Good morning. I bring you greetings
from Hurricane Road from our pastor Frank Tate. Thankful for the opportunity
to be with you this morning. The title of the message this
morning comes from a passage of scripture Brother Paul read
this morning. Who is like unto the Lord our
God. Listen to a few passages of scripture. Moses said this to Pharaoh. He
said that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord
our God. Over in 1st Samuel chapter 2,
we read there's none holy as the Lord. For there is none beside
thee, neither is there any rock like our God. In 2 Samuel chapter
seven, wherefore thou art great, O Lord God, for there is none
like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to
all that we've heard with our ears. In Micah chapter seven
and verse 18, turn there with me. That'll serve as our text
this morning. Micah chapter seven. Micah chapter seven, look beginning
with verse 18. Who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity, passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever
because he delighteth in mercy. He'll turn again. He'll have
compassion upon us. He'll subdue our iniquities.
Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou
will perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which
Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. Who is
a God like unto Thee? Now sadly, the God that is spoken
of in most pulpits in our time is not the God of the Bible.
This is evident by man's lack of reverence for Almighty God. You know, there's obviously a
lack of reverence in our nation for authority in any form. But how can we expect that when
there is no reverence for God Almighty, who's sovereign over
all things? You know, men speak of Him as
if He were just one of the men from down at work. They say things
like the good man upstairs. They treat him like a helpless
old man, or young man, I guess, for that matter, who can do nothing
apart from man's consent. We bring him down to our level,
or we try to. Again, I ask you, is that the
God of the Bible? Is that the God revealed in Scripture? In Psalm chapter 50 verse 21,
we read, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as
thyself. We blaspheme and use his name
in vain. Men swear and curse by his name. They lie about God. They say
he has no power to save apart from man's will, making him weak,
and helpless apart from man. That's not the God declared in
scripture. We read over in Psalm chapter
135. Turn there with me. Psalm, hold
your place there and turn to Psalm 135. Look at verse six. of Psalm 135. Whatsoever the Lord pleased,
that did he. Where? Where? In heaven, and
in the earth, and in the seas, and in all deep places. Listen,
the God that most men speak of, he's nothing more than an idol
created by their hands. Read on in Psalm 135. Look at
verse 15. It says, the idols of the heathen. Tell me if this does not describe
the God that men worship in our time. They have mouths, The idols
of the heathen are silver and gold. They're the works of men's
hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Eyes have they, but they see not. Ears have they, but
they hear not. Neither is there any breath in
their mouth. Now listen, I don't know a whole
lot, but I know if there's no breath in your mouth, you're
dead. If no breath, there's no life in you. In the book of Job,
we read this. We read this, that of Almighty
God, in whose hand is the soul of every man, and listen, the
breath of all mankind. We can't take a breath unless
he gives it to us, unless he puts it in. There's no breath
in their mouths. You know, back in the book of
Genesis, back there in creation, We read that the Lord God formed
man out of the dust of the ground. And then what did he do? He breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life. And man, at that point,
man became a living soul. There's no life apart from Almighty
God. That idol has no breath in its
mouth. Do you still have Psalm 135?
Look at verse 18. And they that make them, are
just like him. And so is everyone that trusteth
in them. Men aren't worshiping God. They're
worshiping a lifeless idol. They're praying unto a God that
cannot save. Men say this, listen, they say
he has no, how can man say that? He has no hands but your hands.
He has no feet but your feet. as if God needed anything for
man, huh? Listen to, turn with me to Psalm
chapter 50. Psalm chapter 50. Look here in Psalm 50, beginning
with verse seven. Hear, O my people, and I'll speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I'm God, even thy
God. I'll not reprove thee, I'll not
justify thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have
been continually before me. I'll take no bullock out of thy
house, nor he goats out of thy folds. What are we gonna offer? What are we gonna offer, God?
