Proverbs 11:17 - Homiletics

The merciful man

It would be our duty to be merciful if we suffered thereby, and indeed we can never be truly merciful solely from motives of self-interest, since genuine mercy must Spring from sympathy. Nevertheless, we sadly need all aids to righteousness—the lower as well as the higher; and therefore it may be useful for us to consider how much it makes for our own profit that we should be merciful.

I. THE MERCIFUL MAN WILL OBTAIN MERCY FROM OTHER MEN . We never know in what straits the future may find us. Proud in our independence today, we may be in abject need before long, or at least in circumstances which make our welfare largely dependent on others. We are so much members one of another that it is not for our own good that we should injure one another. He is in the most precarious position who has provoked enemies by his cruelty. Let him beware of the turn of the tide of fortune. The tyrant calls forth the assassin. Employers who grind down their work people cause that very indifference to their interests of which they complain. If generosity wins friendship, surely it is a valuable grace. None love so much as they who have been forgiven much.

II. ONLY THE MERCIFUL MAN WILL OBTAIN MERCY FROM GOD . This is an absolute principle the importance of which is too little recognized. In the Old Testament God tells us that he desires "mercy, and not sacrifice" ( Hosea 6:6 ); i.e. that the practice of the former, rather than the offering of the latter, is the ground of acceptance by him. Christ signalizes mercy by giving it a place in the Beatitudes, and saying that the blessing of the merciful is that they shall obtain mercy ( Matthew 5:7 ); calls upon us to love our enemies ( Matthew 5:44 ); inserts in his model prayer one sole condition—that God "forgives us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors" ( Matthew 6:12 ); and tells us that our offerings to God must be preceded by our forgiveness of men ( Matthew 5:23 , Matthew 5:24 ). Therefore the cruel man troubleth his own flesh, for he excludes himself from the enjoyment of God's mercy—the one essential of his eternal welfare.

"Consider this—

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy:

And that same prayer should teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy."

III. THE MERCIFUL MAN Is BLESSED IN THE VERY EXERCISE OF MERCY .

1 . The exercise of mercy is pleasing . The temptation to hatred promises a devilish pleasure; but it is a delusive promise. Once the passion is indulged, it works pain in the soul The expression of rage is no sign of pleasure. Cruelty makes a hell within, and peoples it with demons that torture the man himself even more than its victims. By a singular law of nature the exercise of mercy begins in the pain of self-sacrifice, but it soon bears fruit in inward peace and gladness.

2 . The exercise of mercy is elevating and ennobling. Cruelty degrades the soul. Charity refines, exalts, sanctifies. The glory of God is in his mercy.

"Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?

Draw near them then in being merciful:

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."

Thus, to quote one more familiar saying of Shakespeare's, we find that mercy

"Is twice bleas'd,

It blesses him that gives and him that takes."