Divine Mercy Conference 2012 | David Pawson 1st talk

most of us have a favorite story and I'm going to read my favorite to you now Jesus said if you really want to know what the reign of God is like imagine the owner of an orchard who went out at daybreak to hire workers to pick his fruit and after agreeing to pay them the regular wage of 70 euros a day he put them to work about nine o'clock the same morning he saw some others hanging around the false office and told them you go and work for me and I'll pay you whatever I feel is right so they accepted his offer and he went there again at noon and did the same even at five o'clock there were still some men standing around so he asked them why have you been doing nothing all day and they replied because nobody will give us a job so he told them you can still go and work for me and I'll pay you whatever I feel when the Sun set and the work stopped the employer told his Foreman call the workers together and pay them their wages but begin with the last ones hired and finish with those we got first so the ones who'd only work one hour got their pay first and found 70 euros in their packets a full day's wage so when those at the end of the queue got theirs they naturally expected to receive more than that but they only got the same amount when they had double-checked their money they began to grumble about the way they'd been treated it's not fair they said these late comers only did one hour's work and yet they get as much as us and we toiled all day launder the Blazing Sun but the boss said to them I'm not treating you badly didn't we agree that 70 euros was a fair day's wage for a fair day's work take your pay and be off with you if I choose to give them the same as I gave you that's none of your business I have a perfect right to do what I want with my own money as you have with yours isn't your real problem envy because others have benefited from my generosity so said Jesus when heaven rules Earth's Affairs roles can be unexpectedly reversed those who expect to be first will find themselves left and those at the back of the line will find themselves at the front what an extraordinary story I first preached on that story seventy years ago to a congregation of three my mother and my elder sister and my younger sister and my pulpit was an armchair facing backwards and I knelt in the chair and used the back of the chair for the pulpit it was because my father had gone away with the car and we couldn't go to church so my mother said we'll have Church here and you David will be the preacher and I chose this story I read it them then I told it to them again in in my own language then I took it through them again step by step and drew moral lessons out of it and finally in exasperation my elder sister said isn't that vineyard full yet and the whole thing collapse in unseemly mirth and that was the end of my preaching career for quite a few years but I didn't pick it up again later now like most democracies England tends to have two major political parties one on the right tending towards capitalism and one on the Left tending towards socialism and once a year they each have a big conference mainly to decide on their political manifest manifesto for the next 12 months and at those political conferences they always invite a preacher to speak at one service one year I was the preacher invited but I'm not going to tell you which party invited me you can try and guess if you wish but you know the funny thing is that at both political party conferences this story of Jesus has been preached at the Socialists conference the preacher said this story shows that Jesus was a good socialist and he would have voted for left party because here is a minimum wage here is equality for everybody these are socialist principles and if Jesus were alive today he'd vote for the Socialists trouble is that the same story was preached at the capitalist conference to prove that Jesus would vote right not left and that he would do so because here are the capitalist principles no trade unions a boss who can hire and fire as he wishes a boss who settles the wages whatever and these are capitalist principles so which would Jesus vote do you think the answer is probably not each of those preachers were doing what many people do with the Bible they were picking out the bits they agreed with and leaving out the bits they didn't agree with but when you read a story of Jesus you must take the whole story so what is the whole story about it tells us first of all that Jesus has no idea whatever about industrial relations if you put Jesus in charge of a factory on the this basis they would very quickly be serious trouble just try and imagine what would happen on the next day when the owner of the vineyard goes out to hire labor at 6:00 in the morning no one is it is it the false office he goes out at 9:00 o'clock there's still no one there goes out at midday and then at 3 o'clock and still there's no one there but at 5 o'clock there's a long queue of people all waiting for a job and all thinking they can get a day's wage for an hour's work when I read the Bible I try and imagine myself in the story and how I would feel if I was involved let me try and help you to do that now let's suppose that you worked for a whole week very hard and then the boss took on someone on Friday afternoon and they worked only for Friday afternoon and when you open your wage packet you've all got the same wages how would you feel having worked all week well I can tell you you'd feel so happy you say hallelujah congratulations you've got as much money as I have and you only work for an afternoon oh I'm so happy