Hopefully you still have your
Bibles open there to Micah chapter 7. That's where our text will
be found this morning. Titled the message, Who is a
God like unto thee? It took my title from the question
that the Lord asked in verse 18 of Micah chapter 7. Who is a God like unto thee? Every one of us here already
knows the answer to that question. There's no God, no idol like
our God. Isaiah said in Isaiah 46 verse
nine, remember the former things of old for I am God and there
is none else. I'm God and there's none like
me. So Lord's already given us the
answer to the question that there's none like him. No man-made idol
can ever be compared to the true and living God because no idol
can do what the true and living God does. You know, from the
time of Cain, men have tried to devise idols. They try to
devise a way to come before God. They try to devise a way that
God will accept them in their works. That's what's involved
with every idol. Fallen man is always trying to
devise a way to put enough of their sin away so that the idol
will accept them and bless them. But man never has yet, and nor
will he ever, devise a God who can save in both mercy and truth. Never, man's never done it. Every
other idol, they have to either overlook justice or overlook
mercy. The idol has to ignore justice.
because he's got to at least ignore some of man's sins. He
may have a few rules, but his requirement is not perfection.
So he has to overlook justice. Every sin is not gonna be punished.
Or the idol has to ignore mercy by demanding that fallen man
be close enough to perfect for me. There's the country song,
it says, be close enough to perfect for me. That's what every idol
is singing to his worshipers. You gotta be close enough to
perfect for me. But that's not salvation in mercy either, is
it? That's demanding some payment, something you've got to do in
order to make this thing work. That's not salvation in truth
or in mercy. But the true living God, He saves
in both mercy and truth. And that's the God that Micah
describes in our text. And it is my heartfelt prayer
But as we read and look here, this is the way God describes
himself. This is not the way some man
has decided, well, this is how I'm going to describe God. This
is how God describes himself. And oh, I hope it just puts us
in the dust to worship him, to bow at his feet. Number one is
this. Here's how God describes himself.
He's the God who pardons iniquity. iniquity. Now if the Holy God's
gonna pardon our sin, he can't just ignore our sin and our guilt
and sign a pardon and say you're free even though really you're
guilty. I'm gonna set you free even though
you really haven't satisfied the justice by serving out your
full term. When God pardons sin, it has
to be right. When God pardons sin, it's always for Christ's
sake. I'm gonna come back to that in
a second, but you remember this, when God pardons sin, it's for
Christ's sake, because of what Christ did and who he did it
for. This word pardon, it means to lift, to take away and to
bear. God pardons the sin of his people
because the father did the most amazing thing that mankind has
ever heard of. The father took the sin of his
people. Sin they could not carry. Sin
they could not bear. Sin that they could not put away.
Sin that was destroying them. And he put it on his son. His son. His only son. Son, would you
do that to your son? I wouldn't do it to one of my
daughters. God did that. and Christ took the sin of His
people. He took it off of them and He
bore it. Like the scapegoat of old, He
bore it to a land uninhabited where it's never seen again.
The Father put that sin on Christ our substitute and Christ put
it away. He bore all the punishment that
that sin deserved until He suffered punishment. He suffered the wrath
of His Father until the sin that fueled the Father's wrath was
gone. He bore it away. He bore it away
by suffering the full penalty for that sin. And here's the
reason Christ, the son of God, bore all the sin of his people,
so that the father could pardon his elect in justice. See, that's
mercy and justice together. It's mercy that the father took
the sin of his people and put it on his son. It's justice that
the son paid the penalty for. and he made it right for the
father to pardon sinners like you and me. Now I defy you to
find an idol that ever did that. The idol doesn't sacrifice himself.
The father sacrificed his son to put sin away. The idol doesn't
sacrifice himself. The idol demands you sacrifice
something. Maybe you gotta give up something
you really like for 40 days. Maybe you gotta sacrifice your
children like people did of old. You gotta sacrifice something.
In order for God to pardon the sins of His people, He sacrificed
Himself. Boy, you better not play with
that gospel, had you? No idol can bear the sin of anybody away. And you know what? Man can't
bear it either. But the Lord Jesus Christ did that for His
people. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. In
Genesis 4 verse 13, after Cain had killed his brother and the
Lord came to him and told him he'd be cast out, Cain said unto
the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Cain said, I
can't bear this. That word translated bear is
the same word translated pardon in our text. Cain couldn't bear
the punishment of his sin. You and I can't bear it either.
