We continue our series in the book of Micah today. We come to chapter 3, and we continue in this section of Micah, which is Micah's word of judgment to his people. It's Micah chapter 3. I'm going to read this as always, and I ask you to stand in honor of the reading of God's word. and to listen, and listen carefully, because this is truly the Word of God. And I said, here you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice? You who hate the good, and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people, and their flesh from off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron. Then they will cry to the Lord, but He will not answer them. He will hide His face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil." Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry peace when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths. Therefore it shall be night to you without vision, and darkness to you without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them. The seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame. They shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God." But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. Its heads give judgment for a bribe. Its priests teach for a price. Its prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on the Lord and say, Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height." This is the Word of the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Please be seated. Well, many of you know that a wedding was just performed in this place, and Camden and Taylor St. Dennis are now on their honeymoon. As I was preparing this sermon, I thought about some things that I shared with them things that we said during premarital counseling, and one of the things, as we were talking about roles that was said, was a reference to Adam and Eve, and how in Genesis 3, you read the whole chapter, and it's all about Eve and her conversation with the serpent, who we know Satan was appropriating, which we know Satan was appropriating. and how she responded to the temptation by believing Satan and by sinning. And so you might think, well, gosh, you know, still the same. Those women are still leading us astray. And yet we pointed out that when God comes in judgment, he didn't come to Eve. He came to Adam. because Adam was the head. Adam was in authority, and so Adam was responsible. We read in this chapter about heads several times. I like, in this instance, the way that the ESV translates this. It doesn't say leaders or other terms. It says heads. That's literally the term that's here because that's an apt description of leaders and leadership and of the fact that they are connected to the rest of those over whom they exercise authority, and they have responsibility for those people. There is a solidarity, we'll speak more about that, between leaders and the people that they lead. And so, that's the theme of this chapter. It's addressed to leaders in Israel. And as God is looking at the state of Israel, he thinks of Israel in terms of its leaders. And so what I'd like for us to ask as we come to this passage today, to look at it in more detail, is this. How does corrupt leadership invite the judgment of God? How does corrupt leadership invite the judgment of God. Three things. First, I want us to see this, that corrupt leadership creates destructive politics. destructive politics. Look at verses 1 to 4. He speaks of the heads of Jacob, the rulers of the house of Israel. That's important for us to identify these heads and these rulers because he refers to them again in the last section of this passage. And these rulers were almost certainly the ones who were referred to throughout the Old Testament and really throughout Scripture as elders, elders in Israel. And I want us to read a couple of passages just to remind ourselves of where these elders came from. We might look at the book of Exodus and Exodus chapter 18. I'm going to read this in verse 1. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there with me. Now Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her home along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. And the name of the other, Eleazar, for he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. Now he comes to Moses, let's skip down to, let's see, Verse 13, the next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, what is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around you from morning till evening? And Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and His laws. Moses' father-in-law said to him, what you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You're not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice, I will give you advice and God be with you. You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe. who are trustworthy and hate a bribe. and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves, so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, God will direct you. You will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace. So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, chiefs of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country. Now that gives us most of what we need to see, but there's one part that's not there that is absolutely essential that we see, and that's in Deuteronomy 1. Deuteronomy gives a second account of this incident. Look at verse 9 of Deuteronomy chapter 1. At that time I said to you, I'm not able to bear you by myself. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as he has promised you. How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads." And you answered me, the thing that you have spoken is good for us to do. So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens. officers throughout your tribes, and I charged your judges at that time, hear the cases between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with them. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's, and the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it." I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do." You notice several things here that are similar to the Exodus passage, but there's one detail here that was not in the Exodus passage, and that is the detail of popular suffrage. Now, we follow this pattern in As we elect elders in our church, as we choose elders in our church, there is a bottom-up part to the process, which is popular voting, popular selection. But then there is top-down approval and ordination of those men. That's what you see here. Moses says, you choose these men and I will set them over you. and they are to be the judges. This was the beginning of the office of elder in the nation of Israel, among God's people. You notice that they are judges, that they are charged not to take bribes, that they are charged to judge cases, and these are to be legal cases, and that they are to apply God's law as they do this. And so the heads, which is the term that's used, same term in Deuteronomy, The heads, to which Micah refers, are the elders of Israel in their various cities, in their various cases. And they have a history. And they are political leaders. primarily. The religious leaders were primarily the priests and the Levites, and later the prophets. The elders had a religious function, though, that was related because they were to apply God's law in their judgments. And so what we need to see here, or the first thing I want us to see here, is the political accountability of these leaders. The political accountability of Israel. The political accountability of Israel to God. We sometimes today, well we hear a lot today about separation of church and state. And a lot of people make a big deal out of that. And, of course, you've heard this and, you know, I don't want to preach to the choir on this. I know most of you are aware of what I would say about this, that there is no real separation of church and state between, well, in the way that it's commonly interpreted in the Constitution. There is, in God's Word, a separation of the institution of the state and the institution of the church. But the key point is that there is never and has never been and never intended to be a separation of state or politics and God. Because when we talk about politics, what we're talking about is the application of laws in a society. The only way that you don't have politics is if you don't have law, and that's only in an anarchistic society, and an anarchistic society can't be a society. for very long if it has no law, because there's no order. Law has to come from somewhere, and if we think about it long enough, we realize that the laws of a society are merely the expression of the morals of that society, what that society believes is right and wrong. And no society can ever authoritatively say that anything is right or wrong unless appeal is made to some transcendent authority. And that's why any time we're talking about law and any time we're talking about morality, and any time we're talking about morality, we must acknowledge God. because God is the source of morality. And that's a short discourse, a short case. I think it's an infallible case. the understanding that politics are always, always, always about God. We either reject his law as our law and attempt to make our own law, to be autonomous, or we recognize his law, which is proper. And it's proper for any government. It's proper for the government of Israel, of course, but you say, well, Israel was a theocracy. It's proper for the government of the United States. It's proper for the government of the People's Republic of China. It's proper for Iran. It's proper for Hindu India to recognize the God of the Bible's law. Because God is the one who is the author of law, and God is the Creator. And so we cannot separate politics from God. Civil leaders, government officials in every nation on earth are accountable to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the truth. And that is why when we read in the Bible, we read whole prophecies like the prophecy of Nahum, which is a prophecy against Nineveh, a prophecy against Assyria. It's not a theocracy, but God holds them accountable. In the prophets you read judgments on nations, different nations, for their wickedness. Wait a minute, they're not a theocracy, they don't even acknowledge God. How can God hold them accountable? Because He's the Creator! Because we are all subject to His law. Because we're all accountable to Him. And so here, Micah simply assumes the accountability of political leaders in Israel to God. And he says, you've sinned. Is it not for you to know justice, he asked them? And knowing justice, is it not for you to know what the laws are, to be legal experts, to have a good legal library that you can refer to? No, that's not what he's saying. Because to know justice, he's talking about in biblical terms, to know it. He means to have my mind and my heart soaked in justice. So that justice is what makes me tick. So that it's in my heart. So that it's what I want to apply. It's the most important thing to me. And he says, for an elder who's judging, And he's judging cases, he's applying God's law. You must know justice. Is it not for you of all people to know justice in this way? And yet, he refers to them as you who hate the good and love the evil. Can we not see this in our society today? that those who make and apply our laws in many ways love the evil and hate the good, who declare that things that God says are an abomination are a right, who do the very thing that Isaiah condemned when he said, woe to those who call good evil and evil good. That's exactly what we see in our own land today. And it was what was going on in Israel among the elders. The exact same perversion. And who is it that suffers the consequences? It's the people under whose authority they were. who are under their authority. The people under their authority suffer. And so he describes in these very visceral terms, almost like in terms of cannibalism, like you're chopping them up for a meal. This is what you're