Well, good morning. Let me add
my welcome to our visitors. Glad to have you with us this
morning. Today's text is taken from the book of Micah chapter
7. That chapter opens with a prophet expressing his sorrow and his
grief over the pervasive depravity and the corruption of the times
in which he lived, much like our times. But at the end of
the chapter in Micah's last recorded words, his tone shifts as even
in the midst of those awful times, he sets forth the good news for
every age, the good news of the gospel of God's grace, expressing
his admiration for the mercy of God and the salvation of sinners. And this morning we're going
to direct our attention there to those last three verses of
the book of Micah. in hopes that we too might enter
into worship God as we marvel with Micah at this wonderful
news of God's pardoning performance. Title of today's message, God's
pardoning performance. So look with me at Micah 7, beginning
in verse 18, where we read, 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 forever,
because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities. And thou wilt cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea. thou wilt perform the truth to
Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our
fathers from the days of old." Well, as you can see, these verses
directly address the subject of the pardon or forgiveness
of sins whereby God saves sinners. So if you're a sinner, you're
in the right place this morning because as sinners we need pardon.
We need this salvation. Salvation is salvation from sin. The Bible clearly declares that
death and hell, the wrath of God, are the sure and the certain
consequences and just penalties due unto our sin. Fallen in Adam,
we enter this world as sinners and then we proceed to prove
it as we live out our lives. Born sinners, we sin. So we need
deliverance from the eternal wrath of God that we all deserve
due to our sins. as that title, God's Pardoning
Performance, suggests. I want us to particularly focus
this morning on the truth that the forgiveness or the pardon
of sins that you and I need is a work of God that was performed
by God through the doing and dying of God, the God-man, the
Lord Jesus Christ. His performance in the place
of sinners who are saved is a pardoning performance. So those for whom
Christ died thereby are all pardoned. They're eternally forgiven and
blessed in Christ their Savior. And the point that I really want
to make this morning is this, that His performance and their
eternal blessedness are inseparable. They're linked and cannot be
separated. Well, why this emphasis? You
know, most all professing Christians refer, as we do, to Christ as
the Savior. Many, perhaps even most of them,
agree with us that the truth that Christ is indeed God, God
manifested in the flesh as both God and man in one person. So
as such, they believe they're saved by the one they call Savior. So they profess to trust in God,
the Savior, for the pardons of their sins. I can speak firsthand
to the fact that many who presume to be trusting in Christ, who
like me in years past, I sincerely thought I was trusting in Christ
for my salvation, for my pardon of sins, and yet my doctrine
suggested otherwise. Many will adhere to doctrine
that actually decouples, that separates their presumed forgiveness
or pardon from that which God performed in Christ, that which
Christ accomplished in His life and in His death. So sadly, multitudes
will claim, as I once did, that God, through Christ's death on
the cross, forgives their sins. That's certainly true. But at
the same time, they'll actually also presume to be forgiven,
unlike others, because of their performance, not his. In other words, because they
believed, because they accepted Jesus, because they confessed
their sins, not his performance, their performance. We remain oblivious to that stark
contradiction that we carry by nature unless and until God the
Holy Spirit brings the true gospel of God's grace in Christ our
way and gives us the faculties of spiritual life that we might
know the difference. God's gospel, that's the good
news of how God saves sinners. So to be mistaken about that,
that's no small matter. We know that's so because God's
word tells us that they that believe the gospel shall be saved
and they that believe it not are damned. That means they're
not forgiven, but rather they remain subject to the just and
eternal wrath of God due unto their sins. So we better be sure
that the gospel we believe is God's true gospel. And I want
you to know this morning, if it is truly God's gospel that
you believe, it will have you embracing His way of salvation. And that is a way that is consistent
with, first, who God is. It's a way that is consistent,
secondly, with the sinner's desperate need. And thirdly, it's a way
that is consistent with God's eternal purpose and design. Let's
begin who God is. It's a way consistent with who
God is. And so let's begin with looking
