Dennis Tuuri

Covenant Church should be a day of great rejoicing in the finished work of Jesus Christ and the implications of that in all that we are and all that we do and all that we say. Let’s stand as we come before God with the reading of his word with prayer and with singing. Please stand.

After this I looked and behold a door was open in heaven and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me, which said, “Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

And round about the throne were four and 20 seats. And upon the seats I saw four and 20 elders sitting, clothed the white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass, like a crystal, and the midst of the throne and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before behind.

And the four first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts, each of them had six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.”

And when those beasts have given glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and 20 elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for calling us into your very presence this day to give you special worship. We thank you, Father, for the call to worship and we thank you for this scripture which describes your throne to us. Help us, Lord God, to understand that our response to you should be one of throwing down whatever we have at your feet and declaring that you are worthy.

We thank you, Lord God, for the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the earth for sinners. We thank you, Father, for reminding us that as we come before your presence, we need that shed blood and we need his imputed righteousness to stand in your presence. For you are holy, holy, holy.

We thank you, Lord God, for this. We come before you for rejoicing for the redemption that has been effected by Jesus Christ. And we thank you, Lord God, that the end result of all this is that we might and indeed eventually all the created order might sing forth your praises now and forever. To that end, we pray for the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon this day in this service in Jesus name. Amen.

Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord. Praise him, oh ye servants of the Lord, ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God, praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises unto his name, for it is blessed. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Thy moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.

Be ye not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice ye righteous.

Micah 7:18-20, the last three verses of the book of Micah. Micah 7, verses 18-20: “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.”

This morning our series of sermons through the book of Micah continues, and we said that the last few weeks chapter 7 is sort of a summary of the rest of the book and these last three verses really summarize the intent and the content of that book for us. So it’s a very important three-verse section. This three-verse section begins with a brief summary statement in verse 18a: “Who is a God like unto thee?” Many commentators have pointed out that there is perhaps here a play on the name of Micah himself, which means “Who is like Yahweh?”

And so Micah’s name is sort of summarized here for the whole book. “Who is a God like unto thee?” And of course, Micah has given us a revelation of who God is through these seven chapters. And he summarizes all that for us now with this summary statement of three verses. And those three verses then are an exposition of “Who is a God like unto thee?” Who is this God we worship who has given us this revelation of the book of Micah?

And so I think that what we have here then—the way we’ll treat this—is that verse 18a, the first part of verse 18, as a summary statement. And then we’ve got three points to our outline for those three verses that remain in verses 18, 19, and 20.

God tells us in this section that he is a pardoning God of covenantal mercy. He tells us that he is a delivering God of covenantal love. And he tells us that he is an assuring God of covenantal faithfulness. So in each of these three verses, we have—and we will focus this morning on—an action of God that proceeds out of an attribute of God. God is merciful and so he pardons us. God loves us and so he delivers us. And God is faithful and so he assures us of that faithfulness.

Now this is stated pretty explicitly in the first two verses. The third verse—the action is more of an implied action, the action of assurance rather than directly stated. But still I think that is clearly taught in that third verse, and you’ll see that when we get to it.

The first verse, 18, describes who is this God that we’ve been talking about for the last few months—who is this God that we come together to worship on Sunday? And it tells us immediately here that God is a God of mercy and he pardons us.

First, the action is described: “Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?” The actions of God here described are those of pardon and passing by. Passing by, I think, has an implicit reference to the Passover and brings that to mind, of course—that God passes over sins and transgressions of his people and he pardons those people.

Now, the word for pardon here is the Hebrew word *nasa*. And this is a word that’s used frequently in the Old Testament and it’s used in three specific ways. First, this word is used to indicate something being lifted up. Lifted up. And you might remember from that word *nasa*—it sounds familiar to a word we talked about when we went through the officers of the Old Testament: the *nesiim*, the princes of the congregation who would meet together.

