The Judge names the Defendants (Micah 1:5)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/11/2015 10:26 AM

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  The Judge names the defendants

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Micah 1:5

            Message of the verses:  “5 All this is for the rebellion of Jacob And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the rebellion of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?”

            God is naming His own people in this “court case” with Him as being the Judge, and of course God is the Judge, Judge of the Supreme Court, the real one and now He points His finger at the two capital cities of His people, Samaria and also Jerusalem.  Samaria was the capital of Israel, the Northern Kingdom and of course Jerusalem was the capital of Judah the Southern Kingdom.  We have mentioned in many SD’s that the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, and then they made their way to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and came right to the door step of Jerusalem when the godly King, Hezekiah laid his burden in front of the Lord and prayed that God would not allow this to happen.  God answered his prayer as the angel of the Lord destroyed 185,000 Assyrians in one night and Jerusalem was saved from the Assyrians.  This account can be seen in a number of books of the OT, in 2 Kings, Isaiah, and in 2 Chronicles.  The problem with Judah is that they did not learn from the defeat of Israel and after the death of Hezekiah his son Manasseh became king and although at the end of his life he became a believer, he was by far the worst king Judah ever had and he reigned for fifty years and so God would then use the Babylonians to destroy Judah and Jerusalem in 586 BC.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “But Judah and Israel were guilty of idolatry, which is really rebellion against the Lord.  When the nation was divided after Solomon’s death, the Northern Kingdom established its own religious system in competition with the Mosaic worship in the temple at Jerusalem.  But the people of Judah had secretly begun to worship the false gods of Canaan; and their hearts were not true to Jehovah, even when they stood in the temple courts and offered their sacrifices (Isa. 1).  To God, the temple had become like one of the ‘high places’ in the hills around Jerusalem where the Jews secretly worshiped the idols and offered their sacrifices.”  

            Recently in our study of Ezekiel we looked at when Ezekiel was sent to Jerusalem in the spirit to see this awful worshiping of idols actually going on in the temple of God.  “7 Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. 8  He said to me, "Son of man, now dig through the wall." So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. 9 And He said to me, "Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here." 10 So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. 11  Standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. 12 Then He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ’The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’"

    “13 And He said to me, "Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are committing." 14 Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these." 16 Then He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun. 17 He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to their nose. 18 “Therefore, I indeed will deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity nor will I spare; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them’ (Ezekiel 8:7-18).”

12/11/2015 10:52 AM