Mike Bickle emphasizes God's mercy that daily renews the weak, illustrating how believers often underestimate the depth of God's mercy. He explores passages from Matthew, highlighting Jesus' call to Matthew the tax collector as a profound example of mercy and the importance of understanding mercy in our relationship with God. Bickle encourages believers to trust in God's mercy, which is available every day, and to extend that mercy to others, as it is a vital aspect of the Christian faith. He reminds the congregation that mercy triumphs over judgment and that God desires to relate to us through mercy, not our own efforts. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a deeper revelation of mercy that will transform our hearts and relationships.

In the name of Jesus, and Lord, we ask you for the spirit of revelation. We ask you for the spirit of inspiration to come and touch our mind and touch our hearts. As we come before you, we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Tonight, I want to talk about God's mercy that daily renews the weak, which is us. The people of God, we're weak in our own strength. We're going to look at several passages in the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to start in Matthew 9, and then Matthew 12, and two different passages in Matthew 12, and see has Jesus really emphasized the theme of mercy throughout the Gospel of Matthew. Romans 1, we will magnify the wonder of God's mercy forever. Now, this is a truth that not all believers are aware of. In Psalm 89, the psalmist said, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord, but here's the key word, forever. See, we think about singing of God's mercy now, and then when we get a resurrected body, say, well, we got that done, what's next? But what the psalmist said is that we will sing songs about the mercy of God. A million years from now, we will sing new songs, new ones, because we'll have new revelation of God's mercy, even a million years from now. We won't be sinning, and so therefore needing mercy because we sinned that day. It's not that sort of thing. But we will understand the implications of God giving us mercy. And as the years unfold in the age to come, we will see our great exaltation, and the implications of how great we are exalted in the grace of God and who we are to the Lord and his kings and priests and his kingdom. And as we discover this more, it will awaken new understanding as to the depth and the magnitude of the mercy that God gave us to bring us to this place of exaltation. We know least about the mercy of God now in our entire eternal existence. This is the time when we understand it the least. Look what it says in verse 2, Psalm 89. This is an amazing statement. For I have said, this is the psalmist, mercy shall be built up forever. Your faithfulness shall be established in the very heavens. Verse 5. And the heavens, the residents of heaven, will praise your wonders, and your faithfulness, and faithfulness and mercy are nearly synonymous, will be also praised in the assembly of the saints. We're talking about in the age to come. Now in paragraph A, the psalmist understood he would sing of God's mercy, and in this way he would build up the mercy of God, meaning he would magnify it, he would cause it to be seen in closer to its fullness by extolling it and magnifying it. Literally a million years from now, you will understand mercy more, far more than you do now, and in that sense, you will declare it, you will sing it, and you will build it up. It will be bigger and bigger in your understanding and in your reality. It will impact your heart in a greater way. We will sing new songs about mercy forever. Paragraph B. The congregation of the saints and the congregation of the angels, it says they will praise God's wonders, the wonders of his mercy, not only the wonders of his mercy, but everything we get in the age to come comes because God gave mercy to us in sending his son and in chasing us down and giving us so many things, our heart will be filled with wonder all the days of our life. It says in Revelation 15 that the saints will be on the sea of glass like crystal, and we will say, verse 3, marvelous or wonderful, we will declare the marvel of Jesus, not just how beautiful he is in and of himself, we will certainly do that and enjoy it, but we will marvel at mercy in that day. Now, beloved, right now, just talking about the sea of glass, the scripture describes that when we worship, even now, a few minutes ago, as we were worshiping, I love to do this. This really touches my spirit. I picture myself, because it says in Ephesians 2, 6, that we're seated in heavenly places even now, which means, Ephesians 2, 6, we have access to the heavenly congregation right now. We have access to the throne of grace right now. So when we sing, when we were singing, you know, a thousand of us in this room or whatever, we were in the midst of the billion of the saints through history standing before the throne. And so what I like to do is when we're just singing, Lord, we love you, we worship you, I just picture myself right in the middle, there's a billion of us, and these vast throngs of people singing, whatever song we're singing, I just kind of pretend the whole group is singing our song. And as we're singing, Lord, we love you, and I picture the Father and at his right hand, to my left, I see Jesus, two thrones, and the emerald rainbow of mercy, and