Remember, I took my girls down to Salem a couple weeks ago to the capital, and you know, you’ve got two—it’s a bicameral legislature down there—you’ve got a house and the senate. And we’ve talked before about how in Numbers 10, Moses was instructed to make two trumpets, and when he blew one of the trumpets, one set would assemble. And when he blew both trumpets together, then the whole congregation would assemble. And that was like their representatives and their senators. And the senators in that section were selected by tribes, not by individual vote, the way that our senators are selected.

I could talk about that for a long time, but I’m just trying to bring to your mind there’s a connection between this verb “to lift up” and those princes who were the senators, as it were, that were called together by Moses in a legislative assembly when necessary to consider matters. And the connection there—some commentators have pointed out that the connection is that those princes of Numbers 1 are again elected by their tribes.

And so people would lift up their hands. Additionally, of course, they’re lifted up to this position. The second sense of the way this word is used in the Old Testament though is to bear or to carry. Okay, to carry something or to bear it. And the third way it’s used is to take something away. And all these are certainly related.

Now, it’s in this third sense specifically, I think, that the word is here used. And that’s why the word is translated “pardon” in the correct context here in reference to our iniquity. God is a God who carries, lifts up, takes away those iniquities from his people. God pardons and passes over those sins. And this is clearly taught, of course, in both the Old and New Testaments.

Since sins result in God’s wrath and anger against them, he will not—we are told here—be angry forever because he delights in mercy. Now, in Exodus 34:7, as well as in countless other passages of the scriptures, the forgiveness of sins is said to be a characteristic of God. And so this is part of who God is, this action of forgiveness of sins.

In Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2, we have a very clear picture of that. We read in that Psalm of David, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” And it’s in that context that Psalm 32 goes on to say that when I kept silent, my sins were heavy upon me day and night—God’s hand was heavy upon me—and it caused David to recognize his sin and acknowledge his sin.

In verse 5 of Psalm 32, unto him. And then God forgives that sin. David says, “I’ll confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” And so God deals in a pardoning way with sinners.

Now, what is clearly stated then here in summarizing the book of Micah is that God brings awareness of sin, which is what most of Micah is all about—judgment and bringing the awareness of sin—that man then might come to repentance for that sin and forgiveness. God’s judgments are put by Micah into the context of the pardon of sins that comes to those who receive those judgments and by God’s grace respond contritely to his chastening hand.

Now, this is covenantal mercy. Of course, it’s to his heritage. It’s to the remnant. But the point of this is that for those people—the whole context of all the judgments in the book of Micah so far—brings an awareness to people of their sin that they might come to repentance and God then might demonstrate his mercy to them.

Now, I said that there were three ways in which this particular verb was used, and the way the idea of carrying away the sin is what’s talked about explicitly here. But I think implicitly, too, these other two senses of the word are also at play. The idea of “to bear” or “to carry” is, for instance, used very normally in the Old Testament of sin. Cain said that the punishment for his sin was too much for him to bear, and it’s the same word here that’s used here to talk about pardon. In that case, Cain said it was too much for him to carry himself.

And of course, if we were to take that in its most obvious sense, the punishment for sin is too much for any of us to bear or to carry. And that is why God has a covenant mediator, Jesus Christ, who bears those sins for us.

Isaiah 53—if you could turn there for just a minute. Isaiah 53 speaks of Christ bearing our sins, carrying our sins. Isaiah 53, verse 10, it says that the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. Verse 11: “As a result of the anguish of his soul”—talking about Jesus, of course, the Messiah, the anointed one—”he will see that and be satisfied. God will—his anger will cease. He’ll be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities.” And so Jesus is called the sin bearer of the people that God is saving here. He bears their iniquities, and as a result of him bearing those iniquities, then those iniquities are taken away by God and thrust aside from us and we are pardoned and find forgiveness in God.

