…ways of looking at this and explaining the connection in these questions here. As we recall the prior verses that God has a complaint with Israel like a lawsuit, the breaking of the covenant by implication. Whereas a plaintiff, God above, brings his case of unfaithfulness against Israel, that God defends his faithfulness and warns Israel of their faithlessness.
In fact, we see that God is chiding Israel for their sins. The entire book thus far to this point has been one cycle after another reminding his people of their disobedience, of breaking of the covenants, and how he will bring discipline, particularly bringing the Assyrian army down upon them. This is before the sacking of Samaria.
That is the theme of the book. Opening up with chapter one of false worship and moving on to social injustices or just injustices. I think that was an interesting point.
Someone pointed out why I had social before. It used to be just justice. It is justice between men and the middle class in particular, as I pointed out.
Chapters two and three, Micah warns them about abusing others. And in chapter five, just before this plea here in chapter six, God warns them, your carved images I will also cut off, and your sacred pillars from your midst, you shall no more worship the works of your hand. It goes back to the theme of false worship among his people.
So with that background, we can better understand this text. And the question asked by Micah’s audience, what shall I, with what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? How can I come into his presence? And I take that as a question of repentance after they heard God’s plaintive plea before them in his chiding. How shall we repent is the way I take this question.
Question: How Shall We Repent?
With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? And here the imagery of coming before him and bowing before him is an imagery of worship, commonly used there, bowing down, which of course is the idea of submitting to before the Lord and Master of the Covenant. To bow down, as one commentator points out, is a temple phrase and contains the solemn attendance on God and his worship. Well paraphrased in the Chaldean paraphrase, with what shall I serve before the Lord? Worship him and honor him are rites.
To bow down in worship is a picture, of course, of submission before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord. In the light of the grievances God gave them, as we saw in the prior verses, where he says, I’m not unfaithful, you say I’m unfaithful by your actions, I’m not unfaithful, you’re unfaithful. And all the prior chapters of him itemizing their sins and violations.
This question makes sense then, it’s really a question of what shall we do to make right our sins? To be able to come into your presence, they understand, as many of the ancient Near East cultures did, of having a holy God, an angry God. Anger towards sin and violations of his covenants. How can we come before him? How can we bow down before him? The implication being, and not be punished.
Or, and repent of rights. How should we repent properly? And that’s why he goes, they go through this list. Maybe I can give God a bunch of sacrifices and he’ll be appeased and he’ll be satisfied.
That’s the picture here, brothers and sisters, as I see it. So it’s really a question of repentance. Genuine or feigned? Faked? Different commentators disagree.
I think it’s somewhat faked, because the way God responds to them in the answer. You know, I’ve told you before, there’s nothing new here. I’ve shown you, old man.
And so these are likely rhetorical questions that show a heart not fully interested in full-on repentance. Which of course makes sense, given what we know of all the other prophets in the history of Israel. They really don’t want to change.
They want to change just enough. How can I get by just barely on the edge there? Just enough to satisfy God and kind of keep my pet sins to myself. They want repentance, but perhaps not full repentance.
They want to know what to do now that God is judging them, is not happy with them, has brought a complaint against them, or violating his covenant by implication. And the author suggests from simple commands, we see a hierarchy of answers. These rhetorical questions of sorts, perhaps from the simplest of a calf of a year old, to a magnification of thousands of oil, rivers of oil, to the most heinous of intensity, my own firstborn.
The proposed answers, even the preposterous answers, I suppose you can call them, especially the third point. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Burnt offerings and calves, that’s right out of the Old Testament of the Levitical Priest Code, Leviticus 9.3. Leviticus 9.3 we read, and to the children of Israel you shall speak saying, take a kid of the goats as a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering, or a whole burnt offering. The entirety of the sacrifice is consumed by the fire, as a picture of our entirety of our lives being consumed before him, and beyond that a picture of Christ in his whole life being consumed in our stead, and utter holiness and dedication to God.
That’s the moral element of the sacrificial system. That’s, I don’t believe what the Jews were thinking at the time, they’re just thinking, maybe I can appease God by fulfilling Leviticus 9.3, a one-year-old calf, right out of Leviticus 9.3. Can we appease you with the Levitical law, they are asking. Secondly, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, thousand sacrifices of rams and oil.
The libations of oil were an essential element of the meat offerings and the thank offerings. We see in Leviticus 2.2 and Leviticus 7 as well. And so here they’re asking, can we appease God with obedience to the Levitical law, with more obedience to more of the Levitical law.
