Introduction:
How does the thought of God's judgment on sinners make you feel? (Micah 1:1-16)
- Are you Apathetic ?
- Are you Angry ?
- Are you Amused ?
How Do I Mourn If I Don't Feel Like Mourning?
- Confess your own sin.
Isaiah 6:4-5 - And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
- Consider the condition of sinners.
Luke 19:41-44 - And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."
- Concentrate on the cross.
Romans 5:8 - God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:43-01:19
Micah chapter 1, verse 1 says, "The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheph in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem." The name Micah means "who is like Jehovah." And he prophesied during the reign of these kings of Judah that are listed here.
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We're talking about 735 to about 700 BC.
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And it was a nation that was very outwardly religious, but very inwardly sinful.
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Sound familiar?
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It was a day of idolatry.
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It was a day of impurity.
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It was a day of injustice.
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Sound familiar?
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And Micah's message is this, judgment is coming.
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And during Micah's ministry, it came to Israel, the Northern kingdom, about 722 BC as the Assyrians conquered them.
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And long after Micah's ministry, his word, the word of the Lord through him would come true as judgment would come to Judah by the hand of the Babylonians about 586 BC.
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But there's a message that's here for 2024 America because as we saw last week, We are under the wrath of God.
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You can't read Romans chapter one and deny the wrath of God is here, people.
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So Micah's message applies, and here's Micah's message, despite judgment, despite judgment, pardon is offered, restoration is promised, And there is hope, despite the circumstances we see around us.
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So let's bow our heads as we dive into chapter one.
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I'm gonna ask quickly that you just pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's word, and I'll pray for you to be ready to receive it today.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we believe your word is living and active, You have a message here for us today.
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May we understand it clearly and accurately, and may we receive it wholeheartedly.
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We pray in Jesus' name, and all of God's people said, amen.
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Do you love ice cream, my friends?
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All right, on the count of three, I want you to shout out your favorite flavor.
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I'll give you a second to think about it.
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On the count of three, just shout out your favorite flavor of ice cream.
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You ready?
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One, two, three.
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Me too.
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I hate ice cream.
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I mean, I love ice cream.
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It tastes so good.
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But I hate ice cream.
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Ice cream makes me so sick, it just does.
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And every single time I eat ice cream, nom nom nom nom, it's so good.
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And then like an hour later, I'm like, why did I do that to myself again?
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And you know, it always reminds me of what John experienced, Revelation chapter 10, and verse 10, he's talking about this little scroll that signified the judgment of God.
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John says, "And I took the little scroll "from the hand of the angel and ate it.
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"It was sweet as honey in my mouth, "but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter." That's the response to God's judgment.
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He's like, on one hand, it was so sweet.
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Why was it sweet?
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Because it's so sweet to think "God's gonna make all things right." And all this wickedness and rebelliousness of people, "God's gonna make it all right." And that's sweet to know.
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That's sweet to know that God is gonna make all things right.
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But he said, "It was bitter in my stomach "because it's not a great feeling to think "that God making all things right "means that there are people heading to eternal judgment." That kind of gives you a sour feeling afterwards when you think about that.
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When you consider that lost people, as God is making all things right, lost people are going to hell.
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Does that bother you at all?
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How do you feel?
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And I know we don't talk about feelings that much, we talk about facts.
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But today we are going to talk about feelings.
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How do you feel knowing that God's wrath is here right now?
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How does that make you feel?
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After we studied Romans one last week, how did you feel about that?
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And how do you feel knowing that God's wrath is also coming in the events of revelation, how does that make you feel?
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Well, let's look at Micah.
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Just gonna take it a chunk at a time here in chapter one so we can wrap our brains around what's happening.
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But first, Micah just basically says, "Hey, hey, listen up, listen up everybody, "judgment is coming." Look at the verses two through four.
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He says, "Hear you peoples, all of you, "Pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, "and let the Lord be a witness against you, "the Lord from His holy temple.
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"For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place "and will come down and tread "upon the high places of the earth.
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"And the mountains will melt under Him "and the valleys will split open "like wax before the fire, "like waters poured down a steep place." So the picture here is like you're in God's courtroom, which is a terrifying thought because in God's courtroom realize God is the plaintiff and he's also the judge.
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And Micah here in this opening statement is saying, hey, by the way, people, you know, God is not safely far away detached from human affairs.
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He says, God is, he's coming down and it's going to be absolutely devastating when he does.
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So why, what's the problem?
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Why is God so fired up?
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Well, look at verses five through seven.
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He says, "All this is for the transgression of Jacob." That's another name for Israel.
