Micah 7
RileyMicah 7:1-20
MICAH: THE AND FAR-SEEING OF GOD. Micah 1:1 to Micah 7:20THERE is every reason to believe that this Book wears its author’s name. Micah was a native of Morasthi, near Gath, and probably belonged to the time of Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah. His message is all the more marvelous when one remembers that he was a villager. Born doubtless in a humble house, brought up in a despised burg, bred in no college, he would have been unequal to the modern denominational Editor’s demands for the ministry. But he does illustrate a Divine custom expressed in Sacred Scripture viz. that, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”.God has never seen fit to limit Himself to the great financial or intellectual minds of the world. He is dependent upon no man’s money; and just as independent of conceited minds.
He can take Peter, the unlettered fisherman, and by instructing him in the Scripture and sending upon him His Holy Spirit, make of him a minister in whose presence the Pope himself would seem a pigmy by comparison.It is related that when the Emperor Domitian was persecuting believers he heard of two men reputed to be akin to Jesus, and he sent for them, intending to put them to death. But when they came, and he saw their horny hands and realized that they were evidently day-laborers, he dismissed them saying, “From such slaves we have nothing to fear.”And yet, those men belonged to the very class who rocked Domitian’s empire to its foundation, and spread the knowledge of the Gospel to the ends of the known earth; and, their humble station notwithstanding, have had few worthy successors in the ministry of the Truth. Let us not object to Micah because he is from a village and does not carry a graduate’s diploma. If he is Divinely appointed, and Divinely endued, his work will be well done.The exact date of this Book, as that of other Minor Prophets, is in dispute, and it would in no wise help you to review the opinions of Hitzig, Wellhausen, Stade, Vatke, Kuenen, Driver, Von Ryssel, and the rest.We are more interested in his message, or messages; and to those I invite your attention.HE THE CHURCH OF HIS TIMES When I speak of the Church of his times I do not mean to say that there was any organized body of baptized believers in Micah’s day; but I do mean to say that there was an “ecclesia”, not in the New Testament use of the term, but in the natural interpretation of that word, namely, “a called out body”.In the opening part of this prophecy he deals with that body:“Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy Temple. “For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. “And the mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place” (Micah 1:2-4). He indicts the churchman; not the worldling. “For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the House of Israel”. It is a good place for the minister to begin. God’s people must be set right before the minister can make any headway with the world. There is many a true prophet of God who is preaching his heart out in a church where the professed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are, by their wickedness, bringing his every word to naught. It is not an exceptional experience for preachers to be requested to resign because the church is receiving no accessions, when the very men who make the request have rendered it impossible for any kind of preaching to bring converts into the church of which they are members. Rev. E.
A. Whittier, in an old issue of “The Watchman” once remarked— “When Rev. Frank Remington came to the First Baptist Church in Lawrence many years ago the spiritual tide ebbed low. For six months he preached searching sermons to God’s people. It was like the voice of one of the old Prophets. The dry bones lived again.
In about six months he turned to the unsaved, and the flood gates of Heaven were opened. In about three years he baptized nearly 500 converts in Lawrence and Andover, and organized the Second Baptist Church.” Remington began at the right place. And Micah was God’s faithful minister, dealing first of all with God’s professed followers. Given a clean, consecrated membership, and accessions to the church of new converts is comparatively easy.He arraigned the prospered; not the poor. After having spoken against the graven images, the idols, and the awful social sins, he tells Judah and Jerusalem what will be the result. He turns to the leaders of the land and says,“Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. “And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. “Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil. “In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields” (Micah 2:1-4). It is a fact to which the prospered of earth do not take kindly, but none the less true on that account, and Micah’s arraignment of the prospered was in perfect accord with the words of His Saviour. No man can read the New Testament without noting that Jesus Christ never uttered a sentence against the poor, and never let the prospered escape His strictures. This, not because poverty is always righteous, and riches always wicked, but on the great law which He Himself laid down, “To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required”. Joseph Parker says, “We have nourished ourselves into the pedantry of supposing that if a man has a bad coat he has of necessity a bad character. The Bible never proceeds along these lines. * * Christ did not gather around Him the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor, the neglected, the homeless, and say, ‘You are the curse of society; you are the criminal classes.’ * * But Jesus Christ never let the respectability of His age alone; He never gave it one moment’s rest.” I often wonder if our socialists have considered this subject? I wonder if the men who walk the streets berating the rich because they have more than their share of material wealth, and demanding, if not an equal, an equitable division of all property, have forgotten that prosperity does not necessarily make for righteousness, that all men of competence are not men of prayer; that all persons of good bank account are not necessarily persons of good character?
