TOMS: Micah 6-7

For an introduction to this series, click here.

Nov. 15, 2006

Chapter 6 covers a lot of ground. It is an indictment of Israel, a reminder of the simplicity of God's law, and a pronouncement of doom upon the coming generation. The main argument God brings against the Jews in his indictment is the fact that they forgot the great things God did for his people. Micah reminds them of all the great things God did for them in bringing them out of Egypt and leading them to victory in the land of their fathers. All through the books of Moses and Joshua God commanded his people to remember. They set up visible memorials at various places. Most of their feasts, like the Passover and the Tabernacles, were a reminder of God's power. It is certainly an overused phrase, but it is often true that the only thing we learn from history is that no one learns from history.

6:6-8 gives us a lot of insight into God and what He delights in:

"With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (ESV)

God is more interested in who we are than he is about big shows of service to him. Not that God is not pleased with sacrifice: He commanded it in the Law and He commands us today to present our lives as a sacrifice. But God is not interested in being bought off so we can go do our own thing. That's the point of this passage. If someone had thousands of rams to give the Lord out of a heart of love for Him, that would be a great thing. The problem comes when man looks at our sacrifice. Much like the story of the widow with the two mites, God does not look at the numbers on the check. He looks at the heart that is pleased to give. Or, for a negative example, think of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. They gave quite a large amount of money to the Lord's work, but the Lord flat out rejected it because of the wickedness of their hearts.

Now of course, to use another overused phrase, we must remember that we can give without loving, but we cannot love without giving. Compare what Jesus said in John that the greatest show of love is to lay down your life with what Paul said that it would be possible to give your life without love and gain nothing. I don't want to go on a rant here, but God looks on the heart, and there are many things that are good and proper to do, but we can do them all without love for God or others. I think we will be surprised in heaven who will receive some of the greatest rewards.

Anyway, the rest of Chapter 6 is about the coming destruction of Israel. Chapter 7 continues the theme of destruction, but ends on a positive note about the future glory of Israel.

TOMS: Micah 3-5

For an introduction to this series, click here.

Nov. 14, 2006

In Chapter 3 Micah lists more of the sins of the Israelites. Once again, economic sins are prominently listed. We discussed that at length yesterday. Micah also speaks of the wicked spiritual leaders of Israel, who have turned the worship of God into a show and who prophesy for money. He makes an interesting assessment of their condition in verse 11-12:

“Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its prophets teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the LORD and say, ‘Is not God in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.’ Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.”

These wicked teachers and prophets thought that since they were the leaders of God's people, they could do no wrong. They believed in their divine right to say and do whatever they wanted. But God was not within a million miles of their sinful practices, and their sin was leading to their nation's destruction. Unfortunately this attitude is all too common in our day as well. It seems we are hardly surprised to hear a pastor or other church leader abusing their assembly in all sorts of ways, from sexual sins to theft to extreme manipulation. It's not enough to outwardly do the work of God. It's more important to do it with a heart of love for God and the church.

Chapter 4 is prophetic of the future kingdom of Israel, when "many nations shall come and say: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.'" (4:2) This will be a wonderful time of peace in which men shall "beat their swords into plowshares." (4:3) This is probably a reference to the millennial kingdom.

Chapter 5 tells us who will bring in that millenial kingdom:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is of old, from ancient of days. (5:2, ESV)

This is an example of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament that span thousands of years. Chapter 4 tells us about the kingdom that Christ will create in Israel. That has not yet happened. Yet when speaking about the king who will lead that kingdom, Micah jumps back (of course it was all future for Micah) to the birth of Christ.

We have spoken of this before, but this is the primary difference between the covenant and dispensational views of eschatology. Covenant theology looks at the prophecies that have obviously not been fulfilled yet and says they have been fulfilled spiritually in the church. Dispensational theology looks at those same prophecies and says they must refer to something in the future, because these promises were made to the Jews. I happen to be a dispensationalist. I believe that it is the more consistent view.

TOMS: Micah 1-2

For an introduction to this series, click here.

Nov. 13, 2006

The prophets had a startling message for the Israelites, and Micah delivered just such a message. It is interesting to note the contrast between the major and minor prophets. It is not just the fact that they are longer, because Daniel is about the same length or not significantly longer than Hosea or Zechariah. It is the scope of the teaching. Now I know the book order is not inspired, but the people who did put them in order knew what they were doing. The four major prophets, Jeremiah to a lesser degree than the other three, have a broad scope, viewing the entire course of human history, often jumping ahead or behind thousands of years in a single passage. The minor prophets focus on the near future for Israel, as a general rule.

Anyway, Micah has another message of doom for both Israel and Judah. Micah prophesied in the days of Jotham the northern king and Ahaz and Hezekiah the southern kings. This would make him a contemporary of Isaiah. Micah ends the first section of his prophecy with this solemn warning:

"Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile." (1:16)

There is no chance for repentance, no way to prevent the inevitable from happening. Sadly, I'm not so sure that the people of Micah's generation were too upset to hear this message. When Isaiah prophesied judgment on Judah because of Hezekiah's sin (remember this would have been around the time of Micah's prophecy), Isaiah records Hezekiah's response: "' The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.' For he thought, 'There will be peace and security in my days.'" (Isaiah 39:8) Many of these people did not care about the future. They were just concerned about the here and now. That's one of the main reasons they did not repent of their sin.

In Chapter 2, Micah confronts the sin of the people. Interestingly enough, as with many of the prophets, the most egregious sins listed are economic sins:

"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." (2:2-3)

If you read the Law, God said a lot about protecting the poor. Farmers were to leave the corners of their fields unharvested to leave some for the poor and the travelers. They were not supposed to go back over their fields twice to make sure they got everything, but they were to leave what fell to the ground for the poor. By the way, Boaz was obeying this command when Ruth followed after his farmhands and picked up what they dropped or missed for her and Naomi. Boaz recognized she was special, and so he told his workers to drop some on purpose for her. Also, every 50 years, land was to be returned to the family that originally inherited it.

I am not suggesting that we should return to these arrangements, but I do believe that liberals and conservatives both exploit the poor to their own benefit politically and economically, and both are wrong. Liberals will tell poor people to have more kids they can't afford so they can justify more government spending for health care and housing for the poor. They will get them hooked on lottery tickets to subsidize their grand plans. Rich bankers - mostly conservatives, at least economically - will give poor people credit cards they can't afford and then write them a title loan or some other gimmick to "help" them pay off their debts, which actually gets them more in debt.

God says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27, ESV) In the conservative Baptist circles I run in, we do the second half of that really well, but too often we miss the first half. We tend to blame the poor. No one is denying that, especially in a free society such as ours, one's place in life is largely the result of the choices one makes, but the command is still there. There are all kinds of disclaimers I could throw out here, but the fact remains that Christianity, especially conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, has not and is not doing enough to help the needy in our own society, much less around the world. I know there are lots of reasons for that, and I agree that if we took the tax money wasted on helping the poor and gave it to organizations that really know how to use their resources for the betterment of society and the glory of God, they would accomplish a lot more. However the fact remains, and we do too little about it.

Wow that was a long rant, and I didn't even get to Chapter 3, which has some of the best stuff in it. I'll get to it tomorrow.