Old testament prophesy regarding the people who claimed to be God's children:
"If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!" Micah 2:11
New testament prophesy regarding the people who claim to be God's children:
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3
At times it can be so easy to read the bible and see the foolishness and error of the people who lived during these events. We can judge them as being so blind and lacking wisdom while they think they were so wise. But, we often need to stop and realize that the prophecies that were written against them are often times written as a warning to us as well. Often times these warnings are repeated to offer new warnings to us now.
I was struck today by the verse from Micah 2:11 because it basically is the same prophesy that is made hundreds of years later that applies to us today in 2 Timothy 4:3. We live in a time when people do not want to be told they are wrong. We want to make our own truth. We live in a time when people do not want to live inside of boundaries or rules. We want to decide for ourselves what our boundaries should be and what rules to apply to our individual lives so that we can live according to how we feel we should live and what we think will make us the happiest. We are easily offended when someone or something speaks against our human desires and causes us to feel as if we may be wrong. We rebel against authority in our lives when it doesn't line up with our idea of right (good) and wrong (bad). We want only to hear that which makes us feel good.
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Ephesians 4:29
I think that sometimes we look at the verse above as telling us that we should only say things that will "tickle" the ears of those who are listening, things that will make them "feel" good. But sometimes the things that need to be heard, that will benefit the listener aren't easy to speak because they aren't easily accepted. Micah was charged by God to speak painful truth to his children because it was what they needed to hear not what they wanted to hear. The verse in Timothy was written not to make us feel warm and fuzzy inside but to convict hearts that have moved their boundary stones, widened them, to return to the truths of God and to stay within the limits of God's loving care by protecting our hearts from intoxicating words that blur the life giving truth of God's word (sound doctrine).
Remember, If we read in Micah how God's word was not something to be altered to suit the needs of the people without great calamity, disaster and cost then we should not think that we are above that now. We should not think we are better and capable of doing, or changing rather, that which God clearly showed us is unchangeable – His truth, His Word.
Don't just continue to read God's Word each day but pray that nothing will hinder the Holy Spirit from revealing the truth to our hearts and convicting that which needs to be removed from our lives and thoughts. Don't take the dangerous path of mixing worldly truths with spiritual truths because it is like trying to mix oil water – they don't mix. Keep the word pure and unpolluted. Keep the boundary stones of your hearts where God has placed them for you.
"… when you received the word of God… you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe." 1 Thessalonians 2:13
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