Living Hope Fellowship Church

GOD’S MERCY

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

GOD’S MERCY

Preface

(mercy/repentance/forgiveness)

          It is God’s mercy that we are alive today!  It is God’s grace that we can be saved.  Jesus came to save sinners.  They need the love and mercy of God applied to them.  All they have ever felt is the lust of the world and the pride of life.  If you will pray and seek God for them, He won’t judge them according to their iniquities, but will bring mercy and righteousness. He will wipe away their judgment, just like He did for you and me. 

          Pray for your enemies. Pray for everybody, and don’t limit God to a number!

Claim your whole family, town, county and country for God!  Fast and pray and watch God move.

GOD’S MERCY

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          I believe in the wrath and judgment of God, but the only reason any of us are alive right now is because of God’s mercy!  I want to show you how God applies His mercy. 

          Psalm 103:8 says, “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.”  He won’t nag you!  Verse 9-10 says, “He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.  He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” 

          God has not come close to pouring out the judgments that we really deserve.  He hasn’t let us have the full brunt of his anger and judgments.  Had he fully punished us, even as a Christian, many of us would be dead, so we praise God for His mercy!  Verse 11-12 says, “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.  As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

          Wait a minute here.  The north and the south have a “place”.  You can go north so far and then you start going south again when you get to the North Pole.  You can go south so far and then you start going north again when you get to the South Pole.  However, the east and the west are forever!  You will never run into those old sins again.  The devil will bring them around to you, because he is the accuser of the brethren (see Revelation 12:10).  However, if you are saved, and the devil brings old sins to your remembrance, tell him, You’re a liar.  Jesus washed me from that! 

          He has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west, never to meet them again.  Isn’t that wonderful!!!  When you are saved, YOU ARE SAVED.  In the New Testament, John 8:36 says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” 

          Psalm 103:13-14 says, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.  For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”  The mercy of God drew you to Jesus.  The mercy of God brought you conviction whereby you felt and knew the tremendous guilt of sin.  That is the mercy of God.  Some get angry when we preach and “step on their toes”.  The Lord convicts them of sin or dryness in their souls.  It is the great mercy of God that He sends the Holy Ghost to deal with anybody ever again!  It is the mercy of the Lord that America is still operating, and that the world was not blown up years ago. 

          It is the mercy of God that we didn’t die of some sickness or disease when we were children.  I had spinal meningitis when I was eight years old, and I began to draw up to the fetal position, only backwards.  I could have died, and I would have been gone.  Perhaps you can recall a bad childhood disease you had.  My wife had pneumonia when she was a child.  By the grace of God we are alive, and able to hear the Word of the Lord, and able to feel the conviction of God. 

          There are people in hell right now that would give ANYTHING to feel the conviction of God one more time so they could come to Jesus.  In hell there is no mercy left for anyone!  They’ll be crying for it, but there is none down there.  While there is still breath in your being, you have potential to obtain the mercy of God and to get closer to God by His grace and power.  Lift you hands and say, It’s not too late for me!  I believe God!

          When there is full-scale revival, the preacher won’t have to “kick” somebody to get an amen.  There will be great true joy and great praise unto God.  I’ve seen visions and dreams while praying, and I’ve seen the Lord heal.  His mercy endureth forever, and as long as there is breath in the body, the Lord has potential to work on you and me. 

          There is no statement in the Bible quoted more often word for word than, “his mercy endureth for ever.”  You will find it in Psalms and other books of the Bible.  All of us have failed God, but His mercy is still there, and God is ready to wash you, make you clean, and make you every whit whole.  He is ready to do a work in your life and lift you out of the miry clay.  He wants to set your feet on the rock and put a praise on your lips! 

          God has had mercy and grace all this time, but we are going to see great mercy and power manifested in true revival.  Devils are going to be cast out and they are not going to return.  Arms and legs are going to grow out where there were none.  We will see the sick and afflicted brought from hospitals to an altar of prayer, and they are going to get completely healed, and they are going to leap, and run, and shout, and dance for joy!!!  It is because His mercy endureth for ever! 

          God has awesome promises in His Word, and God confirms His Word with signs following. With healings and deliverances He shows that His great mercy endureth for ever!  You are going to see the devil cast out of your families, and you’ll see your children delivered.  They will be compelled to come in, because the mercy of God is drawing.  They will covet earnestly the gifts of God, and you won’t have to coax people to go to church, but you’ll have to coax them to go home! 

          The Spirit of the Lord has not departed, and the rapture has not taken place yet, because the Holy Ghost is still working.  In God’s sight, all sin is damnable.  It will send you straight to hell.  He judges it horribly, but God sent forth His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  He watches to see who will receive Him.  How many will say, Lord, wherever you go, I will follow?  Jesus is going to send revival again all across this planet before He comes! 

