Lovingkindness

* Lovingkindness (Psa 42:8) -- This is the compound word the Holy Ghost uses to describe the tender mercy and free favor of JEHOVAH in Christ Jesus. Lovingkindness is an Old Testament word, but God uses both of these words in Titus 3:4, watch it, "But after that the 'kindness' and 'love' of God our Saviour toward man appeared." Jesus came from Heaven and appeared in human flesh - He is the lovingkindness of God to sinful man. Christ Jesus is loving and kindness all together in One Perfect Man. The Lord in tender mercy commands His lovingkindness toward us; He first enlightens our mind about our sinful heart, then He opens our eyes to see the bleeding Savior, removes our spiritual ignorance; and shows His grace to our heart. Then after we trust in Jesus, God revives our gratitude, and renews our confidence in Christ from day to day. God sends the sweet constraints of grace to our lives, they are mighty but gentle, they only can control our conduct daily.

This is the message of God's lovingkindness from God's Book. Life is dear, but God's lovingkindness is dearer because it gives us eternal life. The infinite God has been infinitely offended by our infinite sin. It is inevitable: we must enter eternity and come face to face with our Maker. Our sin carries an eternal, infinite penalty, and our sin can only be taken away by an infinite and sinless blood atonement through the life and death of the eternal Christ. But God could not put away sin until He had laid His punishment upon the Righteous One who stood in the sinner’s place.

God is so loving that He gave us His Son; but He is so just that He slew His Son on our behalf. “The Lord hath laid on Christ the iniquity of us all,” and because He was oppressed and He was afflicted in the place of guilty sinners; therefore, does God most freely forgive the sin of those sinners that trust in Christ alone. Christ took human sin upon Himself and suffered and shed His own blood in the sinner’s place, so we would have 'nothing, nothing, nothing' to do but to just accept what Christ has done, and to trust our souls wholly with Him. The sinner that is not saved by such a divine plan as this deserves to perish in his sins; and so he must. You cannot earn salvation, it is of God's mercy, not our merit.

You have broken God’s law. You are guilty of sinning against God, from your childhood to this very day. God's law finds you guilty, condemned, and worthy of eternal death. You rebellion against God's law and the rejection of God's Son has brought upon you the wrath of God and made you guilt in the very worst sense. God is infinitely just and He must punish you; His eternal justice demands it. Nothing will content God's justice but a perfect righteousness and a sinless propitiation. You are condemned by God Himself of a capital offense; but Jesus as man’s Substitute, has endured the capital penalty, and has died in the sinner’s place.

In infinite love and tender mercy, the Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, came into the world to provide a way by which, without dishonor to God’s justice, your sins may be forgiven by pure mercy. God's way is Substitution. Christ stood and died in the sinner’s place, He was punished with the sinner’s punishment, and bore the wrath of God for sinners. Now, whosoever trusts Him, and puts their faith solely on Him is saved by God's free and divine grace. Here's the most beautiful thing you'll ever hear. A crucified Savior was slain in your place, the God of heaven and earth became a man and bled for your sins on Calvary's Cross so that you could live with Him forever.

It is extremely dangerous to put 'things' before your soul. Many are trusting in religious 'things', and not in the person and work of Christ. Your soul's salvation is of the utmost priority. Remember - Christ only receives 'real' sinners. God became a man and suffered in your place, and that same God promised that whosoever believeth in His Son shall not perish, but have 'everlasting' life. Everlasting means to last and endure forever, everlasting is eternal, existing and continuing without end, immortality, continuing indefinitely, endless. That's a long, long time.

Illustration: There was a man condemned to die. He was a poor wretch being led away to death and then at the end of his final walk, he was coming up the gallows' stairs, and someone whispers to him, “What would you give for a substitute now? What would you give for someone to come and bear your punishment of death?” He rolled his eyes at the foolishness of such a thought. He responded, “A substitute!” I could not buy one for the whole world. Who would be a substitute for a rebel like me, to swing on that noose into eternity in front of this howling crowd?”

But suppose — and we are only supposing what has actually occurred — suppose this man faced not only the gallows and the death-drop, but hell fire before him, and it were said to him, “You must burn in that pit forever unless you find a Substitute,” would not that be a precious Substitute to him? Now, listen, that is just your position. Hell is before us if we have not a substitute.

But remember the lovingkindness of God in human flesh stepped forward and stood in our place -- Jesus said, “Father, I will bear the sinner's punishment, pour the sinner's hell on me, Father let me drink damnation dry for these poor wretches;” and He did it at Calvary; He endured all the pains and wrath of God, He suffered in the rebel’s place; and now, through simple child-like trust in Christ the Substitute, we are pardoned, cleared, and free. Hallelujah, Christ can now save ruined sinners from their lost estate.

“Fling out the banner! Let it float,
Skyward and seaward, high and wide;
Our glory only in the Cross,
Our only hope, the Crucified.”

Redemption by Substitution is the Gospel. Christ stands in your place and is punished for your sins.  He was the Sufferer because of your sins:  and then, you are set in Christ’s place, you are rewarded because of His Righteousness, accepted in the Beloved because of His acceptableness with God. This is God's salvation; a salvation which satisfies the conscience of man as well as the justice of God. This salvation is offered to you without money and without price; but it cost the Redeemer nothing less than Himself. Behold, in Christ the perfect Ransom from sin is paid in full, and Christ bids you go free. Jesus died in the sinner’s place and bore in the sinner’s place what was due to the law of God on account of man’s transgression. Tell this message out among all the nations that God bled for man's sin on Calvary, and now all that trust in Jesus alone can go free.

Bottom line: God's lovingkindness (His bleeding love) is better than life. May the Lord Jesus Christ alone be exalted.