And this has been a wonderful study for my soul because this prophet Micah is very poignant in what he has to say. He searches our hearts out and he searched the hearts of the Israelites out He was living in a day in the 8th or a late 8th century around 705 BC When there was tremendous moral declension in the kingdom of Judah and in Israel the northern kingdom The leaders had abandoned justice and mercy and we're looking out only for themselves and the turmoil was so bad in The kingdom of God's people that even family members couldn't trust each other because the social fabric had just simply disintegrated And they were going to be facing God's judgment and we've seen that over and over again in Micah and yet we saw from the very beginning That there's no way we can look with benefit At the judgments of God against sin unless we looked first and always at his grace towards sinners We couldn't possibly stand the power of his judgments unless we knew that we were safe in his forgiveness And that has been true throughout the three cycles of sermons that we have seen in Micah each Of which began with listen to the Lord in chapters one three and six now We come to the end of this with verse eight We concluded last time with the first part of chapter 7 which speaks once again of the moral decline among the people But in verse seven there was this word of hope wasn't there the prophet says but ask for me I don't watch in hope for the Lord. I wait for God my savior my God will hear me There's some hope out there even though God's judgments aren't going to come upon them He is going to discipline his children kind of like ourselves. We know when we've been bad We've known when we've broken his law and we know that as a loving father He's going to discipline us But that's not the end of the report the end of the report is that he's going to deliver us into his arms and love us Forever and ever and that is what we're going to see in verses eight through 20 Let us look to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us believe every word of it. Let us pray Gracious Father, we thank you for this year word For the hope That suffuses it and May that same hope Prevade every heart That no matter what the circumstances we face in this life We may never lose sight Of the ultimate glory of simply belonging to you Speak O Lord For your servants listen Amen Micah chapter seven verse eight hear the word of God Do not gloat over me my enemy Though I have fallen I will rise though I sit in darkness the Lord will be my light Because I have sinned against him. I will bear the Lord's wrath Until he pleased my case and establishes my right He will bring me out into the light. I will see his righteousness Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame. She who said to me, where is the Lord your God? My eyes will see her downfall even now she will be trampled under foot like Meyer in the streets The day for building your walls will come the day for extending your boundaries in that day People will come to you from Assyria in the cities of Egypt even from Egypt to the Euphrates and from seas to sea and from mountains to mountains The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants as the result of their deeds Shepard your people with your staff the flock of your inheritance which lives by itself in a forest in Pestilance let them feed in Bayesian and Gilead as in days long ago As in the days when you came out of Egypt. I will show them my wonders Nations will see and be ashamed deprived of their power They will lay their hands on their mouths and their ears will become deaf They will link dust like a snake like creatures that crawl on the ground They will come trembling out of their dins. They will turn in fear to the Lord our God and will be afraid of you Who is a God like you who partens sin and forgives the transgression of the remnants of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy You will again have compassion on us. You will tread our sins under foot and hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea You will be true to Jacob and And show mercy to Abraham as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago Old men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field the grass withers and the flowers fall But the word of our God stands forever Amen Back in the early 50s as you know there was this great war between South Korea and North Korea They remained divided today even after the armistice and During one of those moments there was a little skirmish in one of the South Korean villages and a young North Korean soldier Captured a South Korean man who was a civilian but a Christian and He was intending to take that man's life the South Koreans life But he asked him what do you do and the man said well I attend an orphanage for all of the children who have been orphaned by this war and The North Korean Communist said well, then I won't kill you I'm going to kill your son right in front of you And so he took the life of the man's 19-year-old son shot him right there Now I don't know that you all have problems this week that are quite that bad But in the scope of one's life you have things that happened to you which make you feel about that big Trampled under totally defeated your life just seems like it's just imploding and caving in on you And that was precisely the way the Judah Heights the Israelites would have felt When Micah was describing to them their moral declension and And the judgments of God that would be measured out against them Even though a hundred years away he was speaking in 705 BC or thereabouts and the judgment of the Babylonians would be in 586 BC But they could feel the ways of God's judgment against their misbeager and their unorthodox ways and their lack of devotion to their God and Micah finishes this prophecy with the most important and weighty word which could possibly be stated And it ends in a pion of praise for this God For whom there is absolutely no comparison in the heavens or the earth Now here is what Micah says to these people He's basically saying to them do not let your current moral status Or your current physical or material status define who you are Because if you were in Jesus Christ, we would say in the new covenant if you are in Jesus Christ you are a child of Abraham and There are profound implications of that and God is going to move you right through your misery and Right through his own judgments and punishments against you as his child to something absolutely astonishing Now in verses 8 through 10 the first point that Micah is making is this He is saying that your reputation which is in the mud now because of your own misbehavior in this case He's saying to his own people your righteousness Will be restored your reputation will be restored It may be in the mud now you may have done such a wopper this week that everybody in the office Not only cannot I cannot believe that you're a Christian can't believe you're a human being and And I noticed a few of you did that because you left about it. Maybe somebody else did it But perhaps you felt that way this week that you just blew it so badly you you couldn't even belong to the kingdom That's exactly the way this person felt Micah is speaking now in the name of Zion in the name of the church It's the church that's now speaking verses 8 through 10 and here's what the church says the church is saying I have fallen The church is saying I'm sitting in darkness The church is saying here that I'm under the wrath of God I know that I'm experiencing fatherly discipline right now and the church is saying I'm absolutely scorned and I'm hearing that refrain that the pagans have sung against me through the ages. Where is your God? He sure doesn't look like he's hanging around with you people That's the description. That's the reputation of the church in this world But here is what the church is saying based upon the promises of God I have fallen but I'm going to rise. I am in darkness, but God is going to be my light. I am under his Under his discipline right now, but I am going to be declared righteous I'm going to be made right and established rights and innocence before him and furthermore I am scorned now, but I am going to triumph So that those voices that are making those claims against me and against his people will be like mud in the streets So you see here that the church is confessing yes indeed we have fallen yes indeed we have sin just as we did earlier this morning And it is one of the first and most important things we do in worship every Lord's day There was a cartoon not too long ago with Dennis the menace and He came into his bedroom and he put his baseball bat down He walked over by the bed and he knelt down put his hands together. He looked up toward heaven And he said dear God, I'm here to turn myself in And basically that's what's being done here The person is turning the church is turning herself in We deserve it all Anything that comes our way we have absolutely no complaint who could complain? How can a sinner complain? A sinner has lost all rights to complain so here we are returning ourselves in But we know a secret We know the secret about the future and our reputation is going to be restored now Secondly now Micah speaks in verses 11 through 13 here's what Micah said He is now speaking to the church needs to say not only is your reputation going to be restored But your reign is going to be reclaimed You know when you were in the Garden of Adam and Eve you remember of the Garden of Eden you remember that amon Eve When God gave you the entire Garden to rule over as his Viscidrance his vice-presidents You were given rule over the entire earth and told I had dominion over it Overall the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and all the crawling reptiles you were to be the kings and the queens You remember that and how we fell from that And all of a sudden we'd be coming in battle to people we have all of our enemies around us and and squeezing us into their mold And Micah stands up and says to the church folks you haven't heard the end of the story yet It's going to get worse first Because the Babylonians are blood thirsty thirsty and vicious and they shoot people if they had guns They spear them with their spears They're going to destroy some of our sons and daughters and leave us devastated. It's going to get worse. He says But don't think for a minute that's the end of the story He says your reign is going to be reclaimed look at verse 11 He said your walls will be rebuilt your boundaries will be extended You remember