Good morning. Let me try that again. Good morning, morning!
All right, my name is Danny Woodward. I'm one of your elders here at New Braun Bible Church, and I'm happy to be here with you guys this morning.
Um, I got to tell you, I had a great sendoff this morning on our way to church. My wife was with me and the kids, and as you guys, most of you know, I'm not the normal preacher here. Phil is in the Philippines. So she said, "Guys, do y'all want to pray for Daddy since he's going to be preaching in front of the church?" My little boy, who's seven, volunteered, and I'll never forget what he said. He said, "Lord, please don't let people throw fruit at Daddy when he gets up there." So we've got that covered, and we can kind of move on from there.
Anyways, it was sweet. But Happy New Year! Is it too late to say that? You know, either way, a new year has begun. 2023 is over. Last year had many highs and lows, but perhaps for many, it will be forever marked by some of the more memorable lows. We had high inflation domestically, foreign wars, namely a conflict in Ukraine that continues, an evil attack in Israel that has thrown the promised land into a big war, and of course, political scandals.
Well, will this next year be better or worse? Only the Lord can see what 2024 might bring at this point. But one thing we can anticipate here in the United States is that if the Lord tarries, the presidential election will continue to be a major story throughout the remainder of the year. Based on the looming nature of this election year, and since our scripture passage today has a thing or two to say about corruption in the political life of ancient Israel, I thought it'd be interesting to kick things off this morning by taking a moment to consider what people think about the political process in America.
As such, I went to that trusty purveyor of truth, the internet. So it won't likely surprise many here this morning when I report that a large number of articles have been written over the number of scandals that rocked our country in 2023. I won't get into the details, but suffice to say that the political elite generated quite a number of them last year.
However, one article stood out for me as I researched this topic. It was an August 2023 article that summarized some University of Houston research on the impact of scandals in politics. The article is titled "Research Finds Scandals Have Less Impact on Politicians Than They Used To." Within the article, a University of Houston political science professor concludes that the polarization of today's political scene makes it easier for politicians to weather scandals that they may not have been able to endure in the not-too-distant past.
He also admits that this is a more recent trend in modern politics. He claims it began in the Clinton era and continues today. The problem is perhaps that it's further confounded by the number of reported scandals that are themselves scandalous fabrications. Regardless, this research tends to make one wonder if perhaps the only thing this country can agree upon in terms of politics is that there is corruption in politics.
Typically, for those of us who don't know any politicians firsthand, we've got to sift through a lot of dribble in order to identify the truths regarding which specific politicians are corrupt and how deep that corruption goes. However, I'm not advocating we should throw up our hands and refuse to participate in the voting process because it's hard to tell where truth resides.
No, as believers, we ought to be as gentle as doves and as shrewd as serpents in regard to this topic and many others. When you can't tell who is lying and who isn't between two politicians, perhaps your best bet is to go back to the basics—to take a look at the platforms upon which each politician purportedly stands.
Do they support the killing of unborn babies or a woman's right to choose? Do they stand firm behind Israel, or do they bend to the whims of global opinion? Do they uphold the rules that protect the property and well-being of the citizens of this country, or do they have an agenda that sows chaos? All of these are handy little metrics to use to assess the character and ethics of a potential candidate.
But there are also a few interesting details on the periphery of this topic that I believe are worth mentioning. For instance, a PE report from last year titled "Money, Power, and the Influence of Ordinary People in American Politics" illustrates that despite the excitement over the coming elections, most people believe special interests and lobbyists have way too much influence on the decisions made by Congress.
Additionally, a majority of the electorate can see that elections are typically won through the accumulation and expenditure of large sums of money, but they would prefer that we limit the amount of money we spend on politicians. Despite these criticisms of the political machine within our country, the report concludes that most Americans—that's approximately 57%—still believe voting can affect the future direction of our country.
So what does all this mean? I think some big takeaways here are that most people understand that leaders in the process of governance, in general, can be and are likely very flawed. But they dig their heels in behind their candidate of choice because they also intuitively understand that the leadership of a country is responsible for the direction that the country is heading due to the inherent nature of the power given to those in charge.