at Micah's rhetorical question there. Who is a God like unto
thee? It's interesting he begins verse
18 that way because those words actually mirror the very meaning
of his name. The name Micah actually means
who is like Jehovah. Now, if you truly believe God's
gospel, his way of salvation is going to be a way consistent
with what God is like, who God is, how he is unique, and how
he's uniquely revealed to us in the gospel. To be saved, we
know, is to know God as he's revealed by Christ. Christ said
as much in his prayer to the Father in John 17 3 when he prayed,
this is life eternal. that they might know thee the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." You know,
Micah, he was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. And God
tells us through Isaiah how he is uniquely revealed in salvation. Look at that with me in Isaiah
45, 21 where God says, and there is no God else beside me. a just God and a Savior. There's none beside me. Look
unto me and be ye saved." Look unto who? A just God and a Savior. All the ends of the earth for
I am God and there is none else. See, God must remain true to
his character in all that he does, and that includes in the
saving of sinners. So one way we can distinguish
God's gospel from the faults or counterfeit gospels we're
warned so often in the New Testament to avoid is based upon whether
or not it is consistent with a just God, a God being just,
consistent with God's holy justice being satisfied. See, God does
not save at the expense of his justice. That means sins will
not go unpunished. God's justice must be satisfied. Now, back in Micah 7, the prophet
goes on there in verse 18 to describe the uniqueness of God
as one, he says, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. This word pardoneth, literally
means lifted up and taken away. And that's what God does for
all who are saved. He lifted sins off his dear children
and he put them on Christ, who took them away, much like that
is typified by that scapegoat in the Old Testament. He took
them away by bearing the full punishment due unto them before
the Father's holy justice. Now think with me, if Christ
died to pay for all the sins of all who ever lived, then would
not everyone's sins have been pardoned or taken away? We know
scripture, it clearly refutes any notion that all are saved.
The pardon of sin here conveys the same meaning as is referred
to in the New Testament as the forgiveness of sins. Some of
you may recall in a recent sermon, I related how that same New Testament
Greek word that's translated forgiveness is elsewhere translated
as the remission of sins. The pardon or forgiveness of
sins is the remission of sins. When you receive a bill in the
mail, it often includes a heading that reads, remit to, followed
by the company's name and address, And as I've said before, we can
see this inseparable connection between sins being remitted and
being forgiven or pardoned because the remission of sins refers
to a payment made for sins. A payment, that word carries
with it the connotation of a payment that results in a complete forgiveness
of the debt owed to God's justice for those sins. The word itself,
it conveys a full release, a full pardon. And you know, it's the
same when we remit money to pay a bill. If the check doesn't
bounce, we then are released from that debt or obligation
to pay. The debt's forgiven, but only
if a full payment of all that was due has been remitted. There's
no forgiveness of the debt unless it's been paid in full. And as
it pertains to our sins, you and I, we're insolvent. We're
bankrupt. We're destitute. We're without
any means whatsoever to even contribute to the payment of
our sin debt, that debt, see, that's due unto the infinite
and holy justice of God. We know multitudes, according
to scripture, will perish eternally. but their suffering and their
eternal death will never pay, see, what is owed to God's injured
justice because of their sins. They will endure punishment for
it, but it won't pay the debt. Only the precious blood of the
sinless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, His death, the
death of the God-man, only it can and has remitted that payment
so as to gain the full release, the complete forgiveness, for
each and everyone whose sins were lifted off them and put
on Christ who died, bearing the just wrath of God due unto their
sins." And that check doesn't bounce. That's God's pardoning
performance. Debt paid is a debt forgiven. When I, like others, believe
that many for whom Christ lived and died would still perish. They'd still be held accountable
for their sins so as to eternally perish. It exposed, now in the
hindsight of God-given faith, that at that time, though I was
sincere and thought I was trusting in Christ, I really wasn't trusting
on Him as my Savior. I would sing sincerely, sing
that old song, Jesus paid it all. But for many years, the