fire, a river of fire breaking out from before the throne, and the seven lamps, the seven torches burning, and God's brightness and glory coming. We're on the sea, and when we're singing here, I just think of the whole congregation singing, and we're filled with wonder, we're singing the wonders of his mercy. Revelation 5, the next passage, very familiar, we will sing, worthy is the Lamb. What we're saying, in essence, is the wonder of mercy, we're singing of mercy when we sing, worthy is the Lamb. Because we're talking about the fact he was slain. We're talking about the fact he gave us salvation. A billion years from now, we will have far more insight into the wonders of mercy, and we will build up mercy. Mercy will get bigger and bigger and bigger in our understanding as the ages unfold. We will never weary of it, because it will be built up in our understanding. Paragraph C, there's an emerald rainbow which speaks of mercy around the throne of God. The emerald rainbow shines brightly. And the reason the rainbow's around the throne, because everything that proceeds out of the throne, all of God's plans, all of God's promises, all of them are covered with mercy. So there's a rainbow around the entire throne of God. And even a billion years from now, that rainbow will be dominant as the most dominant feature around the throne of God. I mean, there'll be fire, and angels, and saints, and all kinds of lightning, and thunder, and brightness, and sounds, and trumpets, and gusts of wind, and fragrance, and music. All of that will be on the sea of glass like crystal. But most prominent around the throne is this bright rainbow of emerald, the seven colors of the rainbow, but with an emerald hue. Vast rainbow! And wherever we are on the sea, the several billion saints in history, as we're standing there, the unmistakable, dominant theme around the throne of God will be there in its brightness. Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! And God put that rainbow around His throne. Paragraph E. The revelation of the vastness of God's mercy is a vital revelation. The enemy wants to obscure that revelation in our hearts even now. Mercy is so vast. Beloved, even the most mature saint among us I'm talking about the body of Christ and the whole world. The most mature saint is only a babe in their understanding of the vastness of mercy. Oftentimes, I have found in pastoring over the years, that the longer a person walks with the Lord, often, this is usually the rule, the longer they walk with the Lord, actually the less confidence they have in the mercy of God. Everybody has confidence that the unsaved drug addict is going to get mercy. We tell them, oh God will give you mercy, the angels will rejoice, they'll have a ball just for you. We have so much faith for the unconverted on the day of their conversion. For the first year or two, we have faith for ourselves. But as one year turns to ten and it keeps going, what I've seen over the years is many believers actually lose their confidence. Their confidence gets less and less because they begin to think, you know, I ought to know better by now than to do some of the things I'm doing. And they have a subtle shift in their understanding from rejoicing with confidence in mercy to almost thinking God's grimacing, that God's going, you again? Bickle again? You need mercy again? But beloved, that's not true. That's not how God feels. God delights in His mercy. God desires to give mercy. But I found this strange thing that most believers actually lose a fresh revelation, they lose their confidence of it in it as the decades unfold. And the Lord wants just the opposite. Look what Paul said in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15. I love this. This is a faithful saying. He says, you can count on this. This is worthy of all acceptance. Jesus came to save sinners and not just unconverted sinners. He came to deliver people struggling with sin, whether you're in the body of Christ or you're not in the body of Christ. If you're not in the body of Christ, we call it getting saved. If you're in the body of Christ, we call it receiving mercy. He came to deliver people who are struggling with sin. Paul said this, it is a faithful saying. It's worthy of full acceptance. He's telling Timothy. He goes, Timothy, Jesus became human. He became human to deliver people from the penalty and the power of sin. When it says save sinners, to not just deliver us from the penalty where we're forgiven, but from the power. Jesus became human to deliver you from sin. And even as a believer, this is why he became human. Because he was thinking of us. Before we were saved and after we were saved. He didn't give up on us once we got quote, born again. And then Paul went on to say, he goes, so there's no mistake, Timothy. Here's a mature apostle. He goes, I see my sin more clearly now than I ever have in my life. Paul is closer to the Lord than any time in his life as he's writing 1 Timothy up at this time. He says, he could have said, I know the Lord more than I've ever known him, Timothy. I'm closer, but I'm closer to the light and I see more clearly the darkness in my heart. But one thing I'm confident of, Jesus became human to deliver me from the penalty and the power of it working in me. Paragraph F, God desires, he really wants to give you and I a fresh revelation of mercy. He wants you and I to grow in a daily, I mean literally daily, a fresh experience of