Because of the gift of Christ, we can be forgiven and brought back into relationship with our God.

Transcript:

If you've been paying attention to the news, you're familiar with the recent developments in Syria. The Assad regime, most recently headed by Bashar al-Assad, a regime that held power for some 50 odd years, has been overthrown. A dictator known for his cruelty and policy of torment is suddenly no longer in power. Videos can be found all over social media of Syrians tearing down statues of the Assads, of crowds singing in celebration, mothers lifting their children in the air with joy.

The Syrian people are filled with joy because the cruelty of Assad no longer hangs over their future. A new future has opened up before them.

They have a new future before them, the Syrian people. And we along with the rest of the world are waiting to see what that future will be. We have not suffered as they have. But we understand their reason for rejoicing. We can understand what it means to feel as though you are condemned, as though you are a dead man walking, and then to suddenly have everything change. It's the feeling of salvation. Joy reaches new heights when we are relieved of condemnation that we in fact deserve. The Syrian people didn't deserve everything they were suffering. But imagine you were suffering. Imagine you were under a state of condemnation and you deserved it all.

The story of humanity is played out under such a cloud of condemnation. The world is enveloped in a darkness of our own choosing. A life apart from the light of life. A life divorced from God. We live under God's wrath, reaping what we sow. And yet, we are invited to rejoice. Why? King David tells us in his invitation to praise in Psalm 30 verses 4- 5.

He says, Sing the praises of the Lord, you His faithful people. Praise His holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. God's people are invited to rejoice because condemnation is met with salvation. The tears are temporary, the celebration everlasting.

This morning I want us to turn to Micah 7 to consider this in more detail. So you can turn there in your Bibles. It will be on the screen as well. And to start, just so you have a bit of a background, we're going to look at a few maps. Because we're moving forward in the biblical story quite far from where we were just last week when we were talking about Joseph.

We're going about a thousand years into the future. From around 1800, 1700 BC to, it's estimated 701 BC when the book of Micah was written.

If you could put the map up, as you can see, Israel was, at a certain point, one kingdom. And it came to be that way, largely, in terms of the territory that we see here, this territory got secured during the time of King David. Now David wasn't the first king of Israel, but he was the most significant.

He was the first king to emerge from the tribe of Judah, fulfilling the prophecies that had been given that the scepter would come into Judah, that the throne would belong to the tribe of Judah. And, so he helped secure their territory and gave them a place from a time that had been under great chaos and from the time of Saul, under great threat from the Philistines, King David helped secure them.

But this united kingdom did not last. The kingdom was eventually split into two, into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Now, the northern kingdom was especially wayward in pursuing false gods and all sorts of other injustices. But Judah was not all that far behind. Besides idolatry, their crimes included things like abusing the poor, denying them justice, taking bribes, sexual sin, and even sacrificing their own children to idols.

On the whole, both were on a downward trajectory in terms of their devotion to God. And the ultimate outcome would be that both kingdoms would be conquered and large portions of their populations deported into exile. Now, Micah is writing at a time when the Assyrians have basically already done this to the northern kingdom and are threatening Judah.

His prophecy looks beyond their threat to the one that will be realized by the Babylonian empire in 586 BC. We turn to chapter 7 with this in mind, thinking about the conditions of his own time, and then also thinking about our own time. So let's look at Micah 7 verses 1 through 3. What misery is mine?

I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave. The faithful have been swept away from the land; not one upright person remains. Everyone lies in wait to shed blood; they hunt each other with nets. Both hands are skilled in doing evil.

The ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire. They all conspire together. The best of them is like a briar, the most upright, worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come, the day your watchmen sound the alarm. Now is the time of your confusion. Do not trust a neighbor.

Put no confidence in a friend. Even with the woman who lies in your embrace, guard the words of your lips. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law. A man's enemies are the members of his own household. Think about the experience that Micah is relating here in these verses.

He's trying to describe to us in very vivid terms of how miserable things are in the land. He says it's akin to going out to try to pick some fruit at the end of a harvest. You have a hankering for some sweet fruit, but if you go out to the field at the end of the harvest, you're not going to have that desire satisfied, because there's nothing going to be found there.

And the point that he's getting at, and bringing up this imagery, is to say that there is no one who is faithful, there is no one who is upright in the land. He comes up empty handed when he tries to find Instead, everyone is pursuing bloodshed. Their hands are full of evil. The rulers are interested in getting bribes.

The powerful people in society are conspiring together. Situation is so bad that he says, The best of people, the most upright, He says, kind of running with this vineyard theme, they're like a briar, or like a thorn hedge. In other words, they're not that great. If you think about our own times, I think some, we can kind of relate a little bit, where we've become accustomed in our society to judge people relative to other people as like, well, at least they're not as bad as this person, or as bad as that person.

That's kind of the situation for Micah here. He's like, The best of people, they're only relatively better than the worst. And the result is, is, of all this, is you can't trust anybody. You can't even trust your own family members.

You can expect that even your family would perhaps betray you. And, and the thing is, is the things that Micah's talking about here we could relate to today, but in fact they're, they're very timeless to the human condition. As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 1: 9, there is nothing new under the sun. Now, having heard all this from Micah, we'd kind of expect that he would just break down in despair at this point.

But that's not what happens. Look at the verse that follows. Verse 7. It says, But as for me, I watch and hope for the Lord. I wait for God my Savior. My God will hear me. Everything is going terrible. Nothing is as Micah would have it to be, nor is it the way that God would have things.

And yet Micah doesn't despair because he knows that salvation will come from the Lord. He knows that God is his Savior and so he is watching and waiting with hope, confident that God will hear him. That God will hear his cry about the condition of everything around him and bring salvation.

When we see how Micah responds to the conditions of his society at that time, it kind of prompts a little self reflection on our part in thinking about, where are, where are our eyes turning when we see everything going bad around us? Are we watching in hope? Are we waiting in hope? Are we confident that God does hear our cries?

We're going to turn to the next few verses here. Verses 8- 9.

We look at verses 8 9. He says, Do not gloat over me, my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against Him, I will bear the Lord's wrath until He pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light. I will see His righteousness.

What we see here on the part of Micah is kind of this defiant tone, but it's not one of pride in himself, It's a humble sort of confidence. It's a humble sort of confidence that's based on the goodness and power of God because what Micah says on his own part is, he says in verse 9, I have sinned against him. I'll bear the Lord's wrath But then everything turns in terms of what God is going to do until he pleased my case and upholds my cause he will bring me out into light and I will see his ri...