The Sins of Judah pt 2
Micah 2:1-11 · Miles Driedger · Nov 24, 2024
Micah, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261937212760

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So again, yeah, no class next week. Yeah, that's right. So I have to go to Mike's. I go to Mike's. Yeah. So and. Yeah. And happy Thanksgiving in advance. Well, thank you. Thank you. And we'll celebrate for you here. Yes. So this will be. Lasts like a lesson for two weeks here.

Yeah, so we are in part two of a lesson called the sins of Judah and That is looking at like a chapter 2 verses 1 through 11 And so last week we took the whole class to set up two important pieces of context. The first thing that we dealt with is the fact that Micah seems to be addressing primarily the southern kingdom of Judah. And that seems to hold true in chapter 2 and following.

And we said that by this point in Israel's history, the exile of the northern kingdom seemed to be so imminent that they were almost considered to have passed off the scene in a sense. But we also see that that the Northern Kingdom's wickedness had spread to the Southern Kingdom. And so the Lord is really warning Judah here that what is imminent for the Northern Kingdom can happen in Judah as well. And so it's a word of warning.

And then we talked about the fact that the condemnation of Judah is based entirely on the Mosaic Law. And we know that the Mosaic Covenant laid out very specific laws and consequences for breaking that law, as well as blessings for keeping the law. And we pointed out that there were different degrees, stages of discipline, so to speak, and the final stage of that discipline is exile out of the land. And we saw that in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Those are our key chapters for kind of seeing that outlined summary form.

So we said that the prophets were calling Israel's attention back to the law of Moses and so that they would be blessed and not cursed. Behind all of this, there's the Abrahamic covenant, which we know is God's unconditional covenant of blessing with Israel. So even though Israel would disobey the Mosaic covenant, even though they would end up in exile, Israel's ultimate blessing in the land is guaranteed. And by the way, I mean, that's one of the purposes of the Mosaic law. to demonstrate the fact that there's no way that Israel could ever earn or deserve God's blessing. And so they had to go through that failure in order to come to that realization.

So, we also said that Micah has a distinct courtroom feel and And so, what's going on is that this is a courtroom scene where the crimes of Judah are being examined and the judgment against those is being declared. So, what we see here now in chapter 2 is the specific infractions of Judah against the Law of Moses. So, any questions on the review before we move into our verses? Thoughts? That's good. Okay. So let's look at verse 1 and 2, which says, Woe to those who scheme iniquity, who work out evil on their bets!

When morning comes, they do it, for it is in the power of their hands. They covet fields, and then seize them, and houses, and take them away. They rob a man of his house, and a man of his inheritance. So what this is here, this is what we could call premeditated complex theft. This isn't just taking things. So what's being described is this careful plotting and scheming. You know, we see these people lying awake at night and scheming how they can get the things that they covet while at the same time covering their tracks.

And we see that at the end of the verse, that it's in the verse 1 there, that it's in the power of their hands to carry out their schemes. So, what this is describing is those in positions of power and authority in Judah, and they have the power to pull strings and do things that most people can't do.

And, you know, the same kind of political shenanigans go on today, right? It's really amazing what politicians and government officials can get away with simply because they can. It's in the power of their hands, right? We could get really sidetracked for the rest of the class thinking about current examples, but let's think about two different biblical leaders, kings, who coveted something that they couldn't lawfully have, and so they went around the law, right?

Ahab and Jezebel, yes, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And we see that in 1 Kings 21 with Naboth's vineyard, right? And then we can also think of David with Bathsheba, two examples that came pretty readily to mind here. One in the north and one in the south, actually.

But both of them schemed how they could get what they wanted and cover their tracks. And it was in the power of their hands to do things, if you think about those stories, to do things that most people couldn't have done, right? David was able to command this, you know, make military commands and so forth, and Ahab and Jezebel were able to, you know, plot certain things to get Naboth out of the way. But The thing that's at the root of all of this, with David, Ahab, and these rulers in Judah, is that they covet.

And that should right away make us think of the Ten Commandments. Not that I really haven't memorized, but I know that somewhere in there it says, Thou shalt not covet, right? Which is number 10, you'll see on the screen. But if you still have your printout of the Book of Micah that we handed out last week, I would just put a box around that word covet in verse 2 there, the covet. Okay, just put a box around that. Sorry, there we are. The actual text of the Ten Commandments doesn't just say, Thou shalt not covet. What does it actually say? Here it is.

