Micah 2:6-7
‘Do not prophesy,’ their prophets say.
‘Do not prophesy about these things;
disgrace will not overtake us.’
7 You descendants of Jacob, should it be said,
‘Does the Lord become impatient?
Does he do such things?’
‘Do not my words do good
to the one whose ways are upright?’
I imagine I'm not the only who finds these chapters in Micah hard to listen to. I don't really want to have to think about sin and judgement. I'd much rather talk about God's love, faithfulness and generosity. I'd rather read and listen to parts of the Bible that focus on grace and forgiveness. It seems so much more encouraging!
The Israelites felt the same way. "Be quiet" they say to Micah. "Don't talk about judgement. God isn't really going to punish us. He's loving and patient. It'll be fine." It's a common reaction across the generations of God's people. The devil's earliest lie was that God's loving warnings could safely be ignored. "You will not surely die" he told Eve in the garden of Eden. Sadly, throughout the history of God’s people there have always been so-called prophets who will tell people what they want to hear instead of faithfully passing on the message from God that they need to hear. Jeremiah talks about prophets who say “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. Similarly, there have always been people who will seek out a prophet with a reassuring, comfortable message and block their ears to a message that is uncomfortable, even though it’s true.
Which will we be? Will we be people who are willing to hear hard truths from God, confident that his word is good for us even when it sounds like bad news? And will we be those who are willing to pass on that message to others, warning them to take refuge in Jesus from the judgement that will certainly come? Neither of those things is natural human behaviour. Instinctively, we too prefer comforting words that make us feel better about ourselves. We’d much rather tell those around us about the many ways in which knowing God is wonderful, and shy away from telling them that our gentle shepherd-saviour is also our righteous judge. We need God’s Spirit to do some serious work in our hearts if we’re ever going to be people willing to hear, and say, these uncomfortable truths, so let’s pray for that today.
