you want to draw closer to God, I would encourage you to get this book and read it. It will absolutely make you feel about this big. And in a good way, it's an absolutely wonderful read, but listen to what he said. He said, when through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at last our home in the light, we shall have a thousand strings to our harps, but the sweetest may well be the one tuned to sound forth most perfectly, the mercy of God. For what right will we have to be there? Did we not by our own sins take part in that unholy rebellion which rashly sought to dethrone the glorious King of creation? And did we not in times past walk according to the course of this world, according to the evil prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience? And did we not at all once live in the lusts of our flesh? And were we not by nature the children of wrath, even as others? But we, who were one-time enemies and alienated in our minds through wicked works, shall then see God face to face, and His name shall forever be in our foreheads. We who earned banishment shall enjoy communion. We who deserve the pains of hell shall know the bliss of heaven. And all this through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us. There, if you took a thousand preachers and asked them, or told them to preach on the mercy of God, they would probably choose a thousand different texts, and they would do it a thousand different ways. But I want to define mercy for you this morning because this is something that we all are familiar with. We have the capability to show this, not only to each other, but to a lost and a dying world. We show mercy. We have had mercy shown to us. We can identify with what mercy is. But mercy is just simply benevolence, it's kindness, it's mildness or tenderness of heart, which disposes an injured person to overlook their injuries or to treat an offender better than he deserves. Mercy is then that attribute of God by which he pardons sinners, but it is not based on any merit of the sinner, but it is due to the compassion and kindness of God Himself. Instead of destroying the sinner, as the sinner rightly deserves, God spares him, protects him, blesses him, and saves him. Now, mercy is irrelevant. if we do not understand and we do not keep in mind three very simple things that I want to give you this morning to begin. Number one, mercy is meaningless without an object to receive it. Mercy is meaningless if there's no one to receive it. Number two, mercy cannot be earned, nor can it be deserved. In even the smallest way, mercy cannot be deserved and it cannot be earned. And then number three, mercy can never be repaid. Simple, simple, simple. Mercy is meaningless if there's no one to receive it. Mercy cannot be earned. It cannot be deserved. And mercy cannot be repaid. Once mercy has been shown to you, you are eternally and forever under that debt. And you'll never get out of it. Now those are three very simple things, but it's important for you to keep them in your mind as we go through this text today. Tozer went on to say, as judgment is God's justice confronting moral inequity, so mercy is the goodness of God confronting human suffering and guilt. Were there no guilt in the world, no pain and no tears, God would yet be infinitely merciful. but his mercy might well remain hidden in his heart, unknown to the created universe. No voice would be raised to celebrate the mercy of which none felt the need. It is therefore human misery and sin that calls forth the divine mercy." Now let me sum that up very simply. Do you realize this morning that if sin did not exist, you and I would have no idea what God's mercy was? Adam and Eve, in their bliss and in their perfection, did not live according to the mercy of God. They had no idea what the mercy of God was in the Garden of Eden. Because there was no need for the mercy of God. There was no need for the grace of God in their bliss in the Garden of Eden. And only after they saw their nakedness, and they saw their shame, did the mercy provided to them in the animal skins God gave them ever begin to make sense? You see, if God had just killed an animal, or if God would have shown up in the garden one day and said, here Adam, I want you to put this on, here Eve, I want you to wear this, it would have meant nothing to them, nothing to them whatsoever. Because all Adam and Eve could see when they looked at each other was the glory they were created with. And the animal skins would have had absolutely no meaning at all. And therefore the full weight of divine mercy can only be recognized by those who see how desperately they need it, and how little they actually deserve it. If you want to understand the mercy of God, you first must realize how desperately you need it and how little you actually deserve it. And so that is what I shall try and endeavor this morning to show you. I am going to be graphic and I am going to be honest because the Word of God is graphic and the Word of God is honest. And there are some of you in this room this morning or there could potentially be some of you in this room this morning who are lost. And if you were here this morning or you're watching this online or in the future and you are lost, every single word that I am about to try to inadequately say describes your entire being and describes your entire life. You can be angry, you can think it doesn't, you can stop your ears, you can turn away from it, but you will never get over the fact that every word I'm about to say is what the Word of God says about you. And it is what the Word of God says about me. But if you were here this morning and you have been born again, and this mercy of God has touched your life, this is what you were. And if God would withhold his mercy for the blink of an eye, it's exactly what every one of us would revert back unto if he ever chose to withdraw. His gracious presence from our lives. So let us begin this morning. I want to look at two main things out of this text. The first one is called the malignity of men in their sin. The malignity of men in their sin. Now the word malignity means extreme evilness of nature. Extreme sinfulness. Enormity. or heinousness. And we see that presented in these first five verses. So I just want to point out some things about these first five verses and give you some scripture that go along with