Doomed! You're doomed!
At night you lie in bed, making evil plans.
And when morning comes, you do what you've planned
because you have the power.
(2) You grab any field or house that you want;
you cheat families out of homes and land.
(3) But here is what the LORD says:
"I am planning trouble for you.
Your necks will be caught in a noose,
and you will be disgraced in this time of disaster."
(4) When that happens, this sorrowful song will be sung about you:
"Ruined! Completely ruined!
The LORD has taken our land and given it to traitors."
(5) And so you will never again own property
among the LORD's people.
(6) "Enough of your preaching!" That's what you tell me.
"We won't be disgraced, so stop preaching!"
(7) Descendants of Jacob, is it right for you to claim that the LORD
did what he did because he was angry?
Doesn't he always bless those who do right?
(8) My people, you have even stolen clothes right off the backs of
your unsuspecting soldiers returning home from battle.
(9) You take over lovely homes that belong to the women of my nation.
Then you cheat their children out of the inheritance that
comes from the LORD.
(10) Get out of here, you crooks!
You'll find no rest here.
You're not fit to belong to the LORD's people,
and you will be destroyed.
(11) The sort of prophet this people wants is a
windbag and a liar, Prophesying a
future of "wines and spirits"!
(12) I, the LORD, promise to bring together the people of Israel who
have survived.
I will gather them, just as a shepherd brings sheep
together, and there will be many.
(13) I will break down the gate and lead them out-
-
then I will be their king.
-
Mic 3:1-12 CEV Listen to me, you rulers of Israel! You know right from wrong,
(2) but you prefer to do evil instead of what is right.
You skin my people alive. You strip off their flesh,
(3) break their bones, cook it all in a pot, and gulp it down.
(4) Someday you will beg the LORD to help you,
but he will turn away because of your sins.
(5) You lying prophets promise security for anyone who gives you
food,
but disaster for anyone who refuses to feed you.
Here is what the LORD says to you prophets:
(6) "You will live in the dark, far from the sight of the sun,
with no message from me.
(7) You prophets and fortunetellers will all be disgraced, with no
message from me."
(8) But the LORD has filled me with power and his Spirit.
I have been given the courage to speak about justice
and to tell you people of Israel that you have sinned.
(9) So listen to my message, you rulers of Israel!
You hate justice and twist the truth.
(10) You make cruelty and murder a way of life in
Jerusalem.
(11) You leaders accept bribes for dishonest decisions.
You priests and prophets teach and preach, but only for
money.
Then you say, "The LORD is on our side. No harm will
come to us."
(12) And so, because of you, Jerusalem will be ploughed under and left
in ruins.
Thorns will cover the mountain where the temple now stands.
I had an
invitation the other day to a meeting about military development in London. I
was invited because I was perceived by the military to be an ‘opinion
former’ . That got me thinking about who the ‘opinion formers’ are,
the people of influence:
Who are the key people in this country able to influence the rest of
us? Success, celebrity, democratic vote and the expert.
So name
some wealthy people – Lord Sainsbury; Bill Gates; …
Name some
leaders : Tony Blair; John Reid; Gordon Brown; David Cameron; Ken Livingston;
David Routledge;
Experts or
prophets of our culture: Stern; Dan Brown; Richard Dawkins;
From the
language Micah uses he may well be a shepherd. He likes that particular image
and uses it a lot. His burden is that he sees the cancer of his society is from
the top to bottom. So he goes straight for the ‘opinion makers’. The
wealthy, the leaders and the prophets.
He is as uncomfortable as they come.
V1-2. No doubt like today we are persuaded that they are needed to provide the
wealth for the society and so provide the means to support the poor and marginalized.
But capitalism assumes that one person makes money at another’s expense. Your relative wealth is at the expense of
the poor. In China they make your clothes, in the Philippines they grow your
pineapples, your coffee comes from many parts of the world where the
marginalized are at the whim and fancy of your tea and coffee habits.
No doubt
the BBC documentary of Micah’s day justified the whole thing and had its
equivalent of the World Bank to back up its argument. But the fact remained
that the wealthy did not enjoy its wealth, They were always seeking more. The
God of wealth always cries “More! More! More!”
And what is
God’s counter-measure? V4 Land lies at the heart of the Israeli
economy of the day. It will be taken away, just as it has been taken away from
the poor. But God’s judgment is dispossession. The land given to their families
will never again be theirs. V5 This is sober stuff if it has any relevance to
our day. We are one of the wealthiest nations and yet we have deserted God,
reviled his morality and rejected his justice. The rich grow ever richer making
money by trading our future. Even our own false prophets, are only listened to
while there is political mileage in it. Micah has a desperate message to the
wealthy, like us. You are no hopers. It is God’s plans that will prevail and
his are bad news. There is a serious playing out here. Take careful note that
land ownership was the key issue of the day and the judgment was that they
would be landless – the land given to others. The equivalent of verse 5 today
would be an empty stock exchange and the city itself derelict as banks move
elsewhere. And that has happened in my lifetime to Beirut. It went from a
prosperous banking centre to an empty city, housing factions fighting each other.
What was
the public response to Micah? Shut up! We don’t want to hear! V6-7 They simply cannot believe him because for
the wealthy, everything is going well.
That is so
true of South Ruislip today. In all the misery that we live among there is no
desire for God because we are rich, we have a NHS, we have unemployment
benefit, pensions, insurance and all the other assets of the affluent. We have
more cars per household than any other Local authority in the country. Or even
worse, not in my lifetime. We are content to leave our children to suffer as we
mortgage their futures for a luxury cruise, an extension to the house or a ego
building gas guzzling 4 by 4.
Micah’s
response looks at the full view. They may justify their actions but at the
heart of it they beggar the widow and the fatherless. That is anathema to God.
And they even rob their own soldiers who are defending their precious lands.
War-profiteering is not new. Did you pick up that soldiers pensions can be as
little as £5000 per year according to The Royal British Legion?
V11
provides an insight into Micah’s day. I particularly like JBPhillips
11 The sort of prophet this people
wants is a windbag and a liar, Prophesying
a future of "wines and spirits"!
Binge drinking is just today’s version of how
the wealthy bury their consciences and run away from their failures. It appals
me that Sainsburys has at the centre of its store 4 rows of wines and spirits.
You don’t need to go to the pub to drown your sorrows, you can do it along with
the weeks groceries. Cigarettes alongside the lottery line. In fact next time
you go into the store open your eyes to what is the first thing you come
across. Before the fruit and vegetables.
We
have not become liberal but libertine. And yet we are self righteous about
cannabis and hard drugs. Our youth today, are no longer glue sniffers, they are
alcohol abusers, we have made it easy for them.
Is
the Old Testament without hope? No! Even here, there
are glimpses of hope. But it was 100 years on before the Israelis returned to
the promised land, and then only for a few hundred years until the Romans
removed them completely. And for 1800 years the land was the property of the
Palestinians until the new state of Israel was created.
From
a political-religious point of view this prophesy of hope is only short-lived.
But it will become clear as we read on that a king with a different agenda was
coming.
Back
to the bad news. In chapters 3:1-4 Micah hammers the Rulers. Whether or
not they had some form of hideous punishment for people as described here or
not, Micah sees that there rejection of true justice is as vile. Everything
that God loves they hate and everything God hates they make legal.
Then
he moves on to the prophets. The chief problem is
that they wanted a piece of the cake the wealthy were getting so they
prophesied according to your bank balance! They take the old adage “never bite
the hand that feeds you” and make it their strap line. Truth becomes perverted
to self interest. You can buy any sort of report you want. If you pay enough
statisticians and ‘experts’ will tell you what you wean to know.
I seriously fear that Stern is one of them.
His upbeat, “we can turn climate change round” is flying in the face of
200 years of ever increasing carbon emissions. The Quioto protocol failed not
just because the USA would not sign up to it but because the UK that did sign
up, failed to deliver reduced greenhouse gas emission and actually increased
them.
The
rottenness of human kind is set on self destruction.
And yet we live in a society that has no regard for a gospel, which can
transform the hearts and minds of the most evil of people and enable them to
change. John Newton was a slave ship captain until God entered his life
one stormy night. And as grace percolated through his spirit he came to realize
that the very trade he pursued was evil and was one of those who worked to end
slavery in this country.
The end of our reading today brings the prophecies
and the real world into sharp contrast. A vague religiosity that somehow God is
an Englishman and wouldn’t allow us to go down like other nations. Not so. If
God is with us, then he speaks the same message as he gave Micah.
Given
that Micah, the prophet has little to raise our spirits, how should we react to
this prophecy
Listen
to Godfrey Birthill
Times
up!
Is
the message from heaven
Times
up!
Its loud and clear
Times
up!
Its
time for repentance
Times
up!
The
kingdom is near
Whether
we believe it or not
God
is with us
We
better get ready,
we’d
better wake up
God
is great!
Only
he can save our ruined nation
He
can cause the transformation
He
can roll away the darkness
Gathering
all the ruin.
Only
he can bring a great deliverance
He
can heal the land’s defilement
He
can turn the curse to blessing
And
hate to love
He
turned hate to love
Times
up!
It a
message from Jesus
Times
up!
Its
loud and clear
Times
up!
All
across this nation
Times
up!
The
kingdom is near
Whether
we believe it or not
God
is with us
We
better get ready,
we’d
better wake up
God
is great!
Only
he can save our sick society
Social
, moral, spiritual crisis
He
can penetrate the darkness
Bringing
a light of hope
Only
he can turn the tide of evil
Rescuing
the souls of people
He
can heal the damaged children
Bring
the prodigals home
Only
God can.
The
salvation of this nation is not in the hands of the wealthy, the leaders the
opinion makers or the false prophets. It is God’s hands. Instead of watching
endless experts on TV, turn to the real expert in prayer. Hillary Abungu ‘s
underlying message was that we need to move into a different way of praying. I
want to suggest that begins with us believing that there is no hope without
Christ. We need to return to
praying for our nation, instead of just trying to influence politicians and the
like.
God
is with us,
does not mean that we are safe from economic and military disaster. It means
that we have a message of hope outside of the political, economic systems. I
have been a passionate believer that it is the heart of man that needs
transforming first, then the political and economic systems will change.
So if you
want to save a nation, you must start by warning and entreating your
family, your neighbours, your friends and your workmates or colleagues of the
message of God. The judgment Micah
spoke about was delayed because the heart of Hezekiah was transformed to love
for God. It was fulfilled when the nation deserted, again, Yahweh and sought
and political and military solution to the crises of its day.
The only protection we have against terrorism is our
gospel. The
only protection we have against the collapse of society is our Jesus. Our
gospel is for Islamic fundamentalists,
binge drinkers, paedophiles, nice white middle class elderly people, teenagers
with hoodies, young wealthy executives, unemployed people, broken families
homosexual couples.
3v 8. tells us
where we should be. Micah had a confidence in his God. He was God’s man for ,
able to stand up for truth in a rotting community. You have the same God, the
same spirit in you, if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus. He can
change your world. Only he can save the world.