SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/12/2015
2:45 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The ruin of Samaria
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Micah 1:6-9
Message of the verses: “6 For I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in
the open country, Planting places for a vineyard. I will pour her stones down
into the valley And will lay bare her foundations. 7 All of her idols will be
smashed, All of her earnings will be burned with fire And all of her images I
will make desolate, For she collected them from a harlot’s earnings, And to the
earnings of a harlot they will return. 8
Because of this I must lament and wail, I must go barefoot and naked; I must
make a lament like the jackals And a mourning like the ostriches. 9 For her
wound is incurable, For it has come to Judah; It has reached the gate of my
people, Even to Jerusalem.”
This
sub-section is from the second main point from Dr. Wiersbe’s outline in his
commentary and he entitles it “Lamentation:
The Cities Shall be Ruined” and it covers Micah 1:6-16, and he writes
the following as introductory commentary:
“The prophet responded to God’s message by acting like a grieving man at
a funeral (v. 8; 2 Sam. 15:30). He was
genuinely burdened because of what would happen to his people if they didn’t
heed God’s Word and turn from their sin.”
It
is important to us to learn that Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom
of Israel sat upon a hill that overlooked a fertile valley. Let us look and see what Isaiah called this
city from Isaiah 28:1 “Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, And
to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, Which is at the head of the
fertile valley Of those who are overcome with wine!” Remember that Isaiah and Micah prophesied
during the same time period. Now we will
look at verses 2-4 of Isaiah 28 to see what he had to say about the judgment
that would come upon Samaria: “2 Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty agent;
As a storm of hail, a tempest of destruction, Like a storm of mighty
overflowing waters, He has cast it down to the earth with His hand. 3 The proud
crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is trodden under foot. 4 And the fading
flower of its glorious beauty, Which is at the head of the fertile valley, Will
be like the first-ripe fig prior to summer, Which one sees, And as soon as it is
in his hand, He swallows it.” We have
seen while studying some of the different prophets that both Israel and Judah
would be destroyed, and that means the people were getting the word, but were
not listening to it.
We
have seen the reasons before as to why God was going to destroy and did destroy
Samaria and the reason is that the people rebelled against His Word. He destroyed their temple because it was not teaching
the things of God, but was prostituting their religion, which was false as they
worshiped idols. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Throughout
the Old Testament, idolatry is compared to prostitution.” Now we will see and have already seen from
the study of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would destroy the temple in
Jerusalem because their leaders had turned true religion into false worship of
the Lord and we know that one of God’s attributes is that He is a jealous God
who has the right and is the only One to be worshiped. One of the Ten Commandants found Exodus 20:5
states “"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your
God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on
the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “The covenant God made
with His people at Sinai was like a marriage contract, and their breaking the
covenant was like committing adultery or engaging in prostitution.”
It
happened in 722 BC when the Assyrian leader “Sargon II defeated Samaria and
took captive or killed many living there.
He later returned some of them back to the land where the intermarried those
who were not children of Israel and started a mixed race which were hated by
the Jews and were still there when the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth. Jesus went to them as recorded in the fourth
chapter of the gospel of John as He told his disciple that He must go through Samaria: “1 Therefore when the Lord knew that the
Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than
John 2 (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were),
3 He left Judea and went away again into
Galilee.
“4 And He
had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar,
near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob’s well
was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the
well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw
water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8 For His disciples had
gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to
Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a
Samaritan woman?" (For
Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”
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