them. In verses 1 and 2, Ezekiel is told, Son of Man. He's called the Son of Man. The word of the Lord comes into him saying in verse 1, Son of Man. This is the title for a preacher or for the messenger of God. It is the duty of the preacher, of the evangelist, of the messenger of God to tell the word of the Lord. And do you realize that there is a lot of stuff in this book that it is not popular for the preacher to say and to tell. The Bible says, Paul wrote to Timothy and he says, rebuke, reprove, and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. And so what that shows you is that two-thirds of the ministry in the pulpit is negative. The rebuking and the reproving are the things nobody likes. Now the exhorting is something everybody loves, but the rebuking and the reproving is not. But God knew that you and I needed rebuked and we needed reproved a whole lot more than we needed exhorted and encouraged. So then he goes on to say, cause, look at verse two, cause Jerusalem to know. The word cause naturally signifies the power to bring about an effect. And do you see what God is telling Ezekiel to do here? He says, Ezekiel, cause my people to know. In other words, Ezekiel was given the task of making them understand. Do you realize that whether it be me standing up here, whether it be Brother Charles standing up here, whether it was Brother Mike, Brother Lonnie, it really wouldn't matter, whoever would be up here. It is our responsibility, according to God, to make you understand. Do you have any idea what that means? And I know that both Brother James and Brother Charles have felt that weight. to make the people to understand things that maybe they don't want to understand. But that's the responsibility God gave the preacher. And look what he says, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. These are your sins. your iniquities, your transgressions, your lawlessness, your unrighteousness, your idolatries, your wickedness, your provocations against God and your slights against His holiness. Did you know this morning that your sins provoke God to anger and wrath against you? And the more you sin, and the more you delight yourself in sin, the greater God's anger builds and becomes against your life. And the tighter the string on the bow of judgment gets. According to David in Psalm chapter 7, he says, God hath prepared for him the instruments of death, and he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors, or against the sinners. your idolatries, everything in your life that you place on a greater level of respect and admiration other than the true and living God and His Christ, The placing of yourself, your pleasures, your wants, your lusts, the deep-seated wickedness and desires of your infinitely wicked heart, which is deceitful above all things, according to Jeremiah, and desperately wicked. And what man can even know how deep the wickedness of his heart runs? These are her abominations. These are your sins this morning. He goes on in verse 3. He says, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Canaan was a place noted for its detestable idolatry, its perversion, its sin, its incalculable wickedness. This was the very place that they would take their little babies and take them to an altar of stone, light a fire and throw them into it because they thought it appeased their God. Your birth and your nativity is of that land. You are what you are because that's the way you were born. We hear so often in the world today, well I was born that way, I was born this way. You absolutely right, you were born that way. You were born a sinner. And when you live in sin and you exercise yourself in sin, you are naturally doing what you were born in and of, and that is sin. And I'm afraid this morning that maybe even here, you've been told, we've been told we're sinners so often that I might as well tell you you're an Arkansan for all the good that calling you a sinner does. Have you ever thought about that? We've been told that we're born in sin, and I believe everybody in here would agree with that, that we are born in sin, but we've been told we're born in sin so often that that no longer has any kind of an impact on us whatsoever. We've become desensitized to being called a sinner. And that's why God takes such great pains in His Word to describe to us what a sinner is. What they look like. Their plight and their need. So let me go further. As Canaan and as the land and as her inhabitants were utterly corrupted, so are you utterly corrupted. And you have declared with the fool, there is no God. Now you may say, I've not denied God. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I've never said there's not a God. And as Paul said, you profess that you know God, but in your works, you show that you do not. You deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unto every good work, reprobate. And because of this, God has called you corrupt, saying that you have done abominable works, and there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, upon you individually, upon me, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. But he found that everyone was altogether gone aside. and that everyone had become filthy, and that there is none that doeth good, no, not one." I remember several years ago, before I got saved, I knew this book from front to back. I could answer questions about it from front to back. I read it every day, constantly. I made it a point. that I was going to read through the whole thing four times every year. I prayed all the time. I got up here and I led singing all the time. I sang all the time. And I was exactly what I'm describing to you this morning. And all my knowledge and all your knowledge is nothing but something you can take to hell with you if you die lost in your sins. You can have a head full of biblical facts, biblical knowledge. You can have a lap full of gifts and a lap full of talents and take every bit of that with you into destruction. And that's exactly where I was heading and had absolutely no idea because I knew all of it. And it's possible that you could be here this morning and you could know all of it. You can know how to play it, you can know how to put it on, you can know how to wear it, you can know how to look it, you can know how to get up here and do it. You might even sit in a class and know how to do it in front of your