Now in verse 4 we read, “Surely our griefs he himself”—in Isaiah 53, rather in verse 4 we read, “Surely our grief he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him smitten, stricken of God and afflicted.” And so the idea of the second sense of “to bear” something is essential—that the Messiah comes to bear our sins that God then might take those sins and give us pardon for them.

And as a result of those two senses of the term “bear” here, or “lift” or “be carried away,” we are then lifted up. David talks about being lifted up out of the miry pit, out of the despair and out of death and out of judgment from God. And that lifting up of us—talked about in that same sense of this word here—is a direct result of God sending his covenant mediator Jesus to bear our sins so that we men might have our sins taken away and pardoned and forgiven by God. And so that’s the action that is first described in this first verse: God’s pardoning, passing over on the basis of Christ bearing those sins and then lifting us out of the judgment that God brings upon us.

That’s the action. And that action is based upon an attribute of God. And the attribute specifically said in verse 18 to result in this specific action of pardon and passing over is that God delights in mercy. He does these things. He “retaineth not his anger forever” in verse 18, last clause of that verse, “because he delighteth in mercy.”

And the word “mercy” here is the one we’ve been talking about a lot over the last few months. It’s the Hebrew word *hesed*. It means mercy or faithfulness. Covenantal faithfulness in the context of demonstrating kindness to those people that God decides to demonstrate that kindness and mercy to. And it is here the action of God—or rather the attribute of God—is this mercy. And in fact, God has an attribute of delighting in mercy. He delights in mercy.

The word for “delight” here has the sense of pliableness or molding something—to be bent toward or made pliable to a thing. One example that I thought of was if you have a plant, for instance, that needs sunlight, there’s only one place the sun can be found for that plant. The plant will bend itself toward that sunlight and it will move with that sunlight as it seeks to get in the rays of the sun. The plant becomes pliable to that condition of sun. And God is said to have an attribute of being bent or absolutely intent on demonstrating his kindness to the created order.

And so God has that same sense of delighting in mercy or loving kindness that the plant has of delighting in light. Now, that is the motive for the pardon that we’ve been talking about. God does this. He pardons us so that his loving kindness, his mercy, may be demonstrated to us and to the created order.

Now, notice it’s not stated in this verse that he delights in the people whom he shows that mercy to. God is the measure of all things, and his attributes, not man. And so we have here an attribute of God singled out as why he affects all this stuff. The ultimate reason is not that all man might experience this, but rather that God might demonstrate his delighting in mercy to his created order. And so man is not the measure—God and his attribute are—and that leads then to the pardon of sin.

Now it’s interesting that this idea of pliableness on the part of God, or willingness or desiring, delighting to show mercy, is sort of contrasted with the root word for the iniquity that are spoken of earlier in the verse. It says that he pardons iniquity, and the word for iniquity there has the sense of being bent or crooked in a perverse fashion. So we’re described in this passage as being bent or crooked in a perverse fashion. God, on the other hand, is described as being pliable, molding himself toward his loving kindness and exhibiting that to the created order.

And so there’s a contrast then between God and us. God takes a crooked sinner and with an exercise of his loving kindness makes us then the recipients of that quality that is essentially his, and we then are called to exercise that same *hesed* toward others. Remember, we said that one of the three qualities that are required by God as you come before his throne is to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. And so we exhibit this characteristic because we’ve received it from God. And he takes a bent, crooked sinner then and makes us also to delight in mercy and delight in showing people kindness and loving kindness and tenderness toward them.

God sheds his love in our heart through the Holy Spirit that he has given to us, and we then demonstrate and exhibit and mirror, as it were, God’s mercy, or *hesed*, to a viewing world.

This correlation of God’s mercy and his forgiveness of sins is an Old Covenant formula occurring, for instance, in Exodus 34:6 and 7. Now in Exodus 34:6 and 7 we have kind of a summary statement of the person of God. I’ll read it. It says that the Lord passed by before him—that is, Moses—and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And they will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children’s children, under the third and fourth generations.”

