Today I continue my teaching on the Minor Prophets with Micah. He is the last great prophet of the 8th century, the century which gave us Amos and Hosea and Isaiah. His father’s name is not recorded leaving some to think he was of low birth, from a peasant family. He was from a small village in the lowlands between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean called Moresheth. This village was a fertile piece of land, with vineyards and olive orchards, and had been under constant threat from the Philistines who were nearby. Micah understood the ramifications in the countryside of decisions made by the kings in the capital.
Micah was a prophet sent to his own people, the people of the southern kingdom of Judah. Judah had gone through the disastrous reign of Ahaz, who was a petty vassal to the Assyrians, who desecrated the Temple of God in Jerusalem, who had engaged in child sacrifice to appease his Assyrian masters. Micah was prophesying in the reign of Ahaz’s son, Hezekiah, who was a good man, but still wondered about an alliance with the Assyrians or the Egyptians. Micah had witnessed the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722, and did not wish to see the same things in the south. So he left his little village for the city, to speak for his people, to speak for those close to the land.
The book of Micah contains many important passages. It is in Micah that the prophecy is made that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. It is in Micah that we find the famous statement, “What does the Lord require of you, to seek justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” But basically throughout Micah you get the same sense as in most of the prophets. Micah has a great concern about the moral lives of the people. And this becomes quite clear as you read through the book.
But Micah had a basically pessimistic spirit about him. That becomes most clear as we read the beginning of chapter seven. As in most prophets, and even in the apostle Paul, there is a list of the sins of the people. There is a great vision of darkness in the land, a great sense that the country is without any sense of where it is going morally. “What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave. The godly have been swept from the land; not one upright man remains. All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net” (Micah 7:1-2). Micah has grasped the human condition without God. God comes to look for those that please him, and finds none. It is reminiscent of the Greek philosopher Diogenes who walked the streets with a lantern looking for an honest man. Micah shows a great distrust for his fellow men and women, first of all on this very basic level.
But Micah does not remain simply at a basic description. He details the sins of his people. He details the selfishness that leads to oppression. He details the religious failures of prophets and priests. He details the violence that had become all too common in his world. Families in disarray, communities in trouble, institutions that were supposed to hold the nation together simply flying apart. Nothing was as it should be. Nothing was as God had meant it to be. Judges cannot be trusted. Neighbours should not be trusted. Do not confide in friends or even in your wife. Sons are against fathers, daughters against mothers. If there is no longer any respect for earthly authority, then how can there be respect for divine authority?
Such pessimism is a contrast to the way his society views itself. Reading throughout Micah you get the sense that the land of Judah sees itself on the right path. That the culture of the time sees itself moving forward in lines of great progress. So Micah had to face enemies, enemies who criticized him for his preaching. In Micah 2:6, we see a direct confrontation, “ ‘Do not preach,’ thus they preach, ‘one should not preach of such things.’ ” (Micah 2:6). Micah’s message went against the grain. Micah’s message was one that too difficult to hear.
Micah knows who the perfect preacher for his age was. “If someone were to go about uttering empty falsehoods, saying, ‘I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,’ such a one would be the preacher for this people.” (Micah 2:11). That is the kind of preaching people would flock to. Oh yes do not worry about the future. I promise you goodness and light, and wine, beer, strong drink, whatever you fancy in this world that will be yours.
In our own day there continues to be a call that some things are better left not preached about. There are many who will call from their places “DO NOT PREACH” about this or that. Do not preach about politics, because God does not belong there. Do not preach about money, because the word of God has nothing to say about what I do with my wallet. Do not preach about sexual morality, because nobody listens anymore to such out-dated ideas. Do not preach about the sanctity of marriage. Do not preach about the power of evil, or the devil or the fires of hell, because who wants a scary God. Do not preach. Do not preach. Just tell us a cute little story, and then we will go home, saying nice sermon at the door.
These days we seek the word of one who will soothe our pain, but without hardship. We seek the words of one will not cause us offense. We seek one who will tell us everything is all right, and nothing will go wrong as long as you keep living the life you live. We seek a modern prophet-guru, to come to us across the computer the TV or on a written page. One who does not know us too well, who we can tell whatever we want, who we can turn off when it gets too hard, who can be replaced by any number of other modern prophets on TV, bookstores or on computers.
So what is the preacher left with. A safe God to talk about, a God that won’t offend anybody, a God who will save his people, without any judgement or conversion or repentance. The preacher is left with a watered down semi-Christian message about a sentimental God of love. But there is one problem with that. The God who we are told to preach about is the God of this world, not the God of the Bible.