If God wanted one offering, we’ll give him a thousand, that’ll really satisfy him. That’ll pull back his wrath against us. And then lastly, of the three proposed preposterous answers of sorts, shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.
I read that question, I can’t take that as a serious question. That’s why I think it’s a question of how much little repentance can I get away with. God does not require that at all in the Old Testament.
The symbolism is clearly there in Egypt, right, where the firstborn is killed. The picture of the firstborn is the choice, the best, the greatest, right? They’re given the double portion of the inheritance, are they not? God wants our best for repentance, we’ll give him a thousand rivers of oil. Nay, we will give him the best of the best, our firstborn, to sacrifice and appease him.
Rather, as we know, ultimately, God freely gave his firstborn, his only begotten, to die for us instead. They understood, this shows us, they understood the need of redemption for the person who has sinned. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood.
They understood enough to realize something has to be done. Of course, they want the least to be done, and we know the greatest has to be done. Someone has to die, not an animal, but a someone, and that someone, ultimately, for God’s people, is his Son.
Now, this isn’t a prophecy about Christ. There are questions of, it seems to me, evasions of some sort. And in a similar fashion today, people ask questions like this, how can I meet God? How can I bow and show my submission to him? In worship, in particular, it seems to me, because what they’re offering are worship elements.
How can I atone for my sin? We see that in the third point. That’s the, what it really comes down to here, for many people. And the answer for many people, even today, even in America, is worship.
I can atone for my sins with the proper worship. The Roman Catholic Church, of course, you have the Mass, which is not the Lord’s Supper. It’s called the Mass.
It’s not biblical, it’s wicked. And they think it atones their sin, and never atones their sin if they keep taking it. That’s why they have daily Masses.
Sacrifices, feast days, outward prayers, rituals, postures, and prodigism, not necessarily all that, as much as, well, I got baptized and I went to church, will that save me, will that appease God, will that atone for my soul? And it does nothing of the kind. It’s not about doing the right forms, even in multiplication. Ah, the Lord’s Supper, how about the Lord’s Supper 10,000 times, with rivers of oil of the wine? No.
Many of the Jews of Jesus’ day, of course, believed it, we know that. Christ chided them for that. Hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and even Presbyterians believe something like this, to one degree or another, perhaps.
How can we come before Him? How can we bow before God, they ask? Shall we worship Him, and worship Him in abundance, and show Him how much we really submit to Him and honor Him? Will that be enough to show that our hearts are in the right place, that we have repented, and God says, 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? We repent with the fruit of obedience. God is saying, you already know, God has shown you, O man. Notice He doesn’t say, God has shown you, O Israelite, O Judah, O Jacob, or children of the covenant, children of Israel, all those phrases you’re used to, right, in the Old Testament.
Answer: We Repent with Fruit of Obedience
He says, O man, isn’t that interesting? O Adam, that’s what He’s saying. There are a couple words in Hebrew for man. This particular word means mankind, that which distinguishes men and women from animals.
And so what I think He’s saying is, He has shown you, O man, what is good, what is the right thing to do. Because even men, just a man who’s not an animal, even those outside the covenant, they’re men, aren’t they, men and women? Even they know what you’re supposed to do. They know about justice, they know about mercy, they know about walking humbly, although perhaps before they’re pagan gods, but they’re gods, nevertheless.
The Greeks talked about justice and mercy. And often you’ll read our forefathers and early churches and even the Reformation, quote some of them to the extent that it’s in accordance to the Word of God, that they have a nice helpful perspective on these things. O man, mankind knows these things, they suppress these truths, not just God but His law written on their hearts.
So when He says, O man, He’s not talking to them as those in the covenant, but just simply, I think, as men and women who should know better. And that is a greater judgment, isn’t it? I’ve given you the covenant as the backhanded implication. This is the Lord, they talk to the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, right? Will the Lord be pleased? How can we come before your presence? What does the Lord require of you? The covenant-keeping God, and He’s, even before the covenant comes along here, you know enough.
You’re culpable enough, is how I take that then. You know what to do, to do right, or to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly before your God. These things were taught to the Pagans, but as we know, it’s wrong.
That’s the wrong kind of mercy, towards the wrong object, the wrong God, the wrong covenant. Those, He has shown them, shown, He has shown them by the fact that they are Adam, they are mankind, and so they have a conscience, and they have the law written on their hearts. He has shown them by virtue of Him being the Lord of the covenant, what the Lord, the covenant-keeping God, requires of you.