But Christ the Savior bore it for his people. so that the father
will pardon them. Then number two, here's how the
true living God describes himself. He passes by the transgression
of his people. That's what he says in verse
18. He pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage. Now that phrase passeth by, it
means just exactly what you think it means. It means to pass over. It means to do away with. The
word is used in Exodus 12, verse 23. Probably this is what all
your minds went to. The first Passover. The Lord told Moses
that he'll pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he seeeth
the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord
will pass over. He'll pass over the door and
will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite
you. He'll pass over the door. Same
word translated, passeth by the transgression of his people in
our text. You know why the father, the holy father, now he's holy.
He must punish sin. He cannot ignore sin. Why would
he pass by the transgression of his people? Not because he
ignored it. Not because he ignored it. But
because the blood of Christ took that transgression away. The
blood of Christ means There's no reason for the father to smite
his people because the blood of Christ took their transgression
away. That's why the father can pass over it. You see, the law
demands death for sin. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. It must die. For the blood on the doorpost
says this. There's already been death in this home tonight. The
substitute has died. His blood's been applied. His
blood has been shed. His blood has been applied. And
not only the firstborn, but everybody else in this home is under the
blood. We put that blood on the door
in faith, believing God that when he sees the blood, he'll
pass over. Not when I see the blood, not
because I've done something, when he sees the blood, when
the Lord sees the blood, where am I? On the inside of the house.
When he sees the blood, he'll pass over because that blood
means this, justice has already been satisfied. There's no need
for another death here. And no other idol has found a
way to satisfy God's justice like that. Every other idol has
to pass by transgression by giving it a wink and a nod and ignoring
it. That does not give you rest from
fear, does it? I mean, if the idol's giving
you a wink and a nod, kind of ignoring your sin, what if he
decides I'm gonna start paying attention to it? There's no rest from fear of
punishment, fear of death, is there? If Christ died for you,
do you trust him? Do you trust him? If Christ died
for you, the father looks at you and says, there's no reason
for another death here. The substitutes already died.
The blood's been applied. Here's the third thing. This
is the way the true and living God describes himself. He's the
God of election. Says here in verse 18, he passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. Now God is the
God of election. I know I don't think that there
is another point of doctrine that the natural
man hates more than the doctrine of election. But I'm telling
you, it's impossible to preach the gospel without preaching
the truth of God's electing love. Because you can't tell who God
is unless you tell the truth of His electing love, can you?
The gospel is good news. That's what the word means, good
news. It ought to be preached as good news. It ought to be
perceived and believed as good news. But there's no good news
for dead sinners unless God chose a people to save. He had to choose
us first, or we would never choose him. That's the truth. Jacob
didn't choose God. Jacob didn't decide to love God.