Exodus 20, verse 17. And you could actually write that reference in the margin beside verse 2 there, beside the word they covet, just to remind you that this is a direct violation of one of the Ten Commandments, which says, You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. nor his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." And having pointed out Ahab and David now, you can see how directly they violated this commandment, right? And what you'll notice, actually, interestingly, is that breaking commandment number 10 really leads to breaking 9, 8, 7, and 6 as well. And that's the way, if you think about that, right?

David coveted, and then he, you know, stole, maybe not exactly in his order, right? He stole someone's wife, he committed adultery, and then he had to bear false witness, he had to cover his tracks. And eventually it wound up in murder, you know? Same with Ahab, right? They sent out a false letter, and then had that worked out so that Naboth would be killed and then took his property. So, it all kind of spirals out of number 10, right? So, that's just the way that these covetous schemes work. You know, all these crimes that are committed then have to be covered up.

So, of course, you know, it's easy to point fingers at, you know, David and Ahab and these rulers in Judah and our own leaders. You know, people always say, I mean, how often have you heard, you know, well, if I were president, I would never, right? But, you know, it's funny because the same people that complain about these corrupt leaders would do exactly the same thing if they could get away with it. If they are in that position of power where they thought they could get away with it, they would often do exactly the same things. So, that just points out really what the sin nature is like, right? You know, oh, I would never do that. But if I thought nobody would find out, then maybe, you know, maybe I would, right? There's another thing we want to point out in verse 2 there. Micah uses an important word.

He says they rob a man of his inheritance. The Jewish people had been given their land by God as an inheritance, and everywhere throughout the Law of Moses, it's seen as extremely important that nobody mess with another person's inheritance. And just as you think about the fact, if you will something to your children, and then some shyster tricked them out of that inheritance. You wouldn't be very happy about that, would you? And so when these Jewish elite robbed their fellow Jews of their inheritance from God, it wasn't just a crime against their brothers, it was a crime against God himself. Right. And that's why in verse 3 God speaks up. So in this courtroom scene, God is both the witness and the judge, we could say. And in verse 3.

Yeah. Right. Yes. Go ahead, Andrew. Oh, it's. Yeah. Hey, it's interesting that, you know, we brought up Nate. What's his name? Naboth or Ahab? OK. Yeah. Ahab. And yeah, and this when Ahab tried to buy his field, like at a fair price. That's the exact reason that he declined is because he said, Well, I can't because it's my inheritance. Yeah. And then he got killed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's right.

It's amazing, actually, both of those instances, you know, Naboth was upstanding and, you know, he said, I can't, this is, you know, I legally can't, this is my inheritance. And Uzziah, was that, no, what was, what was Bathsheba's husband's name? I'm getting that confused. It was a U name, was it? Uriah. Uriah, Uriah. Uriah. Uriah? Yeah, I was like, yeah, Uriah. He would, you know, he was an honorable man. You know, he refused to, you know, go along with David's scheme. So, but yeah, it's good. Good point, Andrew.

So what we see here is that God now is going to speak. And so, in verse 3, you say, Therefore, thus says the Lord, Behold, I am planning against this family a calamity from which you cannot remove your necks, and you will not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time. And so, from here down to the end of chapter 2, we have God's courtroom testimony, so to speak. And God, as well as His judicial statement, He begins by declaring that He will bring judgment against the nation for their sin. So, draw a box around the word calamity there, in that verse.

There's a real tone here of inevitability. It says Judah will not be able to remove their nets. But remember that God doesn't just make up this discipline. He doesn't just see it and say, oh, what can I do to discipline them? This was all clearly laid out in the Mosaic Covenant beforehand. This evil calamity from which they can't remove their necks is exactly what was laid out in the Mosaic Covenant.

So in verse 4, it begins, On that day. Well, what day is that? Anybody know what day is being talked about there? This is a phrase to keep your eyes open for in the prophetic books. It shows up a lot, some more than others. Micah uses it a few times.

The Day of the Lord is an interesting thing. It has a specific meaning in prophecy, sometimes called the Day of the Lord, and sometimes just like this, that day, sometimes the day, and if contextually it has this kind of sense, then it's talking about the Day of the Lord.

And what's interesting about the Day of the Lord is that it's an idea that encapsulates both God's judgment as well as his blessing of the nation Israel. And what's important to understand when we talk about the Day of the Lord is that in the Old Testament Hebrew reckoning the day began at sunset, right? We all know Sabbath begins at sunset, right?

The day begins with darkness and then the last phase, the last part of the day is the light phase. And that's why the Day of the Lord can sometimes refer to the first part of darkness and judgment, but it can also refer to the light phase of blessing for Israel. So you'll see it used both ways. So here in verse 4, we have the dark part of the day. And in chapter 4, verse 6, and a few other places in Micah, you see the light phase.

In that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather the outcasts, even those whom I have afflicted. So, same day. Of course, it's not a literal day. This happens over a span of a great deal of time, but both Israel's judgment as well as their blessing are involved in the Day of the Lord. So, when he brings us up on that day, That's what he's referring to.

So let's continue on in verse 4. On that day they will take up against you a taunt and utter a bitter lamentation and say we are completely destroyed. He exchanges the portion of my people. How he removes it from me. To the apostate he apportions our field. So, like we said, Here in chapter 2, these are God's words. But what God is doing here is he's quoting what Israel's tormentors will say about them during this Day of Judgment.

Okay? And you'll see quotation marks in verse 4 there. By the way, can you see my cursor if I point on the screen or no? You probably can't see it. Yes. Can you? Okay, so you can see quotation marks. Oh yeah, we can, yes. before we and at the end of fields.

Okay, so here God is quoting their aggressors, their tormentors. And it's a little confusing to read at first because the words seem to be in the first person from the perspective of the Jews, right? We are completely destroyed. Well, who's being destroyed? Well, the Jews. So, you know, it says we are completely destroyed.

But then, you know, it says a bitter lemon, you're sorry, they will take up a taunt against you. So, what's going on here? Well, we kind of have to understand it, at least I think, this is kind of sarcastic mocking of the enemy innovators. And if you've ever been in a schoolyard, you've heard this kind of thing, right? You know, you got a bully against usually a smaller kid and maybe he takes your lunch and you say, give me back my lunch. And he says, give me back my lunch. Right. So he throws your own words back in your face as a taunt. Right.

And so it's kind of this sneering, taunting mockery of what Israel would be saying really in great distress. And you'll notice that it says they take it up like a lamentation. So they're mimicking Israel's distressed words in a mocking way, and it really just adds humiliation on top of their distress.

You know, this is exactly what God just said in verse 3, that they will not walk haughtily. So God is going to not only bring them under judgment, but he's going to absolutely humiliate them, bring them down. to a very low level. And this is also exactly what God said would happen in Deuteronomy 28 verse 37. So in our Deuteronomy chapter there that we looked at last week, God's describing the things that will come upon Israel because of their disobedience and he says you shall become a horror and a proverb and a taunt among all the people where the Lord drives you. So you might want to write that Deuteronomy 28 verse 37 in the margin beside verse 4 because it's showing that God's word will be carried out and fulfilled exactly as foretold. So Israel is humiliated and mocked by their enemies. So moving to verse 5, we've just got to keep moving on here because we've got lots of time.

It says, therefore you will have no one stretching a measuring line for you by lot in the assembly of the Lord. And what this is, is a reference back to the way that God had prescribed for Israel to apportion the promised land to individual families. Numbers 34 verse 13 says, So Moses commanded the sons of Israel, saying, This is the land that you are to apportion by lot among you as a possession. And so I think that what this verse is saying is that when your land is taken, there's going to be no there's going to be no one to apportion it to you and to give you your portion of the land. That is going to be stripped away from you.

So again, you could write that reference number 3413, you could write that in the margin beside verse 5, just to kind of Just because I think at first when we read verse 5, we think, well, what in the world is that talking about? No one to stretch a measuring line? Or I think King James says cast a line. And, you know, NASB has inserted the word measuring with lines. We kind of get the idea. But this is, again, I think talking about their land inheritance. So it has to be measured out just like surveyors today. You know, we're going to measure out the land, right? So verse number 6. do not speak out, so they speak out. But if they do not speak out concerning these things, reproaches will not be turned back.