And this is the revelation of God to Moses. And what it does in these two verses—it describes God’s attributes. And in fact, the Jewish tradition called this passage the description of the 13 attributes of God. We won’t go through the whole list of 13, but suffice it to say that in this list, this same characteristic of God’s being desiring to show *hesed*, or mercy, unto thousands of people is here linked to his salvation.

And so this linkage that we read in Micah 7, verse 18, of chapter 7, really goes back to this list of God’s characteristics in Exodus 34:6 and 7. John Coenberger comments on this verse in his commentary on the books of Jonah and Nahum. And what he demonstrates in that commentary in one of the appendices is that those two books really are an exposition of Exodus 34:6 and 7 and the 13 attributes of God as applied to their contemporary situation.

And so when we sing, for instance, as we sang a little bit ago in our prayer for illumination, that God would reveal himself—you see, the scriptures do just that. And I think Coenberger is correct. In any event, Exodus 34:6 and 7 shows God’s loving kindness, his mercy in correlation to why he saves people. He saves us so that he might demonstrate that he delights in mercy and because it is one of his attributes, not ultimately man being the measure, but God’s attribute being the measure.

Okay. Secondly, then we also have a delivering God of covenantal love. Verse 19 we read, “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.”

Now, this verse starts with an action: “He’ll turn again.” But then it goes on to talk about an attribute of God and then gets into a more detailed description of the action, subduing our sins and casting the sins into the depths of the sea. So we’ll start with the attribute first in this section and then move to the action.

The attribute of God that is the motivating factor for his actions in this verse is his compassion. Now the root word for this word translated here “compassion” refers to a deep abiding love, usually of a superior for an inferior, and normally rooted in some sort of natural bond. Now in terms of this passage, the natural bond doesn’t exist. The bond that God has with us is by way of covenant. And so again here the idea of covenant love, deep love, affection for a superior to an inferior, is described by this word.

Now it also is variously translated as I said, loving deeply, having mercy, or to be compassionate. And it occurs many times in the Old Testament in different forms. Some examples from the Old Testament help us to understand what this term means. In Isaiah 49:15, the term is used to describe a mother’s love for a nursing child. It says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child or have no compassion”—that’s the word we’re talking about here—”on the son of her womb?” And actually the implicit action is normally “no,” but occasionally she will. But God will never fail to have compassion upon his elect community.

In Psalm 103, the term refers to a father’s love. In verse 13 of Psalm 103, I said Proverbs—I meant Psalms. Psalm 103:13 says, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” And that word translated “pity” there is this word for deep love or compassion. Again, a superior for an inferior and through some sort of bond being demonstrated in it.

In Isaiah 13, on the contrary side, we have an example of people that don’t love in this sense. The Medes are described in Isaiah 13 as going to be used by God to judge the Babylonians. And the Medes are described specifically as those who will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, nor will their eye pity children. And so when you want to describe a really bad set of guys in the Old Testament, God says they won’t have this characteristic even for small children, for the fruit of their own womb.

Now we have those same two examples before us today in contemporary history. The Soviet Union has recently pulled out of Afghanistan in the last month or so. And you may or may not know this, but they’ve left behind thousands of mines and fragmentary grenades and whatnot that will probably be maiming and killing children for a decade at least in Afghanistan. They have no concern or compassion on an official level for children, and they’re very much in that way like these pagan nations that God describes in the Old Testament who are really bad people.

On the other hand, and as a positive example of this characteristic in the world around us, I saw a rather sad account in the news, I believe yesterday, where there’s two women who have kids that have an incurable disease that need some sort of organ transplant. And they’re hoping that the legislature in Salem will provide money for that transplant. And it’s a matter of tough public policy which might have differing opinions on, but the fact that a mother would have a child who is dying of an incurable disease, knowing that it isn’t really incurable, that it could be cured if there was enough money forthcoming to do a transplant, is enough to pull the strings on anybody’s heart.