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"And for the sins of the house of Israel." What is the transgression of Jacob?
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Is it not Samaria?
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And what is the high place of Judah?
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Is it not Jerusalem?
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Therefore I will make Samaria a heap, in the open country a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.
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All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces.
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All her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste.
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For from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
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Like, why is God so fired up?
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He tells you right here, it's transgressions and sins.
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Specifically, the issue is idolatry.
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And in that little chunk we read, he said, you know what Jerusalem is like?
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Jerusalem has turned into like one big pagan altar.
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Idolatry is a sin that God takes so seriously.
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Like, well, what is idolatry?
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Idolatry is when you take the love and devotion and adoration that should go to God, and you give that to something or someone else, that's idolatry.
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And you're like, "Phew, man, "sounds like those people had an idolatry problem." Hey, hey, you better tune in.
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Idolatry is the sin of our nation.
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Like, we don't have, we ain't worshiping like little stone idols.
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Oh no, no, no, we have so many, we have so many idols that we failed to recognize it.
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Idols like sports.
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Idols like music.
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Idols in Hollywood, they're everywhere.
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And I think it's gotten so bad that most people can't even recognize it.
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You know, most of us Pittsburghers can name the whole roster for the Pittsburgh Steelers but can't name the 12 apostles.
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There's a lot of people that know every word to a Taylor Swift album, but I can't memorize scripture.
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I'm just not really good at memorizing things.
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True or false?
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I don't know what time, I just, oh, Pastor Jeff, I don't have time to get involved in helping a church.
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I just don't have time to go to small group.
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But we got time to take little Joey to his T-ball game in Blonox eight days a week.
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Right, oh, he's on a travel T-ball team.
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We got games in Dubois.
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We have time for that because we all know Joey's got a bright future ahead in t-ball.
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We have all the time in the world for that, but small group for an hour and a half a week?
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I can't do that." And you say, "Ouch." And I say, well, maybe you're not as free from idolatry as you'd like to think you are.
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Like, what was he talking about prostitution here?
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Well, there's a couple things to think about with that.
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You know, many ancient pagan religions made prostitution a part of their worship, sick.
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And I think this is brought up in the context of idolatry because when you study your Old Testaments, Idolatry is likened to harlotry, meaning this.
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Do you know how God feels about idolatry?
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Do you know how he feels about it?
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God feels, by the way.
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Do you know how he feels about idolatry?
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It's like a man who has a wife that becomes a prostitute.
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God feels like that man.
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The book of Hosea, that's what the whole book is about.
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But understand, God feels.
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When we choose to put our adoration and love in other things, other than God, he feels like a husband whose wife became a prostitute.
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That's how he feels.
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So now are you starting to understand why this is something that fires him up the way that it does?
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Look at Micah's reaction, verses 8 and 9.
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He says, "For this I will lament and wail, I will go stripped and naked, I will make lamentations like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.
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For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah.
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that has reached to the gate of my people to Jerusalem." This was Micah's reaction.
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He says he's lamenting and wailing.
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He's making lamentations.
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He's mourning.
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He was grieving over the state of his nation.
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And you're like, why?
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And he tells us why.
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He says the wound is incurable.
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There's no recovery from this.
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There's no fix.
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God's going to show up.
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We're not turning this franchise around anytime soon.
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And listen, people, that is America.
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You're like, "Is it really that bad?" Well, we saw in Romans 1 last week the manifestation of God's wrath of abandonment has reached its worst when you have a nation that applauds sin.
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We're their people.
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at the point that you're a racist, bigot, homophobe if you don't applaud sin. We're there people. The last chunk here, and Micah, he gets very specific. I want to explain to Let's see what's going on here.
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Micah lists 11 towns in the area that are going to face God's judgment through the invading enemy.
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And I wanna kinda give you a heads up here.
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In the Hebrew, all of these towns and the description of what's happening to them, it's all wordplay.
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It's all puns based on the name of the city or the sound of the name.
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Understand, Micah wasn't trying to be funny, okay?
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This wasn't like dad joke time.
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He was talking about judgment, again, using wordplay based on the city.
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You know, think of it this way, like, you know how, like, even in our country, cities have, like, special, like, nicknames and things like that?
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Like, Pittsburgh is known as the, the Steel City, right?
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And New York is known as the Big Apple, right?
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And Chicago is known as the Windy City, right?
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So it would be like this chunk we're looking at here, it would be like if Micah was in our day saying something like this.
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The Steel City is going to rust away.
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The Big Apple is going to rot and be thrown in the garbage.
