Its not fair - Forgiveness and mercy

David Paulson is a man that I have a special love for not only have I heard David Paulson preach over the last 25 years at various points but in recent years David Paulson has become a friend and on two occasions Believe It or Not after he heard me preach he wrote me a handwritten letter to just comment on my preaching made a few points where I could have maybe done a little better but for the most part said that he was blessed by what he heard and I can tell you that's the kind of person you want to get to know a person that cares that much about someone a little younger than himself I'm not part of the Joshua generation as as Tom Hess was say because I'm over 40 but I'm a little younger than David possum but I consider him a mentor this man has a commentary on every book of the Bible and a whole video series on the Bible and this man has invested his life in knowing and understanding and communicating the Word of God not many of us have that kind of discipline in our lives and commitment to the Word of God so I want to give him lots of time so David Paulson would you come and bless us as you preach for us feel at home you've preached for us before and so we know what we're into it's going to be good bless you thank you after an introduction like that I can hardly wait to hear myself speak but after that violin solo I thought why don't we close the service down now then what I feel sorry for is me having to follow that well Shalom Jesus said if you really want to know what the government of God is like imagine the owner of an estate who went out at daybreak to hire workers to pick his fruit and after agreeing to pay the regular wage of a hundred shekels of the day he sent them into the orchard about nine o'clock he saw some others hanging around the marketplace and told them you can go and work on my farm and I'll pay you a fair wage so they decided to accept his offer he went there again at noon and did the same even at five o'clock there was still some men standing around idle so he asked them why have you been doing nothing all day and they replied because nobody will give us a job he told them you can still go and work in my fields and I'll pay you whatever is right when the Sun set and work stopped the employer told his foreman call the workers and pay them their wages but begin with the last ones we hired and finish with those we got first so the ones who'd only worked one hour got their pay first and found a hundred shekels in their packets a full day's wage so when those at the end of the queue got there they naturally expected much more than that but they only got the same amount when they double-checked their money they began to complain about the way they'd been treated it's not fair they said these late comers only did an hour's labor yet they got as much as us and we had toiled all day long under the Blazing Sun but the boss said to their spokesman I'm not treating you badly didn't we agree that a hundred shekels 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 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 at the back of the line and those who expect to be last will find themselves at the front over sixty years ago I preached my first sermon on that my pulpit was an armchair turned backwards my congregation of three consisted of my mother and my two sisters my father was away with the car we couldn't go to church so my mother said we're having a service here and you David will preach and I chose this story I read it through from the Bible then I went through it again and told it in my own words then I went through it a third time to try and get some meaning out of it as I began to go through it for the fourth time my older sister in a tone of exasperation said isn't that vineyard full yet and the whole thing collapsed into unseemly mirth and the first attempt at preaching ended but it became my favorite story that Jesus told and I want to share with with you again now about this time of year our political parties in England have what they call their conferences to decide on their political manifesto for the next election or the next year or whatever and our two main parties like most countries are right wing and left wing capitalist and socialist and as part of their conferences they always have a public service of worship and invite a preacher to come and preach to the party I did it once but I won't tell you which party invited me but funnily enough one preacher went to the right-wing conference and preached from this parable and said Jesus was a capitalist he would vote for us he believed in a free market he believed in hiring and fire ringg had no trade unions to work with this is good capitalism the free market Jesus would vote for us unfortunately the preacher who went to the left-wing conference preached from the same story and said Jesus was a good socialist he believed in a minimum wage and employment for everybody and this is his manifesto so he would vote for us actually they were both doing what Satan does with the Bible quoting bits of it and not the whole of it and you can prove anything from Scripture if you only take a little bit and quote it but we're going to take the whole lot this morning now parables of Jesus are like scorpions there's a sting in the tail and you need to listen very carefully to Jesus stories because most of the story is ordinary