And that kind of concern and love for one’s child that is demonstrated in these news accounts of these mothers for their children is what the word—is really the same essential characteristic that’s here described about God. That’s the attribute that God has for us as a mother would have for her nursing child, but even stronger than that, of course, because we in our concern for our children—our love is bent and twisted—whereas God’s love is pure and lovely.

So the attribute is one of deep love or compassion that leads to an action. And the action here that is spoken of in relationship to that attribute of God is that he then subdues our iniquities. “And thou shalt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”

Now the term for “subdued” here in subduing iniquities is used only 13 times in the Old Testament. And 11 of those 13 occurrences, it refers to some sort of enemy or other people. For instance, when the people of Israel go into the promised land, the land is subdued before them. And so the enemies of the promised land are subdued. In Nehemiah’s time, the ungodly covenant people were subduing other people through debt, bringing them into bondage through debt. And so subduing other people as if they were enemies. And that’s 11 of the 13 occurrences.

But the other two occurrences, one is here. And the other one is in Genesis 1:28. And you’ll probably remember that in Genesis 1:28, we are told as God’s creation is and as God’s image bearers to be fruitful, to multiply, to replenish the earth, to subdue it, and to have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, etc.

And so the idea of subduing the earth in Genesis 1:28 is the 13th occurrence of this word. And that tells us something about the way the word is used throughout the rest of the scriptures. Now the original root word of this Hebrew word is related to an Akkadian word which meant to trample or to tread down, to knead, stamp, or press. Okay. And so the meaning then is to make to serve by force, usually being implied with the word as well. The enemies of Israel will be made to serve them. The land is subdued before them. The ungodly covenant people of Nehemiah make their brothers to serve them, brings them into bondage, subdues them through debt. And the earth must be made to serve man as well.

Apparently indicating some sort of state in the created order that will make that a difficult thing to accomplish for man. Perhaps anticipating the Fall. I’m not sure. Now, that Hebrew word that’s related then to this trampling underfoot or whatever, the actual Hebrew word is *kash*. And I only bring that up because I know an old expression, and my wife tells me I’m the only one she’s ever heard use it, that you “put the kosh” on something. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that. Harry, you might be able to tell me what the origin of that is. But I don’t know what the origin is. I’ve heard it.

Do you know what the origin is though? No, I don’t know either. And it probably isn’t this Hebrew word, but it is a good way to keep the picture in mind of what God does here. When he subdues our sins, he puts the kosher on them, and the actual Hebrew word is *kash*. And so it’s a way to keep that in mind.

In a somewhat circular reference to try to give you the idea of this again—John Oswald writing in the *Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament*—says that man’s subduing of the earth is constantly done in a perverted or twisted fashion. Oswald states that man does this subduing task with a fierce and destructive delight. Quoting from Oswald, he said, “Try as we might we cannot subdue this. But it can be subdued.” And this is the promise of Micah 7:19. And he actually has the reference a bit wrong. It’s in 7:19. But in any event, he’s saying that this tendency to subdue the earth in a wicked fashion is itself subdued. And that’s what Micah 7:19 is talking about.

Now, before we talk about the specific application of this, let’s look at the parallel action that’s described here. There’s the subduing of sins, and then it also says that “they will be cast into the depths of the sea.” And this is another very interesting expression that God uses in reference to our sins, because, as with the word “subduing,” it seems to be treating sins as an enemy. The word translated “depths” is used only 12 times in the Old Testament, most frequently in the Psalter where we have five occurrences, most of them speaking of the depth of despair, death, judgment, etc.

Again, the Pentateuch references though help us to understand how these words are used then by the prophets and the psalmist and whatnot. And the reference is found in Exodus 15:5 where Pharaoh and his armies are covered with the depths and they sink then into the bottom as a stone. This is talking about, of course, when God delivers his people through the sea that is dried up and they go through. Pharaoh and his armies come in and they’re covered with the depths.

