Pastor Kent Christmas SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

You’re watching KCMI TV.
For joining me today. And, uh, I wanna I wanna talk to you today about mercy and love.
And, uh, the other day, I was in prayer, and I was just beginning to think about this.
And, um, I’m so grateful that god has allowed us to live in this dispensation.
You know, the one previous to the one that you and I live in was called the dispensation of law.
And the dispensation that you and I live in is a dispensation of grace.
And so I just wanna, um, I wanna delve into, um, there’s a verse that I wanna read out of the book Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 28.
And I’ve said he that the by Moses Law or he that broke Moses’ law.
This is so strong. Died without mercy under 2 or 3 witnesses.
Um, in the old testament, when the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Um, it was it was something that could not be broken.
And when you go back and you read about, uh, during Moses’s time, there was no mercy Um, I was thinking of some of the things that that happened in that time.
And for example, uh, and it’s so different in our day, but children who, uh, were rebellious and dishonored their parents, murdered off to them, uh, got the death penalty.
If you stole, you got your hand cut off. People that committed adultery got the death penalty.
And there there was no mercy.
And yet we know this, in first, John, uh, the 4th chapter versus 8 16,
both them say this that god is love.
So you you think, well, how in
the Old Testament under Moses’s law, if god is love,
why does it look like there was such an absence of I mean, god didn’t cut anybody’s slack.
He said, this is my rule. This is my commandment.
And if you break it, then there’s gonna be a strong consequence.
And, um, you you I think of Moses. Uh,
Moses was the greatest prophet one of the greatest prophets.
He was the epitome of what a pastor was.
He was he was willing to have name blotted out of the book, uh, if god would is gonna do the same thing to Israel.
He was a great intercessor. And yet god tells him, he says, um, speak to the rock.
And Moses in his frustration hits the rock, and the rock was a type of Christ.
And The Bible says that the lord told most, as he said, because of that one infraction, I’m not letting you go into the land of cana.
And most has tried to talk to the lord about it.
And god said, don’t ever talk to me about this again.
And he said, I need you to come up
at the mountain at the age of one hundred and twenty years old when Moses was still full of vitality and strength.
Uh, god took him.
And you and I today, um, were used to to mercy.
And And as I reflected on this, I thought, god, why was it so different back then?
If god is love, why would there be such a, um, strong discipline in the old testament that He who broke Moses’s law.
He died. The Bible says without mercy. And,
I think part of it is is that in the Old Testament, god had
not been able to physically come and live with men.
He had not been able to physically manifest himself to men.
And, um, he was he was locked up behind the curtain.
And when we think about the Old Testament Tabernacle, um, the holiest of Holies was where the presence of the lord was.
But man didn’t get to go in there.
Just once a year, the high priest got to go in because he was a type of Christ.
And
uh, the scripture says that he would put blood on the mercy seat. And even then
uh, the the mercy that was in the old testament was so different from the level of mercy that you and I have today.
And so,
um, in in the book of, I think it’s, um, first Timothy 316, it says, God was manifested in the flesh.
And in John 1 14, it says the word became flesh.
So something powerful happens here because man has not known god in the flesh.
They they’ve only known him as the almighty and when they’ve saw him do miracles and all of that.
But god has no way to release the essence of who he is.
God is love, but that love is not been poured out on mankind because there is no physical manifestation of the presence of the lord in the earth.
So something shifts when first John 316 says for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
So there wasn’t an app sense of love of the world from god.
It was that the son had not yet been manifested.
When god manifested himself through Jesus Christ in the earth, he is able now to physically release his presence into the earth and, um, in the book of Psalms uh, chapter 85 in verse 10.
This is such a wonderful verse speaking about Christ, and I think at Calvary It says mercy
and truth are met together.
And righteousness and peace
have kissed each other.
See in the old testament, All that was relevant or all that was present was truth.
But there was no mercy.
And when you think about David, you know, when David sin with bathsheba and he doesn’t repent and it’s a whole year because it there’s a baby born for Nathan, the prophet ever comes to him and begins to tell him what his sin is.
And David repents. And, you know, he tells the lord. He said, you know, create within me a
clean heart and renew within me a right spirit. And please don’t take your presence from me.
And you would think that, you know, in this day and age, that kind of repentance would turn the heart of god.
But in the old test because mercy had not yet been released.
God comes to David, and he said, okay.
He said, Um, I’m gonna give you 3 choices.
He said either you can have 3 years of famine in your land, or you can flee for, I believe it’s, um, 3 months
from your enemy. Or else he said,
I can send a plague for 3 days into the land of Israel.
And David said, I’d read the fall into your hand, send the plague.
And even though David repented, the Bible said that 70 1000 men died because of David’s sin.
And there there just wasn’t the mercy. In the old testament in the holiest of Holis,
the what covered the art, which symbolically housed the presence of the lord was it was called the mercy seat.
At Calvary, hallelujah, when the blood of Jesus was shed.
And when the blood of Jesus, not the blood of bulls and goats, but the blood of Jesus.