students. And you can be utterly lost and you can be utterly perishing this morning. Paul wrote and described it like this, there is none that understand it. There is none that seeketh after God. Your throat is an open sepulcher and with your tongues have you used deceit. The poison of asps is under your lips and your mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Your feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in your ways. in the way of peace you have not known, and there is no fear of God before your eyes." And you think, well that doesn't describe me. I've never killed anybody. I don't use curse words. I don't speak filthy things. Do you gossip? Do you talk about other people and things that you don't know if they're actually true or not? Do you run other people down to make yourself feel better? Because that's the same thing. That's the poison of asps under your lips. Do you harbor unforgiveness in your heart toward another person? If so, you've murdered them. You're a murderer. If you refuse to let go of the past and to forgive people in the love of God, you're a murderer. Because that is what the Bible says. If there are people you hate, whether they be people who are in sin, whether they be anybody who is lost, whether they be people who have done you wrong, people you don't agree with, if you hate them in your heart, you are a killer and you are a murderer. And no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him, the Bible says. Destruction and misery are in your way. In the way of peace you have not known and there is no fear of God before your eyes because you're able to just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again and there's no thought to the consequences at all. There's no thought that you are sinning against the thrice holy God who will judge you for your sin if you do not repent. And because there's no concept of that, that means there is no fear of Him and His holiness in your life. Do you find yourself doing things that you know are wrong? Do you find yourself doing them habitually and unable to stop? Do you ask yourself, ever ask yourself, or have you ever asked yourself the question, why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep doing this? Why does it seem that I am unable to stop doing what I know I should not be doing? Well, the answer is simple. You do what you do because you are what you are. You're a lost, depraved sinner. Everything about you is utterly corrupt. You're corrupt in your heart, in your mind, in your choices, in your vices, in your actions, steps, conduct, talk, walk, and in every single part of life, you are corrupt. And the Bible says that you are depraved. Let's go on and look at verse four. As for thy nativity in the day thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted nor swaddled. Your sin and the things that you love does not care for you at all. Your sin cannot help you. It cannot help you become a better person. All your sin can do is degrade you, blacken you, and pollute you, even as you were shapen in iniquity and in sin did your mother conceive you according to David's writings in Psalm 51. And you were, listen to what he wrote in Psalm 58, you were estranged from the womb, going astray as soon as you were born. Speaking lies. Have you ever looked at a little child and all of their innocence, but you could see sin all over them and all in them? No one had to teach them that. No one has to teach you how to lie. No one has to teach you how to be unrighteous. No one has to teach you how to do the wrong thing. Because it is who we are. It is in us. It is innate. It is our nature. I could just as easy give up being right-handed as I could give up being a sinner. Meaning that you can't do it. You're born in sin. You were blinded and desensitized by your sin as you grew. The Bible says, having your understanding darkened, being alienated, that's separated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of your heart. Sin causes ignorance, it causes blindness, and it causes you to not realize the things that you do are directly sinful against a holy God. As much as I thought that I loved God, looking back, I realized that every time I would do something that I knew was wrong and I would feel so guilty, I was guilty because I had just done something I knew I shouldn't. There was no part of me whatsoever that cared about what I had done to Christ. There was no part of me that even considered the slight or the reproach I had brought against His holiness, His goodness, His righteousness. None. Not any. And if all you care about when you sin and do something that you shouldn't is, man, I got caught, then you're not saved. You're not saved. Because all you care about is how can I do this again and do it better so I don't get caught. All you are is how can I do this where I don't feel guilty because this is what I want to do by birth and by nature. being past feeling, they have given themselves over into lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. Your sin and the things that you naturally crave cannot cover your nakedness, it cannot cover your blood, Adam and Eve found that out when they sinned and they grabbed the first thing they could find and sewed the fig leaves together just to try to be able to stand in God's presence when they heard Him coming. And they tried to cover up their nakedness and found that they could not. And as they found they could not, you can't hide your sin from God either. You cannot heal your own shame, and you cannot remove your own guilt. And your sin can do nothing to help you, the only thing it can do is heap upon you, up and upon you, more and more and more. And your iniquities are increased over your head, and your trespasses are grown up unto the heavens. According to Ezra chapter 9 and verse 6. David wrote and said, your iniquities are gone over your head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for you. And where there should be immense shame, so that you would cry out with the prophet, oh my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee. Instead, you find yourself as Jeremiah described, were you ashamed when you had committed abomination? No, you are not at all ashamed, neither could you blush. Do you find yourself sinning and it doesn't even bother you at all? If you do, then you know that you've gone past feeling and you know that's a