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and the windy city is going to be leveled by a tornado.
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See, that's what he's doing here.
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And I'm not gonna explain all of these.
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If you want a homework assignment, you can do that.
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You can look these things up.
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But I just wanted to give you the heads up that that's what is happening in these verses.
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So he says, "Tell it not in gaffe.
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"Weep not at all, and Bethleafra, roll yourselves in the dust.
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Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir.
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In nakedness and shame, the inhabitants of Zanon will come out.
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The lamentation of Bethazel shall take away from you its standing place.
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For the inhabitants of Moreth wait anxiously for good, because disaster has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem.
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Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish.
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It was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.
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Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth Gath.
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The houses of Aqsa shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.
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"I will again bring a conqueror to you.
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"Inhabitants of Mereshah, the glory of Israel, "shall come to Adulam.
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"Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, "for the children of your delight.
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"Make yourselves bald as the eagle, "for they shall go from you into exile." There again, that last verse, shaving, you know, your head.
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He was calling the people to mourn.
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Micah was prophetically seeing the exile take place, and he was crushed by it.
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As we said, America is currently facing the wrath of God through abandonment, and America is going to face much worse from God.
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And I want to ask you again the question that we asked at the beginning, how does that make you feel?
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On your outline, I want you to jot some things down here.
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So I'm going to ask you, how do you feel about that?
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The first one is this, are you apathetic?
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Are you apathetic?
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many Christians, when we talk about the judgment of God, their reaction is just, "Meh." That judgment is a doctrine that we affirm, right?
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And we're like, "Yes, that is a true doctrine of Scripture.
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I do believe." But judgment isn't a reality that we mourn over.
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For a lot of Christians, they say, well, you know what, yeah, judgment is true.
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Sinners are just going to get what's coming to them.
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That's just the way it is.
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I mean, judgment, it happens, right?
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It happens, and that's just the way it is.
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How can we say that we have the love of God in us and be so callous about that?
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So are you apathetic?
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Maybe for some of you, you're angry.
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Letter B, are you angry?
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Oh yes, listen, there is a place for righteous anger.
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Absolutely, yes.
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But many people are just, they're just fed up.
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And their reaction is just complaining when they see all the sin.
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Knowing that God's judgment is coming.
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You know, they think of men competing in women's sports and there's drag queen story hour and there's corrupt leaders.
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And we're just disgusted and we're condemning.
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And we're saying, you know what, I can't wait until God punishes them.
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Are you angry?
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Let her see, how about this one, are you amused?
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Are you amused?
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We look at all the perversion, all the wickedness, And we just make it a joke.
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We got our memes, we got our reels.
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We make fun of it on social media.
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We love the Babylon Bee.
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Boy, they're really getting their shots in.
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We just laugh at the absurdity of it all.
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Maybe you're like me.
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I've bounced around all three of those.
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I have.
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But Micah models the only real appropriate action that God's people should have as their nation faces judgment.
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He mourns.
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And church, today I just want to ask you, and I have to ask myself, when was the last time we mourned over the sin of our people?
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When was the last time we were grieved knowing that God was going to punish the sins of the people?
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When was the last time that happened?
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When we talk about sinners facing the judgment of God, listen, we're not talking about hypothetical characters that live in a figurative place that are facing ambiguous consequences. We're talking about real people in my neighborhood that are going to suffer tremendously for their sin. Does that bother you? I'm sure for many of us, you're thinking right now, Okay, honesty check, I get it.
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Okay, Jeff, I get it.
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I should mourn.
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I should.
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I should.
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But honestly, I don't.
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I'm not there.
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I'm just not there.
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And I can understand what you're saying, and I see how Micah was mourning over the sins of his people, but Jeff, I'm just not there.
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How do I get there?
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I'm so glad you asked.
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Because in your outline, how do I mourn if I don't feel like mourning?
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How do I mourn if I don't feel like mourning?
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I'll give you three things here that I want you to take with you today that I want you to carry with you this week.
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and you're gonna see a change in your heart.
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How do I mourn if I don't feel like mourning?
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Number one, confess your own sin.
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Because understand that this was the question that I wrestled with, I shared with you.
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I bounced between all of those, the apathy, the anger, the amusement, and I had to ask myself, you know, God, how do I get there?
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And this has to be the first step.
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It takes us to Isaiah's day.
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Remember Isaiah chapter six, he saw the Lord in the temple, and this was his reaction.
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He said, "And I said, 'Woe is me, for I am lost.'" Look at this, "For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
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For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." You see, Isaiah mourned the sin of his nation, but you see what he did first?