everyday life and then there comes a complete twist to the story which says hey that wouldn't happen couldn't have and it's at that point that the story has moved from the earth to heaven and heaven breaks in and the whole story turns upside down if this was Jesus advice on how to run industry today then he had no understanding of personnel management the whole thing is a disaster you could write at the bottom of the story and they lived unhappily ever after he wrecked all trust all good relationships in just one day and if you tried to apply this to a factory or or a farm today you'd have a strike on your hands just use your imagination a bit what do you think would happen the next morning when he went out to hire workers you ever thought about that goes out at 6:00 nobody there 9:00 nobody 12:3 still not five o'clock long queue see did you ever think of that you see when you read your Bible read it with imagination and above all read it with feeling I think it's so important to read the Bible with your heart not just your mind and I want to help you to feel its story you just imagine that you've worked a whole week and the boss has taken on someone extra on Friday afternoon or here Thursday afternoon or whatever and then you find that they get exactly the same wages as you get I know exactly how you will feel you will say hallelujah I'm so thrilled for you I'm so happy I had to work a whole week for that but you've only worked one afternoon I'm just thrilled for you let's go out and have a drink let's celebrate that's how you would feel isn't it no well then what's gone wrong wouldn't you feel excited for him No because one of the first things children learn to say and they screw up their little faces when they say it is is not fair did your children learn to say that I don't know who taught our children to say we didn't but they learned you know my mother used to give one Apple to two of us and say one of you can cut it in half and the other has the first choice and so one of them was cutting it and the others watching carefully and boy it's got to be exactly right or it's not fair and if we're not careful we go through life saying those words if not with our lips in our eyes not fair I was asked to go and visit a man in hospital who wanted to see a priest and I said to the matron of the hospital I'm not a priest I'm a pastor but I'm willing to come and see him and when I got to his bedside here he was looking it's not fair and he said I said I've come to talk to you wanted a priest well I'll talk with you and he said why is God done this to me and as it what has he done to you he said I'm in hospital and he said I've lived a good life I've tried to be good to my neighbor why has God done this to me I said have you never been in hospital before never he said I've lived a good life never been in hospital said how old are you said 95 and here is surrounded by pretty nurses doing everything for him some of us would give it right on for a bit of that it's not fair it's not fair now that's at the root of this story you see if you're not careful if you live in the kingdom of Earth you will side with the workers in this story and you will say you are less than fair to the boss if you're of the kingdom of heaven you'll side with the employer here and you'll say he was more than fair that's the big question was he less than fair or more than fair less than fair we are so upset if we're treated with what we regard as injustice you see we live in a society that is based on M R I T and we believe that we should have what we deserve we fight for our rights that's the big word now rights it was an Englishman called Paine who wrote the book the rights of men and it's gone the world round and it was quickly followed by a book called the rights of women and both are now with the clenched fists saying my right my right and if we're not careful we go right through life with that attitude of the kingdom of the earth what do I merit what do I deserve why was he treated better than I was that's almost an instinct in us but in the kingdom of heaven you soon learn you have no rights whatever now in our house we have a ritual early morning which I was never into before I married and it's because my wife needs a daily fix before she gets going it's a cup of tea and I'll tell you a secret if I wake up and feel like a Christian I make it if I wake up and I don't feel like a Christian I don't make it and I must say I don't often feel like Christian first thing in the morning but if I make it I have to go downstairs and go out into the cold outside the front door and pick up two cold white things because in England we get the milk delivered to the doorstep and when I pick up those two cold pints of milk and clutch them to my breast and walk back in every time I think of a verse from the Book of Lamentations and the verse is your mercies are fresh every morning I think of my mercies see not merits the kingdom of heaven operates on ME rcy kingdom of earth operates on Emmy RIT and as I come back in I thank God for His mercies I'm 78 still able to get around what a mercy I have work to do what a mercy have a roof over my head what a mercy you don't deserve any of these things if God gave me what I deserved you would never preacher this morning I'll tell you something else there'd be nobody else out there Mary Thomas you know I want to major on mercy this morning and