Now again, to understand this, I think we kind of have to see the sarcastic tone that's being used in this chapter here. When God's prophets are prophesying judgment against a nation, there are often false prophets who come along and tell the people, tell the prophets, stop prophesying of judgment. So, here we seem to have false prophets speaking out and saying, essentially, don't speak out, Micah. We don't want to hear that doom and gloom stuff. The Net Bible gets a little bit colorful, maybe it's not a direct translation, but I think they fought the sarcastic irony fairly effectively. They say, don't preach with such impassioned rhetoric, they say excitedly.

So, you know, The Lord is kind of pointing out the irony here with the false prophets, right? It's kind of like when all your kids are yelling at the top of their lungs about something and you shout, stop yelling, right? You're doing the very thing that you're telling them not to do. So here you've got false prophets prophesying to say, stop prophesying to the true prophets. So it's just kind of an ironic twist that the Lord's pointing out.

Now, the last part there could either be seen as God's words, or it could be seen as a continued quotation from the false prophets, depending on how you translate it. So you'll see in the NASB there, but if they, the true prophets, that would be what's implied, do not speak out concerning these things, reproaches will not be turned back. Taking it this way, it would be saying that if the true prophets don't speak out, then there's no hope of Israel's judgment being forestalled or turned back. Now, a few other translations actually take this last sentence to be the words of the false prophets.

So again, the NET translation says, just the last part there, but if they do not speak out concerning these things, sorry, that's, sorry, there we go, there's the net. The net says, these prophets should not preach of such things, we will not be overtaken by humiliation. So you can see how they've said, okay, I think this is connected to that, the first one, where it's these false prophets speaking against the true prophets and saying they shouldn't say such things and we're going to be judged, right? We're not going to be overtaken by judgment.

So that could be as well. It's basically a difference between translating not be turned back or not be overtaken. I don't really have a problem with either option here. I think both would be consistent with scripture. It's the two sides of the same coin. The true prophets were sent to give Israel an opportunity to respond positively, which would be an opportunity for the reproaches to be turned back. On the other hand, it could be these false prophets saying, stop talking like that. We've got nothing to worry about. Either way, that's probably true.

So it's important to see that this is included under this section about Judah's sin because it shows just how hardened they were. They were not only committing these sins, but they didn't want anybody to point out their sin to them either. Now, if we think back to David here, when David committed a premeditated crime like this, when Nathan came and exposed his sin, he responded positively. But these Jewish leadership are telling God's prophet to be quiet. And the refusal to listen to Micah and Isaiah and the other prophets at that time only compounded Judah's sin. You can jot down, again, beside verse 6, the reference Amos 7, verse 16, you'll see the exact same thing there, where you've got these false prophets telling him to be quiet, stop saying such doom and gloom stuff, we don't want to hear it.

So, any thoughts there? That's good. All right, let's move into verse 7 then. So, verse 7, it is being said, O house of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord impatient? Are these his doings? Do not my words do good to the one walking uprightly? So we've really got a lot of quotations going on in chapter 2, a lot of, you know, which is God's speech.

But he keeps quoting people. So, we have to be able to sort out who's talking to make sense of these verses. And keep in mind, you know, quotation marks are added by the translators. So, like we saw in the last verse, we're not quite sure what are quotation marks.

In this one, it's pretty clear, pretty simple. So, So the Lord is speaking in general in chapter 2, and so that last part there where he says, do not my words do good to the one walking uprightly. Well, we know that's God, because God's speaking there. Do not my words, the word of God, do good to the one walking uprightly.

So the Lord is, in the last sentence of verse 7, he's answering the two questions in the first part of the verse, and understanding how he answers is going to help us understand the accusation that's embedded in those questions, okay? So basically, God is challenging them and saying, if you had been following my word, wouldn't you be receiving blessing right now? We have to keep in mind that everything going on in the Nation of Israel all relates back to the Mosaic Law and God saying, didn't I promise blessing for obedience? So, understanding that, about how God responds to these questions, we should understand that the questioners are attempting to put the blame on God. for the calamity that they're facing. And God's answering them. He's saying, this is not my fault. I've offered you blessing, but you chose to break my law, and I told you up front what the consequences would be as well.

