Last week we began our journey through the book of Micah with a look at the background, themes, date, author, et al, to set everything in context...today we continue with a look at the completion of the first judgment oracle (1-2) and the beginning of the second (3-5)...

The book of Micah is the transitional prophecy of the Twelve, the bridge between the prophets who spoke primarily to Israel in the north and those who spoke primarily to Judah in the south...his message is the final death knell for Israel and the proclamation of the nearing judgment for Judah, and pleads with them to learn from the mistakes made by the kings and leaders of the northern kingdom and to return to the Lord their God... 

To remind us of that transitional role, I’ve added him to this slide we saw at the beginning of the series...this slide places him as the first prophet speaking to Judah, during the reign of Hezekiah, consistent with what we find in Jeremiah 26...

To briefly review chapter 1...chapters 1 and 2 together are the first judgment oracle, this one addressed to all those on the face of the earth in verse 2, but it quickly progresses to a more focused oracle against Samaria and the northern kingdom in general...but God also speaks to Judah, and we see the connection in verse 9... 

For her wound is incurable,

   and it has come to Judah;

it has reached to the gate of my people,

   to Jerusalem.

Now in chapter 2, Micah speaks specifically to the sins of Israel, as his predecessors, Amos, and Hosea, did...first the wealthy and powerful who would defraud and steal from those who would be called today the middle class or the poor...

Woe to those who devise wickedness

   and work evil on their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it,

   because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields and seize them,

   and houses, and take them away;

they oppress a man and his house,

   a man and his inheritance.

Micah says “woe” to the powerful people who lie awake thinking of the injustice and evil they could do, and when morning comes they do it...which is unlike a more typical circumstance where evildoers act under the cover of darkness...here, the wickedness is done in the daytime...and why would these people do these evil deeds? Because they can...this describes people of power and wealth and influence who have the opportunity and the means to accomplish their self-serving goals and do so whenever they choose...specifically, Micah condemns those who take the lands and houses of others, oppressing a man and his “house” or family, his inheritance, his land that was his because of his identity as a member of a tribe of Israel...for example, those who were members of the tribe of Reuben were granted rights to work and farm on land within the allocation given to the tribe of Reuben...and it had to stay within that tribe...Numbers 36.7...

7 The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 

David the psalmist writes of these people bent on injustice in Psalm 36.1-4...it is a fitting description of all the ruling elite of Israel...

Transgression speaks to the wicked

   deep in his heart; 

there is no fear of God

   before his eyes.

2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes

   that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;

   he has ceased to act wisely and do good.

4 He plots trouble while on his bed;

   he sets himself in a way that is not good;

   he does not reject evil.

I’ve wrestled with finding a way to illustrate this in a more current way...to bring up to date the grievous sin of ancient Israel’s leaders...as I reflected on our society and those within our society who would be guilty of this kind of corruption and injustice, I sadly realized that it isn’t hard to find examples... religious leaders who make ethical choices that are far removed from good and wise conduct, and often in direct opposition to the very teachings and truths they say they endorse and represent...business leaders who are able to convince political leaders at all levels -- municipal, county, state, national -- to enact policy or legislation that favors their personal interests, often at the expense of those without wealth or power......political leaders whose decisions favor those who are politically connected and influential, often in order to benefit themselves and their reelection campaigns...

Are all elected officials, business leaders, and religious figures corrupt or always acting in self-interest? Of course not...but there are enough who are, and whose actions are publicly known, that we should be deeply concerned...

As I considered this, I looked for a part of our society that was similar to that time and place, in Samaria and Israel, and I thought of judges...

In ancient Israel, the elders in the city gates functioned much as judges do today, particularly more local level judges...hearing and deciding on cases, resolving disputes between citizens, adjudicating disagreements, even ratifying or validating business deals...and in our society, judges are critically important to ensuring justice for all people without regard for wealth, political connections, or any other factors...I wanted to see if there were any issues similar to what Micah describes in Samaria and Israel...I don’t often hear news accounts of corruption in the judiciary...so I did some research, and sadly, yes, there are issues, which shouldn’t surprise us, since basic human nature hasn’t changed...

