Let us turn to God's word and
to these remarkable words that we've already read at the end
of the prophecy of Micah in Micah chapter 7 and reading again verses
18, 19 and 20. Who is a God? Like unto those
that pardoneth illiquidly, and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage, he retaineth not his anger for
ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have compassion upon
us. He will subdue our iniquities, and they will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. They will perform the truth to
Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which they were sworn unto our
fathers from the days of old. This is the prophecy of a man
called Micah. As we saw there when we read
the opening words, the word of the Lord that came to Micah the
Morestite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. So it's God's word. to those
cities. Samaria was the capital of the
northern kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes that had broken away
from the house of David. Jerusalem, of course, the capital
of Judah. It was just Judah and Benjamin
that remained faithful to those who were David's descendants.
But he ministers to the ten tribes in the north and also to Judah. in the south and from what we
read there we know that he was a prophet who was contemporary
with Isaiah because it was in the reign of those same Judean
kings that Isaiah was also prophesying. Now the name Micah is a significant
name Micah or Micaiah it literally means who is like the Lord's
And that's the theme that I really want to address tonight. That's the theme I want to take
up. Who is like the Lord? The whole of the prophecy really
comes to its climax in what we have here in the question at
the beginning of verse 18. Who is a God like unto the earth? that pardoneth iniquity and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. Who is a God
like unto thee? The very name, Micah, who is
like the Lord. And so the book is reaching its
climax. The opening chapter of course
speaks of terrible things, God's judgments that were to come upon
the people and yet in the end we see that God is truly a merciful
God. We have seen about it, grace
did much more about it. Well as we take up this theme
it is like the Lord. I want to deal with some three
headings. First of all to consider how in his justice we have God
in this book pleading against the sins of his people. In the
second place we see how in his mercies God passes by the sins
of his people And then finally, how in his faithfulness God always
performs his word, always performs his promise. That's the threefold
division that I want to try to take up as we come to consider
these final words of the book. First of all, how God is a just
God, a holy God, a righteous God. God who will by no means
clear the guilt, and so in His justice He must plead against
their sins. And we certainly see that in
those words that we read. How it's for their transgression
that God is coming, He's going to visit upon them their just
desserts. Verse 2 of chapter 1 here, All
ye people hearken, O earth, And all that therein is, and let
the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple. For behold, the Lord cometh forth
out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high
places of the earth. and the mountains shall be molten
unto him, and the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire,
and as the waters that have poured down a steep place. And we can
say really that in these past days, this past year, really
God has come down in a pandemic that has affected all the peoples
of the earth. But what do we read in verse
5 for the transgression of Jacob? For the transgression of Jacob
is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What
is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are
the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? It was
because of the state of affairs amongst God's ancient covenant
people that he came. He came in judgment because of
their gross idolatry, so they had turned from Him, as they
were increasingly like the nations round about them. And so God
comes and visits the earth because of the sin of His people. Again, if we move over to chapter
6, and verse 2 here, Ye ye, O mountains, the Lord, the Lord controversial,
and ye strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath
a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. And then he says at verse 13,
Therefore also will I make thee sick, in smiting thee, in making
thee desolate because of thy sins. Now, here then we see that
God does not wink. at the sin of his people. He deals with them, and yet,
at the end, God's dealings are that they might be brought, as
it were, to their senses, that they might be brought to recognize
and to make their confessions before him. Here in chapter 7
and verse 8, Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall,
I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord, because I have sinned against Him, until He plead my
cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to
the light, and I shall behold His righteousness. There is always
that blessed hope, because such is the character of our God,
as we'll go on, we'll also consider, I trust, something of His mercies,
His faithfulness. But thinking here of the way
in which He pleads against the sins of His people, and we do
well to take account of the vocabulary that is used here in the words
that I announce as our text. We have these three words used
here in verses 18 and 19 to describe what they were. We have the word
iniquity, the word transgression, and the word sin. All, of course,
really referring to the same thing. Iniquity, transgression,
and sin. And the Hebrews, you know, didn't
just consider sin as some abstract sort of concept. They saw sin
in very real terms, in concrete terms. And that's evident in
the language, the vocabulary that is being used. This word,
iniquity, is derived from a verb that means to bend or to twist. Who is a god like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity? Going at verse 19, it will subdue
our iniquities. What are these iniquities? Well,
it indicates that they're those who are bent and twisted and
warped. It's crookedness, it's perversion
