We Don’t Want to Hear It

Micah 2:6-13
[Micah Speaks]
1Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in the power of their hand.
2They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
3Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.
4In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.”
5Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.
6“Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”
7Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds?

[God Speaks]
Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
8But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.
9The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.
10Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.
11If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!
12I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.
13He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.

It’s difficult to read these Minor Prophets. The message is uncomfortable and frankly, we just don’t want to hear it. When I was a kid, the last thing I wanted to hear were my dad’s words of rebuke or chastisement. I just wanted that to be over. And of course, if I dared to argue with him (and that didn’t happen much) it only went on for longer. He wasn’t wrong in what he had to say to me, but I still hated it. We are no different in our relationship with the Father in Heaven. We know when we’ve sinned, but we certainly aren’t excited to receive the rebuke for those actions.

Micah deals with the fickle heart of the Children of Israel who also are not interested in hearing about how God is not pleased with their idolatry. Micah even takes on those “preachers” who would say only the words the peopled wanted to hear. Verse 6 is almost comical as he calls them “deceiving windbags”. 11If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!

We are no different. Paul speaks to that same bent in us as well in his letter to the Romans with a clear warning against listening to those who only say what we want to hear. There is danger in only giving ear to those who would pat us on the head and tell us to go out and live our best life now.

Romans 16:18
For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

But his passage does not leave us in the darkness of our sin. Verses 12 & 13 are filled with hope as the Lord reaches out with grace and a willingness to gather us back under His protection – a protection we may have willingly walked away from in our ignorance and sin. But God is not like us and He is ever reaching out to bring us back to Himself.

Ezekiel 33:10-11
10 “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ 11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

The voices of the prophets speak to us today just as they did 3,000 years ago. We too are called by the Living God to turn away from wickedness, turn back from our evil ways, and turn again to God. He has not walked away in disgust, but instead continues to extend His grace. That grace came full circle when Jesus died upon the Cross to bring about the forgiveness of all our sins. He did that even though the world had basically forgotten God’s promise of a Messiah. But God didn’t forget and He sent Jesus to bring salvation into our lives.

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