“‘Do not preach’—thus they preach—
‘one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.’
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?
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.
The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.
Arise and go,
for this is no place to rest,
because of uncleanness that destroys
with a grievous destruction.
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!” [1]
“You could pastor any of our largest churches, if you’d just soften your message.” The speaker was the Executive Secretary of a major denomination. I responded that my message was the message that the Living God had given in His Word. This executive was not the first denominational leader to make such a comment. On another occasion, a denominational leader from a different group volunteered that he was thinking of recommending me to a large church that was without pastoral leadership before pausing suddenly and saying, “On second thought, you don’t respect money.” I took the reconsideration of his initial thought as a compliment of my character.
Micah, the stern, unflinching prophet from Moresheth, excoriated the professed people of God. They had it coming, and God’s spokesman didn’t mince words. Oh, my, did he ever speak plainly; he condemned the people of God for their determination to embrace wickedness before launching into a warning of pending judgement for the sinful behaviour they continually embraced. His words were not well received by those who heard him, though he faithfully delivered the words of the Living God to his generation. The people pushed back against the message he delivered, telling him that he should not preach as he did because they found the subject matter disagreeable. At this, the unflinching prophet told them the sort of preacher they obviously wanted and deserved.
The harsh words Micah penned could well be delivered to far too many churches throughout the Zion of our Lord in this day. The prophet’s words could be spoken of many who claim to be spiritual in this day, though they are unwilling to heed the Word of the Lord. It is a tragic truth that among the clergy of this day, a distressing number—consciously or unconsciously—appear to be committed to doing the work of the evil one. There seem always to be preachers willing to ignore righteousness and promote wickedness. Perhaps they do not perform their nefarious work flagrantly, but as surely as smoke rises from the fire they nevertheless do promote wickedness.
If the pay is sufficiently attractive, the preacher will say whatever is desired by his audience. Should he be tasked with pronouncing a blessing for the newest casino, those requesting his services need only to tell him where to appear and the amount of the honorarium offered. Perhaps he is requested to bless the union of a man and woman who are engaged in a dishonourable affair, having only deserted their previous spouse and the children born of that union. Make the stipend to perform the nuptials worth the preacher’s time and he will provide a vigorous defence of their union. He can affirm those seated in the pew, make sure that the dead are in Heaven, while condemning those old-fashioned souls who insist on speaking against the evils marking our sinful character. His religious duties are always on sale to the one willing to pay the fee requested. His morals are malleable, being bent and twisted to meet the requirement of the moment. And no one will be made to feel uncomfortable when he speaks.
Too often the True and Living God is casually dismissed with demeaning names and nonchalant attitudes designed to dismiss Him as powerless and unimportant. Nevertheless, those who know the True and Living God will know that God is neither “the man upstairs,” neither may we imagine Him to be some “kindly old grandfather” who indulges each of us even though we treat Him with disdain, or worse still, ignore Him all together. Our God is the True and Living God Who gives each of us our being. It is our God Who holds our times in His hands; He judges wickedness, and He gives life. As the Apostle to the Gentiles would state before a pagan audience centuries after Micah wrote, “[God] now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” [ACTS 17:30-31].
The faithful proclamation of God’s divine warnings against sin, and His gracious call to repentance have never gone out of style—they just hit us with incredible force, exposing us for who we really are. The man occupying the sacred desk will be challenged each time he seeks to speak for God: will he speak the truth in love, or will he tell his audience what they want to hear? If the preacher speaks the words given by the Spirit of the Lord, there will always be some who are wounded and who are resentful at the wounding. Some, however, who are wounded will seek the Balm of Gilead to heal their sin sick soul. It is these dear souls whom the man of God seeks, for they are the ones drawn by God Himself to the peace He alone can give.