for you that's how you'd feel isn't it I don't think that's not how you'd feel you'd grumble and you'd say something that my children learned when they were just so high I didn't teach them this but how quickly they learned it just three words and when they said it their little faces screwed up and the words were is not fair now my children weren't worse than anybody else's children but they learned to say no before they learn to say yes I never had to teach them how to be cruel only how to be kind I never had to teach them how to be rude only how to be polite so were my children worse than yours I don't think so but they learned that little phrase it's not fair so quickly and you know some people go on saying that all the way through their lives I was called on the telephone one day by the chief nursing officer of our local hospital and she said I've got a man here who wants to talk to a priest could you come well I said actually I'm not a priest I'm a pastor but I'll come and I went to see this man in hospital he was quite elderly and I said to him why do you want to see a priest he said why has God done this to me and I said why what's God doesn't he said I'm in hospital and I said have you never been in a hospital before never he said I've lived an upright life I've lived a good life I've tried to do my best why should God put me in hospital I said how old are you he said 94 and I said you've never been in hospital before notice that I lived a good life and then he was surrounded by pretty nurses doing everything for him some of us would give our right arm rupee to that and I said how long are you gonna be in he said 10 days and then he went back to his original question why is God done this to me and his face was all screwed up just like my children it's not fair I've seen that expression on the faces of workers on strike and on so many grown-ups faces still going through life and saying why has God done this to me I don't deserve this why have my parents separated why didn't I get that job I was well qualified why is God given me cancer why has God done this to me and every time people say that they're saying he's not fair well let me ask you a question about the man in this story do you think he was fair or putting the question another way do you think he was more than fair or less than fair in the way he treated his workers I want to tell you he was more than fair he wasn't less than fair he was fair to everybody he gave everybody a living wage he gave everybody enough to live on and he paid everybody a wage that he'd agreed so the people had worked all day couldn't grumble he wasn't being less than pher he told them what he would pay them and he paid them actually he was being more than fair to those who gave money to who had not worked for it so this boss was more than fair not less than fair and God Himself is never less than fair he is always more than fair he's always fair he's got to be he's he's a god of justice and therefore he's under an obligation to himself to pay everybody what they deserve but if God only gave us what we deserved you wouldn't have men in this pulpit this morning I wouldn't be talking to you because if God gave me what I deserve I wouldn't be alive and I'll tell you something else this hold be empty because you wouldn't be here either there isn't one of you here who deserves to be in this hall it's of God's mercy that you here at all that's the truth now I want to tell you about a habit in our household that my wife got me into when we married it's a bad habit she must have been born in a teapot because she can't begin the day without what I call her daily fix and that's a cup of tea now we have an arrangement in our house that when I wake up if I feel like a Christian as soon as I wake up I make the tea for her if I don't like feel like a Christian she has to make it for me it's a very good arrangement because I don't often feel like a Christian first thing in the morning but if I do I go downstairs and I go out of the front door whether it's warm or cold and pick up two bottles because in England we still have our milk delivered to the door in bottles and they're always so cold and I pick them up and I come back into the house carrying these cold bottles of milk for my wife's cup of tea and I always think of a verse in the Bible in the Book of Lamentations which says your mercies are free every morning and that's what I start thinking about as I carry the milk bottles into the kitchen and I thank God for His mercies the thing in my life that I don't deserve but which I have which are his more than fair giving me more than I deserve much more I'm now 81 82 in two weeks time and I'm still alive that's a lesson I've I've got a job to do that's a mercy people say how long have you been retired and I say not yet it's a nursing in fact I said to someone recently the Lord is a wonderful boss to work for he always provides everything you need but I said there's only one difficulty he doesn't have a retirement scheme and the person I was talking to said David you're wrong he does have a retirement scheme it's a wonderful scheme in fact he said it's out of this world and I agreed with him but we my wife and I have a roof over our heads we don't deserve that but some mercy everything I have in life is the mercy which I didn't deserve you see in the kingdom of heaven on earth everything is mercy there's no merit the only thing I deserve is God's punishment his anger his hell and I'm so glad glad he doesn't just deal with me injustice because that would be terrible but in mercy he is more than fair now there are two things we need to know about mercy the first is that justice and mercy are not contradictory I want to say more about this tomorrow morning but our little minds seem almost impossible to grasp that God is both just and merciful together but I'll explain that more tomorrow but in very simple terms justice goes so far down the road and then mercy continues down the same road but goes for if you want to know what mercy is then there was a famous man who was having his portrait painted by an artist and he said to the artist I hope this portrait will do me justice and the artist said it's not just as you need its mercy so now you know the difference and there's a big difference between the two and yet God is both they are not contradictory but again as I've said I'll say much more tomorrow about that the second thing we need to know about God's mercy is this that anybody who exercises mercy it's entirely up to them who they show mercy to God is under obligation to give everybody justice but he doesn't show mercy to everybody and he won't in fact in this crowd this morning some of you may well go out of that door filled up with his mercy and others of you will not because God will choose both in the Old Testament and the New Testament God says I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy simply main meaning I will decide everybody will get his justice that's the truth but he will choose who he shows mercy to and therefore were faced with a very very important question which I want to answer for you and that is how does God choose it's so important for you to know that so that you may receive his mercy and I want to tell you straight away that there's nothing about luck in the kingdom of God it's not a question of luck it's not a national lottery it's not a raffle ticket as to whether you get mercy but many people think it is and they go to a meeting and and they hear about the Lord's healing ability and they think I wonder if it's my morning I wonder if my number will come up for healing this morning and that is a slander that's a libel on God there's no such thing as luck in the kingdom of God there's a lot of luck in the world good luck and bad luck but not in the kingdom of God in fact the Hebrew word for luck is GAD and an old English saying was by GAD meaning by luck and the number of people who are living by luck in our world is legion in fact the majority of people in England are living by luck and one of the proofs of that is the widespread habit of gambling but because gambling is a direct appeal to luck and nothing else that's why God's people never gamble in any way because they don't live by luck so how does God choose can we answer the question does he just take a big telephone directory and put his finger and shut his eyes and put his finger down and say ah I'll show mercy to David Paulson this morning no God isn't like that he's not arbitrary he has nothing to do with luck and he will choose this morning who in this audience will receive His mercy according to his principles and I want to give you three principles of God three answers to the question who does he choose to show his mercy to how do I know that I'll be one to receive his mercy well there are three different answers and I'll give them to you as briefly as I can the first answer is this God shows his mercy to those who ask for it now that sounds simple doesn't it yet that is the truth God shows mercy to those who ask for it and therefore I need to ask you did you come to this meeting this morning seeking God's mercy strange thing is that I've had so many prayers in my lifetime and rarely have I had a prayer for mercy and yet God is merciful he's full of mercy he wants to give it to people but he's waiting for them to ask for mercy I've heard prayers for Health and healing prayers for money when it's needed prayers for safety on the roads and in the air prayers for so many things prayers for guidance but why have I had so few prayers for mercy I'll tell you why is very simple answer we don't feel we were bad enough to need mercy I do hear prayers for mercy when I preach in prisons and I've heard prayers for mercy in gypsy camps and God is really moving among the gypsies now but in ordinary church congregations I don't hear many prayers for mercy because we think were better and it's only when you know that you deserve absolutely nothing from God that you will say God be merciful to me that's maybe why we don't ask Jesus told another story I love his stories of two men who went into a big temple in Jerusalem to pray one of them went straight up to the front and he stood there confident and he said lord I thank you that I'm not like other people I give a tenth of all the time possessed hiiiiii five times it's not a word you should use in prayer me yes I that's a self-centered prayer and what he prayed was absolutely true he was not as bad as of the people and he did pay his dues to God he did everything he said in his prayer but Jesus said he prayed thus with himself his prayer got no higher than the temple ceiling didn't reach God he was praying with himself and it was a good prayer and I'm sure he felt better for it went home feeling good I had a great time of prayer this morning in the temple I told God all about me I told him all that I do for him great prayer but there was a man at the back who didn't even dare to come nearer to the front to the altar and the man of the back beat his chest and this man was a tax collector now don't think that tax collectors are all bad people we're not talking about the Inland Revenue or whatever you call it here we're talking about a man who was an extortioner a blackmailer who was in the protection racket and it was his