reality was that when you peel back the layers and looked into
it, I was really assuming myself to be the ultimate difference
maker, as if my acceptance of Jesus did what his blood couldn't
do. It procured my own pardon. Now,
go figure. You know, in the blindness that
we're all born with, I couldn't see this, but I marvel at this
side of God-given faith. I imagine that Christ remitted. That means he paid for the sins
of all so as to forgive the debt due to their sins by his death
for them. And then, in blatant disregard
to and at the expense of his own just character, God unjustly
would send them on to hell anyway, whose sins supposedly had been
remitted, which means forgiven already. I now know that to believe
that, it denies who God is, the God that pardons iniquity. See, that's not the just God
and a savior we're commanded to look to for our salvation,
because that would be an unjust God. And that doctrine leaves
the sinner with no choice but to imagine then that he or she
must do something in order to save themselves. And I hope you
can see the evil in that. Now, apart from God's grace you
can't because after all that's a religious evil. And we don't
do things in religion unless we think they're good. So I'm
talking about an evil I once thought was good. It was the
evil of having dared to imagine that my acceptance of Jesus or
my act of faith, something I did, could accomplish for me what
took the precious blood of my dear Savior. God is both a just
God and a Savior. That means sins must be justly
dealt with and that God does not forgive sins by looking the
other way. He does not forgive sin, see,
apart from the remission of them. Debt paid is a debt forgiven. So we see that the way of salvation,
the gospel that is believed by all who are saved, it must be
a way that's consistent with who God is, as a just God and
a Savior that pardoneth iniquity. Secondly, we must see that it's
a way consistent with the sinner's desperate need. Look with me
again at Micah 7, 18, where we read, 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 forever
because he delighteth in mercy. Now, as we talk about the desperate
need of a sinner, it's understood that in light of who God is,
a just God and a Savior who pardons iniquity, that those he saves
need pardoning. They need saving. They need the
forgiveness or pardon of sin. That goes without saying. But
notice there at the end of verse 18, we see that the cause of
salvation is completely owing to God. It is because He delighteth
in mercy. And I'm going to revisit this
in a moment. when we address how God's way
of salvation must be consistent with God's purpose and design.
But first I want you to consider this. How that that which is
God's delight is also that which every sinner truly needs, mercy. Now that's good news, isn't it?
God delights to provide precisely what I need. Those upon whom
God is merciful to save, you see, if it's mercy by definition,
it means they do absolutely nothing to merit that favor. If you do
something, if it's something you do to seal the deal, to earn
or merit your salvation, then that would mean God actually
owes you that, your salvation, your forgiveness in return. It'd
just be what you deserve. If, like me in years past, you
imagine God saves you because of something you did, because
of your act of faith or some decision you made for Jesus,
your profession, your anything, fill in the blank. If it's because
of that, then recognize as I now recognize in hindsight that at
that time I had no basis. to truly consider myself a recipient
of God's mercy. Why, I didn't need mercy. I just
needed to do what was prescribed for me to do. The truth is, I
didn't recognize my desperate need for His mercy and grace
in Christ. I thought I'd done my part by
accepting Jesus as my personal Savior, and in return, God would
save me. But that's not mercy. God's way
of salvation, see, fits the needs of sinners who are truly convinced
by the Holy Spirit of their sins. And that's to be convinced, as
a sinner, I need saving. I can do nothing to save myself.
And only then, when we're so convinced, do we truly see our
need for mercy, for a merciful Savior. And God chose mercy because
it's his delight to do so. That means these blessings of
salvation, they flow from Him, from His own free and sovereign
grace. So that means it's not what those
who are saved can do or must do to earn or merit their salvation,
but what God's grace in Christ has merited for them. Salvation
is something that God purposes and God performs. Now notice
there in verse 18, Michael further describes God as he who passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. Now this passing
by the transgression of his people, that does not mean that God doesn't
see the reality of their sinfulness before and after the new birth.
It doesn't mean that he simply overlooks their sins or acts
as if they don't sin. God's omniscient, as we heard
in the 10 o'clock hour. He's all-knowing. He sees all.