dangerous place to be in. Verse five takes it further and says, none I pitied thee. Sinners, other sinners, cannot pity you. Your sin does not pity you. And Satan, the one who entices you to sin, the originator of sin, the one who introduced sin into the created order, certainly will never pity you. He has one goal for your life and that is to utterly destroy you in every single conceivable way. Your sin may feel fun, it may look fun, the world makes it look like fun, the world presents it as having all of these people around you that are doing exactly the same thing and they are having the time of their lives. And that's exactly where Satan wants you at, thinking that you're having the time of your life until he begins to pull the rug out from under your feet. Because he doesn't want you having the time of your life. He wants you broken, wallowing in your own blood, in the field, in absolute, utter misery and despair. And then, snuff you out and drag you into eternity with him. That's all he wants for you. That is all He wants for your life. There is no compassion in your sin. There's no tenderness in your sin. There's no goodness. There's no help. The biggest lie that Satan sells people is that sin will always be pleasurable to those who participate in it. And that those who participate in it with you, those who laugh at those same jokes that you do, those who say the same filthy words you do, those who listen to the same filthy things, those who do the same filthy things with you, that they will always be with you and they will always be on your side. But we have to remember that they are just as wicked as you are. And the Bible says that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. And you all walk together, as Paul wrote, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also you had your conversation in times past in the lust of your flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath. even as others. You know, as I was meditating on this this week, and I was thinking about my life and our lives, no one has to teach us how to do the wrong thing. But you have to be taught how to do everything that's right. Nobody has to make you and force you to take your eyes and look at things that you should not look at. But do you realize it takes an absolute effort of grace to take your eyes and put them where they actually need to be? Nobody has any trouble at all doing what they shouldn't. But man, it takes some effort. to do what you should. You know why that is? Because we are depraved. We're utterly undone. We are sinners. We are vile. We are filthy. And we literally cannot help ourselves. Satan desires to make you loathsome in the eyes of everyone. He desires to ruin your life, to leave you with absolutely nothing, no compassion, no care, and to utterly destroy you if you took your brand new baby and threw it out the window into the ditch. How long is that baby going to survive? With no one to love it, no one to care for it, no one to have compassion on it whatsoever. That's exactly what Satan wants out of your life. Young people, old people, middle-aged people, children, it does not matter. That's exactly the end he wants to bring you to. And he will do every conceivable thing inside of his power to get you there. Take your Bibles with me and turn to 2 Samuel chapter 20 and you can see a picture of this. 2 Samuel chapter 20. We have the story here of two men by the name of Joab and Amasa. Joab was the general of David's army. And after the revolt of David's son Absalom, Joab had disobeyed David's orders and Joab had murdered Absalom. And as a show of good faith to the nation of Israel that was in the process of receiving David back, David fired Joab and appointed Amasa, who Absalom had raised as his captain in the revolt, as general in charge of the troops. But Amasa had a slight problem. Amasa wasn't very obedient, and he wasn't very cautious, and he didn't pay attention. And if you look with me in verse 9, Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him. That was a sign of affection, that was a greeting. We would consider, we would think of a handshake or a hug. But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand. So he smote him therewith in the fifth rib and shed out his bowels to the ground and struck him not again and he died. Now look down at verse 12. And Damasah wallowed in blood in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he removed Damasah out of the highway into the field, and he cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that everyone that came by him stood still. And when he was removed out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab to pursue after Sheba, the son of Bichri. We have a man who's not very, maybe we say this, a man who's ignorant of the danger, greeting the very person who wants him dead. And so often in our lives, we go to kiss Satan and we do not see the sword in Satan's hand. So often we will kiss the devil with all the things he offers in the kiss and we pay no attention whatsoever to the sword in Satan's other hand until he stabs us, sheds out and he slices us and sheds everything we have on the ground and leaves us wallowing in our own misery. And all Satan wants out of your life and mine is for me to be wallowing in that blood in the middle of the road for everybody just to stop and stare. until somebody finally drags the body out of the way and throws it in the ditch and casts a cloth over it so that people will quit looking at it and they can just go on about their lives, go on about their business as normal. And that's where He wants you to end up. In blood, in the middle of the field. Your condition in sin is loathsome. Joe wrote and said, you were clothed with worms and clods of dust. Your skin is broken and become loathsome. Your entire person is soon degraded by the disease of your iniquities. And as David wrote and said in Psalm chapter 38, your wounds stink and are corrupt because of your foolishness. You are troubled and you are bowed down greatly and you go mourning all the day long. For your loins are filled with a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in your flesh. You are feeble and sore broken and you have roared by reason of the disquietness of your heart. There is nothing at all in the baby, in the blood, in the field that anybody wants. There is no merit, there's no attraction, there's