So I think in these questions here, In verse 7 we can kind of imagine this bewildered, ignorant kind of expression on the faces of the Jewish people as they see the calamities that are beginning to come against them and they look around and they say, what's happening? Do you think God is upset with us or something? Why is God doing this to us? So they see the judgment, but in their pride they can't see the connection between the judgment and their own sin. They can't see the fact that it's their sin that has brought God's judgment against them.

So, on your mic, print out if you've got it there. Underline the questions in verse 7. Is the Lord impatient? Are these his doings? And then you could just draw an arrow from that up to the words calamity in verse 3 that we put a box around. So they're looking at these calamities and they're asking, well, is this God's doing? Why is he doing this?

And then in the margin beside verse 7, just write in the words, results... Oh, hang on here. I think I forgot to tell you something else right in. Yeah, write in the words, results in blindness. Now, I think I... Here we are. where we wrote that Amos 7.16 reference beside verse 6, I forgot to ask you to write in the words, deliberate hardness.

And so that's what we saw in verse 6, is that there was a deliberate rejection, a deliberate hardness on the part of the Jews. They didn't want to hear this prophecy. They were deliberately hardening themselves. And then in verse 7, what we see is that that resulted in blindness. So you end up with the phrase there, deliberate hardness results in blindness.

Which is a very common biblical theme. Miles, that's actually our topic for today in the main service. We're going to be that in Romans. He's going to outline them again. He's going to talk about the heart and the parts. The same issue comes back to Israel again. Paul's going to repeat it here in Romans.

Yeah, that's so true. Good point. That's good. So we saw Yeah, like I said, we saw in verse 6 that the Jews hardened themselves. Now we see that they're blind. And God's response to that is always the same. My word is right there in front of your nose. You're just ignoring it, right? You harden your hearts to my plain word. So there we have it. Moving on to verse 8 and 9.

Recently my people have arisen as an enemy. You strip the robe off the garment from unsuspecting passers-by, from those returned from war. The women of my people you evict, each one from her pleasant house, from her children you take my splendor forever. So here we have a return back to the same kind of language that we saw in the beginning of the chapter, kind of describing the crimes.

You know, in verse 1 and 2, we saw this deceitful plotting and scheming, the covetousness of the leadership worked out in complex deception. And here we see in verses 8 and 9 is that this This complex theft is worked out against the most vulnerable people in the nation. In verse 8 we have these unsuspecting passers-by. NASB is translated from those returning from war. I believe that King James has from those averse to war. anyone else, something else like that.

It's probably a little bit of a difficult passage to translate, but I think what this is probably talking about is actually the foreigners or sometimes, you know, we read in the law the alien who lives among you, so forth. I believe this is innocent foreigners who have come to the nation of Israel in a peaceful way, not any kind of military threat. They're not coming to make war. When Solomon dedicated the temple, actually, he speaks of the foreigner being drawn to worship the Lord at Jerusalem. These could even be people who are drawn to worship the Lord, and so they're coming to Judah, right? But they're just innocent, peaceful travelers.

And we know that traveling always kind of puts a person in a bit of a vulnerable situation. And what was happening is that these Jewish people were taking advantage of that vulnerability. They're far from home. Nobody here knows them. And again, this probably wasn't forceful robbery, though it may have been. It could just have been that these travelers came upon hard times. you know, being away from their home and their land and their belongings and so forth, and that they were taken advantage of in some way, shape or form. Like, you know, overcharging them when they get a flat tire, right? I mean, whatever. But taking advantage of the vulnerable people.

And then likewise in verse 9, we have vulnerable women and children. These are likely widows because as you'll notice, there's no reference here to their husbands. They don't have a husband around who could protect them. And we see that they're being evicted from their homes. You evict each one from our pleasant home. Now, when we hear the word evict, we think renters. They probably weren't paying their rent, you know, so they're getting evicted. Well, they deserve it, right? But that's not what's going on here, right?

The idea is that this woman, when her husband died, she was left with the family inheritance. Like we talked about, they had an inheritance. And when this poor widow was having trouble making a living and feeding her children, rather than extending charity to her, the wealthy elite were making her a loan and then taking her house as collateral, right? And then, of course, when the loan came due and she couldn't pay, they just took the house, right? Easy. It was all legal, in fact, except it wasn't, right? Because they were under the law of Moses. That kind of complex deception and trickery was Iliad under the Mosaic law.

