The Lord's Sentence of judgment

So the title for today is The Lord's Sentence of Judgment. And so as we usually do, let's review last week's lesson. That's Micah 6, 1-8, the Lord's incitement and Micah's response. So in kind of a bullet point form, first of all, God calls on creation. express his grievance against Israel.

What a great reminder of the principles of God. You know, I often think about the three C's. The first is look around you. Does this just happen circumstantially? In fact, I had a brother of the Lord that I went to a meeting this last week. I'll share those details with you.

But he's clearly an evolutionist in terms of his belief in the earthly system. Well, in six days, do we believe it or do we not believe it? And by the way, that's not the foundation of getting saved, growing in grace, or ultimately our eternal position. But it is an issue that's worthy of discussion. And nobody's going to prove creation versus evolution. These are both theories.

But if we believe God's Word, God is bigger than all of this. And my response to him was, couldn't God have created the world system, the universe with aging built into it? I mean, all these evolutionary facts and foundations of creation, ultimately we could look to the fact that God is bigger than the billions of years, in fact, people give the universe credit for in terms of its evolution, quote-unquote. All right, so God calls on creation to express its brilliance.

Second C is conscience. I mean, we're not saved by conscience, but God gives us all his own conscience in terms of what is right and wrong. We're not saved by that, but the third C is critically central, and that's Christ Himself. So we'll leave it right there.

God reminded Israel of His faithfulness to them, and He used the exodus from Egypt as an example of His faithfulness. And by the way, the Jews always reminded about their exodus from Egypt. You know, you want to have a discussion with a Jew, they can't deny. They could deny the parting of the Red Sea and everything else that followed, but they can't deny that they lived in Egypt. for a period of years, and ultimately God took them out of Egypt into the Promised Land.

The third point is God expects Israel to respond by justice, mercy, and humility in response to His grace. Now Israel's not very capable of doing that, but ultimately they're reminded that they have a responsibility of His great grace to respond in a way which would be honoring to Him. And ultimately, and finally, God remains faithful and compassionate to Israel. And today we're going to look at his sentence of judgment on them, but then next week, on Yom Kippur 7, we're going to see how ultimately he brings that to an idea of acceptance and forgiveness long-term.

And then we're going to go to Galatians. Laura, it would be great if you could get back to how this relates to each one of us every day of our lives. Anyway, I'd love the prophet Micah, but anyway, it's really the principles of God and all the promises and judgment of Israel we're dealing with here. And we'll leave that behind and move back into the New Testament or the church age. So let's begin.

Micah 6, 9. The Lord's voice cries to the city. Wisdom shall see your name. hear the rod, who has appointed it. So the first four verses here, 9 through 12, is an outline of Israel's sins. Boy, you know, it's only taken four verses to do that? Think about your own sins, how long that list might be.

Anyway, let's go. Okay, so the city is almost certainly Jerusalem here, isn't it? calling to the city. This is the center of Judah, the southern kingdom, and I'm sure the city is defined here as Jerusalem. How should we interpret this sequence? Is this simply a warning or is it prophetic?

And again, let me remind you of the verses on the previous slide. Let's go back. Micah, the Lord's voice cries to the city, again Jerusalem, wisdom shall see your name. Here are the rods. Who has appointed it? So, question of the class. Is this simply a warning or is it prophecy or is it both? Well, what's the rod? Well, the rod typically refers to chasing, doesn't it?

So this likely is the forthcoming capture of the southern kingdom by Assyria. That's going to be delayed by decades here. But ultimately, I think the rod could ultimately be that their freedom as a nation, a Jewish nation, would no longer be present. And there's a picture of a rod as portrayed, you know, in one of the diagrams I was able to pull up and show. The rod is not a good thing. The rod is there to ultimately punish or judge bad behavior as represented here in the note of incident. Now wisdom presumes Yahweh is pleading with Jerusalem and all of Judah to acknowledge their moral condition before the whole world. Hey wake up guys, things aren't going so well there for you.

