Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim said to his mother, "The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse — I have that silver with me; I took it."
Then his mother said, "The Lord bless you, my son!"
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, "I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you."
So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into the image and the idol. And they were put in Micah's house.
Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some idols and installed one of his sons as his priest. In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.
A young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who had been living within the clan of Judah, left that town in search of some other place to stay. On his way, he came to Micah's house in the hill country of Ephraim.
Micah asked him, "Where are you from?"
"I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah," he said, "and I'm looking for a place to stay."
Then Micah said to him, "Live with me and be my father and priest, and I'll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes, and your food." So the Levite agreed to live with him, and the young man was to him like one of his sons. Then Micah installed the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house. And Micah said, "Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest."
Judges 17
This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
While living this thing called life, sometimes people will go a long time before they find God and often, this is because they tend to want to do what they want to do, unwilling to surrender themselves so to live only for Him and His ways. It’s true today and as we see in today’s message, it was in biblical times as well.
Point and case is a man named Micah who we meet in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Judges, a man who isn’t any different than any other person in that he is overcome by a sinful action. In his case, it was the matter of stolen money, “eleven hundred shekels of silver” to be exact which he had taken from his mother.
As we read the story, we get a sense that Micah had been convicted by God for his actions, especially after he heard his mother call down a curse on whoever took the silver for he does go to her and confesses that he was the guilty party. Surprisingly, his mother doesn’t chastise him but rather commends him, saying:
"The Lord bless you, my son!"
And with that, Micah “returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother” after which she gives him some unusual instructions, instructions that will unfortunately plunge him back into sin:
“I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you."
Wait a minute! Did we read that right?
So Micah’s mother was vowing to “consecrate” the silver to the Lord, which meant she would seek to set it apart for God, but then turned around and told her son to fashion the silver into “a carved image and cast idol”, all this despite the Lord having given this command to the Israelites long before:
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in Heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:4-6
Here, we clearly see that Micah’s mother, the one who should have been bringing up her son to honor God, had no clue about Him or His Word. Tragically, her actions serve to set a series of events in motion that would lead her son to not worship properly. For he certainly wasn’t going to find the Lord in the idol he had made after taking the “two hundred shekels of silver” she gave him to the “silversmith who made them into the image and the idol”...articles he then placed in a shrine that had been fashioned in his home. And if that wasn’t enough, he also “made an ephod and some idols” before installing “one of his sons as his priest”.
Basically, Micah was spiritually messed up. For he took Canaanite worship principles which used idol worshipping as its main foundation and mixed them with Israelite worship principles which involved a priest who would oversee and conduct religious worship ceremonies. And despite God’s demand that all priests had to come from the Levite family tree, Micah disregarded this requirement and appointed his own son into the position.
What in the world do we see happening here? Is this just an isolated incident or had all of Israel lost it?
Well, we find the answer in our passage for at that time, the scriptures tell us that within Israel…and at that time…everyone was doing whatever they saw fit. In other words, everyone was on their own program, doing their own thing and satisfying their own desires and wants, regardless of what God commanded them to do. This explains why Micah and his mother had no problem fashioning an image and idol from silver…why they saw no issue with having their own private shrine to worship their idols…and why they didn’t see any problem with ordaining one of their own family members as a priest.
You don’t get much more “doing everything as you see fit” from a spiritual standpoint than that.
In thinking about this, I often wonder if our world isn’t getting to the same place today. For it sure seems to me that a majority of people are doing everything as THEY see fit, either ignoring God or being completely ignorant of Him altogether. And while living void of His guidance and direction, it becomes a pervasive atmosphere of anything goes with nothing being truly off limits. It’s a climate that I have to think both angers and saddens the Lord.
Indeed, Micah, his mother, and his priest-appointed son were all unwilling to completely give their lives and their worship practices over to God and Him alone.
Well, the remainder of this scripture passage centers on a man who Micah encountered…”a young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah who had been living within the clan of Judah” and decided to leave “that town in search of some other place to stay”. After inquiring where the man had come from, Micah learned that he was a Levite and automatically gave the man a proposal saying:
“Live with me and be my father and priest, and I'll give you ten shekels of silver a year, your clothes and your food".
We see where the young Levite agreed to Micah’s terms and became “his priest”, living in “his house”. This led Micah to proclaim:
“Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest."
In other words, Micah believed he would now find favor with God through his newly appointed Levite priest, a Levite who would never had accepted the offer if he had truly knew and understood who God was and his true responsibilities to Him as a Levite. He, like the others in Israel, was doing as he saw fit, trading in his loyalty to the Lord for a paid salary and shelter.
In the end translation, neither Micah nor his new Levite priest were interested in fully submitting and surrendering themselves to God and His ways. Instead, they wanted to live life according to their terms and this included the way they chose to worship.
Friends, it’s time to wake up and see that a true and edifying relationship with the God who is the Maker and Master of all creation doesn’t come through anything this world can give. We don’t need any human being or object to gain access to Him…no magical spiritual conduit we can travel through by adopting some form of mysticism.
Thankfully, the Lord is closer than we think and always ready to enter into a direct, intimate, personal relationship with anyone who simply seeks him, willing to do His will and not just what they see as fit. This special, loving one-on-one communion with Him will always end up pointing us toward His Son Jesus, the only One through which we can be saved (John 3:16, Romans 10:13)…the only One through which we can come to God the Father (John 14:6) and gain eternal life.
So where do you stand today?
Are you doing what you see fit in your life or have you turned your life over to the Lord, allowing Him to dictate everything you think, say, and do?
If you’ve yet to gain your salvation by coming to Jesus the Son through God the Father, please make today the day of your salvation.
It’s a decision you will never regret.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment