Reprinted from Help& Food for Feb. 1893
"If ye had known what this meaneth, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice,' ye would not have condemned the guiltless" (Matt. 12:7.
The Lord does not here say the guilty, yet He speaks of mercy.
The Pharisees were great sticklers for law, and thus professed to be the only ones who honored Moses, and God who gave it. They were orthodox enough, but there was one thing lacking-they had no hearts-no heart-movement toward God, and so no hearts for God's people; and this was an awful lack, was it not?
Although we may not be Pharisees in the full sense, the same principles and the same condition of soul in a measure may possess us in our relations to one another. The cold letter of the Word kills now as then, and none more than those who themselves use it; so we need to know what this means, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." The Lord beautifully meets this hardness of their hearts and justifies the poor of His flock, by pressing upon their consciences (and bringing in themselves as witnesses) that it is lawful to do good at any time. For this is needed a heart right toward God, and bowels of mercies toward men-a tender and compassionate heart. This will not leave out judgment, but it will show mercy. "I will sing of mercy and judgment," said one who had learned something of this.
Our compassions-how easily, alas!-circle around ourselves, and plead for ourselves instead of others. We speak often of principles, too, and set to work to carry them out with hard and fast lines of Scripture, all clear and straight enough, but in the application of them showing judgment is not tempered by mercy. "This ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone." There is no value in our taking "high ground" and talking about God and His claims, however rightly, if there be lacking in us real heart-care for the least of His people. We cannot separate love to Christ from love to His people, and yet how much this is done!
It is easy to talk of love for brethren far off, and all the time be unable to live with the brethren at our door; of what account, then, is our talk? "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God (or his brother) whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20).
And so whether it be a question of the guiltless or the guilty, while we are bound to maintain the truth, it must be kept in even balance-as it ever was perfectly by the blessed Lord Himself-with mercy in the heart. The truth has no power when used as a whip for the back of others-merely to beat and to smite them, and thus drive them away, but hi the true love of the true Shepherd of the sheep, to do good with, and this is always lawful.
What a reaping for us it will be, even in the life that is, when "he who showed no mercy will have judgment without mercy!" How happy, on the other hand, to be able to enter into the joy and blessedness of that word, "And mercy glories over judgment" (Isa. 2:13). The Lord graciously teach us more of it; for if we do not learn it, we too may condemn the guiltless. W. Banford