And you know ultimately remember Isaiah is a prophet who existed at the same time and in the prophecy of Isaiah he says in verse 24 chapter 10, therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, O my people who dwell inside, do not be afraid of the Assyrian, he shall strike you with a rod and lift up his staff against you in the manner of Egypt." So, I mean, I think there that clarifies this verse when we look at the prophecy of Isaiah who's living at the same time. A rod, and also the idea that the Assyrian capture would be likely what's going to be foreseen in the near future. for Micah and the Jewish nation, the southern kingdom to whom he speaks. Any thoughts about this interpretation or other thoughts?

All right, let's move on. Verse 10. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the short measure that's an abomination? Well, that's asked in the form of a question. What or who is Micah calling the House of the Wicked? Well, seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?

I don't think I needed to provide an answer there. The House of the Wicked is the southern kingdom, Judah, in its current existence at the time the prophet, in fact, is writing to them and demanding their attention in terms of what they're going through.

Now, some versions call this an ephod, the others call it a dry measure. What is an ephod or a dry measure? Anybody have some thoughts on that? Well, let's look at it. Or is this a clap or something? Okay, the ephod was well known to Israel for it was the largest measure containing a little over a bushel or about six gallons, but here it was short and dry as an abomination. So this is a measure of grain or a measure of other foods that ultimately would be made available to the people to consume from. But here it's called a short measure and, you know, ultimately an abomination that represents kind of their behavior. Now, Constable often has a lot of wisdom. So let's see what he has to say here. He said, the Lord asked if there was still anyone in the wicked house of Judah who had treasures that he or she had accumulated through wicked behavior.

For example, was there any seller who used a small ether, one that was less than a true ether, or using a smaller basket, robbed the buyer of some produce he was purchasing? So here's a very practical example of something that was commonly employed to transfer grain from maybe the cellar to the buyer. Think of the grocery store.

That could go on every day here today. And does it? I'm sure. What grocery store would you like to mention? If you're going to King's Superstition, you may be disappointed. Margaret says she went to Walmart yesterday and was so blessed and crowded, right? Yeah.

So let's look at a picture of this. So here's an example of a variety of shapes and sizes. And here's the ephid there. And compared to all these other vessels, that print is too small. I can't read it. But anyway, there's the ephid. It's about six gallons in size. And so I think the graphic gives us an idea. You've got food in large quantities. It probably lasted for weeks. You know, if you've got grain for six gallons of grain, that could last a month for sure. Making bread, all the other things you do with grain. So anyway, there's a practical example of what they're doing.

They're ultimately selling something short of what the buyer is expecting. So a short one would be like one that's slightly smaller than the approved size. They would have a size that was a little bit less, so they would make more money, right? Right. Now keep in mind, the ETH is also described as a dry major. It's not only maybe short, but they're It may be an inadequate source of nutrients.

I mean, it could be just burned up or something. I mean, I can't put words to Scripture here, but this is not a good deal in terms of what's being described about the behavior of the Southern Kingdom citizens here in terms of selling items. You know, it's kind of interesting because it's one of those issues that I think in our culture, in our day, we think, is God really that concerned with that sort of thing?

He really is. And it still goes on in our economies all the time. In certain areas, like the fuel pumps, they've got standardized measures and these things are checked. But in buying and selling cattle, they've got this thing called pencil shrink. And that burned me really bad. on a batch of cattle that I was selling, you know, I didn't know really what I was doing, but the cattle buyer knew exactly how he could, you know, work the price so that he got the best deal. So, I didn't really realize until it was too late, so. Yeah. Do you want us to have more specifics about this, Miles, about selling cattle? Yeah.

Well, they call it pencil shrink, and it's legitimate because cattle lose weight when they're shipped, and so they just have this kind of standard shrinkage that they pencil in to the sale price, but it's an estimated number. And so if you move the price by one penny per pound, it seems to be the difference between profit and loss. And so that's kind of what happened to us. Well, it's great to have a practical example.

