#DailyDevotion Don’t Use God’s Promise As An Excuse To Sin
Micah 3 9 Please listen to this, leaders of the people of Jacob and rulers of Israel. You despise justice and twist everything that is right. 10 You build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong. 11 Her leaders have to be bribed to give judgment, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets make predictions for money. Yet they claim to depend on the LORD, saying, “Isn’t the Lord among us? Nothing bad will happen to us.” 12 You are the reason; it is your fault Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will be ruins, and the temple hill will become a wooded hilltop.
Another call to the leaders and rulers of Jacob and Israel. Who are these people? Verse 11 tells us, leaders (political), priests and prophets. You should see the mercy of God here in sending Micah to warn them, to give them a chance to change their hearts and to repent of their sin. The LORD’s pronouncements of wrath are rarely absolute. Forgiveness is absolute though.
What are they called to repent of? They despise justice and twist everything that is right. We see in verse 10 He is specifically addressing Jerusalem when He says Jacob and Israel. Building Jerusalem with blood and wrong refers to the first four verses which describe coveting the land, i.e. the inheritance of its citizens through false accusations, like Jezebel did with Naboth’s vineyard. (1 Kings 21) Leaders are being bribed to give unjust judgments. The priests and prophets twist the Law of Moses in order for the leaders to be able to do these things. It’s people like this who give religion a bad name. But the Christian religion is not at fault. The devil uses wicked people who use the name of the LORD to turn away from the religion which gives them a relationship with Jesus and the Father. Realizing this, we are protected from the heresy of Donatism which teaches the Word and Sacrament are not valid or efficacious in the hands of evil men. Despite evil men, we cling to the Word and Sacraments they give us and we call such leaders to repentance ourselves.
These leaders, priests and prophets claim to depend upon the LORD. They prop themselves up with the promises of the LORD. Such promises are: Zeph. 3 15“The LORD will cancel your punishment. He will drive out your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is among you. You don’t need to fear another calamity.” Isa. 12 6“Call out loud and shout, you who live on Zion. Great is the Holy One of Israel, Who is among you.” Ps.48 9“We think of Your kindness, O God, while we’re in Your temple.” Their dependence on these promises is a sham. They forget the curses the LORD pronounced in Deuteronomy if they did not follow the Law from their hearts.
So the LORD will bring judgment upon the city and its people. It will be plowed over. It will be in ruins and become an abandoned hilltop. This happened first with the Babylonians in 586. It will happen again in 70 AD. Judgment begins with the house of God. We should take notice of this. We cannot treat the grace, mercy, kindness, steadfast love and forgiveness of God cheaply. To treat it cheaply would be to sin without fear of God’s wrath. It is to not try to live according to His expressed will through the apostles. The word of the day to look up is antinomians. Don’t be those people. Don’t let your pastor or seminary professors be those people. We Christians, because of our sinful flesh, still need to hear God’s law and live according to it when we trust in the promises of Christ Jesus our LORD and Savior.
Almighty and merciful God, grant us Your grace that we may turn from our sins and use Your grace and mercy to do Your will and live the life of Christ to those You have placed as our neighbors. May we delight in Your Law and by the Holy Spirit do it. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.