that is being spoken of. And we see it in what we read
previously in verse 3 of the chapter. We're told that they
may do evil with both hands earnestly. The prince asketh, and the judge
asketh for a reward, and the great man he uttereth his mischievous
desire, so they wrap it up. Oh, there was corruption in dealings
amongst the people, dishonesty, all manner of wickedness. Again, there in verse 11 of chapter
6, God says, Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances,
and with the bag of deceitful weights? Or they were being dishonest,
This is what iniquity is. And yet how does God create man? God creates man in his own image,
after his own likeness, as we read there in Ecclesiastes chapter
7 and verse 29. Though this only have I found,
God made man upright. but they have sought out many
inventions." And so, the very language here indicates what
their sin is. They are those people who are
so perverted, so crooked, so twisted, cheating, lying. All manner of evil was being
committed. And then the other word that
we have, or another word that we have, is that word transgression. And we have it here, in verse
18, he passeth by the transgression, it says, he passeth by the transgression
of the remnants of his heritage. And what are we to understand
by this word? Well, again, it's from a verb
that literally means to rebel, to be a rebel. That's what transgression
is. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
the law, for sin is the transgression of the law rebelling against
God. There are sins of omission, of
course, where we fail to do what God requires, where we falling
short of the glory of God, but there are also sins of commission,
and that's what we have here. They're doing those things that
God specifically forbade in His holy law. And as sinners we're
all bent really on rebellion. That's why the commandments are
expressed in such negative terms. Time and again, what does God
say in the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. Negative. Why? Because we're so ready to
sin, to transgress, to pass over the marks that God has established. All man's state, by nature, is
that of complete and utter rebellion against God. Remember the language
of Paul there in Romans 8, 7? He tells us the carnal mind,
the natural mind, that mind that we're all born with, It's enmity
against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. We are in that state of rebellion. We're transgressors. Having the
understanding darkens, says Paul. Alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in us because of the blindness
and the hardness of our hearts. How graphic then is the language
that is being used And then also, of course, we have that general
word sin here in verse 19. At the end of verse 19, they
will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. And this is the basic word, as
I said, and it literally means to miss the mark. To miss the
mark, the standard that God has set. All have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. It's a coming short, it's a failing
to hit the mark, and we're constantly guilty of that. Or we are always
leaving undone the things that we ought to do, and doing the
very things that we ought not to do. And as I say, this is
how the Hebrews speak of sin. The language is so graphic. And
the hymn writer, of course, reminds us something of what sin is,
to cease in smarts but slightly, to own with lip confession is
easier still, but oh, to fail. God's deep beyond expression
when we feel the truth of God's words, when the Holy Spirit,
as it were, applies God's word to us, and we see what we are
in the mirror of God's words. Here, then, we're to take account
of the way in which God, throughout the book, really is pleading
against the sins of his people, his covenant people. And here
we see something of the personal nature of sin. That's what they're
brought to. Look at the opening words of
the chapter, Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered
the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage, there
is no cluster to eat, my soul desireth the first ripe fruit. Woe! Woe is me! Really what he's saying is I
am the cause of mine own woe. I am the cause of mine own woe.
I've brought all this upon myself. And do we not see that? There,
in what we read in the opening chapter, verse 8, Therefore I
will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked, I will make
a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls, for a wound
is incurable. For it is come unto Judah, it
is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. This is the
prophet, you see, when he sees what sin is, it's so awful. and
he feels these things or there is a woe and wasn't that the
case with Isaiah when he was given his commission there in
the sixth chapter of the prophecy when he was in the temple and
the king Uzziah had died and he sees God's throne and he sees
the angels the seraphim about the throne celebrating the holiness
of God Then said I, Woe is me! Woe is me, for I am undone, because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of hosts. Oh, as we come before God, do
we ever feel that we have to pronounce a woe upon ourselves? When Daniel comes to make his
great prayer there in chapter 9, and he comes before God to make
confession. He's part and parcel of the problem,
isn't he? He doesn't blame the people.
He feels that he is as guilty as anyone else, because he uses
that personal pronoun, we. Look at the language that we
have there in Daniel 9, verse 8. We have sinned, and have committed
iniquity, and have done wickedness. and have rebelled even by departing
from thy precepts and from thy judgments. Verse 8, O LORD, to us belongeth
confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers,
because we have sinned against them. It's so personal, it's
so personal and we know that David certainly recognized that
in his great penitential psalm, in Psalm 51. He had sinned so
grievously in the matter of Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, gross
sins, adultery, murder. But what does he say? I acknowledge
my transgressions and my sin is ever before thee, against
thee, thee only have I sinned. and done this evil in thy sight."