That the rich are accomplishing more evil than they ever could with their riches taken away; that they are tempted ten thousand times more often than they ever would have been had their riches never come? And that these awful sins, against which Micah here hurled his anathemas, sins of covetousness, violent appropriation and corporate oppression, can never be committed by the poor; and the penalty of them can never be escaped by the rich who practise them?I wonder also if these same socialists have not noticed that a freighted table, broadcloth, silks, jewels, and all the rest, consume so much of thought that the soul seldom receives any attention.
I have just been preaching in another Western state. I found a man there who has made a considerable fortune already, and who is still accumulating, A number of times he came to the services. On some occasions he was so deeply convicted that he shot out of the house the moment the service concluded, apparently not being able to endure the invitation. Once back at his home there was only one theme on which he would converse with you—that was the subject of the crops. The rain rejoiced his heart; it did not matter to him whether our audiences had reduced. He said, “That will make great crops.” Concerning the scorching heat of the day, of which others complained, he said, “This will make good crops.
And if the present outlook for crops realizes it means riches for this vicinity.” And for sixty straight years he has been absorbed in one subject; and for sixty straight years his soul has been in neglect. The history of Dives he is writing over again.
The accumulation of riches is his one concern; and while about it he is forgetting the Lazarus at his gate, and in that very act neglecting the Lord of Life. His mistake was less grievous than that of the people of whom Micah speaks, for they made their money by oppression. But they have their successors also. As a writer has said, “Many men among us are able to live in fashionable streets, and keep their families comfortable only by paying their employees a wage upon which it is impossible for men to be strong or women to be virtuous.” Truly, as Micah put it, “such feed upon their fellows.”He reprimands alike prince, prophet and people.“Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the House of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? “Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; “Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. “Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but He will not hear them: He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. “Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. “Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God” (Micah 3:1-7). It is a serious thing when the princes of the land abhor judgment, and pervert equity; it is vastly more serious when the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money.It is a question whether Micah is not needed in modern times. There are not a few preachers who charge the princes with their sins, and call the attention of the people to their iniquities. But who will uncover the prophets and expose their serving methods, and show how their concern is, to be as popular as politicians, and to make their ministry a source of much money for selfish employment. Is not the multitude of timeservers now to be found in the ministry one secret of failure in soul-winning and church building? Was not that unhappy man George Herron warranted in the words in his volume “The New Redemption”, when he said, “The philanthropy of selfishness and covetousness is the social antichrist. The adulation which the religious press lavishes upon the benevolence of mammon, the adoration which it receives from the pulpit, converts the church into an apostle of atheism to the people.
The priests who accompanied the pirate ships of the sixteenth century, to say mass and pray for’ the souls of the dead pirates, for a share of the spoil, were not a whit more superstitious or guilty of human blood, according to the light of their teaching, than Protestant leaders who flatter the ghastly philanthropy of men who have heaped their colossal fortunes upon the bodies of their brothers. Their fortunes are the proudest temples of the most defiant idolatry that has ever corrupted the worship of the Living God.
Their philanthropy is the greatest peril that confronts and deceives and endangers the life of the Church, and thinks to bribe the judgments of God and deceive the Holy Ghost.”If there is any class of people who are in special need of the Evangel it is the prospered class. The Moody Institute did wisely when once it started two attractive young women up the North shore drive to call at palaces and remind the people of the need of repentance. If there is any profession upon whom a solemn responsibility rests more heavily than upon any other it is the profession of the prophet. It is within his power to lead the people into the paths of the just; and it is also within his power to make the people err, by seeking selfish ends, destroying the vision, bringing darkness upon himself, and deep night upon the deceived multitude. Oh, you who are accumulating fortunes; and you who are graduates of colleges, and you who have come with honors from theological seminaries, remember that “to whomsoever much is givent of him shall be much required”, and when the true prophet of God rises to uncover the church of his times, see to it that he uncovers not your shame.HE THE CHURCH OF OUR TIMES It is a marvelous fact that Micah is as true as a seer as he was faithful as a preacher.He beheld the beginning of the New Testament Church.“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. “And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the Law shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Micah 4:1-2). That prophecy found the beginning of its fulfillment at Pentecost, and will find its consummation in the Kingdom. Joel had already said,“It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions * * . “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance” (Joe 2:28; Joe 2:32). And Jesus remembering these prophecies reminds the people to whom He addresses Himself that “It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day”, and that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).Six and a half centuries before Jesus uttered these words, Micah, the Seer, had a vision of their beginning fulfillment in the coming and end of the New Testament Church. The ancient people hearing them, or reading them, were stirred with the prospect of this new movement which should make for righteousness, and be the real earnest of God’s conquest in the earth.He pictured it also when its conquest should be perfected, and the Kingdom should come.“And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it” (Micah 4:3-4). As I have read the commentaries upon this passage and listened to the attempt of George Adam Smith and other students to make this reference merely a local one, and limit it to the time in which the Prophet lived, it has seemed to me not only a vain endeavor, but a foolish one! Centuries are in the sweep of the Prophet’s vision. The cause of God has many conquests to its credit, but, as yet, the major portion of this prophecy remains to be fulfilled, and will be in the coming of the Lord in the end of this age!A few years since, not having studied the Scriptures wisely, or well, I joined in the common opinion that wars were probably at an end; and, that with an ever-increasing mutual admiration, the nations of the earth would arbitrate their difficulties and dwell together as loving princes of one house! But, alas for the thought! Recent years have shown how easy it is to strike a match at the powder houses of armies and navies; how easy it is to set rulers at one another’s throats; how hard it is for even the religious people of the earth to maintain peace when the unspeakable Turk long continued his slaughters of the Christian Armenian who happened to dwell within his borders; and Russian Soviet is red-handed by the outright murder of millions of God’s own.When the most peace-loving of earth look on these things, or, standing afar off, read the red reports of them, he is tempted to join with the famed interpreter of these prophecies in saying, “We are told by those who know best, and have most responsibility in the matter, that an ancient Church and people of Christ are being left a prey to the wrath of an infidel tyrant, not because Christendom is without strength to compel him to deliver, but because to use the strength, would be to imperil the peace of Christendom. It is an ignoble peace which cannot use the forces of redemption, and with the cry of Armenia in our ears the Unity of Europe is but a mockery.
That cry has been lost in the wail from Russia. And one might add, “With the cry of the murdered in our ears, the relations between Russia and the great English-speaking nations of Britain and America are kept undisturbed at the cost of character, and some think war were better.”That hour then to which this text refers must still be in the future, since as you come more and more into the last days you shall “hear of wars and rumours of wars”, such as the world has never known since time began, and yet, Beloved, God’s Word will not fail.As sure as Jehovah lives and sits upon the throne so surely the last sentence of it shall see fulfillment, and one day the last reverberations and the thunderings of war shall be heard in the earth, and He who shall be chief among many people, will bring in such a reign of righteousness, as shall convert swords to plowshares and spears to pruninghooks, and many shall see it. But we will treat this text in a later chapter.The Prophet assigns such power to the rise of the proper person.“Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou he little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. “Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth; then the remnant of His brethren shall return unto the Children of Israel. “And He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the Name of the Lord His God; and they shall abide: for now shall He be great unto the ends of the earth” (Micah 5:2-4). George Adam Smith, says, “Micah stands among the first, if he is not the very first, who thus focussed the hopes of Israel upon a great Redeemer.” And beloved, more and more it is occurring to thoughtful men that power associates itself with personality. John Watson, in his “Mind of the Master” has called attention to this truth in his chapter entitled “Devotion to a Person the Dynamic of Religion.” And in that discussion he says one thing which ought never to be forgotten. “Do you wish a cause to endure hardness, to rejoice in sacrifice, to accomplish mighty works, to retain forever the dew of its youth? Give it the best chance, the sanction of Love. Do not state it in books; do not defend it with argument. These are aids of the second order; if they succeed, it is a barren victory—the reason has now been exasperated. Identify your cause with a person.
Even a bad cause will succeed for a space, associated with an attractive man. The later Stewards were hard kings both to England and Scotland, and yet women sent their husbands and sons to die for ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and the ashes of that Romantic devotion are not yet cold.
