“Heed the rod” is how this passage begins. In simple terms, pay careful attention to the one in authority. God is slow to anger but when provoked He asks swiftly.
Listen! The LORD is calling to the city-- and to fear your name is wisdom-- "Heed the rod and the One who appointed it. Micah 6:9 (NIV)
Listening to one’s parents or to one’s boss when we are in trouble is difficult. No one likes being wrong. The people of Israel had surpassed wrong, and yet God was still trying to help them get their lives straight. The Lord was calling for them to pay attention. Micah even adds that proper fear of God is true wisdom. Simplified: if you feared God, you would be wise enough to listen to Him. As seen in verse one, the Israelites had become a bunch of “block heads”. They were not listening to God any longer.
Careful attention to our relationship with God would save us from a lot of heartache and carry us through a lot of trouble (yes, through, because God leads us). Israel had long forgotten. Has the United States? Presidents and governors used to call their people to prayer. What happened? 9/11 brought floods of people into the churches. What happened? Financial turmoil has hit our nation. Where did the people go? What do they trust in?
Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short ephah, which is accursed? Micah 6:10 (NIV)
God doesn’t forget sin as verses 10-12 reveal. “But isn’t God forgiving and loving?” Yes, He is. Sin is not forgiving. Sin separates us from God, and it must be dealt with. God doesn’t forget sin because it keeps us from having a loving relationship with Him. To keep sin in our lives tells Him we do not want His love. Sin pushes God away. Sin in our lives is a rejection of Him. God prepared a place for people who refuse Him – Hell.
Hell is a place where sin abounds without reprieve. There is not any escape from it. Heaven is God’s answer to sin. It is a place of grace. Heaven is neither a place we can earn nor a place we deserve. We can only access it through accepting God’s love for us and asking for forgiveness. God did something about sin by crushing its power over us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The people of Israel had resorted to cheating, dishonesty, violence, and deceit. They had walked away from God’s grace.
Verse 13 says that sin has led to God’s decision to destroy and ruin Israel. In other words, Israel had tasted a little bit of heaven through obedience, and now they would experience a little bit of hell because of disobedience. Look at verse 14-16:
Verse 14 – Sin achieves hell by not allowing anything to be satisfying. People seek to fill a spiritual hole created in their spirits by sin with material possessions. Addictions never fill and always ask for more! People store up things and never have any worth – kind of like how we fail as a society to save anything today. We buy lots of worthless possessions and products and don’t provide for our retirements. Things we save are easily taken or easily destroyed (why else would we get angered when a kid breaks a lamp).
Verse 15 – Because of sin, we are slaves to things and others. Planting and not getting a harvest for ourselves. Pressing olives for someone else. Crushing grapes to refresh someone else. Sin prevents us from living up to the potential God designed for us. We are always in debt when living outside of God’s will.
Today’s commercials tell us it is okay to live in more and more debt because only then do we live in luxury. They don’t tell us that living in debt makes us slaves to others. Sin tells us to live like we want without penalty. Sin doesn’t tell us that we will be enslaved by it and never satisfied!
How does never being satisfied ever equal pleasure?
Verse 16 – Sin makes us wishy-washy! A new trend appears, and we want to be enlightened by it. Through them we find new ways to sin. Religions become our way of life and worship is a menial practice. For atheists, Christianity represents guilt, so they seek to rid society of it. Sin allows people to make themselves into a god (Read the fall of man in Genesis 2).
All Israel needed to do to avoid ruin was to listen to God; to nurture their relationship with God by adhering to His Word. How do we avoid ruin today? Ask God’s forgiveness and seek Him with our whole heart through Bible study and applying the truths of the Bible to our lives. Worship God, share His love, work diligently within the church body, learn all you can about God’s Word and apply it, and enjoy the fellowship of other Christians.
- Do you like being wrong? Do you like hearing about it?
- Do you need to ask God for forgiveness?
- Have you ever noticed any of these symptoms of sin (verses 14-16)?
- How are you actively living out your faith? What areas do you need to work on?
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