And so the covenant law makes more specific what is written on their hearts, and seen in nature, of how to be obedient to Him, how to worship in particular, which you don’t see the details in nature, but that you must worship a God. That is true, and believers know that, and culpable for that. And the moral law in particular, which is what he seems to be emphasizing here, what he clearly emphasizes here, justice and mercy, and humbly before our God.
He has shown them how to repent, how to show the fruit of repentance. I have given you these sins of the mouth of my prophet to warn you that judgment is coming, and they cry out, how can we come before you now, and bow before you, and he says, you know what to do, I’ve shown you, oh man, and I’ve shown you by my covenants, you’re supposed to walk justly, to love mercy, and to be humble before your God. I have shown you these things.
When they gave the answer of sacrifice, and entered the firstborn of atonement, the God, if you notice, doesn’t reply here to the questions, shall I give the firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul. It’s interesting, God does not say, he has shown you, oh man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you, but to repent and believe in the coming Messiah. He didn’t say that, does he? Now, of course, he does say that elsewhere, it’s in the Old Testament.
We’ve seen the passages, it’s there in the sacrifices, by symbolism, that they would pay attention. That’s assumed, I bring that out to point to you, it’s assumed here, and given that assumption, he goes one step further and says, this is what repentance looks like. It’s what it looks like, doing justly, and loving mercy.
That itself is not repentance per se, it is certainly not faith, renewing and trusting and resting upon Christ and the Messiah to come. That’s assumed already, he’s talking to the covenant people, he’s talking to them in the context that they have, we’re given the gospel, and so he’s directing them towards the fruit of repentance. And this happens a number of times among the prophets, don’t forget that.
Some Christians get confused by that, thinking that apparently every sermon by the prophets must be a gospel sermon, in the sense that you’ve got to repent and believe. Well no, sometimes you need, this is what repentance looks like, the fruit of repentance, the evidence of repentance. And this is what we see here, he’s directing them towards that end.
Because to be justified before God, you cannot be justified only, God justifies as well as sanctifies. And that sanctification is where we are here, how the actions of a new heart, of a repentant heart, brings forth fruits, it brings forth proper worship, to be sure. God does not deny that, he doesn’t say, don’t worship me.
So the negative isn’t here either in this text. He’s focusing on a particular problem for these people in the particular time, and a problem that perhaps we struggle with, or perhaps not. But that worship should not be hollow, however.
He complained about false worship, we saw that in the prior chapter 5, and then in chapter 1 as well. So he’s concerned about worship, and here they are like, we’ll give you the right worship. He’s like, no, that’s not enough.
That’s a hollow worship before your God. If you don’t do justly, if you don’t love mercy, if you don’t want company before your God, I won’t take that worship seriously. So that’s the connection to all this here.
Those two strands, that’s why I mentioned in the point of the sermon, that if we’re gonna honor our God with true worship, we must honor our God with a true life, with a humble life. He chides them for their hollow worship as a theme in the Old Testament. First Samuel 15 22, he tells them, as you know, as the Lord has created the light and burnt offerings and sacrifices as an obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. That sacrificing God is not sufficient if you’re not obedient, if you’re wicked like Saul was, and kept doing things his own way, a child of the covenant. Psalm 51 17.
In fact, we read some of that, sung it in Psalm 50 here. Do I need all these animals, he says? What I tell you, I own everything. His point being, this sacrifices weren’t really to appease me, but for your sake.
Psalm 51 17, the sacrifices of God, what are they? Are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Do good in your good pleasure to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem, then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness.
With the burnt offering and the whole burnt offering, then they shall offer bulls on your altar. God is saying the ultimate sacrifice is humility in a broken spirit, contriteness for your sins. These, God, you will not despise, but you will despise sacrifices that do not have hearts of contrition, that do not have lives of walking in love for one another.
That’s certainly what happens, right? We see them terrorizing and devouring and eating their own people, that’s the imagery there. In Micah 3, like cannibals, you eat your people, stir them in a pot, and chow down. That’s not love, that’s not justice.
I won’t take your sacrifices, I don’t want them. Rather, he wants them because he commands them, and he wants the life to go with them. So they got a double sin, don’t they? And we know that here in Psalm 51 in particular reminds us, I like this psalm in many ways, in this verse 17 and 18 and 19 coalesce the ideas together.
God’s sacrifices are a broken spirit, a contrite heart, God does not despise. But however, after we have a contrite heart, after we are repentant in seeking out Christ Jesus our Lord, then, verse 19, then you shall be pleased with what? Our sacrifices, our whole burnt offerings, the worship of God. He wants both.
And that’s why you see here this interesting flop. They’re talking about worship, and God says, I’m not going to talk about worship, but put that aside here. You’ve got a life problem.
You’re good on Sundays, the rest of the week, you hate your neighbors, you hate your fellow Christians, you steal and cheat them blind, you take their land, you keep them poor, they’re cast out of their pleasant homes. Not unlike Christ, who often hears people, they ask questions, and God, Christ starts talking about something else. You’re like, well, why did he answer the question? God, it’s like, God didn’t answer the question about the sacrifices here, because God knows what they really needed.
Christ knew what they really needed. And here, God knows what they really need. Micah 3.2, we’re reminded also of their hollow practice.
You who hate good and love evil. Can you imagine describing a church that way? That’s what Micah’s doing. You who love evil and hate good, who strip the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin from them, break their bones, and chop them in pieces like meat for the pots, like flesh in the cauldron.
That’s how he describes injustice. That’s why he tells them, you ought to do justly, you ought to love mercy, and you ought to walk humbly before me, because I’m your God, I judge you. And humility is knowing your position before God, that you’re a sinner, and I better have your repentance and fruits of repentance, and walk justly, and to love mercy.
And of course they can, and they do, those who are of God, and God has humbled their hearts. A full life is called of us, but what does the Lord require of you? It’s interesting word there, what does the Lord require of you? Almost everywhere else that word require is carefully require, careful investigation. What does he want you to do carefully? Not just in a slipshod fashion, seated your pants, but carefully to do justly, and to love mercy.
They of course were not doing anything of the kind. They got the worship done, and even then it was false worship as God points out elsewhere. The rituals were done pat in many ways, but they weren’t doing justly, and they weren’t loving mercy, devouring one another.
It’s a terrible picture to see. Worship and life. Church at this time said if we worship God aright, if we do the rituals right, then maybe we can satisfy God, and God says no, that’s not enough.
If I’ve regenerated you, if I have brought you life into the covenant, and you believe in Christ, you will repent, you will have fruits of repentance, and I call, urge you towards that, and he does that here in these verses. The form of worship as I pointed out is not denied, but rather it should be coupled with a life of love of the Saints, and doing justly towards one another. The context here of Israel, as we recall again, is an overlap, a conflation of an ethnic nation, a nation, like we’re a nation, but the church is the same membership.
Every person of that nation is in the same church. England is like that, or used to be, and so for them to love the Jew is to love whom? The fellow believer of the Messiah to come. So the the equivalent today is to love the Saints, not to love the Americans.
You ought to love Americans, that’s another principle obviously of loving your neighbor, but here the immediate application is, are we showing justice and mercy towards our brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that ties in again this morning in my series in Galatians, where Christ emphasizes what? The world will know that you are mine because you love one another. You put one another first, as Paul describes elsewhere, and not devour one another, and destroy one another. And I haven’t seen that, this is not a sermon of condemnation upon us, or even our denomination necessarily, there’s lots of love, lots of consideration, obviously we can always do a little more because we’re still sinners, but it’s obvious enough, it’s clear, it’s there, we pray for one another, we take care of one another, we come to each other’s aid and concern, I’ve heard people bring advice and the like, and that’s good.
A reminder to continue on to persevere, to come to worship, yes, and to have a life befitting of that worship as well. We are urged not to use worship, brothers and sisters, and we should remind our children of this, that this is a temptation for them, to excuse our unjust actions towards one another, of not loving mercy, not being gentle. So by God’s grace, let us resist the temptation to hide behind religious forms, or words, or actions, or 10,000 Lord’s Days to somehow satisfy God.
But those 10,000 Lord’s Days which will be heaven, we ought to have with a 10,000 lives of walking justly, of loving mercy, and being humble before our God. Let us pray. Precious Lord and Savior, we’re thankful, God, that you have taught us these lessons, to a large degree have I seen over the many years in this church, that we do these things enough to be noticeable, I believe.
Been told that by others even, God. May we persevere and not be discouraged to that end. May God you bless us and strengthen us to continue to walk justly, to love mercily, and to walk humbly before our God.
Amen.