mercy every day. Not just mercy when we had, you know, like that, ooh, that one bad day. Ouch, I don't want to think about that. Mercy isn't just given to us on that bad day. Mercy's every day. Look at Lamentations 3. Through the Lord's mercies, it's because of God's mercy, you and I, even as believers, we're not wiped out. We are not wiped out by the holiness of God for one reason, because mercy, look what it says, verse 23, mercy is new every single day. And I don't care what you did yesterday. There is a fresh supply of mercy to touch your spirit every single day when you awake. There is a new offer and a new fresh experience of mercy. Now don't think of it as that which you receive if you had a scandalous falling into some scandalous sin. Beloved, I need a fresh touch of God's delight in showing me mercy every day, because the more mercy that I see, the more confidence I have when I stand before Him, the more mercy that I see I receive, the more tender I am towards other people who need mercy. You know, you could tell somebody, you know, have a good attitude towards the others, and they can grit their teeth and try to have a good attitude towards the others, but the way of man's heart is that we are judgmental towards other people in the areas that we're dedicated in when they're not. You can grit your teeth all day long and try not to be judgmental. There's only one answer to free us from judgmentalism. That is a fresh experience of mercy. When I receive mercy, I feel tender towards you when you come up short. When I'm not experiencing the sense of mercy, I get cranky and I get a judgmental attitude when you're not as dedicated as you should be. And you can grit your teeth and try not to be, but if you experience mercy, there's no problem. You are not judgmental. And when I experience mercy, I feel confidence in the Lord. When I experience His mercy, I have confidence when I fail and I have confidence when I succeed. Either when I do bad or do good. When I experience mercy, my spirit is confident with God either way. See, if you do good, but you don't experience mercy, you end up with spiritual pride. If you experience mercy, you have confidence. I mean, you have grateful confidence. If you had a great month or a bad month, you have the same confidence because you're experiencing a daily encounter with how God feels in relating to you with mercy. Paragraph G. David said this profound statement. This is one of the great statements of David's life. He goes, I trust mercy. This statement is a huge. This is not a small statement. Most of God's children, they don't trust mercy. They really, they draw back. When they see their sinfulness, their spirit kind of guards themselves with God and they begin to move away from God when they see their fallenness and their brokenness and their sin. David said, when I see the bad stuff, or even when I've done really good spiritually, I'm trusting mercy. He goes, I know God loves to give it. I believe in it. My spirit is open and I'm going to be alive and confident before you, my heart alive. In the present tense, I trust in mercy. Profound statement. Paragraph H. Many people resist mercy. Instead of trusting it, they resist it. They don't do it on purpose. You know, I've heard this so many times in 30 years of ministry. The guy says, I don't feel like I deserve it. I go, you don't. That's the good news. Settle it. Well, I mean, I don't feel like I'm doing what I should do to deserve it. I go, you never have, you never will. I go, settle it. Settle it. We receive mercy because of what he did, not because of what we do. We receive mercy because of who he is, not because of how well we're doing on the inside. Paragraph, I mean, Roman Numeral 2. Begin to look at the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew chapter 9, Jesus saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the tax office. And he said to Matthew, he's a tax collector, we all know the story, follow me. And he rose and he followed him. Now, this is heavy duty, what's going on, because a tax collector, most of you are aware of it, was the most hated person in the Jewish society. There's nobody lower in the scoundrel department than a tax collector. Here's why. Because the Roman Empire was oppressing Israel. The Roman Empire was taking significant amount of money away from them in taxation. So the guy would work all week long, and the Roman Empire would take 20 or 30 percent of their income. And they hated Rome for this. They hated, because you know what they would do with the money? Rome would pay the army that would beat up Israel. So Israel would give them the money to pay the army to beat them up. Israel would go, this isn't a good deal, we work long to pay the army that beats on us. And the tax gatherers were Jews who joined the Romans. They said, hey, we'll go get the money from our fellow Jews. And here's what the Jews did, the tax collectors did. They took the percentage they had to take, and they added more to it so they could become personally wealthy from their own fellow countrymen. And the Jews hated the tax collectors. They said, not only are you helping the Romans, you're cheating us, and the Romans don't care. And you've got big houses, and you have all these things, and it's off of our blood, sweat, and tears. I mean, they hated the tax collectors, because they were for two reasons. They joined the Romans, so to speak, in terms of participation, and they