This isn't new news. The framers of our Constitution understood this very well. They understood that the key to creating a model of human governance that could secure and grant freedom for its people was in limiting and balancing power within the separate branches of government. Yet many of those founders were not fooled into thinking that this in and of itself would perpetually secure that freedom.
John Adams once famously said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." And you know, there are a thousand flavors of government, some inherently better than others, but all are subject to failure if the hearts of the people are drawn to wickedness. Adams' sentiment still holds true today, and sadly, many of us lament that we might be on the tail end of what he was referencing there.
So you ask, what does this have to do with the sermon message today? Well, I'm glad you asked because around 2760 years ago, during the ministry of the prophet Micah, there were some eerily similar political and cultural circumstances at play in the land of Israel. Both within the northern and the southern kingdoms, leadership was weak, the political institutions were mired in corruption, and the religious institutions were diluted by foreign influence and greed.
Any of this sound familiar? Don't get me wrong; there are, of course, some general principles that can apply to both ancient Israel and modern America, but we've got to be careful not to think that the fate of one applies to the other. At the time of Micah, Israel sat in a very special and unique position in the world. They still do, and I don't want to confuse that reality by creating too many implications between their judgment as a nation and ours.
What I do want to focus on is the hope offered up to an afflicted people on the precipice of conflict. Some of you guys out there listening right now may be like me. My wife will sometimes begin to describe a problem, and before she's done explaining, I've got a solution in mind. This typically doesn't go well because I haven't given her time to fully explain the situation. When I do, I often find she isn't looking for a solution to the problem I fixed.
So that being said, as I describe the problems we face today in this country, some of you might be tempted to think that the answer we need is a fix—that we need to repair or restore what America seems to have lost. One might begin searching for a silver bullet, an easy button. Well, not a bad idea, right? The problem with that approach is that in so doing, we risk the presupposition that the critical question confronting us this morning is, "How do we fix America?"
Unfortunately, that's not the question that I think we should be asking in light of the scripture passage we'll be studying. However, because I know some of you already have your Sunday school answer drawn up and ready to fire, how about this: America needs Jesus. Now, that's a solid response. It's not wrong, by the way. America does need Jesus; that is the answer.
However, it implies that Jesus is just waiting for enough people to get behind him so that he can work his magic. There are many well-meaning folks who think this way—many who think that we've got to somehow bring America to a place where God can then make her prominent again. Meanwhile, the country's trajectory is moving in the opposite direction. Younger generations are abandoning the faith at record rates. Moral relativism is morphing into moral irrelevance as our country's moral compass continues to drift further from its Judeo-Christian heritage.
And as Phil described last week, our culture is fundamentally changing and not necessarily in a positive direction. So while evangelism can and does offer salvation to individuals, and while it's a sacred duty for us as believers to evangelize to our friends and neighbors who are lost—something all Christians are called to do—should we rely on evangelism to "save America," to restore it to what it might have been at the time of its founding?
You see, I don't think that's how God says the end times are going to play out, and to put your hope in that is to perhaps set yourself up for disappointment. Let me let you in on a little secret: America needs Jesus. Yes, Jesus does not need America.
So if that's not the right question, and our country continues to slip towards the type of lawlessness we see prophesied in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1-5—the deterioration of the moral fabric of society that Paul saw coming in the last days—perhaps a better question to ask this morning is, "What is it about this God of the Bible that should make us trust him?"
The short answer here is he is a holy God who keeps his promises. But God has given us more than a simple answer. He's given us a book of testaments bearing witness to these attributes of holiness which set him apart and above all things. He balances this attribute of holiness with an attribute of love—love that prompts him to go through extremes to redeem his creation.
This morning, we're going to take a look at not only how a holy and righteous God planned and executed justice for rebellion and disobedience within a people and a nation he loved—a people which were set apart, different from all other nations and peoples that have ever existed—but we will also take a peek at the faithfulness of his love through the durability of his promises.
