The Character of God is Revealed by His Judgement
PSALM 103:1-5
1 ¶ A Psalm of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits (benefits is dealings – don’t forget the way that God deals with you):
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. (Look how David is describing the way that God deals with us – God is satisfying us with every good thing, and so David is telling us not to forget this)
Drop down to verse 10
PSALM 103:10-17
10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. (He has not metered out to us the justice that we deserve – Why?)
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. (Our human journey in life is so short)
17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;
PSALM 9:16a
16 The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth:
Psalm 103:10 Tells us that “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” The obvious question would be – “why not”. And then Psalm 9:16 tells us that “The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth”.
And so there is something here that we want to look at of a scriptural portal that is being opened up for us to see deeper into the true nature and character of God – of His great character and nature of mercy.
And so we want to take Psalm 9:16 “The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth” and paraphrase it into our subject this morning of…
The Character of God is Revealed by His Judgement
This is a study that is taken out of the message “The God who is Rich in Mercy” preached 19th January 1965.
The way a person judges another person - it can reveal a lot about that person’s character, because true forgiveness from the heart takes the character of mercy - of a willingness to take a loss on behalf of someone else’s injustice that they owe you.
This is why we marvel at when someone is able to quietly bear the cost for something they didn’t do, because that requires a greater character than that of a person demanding and receiving justice and recompense.
In Matthew 27, Pilate marvelled greatly at Jesus because he kept silent and did not try to defend himself…
MATTHEW 27:12-14
12 And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.
13 Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?
14 And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.
*Because when a person is wronged in some way, then it is within the human nature for that person to respond with certain levels of verbal demands of justice and judgement of what they think would be appropriate in order to bring a personal feeling of justice to the wrong that they felt had been committed against them.
And the reason for this is because of a moral compass that is deeply bedded within us in that we are all born with this characteristic of justice built into us instinctively.
*You generally don’t have to teach a little child about what fairness is – they will soon tell you when they perceive that something is not fair of when they think they have miss out with something – and as adults, nothing much has changed.
When the 5th seal opened, it showed us a group of people that were seeking justice and revenge for the evil that had been committed against them – of what had been done to them that was unfair and unjust.
REVELATION 6:9-11
9 ¶ And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (They were crying for justice and recompense)
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
And we see this kind of response everywhere among people in all walks of life because this is a part of what makes up the fallen nature of man, but when it comes to the nature of God, then this is not what the nature of God looks like, because “He does not deal with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” Why - Because He is Rich in mercy.
ISAIAH 53:5-6
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
*All of our sins and transgressions and iniquities, He took the entire judgement and the punishment of all of the sins and the injustices of humanity upon himself, what sort of character is this? – a character that would bear our injustice upon Himself.
And so the character of God is being revealed to us by this – of Him taking our judgement upon Himself.
PSALM 9:16a
16 The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth:
*We want to briefly look into the difference between these words of sin and transgression and iniquity because they do have quite distinctive meanings.
*Sin means to “miss the mark”, to “fall short of the mark” of what we would see as the failure part, while iniquity is more deeply rooted and is usually to do with the reason why you missed the mark - it is the motive behind what caused the sin to be committed in the first place. Brother Branham tells us about unbelief being at the core of what sin really is.
David’s sin with Bathsheba that led to the killing of her husband Uriah, was iniquity in that it was premeditated - it wasn’t just a blind unconscious mistake.
PSALM 32:5 (This is a Psalm of David)
5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
Notice again these three words that David is using here to fully describe his condition – Sin, Iniquity, and Transgressions, and they all have a slightly different meaning – and it helps us to know what these differences are.
*Sin (as we have said) is to miss the mark – and with sin, you can sin against God as well as a person.
EXODUS 10:16
16 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you.
You can even sin unconsciously, and this is why that there are many sins that we are not even aware of that we commit every day of what we are ignorant of doing, and so we are constantly missing the mark.
NUMBERS 15:27
27 And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering.
But then to transgress is a different thing. To transgress is to knowingly do wrong - to intentionally disobey - to wilfully trespass.
And so transgression refers to the conscious and willful act of breaking a known law of God, while iniquity refers to a deeper character issue that is more at the root of the cause of why a person transgresses.
Samson intentionally broke his Nazirite vow by allowing his hair to be cut by telling his secret to Delilah – but there was a deeper cause for what motivated him to do that.
David was referring to this kind of sin also when he wrote, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered” because God forgives on all these three levels of Sins, Iniquities, and Transgressions.
PSALM 32:1
1 ¶ A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Iniquity is the premeditative nature that is the deep-seated motivation towards sin that was caused by the fall of man in Eden through unbelief of the word – and so this is what is at the core of a man’s transgression and sin. It is iniquity that is in effect the origin of sin.
EZEKIEL 28:15 (referring to Lucifer)
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
David’s sin with Bathsheba wasn’t because David made an unconscious mistake in that he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong - it was because of iniquity in his heart.
PSALM 32:5
5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
We must remember that we are also dealing with the chemistry of a fallen and corrupted flesh that is at constant war against the commandments of God – because we know that chemistry affects the way a person thinks. This is why people do drugs – it makes them think different.
GALATIANS 5:17
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Paul said that when he wanted to do good, that evil was present, and so more often than not he would end up doing evil, and this was the problem that caused him to feel so wretched, and it causes us to feel wretched also, and this is because we all dwell in sinful bodies that are weak.
ROMANS 7:20-21
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
So to summarise these three words of Sin, Iniquity, and transgression.
*Sin is "missing the mark" – our general failures towards God and man either consciously or unconsciously.
*While Transgression is the willful and deliberate overstepping of a known boundary.
*And then at the seat of all of this is iniquity, because iniquity is the underlying motivation within the fallen nature of the spirit of a man.
David requested in Psalm 51:2, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity". Iniquity requires the act of a washing by God.
And this is why that it requires confession, because iniquity that is unconfessed is iniquity that remains – but when we confess our iniquity to God, then it is washed by God.
PSALM 51:1-3
1 ¶ To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. (my willful disobedience of deliberately overstepping a known boundary)
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity (in other words – I need an inner cleansing), and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
David was a quick repenter – and that was because there was a fear of the Lord within him.
PSALM 103:12-14
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. (that word “fear” means those who “reverent” Him – of those who show respects towards the commandments of God and acknowledge His position as God)
14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
LEVITICUS 16:21-22
21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
THE.GOD.WHO.IS.RICH.IN.MERCY_ PHOENIX.AZ V-19 N-2 TUESDAY_ 65-0119
38 "You once, in times past, dead." You were dead. Even many here tonight, one time, can look back and know that you were dead. But now why aren't you dead tonight, as you were then? You deserve to be that way, because you was a sinner, "but God Who is rich in mercy." That's the--that's the thing, "God Who was rich." All these things that we were, "but God"! That made the change right there, "God Who is rich in mercy"!
39 Oh, I'm so glad for that, that He being rich in mercy. If He was just rich in money, if He was just rich in materials, which He is, but yet the greatest thing is being rich in mercy. Oh, what a great word that is, how that we were once dead.