SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/4/2016
10:04 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Because of Great Guilt, Trust the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Micah 6:1-8
Message of
the verses: “1 Hear now what the LORD is saying,
"Arise, plead your
case before the mountains, And let the hills hear your voice. 2 “Listen,
you mountains, to the indictment of the LORD, And you enduring foundations of
the earth, Because the
LORD has a case against His people; Even with Israel He will dispute. 3 “My people,
what have I done to you, And how have I wearied you? Answer Me. 4 “Indeed, I brought you up from
the land of Egypt And ransomed you from the house of slavery, And I sent before
you Moses, Aaron and Miriam. 5 “My people, remember now What Balak king of Moab
counseled And what Balaam son of Beor answered him, And from Shittim to Gilgal,
So that you might know the righteous acts of the LORD."
“ 6 With what shall I come to the LORD And bow
myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With
yearling calves? 7 Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten
thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does
the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And
to walk humbly with your God?”
Not real sure how far we will get through these
verses, but one thing for sure Micah 6:8 is probably the most famous verse in
all the book of Micah, but we may have to wait until our next SD to get to it.
We have seen as we studied the various prophets that
the children of Israel were hiding behind a veneer of religious activity which
was their routine worship, however this routine worship certainly did not come
from their hearts. We have also
mentioned that Micah’s contemporary was the Prophet Isaiah, and he also told
the nation that they were sick from their head to their foot: “5 Where will you be stricken again, As you
continue in your rebellion? The
whole head is sick And the whole heart is faint. 6 From the sole of the foot even
to the head There is nothing sound in it, Only bruises, welts and raw
wounds, Not pressed out or bandaged, Nor softened with oil Isaiah 1:5-6).” I can say one thing and that the prophets all
had great courage as we have even seen in our study of the gospel of John when
we looked at the courage of John the Baptist who was Israel’s last and greatest
prophet. Isaiah goes on in verse 12 to
write “12 “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this
trampling of My courts?” He is saying
that they would not admit that they had this sickness from their foot to their
head and this verse (12) shows that. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “They were like the patient who asked the doctor to retouch his
X-rays so he wouldn’t have to endure surgery!
His deceit didn’t cure him; it made him worse.”
Now remember we are once again in the courtroom
scene and the Lord is calling the witnesses in verses 1-2 and He told the
people to prepare their case. We can see
that the opening remarks came from the Lord who was telling Israel how gracious
He had dealt with them from the very beginning that is when He led them out of
slavery, from the land of Egypt. Next He
gave them leaders Aaron, Moses, and Miriam are the ones He mentioned here. If you want to see all that the Lord had to
put up with Israel during this time read the 106th Psalm.
Next He mentions three occasions as He talks about
Balak, who was the king of Moab who commanded Balaam to curse Israel as seen in
Numbers 22-24. Israel did not even
realize that this spiritual battle was going on. The problem was that Israel befriended Moab
and even attended their idolatrous religious rites and if that was not bad they
even committed fornication with the Moab women.
This is how this spiritual war went on as God would not allow Balaam to
curse Israel so Balaam did like an end run and tempted Israel to commit
fornication with Moab. The sin of Balaam
is mentioned in the NT. “2Pe 2:15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are
gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages
of unrighteousness; Jude 1:11 Woe unto
them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error
of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. Re 2:14
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that
hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before
the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit
fornication.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The phrase ‘from Shittim unto
Gilgal’ (Micah 6:5) reminded the people of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan
River and entering the Promised Land (Josh. 3-4). The same God who opened and closed the Red
Sea also opened and closed the Jordan River so His people might claim their
inheritance. He did for them what they
couldn’t do for themselves, but they didn’t remember.
“It’s
good for God’s people to know the past and remember with gratitude all that God
had done for them. The word ‘remember’
is found at least fourteen times in the Book of Deuteronomy, and frequently the
Jews were instructed to teach their children the mighty deeds of the Lord (Ex.
10:2; 13:8, 14; Deut. 6:20ff; Josh. 22:24; Ps. 78:1-8).
“While we don’t live in the past, we must learn from
the past or we’ll commit the same mistakes.
Philosopher George Santayana wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.’ Because
Israel forgot God’s mercies (Ps. 106:7), they also ignored God’s
commandments. The result was a hard
heart that deliberately rebelled against God’s will. God had every right to ask them, ‘What have I
done to you that you should treat Me this way?”
We once had a Pastor who wanted to rid the church of
all the older people, which with the help of some of the younger people he was
able to do so. While living in Hawaii in
2011 we attended a church where the Pastor gave a sermon sighting that all of
the people’s age groups in the church were needed, including the older people
to which one of the younger women during the sermon began to laugh. He then told everyone that the older people
were needed because they had already made some mistakes, and they knew that
what they did were mistakes, and so they could remind the younger people not to
make the same mistakes. Micah was
telling the children of Israel the same thing.
Trouble is that most younger people won’t take the time to listen to
older people as most younger people have all the answers on their smart phones.
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