#DailyDevotion The Israelites Are A Good Example Not To Follow
Micah 2 4In that day there will be a song to taunt you and a bitter wailing, ‘We are completely ruined. Once He gave my people a land; but now He’s giving it to others. Our fields are turned over to the despoiler!’” 5Then you’ll have no one in the LORD’s congregation to assign you your land by lot.
What day is that? The day of judgment for Israel and for Judah. For they have forsaken the LORD and started worshiping the gods of the people who the LORD had driven out through them for the very same sins they were committing! Woe to the Church of God when it gives up its first love like the Israelites and chases after other gods (while using the name of the LORD Jesus Christ while doing it).
There would be a song to taunt them and bitter wailing. It would seem this song are the words in quotation. What a bitter and sad song. They are completely ruined. The LORD had given the Israelites this land. The LORD told them in Deut. 20, “16But in the towns of these local people that the LORD your God is giving you as your own, don’t keep anyone alive, 17but completely destroy them — Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites — as the LORD your God orders you, 18so they will not teach you to do all the detestable things they have done for their gods, making you sin against the LORD your God.” Again He tells them in Deut. 25, “19so when the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land the LORD your God is giving you as your own, wipe the memory of Amalek off the earth. Don’t forget!” Again the LORD told the Israelites in Deut. 26, ““When you come into the land the LORD your God is giving you as your own and you take it and settle there, and take some of the first of everything the soil produces that you gather from the land the LORD your God is giving you and put it in a basket, then go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to put His name. Go to the man who is the priest at that time, and tell him, ‘I declare today to the LORD your God that I have come into the land the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’” We see here very clearly the LORD gave this land to the Israelites. We see why He gave it to them. First, the first inhabitants were a sinful people. Secondly, He promised the land to Abraham and his descendants.
The LORD Jesus Christ also told them in Deut. 28, “15“But if you will not obey the LORD your God and will not carefully do everything He says in His commandments and laws that I now order you to keep, all the following curses will come on you and overtake you. . . 37And among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you, you will be a thing of horror, an object of scorn and ridicule. . . 64And the LORD will scatter you among all the people from one end of the world to the other, and there you will serve other gods, made of wood and stone, that you and your fathers didn’t know.” The blessings He brought them He now reverses as He promised if they did not trust Him, love Him and obey Him.
Shall His Church fare any better if it acts like the world and adopts its ways? Perhaps we should examine our ways and our teachings according to Jesus’ word, repent of our failings and unbelief and return to the LORD Jesus Christ for every physical and spiritual blessing. Israel was an example to us. Let us not follow in her sinful ways. Let us condemn sin and forgive sin and not let love be the excuse to condone it.
Heavenly Father, grant Your Church such repentance that we turn from sin to Your Son, Jesus Christ for forgiveness and newness of life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.