DIVINE JUDGEMENT ON PREACHERS OF WICKEDNESS — The verses preceding our text reveal God’s assessment of the religious and political leaders of that ancient society, and His assessment is not attractive. God sent His prophet to pronounce divine judgement, pointedly exposing the actions they were performing which were even now bringing divine judgement. God made sure everyone knew what these wicked people were doing.
“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.
They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
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.
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.’
Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot
in the assembly of the LORD.
[MICAH 2:1-6]
It is a terrifying to think that there are preachers who will suffer the wrath of God. The fate of those preachers standing in the shadow of divine wrath should give all pause. God’s righteous judgement will not be poured out because these wicked preachers were momentarily distracted from the great task every preacher is assigned by the Living God; His holy wrath will fall on these presuming to speak for Him because they were in actuality preachers of wickedness. They have distorted the Word of the Living God, saying just what they were hired to say rather than speaking the truth in love. How terrifying it will be to have laboured throughout the days of one’s life, imagining that they were enjoying the smile of Heaven when all along they were leading souls astray and away from sweet communion with God. It is not my place to pronounce judgement on others, and especially upon those who stand behind the sacred desk. However, the Lord God says that He has devised disaster against anyone who leads His people astray. And I do not want to guess at what is meant by the disaster He has devised.
I used the term “preachers of wickedness” in introducing this point in the message. The tragic truth is that the preacher that fails to point his listeners to the True and Living God is evil. The man, or in far too many instances in this day, the woman, who claims to speak for God, and while so claiming declares a message that is false and deviant, is preaching wickedness. To fail to present the truth, masking that truth behind a verbal wall, is evil and wicked. Have we never heard the warning given by James? “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” [JAMES 4:17]. It is a sorrowful truth that many who stand behind the sacred desk are guilty of serving as “preachers of wickedness.”
Perhaps someone wishes to argue that Micah’s warning against those who trim the message of God to fit the expectation of the audience is a “one off.” However, anyone who has even a passing familiarity with God’s Word as delivered by the prophets will have read repeated warnings delivered against those who declare lies in God’s Name. As one example, recall the words Jeremiah delivered as he warned against lying preachers, even naming the popular preachers against whom he inveighed.
Jeremiah warned, “Hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall strike them down before your eyes. Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the LORD’” [JEREMIAH 29:20-23].
Well, it would be impossible for anyone to misunderstand what Jeremiah meant. The lying preachers would themselves be delivered into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. They would suffer the ignominious death of execution by the Babylonians. They wouldn’t die honourably while defending their nation, they would be publicly executed. The preachers who declared peace would die a violent, gruesome death.
And what is especially traumatic for those who listened to the false messengers is that divine judgement neither put a halt to the lying preachers nor stemmed the desire of the people to listen to the lies. Feasting on lies only creates a desire for more of the rotted stories that are trotted out as messages from a Holy God. After Jeremiah’s prophetic warning, Israel did go into captivity, and only a few of the poorest people were left in the land, according to what is written. Jeremiah informs readers, “Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried into exile to Babylon the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the people who remained. Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, left in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time” [JEREMIAH 39:9-10].
One would think that such harsh judgement would turn people from seeking after lying messengers, but the evidence points to the opposite result. Ezekiel was ministering among the exiles, and he was still compelled to deal with lying preachers. At one point, Ezekiel writes, “The word of the LORD came to me: ‘Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, who are prophesying, and say to those who prophesy from their own hearts: “Hear the word of the LORD!” Thus says the Lord GOD, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the LORD. They have seen false visions and lying divinations. They say, “Declares the LORD,’ when the LORD has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word. Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, “Declares the LORD,’ although I have not spoken”’ [EZEKIEL 13:1-7]? Imagine! Experiencing divine judgement and still encouraging false prophets to deliver lies! And the problem would only grow worse as the exile was extended.
Later, Ezekiel would bring a sorrowful message from the LORD, saying, “The word of the LORD came to me: ‘Son of man, say to her, You are a land that is not cleansed or rained upon in the day of indignation. The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord GOD,” when the LORD has not spoken. The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice. And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have returned their way upon their heads, declares the Lord GOD’” [EZEKIEL 22:23-31].
