In this episode, we unravel Old Testament prophecies and their repeated cycles of blessings and curses. Allen emphasizes the importance of living according to God’s commandments and how personal journaling has transformed his daily Bible reading experience. Packed with wisdom, this devotion encourages us to evaluate our lives against God’s desires for justice, kindness, and humility, inspiring listeners to foster a deeper relationship with the Lord.
Welcome to ADDBIBLE, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. We join Allen J. Huth as he shares Bible passages and comments from over 30 years of his personal Bible reading journals.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today we are in Micah chapter 6. There’s 16 verses in this chapter, so I’d like to read Micah chapter 6. So let’s begin. Hear what the Lord says. Arise, please your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 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. O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me, 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. O my people, remember what Balaam 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 saving acts of the Lord? 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? 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? 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 the voice of the lord cries to the city and it is sound wisdom to fear your name hear of the rod and of him who appointed it can i forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is accursed shall i acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights your rich men are full of violence your inhabitants speak lies and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth therefore i strike you with a grievous blow making you desolate because of your sins you shall eat but not be satisfied and there shall be hunger within you you shall put away but not preserve and what you preserve i will give to the sword You shall sow, but not reap. You shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil. You shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. For you have kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have walked in their councils, that I may make you a desolation and your inhabitants a hissing, so you shall bear the scorn of my people. In 1991, I read Micah 6 and 7 together, and I wrote about chapter 6. I was referring to verse 8. 6-8 was my overall theme verse for 1991. I have not remembered it well, nor have I lived it well. Do justice. Okay. Love kindness, not good. Walk humbly, pretty good. And that was the end of my journal entry in 1991. In 2006, I also read Micah 6 and 7 on the same day. In my personal Bible journal entry, I wrote, quoting verse 3, My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Answer me. And then I wrote, what has God ever done to anybody to cause us to walk away from him? Praise God. He forgives us if we repent and come back to him. In 2015, I also read Micah 6 and 7 together. And I wrote, what has God done to us that we weary of him? He redeems us, delivers us, keeps his promises to us. So why do we go astray? Then I wrote, what can I bring to God? And I was referring to verse 6. Sacrifice, my firstborn, no. Justice, love, humility, according to verse 8. God sees our injustice, our lack of integrity, our lies, and he withholds his hand. Then I wrote, eat not satisfied, sow but don’t reap. Life comes up short without the blessing of God. God asks a very poignant question in this chapter. In verse 3 he says, Oh my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me. What a question for us today. What has God ever done to us that we tire of Him or that we don’t care to have a relationship with Him? In this busy world, what has He ever done that we don’t make time for Him? Through Micah, he reminds the nation of Israel that all He’s ever done is delivered them, loved them, helped them, saved them. But what was their response? They walk away from a relationship with Almighty God. We do the same, don’t we? All God does is love us, care for us, provide for us, save us, and yet we are too busy to have a relationship with him. Lord, forgive us. Next, the people ask the question of God. In verse 6, With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Micah Laundrie lists a few things here. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 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? Obviously, none of that would be good enough to save us. None of that is acceptable to the Lord. It’s not good enough, nor are we good enough. But verse 8 gives us the answer. It says, 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. I mentioned in my 1991 journal that that verse was my theme, and I didn’t do very good on it that year. So let’s look at what God requires of us. He requires us to do justice. What is justice? What does it mean to do justice? Well, I asked Siri on my Apple phone, and she says, Just behavior or treatment. The quality of being fair and reasonable. So how are you doing with justice? Are you living right? Are you being fair and treating people right? God is always fair. He always treats people right. Next, we are to love kindness. And I noted in my journal that I didn’t do very good at that one. How about you? How are you doing with kindness? Are you kind to people? Not just the people you love, but the people around you, the people you interface with on a regular basis. As Christians, would we be accused of being kind? And lastly, we are to walk humbly with our God. What does that mean? Because of who God is, because of his great, great love for us, because of his mercy and grace toward us, because of his forgiveness of sin, we should be humble before him and before others. There is no room for pride or arrogance in Christianity. So are you walking humbly with your God? These three things are not the only three things God wants from us, but it’s a pretty good list here in Micah. The chapter finishes with the penalties for not doing these things. When we don’t have a right relationship with God, this is often what we sense. Verse 13, 14, and 15. Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat but not be satisfied. You shall put away but not preserve. You shall sow but not reap. When we are not in right relationship with the Lord, we come up short. We come up empty-handed without the blessing of God. So let’s reverse these things. We could eat and be satisfied. We could put away and have preservation. And we could sow and reap when we are in right relationship with the Lord. So our practical application today is to inventory how we’re doing, at least on those three things. To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Ponder those three things today. Do you need to improve on one of them? Is there something you can do in one of those that will help a better relationship with you and the Lord? Lord, through Micah chapter 6, we realize that good is not good enough. You have some requirements we are to live by. First, help me accept that very thought that you have things you require me to live by. And then, Lord, as this chapter has reminded us, Help me humble myself before you, accept those requirements, and do the best I can to do the things that you require me to do. Receive my offering of justice, kindness, and humility today. Blessed be the name of the Lord, we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to ADDBIBLE today. You have probably noticed I refer to my personal Bible reading journals in ADDBIBLE. I took an honors English class in high school and learned about journaling. I kept a journal in high school probably related to that class, and then I quit. For some reason, I started journaling my Bible reading about 10 years later. I don’t know why I decided to journal my Bible reading, but my first journal is dated 1983. Back then, I bought spiral-bound notebooks from a retail store. Nothing fancy. But when I started the Ezra Project, I decided to publish Bible reading journals. You can find two of them on our website at ezraproject.net. Why journal? It will change the way you read the Bible. If you struggle with your daily quiet time, try it. If you know you’re going to write something down after you read, you will pay more attention to what you’re reading. It can be as simple as your favorite verse in the passage or the major point you got out of the passage. You decide. It’s your journal. And it’s not a personal journal. It’s a Bible reading journal. So you shouldn’t have to worry about someone finding it and reading it. I wanted to print a bumper sticker once called Real Men Journal. I figured it would look good on the back of the pickup trucks. Well, you know, I never printed it because I knew it wouldn’t sell. But get an Ezra Project Bible reading journal at EzraProject.net. I know you’re going to enjoy it. And want to share it with others. Maybe you wonder if Old Testament prophecy is true, came true already, or is coming true in the future. First, most prophets had a recurring theme. God loves us. Because he loves us so much, he gave us commandments, rules, statutes to live by. If we live by them, we can be blessed beyond what we can think or imagine. But when we choose to disregard, ignore, and set aside his rules, we are subject to his curses. We live under curses until things get so bad we cry out to God. He’s always there, waiting for our cry. Most often, but not always, He responds with grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness. We get back in line, then the cycle repeats. The Old Testament prophets cover this cycle over and over. Sometimes we wonder how the Israelites could have been so foolish. Yet, in our day, we have the same choice. We know God loves us. We generally know the rules, and we’d know them a lot better if we were more consistent in our time in God’s Word. Yet we decide, like those in the Old Testament, to ignore them and live out our lives. Things don’t often go well, so we finally cry out to God. As we see in the Old Testament, prophecy comes true as God restores rebellious, disobedient people like us back into right relationship with Him. But it is not always the case. Sometimes He has enough and does not deliver them. So yes, Old Testament prophecies are true, they came true, and they will come true in the future as we cycle through the same life choices the Israelites made. Thus, the value of reading all the Old Testament prophets Maybe we will learn what they tried to teach. God loves us. Keep his rules, love him back, and enjoy his blessings.