those boundaries in Davids and Solomon's days? Oh, that's nothing says Micah your your boundaries are going to be extended and then he says to them The exiles will come from these nations that have been conquering us The Assyrians the Egyptians he can add the Babylonians the exiles are going to come from all over the world and our enemies Those who have oppressed us then cells are going to be devastated and deflated as you're looking verse 13 The earth will become that's what because of its inhabitants as the result of their deeds so the roles will be reversed and Your reign will be reclaimed My dear friends Christian so easily forget this we are the people of eternity and yet we're so time-bound and we're time-bound in a number of ways But one way in which we're time-bound is that we tend to measure ourselves and our significance and our happiness By what is happening this week? In fact, what's happening today? No? What's happening right now? We're the society of the immediate And yet their friends the Bible tells us we are the sons and the daughters of Abraham Going back thousands of years and we are the recipients of his promises to Abraham and furthermore, we are sons and daughters of God So our existence and our significance and our reputation and our reign is based on our relationship with him And he would remind the Israelites before they face the devastation of his fatherly disciplines. Don't forget That your reputation is in my hand and your reign is in my hands Now thirdly if you look at verses 14 through 20 if we could lump this all together and there are a number of voices here Micah is speaking to God in verse 14 God is speaking in verse 15 and then Micah picks up the microphone again in verse 16 Through the end of the chapter But what we find here is not only will our reputation be restored and our reign reclaimed But our Redeemer will be revered The worst of all of it is Not our miseries It is not that we may be called into question as to whether we're real believers in the living God The real tragedy of moral and spiritual declension is that God's name itself comes into question And God is saying to his people don't you worry about that. I will take care of my name and I as Redeemer will be revered by all the nations as Paul says on that last great day Every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and even in the demonic world in the underworld and under the earth and Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God's father There will be no question about it at the last day. Don't forget it when you wonder about God's reputation in this world And he starts this way He says first of all calling out to God shepherd your people with your staff take care of them Lord And what's he recalling here? He's recalling how God delivered them out of Egypt and he brought them into the wilderness and he fed them with Manna he gave them water and then he led them to the plains of Bayesian and Gilead where there was plenty of food It was fertile soil and they've never had better days in 430 years plus 40 in captivity in Egypt and 40 years of wandering in the Wilderness they had never enjoyed such pastures green pastures and still waters as they had in the plains and Mike is praying out oh God bring it to us again and Then God said in verse 15 yes indeed. This is what's going to happen God is going to act And he said you remember how I acted in Egypt When you found yourself with a sea of reeds in front of you and the Egyptian Charis behind you with those bloodthirsty Warriors and you had no idea what you would possibly do It was humanly impossible for you to be delivered from your Circumstance and do you remember how I came in a cloud in fire by night and I divided the red sea and sent my people through it And you remember how every one of your enemies Browned as they were hurled into the sea Do you remember that? He says as in the days when you came out of Egypt is going to happen again I will show them my wonders. Don't you worry about God's reputation His wonders are going to be displayed from east to west and north and south and throughout the entire cosmos throughout all the Universes ever created it will be clear who is Lord and Redeemer of his people Now it would be two reactions First of all you see in verses 16 and 17 the reaction of the nations the going The Pagans the unbelievers those who are not in covenant with God What will become of them Well the roles will be reversed no longer will God's people be in the dust They will lay their hands on their mouth and their ears will become deaf. They will lick dust like a snake Like creatures that crawl in the ground and they'll try to hide and dend but they'll be arrested and They'll has come out of their dend so they'll come out trembling and they will turn in fear To the Lord our God and then they'll be afraid of you the church So Micah is saying don't be just made Don't be discouraged and don't be deceived But whatever may appear in this world they yes indeed they may persecute Sudanese Christians by starving them to death Taking their children into slavery bombing them burning their houses They can torture them all the misery that's happening there and in other nations of the world and it looks like God is defeated and God says Don't believe it for a minute