Leaders make a big difference. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Life. That sounds interesting. If you are wondering, that was Steve Brown and I'm Mike Keller. The program is Key Life, relevant Bible principles without stopping us in nonsense. Now here's Steve. Mike, if you have your Bible turned to the book of the Prophet Micah as we continue with our Old Testament study. Are you tired? Me too. You know, January is my favorite month. Man, you get through all the Thanksgiving Christmas stuff and you just kind of deflate. And you sit there and think, whoa, I don't think I'm going to move from this couch for the next 20 years. Maybe that has to do with my being an old preacher type, but I really do like January. And I've gotten so, as I've gotten older, that I like Christmas better than I used to, though not much. But I love January. That is cool. I hope they don't ever do a big holiday. Now we've got New Year's Eve, but that's pagan stuff. We can party without feeling guilty on New Year's Eve, but I hope they don't do any January holidays. It would just ruin my entire year. I want you to know that. Hey, enough. As I said, if you have your Bible turned to the book of Micah, the minor prophet, not minor, because he says bad stuff, but minor because it's one of the smaller books of the prophetic books. Before we get back into that book, as a part of our Old Testament survey, let's go before the throne. Father, we're glad for all you do in our lives. It's hard sometimes when it feels bad. It's hard sometimes when there's tears in our eyes. You've told us to praise you in every circumstance. And that means that we don't sometimes understand the circumstances. And so, Father, remind us that you have revealed to us your sovereignty, your kindness, and your goodness, that you're in charge all the time, that you are kind all the time, and that you are good all the time. Father, you know the people who are listening to this broadcast, and you know the stuff that's really hard, the wounds that are deep, the questions that are puzzling, the mind that reaches out to find reality. Father, we're here because we've tried other places, and you have the word of life. We have no other place to go, and that's okay because you're sufficient for every need. Meet us at the point of our needs as you define them. Heal and cleanse and forgive and motivate and cause us to laugh the laughter of the redeemed. Father, as we study your word on key life this week, we pray for the one who teaches that you would forgive him as sins, for they are many. We would see Jesus and Him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Micah is a part of our Old Testament survey, and we have spent, you can't believe we're spending this much time at a book this small. I may double it for a half-sized book coming up next when we look at Nahum, but if you've been listening, we have seen that Micah's dates are 750 to 700 BC. His message is a whack-and-a-hug. We saw that his calling is as a prophet. And we talked about how relevant it is today, and then I've become a tour director, and I've been leading you through some of my favorite texts in the book of Micah. We looked at Micah 1-1. These are the messages from the Lord, to Micah, who lived in the town of Morosheth during the reigns of King Jatham, A.A.S. King, as a guy. All the kings of Judah, these messages were addressed about Samaria and Judah. It's northern and southern, and come to Micah in the form of visions. We looked at some ideas about an unromanticized God. We looked at the compassion of Micah 1-8-9. We noted that a weak nation is related to a weak faith. We saw the concept of remnant, and you see that throughout the entire Old Testament. We looked at the difference between a true prophet, it's the microphone, and a false prophet. Now let me give you some new material. If you have your Bible, open it to Micah 3, and I'm going to read verses 9 through 12. Where Micah, speaking for God, says this. Now here this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity. Who build up Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with aniquity, her heads judge for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money, and they lean on the Lord, and say, is not the Lord among us, no harm can come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed like a field. Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins in the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest. What's Micah saying? He's saying that leaders are really important. Do you know what I do every morning? I spend a considerable portion of my time praying for the President of the United States. You say, wait, wait, wait, that's because you're a Republican. Did you pray for President Clinton? I prayed for him a lot too. Because I don't care whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, it is important that we recognize that we have Godly leaders and wise leaders, and they have wisdom that comes from some other place besides themselves. We live in a very dangerous world. One time a group of people went to Abraham Lincoln, and they were criticizing about some of his policies, and he told them a parable. He said, if a man had a wheelbarrow, and he was going across Niagara Falls and had everything you ever owned in that wheelbarrow, what would you do through Rocks' adding? Would you yell at him? Would you complain? No, you'd be quiet until he got to the other side, and my advice