          God is trying to get our attention and deal with us now to believe Him.  He wants us to be filled with Him and be satisfied in the great things of God.  There is a lot more for us to get a hold of than what we now have.  Christians are fixing to get run over by sinners.  You better get ready, because they are coming in.  Christians have feasted on the Word of God for years, but to whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much.  New Christians are going to be out-doing the old ones, and they will be so fired up that they will run right over the old saints who are staked to the pews!    

          Simon invited Jesus to supper, but there was a sinner woman of the city who had an expensive alabaster box of ointment.  She broke it for Jesus.  Another one washed Jesus’ feet with tears.  He turned to the old Pharisee and told him how she was ministering to Him better than he had. 

          We need to be in prayer and fasting for revival, so when sinners come running to the Lord, we will have something to give them and something to tell them.  1 Peter 3:15 says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” They will say, What must I do to be saved?  What will you answer?  Will it be a stammer, or will you know what to say to them and how to pray?  Right now is practice time.

          I feel the Lord beginning to move.  Your sons and daughters are going to prophesy.  Well, they are not even saved yet.    God is going to save and set them free, and they are going to prophesy.  They are going to see visions and dream dreams.

          The Lord said He would bring forth a people where there were no people.  He is going to make Christians out of sinners.  How do you get rid of sinners?  Make them saints!  God comes to save sinners.  Paul said he was chief of sinners in 1 Timothy, but God got a hold of him.  He thought he went blind, but when Ananias prayed for him, it was as though scales fell off of his eyes, and he could see.            Let’s have revival. There is plenty for whosoever will receive it.  God has enough for everybody.  It is a shame that He has prepared a beautiful supper out of His mercy and blessings, and people won’t even come to His table, much less eat. 

          Lamentations 3:33 says, “For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.”  He doesn’t want to horsewhip you, but sometimes He has to.  When I was little, I jumped in a water puddle once when my Mama told me not to.  I knew I shouldn’t have done that!  My pants were soaking wet.  I went home, and my Mama asked me why my pants were all wet.  She asked me if I did what she told me not to do.  I told her yeah; I couldn’t lie to her.  The evidence was against me.  My pants were all wet.  She got an old wooden handled scrub brush and paddled me hard against those wet pants.  With each “whop” she let it set a few seconds!  That is the way the Lord will do you.  He will whip you right in the middle of your mess!  However, he wants us to get up out of the mess, and get out of our worldly fashion.  He wants our countenance changed by reading the Word, and through prayer and fasting.  Then watch those mercy drops come down from heaven.  God wants to show His mercy to sinners, saints, and backsliders alike.  You are going to watch and rejoice when He does it. 

          Get your eyes off of where YOU think God ought to put that mercy!  We have to learn to pray for our enemies just as hard as we do our children.  People tell me that “so and so” needs salvation badly, and I know what they mean, but if you sin at all, you are still a sinner.  All sin is black; it is dirty, and it will send you straight to hell.  Without Christ you are without hope and lost in this world.  Everyone who is born in this world, after they come to an age of accountability, must give answer to God.  If you accept Christ, you can be saved, but if you don’t, you are damned already.  You don’t have to refuse God to go to hell.  Just don’t accept Jesus as Savior, and you will go to hell.  John 3:18 says, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

          As children of God, we have to have God’s mercy come upon us, and remember from whence WE came.  I was backslid eighteen years and attended church like any church mouse, and was as saved as they were, which was NOT. 

          If you want to see revival and souls added to the church daily, then you can’t be particular about who is going to get saved.  You think that one person needs to get saved more than another whom you know.  No one is above another!  Race and color does not matter.  Background and religion does not matter. If their background is rich, poor, drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, politics, or any thing, it does not matter.  Jesus delivered the man in the country of the Gadarenes who had the legion of devils, and He will deliver whosoever will come to Him.  John 6:37 says, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” 

          When the mercy of God draws you, you can get saved.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”  It is the mercy of God that we are saved. 

          Romans 12:3 says, “. . . God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”  He sends His grace, and you believe on the Lord.  He has drawn you by His Spirit, and you become saved when you accept Him.  Then you can grow and believe Him for other things He has provided for His people.  God wants you to go deeper in Him. 

          If you want to see revival, ask God to pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh, not just SOME flesh.  Ask Him to save your enemies as well as your family.  Jonah was a case in point.  Jonah 1:1-2 says, “Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”  Jonah took a cruise instead.  When God got done chastising him, he obeyed the Lord.