because the redeemer will be revered one way or the other They will proclaiming is Lord maybe not a savior, but they will have Lord one of these days But then you see the other reaction in verses 18 through 20 and I'd like for us to take ten minutes to camp out on this verse these verses Because he will be revered in slavish fear by those who will ultimately discover his identity But he will be revered in amazement and wonder and glory and praise and worship By a people who know what they deserve and don't get it By people who had heard about heaven, but never really fully believed it By a people who told were told that they were sons and daughters, but never lived like it They will be completely adopted as his children and they will receive an inheritance beyond imagination And it will be the most beautiful and delightful experience one has ever imagined And they will say with one accord who is a God
Just as the disciples said when they invited Jesus into the boat and they were fearing for their lives And he's still the storm and they said together who is this? Who stills even the winds and the waves and we will say in one accord Who is a God like you in fact Malachi's name means who is like the Lord? Here we come to the climax of my my not Malachi but Micah here We come to the climax of Micah's prophecy. Who is like the Lord? Who is a God like you? Why does he say this because of the forgiveness of sins because his son was flame and
Rather than wreaking vengeance against those who did it His son was flame sounded those same people would be forgiven and saved and delivered It's an astonishing story and here's what he says about forgiveness You'll see first of all in verse 18. It is a cancellation of all of our sins You've never had a relationship like this. I'm telling you you may have a good one You may have a really great marriage, but it's not perfectly Unilaterally unconditionally forgiven Every human relationship the best ones I've ever known have at least some element of bilateral conditionality about them This is the first one you've ever had and the only one you'll ever have until you get to heaven and It is completely unilateral and unconditional. It's a total canceling He simply pardoned sins although in the word for forgiveness means he passes by Doesn't mean that he doesn't know what you just did. He passes by doesn't punish it Why he's already pushed it on on his own son the Lord Jesus Christ? He's already paid. It's not gonna require payment. Why so he passes by total cancellation? Secondly, you'll see that it is a cancellation for a confined group It is confined the remnant of his inheritance Not everybody's gonna come back from Babylon the remnant will Some will be reared in the church and they won't come back to worship him They won't be under his fatherly discipline his fatherly discipline begins they abandoned But those who persevere under his discipline are his people. They are the confined group who will be completely pardoned a Total cancellation of sins yesterday today and the sins tomorrow for this group There was a man out west in 1830 Who was robbing the males and a government official caught him and this man shot the government official and killed him The man's name was George Wilson. I'm sure it's a relative somewhere in my background and and Eventually president Andrew Jackson pardoned him Maybe it was the last day in his administration, too. I don't know but he he pardoned he pardoned my cousin George Wilson this is a real life event and for some reason that I do not know George Wilson denied the party and the Government did not know what to do if he doesn't accept the pardon is he pardoned and When all the way to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Marshall said this He said a pardon is a slip of paper Whose value is determined by whether it is received George Wilson has not received the pardon. He shall hang and he did How foolish There's a pardon all for do all But you see it's for the remnant of those who actually believe in him trust in him put their lives in him and follow him Third you'll see thirdly that is character-based Why are we forgiven is because we're forgivable just lovely little kids like these three infants up here We just all just lovey-dovey and attractive and got no it's not that story at all It's when their their diapers are dirty They're screaming for food and they're slapping the face and that's what God's dealing with and his forgiveness is not based upon our being forgivable It's based on his own character Some of you know I've been reading read the book. I witness to power by Dave Gergen Which is an assessment of the four presidential administrations that he served himself Nixon forward Reagan and Clinton and he says out of the four there's absolutely no doubt that the two most ingenious were Nixon and Clinton and He said the irony is in next case you had a total failure in Clinton's case You had a huge failure and he said isn't it ironic that the ones with the greatest intelligence had these huge marks on their Records and here's his point you get to the end of the book He gives seven principles for a successful presidential administration and the first one is this Leadership starts with him as here a clearest said character is destiny Your character determines your end When Senator Alan Simpson two years ago was introducing a president Gerald Ford at Harvard University He introduced him speaking of his character by saying when you have integrity Nothing else matters When you don't have integrity Nothing else matters We know this in human relations. What about with God same applies his character is destiny and here's his character You're you see it here in verse 19 or I'm sorry verse 18 You do not stay angry forever, but do you like to show mercy? That's his character. He loves it Why are you gonna be delivered because he loves it? Why are you love because he loves you? Why's he love me? I don't know. He just loves you. He's in here. It's not in you and And that's the nature of God's love Fourthly, it's continual. You notice that nice little word verse 19 again Again again again again. Keep saying it to yourself if Jesus said to Peter Forgive one another seventy times seven. It's because God infinitely forgives and Some of you think that because you committed the same sin You asked forgiveness for yesterday and God just couldn't possibly have enough patience to hear that Dear friends, he does it every day. I happen to know from personal experience And that is who he is and his children keep coming back to him and asking for forgiveness and he grants it There's a an ocean of forgiveness from which the little rivulet comes into your living room as you pray An ocean fast inexhaustible and it will continue to be so it is a continual forgiveness It is a conquering forgiveness. If you'll look in verse 19, he says he will tread our sins underfoot He will treat our sins like our worst enemies and he will not unleash his conquering wrath on us. He'll unleash it on our sins So that not only is the penalty broken, but now the bondage is broken the power the decisive power is broken And you can now walk with him by his grace not perfectly, but you can walk with him And then you see also it's the sixthly that it's not only a conquering forgiveness, but a complete a comprehensive forgiveness He will hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea He does this. He'll hurl part of our iniquities right near the shoreline all of them The worst one you could ever imagine and the least one you forgot all of them And they're in the depths of the sea and as Cory Timboon says there's a sign posted there no fishing allowed God completely forgets it abolishes it the whole idea here in this imagery is it goes down miles into the sea No one could possibly get it before the day is of submarines and etc. And then not only is it complete, but it is covenantal verse Seventhly in verse 20 it is covenantal. It is promised Abraham It's part of his faithfulness to us as Mary said in the Magnificat and his Paul said about us not like to close with us I want you to think about the implications of
Receiving this kind of forgiveness What does this mean for us Dear friends curl manager once said That he's a psychiatrist. He said he could empty 75% of the patients in the psychiatric ward in the hospital If he could simply convince them that their sins are forgiven and I don't think that's a bad estimate even for Christians Who continue to labor over guilt complexes Paul said there is therefore now no guilt No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for through Christ Jesus The spirit of the the spirit has set us free from the spirit of law and sin The spirit of death and sin we are set free are you living market? Are you free from the sins of the past? Are you free from the sins of tomorrow? Are you living boldly or as Luther said sinning boldly? Because you know there's a safety net for every sin you have or ever will commit That's the first thing are you living a guilt-free life not guilt-free before each other when we spend against each other We account for it. We make restitution But for that same sin I am not guilty before God. I am not condemned I'm free Secondly is your heart grateful Is it leading you to the real Superbow of life which is praising God for the Emensity and the constancy of his grace and forgiveness toward you and Thirdly, would you be gracious to the person who's really difficult to be gracious to? Why do I ask you to do that? Not just so that you can be riding good The so that God's grace can be magnificently displayed throughout this city Throughout this state throughout this country and you travel this week with his grace and forgiveness in your heart now You're ready to forgive other people It wasn't South Korea And the Christian man's son was shot right before his eyes by a young Communist North Korean officer After the war the UN Apprehended some people guilty of war crimes One of those men was at North Korean Communist He was tried He was convicted He was sentenced to death the South Korean father whose son had been killed by that same man heard about it and He went to the court and he pled for that young boy's life He said your honor. He's a young boy. He didn't know what he was doing Let me take him in my custody And I'll work with him and I'll train him and the judge letting go And that man is now a pastor is South Korea Is it any mystery why he met the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ In another life That had known that forgiveness and was ready to give it away