to you is, please be quiet until I get to the other side. Listen, I have strong political views, and I have a lot of political rocks to throw, but I don't throw them at people who have all my stuff in the wheelbarrow, and that's exactly the same thing at my church. You say, what are you doing in church? Well, I sing in a choir. I know. I know. Some of you are saying, no, you can't sing. Yeah, I do. I'm not good, but I'm loud. And my choir director believes that if he can teach me the part, I'll make up for three or four bases. I can't teach a Sunday school class because if I do, because I'm a professor, because of this radio program, he could become divisive in the church. I can't be in a small group because everybody thinks I'm a guru, so I said, Lord, I really ought to do something, and he said, sing in the choir. And I said, in a very spiritual way, are you crazy? And God said, I'm the sovereign God of the universe. I'm not crazy, go sing. And so I've been singing in the choir for the last four or five years, but I have one other job description. And that is, if anybody touches my pastor, I'm going to kill him. No, no, don't send me letters. That's a metaphor. I wouldn't do that, of course. Now, you hear Pete every Friday on this broadcast, and you know I love Pete. And let me tell you something, he's an extremely gifted guy, and God has anointed him to lead our congregation. But I sit on the back row and said, don't you mess with my leader. Now, why am I doing that? I do that because of Micah 3.9 through 12. I lift him up, and I pray for him because he's important to my spiritual health. And he's important for the spiritual health of the church. That's true, whether you're working for Ford Motor Company, or you're in a church, or whether you're a citizen of Canada, the United States, you need to pray for your leaders, even if you don't like them. I was a pastor in the church for a while, and I noticed that people didn't speak to each other, and I thought these are a bunch of credence. They don't care about other people. I noticed that the small groups weren't working, and I thought, but they really loved Jesus, after all he had done for them, they would get together and love each other, and support each other. And then I thought, you know, they're a mean bunch, and that's when God said, that's because you're a mean man. You told them from the pulpit that your ministry philosophy was, you leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. You said, I'm not here to love you, I'm here to teach you, what did you expect from those people? And that's when I began to realize that God had called me to be a pastor, a loving pastor, and a kind pastor to those people, because the people reflect what's going on with the leader. It's so very important. I'm one time spoke to a group of former Alkawell recovering Alkawell. There's a subgroup within this group. This is not going to make you feel good if you fly much of the recovering alcoholic pilots of major airlines. You know what? I'm not kidding. You know what they call themselves? They call themselves the Whirly Birds, and then they would laugh, and they would wonder why I'm not laughing. Listen, I don't want to get on a plane with a sober pilot. Much less a drunk one, but if I get on a plane, and I smell booze as I go by the front of the plane, I want you to know I'm calling somebody. Because you see, my destiny is connected in a major way with a man who flies that airplane. That's true of our country, it's true of our businesses, it's specially true of our church. And that's why we, as biblical Christians, need to stand with our leaders, need to pray for them. We need to hold them accountable. We need to make sure that they're following Christ so we can follow them. We need to remember what Micah said if bad things were happening in the country, because they had bad leaders. And the bad leaders were doing bad things to the poor, and they didn't care, and they weren't following God, and then they were nodding in God's direction. Remind you of anybody? They were saying, God's on our side. Don't you believe it? Do you think about that? I mean. Hey, this is the last time I'm going to say this. I'm going to offer this fall magazine, and then this is it. If you didn't get it, you ought to get it. It has some Christmas themes, but it has a lot of good stuff in it. I wrote a piece, how to be Christmas to the world, peed elements, and has a piece as the men of the church goes, so goes the church. Question and answer, a lot of good information, some information on the poop pastures conference, January 23rd through 25th, and if you want to have a new pastor, you ought to send him as a gift to the pastures conference. A lot of good resources to get you, and those you love home with, freedom and joy, and faithfulness to Christ is your kind and achievement. If you'd like the fall magazine, give us a call, 1-800-Key Life, or write Key Life, post office box 5,000-Mateland Florida, 3-2794-Key Life Canada, post office box 2-8060, Waterloo, Ontario, N-2-L-6-J-8. Or you can email us at stevetewife.org and the magazine's free. You can listen if you can help us financially. Oh, man, I would appreciate it. I know all of you can't, but pray about it because generous as you can for any contribution of any size. When you request it, I'll send you the cassette teaching, grace the heart of the incarnation. Gotta go, Key Life is a listeners-supported production of Key Life Network.