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Micah |
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| Chapter 1 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 5 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 2 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 6 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 3 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 7 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 4 | Prayer | Devotional |
Prayers
Father God, thank You for Your true Word through Your holy prophets. You are against all wickedness. We will never be able to stand if You come against us for our sins and transgressions. The problem of our unrighteousness was something that we needed to learn. How could we have understood the work of our Savior, if we did not see the reality of our mortal wound? You gave Your people the Law, and through that system we began to see the punishment that we deserved. Bring us the Glory of Israel even today, not in wrath or discipline, but for the gathering of the elect, for Your Son has accomplished our redemption.
Great God and King, we turn away from our private schemes of wickedness. We cannot fool You. The lesson of Your ancient people should be powerfully obvious to us. There is no wisdom in turning away from Your truth. We must not resist Your true Word, as Your people did so long ago. Even their shepherds knew only license. They did not follow in the way of godliness. They destroyed whole families and pursued horrible uncleanness. Come soon, Lord God! Save us from all iniquity!
Lord God, You have granted leaders in Your church to be shepherds over Your people. What shall we do if those servants only serve themselves, and destroy the people they should be helping? Father, we thank You for the provision of the greatest and best Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. His heart is always fully seeking our good, and His strength will accomplish His purposes. Even now He is ascended on high and He grants pastors and teachers as gifts to Your people. Restrain the wickedness of men, O God. Thank You for the provision of godly men who will lead Your people in a day of trouble.
Our Father, bring us up to Your holy mountain. Bring many nations there through the work of Your Son. Speak to us from Your heavenly Zion. Bring us eternal peace. We long for the fulfillment of Your great promises. We will walk in Your Name forever and ever. Bring the weak and the lame into Your house, O God. We cry out to You for help! We long for Your rescue. Though the nations will one day assemble against Your church, Your Son will deliver us from every trouble.
Father, You have sent us a great Savior to be our holy Ruler. Your eternal Son was born in Bethlehem, according to Your Word. He is now the Shepherd over Your people. We are being gathered from many nations. You have helped us in the midst of our adversaries. You have brought us into a safe place, for You have cut off from among us all our idolatries. Your Son will come again to execute vengeance upon the people that will not obey You. Our only refuge is in His perfect righteousness, for He is our Substitute.
Lord God Almighty, You had an indictment against Your people under the Old Covenant. You provided them with many blessings and with great saving acts. What did You require of Israel? They should have done justice, loved kindness, and walked humbly with You. These are the weightier matters of the Law. How have we fared by the same holy requirements? O how we need Your grace! We who have been saved through the righteousness of Your Son are not required to do less then those who came before us. We have been given much. Much is required of us. Your Son has covered our sins. Please forgive us, and fill us with Your Spirit, so that we will walk in love according to Your commandments.
Glorious Lord, have mercy on Your church. We feel so small in times of trouble. The evil of the world around us seems to enter quickly into the life of Your assembly. Our families face unusual iniquity, and our watchmen become easily corrupted. Grant us wisdom and courage in the day of difficulty. You will be our help. We look to Your holy Son Jesus, and we turn away from the sinful pattern of the world all around us. Gather Your elect, O Lord God. Fill us with joy even in the time of testing. Provide for us what we need for our lives by Your marvelous and mighty hand. There is no other god like You. You delight in steadfast love. You have tread our iniquities underfoot through the cross of Christ. In Him there is hope for all Your chosen people.
Devotionals
Micah ministered to the Lord’s people as a prophet in the days of various important kings of Judah. He is often identified with the prophet Isaiah for obvious reasons that can be seen from the first verse of that larger book of prophesy: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Micah and Isaiah both served the Lord during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The first and third of these kings are noted as those that did what was right in the eyes of God. By contrast Ahaz did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Micah (and Isaiah) served during a time of some variety because of differences in the reigns of these three kings. On the other hand the kind of problems that the prophet speaks about were surely things that happened during the reigns of all of these kings.
The Lord begins the book by saying something to all the nations and peoples of the earth. There is something in what God is saying about Judah and Israel that should be instructive to other peoples. The Lord is the God of His covenant people, the descendents of Jacob. Yet God is coming in judgment against them through the Assyrians, and later through the Babylonians. The problems that will come through foreign powers to the north and east are said to be troubles that have come from the Lord’s holy temple in the heavens. From that high place, God is coming down against the wickedness of His people. How is this instructive to other nations? If this is the way that the Lord will treat His own beloved flock, what will be the fate of the other nations who have also sinned against God? There is something here for the world to learn. We are in grave trouble. We cannot stand before this holy God.