We're not part of the southern kingdom. This is good. No, he's in the northern kingdom. They're already in captivity. Okay, let's return to reality now. Thank you, Bob. Proverbs 11 says, dishonest scales are an abomination of the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. Proverbs are so much fun because you just pick and choose which one you think applies to the circumstance. You don't get saved by Proverbs. I mean, but ultimately it's interesting that principles of God still can be utilized throughout Scripture to make an additional point. Here's a good example. Dishonest scales, like the weight of the cattle, are an abomination to the Lord, but just weight is His delight. And it's got to be true of cattle, doesn't it, Miles?

You're really unsure. Okay, let's go ahead. Micah 611, shall I count pure those with the wicked scales? and with a bag of deceitful weights. I mean here, you know, Micah's dealing with this whole issue of exchange of items and the seller and the buyer in terms of who's benefiting and who's robbing the other. Doesn't God notice everything is kind of my response here? A deceitful weight.

You know, that penny that's the difference between profit and loss is a good example that Miles just gave us. Proverbs 16, 11. Honest weights and scales are the Lord's. All the weights in the bank are his work. Nevertheless, thank you, Solomon, for the application of these proverbs to the prophet Micah and what he said. Tim? You know, this happens throughout all of history, I would believe. Jesus, he gets spoken by in the gospel. You know, he's honest with us. He's honest about what's going on. He's honest with us. He's honest with us. You know, there's kind of a simple theme or maybe an application of this.

The truth always wins. And even if you're, you know, you're embarrassed by the truth that relates to your sinful nature from falling short, but the truth always wins. And I tried to teach Clark among his four additional siblings that that is a principle we need to think of. And truth can be hurtful. and personally embarrassing, but the truth always wins. And when the truth comes out, then everything ultimately can be explained one way or the other, and God's great grace is there for forgiveness.

By the way, just thinking about scales, when you go to your doctor, your primary care physician, you're asked, what do you weigh? It is what it is. It is what it is. We're trying to make Micah practical here about today, everyone. I always thought on our license, it's our goal weight, isn't it, that we put? All right. Now, here's the bullet point to follow this. And we get on the scale, oh, it must be my shoes, or my wallet, or my heavy necklace today, or the sweater I'm wearing. It certainly is not the wallet. Speaking of your own wallet.

No, anyway, it's a practical explanation. You know, I think that's a, is that a white lie? Is that one of those soft lies? Anyway, but I think it has practical values, doesn't it? It's also something that changes over time. I would doubt there are very few people whose faith that they tell the physician.

Well, Bob, we had a case where we were flying back to Pennsylvania and we decided to fly from Pittsburgh to Bradford, PA, which is a small little town. So they had like a six-seater airplane. So they had to ask you your weight because you had to place you in the plane in certain places. So they asked, they started asking people, what's your weight? And they would arrange you by weight. So they went through Bonnie and I and we talked and this big tall guy weighed less than what we weighed. Than I weighed.

I thought, I don't believe it. And it's a part of the story for big airlines. Margaret, I've been redistributed on these small planes. Exactly. When you're what you have to balance the plane. Yeah, they do. If you lie about your way, everybody could die. They probably have a little bit to the women. I think we have a consensus here. Alright, verse 12 then.

For her rich men are full of violence. Meaning Judah, the southern king. And her inhabitants have spoken lies and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. For her rich men are full of violence. So we need to be careful in terms of how we interpret this. Why is this directed to the rich men, and how should we interpret violence?

Well, this is a bit of, you know, interpretation of the Jewish term. The Jewish term is hamas. Violence can also be interpreted as harshness, wrong or unjust doing, i.e. speaking a lie. So, the violence isn't necessarily, you know, physical violence. or destruction. This, in fact, can be just related to the language we use.

And if you look at the verse, it's also, you know, the inhabitants have spoken lies, and their image is deceitful in the mess. Ultimately, I think the violence here relates more to the attitude, and the lack of truth that's being said. And also, back to the scales of the weight, you know, this is a practical extension of that thought process that was used in the verses before. All right, so Micah 2, 1 and 2, we need to go back here a little bit to look at what Micah's already said.

