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Tony and Jesse strike a somber note as they reflect on judgment, apostasy, and Micah 6:9-16.
Jesse Schwamb 0:10
Welcome to Episode 172 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.
Tony Arsenal 0:16
And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast of brotherly love.
Hey, brother.
Hey, brother. So, so much happened since our podcast last week.
Yes, a lot has happened.
I appreciate that. You took that just as like a general statement of events. But it seems like it was such a long week for some reason, because it was so much talk and so much feedback around some of the things that we said, especially in our opening with their affirmations and denials. So, I know this is totally unorthodox for us, but I thought, let's go Little voicemail right at the top of the episode. What do you think?
Let's do it.
Jesse Schwamb 1:05
Here we go.
Listener Nathan 1:07
Hey Bros. My name is Nathan Kent. First time caller. And first time listener Actually, I just wanted to say that the discussion about Jesse repeating his popcorn information was so hilarious. I laughed hysterically. So thanks for that. But also, as I alluded to before, I am a new listener to the podcast. So it was my first time hearing that information and it was great. I was I was glad it was repeated. My wife and I lots of popcorn so it was particularly interesting to me. I have to say, though, that we love putting butter on it, and letting it get some of the popcorn a little soggy. We actually kind of like that. Anyway, also wanted to say that I am loving the podcast so far, very well done. informative and lightning strong theology and very entertaining. So keep up the good work. Thanks,
Tony Arsenal 1:56
brother Nathan coming in hot here. What I love about this voicemail is a couple of things first, first time listener. And, you know, he was like, I'm just going to call and I love that. Yeah, like we should let brother Nathan be your hero. Like, if you haven't given us a call let this voicemail especially with a question or any other observation, then you definitely should. Second and actually before I go on what is that phone number where people can call us the
phone number is 6034 sorry 607 I didn't really like Get A Six cell three phone number for this 607444 to 767. Rose rose.
And the second thing I love about this is Providence, right? You know, I didn't know that I'd said this before. But as the Holy Spirit is working in our world, it was clear that somebody needs to hear the good news of the popcorn gospel with coconut oil or avocado oil. But we need to touch on this real quick. How do you feel about this idea of like letting a pop get soggy with the butter like just letting it soak up
I'm okay with it that's kind of like movie popcorn does that like cuz it like when you get like a you get like a like a bathtub size popcorn at the movie theaters and they soak it in butters like by the time you get down a little ways. It's already soaked up and soaked in so I'm okay with that.
Is that your jam? When you get that piece you're like, Oh yeah, I got this nice mushy piece of butter popcorn.
Yeah, I'm also that guy that like pours my cereal and then like, fills it with milk and then leaves it sit for a while to like let it get soggy so maybe, maybe just maybe I'm just like that.
Jesse Schwamb 3:39
What what kind of cereal we talking about
Tony Arsenal 3:40
any kind of cereal? I like rice. Rice Krispies, I think is probably my favorite to do with that with but like really anything.
Okay, listen, I respect that. Yeah, I respect you. I respect your weird love for mushy cereal. So, being that of course, we had so many great responses to affirmations, denials. I feel like the bars higher than Ever. So do you have an affirmation this week that you want to start us off with? I
do. So this is a mild mixture of serious and light. So I'm just affirming theological clarity. So I'm a deacon at our church. And our church recently commissioned our leadership team, which consists of our pastor, our elder, and then myself as a deacon, as well as my wife, who is on staff as the director of Christian education, to go through our church constitution and make recommendations for updates. And so last, the last time that we met as a committee working on this, we worked through our churches faith statement, and it was just a it was a good exercise in looking at what we had, and finding ways to make it more faithful to the scriptures. And some of them were like, we're like, there was obviously there was like substantial theological changes, but some of it was just Updating the language or identifying ways where the language was not particularly clear in the original version of the face statement, and then just making it clear. So I'm just affirming theological clarity.
Listen, that's pretty much our thing right here, right? We're all about trying to make sure that as we grow mature in walking after the Lord Jesus Christ, that we're doing so in a way that we're bringing clarity to what the Scriptures say, and then clarity in our application of what it says. So I mean, is, you know, that God kind of got me thinking, that's always a good exercise for people to do for themselves. I know, so often, as people that have either grown up or come into this stream of theology that's called reforms that we rely on the Creed's and the confessions and there's no reason why we shouldn't do that, because we've spoken at length about what a valuable resources are, you know, at the same time, it just strikes me based on that affirmation that that's just a wonderful personal exercise to like, come up with questions that maybe somebody might ask you or just questions about the faith. to really determine how you would answer them in your own words without relying on the resource explicitly. Yeah. So just going through and kind of processing thinking paring down filtering, and metabolizing what you believe with and how you might articulate and communicate that is a really valuable exercise.
Yeah, yeah, sure is. What about you? What are you affirming?
Well, mine is like far less spiritual. So once again, I feel like you successfully Jesus do to me so this week, I'm affirming with a desk lamp and the reason is because I've been doing a lot more studying and reading up my test. And so I went into this whole thing. I love that you love this. I went to this whole thing where I did this like massive amount of probably unnecessary research on desk lamps. And so what I ended up with is the desk lamp that I want to affirm to people, you can go to Amazon and find it because I wanted something that was like, really, honestly, what I wanted was to take the straight off my eyes, but when like mean that I have to take out a loan to purchase it, because apparently they're super expensive lamps that you can buy. Yes. And so what I ended up with was his with something called Tao tronics LED desk lamp and here's the thing about it, you can look it up taotronics go to Amazon, you'll find it right away. It's like 30 bucks, but it has 12, dimmable settings. So it's got all these nice kind of like to allow you, of course, like the kind of brightness that you need. And then on each setting, so each of the 12 it's got five different settings for the tonal quality of the light, like its richness or its content. So if you're studying late at night, you can turn it way way back both in terms of intensity, but also you can get that really nice kind of glowing, and like sunlight, like the kind of sunset light that you might like. So you're getting like 60 different settings, which seems like it would be too many, but, man, it's pretty awesome. So I realized that I was straining a lot in my reading, especially at nighttime so you really can't under emphasize the importance of a really nice lamp for reading.