All that is and will be happening against Israel and Judah is happening for a reason. It is on account of the sins of God’s people. Their capital cities have become centers of idolatry and immorality. If the nations of the world have also avoided their duty to worship the Creator, and if they too have ignored the teaching of natural revelation and conscience and given themselves over to what is wrong, will they fare well when the Lord comes in judgment against them?
It is a sad thing to have the sins of the covenant community on public display before the peoples of the earth. Micah laments deeply over his divine charge of showing the failure of the Lord’s people and the consequences of their sins. He says that the condition of Israel is incurable, and that this same wound has come to Judah. He uses the names of various places in order to reinforce the sure judgment that is coming upon the towns of Judah and Israel. He refers to their fate of some injury or destruction by using Hebrew words that sound like the names of the towns that would soon suffer these trials.
There may also be some specific indications of trouble identified here that are hard for us to understand now, but that kind of nuance is not the point of this chapter. The message here is as follows: Even Judah and Israel deserve God’s wrath, other nations also deserve this same wrath of God, and they would all do well to consider how the Lord’s own people have suffered justly from His holy correction.
There is much trouble for the inhabitants of this world as we swim through deep waters of overwhelming unrighteousness. From beginning to end there is deceit and idolatry everywhere. We have many reasons to mourn. We have great sadness over the loss of family members who are no more. Trial and death are all around us, and it might appear that there is no way out. If inclusion in the line of Jacob cannot save people from the wrath of Yahweh, what possible hope can there be for those who have no relation to the chosen people of God?
It should be very clear that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Yet God was not content to leave us without hope. He has set His affection upon His elect, not only from Judah and Israel, but also from the other nations. Through the words of prophets like Micah and Isaiah, we have come to see our own sinfulness as we hear the Lord’s indictment against His Old Testament people. Through the Law and the prophets we have a consistent story that proves to us that the way of peace with God must come from outside of ourselves.
The Lord Himself needed to work out our salvation. Only by His mighty hand could our rescue be accomplished. Through the cross of Christ we see displayed an ultimate and effectual exile that we deserved. Judah and Israel did deserve to be sent away from the Promised Land. As observers of their grief from various nations of the earth we must frankly admit that our sin deserves displacement from any place of blessing. But Christ was exiled for us. He was cast out of the holy city and nailed to a cross, though He had done nothing wrong. He was cut off of the Lord’s people that we might be brought in, together with many descendants of Jacob. We have been justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is ours in Christ Jesus.
What does it take to oppress the poor? You need an imagination, and you need the ability to follow through on an evil scheme. The people of God in the time of Micah had both. They devised wickedness at night, and when they woke up in the morning they used their power to accomplish their designs. One other thing is needed in order for this kind of oppression to take over a society. There must be no fear of God. The absence of that fear brings about the erosion of character among a people.
The Lord has an answer for those who lead His own nation into this kind of social disobedience. As they have done to others, it shall be done to them by their enemies. He is bringing a disaster that will show the powerful what it feels like to be helpless. They will learn what it is like to be the subject of insulting taunts. They will find out what happens to people when their inheritance is taken away from them. They will feel utterly ruined. What they counted on as a stable possession will be completely removed from their charge, for foreigners will take their properties and there will be no judicial process by which they can justly plead their case. As they have done to the poor among their own people, foreign powers will do to them.
This was the prophecy that Micah brought to his people, but they did not want to hear it. Such an attitude toward the Word of God, seeking to silence the Lord’s preachers, is a sure sign that the disaster about which God would warn his people is now coming to them. They do not want to hear about their future disgrace, but silencing the Lord’s prophets will not change the facts of what God is going to do. It feels unseemly to the rich to hear upsetting messages from the Lord, so they will do what they can to stop the announcement of the Lord’s judgment against them.
Is it the Lord’s fault that the descendants of Jacob are in so much trouble? Can their problems really be solved by attempting to silence the truth? Is there some character flaw in God that has led to the danger that the nation faces? No, it is the people who are at fault and not their God. They steal the clothing off of innocent men, and destroy families by unjustly removing their possessions from them.
