653
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
October 1927
Me” if you can, He declares. The infi nitely wise God condescends to be tried at the bar of human reason. Let atheists rave against Him if they will; when all the facts are known, the equity and even the. mildness of His government will have to be admitted. He proceeds to show Israel what He has done for them which should have forever tied them to Him in grateful service. It is time we also made a careful review of His divine favors, and asked ourselves how we can justify our treat ment of Him. The people respond to these rebukes with the inquiry—“What will meet the demands of the Lord?” Does He want more costly offerings? Does He want more severe penance? Does He want “thousands of rams or rivers of oil?” Would he have us “give our firstborn children for our transgressions—the fruit of the body for the sin of the soult” v. 7). Man is ever wanting to go through some religious form to appease God, while he continues his crooked living. What is the answer? “What doth He require e f thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (v. 8). , Does this mean that the law requiring a sacrifice was done away? No, indeed! Until the hour that Christ, the Lamb of God, hung upon the cross, recognition of divine atonement, through the sacri fice of the lamb, was required. Sacrifice is no more' required since then. Ample atonement has been made. The death of Christ is “the propitiation for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). What Micah does mean is that God is not pleased with mere self-satisfied con formity with the outward forms of wor ship when the eternal principles of right and wrong are utterly disregarded. Mi cah would say the same thing to all professing Christians today. God is not pacified by the mere form of worship. All our church-going and sacrificial gifts mean nothing when we do riot the things that He requires of us. We today are peculiarly blessed with the instructions concerning all the duties of life, as given us by the Teacher of teachers. We have no excuse to remain unacquainted with His requirements, nor need we remain without divine power to enable us to live this life, for the Holy Spirit’s office is to enable us to live as God would have us. Endowing worthy enterprises with money dishonestly acquired is no passport to heaven. We are to be just before we are generous. We are to be honest before we profess to be godly (v. 11). We are to be truthful before we pose as Christians (v. 12). At the same time let us remember that we cannot expect absolute perfection of anyone. He who is wise knows that there is a debt of compassion due to the infirmities of man’s nature. Passing as gentle a sentence as possible upon the other fellow is our duty, but to call our selves strictly to account for failing to live up to the light we have should be our first business. ■ —o— P i t h a n d P o in t Justice is the root, mercy the foliage and godliness the fruit of walking in the fear of the Lord (Micah 6:8). It is selfishness and injustice that pro cure the miseries of the world. “Do justice- to your brother and you will come
Count your many blessings, See what God hath done.” How it grieves the Lord Jesus when we are not thankful for all He has done for us, and is doing every day, yes, every hour. Just as God promised such great joy and blessing to Israel, so He will fill our lives with joy and blessing, if we will just give Him a chance. The Lord loves to bless us, but people miss many of his blessings, because they disobey His Word, and then we forget Him, and soon are full of sadness and murmuring and complaining about the hard times we are having. God has done the most wonderful thing in the world, by giving us His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The first way to show our love to Him is by giving ourselves to Him, and then each day to praise and thank Him for His love to us. Prayer. evil for them from which they shall not remove their necks,” Many communists of today would solve the problem by forcibly taking away the wealth of the capitalists. They forget that such meth ods would offer no cure for the covet ousness of the human heart. The love of the penny is just as dangerous as the love of the dollar. Many of the capital ists of today were the poor men of yes terday. So long as the lust of the world is in the human heart, men will continue to devise evil upon their beds and to enrich themselves at the expense of others. God alone can handle this situation. When He moves against those who op press the poor, they shall no longer “go haughtily” (v. 3). As they have unjustly deprived others of their rights, God will raise up some conquering enemy who, if he does not dispossess them, will render them incapable of enjoying any of their ill-gotten' gains. In Chapter 6 God, by a bold poetical figure, is represented as holding a con troversy with His people. He pleads with them, in view of His patient and gracious conduct toward them, to do justly and love mercy. The dialogue form in which the chapter is cast makes the picture dramatic and striking. The first verse calls for a grand public hearing of the case of God against His covenant people. Let the case be tried “before the mountains, and let the hills hear” His complaint. Inanimate nature could not fail of having moral sense enough to appreciate the merits of so plain a case. Our New Testament tells us of the approaching doom of the oppressors who live in this age. When our Lord comes they will “cry out to the mountains to fall upon them and hide them.” It is not likely that the hills and mountains will render the verdict in their favor. The wicked will have no protection from the presence of the Judge of mankind. “O my people, what have I done unto thee?” (6:3). The Lord of heaven is still challenging men to produce the least shadow of excuse for their disobedience to his righteous laws. “Testify against
BLACKBOARD OUTLINE
T-'XCELLING - - 1 Jno. 4 :10. H NDURING - - -Jer. 31:3. JL-/MBRACING - - John 3 :16.
I will love them freely.—Hos. 14:4.
Lord and wander away if we would stop each day and think of the blessings we have from God’s loving Hand. Let us sing right now that beautiful chorus we love so much: “Count your blessings, Name them one by one; Count your bless ings, See what God hath done; Count your blessings, Name them one by one;
N o v e m b e r 20, 1927 Micah Champions the Oppressed • Lesson Text-—Micah 2:1-3; 6:1-13
TiOR two Sundays we have studied the warnings given "by Amos and Hosea. Now we come to Micah, another who spoke bold and fearless words for God a n d f o r righteous ness. The name “Micah”
means “Who is like God?" His one plea seems to have been to get Israel to re turn to th e moral image of God. Mi
cah was a contemporary with Isaiah. He was evidently in active service as a prophet under the reign of Hezekiah (Jer. 26:17-19). The prophecies of the book of Micah resemble those of Hosea. Both are ab rupt in their transitions, sharp in their contrasts, abundant in imagery, co-ming- ling severity and tenderness. Since Micah and Isaiah labored together in the As syrian period, it will be found helpful to read Isaiah and Micah together, noting the resemblance in the prophetic visions and the style of recording them. In Chapter 1 the prophet proclaims the visitation which was about to come upon Judah and Israel; Chapter 2 records the pronouncement of special woe on those by whose offenses these judgments were Occasioned. At the bottom of it all were those who upon their beds at night “devised iniquity, and when the morning was light they practised it" (2:1). They laid their plans to enrich themselves at the cost of' the poorer people, and arose early in the morning to put their schemes to work. Furthermore, “it was in the power of their hand to do it.” Those are the people who bring judg ment upon any land when their plans have ripened and wealth has gained con trol over the poorer classes. There are hundreds today who are causing unrest throughout the land and helping to breed Bolshevism and hatred by "coveting fields and taking them by violence, and houses, and taking them away so that they op press a man and his house” (v.’2). Let not these schemers think that the God of heaven will fail to "devise an
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