It is taught in many circles that the God of the Old Testament was angry, you sin you died, period, end of discussion. These people teach that mercy and truth didn’t exist until Jesus came. However, that concept of God not having mercy and truth is not a Biblical teaching in anyway.
The Bible is filled with wonderful, bright, colorful stories of the mercy of God. We can see mercy in the creation of man. Man was made in the image of God (His mercy). God breathed into him (His mercy). God gave man His Holy Spirit. That is MERCY. When sin entered the world, God had every right to destroy the Man and the Woman, but He made a way of escape. Again MERCY! And the mercy of God is read and seen in every word written in the Bible.
Tehillim (Psa) 8:4-5 (3-4) CJB
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place — what are mere mortals, that you concern yourself with them; humans, that you watch over them with such care?
God Himself declared He is merciful and slow to anger.
Sh’mot (Exo) 34:6-7 CJB
Adonai passed before him and proclaimed: “YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH!!! Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai] is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth; showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents’ offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations.”
In the spirit of full disclosure, God was very angry when this statement was made, the people had perpetrated a crime against God see Exodus 32.
God is merciful and forgiving but he has a real problem with the person/people who know what to do but refuse to do good.
In Numbers 15, we are told of a man who is gathering wood on the Shabbat, it reads
B’midbar (Num) 15:32-36 CJB
While the people of Isra’el were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on Shabbat. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moshe, Aharon and the whole congregation. They kept him in custody, because it had not yet been decided what to do to him.
Then Adonai said to Moshe, “This man must be put to death; the entire community is to stone him to death outside the camp.”
So the whole community brought him outside the camp and threw stones at him until he died, as Adonai had ordered Moshe.
This man knew what to do and what not to do on the Shabbat, but he didn’t care.
Ya’akov (Jas) 4:17 CJB
So then, anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it is committing a sin.
Earlier in Numbers 15, God discussed two types of sins: unintentional and intentional.
In verse 22, God tells us that it is possible as a nation to sin by mistake, it was totally unintentional. We just did not know! However, when we learn we have sinned, God is so loving and not looking to condemn, that He gave us a way to escape the consequences of our transgression(s). In Numbers 15:17, we learn that as an individual we could sin accidentally and we are given a way of escaping judgement.
Luke (Luk) 23:34 CJB
Yeshua said, “Father, forgive them; they don’t understand what they are doing.” They divided up his clothes by throwing dice.
When we accidentally violate the Word of God, God tells us He is willing to forgive, Israelite or Gentile, He doesn’t care. Thank you GOD!
Now we are at the second type of sin, intentional, verse 30, and it reads
B’midbar (Num) 15:30-31 CJB
“‘But an individual who does something wrong intentionally, whether a citizen or a foreigner, is blaspheming Adonai. That person will be cut off from his people. Because he has had contempt for the word of Adonai and has disobeyed his command, that person will be cut off completely; his offense will remain with him.’”
Most English Bibles for verse 30 use words like sin defiantly, intentionally, purposely, deliberately. But the phrase in Hebrew transliterated is yad ramah, high hand. The picture is talk to the hand or raising your fist in defiance!
This person with a high hand knows what they are doing is wrong. This is the person who says, “I don’t care!” or “Who is God that I should listen to him?” This person doesn’t believe God has the power or He does not have the ability to order their steps. What a dangerous individual. The defiant person will think it’s better to ‘ask for forgiveness than permission.’ They think they can sin and God is gullible, that He will forgive them when they are done rebelling. Others sin intentionally because they think God loves them so much that they can sin and He has to forgive them. After all, how can God live without them.
God lets us know that is bad thinking. He will not forgive such a person. That person doesn’t want the Merciful God. The prophet Jonah talks about peoples vain attempts to worship as they abandons His mercy
Yonah (Jon) 2:9 CJB
Those who worship vain idols give up their source of mercy;
May we never forsake the mercy of the Most High God!
May we raise our hands as we come out of our hiding places to surrender to the Almighty God bowing with our faces to the ground beating our chest not looking up saying Father forgive us have mercy. Or raise our hands to reach out for His help!
But GOD is Merciful
Tehillim (Psa) 51:1-21 CJB
[1] For the leader. A psalm of David, [2] when Natan the prophet came to him after his affair with Bat-Sheva: [3] God, in your grace, have mercy on me; in your great compassion, blot out my crimes. [4] Wash me completely from my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin. [5] For I know my crimes, my sin confronts me all the time. [6] Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil from your perspective; so that you are right in accusing me and justified in passing sentence. [7] True, I was born guilty, was a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me. [8] Still, you want truth in the inner person; so make me know wisdom in my inmost heart. [9] Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. [10] Let me hear the sound of joy and gladness, so that the bones you crushed can rejoice. [11] Turn away your face from my sins, and blot out all my crimes. [12] Create in me a clean heart, God; renew in me a resolute spirit. [13] Don’t thrust me away from your presence, don’t take your Ruach Kodesh Holy Spirit) away from me. [14] Restore my joy in your salvation, and let a willing spirit uphold me. [15] Then I will teach the wicked your ways, and sinners will return to you. [16] Rescue me from the guilt of shedding blood, God, God of my salvation! Then my tongue will sing about your righteousness — [17] Adonai, open my lips; then my mouth will praise you. [18] For you don’t want sacrifices, or I would give them; you don’t take pleasure in burnt offerings. [19] My sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God, you won’t spurn a broken, chastened heart. [20] In your good pleasure, make Tziyon prosper; rebuild the walls of Yerushalayim. [21] Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then they will offer bulls on your altar.
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