God doesn't pretend. God deals in reality. So we know
then that this refers to God's passing by sins on the sole basis
of them having been dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Christ who he's called in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, the Passover. The Passover
that was slain. for all those who are saved.
You know, in keeping with the picture of the Old Testament
Passover, God says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. It's with regard to His justice
that God doesn't see their sins because Christ has fully satisfied
God's just penalty for them by His death on the cross. That
passing by is the non-imputation of sin, as we read about that
in 2 Corinthians 5. There Paul is speaking of the
ministry of reconciliation. That's the ministry of the gospel,
how a holy God could be reconciled to a sinner. And he describes it this way
in verse 19. He says, to wit, or namely, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world, Jew and Gentile, unto
himself, not imputing, not charging their trespasses unto them. And
he hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. That's
the gospel ministry. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ as though God did beseech or beg you by us. We
pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. See your
reconciliation in Christ's finished work. Now, how could God be just
and not charge these sinners with their sins? Verse 21, for
he, God the Father, hath made him, God the Son, to be sin for
us, who knew no sin. He imputed or charged their sins
to Christ, who of Himself was perfectly sinless, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. He imputes or credits
to their account the very perfect satisfaction that Christ rendered
to God's law and justice for their sins by His obedience and
death on the cross. That's His righteousness. Justice
completely satisfied. which God in mercy credits to
their account. They have a righteousness they
had no part in producing just as he died for their sins, he
had no part in producing. That's how he passes by their
transgressions. It isn't that God doesn't see
true believers as the sinners they are. but rather he sees
them in the eyes of his justice, in their representative, their
surety, their substitute, Jesus Christ, who we're told continually
intercedes on their behalf on the basis of what he performed,
what Christ performed, what he accomplished for them by his
doing and his dying in their place. You'll think if someone
does something wrong, and particularly if they do you wrong, You may
forgive them in the sense of you might look past it, but most
of us have the tendency of we never quite forget. You always
remember and you might, if you're like me, you may even remind
them every once in a while of what they did wrong. But if God
passes by your transgressions, he never remembers them again
as that which can be held against you. because that was taken care
of by the saved sinner's substitute, Jesus Christ. We see that in
Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 14, where we read, for by one
offering he, that's Jesus Christ, offering himself as a sacrifice
for his people, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified,
set apart as the everlasting objects of God's love in Christ.
whereof the Holy Ghost also was a witness to us, for after that
he had said before, this is the covenant, I'll speak on that
some more in a moment, the covenant I will make with them after those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts,
and in their minds will I write them, and look at this, their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. How can he do that? Verse 18. Now where remission
of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Debt paid is
a debt forgiven. See how desperately we need our
sins to have been fully paid for by Christ's death on the
cross? There's nothing more to be offered. There's nothing more
to be offered to be saved from your sins if the payment's already
been made for them. Now if God has convinced you
of sin so as to cause you to realize there's absolutely nothing
that you as a sinner can do to get yourself into heaven and
to keep yourself out of hell, then and only then do you recognize
your desperate need for mercy, for this one offering whereby
your sins were so fully remitted that God has said to remember
them no more. You know, that's good news to
a sinner like me. To know that God's record of
the debt due unto all my sins has been just wiped clean. Now,
back to Micah 7, 18. Notice that those who are blessed
with salvation are described as the remnant of his heritage. That's referring to those God
chose unto salvation in Christ from before the foundation of
the world. You know, in Romans 11, Paul
refers to them as the remnant according to the election of
grace. As we read in Ephesians 1, beginning in verse 3, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. Now, many in our day recall or
want to have nothing to do with the biblical doctrine of election. But think with me on that. If
you truly need mercy, if you truly need a Savior to do for
you what you can't do for yourself, If you don't presume to be your
own Savior, in other words, you truly need God's mercy, then
election will be your dear friend. Because to know that is to know
that if God hadn't chosen to save some and do for them what
they couldn't do for themselves in Christ, that we all would
be goners. We all would remain lost with
no pardon for sins and without hope. If salvation is by grace,
as the Bible teaches us, that is, there's nothing you can do
to merit it, nothing you can even do to appropriate it to
yourself. If your faith is, as we read
in Ephesians 2, if it's truly the gift of God and not of works,
in other words, not of works, not something you can do to be
saved, then if that's true, and if you believe that, don't you
desperately need the assurance and the comfort of knowing that
God chose some in Christ, their surety and their substitute,
to do for them that which none of us can do for ourselves? If
salvation is not solely owing to the good pleasure of God's
will, then it's not by grace. And it's not because, as Micah
has declared to us this morning, that God delights to show mercy. You've heard me say this before.
