‘He who pays the piper, calls the tune,’ as the saying goes. So it was in the days of Micah, and today it is no different. Unfortunately, it is not only so in society: the church too is infiltrated by this cowardly spirit. And no wonder. For as long as we love human praise and we try to please people, so long we cannot be reliable servants of God, even if we have had the best theological education available.
And let us not point fingers at each other! Only through the redemption of Jesus Christ will we be delivered of this boot-licking. When we are not truly born of the Spirit, we try to gain favor with people. Then we cave in to those who are the most persuasive, and tell them what they want to hear. The last thing we then want is to make a firm stand – if necessary alone – on the truth. It is in our nature to follow the crowd, for fear of not being counted by the crowd. But by this awful longing for approval we aid the decline of all that could have been good.
Therefore Micah, the man of God, turned fiercely against the leaders who rather consulted psychology than the voice of God.
Who wants to serve God and at the same time tries to be popular - to gain favor with the people - will be put to shame on the Day of the Lord, even though he kept saying, ‘The Lord is among us!’ When we come to love the Lord Jesus with all our heart and all our mind, there will be a radical division between lip service and true submission to God.