So the image used here in Micah 7:19 is one of God’s judgment on enemies and then later the Psalter used that same image to describe the judgment that we suffer when we sin before God as being found in the depths. So the picture here used then is one of the casting aside of an enemy primarily.

Now our Lord used the same picture originally from Exodus, and he also applied it in his day and age in Matthew 18. We’re told there that if anybody causes one of the little ones to stumble, it’d be better for them to have a millstone wrapped around their neck and be thrown into these deep sea as an enemy, you see. And so, by the way, that’s a very serious warning, of course, to stay—because in the context that meant if you caused another covenant member to stumble, and certainly one of the children of the covenant community to stumble, that’s your plight is worse than that even. But in any event, that’s an image that’s used throughout the scriptures.

So both of the terms used—the subduing of one’s enemies, bringing them to serve you, and the casting of enemies into the depths like Pharaoh and his armies—are here used in relationship to sin to speak of deliverance from sin as an enemy. In other words, we’re delivered from bondage to sin.

Now Henderson in his commentary on this passage writes the following. “There is no ground,” he says, “for rejecting the radical idea of trampling underfoot one’s enemies. Sin”—talking about this passage now—”must ever be regarded as hostile to man. And it is not only contrary to his interests, but it powerfully opposes and combats the moral principles of his nature and the higher principles implanted by grace. And but for the counteracting energy of divine influence must prove victorious. Without the subjugation of evil propensities, pardon would not be a blessing.”

Okay? Now, I don’t quarrel about the fact that the scriptures plainly teach in other passages, and there may be an implication of this here, that God takes our sin and, having given us pardon for it, it’s treated as far away from us as the east is from the west and put in the depths of the ocean, etc. That’s certainly a valid use of the term in scripture also. But here I’m saying, because of the parallel occurrences and the Pentateuch references to those occurrences, I think we clearly have a picture of sin as an enemy, as an enemy of us, that would subdue us. And God then subdues that enemy for us and brings us to victory.

God’s deep love for his children then moves him to remove the bondage to sin that so easily besets them. Okay. Now, we used the example for the attribute that’s producing this action—God’s deep love producing the action of God’s subduing, or pardoning, or—not pardoning, but—subduing the enemy, delivering us from the enemy of sin. The illustration of the attribute was the woman who had the child with an incurable disease and needed a transplant for the child to live.

I suppose that to make this very specific here to what we’re talking about—there may be today a way to stop some child with a very bad illness that has very much deteriorated their physical strength, etc., and caused them to go to death. It may be possible to stop that child from dying, but to leave that child in the state in which he would be before he was made well again. You see what I’m saying? You may be able to have a transplant, but maybe it won’t do any good for the rest of the child’s development or growth back to health. It’ll just stop the fact that he would die.

And in a way that’s what’s being talked about here. Pardon for sins isn’t the only thing that Micah says his book talks about. His book talks about then the removal of the bondage of sin. Having removed the penalty of sin in the first portion of verse 18—penalty for sin being pardoned by God because of the work of the covenant mediator—he now then removes us from the power of sin over us. Okay? He doesn’t just deliver us in the Passover. He brings us out of Egypt and he brings us into obedience in the promised land through the subduing of the enemy that we have, which is sin. Okay?

Frequently, this action—and I think this is implicit of course through the book of Micah—this action of removing us from the bondage to sin that we have requires some pretty radical surgery. To use another medical term, what can you do for a patient for instance whose health is so deteriorated that they no longer are even cognizant of the effects of the disease upon their lives? They begin to see the diseased state as being normal. And so today in our world, normality is seen as the sinful state. But God doesn’t leave us in that static position. Rather, the judgments that have been talked about in the entire book of Micah are to the effect that we might understand our bondage to sin, that we might be prepared for deliverance from that sin by God, and released into full obedience to him.

And so I guess what I’m saying is—if you don’t look at the judgments of Micah, you know, you hear about how people need a 2×4 sometimes to get their attention on a particular sin. And in terms of Micah, with the description of the heavens melting and everything, I guess we’re talking about atom bomb time instead of just 2×4 time. And frequently in our lives individually and in the lives of nations, God uses big 2x4s, atom bombs, massive judgments to bring people to remembrance of their sin and to get them to realize they’re not in a normal state before him. That there’s a much better state he wants to bring us into in terms of his covenant community. Okay?

Sermons are often preached in vain until the pigeons come home to roost. And I’ve heard it said this way—there is an end process here. There’s a judgment that takes place. And sermons are frequently preached in preparation for you as you reach a time in which God is going to bring you into deliverance from a specific bondage to a sin. And God then will cause the pigeons to come home to roost. You’ll be made aware in a very radical sense by God of that sin in your life. And then the teaching of the word, God’s word, relative to what we’re talking about this morning is very applicable in your life.

We walk down the road most of the time seemingly indifferent to sin in our lives. But God—and again, this is because of his great deep love for us—brings us smack dab into a brick wall, and you bump your nose and you hurt your head and you say, “What’s going on here? Why are all these bad things happening in my life? Doesn’t God love me anymore?” But you see, what Micah says is that God’s deep love causes him to remove us from bondage to sin. And we may not recognize it, but often we’re walking down the road in bondage to sin in our life. And God brings us to an awareness that he might deliver us from it, and that sin would no longer be hushed up in our lives or ignored or rationalized away.

The point of this verse then is that judgment—and we’ve talked a lot about judgment in the book of Micah—is the necessary precursor to freedom from bondage for the Christian. Judgment brings us face to face with our existing bondage and prepares us then for God’s deliverance. God pities us as we do our own children. Now, we said earlier more perfectly than we pity our own children and love them at his deep love for them. And because of that deep love, then he is motivated to this action of releasing us from bondage.

Now, it’s interesting. We’re also called to have this characteristic toward one another in the New Testament. We’re supposed to have bowels of compassion, one for another. And it’s a very—it’s a synonym really for this word used in the Old Testament. And we’re supposed to have that kind of deep love and concern for one another. And note here that it’s not a deep love and concern that allows people, that indulges them. It’s not a deep love and concern that ignores them. If we know people in the context of our family or our extended covenant family that have problems, we don’t indulge in those problems. We don’t ignore those problems, but neither do we come down and be real sharp with them. We should be motivated by a real concern and deep-seated love for them the way that God is to help them to overcome that bondage. So that’s the sort of thing that’s talked about here. And we then image God again and his attribute in response as we move into these actions of helping people and helping ourselves to be removed from the bondage to sin.

Now another application of this in your life is, as I said earlier, if you feel like you’re going through some problems right now and maybe God doesn’t love you, etc., and somebody else may be in a position where they seem to be receiving a great deal of love and compassion from God, don’t be fooled by that. Micah says quite clearly that the judgments of God are to the end because of this great deep love he has for us as a mother for her nursing child, etc., that he brings us away from bondage to sin by causing us to come into awareness of that bondage and preparing us for deliverance. Okay.

So God is a God of loving kindness and mercy, and that causes him to pardon sins and demonstrate that attribute to the world and to us. And God is a God of great deep love and pity and bowels of compassion for his covenant people. And that leads him then to release those people from the bondage to sin.

And then finally, God is a God of covenantal faithfulness. And that brings him to assure his people that they will indeed be answered by him in their times of distress. The attributes spoken of here—we have two words used: truth and mercy. “God will perform truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham,” the word “mercy” as the word *hesed* here, loving kindness again. The word “truth” has the idea of veracity, truthfulness. Faithfulness is the essential component here. And you put these two things together, and you’ve got faithfulness to his covenant people. And so the essential attribute is summed up in the concept of faithfulness—again, covenantal faithfulness in terms of exercising truthfulness and veracity and verity and exercising loving kindness to his covenant community.

