“These people? They honor God with their lips, but the truth is, their hearts are far from Him.” These are the words of Isaiah the prophet and Jesus the Messiah—and they describe the people to whom Micah speaks. Last week, as we began a short series entitled "For the City" from Micah, Pastor John addressed a rarely-talked-about topic: lament. As we looked at Micah 6&7, the words of God's prophet for the Southern Kingdom of Judah, we saw the conditions of the city, Jerusalem, being worthy of lament. In Micah 6, the forecast Micah gives for the people of Judah is solemn and somber, with the judgment of God about to befall the disobedient people. Interestingly enough, though, the people still look at least somewhat "religious", to outward appearances. It's as if they were still putting on their "Sunday best", showing up for morning service, singing songs of praise and worship, dropping money in the offering plate...just like millions of Americans will do this very day, either in person or "virtually". They looked the part! But their day-to-day living showed another reality, and it wasn't pretty. Let's look at Micah 6:1-5:
Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2
Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has an indictment against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
3
“O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5
O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
The scene before us is a courtroom. God is the Plaintiff, and Micah his attorney pleading his cause. The mountains, "enduring foundations of the earth" as they are described, because they have (figuratively) "seen it all", are the jury to which Micah pleads, and the defendants are all of Judah. Micah speaks for God in asking, "what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? The people don't have access to the Temple in the city of Jerusalem; God has used the pagan Assyrians and their kings as His instruments of discipline, and so the people, who want to seek God's favor via worship, aren't able to at the Temple. Their protest goes something like this, as we read between the lines: "God, why have you allowed us to suffer? And why will you not accept our sacrifices of worship? Can’t you see that all we want to do is worship you!"
Speaking again for God, Micah answers the question: I delivered you, gave you good leaders, cared for you, led you to a land flowing with milk and honey, protected you against your enemies, because you are "my people" (twice in these four verses a merciful God, in the midst of His complaint, reminds them of relationship: "my people"). Could God not now deliver them from the hand of Sennacherib, the Assyrian ruler? Of course, but the problem was not with God, but with Israel. In :6-7 comes the question from the people, "well, what should we do about it?
6
“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
• What will it take, Lord? Burnt offerings?
• Even better burnt offerings? A one-year-old calf was considered the choicest of sacrifices.
• Thousands of burnt offerings?
• What if we multiply the offerings to “10,000 rivers of oil…or more”?
• Do you want me to sacrifice my child on that altar?
• "God, You tell me what religious obligations to perform, because I am wracking my brain here... I mean, can you help a guy out here, Lord? Seriously! Name your price!"
The purpose of this entire exercise in Micah 6 is not judgment, but rather mercy, God desiring to woo back His covenant people to Himself, as He calls on them to forsake their sin, to stop thinking all will be well if they can just have praise and worship time at the Temple. Instead, do what you have been told to; verse 8:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah says, "you should already know the answer, o man, because God has already shown you." This "man" is representative of all in Israel whose approach to God was this transactional affair whereby they thought that if they inserted the right change, God like some Vending Machine was obligated to fulfill their wishes. This is an externalized idea of what pleasing God looked like, which is the same thing Pharisees in Jesus' day and Pharisees in our own promote. Jesus spoke of the religious posers of his day as people who did all the right things outwardly. He spoke of those Pharisees as people who took a lot of time cleaning, shining, polishing the outside of their cups and bowls, so that the outsides looked clean, but the inside of their cups and bowls were full of greed and wickedness, (Luke 11). It's as though on the day when God revealed Himself through the prophets and priests and miracles and the Law and the covenants and in so many different ways, "man" was playing hooky from class. So, Micah says, let's go over this...again. Justice. Mercy. Humility before God.
Today we begin a two-week look at the first of those: justice. This is a popular word in contemporary culture. Before we look this morning at the foundations of justice, let's make sure that we understand what is taking place here--and what is not. These three things mentioned by Micah are not means by which we become right with God, but the way the people of God show obedience. If you're here today and not yet a follower of Jesus, please don't get the idea that if you “do good stuff” like showing justice, loving mercy, and becoming humble, God is thus obligated to punch your ticket to Heaven. No...we are made right with God by faith, as we trust the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and His resurrection, as the only grounds by which we are saved from sin. Micah is speaking here to the people of God, calling them to act in keeping with what God has shown them to be components of obedience.
He says, "do justice". That seems a tall order in 2020 USA. We have watched as cities have burned, fueled by rage at injustices, some very real and, I fear, some imagined. Portions of cities have been controlled, not by the legitimate authorities, but by angry mobs, demanding “justice”. Is this justice for the city?
• We want justice for George Floyd; certainly. We want to get to the bottom of what happened that morning when Ahmaud Arbery went out for a jog and wound up dead; justice surely demands it.
• Justice entails weeding out bad cops, yes; does it mean ending the police?