job as a Jew to collect taxes for the Roman occupying enemy and the Romans had said provided you meet your quota for us you can keep everything else you can squeeze out of your people and these tax collectors were forcing people to give them money their own countrymen Jews to give a quota to the Romans and to put the rest in their own pocket they were bad people and this man of the back was a tax collector and you know what his prayer was he could have prayed Lord I'm worse than everybody else which would have been the truth but he didn't even say that he said God be merciful to me a sinner and Jesus said God heard that prayer and went home right with God I can imagine him reaching a home and his wife saying we had a good day at work haven't been at work did you not go to the office no where have you been wives like to know where the husbands have been so where have you been if you didn't go to the office I've been in the temple you what have you been doing in the temple blackmailing the priest no I've been praying praying you've never prayed since we're married and you think him upstairs will listen to the likes of you he did and life's gonna be different can you mention it now all that man did was to ask for mercy and he got it I've got an even more startling up-to-date example of this right here this is the account of the Nazi war leaders who at the end of the Second World War were put on trial for the murder of 30 million people including 6 million Jews and I've been to newer and bigger been to the prison where they were put in prison awaiting trial and they offered those Nazis two things free of charge one a lawyer to defend them and two a padre or chaplain to look after their souls and of 21 Nazi criminals five wanted a Catholic priest and 16 wanted a Lutheran pastor and they searched for a Lutheran pastor would come and look after the souls of these dreadful men and they found a chaplain in the American Air Force called Jerrica and he was the grandson of German immigrants to America so he he could speak German and they asked him would you come and be the chaplain to these Nazi war criminals and he said never they killed my boys I couldn't come and look after them but God said you go and Padraig Erica came to Nuremberg jail and he found himself preaching on Sunday morning 215 of the worst men in Germany and he wondered what to tell them so he told them about Jesus dying for them and paying for their sins I've got the list of names here Keuchel von Ribbentrop rider spear shocked fritsch so cool Goering you've heard some of these names I'm sure some of you older folk and then and this was written by Padraig Erika he says Hsiao Cole was the first who opened his heart to the gospel he was the father of ten children and had a Christian wife after a few visits we knelt down by his bed and he prayed God be merciful to me a sinner and I know he was perfectly sincere then fritsch von Schirach and Speer asked permission to receive Communion he mentions rider and Keuchel the chief of the German army one after another of those Nazi criminals asked God for mercy and got it maybe you know I was sharing this story with the Church of which I was pastor in near London and an architect came up to me after the service and he said David I was a British soldier occupying Germany after World War two and he said at the time of the Nuremberg trials some of us British soldiers who were Christians spent nights in prayer asking God to have mercy on those Nazis and he said I never knew one till tonight it guarded heard I was speaking to a small group of people in a house in a town called Newberry in 50 miles west of London and a young couple were sitting there and when I told this story there they burst into tears and became hysterical they were laughing and crying at the same time and I said I stopped speaking I said would you like me to pray for you and they said no no carry on I said would you like my wife to take you into the bedroom next door and pray with you no no go on and after the meeting was over I went to this couple knives that why did you have such a strange reaction to that story and she said I am title's nice and she said we've been running away from the memory of Keuchel for years she said we went to Australia and as soon as they found out I was a Nazis niece they wouldn't talk to me so we fled to Canada and they found out I was cattles niece and they wouldn't talk to me we've come to England they won't draw and then she said but now now I can lift up my head it's as if a cloud has rolled away and when people say to me you are CAI Falls nice I will say to them yes and titles in heaven with Jesus will you be that's what I'll say there were two of those Nazis who would not listen to Padraig Erika's gospel one was Hermann Goering and the other was Rudolf Hess Rudolf Hess hanged himself in a prison in Berlin Goering took poison before he was due to be hung and committed suicide in his cell yet just before that Goering wife and little daughter had come to say goodbye to him and the little girl had said daddy please put your faith in Jesus I want to see you in heaven and Goering had pushed her out of the cell and said you believed in your way I'll believe in mine and an hour later he was dead what a story and all those men did was ask God for mercy and they got it I don't know how you feel about that I know that some people really been angry when I told that story why should they receive mercy why did God show them mercy but that's what God is like and he waits for us to ask did you come here this morning because you needed his mercy then ask but that's only one of three answers then there are two more