Micah 7

CHAPTER 7THEME: Pardoning all iniquity because of who God is and what He does; closing prayer; God’s answer; paean of praise

Micah 7:1

PARDONING ALL INIQUITY BECAUSE OF WHO GOD IS AND WHAT HE DOESIn the first nine verses of chapter 7, the prophet Micah confesses that God is accurate in His complaint against Israel. The charge and the accuracy of it touch the heart of the prophet. He is not unfeeling. He is moved and motivated by the judgment which is coming upon his people. We have in this first section, therefore, a soliloquy of sorrow, a saga of suffering, a wail of woe, an elegy of eloquent grief. Micah begins in a very personal wayhe says, “Woe is me!” He is not only very personal, but he is also affected a great deal by God’s message which he has relayed, just as Jeremiah was. He is overwhelmed by it. He is grieved by it. He finds no delight in saying these things. There is no fun today in my saying things that are rather pessimistic about the United States. A great many people will not agree with me about them.

They will rebuke me for not being patriotic and for not showing a love for my country. My friend, I love my country as much as the normal American loves his country. I find no joy in saying these things. I wish that I could make an announcement to say, “Friends, a great revival is breaking out across this land!” That would be good news, and that would be wonderful, but I just have to say along with Micah, “Woe is me!” “For I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit.” Remember that in Scripture the vine is used to picture the nation Israel. Micah’s contemporary, Isaiah, is the one who enlarged upon this and set this forth (see Isa. 5). He said very clearly that Israel is the vine and the vine is Israel. Micah looked about at his nation and said, “I’ve looked for a good cluster of grapes, and there are none on the vine. I desired the firstripe fruit, and there was none. The vine is not producing fruit.” Micah is going to deal now with the specifics

Micah 7:2

It is not safe to walk on the streets of our countrytoday lawlessness abounds. It does seem that the good man is perished; yet there are a lot of wonderful people left in this nation of ours. I am sure there were godly people left in Israel also, but Micah is speaking generally. The good man is not the ideal, and he’s not the one in the majority. “The good man is perished out of the earth.”

Micah 7:3

“That they may do evil with both hands earnestly.” They are not satisfied to do evil in just a minor way with one handthey are going at it with both hands. Believe me, doing evil really kept them busy. “The prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward.” They were doing evil for a reward. They were not only willing to stoop to do the thing that was wrong, but they did it also because of greed and covetousness on their part. “The prince …and the judge"there was crookedness in government, you see. You would expect the prince and the judge to rule justly and righteously, but that was not the picture. “And the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire.” The writers of our literature are clever writers today. I watch a great deal of television in order to keep up with what is going on in this world. I find that everything that is presented by our writers has a little hook in it. There’s that little hook of liberalism, that little hook of immorality, that little hook of ridicule of the things we have considered sacred in this country. And it is all done in the name of the sacred cow of the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech. But there is very little freedom of religion today, unless it is weird and way out in left field somewhere and not that which is Bible-centered and Bible-anchored. We need a bibliocentric thrust in this nation of ours today.

Micah 7:4

Even the best people were like a brieryou had to be careful. You can get stuck with a brier, you know, if you’re not careful with it. That was the condition of even the best people in Micah’s dayyou couldn’t depend on them. “The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.” Our writers are clever and sophisticated today, but we have no geniuses writing, just clever boys. They write clever plays. They say clever things. They write clever articles. But there are no geniuses. They write nothing of depth, nothing that is actually worthwhile. I believe that God will do with our contemporary culture what He did with Israel in that day and what He did later on with the Greek and Roman cultures. He simply wiped them off the face of the earth. Why preserve it? What is being done today that has eternal value? Oh, my friend, what a parallel there is here, and how accurate Micah is! “The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.” The Lord Jesus said, “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luk_21:25). In other words, one thing that would characterize the end of the age is perplexity of nations, confusion of nations. The biggest sign that we are near the end of the age is not found in Israel. Israel is not a sign. We are living in the church age today. We don’t need to look for a day, we need to look at a weather report: the sea and the waves roaring, the storms breaking upon the earth, and the nations seethingthat is the picture that God’s Word presents of the nation in the last days. Micah has been telling about the difficulty that these people were having, the sin that was in their lives. The lovely statement that was made back in Mic_6:8 was: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The people just were not doing it, and they found that they could not do it. As Peter said, “We were under the yoke of the law. Our forefathers didn’t keep it, and we cannot keep it today” (see Act_15:10). Yet there are a great many people going to church, thinking they are saved by their own good works and are acceptable to God on the basis of what they do. There is no hypocrisy like that kind of hypocrisy! The people living back yonder under the Law might be excused for thinking that, but we have an open Bible which makes clear to us that we are saved only by the grace of God.