My hope is that we'll leave here encouraged by the knowledge that God has granted us, believers in Jesus, a promise as well—not a promise of national security in this present age, not a promise of continued affluence, but a promise of a good leader, a worthy King in his kingdom to come—a promise that we have been grafted into, a promise that we can look forward to until he returns.
Let's go to the Father in prayer.
Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that we're free to meet this morning to worship you, to praise you, to do that in a country that still has vestiges of that freedom available to all of us. Lord, we pray that that would continue. God, we're very thankful for what we have, and we acknowledge that this is a special country that allows us to do this.
Lord, my prayer this morning is that you would turn our focus to your word, that you would show us your truth, show us your holiness, Father, show us the promises and the plans that you have for us, and help us to leave here energized, ready to serve you, more confident in who you are as a Father to us. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Well, please open your Bibles to the Book of Micah. It's a tiny book of prophecy on the tail end of the Old Testament. It comes right after Jonah, if you're not familiar. But this week, we're going to be in Micah chapters one and two, and then for the next two weeks, we're going to stay in Micah.
So Micah chapter 1, verses 1-3 is where we're going to start this morning. Micah 1:1-3. I'll be reading from The New American Standard Bible version 1995.
Micah chapter 1, verses 1-3: "The word of the Lord which came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom; Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom. Hear, O peoples, all of you! Listen, O earth and all it contains, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming forth from his place; he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth."
Now I want you to turn over to the second chapter of Micah in verses 1 and 2. Micah 2, verses 1 and 2: "Woe to those who plant iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning's light, they carry it out because it is in their power to do it. They covet fields and seize them, and houses and take them; they defraud people of their homes; they rob them of their inheritance."
And then last, let's look at one other verse, Micah chapter 2, the last two verses of chapter 2, 2:12 and 13. Micah 2:12-13: "I will surely gather all of you, Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people. The one who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out; their King will pass through before them, the Lord at their head."
Folks, we see a lot about judgment in these first two chapters of Micah, but at the very end of chapter 2, we get a sneak peek into the future. What we are actually seeing in these first two chapters is a contrast between human and divine leadership.
When you leave here today, if there's one thing you take with you, I hope it is a deeper understanding of how God is holy and good and how he has proven we can trust his promises. But before we start, let's take a closer look at the time and setting of this little book of prophecy.
You see, the book of Micah is written by the prophet Micah, and his name meant "Who is like Yahweh?" Yahweh was the name that God gave himself when he gave his name to Moses. Micah was most likely a rural farmer who came to prominence as a prophet of God a little later than the prophet Isaiah. He lived as a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos.
So, he was from Moresheth Gath. If you look at the map, it's about 20 miles to the southwest of Jerusalem. One thing we can note is that if you look at the map, the next slide up shows a map of ancient Israel. There are kind of two nations there. You see, earlier when the verse was referring to Jacob, that's including both the north and the south kingdoms.
If you're not familiar, I'll give you a quick tour of what happened around 931 BC. There was a division; the north separated from the south. For approximately 200 years, the north and the south stayed separated. They were kind of frenemies, right? In around 721-722 BC, we had the Assyrians come down and wipe out the northern kingdom. So this is just before all that happened. This was when Micah was preaching—he's preaching just before that horrible event that wiped out the northern kingdom.
So that kind of gives you a little feel for where we're at here. His ministry occurred during large portions of the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. All three of these guys were kings of the southern kingdom of Judah, as we typically refer to it.
A lot of times, it can be kind of confusing when you're reading the Old Testament because the Bible refers to all of Israel as Israel, but when they divided into two separate kingdoms, the northern kingdom is called Israel, and the southern kingdom is called Judah. You just kind of have to go with the context of where you're at in the Old Testament.
The main themes of the book of Micah include God's judgment and redemption. Micah cuts like a double-edged sword, both chastising the ruling leaders of Judah and Israel for their corruption and injustice, especially relating to the land and its people, as well as encouraging individuals who do follow God with a promise of things to come.
It's been observed that Isaiah and Micah may have even been friends or close colleagues due to the fact that there are so many similarities in their writings. Whatever the case, the practicality of Micah is that he brings God's holiness down to the street level.