no beauty, there's no prize, there's no gift, there's no talent, there's no salvageability in Ezekiel chapter 1 verses 1 through 5. Now I realize, having said all that to you this morning, that's not the way that you grow your church, because nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to have said to them what I have said to you this morning. But if you remember our three things, mercy is useless if there's no one to receive it, Mercy cannot be repaid, and it cannot be earned, and it cannot be deserved, else it is not mercy. And the only way that you and I can understand the mercy of God is we have to first understand that we are in our blood in the field. And we have absolutely no chance and no hope of getting out of that situation. We have just as much of a chance at picking ourselves up, cleaning ourselves off, and surviving as if I took a little baby and threw them out of the window on my way home in a ditch as they have of making it. None whatsoever. And so I draw your attention this morning to number two, the mercy and compassion of God. There were multitudes of scriptures that we could have looked at and talked about relating to verses one through five. And I have no way of actually being able to adequately show you what kind of a sinner you are. Because I'm still learning what kind of a sinner I am. And when I sit and I read things like this, I get reminded of how vile and wretched and wicked my own heart is. And when God reminds me of that, it makes those four words of verse 6 more precious than gold, greater than silver, and better than anything that this world would have to offer. when I passed by. When I passed by. Because you were or are in that field this morning. And there was a day he and I saw thee polluted, rotten, depraved, utterly worthless in your own blood, in your own sin. Do you realize that the earth should have opened up and swallowed you and swallowed me. But when he passed by, he said, live. He said, live. No matter how polluted or defiled that you are this morning, I promise you, He is passing by. He is passing by. Now I want you to go with me to the 107th Psalm. I want us to see this in action. Psalm 107 gives perfect, perfect examples. Four of them to be exact. of this mercy. Verse 1 says, O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His what endureth forever? His mercy endureth forever. This is the only scripture this morning that I'm using that has the word mercy in it. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. These are all people, all across this world, who the mercy of God found in that field, because there was nobody who was any better off, who was any less dirty, who was any less filthy and any less polluted than anybody else. Every one of us was in the field. And we all had to have a day when God passed by. This psalm is addressed to us, and it is a reminder of the condition we are in, or we were in, or it is the condition you are still in this morning, in that field. Look at number one, verses four through nine. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. These are the people who were lost in the desert. They are lost and they cannot find where they need to go. They are lost and they have no way to get, as it says in verse 4, to a city to dwell in. The city is where the food is. The city is where the water is. The city is where the shelter is. And they are out in the wilderness and they have no way to get there because they can't find a city. And they are hungry. And they are thirsty. and their soul is fainting in them. You remember the rich man in hell, he fainted for one drop of water laid against his tongue. Has any of you ever dipped your finger in a glass of water and got one drop and stuck it on your tongue and thought about that account? You can't taste the water on your tongue. You can't taste it. It does nothing to quench thirst. Your tongue almost can't even perceive it was there. And yet that man would have sold his soul a million times over for one drop of water, one time. And all of the ceaseless ages of eternity just to have it placed on his tongue. These are people who are lost. The Sahara Desert is 2.6 million square miles. of uninhabited nothing but sand. The hottest conditions, the driest conditions, the most desolate conditions on earth. And we flew over it last year on our way to Kenya. And for hours on end, I just looked out the window and there was absolutely nothing but sand. And I had this thought, what would it be like to wake up in the middle of that with absolutely nothing except you? What would it be like to wake up in the absolute middle of nowhere, be utterly lost, with 2.5 million square miles of desert around you, with no water, no food, no shelter? You know you're going to die. You know you're going to die. And yet, your survival tries to make you go on. until you find yourself crawling across the sand, almost spent, knowing that there's no hope. There's absolutely no hope. That is what we look like, lost. We are lost in a desert, and we cannot get our way out of it. And no matter how much we search, we can't find the city. We cannot find the city. And when we get so hungry and so thirsty and our soul faints, do you want to know what the saddest thing in the world is? The absolute worst thing in the world is not that there are people in the desert. It's that so many people in the desert are content to suck in the sand and die in that condition. And all they have to do is what verse 6 says, cry unto the Lord. Because you see, there was a time in the desert when I couldn't get out. And there wasn't nobody on earth looking for me. And Christ passed by. And I called on Him. And look what it says He did. He delivers them out of their distress and He leads them by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation. If you're here this morning and He's delivered you from the desert, you're on your way to that city. He's fed you, He's clothed you, and He's leading you now in the right way. That desert of sin is all around you, but you're no longer alone. And if you'll just follow Him, you'll make it. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, for His mercy, and for His wonderful works to the children of men. For He satisfies the longing soul, and He filleth the hungry soul with goodness. So we have people who are lost in the desert, number 2, verses 10-16. We have people who are bound in prison. Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron. Do you realize that in sin you are bound in chains? And you have no ability to get out of them. You cannot break yourself free. I thought for years I would just stop doing what I shouldn't be doing. And I just kept doing it. Because I could not quit. Because I was stuck in prison And I was chained in that prison and I was an absolute slave to the sin that ruled my life. Why are people bound? Verse 11, because they rebelled against the words of God and they contemned the counsel of the Most High. Every time you hear the Word of God preached and in your heart you go, I won't do that. That's rebelling. That's rebellion against the Word of God. That is contemning, counting for nothing the Word of the Most High. And every time you do that, the chains get tighter and tighter and tighter. The unbelief gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And as we've been studying on Wednesday night, you get harder and harder and harder. Every single time you say, I'm not going to do that. Or what will people think of me? People already think I'm saved. I've already done this and I've already done that. And if I got up there and admitted that I'm in need of salvation, what are they going to think of me? And as long as you let that voice rule your mind, and as long as your pride rules your heart, the chain gets tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter. And don't think there'll ever come a day when suddenly you just throw it off. Because you'll sit in prison until you die. Therefore, verse 12, He brought down their heart with labor. They fell down, and there was none to help them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. Did you know this morning that even in the darkness of your prison, He can still hear you when you cry? Nobody's looking for you in the desert except when He passes by. Nobody is visiting you in the prison, but He's still passing by. But notice what he does. He brings verse 14 out of darkness and out of the shadow of death and he breaks the bands in sunder. He does not give you a key and unlock your chains. He breaks them. And there's a vast difference. Because if you unlock them, they can be locked again. But if he breaks them, they are of no use and they have no power in your life anymore. When you get saved, he sets you free. I will say that until I die. When he changes you, he does not leave you in prison, and he doesn't just loosen the chains. He breaks them so they can't bind you any longer. But he doesn't stop there. Go to the next verse. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness. and his wonderful works to the children of men. Why? Because he didn't just let you out of prison. He didn't just break the chains that held you in what you were. He broke the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron and sundered. It wasn't enough to unchain you. It wasn't enough just to loose you from your bands. He took the entire prison and broke it open so that you would never be stuck in it again. When God frees somebody, they are free indeed. You're not free to just mope in your sin. He doesn't free you to sit in the dankness and the darkness of the prison. No, He brings you into His marvelous light out of the kingdom of darkness and into His marvelous light. Number three, verse seventeen. They're on the verge of death. Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. If you let your sin rule your life, the Bible says you're a fool. If you let your sin and you let the dictates of your flesh rule your life, the Bible says you're a fool. What does that mean? It means you're ignorant of the righteousness of God, you're ignorant of His mercy, you're ignorant of His goodness, you're ignorant of the fact that He alone can free you forever. And I wish I could describe to you when I think about that how good it is to be free. How wonderful it is to be free. to know that if I die now or I live 70 more years, I'll stand before Him free and unashamed. Not because I don't have any sin, not because I'm not a train wreck, but because of Christ. Because of Christ. I have nothing to claim. I don't know how to work. Because I know how much of a fool I was. But when I stand before Him, all I'll have to offer is the polluted rags full of blood. But I can point to Jesus. And that'll be enough. See, you can't get saved. until you recognize and quit trying to do it yourself. Because the chains, the more you struggle in them, the tighter they get. And in the desert, the more you try to find somewhere, the more you try to go, the more of your energy you waste, and the more you expend, and the closer you bring yourself to death. Their soul, verse 18, abhorreth all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses. Now watch this. He sent His word. Son of man, cause my people to know their abominations. Declare the word of the Lord unto my people. The only thing that is going to break your chains, rip open your prison, and save your soul is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ in this word. Nothing else. And he delivered them from their distresses. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. and let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare His works with rejoicing. If you want to truly worship God, and you want to do more than come in the house of God and just sit here, if you want to feel something, then you have to understand what you were and what He saved you from. or you'll never feel a thing. You'll never feel a thing until you realize how worthless you were in that field and how he had every single right to walk right on by you. You'll never know how to worship him. Rodney Griffin from Greater Vision wrote a song that said he could have passed by when he heard my cry and left me laying in the way. He could have passed by that old man who was blind and said maybe on another day. Or he could have walked on when all hope was gone and left me laying there in my mistakes. Oh, I'm glad that he didn't when he heard my cry. No, he didn't when he could have passed by. And then fourthly, We've looked at those who are lost in the desert, those who are in prison, those who are on the verge of death, and then, forcefully, those who are in confusion and chaos. They that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. These are the people who are too busy