[Listen to an audio version here
Who Is Like Yahweh in Judgment?
If you are like the people of Israel, you might think often, why doesn’t God do something about the evil things that the nations do? After all, we have a great God who is almighty and can do anything. The Israelites would think, God overthrew Egypt to deliver us from slavery, why can’t He set things right?
Micah’s perspective is different and in line with the other prophets. He sees God standing over the nations, evaluating them, and ready to do something. “Hear, you peoples, all of you, listen, earth and all who live in it, that the Sovereign Lord may bear witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple” (Micah 1:2). God has a message bearing witness against all the impiety, injustice, and iniquity of the world. He is ready to act. “Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place; he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth. The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope” (Micah 1:3–4).
That’s what God is doing. His judgments are in the earth. He is coming to judge the world. When I went to Egypt, everywhere I went I saw statues of the Ramses the Great. He did some impressive things. One of his statues is found in Memphis, Egypt. It is huge. The statue is lying down with the back to the ground, though at one time it stood upright. Today, however, it cannot stand upright because the feet are broken off. This was a visual reminder to me that the mighty fall. God judges the nations. They do not last. God’s judgments are in the earth.
The name Micah means, who is like Yah or Yahweh? As we read this first section of the book of Micah, we can feel the power of that name. Who is like Yahweh, awesome in power, above all the nations, and able to deal with all wrongs? No one can stop Him and demand of Him, “What have you done?” He is mightier than all. Who is like Yahweh?
The problem is this. What happens if the great, holy, and awesome God comes down to evaluate each one of us? What if he holds all our actions, thoughts, and deeds in the balance? What if he judges us not on the basis of our own fallible and changeable standard but according to His infallible and perfect law that cuts right down into our hearts and thoughts? What will He say? What will be the outcome?
For Micah’s hearers, the result would not be their justification. It would be their condemnation. Micah declared judgment not on the nations but on the special nation of God. “All this is because of Jacob’s transgression, because of the sins of the people of Israel. What is Jacob’s transgression? Is it not Samaria? What is Judah’s high place? Is it not Jerusalem?” Micah says that the thing that they think is most valuable to God is actually their sin. All their religious acts are actually their sin. They think that they are getting God on their side, but, as the other prophets warned, the outward worship is not what God wants. He wants the heart. And what does God want above all? A heart of love and obedience! So, even that which they took refuge in, their religion, far from helping them was actually bringing God’s wrath. That’s a pretty severe warning!
If you turn to Micah 6, you get further explanation of God’s complaint against Israel. People often cite Micah 6:8. They have even turned it into a haunting worship song. “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Many people treat this verse as good news, as if it is saying, “Look, this is all God wants from us. That’s easy. We’re OK with God.” But that’s now how Micah wanted them to hear these words. This verse was God’s witness against the people:
Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.“Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation;
listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel” (Micah 6:1–2).
God then went on to explain how much he had done for His people and how little they had followed His commands. Far from bringing them justification. This declaration of what God required would bring them condemnation.
Let’s consider what God requires. He wants us to act justly. This means that we treat people with honor and respect and give them what is fair and just. This includes how we speak about people, how we interact with them, and how we think about them. How have we done here? Have we had concern for the people around us? Do we show them respect, even when things get difficult?
How about loving mercy? Do we really? Look. I’m amazed at how quickly I can judge everybody for the smallest thing that doesn’t even matter. How quickly I can forget to give people the benefit of doubt. How often when the heat is on do I assume the worst! Am I compassionate? Not like I should be. No, I’m like the human race. We are quick to condemn others, slow to love mercy.
What about walking humbly with our God? Do we trust God when things get difficult or try to solve it ourselves? Are we on an endless quest to provide our own pleasure, security, meaning, and acceptance? So many times we forget God completely and don’t even think to acknowledge Him. Will we really be justified by this standard? Do we really want God to enter into strict judgment with us?
These may be hard words, but they are the words we need because they present to us the reality of the situation, not an imagined God. This is the God of the prophets. The real God.
A couple of points here before I provide some relief. First, remember that it is good news that God judges. He will deal with all wrongs. He cares. That is one perspective. Another perspective is that of Jonah, which is to see that the people who do us wrongs are not simply people who have done us wrong. They are people whom God has an interest in. They are God’s creatures, and He cares about them as people, too, in addition to caring about the wrong they have committed. Here is another important perspective from Micah. If God deals with wrong strictly, then we are all in trouble.
Second, guard against that which comforts you but does not challenge you. The Bible provides comfort in the midst of our anxieties, but it also challenges our pride and complacency. So, his servants should provide both. When Jesus spoke to the people of His time, He did not call down judgment on the Romans or the Greeks or the Scythians, He spoke about the sins of His hearers. That’s what we need to hear and to speak as well.
Third, the great question of the prophets is this. How can anyone survive God’s judgment? How does history end in anything but wrath? Micah is no different. When they contemplate God’s holiness, they say, who is like Yahweh? How can anyone stand against Him? And the answer to that is what we will consider in the next section.
Who Is Like Yahweh in Mercy?