We still have the false preachers among the churches in this day. Here is the thing that should horrify the righteous when speaking of the preachers of wickedness—these lying messengers will continue to proliferate among the presumed spokesmen of God until the last days when the faithful are at last raptured! And they will be effective in sowing confusion among those who claim to desire to know the will of the Lord!
Listen to the Apostle’s warning delivered in his second letter to the congregation met in Thessalonica. “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” [2 THESSALONIANS 2:1-2]. Imagine! Preachers who deny that Christ will come, and that His coming will be so silent that everyone will have missed it! However, isn’t that precisely what we witness from far too many pulpits? One preacher I knew dismissed the return of our Saviour by asserting that his eschatology was “pan-millennial;” he thought it would all pan out in the end. While that is a cutesy thing to say, it does not build strong Christians living in the light of Christ’s return. Would you be surprised when I tell you that he managed to grow the church he then pastored from around a hundred people to zero in a very few years.
SOCIETAL REACTIONS TO DIVINE JUDGEMENT —
“‘Do not preach’—thus they preach—
‘one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.’”
[MICAH 2:6]
“Don’t tell us negative things. Tell us pleasant things.” Perhaps you are aware that the court prophet Isaiah was a contemporary of Micah. I raise this issue because the Lord sent a similar message to the people through Isaiah, who was commanded:
“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
as a witness forever.
For they are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children unwilling to hear
the instruction of the LORD;
who say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’
and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,
leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’”
[ISAIAH 30:8-11]
It is as if God is doing everything possible to get the people to listen, to smarten up! And, of course, we know that the people did not listen to the LORD or to His prophets.
I have served among the churches of our Lord for more than half a century, ministering throughout the United States and Canada. During my ministry, I have been blessed by the presence and support of some choice saints of God. For more than forty years, I have been occupied with starting or restarting churches throughout British Columbia and Alberta. What I have witnessed among congregations seeking a restart is a strain of Christendom that had grown complacent. A number of those who remained among those congregations were not eager to disturb the status quo. Status quo, that’s one of those Latin terms that should be translated “Dead, but not yet buried.”
The condition I encountered among churches in need of renewal was too often reminiscent of the condition diagnosed by Zephaniah when he spoke on behalf of the Lord God.
“I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
and I will punish the men
who are complacent,
those who say in their hearts,
‘The LORD will not do good,
nor will he do ill.’”
[ZEPHANIAH 1:12]
The LORD is not enthusiastic about complacency in His people. He expects that they will be busy at the work He prescribes; He anticipates that they will be engaged in the great battle for the souls of mankind. This is precisely the rational behind Peter’s admonition, “Set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you” [1 PETER 3:15-16 NET BIBLE].
In Deborah’s song, recorded in the Book of Judges, she pronounces an enigmatic curse. She gives voice to a pronouncement made by a mysterious personage whom she identifies as “the angel or the LORD.” Throughout the pages of the Old Covenant, we meet this personage identified as “the angel or the LORD.” As Deborah prophesied, she quoted a stern message that had been pronounced by “the angel or the LORD.”
“‘Call judgment down on Meroz,’ says the LORD’s angelic messenger;
‘Be sure to call judgment down on those who live there,
because they did not come to help in the LORD’s battle,
to help in the LORD’s battle against the warriors.’”
[JUDGES 5:23 NET BIBLE]
Before seeking out the identity of this mysterious being who speaks with a divine assurance and with an aura of power distinguishing him from mere mortals, let’s establish the setting of all that had taken place. This information will permit us to discover what would cause this powerful person to deliver such a frightful proclamation of evil to be visited upon one of the communities situated among the people of God. The people of Israel had sinned, doing evil in the sight of the LORD. Therefore, God had delivered His people into the hand of the Canaanites. What had happened describes a sad but familiar cycle of sin, judgement, repentance, and divine deliverance. It is the same cycle that churches and individual Christians experience to this day. God’s people are blessed until they begin to accept that His blessing is their due. Then, they forget Him Who richly gives them all things and begin to exult in their own supposed prowess. God delivers them into the hand of the wicked until they repent and seek His face, at which time the Lord delivers His people and again blesses them.
The Great Lawgiver had warned years before Deborah prophesied, “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God. And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
“And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see” [DEUTERONOMY 28:58-67].
Our God is gracious, and He promises His people, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” [2 CHRONICLES 7:13-14]. Recognition that we stubbornly pursue our desires rather than seeking God’s glory is necessary before we repent and witness His blessings again. God has given a promise that is applicable to the people of God to this day. When His people turn from the maddened pursuit of their own desires and again seek the face of God, He will restore them and again bless them.
When the Canaanites had oppressed Israel, and the people repented and again sought to honour the LORD, they pleaded for God’s deliverance. And the LORD raised up a deliverer in the person of the prophetess Deborah. Deborah didn’t actually lead Israel into battle, but she did accompany Barak because he refused to accept God’s appointment to lead the people of Israel if Deborah would not accompany him. Deborah foretold that God would indeed deliver Israel, but the honour or delivering the nation would go to a woman because of Barak’s hesitancy. And that is just what God did.
The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali were called to follow Barak into battle. Israel defeated the Canaanites and God struck down Sisera, the commander of the armies of Jabin, by the hand of Jael, a woman. One city that had been expected to contribute men to share in the burden of battle against the armies of Canaan, was a town identified as Meroz. However, rather than participating in the battle to deliver the land from the oppression imposed upon the land—whether through cowardice, through negligence, or through complacency—this town contributed no men. We are led to believe this was a decision by the community leaders, or at least the decision was validated by the elders. Therefore, the failure of this town to join in the battle for deliverance brought down a curse on the community. Apparently, the curse was honoured by the Lord since the town disappears from history. The LORD takes very seriously the slight of disobedience in the battle for righteousness when His people are arrayed against the forces of wickedness.
The people of God seldom enjoy being rebuked by the prophet whom God sends. This is especially true of the prophet that is appointed to speak to his own people. You may recall that the Master has testified, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household” [MARK 6:4]. And yet, the service of the prophet is one of God’s rich blessings given to His people.
One of the great preachers of an earlier generation was A. W. Tozer. He was not educated as a preacher; nevertheless, he was a powerful messenger for the Lord Christ. At one time, a major Bible conference would have been thought incomplete if Tozer was not included as one of the speakers; but he ended his ministry isolated and restricted to serving among a few small churches in Canada and the United States. He consistently called Christians to live as though Christ was truly King, refusing to surrender to the spirit of this age. His message was too demanding, too restrictive for the people living in the middle years of the past century. Much like Christians of this present age, Christians of that earlier era wanted a message that affirmed those who listened, they wanted a preacher who would commend them as people who were worthy of praise. To this day, a message or two exposing sin and holding people to account will be tolerated and perhaps even grudgingly praised for a brief while; but you may be assured that the churches of this day don’t want a steady diet that demands obedience to the Risen Son of God.
How do you react when you hear the prophetic message confronting you with your inclination to walk in your own way, wandering from the paths of righteousness? As you are confronted with the message God sends, do you wince and mentally make excuses for your choices? Perhaps you find yourself growing angry toward the preacher? “Who does he think he is, accusing me of dishonouring God?” you imagine. “I’m as good as he will ever be! What makes him think he is better than me?”
