Judges 15-18
Close, but Not Close Enough

Judges 17-18 tells us of Micah, a man living with his mother in the mountains of Ephraim, who began his own religion. The first thing we learn about him is that he was a thief, as he stole from his mother. He confessed his wrong to his mother after she curses the money he stole. The religious confusion of the home in which he grew up is seen in the statement made by his mother when the money was returned to her: "And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, I dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you." Notice, his mother used the personal name Yahweh (LORD) in reference to God, yet she clearly had no understanding of the restrictions in the Old Law against the creation of images (Exodus 20:4).

Micah had no clearer understanding of how to approach God. In the following verses, he establishes his own religion to Yahweh. It mirrored the true religion in many ways. He had a shrine (perhaps comparable to the tabernacle), and ephod, and even a priest-first one of his sons, but later a wandering Levite. When the priest was hired, Micah exclaimed, "Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest."

But, no matter how much it looked like the real thing, this form of worship established by Micah was not approved by God. How do we know? First, we see in 17:5 that he had other household gods that were worshipped. But, we also see it was not in accordance with recorded scripture. In Deuteronomy 12:3-6, we find the Jews when they entered Canaan were not to establish their own places to worship. "You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock." Like the Israelites in Exodus 32 and 1 Kings 13, Micah got close, but not close enough.

All of this stands as a reminder to us that simply because something may sound something like a duck and walk something like a duck, it may not be a duck. There are a multitude of "Christian" religions in the world today, but, like Micah's, they have origins other than from God. We must make certain we are worshipping God correctly and not willfully. God has always given mankind instructions on how to approach Him in an approved way, and it is not man's place to make such decisions (Jeremiah 10:23; Proverbs 14:12). We are to search the scriptures to learn how to come to Him, and reject all methods that are not found in them. We can't be content with close; the worship of God is worthy of the greatest concern for details, because He is worthy of the greatest concern for detail.