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil on their beds. At morning light they practice it because it is the power of their hand. They covet fields and take them by violence. there could be maybe more of a practical application. Also houses and sees them, so they oppress a man in his house, a man in his inheritance.

So going back, I mean, remember Micah, this is chapter 6. We can continue to reflect back on the earlier chapters of Micah in terms of what he's already saying to Judah or the southern kingdom of the nation of Israel. What's distinguishing speaking in lies and having a deceitful tongue? How might you think about distinguishing those two aspects? They seem pretty similar. Well, they're similar, but there may be a little bit of a difference. Manipulation. What's that? It can be verbally manipulated. Okay. You avoid the topics and still tell the truth, right? All right. Well, let's look at the Hebrew.

It's Rameach. which means laxness, slackening, deceit, treachery, or anything contrary to the nature of God. Now that doesn't necessarily have to be a lie, it's just a world system or sinful nature type of expression, where lies is the absence of truth, is it not? So deceitful can be, well, those are the terms. It could be deceit or treachery or anything contrary to the nature of God. Of course, telling lies is part of that, but I think this could be, if you will, a forked tongue or a tongue that is really harmful in its attitude and direction.

Jeremiah 9.8, their tongue is an arrow shot out. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lies and waits. So there, both terms are utilized.

So the deceitful tongue may or may not be true, but it's harmful. The deceitful tongue, I think, is harmful and injurious to those to whom we're speaking. Well, even the truth told in anger or or deceitfulness can be... it can lead a person to harm. Yeah. Well, lies... but I think lies could be part of the deceitful thing, but they could be different. Deceitful could be, I think, injurious and pejorative and very, very treacherous in nature, whereas the lie could simply say, you know, I've got a white Ford, but it's really a black Chevy. I mean, you know, that's, if you will, those kinds of things, We'll let God judge this time.

I mean, I'm just throwing that out as a poor example. But I mean, the lie is the lack of truth. What I said five minutes ago is truth is so critically important. But the lie does not have to be a deceitful expression of deceitful talk, but it could be, I think. So keep in mind, they may be slightly different. And a lot of times in business, it's simply telling most of the truth, but leaving out something, you know, that's deceit as well. So there's an example I've given you, the deceitful tongue of lies.

That's pretty graphic, isn't it? Okay, let's move on. I said thank you for moving on from that picture. All right, verses 13 through 16 are Israel's punishment now. We've looked at all the sins they've been part of, and there are numerous in detail by Micah for us here before we go, what the Lord's going to do about that. You know, I find it interesting our clock is no longer on the wall.

I don't know. I don't know what happened. OK, well, we're OK, Tom. We're fine. OK, verse 13. Therefore, I will also make you sick. by striking you. It's right there. Now he has to put his glasses on. I didn't ask for a prayer for my vision. This watch hasn't changed at all. I'm talking about the piano, not this. Okay, therefore I'll make you sick by striking you, by making you desolate because of your sins. So does God make us sick by striking us? People who don't interpret the Bible won't like that verse with me.

Well, let's look at that New International Version, which, you know, I'm basically a New King James guy. But anyway, so I've been turning more often to other versions to make sure that we're clarifying the message. The NIV says, therefore, I have begun to destroy you to ruin you because of your sins.

So that's very simple and very straightforward. So making us sick is not necessarily physical illness, but good. be physical illness, but anyway. So, will is probably better than have begun. In other words, therefore I will also make you sick. It's better than have begun, because what have begun suggests in the Hebrew is that it's already happening, which it may well be. But will is more future-directed, and I think that's more in context what the text seems to say.

Shuaikha ruin is a eat or slay or kill, all not so good. Right? So this idea of the ruin that follows is all bad news, guys. Sorry about this, but nothing favorable is going to be forthcoming because of your sin. And God cannot and will not overlook the sins of Israel.

I mean, I think that's pretty apparent from a lot of Old Testament scripture that goes far beyond the book of my day. And in Jeremiah 14, 18, it says, if I go out to the field, then behold, those slain with a sword, okay, very violent, and I enter the city, then behold, those sick from famine, yes, both prophet and priest go about in a land they do not know. So anyway, the only reason I quote this is it does deal with famine.