Did you get the one that has the integrated USB port in the base?
Yes. So This might be something that sounds like we're actually doing a promo for this thing the way that you just set that up. I did Funny you should ask. I did get the one with the integrated USB and in some ways this may be just ended up being a really expensive desk charger that I really love but I do have to say I really love the in the base. There's a little ports that you can use a USB charger. It's fantastic.
Yeah, you know, I'm looking at this lamp on Amazon, and I'm sure that it's delightful. But one of the images that they have to apparently try to convince you to buy this is this little girl She looks like she's probably like 11 she's got a notebook and a laptop. The laptop is way too far away from her to be using it. But she is looking directly at the light. Like she's gazing up at it lovingly, but she's looking directly into the light that could not be good for your eyes.
No, it's so it does get quite bright. And the thing that's also pretty stellar about it is everything is on a swivel so you can have it in an L shaped where the two parts are totally perpendicular together. Literally stick your book right underneath it, you can swing it way out. It really is a fantastic tool for reading. And that's what I wanted. And I've been surprised because I thought, I mean, how much difference does light make, but it actually does make a pretty profound difference and the ability to read for a long period of time. So this for me was like the right nerdy sweet spot between value and substance.
That's fair. You know, they also make Bluetooth speakers. Have you looked at their Bluetooth speakers? No, I haven't. But this still sounds like an infomercial. I haven't either. But since you were looking for like a special Bluetooth speaker that doesn't scream at you, and it pairs Oh, yeah, I thought maybe it would work. They also sell a whale humidifier for baby. I don't know what that means. Kind of scary. Yeah,
I'm totally down with that too. I'll probably get that. So I'm still waiting for all of our amazing listeners to throw at me, a Bluetooth speaker that doesn't make any kind of noise or yell at you when it pairs or tries to connect. I actually this week following that denial went online and did Like every kind of combination search I could think of, to kind of draw out of the interwebs of this kind of Bluetooth speaker couldn't find it. I literally I spent probably like a half an hour 45 minutes trying, sir. couldn't find it.
Interesting. Yeah, it must exist. It's gotta there has to be some, you know, I'm surprised that like, you can't get like an Alexa that has like that kind of customization. But that's a lot of money to spend for just like a desktop Bluetooth speaker.
Right? I just want a simple speaker that doesn't yell at me or make it obvious that I'm trying to connect to it. So Is that too much to ask? These are first world problems, but so what about you in terms of denials, so
God, this is something that I think every person who assists with musical worship, experiences and fears a little bit, and I am denying playing the wrong chord. So we were we were my wife and I, as you know, we help lead the congregation and musical worship ever Sunday, and we were introducing kind of a new song. And this is one of those songs that's in the key of E. And you know how like the, the E chord is just like this satisfying, like low rumble to it. Oh yeah,
yeah, put cheese on something. Well,
I mean, I don't need to like put diagram on there. But if you get one finger on the wrong chord, it goes from being like smooth avocado oil popcorn to be like glass covered in melted wax that you eat. So, you know, like, we start the song out, kind of low key, like just pianos and vocals. And, and there's this part like I'm not about emotionally manipulating the congregation, but music and song is intended by God, I think to elicit an emotional response and the tonality of the chords. All of that is is built into that's how God made music later brains. So I'm coming in and I'm going to come in strong because it's like this afternoon. formation of God's goodness. And it was just like, I was just like the wrong key wrong chord. So and of course, like most people in the congregation don't even notice I caught it really quick, but it just gave me this like sick feeling for the rest of the song that I just like destroyed the congregation's ability to worship.
You're right. If people who are listening to this have done anything with music at any point in their life, they will be able to certainly identify with what you just said. There's almost nothing worse when you're playing music, then coming in after a period of silence either altogether or a silence from your own instrument. And you're just hitting rock. No, there's I mean, it's, it's bad enough that you hit a wrong note in the midst of a series of grades or other notes. But it's particularly bad if you're coming in with some emphasis. And you're just like, lighten it up.
Yeah. And it actually took me enough by surprise that I didn't even recover from it. I just started like, stopped and like grabbed my guitars next, so it didn't make any more noise that sounded like I was like violently strangling my guitar. I like muted the guitar. So didn't make any more noise but it like took me a second to like realize what happened and where I was and it was bad. Well, I'll
never forget one time I was leading some music and it was for an evening service. And I don't know if this ever happened to you. But if I'm leading a song, that's especially if it's particularly new to me, and it's also in maybe a key, you oftentimes people don't realize you don't aren't playing music regularly that for congregational city, we try to get this music and the key that is kind of held for most voices. It's kind of the center sweet spot. And so sometimes for the person leading that means it's a key that's not comfortable to their natural voice. And so this is one of those instances and I was already nervous because we're going to start with the chorus and start it more or less with just guitar and acapella to teach it and I kept having trouble problems getting into that key and sure enough, there was like an A there's like an amazing prayer like this time of like leading in let's now sing open up our voices as David proclaimed. Open up my mouth now and fill it with the praise of Lord, and we get to this point, and I started, and it's instantly in the wrong. I know right away. I'm playing the chord, but I'm way too high. And so it does one of those things where instead of me just saying, you know, sorry, Rocky, let's try that again. I should just stopped. I tried to like bend it. So it just sounded like a puppy that was going through puberty, trying to swing into the right key. And I struggled so hard to in fact, it was so bad that the other one of the other musicians behind me had to pull me into the key started singing it for me so that we could get back. Yeah,
that was very nice of him.
