What attribute of God do you
suppose is mentioned most often in this book? I'm certain that most people
would immediately say either His holiness or His love. That's not the case. We rejoice
to know that God is love and we rejoice in the declaration
of God's holiness. We delight in God's might, his
power, his wisdom, his justice, his truth. We delight in all
things revealed concerning our God and his glorious sovereignty. There is no character, no attribute
of God that is in any way displeasing to his people. But what single
attribute do you suppose is mentioned more than any other by considerable
measure? His mercy. His mercy. His mercy. My subject this morning
is found in our text in Micah chapter 7, verses 18 through
20. He delighteth in mercy. I have chosen to conclude our
study in Micah this morning rather than Tuesday night, I believe,
by the direction of God's spirit. So you hold your Bibles open
in the book of Micah. And I'll be working my way to
our text in Micah chapter 7, verse 18. The prophecy of Micah deals with
two subjects specifically. It is a lamentation of the woeful
condition of Israel. And it is at the same time a
blessed celebration of God's abundant mercy. Micah was not
ignorant of what was going on around him. He was keenly aware
of the evil in which he lived, keenly aware of the judgment
of God upon his generation. And yet this prophet Micah is
full of expectation and anticipation with regard to the mercy of God
in Christ Jesus, the Lord. The people of God in Micah's
time were passing through a painful, painful trial. The nation of
Israel was plagued with that which appeared to be the incurable
wound of empty, meaningless religious ritualism. The leaders of the
people were men who devised iniquity and worked evil anxiously, eagerly
with both hands. Those priests who should have
been representatives of God were men for hire. The prophets who
should have spoken the word of God without consideration of
any other thing except thus saith the Lord prophesied for money. The politicians, the civil leaders
of the land were all men who stood with their hands out waiting
on a bribe. And yet all that they did, both
the priest and the prophets and the politicians, they did in
the name of the Lord. Look at chapter 3 verse 11. Religious
hucksters were in the majority, and the people followed them
eagerly with confidence. They said, is not the Lord among
us? None evil can come upon us. We're God's people. We're serving
God. The Lord's on our side. The Lord's
with us. Nothing evil is going to happen
to us. The word of the Lord was precious in those days. There
were only a few men, very few men who faithfully spoke for
God and few who heard them and followed them. That caused Micah
great pain and much sorrow. But Micah was a man who knew
God. He wasn't a defeatist prophet.
He wasn't a prophet of gloom. He simply stated facts and truth. And those facts of evil, those
facts of judgment did not cloud his understanding of God's majesty
and God's mercy. He had received a word from the
Lord and with confident joy he spoke of the latter day glory
of this gospel age in which we live. This age in which the majesty
of God and the mercy of God would be revealed in Christ Jesus the
Messiah. Micah spoke to us many things
clearly about Christ and His coming into this world. He spoke
of our Savior's birth, His incarnation, in Micah chapter 5, verse 2,
and named specifically Bethlehem of Judah as the place where Messiah
would come into the world through the virgin's womb. There was
another Bethlehem you'll remember, Bethlehem in Zebulun. So Micah
speaks very distinctly Very precisely, Bethlehem, Judah is the place
where Messiah must come into the world. There's a distinct
distinction, a clear distinction I should say, between the prophets
of God and the prophets that catch the imagination of men
today. I never cease to be amazed at
how befuddled otherwise brilliant men and women come to be when
they start talking about what they speak of as spiritual things
and mystical things. Every few months it appears to
me on one of the Discovery Channels or History Channels, you know,
the channels for brainy folks. Channels that people like to
watch who don't like gun smoke. Brainy folks. They like these
things. And they'll have something about
Nostradamus. I didn't even know who Nostradamus
was until I saw it on there. Nostradamus, I'd heard the name.