And that brings me to my first point this morning. If you look back at chapter one, you can see that God's judgment is promised. Look at the first seven verses of Micah. They reveal a holy God who does not tolerate the national sin of Israel. God is not only describing his holiness through the prophet; he is demonstrating that he is a just God and that his punishment for wickedness, for the idolatry of his chosen people, would be absolute.
In fact, take a look at verse four. He describes the extent to which that justice will be carried out. Notice how God is described as a cleansing fire or a raging flood that will eliminate the evil from the land. In other words, the mountains will melt under him, and the valley will split like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. Those are very poetic, very scary thoughts.
I'd like to highlight that one potential reason God might be seeming to target these people was because he called the Hebrew people to himself for a purpose, performed miracles for them, and set them on a very specific path—one that would make possible the ultimate redemption of all mankind. Yet the people of Micah's generation were self-destructing. They were unintentionally subverting God's plan for the redemption of the world.
God loves all people, and he abhors our sin. But if you wonder why he seems to take such a special exception to the national sin within the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, I believe it has something to do with the story of Jesus. God came into this world as a man over 700 years after Micah's time. Jesus was born a Jew. He lived and was raised to worship God in a Jewish temple. He was raised under the law of Moses and fully fulfilled that law through the duration of his life.
When he died on the cross, he died a perfect sacrifice. That's why he was raised from the dead, able to pay the full penalty of the sin of the world. Therefore, it's safe to say that God had a vested interest in the nation of Israel, and not just because he loved her, which he did, but also because he loved us.
I'll also note here that Micah describes what God would do to Samaria, the one-time capital of the northern kingdom. As I mentioned earlier, Micah was from the south, from Judah, but this was likely a very difficult message to deliver for him. Look at verse 6, how he states that the city of Samaria would become a heap of ruins, how it would be a place for planting a vineyard, how God would uncover her foundations.
I'd just like to mention that I searched the theological and secular literature for the current state of conditions at the site of the ancient city of Samaria, and I found some interesting details. Back several decades ago, the late J. Vernon McGee talked about how he visited that area, and you can see that area on the map behind me. The location of Samaria is highlighted. He visited that area and witnessed firsthand how portions of the foundations had rolled down and were piled up at the bottoms of ancient hills, exposed to the weather. He even mentioned a little vineyard growing in that desolate location. Nowadays, those ruins are under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and travel in that region has recently become much more dangerous.
Regardless, I think it's interesting to note that God's promise here was fulfilled to the T. So Micah drives the message of judgment home to the north in no uncertain terms—complete annihilation. Verse 7 shows us that not only had they turned from God, but that they had replaced him with a form of idolatry that prioritized sexual sin.
Next, Micah is going to turn his focus to the south, but before God gives the message to his countrymen, Micah is going to expose us to something quite extraordinary. He's going to reveal his anguish over what he's about to have to share. Could it be any more obvious that this prophet cares deeply about these people?
If you're still following along in your Bible, look at chapter 1:8. Yes, these guys are a people who are practicing evil, despicable things. They were worshiping Molech, some of them in the days of Ahaz. This was a false god to whom people offered small children to be burned in the hopes of their continued well-being and affluence. It was a horrible time. They were worthy of God's punishment, but Micah still has a heart that breaks for them. He's a compassionate messenger modeling a compassionate God.
Verse 8 talks about how he would wail and howl over the knowledge of what was in store for them, how he was going to strip naked. Uh-oh, what was that? That wasn't him claiming that he was going to streak naked in solidarity with the people. This was a common way to express grief in his culture—to remove the outer garments and to go barefoot in public.
Also, you know, there's this mention of the mourning of the ostrich. It's not a metaphor that many of us are familiar with, but I did some searching and found excerpts of what an ostrich sounds like during mating season. I'm not going to try to reenact that here for you this morning, but suffice it to say it's a deep, mournful, bellowing sound.
The bottom line here is that as Micah delivers this message against his brethren, we can see he's caring deeply about them. He cares deeply about their well-being. This biblical model shows us graciousness in demonstration—that's something that's in short supply these days.