cheated them above and beyond what the Romans asked. They had no conscience about it. They were scandalous, evil, immoral men. Seemingly no conscience. Jesus walks by this guy sitting at his tax office, which means he's at the place where he, you know, taxes all the product coming in and out of that area. You know, they'd be at the main road, his office was right there. The guys would walk in, and Matthew said, give me more money for all your product coming and going. Jesus walks by, he goes, follow me, which means I want you to be one of my apostles. This is jolting to Matthew. Wait, do you know who I am? I hear you're a great prophet. Do you know who I am? It's really jolting to the other apostles. Jesus, you've got awesome discernment. You missed it on this time. This guy is bad. And if you think it was jolting to the apostles, it was really jolting to the Pharisees. Pharisees said, this can't be happening. And then, verse 10, as Jesus sat down in Matthew's house, many tax collectors, the reason many came, because the house was real big, because he was rich. And in the ancient world, to have a fellowship with somebody, to invite them over to your home, it was different than in our culture, because it meant you were openly endorsing and associating and approving of that person's life. And so, when the Pharisees saw Jesus eating, making a public statement of his interest in being friends with these people, they just said, this is unthinkable to us. Unthinkable to us. Verse 13, here's what Jesus answers back, just to cut this a little bit short. They're stumbling. Verse 13, he goes, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go and learn something. I want you to go, Pharisees. I want you to learn something you don't know. Learn what it means. I desire mercy. Paragraph A. Jesus answered the Pharisees by quoting a very well-known verse, Hosea 6-6. When the verse, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, came directly from the prophet Hosea. Hosea 6-6, a very well-known passage. Every rabbi knows Hosea 6-6. Jesus says, I want you to study the book of Hosea, and I want you to learn what this means. I desire, look at the word desire, I long to relate to my people on the basis of mercy. Not only do I desire to relate to them on the basis of mercy, I want them to relate to each other on the basis of mercy. My heart longs for mercy. And I want you to go and learn what this means. Now, the larger story of the book of Hosea, many of you know what the story of Hosea is. Hosea is a Hebrew or Jewish prophet. The Lord speaks to him by his audible voice and tells him, marry Gomer, that girl over there. And Hosea goes, Lord, Gomer's a prostitute. He says, I know. Marry her. He marries her, and he falls in love with her. He really loves her. And she continues to operate in her immorality, and so her immorality is now compounded because now it's adultery to the marriage. And Hosea is wounded. He says, Lord, I love her. This is killing me. And the Lord says, this is how I feel about Israel. Hosea, do you understand? I'm going to relate to Israel on the basis of a fiery desire in my being called mercy. Do you grasp this, Hosea? And so that's the message of Hosea. So Jesus, Jesus, is the fulfillment of Hosea, and Gomer, this prostitute, is the nation of Israel. Jesus is standing before the nation of Israel, and he's saying in real time, I mean from his heart, I am the one that desires mercy. I am the true husband. You are the harlot people, but I want you. I want you, and I want you to relate to me on the basis of mercy. There is no other way. I desire this foundation of relating to you. This is the only way we can relate, and this is how I want you to relate to one another. This is a profound statement. Micah 7, a verse that we use so often around IHOP. God declares, he delights in it. He doesn't just desire mercy. He desires it in the most positive sense. He delights in it. He desires it with a, with a, with something touches his spirit deeply. It's delight, it's desire with the dimension of delight in it. Let's go to paragraph C. Now, what's happening is that I believe the spirit is telling the church right now, go and learn. Church, go and learn the message of Hosea, and in one sentence, it's this, I want to relate to you on the basis of mercy, and I want you to relate to one another in the overflow of that foundation. I desire mercy, and I want you to, I want you to know this, now the church has not done this well. We have not really focused on mercy. In some ways it seems like the church is really into mercy. The church is more into just kind of casual Christianity, and they claim mercy without having really studied mercy or felt the weight of it or the power of it. Mercy isn't just a word we throw out when we want to live carnal and so we want to feel better, so we say mercy, mercy, mercy, you know, grace, grace, grace, kind of like the fire insurance for living half-hearted. Mercy's not about fire insurance for living half-hearted. Mercy is God's longing to relate to us in the only possible way that he can based on what he brings to the relationship, not on what we bring to it as the primary foundation. Now we have to bring our sincerity to the relationship, but our sincerity could never ever fix all the wrongs that our sin created. Our sincerity is critical that we bring it to the relationship, but no matter how sincere you are, it never undoes the problems that our sin has