Micah 1:9 For Samaria’s plague is incurable; it has spread to Judah. It has reached the very gate of my people, even to Jerusalem itself.    

    After David’s son Solomon was king, the kingdom was divided. Jerusalem remained the capital of the southern Kingdom while Samaria was capital of the Northern Kingdom. Each had their list of kings. If you wanted to make a list of the good kings of the South, it would include Asa, Hezekiah, Josiah, and five others. The list of good kings in the North is easier to remember. There were none! Good or bad was determined by their leading the people to worship God or idols. 

    Samaria’s unbroken string of idolatrous kings had been terrible. In fact their idolatry was so bad Micah called it a plague and, as is usually the case with plagues, it was contag-ious! Worse yet, it was incurable! 

    Why would they turn away from God? Hadn’t God done a lot for them? Hadn’t He been the One to deliver them from Egypt and many others over the years? Well, yes. But God also had some expectations for them. Worshiping God means listening to Him. It means doing what He says. They discovered that their handmade idols did a lot less talking! In fact, all the conversations were one-sided! The idol may not be much help in a crisis, but day to day? The people could be in complete control!

    Things are not so different today. I don’t know anyone personally who has an actual wooden, stone, or metal idol in their house. But those aren’t really necessary. We can make an idol of all sorts of things. An idol is anything, (person, place, or thing) that takes the place of God. Some people make money their idol. Others pleasure. Some even make family their idol. 

    But Micah said the plague was incurable. Surely that can’t be. That sounds terrible! We can try whatever we want to fix this. Turning over a new leaf. A resolution. Raw will power. But there is no cure because the Bible tells us “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Sin earns death. Without exception. But…

    God, inexplicably, loves us! Even when we have gone away from Him! Even when we have made other things more important than Him. He loves us so much that Jesus was willing to die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin! Because He did that, we can have  relation-ship, new life, with God! We don’t have to live under the curse of our sin. 

    “But that sounds a lot like a cure.” It really does, doesn’t it?!

    

Blessings,    

 Pastor Russ