Micah 7:5

This reveals something of the awful condition that existed in that day, and it has been true pretty much of all the so-called civilizations of this world. It is a big, mean world outside. We need to recognize this, especially if we are to take a stand for God. The Lord Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Mat_10:34). As long as there is evil in the world there will be a conflict and a war between that which is of the flesh and that which is of the Spirit, between light and darkness, between good and evil. I generally get up very early in the morning because I like to do my studying at home early. I get up while it is still dark, and my study is where I can look out toward the east. It is interesting to watch how the darkness wrestles with the light until finally the sun comes bursting over the horizon and the darkness then vanishes. There is always that period of dawn when it would seem that the darkness is wrestling with the light. The same thing takes place in the evening at dusk when again darkness wants to take over. There is that kind of a spiritual struggle going on in the world. The Lord Jesus went on to say in Matthew, “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Mat_10:35-36). You will not be able to trust your own family. Micah says, “Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.” Over the years I have heard of many such instancesand it works both ways, of coursewhen a wife has not been able to trust her husband, and a husband has not been able to trust his wife. We live in a day when the word of man seems to carry less value than it ever has before. You cannot believe what you read, and you cannot believe what you hear on radio or on television. The child of God should test everything. I say this very candidly: test every radio program you listen to by the Word of God. Test my Bible-teaching broadcast; test them all. You will be wise if you do this because the human nature is not to be trusted.

Micah 7:6

Notice that this is exactly what the Lord Jesus said will come, and it had come in Micah’s day also. When this sort of a situation arises, it is a day of decadence, a day of deterioration, a day of decay. It is a day that is very dark, by the way. We live in a day like that. We have gotten to the place where government is having to watch everything. But who is going to watch government? They need watching also. Whom can you trust? In whom can you believe today? We are living at a very sad time in the history of the world. This verse reveals the condition of that day of Micah’s grief. This is not something to boast of, not something to rejoice in. It is something to be deplored, something which should grieve your heart and my heart.

Micah 7:7

We see here the confidence and the assurance and the faith of Micah. He knows that God is going to hear him, and he knows that God will work this thing out. The Lord Jesus said that there would be distress of nations, the sea and the waves would roar, and the nations of the world would be in great turmoil. But it does not matter how dark it is today and how high the waves are rollingthese things ought not to disturb the child of God, they ought not to detour us. For the Lord Jesus said, “Men’s hearts [will be] failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken…. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luk_21:26, Luk_21:28). Micah says, “Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.” These are the days when God’s children need to stay very close to God, and we need to stay close to the Word of God.

Micah 7:8

This is a great principle that we find running through the Scriptures. Though God’s man may fall, God will raise him up. When we sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light for us. God’s people, again may I repeat this, must stay close to the Word of God in dark and difficult days. Now in verse Mic_7:9, on behalf of his people, Micah makes a confession to God, or as The New Scofield Reference Bible has labeled it, “submission to the LORD.” There is sweet submission here and, in spite of the darkness, there is on his lips a praise to God. He has just said to the enemy, “Don’t you rejoice against me. God is going to lift me up, and then I will be able to rejoice. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord is going to be a light unto me.” Micah had the confidence that God would deliver him and would deliver his people.

Micah 7:9

Micah is making a public confession of the sin of the people. What confidence this man has! He submits himself to the will of God. That should be the position of every child of God in this dark hour in the history of the world. What is it that we should do? Well, there is one thing that is sure: God has permitted all things to happen, and He is still in control. Therefore we should submit ourselves to God. We should confess our sins and keep our accounts with God right up to date and make sure that we have settled every account with Him. This is the thing that is all-important. Notice that Micah says, “I will bear the indignation of the LORD.” Why? “Because I have sinned against him.” My friend, we as a nation have sinned. You have sinned; I have sinned. We have gone along with this affluent society and have accepted its comforts. We have rather smiled at the lack of integrity that there is in public life, and we have shut our eyes to the gross immorality that is around us. It is time that some of us are confessing our sin. “Until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me.” God will use the “rod” of Assyria to punish His children for their sins, but afterward He will restore them and bring them “forth to the light.” Then they will “behold his righteousness"they will realize that God was just in punishing them.

