micah 6-7

Read Micah 6-7 at Bible Gateway.

“With what shall I come before the LORD,
And bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
Ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God.” Mic 6:6-8

If God does not want thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil, then why did He command them to be brought as sacrifices for sin? They were prophesying of Messiah Yeshua, and teaching Israel that when they sinned, God would accept an acceptable substitutionary sacrifice to forgive their sin. If Israel did justly and loved mercy, and walked humbly with their God, sin would be rare among them. Sacrifices for sin would be rare among them.

At this epoch in their history, they did not care whether they did justly or not — because if they brought sacrifices, their sin, whatever it was, would be forgiven. This is why God does not want thousands of rams. He does not want His mercy and His grace, extended toward them for the forgiveness of sins, taken advantage of and used as an excuse to sin all the more.

God is unchanging and His mercy is unchanging, and His gospel of salvation is unchanging. If He did not want His grace taken advantage of then, He does not want it taken advantage of now. It is not any different, today, just because the sacrifice for sin that we bring, is by the blood of Jesus, and no longer by the blood of bulls and goats.

Let us not believe, as we have been mistakenly taught by men, but not by the Word of the Living God, that now that the blood which covers our sins is the blood of Jesus and not the blood of bulls and goats, that we can ignore doing justly, showing mercy, and walking humbly, because we are living in the so- called “dispensation of grace.” People, we have been living in the dispensation of grace since the day Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. God’s grace has not changed:

“Who is a God like You,
Pardoning iniquity
And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?
He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in mercy.
He will again have compassion on us.
And will subdue our iniquities.
You will cast all our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
You will give truth to Jacob
And mercy to Abraham,
Which You have sworn to our fathers
From days of old.” Mic 7:18-20