So presumably some kind of atmosphere of starvation could be existed in the near future for them. before the Lord finishes and completes the message he's giving to Michael. All right. Micah 614. Now in parenthesis I have New American Standard interpolated or injected into the New King James Version. You shall eat but not be satisfied. Hunger or vileness, and your vileness according to NAS, shall be in your midst.

You may carry some away That's the idea for safekeeping. But shall not save them, preserving anything. And what you do rescue, I will give over to the sword. Not a good message, you know. Golly, look at that. You'll eat but not be satisfied. You'll be hungry, there'll be violence, there'll be nothing that you can really keep. And if you keep it, it's going to be destroyed anyway. Here's some thoughts.

Can you imagine eating and not being satisfied? I mean, it's funny, I'll be a doctor here for a second. When I address people in terms of their food intake pattern, I would say, well, do you eat because you're hungry? And when I was dealing with people who probably needed to lose some weight, I'd say, do you eat because you're hungry? I would say about 40% ate because they were hungry. But then 40% almost had no hunger intake. They just ate to maintain their weight.

Now, that's a biology that I find very interesting scientifically. And about 20%, they weren't really sure whether hunger was a major driving force for food intake or ultimately carotid carcin. Yeah. This is the problem with chocolate. You know, Micah didn't mention chocolate. He did, and you never satisfied. Here's a woman who doesn't seem to be very satisfied. She's got food before.

But anyway, the approach to people who in fact were eating because they weren't hungry was a weight maintenance biology. I think it's incredibly interesting science. But I don't know about most of you, I, well I, you know, sometimes my blood sugar is low, I have to eat, no question about it. But I, almost all I eat, it's hunger motivated.

And it's not right or wrong, it's just different biology. But here, these people in the Southern Kingdom, won't be eating, but they won't be satisfied. There's a lot of pleasure in nutrition, isn't there? There's not good foods and bad foods. It's fun to eat good foods, ultimately. And I'd like it to be more heart-healthy foods.

Roger. No, no, I'm sorry. Those aren't emotionally satisfying. I'm an emotional eater. There you go, see? That doesn't satisfy me. I'm going to drop us your best source of food. No, cheeses, but cheese and chocolate. Could it be that maybe the food didn't taste good? Well, that's possible. Yeah. Anyway, let's not go there. But there are lots of reasons why you could eat and not be satisfied.

But anyway, here's the prophecy. You're going to be eating, but you're not going to be satisfied. How far in advance Did the Southern Kingdom or the Northern Kingdom go then to the Assyrians? Okay, maybe not perfectly clear, but I think 50 years subsequent to this prophecy, the Southern Kingdom was hacked into Babylon. I may be inaccurate. Maybe someone else, Roy or Miles, can help me out there.

So, Moore translates as from the Arabic root, there shall be emptiness in the belly Similarly, grotius, there shall be a sinking of my belly, once filled with food, through hunger. This suits the parallelism to the first clause, but the English version maintains the parallelism sufficiently. That's a lot of language. It basically kind of tries to explain what we're to be satisfied. So, however that's going to be manifested.

Maybe they just had to eat grass. I mean, you've read those stories where people, when they were starving, they ate dry grass because they had nothing else to eat. Well, I can personalize that a little bit. My first wife's father was a prisoner of war for 10 months in Germany, lost 80 pounds and ate grass. Yeah, that was all there was. And he didn't want to talk about it. They hadn't said it this week during World War II.

Anyway, Isaiah says, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you'll be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you'll be ashamed. Boy, I mean, it's interesting to kind of look at this historically and Isaiah's hanging out at the same time Mike is. Now Isaiah was really speaking more so to the Northern Kingdom, but yet the prophecies of the Book of Fairly Similar.

And what about being a pack rat? In other words, it relates to the verse, and nothing will be preserved, but whatever does will be given over to the sword or destroyed. So here's the pack rat. Can anybody relate to this kind of excess storage? I was going to show rats, but I thought this was a better example. And ultimately there's the sword to follow.