Jacob have I loved. That's why Jacob loved God. That's
why Jacob believed God, because God set his love on him. God
chose him, and God brought Jacob to himself. See, it has to begin. Salvation must begin with God's
elected love. And that's what this word remnant
tells us about. The word remnant, means the leftovers
or the residue. The residue. I won't really talk
about the leftovers. I know there's a negative connotation
there. I happen to love leftovers, but the residue. What's the residue? The residue is what's left in
the pan after you've cooked dinner and you've scraped it out and
put it in the bowl, the serving bowl or whatever, and you set
the pan aside You come back after dinner, ugh, you gotta wash it,
don't you? I mean, that thing can't be left
the way it's gotten. You gotta get that residue out
of there. It's the scummy, yucky stuff that's left in there. That's
the word describing you and me. That's the word God uses to describe
the people that he chose to save, the leftovers, what nobody else
wanted. The residue, what everybody else
says, has to be washed away. That's who God chose to save,
worthless sinners. P. Frazier used to say, they
were shouting words. That's amazing love. I mean,
amazing love. Election is not a hateful doctrine
at all, is it? It's a loving doctrine that expresses
the love of God. There's an article in your bulletin
about that today. Oh, the amazing love God had in choosing a people
to save. And throughout scripture, this
word remnant is used to refer to God's elect. Isaiah 1, verse
9, except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant,
we should have been a Sodom, and we should have been a Gomorrah. I hear preachers of many different
denominations getting on their high horse talking about the
evil of the Sodomites and the evil of the people of Gomorrah,
you know. I got news for you. They got
nothing on you and me. We're just as evil, just as wicked
by nature as they are. They got nothing on us, nothing. And you and I would be destroyed
the very same way Sodom and Gomorrah was. if the Lord had not chosen
a people to save. Oh, doesn't that thrill your
heart? God is not gonna give me what I deserve because he
gave Christ what I deserve. Romans 11 verse five. This gray hair enables me to
talk as an old man. Yeah, I've been, Jonathan, I've
been practicing a long time to be a grouchy old man. Grouchy
old men love to talk about how bad the world is today. It wasn't
like that in my day. Oh, it's so much worse. In a lot of ways it is. Maybe
in some ways some things are a little better. But don't you
ever forget this. Our God is still in the business
of saving sinners. Are God still in the business
of keeping and preserving his people? Romans 11 verse five,
even so at this present time, oh, as bad as it is, as dark
as it is, even so at this present time, there's a remnant according
to the election of grace. Just like I said in the lesson
this morning, in the midst of all this unbelief, somebody believes
God. It's the people God chose to
save, that's who they are. We would not believe unless God
chose us first, unless he kept us and preserved us. The one
and only reason that the church on earth exists today, and I'm
talking about the church made up of all these local churches
that truly preach the gospel and really love Christ, really
believe him. The only reason that church on
earth exists today is God has an elect people that he's preserved
out of this earth. Isn't that loving? Isn't that
wonderful? Doesn't that make you just want
to fall down and worship Him? What other idol would do something
as loving as that? Not one. Not one. Idols always
choose the best. Idols want the best and the brightest,
don't they? Idols want the ones who can sacrifice the most of
them. God chose the worst. And He didn't just choose them.
and say, yeah, I mean, you know, they're here, they're in the
family. He calls them his heritage. That word heritage means inheritance. God the son has an inheritance,
something that's precious to him, that the father gave to
him. And you know what that inheritance
is? The residue, the leftovers, the sinners that the father chose
to save. They're his heritage, his inheritance. He loves them. In Exodus 34,
verse nine, Moses praying to the Lord said, if now I found
grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among
us, for it's a stiff-necked people. Moses was not gonna gloss over
who we are. We're a stiff-necked people.
Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for thine inheritance. Lord, take us for your inheritance,
your heritage. Deuteronomy 9 verse 29, Moses
said, yet they are thy people, thine inheritance. He said, Lord,
they're your inheritance. You brought them out by your
mighty power. You brought them out by your stretched out arm.
Lord, you made them your heritage. You made them your inheritance.
Now, Lord, would you keep them? Keep them and preserve them.
You chose them, you saved them, you redeemed them with that mighty
stretched out arm. When they were sinners, well,
they're not gonna surprise you, they're still sinners. Lord,
would you keep them? Keep them by that same mighty
stretched out arm. Malachi 3, verse 17. The Lord
says, and they shall be mine. They're gonna belong to me. They're
mine, saith the Lord of hosts. In the day, When I make up my
jewels, I'll spare them as a man spares his own son. I'm gonna
spare those people because they're mine. The world calls them the
residue. The world calls them the leftovers.
I call them my jewels. They're my jewels. I made them
my jewels and I'm gonna spare them as the one I love the most. Now I ask you, what idol would
ever do such a gracious thing? Not one. Not one. But our God
has. Now if that doesn't make you
want to bow down and worship him, I'm afraid that's because
God hadn't given you a heart of faith and love for him. To
think that God would call somebody like me and choose me. He could
have chose anybody. And he chose a rotten, no good,
low down, no talent, sinner like me, to be one of his jewels that
he would spare. One of the great difficulties
in preaching is there's no words. How do you describe the glory
of God? Well, here's the fourth thing.
This is the way our God describes himself as the God who's angry
with sin. It says here, he retained, at
the end of verse 18, he retaineth not his anger forever. Now God's going to judge sin.