The Promised Land is no longer a particularly safe place for the Lord’s people because of their pervasive iniquity. Yet those who should be the most discerning and gifted among the people, those who should be leading others in the way of righteousness, they would rather have prophets that speak to them of strong drinks than true representatives of God who would expose their sins that they might truly repent.
Despite the sin of the powerful and their abuse of the poor in their midst, the Lord speaks of an assembly of deliverance for “all.” This all is qualified. It is the remnant of the descendants of Jacob. The Assyrians will bring great trouble upon the northern kingdom of Israel and upon the countryside of Judah. Many will die. Others will be exiled. Some will flee to Jerusalem, and the Assyrians will not be able to destroy this remnant of the Lord’s people.
This flock of the Lord will have a head. Their will be a king that they will follow in order to have life again. Ultimately this king will be more than a Hezekiah who will be treated mercifully by God as the Assyrians are amazingly sent back home by the Lord’s power. The ending verse in the chapter insists that the true King who delivers His people is the Lord who is at their head.
The people of God throughout the ages are a disappointing lot. Especially their leaders seem to be experts at oppression and immorality. They dream about it on their beds, and they use their reasoning and all their resources to accomplish their unrighteous desires. They lead many astray and they abuse others who cry out to the Lord for help. They too often become undistinguishable from the world around them.
Nonetheless there is one King who will never abandon His sacred charge. He is the fulfillment of every merciful prophecy of the real Leader who would rule in righteousness. He accomplishes His great aims through His own suffering. On His bed at night He dreams of those things that will bring the greatest glory to His heavenly Father. When He rises in the morning He walks closer to the cross with every step that He takes. He has had compassion upon us in our great poverty, and His unparalleled leadership is the root cause of any well-being that we enjoy, now and forever.
God has given some people extraordinary gifts of being able to influence others, moving them in one direction or another. While some of this can be learned or improved, much of it is a matter of personality, temperament, and character. We call this leadership. The Lord has also placed people in positions of responsibility over others. We call this authority. There are some who have gifts of leadership, but they are not in positions of authority. Others are in positions of authority, but they do not have strong gifts of leadership. Most people have neither leadership nor authority. Some few have both. Among the Lord’s Old Testament people, God expected those with leadership and those in authority to use whatever abilities they had in order to know and pursue something called justice.
Justice has to do with right and wrong. It has something to do with the guilty being appropriately punished and the innocent who may be falsely charged with wrong-doing being vindicated. Those in authority, particularly those who are especially gifted leaders, need to pursue justice with a sense of love for those who they are called to protect. They need to see their duty before God to care for those who may be neither gifted leaders nor in any position of power. There are various reasons why some people are weaker than others. Those who are the stronger ones need to love the weak, and to care for them as an act of reverence for the Lord. After all, the Lord is most definitely in authority over all, and He is the greatest of all loving leaders.
Those who should have been serving the weak lovingly in Israel were treating people like meat to be consumed. This was most unwise. A person may be very rich, but there is someone else who is richer still. A person may be crafty and powerful, but there is some else who could gain the upper hand. When we abuse those we should be caring for, cannot the God who loves justice recognize our guilt and send others who would move armies in a mission against us, men who could easily be placed in authority over us? What will God do when we cry out to him then, we who have ignored the cry of the poor for justice? Micah said that the Lord would hide His face from wicked rulers who were over the Lord’s people.
In every society there are some who have a role of teaching others, particularly on those issues of life that of necessity deal with our relationship to the divine. These prophets have a special role of understanding spiritual realms that others may not understand, and of communicating the truth from God to the people. There were many of these prophets in Israel and Judah, but there were some who used their position as teachers to move people away from God and His truth. They declared that the people had peace with God, provided that their customers gave the prophets something to eat, but when the poor man came, they claimed that God was unhappy. Yet this role of speaking for the Lord of glory is not a game. There really is a realm of glory above in some dimension that is beyond our ability to regularly visit and walk in according to our own will. The Ruler over heaven can bring messages to His people, or He can shut off all communication to those who would be self-serving prophets. As the Lord is the Judge over all supposed kings, He will also insist that He is the God over all prophets.