Oh, he feels it. He feels it as that that was
ultimately not against any individuals. It was sin against God himself. And that's what he has to come
to confess. It's so personal. And Nathan, the faithful prophet,
made it so plain when he confronted David and said, David, thou art
the man. Why do we need God to come and deal with us in that
personal way? Do we desire that? Search me,
O God. Know my heart. Try me. Know my
thoughts. See if there'll be any wicked
way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. When we come unto God's Word,
we want Him to have those sort of dealings with us. to bring that real conviction
into our soul that we might know that the Lord does take account
of us or God is a just God then he pleads against the sins of
his people but of course here we see really the mercy of God
we see so much of the mercy of God he delights in mercy says the
prophet here at the end of verse 18. And we see that mercy in
that God does indeed pass by the sins of his people. And I want to think of two ways
in which God passes by the sins of his people. Firstly, he does
that when he pardons them. He pardons them all their sins.
Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity? and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth
not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will
turn again. He will have compassion upon
us. He will subdue our iniquities, and they will cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. Oh, he is a God who pardons,
and yet, and we have to recognize this, because we're told in other
scriptures that God is angry. God is angry with the wicked
every day. There is wrath in God. He will
by no means clear the guilt. That's the God that we deal with.
He cannot wink at sin. Sin has to be dealt with. And
so we're told here that he retaineth not his anger for ever. How is it that God does not retain
his anger for forever? Because he delighteth in mercy.
That's what the scripture says. The reason why he doesn't retain
his anger, because he delights in mercy. Now, we can say in
a sense, in contrast, justice God's justice is spoken of in
Scripture as His strange work. I think of the language that
we have there in Isaiah 28-21. It says the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim. He shall be wrath as in the valley
of Gibeon that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring
to pass his act, his strange act. Now, the prophet there speaks
of two historic incidents in God's dealings. He speaks of
Mount Harazim, and he is referring to David really, and David's
dealings with the Philistines, and the destruction of the Philistines.
but he also speaks of the valley of Gibeon and there he is speaking
of the days of Joshua and how Joshua dealt with the Gibeonites.
And those were terrible judgments that came upon Philistines and
Gibeonites. But see how all of that is spoken
of as a strange work and a strange act. Really God delights in mercies. Where does he display his mercies?
He displays his mercies in the way in which he deals with his
people Israel. When he deals with them, he deals
with them not in the way of wrath, but he deals with them rather
in the way of chastenings. We know what the Lord has done
Because of that great love that He bears towards His covenant
people, He has visited the punishment of all their sins upon the person
of His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. All Christ
has come, and He was made of a woman, He was made under the
law, He was subject to the law, He has honoured and magnified
the law, and he has answered the law in terms of all its precepts
and all its penalties. In his life he has honored it
by obeying every commandment and accomplishing a glorious
righteousness, but then that holy, righteous and just man
has died, and has died in the sinner's stead, as a substitute,
bearing in his own person what was their punishment. This is
the mercy of God, Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other. How? In the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, for His covenant people.
And Israel in the Old Testament, of course, are a remarkable type
of God's covenant people. In God's covenant people we see
that He is a just God and a Savior. He is a just God and the justifier
of him that believeth in Jesus. And so God pardons the sins of
His people because their sin has been punished. Punished in
the person of His only begotten Son. Remarkable. And yet that's
the blessed truth that's so clearly revealed to us here in Holy Scripture. Remember the language that we
have there in Jeremiah 50 and verse 20. In those days and in
that time, he's speaking of the day of the gospel. He's speaking
of that time in which we're living, the ends of the earth. In those
days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for and there shall be none. and the sins of
Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon them
whom I reserve." The ones whom God has reserved, that is those
who have been chosen in the eternal covenant. Or that people of which
Israel in the Old Testament was a type. The people whom the Lord
has redeemed. Christ came in the fullness of
the time. made of a woman made under the
law to redeem them that were under the law. And so there is
pardon. Oh, there is pardon. They will
cast all their sins, it says, into the depths of the sea. Removed
from them as far as the east is from the west. But God doesn't only pass by
the sins of his people in terms of pardon. That's their forgiveness, that's
their justification. Their sins are cast away. That's what it says here. He
will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. But their
sins are also perched Their sins are also subdued. He will subdue. He will subdue all our iniquity. It's not just a matter of God
pardoning the sins of His people, granting them forgiveness, declaring
them righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ, justification, but it's
also sanctification. It's sanctification. The psalmist
says, Iniquities prevail against me. As for our transgressions,
they will purge them away. Oh, there's a purging, a sanctifying. Remember the prayer of Paul there
at the end of 1 Thessalonians 5, the very God of peace, he
says, Sanctify you wholly. That's his prayer for them, that
they might be a sanctified people. And it's all again in the Lord
Jesus Christ, of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us. Amongst other things, sanctification.