You know, we can talk a lot about grace here at New Braun's Bible Church, but are we showing graciousness to the people that we're preaching grace to? As you go out, take that under consideration when you spread truth about God, his holiness, his justice, his love, and of course, his grace. Micah didn't sacrifice truth for graciousness, but in this little book that he wrote, he didn't give truth without exposing the graciousness of his heart.
Well, finally, we move on, and I want to draw everyone's attention to how Micah relates God's punishment to the south. Notice in verse 9 that Micah says her wound is incurable. I suspect he might be talking about what we see Paul describing in Romans chapter 1. Sometimes a group of people can become so evil, so consumed with wickedness, that God just gives them over to their sin.
Jerusalem was to be spared, and though it doesn't mention here why, this is largely due to the leadership of King Hezekiah, the last of the three southern kings that I mentioned were around during Micah's prophetic ministry. You see, King Hezekiah submitted himself to God, and we have this account in the biblical record in 2 Kings, verses 18 and 19. You don't have to go there now, but those chapters tell us that the Assyrian army, under a guy named Sennacherib, destroyed the northern kingdom and took out most of the major cities of the southern kingdom before God stepped in himself and intervened on behalf of Israel, stopping them at the gates of Jerusalem.
He did that by killing 185,000 men in one night. Yet Micah had a message for those surrounding towns—towns that would be destroyed within a few short years of this prophecy, towns that were the conduits through which much of the idolatry and wickedness had spread to infect the nation.
This messaging was a bit tongue-in-cheek to our ears, but it had a very specific intention. If you take the literal translations of the names of the cities he describes in verses 10-15, you have phrases like "Tell it not in Gath," since the Hebrew word for Gath in Hebrew sounds like the word for "tell." You see what I'm saying? Or "In the house of dust, roll yourself in dust" for Beth-leaf. Or even "Go on your way, inhabitant of Beauty Town, in shameful nakedness" for Shafir—that was the name for beauty.
You get the picture. These places thought a lot of themselves, but Micah was showing them just how esteemed they were to a God who was looking down at their sinfulness. Also, take a look at that map. Look at the locations of all of these 11 cities that are specifically called out at the end of chapter 1. You see how their proximity resides along the border of a certain nation—the Philistine nation. I think that's no coincidence. I think the Philistines were a wicked people, and they were spreading a lot of this idolatry into Israel so that these cities were kind of the gateways for a lot of that.
The main point here is that sin will always be judged. God's timeline is different than ours. He moves in history based upon his plans and purposes, and though it seems like God is sometimes slow to judge, when he does move, his judgment is thorough. Micah was writing to these cities to warn them of what was to come. Though he didn't call for repentance in the text, the offer is always there. Like Nineveh, he could have given them the consequences of their sin, and they could have turned from that sin, and perhaps God would have relented.
But I also think God was using Micah to warn these God-fearing folks that were still out there—his remnant—so that they could prepare themselves for what was to come. You know, Dr. Ken Wilson, he's a professor at Grace School of Theology, wrote in his book "Mandate to Vote" that God will punish sin. God has a holy wrath that prohibits him from ignoring or overlooking sin. He's a God of judgment as well as a God of amazing grace and forgiveness.
This is an important concept to remember. We need to remember that he's not just a God of justice and holiness; he's also a God of love. Only he can hold those three characteristics equally and in perfect balance. In this church age, we don't have to wonder whether this country or that country will receive God's judgment and when. Psalms 110:6 warns us that someday he will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
However, in the meantime, it's prudent to understand that if God's chosen people can undergo such full judgment, any nation can undergo temporal judgment due to the flawed governance of its leaders and the collective sin of its people. In fact, this biblical principle is throughout the text of scripture. You don't have to turn there, but let's skip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 6, and I want to look at verse 11. Paul is reminding the Church of Corinth of the reasons that we have the documentation of Israel's failures.
In verse 6, it says, "Now these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things." He goes on to give a list of some of the evil things that they were craving, and he's talking about the Jewish people as they made their way towards the promised land. But he returns to that same topic in verse 11 when he says, "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come."