Micah was a true prophet, and He brought a true Word from God for those who would be abusive rulers, false teachers, and greedy priests. They should know that they would have to answer to the Lord for their haughty presumption and their abuse of the weak. They should not think that everything was fine with the Lord, when the Lord’s people were being mistreated by those who should have been nursing fathers and mothers to them. The Lord would plow Zion as a field. Jerusalem would become a heap of ruins, and the temple mount, a place where wild trees would take over as if no men were in charge to order nature for the common good and the glory of the Lord.
Most people are not born leaders and they do not have great authority over others. They are not gifted teachers that many long to follow, nor are they able to be of obvious help to others who are facing trouble with sin or the miseries of this world. Most people belong to the mass of humanity that is led by others, taught by others, and represented by others before the Lord God. What they long for is a better prophet, priest, and king; one who would truly use his gifts and position for their good. They long for someone who would love them, and who would have the wisdom and strength to make a difference in their lives as they go through this world which is under the curse of Almighty God. Even if such a friend could be found, most people long for something more than this life, though they may not know how to put their longing into words. They need a friend who can take them beyond death. They can readily find an enemy in a land of hatred who would gladly give them death and take from them all that they are worth, but is there any friend who could actually bring them a life that would last beyond the grave?
This is what Christ has done for us. He is the Prophet, Priest, and King from God. He has given His life for us, that we might have abundant life. He did not come to kill His sheep. He is the Good Shepherd. He did not come to teach false lessons of fear and flattery to gullible minds. He is the True Prophet. He did not come to take away your wealth, but to take upon Himself Your spiritual poverty and to grant to You His rich righteousness and His glorious bounty. He brings life to millions who need a real Leader, one who can take them into a world of eternal life.
God has a great plan for the fulfillment of His glory. That plan is bigger than the nations of Israel and Judah, though it surely involves His Old Covenant people. In the days of Micah God spoke through His prophet about a future day calling it the latter days. We begin to have a taste of what Micah spoke of in the gospel age in which we now live. We see more of this when we go to be with the Lord, but it is ultimately in the age of resurrection that comes with the return of Christ when we see the greatness of the Lord’s glorious will.
How can we know what the age of resurrection will be like? We are told about a new earth. There must be some very significant continuity between the present earth and the new place of blessing, or it would not make any sense to use the word earth in describing that future place. We are also told about a new heaven. Once again there must be some very significant continuity between the present heaven and the new place of blessing, or it would not make any sense to use the word heaven in describing that future place. We are told that this future place will descend from heaven and will bring about a renewed earth. The place of blessing in the resurrection age must have significant continuity with the existing heaven and earth, and yet be new in certain ways, that can only be thought of as discontinuity.
That new day that Micah speaks of has already begun in the preaching of the gospel of a Jewish Messiah. The nations are streaming into the church over these centuries as the good news of Christ and the resurrection is proclaimed. The words of familiarity from Micah’s day, during the age of the Law, were well used to speak to the people about the coming age of the gospel. We who were once strangers to the Lord’s covenant people are learning now of God’s ways as a part of the new living temple of the Holy Spirit. Even now we hear His Word, we worship Him, and we know something of His presence and His love. A day is coming when the Lord will come in judgment, and will bring something very new. What is the nature of the discontinuity that makes this resurrection age new? That new day will be a day of justice. Now we see much injustice. That new day will be a day of peace. Now we see much war. That new day will be a day of security. Now we experience much fear. The greater blessings that the Apostle speaks of when he refers to the end of His life on earth and his presence then with the Lord will one day cover the entire renewed earth. This sure hope comes to us by the mouth of the Lord of heavenly hosts. He has spoken.
The experience of people all over the earth today is a confusing story of multiple gods, an idolatry that even snares people of faith. In the coming age God’s children will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. God will gather those who have been injured badly in this time of His curse, and He will make them to be a part of His glorious nation. When Jesus made the lame walk He gave us a small taste of the fulfillment of the Lord’s great promises. The Lord will be with us as our King, not only spiritually, but physically, for He will descend, judge, and renew. He will not merely visit for a time. He will reign in that new Kingdom without end.
Getting to the place of those latter days from the time of Isaiah will not be easy. First there will be an exile in Babylon, a restoration of a remnant back to the Promised Land, a final end to the era of the Law, the beginning of the age of the gospel in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the preaching of the gospel over many centuries of suffering and persecution. Yet lest we be weary in well-doing in the midst of Adam’s dying world, the Lord has limited our years here and has given us precious promises and strong encouragement for our souls. Our Savior has gone to the present heaven and takes us there with Him where we live and reign with Him until the time of resurrection has fully come. This is a wonderful limitation upon our present suffering while we wait for the birth and life of all the people of God.