When Jesus resurrected, the Bible said in that first few hours, he ascended up into the father took his blood.
And he put it on the mercy seat that was in heaven in the tabernacle, the 2 tabernacle.
And when the blood of Jesus was placed on the mercy seat, it activated mercy.
And when that happened, something began to be released in the atmosphere.
When Jesus’ blood hit the mercy seat, righteousness, and peace kissed each other.
There’s a verse. Um, let’s see if
I have it written down here in Psalms 2 and 12.
And I’ve read this many times But it says kiss the son, lest he be angering you perish from the way.
I believe in that moment that mercy, hallelujah, kissed Christ.
And when truth hallelujah, when truth and mercy met together, There was something that was released in the atmosphere.
See, the law was truth. It wasn’t it wasn’t something that was fabricated.
It was what god was speaking. But the law without mercy made men die.
But when Jesus Hallelujah Calvary, when he met mercy and they kissed each other, righteousness and PC The Bible says that Jesus has been made the righteousness of god unto us.
But when righteousness and peace Doesn’t the Bible talk about that the middle wall of petitions been broken down?
And we now have peace with the lord Jesus Christ and with the father through the blood of the lamb.
When when righteousness and peace kissed each other. It loose mercy.
The dispensation that you and I live in right now.
Is the dispensation of mercy and grace.
It is it’s where the physical love of god has been released in the earth through the manifestation of Jesus Christ.
And then Galatians talks about this because, people have taken grace and taken mercy to the extreme and say, well, now that we live in this time, that you can just do whatever you want and go ahead and sand and and you go to heaven.
Um, that’s not true. Mercy, does it mean that you can go out and just live any way you want And because god is mercy and he has grace and he’s love, then it’s alright.
No. Mercy
is where god gives us time
to deal with our weaknesses. In the old testament, when you did something, there was no time Immediately, sentence was passed and judgment was carried out in the time of grace because Mercy has been released because god is love.
And the moment that god was able to manifest in the earth through the body of Jesus Christ.
He is now physically able to release his love in the earth.
When the love of god is released and the mercy of god is released, So now and, you know, if it was not for the mercy of god, every one
of us would be in help.
And most of us would be dead because we’ve all done things worthy
of of great judgment.
The beauty of living in this hour is that when we sin and I love this first.
And at first, John says, if any men sin, uh, we have an advocate with the father.
Who is faithful to forgive us. And
mercy just simply means when you mess up, that god gives you a window of time without passing judgment on you without at that moment that you’ve fallen.
And, okay, you’re done, and he cuts you off.
Um, even in the old testament as great as Isaiah and Jeremiah and these men were, uh, because the love of god had not yet been released through Calvary.
God
wouldn’t let him in heaven. They were in hell. They were in shield.
They weren’t in torment, but they were in hell.
And when Jesus put his blood on the mercy seat and mercy and truth, hallelujah met together in righteous and peace kissed each other at Calvary.
It immediately released the love of god.
And efficient says the very, uh, first thing that god did When he died, he said he descended into hell and he took captivity captive because now mercy’s been released by the blood of the limb.
When you understand that that mercy is not a license to sin, but it’s a season
that god gives you to repent.
And the the wonderful thing about where you and I live today,
we live in the time of grace We live in a time.
You know, I find it so interesting that how god describes that that that arc of the covenant with the angels on both ends
and yet everything in it was covered
by the mercy seat.
Isn’t it interesting that god calls mercy a seat that he allows how he sit in our presence as love and that because we don’t live under Moses’s law, It you know, mercy is not the license to sin, but I can tell you this mercy is all.
It’s the season that god gives us. It’s that grace period.
You know, you hear this.
Well, they’re gonna give you a grace period before you have to pay the bill. That’s what god does.
He gives you
a grace period before judgment comes.
I wonder how many times you and I because of mercy and grace have been able to make it right with god.
And we never reaped the judgment. We never reaped the penalty of what we did.
In fact, we have prospered because mercy.
And truth have met. Must have
been an amazing thing for for the law that did not have mercy in it, smarting from from the past
and mercy’s marching from the throne room of god.
And at the cross, they meet each other. And there there, they they make peace.
And, you know, I I think that that god must have been so moved when Jesus’ blood was shed.
The Bible said that that veil was torn in that temple, and it wasn’t to let us in.
It was to let mercy out.
It came out of the holiest of holies, and it runs the river to you and I.
So Um,
I I wanna encourage you
that understand that you and I today that we are who we are and gone because of the mercy of the lord.
And that god doesn’t immediately rain judgment on us when we stub our toe or we stumble.
But because Hallelujah, righteousness and and peace, Hallelujah have kissed that the love of god kissed the son and removed the judgment and today.
Hallelujah, you and I live in the love of the lord. So, uh, stay strong in the lord.
Rejoice from the fact that you live in the dispensation of grace and that love covers a multitude of sins.
Well, god bless you. I’ll see you soon. God bless you till next week.
For more information about Kent Christmas Ministries in National or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmas.org, or regeneration Nashville.org.