So even if you store stuff, it's not going to be there because God's going to make sure it's destroyed. The Lord appears to be revisiting the punishment for unfaithfulness under the Mosaic covenant here. I mean, I think that's kind of reflecting on how God is appealing to Israel. Okay. All right, and we can go back here to demonstrate that scripturally. Leviticus 26, 16 and 17.

I also will do this to you. I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which will consume the eyes and cause sorrow of your heart. and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies, and those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you." Again, this is the Pentateuch. This is way back when, but ultimately it seems very applicable to what we're looking at here. All right, verse 13, 15.

You shall sow, but not reap. tread the olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil, or have salad dressing for your salad, and make sweet wine, or crush the grapes, but not drink the wine." So, another prophecy about the inadequacy of nutrition and other delights about our consuming pattern. Seems like a lot of wasted effort, doesn't it, to be, you know, sowing but not reaping, as a principle there from the New Testament, isn't there? And treading the olives but not able to get any oil, or crushing the grapes but not have any wine to drink. And Amos deals with the same thought. Therefore, because you've trebled down the poor, you tread down the poor, you have planted pleasant vineyards, but do shall not drink the wine from them. So you're getting nothing for your work.

Right. And verse 16, which is kind of going to end this whole issue of the Lord's sentence of judgment. For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab's house are done. And you walk in their councils that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing, or to derision, I think in New American Standard. Therefore you shall bear no reproach to my people. In some translations say nations.

So we'll kind of look at that a little bit more in detail. Okay, what are the Statutes of Omni? Anybody historically blind here? Yeah, I haven't noticed. It's in 1 Kings 16. Okay, the Statutes of Omni symbolizes the institutionalization of idolatry and corruption, and represents Judah's adherence to ungodly practices. And what are the works available in the house? Not good.

Ahab's quite a character. Okay, Ahab was the son of Amri, he met me, he was married to Jezebel. That's a great story. Who reigned in the northern kingdom during the 9th century BC. That's a couple hundred years before this. And he was regarded as the worst king ever in the nation of Israel. First kings, back to first kings. Roger, now Ahab, the son of Omer, of Omri, by the way, Omri, the statutes of Omri, Omri was Ahab's father, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him, and there weren't many after him. Now, so why was Ahab the worst king of Israel?

Well, let's look at the list. Oh, darn, that didn't come through. I had, yeah, I, Black says there's a sound in my hand. I think you're not getting it. So I'm going to read. We can see it. We can see it. We can read it. It's light. Yeah, but I can't. Okay. Okay.

Number one, he worshipped Baal and built a temple for this idol, leading Israel away from the worship of God. They have murdered Naboth to seize his vineyard, showcasing his greed and moral corruption. His reign was marked by idolatry, child sacrifices, and the persecution of God's prophets, particularly under the influence of his wife, Jezebel. And finally, the Bible explicitly states that no king sold himself to do evil like Ahab did, emphasizing his extreme wickedness.

So those are the points. I hope you can see that I certainly can't. So with this background, we can only imagine why God's judgment of Judah was to be so severe. He's really comparing the behavior of the Southern Kingdom people, Judah, to Ahab and the kind of leadership that he represented. Boy, pretty ugly, huh? I mean, to me, this is one of the most graphic parts of this whole book, is what's described as a nation living after the pattern of Ahab. Ugh, that's terrible. Jeremiah 7, 24, Yet they did not obey or incline there, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts and went backward and not forward. OK, so I'm going to kind of close with a little bit more encouraging. Psalm 1, 1. And it's always neat because I think the hungry heart, the first, January 1st, the first day of the 12 months. No, it starts with Psalm 11.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. and talks about, and then goes on to say, if you seek God, it's like somebody being submerged in water. What was the, after somebody holds you underneath the water, what do you want more than anything else? Air. Breath of air. And that's really the way we should be looking at our relationship to God. We have that belonging, that absolute physical, spiritual, emotional need to reach out.