What's man had to offer? Listen, verse 10, for every beast
of the forest is mine. The cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains
and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I
wouldn't tell thee. For the world is mine and the
fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving,
and pay thy vows unto the Most High, and call upon me in the
day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
me. He said call on me. I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Man's got that backwards. They have man doing the work.
They have man getting the glory. But God's not gonna share his
glory. Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee.
Thou shalt glorify me. You hear that? Thou shalt glorify
me. To God, to God be the glory. Turn back to Micah chapter seven. Verse 18, who is a God like unto
thee? Not man's idols, but the sovereign
God of the Bible. There's no God besides Him. There's none so great, none so
mighty. There's none like Him in the
perfection of His nature. There's none like him for the
works of his hands. He created all things. There's
none like him for the blessings of his goodness, for his providence,
for his grace, his pardoning grace and mercy to sinners. Now,
look with me here. I believe there's four points
here. Pray the Lord would enable us
to see these here from this text. First is this. He pardoneth iniquity
and he passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. Now that word pardon, it means
to lift up and to take away. The Lord has taken the sins of
his people and laid them on the Lord Jesus Christ. It says he
passeth by the transgression of his people. In Isaiah 53 8
we read, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. He died on the cross. He suffered
and died in the place of his people. You know when they scourged
him, when they scourged our Lord before he was even crucified
and they took that whip or whatever that was, it had those chunks
of metal and bone and they whipped him with that and they pulled
that back and it'd tear out pieces of skin. I read that some men
didn't even survive the scourging. Oh, how he suffered. Oh, how
the Lord Jesus Christ suffered. How awful his sin that he had
to suffer. It's like no man suffered. For
the transgression of my people, that was before he even was on
the cross. He was wounded. for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. He bore our sins, the sins of
His people, in His body on a tree. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 declares
this. He was made sin. Almighty God has taken the sins
of His people and laid them on the Lord Jesus Christ. He made
him to be sin for us, him who knew no sin. And he bore those
sins and he carried them away. Like that scapegoat of old, never
to be seen again, remembered no more. He passes by the transgression
of His people, the remnant of His heritage. That's a particular
people, huh? His people, His lot, His heritage. The remnant according to the
election of grace. Those chosen of God, redeemed
by the Lord Jesus Christ, called by the Spirit of God. And listen. Every sin, every transgression,
every iniquity forgiven. Sin put away. He passed by. He passes by the transgression.
And that word by can also mean over. Does that sound familiar? He passes over. Back there in
Exodus 12, God said, I will pass through the land of Egypt this
night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I'll execute
judgment. God's gonna punish sin. I am,
he said, I'm the Lord. All but listen, the blood. the blood shall be to you for
a token. Listen, upon the houses where
you are, and when I see the blood, I'll pass, I'll pass over you,
and the plague shall not come upon you to destroy you when
I smite the land of Egypt. Let me ask you this, are we deserving
of condemnation? Can't argue that, can you? Are
we deserving of punishment? Yes, all have sinned. All have
sinned. Yet, our sins have been put away
by the sacrifice of His Son, by His sovereign grace. Read on in our text. It says,
He retaineth not His anger forever. Which leads me to the second
point here, because he delighteth in mercy. Mercy, one man said
mercy for the miserable. Now listen, don't confuse this
with another word that starts with M, merit. Not merit, mercy. Titus 3 verse 5, not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy. He saved us by the washing of
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Who is a God
like unto thee? Who saved us, not because of
any good in the creature, no. No, listen to this description
and you tell me if there's any good to be found in man. Over
in Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter one beginning
with verse two. Isaiah one, verse two. Hear,
O heavens, and give ear O earth, for the Lord hath spoken, I have
nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against
me. The ox knoweth his owner, the
ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know. My people, he
said, doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors,
they have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward. Why should you be stricken anymore?
