Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during October 2021]

Will God have mercy on a man who does not show mercy?
It might seem odd to start a Christian meditation with a quotation from the Quran so let me explain.

In 1984, shortly after I started attending HBC, I was on a flight from Jeddah to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. As was the case with all Saudia flights of that time, the purser’s pre-flight safety announcement included a prayer committing the flight into the hands of Allah and asking for its safe arrival. Of course, I muttered a somewhat different version and one of us must have got it right because we did indeed arrive safely. The Saudia in-flight magazine contained an ‘infidel-friendly’ introduction to Islam and included several Anglicised quotations from the Quran; the one above has stuck with me.

Jesus expressed a similar sentiment in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy”^[1]. There is no question here; it is an affirmation of words from the Old Testament:

And the Lord said, ‘… I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ [Exodus 33 v19 NIVUK]

Of course, my own exploits are not the reason that 1984 has gained its primary significance. In 1948 George Orwell wrote his (then) futuristic novel about the decay of society, duplicity in government and the erosion of personal freedoms. He chose ‘1984’ as the title of his novel. As we look around us today it might be argued that the only thing that George Orwell got wrong was the date.

In Orwell’s prophesy, various superpowers are striving for supremacy. Each claims pre-eminence for its own interpretation of the rule of law which it then enforces on its citizens. As the relationships between the superpowers change it becomes expedient to rewrite history; people and events that contradict the party line are made to conform or they disappear from the records. We find no trace of mercy or compassion here.

Orwell based his writing on what he saw of the oppressive regimes in eastern Europe. It is perhaps not coincidental that on this date (19th October) in 1984 a politically-dissident priest was killed by three agents of the Polish Communist intelligence service.

Two contrasting ideologies: one is based on a vague hope that God will be merciful, the other has replaced God with a merciless ‘Big Brother’. Are you just hoping for God’s mercy? You can be confident about it. Assurance and certainty are available to those who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
[Hebrews 4 v14,16 NIVUK]

The 19^th verse of the 8^th chapter of the 4^th book of the Bible also talks about the role of the priest, atonement and approaching God – just a coincidence?

[1] Matthew 5 v7 NIVUK.

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