Micah 3:11

"The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us."

There is no more glaring and sensational example in history of religious confidence predicated upon something apart from doing God's will, than is found in this. The only thing comparable to it is the arrogant conceit of modern Protestantism to the effect that, if one truly believes in Christ, his conduct simply makes no difference at all. Salvation by faith only is the present-day equivalent of the condition described here in ancient Israel. They had "faith in God"; they accepted his promises apart from all conditions; they preempted to themselves the protection and blessing of God without any regard whatever to keeping the solemn covenant he had made with his people. That such an attitude on the part of those people should be thought of as strange and incomprehensible by those present-day commentators who are claiming both for themselves and for their followers that they are "saved by faith alone" is to this writer the truly Incomprehensible Phenomenon!

Those people still claimed to know God, although they had contradicted practically everything in his word and were continuing to do so. They knew God's name, ostensibly invoking his blessings upon all that they did. God's temple which had been given to them, not by their God, but by their kings, stood in their midst; and they supposed that with such visible evidences of God's protection, absolutely no evil could befall them. They were adoring idols; they had accepted Baalism; they were murdering, lying, stealing, committing fornication, defrauding, bribing, perverting, and corrupting all that they touched. Yet these "believers!" claimed all the blessings!

Today, if one truly wishes to know about his status in the eyes of the God of heaven and earth, let him read and understand the New Testament; he will never hear it over the radio or see it on TV.

The inevitable end of that tragic corruption of ancient Israel was bluntly thundered by the prophet Micah in the next verse.