“Who [is] a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth [in] mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” (Mic 7:18-19 AV)
What a great promise. In particular, I love the phrase, “he will subdue our iniquities”. The promise above is to the remnant of Israel. There is coming a time when God, in the person of the Messiah, will gather His people. He will rule over them to make sin a hard thing to do. For those who have trusted Christ, this is a welcomed event. Accepting Christ as LORD and Savior requires repentance from sin. It requires we see ourselves as completely and totally undone. It means we must see our nature as God sees it. We are completely depraved and in total need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. If we trusted Christ, we came to the end of ourselves. We concluded that sin was exacting a price too heavy to bear. Most of all, it separated us from the almighty God. We desired a restored relationship with the Father. Sin is seen as the number one threat to our walk with God. Those five words above mean all the world to someone who really wants to walk with God in obedience and faith.
On our ventures in door-to-door soul winning, inadvertently, we come upon a door with a large sign that says, “Beware of Dog”. It is amusing to see whose turn it is to knock on the door. Most of the time, the LORD has it perfectly timed, so our conversation regarding dogs coincides with the observation of whose turn it might be. Usually, it is my partners. I am terrified of dogs. On a local blog, I read of two dogs that got loose. They terrorized the neighborhood and attacked dogs and people. What stuck out at me was one dog was a black lab. What made this post a bit alarming was they and broken through a door going after the mailman, then turned on the neighborhood. Wouldn’t you know it, but the next time we went soul-winning, we came across a home with a Pitbull and black lab? They were violently aggressive. They were hitting the picture window very hard. I told my partner it would be best to leave a tract and go. I trust the LORD. I just don’t trust big and aggressive dogs. Thinking these two dogs were the dogs I read about, it wasn’t beyond the possibility that these two dogs might be on us like a tick on a deer. These two dogs, for the time being, were subdued. At the very least, they were contained.
This is how we must view sin. Sin is the one force that keeps us from truly appreciating and loving our God. Lack of faith is another. Some might argue that lack of faith, when faith could be exercised, is sin in itself. Sin is like those two dogs. Most of us put sin behind a fence or enclosure. But they are still there. It is not subdued. It is contained. The Bible gives us many ways in which to deal with sin. One of them is to bring into captivity every thought that would exalt itself against the LORD. The Bible also tells us to avoid any place or environment that would entice us towards sin. These are all significant pieces of advice. However, this is only containment. Only God can subdue our sin. Only loving God with our whole being can throw cold water on the fiery flames of temptation. Only God can replace the evil desire of the heart. This is for what the child of God prays. This is for what he or she yearns for. Glory is not just a place of peace and joy. Heaven is a place where sin is forever abolished. What a day that will be. In the meantime, we can pray for the above promise. We need not be a victim of temptation simply because we reside in a fallen body. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the word of God, and the fellowship of the saints. We have an always present God. Subduing our iniquities can be had today. It can be had right now.
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