So God’s attribute here is said to be faithfulness and particularly to those whom he exercises loving kindness to the covenant community. Now it’s interesting that the word for “truth” here is often linked to *hesed*. These two words that are found together in this verse are also found together in many other verses throughout the Old Testament. And usually it’s in reference to salvation, and it also has reference to the peace that comes as a result of salvation.

I bring that up to show some linkage into the New Testament. Again, in John 1:14 and 17, we read that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. And “grace” being another way to translate that word *hesed*—mercy, grace—and so truth and the mercy here shown and described as God’s faithfulness in verse 20 of Micah 7 ultimately leads forward to the coming of Jesus Christ and the revelation of that grace and truth through the anointed one, the Messiah.

Okay. I just said that it’s also linked to the peace that results from that. And so in Paul’s epistles, he frequently in his salutation says “grace and peace.” And the idea of grace is wrapped up with this mercy and truth idea—God’s faithfulness and the ensuing peace. And so Paul has Old Testament antecedents for his salutation. And of course Jesus came to fulfill what Micah 7 is here talking about.

So God has this attribute of great faithfulness to us.

Now I think though that it’s important also to bring out another implication of this attribute, and that is unconditional election. Now in Exodus 33:19, you read that God says that he’ll be gracious and compassionate to those whom he chooses sovereignly for his own purposes to be gracious and compassionate to. Okay. And in this verse as well we have that same reference that God’s faithfulness has the context of unconditional election. He chooses whom he will exercise this to.

Now where do you see that? And I think what I want you to get a picture of here—and what obviously is a very important part of this verse—is the time sequences described, the time references. He performs the truth to Jacob, his mercy to Abraham back even further than that, “which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” And so there’s a moving us back in time here to consider what God has accomplished in terms of Jacob and Abraham and then back even before that to “the days of old.”

Now the term “days of old” is used a lot of times in the Old Testament, normally to speak back to the days of David or Solomon or the days of the conquest of the promised land. But it has again a Pentateuch reference which is very important to see what the essential thrust of this verse is. In Deuteronomy 32, we read in verse 7 of Deuteronomy 32, “Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. Ask your fathers and they will inform you, your elders and they will tell you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man and set up the boundaries of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel.”

Now Deuteronomy 32, of course, is the song of witness to the covenant, and it is incredible. I won’t go through all the parallels, but if you just start reading at the top of verse 32, the beginning of that song he talks about the witness of the heavens and the earth. And we saw that in Micah. Goes on to talk about speech dropping down as dew. We talked about that in Micah—that they told Micah not to drip down prophecy on them. And the correlations between Deuteronomy 32 and the book of Micah are incredible as you go through them.

But in any event, and that gives us reason then to look at this verse as well as its Pentateuch reference before the writings of the Psalms and the prophets, etc., for understanding what this term “days of old” refers to. And in Deuteronomy 32, they’re told to remember as they’re about to enter the promised land the “days of old.” Now, you know, he could be looking way ahead prophetically and then back on the days of old. But he then tells us specifically in verse 8 that’s not the extent of what he’s talking about here. He talks about when God apportioned the earth to various peoples. Okay, in verse 8 it says he “set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.”

What this tells us is that with the creation of the world and the giving of nations into specific portions of the world, all that was done with the covenant people of God, the people of Israel—the people of God translated different ways all mean the same thing—the covenant community in mind. That’s why I say that these references, these historical references take us all the way back to the very long time ago of “days of old” when God first creates the world, sets up nations, and all that is done with a view to the community of his elect people, Israel.

God’s unconditional election is here spoken of. God sovereignly prepares this beforehand so that they might walk into all these blessings for him and be recipients of all these attributes. So that’s quite important to see here that unconditional election is an important part of what God is here talking about in Micah 7, verse 20. Okay.