It was actually exceedingly gracious. And so but it's funny, you're right for that whole, almost the rest of the service, especially with the music, I was just, I was beside myself. I felt so bad at being so disruptive, even though like you said, when even when I'm leading music, I often tell people like we want to do this to a level that's like of excellence because we're worshiping God, right? And because we're giving of our first fruits and our talents, but I also will say the same Like, at the end of the day, nobody will remember and hardly anybody will hear the thing that you think right isn't massive mistake. So it's almost like it's all good.
Yeah. What are you denying today?
Because I'm going slightly slightly serious on this one. Oh, man, are you familiar with this serial comedy that I think is just come to completion called The Good Place?
Yes, I am. Have you seen any of it, I have, I watched a little bit about a little bit of it.
So I don't want to spoil it entirely. But everybody should know that I'm going to spoil some of it. So if you don't want it to be spoiled, just go beyond my voice for like two minutes here until you hear Tony start talking again. But this is just it's a comedy. And it's very funny. But basically, it's about people who at least theoretically find themselves in heaven. And the show came to a completion this week. And what I'm denying against is just this strange culture of heaven that we have. And what surprised me about this show was it was very thoughtful. It was very philosophical, and it didn't make me want to deny against the The way that you might think, for instance, by just saying, Well, everybody thinks they're getting to heaven, and everybody thinks that heaven is a meritorious act, all those things were part of the show. But here's what i and this is where it gets to the spoiler. So you've been forewarned. In this very last episode, basically, the twist on the show is that the characters find that heaven is boring, they're able to accomplish everything they want to because they have all the time in the world, every hobby, everything they want to learn, they're able to do because time is no element. And so as I was watching this, and realizing they thought this was a very clever twist that given all of eternity, that perfection has its limit, or at least that's what they were saying. And of course, the main thing that struck me is they created a heaven that was actually a hell yeah, because perfection has no limit. When heaven means that you're in the presence of God Almighty, and that you're rejoicing and worshiping Him. Of course, what they did was they basically just made another version of earth but without time or space, right? And so I'm denying against this idea that Heaven is going to be boring that time is going to be something that we're going to have this perfection, that is going to come to some kind of a limit as if there's some kind of upper bound on it. And then once we experienced that, we're going to decide that we'd rather not be there. So I'm really tonight against that hard because I think that the creators of this show thought this was a clever way to spur people into some thinking about what it means to have everything that you went once, and then what it means to have that forever. Yeah, so I think there's actually a lot of damage done in that, although I'm not, I'm not against the show. It was funny in its own right, and it is a comedy, but they were trying to deal with very serious things. And they were dealing with it all in this kind of like overtly thin ontological matter. And I would say that what they did here was a fair amount of damage by making it seem like heaven is a place it's going to be boring. So even if you get there, you won't want to be there anyway, because after a while, it'll just be lame.
Yeah, you know, it strikes me that that is the only possible conclusion. You can reach if you try to have heaven. Without Jesus like without God, right? Is this sort of like static sterile? Kind of like boring place? And you know, one of the things that strikes me about the show? I don't, it's kind of a weird sort of concept. There might be people who are thinking like, Wait a second, what about the second commandment? Like, I don't think that God is actually in the show like that. They know they sort of hint at the fact that like, the the concept of like, what most religions think of as, like this supreme being like, is real and exists, but it's almost like this deistic kind of a perspective where like, that that guy is way too high above the rest of us to care about any of this stuff. Even matters of the afterlife, are are basically delegated to like these, probably more like gnostic aliens, right? They're like these semi omnipotent as if that's even a possible thing, but mostly omnipotent, mostly omniscient. Things that kind of govern the universe. But it is this weird, it really is. I mean, now that you think about the show, it really is like just basically a form of Gnosticism set to age. But like the idea really is an intriguing idea. But you're right, like if you don't have the God of the Bible involved in the process and involved in what it what heaven means. And sometimes I think Christians fall into this trap. And we separate the benefits which Christ gives us from Christ Himself. Which these you know, we've said time and time again, like the supreme benefit of salvation is not freedom from pain or suffering or hell. But it's great to union with Christ's union with God, it's union with the Holy Spirit. So yeah, when you separate that out, and you try to construct some sort of concept of heaven apart from those things, it is boring and sterile. Like there's nothing to it, there's no substance to it.
Yeah, it's one of those things where I was just struck by how like, again, we don't grow weary of pain in this life, we grow weary of pleasure, right? There's nothing that's more empty than Of course, like Climbing and scraping your top to scraping your top scraping yourself to like the top of the mountain to find out there's nothing there. Yeah. And so this whole show again, it's very humorous. It's funny, entertaining. And so these characters, the whole point is to get to heaven so that you can be self aggrandized. So you can be self fulfilled, you can have everything that you ever wanted. And it just struck me as they totally missed the fact that the reason why they ended up in that direction, the outworking that they they ended in was appropriate to their beginning, right, because the whole thing lacked Jesus. And that's why I find it so interesting. I feel like they're really kind of bringing this commentary maybe against religious philosophy and moral philosophy. And in the end, I think there was just an adventure. Of course in missing the point, right, it's, it's humorous, I don't think like it probably any grounded Christians gonna watch this show and be challenged by their theology, but it's, I think this might be it seems like it has a following this show. So it might be a wonderful point of entry into conversation with Pete Yeah. Because I think they've really tried to present the conclusion As a way of legitimately thinking about what Eternity is like, and how it is that we should understand what happens to us to like the soul to the percentage when you die,
yeah, and and you know, it's, it's not like an anti christian show they're not like no attacking Christianity. But what it is is for the people in this show and I think for most people and unfortunately for a lot of Christians, heaven ends up just being like a fulfillment of carnal desires like, like one of like, one of the gimmicks in this show is like they have unlimited frozen yogurt and that like that's heaven like unlimited frozen yogurt like you get to you get to fly whenever you want to you get a big house if that's what you want, you know, and it's like, that's not heaven. And of course, like if, if all that heaven was is the fulfillment of the extension of our carnal desires here on Earth, of course that would get boring if all you ever eat is his amazing steak than this takes no law after a while the steak isn't amazing anymore. It's just steak. It's just there. So yeah, I think that's probably right on.
Yeah, that was actually like the whole premise of like the ending there. You got it. Exactly. And so I think in some ways, it's clever with respect to the fact that the writers realized that if they thought that through long enough that that's exactly the logical conclusion that they'd have to come to. Yeah. And so again, it just made me feel so sad. It really made me feel so sad. I was like, Wow, he just to take something where most people kind of think of as a joyous thing of, you know, even if having for people is mostly ephemeral, and unknown, and enigmatic, they just sucked all the joy out of it. Yeah, if there was any left, but this is, I think, a great point of entry to have some conversation with people. So I hope it does. I'm looking forward to talking to some people I know who I know, watch the show. And this is one of the shows for me like I just kind of got sucked in because my wife was watching it through time. And at first I was like, the first season I was like, This is super dumb. Yeah, he's this and, and the more I watched the more one again, it is funny. The characters are super It's clever. It's Wolverine, it's it's, um, who's the dude that did the office, the US version of the office? and Parks and Rec Mike? Sure. I think he's Yeah, he's the one who wrote that. So he's, he's like, comedic genius. So, you know, it's gonna be good in that way. So yeah, watch it has people over, have some conversation, bring some real theology into it.
Yeah. And you know, like, the first season seems really stupid and terrible. Until you know this. I'm not going to spoil this because this is the big twist that makes the main show. But at the end of the first season, there's a huge, huge twist. And like, the whole first season seems dumb and cheap and gimmicky until you get to the twists and then all the sudden it's like, this is actually kind of genius. This is actually kind of a brilliant show.
Yes, that's You got it. That's the very thing that pulled me in because I watched like, off and on as I'd walked through the room, I'd stopped for like five minutes and watch it I'd be like, why are you watching this? Like this doesn't even seem like it's that funny. that interesting? Yeah. Seems like it's all so predictable. And lame. Yeah. And then the twist happened. I was like, Oh, sweet mother. Yeah, I didn't did not see that happening. Yeah. All right. Well speaking of amazing twists Why don't we get into some like that? Was it? That was it. I was used to say like, let's get into some mica we have like a cast.
Is it a twist that we're going to actually talk about theology? Well, I hope 972 episodes we follow the same pattern pretty much every week.
Yeah, I'm twist. Yeah, well, we call it the regulative principle, the podcast Exactly. It's gonna get conversation about theology and about God that that's it.
Yeah, along with some weird affirmations and denials. But even that we get theological about
we do and here's the thing we didn't even mention the the other source of feedback that we got this week, so we just leave that unspoken.
Which are we talking about my, my loss of credibility for anything Star Wars?
Well, here's Okay. Let me say this real quick because I want to defend you. I won't defend you. I think like in that moment, as we were having the conversation talking about stars Wars. It's not like this character is like particularly well known right now see now probably gonna get a lot of feedback on this probably like, I think you have to be of a certain ilk with respect to your Star Wars knowledge to know for certain that this character exists and where she was present at least in the movies, right?
Yeah. So here's here's what I want to say. All right, let's say we're gonna have to extend our mica cast series, by the way, because here's what I want to say. I challenge anyone and I might, I might totally be just digging my own grave here. I want to see in actual canonical documentation where it says that Yato is a female, because the only place you can point to is the Star Wars databank, which, yes, it's an official source, but no, it's not canon. So So I mean, we have this character that apparently is a female, maybe, I guess, but I don't I don't see anywhere that's actually said in the actual like canonical references. So don't don't show me this Star Wars databank nonsense I want to see real canonical, let's just say this. That's like the Douro canon of Star Wars. It's it's like a commentary on Star Wars, which is not infallible. So all you haters out there who think that I've lost my cred, show me some real canonical information and then we can talk.
This is great. And in case anybody's like totally lost at this point, the whole discussion was about look at what we're watching talking about the Mandalorian and the baby that's of the Yoda species. We're talking about procreation that species and that they're not being females in that species. And then of course, we got a ton of feedback about this. And I the only place that I was familiar with it was in what I don't see, this could be so lame. I can't remember which movie it is in the series, but where they screen cuts and it's them in the Senate, and you see what is and here's the thing, like there is a Yoda species in that scene. But I almost feel like it's super cheesy because it looks like they just slept like Yoda on with like a week. To try to make that Yoda look like particularly female like overtly female in a way that was also kind of just like totally cheesy. Yeah, it's so
it's this it's the Jedi Council and it like pans across the thing and there's like one sitting there. And but
would you say it's just kind of like a big wig like especially if it's like when you take when you take like something that is like looks gender neutral and try to make it like overtly genderized by just putting on like stereotypical things. So it's almost kind of like I agree with you like you want to source it from like an actual document as opposed to like this just this one scene.
Exactly. And now this this brings up another Star Wars question. Because now that we've identified that Yoda species can have hair, we have to ask the question, why doesn't Yoda have like actual hair?
Jesse Schwamb 27:44
Do we have to we do?
Tony Arsenal 27:46
I mean, I think he's like baby Yoda doesn't have hair. Why not? It's so it can't be that Yoda is just old. He's lost all his hair. Baby Yoda doesn't have any hair.
doesn't doesn't. Old Yoda have likes strands of hair
now like, maybe, probably Yeah, but still so what so they don't grow any hair until they're like 200 years old. But What's this nonsense?
Yeah, I have no, I have no idea but
someone is gonna send me a data Star Wars databank article that's like an in depth treatise on the hair lengths of yota species and what it means the genetic implications.
There's no that somebody has written or authored that white paper and it's gonna find its way into our mailbox very short.
If they haven't, they will.
Unknown Speaker 28:33
Yeah, I
Tony Arsenal 28:34
just like to say that the prize for the fastest nerd to point out that I was wrong goes to Chris Lilly, who messaged me like the episode releases at midnight and he's in the he's in the Midwest, and he messaged me at like, 630 in the morning. So, so he was he was Johnny on the spot there.
I love it. Well see, I tried To get us into Micah and then I steered us out on Mike. So let, let's get into Micah. Finally, yes, we've done a lot of business, I think let's get into the new stuff. So we're in Micah chapter six, we're ending out the chapter and last week if you missed it, we spoke at length, we did a whole episode just on Micah six, eight, which is perhaps among the most famous verses of this entire book. But now we're into the end of chapter six, verses nine through 16. Do you have those in front of you that you'd like to refer? I
do. Let me read I'm reading from the ESV. It says in verse nine, the voice of the Lord Christ to the city, and it sound wisdom to fear your name here of the rod 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 a cursed 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 all of us, but not anoint yourself with oil. You shall tread grapes, but not drink wine, for you have kept the statutes of omaree 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 shall you bear the scorn of my people.
As this is really super uplifting, right, speaking of things that make you feel really warm and fuzzy on the inside, in some ways, this whole perk up is a combination of so many things we've been talking about this entire seems, especially going back to this covenant lawsuit. Finally, in some respects, this judgment is being handed down. And so we've got within this kind of encapsulated piece here. We've gotten addressed to Jerusalem. There's accusation of dishonesty in business and speech which we've heard in parts before. But then there's this judicial sentence of disease and ruin. And I want to point out something that I think will be helpful as we kind of contextualize this. And that is the amazing faithfulness of God. Like we sometimes we want to embrace God's faithfulness, when there is a reward that when God is falling through with a promise that brings to us some kind of positive externality or benefits, as when God rewards us or he gives us blessing. We praise God because his promise is secure, and he lives up to the promise. And sometimes we forget that there is the negative side the negative externality, the thing that God brings, which is equally worthy of his praise and adoration. So for instance, in mcvicar's 14 we find these words, but if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spared my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you. Your strength shall be spent in vain and your land shall not yield Increase in the trees of the land should not yield their fruit. In fact, the rest of that passage goes on to basically go almost through all the points you just read. So there's like an amazing faithless and God to enact the punishments which he said is deserved, because his covenant is bilateral such or I would say maybe symmetric as such that each of the sides brings him glory when is administered properly. And that's what we see happening in this passage, right?
Yeah, and you know, we talked at length last week, go back and listen, but we talked at length about how Micah six, eight, you know, when it gets cross stitched on a pillow or put on like a smoothing like a polished piece of wood and hung on your wall, and abstracted from what's going on? It sounds like this, like really encouraging, like, truth for life. I don't know why it's a truth for life. I love Alex Trebek. I don't know why maybe.
Jesse Schwamb 32:49
That's a great plug.
Tony Arsenal 32:50
Yeah, I don't know why I said that. But like, it's like this. It's this sort of fluffy version of the verse where it's like, encourage Like it's it's there to like, lift you up and make you feel great about like, this is what the Lord requires. I've even heard sermons were like, this is preached as like, Look, this is not that difficult to do guys like, like, all this is all you got to do. This is what He requires of you like he just, yeah, he's just three things you do justice, you love kindness and you walk humbly with God like no big deal. But when you look at it in the context, and this is what we talked about last week, like this is the final piece of evidence in the verdict that that brings about the verdict of reading here. So it's not the case that this, this verse in verse eight is there to make you feel great about your ability to obey the law. It's actually a point of evidence in the condemnation of Israel, which leads to this verdict and this this sentencing that we're finding here in verses nine through 16.
Right, and it's, I like that because I think we need to understand that sometimes when we see these verses out of context, now Of course, are we basically nessa tising them, we're taking them away from their true meaning we're getting something cheap or mundane. But here it says it that versus acting as a linchpin, the text is is swinging on that verse and swinging then into this judgment. And what's interesting about that is it's as if God is saying, well, he actually is saying, Listen, I've educated you, I've taught you, your my children, my loved ones, here's how you ought to interact with me, here's what it means to live abundantly. Here's what means to have harmony with me with each other. And then he gets these two this punishment and what strikes me is the punishment fits the crime. Yeah. So we know that like all all sin is is a perversion of good things. And so, the good things have been perverted and therefore the blessings have been perverted. So they are now unfulfilling, unrewarding unsatisfactorily and it's Romans one turning over, but it's also God bringing again, his promise forward in that all these things that brought you blessing because they were manifestations of European toward me in love. Now they're going to be the exact opposite, right? And everything is going to be moved away from you everything that you spend, you're not gonna be able to reap anything that be a value to you, even though he tried to say they set aside to protect it, I will destroy it. All those things will come to pass because of God's faithfulness, and in the sense that he's making the punishment fit the crime.
Yeah, and you know, so let's, let's just work our way through this text here. So what we see in this first verse, is, it's a continuation of what we saw in the last one, right? The Prophet is starting this lawsuit. And then this is the stunning thing is Micah is still preaching to the people, but now he's preaching condemnation to the people. So he he says, God is crying out to you, but instead of God crying out to you, you know, encouraging you to repent, your your right to fear his name, your right to fear God. And then he says, here of the rod, and of Him who appointed it here, listen to what I have to say about the one who is appointed. You Destruction because of your disobedience like that's such a heavy thing that I don't I just don't know that we can grasp like, we've kind of remarked on this last couple episodes like you and I sitting on this side of the cross the rod of God's judgment, the rod of God's of God's judicial verdict has already passed upon Christ. And so it's passed over us and is landed on Christ, such that like this is a this is a almost like foreign territory for us.