already created. You know, the mass murderer might go to the judge and go, I am really sincere, and the judge says, I appreciate your sincerity, I actually believe that it's possible, but it doesn't undo the crimes. Sincerity never earns the wiping away of the penalty of a crime. So church of the Lord Jesus, he's saying to us, I mean widespread, not just here, go and learn this. I desire mercy. Paragraph C. Now interesting is that the scene right before this I desire mercy passage, the one right before it, Jesus just healed a paralytic in Matthew 9. When you open Matthew 9, you see the paralytic is the first one, and then the next scene is the I desire mercy scene. And what happened is that in this scene, Jesus heals a paralytic and look at Matthew 9 verse 6, he says, I'm healing this paralytic that you would know that I have power to forgive. So paragraph D, so now in this next passage, Jesus is pushing the issue of forgiveness. He's pushing the issue of his desire to forgive his people. And that's the context of Matthew 9, the passage that we're looking at here. The call of Matthew. Paragraph F. Now what's interesting is that Jesus already knew that if Matthew said yes to the apostleship, Matthew's name was going to be on the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem. Now Matthew didn't know that, and the twelve didn't know it when they were alive. John found out when he was about 95. The Lord says, John, I really trust you, but hey, this is heavy stuff. I'm going to wait until you're in prison, 95 years old, out of contact with everybody, and then I'm going to tell you your name is on the foundation walls of the New Jerusalem. Whoa! The other apostles found out on the other side. This is heavy stuff! Having your name on the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem? Woo! Jesus looks at this tax collector, this lying, thieving, immoral man, and he says, I can see a yes in your spirit. And I want you to be one of the chief leaders of my kingdom. This is a massive statement! I mean, Matthew's call to be a chief leader, an apostle in the kingdom of God, was a prophetic declaration of God's love for mercy. It's interesting that Matthew puts the Hosea 6-6 passage, I desire mercy, he makes sure when Matthew is writing the Gospel of Matthew, he puts the Hosea 6-6 passage in the story of when he got called to leadership and to the kingdom. Well, he got called to the kingdom and leadership at the same moment. Romans 3, let's go to the next passage in Matthew, Matthew 12. We go from Matthew 9 to Matthew 12. What's going to happen is Jesus is going to quote Hosea 6-6 again. Beloved, to my knowledge, I might be remembering a verse, but I think that I'm accurate in saying this. There's only two passages in the whole Bible that Jesus quoted two times. Hosea 6-6 and Psalm 110. On two occasions, I mean, we're talking about the only passage in the whole of the Bible that Jesus quotes twice in his ministry. My point is, this was really important to Jesus. Really important to him. This time, it has to do with the Sabbath. And the Pharisees, you can read it more in detail on your own, Matthew 12, 1-7. The Pharisees are troubled because the disciples are eating some grain on the Sabbath and they come, and in verse 7, here's the point I want you to make, not tell the whole story. It's a well-known story. Anyway, Jesus says verse 7, if you had known what you were supposed to have learned earlier about learning mercy, you would not have confused the situation right now. Because what's happening, the Pharisees are judging the apostles in a wrong way. And Jesus is saying, the reason you're confusing what's going on, the reason you're interpreting it in a wrong way is because you didn't go and learn that I desire mercy like I asked you to back in chapter 9. Now it's chapter 12, and you're still in confusion because you have not learned that message. So in verse 7, he says, if you had known what Hosea 6-6 meant, you would not be bringing confusion to the people right now in your wrong judgments. And so, this could be applied in a number of ways. We must go and learn mercy. We need to understand its power and the length and breadth of it. Beloved, we're going to be singing of it in the eternal city, and we're going to be building up mercy forever in our understanding, and singing of its wonders forever and ever. It will overwhelm us again and again and again, the revelation of mercy. And we know it least now. I mean, in our whole eternal existence, we know the least about it right now, and this is when we need it the most. Because we're sinning on a regular basis. In the resurrection, we won't be sinning. We will only be recalling the mercy we received. And the more exalted, the more glory God gives us as the ages unfold, the more we will understand because of the nail-pierced hands of the man who gave us mercy. I am just determined in my heart, I am going I want to excel in learning and feeling and enjoying fresh mercy. I want confidence in my spirit when I'm doing bad, and when I'm doing good, I want my spirit open. And when I'm doing good, I don't want my my experience of doing well to create pride. And if you have gratitude for mercy, there's no room for pride there. Pride is really diminished when you have a revelation of mercy. And it will affect the way we treat everyone around us as well. Paragraph A, Jesus again quotes Hosea 6-6. Now, James adds to this. James says one of the great