A World looking for Answers

Micah 7:17-20

A rhetorical question: asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information.  Is that what the prophet Micah is doing in these verses: “Who is a God like You, removing iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of His inheritance?  He does not hold on to His anger forever, because He delights in faithful love.   He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities.  You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.  You will show loyalty to Jacob and faithful love to Abraham, as You swore to our fathers from days long ago.”  (Micah 7:18-20)  Is Micah making a statement, is it a proclamation that you and I need in the year of 2013?

You may have noticed that the world is looking for answers, and that government has a lust for money and power and they spend and they spend and they tax and they tax, and then they print currency that has no value, and the last step is they borrow till someone else the bankers of the world tell them it’s time to pay.  When a government or a family begins to head down this path, history has shown that it also leads to moral failure, and a turning away from dependence on God to living independent lives.  Is that not where we find ourselves in the days of 2013, are we that much different than the people Micah passes judgment on?

It is encouraging to this writer that Micah reminded me that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our God, and that He alone has the ability to forgive our sins.  That our God delights in showing mercy, and that He keeps all His promises.  This is a great time to go back to the book of Deuteronomy and read the words of Moses to his people.  He is telling them that the message of God’s faithfulness must be passed on to our children, and grandchildren.  “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.  Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

Gene A. Getz had this to say about these verses and how it applies to you and me: “Today, all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are included in the Abrahamic covenant.  We are those who have been blessed through the seed of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Through the Savior, we have access to the one true God who is now demonstrating forgiveness and redemption through the blood of His Son.  When we receive His gift of eternal life and are justified by faith, He pardons our sins and His anger is removed.  We have “peace with God” (Rm 5:1; Eph 1:3-8).

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice