Stay the Course

“The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot. Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem” (Mic. 1:1-9). Seeing that God brought all of these sayings to pass against Israel and Judah, even as he said; what does this stern warning from the prophet Micah have to do with the children of God today? Well, how about this? “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (I Cor. 10:11,12). So what we have read from Micah here is something that we as new covenant believers are supposed to take to heart, lest we fall prey to the commonly taught misconception that believers in Christ are somehow exempt from the warnings of the Bible against disobedience and sin. My friend, the God of the old testament is the exact same God of the new testament. Only his Son has been revealed, but be sure that the Son of God is exactly like his Father (Jn. 10:30; Jn. 14:9; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; Rev. 3:14).

With that in mind we can add this: “Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Rom. 11:19-22). We shouldn’t forget this admonition either: “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…?” (Heb. 2:1-3). Then we have this for further confirmation of the same: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:14-17). I could go on with this demonstration of God being the same now as he was in the old testament, but I’m sure that sufficient evidence has been presented. The truth is my friend, if we have been baptized with the holy Ghost we are in covenant with God, the intent of which covenant is for us to inherit eternal life (Heb. 10:14-16). But as it was then, so it is now, that God’s covenants and promises are conditional; meaning that the desired result is dependent upon us keeping our end of the covenant, or the agreement as it can be said. And our end is obviously that we obey the will of God in our lives, which will is holiness, as is stated from the scriptures above. There is no ‘eternal security’ for believers in Christ, but rather as the scriptures show us, we must “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philip. 2:12). With just the few scriptural references quoted in this article, from both old testament and new; only someone of reprobate mind would dare to disagree with this evident truth. Amen.