If the preacher is appointed by God, and if he is delivering the message as given in the Word of God, he doesn’t think he is better than you! In fact, it is a fair probability that he is acutely aware of his own sin, and he is delivering the message God has given. The preacher will have preached the message to himself long before a single word comes out of his mouth. He is not accusing you of dishonouring God! It is the Word that God has compelled him to deliver that is now charging you with lese majesté against the King of kings and Lord of lords! You stand condemned in your own soul as the Word of God searches your heart, lighting the darkened corners and exposing what has lain hidden for longer than is necessary. This is the reason you react so vigorously to the Word that is declared. Others are not even aware that the arrow of God has pierced your soul, nor can they know what has taken place in your soul, but you have been divinely wounded.
I’ve witnessed this take place on multiple occasions. One of the more memorable occasions took place in a congregation I briefly pastored in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The congregation had a storied past, though it had fallen on hard times. The pulpit committee had requested me to consider coming to minister in hopes that the assembly could again obtain something of the stature they had once known in their community.
There was a day when that church was the place where the Word of God was recognised as being preached in power. The building was filled with young families and the old preacher was aflame for Christ. However, some of the leaders of the congregation grew tired of feeling guilty whenever the old preacher spoke. They wanted to be affirmed, to be assured that they were good people, to hear pleasant things. They had had enough of his preaching because it exposed their sins. So, they arranged for the church to dismiss the old pastor. It was time for him to retire in any case.
They called a preacher who gave a steady diet of affirmations and assurances that all was fine in the church. The result was that the feelings of the people were assuaged, they felt good about themselves. Only, the church building was quickly emptied of young families. No one bothered to come to the house of the Lord any longer. Finally, a day came when only a handful of people bothered to come to the house of the Lord on a Sunday morning. Attendance at the midweek prayer service was less than sparse; but those that came were certain they were okay—they felt good about themselves.
Then, the leaders approached me to see if I would consider assuming the pastorate. They held out hope that I could restore the congregation to a semblance of past glories. After some days engaged in prayer, seeking the mind of the Lord, I was assured in my soul that God was giving me freedom to assume the pastorate of that congregation. However, even before I had delivered the first message, I understood that this would be a challenging ministry. I had been appointed by God to confront the few remaining people in their sin. And that would be a difficult service. Resistance began almost immediately, though the building began to fill with new faces from the first day; the pioneer-heritage group that held power were offended at the thought that they could lose their “power.”
Even after decades have passed, I recall the message that exposed the grave sin of the leadership of that church. As I spoke that Sunday morning, an illustration suggested itself to my mind. “Imagine a congregation,” I said, “in which the pastor’s daughter was engaged in a licentious act with the son of the chairman of the deacons while a prayer meeting was being conducted upstairs. And imagine that the people knew what was going on, but no one wanted to disturb the peace. Would God bless such a church?” The illustration was transient, an illustration to emphasise what was said in the message; it was delivered for a matter of seconds in a message requiring about forty-five minutes.
Immediately after concluding the message and giving a call for those convicted of sin to repent and commit to honouring God, several of the church leaders rushed up to confront me. All seemed to be speaking at once. “How did you know?” “You are airing our dirty laundry in public!” “Why would you bring up the past like that?” I was genuinely confused as to what was going on, until I realised that my illustration, spoken of imagined events, had actually taken place in that congregation only weeks before I had been approached to consider shepherding the congregation. The Lord had taken control of the message, and He had exposed the dark sin of the leadership who refused to deal with sin. Unconfessed sin was destroying that church, just as it will destroy any church.
How dark is the warning issued by the Great Law Giver, “Be sure your sin will find you out” [see NUMBERS 32:23]. And the warning applies as surely to us who are the professed followers of the Living God as it did to Israel in that ancient day. Isaiah truthfully confessed on behalf of Israel,
“Our transgressions are multiplied before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
transgressing and denying the LORD,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.”
[ISAIAH 59:12-13]
When this is the prevailing condition of a congregation, of a denomination, and even descriptive of a nation, the words which follow must surely prevail. Isaiah continued,
“Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
and uprightness cannot enter.
Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
“The LORD saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.”