say two things which are a bit complicated but which we need to grasp first is this mercy and justice are not opposites they're not against each other they travel the same Road the only difference is justice goes so far and mercy goes further justice will give you what you deserve mercy will go further and give you what you never deserved got the difference so they're not it's not just as all mercy they travel together that their sisters and God is both just and merciful he will give everybody what they deserve I find that frightening but his mercy goes further and gives people what they never deserved you got the difference that's the first thing about mercy that I wanted to make clear the second thing is this mercy is at the disposal of the one who exercises it we have no right to mercy we've got a right to justice nobody has a right to mercy and as the Bible says in the old and the New Testament God says I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy nobody can tell God who to have mercy on now how does he choose those who receive mercy because I want to tell you this out of all the people here some are going to go away from this service with God's mercy and others are not so how does God choose let me say straight away it's not a lottery it's not a matter of luck it's amazing how many people think that it's luck or is it is your number coming out of the lottery today people go to healing meetings saying will it be my night will I get lucky will I get healed will I get a blessing this morning will God pick my name out of the Hat God doesn't do that the word luck or chance is not in kingdom vocabulary the Hebrew word for luck is GAD and the Old English used to say by GAD meaning now they say the best of British luck but there's no luck in the kingdom of God there's no chance it's not by GAD it's by God and God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and God is going to choose this morning or the Satnam now who's going to have mercy here and so the vital question which I want to ask and answer is how does God choose those who receive his mercy is there a pattern is there anything in Scripture which will give us hope that we might receive his mercy this afternoon well there are three answers in the Bible that I want to give you very simple but very profound the first is this very simple God shows mercy to those who ask for it could anything be simpler and yet I've listened to thousands of prayers in my lifetime and people have asked for healing for safety for finance for health so many things but I rarely hear somebody ask for mercy I hear it when I go to preach in prison I hear it from people or desperate and you've got to be desperate for it because anyone who says God be merciful to me is really at the bottom I don't deserve anything and I'm afraid we are often so respectable and so good Christians we don't often say please be merciful another story Jesus told of two men who went to the temple here to pray and one man went right up to the front and he really prayed he he could really pray the trouble was he used the wrong word five times I thank you that I am not like other men I fast twice in the week and I give tithes of all that I possess amen did you spot the wrong word and it was all true he what he did do all that that I was his life and yet Jesus said his prayer God no higher than the ceiling in fact jesus said he prayed thus with himself he wasn't praying with God it's praying with himself and he felt much better for it and there was a man at the back a man at the back who wouldn't even lift up his eyes beat his breast cart be merciful to me a sinner and Jesus said that man went home right with God amazing now he was a tax collector and though we don't like Inland Revenue and the Israelis call the tax of his here the Wailing Wall I know we don't like tax collectors but do you know what a tax collector is I only found out when I went to Poland and a Jew took me round the old ghetto showed me the railway line where they were taken off to Treblinka to be took me to Treblinka and I walked on the ashes of Jews he told me what a tax collector is he said the Germans walled a thin hundreds of thousands in tiny space and they wanted money from US taxes but the Germans didn't dare come into the ghetto of course they'd have been lynched if any of them came in so they invited applications from the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto who were willing to collect the taxes for the Germans and the offer to them was we will give you a quota and provided you meet that quota every quarter you can keep everything else you can get and if anybody refuses what you demand from them report them to us and they were dealt with so the tax collectors were Jews collecting from other Jews and lining their own pockets blackmail is the word or in modern language they were in the protection racket that's what a tax collector was in Warsaw and that's what they were in Jesus day blackmailers protection rackets and this was this man and you know my imagination I love reading the Bible with my imagination I think of him going home and his wife saying of yet a good day at the tax office having been in the tax office that's enough to get a wife asking questions where have you been I've been in the temple you what were you doing blackmailing the priest now no I was praying you pray you have impressions we got married none