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First, he came into recognition of his own sin.
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And before you're gonna feel sorry about the sins of America, you gotta get sorry over your own sin.
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Can you recognize your own waywardness?
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I'm talking to Christians now.
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Christians, do you see that despite the fact that you truly have a love for the Lord, you fall back into rebellion?
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You fall back into lust of the flesh.
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You fall back into old patterns of living that dishonor the Lord.
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And can you recognize it when you do that?
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It hurts your testimony, it hurts others, it hurts yourself.
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And if we're going to mourn over the sins of our nation, we've got to confess our sins before God first.
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And that means, church, we've got to stop minimizing it.
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We've got to stop excusing it.
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Are we gonna stop comparing ourselves with others?
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I wanna encourage you to get specific.
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To say something like this, you know, God, I see in my own life my tendency to stray.
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God, I see in my own life my selfish desires that I know are wrong.
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selfish desires that I go after no matter who it hurts.
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To pray before the Lord, God, I see my own hypocrisy of criticizing other people's sins while justifying my own.
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God, I see in my life, I want to do the right thing, but I fail so often at that.
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Can you get there?
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Because if you will, the next thing you're going to say is, and I recognize, God, that I live with people who are just the same as me.
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I'm no better than them.
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I'm no different than them.
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Because we're all lost without you.
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So do a reality check on yourself, and recognize that every single other person has the same problem, a foolish disregard for the God who loves us.
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Start there.
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Confess your own sin.
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to consider the condition of sinners.
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Consider the condition of sinners.
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So we're gonna fast forward from Isaiah's day.
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Well, Jesus was actually who Isaiah saw in the temple, by the way.
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But we're gonna fast forward to another scene involving Jesus.
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This takes us to Luke chapter 19.
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Now this is known as the triumphal entry.
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You know, they're having this big celebration It says Jesus rides into Jerusalem, but you see Jesus wasn't celebrating.
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It says when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.
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There's what Jesus did.
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He wept over it.
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Why was Jesus mourning over people?
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Look, it says, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day "the things that make for peace, But now they are hidden from your eyes.
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For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you.
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And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation." See, Jesus mourned over the Jews in Jerusalem for two reasons.
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The first one is they were lost.
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And the second reason is they're going to suffer.
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Think about those two reasons.
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This is what made our Lord mourn over people.
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First of all, lost.
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They were clueless.
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They were blind.
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They were people who were completely oblivious to what was really going on.
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Like, "You sure about that?" "Yeah, I'm sure." Do you remember what Jesus said on the cross?
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"Father, forgive them, For they do not know what they are doing.
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Jesus said they're lost.
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They are so lost.
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They have no idea that their God is right here with them.
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They're lost.
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The second thing we said is they're going to suffer.
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may Jesus mourn. He says they're going to suffer.
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Let me ask you some questions. Go ahead and shout out your answer like you did the ice cream. But according to the Bible, when a lost person dies, where do they go for eternity?
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Shout out the answer.
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To hell.
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According to the Bible, they go to hell.
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And what is hell like?
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Shout out your answer.
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Is hell a good place or is hell a place of suffering?
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Shout it out.
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Suffering.
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How long does hell last?
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Is it temporary or is it eternal?
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Shout it out.
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believe all that? I mean, you say it, but do you really believe all that? That hell is a place of eternal suffering for the lost? Well, you say you believe it, but when When was the last time you really stopped to think about that?
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You know what, people, the internet has us so detached from thinking of people as human beings.
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We live in a day, instead of actually having a conversation with people, we'd rather text, or we'd rather post something on their social media wall or whatever, we've turned politicians into caricatures in our minds.
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So when we talk about lost people, we're so detached.
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We talk about lost people, it's like, that's a concept, that's not my problem.
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You know, we come face to face with these issues, like the transgender madness, like drug addiction, like abortion, and you're like, not my problem.
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Until it's your son.
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Until it's your nephew.
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Until it's your daughter.
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Until it's your cousin.
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And some say, well look, you know what Jeff, "You know, you're saying I should feel bad "about the fate of the unredeemed, "but they did it to themselves." Right, they did it to themselves.
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Does that make it more tragic or less tragic that they did it to themselves?
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See, to me, that kind of makes it more tragic that somebody is hell-bent on going to hell Despite warnings, despite God's intervention, they double down on the wickedness.
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That's more tragic to me.
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Jesus mourned because people were lost and people were going to suffer.
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Like, I'm not there, I'm not there.
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Well, imagine this scenario with me.