Reuters News Service investigated reports of corruption in the judiciary (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-judges-misconduct/), and found 1,509 cases, from 2008 through 2019, across the United States...here are just a few examples...

District court judge convicted of taking bribes to just make a little extra money...

A state Supreme Court justice convicted of taking bribes to adjudicate cases in favor of a connected political operative...

A judge who appointed his own son to be a public defender, who was then paid more than $100K, and the judge later ruled in favor of his son’s clients...

A Justice of the Peace who coerced a district attorney to dismiss tickets and charges in favor of friends of the judge’s friend, who was also a political supporter...

A judge who co-wrote a book about how to avoid divorce proceedings, then encouraged defendants to buy his book instead of taking their divorce cases to court

A judge who signed arrest warrants against three citizens without required probable cause affidavits...

And there were more sexual harassment charges and quid pro quo arrangements designed to benefit the judge or the justice than I could count...

And these are all cases from state commissions on judicial oversight that resulted in the dismissal or censure or admonishment of judges and justices in states across America...all public domain records...I’m not picking on judges in particular...these sorts of issues are found throughout virtually every part of our society...sometimes these are overt actions...other times it’s more a matter of a person choosing to look the other way past wrongdoing...

My point in all this is simple: This kind of behavior isn’t only found in ancient history...these are examples of what is happening here and now...

How does the Lord respond to the ruling elites in ancient Israel for their persistent, unjust, corrupt sins?

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

behold, against this family I am devising disaster, 

   from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you shall not walk haughtily,

   for it will be a time of disaster.

4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you

   and moan bitterly,

and say, “We are utterly ruined;

   he changes the portion of my people;

how he removes it from me!

   To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

   in the assembly of the Lord.

Verse 4 is such biting irony...the rich in Israel complain that they are ruined because their lands were taken and given to apostates, the heathen Assyrians, when that’s exactly who they were, apostates, and that’s exactly what they did to the poor in their own nation...those who stole land from the middle and poor classes would have the land stolen from them...those who oppressed others would themselves be oppressed...God is a God of justice!

The sacred lot which divided the land would not happen again...they would not recover their land or their livelihood...

Micah now quotes his opponents telling a preacher not to preach...by the way, that never works... it didn’t work when the false prophets threatened Amos, and it isn’t going to work now...

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

   “one should not preach of such things;

   disgrace will not overtake us.”

Israel simply won’t hear or believe that God will judge them...Micah turns to the false prophets who are in league with the rich and powerful, and he questions them in verse 7...

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

   Has the Lord grown impatient? 

   Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good

   to him who walks uprightly?

Micah confronts the false prophets with the truth that God is not who they think He is, for they thought that He was just like them, as Asaph rebukes the wicked in Psalm 50.21...unlike the ruling leaders and the false prophets, the words of God do good, not evil...He blesses those who walk uprightly, not those who plot wickedness in the dark and then carry it out in broad daylight...

8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

   with no thought of war. 

9 The women of my people you drive out

   from their delightful houses;

from their young children you take away

   my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go,

   for this is no place to rest,

because of uncleanness that destroys

   with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

   saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

   he would be the preacher for this people!

The rich and powerful, in concert with the false and lying prophets of their idolatrous religious system, disenfranchise and disinherit the middle class, depriving them of the blessings of living under the covenant of God...there will be a “grievous destruction” indeed... here, scripture shows us one type of preacher...those who falsely preach and prophesy, who speak only what will make them a profit, or increase their popularity or safety or security...and those who seek out those preachers are those who are not interested in the truth but myths, who have itching ears, who only want to hear what they choose to believe...verse 11 is the most fitting epitaph for these preachers...those who in the pulpit breathe out empty wind and emptier lies...and a congregation who heartily approves of the sermon...this is what happens when a people refuse to hear the word of God...they believe the lie and are consumed by it...