• Some people believe justice entails children being able to undergo sex-reassignment surgery; is that "justice"? What does “justice” mean?
• If I don't know what it is, how I am supposed to do it?
We'd better figure it out, because it's not optional for the obedient follower of Jesus. It's required; it's what God demands of His people. Of us. Do justice.
Consider the situation Micah faced:
• The rich oppressed the poor and weak in the nation.
• The merchants defrauded their customers, in goods and services.
• The religious leaders turned their faces away from the sins of immorality, injustices, and corrupt practices.
• The leaders of the people permitted these injustices.
Not unlike today, and the need for justice is just as pertinent to our culture. This morning, we ask, how are we to know what justice is? And next week, how do we actually do justice? Let’s look together at the
Biblical Foundations of Justice
1. God:
A. Holy and Just
"Justice" appears in OT 125 times; fully 1/3 of the time, the word "righteousness" appears linked with it; "righteousness" is simply "right-ness", things which are right in the eyes of God. We base our understanding of justice, then, on the holiness of God; it is not "community standards" or the demands of some interest group or even on the laws of any given state or locality. Are all our laws just laws? Of course not. Now, I'm not fomenting sedition here; I merely mention that it's never been true that all our laws conform to God’s standard. To wit, as of three weeks ago, the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, has declared polygamous marital relationships to fall within the scope of receiving marital benefits. Of course, having jettisoned the need for sexual distinctions within marriage, why not eliminate such a silly thing as a limitation of two individuals? Coming soon to a town near you, no doubt...does this law conform to the righteousness of God? Of course, it doesn't. Rights are not right unless God says they are right, and justice isn't what some social movement says it is, nor is it what your favorite political commentator says it is; justice is what God says it is.
Listen to what the Bible says of God with relationship to justice:
• “He has established his throne for justice” (Ps. 9:7).
• Jeremiah 9:24 says He practices and delights in justice and righteousness.
• “Every morning he shows forth his justice” (Zeph. 3:5).
• “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of [God’s] throne” (Ps. 89:14).
• He “is exalted in justice” (Isa. 5:16).
Our atheist friends have no means by which to define the "social justice" except what happens to be the whims of the times, and these norms change all the time. It may be said that in USAmerica, we’ve made some strides toward justice over the years, but we've also taken steps away from true justice. We keep making progress in areas of race, though we have a ways to go, it is clear. We want to make sure that our law enforcement officials are just in their actions, and these are good things. At the same time, the very definitions of marriage and family have shifted to purely secular and false ones, and we continue execute millions of pre-born babies every year. Sometimes, secular notions of justice are in line with Biblical precept, but at other times, they are diametrically opposed. The popular slogan of our day has become, "no justice, no peace"; according to the Bible, before we can even get to the question of "peace", we have to understand this truth: "no righteousness, no justice".
Our God is holy and just, and our understanding of justice begins there. Next, He is
B. The Sovereign Creator of All Things
And all is His. Abraham Kuyper, former Prime Minister of The Netherlands and prominent theologian, said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Or, as the hymnwriter penned it, “This is my Father’s world.”
When we say God is the sovereign Creator of all, this speaks to His active presence in the world He created, His rightful ownership of it, and His control over it. To do justice, we must acknowledge His rightful rule. We are stewards over the good creation God has created, and we should realize that we bear responsibility to act with justice toward God's created order, the physical world, and the creatures that dwell in it. Certainly there are movements that have taken the concept of caring for the environment and made a quasi-religion out of it, just as there are those who suggest that animals have "rights" (which isn't even possible, actually); these movements have not aligned themselves with a Biblical view of justice and thus sometimes advocate for things which are not just.
Yet our just Creator God demands that we care for the animal kingdom; as Jesus said, God takes care to feed the birds of the air, and Solomon reminds us that the righteous man has regard for the life of his animal. Even the establishment of the Sabbath has as part of its design the idea that cattle and sheep can take time to rest; we find that in Exodus 23.
God created this world and everything in it to be put to our use. Adam was placed in the garden to tend it, and it is fitting that earth's resources be used for the sustaining of human life and the development of human civilization. Justice demands, however, that not everything that we can do is something which we should do as regards God's creation, and so justice takes into account the goodness of our world as the creation of God, Who is sovereign over it. God is holy and just, and He is the sovereign Creator of all; knowing Him as He is, is the beginning of justice. Next, we see
2. Man:
A. The Special, Image-Bearing Creation of God
A commitment to justice will demonstrate itself in the way we engage with our fellow human beings, the way we treat them, the advocacy with which we take up their causes when they are being treated unfairly, and the like. I don't merely nod in agreement when the Supreme Court hands down a decision that grants justice in keeping with righteousness; I take personal steps, when the opportunity presents itself, to do and to advocate for what is right.