Yeah, it's almost going all the way back to the book of Exodus and thinking about hearing from Moses, the first prescription of the Passover, and just getting a sense right away before that happens of how powerful God is that the punishment he's gonna enact of his way of delivering his people as the Messiah. And so being afraid of that, like what if I do it wrong, what it like, give me if I were there would be like, tell it to me again, but more slowly. I want to make sure I get all the details exactly right, because they've already seen the power of God. Now Moses saying is, listen, if you want to be spirit if your children, your children be spared, you must follow in this way, we're talking about extreme amount of power. And there's something interesting in these opening verses, I'm glad you brought this up with with at least as ways to translate this word here because it's over and over again and almost not in different forms, but we're getting kind of different kind of perspectives on it. So we're hearing literally like the voice of the Prophet. And so that voice is the Lord's voice is making that very clear. And then, as well, there's this sense of like, when the voice of a city cries out to God, his vote, God's voice cries out against that city. And when the judgments of God are coming on the city, his voice first cries out to it. So it's almost as if God warns before he wounds. So there's a warning here for people. And he's basically Micah saying, here's what wisdom looks like. You need to make good use of God's voice. A wise person learns who God is from what he says, and he discovers the name of God and the voice of God. Yeah. And so when he says Here, and it's interesting to use that word right here the rod of Him who appointed it is supposed to see or bear witness to. So here the rod when it's coming here at its distance before you see it and feel it, wake up and see it. The Lord is on his way. And he's a right of judgment. Yeah. And so I think there's something very contemporary in that idea as well for us that I think God is a God who does discipline us. He does bring the rod into our lives in various ways, not in the same way we're talking about here. But with respect to this idea of hearing it, perceiving it, proceeding the power of God, as you're talking about it is both extremely terrifying. And then we're we're on this side of the cross, almost, like double removed from the first Passover, that we should be good we should be thrown into a doxology that says, not only is there immense power and God in right judgment, but that right judgment has been executed with its full force, the intensity on the one who did deserve to Barrett's Yeah, I said,
Yeah, yeah, and you know, this This sequence here ties back to Micah six, eight. Right? So Micah six, eight has these three categories of doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God. And then what we see in this sort of this verdict to this, this sentencing section here is basically the Prophet says, You are supposed to do justice, but instead you use wicked scales. You are supposed to love kindness, but instead you're rich men are full of violence, and you speak lies. And then it says, You are supposed to walk humbly with God. But instead, you've walked with omaree and Ahab, who are of course, you know, this this is a primarily a judgment against Jerusalem. That's where Michael was prophesying, was in in Judah and Jerusalem specifically. But basically, what he's accusing the people of is, you know, those wicked kings in the north, the ones that set up false idols and brought bail worship into the nation. Instead of walking with God, you've walked with them. And that's a pretty significant thing and you know, something you said and this, this concept of like the cemetery Divine of divine action were for the reprobate. Its its judgment but for the for the elect it's it's grace and mercy. I'm I've been listening through the Chronicles of Narnia on audio book, and that reminds me of when the children first come to Narnia. I suppose not first come but when all four of the children first come to Narnia, and they end up in the house of the beavers and and Mr. beaver says, as land is on the move, there's this beautiful little section where it says they were all warmed at the name of as land except for Edmund. Edmund, Edmund admin has already had already committed treason against Atlanta. Now, if you if you look too deeply at CS lewis's theology here, you kind of miss the point that he's not he's not writing a theological treatise, right. He's writing a story with theological themes, and he had a different theology than us. So of course, the themes come at it a little differently. But you have these three children who are innocent they they've come to Narnia. They are chosen to be the the people of as land. And there they don't even know who as line is but they're warmed. They're kind of internally warmed at his name. And admin is the opposite. He's he doesn't know Aslan is he actually thinks as lions, probably not really the king. But he somehow is afraid of him and somehow knows that he should tremble and is coming. And I think that's that's kind of what this is right? The Lord Christ to the city. And it is sound wisdom to fear his name. Right? Well, yes. What does that mean? Like there's a double entendre there. There's those who fear his name because there is enemies and know that the rod, which is appointed is the rod of judgment that will discipline and destroy them. And there are those who are warmed at his name. And this rod is the scepter of his kingship that will ultimately bring them to salvation. And there's that that double aspects to a lot of what we're seeing. We've seen that throughout the book of Micah that the judgment of God is also the salvation God in that God judges, the enemies of the people of God and in so doing rescues the people of God from their enemies.
Yes, that's well said it's only because of that judgment that we are welcome to the family adopted as sons and daughters. Without that judgment. There is no extension of that promise toward us a race. It just doesn't exist. It cannot exist, actually. And so I think it's wise, at least as I read this, to kind of keep that idea in focus of this courtroom and kind of fold this out, make it for flush it out, push it all the way to the edge, because I think when we get to these verses, we just been in the courtroom, it's as if God has like, essentially ratified and execute a search warrant for the heart. And he finds that when he looks at his people, what's inside is treasures of wickedness, right? dishonest measures, and adultery. And here's the one who has the ability to ratify and execute that search warrant can come into your property come into your life into your very being, and make right assessments. Yeah, and that ought to scare like the pants right off of us. Yeah, because We need to understand that once God finds what we know he will find because not one of us is not guilty. They're not one of us is not hiding something from God, not one of us has not committed treason against him. When he finds it, we need to understand what are we going to do with the inevitable condemnation that will follow that discovery?