Oh, something mysterious about this. Nostradamus prophesied
that sometime in the year 2012, it was going to rain somewhere. Oh, isn't that wonderful? What a joke. What a joke. Men play on themselves, not God's
prophet. Micah said, Messiah, the one
born of a virgin, of whom Isaiah spoke, will come into this world
at Bethlehem, Judah, specifically. And he named it hundreds of years
before it came to pass. Micah, in chapter 5, verse 1,
spoke of our Lord's suffering as our substitute. He said, they
shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. I've
said to you many times, as you read the gospel narratives, particularly
of our Lord's sufferings, it looks like that those Jews and
Romans would pause and say, now, wait a minute, let's go back
and look up in the scriptures here. What was it the Micah said
we're supposed to do to him? Oh, we're supposed to take a
rod and hit him on the cheek. Let's do that now. It looks like
that's what they did. So meticulously. Did our God
rule all things? And does our God rule all things
that the very enemies and murderers of the Lord Jesus fulfilled His
exact word in everything they did? In everything they did. Our God sits on His throne. He always has His way. Nothing
slips by Him. Nothing comes to pass except
for this reason. His mercy endures forever. He opened the Red Sea and brought
Israel across the sea because His mercy endures forever. And He dumped Pharaoh and the
Egyptian army in the sea because His mercy endures forever. He destroyed kings and nations
because His mercy endures forever. And He gave their land as a heritage
for His chosen because His mercy endures forever. Micah also spoke
of the gathering of God's elect from among the Gentiles in his
great mercy in Christ Jesus look at chapter 4 verse 1 in the last
days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of
the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains and
it shall be exalted above the hills and people shall flow unto
it God's gonna set his church in the pinnacle of all things
in the universe and Nations shall flow into it God's elect out
of every nation kindred tribe in tongue come flowing into it
People talk about those days gone by when God added daily
to the church such as should be saved Let me tell you something
mark. God still adds daily to the church such as should be
saved Every day, exactly those he's ordained to save. He constantly
is building his church. What we see, we see. That's not
what God does. He does considerably more than
what these puny eyes see. Read on. Verse two, and many
nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain
of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will
teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths. For the law
shall go forth of Zion, go forth out of Zion, out of this place
where God meets with his people and the word of the Lord, which
is his law, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And then Micah
spoke a true spiritual worship, showing us what God requires
of man, that we might know the righteousness of the Lord. Look
at chapter six. Now remember, he's showing us
what God requires that we might know the righteousness of the
Lord. God's prophet spoke of God's
worship and that which God requires here. He says in the opening
verse here of Micah chapter, opening words of Micah 6, 5,
Oh my people, remember now what Balak of Moab consulted. And what Balaam, the son of Beor,
answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal." And I read that and scratch my
chin and I think, that looks out of place. What has this got
to do with what Michael's talking about? What has this got to do
with us knowing the righteousness of the Lord? What's this got
to do with truly worshiping God? You remember what Balaam said
to Balak? Turn back to Numbers chapter
23. Numbers 23. Let's read it. Numbers
23. Let's look at this for just a
minute. He said, he said, now you remember, you remember what
Balak king of Moab consulted and what Balaam the son of Beor
answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal. Numbers 23 verse 16. And the Lord met Balaam. and
put a word in his mouth. The Lord met this false prophet,
Balaam. Now, normally I wouldn't recommend that you pay any attention
to a false prophet, but Balaam's an exception on this one occasion. How come? Because Balaam has
got a word from God that God's gonna force him to speak. He put a word in his mouth. A
word in his mouth. Just as God spoke by his ass
to him, now God takes Balaam and says, you're gonna speak
my word for me as well. God put a word in his mouth and he said,
go again to Balak and say thus. And when he came to him, behold,
he stood by his burnt offering. Balak, standing by his burnt
offering. Remember, he had hired Balaam to go inquire of the Lord
how he might curse Israel. And so Balaam said, I can't do
that, but since you gave me money, I'll go try. And he did it three
times. And he comes back now, and Balak's
standing by his offering, pretending to worship God, this heathen
idolater. And the princes of Moab were
standing there with him. And Balak said unto him, What
hath the Lord spoken? Now remember, he's talking to
Balak, the king of Moab. That's not running up to some
bum on the street and talking to him. This fella has some power. And Balaam, being the false prophet
that he was, would not normally be inclined to say anything to
cross this mighty man. After all, he had been hired
by him. All right, let's read now. Balaam
says, what has the Lord spoken? What has Jehovah spoken? And
Balaam took up his parable and said, rise up, Balaam, and hear,
hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor. What a way to speak to a king.
Rise up, listen to me, you stinking son of Zippor. That's pretty
well what he said. God is not a man that he should
lie. Remember what God swore to Abraham?
Remember what God swore to his people? Remember his covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? God's not a man that he should
lie. Neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said,
and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall
he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment
to bless and he hath blessed and I cannot reverse it. God
has blessed Israel and hell can't reverse it. God is blessed. God's given his word. God's spoken
his covenant. I can't reverse what God's done.
