Justice is of great concern, not only in our day, but also in Micah's day.  As we have been working through Micah, it is clear that justice was not being done in Israel and Judah, and it is also clear that God was not pleased with the injustice.  Let's look at just two verses from chapter 3, verses 9 and 10.

9 Now hear this, heads of the house of Jacob

And rulers of the house of Israel,

Who abhor justice

And twist everything that is straight,

10 Who build Zion with bloodshed

And Jerusalem with violent injustice.

Clearly, those in Judah before the exile were not conducting themselves according to God's good and holy standards.  They were flaying people's skin and boiling them in pots and burning their children in sacrificial rites.  They were profiting from the idolatrous practices and using the money to build up Zion through these injustices.  Clearly, these actions are wrong, and God sends His punishment upon the people in the forms of swords from their enemies, famine, pestilence, and exile.  Death and destruction are headed Judah's way because of their gross injustices, but what should their response be?  How do they come out from under the peril

But are the actions all that God is concerned with?  God tells His people in Micah 6:8 what is good and what He requires of His people.  The first on the list is to do justice.  The word in Hebrew is mishpat, which is in the context of adjudication.  If a wrong has been perpetrated by someone, the judges (who in Israel were the elders sitting at the city gates) were to decide who was right and who was wrong and to execute the punishment and restitution according to the statutes and principles laid out clearly by God through Moses, especially in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.  If someone committed murder, the punishment was life for life.  The punishment could not exceed the crime committed.  There were also specific instructions concerning oxen and their wages of grain for treading out the grain as well as in the case that an ox gored an animal or another person.  There were also laws against idolatry and child sacrifice.  Clearly, justice or correct judgments were not being handed out in Israel.  But, again, these are outward actions.

What about inward desires?

Micah 6:8 continues that we should love mercy or lovingkindness or steadfast love or covenantal faithfulness.  What God's people need in addition to doing good and executing justice according to God's standards is to love God's chesed.  (The "ch" is pronounced as a hard, guttural "h.")  This Hebrew word has no equivalent in English.  It is variously translated into English as mercy, lovingkindness, or steadfast love.  My own stab at defining chesed is this: a joyful willingness and a delighted determination both to create and to keep covenantal relationship.  If a covenantal relationship is broken, death is the consequence.  Once God creates a covenantal relationship with someone, that relationship is permanent.  The question of relationship when it comes to considerations before God is not whether you are in relationship with God, but a question of which covenantal relationship you are under.  Are you under the covenant of works which Adam broke, or are you under the covenant of grace which Christ has cut on your behalf?  If you are under the covenant of works, you are under God's just condemnation, for your default position is to walk in pride before God rather than humility.  If you are under the covenant of grace, then Christ has kept the covenant of works on your behalf, and all He requires of you is to depend upon Christ's right judgments, love of lovingkindness, and humble walk before the Father.  If you are under the covenant of grace, then God will make you more and more like Himself in this life and then completely like Himself when you see Him face to face.  The work is His.  The effort is yours.  To decide correctly between right and wrong is one thing.  To love lovingkindness is a gift beyond comparison, for it comes from humility.

Humility is a very un-American virtue.  In America, we are told to believe in ourselves, to live our dreams, and to accomplish what we want to do.  What is the underlying assumption behind all these adages?  It is the twin assumption 1) that people are basically good and 2) that it is the height of humility to give people the freedom to live according to what they believe to be true.  The Scriptures teach very clearly the exact opposite.  Romans 3:10-18 is an indictment of complete degree against the entire human race (except Christ).  There is none who is good, no not even one.  There is none who seeks God.  Their throat is an open grave.  The venom of asps is on their tongues.  Human beings are intrinsically vile and evil.  But, I can hear you say, I'm not a bad person.  I give people their freedom.  I cheer people on who live their dreams.  I haven't killed anyone.  I haven't stolen anything.  I am not like (name your most infamous villain).  Yet, Jesus reveals in Matthew 5 that even getting angry at someone is equivalent to murder.  So, God is concerned about more than just mere, outward behavioral obedience.  He is concerned about the heart.  Therefore, we sin because we are sinners and not sinners because we sin.  The disease is pride that says, "I know good from evil.  I am the arbiter and judge of what is right and wrong.  My truth determines my own path."  Instead, biblical humility says, "God's truth, righteousness, and holiness define good, and anything contrary to these are evil."  Biblical humility also says, "I acknowledge that God is right sovereignly to differentiate the good from the evil according to His good pleasure and His good standards and His good chesed.  I am not wise enough or knowledgeable enough to be able to make the determination."

Our ability to do justice and to love lovingkindness flow from humility, and humility only comes from the life that God gives His people through His proclaimed word according to His divine pleasure.

And all of this points us to the glory of God.  It is God and God alone Who not merely possesses goodness but Who is goodness!  Anything that does not measure up to God's goodness stands condemned.  Anything not good (a.k.a. evil) will be condemned.  Either, Christ bore that condemnation on your behalf on the cross, or you will bear that condemnation for all eternity.  What makes the difference between the two?  Repentance of believing lies, especially the lie that an intrinsically evil human being is good and that the holy and righteous God is evil, and humbly put your faith, your reliance, your belief in God Himself, for there is no one who can keep His promises the way God does.  He gets 100% of the credit for your salvation and sanctification and glorification.  Do justice because you love lovingkindness because you walk humbly before the one, true God because He has called you to that end.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

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#SoliDeoGloria