He's going to judge every sin that's ever been committed by
anybody in his creation. He's going to judge it with death.
Psalm 7 verse 11 says, God's angry with the wicked every day. God is not just angry and hate
the sin. He hates the wicked. He's angry
with the wicked every day. Solomon said in Proverbs 11 verse
21, the wicked shall not be unpunished. Oh, God's going to punish the
wicked sooner or later. He's going to punish him now
because God's holy. That's what he must do. He cannot
accept sin. But here our text says, God will
not retain his anger forever. God will not retain his anger
against his people. That residue, that he chose to
be his inheritance, he's not gonna retain his anger with them
forever. Now, they're sinful people. Nobody can deny it. They're
a stiff-necked people. Boy, didn't Moses describe you
and me? We hadn't changed one bit from
the children of Israel ever. So how can God not retain his
anger against our sin forever? How can he do that? Because this
is the good news of the gospel. the father has already poured
out his fury for the sin of his people on his son, our substitute. See, the gospel declares two
things. There's substitution and there's satisfaction. The
father provided a substitute and he got the job done. Satisfaction
for sin has been made by the substitutionary death of Christ,
our savior. Now, satisfaction has been made
The death of Christ satisfied God's justice. It satisfied God's
anger against that sin. So that God says of himself,
in Isaiah 27 verse four, he said, fury's not in me. God's angry with sin every day.
Oh, God's angry with the wicked every day. But now he says, fury's
not in me. It's not that fury's in me and
I'm not showing it to you. He said, there's no fury in me.
There's no fury left in the father against the sin of his people,
because he already poured it out upon his son. And he kept
pouring that fury out until the reason for that fury was gone. The reason for God's fury is
sin. And when all of the sin that
was placed on Christ our substitute was put away by his blood, the
fury of the father went out. There's no more fury left in
God to punish your sin. If Christ died for you. The father
slaughtered his son. So he could smile on you instead
of looking on you with a frown of wrath. Now that is amazing
mercy, amazing mercy. That God would punish his own
son so he could spare the likes of me is amazing. I mean, that is mercy. and that
is wisdom beyond compare. Now I ask you, can you think
of any idol that's done anything like that? No, you can't. When that idol says, all your
sin is against me, then you gotta pay for it. God says, all of
your sin is against me and I'll pay for it by the death of my
son. God's done that for his people. And here's why. The fifth thing
that God describes himself, God delights in mercy. The end of
verse 18 says that God's done all this because he delighteth
in mercy. Now, almighty God, he's holy. He will punish every sin without
exception. Takes pleasure. in showing mercy
to guilty sinners. He takes pleasure in it. God
takes pleasure in showing mercy because sovereign mercy to sinners
glorifies the Son. God said, this is my greatest
glory, my sovereign mercy to sinners. You see, the only way
God could be merciful to sinners, mercy is God not giving us what
we deserve. The only way God could not give
us what we deserve is if he gave Christ our substitute. what we
deserve. Now that glorifies the sacrifice
of Christ. Salvation by the sacrifice of
Christ. That glorifies God's mercy, doesn't
it? It glorifies His love that He
would do that for the likes of us. It glorifies God's wisdom. God has the wisdom. He found
a ransom. He found a way to be both just
and justifier. The death of Christ, the sacrifice
of Christ on the cross where the Father plunged the sword
of justice. into the heart of his fellow.
That glorifies God's justice. Well, you think God's just? Slaughtered
his own son. God's just. God's holy. He is
holy so that he even slaughtered his own son. The son that he
said in whom I am well pleased. The sacrifice of Christ glorifies
every attribute of God. Now that thrills my soul to think
about that God delights to show mercy to sinners. I'm telling
you that thrills my soul. God doesn't show mercy to a sinner
like me grudgingly. He doesn't roll his eyes and
say, well, I'm gonna have God to accept you for the sake of
my son. I mean, this is a thing, I gotta accept you. No, God delights. He delights to show mercy to
sinners. Now don't waste your time ever
talking to me about some idol that can't do that for me. I
only want to hear of a God who delights to show mercy to sinners
because he sacrificed his son so he could give it to them.