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Imagine you walk out of church today, and you're gonna walk down to Sheetz, and you go out to the sidewalk here, and you're walking down, and you look at this big intersection right here, you see a blind man standing at the intersection, and he starts walking into traffic.
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And you're like, where's this going?
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He gets hit by a truck, right in the middle of the intersection.
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Like a truck going full speed through a green light.
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Do you have that scene in your head?
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If you saw that, I promise you, you wouldn't be empathetic.
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You wouldn't walk away from that going, no, not my problem.
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I promise you, you wouldn't be angry about that.
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You wouldn't watch that man get hit by a truck and say, oh, this makes me so mad.
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Blind people just never seeing where they're going.
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What is the matter with blind people?
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Why do blind people walk in the middle of busy intersections?
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I'm so sick of it.
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He deserved that.
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You wouldn't say that.
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And you certainly wouldn't be amused.
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Be nothing to laugh at.
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Be nothing to turn into a meme and put on your social media.
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What would you do?
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Well, I'll tell you exactly what you do.
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You would feel horrible that their condition led to their suffering.
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You would feel horrible that their condition led to their suffering.
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What does that say about how we view blind sinners walking into hell?
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See, this is the case of every sinner that you know.
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They're lost and they're going to suffer.
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You need to consider the condition of sinners.
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Get honest to God in prayer over it.
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Maybe you need to start there.
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I would say, "Get in your room, shut the door, "and get on your face and say, "God, I'm gonna confess something to you.
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"I haven't cared." By the way, God already knows.
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That's why we're confessing.
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I haven't cared for others.
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Remind me, God, that people aren't the enemy.
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People are the victims of the enemy.
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Move my heart knowing that they're blind and lost and heading to suffering.
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How do I feel?
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How do I mourn if I don't feel like mourning?
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Number one, confess your own sin.
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Number two, consider the condition of sinners.
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And then finally, number three, concentrate on the cross.
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Romans 5, 8 says, "God shows his love for us "in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." If you're having a hard time mourning the condition of sinners, I just want you in your mind's eye, do it right now.
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I want you to envision in your mind's eye, Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Do you have that image in your head?
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Of our savior, bloody and battered, nailed to the cross.
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And that scene of the son of God on the cross speaks to the horrifying reality of the magnitude of the wickedness of sin.
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Do you have that picture in your head?
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Jesus on the cross, the only perfect person to ever walk on the earth, nailed there to die because that was the price that had to be paid for sin to be forgiven.
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And most people would rather have sin instead.
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Look at Jesus on the cross.
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God providentially allowed his son to be murdered so that we could be reconciled to God.
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And most people would rather have their sin instead.
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Look at Jesus on the cross.
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God provided the way for us to have every single blessing that we could have in this life and the promise of eternal paradise in heaven with him.
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and most people would rather have their sin instead.
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God so lavishly demonstrated his love to a world that not only rejects him but mocks him, despite the warnings that he gives to those who do.
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So if you don't feel like mourning, I want you to stop and concentrate on the cross.
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I want you to think about how the world at large has responded to this God who so loves us.
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And you will mourn.
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For worship team, would make their way back up to the platform please.
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Church, if we're going to be the people of God, living in a nation facing judgment.
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If we're going to fulfill any of God's purposes for us, the first thing we have to do is care.
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Take an honest assessment of where we are.
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and take an honest assessment of why God is bringing his wrath and mourn.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we bow ourselves before you.
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And God, we confess to you as a people, we don't mourn.
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Not like Isaiah, not like Jesus, not like Micah.
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We don't mourn.
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But God, I just pray today, in a fresh way, you would break our hearts for the sins of the people.
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It is so easy for us to just say, well, I don't sin like they do.
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And we write them off.
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Father, I pray that you bring us back into the place where we feel, where our heart is moved when we consider sin, sinners, and their ultimate destination.
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Father, there's not a thing that I can do to make anybody feel anything.
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But God, I'm asking by the power of your word, by the power of your Holy Spirit, You would break up some hard hearts.
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Give us a people, give us hearts, rather, so that we would be people of compassion and people who mourn the sins of our nation.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Micah 1:1-16
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
When you see sin run rampant and celebrated, how do you typically react? Do you merely condemn sinners, are you indifferent towards their being judged, or do you just laugh them off? Why?
The Biblical response to sinners facing God’s wrath is to mourn (see Micha 1:8-9, 16). If you don’t mourn, why not? How can you get to the place where your heart breaks for what breaks the heart of God?
Breakout
Pray for one another to have the heart of Jesus - to mourn over the sinfulness of our nation.