but you never did before that and you think him upstairs would listen to the likes of you he did from different what a story now when I went to Nuremberg in Germany years ago there was one building I wanted to see and they showed it to me it's a prison where after the war 21 Nazi war criminals were taken and put in prison awaiting trial for the murder of 30 million people including 6 million Jews and each of those 21 criminals was offered two things free of charge a lawyer to defend them and the chaplain to look after their souls now 16 of them were Lutheran's and asked for a Lutheran pastor to look after them five were Roman Catholics and asked for a priest and so the American authorities searched for a Lutheran pastor and found an army chaplain Padraig Erica who was of German extraction his people had moved to America and he had volunteered to the American forces as a pastor and became a chaplain and so he was brought in to look after 16 Nazi war criminals but before he was brought in they invited him to do this and he said never the Germans killed my two boys I'm not gonna look after them but God had different ideas and here is the first Sunday morning a congregation of 16 of the worst men in the world and he didn't know what taught them both so he just told mother cross about Jesus sow cow was the first and he fell on the ground God be merciful to me von Ribbentrop was the second and he was found in his cell on the floor God be merciful to me one after another asked God for mercy and got it because they asked I suppose it's one prayer that God can't refuse to answer have they loved it but two of them review refused one was Rudolf Hess who spent 40 years in Spandau jail in Berlin and finally hung himself with a piece of electric flex from the light and the other was the big fat head of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering and he refused to listen and his wife and little girl came to say goodbye to him before he was going to be hung and his little girl said daddy please trust in Jesus I want to see you in heaven and he pushed her away he said you believe in your way I'll believe in mine and an hour later he managed to kill himself with cyanide that he'd hidden but the elders accepted you know I was sharing this in our church in Guildford and an architect whom some of you will know came to me afterwards and he said David I was a British soldier in the occupation of Germany after the war and when that trial was on he said we spend whole nights in prayer for those men and we never knew that God it hurt and I'm in a house in Newberry on Thames near where we live in a house meeting and when I told this story a young couple became quite hysterical they were crying and laughing and I stopped I said would you like us to pray for you said no carry on I said look my wife would take you into the next room talk to you they said no carry on and so I did and then when the meeting was over I went to the couple and said why were you so disturbed and she said kaito was my uncle and she said we've lived for 25 years under the black cloud as soon as people find out who I am they won't talk to me she said we went to Australia they found out I was titled Smith nobody would talk we went to Canada soon as they found out nobody would talk and we've been running away we've come to England and now they found out and she said now you tell me that my uncle is in heaven she said the cloud is gone she said now if anybody says to me title was your uncle I will say yes he was and he's in heaven with Jesus and will you be she said that's what I'll say and she was released why don't we ask for mercy it's there he's mercy fool but we don't ask because we don't think we're bad enough you got to feel pretty bad to ask for mercy you gotta feel you have nothing whatever to plead with for God except his mercy that's the first of the three answers I won't take as long with the second and third but the first answer who is God going to bless with his mercy in this congregation answer one those who will ask for it did you come to this meeting seeking God's mercy then I've good news for you ask him but there are two other qualifications and number two is this God gives mercy to those who pass it on now here's the rub and God Jesus told another story about a man who owed a huge sum of money to the king and when the day came for the debt to be repaid he hadn't got it to pay so he went to the king he begged him Your Majesty please give me more time to pay I'll get the money together but I need more time and the King said I'll do better than that we'll cancel the debt it's all off and it says that man went down to the palace kitchen and got hold of one of the cooks by the throat and was shaking him and saying when are you going to pay me that money you owe me and it was a tiny son and the King heard and called the man back said I forgave you your debt but I'm canceling my forgiveness the debt is back on and you go to prison until you pay the last penny and then Jesus said a terrible thing which I've never had a preacher preach on even so your heavenly father will do to you if you do not forgive Wow forgiveness can be cancelled did you ever hear a preacher say that well you have now what a thought he shows mercy to those who pass it on I remember preaching in a town hall in the middle of England and I preached on God's mercy it's a wonderful subject afterwards