You know, often throughout modern history, even believers have been forced to suffer along with everyone else when an empire is toppled or a country crumbles. Just remember that this isn't God's ultimate desire for any nation of people. He has a heart like Micah's—bigger even. He loves all people. He would prefer to spare people from the pain that their rebellion against him would cost them.
But as Phil reminded us last week in Galatians 6:7, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. So within the first chapter of Micah, we see the consequences of sin. Yet it isn't until we get into the second chapter that we understand why Micah is beginning to describe the judgment behind that sin—the things that were happening that caused that judgment to come about.
We know a little bit about the idolatry he references in the first chapter, but what was going on on the day-to-day ground level of things? Well, that brings us to our second point: man's corruption is exposed—a glimpse into true oppression.
You see, within the majority of chapter 2, Micah describes the types of transgressions that were being committed by the leadership of his country there in Judah. He begins by describing these leaders as evil schemers. What is the evil Micah specifically mentions they are constantly hatching up? Whether they're depriving people of their God-given land and property and lying about what God wanted the people to do instead of telling them the truth.
Yeah, I personally think there's a reason why Micah zeroes in on the issue of private property and the corruption that led to the theft of people's land. Sure, they were breaking God's 10th commandment—coveting—and God's 8th commandment—stealing. But the fact that they were robbing their neighbors of their land was serious business in ancient Israel, and it was unique to Israel.
In fact, it was explicitly forbidden in Leviticus 25. This is the reason we call this part of the world the Holy Land. The land was bequeathed by God to his people, and his intention was that ownership was to stay within the respective families of the sons of Israel per his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was his land, and it was holy, set apart from the world by him, and the people to whom he had given it to were to be holy, set apart as well.
You see, the leaders and the wealthy of the land were directly subverting God's holiness when they were doing what they were doing to the poor and the helpless of his land. Additionally, they were colluding with their religious leaders to turn a blind eye to these actions. The false prophets were claiming that there was no judgment coming; they were confusing the people in opposition against what God's true prophets—guys like Isaiah and Micah—were preaching to them.
Yeah, as a kid, I always wondered why were the Jewish people constantly making the same mistakes over and over again? Why didn't they just listen to all the prophets that God sent? Time and time again, they would go off the rails in a different direction. But when you study this section of scripture, you begin to have a better understanding of the complexities of Micah's day.
Yeah, they were wrong for what they were doing, but you see that there was a lot of background noise on the ground level. There were a lot of voices claiming to advocate on God's behalf. Jeremiah confronts this problem as well when he says that the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, then that prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent. That's Jeremiah 28:9.
And I think what that's saying is, "Hey, you know a real prophet if what he says comes true, right?" So look down in verse 11. I like the New Living Translation here. Micah, speaking to the common man, says, "Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you, 'I'll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol.' That's just the kind of prophet you would like."
Yeah, I think this demonstrates that for most folks of that time, their priority above all else was happiness. They were committed to the sensual, and perhaps many of us can relate to this from times in our own lives. But the fact is that they were absorbed and consumed with the pleasures of the flesh to the point where they would ignore the truth that was hard to hear in preference for lies that were palatable to their lifestyle.
It was a matter of priority. They were prioritizing those things that they wanted to indulge in over the things that they needed to hear. Going back to the topic of corruption today, the woke culture's worldview, sometimes described as critical theory, proclaims that people can be classified and characterized within groups—some of which are oppressors and others which are known as the oppressed.
These categories that they divide people into generally fall out under the constructs of race, gender, or sexual identity. If you exist within a category that is labeled as an oppressor, conventional wisdom says that this is your identity. You can't change it; you're now an oppressor person. There's generally nothing you can do to atone for the privilege you possess within that category.
But if you're labeled in the category of the oppressed, well then, nothing you can do will make you as inherently guilty as someone in the oppressor category. Yeah, if you want to get a feel for the absurdity of this philosophy, just look at what happened on October 7th of last year when a terrorist attacked and butchered over 1,200 innocent men, women, and children in Israel.
