Ron Dunn Podcast - Taking God Seriously

Episode Date: April 15, 2015

Pastor Ron Dunn preaches on taking God seriously from the book of Micah

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. Jesus is Lord. That was the early church's way of greeting one another. When they would meet each other, they would say, Jesus is Lord. And Paul said that whoever confesses Jesus is Lord shall be saved. And he also said that God has appointed a day in which every knee shall bow

and every tongue shall proclaim that Jesus is Lord. Everybody has it to do either here or there. I'm glad I've done it here. Here brings salvation, there brings condemnation. Well, it's good to be back in your church. It's always a joy to be with you. And I don't have any new way of saying that. It's just the same old thing, but it doesn't mean any less.

It means more and more. This is my most looked forward to meeting of the year, and that of my wife. She's unable to be here because she's sick, And she said that sick or not, next year she promises to be here because she really needs these services. And she loves this church and loves Michael and Terry and hates it when she can't be here.

But it's a joy to be back. Thank you for letting me come back again and again. And I appreciate the indulgence of Michael and letting me occupy his pulpit. And so, we're in for a good time, I believe, a time around God's Word, which is what I enjoy most. And so, this morning, I want you to open your Bible to the table of contents. What? What?

Table of contents. Your Bible has one. This is Bible 101. Now, there is an Old Testament section and a New Testament section. In the Old Testament section, you'll come to a fellow by the name of Micah, M-I-C-A-H. Find out what page he's on and turn there. I do that for a good reason. I've noticed through the years that when I preach on one of these minor prophets they're called minor simply because of the short length of their writing.

Some of them no more than just a chapter. And they're hard to find. There are a dozen of them no more than just a chapter. And they're hard to find. There are a dozen of them. And I find that when I announce one like Micah or Nahum or Habakkuk, that people, they don't know where it is and they don't think to look it up. Well, that would be embarrassing. And so they just keep looking here and looking here. And after a while, they get, you know, kind of embarrassed. And they get to thinking, my goodness, people think I don't

know my Bible. So they just open it to Psalms and pretend that that's it. And I don't want you doing that. Because during this week, we're going to be looking at the prophecy of Micah. I don't know of a more relevant book in the Bible than the prophet Micah. You would think he lived today. As we go through this, I think you'll see how relevant it is. And so I want you to open to the first chapter and the first verse. But before I read, I need to tell you something. There is a man running down the road, running running as fast as he can because he's being chased by a bear. And no matter how fast he runs, he can't seem to get away from the bear.

And so as he is racing down the road, he notices up ahead on the side of the road a whale. And in a desperate attempt to save his life, he leaps into that whale. Now, when he leaps into the whale is a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike. So he frantically begins grabbing the sides of the whale as he goes down, and he catches hold of a branch, a single branch. So there he hangs. He can't climb out of the well because the bear is waiting. He can't release his grip and drop to the bottom of the well because the rattlesnake is waiting. So there he hangs. As he's hanging there by that single branch,

he notices that there are two mice on that branch. There's a black mouse and a white mouse. And they are nibbling at that branch. And every bite they take, the branch gets a little weaker. Now hanging there in that predicament, he also notices that there is a single leaf on that branch. But what captures his attention is that on that leaf are two drops of honey. And so hanging there in that precarious position, the man leans over, sticks out his tongue, and licks off those two drops of honey.

Now, would you be interested in an interpretation of that story. The person running down the road is you. It's me. It's all of us. The bear that is pursuing us is our past, our debt of sin. The well is reality. That's life as it really is.