But there is another type of preacher...those who faithfully preach the whole counsel of God, speaking truth to power without fear or compromise, reproving those who go astray, rebuking the rebellious, and exhorting the faithful...filled not with empty wind but with the true breath of God, the Holy Spirit

You see both types in II Timothy 4.1-5...

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 

May God grant His church around the world faithful preachers who do not fear the world, but fear only God...

Now Micah turns from the necessary rebuke to the gracious restoration as the Lord speaks hope to His people...

12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;

   I will gather the remnant of Israel;

I will set them together

   like sheep in a fold,

like a flock in its pasture,

   a noisy multitude of men.

13 He who opens the breach goes up before them;

   they break through and pass the gate,

   going out by it.

Their king passes on before them,

   the Lord at their head.

What might this passage represent? 

The events described here fit the relief of Jerusalem from the siege of Sennacherib, Emperor of Assyria, in 701 B.C., recorded in II Kings 19...very likely this was written early in Micah’s prophetic ministry, around 730 B.C....in 701 B.C., the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem, King Hezekiah turned to the Lord for help, and the Lord spared Jerusalem from destruction by the proud and arrogant Sennacherib, as he withdrew and returned to Nineveh following the destruction of 185,000 Assyrian soldiers...these Jews were the remnant, inside the walls of Jerusalem like sheep in a fold...then their covenant God conquers their adversary, and leads His people out to freedom...the author of II Kings writes this in 19.31...using some of the same words from Micah, particularly “remnant” and “go out”...

31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.

But this is also a picture of the eventual complete victory of the Lord and also His people under His headship...and it’s a good example of the near-term / long-term phenomenon of prophecy... 

Ultimately, One who is Israel’s true Shepherd-King, the Son of David, will open the breach, the gate of the fold, and lead His people out in love and righteousness...the One of whom John the Apostle writes...John 10.2-4... 

2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 

He is the Good Shepherd, the Lord, our King, our Saviour, Jesus Christ!

In the starkest of contrasts, Micah now turns from the sublime, the greatness and goodness of Israel’s true Shepherd, to the self-serving and vicious treatment inflicted on the people by the false shepherds, the worthless leaders of ancient Israel...

And I said:

Hear, you heads of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel!

Is it not for you to know justice?—

2    you who hate the good and love the evil,

who tear the skin from off my people

   and their flesh from off their bones,

3 who eat the flesh of my people,

   and flay their skin from off them,

and break their bones in pieces

   and chop them up like meat in a pot,

   like flesh in a cauldron.

4 Then they will cry to the Lord,

   but he will not answer them;

he will hide his face from them at that time,

   because they have made their deeds evil.

Listen to the brutal violence in the language Micah uses to describe the actions of the ruling elite toward the middle class and the poor...we find in Jeremiah 18 the story of the prophet watching the potter at work when the word of the Lord came to him...here, it’s as if Micah is watching a butcher at work...he rebukes the leaders for their lack of understanding of justice, then he speaks of their actions toward the people of Israel...

Look at the verbs: tear the skin off the people and their flesh from their bones...eat their flesh, flay their skin, break their bones, and chop them all up into a pot to cook...what a convicting and startling comparison, but spiritually completely accurate...

The OT is full of references to the failed leadership of Israel and Judah, and many of those references use the imagery of false or failed shepherds, shepherds who instead of caring for the flock, will butcher and eat the flock, the same image Micah uses here...for more uses of that metaphor, take a look at Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34...

Micah now turns from the rulers to the prophets, the false teachers of Israel and Judah...

5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

   who lead my people astray,

who cry “Peace”

   when they have something to eat,

but declare war against him

   who puts nothing into their mouths.

6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,

   and darkness to you, without divination.