Grace necessitates election. It makes election absolutely
necessary. See, to deny God's sovereign
election of a people to be saved is to deny salvation by grace
in Christ. If it's not all of God, then
it's got to be of you. That's salvation by works. And
when we see our desperate need for God's mercy and grace, we
see our desperate need to have been chosen in Christ to be saved. Now look again at verse 19 of
Micah 7, where we read, he will turn again, he will have compassion
upon us, he will subdue our iniquities, and thy will cast all their sins
into the depths of the sea. Now, saying God will turn again
is not to be understood of God changing his mind as if he is
mutable. The Bible refutes that. But rather,
it is a way of expressing that which is done for the benefit
of those who are saved. God's mercy is found exclusively
in Jesus Christ based upon that one work of righteousness for
those who are saved. But as the Scriptures teach also
over and again, His mercy endureth forever. It's the gift that just
keeps on giving. The Bible tells us that our risen
Savior sits even now at the right hand of God, ever interceding
on behalf of all for whom He lived and died. As John the Apostle
wrote, when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, a mediator,
a go-between, pleading what He did for us. So God's turning
again and again in compassion towards those He saves. It brings
to mind those comforting words of Lamentations 3, where we read,
it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because
His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is our faithfulness. Now,
back in Micah 7.19, Micah adds that God will subdue
our iniquities. And the original there is a literal
translation would be He will tread our iniquities, our sins,
underfoot. Now there are two senses in which
this is accomplished. First of all, objectively, even
before any of us were born, Christ made an end of sin by
his one offering on Calvary's cross, and that certainly treaded
underfoot or subdued the iniquities for which he died. So much so,
as we just read, he remembers them no more. So sin is subdued
in that its power to condemn was completely removed by Christ's
victorious death and resurrection. As we read in Romans 8, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again. He got the
job done. Who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. So complete is this remission
and pardon of sin that Micah, as we see, describes it as if
sins were cast into the depths of the sea, never to be brought
up again. And this all took place as a
work done for those who were saved without their involvement
whatsoever. You and I weren't even around
when Christ died. But subjectively, just as certain
as Christ defeated sin and Satan at the cross, God the Holy Spirit
also graciously subdues in the hearts and the minds of each
and every one for whom Christ died in their respective lifetime,
he subdues their sins. They all personally experience
the subduing of sin in their regeneration and conversion,
as the Holy Spirit gives them spiritual life and the blood-bought
gift of faith, whereby they believe God's gospel of salvation by
grace. That means in Christ alone. Now,
this subduing of sins that is experienced by true believers
in no way suggests that they no longer sin following their
conversion. They certainly have a heart to
strive not to. We know, though, that can't be
the meaning of this from the Apostle Paul's own commentary
of himself in Romans 7 when he cried out, O wretched man that
I am. He's speaking of while he was
still alive in this physical, mortal body of sin and death.