The rattlesnake at the bottom is the judgment of God. The branch is the number of days we have yet to live white mouse is day the black mouse is night and every time they pass you have one less day to live the The two drops of honey represent everything else in this world. Being born, growing up, going to school, getting married, raising a family, having a job, retiring, and dying. Buying houses and cars and stocks and bonds. Going to parties and movies and watching television. Everything else in the world

represented by those two drops of honey. Now any person who is in that well hanging by that branch being eaten, unable to climb out because of the bear, and unable to drop because of the rattlesnake. Any person who says that all life really amounts to is a couple of drops of honey is a fool. Anybody who thinks that that is the real life

and that is real reality, just all of these other things that we do, is a fool. The reality of life is that it is appointed unto men once to die and after this, the judgment. The reality of life is that all of us have come from the hand of God,

and we are heading back to God. There is nothing more certain in this world than judgment. But most people who believe in judgment believe in it as some far off, yet to come, distant event. When the curtain is rung down on earthly history, then there will be a final judgment of God. And I imagine most of us in this room who are Christians feel we have nothing to fear from that judgment.

Others may think differently. The mistake that we are making is to relegate the judgment of God to some far-off event. The point that Micah is making in this first chapter is that judgment is a present,

ongoing experience. That God is going to have judgment. There is going to be final days of judgment. But there is judgment going on right now in our lives, even as I speak. Now with that in mind, let's begin reading our text. We'll read the first nine verses of Micah chapter 1. The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth

during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, the vision he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, O peoples, all of you. The Hebrew is stand at attention. Listen, O earth and all who are in it. That the sovereign Lord may witness against you. The Lord from his holy temple. Now he's addressing here, first of all, the heathen.

And he's saying, I want all of you together to take a front row seat because we're going to be viewing some coming attractions. And then he says in verse 3, once he has them seated and he's got their attention, now he says, look, behold, the Lord is coming from his dwelling place. He comes down and treads the high places of the earth. The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. All this is because of Jacob's transgression, because of the sins of the house of Israel. What is Jacob's transgression?

Is it not Samaria? What is Judah's high place? Is it not Jerusalem? Therefore, I will make Samaria a heap of rubble, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations. All her idols will be broken to pieces. All her temple gifts will be burned with fire. I will destroy all her images since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes. As the wages of prostitutes they will again be used. Because of this, I will weep and wail.

I will go barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. For her wound is incurable. It has come to Judah. It has reached the very gate of my people, even to Jerusalem itself. Now, Jerusalem is the capital of the southern kingdom, Judah, and Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom, Israel. And he is addressing these people.

And it is a startling announcement, and I hope that we can see that in a moment. Basically, it is a wake-up call to God's people. I want you to notice in verse 3, he says, look, the Lord is coming. Now, I want to ask you to do something. You don't mind marking in your Bible, do you? Somebody said, well, my Bible's not a coloring book.

Well, I wouldn't have a Bible I couldn't mark in. Mark, take and make a little circle over that word coming. And then make a circle over that word, he comes down, that verb comes. Now that circle indicates a continuing activity. In the Hebrew language, those two verbs, the Lord is coming down and he comes down, are verbs that indicate characteristics of God.

It is his character. It is something that he is consistently doing, you see. Now here is what Micah is saying. Look, behold, the Lord is coming down from his dwelling place. He comes down and tramples the high places of the earth and the mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. Now, I don't know if there's any way that you and I can ever imagine

the horrific picture that Micah is painting here and the effect it must have had on his audience. Because, you see, God is always sitting on his throne. That's what God does. He sits on his throne in his holy temple. Now, all of a sudden Micah is saying, look there, look up there. God is rising off that temple, rising off his throne, and he is stomping down, coming down to earth and he's treading like a conquering soldier and he's stomping on the mountains

and they're melting away like butter before the heat. It's a graphic picture of God saying, I've had enough. I can't sit here and take this any longer I'm gonna do something about it right now what a terrible picture of God sitting on his throne in the holy temple the throne of mercy and the throne of grace. And he sees it and watches it as long as he can. And then finally he gets up and he begins to stomp down into the valleys of the earth to turn Samaria and Jerusalem into rubble because of their sin.

In other words, God isn't waiting. He's judging now. Judgment is always going on. It's a present experience. And what Micah is saying to the people and if you're looking for a title it is this it's time for us to take God seriously I you know I addressed this the other day. I don't think we take God seriously anymore.

