Ex 34:6, Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth…
Last time, we dealt with some of the prophets of the Old Testament who declared these traits and characteristics of God as He had revealed Himself to them in various and sundry manners. This morning, we want to read a few more of the Old Testament prophets and then delve, next week Lord willing, into the New Testament to consider the writings of the Apostles as they proclaimed the excellencies of God as revealed to them through the Only Begotten of the Father, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Please keep at the forefront of your thoughts and concentration, the fact that this is the revealed Nature of God as declared to Moses and these prophets and apostles of God. They are only detailing what God has shown of Himself through either the personal revelation, as with Moses, or through the working might of His hand in operation. He has revealed Himself as mighty and glorious and to be magnified by His people.
The next prophet we will read is the Prophet Ezekiel, in Ezek 18:21-23. In this passage, Ezekiel makes known the compassion and the graciousness and the lovingkindness of God for those who will turn away from their sins. The prophet quotes God with an emphasis on what has always been the heart of God toward mankind. It is the Old Testament equivalent and precursor to John 3:16. Ezek 18:21-23, "But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. "All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live. "Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares the Lord God, "rather than that he should turn from his ways and live? …"Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares the Lord God, "rather than that he should turn from his ways and live? 
It is this heart of compassionate love and mercy and grace by which God chose to send forth His Son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life. This pleases God far, far more than punishing those who are guilty of trespass and sin. This is something that even the Old Testament asserts to those who read it with care and with the reality that God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He has ever wanted His people to have a life that is fulfilling and rewarding. That is why He so earnestly called out to His people through the prophets to repent and to turn from those things which brought only death and destruction. 
We hear this proclaimed by the prophet Joel, in Joel 2:12+13. Joel 2:12+13, "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping, and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments. "Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, And relenting of evil. 
    	These are almost the identical words spoken to Moses so many centuries earlier. God is calling to His people to know Him in His lovingkindness and tender mercies as He wanted to bless and reward them with all His goodness and grace and love. 
So often, we fail to make this revealed nature of God the basis of our relationship with Him. We choose to picture Him as some kind of wratfhul judge Who delights in hammering those who are sinful with lightning bolts and devastation. We paint this picture of an overbearing and ominous God Who seems to enjoy catching people at their worst and then giving them their just punishment. 
That is often the portrait that is announced of the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, as if there were some kind of change of heart on His part. In the Old Testament, God is the fury and the wrath and the judgment meted out through the Law. In the New Testament, God is love and grace and forgiveness of sins. 
But this is an absolutely ludicrous and defiled and deceitful depiction of The Lord God Almighty. He tells us that, Himself, in this very passage of our consideration. To the people whom He delivered, He made Himself known as …the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth… 
Throughout the Old Testament, this had been constantly manifested over and over again. It is not God Who changed, it is mankind who had to change in his perception and understanding of …the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth…
The Prophet Micah had a true understanding of this as we will read in several verses of his writings, beginning with Mic 7:7-9. In this passage, the prophet shows that he knows the Lord God as His Savior and as the light to his path on this earth. This is not the view of the Judge and Executioner, but …the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth… 
Mic 7:7-9, But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise; Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord Because I have sinned against Him, Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me out to the light, And I will see His righteousness. 
	Please note how Micah knows that God is His salvation. It is also declared that God is His light and that God will plead his case and execute justice for him. He knows he has sinned against God and yet he also knows that God will manifest His compassion and His grace and His mercy and His love in righteousness. God will bring the prophet into the light of God’s love and life. 
	This is further expounded upon by the prophet in verse 18 of this 7th chapter in which he definitively details the fact of God being slow to anger. Mic 7:18, Who is a God like Thee, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in unchanging love. Notice the fact that the prophet knew that God was unchangeable, always the same, always delighting in unchanging love. This is not the representation that we so often put forth with respect to our false and deceitful idea of God in the Old Testament.
	As well, hear the Prophet Nahum as he makes known his revealed manifestation of the God of Love and Life, in Nah 1:3-7. Nah 1:3-7, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. In whirlwind and storm is His way, And clouds are the dust beneath His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither; The blossoms of Lebanon wither. Mountains quake because of Him, And the hills dissolve; Indeed the earth is upheaved by His presence, The world and all the inhabitants in it. Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, And the rocks are broken up by Him. The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him. 
	Nahum does not back peddle the truth that God will punish the guilty, as surely as He controls the laws of nature and rules and overrules in all the realm of His creation. Sin will be met with its righteous penalty, and those who do not turn from their sin will be dealt with as the earth is upheaved at His indignation. 
However, the prophet emphasizes that God is slow to anger and great in His power. The penalty of sin, while not expressed in this passage has been paid by God, Himself through the death of His Only Begotten Son. Nahum ends this passage with the solid proclamation of the true and revealed nature of God in the fact that The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble, And He knows those who take refuge in Him. 
	The Lord is good! What a statement that utterly shatters the stigma that we foist upon God! We are so vile in our estimation of the holiness and the righteousness of God, that we can only envision Him with regard to punishment and judgment and death and destruction and fire and brimstone. We so put forth that image because it is how we would deal with the falsehood and the dishonesty and the depravity of mankind. We present to ourselves and others the God of our imaginations and conceptions. 
The fact is that God is good! God has told us that He is …compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth… He has shown this by dealing with sin and the consequences of sin in the only manner in which it could be fully and eternally set aside.
	This brings us to the Prophet Zephaniah. In Zeph 3:5, we are shown the fact that The Lord can do no injustice. Everything He does is righteous and just altogether, no matter how we might view it with our finite minds and limited scope of human understanding. Zeph 3:5, The Lord is righteous within her; He will do no injustice. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail. But the unjust knows no shame. 
	The other aspect of the nature and character of the Lord that Zephaniah brings forth is that the Lord is our surety of goodness and grace and compassion and slowness to anger in the fact that …Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail. Because He is just, He must be true to Himself as so confirmed to Moses. He will never vary from His glorious nature of being. 
	This is so opposite to whom we are on this earth in ourselves. We never know, from minute to minute or from person to person how we will respond or act or behave. We are fickle and self-centered, and self-absorbed in our human nature apart from Jesus Christ. Our constancy and stability of being is only in place as we know Him and give Him free reign in our lives to express Himself, the One Who never fails. 
	This echoes what we considered from the Prophet Jeremiah in Lam 3:22-26, if we could turn back to it. Lam 3:22-26, The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the Lord. 
	It is always good to keep the reality of Who God is and how He faithfully executes His justice and His grace and His compassion for us every single day of our lives without fail. That is why we can always, always count on Him to show Himself gloriously each morning. As surely as the sun rises, His faithfulness and His lovingkindness and His mercy are our portion to recount to each generation, as did these prophets for us. We need to rejoice in the manifested goodness of Our God and not in the veiled deceptions of our minds and imaginations. 
	We end our time with the prophets of old with the Prophet Zechariah, in Zech 13:7-9. This was a prophet who saw the righteousness of God being revealed through the salvation that would be brought forth in Jesus Christ. He made known the fact that the Shepherd, the Christ, the Lord’s Messiah, would be struck down. The resultant scattering of the flock would ultimately result in a tried and true nation of people who would know God as He always revealed Himself …the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth…  
	Zech 13:7-9, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, And against the man, My Associate," Declares the Lord of hosts. "Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered; And I will turn My hand against the little ones. "And it will come about in all the land," Declares the Lord, "That two parts in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. "And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, 'They are My people,' And they will say, 'The Lord is my God.'"
	What joy is ours when we know the truth of this passage in our lives! It is not easy. As a matter of fact to be tried with fire, refined as silver, and tested as gold is a complete death to our self lives. All that is not Jesus in us is being burned away as dross and as worthless. However, when we have come through the trials and the testings and the fires, we will see more and more clearly the person of Jesus Christ revealed in all His abundant glory and grace and mercy and compassion and love. In Him, we will be able to call upon the Lord and announce to all His creation that we are His people and He is our God. So be it!
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Ex 15:2. "The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will extol Him. Amen.