When a good cause finds a befitting leader, it will be victorious before set of sun.”Ah, He is the secret of success for the New Testament Church. In spite of all its shortcomings, and, confessing as we must, all of its many and egregious failures, the destiny of that Church is gloriously determined—she shall one day rule the world, for the solitary reason that Christ is her Head and God has already given Him “the heathen for [His] inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for [His] possession”. In spite of all adverse circumstances, all legions of enemies; in spite of Satan and the hosts of hell, He rises to victory. To Him “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him”. Blessed be His glorious Name forever; and “let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen and Amen”.But the Prophet continues:HE DEFENDS BOTH THE DIVINE AND He rehearses the history of God’s past graces.“Hear ye now what the Lord saith * * “O My people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against Me. “For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. “O My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord” (Micah 6:1; Micah 6:3-5). It is a custom of the inspired writer to refer often to Israel’s early history. It was out of Egypt that God redeemed them; it was through the wilderness that God led them; it was in Canaan that God gave them conquest. This concern for the nation’s youth can never be forgotten. The older a man grows the more he appreciates what his parents did for him between the natal day and his twenty-first anniversary. The older a Christian grows the more highly he esteems his redemption from sin and the marvelous grace of God in keeping him in the early days of his spiritual life, when temptations were most strong; when in the wilderness Satan set before him the gifts of the world and the glories of them, an offer for an act of obeisance to him, their former master.The older the Church grows the more highly it appreciates its early history, the pastors who did pioneer work, the people who sacrificed sorely to build the sanctuary, the men and women who bore the heat and burden of the day when they were so few in numbers; when their best efforts seemed so feeble. It ought to be so.
It is a great thing to be brought to birth; it is a great thing to be kept through youth, and the nation for which God has accomplished this is no more able to discharge its obligation to Him than the child is to pay back all he owes to his parents. Right well did Israel inquire, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God”? That is the proper position for the people whose past is replete with such exhibitions of the keeping grace of great Jehovah.He shows also the reasonableness of the Divine requirements.“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God”? (Micah 6:8). Even the believing world commonly discredits God’s character by their thought as to His requirements. There are not a few people who imagine that God will not be pleased with them unless they are ready to take their first-born and lay him upon the altar; part with their child, perhaps giving him to the grave for the sin of their soul, and God has never hinted that He demands any such thing. People begin at the wrong place to get right with God. He may want your child for Africa, but you could give him and still not feel approved. The Apostle Paul says, “Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing”. And it is true; that is the one thing that God requires, for it covers all the rest.
It leads one to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. And in that walk instead of finding the path to be one in which God is constantly calling for sacrifice, it will be discovered that there God is often bestowing blessing, and guiding into privilege, and making one’s whole life a delight.
Henry Van Dyke says, “To please God. * * Simply to live our life, whatever it may be, so that He, the good and glorious God, shall approve and bless it, and say of it, ‘Well done,’ and welcome it into the sense of His own joy,—that is a Divine ambition. ‘What vaster dream could hit the mood of love on earth?’ It has sustained martyrs at the stake, and comforted prisoners in the dungeon, and cheered warriors in the heat of perilous conflict, and inspired laborers in every noble cause, and made thousands of obscure and nameless heroes in every hidden place of earth. It is the pillar of light which shines before the journeying host. It is the secret watchword of the army, given not to the leaders alone, but flashing like fire through all the ranks. When that thought descends upon us, it kindles our hearts and makes them live. What though we miss the applause of men; what though friends misunderstand and foes defame, and the great world pass us by? There is One that seeth in secret and followeth the soul in its toils and struggles, —the great King, whose approval is honor, whose love is happiness; to please Him is success, and victory, and peace.”Finally, He rests in the surety of the Divine justice, power, and grace.
In the seventh chapter he speaks of the untoward circumstances in which he is situated. But after rehearsing the whole of it, he says, “I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7).
And in the seventeenth verse of the same chapter, speaking of the enemies of his soul, and of his Lord, he says, “They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee”.And in the nineteenth, and twentieth verses he says, “He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old”.The whole of this seventh chapter is given to the personal sense of the Divine justice, Divine power, and Divine grace, and one must appreciate all of these or perish with fear. Divine justice is approved by all good men; and Divine power is conceded by those who study the universe about them, or the earth beneath them. But this all necessitates only fear, except you see also the Divine grace.“There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”. One who has felt the justice of God and power of God feels the need of the grace of God, and is only filled with delight and joy unspeakable when he can say with the Apostle, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.