Chuck Larsen

The Prophets, Priests & Leaders of God’s people were supposed to be those who spoke out for God. Yet there has always been those who claimed these callings, or took these roles, whose message contradicted or ignored God’s Word. Micah expressed a scathing indictment of all three of them in 3:11.  He said that their “heads give judgment for a bribe; priests teach for a price; prophets practice divination for money.”

But in Micah God accuses the Prophets of leading “my people astray” (3:5).  Their messages, He says, are simply “wind” because they do not focus on His ancient oracles recorded in the Scriptures. God’s standards never change and they must be constantly proclaimed in every generation. I never want to be one of those “uttering wind” only preachers who say what people want to hear in order to keep getting a paycheck.  I’m always wrestling with the tension in the pulpit of wanting people to like me and wanting them to enjoy my messages on the one hand and on the other hand wanting to be faithful to God’s Word. It’s been especially difficult in the current series on these Minor Prophets. I love to hear the congregation laugh and I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that. Yet, I must never forget that the real purpose of Sunday morning is to present God’s Word accurately.

But Micah also indicts the people who listen to preachers. Speaking for God he writes in 2:11, “If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for this people!” He said His people have become the kind of people who will only listen to what they want to hear. They only want the “happy hour” message, the “feel good” fix, the “comfort me chorus,” the “heal me headline” rather than the confrontational message of God’s Word.

Worship should be a true “happy hour” not because we escape from God’s message, but because we delight in God’s message.

Chuck

“Because they refuse to listen to me. They have rejected my word.” Jeremiah 6:19

Joseph Addison wrote, “Justice discards party, friendship, and kindred, and is therefore represented as blind.” In this respect justice must be blind.  But it is definitely not deaf or mute. God hears the cry of the helpless and He cries out to us all on behalf of justice. He stands against and will intercede against man’s inhumanity to man. When we pervert justice, we are without excuse because God has made His will perfectly clear. It’s inbred in our very nature of being created in God’s image.  It’s right there! It’s in front of you and ever present as the nose on your face. Micah 6:8 says, “God has told you, O man, what is good…” He has made it perfectly clear. It is something that is undeniable. The framers of our constitution put it this ways, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Alexander Hamilton said, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

Paul tells us that all creation announces the Glory and nature of God and pronounces that those  who pervert the revealed truth are without excuse because He has made it perfectly clear. The creation not only announces God’s glory and power but also his standards. There is a sense also in which creation makes clear the rights of each individual under God. Psalm 50:6 says, “Then let the heavens proclaim his justice, for God himself will be the judge.”

Chuck

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

God has not only given us His absolute truth to guide our life by, but also has promised us a king who will one day apply that truth across the board for all mankind. This King and judge of all will be recognized by the entire world. He will come! He will establish His Kingdom and we will finally have peace. Micah 4:3-4 is a famous passage. Every soldier that’s ever walked a rice patty or stormed a beach, or pointed a rifle, or pushed a button longs for the fulfillment of this passage. Every mother who lost a son, every wife, every child whose husband or father didn’t return from battle gets goose bumps when they read this. It says, “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.”

This passage is also found in Isaiah Chapter two. It is inscribed on a stone wall facing the United Nations building in New York. Khrushchev saw a figurative fulfillment of the prophecy when he visited the John Deere factory near Des Moines, Iowa: The plant was built early in World War II for manufacture of machine-gun bullets. Today it produces farm implements.

Micah 5:2-4 is another famous passage. We often sing about it at Christmas time. It tells us about the Prince of Peace who will end war for all time. It says, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, …And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. The next time I sing, “O little town of Bethlehem,” I’ll sing it with more meaning. “The Hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!”

Chuck
“…his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Samuel Rutherford wrote “Lex, Rex.” That Latin phrase is translated as “The Law is King.” The key concept in his treatise is that there is no one above the law. Every human beings is subject to the same standards of conduct in every relationship. The “Law” that is referred to is in Rutherford’s work is God’s Word, the Bible. He argued, as Francis Shaeffer put it, “How could law — rather than arbitrary judgments of individuals or an elite — be king?  Simply because God had spoken, there was a base upon which to build law.” When God speaks, He tells the truth, he speaks “absolute truth” appropriate for every individual in every society.

In one of Barna’s surveys he asked, “Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with the following statement: There is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct.” Only 28% of the respondents expressed strong belief in “absolute truth,” and more surprisingly, only 23 percent of born-again or evangelical Christians accepted this idea!  Barna goes on to say, “What a telling revelation! If more than 75 percent of the followers of Christ say nothing can be known for certain, does this indicate, as it seems, that they are not convinced that Jesus existed, that He is who He claimed to be, that His Word in authentic, that God created the heavens and earth, or that eternal life awaits the believer? That’s what the findings appear to mean. If there is no absolute truth, then by definition nothing can be said to be absolutely true.”

Micah affirms for us that God’s law, absolute truth, will rule once and for all over the entire world. Chapter 4, verse 2 says, “…   many nations shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.  For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

Chuck

“The very essence of your words is truth; all your just regulations will stand forever.” Psalm 119:160