You'll revolt more and more. Listen, the whole head, is there
any part of us? No, the whole head is sick and
the whole heart faint. All of us? He says here, from
the sole of the foot, even to the head, there's no soundness
in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, they've
not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. That's us. That's us. Listen, we can earn one thing. There's only one thing we can
earn. The wages of sin is death. Not because of works of righteousness,
which we've done, but wholly and completely of His mercy and
grace. He's merciful. He's gracious. He delights in mercy. Mercy. Brother Henry wrote an
article, I read this a while back, Mercy, God not giving us
what we deserve. What do we deserve? We always
got our hand out thinking we deserve something, don't we,
huh? Wrath, death, eternal punishment, that's what we deserve. Grace,
His grace, God giving us what we don't deserve. Righteousness,
peace, pardon, And listen, what do we read there? He delights. He delights in mercy. Well, do you still have Micah
chapter seven? Third point, verse 19. He will turn again. He will have
compassion on us. Upon us, huh? Upon his people, his remnant,
his elect. He will turn again. And listen,
not only will he turn again, but he turns the hearts of his
people. Three times, three times in the
Psalm, David writes this in Psalm chapter 80. Turn us, O God, cause
thy face to shine upon us, and we shall be saved. He turns his people. He turns
our hearts to him. He has to turn our hearts, doesn't
he? Our natural response is to turn away, to turn away in anger. We've turned everyone to our
own way. Back there in 2 Kings 5, Remember Naaman the leper? Naaman
the leper, he went to Elisha the prophet. And Elisha sent
a messenger out there to him. He went out there with his gifts
and a letter from the king and all these things to commend him
to God's prophet. And Elisha sent a messenger to
him. And he said, you go wash in the River Jordan seven times
and your flesh will come again to thee and thou shalt be clean. What did Naaman do? Turn there
to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 5. One command, go wash. Go wash. In verse 11 of 2 Kings chapter
5, Here we see Naaman's response. Naaman was wroth. And what did he do? He went away. He went away and said, behold,
I thought, listen, our thoughts aren't his thoughts, are they?
He said, I thought he'll surely come out to me and stand and
call on the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over
the place and recover the leper. Are not Havana and far for rivers
in Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash
in them and be clean? What did he do? He turned, he
turned and he went away in his anger, in his rage. Listen, we
need to be, that's the direction we'll all go. We gotta be turned,
we gotta be turned back. And his servants came to him.
They said, Master, if the prophet had told you to do some great
thing, wouldn't you have done that? If he asked you to build
a library or a gym or a youth center or whatever, wouldn't
you have done that? Wash, that's the, wash and be
clean. And he went and he dipped seven
times in the Jordan according to the saying of man of God,
and his flesh came again like a little child. Look there again,
2 Kings 5, verse 15. He returned to the man of God. He came and stood before him
and he said, now, behold now I know that there is no God in
all the earth but in Israel. Who is a God like unto thee? Turn us, O God, and we shall
be saved. Micah 7, verse 19, he will turn
again. He will have compassion upon
us. And then fourth, do you still
have our text? He will subdue their iniquity. Listen, sin is too strong for
us to conquer. It's got a hold on us. We're
not going to turn loose of it, but it says He'll subdue their
iniquity. Listen, it's too strong for us
to control. It reigns over the natural man.