But this is only rational in the context of man as something more than a mere animal. Why should I have any concern for justice if, in the end, man is only a cosmic accident? Why should I not live as my own selfish pig, accumulating as much or partying as much or experiencing as much or drinking as much as I think will make me happy? Why not eat, drink, and be merry, if I am not created in the image of God (and will one day thus be accountable to God)? It is because man is no mere animal, but rather the special, image-bearing creation of a holy God.
Our Declaration of Independence declares that "all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". These high ideals were patterned upon Biblical precept. True, not all Founding Fathers were believers in Christ. But biblical ideals were respected and understood as necessarily undergirding the innate equality of people before God and before the law. Sadly, we must admit that we have often failed to live up to some of those noble ideals, that in fact even many of those heroic men who signed that Declaration and helped draft our incredible Constitution, themselves sometimes turned a blind eye to violations of those very ideals. But our founding acknowledged man’s dignity.
There is little rational basis for insisting upon justice for the oppressed, if those oppressed are simply engaged along with me in some Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest type of affair. But if all men truly are created by a sovereign Creator, then justice is vitally important. But as my namesake Paul Harvey would have said, time for the rest of the story; man is also
B. Marred by Sin
Again, we won’t dwell long here, but prior to the entrance of sin into the garden via Adam and Eve, perfect justice reigned, however briefly. Sin, however, is what brings about injustice. We act unjustly toward God, in unrighteousness, and we suffer sure consequences. Often, it is not only against God that we sin, but against our fellow man as well. We lie to people, about people, and with people. We cheat people, mistreat people, dismiss people. And while it is true, as we suggested earlier, that we should do justice with regard to all of God’s creation, it is toward those who are the victims of sinful choices—yet who themselves also make sinful choices and do injustice—that we think first of doing justice. So how do we know what “justice” toward our fellow man—and all of creation--look like?
3. The Bible: God’s Standard for Living
Here is our standard: the Bible. God isn't merely a just God Who has left us guessing; He has given us His Word to instruct us. So how might we define “justice”, Biblically? We said earlier that “righteousness” is regularly linked with “justice”, but it isn’t synonymous. There’s a Bible word that is a synonym. Judgment. Fundamentally, to seek justice is to make and execute judgments based upon the Word of God. Now understand: that word "judge" has developed certain negative connotations in today's society, as in, "who are you to judge me" or "only God can judge me." And there is some truth associated with both of those sentiments; ultimately, final judgment rests with God. But at the same time, we are called to judge things. It is right and appropriate to judge word and deed in accordance with the truth of the Bible; in fact, to fail to judge rightly is to fail to be obedient to God. We are called to discern truth from error, good from evil, and the like, and if we don't discern--"judge"--then we aren't being faithful to God or to our calling as disciples. Jesus told us to "judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Jonathan Leeman and Andrew Naselli write, "Justice is doing what is right according to the standard of God’s will and character as he has revealed it in his Word." The Bible is our standard for living…and for justice.
As we look forward to next week considering what it looks like to do justice, I hope you will give attention to this thought, again using the phraseology of the two men I just quoted, Leeman and Naselli:
In order to do justice, I need to calibrate my conscience to the Word of God.
• If I am in my car and want to know what time it is, I must calibrate the clock correctly. Hopefully, my phone is accurate to Greenwich Mean Time...so I set it by my phone and hope for the best.
• If I want to know my correct weight, I must calibrate my scales accurately. Not that I mind if it registers a few pounds light...
• If I want to do justice in these confusing times, I need to calibrate my conscience to the standard, which is the Bible, God's Word.
This will mean that on issues which are biblically clear-cut, I agree with the Bible's teaching. The value we place on human life; God's design for marriage, family, and sexuality; the sin of judging people by their wealth or by the color of their skin; on issues such as these, the Bible is absolutely clear. But what about issues which aren't as biblically clear-cut, perhaps where there are valid competing concerns? We still need to understand how the Bible frames the questions we must ask, in order to arrive at our decisions.
• What does justice look like in immigration policy?
• What does justice look like when it comes to the details of caring for the poor?
• What does justice look like when it comes to our current enforcement of the death penalty?
Believers may not agree on our conclusions in every detail, but if our consciences are calibrated to the Word, we will know what God says on the issues, and for believers that is absolutely essential as we attempt to do justice. Here’s the problem: people are calibrating their consciences to movements. To political parties. To Fox News pundits or CNN personalities. To some college sociology professors' wacky ideas. To their friends and peers, to their IRAs, to their carefully constructed social media personas, to their personal feelings. When we look to those things first; when we weigh them more heavily than we do the Bible, then we have no chance of "doing justice". Justice involves calibrating our thinking to the Word of God, remembering that
• God is just and holy, the sovereign Creator of all.
• Man is the special image-bearing creation of God, though marred by sin.
• The Bible is God’s standard for living, and thus for pursuing true justice.
As we look forward to next week, would you take some time this week to honestly ask yourself this question: to what am I really calibrating my conscience when it comes to how I see the world? And then ask God to help you calibrate it to His Word!
