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Today's Little Lift
by Jim Bullington
Micah – Prophet of Uncompromising Principles (3 of 4)
Focus Text: Micah 6.6-8
Ritualism had become a way of life among the children of Israel. Warning upon warning had been delivered by God’s faithful prophets; warnings to forsake the cold and heartless worship practices into which they had fallen and to turn their hearts back to their Redeemer. Yet, to a large measure these pleas had fallen on deaf ears; rituals replaced virtues and rites replaced what was right. Micah was but one of the voices that cried out against this great wrong but his eloquence and succinctness make a look at his prophecies tremendously fruitful.
Hear one of Micah’s pleas: “With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6.6-8).
The idea that man could do something of his own devising to appease God’s demands for justice is totally foreign to any truth God ever spoke! Yet, that was the error that permeated Israel and Judah! Micah’s rhetorical questions drive home the point that sacrifice heaped upon sacrifice, yea multiplied thousands upon thousands of times, cannot please God apart from a heart devoted to doing God’s will. Rather than attempt to devise his own way, Micah set forth the unalterable premise upon which man has any possibility of pleasing God; here it is: “He has shown you, O man what is good…” Get the point please; “He has shown you…” Man cannot define good; God defines good! That was Israel’s trouble; they had defined good according to their own will and had departed from hearing God’s definition through His prophets. Even though God had shown them the way, they had substituted their own wisdom for God’s guidance!
Micah was a prophet of uncompromising principles; he refused to give any credence to men who would not bow their knee humbly before God and acknowledge Him as all wise and all powerful Creator. Half-hearted obedience was not obedience at all and Micah rebuked those who offered such to God. He knew that merely acting in a way consistent with certain religious deeds God had appointed was not equal to obedience; that lesson is a lesson appropriate for any generation, then and now!
The motive for any act of obedience must emanate from the heart and it must be centered in the desire to glorify God! This principle was the one Micah stressed in the focus text and it is a principle that must be stressed today. Merely bowing the knee at an altar, or confessing one’s sins to another, or eating unleavened bread and drinking the fruit of the vine out of a sense of duty and without a heart filled with joy is of no eternal benefit! Service from a heart that recognizes God’s supremacy was and is the only way man can please God. That is a principle that has never changed and which must not be compromised!
Questions:
1. What is ritualism?
2. According to the focus text, how [by what means] can man know how to please God?
3. According to the focus text, what is the relationship of humility to pleasing God? Can a person please God without a measure of humility? Why or why not?
4. How can we be guilty of ritualism today? What is its cure?
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