doing. This is the effect of the fact that you don't know justice, that you hate the good and you love the evil. But then I want you to see something really, really interesting here. Now, if you look at verse 4, Most commentators, when they look at this, they look at this as a shift where God has been talking to the heads and then He shifts to the third person and then He's saying, okay, here's going to be the judgment on these heads. They will cry to the Lord. That's one view. I don't think that's the natural way to take this. I think there's something much more profound being communicated here. Because the natural way to say it is, he's just been talking about someone in the third person, and who's he been talking about? He's been talking about the people who are suffering at the hands of these leaders. You flay their skin from off them, you break their bones in pieces, chop them up like meat in a pot. And then the very next breath he says, then they will cry out to the Lord. Well, why will they cry to the Lord? Because they're being chopped up! Who's he talking about? He's not talking about the leaders, I think. He's talking about the people. He says they will cry out to the Lord. Why? Because they're being chopped up. But what's the Lord's answer? He says He will not answer them. He will hide His face from them at that time because they have made their deeds evil. You see, leadership reflects the people who are led. And that's the case in Israel. And if we read other prophets and we read the rest of Michael, we know that it's not that the leaders are abusing the people and the people are totally innocent. No, the people, the leaders reflect who the people are. And that's why it was so important for us to read these passages, because who chose the leaders? Choose you men who will not take a bribe. And what are these leaders who were chosen by the people doing? They're taking bribes. And they're abusing the people. Isn't that a picture of the United States today? I think about people who, the stories of people who are moving from state to state and they leave a state because the leadership has been so bad it's run the state into the ground and people are suffering and the economy is tanking, so they move to another place and what do they do? They vote for the same type of people. They take their political decisions with them and they run those states into the ground. Isn't that interesting? So here God says, they'll cry out because of this horrible leadership, but their deeds are evil, and there's going to be a judgment on the people. Not just because of the wickedness of the leaders, the leaders are included in this, there's going to be a judgment on the whole people because leadership represents the people. There's a solidarity between leaders and the people. and the judgment comes on the whole people. Why are we seeing what I believe is much of the judgment of God on us today as a nation? We can say, oh gosh, there's wicked people in charge, it's corrupt Washington. Now listen, folks, we can cry out to the Lord, but we've got to get our own house in order before we can correct Washington. And yes, we vote, and voting is important. And God does hold us accountable for our politics, and He holds our whole nation accountable for its politics. And if there's corruption, we need to be standing against it, we need to be praying, we need to be standing with God and His law, and we need to be electing not people who butter our bread, but people who acknowledge God. And I am so sick of hearing people say, well, you know, we've got to compromise here or there because you just can't expect that. No, look, I will get explicitly political. I could rail against Democrats all day long. But listen, we've got a whole lot of Republicans that need to be primaried. And we don't need to vote for them, because they are corrupt, because they won't stand for anything. And if you ask them, if you ask them, will you say that you explicitly believe in the principles of God's Word and the Bible, they would faint right out if you asked them to do that. We need to get to the point where we say, unashamedly, that's what I'm requiring of my leadership. And I'm not ashamed of that. And where we make the case that if you believe in law, it's got to come from God. And God has spoken. He's not silent. He's spoken. We are the people who need to stand up and say this. We are the people who need to stand on this principle. We don't need to find some political savior to swoop in and do things for us. We must be the people who stand for these things. And if we don't, we will cry out to the Lord and He will not answer if we refuse to do what He tells us to do. We get the leadership that we demand. We get the leadership for which we work. So corrupt leadership creates destructive politics. But then secondly, we need to see this. Corrupt leadership creates defective preaching. In verses 5 through 8, Micah turns his lens, his searching lens, on the preachers, on the prophets. I turned the page. He says, thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray. What do they do? What's wrong? Well, there is an impotence to their preaching. Homiletics is the science of preaching. Okay, so that's where homiletical came from. I don't want to confuse anybody. Homiletical impotence is what you see here. And it's two kinds of impotence. First, there's an impotence that's caused by their preaching to itching ears. You know, in the New Testament, Paul said, wrote to Timothy, that in the latter days there will be preachers, people will not put up with sound preaching. Instead, they will gather around them teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear. Well, these preachers here that Micah is talking about were preaching to itching ears. He says, they cry peace when they have something to eat. That is, you're providing something for them. Hey, I'll give you something to eat. But they declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths. Now, you know, I could go to the New Testament and I could show