Mercy : kindness or forgiveness shown when punishment is possible or justified.

God is described as merciful in Psalm 103:8:

"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

So, by this God will show forgiveness when punishment is possible or justified. Let us look at a few examples of Gods Mercy:

Joshua 7:24-26:

24: And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the mantle and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters, and his oxen and asses and sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; and they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. 25: And Joshua said, "Why did you bring trouble on us? The LORD brings trouble on you today." And all Israel stoned him with stones; they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones. 26: And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day; then the LORD turned from his burning anger.

What had Achan done? He had taken a few things from a city that God had said nothing should be taken from. About 36 people also died because God wouldn’t protect them following this theft (Josh 7:5). So this is Gods mercy, for one person taking spoils of war, 36 people die in battle, the soldier himself is stoned to death (hardly a ‘punishment to fit the crime’) and also his whole family and all his livestock is stoned and burned.

II Sam 6

6:And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.

7: And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.

Now, here it can be clearly seen how slow ‘God is to anger’ and how merciful he is. The oxen stumbled, so the Ark was in danger off coming of the cart. Uzzah, to protect the Ark, steadied it and for his troubles got ‘Zapped’ by the merciful God.

Lev 10.1: Now Nadab and Abi'hu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them. 2: And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

Alright, so they hadn’t been given a little card by God saying "Please bring me some fire" but was that justification to murder them?

Of course, surely Gods laws must show the mercy he has, being a reflection of his all merciful manner. Let us look at a few.

Lev 20:9-16 Lists a series of things so awful that the only solution is the death penalty. Adultery, Incest and, of course the worst of crimes, cursing your mother or father.

Deuteronomy 21:

20: and they shall say to the elders of his city, `This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

21: Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Well, does that mean my son should be stoned? He is too young to be a drunkard, but he is stubborn and rebellious and he doesn’t obey our voice. Is that an example of Gods merciful judgements?

It would be remiss of me not to mention the Amelekites. There can, from a tyrannical point of view, be a way of framing history to justify the mass destruction of races to allow one tribe to live somewhere already occupied. Now it is condemned by Christians as ethnic cleansing, but when God tells the Jews to , it is ‘fulfilling his promise to one person a few hundred years ago’. That of course explains it, why he says "you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per'izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb'usites" (Deut 20:17) but when Saul is told to blot out the Amelekites, because of what they did about 200 years before (1 Sam 15), what justification can be given? Forgive my naivety but to me that sounds like a crime of horrific proportions that the United Nations now would pass a resolution on, or at the very least give America a chance for target practice and a use for a few bombs.

Then there is the census. In 2 Sam 24, King David was asked by God to take a census, so he did. Then he said he had sinned by taking it. he was only following Gods commands, so how could he have sinned? He was allowed to choose his punishment (why weren’t the Sodomites given this choice? Their only crime was to have sinned). He chose a plague, and so God killed 70,000 people, just because David did as he was told? In 1 Chron 21, it is Satan that asks David to count the people. This would explain the sin, but it still doesn’t explain why 70,000 innocent people need to be murdered.

Of course there is the famous 'Miracle' of the Death of the firstborn and the destruction of Pharoahs army. From Exodus 11:

9: Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh will not listen to you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt." 10: Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

This wonderful God STOPPED Pharoah from making his own decision so that the wonder of the killing of the firstborn could be shown to the World!

What had the firstborn done to deserve this? They were obviously being treated mercifully by God.

The Egyptian army was drowned, once again just to prove a point. I would hate to drown, like being burned, it seems like a horrible, painful way to die. The Egyptian army would number in the thousands. Just so God could show off, and let the world see what a wonderful God he is, these innocent people died.

I also cannot accept that the crimes of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah justified the death they received. Think about the rain of hot stones. How would that have felt to the people receiving it? I am often told to try and imagine Christs suffering on the cross, when do YOU ever think of the death God gives to others?

So, remember, when you give glory to your merciful and gracious God, you are worshipping the God of the death of the 70,000 Israelites, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per'izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb'usites and of course the Amelekites, the Egyptian first born and army, the children and adults stoned for breaking his commandments, Uzzah, Nadab and Abi'hu and the family of Achan the son of Zerah. But, like an ‘Oscar’ acception speech it would be impossible to mention everyone involved, but You know who They were. Forgive me for not joining you in praising his Eternal Love, but in my mind it puts God in the same league as Hitler, Hussain and Milosevic, not to mention Vlad the Impaler and Ghengis Kahn. In fact, they were mild when compared to His destruction.

Now, I think I am beginning to understand Christs death on the Cross. It fits in beautifully with Gods world view. God seems to take an incredible pleasure in punishing people. When Job asks why does he suffer, when he wonders how he can be punished, when he leads a blameless life, how does God reply? To paraphrase, you are just an insignificant speck, when compared to my glory, don’t ask such meaningless questions, just look on my works and despair. That must have been Gods answer to Jesus at Gethsemane. Must I take this cup? Don’t question, just suffer.