Actually, Exodus 22 verses 21 through 27 and Deuteronomy 27, 19 both speak to that very clearly. We won't read the whole thing here for the sake of time, but he says, You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. And so I think that verses 8 and 9 in Micah chapter 2 are actually designed very specifically to point back to this passage and others like it, right? Deuteronomy 27, 19.

Cursed is the one who distorts the justice due an alien orphan and widow. So these were vulnerable people that the Law of Moses gave a lot of protection to, and that was being ignored by these rulers. So in verse 10, We see the words arise and go, for this is no place of rest because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction, a painful destruction.

And again, these are God's words to Judah. And I think that what he's doing here, I wasn't sure about this, and I was thinking about it, and it's like, well, you know, what just happened in verse 9, right? We had the widows and orphans being evicted, from their homes, and I think what we have here is that God is evicting Judah. This is God's eviction notice to Judah. He says, Judah, arise and go. You're done here now.

And I think that's a fairly plausible and simple kind of interpretation there. That just like they have evicted the vulnerable amongst them, God is evicting them from their land now. And then our last verse, verse 11, says, If a man walking after wind and falsehood had told lies and said, I will speak out to you concerning wine and liquor, He would be a spokesman to this people.

And again, God has got an awesome sense of humor, thankfully. You know, I mean, this is, it just shines through here, right? This is really sarcastic. And again, the net version, for whatever reason, they apparently do a good job of sarcasm. He says, if a lying windbag should come and say, I'll promise you blessings of wine and beer, he would be just the right preacher for these people.

As mankind, we're so vain and full of ourselves that we never want anyone telling us something that might upset us or something that we've done wrong or whatever. We want to hear how wonderful we are and how much we deserve to be blessed and and so forth. Nobody really wants to hear the truth, especially when they're in the wrong, because that's uncomfortable, right? And so, like we said, the Jewish people had hardened themselves against truths that Micah and the other prophets were speaking, and it resulted in spiritual blindness. And I think And so they gathered for themselves those who just told them nice things about themselves. They didn't want to hear anything negative about what they were doing.

And I think that that's perhaps one of the applications that we can take away from this portion of scriptures. You know, as we study something like Micah, we remember that we're the church, the body of Christ, we're not the nation of Israel, and we don't live under the blessings and cursings of the law of Moses. So a passage like this doesn't have direct application to us, but we What we do see is that hardness to the Word of God results in spiritual blindness. And that's a principle that is just as true for us as it was for Old Testament Israel.

Today, unfortunately, most of Christendom is filled with spiritually blind people who have almost no hunger for the Word of God. And they flock to preachers who teach an empty message of good works, self-esteem, and earthly prosperity. And I think that we just have to be reminded that it's only by God's grace that we'll continue to teach the whole Word of God here at Holly Hills. So that, I think, is an important takeaway, and just remembering that Only as we respond positively to the Word of God are our hearts kept soft to it. When we harden ourselves to the Word of God, we just become more blind and more hard.

So that is verses 1 through 11 in a real whirlwind. That's great. Yeah, there'll be no class next week. But the week after, we get to move into this wonderful section about the promise of restoration and blessing of Israel. So we'll really look forward to that. But any thoughts or questions before we close?

Good job, Miles. Thanks. All right. A little bit of a fire hose. Was it a little fast? I mean... It was all good. Yeah, that's great. I know we moved fast, but that is, like we said, it's kind of the way some of these chapters, you know, like in Prophecy, you've got to handle them a little bit differently. We can't take, you know, a week on each verse and kind of need to see the big picture and get the theme. All right, well, let's close in prayer then.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that your word is powerful and effective and that it does a work on us as we respond to it positively. But Lord, if we harden ourselves to it, We simply close ourselves off to the power of your word. We close ourselves off to that effectual ministry of your spirit through your word.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would all continue to be softened to the truth of your word, and that we would respond positively to it, and that we would seek by your grace to know you more through your word, and to share you with others, and that we would consistently and continuously preach the whole word of God. here at Holly Hills and everywhere where you have us in our day-to-day lives. Lord, we just thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.