So the presence of sin remains. And Paul said that long after
his spiritual conversion on the Damascus Road. So then how are
we to understand that sin is subdued when sinners are given
faith and repentance to believe God's gospel? In Romans 6.14,
believers are told, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for
ye are not under the law, but under grace. Now, in our hearts
and minds, we remained under the law as long as we imagined
that salvation was in some way or some degree conditioned on
our works of the law. In other words, some requirement
or condition that we fulfilled. That which we did or that which
we refrained from doing and thinking, that put us into heaven and kept
us out of hell. And so in our failure to render
the perfect continual obedience to the law from the cradle to
the grave that the law demands, we sin because we're sinners
and so it has a dominion over us. But Paul says not so for
believers under grace. And he further explains this
in verse 17 as he adds, but God bethink that ye were the servants
of sin, you were in bondage to sin, but ye have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, or to
which you were delivered. Being then made free from sin,
ye became the servants of righteousness. Nothing that any sinner does
or experiences can set them free from the penalty of sin. It has
to be paid. And for all who are saved, it
has been paid. Debt paid is a debt forgiven.
But we start out not knowing anything about it. And in regeneration
and conversion under the sound of this glorious gospel of grace,
saved sinners are made free from the dominion of sin as the sin,
see, that once deceived them is exposed to them, whereby they
repent. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul describes
that for us. He's talking about how those
who would preach a false gospel in league with Satan, we were
to be wary of them, how they deceive, as he says, with lying
wonders, He adds this in verse 10, And with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. We only
have ourselves to blame. And for this cause, God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. But we're bound to give thanks
all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit, giving you life and belief of the truth, giving
you faith, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, most people,
at first glance, I'm sure I read this passage in years past and
I thought unrighteousness would be immorality and righteousness
would be morality, but that's not what it's referring to. Unrighteousness
refers to that which is not a perfect righteousness, so it's anything
other than. or in addition to the one perfect
righteousness that Christ established and by which God declares otherwise
guilty sinners to be not guilty but justified in His sight. So
if your salvation is dependent on anything other than or anything
in addition to Christ's righteousness being imputed, charged to you,
credited to your account, if so, you have no choice. You're
reduced to having then to rely on something else, something
you do, something that proceeds from you to believe it contributes
to your salvation. Well, that would be self-righteousness. that had us imagining that we
can do something to save ourselves. And that's the natural descent
that deceives all of us. And told by God-given faith,
this folly is exposed under the preaching of God's true gospel
of grace. See, in spiritual conversion,
as it pertains to the ground or the basis of our salvation,
self-righteousness is removed. As Paul told fellow believers
at Colossae, he said, how God hath delivered us from the power
of darkness. See, that's where sin reigns
over us in our self-righteousness. And hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear son, where grace reigns through his righteousness. And if that doesn't describe
your revelation of faith, your conversion, then your gospel
would be inconsistent with the sinner's desperate need to be
delivered from that darkness. Earlier in chapter 7 of Micah,
The prophet describes the subduing of sins for himself both objectively
and subjectively when he says this in verse 9. He said, 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's
referring to when the future Messiah would come and perform
his pardon. God executing judgment against
Micah's sin upon his substitute. And then Micah adds the sure
and the certain result of that redemptive work that he has and
will continue to subjectively experience when he says, he will
bring me forth to the light, the light of the gospel. And
what do you behold there? I shall behold his righteousness,
that which is revealed by faith in God's gospel of grace. See,
the light of the knowledge of God's glory in Christ shines
in the hearts of these redeemed and forgiven trophies of God's
grace. So we've seen that the way of
salvation, the gospel which is believed by all who are saved,
it must be a way that is consistent with one who God is, as a just
God and a Savior that pardoned sin. It must be consistent, secondly,
with the sinner's desperate need for mercy and grace in Christ. And now in closing, let's consider
how it must be consistent with God's eternal purpose and design. God's chief design in salvation
is the same as it is in all things, and that is His own glory. In
salvation, it's that He would be glorified in the hearts of
His people as He's uniquely revealed to them in the person and the
saving work of Christ. Look again with me at the end
of Micah 7, 18. There we saw that the cause of salvation is
completely owing to God. It is because he delighteth in
mercy. Salvation's not owing to anything
done by or found to be true of the sinner, but rather because
God delights in mercy. God, through the prophet Jeremiah,
he speaks of this delight as we read beginning in Jeremiah
9, 23. Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom. Don't have confidence in that
which would naturally seem right to us according to man's wisdom.
Neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Don't have confidence
in that which you can perform by your own might. Let not the
rich man glory in his riches. Don't be presumed to be eternally
blessed by God based upon having temporal blessings of some sort
here in this life. But let him that glorieth glory
in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. That's as Christ
said, isn't it? It's life eternal to know God. And he adds to know this, knoweth
me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and
righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. This speaks of God's pardoning
performance. that which He exercised in the
earth by His obedience unto death, see, for all the objects of God's
everlasting love, executing God's judgment against their sins as
He established a perfect righteousness for them by His full and complete
satisfaction to the Father's justice, the very righteousness
of God that He has imputed to all who come to know Him. whereby
they are accepted into His holy presence in God the Son, their
Savior. And that's God's delight. We
also see salvation as a product of God's delight to show mercy
in the last verse of Micah 7. For there we see that this pardoning
performance of mercy all stems from our triune God, God the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having so determined from all
eternity and what the Bible calls the everlasting covenant of grace
to save a people by the doing and dying of Jesus Christ. This
covenant language of verse 20 closes the book as Micah asserts,
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham
which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
You remember in the Old Testament we had those temporal covenants,
but then he says, but in that day I'll make a new covenant
with them, as we read earlier. He'll write it on their hearts.
It won't be conditioned on their obedience, it'll be conditioned
on the obedience of Jesus Christ. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are
considered patriarchs of the faith, and so they're typical
of all who are eternally blessed in the everlasting covenant of
grace. the covenant whose terms Christ came in time to fulfill.
There's simply salvation, all of its conditions and requirements
being fully met by Jesus Christ. And Micah asserts the certainty
that what God has promised, He would perform. How Christ, He
would come and He would perform truth and mercy. In studying
this, I read different explanations about why here it speaks of him
performing truth to Jacob, but then mercy to Abraham. And I
got more opinions than I wanted, and I still, to be honest, remain
a little unsure of the significance of that distinction. So I'll
talk about what I do know. I do know that this mercy and
truth were both performed by Christ. by the one performing
performance of our Lord and Savior for all he saves. And I know
that both Abraham and Jacob are presented as scriptural types
of all who are saved. Mercies performed by the mercy
seat. Christ our propitiation. That's
in keeping with the publican's cry in that parable in Luke 18
when he said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That word merciful
is a word that is also translated propitious. Be propitious to
me. And that's just a big word that
simply means have God's wrath appeased for me. We need God's
just wrath against our sins to be taken away by the justice
satisfying, sin-bearing sacrifice of the Savior. That's what it
means when it says He is the propitiation for our sins. For
all who come to Him in mercy. Christ said, all that you've
given me, Father, they'll come to me and those that come to
you, I will not cast out. Truth is performed as the terms
of the everlasting covenant, salvation conditioned on Christ
alone, was executed or performed by Christ's life and death on
the cross. And as we saw today, this truth is also brought to
light by God, the Holy Spirit, when under the preaching of God's
gospel of grace, God's people are miraculously brought into
a knowledge of the truth, the truth of God and how he saved
them. Well, in what and in whom do you trust? Is your gospel,
how you believe that sinners are saved, is it consistent with
who God is? A just God and a savior that
truly pardons sin? Is it consistent, secondly, with
our desperate need as sinners who cannot earn or merit any
blessing from a holy God? And thirdly, is it in keeping
with God's design and purpose to save a people purely for his
own delight that he might receive all the glory and all the praise
as He's revealed in the hearts of His dear children as both
a just God and a merciful Savior. A debt paid is a debt forgiven.
And if you truly need His mercy and grace, then rejoice with
me, because if you truly need it, you've got it. You won't
come there apart from that blood-bought gift of faith. If you need that,
then rejoice with me that our God delights in mercy. Let us
join with Michael and marvel at God's pardoning performance.
Thank you.