I really don't. I think there was a time when we did take Him more seriously. We may not have obeyed Him anymore than we do now. But there was a time when we took His commandments seriously. And there was a time

when we took the thought of heaven and hell seriously. And there was a time when we didn't use His name in vain as freely as we do now. There was a time when we entered the house of the Lord that we entered it in a greater reverence and respect and all. Now we come to church like we're going to J.C. Penney's or Taco Bell. And there's no reverence. We're not taking God seriously. There are three reasons we need to take God seriously.

First of all, because He's a God of grace. You'll notice in the opening verse, Micah describes Him as the Lord. Now, that's the word Jehovah some translations bring that out others don't he is Jehovah now Jehovah is the covenant name of God anytime God is speaking about grace or mercy or entering into a covenant with these people he always uses the word Jehovah. It means I am, or I am the becoming one.

You remember when Moses was commissioned by God to go and speak to His people, He said, whom shall I say has sent me? God said, tell them that I am has sent you. And then if you study the Gospel of John, the I am's of Jesus, I am the bread of life, I am the water of life, I am the way. In other words, Jesus becomes to men and women all that they need, whatever they need. You need water, he is the water of life. If you need bread, he is the bread. If you need the way, the truth, the light, he said, I am all these things.

And when the soldiers came to take him in the garden, they said, whom do you seek? And they said, we seek Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am. And the translations put in there he, but that's not what he said. He simply said, I am. That's why they fell back to the ground was because he was using the name of Jehovah God of grace God of mercy now doesn't it strike you as peculiar that

Micah opening up here in a harsh hard message on judgment, should start off by referring to God as a God of grace. Using His grace name. Surely judgment and grace are inconsistent. Surely they're out of place. It's sort of like the phrase in the Bible, the wrath of the Lamb. Have you ever considered that? That's an oxymoron. That's inconsistent. You don't put wrath and a lamb together. A lamb is not a wrathful animal. But here is a lamb acting almost inconsistent with his nature. Why?

Boy, it must take something to get a lamb angry. And it must take something to get God to rise off his throne. You know what it is? It is the fact that we have sinned against His grace. Why? Because we believe that grace lessens judgment while the truth is grace intensifies judgment. You see, it's one thing for men and women to die and go to hell without a Savior if God had done nothing. But it's quite another thing when God takes His own Son and nails Him to a cross in humiliation and says, this is my love for you. This is my Son. I'm giving Him to you so you can trust Him and love Him and be saved.

And then when people spit upon Him and despise Him and reject Him, what do you think that does to God? How do you think God's going to react to that? His grace is the basis of much of the judgment. The fact that Christ shed His blood offers no one an excuse for not being saved. And we comfort ourselves, falsely so, by saying, well, He's a God of love.

I was talking to somebody the other day and they were still moaning Kurt what's the guy's name Kurt Corbin who committed suicide you know the musician that it you musicians you don't know Kurt Cole anyway she was still grieving over this guy's death. And she said she'd cry asleep at night. And I'd want to say to her, get a life, kid. But she said, but we'll all be together one day again. And where he is, we'll be.

And I said, ah. I said, that reminds me of something I saw on a tombstone once. It said, here I lay. Or is it here I lie? Anyway, here I am. And where I've gone, you soon will follow. And somebody had written underneath there, to follow you is not my intent

until I know which way you went. But you see, we get the idea, oh, you know, everybody in the end is going to be saved because God's such a God of grace and love and mercy. Oh, no. Oh, no. Not at all.

The very fact that he sent his son on the cross shows us that he is a God of great judgment. Why? Because he hates sin so much, he was willing to nail his son to a cross. And he loves you so much, he was willing to do it. He's a God of grace. But he's also a God of sovereignty. Now I'm reading out of the NIV, the nearly infallible version. And you'll notice that in the second verse, he is referred to as the sovereign Lord, the sovereign Lord.