Micah answered his critics in the midst of his pessimistic discourse in chapter seven. They may see their lives as rolling along well, but Micah has another answer. “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord , I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7) Even as he watched his world disintegrate, he looked in hope for the coming of his God. Some may have saw fit to criticize Micah. Just another prophet looking in vain to the skies for a God who will not come. Just another prophet thinking that he will Have God as his Savior. Isn’t it just the same as the poor sinners Micah condemns, just a false hope, a terrible lie?
But as you read on in Micah’s chapter seven, you begin to realize that the God Micah waits for, the God who is Micah’s hope for salvation, is a very different God indeed. Micah does not look to his God with rose-colored glasses. He does not look for the sentimental God of success and prosperity that his countrymen looked for. Micah does not imagine that he is deserving of any and all of the hope that will come his way. For he writes, “Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord ’s wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.” (Micah 7:9). There is recognition of sin. Recognition by Micah that his sins will not go unpunished. Recognition that sin brings the wrath of God. The law of the Lord cannot be abrogated or dispensed with as if in some sort of vacuum. It brings, it necessarily brings, a response. And Micah accepts the response of God to his sin, “Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord ’s wrath...”
Micah’s recognition that he had sinned was a stark contrast to that of his countrymen. And because of this, the God who he preached and believed in and hoped in was also a stark contrast. Micah looked forward and his pessimistic human eyes could only see an ever-increasing darkness. But his human eyes looked at what God was going to do. “He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.” And then the enemies of God, the enemies of God’s word, the enemies of Micah the prophet, they would see the errors of their ways. They would see the power of God. “Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame, she who said to me, ‘Where is the Lord your God?’ My eyes will see her downfall; even now she will be trampled underfoot like mire in the streets.” (Micah 7:10). The proud will be brought down. The sinner will be defeated.
Micah noticed the restoration of his people and proclaimed it in hope. He knew that there would be a remnant of his countrymen restored to the good graces of God. He knew that there would be new cities built, new prophets heard, a new society built along the lines of God’s eternal law. And that society would be a beacon to the world, which will drive down the mighty before it, which will not succumb to violence or selfishness or oppression.
Then comes a doxology which is a tremendous vision of what the Lord will do for his people. “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:18-19). These few verses are an incredible hymn of praise dedicated to God and his mercy. There is no equivalent to what God has done for his people. There is no equivalent to the promises which God has made to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to all his people through the ages. Who is a God like you? Micah asks. Pardoning sin, forgiving transgression, delighting to show mercy.
And it is here in this part of Micah that I begin to see the God who has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. For if that is how God is described, pardoning sin, forgiving transgression, delighting to show mercy, then that is God revealed in Jesus Christ. He who promised a kingdom of God. He who showed a thief great compassion. He who welcomed sinners to his table. He who cried from his cross, “Father forgive them...” God’s promise made certain to us in Jesus Christ. As we saw today in the reading from Hebrews, “We have this hope a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered...” (Hebrews 6:19-20).
As a people we are not left to wallow in pessimism. We cannot fool ourselves. WE are sinners. WE are sinners against God, against his majesty, his power, his authority, in violation of his holy law. But we have this hope, Jesus has entered into the very presence of God, the sacrifice on our behalf. So that the mercy and compassion which God shows to his son in the resurrection may now be given to us. The sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
To often we are caught up in saying saved but... We have a sense that our salvation is somewhat in the balance. Saved but I still sin. Saved but the power of evil still rules. Saved but I don’t really feel it. Saved but why still go to church. God has saved, and God has answered the questions about salvation. God has answered the problem of sin, not by trivializing it, not by excusing it, but by judging us for it. As Micah put it, because I have sinned I will bear the Lord’s wrath. But now that wrath, that judgement comes to us filtered by the work of Jesus Christ. As Hebrews puts it, “we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation.” There are better things. Our pessimism is unwarranted. Our questions are answered. We are confident of things that accompany salvation.
We need a dose of Micah’s humility in our world today. We need a blatant recognition that our sins stand under the wrath of God, even under a wrath tempered by the cross. But also we need to look past the present darkness, our souls anchored in the promises of God, promises of righteousness, promises of light that will never fade, life that will never die, and a Saviour that always delights in mercy. Take that with you today, brothers and sisters, and let it be your life’s work, as it was Micah’s, and so I hope will be mine.