[ISAIAH 59:14-15]
THE PREACHER FOR THIS PEOPLE —
“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?
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.
The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.
Arise and go,
for this is no place to rest,
because of uncleanness that destroys
with a grievous destruction.
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!”
[MICAH 6-11]
Micah’s words, given by the LORD Himself, were biting, sarcastic; they must surely have stung the people when they heard the message he delivered. From among the people in that ancient day people purported to be spokesmen for God were raised up by those to whom they spoke. The people chose whom they desired, and their choice was dictated by the message delivered. Understand: the people chose; God did not appoint these spokesmen. These presumed spokesmen spoke approvingly of what the people were doing. These who were thought to be spokesmen for God encouraged the people to seek pleasure, rather than seeking justice. And Micah boldly says these are precisely the preacher the people want. The people wanted to imagine that the LORD approved of their actions and their attitudes, though their actions dishonoured God and their attitudes were focused on themselves rather than being focused on finding and doing what God willed!
Long years ago, one of God’s choice preachers boldly affirmed to young preachers, “If you don’t want any trouble, don’t say anything, don’t do anything, don’t be anything.” Tragically, it would appear that many who occupy the pulpits of the land in this day have taken to heart that dark advice. If the preacher fulfils the ministry to which God appoints, he will confront those who resent what he says. We desperately need men who accept Paul’s admonition, “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: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” [2 TIMOTHY 4:1-2]. No one enjoys a ministry that includes reproving or rebuking, though many will tolerate a ministry that entails exhorting. Know that even exhortation can be irritating to some who occupy the pews.
And the reason this charge was given to the man of God is given in the verses that follow, when the Apostle writes, “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, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” [2 TIMOTHY 4:3-5].
The story is told of a fiery preacher known for preaching hard against sin. Two excited women were sitting together in the front pew of church with that fiery preacher. These women were in the spirit, and as the preacher delivered his message, they were shouting and waving their hankies. They used their paper fans to wave for Jesus and then to cool themselves off, fearing they might just “get the vapors.” As the preacher condemned the sin of lust, these two ladies cried out at the top of their lungs, “Amen, brother!" That so energised the preacher that he just settled in to stomp on those who lust. Then the preacher moved on and condemned stealing; and he was met by the women yelling, “Preach it, Reverend!" And he did—for ten or so minutes. On a roll, the preacher condemned the sin of lying. The women jumped to their feet and screamed, “Right on, brother! Tell it like it is! Amen!"
After raking liars over the coals and dangling them over the flames of hell, the preacher condemned the sin of gossip. The two women sat down, got quiet, and looked in the other direction. The preacher, fearing he was losing his audience, preached even harder against unloving, unchristian tongues that were set on fire by Satan. The women remained quiet, and showed by their faces that they didn’t appreciate what the preacher was saying. Finally, the preacher stopped and asked, “Ladies, don’t you like to hear good old-fashioned, fire and brimstone preachin’?” One of the women responded sarcastically, “Oh, yes, Reverend, we love good strong preachin’, but you done quit preachin’ and gone to meddlin’.” [2]
You need to know that a preacher is perceptive; he knows whether he is connecting with those to whom he speaks, or whether he is wounding his audience by what is said. No preacher wants to have those Sundays when no one shakes his hand after the service, when he goes home and his wife won’t speak to him and even the dog turns away. Every preacher wants to be liked. It is only when his desire for Christ to be glorified is greater than his desire for people to like him that he will honour Him Who appoints to holy service. Let the young preachers and those who teach take note, determining that they will stand true to the appointment they have accepted. Let the people of God take note and encourage the preacher to speak the Word of God in power and in love. Let the outsiders take note and seek the Lord while there is yet time. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Suggested by Rick Pendleton, "You done quit preachin' and gone to meddlin'!" - Shared by Rick Pendleton - Sermon Illustrations - SermonCentral.com, accessed 25 November 2023
