Today’s Reading: Micah 3-5

I love the prophecies about the future Messianic State. I find them very encouraging, especially when times are tough. Today, however, I realized that they often rebuke Israel and Judah.

While Micah preached about the nations that will be drawn to Jerusalem to learn the ways of Yahweh (the God of Israel), and to submit to His just judgments (4:1-5), the people of Judah had abandoned the temple of God to worship false gods on other mountains and do as they pleased. They had rejected the Lord, His laws, and His judgments. Basically, what should have characterized Israel will characterize the nations, and vice versa. What a rebuke!

It begs the question, which nation am I more like? The Gentile (non-Israelite) people from across the sea that journeys to God’s holy mountain from afar? Or the people of Judah that live in the shadow of the house of the True and Living One and still turn away from it to stoop low before a lifeless golden figurine?