statements of how the human heart works in the Bible mercy triumphs over judgment. When a person experiences mercy remember Lamentations 3-22, we looked at it earlier. If we experience mercy new every day on the first page of the notes, God wants us to experience mercies new. New mercies and new experience and new connectedness and new sense of being cleansed with mercy every day. Here's what happens mercy triumphs over judgment every time. If you will say yes to mercy, it will convince you and motivate you to do righteousness far more than receiving judgment will. Judgment will motivate you, but it's God's second motivation. God uses judgment when mercy has been refused. But if a man or a woman will say yes to mercy, mercy will triumph and cause the person to choose righteousness. And God says this is what I would much rather do. I would much rather you feel the graciousness, the gratitude and the confidence of mercy so your spirit is running towards me, the wide open spirit. I would much rather mercy be conquering your heart and triumphing by leading you in righteousness. Paragraph B Matthew 23 a couple chapters later Jesus goes back to this mercy thing again in the gospel of Matthew. He does it several other times too that I haven't referenced here, but look what he says. Matthew 23 Matthew 23 is the famous seven woes to the Pharisees. He gives seven woes. You know, I love the Jesus movies. I always wait for the Matthew 23 scenes. Some of them don't have it but, you know, a couple of them have it. Jesus walks out, woe unto you! It's kind of like, it's exciting. And I like to picture myself on both sides of it. You know, sometimes I watch it and I'm the guy getting woed too, and I go, ah! Then I like to be the one giving the woe. You know, I change roles in the drama sometimes. And I'm Jesus, woe unto you! And it feels good, you know. Anyway, Matthew 23 is the woe chapter. But he looks at them, seven woes he gives to the leadership of Israel. It's a very serious chapter. It's one of the great chapters on leadership in the kingdom of God. Because it's the seven things basically Jesus said leaders in the spirit will not do these seven things. You want to study leadership, study Matthew 23. I've rarely ever heard anybody that's ever studied Matthew 23. It is the premier passage of Jesus' teaching on leadership. So some of you go study it and make some notes and then let me have them and then I'll preach them. Okay, so Matthew 23. I think that was one of the woes in there, not to do that, but okay. Look what he says. Woe to you. He goes, here's what you do. You tithe, and he gives a number of herbs. He goes, in the smallest issues of life you pay your tithe. He goes, that's good. But he goes, you neglect the weightier matters of the word of God. And he highlights mercy. Mercy is one of the weighty issues on God's heart. Mercy isn't kind of the fluff issue. Mercy is weighty to God. Receiving it and then giving it, because you can only give it to the degree you receive it. You can't give mercy to others more than you receive it. You really can't. Because it doesn't make sense to you. But when you receive it, it makes sense to give it. If you haven't received it, mercy seems insane. You think, I'm not going to forgive that guy. But the point I wanted you to see is that Jesus called this one of the weightiest issues in the word of God. Okay, we're going to go back to Matthew 12, Roman numeral 4. Matthew 12. Verse 15 to 21. This is a great passage. The great multitudes were following Jesus, in verse 15. Matthew 12, verse 15. Now this is only a couple verses, you know, from the verse, in verse 7 is when he said, desire mercy. Just a couple of verses later, in verse 15, Jesus heals the multitudes. Verse 17. And he does this so that the prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled. There's several things that are fulfilled in this prophecy of Isaiah by what Jesus is doing. I'm only going to highlight one of them. This is a really dynamic prophecy, but I'm not going to camp here. I'm just going to hit one point. But for those of you that love Isaiah 42, this is a magnificent insight by Matthew and Jesus in Isaiah 42. One of the great prophecies about the Messiah. But here's what Isaiah said. When the Messiah comes, verse 18, when the servant of the Lord comes, I'm going to anoint him with my spirit. And here's what he's going to do when he's anointed. He's going to declare justice to the Gentiles. This is one of the most offensive statements that a Jewish prophet, Isaiah, could have ever said. What? Now, because we're Gentiles, most of us in this room, not everybody, but most here are Gentiles, we think, that sounds pretty cool to give justice to the Gentiles. This is a Jewish prophet saying when the anointing is on the Messiah, the pagan Romans, the enemy, the oppressors, the bad guys, are going to get justice. God's going to give them justice in a good sense. Because there's two different types, dimensions of justice. God's going to pour justice out upon the Gentiles. Now, look at paragraph 8. Let's look down at number 1. There's two sides to God's justice. There's a judgment side to justice. When God gives justice, if the people resist him, it's judgment. But if the people are responsive, it's called salvation or deliverance. And he's talking about the salvation and the deliverance side of justice. He goes, I'm going to give the pagan Gentiles salvation, deliverance. I'm going