Micah 7:10

God will ultimately triumph, but the thing that is tragic is that, because of the sins of the people, they must be judged. Their enemy asks the question: “You boasted of the fact that you serve God, but where is He? Why doesn’t He help you? Why doesn’t He deliver you? You have said that He would.” Well, the enemy could not see the righteousness of God. He did not see that God was dealing with His people in a righteous way by judging them. After God restores His people, He will punish the nations that abused them and attempted to annihilate themthen they shall “be trodden as the mire of the streets.” Since the Assyrian captivity lay ahead of the people of Israel, the “enemy” is interpreted as the nation of Assyria; yet the following two verses indicate that a later and final enemy is also in view. Micah has predicted the destruction of Israel’s enemies and now turns to Israel’s restoration. The nation of Israel is likened to a vineyard in several passages of Scripture. Notice especially Isaiah’s song of the vineyard (see Isa_5:1-7). The walls Micah speaks of are the walls around a vineyard.

Micah 7:11

In the early days of their history, the people of Israel were sent by God down to Egypt to become a nation. Then God hedged them into the land of Palestine, gave them the Law, made them a peculiar people, and kept them from intermarrying with other folk. Then, because of their sin, God sent them into Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. They had a ministry to the world, both at the time of the containment and then again when they were scattered throughout the world.

Micah 7:12

As we have seen in chapter 4, during the millennial Kingdom all nations shall come to Zioneven their former enemy, Assyria. “And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Mic_4:2). However, Micah reminds them that before this time of blessing, punishment lies before them.

Micah 7:13

You see, the land and the people are pretty well tied together. That land was not always desolate as it is today. When the blessing of God comes upon the people, it will also come again upon that landbut it has not yet come upon them.

Micah 7:14

CLOSING PRAYERNow Micah in a very wonderful way commits his people to the Shepherd’s care “Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage.” In Mic_6:9 the rod was a rod of judgment; here it is a rod of comfort. “…thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psa_23:4). I think it simply refers to the staff of the shepherd which could be used in two ways: it could be used to protect and help the sheep, and it could also be used to discipline the sheep. “Feed thy people with thy rod"God disciplines us, and He instructs us. “Which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.” These are great grazing lands up in the north and across the Jordan River. Micah has come to God in beautiful submission and in confession of sinconfession of his sins and of the sins of the people. The prophets always identified themselves with the people in any confession of sin. (We do it a little differently; we like to confess the sin of the other fellow while we try to leave ours out.)

Micah 7:15

GOD’S ANSWERGod gives an answer to the prayer of the prophet. There has always been some question as to what this passage makes reference to, but it is the consensus of most expositors that it looks to the future and to the day when the Lord Jesus will come to set up His Kingdom. God led Israel out of Egypt by miracle, but He did not bring them out of Babylon by miracle. No miracles are mentioned in connection with that, although their return to the land was a wonderful thing. It was the deliverance out of Egypt that was miraculous, and God says here that that will be the pattern for the day when He again brings them into the land. We have not seen anything like that in their present-day return to the land. We ought to recognize, therefore, that God has not yet fulfilled this prophecy.

Micah 7:16

When God begins again to move them back into the land, the world will stand in amazement, just as the peoples round about them did at the time of their exodus from Egypt. You remember the confession of the harlot, Rahab: “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Jos_2:10-11). The word has gotten around as to how God had taken care of His people.

Micah 7:17

This refers to the godless nations which have attempted to destroy Israel. In that day when He comes to deliver Israel, “they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee.”

Micah 7:18

PAEAN OF PRAISEMicah waxes eloquent now, and he asks a question We will discuss this verse at length in a moment, but Micah goes on here to say that because of who God is, this is what He will do