          Look in Jonah, Chapter 3.  Verse 1-3 says, “And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”  The Bible says in Romans 11:29, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”  He still had to do what he was told to do.  It took him three days, but he walked and preached to that exceedingly wicked city.  God told Jonah it was a wicked city, and Jonah hated the Ninevites!  God sent him to the very people he hated!  He did not expect them to get saved, and frankly, he did not WANT them to get saved! 

          They repented, from the king all the way down the line.  Jonah 3:6-9 says, “For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.  And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:  But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.  Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” 

          Every single one of the people of Nineveh got saved, by the decree of the king.  God honored it, and it was the greatest revival in the history of the Word.  I’m believing whole towns and villages to get saved in this time and day, because the latter rain is supposed to be greater than the former.  Nineveh had thousands of people, which is more than all these little towns around us put together.  Can you believe for ONE town to get saved?  Have you ever prayed that way? 

          God’s mercy showed up, and He did not destroy Nineveh, because they repented of their great wickedness!  He didn’t do what He said He was going to do to them, because His mercy showed up.  Jonah, the preacher of the greatest revival in the Bible, reacted to it.  You would think he was shouting hallelujah, but look at Jonah 4:1 which says, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” 

          Can you see Jonah stomping around?  He preached to those wicked people and God saved them!  He really did it.  He saved every stinking one of them. 

          What if you preached or witnessed to your home town people, and they were all standing around listening to you telling of impending destruction?  God may tell you to tell them that if they don’t repent, in three days there is going to be an earthquake, and they are all going to be destroyed by the hand of God.  From the mayor all the way down to the ditch digger repents, putting on sackcloth and ashes and fasts food and water for three days.  They won’t even let the animals drink.  Can you imagine a sight like that?  Can you imagine the other towns around looking at that?  They would think there was something wrong with those people.  Nineveh was seen by other cities, and it was a tremendous witness.

          Nothing is too hard for God.  If you were the one who preached to these people, you would probably feel pretty good.  Oh, wait a minute.  You may see your old brother-in-law in the crowd, and he is on his knees.  He is fasting and praying.  God is forgiving him.  Look at the shine on his face. 

          Jonah got so mad about it that he wanted to die.  He preached the message from the Lord to the people for three days.  Then he got mad.  God’s mercy was upon him about a chapter before this, when God delivered him from the belly of the whale.  He had been in that whale’s belly and was being digested.  You know what he would have been turned into . . . part of the ocean.  He was on his way out forever.  He was in disobedience to God and would have gone to hell forever. 

          Jonah 2:2 says, “And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.”  God heard Jonah’s cry.  Jonah 2:10 says, “And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.”  By His mercy God delivered Jonah.  The fish vomited Jonah out on dry land.  He had to clean himself up and go preach to the Ninevites as God had commanded him to do.  They got saved, but he got mad. 

          It is the same spirit when you are down praying and an enemy crosses your mind, and you don’t pray for them!  God says to pray for your enemies.  Matthew 5:44 says, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

          You want me to pray for my enemies, the ones who did this, and this,

and . . .?!  What about the people you did things to?  God saved you and me!  God’s mercy endureth forever.  If we want to see revival, we’ve got to let His mercy go wherever it wants to.  It could be that the church would be filled with all of your enemies!  Can you imagine them all lined up at the altar?  Don’t you understand that when they leave the altar, they are no longer your enemies?  They are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  God can turn your enemies around and make them your friends and your family.  Some people hate their relatives, but remember God’s mercy to you.

          Mark 2:17 says, “When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Jesus came to save your congressmen, your enemies, your brother-in-law, and whosoever will come to Him.  There is no devil that God can’t cast out.  God can deliver that soul, and that same soul that used to serve the devil can be filled with the Holy Ghost and fire.

          Jonah got mad, because he only wanted certain kinds of people to get saved.  In the coming days, all your enemies may come before you as you pray.  It might be an enemy of your nation, or an enemy of your family or household.  Perhaps there is an antagonist that nags you all the time.  Do you pray, Lord, GET THEM STRAIGHTENED OUT!!!  That prayer is too general and too short.  Get down and bind the devil off of them! 

          Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  Sinners wrestle devils just like we do, except that Christians have power over the devil!  Praise the Lord.  Sinners don’t have any hope, so why don’t we pray for them and see God change them?  Sometimes WE want to change them, but James 1:20 says, “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”  He ordained us to pray, and seek God, and believe Him. 

          Jonah 4:5-11 says, “So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.  And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.  But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.  And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.  And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.  Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:  And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”

          Jonah sat down outside of the city to see what would happen.  He made himself a little shack to get out of the sun and then saw that they were getting saved.  Then God allowed a vehement east wind and the sun to beat upon the head of Jonah, and he fainted.  God supernaturally allowed a gourd, overnight, to come up and shade Jonah, and he was glad for it.  God allowed the gourd to be destroyed, and Jonah got mad again.  This man had a temper problem!  Then God gave him an understanding.  He reminded him that he had pity on the gourd, but not on the souls of men. 