right now. I'm too busy for that stuff right now. I'll do it later. Or these are the people who think that I've got to clean up my act first. Let me get some of my life together before I go to Jesus because He'll accept me when I can get some of this together. You're going to die getting your life together. Because you can't do it. You can't do it. And as long as you try to get your own life together, that's works salvation. And the only place works salvation leads you is eternal destruction. These are those who just don't have time right now. Or, I can't let people know that I need help. I can't go up to that altar. What do they think of me? And there are some of you, it's possible that some of you right now have already played through your mind, if I go up there today, people are gonna think I'm lost. What are they gonna think of me? Well, there's two things they can think of you. They could think, what's wrong with that person? In which case, they need to come up here and join you. Or they can come up here and fall on you and pray until you're changed. For he commandeth, these are those who are too busy, and raises the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. And they mount up to the heaven, and they go down again into the depths. Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and they stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. The only place worse than being lost and stranded in a desert you can't get out of would be lost and stranded at sea with no hope. And I know Brother Gene can attest to this. When we went several years ago, we went on a cruise down the Caribbean and looking out over that Atlantic Ocean, you can't see anything in the distance because there isn't anything in the distance except water. And you get to the distance and there's another distance in front of you and it's just water. And if you could get to that distance, there's another and it's just water. Can you imagine being stranded in the middle of the ocean, floating there with absolutely nothing? Not only do you not have any hope, but all of a sudden here comes a storm. And you've all seen it on TV or movies, what the ocean looks like when there is a storm. And just as this verse says, the waves mount up to heaven and you'll have a wave that's higher than you can fathom on one side and right beside it there's a depression. It's almost like the sea sucks water down and sends it on either side. Can you imagine floating in that? And the terror that you would feel. Do you realize that if you're here this morning and you're just, you're too busy for this right now, God has ways of getting people's attention. God can still command the stormy winds to blow through your life and pitch you to and fro. He did that once on the sea, of which this is a prophecy. The disciples were on their way to the other side. They were obeying the Lord and they got in the middle of a storm and didn't understand why. And so they woke Jesus up, because they thought they were going to die. They thought they were going to perish. And He rebuked them and He said, O ye of little faith, why are you doubting? Because they needed to see something. And when He spoke and rebuked it and calmed it that fast, they fell on their face in front of Him. And they said, what manner of man is this? That even the wind and the sea obey Him. Verse 28, they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. If you're here this morning, and you're stranded on an ocean, and you feel like you're drowning, and you know you're about to drown, He's passing by you because He can walk on the waves, and they won't touch Him. And He can speak one word. He can tell you to live. and that storm will cease. Just like that. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they be quiet. So he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works to the children of men. Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the assembly of the elders. I've told you this morning what you are so that you could identify with one of these four scenarios. Maybe you've identified with all of them. Because you have to understand what you are if you are to appreciate the mercy of God. See, we could have talked about the loving kindness of the Lord and talked about how God does this for us and God does that for us and how He helps us and comforts us and how He holds us and this and that and we could have gone on and on and on and everybody could have left here just chipper and happy and we would have had absolutely no more of a conception of how great His mercy is than we walked in the door. Because if you want those things to be edifying to you, they'll never be until you realize how His mercy first made an impact in your life, which is what Ezekiel chapter 16 verses 1 through 6 describes for us. How polluted we were, how lost we were, how utterly hopeless we were, until He passed by. Listen, I want to give you one more quote this morning from Tozer on this subject. It's possible that you're here this morning and you've never received the mercy of God. It's possible that maybe you thought you have and you realize you've not. Maybe it's possible that you've listened to some of these scenarios or these things that I've said out of the Word of God and you realize, I do that. I do that all the time. Maybe the Word of God has opened your eyes and showed you that it is impossible to do and live this way and be saved. That they're incompatible with each other. It does not work. And you can lie and you can delude yourself and you can think I'm nuts and you can think that I just don't know what I'm talking about all you want and it does not change the Word of God. It doesn't change the truth. To receive mercy, we must first know that God is merciful. It is not enough to believe that He once showed mercy to men like Noah, or Abraham, or David, and that He will again show mercy in some happy and future day. We must believe that God's mercy is boundless, free, and through Jesus Christ our Lord, available to us right now in our present situation. We may plead for mercy for a lifetime in unbelief, and at the end of our days, be still no more than sadly hopeful that we shall at one day, at one point, receive it. This is to starve to death just outside of the banquet hall to which we have been warmly invited. And I don't know if you're here this morning and you're like me, but I know that