Shortly after the attack, there were some people that were such fierce advocates of this worldview that they believed that because Hamas is an oppressed people group and because Israel is a western colonizing country full of oppressors, those barbaric acts of terror could be equivocated or excused. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One major problem modern-day wokeism fails to address is that one person can fill the role of the oppressed one day while shifting into the role of the oppressor the next. It's not about a person's classification; it's about an individual's actions.
I believe Micah can help us to see what true acts of oppression look like and what it really looks like when someone is being oppressed. You see, in Micah's day, both parties in that instance were countrymen. They were people of the same common ancestry. It would have been very difficult for leaders of that day and age to play identity politics. There was one identity present, and one only—the Hebrew people.
These were people that were chosen of God, and they had a common ancestral heritage. But God eventually gave them up to the consequences of their sin because of a series of individual decisions by the rulers in rebellion against him. You see how that goes? The roles of the oppressor and of those who would be the oppressed were conditional based on the actions of certain individuals.
Furthermore, Proverbs 22:22 and 23 contains wisdom that might be directly applicable to this. It says, "Don't rob the poor just because you can or exploit the needy in court, for the Lord is their defender. He will ruin anyone who ruins them." Like Proverbs, this is kind of a rule of thumb, but it should drive fear into the hearts of anyone who would seek to oppress those whom they can.
At the same time, it should give comfort to those who are on the receiving end of an oppressor. The Bible does not say that God will eliminate oppression in this life—just the opposite. In fact, in this life, you will have troubles. But take heart; I have overcome this world, right? So we can rest in the knowledge that he will be with us in the midst of those troubles, no matter what.
So what do we learn from this section? Well, we see a true picture of man's inhumanity to man. We see the role of an oppressor is a choice—one which falls short of God's standard of holiness. However, true oppression is found within the actions of an individual with the power to act, not within some subjectively designated class. We ignore this truth at our own peril.
Furthermore, Micah demonstrates that you have no excuse if you allow yourself to be led astray by false teachers. For those of us who are believers, we are held to an even higher standard. As a believer in Jesus, you are to compare what is taught by what God's word has to say about a subject. Remember the Bereans in Acts 17:11? Paul says they were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica because they examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was telling them was true.
And I want to move on to my third point this morning, and it's that God's faithfulness is revealed. God's future promise for divine leadership is affirmed. Note here how abrupt the text seems to change from where you're looking at his words in Micah 2:11 down to verse 12. Micah just finished describing God's judgment against Israel. He gave examples of the depravity of her leadership and the fickle nature of the people.
So these guys are utterly without excuse. He's painting a very dark picture, and God has a way of using this. He uses the reality of that day to convey a seemingly hopeless situation. You know, next week we're going to get even more detail into the darkness of what was going on in that day when we start to study chapter 3.
But at the end of chapter 2, after judgment is promised and the sins of the nation are laid bare, God shows a different aspect of his holiness. He demonstrates his faithfulness. He will remember his people by gathering them together and providing a worthy King.
Guys, his people that he's talking about here are the Jewish people. That hasn't changed. As believers, we're grafted into this promise, I think. But he made a promise to Abraham way back in Genesis 12 that he would bless him, that he would multiply him, and that he would give him land. God is remembering that promise in the first two chapters of Micah. That's how God is faithful. He's bringing it to bear for a remnant that's going to be left.
But we see this in the metaphor of bringing Israel together again like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture. Yeah, I hear the first part of that, and I immediately think of modern cell barns for livestock. If you've ever been to an auction, you can know this is kind of a distasteful scene. Sometimes you have a lot of pinned-up animals making a lot of noise. The smell's not great. The same with the guys in the stands; you're all bunched up together. Again, the smell might not be great.
But needless to say, it can be a distasteful picture. That's not what he's painting here. God's providing a positive description in this. He's describing a land that's going to be brimming with people, able to sustain a large population—a wealthy, very productive place.
This is an amazing piece of prophecy for us today, especially though I don't believe this prophecy of gathering Israel together has been completed yet. I think there are still Jewish people that are going to be gathered into the land of Israel. I believe it is in the process of being fulfilled in this day and age.