three people came to me the first was a middle-aged lady and she said years ago my next-door neighbor called me a devil and she said it really went in and it's stuck in my heart and she said I've disliked that woman ever since and she said she moved away from the district and I forgot about it but she said tonight as I heard from God I've forgiven that woman from my heart and she said I turned round and she was sitting behind me in the middle and the second was another lady about the same age she said mr. Paulson tonight I've forgiven my brother is that what for she said when I was a little girl he had sex with me and spoiled my life she said it was painful she said I've never had a boyfriend since and I've never married and I've been afraid of men she said tonight a forgiveness and the third was a young couple delightful little couple and as they came to walls made and they were both crying and he said you tell him and she said you tell him and he said no you tell him and they were saying this all the way I said well one of you please tell me what is it and they said we've been married about 18 months and then she got pregnant and they got their first child we're so happy but the doctor said this child may not live until it's five got a rare disease and she said I've been so angry with God she said oh God you give healthy babies to everybody else why us and she said I've really been cursing God and you may find this blasphemous but she said tonight I forgiving them and I've asked you to miss it and I said now you'll find out what God can do for your little boy you see forgiveness is like electricity it can't come in if it's not going out it's got to flow through it's got to be passed on that's why Jesus said blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy and if you don't pass it on it just blocks up the whole thing and it can't flow in on that's serious isn't it any unforgiveness any resentment bitterness against people I had a well-dressed man come up to me after a meeting some time ago and he said David I've got stuck in my Christian life he said would you pray that I can get going again he said I was moving well I was growing I was developing and maturing but he said I've just stopped and I looked at him and I said it's a will he said what do you mean I said well you know we'll I said you know the old saying where there's a will there's relatives do you know that same and then he got the point and I said whose will are we talking about I always said be my father's I said what was wrong with that he said he left all the money and the business to my brother and as he said it his face screwed up and said it's not fair and I said can you recall when you got stuck in your Christian life he said do you know he said I think it was about the time my father died I said it sure was I said I can get you going he quickly easily how he said I said all you've got to do is to go to your brother and say I'm so glad you got the money and then I just was silent I just watched his face I wish I had a cameo a camera just to take it his expression every imaginable expression went on his face and finally his face lit up and he says I'll do it he got going just like that but let me tell you another story which is the other side of it I was back in our old church in Chalfont and Peter and Bucky broke him sure and they they brought a poor woman to me in a wheelchair she was absolutely crippled with arthritis from the head to toe twisted up and they said would you please pray for mother and I said I will after I've asked a question I said to her who is it that you hate so much and she spat it out she said my husband and I said I don't want to know what he did to deserve your hatred but I said I have to tell you that as long as you hate him we can't pray for you she said I never were forgiven and they willed her away the rule number two God shows mercy to those who ask for it he shows mercy to those who pass it on and who don't harbor unforgiveness and bitterness and that may touch one or two of you here bitterness against a boss against a colleague at work against husband wife even against children or parents don't block God's mercy and the third and last thing is again simple because really truth is simple isn't it God shows mercy to those who ask for it to those who pass it on and thirdly for those who don't take advantage of it one day they brought a woman to Jesus caught in the act of adultery you know you have to be Jewish to understand that story she deserved to be stoned to death but so did the man and if they caught in the very act they'd let him go that was the first illegal thing in the whole encounter both she and the man should have been stoned of course they did it as a trap for Jesus because if he agreed to the stoning he'd be in fall foul of the Romans who for bad Jews to do that if he didn't he would fall foul of all the rabbi's and the scholars who would say you're not obeying the law of Moses second thing is he said he that is without sin can throw the first stone now that is the most misunderstood verse by Gentiles it does not mean you've got to be sinless before you can punish otherwise parents couldn't punish police could do nothing it's ridiculous it is the Jewish culture and tradition based on the Word of God that anyone who has committed the same crime cannot be a witness in the case so Jesus was saying if any of you has