The Need For God's Mercy by Apostle Michael Orokpo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Mercy Is What Keeps Us

Lamentations 3:22–23: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. His compassion fails not. They are new every morning."

One of the most consistent patterns in scripture is that mercy is a force that brings exoneration from judgment. Everywhere the mercy of God is at work, people are exempted from destruction. Mercy is not sentiment — it is a divine legal instrument that intervenes between a man and the consequences he deserves.

Three Dimensions of God's Help

As you deal with God, you will discover that He is a helper — and in the economy of His help, there are three dimensions:

1. Intervention

   Intervention happens when you are going through a problem and God steps in to change your story. Many times people go through circumstances that are beyond their immediate abilities and require divine help. The way God steps into your situation mid-crisis is what the Bible recognizes as intervention. This is the mercy that arrives before the worst outcome — that turns the tide in the middle of a battle you were losing.

2. Restoration

   Restoration happens when you are already defeated. You have already lost. The damage has already been done. But when you are walking with God, there is no such thing as too late. Even when you are defeated, God has the capacity to reverse times and seasons and bring back what you have lost.

   He doesn't just restore what you have lost — He restores the years you have lost. He replays the possibilities that passed, that you didn't maximize. He changes the whole circumstance so that the event is effectively reversed — and you have the right and privilege to have made that decision as if the loss never happened. Joel 2:25: "I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten."

3. Preservation

   After God has restored, He doesn't stop there. Preservation is what God does to ensure you don't enter that same circumstance again and suffer the same losses. Mercy that only restores but doesn't preserve would leave you vulnerable to the same cycle. But God's mercy covers all three dimensions — He gets you through it, brings you back from it, and then guards you from returning to it.

   1 Samuel 7:12: Samuel erected a stone and named it Ebenezer: "Hitherto has the Lord helped us." The memorial stone was for preservation — a reminder of God's faithfulness that would anchor them against future unbelief.

How to Appropriate Mercy

Mercy is available — but it must be appropriated. It does not come automatically. There is a posture that positions a person to receive mercy:

• Acknowledge your need — Pride shuts the door to mercy. James 4:6: "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." Mercy flows toward those who recognize they need it. The self-sufficient have no room for it.
• Cry out — Blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing and cried out the louder when he was told to be quiet. His persistence in crying to the one who could help him provoked the response of mercy. Psalm 107:6: "They cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses."
• Come through the blood — The ultimate ground of mercy is the atonement. Hebrews 4:16: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Boldness is not arrogance — it is confidence based on the blood of Jesus that gives legal access to the throne of grace.
• Extend mercy to others — Matthew 5:7: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." The capacity to receive mercy is linked to the willingness to extend it. A heart hardened toward others will find its access to mercy diminished.

The Mercy That Never Fails

The mercy of God is not occasional — it is new every morning. Whatever yesterday brought, today's mercy is fresh. Whatever the enemy planned for your destruction today, the mercy of God arrives first.

You are not consumed — not because you are strong enough, not because you were wise enough, not because you did everything right. You are not consumed because His mercies fail not. And that mercy is available to you today, for everything you are facing, and for everything ahead.