Now watch this. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. Ronnie doesn't say he does not
behold iniquity in Jacob. That is not what the text says.
Not what it says. What do we read? He hath not. I take that to mean he had not.
Ever. at any time. How can that be? God's Jacob,
God's Israel were redeemed from the foundation of the world,
accepted into beloved before every time began. Now folks argue
all the time I get lamb blasted, I get letters, I don't I don't
tell anybody about most of them, none of you shall, but I get
notes and letters all the time, folks cussing me because I tell
folks God's people were saved from eternity, justified from
eternity, redeemed from eternity. Oh, you can't say that. I didn't. God did. God did. Were we accepted in the beloved?
I presume then we were accepted holy, not unholy. Accepted righteous,
not unrighteous. Accepted perfect, not imperfect.
Accepted justified, not unjustified. Accepted without sin, not with
sin. And here God puts a word in Balaam's
mouth and said, you go tell that sniveling son of Zippor. He hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob. But he don't. Neither hath he
seen perverseness in Israel. Never has. Now wait a minute. Everybody sees iniquity in Jacob. My vision is getting bad, but
just reading what I can read, I see iniquity in Jacob. He was
a tricky scoundrel. He was, he was, he was slicker
than a green pig. I mean, this fella, he was shifty
on all sides. Israel? I can see a lot of perversity
in Israel. All they got to do is read the
Old Testament. It's there all the time. But
it says God hasn't beheld these things. And Jacob and Israel
are talking about David Coleman and Don Fortner. Talking about
God's covenant people. You and me. You won't have to look hard to
find iniquity in Don. Or perverseness in Don. You won't have to look hard.
And I cover all I can. I cover all I can cover. I don't
want anybody to see what I am. But God doesn't. He never has and never will. How come? Because God beholds
his people in his son. That's the only way he looks
on you. Aren't you glad? God beholds his people in his
son. That's the only way he looks
on you. Read on. The Lord his God is with him.
God's with his people. And a shout of a king is among
them. Did Balaam go down to hear kings
shouting among them? No. Did he see Israel acting like
they were a triumphant, victorious people? No. But that's what it's
talking about. A shout of a king is among them.
What do you mean? They're sure to win. They're
dead sure going to prevail. They shall prevail over all their
enemies. They shall triumph at last. The
God of peace shall crush Satan under their feet shortly. You
know, the shout of the king is in their midst. He, Jacob, Israel,
hath as it were the strength of the unicorn. Well, What a
sad thing to read in the Bible. Poor Moses, he really thought
there were such things as flying horses with horns coming out
of there between their eyes. Poor Moses. No. He takes a mythological
creature of great might and speed and says Israel has the strength
of a unicorn. Israel shall prevail over her
enemies. Read on, verse 23. Surely There
is no enchantment against Jacob. Neither is there any divination
against Israel. Sorry, but there ain't one thing
you can do to hurt him. There's not anything you can
do to stop God's purpose. According to this time, it shall
be said of Jacob and of Israel, what hath God wrought? Oh, when
God's finished, everybody's going to look back at what God's done
for Jacob and Israel, and the whole universe is going to stand
back and say, oh my, look what God's done. Look what God's done. Now remember, Micah chapter 6,
Micah is talking to us about righteousness, that we may know
righteousness. He reminds us of what Balaam
said to Balak, that we might know righteousness. All right,
read on. Verse 6, Micah 6, 6, that you
may know the righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come
before the Lord? How can I come to God? Some of
you sitting here today have heard the gospel of God's grace, and
I hope God's taught you enough to understand that you, uh, you can't just come flying in,
expect God to accept you. It ain't going to happen. Sinful, wretched, corrupt, abominable,
doomed, damned, worthless sinners. A preacher, nobody talks to us
this way. Go to church anywhere in town, folks won't talk like
that. I hope that's the reason you're here. Hope that's the
reason you're here. And you ask yourself, aware of
what you are, how can I come before God? How can I bow myself
before the high God? What shall it require? Shall
I come before Him with burnt offerings? Shall I bring God
burnt offerings? With calves of a year old? Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? or with ten thousands
of rivers of oil? Will God be pleased with me making
great sacrifices? Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression? Well, nobody would do that. Read
your history books. Read your history books. Folks
all over the world have done that. Barbarians, heathen, convinced
that the sacrifice of a child would save them from the wrath
of God? Shall I take my firstborn son and sacrifice him to God? Is that how I come to God? What
does God require? Read on. He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require
of thee? That's what I want to know. What is good? That's what
God requires. What does the Lord require of
me? But to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with
thy God. This is what God requires of
you. God requires you to do justly. To love mercy and to walk humbly
with God. Now you get your commentaries
down and read them, me and tend to pass on what they've heard
other men say generation after generation for hundreds of years.