not committed adultery you can throw the first stone and they went away one by one beginning with the eldest the youngest tried to brazen it out but finally they all went now at that point no one could condemn the woman not even Jesus could legally because there had to be two or three witnesses for the death penalty so Jesus he didn't say I forgive you he said I don't condemn you he couldn't not by the law of God he had to let her off he had to say case dismissed now do you understand the story bit better but what he did say to her was this leave your life of sin I'm literate translating which means that it wasn't a one-off one-night stand she'd been caught in it was a regular way of life and he said you leave that way of life he said I don't condemn you but don't do it again I wonder what if he would have said if she'd been brought back three months later I was in the Middle East on the balcony of a hotel three stories up looking down at the dusty road below and I saw a group of Arabs hauling a young girl by the hair along in the dust and she was totally naked and I said to two missionaries who are I was standing with we must stop that can't we do anything and he said no you mustn't the mosaic and the Muslim law are the same she's been caught in adultery she's got to pay the penalty boy that made that story come alive for me there it was was the Lord that Jesus said don't do it again now I want you to imagine that you down at the seaside and suddenly you notices someone in the water struggling and shouting save me save me I'm drowning and you pull your jacket off pull your shoes off you dive in you pull them out you punt them dry and they say oh thank you so much you've saved my life and they turn around and jump back in and shall save me save me I'm drowning I can't swim and you're just getting your jacket and your shoes back on but you pull them off you die back in pull them out pump them dry and they say oh I'm doubly grateful to you you've saved my life twice and then they turn round and jump back in may sound ridiculous you left at the idea but you've done that and serve I you are the man you are the woman we say Jesus forgive me I'll never do it again and you turn around you're getting the same mess save me save me now how many times would you pull that person out of the water seventy times seven I wouldn't long before that I'd say you don't want to be saved or you just enjoy the experience of being saved do you see what I mean Jesus came not to save us from hell that's a bonus thrown in he came to save us from our sins that's why he came so that we could get rid of sadly the freedom that Christ offers no one else can give you it's the freedom not to sin and nobody has that freedom outside of Christ so here we are approaching Yom Kippur when the chief rabbi will put in the Jerusalem Connor Chronicle a list of sins of people to repent of and usually about number 11 is traffic the way people drive of course they all learned to drive on a tank here and you know what that result is and he calls them to repent does that change the traffic you know repentance as a schoolboy said is being sorry enough to stop that's repentance and if we really mean it you know churches that use prayer books use the word repent almost every week ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins and then the congregation responds with we do repent of all our sins that's a huge thing to say if they repented of one a week there would be 52 sins gone in just one year repentance means stop doing it and God doesn't show mercy to those who go on doing it you can come to the end of God's patience he's a very patient God slow to anger full of mercy nevertheless you can come to the end of taking advantage of God like the poet Heine he was German birth Jewish finished up in Paris lifetime of sin and abuse and is finally dying and they said do you want a priest is that I don't need one but they sent one anyway and the priest came and asked if he wanted to make confession and he simply said dear ma'bud honor our sesame ta God will forgive me that's his trade that's taking advantage so now you know whether you want to receive mercy this morning don't you did you come seeking mercy wanting to ask him for it did you come free from any bitterness or Unforgiven forgiveness towards anyone else and did you come determine not to do it again then God's mercy is for you let's pray righteous father you're so merciful and we take advantage of it we forget that every act of forgiveness cost the blood of your son it costs you so much Lord I want to pray now for anybody in this congregation to whom you've been speaking personally will you please now show them what they need to do very practical if they need to make a phone call Sunnah send a letter whatever lord will you please show them what to do and give them the grace to do it that they may flow in your mercy God we're all sinners there's not one of us deserves anything at all from you we have no rights whatever but we can ask you for mercy grant us what we shall never deserve but in your grace we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus amen you you

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 82,517

Rating: 4.8446217 out of 5

Keywords: David Pawson, Christianity (Religion), Forgiveness, Mercy

Id: 5LUOwE-xuIw

Length: 51min 45sec (3105 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2015