#DailyDevotion Have You Exchanged The Worship Of God For Idols?
Micah 15All this is for Jacob’s wrong and Israel’s sins. What is Jacob’s wrong? Isn’t it Samaria? And what are Judah’s high places? Aren’t they Jerusalem? 6“And so I will make Samaria a pile of ruins in the field, a place for the planting of vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations. 7All her images will be smashed to pieces, the wages of her prostitutes will be burned, and all her idols I will turn into a heap of ruins. They were collected with money from the hire of prostitutes; they will again be used for the hire of prostitutes.”
Judgment and destruction in the previous verses is what “all this” refers to. But judgment begins with the house of God, so the northern kingdom, Samaria and the southern kingdom, Judah will be judged first.
Jacob’s wrong is Samaria. When the LORD gave the northern tribes to Jeroboam, he founded his new country on the two worship sites in Bethel and Dan, contrary to the will of the LORD, who wanted all Israelites to come to Jerusalem to worship where He placed His name. On top of that, Jeroboam made two golden calves to represent the LORD and placed them at those places to be worshiped. So he added idolatry to Israel’s sin of not worshiping at the Temple in Jerusalem.
While the Israelites never fully gave up worshiping in high places, the amazing thing here is the LORD counts Jerusalem now as one of the high places. On other high places they may have worshiped the LORD but they also worshiped pagan gods like Baal. But the LORD here is counting the Judahites’ worship of Him in Jerusalem equal to the the worship on the high places. Obviously, He is not accepting their worship of Him there even at the temple where His name was because they were not worshiping Him with their hearts but only with their mouths in vain.
He then turns His attention to Samaria. His judgment for her is to become a waste, a pile of ruins. The LORD is going to bring the place down to its foundations. He is planning on having all her idols smashed. While it is possible and probable there was cultic prostitution going on in Israel, the wages of the prostitutes here is most likely referring to the spiritual prostitution of the two temples of the golden calves which kept the people from going to Jerusalem to worship the LORD at His temple and in the manner He prescribed.
We will often hear that since Jesus said the Father wants people to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, that anything goes in worship. It is all adiaphora. But is that what Jesus meant. Didn’t He rather mean the Spirit would have us worship Him with our hearts unfeignedly? Didn’t He mean our worship would consists of listening to His Word, trusting His Word and doing His Word? It is perhaps not at willy nilly as some would have us think. The early Church took on the pattern of worship from the synagogues they once attended and added unto that the communion service. We should worship in such a way the Law of God is proclaimed to us so that we may know our sins and how the LORD wants us to live. We should worship in such a way the mercy, grace, kindness, steadfast love and forgiveness won for us by Jesus Christ is proclaimed and exalted which overcomes that Law and then moves us to keep that Law from the heart. Such a worship service should exalt the name of Jesus and His works to the glory of the Father and bring us the Spirit through the use of God’s Word and His holy Sacraments.
Merciful, gracious, kind, loving and forgiving Father, give us Your Spirit, that we may worship You in Spirit and in Truth. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.