And about everything you're going to read on this passage of scripture
is wrong. Because almost everything you
read on this passage of scripture says that what God is teaching
us is that we are to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with
men. This is what God requires of
you. If you're really His servant, He requires you to deal with
Don and Denise Ranieri justly, with mercy and humility. That is not what the text says.
This is what God requires of you to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. But what is this, to
do justly? is to take sides with God against
yourself, as David did. When Nathan said, thou art the
man, David said, in sin my mother conceived me. He said, I have
done this evil, this great evil in thy sight, that you may be
clear when you judge and just clear and just in your justice.
This is what John taught us to do when he said, if we confess
our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. To do justly is to acknowledge
God. My only hope before you is the
blood and righteousness of your dear son. I don't have any righteousness
and I can't perform it. All I am is seeing. All I can
do is see it. My only hope. is the blood and
righteousness of your son. To love mercy. To love mercy. Now, don't misunderstand me.
Be merciful to one another. Be just in your dealings with
men. But that's not what God requires of you. What God requires
is that you love mercy. Zechariah, when he spoke of the
coming of the Lord Jesus in Luke chapter one, said that he shall
come to perform mercy. Oh, this is what God requires
of you. To love the accomplishment of
mercy by Christ Jesus, who is our mercy. If any man love not
the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be damned. The Lord's coming.
To love mercy is to love the Redeemer, to love mercy is to
trust Christ Jesus, the Lord. And he requires that you walk
humbly with your God. He requires that you walk before
God By faith in Christ, that's all. By faith in Christ. As you therefore have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Little Joe Moore sitting
back there. If I remember correctly, you've
been all your life in religion, teaching you to walk humbly and
do justly, love mercy, is to rigorously rule your life by
law and commandments and ordinances. Am I correct? That's what religion teaches.
That's what religion teaches. Seeks to hold you under its thumb.
No. Confess your sin, trusting the Savior, love the Redeemer,
walk before God with the conscious awareness of who you are and
whose you are, trusting Jesus Christ the Lord. That's what
it is to walk humbly with God. All right, read on. Micah chapter
five, God's prophet. spoke to us about the majesty
of Christ in his glorious exaltation in this gospel day. He says concerning
our Redeemer, the last part of verse four, Micah five, now shall
he be great unto the ends of the earth. Wherefore, God also
hath highly exalted him, given him a name which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Nothing so cheers the hearts
of God's people in times of extremity and difficulty as a sense of
the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ. Spurgeon, when he was a young
man, was preaching to huge, huge crowds in England. separate halls
because they couldn't accommodate them while they were expanding
the metropolitan part of the New Park Street Church. And someone
in the galleries, I'm talking 20,000 people, 23,000 people,
someone in the galleries screamed fire. You can imagine the panic. People stampeding out of the
building, two were killed, several were injured. Spurgeon was devastated. Nineteen years old, I think he
was. He thought he'd never preach again. He just couldn't bring
himself to even think about preaching. Then after a couple of weeks
of great sorrow, prayer, soul-searching, and scripture-searching, and
God-seeking, he ran across that passage in Philippians chapter
2, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him. And the next Sunday
he came to the pulpit and preached from it. The title of his message
is Christ Exalted. You ought to get it and read
it. It's a good sermon. Good sermon. This is what sustained
him. This is what strengthened him.
Children of God, let this be your joy and your strength. Now
shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. Come what may,
he shall be great unto the ends of the earth. Now, though the
people were turned aside to vanity, Micah's heart was fixed upon
God's promise deliverer. He said in chapter 7, verse 7,
Therefore will I look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God
of my salvation, my God will hear me. With the eye of faith
fixed upon Christ, believing the promises of God, Micah's
heart, as he comes to the end of this prophecy, begins to just
bubble up with delight. joy and anticipation and he breaks
out in a song of jubilant exultation. Watch this, verse 18. Who is
a God like unto thee? Oh, there's no God like our God.