to give them a breakthrough of power. Now what he says here, let's look back on the notes, verse 18 again. Let's go back on the notes here. Matthew chapter 12, verse 18, he says, Behold my servant, when my spirit's on him, here's what he's going to do. He's going to proclaim justice. He's going to proclaim victory. He's going to proclaim breakthrough to the Gentiles. Remember, the Jews don't like this. They go, we don't want the Gentiles to get a breakthrough. We want the Jews to get a breakthrough. Isaiah, you got it backwards. Go tell the Lord he mixed it up. Verse 19. Now verse 19 is really troublesome to the Jews. When Isaiah said this, he goes, When the Messiah comes, he's not going to quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the street. And what it's talking about is he's not going to mobilize military force to remove the oppression against Israel as a nation. See, because all the Jews were thinking when the Messiah comes, he will beat up the oppressive nations. But verse 19, what he's talking about, Jesus is not going to raise up a revolutionary military force. He's not going to mobilize the troops in the street to overthrow those that are oppressing the nation of Israel. This is a horrible prophecy to the Jewish ear. He's going, what? Because the Jews don't know he's coming twice. Now the second time Jesus comes, he will raise his voice, he will raise an army, and he will overthrow all the oppressors of the nation of Israel. But the first time he came, he came in gentleness as a servant. This is very confusing to them. But look what he says in verse 20. He's not going to deliver the nation of Israel, verse 19, that's what he means by quarreling in the street. He's not going to deliver the nation of Israel nationally, but he is going to deliver, verse 20, individuals who are oppressed. Verse 20 is describing Jesus' tenderness towards oppressed individuals. He says, he describes them in two ways in verse 20. He says these individuals, now the most amazing thing, he's talking about Gentiles because, I mean, this is remarkable if you get into the mindset of a Jewish prophet, they didn't like the Gentiles. It would, honestly, it would be like going to Israel right now, and a guy standing up, yay, says the Lord. The Hezbollah will receive God's victory and salvation, and the Lord will tenderly touch them. I mean, that prophet would get stoned in Israel right now. This is what Isaiah is saying, actually. I am going to, the Messiah will come, and he will deal tenderly with the pagan Gentiles, and he will convert them, and he will deliver them one by one if they will say yes to him. What an incredible statement of tenderness for human beings. Because the logic is, if he will deliver the pagan Gentiles, how much more will he deliver the covenant nation? So if Israel could just kind of have been calm about it, they could have done the math that says, wait, if he will deliver pagans, how much more will he deliver the covenant nation? That's how they should have taken it, but they were offended by this prophecy. Let's lock into verse 20. This is where I want to focus on. It's the next minute or two, and bring this to an end. Verse 20, a bruised reed, he uses two pictures of our life, a bruised reed, the Messiah will not break. A smoking flax, or a smoldering wick, is another way to say it, a smoldering wick, like you can see the wick in the lantern, and the gasoline or the kerosene is in there, but the wick has gone right down to the very end, and it's out of oil. Or maybe it's a candle, and the wick is right down, and it's smoldering. There's no fire that you can see. It says, God won't quench it, but he will send forth justice. He will bring a breakthrough. The word justice, you could put the word breakthrough. He will give a breakthrough to individuals until they have victory. He says in verse 19, I'm not going to raise up an army to deliver the nation at the first coming, but I will deliver individuals at my first coming, and all through church history. I will deliver individuals. Now here's the picture. A bruised reed. Think of, I remember, I was about 10 years old. The lady, I can picture, she had this edict, the Bickle Boys cannot be in my yard. I was that kid that your parents warned you about, you know. I mean, I had a bunch of families in the neighborhood, don't let the Bickle Boys over here. It's actually real. So we went over in her yard anyway. And guess what I did? I threw the ball and it broke the tomato plant and it was full of tomatoes. So I went over there. I was about 10. I can't remember at what age. I'm panicked because this lady's going to be mad. She's going to come home pretty soon and the plant's doop. So I got some tape and tried to tape it, but there was too many tomatoes. It didn't work. I figured if I just line it up and tape it, green tape, that thing will get put together. It didn't work at all. When a tomato plant breaks, it is so fragile. It's over. According to the natural, there's no way to fix it. I'm here to tell you, you can't fix a tomato plant with tape. Can't be done. She found out and that's another story for another day. Some of our lives are like the broken tomato plant. There is not a chance that it can be mended by human agency. But what Jesus says, or Isaiah the prophet says about the Messiah, this bruised reed, he won't break it off. He's going to supernaturally fix it. It can't be fixed by man. You can't repair a broken reed like that. It can't be fixed. A smoltering wick, the fire is gone. It might be technically there. There's not a chance if you blow on it, it'll go out. It's over. Isaiah says but when the Messiah comes, though he won't deliver the nation of Israel as a whole, he will deliver individuals. And the individuals he'll deliver, he will go to such an extreme, he will even deliver the pagan Gentiles that don't know God at all. Because he's committed to mercy. See, now the context of this prophecy is Jesus, remember verse 15, he's healing them all. He's healing all of them. And this is one of the aspects of what he would come and bring justice. Okay, paragraph, I'm in Roman numeral, I'm in paragraph A, down to number one. We look at that judgment and salvation. Now look at number two. Let's give some examples of when God's going to give justice. Holiness. There are more of God's people that have areas, they have phobias, addictions, all kinds of fears, and all kinds of things they're addicted to. All manner of things. And there's not a chance they can deliver themselves. And the devil comes and he says, you bruised reed, he will break you off. You smoltering wick. You smoking flax. The fire is gone. The fire wasn't even there anyway. And if it was, it's gone. And the Lord will snuff it out. And the Lord says, no, that's not true. When there's only smoke and the fire seems to be gone, I will restore that flame. I won't put it out. I will help you get through to victory. The breakthrough will come until victory is established in your inner man. Now he's talking about inner healing and outer healing, physical and emotional right now. And he goes in verse 21, and the Gentiles, these pagans, will trust in the mercy of God. They will rejoice or hope because the word trust in this context, they will rejoice in the Jewish Messiah. This is before the second coming. This is during church age. This is before he delivers the nation of Israel as a whole. This is what he does in between the two comings. He's going to deliver individuals. Even the most pagan ones, even the ones the furthest out have no chance of recovery. Let's look at paragraph D. Top of page 4. Paragraph D. Paragraph C. At the very last sentence I say many people, they feel like a bruised reed and a smoltering wick. They feel like that. Some of you in this room feel that way. You have issues and everybody's issues are different. Beloved, the issues that you're struggling with, God has given every one of us an assignment to struggle against these tailor made unique issues. Everyone's issues are slightly different than somebody else's. The combination. That is the theater for which God has allowed you to show your love to him. And not that you will overcome all of them, and you might, but the very fact you resist them and you reach to God and you believe him and you're pressing and you're moving forward, even though it's sometimes three steps forward, two steps back, and three steps forward still two steps back. You don't seem to be making the progress you want to be making, but the very fact you're warring, it's the arena of which you're showing your love to him. And it matters to him. It really does matter to him. And many are tempted because they feel hopeless. They want to give in, and they want to give up. They really do. It's not worth it, because if you don't trust in mercy, then why struggle? I'm not going to make it anyway. Why struggle? Paragraph D. They want to quit because they feel hopeless. The person says, why should I struggle against this addiction? Whether it's to alcohol or drugs or an eating disorder or pornography or any manner of thing, and it's secret and nobody knows and I can't get any ground. I just want to give up and give in. And the Lord says, don't, don't, don't. Maybe all you see is a smoldering wick. Maybe what you see is a broken plant. But I won't break it off if you will come to me. And I won't put the fire out if you will trust me. If you will come and open your spirit, because the devil lies in two ways. The devil lies, he tells us, we've gone too far. In other words, he's not going to forgive us. This is the thousandth time we've repented. Or he tells us our addiction is too strong. God's power is not big enough. Those are the two main lies. And I have that at the end of the page there somewhere, the last paragraph or two. The two main lies. He tells you, you've gone too far. You've gone too, you've done it too many times to get forgiveness or the power of this addiction or this phobia is too strong. Beloved, when the devil whispers in your ear, God's going to break the plant off and put the fire out. You can declare, it is written he will not break off this broken reed and he will not put out this smoltering wick. He will bring it to full life and to full fire. We'll end with paragraph E here. Have the worship team come up. Paragraph E, look at what it says in 2 Samuel. 14, 14. The Lord does not take away life, but the Lord plans ways so that the banished one would not be cast out from God's presence. Let's read that again. God doesn't take away your hope and your future. That's not what he wants to do. God is establishing plans right now. Right now. So that the banished person can feel his presence again and enter into the presence of the Lord. The devil tells us God has already planned to write you off, but beloved, God has devised plans for our recovery and the fullness of his mercy. Amen. Let's stand.