Micah 7
It is not always an easy thing to be a messenger of the truth. What if the truth is an indictment from the Lord against His beloved people? What if the Lord loves His children intensely, and hates sinners with a deep and holy hatred? If the prophet is willing to lie by omission, he can speak just one part of this story, and simply leave the other part unsaid. Many would like to speak of the Lord’s love and jettison His holiness. Others take strange delight in His wrath, and have no place for the fullness of His mercy. They somehow imagine that they will survive the gaze of God’s just anger without the benefit of the glory of His atoning love. The answer for us is to embrace the Lord who embraces us with a holy love by way of the perfect righteousness of His beloved Son who took the wrath that we deserved. It would be best for all concerned if we would not be too quick to think that everything is normal with that true answer to the problem of holy love. The glory of the Lord in His holy love is a staggering reality. We should bow before Him. With Micah, it might be helpful for us to speak these ambassadorial words: “Woe is me!”
It is a fact that the words apply well to Christ when He comes as our Mediator. He offers up all His blessedness in His pure devotion to His Father. Then He became our woe. There was no fruitfulness or godliness from the descendants of Jacob by which they could commend their perfection to the God of truth. Nor could we in the New Testament church commend ourselves to God that way. We must come to Him through a perfect Lamb or we cannot come to Him at all. We are the ones who shed blood. We have taken the bribes. We have executed evil with skill. Our punishment is deserved. It will not serve us well to deny this or to be defensive about our guilt. Why should we say something that would be an attack against the One who abundantly paid the price for us that we could never pay? Are we righteous in ourselves? If we are, then the cross was not necessary, and the Lord made a horrible mistake. This is far from the truth. If we protest that we are innocent, then we obscure the glory of the one Savior who loves us. He is the One we look to. We have no family connection from our own relations that will win us release from our debt before God. The Almighty has drawn us by His love into His household. Through His Son we have now been counted as the Father’s beloved children.
The Lord Jesus Christ took the place of a guilty sinner for us, and He was vindicated in His resurrection. Now we are found in this innocent Man, and we share in His vindication, since He willingly shared in our just condemnation. We were in the darkness of the dungeon of God’s justice, but we have now been counted as those who have the light of our Lord.
The story of our salvation through Christ is an account of a great reversal of staggering proportions. Those who would be proud in their rejection of the cross-love of Christ; those who would rejoice in the destruction of the Lord’s people; those who see themselves as beyond the touch of God’s justice and who spurn His love may find themselves crushed by the weight of His Law as they must answer for their abuse of His children. On the other hand those who were once the victims of abuse may be caught up in the glory of the Savior who hears the cry of the broken-hearted and the plea of the humble. What we learn in the Scriptures and also through life experience is that some who were found among the proud group can be brought to take their place among the humble group. A Saul who sought to kill his religious enemies is made to be a Paul who will learn how much he must suffer for the good of the message that he once hated. This is not the exception, but the rule. Christ died for those who were His enemies. Through His blood, all who will humble themselves before Him have been counted now as His friends.
Today is a wonderful day for us to be ashamed of our offenses against the Lord, against His Law, and against His people. Only the proud who will not give up their pride need turn away from such a merciful and holy Judge. The King who sits on the throne of judgment is the Man who hung on the cross for the weak and broken-hearted. He has marvelous things in store for all who would give up their hopeless fight against Him; great blessings of sure eternal joys, and even some measure of peace today for the guilty conscience.
He will show us this mercy because of who He is. The One who is perfect holiness is the same being as the One who is perfect love. For those who tremble at His Name, there is now a warm embrace from the only entity in the universe who can make our sin go away and who can heal the scars of body and soul that plague murderers and thieves. He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. This is what the eye of man could not fully see when our righteous Redeemer willingly died for the unworthy. This is what was happening, and this is what we receive now, when we receive Him in all His compassion for lost and wounded people who finally put down their weapons and rest in Christ. He waged warfare for us. His own life was a brutal casualty, but His steadfast love for His children could never be extinguished. He will show forth resurrection faithfulness to His children forever and ever. He took the divine woe upon Himself, and He defeated sin and death for us.
posted by Pastor Magee @ 12:00 AM
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