you where Paul talks about the worker being worthy of his wages. There's nothing wrong with someone who, and this may sound self-serving, but I'm just quoting the Scripture, it's proper for someone who makes their living from the gospel to be remunerated. That's proper. The problem here is that the message was being determined by the amount and the kind of remuneration that was being received. So you give me something, give me what I want, and I'll change the message. It's not God's, I won't give you God's Word, I'll change the message to tailor it to what you want to hear. And so they weren't really getting God's Word. There was an impotence. There was no power, because there was nothing convicting. There was nothing challenging. They were afraid to challenge, because that would destroy their meal ticket. But then God declares His judgment on that. He says, there's another kind of impotence that's coming because of this. He says, therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. Now, divination was strictly forbidden. in Israel. Divination was, let's scatter some sheep intestines on the ground, see how they come out, and that'll tell us what's going to happen, right, in our lives. That's divination. And God had said, no, that's superstition. That's not how I work. The pagan prophets do that. You're not supposed to do that. Why does he mention divination here? Because it was practiced in Israel. Because they were doing these kinds of things, in violation of God's Word. But what God is saying is, whether you do divination, or whether you seek me the way you're supposed to, if you're tailoring your word to what your people simply want to hear, and you're not proclaiming what I say, I'm going to withdraw my word. And the power of the Word, which comes from its source, from me, is going to be withdrawn. And so there's going to be an impotence because I'm not going to speak anymore. I'm not going to give you insight anymore. I'm going to withdraw my Word from you. What's the motive for that? The motive is, I want to be liked. I want to receive good things. Who wants to be unpopular? Hey, I'll tell you, as a preacher, I don't want to be unpopular. I don't want to say uncomfortable things to people. I don't get a charge out of that. And you know that feeling, especially if you're a parent. You know, today, we have lots of parents. The popular thing among them is, I want to be friends with my children. Or maybe my children's friend. Well, you know what? I would like to be my children's friend, too, when they become adults. But when they're children, my focus is not to be their friend, it's to be their guide. It's to be the one who disciplines them. It's to be the one who tells them things for their good, whether that be comforting or whether it be challenging and whether it be painful. Parents who want to be their children's friends often refuse to tell them painful things or refuse to discipline them when it involves pain. And so those children grow up to be hellions and they suffer bad consequences because of that. They become people who can't live effectively among other people because they've never learned to discipline themselves because they've never received any discipline. Why? Because the parents don't want to be their friends. That seems like a great thing. It seems like a great thing to say, I'm going to preach good things. I'm going to be encouraging. I don't want to say things that are going to discourage people. I want to say encouraging things. I'm going to name a name. Joel Osteen. Is that okay? Anybody going to get mad at me because I'm naming a name? Have you ever heard Joel Osteen talk about sin if you listened to him? He never talked about sin. He doesn't talk about the blood of Christ. That's the gospel. He's not the only one. You cry peace when they have something to eat. The seers shall be disgraced and the diviners put to shame. They shall all cover their lips for there is no answer from God. So what should we do? What should preaching look like? Well, Micah gives us the answer. He gives us the answer in verse 8. And in the Hebrew it's, but I, I, there's an emphatic pronoun. He repeats it. He says, in contrast to these others. And there's something implied there. In contrast to these others, it's like I, I, I'm alone. There's a loneliness that comes from faithful preaching. I'm going to confess something to you. I'm going to get real personal here. Well, I wish we had a thousand people in this place. I wish we did. We don't. And I want to say, I think that there are a lot of people who could be here who would benefit from being here, who aren't here. And I want to say that it is kind of lonely. Now, I'm not Micah. I'm not pretending to be Micah. But Micah was lonely because he was faithful. And because faithfulness is rare. And it's rare today. It's rare among preachers today. That's a mark of preaching. That's a mark of faithful preaching. I am filled with power. He talks about his equipment, he says, I'm filled with power, and really in the Hebrew, I think, he says, with the Spirit of the Lord, it's even with the Spirit of the Lord. ESV leaves it out, I don't know why it leaves it out. What he's saying is, what gives me my power, what gives me my physical stamina, and my emotional stamina, my psychic stamina, to do, to preach this way, is the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord is with me. And he says that also the Spirit of the Lord then gives him justice. A concern for justice. It's his passion. Righteousness is his passion. To preach what's right. To promote what's right. To promote what's good in God's people. To make them righteous. And do you know what? That's God's passion. It's God's passion for you to be more than just forgiven. Yes, He wants you to be forgiven. Yes, He's merciful. Yes, He declares that His name is the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. But He wants you to be righteous because He is righteous. That same God says, be holy for I am holy. And preaching that is true, preaching, is