Micah 7:19

Israel’s sin put them out of the land temporarily, but God will make good His promises in spite of their sin. Their sin does not cancel out God’s promises and God’s covenant with these people any more than a child of God loses his salvation when he sins. His sin means that he is going to the woodshed for a good whipping if he doesn’t confess it and get it straightened out; but if he will come back to God, God will graciously pardon him. The prodigal son did not get a whipping when he came home to his father; he got his whipping in the far country. And you can be sure of one thing: God’s child will never be able to get by with sin. We see that again and again in Scripture. Now let’s come back to this marvelous statement that we have here: “Who is a God like unto thee.” I want to make a very startling statement: There is something that God has not seen but which you see every day. Perhaps you didn’t know that you could see something that God cannot seebut that is a true statement. It may sound rather impertinent for me to say that; it may sound irrelevant, irreverent, or inappropriate; it may even sound flippant or facetious. It may sound to you like I am making a parody or a pun, a riddle or a rhyme, a trick or a treat, but I want to assure you that this is a serious and sober subject with a sensible and Scriptural answer. The prophet here asks a profound question: “Who is a God like unto thee?” And it demands a thoughtful answer. The very nature of the question suggests an answer to an enigmatic subject. This is not the first time in Scripture that this question has been asked, by the way. It was asked in that wonderful song sung by Israel after they crossed the Red Sea. In Exo_15:11 we read, “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” The people had just come out from Egypt where there were many gods. Egypt was absolutelyif I may use the slang expressionlousy with idols; they had many gods and many lords. The ten plagues in Egypt had been leveled at their various godsthat was God’s strategy in it all. And then again at the end of the forty years of the wilderness march, Moses said, “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them” (Deu_33:26-27). This question was again asked by Solomon in 1Ki_8:23, “…LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart.” The psalmist exclaimed: “Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!” (Psa_113:5-6). This question is asked in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Kings, Psalms, and in other passages which I have not cited, but now let’s answer it. The answer was suggested by my statement at the beginning: God has not seen something which you see every day. What is it that God has not seen? My friend, God has not seen His equal. “Who is a God like unto thee?” God has never seen His equal, but you and I see our equals every day. There are many ways in which God is alone, in which God is unequaled. Only one of them is suggested by our passage here in Micah, but because this is such a profound question and one that is so basic to this book, I want to look at this subject closely: Who is a God like unto our God?

1. The God of the Bible is the Creator. The God of the Bible is the Creator, but the gods of the heathen are creatures. The apostle Paul wrote: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom_1:21-23). They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator. Isaiah, Micah’s contemporary, wrote concerning the heathen who make images from trees: “He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god” (Isa_44:16-17). Isaiah went on to say, “Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me” (Isa_44:21). God is the Creator. You may say, “But we don’t have idols today.” The Book of Micah has been dealing with a form of idolatry of which Israel was guilty and of which we are guilty also: covetousness is idolatry. Secularism, materialism, that to which you give yourself is your god. That which takes your time and your money is your god. It can be pleasure, it can be sex, it can be moneywhatever you are giving yourself to, my friend, is your god. It does not matter what church you might belong to, whatever you are giving yourself to is your god. With biting irony, God asks the question through the prophet Isaiah: “To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?” (Isa_46:5). He is the Creatoryou cannot make a picture of Him. “They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea, they worship. They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him …” (Isa_46:6-7). The supreme question is this: Is your religion carrying you, or are you carrying it? Many people say to me, “Oh, I find Christian work extremely boring. It is hard; it is difficult.” If you are finding it that way, then I would suggest that you give up what you are doingquit teaching your Sunday school class, quit singing in the choir, and do not be an officer in the church.

If it is burdensome to you, He does not want you to do it. He doesn’t want you carrying Him aroundHe wants to carry you. He wants to carry all of His children. Somebody said to me the other day, “Why in the world don’t you retire? You are in your seventies now, you’ve been in the pastorate for forty years, and you’ve given your time to teaching the Bible on radio. Why don’t you retire?” Do you want to know something?