The sun shall go down on the prophets,

   and the day shall be black over them;

7 the seers shall be disgraced,

   and the diviners put to shame;

they shall all cover their lips,

   for there is no answer from God.

What do we know about these false prophets?

They were allied with and operated in concert with the other members of the ruling elite: the king and his court, the judges in the gates, and the business leaders...like the leaders who tore apart and consumed the people, the prophets care nothing for the people of Israel, but instead only for themselves...they will prophesy whatever you wish to hear, if you pay them, or as Micah says, put food in their mouths...but those who do not or cannot pay them will feel their wrath...this must have led to a snake’s nest of collusion among the rich and powerful...those who were expected to preach the word of the Lord were instead preaching whatever the highest bidder wanted to hear...those who were to bring the light to the society would instead by cloaked in darkness, a promise repeated in four different ways in verse 6, and they would be disgraced in the eyes of all Israel, for all would know that there was no word from the Lord...

And we might read right past that if we aren’t careful...we have to remember that these were God’s people...their national story was filled with tales of the work and word of God being part of who they were and what they did...but that was ending because of their sin, their complete disregard of the covenant with their God...the false prophets would be silent

But for a time, Micah’s voice will still cry out...the false teachers will say whatever their patrons want to hear, but not Micah...

8 But as for me, I am filled with power,

   with the Spirit of the Lord,

   and with justice and might,

to declare to Jacob his transgression

   and to Israel his sin.

Micah is filled...with power, the Spirit, justice, and might...he cannot help but speak to the people of God about their sin...like his contemporary, Jeremiah, he must speak on behalf of God... 

If I say, “I will not mention him,

   or speak any more in his name,”

there is in my heart as it were a burning fire

   shut up in my bones,

and I am weary with holding it in,

   and I cannot.

If God calls you to speak for Him, you speak...you can’t deny that calling...

This is the climax of the second judgment oracle, chapters 3 through 5...it concludes the judgment portion, and chapters 4 and 5 speak to the renewal and restoration of the land and the people...but first, they will hear a rebuke from God’s prophet...

9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

   and rulers of the house of Israel,

who detest justice

   and make crooked all that is straight,

10 who build Zion with blood

   and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

   its priests teach for a price;

   its prophets practice divination for money;

yet they lean on the Lord and say,

   “Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

   No disaster shall come upon us.”

12 Therefore because of you

   Zion shall be plowed as a field;

Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

   and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

Micah speaks directly to the leaders and accuses them of hating justice and desiring the crooked, what is evil...look at verse 11: the political and religious leaders were, without exception, corrupted by greed and self-interest...yet like Israel in Amos’s day, they were confident in God’s approval and grace and presence...they were sure He would never judge them...disaster would never come to their gates...

But Micah has a different message: Israel’s leaders would lead not just Israel into sin, but serve as a bad example to Judah as well...and they would be judged and sent into exile, too...as sure as God was on His throne, His people would be judged for their sin

As we reflect on the truths in these two chapters, there is much to learn...I’ll mention just 2

This is no academic lesson in ancient history...we must recognize that in our nation, our people, our society, we are guilty, too...we can’t condemn Israel or Judah for their sins without recognizing that we are also culpable, especially the church...should we not walk in righteousness before Him? Should we not refuse the twisted and changing message of false teachers who can be bought for a price? Should we not demand accountability for basic ethical behavior from our leaders? Should we not care for people, especially the weak, the orphaned, the widowed, the troubled, the poor? Of course we must...for if we fail to walk in obedience and holiness before our God, what will become of us? All that remains is the certainty of judgment...

The second truth is this...we can never presume on God and His grace...are we secure in Christ? Yes...can we lose the salvation He has freely given? No...however, are we free to live carelessly, without a thought for the glory and honor of God, or worse, in persistent, rebellious sin? No, we are not...we must hear the words of Peter in I Peter 4.17... 

17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 

Wake up, church, and arise...let us live for our Lord in these days...