the way I feel when I know I've sinned and the Spirit of God has revealed to me my error or my wickedness, I feel like I want to crawl under something and just die. And I have this tendency to think, oh God's not going to want to do anything with me now. Do you realize that because God is eternal, all of His attributes are eternal too? Because God is infinite, all of His attributes are infinite. And the mercy of God is boundless, limitless, infinite, and eternal. If we could remember that the divine mercy is not a temporary mood, but an attribute of God's eternal being, then we would no longer fear that it will someday cease to be. For mercy never began to be. but from eternity was, and so it will never cease to be. Nothing that has occurred or will occur in heaven or earth or hell can change the tender mercies of our God. Forever His mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming immensity of divine pity and compassion. You're here this morning. God's not waiting on you to clean yourself up, to make some stuff right, to make a few changes in your life, and then He's gonna decide to pass you by. He's not waiting on you to shower up, clean up, beautify yourself, get out of the blood, He's always passing by. And He's passing by here this morning. I would have loved to preach this to a thousand people. But there's not a thousand people here. So I preach it to those of you who are here that I have known for years and years and years. I've seen your walk with Christ. I know you love Christ. I've seen what He's done in a lot of your lives, how He's changed you, things He's brought you out of. And I know that you're saved. Would you rejoice with me for His mercy? Would you praise Him for His goodness and His wonderful works toward the children of men? Because He could have left you in the desert and let you die. He could have left you in prison and let you rot. He could have let you walk through the gates of death utterly on your own. And he could have let the waves suck you down into the blackness of the sea never to be seen or heard of again. He could have left me laying in my own blood at the field. But he passed. I'd say it and keep saying it over and over and over again. Because until it means something to you, you won't understand what the Scriptures have said in our hearing this morning. How glorious mercy is. Because I didn't deserve it. I can't pay it back. And I most desperately needed it. You didn't deserve it. You can't pay it back. And you needed it too. Stand with us this morning. Blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thank you for your divine mercy. And thank you, Heavenly Father, for the preciousness of your Word that reveals unto us what we are. True kindness is telling people truth, even though there is a chance that people would get mad or hate someone for the truth that they're told. But if we're to understand, if we're to accept, if we're to call upon the mercy of God by faith, we must believe that You are willing to give us mercy. If we go on and we read, Lord, in the rest of the 16th chapter of the book of Ezekiel, it's not pretty. And the thing about the mercy of God is that you knew finding Israel polluted in their own blood in a field that no one wanted, you knew what they would do to you and how they would turn their back on you and how they would hate you and despise you after you brought them out of it. And yet, thy tender compassion drove you to that field. Oh, our God. and knowing, knowing how they would turn. Yet you clothed them, Father. You washed them. The Bible says you spread your skirt over them and you gave them clothing. You gave them a home, a city to dwell in. You gave them jewels and arraignments and money and you heaped blessing upon blessing upon blessing in their lives. And only an absolute fool would throw that away for the fleeting pleasures of sin. Lord, for these last two weeks as I've read this, I've thought of my own sin. I've thought of the things that I can't escape. I've thought of the things, Lord, that haunt me from my past. Memories of things, just random, random thoughts that fly through my mind and I think, oh my God, there's no way you ought to ever turn your eye towards somebody who is as worthless as I am. But your mercy stands as an everlasting truth. You've never waited on me. You've never expected me to do anything. You've never expected me to get better. You've never expected me to clean up. You've never expected me to quit this or quit that. All you've expected from me is just believe in me. And I'll take care of the rest. I cannot wrap my mind around, Lord God, I cannot understand you looking at me as if I was your son. I cannot understand it. But it's true. Because your Word says it's true. The pain of the preacher to cause people to understand Lord, I know I don't have that kind of power. I can tell them the Scriptures. I can tell them what the Word of God says about them. But if you do not do a supernatural work in their life, Father, I can't do anything. And so, Father, I pray that I've said what You wanted me to say and I pray, Lord, You have shown those who are here that are saved how glorious Your mercy is to them. And I pray that they will praise You for Your goodness and for Your wonderful works to the children of men. Lord, if there is somebody here, Father, whose heart is not right with You, then I pray that You have shown them that as an inescapable fact and an inescapable understanding. No explaining it away. No burying it. No getting around it. They have to look at it. They have to confront it. I pray, Father, that You'll give them the strength to fall on their face and cry and call upon the name of the Lord. for whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I pray, Father, that they will call on you and cry out unto you, not for two minutes, not for five minutes, until they know they have been converted and they know you have healed and saved them, no matter how long it takes. Lord, I pray, Father, that you would do all I can't do. Lord, I can't do anything. Please let this word, Father, be with your people. Not because I said it, but because your word said it. If there was something I should have said and didn't, please forgive me. But Lord, as we sing this song this morning, let these words, I pray, register in our souls. And let them touch our hearts. And we'll give you praise in Jesus' name.