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the historical kind of unfolding of this because it it really is under it's revealed in this and this is happening, right? Hundreds of years before the actual followed Jerusalem and this is not like Micah prophesize it and he's able to say like, this is what's going to happen cuz he just looks around and sees it. So in verse 14, it says, You shall eat not be satisfied, therefore your hunger shall be within you. You should put away but not preserve, you shall preserve what you do preserve, I will give to the sword. So essentially, and then it says you shall sow but not reap. So essentially, what the picture is here is that they're going to be going about their daily life. There. gonna be doing the things they normally do. And then something is going to disrupt this in a way where they've they've put away things they've, they've put away stockpiles of food they've sold their fields with with crops, but they're not going to be able to make use of that which they stockpile, they're not going to be able to make to harvest their fields. And we know historically that the reason for that is because of the siege of Jerusalem. Right. So the way that ancient cities worked is you typically had a centralized city with walls, and kind of the royalty that the elites, usually like the priests, the ruling class, those different groups would live in the city. And then outside of the city would have people that owns land, who would work that land, and there was an agreement, you know, about the king would supply troops that would defend that land. And I don't want to get too far into this because sometimes this starts to sound like feudal Europe, and it's not exactly like that, but it's, it's a system that was common in the ancient world. And so what we have is a picture of people who live out in this outer area of Jerusalem. I'm out into the lands, and they're living their life. They're putting away stockpiles, they're, you know, they're putting grain away in their barn, they're sewing their fields. And then what happens is the enemy comes, and they flee into the city for protection, but they can't get back out to their crops. And so there's all these things and you know, I can't think of a way of a situation that would make me feel more fertile than to start be starving to death, knowing that I had food set aside for my meal outside of the city or that I had crops that I could harvest to feed my family, like the futility of that situation must have just been utterly maddening. And Micah here, you know, decades before it happens is basically prophesied that and I'm sure that in the security that the people felt in Jerusalem, right, we read about that, Jeremiah, they're kind of like, well, the temple of the Lord. Nothing's ever going to happen to us because we have the temple of the Lord. In the midst of the security they feel. Micah is already telling them the All this security that you have will will avail you nothing. Because in the in the final analysis, God is going to take all of those things away that you thought you were secure in. And basically, he's going to touch you with them, he's going to show you that they were not sufficient to protect you from his wrath.
It's good, I think, for you to remind us of that. Because I think sometimes with our modern minds, so to speak, we read this passage, and we think it's mostly metaphorical. Like, you know, we all have goals and dreams in our lives, and Oh, it's so disappointing when they don't come to fruition and to be unsatisfied is such a horrible thing emotionally. And that's not principally what we're talking about here. There's a part of that I think that he's addressing. Yeah, it's, again, the symmetry like I'm struck by some asymmetry, because think about how, basically what you're saying is, it's in securing all the resources that you need. These things themselves are not going to save you, which saves us so to speak is the grace of God by way of our obedience to Him, not in a way That brings up our apart some kind of meritorious work, but in the sense that there is a loving kindness that we show toward God, because we OBEY Him because He loves us. And in so doing, he gives us blessings. Those blessings aren't always the ones that we would desire. And sometimes they come about in a way that is tough that the road can be hard, buy sell this, because you can look at any let's say, we go back to the Old Testament into Genesis, and we look at Joseph. And what's he doing, Joseph, by God's command to stockpiling resources right for the time of the famine. And here God uses those stockpiles as a way as a mighty saving. And here we have the same type of stockpiles, and he undoes them all because of the disobedience. So it's really the intent proceeds the content here, the heart of the matter is that the people's hearts were very far from God. And I see again and myself, a tendency to want to trust and these very same things and so this is a warning in there. And it's going to result in, like you said, a very practical manifestation where they're not going to be able to get to the food that almost in some cases, like literally see the food, see the crops and not be able to harvest them, right. And so even though they're stockpile them, that is gonna be this massive undoing of everything.
Yeah. And so kind of to wrap up this section here, right in verse 16. We've already talked about how they know they've kept the statues of only the works of the house of Ahab, basically, they followed after the wicked kings of Israel in their life, in religious practices. But then there's this interesting section at the back. And it says, You have walked in there councils that I may make you a desolation, your habitants hissing, so you shall bear the scorn of my people. And you know, this is a sort of a strange passage because, you know, who is he talking to when he says, You shall bear the scorn of my people. But I think you know, Matthew Henry has a really interesting take on this that I'm just going to read it. It's a little bit longer. read the whole thing he says that all they have shall at length be taken from them, thou shalt be made desolate because of my sin. And in verse 16, a desolation and a hissing sin makes a nation desolate. And when a people that have been famous and flourishing are made desolate, it is the astonishment of some, and the triumph of others supplemented and others hiss at it. Thus you shall bear the reproach of my people. They're being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept close to their duty, and kept themselves in his love was an honor to them, and all their neighbors thought itself, but now that they have corrupted and ruin themselves now that their sin and God's judgment have made their land desolate, they're having once been the people of God does but turn so much more to their reproach. their enemies will say, these are the people of the Lord. So what what Henry is getting at there? Is he saying these people were Once envied by the nations, right in the heyday of Solomon's kingdom, that the nations are looking at the law of God, they're looking at the prosperity of Israel. And they're coming to Solomon and they're basically saying, How can we get in on this? They look at the law and they go, has there ever been a people with such allies this, but now that they have abandoned that law, it's kind of like they were in such an elevated place of favor, that their fall is that much more terrible to behold. And, and where I want to go with this is, you know, we, we are obviously those who are elect, we are secure in God's God's grip, right? No one can take us out of the hand of God. But the apostasy warnings in the book of Hebrews and other places. Those are real warnings like those. Those are warnings which are not meant for us to go, Oh, yeah. Well, I'm glad that that doesn't apply to me. But instead, they're meant for us to look at it and be terrified. We're supposed to look at it and go, God forbid please, please. Lord, let that never happen to me like it should drive us to pray and seek God's assistance in staying in the faith. And so this is a this is a reminder for us like you think of you think of high profile Christians, right? You think of Mark Driscoll, Julian tivity and James McDonald. You think of these, these people who have had these catastrophic falls from this sort of elevated place, or you think of people who haven't apostatize formally, but then you think of people like Derrick Webb or Joshua Harris, who have not just fallen into sin and sort of ethically apostatize or ethically are living in sin, but have actually explicitly abandon the faith like that is something that is should be terrifying to us. And we should look at that and we should sort of shake and we should be driven to pray. Lord, please do not let me be that right like the the fantasy or the the tax collector and the publican, right? Or the ferrocene, the publican, right, the one who goes into the temple and says, Lord, I am an unworthy sinner, please, please, I need your grace in order to get to get into your into your heaven. That's the one who goes home justified. And so we should look at those apostasy passages. And I think this is kind of one of those passages. It's not an explicit warning for us. It really was more of a warning for the people of God at the time. But this is kind of this is kind of the Hebrews six passage for the nation for the people of Judah was this passage was Micah saying, look, if you don't get it together, if you don't seek the Lord, if you don't obey his statutes, if you don't seek His grace, he is going to abandon you because you have abandoned him, and that should have terrified them. And for those that it did, it kept them in the faith and for those that it didn't, they became this desolate nation. And they became kind of a laughingstock among the peoples.