We can't get rid of it. We can't get rid of the influence
of it. We can't get rid of the shame and the guilt of it. We
can't get rid of the punishment of it. But Christ has conquered
it. He's made an end to it. He's
taken our sins away and put all things under His feet. Listen,
He's removed the guilt of sin, the dominion of sin. Read on
in our text. It says, not only has He subdued
our iniquity, cast it behind His back, Look Mike 719, God
the prophet says, Almighty God will cast their sins into the
depths of the sea. I read this last night. 80% of our oceans, we don't know
nothing about. 80%. It's unobserved, it's unexplored,
it's unmapped. A few years ago, a few years
ago, our family was down at the beach. And me and the boys were
out, I say boys, they're 20 and 21 and 22, but we were, they'll
always be boys, won't they? Yeah. I know they're young men,
but they'll always be boys as far as I'm concerned. We're out
there goofing off and playing in the water. And we weren't
in water that was, chest deep, okay? And a big wave come up,
and I had a brand new pair of sunglasses. And that wave hit
me in the back and knocked those sunglasses off my head. Now, I'll tell you this, I looked,
and I looked, and I looked. And the boys, they looked, and
they looked, and they looked. But you know what? They weren't
to be found. And I can't remember if it was
Isaac or Brady, or maybe it was Abby, said, Dad, they're gone. You know, we've been back a few
times after that, and I still haven't found them. They're gone,
aren't they? Now listen, listen. Almighty God says this. He's taken our sins, and listen,
not in chest deep water. He's cast them in the depths
of the sea. Never, never to be seen again. Listen, if He's put them away,
and He says He sees them no more, Why do I keep looking back at
them? They're put away. Turn to Jeremiah
chapter 50. Jeremiah chapter 50. Look at verse 20 of Jeremiah
chapter 50. In those days, and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for. Did Israel have iniquity? Yeah,
yeah, huh? It's gonna be sought for and
there shall be none. The sins of Judah and they shall
not be found. For I will pardon. I will spare,
I will forgive those whom I reserve. That remnant of his people. As far as the east is from the
west, so far has he removed his transgression from us. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse
17, over there in the New Testament, their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. How's that? The blood of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin. Put away, never to be seen again. Who is a God? Who is a God like
unto our God? Who is a God like unto the Lord
our God, who pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression
of his people, a God that delighteth in mercy, a God who turns his
people, a God who will subdue our iniquity and cast it into
the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. Quickly, let's
look at verse 20. Here's our assurance of these
things. Thou wilt perform the truth to
Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our
fathers from the days of old. The truth to Jacob. Back there
in Genesis, we read that Jacob lighted on a certain place and
he took some stones and made a pillar there. And it was there
he dreamed that dream of that ladder that went from the earth
to heaven, the angels ascending and descending on it. A picture,
a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, that which pointed to Christ.
And it was there that God told Jacob, he said, I am with thee. I will keep thee. I will bring
thee again into the land. I will not leave thee. God's
not gonna forsake his people. He says to thy and thy seed,
your seed's gonna be like the dust of the earth and all the
families of this earth are gonna be blessed. The truth, the truth
to Jacob. His mercy to Abraham. At the age of 75, God appeared
to Abraham and he said, get thee out of the country, out of thy
father's house, from thy kindred, from thy house into a land that
I will show you. I'll make of thee a great nation. And by faith he went. He went. And later, God would tell Abraham
to take his only son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice. And along the way, Isaac asked
his dad, he said, where's the lamb? He said, I see the fire
and the wood, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering? And
Abraham said this, he said, my son, God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. which he did, didn't he? He did. Remember that ram caught there
in the thicket and he offered him up in the place of Isaac,
his mercy to Abraham. And the scriptures say this,
I pray this could be said of each one of us, Abraham believed
God. And out of that lineage, the
Lord Jesus Christ was born. He told Jacob, in thee shall
all the families of the earth be blessed. That covenant of
redemption found in the person, work, and office of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Every promise fulfilled. Not one thing left undone. Truly, who is a God? Who is a God like unto thee? A God who pardons iniquity, and
passes by the transgression of his people. A God who delights
to show mercy, a God who turns his people, a God who subdues,
who conquers the iniquity of his people. That's the God declared
in his word. Who is a God like unto me? Let me close by reading a verse
of scripture. I read over this briefly in introduction. These are the words of David
back in 2 Samuel 7, verse 22. He said, wherefore, thou art
great, O Lord God. There is none like thee, neither
is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have
heard with our ears. Who is like unto the Lord our
God? May God be pleased to bless his
word.