That's the only God I ever want to hear of. All right, here's
the sixth thing. The true and living God turns
his people to him. It says in verse 19, he will
turn again. He will have compassion. upon
us, He will. God will turn again. Now that's
true. God will turn to His people.
He'll turn to them in mercy. He'll turn to them in grace.
He'll turn to them in redeeming power. He'll turn to them because
that's what He promised to do. But now be sure to get this.
God's not the one that turned away from us, is He? No, we're
the ones that turned away from God. We turned away from God
But our sin and our iniquity, when we fell in Adam, we're the
ones who left God. God didn't leave us, we left
Him. But God in His mercy and His grace, He's gonna turn His
people. He's gonna turn His people to
come to Him. Look at Psalm 25. When God's people hear of Him, they'll
turn to Him. He'll make sure they do. Psalm 25. Verse 16. Here's David's cry. Turn thee
unto me. Turn to me and have mercy upon
me for I am desolate and afflicted. The Lord's going to do that because
he said he will turn again. I've told you this so many times,
the best way to pray, the best way to ask God for anything is
ask him for what he already promised to do in his word. He promised,
I will turn again. David says, then turn to me.
Turn to me, have mercy upon me. If God turns to me, I won't be
desolate and afflicted anymore, will I? No, I won't. But now
look at Lamentations chapter five. See, first God turns to
his people, but then he turns his people to him. See, this
is never just a one-way street. That God turns to his people.
No, he's going to turn his people to him too. Lamentations 5, verse
21. Turn thou us unto thee. Lord, turn us unto thee, and
we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old. Turn thou us unto thee, and we
shall be turned. Oh, if God reached down and turns
his people to him, we're gonna turn, aren't we? and we're gonna
turn willingly. We're gonna turn away from everything
we used to trust in, and we're gonna turn to trust Christ alone.
Now you name an idol that has the power to turn you to him
and keep you turned to him. But not one. Then seventh, the true and living
God, and here's how he describes himself, as the God who subdues
the iniquity of his people. He will turn again, he will have
compassion upon us, He will subdue our iniquities. Now that word
subdue means to bring into bondage. Now that sounds strange, to bring
our iniquities into bondage, because if you're like me, your
iniquities aren't bound at all. The harder you try to squeeze
them, the more they squeeze out, right? So what does this mean? Subdue, bring our iniquities
into bondage. Well, I believe I can help you
on this. Don't ever fall for this lie that now the Lord's
gonna save you and then you're gonna sin less than you ever
used to sin. That's not true. The believer will desire to sin
less after the Lord saves us, but we're still gonna sin as
much as we ever did. Our sin in that way, our commission
of sins is not subdued in that way, but this is what it means. God will subdue the iniquity
of his people. He's gonna subdue the old man
of sin that's in his people. That old man, he's not gonna
rule anymore. There's a new sheriff in town.
Now that old man will still be powerful. That old man will still
do nothing but sin. That old man will never let up
trying to get you to quit trusting Christ and start trusting your
words and your morality and some good things that you do that
make you look better than your neighbors. The old man will never
quit trying to get you to trust in that. But he won't be able
to make you stop trusting Christ anymore. That's how the Lord
subdues our iniquity. So you who trust Christ, you
know this is true. There was a day when you wanted
to trust Christ and you couldn't. Didn't it? You couldn't. You
heard the gospel. You thought, yeah, that's true. I see that. You've been taught
the scriptures a long time maybe. And you think, yeah, that's true. And I won't go somewhere where
they're not preaching that. That's true. But you didn't believe
Christ. You didn't cast your soul on
Christ, did you? Maybe you kind of trusted in the fact, you know,
I attend a church where the truth is taught. I know the truth.
You kind of trust that like it makes you better than somebody
else. You wanted to trust Christ, but you couldn't. You saw other
people trusting, but there seemed to be joy and comfort for their
souls in trusting, but you couldn't do it. Why? That old man had power to stop
you from trusting Christ. Now you trust him. Now you trust
Christ and that old man tries to get you to not trust him every
day, doesn't he? But you keep trusting him. Why do you keep
trusting him? The Lord subdued your iniquity.