Yeah, you're right. I think this message is a good reflect. mirror in the sense that it's when we hold it up to ourselves, we ought to be cause to do some self examination. But the plenary meeting of the passage is for the people of Israel and us understanding what God is doing in the work of his story, as he delivers this judgment. And again, I think a lot of this too is his wife so detailed is to demonstrate to us the extreme degree to which God goes to show that he will be faithful to His promise, even when he has that promise means he has to bring punishment. Yeah. And so there is to take this out of the Bible, because it's uncomfortable, just don't like it would be to say that we do not appreciate what the length that God goes through to save and to work in the lives of his people. And it should be terrifying. You're right. It's terrifying on the level that we're talking about. It all powerful God who is moving through time and space and all of history to work out His Divine Will, and that he is the one that brings the right judgments. He never has a wrong judgment right. And that would be terrifying enough if you're going before a judge and you evidence presented, but for the one who can see all the evidence, even as you try to hide it, the one who's able to perceive all things, knows all things, is familiar with all things then can bring the right judgment. That's even more terrifying. And then I would add on top of that, this whole like, back series of verses where, here's how strong God is, he can make the things that should be satiable insatiable, right? He can make the things that we think we can preserve things that we lose, he can bring because basically what he's doing here is he's about to make his own people sick, they're going to be they've afflicted the poor and so in like manner, God is going to afflict us people by making them sick, they're going to be sick of the games that they had unjustly acquired, so that even as they had swallowed down riches, there's this perception in this text that literally vomit them up again. Yeah. And so, that is an amazing amount of authority. This is like authority of I know this is the understatement of the entire episode, but of like Just unparalleled comparison, right? I mean, this idea that I just can't think of any other really good metaphor for the kind of authority that we're talking about here. Its power, its authority. Yeah, those two together are crazy. Scary.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like this, you know, I was, I occasionally will have to take phone calls from, you know, upset patients, or upset parties at the hospital, in my work. And it's not uncommon for, you know, one of my one of my staff to pass a call to me, and for them for the person on the phone to say, you know, are you in charge of the department? And I'll say, Well, no, this is my role. I manage this element of it. And they'll say, Well, I want to talk to your boss, or I want to talk to their boss. And he sometimes it gets down to the point where I actually have to say to somebody, everybody in the hospital has a boss. Everybody who works here has a boss and we don't have any concept in our direct experience of someone who has utterly on restricted, unmitigated authority, right, because every every authority that we experience on this planet is a derived authority that is delegated by God to one degree or another. So for us to think about the fact that God not only has universal undyed authority, but in fact is itself, authority is authority itself. God is authority. That is a terrifying thing that we should we should always remember. And although we should not be terrified of God in the sense of, you know, we don't have to fear His wrath. We don't have to fear that he is going to somehow abandon us or turn on us. We should be fearful of the fact that the God we serve his authority beyond our imagination.
Yeah, that's well said. And again, love this idea of ending with our eyes on Christ in that because God is full of authority and power and we ought to be justly punished for our sin, and against you to make us fall on our knees and gratitude to know that Jesus Christ has made away that, that there's a bless a transfer of righteousness and said, from us to him so that he can bear it as the only one who really could bear that kind of authority. And then not only of course, defeats Satan at the cross, but then triumphs over the grave rising again, verifying all of this Yeah, saying that, yes, I'm the one that can lead you whereas, whereas once when we looked in the garden, Adam and Eve sinned, it was God himself who drove them out because they had some because they could no longer coexist with him in that space in the proper way, which had ordained it. And then we get to Hebrews we have here is Jesus Christ and the same way welcoming us in he's the one that brings us back into the throne room to place or really don't belong because There is no way we have the credentials to get into there. And so I think here we have all of that really encapsulated in the last verses of Micah six.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's as good of a place to stop as any. And you know, we're going to go into, we've got, I think we've got two more episodes of Micah cast. And then maybe we'll do, maybe we'll do like a recap episode. But we're going to transition from this sort of statement of, of judgment. As we come into the next section, it becomes almost like this lament of salvation. Like there's a there's a proclamation of salvation coming. But there's sort of sad elements to it. And as we finish this out, I kind of want to leave that tension unresolved is that the salvation this, this symmetry of divine action that we've been talking about? salvation is joyful for us. But it should also have a sort of sense of melancholy because of the fact that not everyone is saved. Right? When we get When we get to heaven when we're in the presence of Christ, we're not going to feel sad about the fact that he has judged his enemies. And so we should temper our sadness for the fact that there are people who go to hell. Now, we should temper that with the realization that, you know, we will recognize the goodness and justice of that in the end, but at least now in this in between time, there is a there's a sense of loss that we should kind of lean into and that should drive us to evangelism and to preach the gospel.
That is a great place to leave it for next time.
Yeah. Well, Jesse, let's wrap it up. Until next time, honor everyone.
Unknown Speaker 59:39
Love the Brotherhood.