No God like our God 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 mercy to Abraham,
which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. He delighteth in mercy. What a word. He delighteth in
mercy. Don if there's anywhere we're
at to misjudge God is right here. More likely to misjudge God here
than in any other aspect of his being. We Think about God's mercy. We talk about God's mercy and
we we seem to think we act like our thoughts are that with regard
to the exercise of mercy, God is altogether such in one as
we are ourselves. And not really inclined to be
merciful. Not really inclined to. If you
if you want mercy, you you got to oh, you got to go through
this and you got to do that. No, God delights in mercy. God
is more anxious and willing to forgive sin than you are to be
forgiven of sin. I said that on purpose. God's
more anxious and willing, Joe, to forgive your sin than you
are to confess your sin. He's anxious to forgive. He's
anxious to be merciful. God laughs at being merciful. God smiles and rejoices and delights
in mercy. He delights in mercy. And then
Micah tells us that these things God will do because He delights
in mercy. Oh, fallen sons and daughters
of Adam, clap your hands and rejoice. the God of heaven, God
in whose hands we are, God against whom we have sinned, God whose
wrath we fully deserve, God who is just and true in all things,
delights in mercy. He delights in mercy. God delights
to forgive sin. God delights to save sinners.
God delights in mercy. Therefore, we read, He pardoneth
iniquity. He pardoneth iniquity because
he delights in mercy. To pardon, this word means to
lift up and take away. Lift up and take away. As Aaron did with the scapegoat
in type. He took the sins of the people.
and confessed them, holding his hand on the scapegoat, pressing
hard down on the scapegoat. And the scapegoat is carried
in the hands of a fit man out, out, out, out, until he's no
longer seen, and there released in the wilderness, never to be
seen again. So the Lord Jesus Christ, our
true scapegoat, the Lord God lifted up our sins and placed
them on him. making him who knew no sin to
be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. And he took it away. He took it away. But the prophet
uses the present tense. He pardoneth iniquity. Don, don't
you know that we were pardoned from eternity? I think I made
that pretty clear a minute ago, didn't I? Don't you know that
we were pardoned when Christ died? This will surprise you
folks, but I am aware of that. Yes, I'm fully aware of that.
Well, how can you say he pardoneth iniquity? He does so in the sweet
experience of his grace, day by day, hour by hour, moment
by moment. speaking peace to our souls,
sprinkling our hearts afresh with the blood of Christ, so
that as often as you come before God with the fresh sense of guilt
and sin oppressed, and you confess your sin, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sin. I confess my sin all the time. You know what God does with it
all the time? Everybody have any idea what God does with it
all the time? All the time. But I go through this every day. You know what God does every
day? He lifts it up. Takes it away. Lifts it up off your conscience
and takes it away. John Gill said, sin is passing by the law. Pardon is passing by the transgression. God lifts it up, takes it away,
and passes by it as though he didn't see it. He don't. Because
he delighteth in mercy, he passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage. He passes by it. Never charging
sin to sinners for whom Christ has died. Never charging sin
to sinners for whom Christ has died. Mr. Spurgeon said, we will never suffer any loss
for having sinned. So thorough is God's forgiveness
of sin. We will never suffer any loss
for having sinned. So thorough is God's forgiveness
of sin. But preacher, we lost all natural
righteousness in Adam's fall. Yes. We lost life in Adam's fall. Yes. We came under the curse
in Adam's fall. Yes. We bring pain and sorrow
and suffering on ourselves in this world because of sin. Yes.
Yes. Yes. A thousand times. Yes. But
bless God. When God's done, when God's done,
when God's done, when he's finished everything, we shall suffer no
loss. We shall be in no way worse off
for having sinned. But through the rich forgiveness
of sin by Christ Jesus the Lord, we shall know God as we could
not otherwise have known him. But you don't. Because he delighteth in mercy,
he retaineth not his anger forever. Read the history of Israel. God
gave it for a reason. Psalm 78, read the psalm over
and over again. They sinned, God forgave. They
sinned, God forgave. They sinned, God forgave. They
sinned, God forgave. They provoked him, God forgave.
They provoked him, God forgave. They provoked him, God forgave.