if you are to qualify the second answer is equally simple but it's very searching and it's this God will show mercy to those who ask for it and he will show mercy to those who pass it on to others Jesus himself said blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy and he told another story about a man who owed a king something like five million euros and he went to the king and he begged with the king and said I can't take please give me more time to pay I'll pay it but give me give me some time and the King said I'll do better than that I'll let you off the debt it's forgiven and that same man went down to the palace kitchen and he got hold of one of the cooks by the throat and he said when are you gonna pay me the ten euros you owe me and threatened him and the King heard about this and called him back and said I forgave you that huge sum and you couldn't forgive one of my servants that little son he said the debt is back on and you go to prison until you pay the last cent very severe thing to say and then Jesus added this and this is what my Heavenly Father will do to you if you do not forgive others what they have done and you know unforgiveness towards anyone is a huge barrier to God's mercy coming into your life because God's mercy can't flow in if it can't flow out if you don't pass it on to others you can't receive it that's one of the spiritual principles of of God let's think of some up-to-date examples I was preaching in a town hall in the north of England and a number of people came to me after the meeting I'll never forget them three people in particular came one was middle-aged lady and she said mr. Paulson I want you to know that tonight I have forgiven my brother I said why what did your brother done - she said when I was a girl my brother forced me to have sex with him and she said it was a painful experience and it went deep into my spirit and she said I I've I've been afraid of men ever since I've never married never had a boyfriend she said my brother ruined my life and she said I've been bitter all my life towards my brother for what he did to me and then she said but tonight I've forgiven him flowed into her heart because now it could get out and you know in every congregation eyes until I found people holding bitterness against someone else sometimes against their own parents sometimes even against their own children I remember in one meeting they wheeled a woman in a wheelchair to the front when I was standing there and oh this poor woman in the wheelchair was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis she was twisted up every limb was twisted her face was twisted and the family said mr. postman will you pray for our mother she's been like this for years will you pray for her healing I said not until I've asked her a question and I turned to the woman in the wheelchair and said who is it that you hate so much the Holy Spirit told me that her condition was due to hatred now rheumatoid arthritis isn't always due to hatred but it can be quite often and I'll never forget her answer she spat it out my husband and I said I don't want to know what your husband did to deserve your hatred but I'm telling you this that until you forgive him you're stuck in that wheelchair and she then said I'll never forgive him then I said I'm sorry I can't pray for you and they wheeled her out but I was telling her about those people that came to another meeting and one was another lady like the first and she said mr. Paulson twenty years ago I had a fight with my neighbor next door and she called me a devil and she said I never forgot that that word went into my heart very deep and she said she moved away shortly after that from the district and so I never saw her again but I held it in my heart against her but she said tonight I forgave her from my heart and she said you won't believe this but I turned around and she was sitting behind me in the meeting after 20 years and the the last couple to come up to me were a young couple lovely young couple oh I I loved them she was crying he was comforting her and he said you tell him and she said to him you tell him and they just kept saying you tell him you tell Emma I said somebody tell me and then they told me they said we've only been married two years and a year ago we got our first child little boy and they said the doctors have told us that he will not live beyond the age of five and she said we've been so angry with God we said God why'd you give other couples normal babies and give us one that's the doctors can't deal with it's not fair but then she said tonight we've thank God that we're gonna have a boy for five whole years and we praised him I said now you'll see what the mercy of God can do for your boy so different Unforgiven a man came up to me after meeting well-dressed businessmen and he said David I'm stuck I said what do you mean you're stuck he said well I've been going well as a Christian I've been growing spiritually I've I've been becoming a better and then they said it all stopped and he said I got stuck and I'm not making any progress in the Christian life I'm just static standing is still and I said to him you know your problem it's a will he said what you mean a will well I said you've heard the old saying where there's a will there's relatives I always said that kind of will I said yes that kind of will I said whose will was that and his face screwed up and he said my brother's oh sorry my father's will but I said what was wrong with you father's will he left all his money to my brother and none to me I said do you remember when you stopped making progress as a Christian and got stuck he said no