How Long Shall God's Mercy Endure?

In Genesis 3: 15, God said to Satan, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

Enmity: deep seated dislike, hatred, hostility or the quality of being an enemy.


Being in a state of enmity with God is deadly serious. If we choose to love the things of the world, we are choosing to hate the things of God. I John 2: 16 states, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” We’ve let the world sneak into the church inch by inch, so slowly that most of us aren’t even aware that it has occurred. We share the world’s beliefs and values, we wear their immodest styles, use their tactics and treat our churches as if they were businesses. We welcome anyone who claims to be saved no matter how they live (we mustn’t be judgmental, now) just so we can increase our numbers. We try to be cool and relevant (read: worldly) so that we can relate to the lost (we don’t want to turn them off by acting all holy, do we?). We engage them in discussions on the philosophical advantages of being saved while assuring them it’s all pluses and no minuses (because if we told them about the cross that they must bear then they might not want to be saved–and we couldn’t put them on our rolls).

In short, many of our churches are nothing more than cheaper country clubs: a place to gather with the “right people” and have fun. We’ve lost our grounding. We’ve lost our boundaries. We’ve lost our understanding who we are and Who we belong to. We’ve invited the world to come on in (and Satan right along with them) and they’ve taken us at our word and moved on in. Then they’ve taken over.

God forgive us.

So, what do we do? Where do we go from here? We must get back to God. Repentance starts with me. Revival starts with me. We need to prostrate ourselves in true repentance before Him and weep over our sins. Then we can weep over the sins of the church. We need to learn to pray and then do so long and hard. Prayer isn’t just intercession or thanking God for blessings or asking for what we need (even though those things are important). Prayer is a desperate plea to know God better so that our will might align with His will. Making it possible for us to pray cost Jesus His life thus our prayers absolutely must cost us something.

Our pastors must get up in their pulpits and, after repenting of misleading us, they must boldly preach the truth–no matter who doesn’t like it. John Newton said that good preaching must break the hard-hearted and heal the broken-hearted. That’s a good thing to aim for.

We must become people of the Word again. We must learn to love what God loves and hate what He hates. When we do we will see the world from God’s perspective and it will make us sick. We will then see that where we see fun, He sees sin that caused Him to slay His Son for us. We see success but He sees the futility of seeking after worldly things that won’t last but will take our eyes off of Him. We see that our rights have been trampled on by someone; He sees our hearts holding onto the poison of bitterness and anger. We seek comfort while He calls us down the hard road of self-denial, servanthood and agape love. We see the immediate, whereas He says heaven is our true home. We see cute fashionable clothes, whereas He sees our immodesty destroying men’s lives and their souls. We see children as an inconvenience, He sees them as godly seed and the foundation of the next generation of believers.

The church has been so very busy being busy for God. There’s Wednesday night suppers, ladies classes, men’s classes, preschool ministries, car washes, chicken dinners, barbeque plates, ski trips, six flags trips, lock-ins and on and on and on…. Many of these things are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves but God has to have first place. The things we do need to fit into His plan for the church. If Jesus and Paul wouldn’t do it, neither should we. We need to ask ourselves this kind of question: are we seeking God’s holiness (or money in our pockets) when our churches have car washes and our teen girls dress in tee-shirts and shorts (with teenage boys right along side of them) and then get soaked? How does this honor God?

Our goal in everything ought to be to honor Him. When we really love God, we will want to please Him. Luke 6: 46 records this poignant question by our Lord, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

Obedience to God will cause us problems as much as Satan’s ministers would have us believe otherwise. It will make those around us uncomfortable. It will cost us something–perhaps a lot. We will be maligned, slandered, shamed, persecuted, perhaps even killed. We will perhaps lose friends and have our family shun us. It can cost us important business deals or even a job. We will be laughed at for believing in sticking out a difficult marriage or honoring and obeying our husband. Folks will scold us for having more than our allotted 1.7 children (having nine children, I’ve experienced it more than most). Other women will roll their eyes when we show up to swim wearing modest swimsuits rather than ones cut up to here and down to there. These things are not comfortable (and they don’t lead us to the kind of personal happiness that we believe that we are entitled to) so we maneuver things to make Christianity more comfortable…to bring us more happiness. To do so is dangerous to our souls.

We have misunderstood God’s intent for His people: He desires to make us holy much more than He desires to make us happy. God’s truth sent Jesus to the cross because men simply couldn’t stand to hear it. Many today cannot stand to hear it, either. The sad thing is that today, like in Jesus’ times, many of those who cannot stand to hear God’s Truth spoken, or acted on, are those within His body.

It’s imperative that we act for time may be short. We must, we absolutely must, get on our knees and repent and seek God’s direction. We need to then arise in boldness and go teach God’s truth for we do not know how much longer God’s mercy shall endure with a church that has ceased to know Him.

May God be with us.