Advent Is Not for Flawed People, but for Hopeless People

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior.”

~Charles Spurgeon, Reformed Baptist Minister (1834-1892)

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch towards prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

~D.A. Carson, Author and New Testament Scholar

“A significant majority of Americans were agreed that the following are sins: Adultery 81%, Racism 74%, Using ‘hard’ drugs such as cocaine, heroine, meth, LSD, etc. 65%, Not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change back 63%, Having an abortion 56%… Not reporting some income on your tax returns 52%.”

~Ellison Research Poll 2008

“Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent and self-sustained.”

~Augustine, theologian and pastor in Africa (354-430)

“Happiness won’t arrive, it has to be cultivated. Only behavior and its consequences will make you happy. Being happy requires you to work your ‘how’ muscles and to be aware; you need to consciously focus on the good things and not the bad. This is not to bury your head in the sand, some things need to be faced up to, but you need to focus on those things you can have agency over.”

~Psychology Today 2021

“It’s a sin, a sin the way I love you, because I know our love could never be. It’s a sin to say that I don’t miss you, When silence proves that you’ve forgotten me.”

~Marty Robbins, country singer (1925-1984).

“The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting point of all preaching; but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness; the religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the world’s evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world’s good; no help is needed from outside the world.”

~J. Gresham Machen, Author and Theologian (1881-1937)

SERMON PASSAGE

Micah 2:1-11, 3:1-12 (ESV)

Micah 2

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness

   and work evil on their beds!

   When the morning dawns, they perform it,

   because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

   and houses, and take them away;

   they oppress a man and his house,

   a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

   behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

   from which you cannot remove your necks,

   and you shall not walk haughtily,

   for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

   and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined;

   he changes the portion of my people;

   how he removes it from me!

   To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

   in the assembly of the Lord.

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

   “one should not preach of such things;

   disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

   Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds?

   Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

   you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

   with no thought of war.

9 The women of my people you drive out

   from their delightful houses;

   from their young children you take away

   my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest,

   because of uncleanness that destroys

   with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

   saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

   he would be the preacher for this people!

Micah 3

1  And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel!

   Is it not for you to know justice?—

2  you who hate the good and love the evil,

Micah 2

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness

   and work evil on their beds!

   When the morning dawns, they perform it,

   because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

   and houses, and take them away;

   they oppress a man and his house,

   a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

   behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

   from which you cannot remove your necks,

   and you shall not walk haughtily,

   for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

   and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined;

   he changes the portion of my people;

   how he removes it from me!

   To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

   in the assembly of the Lord.

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

   “one should not preach of such things;

   disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

   Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds?

   Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

   you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

   with no thought of war.

9 The women of my people you drive out

   from their delightful houses;

   from their young children you take away

   my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest,

   because of uncleanness that destroys

   with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

   saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

   he would be the preacher for this people!

Micah 3

1  And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel!

   Is it not for you to know justice?—

2  you who hate the good and love the evil,

who tear the skin from off my people

   and their flesh from off their bones,

3 who eat the flesh of my people,

   and flay their skin from off them,

   and break their bones in pieces

   and chop them up like meat in a pot,

   like flesh in a cauldron.

4 Then they will cry to the Lord,

   but he will not answer them;

   he will hide his face from them at that time,

   because they have made their deeds evil.

5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

   who lead my people astray,

   who cry “Peace”

  when they have something to eat,

   but declare war against him

   who puts nothing into their mouths.

6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,

   and darkness to you, without divination.

   The sun shall go down on the prophets,

   and the day shall be black over them;

7 the seers shall be disgraced,

   and the diviners put to shame;

   they shall all cover their lips,

   for there is no answer from God.

8 But as for me, I am filled with power,

   with the Spirit of the Lord,

   and with justice and might,

   to declare to Jacob his transgression

   and to Israel his sin.

9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel,

   who detest justice

  and make crooked all that is straight,

10 who build Zion with blood

   and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

   its priests teach for a price;

   its prophets practice divination for money;

   yet they lean on the Lord and say,

   “Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

   No disaster shall come upon us.”

12 Therefore because of you

   Zion shall be plowed as a field;

   Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

   and the mountain of the house a wooded height.