Micah 6:16

And the statutes of Omri are kept

Omri and Ahab: lessons worth study

On the long dark roll of human infamy there are but few darker names than those of Omri and Ahab.

Learn--

I. The religious sentiment in man is often terribly perverted. Omri and Ahab were not idolaters themselves, but they established idolatry in their country. The religious sentiment in man is perhaps the substratum element of his nature. Man is made to worship, and to worship the one true and living God only. But so blinded is his intellect, so debased his nature, so utterly corrupt, that, instead of worshipping the infinitely great, he falls down before the infinitely contemptible. The perversity of the religious sentiment--

1. Explains the errors, crimes, and miseries of the world. Man’s strongest love is the spring of all his activities, the fontal source of all his influence. When this is directed to an idol, the whole of his life is corrupted.

2. Reveals man’s absolute need of the Gospel. There is nothing bug the Gospel of Christ that can give this sentiment a right direction.

II. That obedience to human sovereigns is sometimes a great crime. The worship of Baal was enacted by the “statutes” of Omri, and enforced by the practice of Ahab. A human law, enacted by the greatest sovereign in the world in connection with the most illustrious statesmen, if it is not in accord with the eternal principles of justice and truth, as revealed in God’s Word, should be repudiated, renounced, and transgressed. “Whether it is right to obey God rather than men, judge ye.”

III. That the crimes of even two men may exert a corrupting influence upon millions in future generations. The reigns of Omri and Ahab were ages before the time when Micah lived. Notwithstanding, their enactments were still obeyed, their examples were still followed, and their practices were still pursued. The wickedness of these two men was now, ages after, perpetrated by a whole nation. How great the influence of man for good or evil! Verily, one sinner destroyeth much good. (Homilist.).