I would rather teach the Word of God than eat ice cream any day. I’d rather do this than eat a chicken dinner. My friend, God has been carrying me for a long time, even though I think I have been a heavy load for Him. So God is unique; He is the Creator, and He carries us. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen_1:1)and it is blasphemy to go beyond that. You cannot go beyond Him”…from everlasting to everlasting [from the vanishing point to the vanishing point], thou art God” (Psa_90:2). He is the Creator. 2. The God of the Bible is holy and righteous. This is something that is very important to this little Book of Micah and to all sixty-six books of the Bible. God is a holy and righteous God. The gods of the heathen are little, they’re contemptible, they’re base, they’re ignoble, they’re shabby, they’re evil, they’re mean, and they’re uglyjust think about the heathen images which you have seen. The gods of the Greeks on top of Mount Olympus were simply man’s projection of himself. They were the enlargement of mankind. What did they do? They acted like overgrown children with overgrown faults and sins; they were spiteful and vengeful. The gods of the heathen are not pretty, my friend. What a reflection and slur upon God! Have you ever noticed how many times in Scripture we read of “the beauty of holiness”? Oh, my friend, our God is beautifulHe is the beautiful one. Remember that He said to His people, “…thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself …” (Psa_50:21). He says, “I am not like you. You are sinful; you stoop to do low, mean things. I am holy; I am righteous.” In Isaiah God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways …” (Isa_55:8). God is holy, and He says that He hates sin. He is angry with sin. He gets wrought-up over it, my friend. And the wrath of God must be revealed against sin. That is the reason judgment must come. There is no escape from it; there is no way out. The judgment of God is something that is going to come to pass. Again the little Book of Micah has real application to my own nation today. This country has really been shaken in the past ten years. Consider this whole century and the things which have actually shaken this world in which you and I live. It is not the same world I was born into. I never dreamed that I would live to see the things which have taken place in my own days. What is back of all this? Well, our God is a holy God, and He reveals His anger against sinHe will judge it. I know that a judgment day is coming in the future for sinners who will not accept Christ, but God is moving today, and I believe that we are experiencing the anger of God. A godless nation, a nation which rejects God, must bear the consequences. We must also recognize that as individuals you and I are sinners and must come to God. This is what it means to “walk humbly with thy God.” You do not come to Him boasting of what you have done. You come to Him confessing. “I’m a sinner, and I need Your salvation.” You must accept His salvation, recognizing that you could not go to heaven in your own righteousness. Anselm, one of the great thinkers of the eleventh century, wrote, “I would rather go to hell without sin than go to heaven with sin.” That’s a great statement. That will shake you, my friend. In this day of “weak tea” theology, we need to hear strong statements like this. 3. The God of the Bible pardons iniquity and delights in mercy. Verse Mic_7:18 says, “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 for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.” Here is where our God is wonderfully and amazingly different. He has no equal here; there is no one even in His neighborhood. “…who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exo_15:11). What are some of the wonders that God does? Read Exo_33:18-19: “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.” God said, “Moses, I’m going to do this for you, not because you are Moses and the leader of My people, but I’m doing this because I am gracious, because I show mercy, and I do it for everybody.” All you have to do is come to Him and claim His mercy, friend; He is just that good, and there is none like Him. Again in Exodus we read: “And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty …” (Exo_34:5-7). My friend, how wonderful He is! God does not clear the guilty. “Wrong is wrong, from the moment it happens till the crack of doom,” says the hero of the play, The Great Divide. All the angels in heaven working overtime cannot change that by a hair. But God can forgive the sinner and clear him of all charges because His holiness has been satisfied by Christ’s vicarious death. God’s forgiveness is set forth in the Scripture by many figures of speech. I would like to mention just a few of them. His forgiveness is like a debt which has been paid. In Isaiah He says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa_43:25). Peter said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out …” (Act_3:19). On His ledger I am in debt, because there it is written, “…the wages of sin is death …” (Rom_6:23), and “…in Adam all die …” (1Co_15:22).

God’s forgiveness is set forth in Scripture as the healing of a disease. Jeremiah writes, “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings …” (Jer_3:22). And in Isa_61:1 He has promised to “…bind up the brokenhearted….” Finally, God’s forgiveness is pictured as the cleansing of a pollution, a contamination. The Scriptures tell us that “…according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Tit_3:5). And we read also, “…the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1Jn_1:7). How wonderful our God is! How does God forgive? God is different for there is none like Him in forgiving. His forgiveness is very different from yours and mine. If you step on my toe in a crowd, you turn to me and say, “Pardon me, will you forgive me?” I say, “Sure,” but I’m thinking that, of course, you ought to give me the money to renew the shoeshine you have just ruined! But I say that I forgive you. Another example is a letter that I received some time ago from a man who confessed that he had been talking about me behind my back.

Now he had found out that he was wrong, and he asked me to forgive him. I told him, “Don’t ask me for forgiveness. Simply get it straightened out with the people you talked to and with the Lord.” That’s all I asked of him, because I had never known about it before I received his letter. Human forgiveness is pretty easy to come by. However, God never forgives until the debt is paid. And on the Cross Christ paid the debt. He redeemed us. We are sold under sin. We today have offended the holiness of God. We are in debt to Him. We have a disease, and God is not going to take the disease of sin into heaven. But Christ paid our debt, and Christ is the One who will forgive us. He cleanses us, and He makes us acceptable in God’s sight so that we might go to heaven someday. “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 for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.” Isn’t He a wonderful God? He is someday going to restore Israel to the land, not because they are wonderful, but because He is wonderful. And, my friend, I am going to heaven someday, but I am not going there because I am good or righteousI am not. I’m going to heaven because Jesus died for me. I’m going because the debt has been paid, and there is no God like my God.