You see, God is not done with Israel. He has a plan to restore her completely and to fulfill all of his promises to her. But he's offering something more here—a further blessing, something that stands in stark contrast against the corrupt leadership of the men of Micah's day. He offers the promise of a worthy King who will lead them—someone who will be the breaker before them.
That's just meaning that someone who's going to break them out of the gates of the enemy cities—someone who will lead them from the front, not from the back. Then look at the last line of verse 13. Here's an invaluable revelation regarding who this King will be. Micah says, "The king will pass before them with the Lord at their head."
This mystery king will be the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of you will recall back in 2011, President Obama decided to enact a foreign policy position that balanced the reduction in American military strength with greater reliance on the military strength of our allies. This was first tested in Libya, where we joined forces with British and French armies to take out Muammar Gaddafi, the authoritarian leader of that country.
One of Obama's advisers at the time infamously remarked that their strategy in Libya was one of leading from behind. This policy description became a hallmark of that presidency and has drawn some criticism in the years since due to the results that contributed in places like Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Ukraine.
But verse 13 discusses a different foreign policy position—one that rests upon the king's ability to lead from the front. And guys, I'm not picking on Obama. Any king, any ruler in the world, you know, there's nobody that truly leads from the front the way this verse is talking about.
I want to just tell you too that Jesus, when he does this, he's not only modeling leadership, but he's going to be fighting the necessary battles that need to be fought to remove the obstacles for his people. This is the type of King we can expect to find in Jesus at his second coming.
Now, I want to take a moment to point out one problem I have with some modern-day teachers who attempt to compare the moral depravities of the northern and southern kingdoms in Micah's day with the social injustices of America today. And that's the fact that Micah seemed to acknowledge that those leaders had failed and would likely continue to fail.
He wasn't breathlessly attempting to correct their actions in order to retain some vestige of a Jewish state. No, with a very heavy heart, he was relaying God's judgment on what all humanity can see was a failed government system. He was juxtaposing that man-made system to the one of a righteous system with a coming King who would rule justly.
His Messianic prophecy validated that one would be coming who could be trusted to shepherd God's flock. So not only do we have a clear distinction between flawed human leadership and true divine leadership, but at the end of chapter 2, we have a promise of a future that is still yet to come.
Just think about this: everything else that was predicted to happen in the first two chapters of Micah has come to pass just the way God promised—precisely the way God promised. If that happened just like he promised it would happen, don't you think you can take his promise of a future kingdom to the bank as well?
In conclusion, that whoever cross he took your place, he paid the price for your sin and for mine. That's how he has earned the title King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He made a way for the brokenness of man to have an eternal relationship with a holy God. The payment for eternal life has been made. You just need to trust in him to receive that free gift, and salvation is free for any who place their trust in Jesus.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You can do it where you sit right now. There's no secret ritual, a special handshake. God knows your heart, and he hears you when you call out to him in faith. Just put your trust in Jesus, the Son of God, and you will be saved.
Back to the story: you know he first came as a sacrificial lamb, and as I mentioned earlier, he's coming back as a conquering King. If you're listening this morning and you're already a believer, but you're worried about what the future may hold for us in 2024 and beyond, I hope you're encouraged today by this little book of prophecy.
Despite the gravity of the judgment that came to the people of Micah's day, we can look back and see that everything God promised would happen to the northern and southern kingdoms did. Within those first two chapters of the book, they were judged for their sin. God judges sin, and there will always be a reckoning for sin.
But to those who listen to the words of the prophet Micah and believe them, for them there was a silver lining on the horizon—a promise that could be trusted from a God who was worthy of that trust. No matter how far our country may slide off the rails in terms of moral depravity in the near term or in the distant future, our hope does not reside within the temporal but within the eternal.
That King that Micah told us about, he'll be coming back someday—hopefully someday soon—and he is a worthy King, a Good Shepherd, an eternal God. And in that day, he will make all things right.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the time that we had this morning. I pray that you would just bless it and encourage us—encourage everyone here, Lord—and that you would help us to understand your hope, the hope that we have in you. In Jesus' name.
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on Jan 10, 2024