He subdued the power of that old man. You used to not be able
to see Christ in the scripture. You used to not be able to see
what all the fuss is about. Now you see him and you can't
not see him. Now you see Christ everywhere, don't you? You don't
even see him driving down the road looking at his creation,
you know. You used to not be able to see that because the
old man stopped you. Now you see it and you can't
not see it because the Lord subdued your iniquity. He's made it where
that old man can't stop you from trusting Christ anymore. The new man rules in the hearts
of God's people. That's the Lord subduing that
old man. And if the Lord has subdued your
old man like that, I got good news for you. you're gonna keep
trusting Christ till the moment you close your eyes in death.
Because the Lord's not gonna let you go. Isn't that good news? Boy, you better keep serving
that idol all the time till you die, hadn't you? The true and
living God's gonna keep you. He's gonna keep you till the
moment he calls you home, then you're gonna be with him forever.
All right, here's the eighth thing. The true and living God
makes the sin of his people to be no more. He says at the end
of verse 19, and thou will cast all their sins into the depths
of the sea. Now at the time when the Old Testament scriptures,
even the New Testament scriptures were being written, boy, you
lost something in the depths of the sea. It's gone forever,
wasn't it? I mean, you didn't have any scuba gear. You didn't
have these underwater submarines and submersibles. It seems like
they're finding old shipwrecks, you know, from 2,000 years ago.
Every day seems like anymore. But boy, when that ship sunk,
it was gone. It's over. You drop something
over the edge of the boat in the ocean, it's gone, isn't it?
That's what Christ did for his people. The blood of Christ made
the sin of God's elect to not exist anymore. It's not just
as if you've never seen it. If you're in Christ, you have
never seen it. He took your sin away, so it does not exist. And
the Father, is always going to accept you because of what Christ
did in Christ. Even the father doesn't see what's
not there. The father says there's sins and iniquities, why remember
no more? How can God who doesn't ever
forget anything, God who knows everything, not remember our
sins? Because they're gone. There's
nothing to remember. There's nothing to see here.
The blood of Christ took it away. The father will never charge
His people with what's not there. You don't ever have to fear facing
God in judgment if Christ died for you, because even the Father
can't charge you with what's not there. Christ put the sin
of His people away. Now that's salvation in truth.
It lets you live in this life, trusting Christ, and lets you
die in peace, trusting Him. All right, here's the last thing.
True and living God, here's how he describes himself, as the
covenant God. Verse 20, thou wilt perform the
truth, Jacob, in mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our
fathers from the days of old. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I
know this. This drives me every single day. God's gonna save his people.
You're gonna save his people by the preaching of the gospel.
God's gonna feed his people. God's gonna comfort his people
by the preaching of the gospel. God's gonna speak to his people
by the preaching of the gospel. That drives me every day to find
God's message and beg him that he'd send his spirit and enable
me to preach it. Because I know this, God's gonna
save his people. How do I know that? Because that's
what God promised he'd do. That's what God promised he'd
do. God's not gonna save his people because we did something
right. God saves his people because that's what he promised to do.
That was true in Abraham's day, in Isaac's day, in Jacob's day,
in Malachi's day, and it's true today. God is working every event that's
happening in the world today. Every event of providence, everything
that everybody does, he's working it together to fulfill this promise. He's gonna save his people from
their sin. And he's gonna glorify them together with Christ. And I don't care how bad, how
dark the day looks, even in that day, God's saving his people
and bringing them to be with him. Again, there's just no words,
is there? There's just no words but to
bow and worship. Bow and worship. All right, I
hope the Lord bless that to you. Let's bow together. Father, what an amazing thing that by
your mercy and grace, you've made it where sinful men and
women like we are can come before your throne and call you our
father. Cry, have a father. Father, we thank you for your
word. We thank you for this portion of your word that we looked at
this morning. We thank you for salvation by
your grace and mercy and purpose. We thank you that salvation is
all found in the Lord Jesus Christ and not in our doings, nothing
about us. Father, I pray you bless your
word to your glory. Enable your people gathered here
together this morning to see your glory and to fall at your
feet in worship. even if we don't even say a word
to just, because there's no human language to express it, to bow
at your feet in silent awe and wonder and worship you, for you're
worthy of all of our worship. Father, thank you for this blessed
opportunity to one more time hear your gospel. Pray you bless
it to our hearts. For us in Christ's name, for
his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.