And that strictly means that God is running the show, that he is active in the affairs of history. Folks, listen. You surely know this. The destiny of history is not being determined at the U.N. or in Washington or in Beijing or anywhere else. God is in control of history. It is His story. And ever before He started it, He knew where it'd end up. He is sovereign Lord, but He's also a holy God. Notice he comes down from his holy temple. Now, these three things, as Jehovah, he has a right to judge. As sovereign Lord, he has the power to judge. And as a holy God, he has a reason to judge. So we ought to take him seriously. Secondly, we need to take our sins seriously. Of course, this was the main problem

with these folks that Micah was writing to, preaching to. They weren't taking their sins seriously because they weren't taking God seriously. You see, if you don't take God seriously, then you don't take sin seriously. That's why it's easy not to believe in God. Why?

Because if you believe in God, then you are acknowledging that there is a standard by which you must be measured. That's why the Bible says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. And the Hebrew word there indicates a moral fool. Well, of course, a man who wants to live an immoral life, naturally he wants to deny that there's a God. Why? Because then there's no accounting. He's free to do whatever he wants to do. So if you don't take God seriously,

which we're not taking Him seriously in our country at all, then you don't take sin seriously. And what used to cause us to weep, now we laugh at on television and in the movies. And don't think a thing about it. We need to take our sin seriously. He mentions several here. First one in verse 5, he talks about our transgression.

Transgression is transgressing the law. It's like trespassing, going somewhere you're not supposed to be. Actually, transgression is the meanest thing you can do. It's a little boy folding his arms over his chest and saying to his mommy, I ain't going to do it. I was flying back from Hartford, Connecticut the other day, and I was on the plane ready to go, but we couldn't get all the passengers on, and I noticed halfway up the aisle there was a woman

who kept looking down, and she said, move on, move on, move on, come on, get up, move on, and this little boy said, no, no, no, and I looked out, and he was sitting in the aisle. He had just sat down, boy, and she kept, you know, she had her arms full, and she was trying to push him until finally some man reached up and said, I'll help you, and he picked that little boy up, put him back in his seat. Now, that little boy, his sin was, among many other things, transgression.

It's just flat out saying, I will not do it. And how many times do we come into this church on Sunday morning and your pastor opens the Word and God says, this is the Word, and whether we voice it or not, yet in our hearts, our non-decision we go out and we're actually saying, I will not do it. That's transgression. He mentions sin. We're all familiar with what that means. It means to miss the mark.

It's the picture of someone having a target affixed to a tree. And in the old days, they would shoot arrows, whereas today we might shoot guns. And they would aim low or they would fail to hit the target. Romans 3.23, for all have what? Sinned and come short of the glory of God. They missed the mark. And as a result, they are less.

They have a deficiency of God's glory. Why? Because they missed the mark. Now, there is tinted in this word the idea of they don't care. They weren't trying all that hard anyway. They were shooting from the hip. You see, the trouble with most of us is this. We're careless in our obeying God.

We don't really care that much whether we hit the target or not. We're not all that concerned. We know what God's bullseye is. We know what God's will is perhaps in that situation, but, you know, well, I'll give it a shot, but we're not all that serious about it. We're aiming low and hitting low. He mentions another one. He talks about spiritual harlotry. Notice down in verse, well, let's read verse 7. All her idols will be broken to pieces. All her temple gifts will be burned with fire.

I will destroy all her images. Since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes, as the wages of prostitutes, they will be used again. Now, throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, God always pictures unfaithfulness on the part of His people as infidelity, infidelity. James says to those who had gained friendship with the world, you adulterers and adulteresses. And so throughout the scripture, when you and I are unfaithful to the Lord, and we give the world more love and affection than we give God, we are adulterers and adulteresses. But notice here, it is prostitution, harlotry, which is different and which is worse.

Why is that? Adultery is a sin of passion. Prostitution is a sin of profit. You see, a person may be caught up in a moment of passion and commit adultery. But a harlot, a prostitute premeditates, plans, does it not out of passion, but does it for money, for gain, for advantage. There's a great deal of difference. And he says, you are spiritual prostitutes.