Because he remembered they were but flesh, a wind that passeth
away. He knoweth our frame, Rex, he
remembers with dust. It's almost as if, I use the
word almost as a qualifier. It is almost as if God looked
upon his fallen people, saved by his grace, and says, I don't expect any
more from dust except what I see from you. You take a child severely
retarded, severely handicapped, and the child sits in a wheelchair
and screams and drools and slobbers and messes himself. You don't
get mad at a child. That darling child that you love,
he can't help it. That's just the way he is. And
Bobby Estes can't help it. That's just the way he is. That's just the way he is. He
can't help it. So you're excusing sin? No, no. I'm just telling you God's so
merciful that that's exactly how he deals with our sins. He looks upon our transgressions
not as crimes to be punished, but as diseases to be healed.
He has borne all our sicknesses. The scripture says that. Aren't
you glad? Because he delights in mercy. He retained not his anger forever.
But he will turn again. He will have compassion upon
us. Oh, he hides his face. He chastens
us. He corrects us. deals with us as a father, loving
his children, but he will turn again. He will have compassion
on us because his mercies fail not. They're new every morning.
Because he delights in mercy, he will subdue our iniquities. By blood and by power, by the
blood of Christ and by the power of his grace, he subdues our
iniquities. Claus, we can't. We try, but
we can't. Do you not find that true to
your experience? I did that before I even thought.
No, you didn't. You thought about it, tried to stop it, still couldn't
stop. Is that true, Bill? It took me by surprise. It did
take you by surprise. The only thing to your best surprise
is being confronted with the fact that you can't subdue your
evil nature. You can't subdue your iniquities. You can't do it. Peter, before
the rooster crows twice tomorrow, you're going to deny me three
times. And I'm going to have the rooster crow once before
you deny me the third time just to remind you, you can't stop. You're just frail dust. Well, what keeps us from acting
like hell all the time? What keeps us from fighting and
clawing one of those eyes out all the time? What keeps us from
envy and jealousy and strife all the time? What does it? Oh, bless God. He shall subdue
our iniquities. He holds them down, and he rules
them as only he can. And thou wilt cast their sins
into the depths of the sea. Cast them behind his back into
the depths of the sea. I've told you this story many
times, but to bear repetition. A man sitting on a train back many
years ago, just about the time Darwin came out with his nonsense.
He was reading one of those geological magazines on a long trip in England. He had it open for a while and
looked at the page. He said, oh, amen. I thought I sat beside him, thought
it was a little strange. He read the same thing over again.
Oh, hallelujah. I thought I was getting a little
concerned, sat beside him. He read a little bit more, he
said, thank God. Finally, this fellow said, he
couldn't take it anymore, he said, what are you reading? He said,
I was just reading this geological magazine here. And it makes you
talk like that? What are you reading? He said,
I read here where the scientists tell us that the deepest part
of the sea in all the world is seven miles deep. And God's prophet
Micah tells me that God has cast my sins into the depths of the
sea. Oh, bless God. He remembers them
not again forever. Because he delights in mercy. Micah says, thou wilt perform
the truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham. What's he talking
about? He said God will perform his covenant. God will do what
he said he would do. God will be their God. God will
make them his people. God will write his law on their
hearts. He'll give them a new nature.
God will forgive their transgressions and they shall know me being
taught of God. And I will give them one heart
and one way and they shall not depart from me because he delights
in mercy. Because he delights in mercy.
He will perform the truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which
thou has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. Oh, preacher. I can't tell you
how I'd like to have that mercy, that mercy that God gives, that
mercy by which God saves sinners. How can I have it? sue for mercy at the feet of
the Savior. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And I'm here to tell you that
God Almighty never turned away a poor sinner suing for mercy
to the blood and righteousness of his son. God, be propitious
to me. God, look on your son's sacrifice
and forgive all my sin. God, be merciful to me. How can I come to it? Just like
you are, just like you are. Charlotte Elliott was instructed
by Caesar Milan visiting her mother and father one day, she
was miserable, wretch. And she said finally to him,
well, what shall I do then? He said, come to Christ. She said, come to him just like
I am. He said, just like you are. And she did. And 14 years
later, she wrote perhaps one of the best known hymns in English
language. Just as I am without one plea, but that thou bidst
me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. Come to Christ just like
you are, needing mercy. And you'll go home finding God
merciful, because he delights in mercy. Amen.