preaching that holds before people justice and righteousness and calls them to that. Faithful preaching will never let you be complacent in your sin. It will never proclaim the grace of God as a license or a permission to continue in sin. And Micah presents, he contrasts his preaching with those of the false preachers who are preaching only what people want to hear. He says, I'm filled with justice, righteousness, And he says, I'm filled with might. And the might there, the sense of the Hebrew is guts. Where does he get his guts? Where does he get his guts to tell the truth when it's not what people want to hear from the Spirit of the Lord? That's his equipment, the Spirit of the Lord that gives him power and justice and might. And then look, finally, at his mission. What's his mission? He says, I'm filled with power, I'm filled with the Spirit of the Lord. To do what? To declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Whoa. That's what your mission is? That's what your ministry is? To declare to your people their transgression and sin? Yes. Yes. Now I'm preaching to the choir because I know this congregation. I know that you know this. But mature Christian people understand this. They know that there is a certain joy to having your cancer exposed and removed. There's a certain joy to hearing preaching that exposes the nooks and crannies of your life where sin is hiding out and enables you to put it to death in a way that you wouldn't be able to do it if you hadn't heard it. And that's a very important ministry of faithful preaching. And yes, it should be balanced with encouragement. And you know what? Next week, we get to chapter 4. And I want to tell you, it's going to be glorious. But you can't hear the good news until you hear the bad news. And faithful preaching is like surgery. And if you know what's good for you, you will seek that. You will seek what Micah is saying as his ministry to the people at this time. To declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. A healthy Christian longs for just that. I want my sin to be proclaimed to me so that I can put it to death. And I'll be putting it to death as long as I live. And that's a function of healthy, good preaching, of what preaching should be in the church, of what the church should do for you. Today we have a Christian culture of consumers who say, You know, if that church makes me too uncomfortable, I can always go somewhere else. Because, hey, I got this smorgasbord in front of me. I can just kind of go, you know, hop here or there. Whatever makes me feel good. But people who look at church that way, who look at preaching that way, don't realize that they're harming themselves. They don't realize they're not getting what they need. That's not how we should look at church. It's more like a hospital. More like an intensive care unit. That's homiletical rectitude. That's what proper preaching is. But then finally, very quickly, I want us to see this. That corrupt leadership creates insidious presumption. Insidious presumption. Look at verses 9 through 12. Why do you cry aloud? He's talking to Israel, talking to Jacob, talking to Judah. Now, why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? What's the answer to that? Of course there's a king in you. But there won't be a king when you're taken to exile, when your king, who is supposed to represent your true king, Yahweh, is carried off to Babylon. Is there a king in you? Has your counselor perished? I'm sorry. I'm reading from chapter 4. "...Hear this, you heads..." He's back to the heads. "...of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice, and make crooked all that is straight." Detest justice. You should know justice, but you detest justice. You make crooked all that's straight. This is leadership sin. They're supposed to be the ones who are shining light, who are promoting righteousness, shining light on wrongdoing, punishing wrongdoing. Loving justice, you detest it. Straightening things out, they're making crooked everything that's straight. They're calling good evil, evil good. Again, isn't this what we see in our nation? Isn't this what our leaders are doing? Isn't this what the Supreme Court does when it says that a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman and we can call it marriage? Isn't it? Verse 10, who builds Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. I could apply this for some time to our nation. There's some doubt. How was bloodshed? How were they promoting bloodshed in Judah? It's not entirely clear, but there are lots of ways that it could have been done. Letting murderers go unpunished. Raising money to bail out people who have committed violence in cities. Isn't that what we see? Verse 11, its heads give judgment for a bribe, bribery. Its priests teach for a price. I'm not even gonna talk about, now there's no news media condemnation here, but the news media is complete covering up of Joe Biden's corruption in taking money from China to sell out the United States security. And there's irrefutable evidence that I've seen of that. So, I'm not going to say that I'm slandering or it's gossip. It's absolutely, undeniably true. Prophets practice divination for money. Here you have heads, priests, prophets, the three major offices. They're taking money for what they do. That's their motivation. But then look at their theology. Look at their theology. Yet they lean on the Lord and say, is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. Look, where'd they get that theology? Well, they could quote chapter and verse. They could go to 1 Kings 6. They could go to the dedication of the temple. Solomon's prayer, and in verses 12 and 13 we read this, concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you which I spoke to David your father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. See? God's not going to forsake us. You know the problem with that? They read verse 13, but they forget verse 12. If you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you. You see, there's a condition. They only looked at the promise, and they forgot the requirement. This is common today in America. This is common today in America's church. We hear grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, but we don't hear about the God who said, we don't hear about the Jesus who said, whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. We remember the promise. and we presume on God's grace. And hear me, folks, you can never presume on God's grace or it's not grace. You can't presume on it. And in fact, when someone repents and when someone does obey God's law, that's His grace. is grace is what brought you to that place. And so grace is never defeated. Grace is never thwarted. But the way it works is that God's grace always works in us, obedience unto righteousness, faith unto blessing. And so you can't presume on it. But what do we hear? We hear people saying, we hear people saying, you know, God would never, always, always, always, always be alarmed when somebody says, God will, God would never dot, dot, dot, whatever that may be. See, that's the presumption that a lot of people have. If God judged America, what about all the millions of dollars that are given to missions? What about all the evangelical agencies and all the organizations and things that contribute to the Kingdom of God? What would happen to the Kingdom of God if America were wiped from the map? Nothing. the kingdom of God would still be built. God's not dependent on an arrogant superpower. God holds us accountable. And he says that the way to his blessing is through the faith that leads to obedience. And then he concludes with what's going to happen. He says, therefore, you have this presumption, but let me tell you what's going to happen. Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed as a field. That's Mount Zion. That's where the Temple Mount is going to be cleared away like you're going to plant a field. Everything's going to be cleared away so that it's all ready to be cultivated. There's going to be nothing left. It's going to be plowed as a field. He says, Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height. That is, it's going to be so desolate, so abandoned, that it's going to become overgrown again with trees. And this word for height is the same word that he used to describe the pagan high places for pagan worship. He's saying, look, this Temple Mount, it was for holy worship. It's going to be just as worthless. The worship is going to be just as worthless as these pagan high places where they sacrifice children. That's what's going to happen because of this. God declares His judgment. Now because Micah ends there, I'm going to ask those who are serving at the table to come forward now. I have to leave it there. We need to hear this word. We need to hear this word. But I want to give you, as we come to the table of the Lord today, I want to give you the first glimmer of hope. Because Micah gives you hope too. We're going to hear a lot about it next week. But as we come to this table, we hear a lot about it. Because our faith, our hope, is in the truth that all of that judgment that we deserve, that we deserve if we trust in Christ, came once upon Him. God Himself took that judgment upon Himself. And He died here. And when He died on the cross, He took hell, which is what we deserve. He took hell for all of us who trust in Him. And so as you come today to the table, that's what I want you to think about. I want you to think about our collective guilt as a society, but then I want you to look to Christ and remember, remember that Jesus took horrible, heinous sin upon Himself. He became sin so that God the Father turned His back on Him. He experienced abandonment and desertion, the desertion of hell on the cross that we deserve so that we could have hope and forgiveness. So come to this table today recognizing God's awful judgment, and how that awful judgment, if your faith is in Christ, came upon Him for you, and relish that. And, in addition to mourning your sin, rejoice. Let's pray. Father, thank You for this table, thank You for this sacrament, thank You for what it means. Now, Father, bless us. We don't deserve your blessing. We deserve your curse. And yet, in your grace, you decide to give us blessing through Christ. So, Father, we pray, we pray for that totality of blessing that you promised to give all who trust in Christ. Lord, give us forgiveness, but give us righteousness. Give us in the first place the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, credited to us, so that we're no longer condemned. But Father, give us true righteousness. Work in us. And Christ's righteousness is true righteousness. But give us righteousness that we live out. as we live more and more unto that righteousness, and die more and more into sin, and use this sacrament to accomplish that in us, as we sense in ways that our senses can feel the reality that we are made one with Him who is the righteous one. And that gives us power to live for Him. Do that for us now. as we eat and drink, and we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Obviously, this sacrament, these blessings are only for those who have faith, true faith in Him, which means that you've turned from your sins, and He is your Lord as well as your Savior. If that's true of you, then come and eat and drink and receive this blessing. If it's not, don't come and eat and drink, or you'll eat and drink judgment to yourself. So I'll ask you, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. And the night which Jesus was betrayed, he took bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. After supper, he took the cup and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. He said, all of you, drink of it. So in his name, now, I invite you to the table of the Lord. at which Jesus offers himself once again to us. The power of union with him, the power of experiencing our fellowship with him, communion with him now, as we eat and drink together with him in his kingdom now. So come and be blessed.