Made unto us, sanctification. Or how God purges in the sins
of His people. He sanctifies them. And it's a work of God, the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. that sanctified by God
the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called we read it
there at the beginning of that little epistle of Jude sanctified
by God the Father preserved in Jesus Christ and called called
by God the Holy Spirit remember the language of Henry Cole, he
says, election is sanctification in its primary and highest meaning. How did God the Father sanctify
his people? He set them apart. He set them
apart to himself, from all eternity. He chose them in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He committed them into the hands
of his only begotten Son, who would come in the fullness of
the time to do all that was necessary for their salvation. They are
sanctified, they are set apart to that holy purpose in the eternal
councils of God. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
comes in the fullness of the time and so we see them being
sanctified by that great work that Christ accomplishes upon
the cross when he reconciles them unto the Father. The language
again of Paul there in Hebrews, Hebrews 10, 14. By one offering
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's the
Lord Jesus. By that one offering He perfected
their sanctification. What the Father had purposed
was accomplished by God the Son. Jesus also that He might sanctify
the people with His own blood suffered without the gates. Oh,
it was that fountain open for sin and uncleanness to purge
them, to cleanse them from all unrighteousness. And then what
was purposed by the Father from eternity, what was accomplished
by the Son historically in the fullness of the time is made
real in the experience of that people. by the Holy Ghost, when
he comes to quicken them, when he comes to regenerate their
souls. We read of the washing of regeneration
and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Or then they come to know
their sanctification. Their sins are not only pardoned
in the Lord Jesus, it's not only justification, their souls are
also purged in that precious blood. They are a sanctified
people. And so what does the Lord do?
He deals with them throughout their lives. He deals with them
in the way of correction and chastening. He teaches them holiness
of life in all His dealings. Look at verse 9, I will bear
the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against
him, until he plead my cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the
light, and I will behold his righteousness. Or they willingly
submit to all his fatherly dealings in the way of chastenings. whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. He scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. What son is he whom the father
chasteneth not? It's a mark of their sonship
that God corrects them, teaches them right from wrong. Just as
parents will seek to instruct their offspring, their children,
that they might know what's right and what's wrong. Or they They deal with their children
in that fashion, because they love them, and so too God with
His children. It's not pleasant, no chastening,
for the presents seem to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward
it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who
are exercised thereby. Oh, how God then deals with His
people. In His mercy He passes by all
their sins, He pardons their sins. He purges their sins of
work. He justifies them. He sanctifies
them. And then finally, God also is
the one who performs His words. He is faithful. He is faithful
to His promise. And we have it here, don't we?
Verse 20, Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob. and the mercy
to Abraham, which they were sworn unto our fathers from the days
of old. Here we have, you see, again
that word mercy. He delighteth in mercy. Oh, he
will perform the mercy to Abraham. And it's a great word. I love
this word. It's a word that's translated in various ways, really. in scripture many many times
in our authorized version we have it translated as loving
kindness here it's translated as mercy but many times that's
the rendering that the translators have given to the word God's
loving kindness that's how God deals with his people, he's kind,
he's fatherly it's an expression always of his love and the word
that we have here to perform is interesting because it means
literally to give or to grant or he grants his people you see,
his truth, his mercy these are the gifts that God bestows upon
his children he is the one who performs all that he has promised
again We have to think of course in terms of the covenant and
we see it in the language of the Psalmist in the 105th Psalm. There in Psalm 105 verse 8 we
read He has remembered His covenant forever. The world which He commanded
to a thousand generations. which covenant he made with Abraham,
and his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob
for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant." Look
at the language that he uses here, he speaks of God's covenant,
his words, his oath, his law. Oh God is faithful, God is true
to all that he has said. He is not a man that he should
lie. He is not the son of man that
he should repent. As he said he shall he not do it. As he
spoken it shall he not make it good. He performs. all His promises,
because He has sworn by Himself. So all those promises in the
Lord Jesus Christ, they're all yay, and they're all amen, to
the glory of God, by us. All God is glorified, as He is
true to all that He has promised to His children. Who is a pardoning
God, like Thee? Or who has grace, so rich and
fruitful. That's what we see here then
in the words of our text. Might the Lord be pleased to
grant that we might know in our souls something of this God and
address him as our God and our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless his word to
us. Before we turn to the Lord in
prayer, let us sing our second praise, the hymn 755, the tune
of Rimmington 395. Forgiveness is a joyful sound. the manufacturers doomed to die. Lord, may this bliss in me be
found. May I, redeeming grace, enjoy."
755.