          What is revival?  It is the mercy of the Lord being shown to people.  However, WE cannot decide where or to whom God is going to give it.  If you want revival, pray for your enemies with as much zeal as you pray for others.  Matthew 9:13 says, “. . . I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

          I’m believing for God’s mercy to move upon the every soul we have prayed for.  Souls who are bound of the devil will come in, and some would rather that these not be in church!  What better place is there for them to be delivered?  As a minister, I invite people to church, and they expect that out of me, but everybody needs to be inviting people to church! 

          It doesn’t matter who it is.  If someone comes through the church doors wanting something from God, we need to be praying for them.  Pray that the Spirit of the Lord will draw and deal with souls everywhere!  Get down on your knees and pray that God will save them, and their families, and their friends.  Every one who has passed through our church doors has the prayers of the saints on their heads.  When somebody comes in the church, you need to jump right on it in prayer with the Holy Ghost fire and pray that God will touch them!  Describe them to God if you don’t know their name!  Pray that God will deal with them and convict them.  That is one way you compel them to come in, so the mercy of God will get on them.  They will want to go back to the place where they felt it. 

          Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Christ died for the ungodly while they were still ungodly.  He died for you and me about 2000 years ago.  The door was opened for all to come to Christ.

          I sat down with a biker at a restaurant one time and began to deal with him.  Later on he came back and said he had to pray through!  He used to serve the Lord, but had gone back into the world.  He said he had never talked to a preacher who would stare him in the eyes!  He said that got a hold of him.  He said when I talked to him about the Lord I looked him in the face.  He said I told him the truth, and that got a hold of him.  He said he had to come back to God! 

          People appreciate your honest dealing with them.  People are starving to death for the mercy of God.  They want somebody that is real, and on fire, and sold out to God!  They are going to watch you and put you under a microscope!  However, if the mercy of God is upon you, the devil won’t be able to see a thing but the blood of the Lamb!  If you get a hold of God, He will get a hold of you.  If you draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to you!  Then when you go to the sinner, you can deal effectively with them.  God will set them free.  The Bible says in Proverbs 16:7, “When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

          Can God save anybody?  Yes, God can!  Romans 5:20 says, “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:” Jesus said of a woman that her sins were many, but that they were forgiven.  Luke 7:47 says, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” 

          You can look at your enemy and say they are “so” bad, but some of the meanest people on this planet will make the best Christians you ever saw!  They are devoted to the devil, but God by His mercy can touch them and give them peace and joy and righteousness! 

          God is dealing with Christians to deal with the most wretched and vile refuse of human beings.  You’ve got an opportunity to see God save souls, and they need the love and mercy of God applied to them.  Some of them have NEVER felt that.  All they have ever felt is the lust of the world and the pride of life.  If you will pray and seek God for them, God will bring mercy upon them and He won’t judge them according to their iniquities.  He will bring mercy and righteousness and will wipe away their judgment, just like He did for you and me. 

          Don’t pick out who gets saved next, and who you think needs it worst!  Pray for everybody.  Don’t limit God to a number!  Claim your whole area for God, and pray accordingly.  Get down and bind the devil off of them.  Praise the Lord for it.  When your enemies come before you in prayer, pray for them, even if you have to do it through clenched teeth!  Then you will see great miracles. 

          I’m reminded of a story of a man who lived in Alabama, who was very prejudiced against blacks.  He hated them.  He got in a Holy Ghost meeting and got saved.  He got drunk on the new wine from Jesus and was praising Him for salvation.  When he came to himself, he was hugging another man right beside him, who got saved the same moment he did.  He was hugging the biggest, blackest man he had ever seen!  He was praising the Lord and loving every second of it, because the devil was out, and the Spirit of the Lord was in. 

          No person is born mean.  They get mean because the devil gets in them.  When you get the devil out, they can be as good a Christian as any, if they will walk with the Lord.  Are you ready for the mercy to start falling?  Are you ready for revival?  Maybe the first load will be all of your enemies!  Will we stop and be mad about it like Jonah was?  We’d better not!  Let’s seek the Lord. 

          If you need to pray for forgiveness, because of that enemy, before you can pray for him, do it.  Get it out of your system, and let’s have revival!  One of our enemies, after they are saved, may be the one who leads our children to Jesus!

          God’s mercy does not know any bounds, and He is no respecter of persons.  He doesn’t care how much we’ve sinned, but that we get everything under the blood of the Lamb.   Let’s remember from whence we came.  Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

          Get a burden for souls and let’s have revival!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

 E-mail   livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.