Micah 7:7-9 “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he takes my side and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication.” This episode is about how God is our Salvation and how good triumphs over evil. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God of My Salvation
Micah 7:7-9 “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he takes my side and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication.”
I really like this verse. In the very first line he is saying no matter what others are doing, he will look to the Lord. When I heard this I instantly thought of Joshua 24:15 which says, “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” These two men are both saying the same thing. They are declaring that you can do whatever you want to do, but they are going to serve the Lord. Joshua even goes a step further and says his whole house will serve the Lord.
Next, it says that he will wait for the God of his salvations; he is sure His God will hear him. This is important because later it talks about how he must bear the indignation or the Lord, because he has sinned against him, and yet he has no doubt that the Lord will hear him, that the Lord will be his salvation. I wish we all knew this and could firmly say it as Micah did. The Lord will hear us, even though we have sinned against Him. We are His children and He won’t stop listening to us. He has promised that He will never forsake us. He is a God who keeps His promises. If He says something it is truth. We can take it to the bank as some people say. His word is His bond. Micah is saying He will look to the Lord and he will wait on Him.
This next line might be my favorite one of this verse. It is hard to say because there are some great lines in this verse, but this one is so good. “Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.” The reason this is my favorite is because it shows a bravery and a boldness that many of us struggle with. Micah is not backing down from his enemies. It seems like often times we cower from our enemies. We sit back and we hide and we hope that they can’t see us. If they can’t see us then they can’t hurt us right? We can just wait for the Lord sitting here behind this bush and not engaging. Micah didn’t cower from the enemy, he stood up to the enemy and told him not to get too excited because even though it looks like he may be defeated he wasn’t.
Micah didn’t seem to have any doubt that the Lord would rescue him. He was so confident he stood up to the enemy, looked him right in the eyes and said, nope, don’t rejoice yet! You may think you knocked me down, but I always get back up. You may think you dragged me into the darkness, but the Lord will be my light. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all tell the enemy this? What if we were all brave enough and confident enough to shout this out when we are struggling and when we feel defeated? Ok, maybe shouting it out might be too much for where you are right now, but maybe you could remember it? Could you write it down and read it everyday so when the enemy attacked you could remember that the Lord is your Savior. He will pick you back up when the enemy knocks you down and He will be your light when you feel you are wading through the darkness.
It may look like the enemy has won, but the Lord always wins. This is something that we must all remember, we are on the winning side. Yes, we are in a war between good and evil, and yes we need to fight with everything we have, and yet, the ending has already been written. Good triumphs over evil. We may find ourselves stuck in dark times, but we don’t have to worry that the Lord will leave us there. We can be confident, just as Micah was, that although we may have gotten ourselves into some trouble the Lord will come and be our salvation. We have to be strong while we wait as the enemy will try to throw everything he can think of at us while we wait. He will do everything in his power to bring us down, and yet He will not succeed, the Lord will save us.
The next part of the verse says, “ I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he takes my side and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication.” This next part is something that we don’t really like to think about. However, I think it is important to know that sometimes the Lord does get angry with us. We are not alway great at living the way He asks us to live and we are not always great at doing the things He asks us to do. I think there is such a powerful honesty in this part of the verse. I must bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. Micah knows that He has sinned and he is owning it. How often do we do the same? Are we owning up to it when we sin? Are we repenting and going to confession? Are we having a conversation with the Lord and letting Him know that we are sorry?
Micah is saying that he understands that the Lord is angry and He deserves it. He is not defending what he did, or making excuses. He is saying that he was in the wrong and so, he will bear the Lord’s anger until the Lord takes his side and executes judgement for him. He recognizes and accepts that God hands out the judgement. It is not for Micah to decide what the judgement should be. God will execute the judgement. Then it says that the Lord will bring him out to the light and that Micah will see the Lord’s vindication. Vindication means the act of clearing someone of blame. The Lord takes our sins and then He makes them disappear. It doesn’t just say he is waiting for the Lord’s forgiveness. It says he is waiting for the Lord’s vindication. He is waiting for the Lord to clear him of it all. He is waiting for his slate to be wiped clean.
I truly wish that every single person listening to this episode could believe with all their heart that when you sin and when you repent, then the Lord wipes your slate completely clean. This is the truth and yet it is hard for some of us to believe. It is easier for us to believe that we have sinned and so God couldn’t possibly love us. We have sinned so God can’t forgive us. We doubt in God’s love and forgiveness because we doubt in our own worth. I hope you can hear this, YOU ARE WORTHY of God’s Love. YOU ARE WORTHY of God’s forgiveness. There is nothing you can do that God won’t forgive if you ask Him to. Let’s all be more like Micah and have a confident faith that the Lord will pick us up when we fall and that He will be our light in the darkness.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we know that you have already won and that the enemy will not bring us down. Please help us remember this when we feel like we are drowning. Please help us to call out to you when we feel like we are in the darkness. Lord you are so wonderful. You pick us up when we are down and you are our light when we are in the dark. Lord, we know their are times when we have to bear with your indignation because we have sinned. We thank you for showing us your vindication. You are so mighty and powerful and we are so grateful that we are on your team Lord. We are grateful that we have you as our refuge and our salvation. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!