While we hate to see people die, and we continue to mourn the fall of Adam and the consequences that we feel from that fall in the absence of those we love, it would not be a better plan to have people remain on this present earth for centuries upon centuries, facing continued trials and troubles. It is a great thing that there is already a present heaven where righteousness dwells, and where the problem of our experience of separation from God has already been solved. It is wonderful that we who believe on this present earth and those who see the certainty of Christ in their heavenly home are both sharing in the same future hope of the resurrection age, the complete fulfillment of the words of Micah 4.
The common link between those who wait here below and those who wait above is Christ, the great King of the Kingdom. We are in Him even now, and those who have gone to be with Him are surely in Him in a way that is somehow better. He knows what it is to suffer here below. It was here that He faced the consequences of the fall that we also face. It was also here that He suffered the rejection of men who should have recognized Him as the Messiah King. It was here that he faced the cross, by which the wrath of our holy God was satisfied. If we suffer with Him now on this earth, when our surviving friends and families lay our mortal bodies to rest in the grave, we go to where our Lord is now, in the present heaven. One day we will return with Him in glory, and we will live with Him forever in the age of resurrection after the present heaven transforms a delightfully renewed earth. This hope, by which we live, is an ancient hope, made more sure through the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, and His ascension to the present heaven, and through the message of Christ presented in the completed Scriptures.
Israel is loved by God, and Jerusalem is the place that He chose for the king to rule and for His own house of worship. Yet now it must be defended against foreign troops. They come against Israel with a rod of military power, yet they are the Lord’s rod. These foreign rulers intend to strike the son of David, the king of Judah, on the cheek. From the time of the Babylonian exile until the birth of Jesus Christ, there will be no true king of Israel. Yet one day there would be those even within the Lord’s own people in Israel, who will be ready to strike the Messianic King in the face. He will suffer this measure of His Father’s discipline though He Himself had no sin.
It is in this fifth chapter of Micah that the Lord chooses to announce the birthplace of the Messiah. This would be fulfilled in an amazing display of God’s faithful providence as Mary and Joseph, both descendants of David, would return to Bethlehem in Judah in order to fulfill the requirements of a Roman census. Jesus Christ would be born in the city of David, Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem. He would be the ruler over the fulfillment of all that Israel was to be. His origin is truly from of old, for He is the eternal God sent from the Ancient of Days.
The Lord gave this prophecy through Micah in a time when God was announcing His coming judgment against His people, a judgment that would result in the loss of a reigning Davidic king. The people of Yahweh would be without a king until the time when this new Messiah King would be born. Then the brethren of the Messiah would be gathered as a flock that would hear His voice, and He would be their Shepherd. Jesus Christ is the eternal King over the eternal kingdom of God that will one day be fully known upon the renewed earth. He shall be our everlasting peace.
The Lord speaks through His Old Testament prophets about the coming days of the worldwide expansion of New Covenant faith and life. There will come a time when no enemy shall harass the Lord’s great kingdom. This message is communicated in the day of Micah by using the words and images of Old Testament life with enough of a stretching metaphor to make it clear that something newer and better is coming, first in the gospel age, but ultimately in the final resurrection age that will be enjoyed at the Lord’s return as the mighty King. Then the enemies of God will be completely cut off and the chosen of the Lord among Israel and all the nations will be safe and blessed.
The problem for Judah in the day of Micah was not merely a problem of outside strength coming against them from Assyria. The Assyrians, and later the Babylonians, surely were an overwhelming problem, but we know that these empires were given success in battle at God’s command and by His providence. The problem was really from the inside. Even if God restrained Assyria and Babylon forever, who would address the internal corruption and sin within the Lord’s covenant people?
One of the glories of the victory of the Messiah is that this inside problem (inside the covenant community and inside our own hearts) is addressed and solved by Jesus Christ. No more sorcery in the church… No more idolatry among us… In fact, during this gospel age, the Lord is not only bringing the elect from the nations into a new Israel. He is also sanctifying His people in a process that is not without pain and struggle. The Lord will have victory in this project. Beyond the age of the gospel we have an age, not only of perfected bodies, but also an age of perfected hearts and minds, perfected desires and intentions, perfect motives and perfected emotions.
If we understand rightly the description of the present heaven from Hebrews 12:22-23 where we are told, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,” then those who are in Christ who have died are already experiencing life without sin. Our appreciation of Christ and the cross should include a consideration of all of these great benefits. Without our Lord’s atoning suffering what possible right would we have to God’s work of sanctification now and the perfection of holiness when we go to be with Him in heaven?
To reject Christ and all His benefits, to become an enemy of the cross in thought or life is wicked and foolish. When the Lord comes to renew the earth with His beloved heavenly Jerusalem, when He comes to bring about the new resurrection age that will complete the renewal of creation, He will do what He has warned us about in the final verse of this chapter. As the church has confessed for centuries, Christ will return not only with salvation for His children, but with anger, wrath, and vengeance for those who have scorned His grace and hated His people. To state the obvious, His mercy is far better for us than His vengeance. Let us bow before Him in faith now that through His own holy perfections we might escape the fate of those who will not obey the gospel of the divine Son of David who was born to a poor woman in the little town of Bethlehem.
How well would any of us fare if we were on trial and the prophetic prosecuting attorney was making the case for Almighty God as our Accuser? Would we survive? Would our prospects be any better if we had the shelter of a larger array of co-conspirators as defendants with us? What if the Lord made His case against the nation to which we belong, or what if He brought forth His evidence against the church where we worship? None of these scenarios are particularly inviting. There is more than enough evidence to convict us of much sin. Even one violation of God’s holy Law deserves an infinite punishment since our offenses individually and as groups are against the eternal God before whom we must give an account. In Micah 6 the Lord again assembles the courtroom of creation and brings His indictment against His covenant people Israel.
What might be a reasonable defense for Israel in her violations of the Lord’s covenant stipulations? Has God simply wearied Israel with useless and meaningless laws? Was the Lord not a good Provider for His people when they called out to Him in the days of Moses? Did He abandon them to their adversaries in the wilderness as they travelled to the Promised Land? None of these charges against God will hold up. There is evidence in the Scriptures that show God’s blessed power toward His beloved people. When Balak of Moab wanted Balaam to curse Israel, the Lord turned it into blessing. With this one particular as just a small example, we see how God carried His people through the pathway of trouble into the open country of His divine provision.
God is guilty of no transgression against us. We cannot blame our unfaithfulness and disobedience against Him. Nor can we suppose to win our freedom through ceremonial offerings, as if He can be bought at such a small price. Any sacramental system must be based on a sure footing of true obedience to the Lord. We must not think that we can follow the example of desperate religionists who imagine that the Lord can be appeased through the blood of infants. Far from it, the religious sacrifice of children was itself a most horrendous offence against the Almighty. God requires the shedding of truly righteous blood, the willing sacrifice of His own Son, who alone has met the full requirements of the Law, and has given Himself for our atonement, receiving in His person the sanction of the eternal covenant reserved for us as lawbreakers.
This is not a new idea. The only hope for Israel has always been that the Lord would send the Seed of the woman, the One who became the second Adam. He obeyed the Law for us and died for us as our true Representative. The people of the Old Testament were saved by the Lord’s grace through the provision of a Substitute, just as surely as we are saved by that same provision. Their only hope was Jesus, and He remains our only plea. Now that we have proclaimed that message of grace and the benefits of Christ redemptive work, what is it that the God who loves His people requires of those who would follow Him? He tells us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him. If we refuse this pathway of life, how can we make the case that we have been moved by the justice, kindness, and humility of our Savior?
What was the Lord to do about His beloved Israel? They would not listen to His Word. They would not serve others with the generous provision that the Lord had given them. They abused the weak. Their anger against their brothers yielded violence. They stole from their neighbors, and then they covered over all their iniquities with lies before one another and before God.
The case against them was very strong, and the sanctions against them were surely coming. They had followed in the way of the most wicked kings of the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. God would not allow them to have peace or prosperity. There reward would be hunger, destitution, servitude, humiliation, and desolation.
This is what their sins truly deserved. The defeat of the nation by the Assyrians and Babylonians was not injustice. The Lord had a very strong and just case against them. They deserved a sanction that was actually much worse than they received.
What did they deserve? They deserved what the Lamb of God received in our place. We know that the Messiah died for our sins. What He received was the penalty that justly should have come to us. The eternal God/Man on the cross took the desolation that should have come eternally against us as His creatures. Christ faced this sanction of the covenant willingly, so that all who would believe in Him might have eternal life. If we understand this grace, it is certainly not too much for Him to ask that we would now move in the pathway that our Lord requires. It is our great privilege now to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him.
It is not always an easy thing to be a messenger of the truth. What if the truth is an indictment from the Lord against His beloved people? What if the Lord loves His children intensely, and hates sinners with a deep and holy hatred? If the prophet is willing to lie by omission, he can speak just one part of this story, and simply leave the other part unsaid. Many would like to speak of the Lord’s love and jettison His holiness. Others take strange delight in His wrath, and have no place for the fullness of His mercy. They somehow imagine that they will survive the gaze of God’s just anger without the benefit of the glory of His atoning love. The answer for us is to embrace the Lord who embraces us with a holy love by way of the perfect righteousness of His beloved Son who took the wrath that we deserved. It would be best for all concerned if we would not be too quick to think that everything is normal with that true answer to the problem of holy love. The glory of the Lord in His holy love is a staggering reality. We should bow before Him. With Micah, it might be helpful for us to speak these ambassadorial words: “Woe is me!”
It is a fact that the words apply well to Christ when He comes as our Mediator. He offers up all His blessedness in His pure devotion to His Father. Then He became our woe. There was no fruitfulness or godliness from the descendants of Jacob by which they could commend their perfection to the God of truth. Nor could we in the New Testament church commend ourselves to God that way. We must come to Him through a perfect Lamb or we cannot come to Him at all. We are the ones who shed blood. We have taken the bribes. We have executed evil with skill. Our punishment is deserved. It will not serve us well to deny this or to be defensive about our guilt. Why should we say something that would be an attack against the One who abundantly paid the price for us that we could never pay? Are we righteous in ourselves? If we are, then the cross was not necessary, and the Lord made a horrible mistake. This is far from the truth. If we protest that we are innocent, then we obscure the glory of the one Savior who loves us. He is the One we look to. We have no family connection from our own relations that will win us release from our debt before God. The Almighty has drawn us by His love into His household. Through His Son we have now been counted as the Father’s beloved children.
The Lord Jesus Christ took the place of a guilty sinner for us, and He was vindicated in His resurrection. Now we are found in this innocent Man, and we share in His vindication, since He willingly shared in our just condemnation. We were in the darkness of the dungeon of God’s justice, but we have now been counted as those who have the light of our Lord.
The story of our salvation through Christ is an account of a great reversal of staggering proportions. Those who would be proud in their rejection of the cross-love of Christ; those who would rejoice in the destruction of the Lord’s people; those who see themselves as beyond the touch of God’s justice and who spurn His love may find themselves crushed by the weight of His Law as they must answer for their abuse of His children. On the other hand those who were once the victims of abuse may be caught up in the glory of the Savior who hears the cry of the broken-hearted and the plea of the humble. What we learn in the Scriptures and also through life experience is that some who were found among the proud group can be brought to take their place among the humble group. A Saul who sought to kill his religious enemies is made to be a Paul who will learn how much he must suffer for the good of the message that he once hated. This is not the exception, but the rule. Christ died for those who were His enemies. Through His blood, all who will humble themselves before Him have been counted now as His friends.
Today is a wonderful day for us to be ashamed of our offenses against the Lord, against His Law, and against His people. Only the proud who will not give up their pride need turn away from such a merciful and holy Judge. The King who sits on the throne of judgment is the Man who hung on the cross for the weak and broken-hearted. He has marvelous things in store for all who would give up their hopeless fight against Him; great blessings of sure eternal joys, and even some measure of peace today for the guilty conscience.
He will show us this mercy because of who He is. The One who is perfect holiness is the same being as the One who is perfect love. For those who tremble at His Name, there is now a warm embrace from the only entity in the universe who can make our sin go away and who can heal the scars of body and soul that plague murderers and thieves. He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. This is what the eye of man could not fully see when our righteous Redeemer willingly died for the unworthy. This is what was happening, and this is what we receive now, when we receive Him in all His compassion for lost and wounded people who finally put down their weapons and rest in Christ. He waged warfare for us. His own life was a brutal casualty, but His steadfast love for His children could never be extinguished. He will show forth resurrection faithfulness to His children forever and ever. He took the divine woe upon Himself, and He defeated sin and death for us.