Why? Because the reason you're not obeying my law and the reason you're careless about hitting the target is because you think it will be to your advantage. You'll do better in business if you don't, you know, you don't want to be too Christian in the office. And when you are invited to an office party, you know, you kind of need to, you know, mix in with everybody else. I remember the first, I'm almost embarrassed to tell this, anyway I remember when I was 14 I had my first can of beer well actually I had my first sip of beer there was a friend of ours a friend of mine

we were all buddies a bunch of us we played in the band and his folks went away for the weekend. And this boy was 16, and I was 14. So he had a bunch of us band guys, most is brass. They're the ones that do most of that stuff, brass. All the trumpet, trombone players carried bottles in their cases. Mothers, don't ever let your daughters grow up to be trumpet players but anyway so we were all over there and he had all this beer now I was a Christian been one since I was nine my folks didn't drink. I had no relation to it. I hated the smell of it. But boy, I was with the guys.

You've got to be one of the guys. And so they gave me this can of beer, and I took one sip and nearly gagged on it. And I wandered into the bathroom, and I poured the rest of it down the toilet. And I hung on to that can, that empty can, the rest of the night like I was sipping rest of it down the toilet and I hung on to that can, that empty can the rest of the night like I was sipping out of it.

Now why did I do that? Because I was prostituting my faith. I said if I act like a Christian and say no, I don't want this, I don't drink and these guys are going to laugh at me and I'll be on the outside yeah it's just a silly little thing happened to a 14 year old boy but it happens to many of us in many different ways on a higher level in business and social life and school

and everything. We need to take our sins seriously because God does. And finally, we need to take this message seriously. I like Micah.

He just doesn't turn it off when he gets out of the pulpit. Look at verse 8. He says, Because of this I will literally beat my breast and wail. I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. For her wound is incurable.

It has come to Judah. It has reached the very gate of my people, even to Jerusalem itself. Her wound is incurable. It has come to Judah like a blood clot racing for the heart. I remember after my wife had our third child, I was sitting on her hospital. This was before they got you out of there in 24 hours.

And they kept you there two or three days. And I was sitting on the bed, and I noticed red streaks on her leg down here. And I said, that doesn't look right. And I called the doctor, and he said, oh oh my goodness, she's got some blood clots. And they, boy, they went to a frenzy and I watched that doctor as he sat right next to her for 24 hours until all that thinned up. He said, if those get loose and hit her heart, she's

dead. And he said, the wound is incurable. Why why it has gone to the very heart of Judah and he said I can't just preach the sermon then turn it off he said I I will beat my breast I'll go barefoot and naked like mourning for the dead. I will howl like a jackal because my grief is uncontrollable. And at night when I try to sleep, I won't be able to sleep, but I'll moan like an owl.

Like a mother at night, sleepless, moans into her pillow over a prodigal. How many sermons like this have we heard? I think it'd be wonderful one day if we took one of them seriously. Dear God, just let me preach one time when they take it seriously but people have always been stubborn

they always have which is why God brings judgment because they won't repent because they won't repent, because they won't get right, come clean. They enclosed themselves in a womb of insecurity, like the Jews did, saying, we're the Lord's.

He's a God of grace. And so we do not hear His word or hearken to it. But there is coming judgment on all of us in our lives, saved or lost. Sooner or later, God is going to get tired of my hard-heartedness and cold-heartedness and stubbornness. And he's going to get up off that throne and said I've had enough of your stubbornness

I'm going to come down and do something about it well he won't come today will he WILLIE, WOULD YOU BOW YOUR HEADS WITH ME NOW FOR A MOMENT? THIS IS YOUR INVITATION TO BE PART OF THE EXCITEMENT OF WORSHIP EVERY WEEK AT THIS TIME AT SHERWOOD PAPDIST CHURCH, LOCATED AT 2201 WHISPERING PINES ROAD IN ALBANY. at this time at Sherwood Baptist Church, located at 2201 Whispering Pines Road in Albany. Ron Dunn's podcast is available only for personal edification,

not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. For more Ron Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from his study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.