thought of that I'll and he thought of it for a moment and he said you know it was just about the same time my father died he still hadn't seen the coincidence I said you've been resentful of your brother ever since haven't you and that's why you're stuck spiritually resentment and I said I can give you a cure I can get you going tonight so that you're making progress again as a Christian is that how I said all you've got to do is go to your brother and say my brother I'm so glad you got all father's money and I said as soon as you do that you get moving again well I wish I had a camcorder because his face went through so many different and finally finally he said I'll do it and as soon as he said he was going again so that's the second answer the question how does God choose those he shows mercy to the first answer those who genuinely ask for it and that doesn't mean just saying lord have mercy on us Christ have mercy on us lord have mercy on us because that's that's what the book says it means genuinely realizing how bad you are and that if God doesn't show you mercy you're lost that you don't deserve a thing and the second answer is God chooses to show mercy to those who pass it on to others I'm a being simple enough for you it really is very simple and the third answer is those who don't exploit his mercy and take advantage of it and I've got five minutes to say this to you let's suppose you're going along a walk along the River Liffey and there's someone in the Liffey drowning and they're splashing about and saying save me save me I'm drowning I can't swim and you pull your jacket off and your shoes off and you dive in and you pull him out and you pump him dry and he shakes your hand and he says oh I'm so grateful to you you saved my life and he turns around and jumps back in and he splashes around he says I'm drowning I'm drowning I can't swim save me and you were just putting your jacket back on and your shoes back on so you put them off you dive in you pull him out and he says oh thank you that's twice you saved my life I'm doubly grateful to you and he turns around and jumps back in now you've laughed at him but unfortunately you've done it so by we've come to the Lord we've said Lord I've made my life a mess and I've done it through sinning against you and I know I have please save me six months later you're doing the same thing again that's taking advantage of God's mercy and I go now not to a story Jesus told but an incident in his life when a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought to him and boy does it show what a wonderful advocate Jesus is he's the best lawyer in the world and in fact he got her off she should have been stoned to death but there were three things that were illegal one was that when they were caught in the act of adultery the man had to be stoned to death as well as the one and they brought the woman but not the man a bad case of male chauvinism secondly there is a Jewish law that says you can't be a witness against someone if you have ever committed the same crime that's a very fair law and therefore it means that those men who brought that woman jesus said if you haven't sinned you can throw the first stone and it didn't mean that you've got to be perfect before you can punish one that would be ridiculous he was referring to the Jewish law and he was meaning if you haven't committed adultery you can throw the first stone and they began to creep away the younger ones while the older ones first and then the younger ones later until it all gone they had no right to be the witnesses for the prosecution against that woman and so jesus said where are they all she said they've gone and so jesus said quite rightly neither do i condemn you he couldn't because the Lord demands at least two or three witnesses before there can be a case and Jesus was not a witness and so when he said neither do i condemn you he wasn't forgiving he was just saying case dismissed there is no case where he witnesses they've gone and then he said something to the woman he says don't do it again actually quite literally to translate it quite literally it is leave your life of sin in other words you've got to break with it and it's no good you're coming back again having done it again I command you to leave that life of sin finish with it leave it it's over it must be gone that's what repentance means it's no good keeping coming back to the Lord with the same sin you can go on confessing that sin till you're blue in the face but Jesus word is stop it a schoolboy once wrote defined repentance as being sorry enough to stop and that's about the best definition of repentance I've come across sorry enough to stop and if we keep coming back to Jesus and saying save me again save me again save me again mercy doesn't respond to that God shows mercy to us to enable us to stop sinning and not to go on doing it that's the real test of whether we've truly repented so there are the three answers for you quite simply the Lord will show mercy even this morning to those who ask for it to those who pass it on to others and to those who do not take advantage of it and that's the mercy of God praise His name amen

Channel: Divine Mercy Conference

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Keywords: Jesus I trust in You, Divine Mercy Conference, Dublin, Ireland, Divine Mercy, Divine Mercy Sunday, Saint Faustina, Mercy Sunday, RDS, DivineMercyConference.com, Eucharist, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Catholic, talk, They have no wine, John 2:3, 2012, David Pawson

Id: FhEv77VYFQ8

Length: 54min 48sec (3288 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 05 2014