Delusion is the use of ridicule or scorn to show contempt or a state of being laughed at or ridiculed. And what is bearing the reproach my people or nations really represent? Well, I'm going to end with Jason Fossum Brown, who I really like as a series of commentators. The very thing you boast of, namely that you are my people, will only increase the severity of your punishment.

So let's pause here a second. When he's saying my people, he's talking about Israel. And that's why I think this interpretation has been of the nations, because it's not the nations of the world. It's my people who, in fact, are the ones that Micah is addressing.

The greater my grace to you, the greater shall be your punishment for having despised it. Your being God's people in name while walking in his love was an honor. But now the name without the reality is only reproach to you. So that kind of closes this section of the Lord's, you know, revealing the sins of the nation of Judah and ultimately the sentence that's going to follow it.

Not very pretty, is it? It really isn't. And I think as we think about the world system we live in today, there's a lot of potential evidence that we're having a system that is pretty much directed to the South, if you will, the wrong direction in terms of God's glory and grace working in our lives as believers. Any comments or thoughts?

And by the way, again, we're going to move into a maybe a little bit nicer ending in Micah 7 going forward in the next few weeks. So I look forward to that and getting back to the New Testament. Yeah, but this is interesting, I think, given the time that we're in right now, what's going on with Israel. So it's just, I think it's been really interesting, too, just because of the timing of it, too.

Isn't it also interesting that here we as believers in this country are supposed to be kind of the light to the world. And look at where we are. I mean, these are good examples for us to think about going forward. I mean, we have, you know, our country is basically abandoning the Lord. Yeah, we've totally become a godless society. And, I mean, what do we think is going to be forthcoming for us. What's our judgment? I think, you know, it's going to be interesting to watch. Hopefully I won't be around. Well, one thing never to forget is God's dealing with an earthly nation here, and He promised people, and they were heavenly citizens, right? That's a whole different ballgame, right?

I think One thing this group of men I was with this week, this little gathering I went to with our friend that we know through the club. It's amazing to me how the message that was given there and the conversation all related to not measuring up to what God calls us to. I mean, it's a whole different message.

And I went as a friend to see what he was being exposed to. I think Barbara's encouraging me to go back because we split into various tables around the room and we had a table of five and everybody commented on what the message was. The message was, how can we do better for God or something like that? I've said some things that would be typical of what we believe here theologically. And I think I saw one guy, really, his eyes opened up.

He really seemed very with it and understanding what I was saying. You know, I think often one thing we sell short, sometimes, I shouldn't speak for anybody else but myself, but the thing I need to be reminded of always is that he made him, who knew no sin, be made sin for Wayne and Sue and Margaret and Clark and Roger and Bonnie and all of us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Permanent. Once and for all. And I think when you begin there and you see the perfection that He sees us in His Son, then that makes the Christian life and experience joyful, or exhorted, encouraged, and I think, unfortunately, the mainline church, even the evangelical church, continues to see that the old man is being improved somehow by just studying the Word and praying more. And I think it's a shame, because we're all called to prayer, we're all called to be in God's Word, but it's who we are in Christ Jesus, it's the story of His great grace exemplified in our lives. Anyway, maybe I should go back. I don't know. I mean, it's not God's gift to write theology. Yeah, it could be. Miles, are you still with us? I am. Yeah, I'm here. Could you close us in prayer, please? Sure, let's do that.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your Word. We thank you for these things in Micah that are In terms of the culture of deceit and deception and hostility against you and who you are and your character, they're so consistent between Judah thousands of years ago and our own culture today. Lord, we see how you dealt with your special chosen nation of Israel and how you were consistent about keeping your covenant with them, that you would judge them when they were disobedient to you. But Lord, as we look forward to you in the next chapter, that you will also ultimately bless them and restore them, not because of their works or their ability to obey you, but because of your grace alone. And Lord, we thank you for the grace that we live under that has nothing to do with what we deserve or our ability to do right or live in a way pleasing to you, but But we just thank you for your ability to live out your righteous life through each one of us as we depend on you by faith. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you.