The name Micah means, “Who is like Yahweh?” The name Yahweh in our English Bibles is denoted by the name LORD, in all caps. The reason we translate it “LORD” is because that’s what the Apostles translated it as in the New Testament. They used the Greek word for Lord, following the Greek version of the Old Testament. So, it’s OK to use the word, “LORD,” but we should know that the in the Old Testament, Yahweh, is like the proper name for God.
I imagine that Micah often thought about his name. “Who is like Yahweh?” It probably made him think of many things as I have noted. But this phrase, “Who is like Yahweh,” is actually used one time in the book with slightly different words: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?” (Micah 7:18a). So, how does history not end in judgment? God is not only unequalled in judgment, holiness, and power, He is also unequalled in mercy and forgiveness. When it comes to mercy, no one is like Him. “You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy” (7:18b). God does bring judgment, but He delights to show mercy. That’s why the prophets describe His wrath as His strange work. He does do it. It is necessary. But His real delight is in showing mercy. This is the place where He wants to be. I describe this in words that befit a human being, but this is probably the most helpful way for us to understand it, though, of course, in God it is something higher and more sublime.
So, there is hope in that God forgives. And listen to this amazing description of how God forgives. “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Micah wants to show us the depths of God’s forgiveness by two metaphors. God crushes our sins underfoot as if they are completely overcome and defeated. He throws them into the depths of the seas where no one could find them. It’s what the Psalmist says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. It is what Paul says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is what the prophets point to, the wonder of the cross. There, the judgment of God is poured out. There, God comes with all His power and might against sin because Jesus acts as a substitute for the sinners of the world. There, God’s holiness is displayed. But there, our sins are crushed underfoot. There, our sins are forgiven. There, our sins are cast into the depths of the sea. The cross shows God to be the one who is just in punishing sin and just in declaring righteous those who do not deserve it and thereby showing mercy to you and to me, to all who put their faith in Jesus.
Alongside the curse of God, there was another stream flowing through history. That was the promise of God. “You will be faithful to Jacob, and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago” (Micah 7:20). God is faithful. He keeps doing good to us, even though we don’t deserve it. However, God also promised to Abraham that through him and through his Seed, that not only the descendants of Abraham but all the nations of the earth would be blessed. It was not just the remnant of Israel that would be saved but the nations. That’s the final thing that we want to see here in this prophecy, who is like Yahweh in restoration?
Who Is like Yahweh in Restoration?
God the Father brought the weight of the sins of the human race down on the Son on the cross, but God is a glorious God of restoration who also raised Him from the dead and began a whole new world. Micah also saw this new world and describes it in Micah 4. “Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Micah 4:2). According to God’s promise to Abraham, the nations would be blessed! That’s the day that Micah contemplates.
And when does that happen? Now. Remember. Micah is not the only prophet to speak of these days. Amos did, too. He spoke of the nations gathering under the banner of King David. James says in Acts 15 that this was being fulfilled before their very eyes. So, why not this verse, too, which speaks of the exact same thing? Beyond that, this is precisely what we are seeing. The nations are flowing to Jerusalem, not the earthly Jerusalem, but the real Mount Zion before which we are gathered today (see Heb. 12:24). On Sunday, we will hear the testimony of a Mexican student who came to Christ. This is part of that prophecy. The nations are coming to learn that there is no one like Yahweh.
And what does that restoration look like? Three things. First, God restores worship. When God works in people’s hearts, people take an interest in higher things. They want to learn from the Lord. They want to hear His words. They want to be with Him. They want to experience His presence. That is the key part of restoration, and it is crucial. Human beings are made to exist in reliance on God. When we don’t, we turn to all sorts of other things, to pleasures, to people, to work, to activity, in which to find fulfillment. None of it works. Only God can satisfy. That’s why this is the first part of restoration.
Second, God restores relationships. “He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Mic. 4:3). This means relationships between nations but also relationships between neighbors and relationships between families and everyone else. God brings peace with Himself that manifests itself in peace between neighbors. That’s why the Apostle Paul says that insofar as it is possible, we should live in peace with all people. I like what the Southern Baptist Confession, the Faith & Message says, “It is the duty of Christians to seek peace with all men on principles of righteousness. In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to war.” War may sometimes be necessary, but we should do all we can to get everyone to beat their swords into plowshares, including the swords of our tongues, our looks, and our thoughts.
Third, God restores productivity. When we are released from the anxiety over life because we trust God and anxiety over relationships because we learn to live at peace, then we can channel our energy into productivity. That’s what is described here in Micah 4. “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken” (4:4). As Christians let go of things they can’t control and trust the Lord with them, then they can do what the Apostle Paul commended, “to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you” (1 Thess. 4:12).
That’s the restoration that God brings. He restores worship. He restores relationships. He restores productivity. He is bringing creation back to where it is supposed to be. There are so many stories I could tell that illustrate what God is doing. You heard one today. I’ve told you about them. Remember the gentleman who worked at the drug rehab. People would come in railing against God. Then, they would learn, and God would change them. Then, they would be productive helping others to follow the Lord and find their way out of relying on drugs as their hope. That’s what God can do for you and for me. Who is a God like Yahweh, mighty in power, wondrous in mercy, glorious in restoration? Amen.
________
Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash