Micah No.2 Mans plans... Gods plans

Please have your Bibles open at the Prophecy of Micah. I would tell you from the pulpit Bible it's page 932, but that won't exactly help you, because most of these Bibles have got different configurations as far as page number and layout is concerned. But keep hunting, it's towards the end of the Old Testament.

It's one of the minor prophets, it's got nothing to do with Arthur Scargill, though he probably has read it. I'd like you to pray for that man, he comes from Barnsley, lives quite near to my home back in the north of England. He used to attend Barnsley Parish Church, did you know that? His mother was a Christian.

He used to sing in the choir. Let's remember him and the minors in our prayers. The minor prophets, well it's M-I-N-O-R, it's got nothing to do with the lesser importance of their inclusion in the canon.

They're minor in as much as they're shorter than, say, Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah. The message is exactly as important as the bigger brothers, whose volumes are also linked into this library of books we call the Bible. Well, Micah, my good friend, Pastor Tim, he introduced this last week.

And it's my privilege to try to bring to you an address from the second and third chapters. Lloyd-Jones once said that nobody can live very comfortably in a week with certain passages of Scripture in front of them to speak on. And that certainly is my case right now, as you'll see, as we take just a selection of verses from these two chapters.

If you're new here, you've not got a Bible, the natives are friendly, they'll loan you one. At least let you share theirs, I'm sure. Micah chapter two.

Woe, woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds. At morning's light they carry it out. Because it is in their power to do it, they covet fields and seize them and houses and take them.

They defraud a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance. Therefore, the Lord says, I am planning disaster against this people, from which you cannot save yourselves. You will no longer walk proudly, for it will be a time of calamity.

In that day men will ridicule you, they will taunt you with this mournful song. We are utterly ruined. My people's possession is divided up.

He takes it from me. He assigns our fields to traitors. Therefore, you will have no one in the assembly of the Lord to divide the land by lot.

Do not prophesy, their prophets say. Do not prophesy about these things. Disgrace will not overtake us.

Should it be said, O house of Israel, is the spirit of the Lord angry? Does he do such things? Do not my words do good to him whose ways are upright? Lately my people have risen up like an enemy. You strip off the rich robe from those who pass by without a care. Like men returning from battle, you drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes.

You take away my blessing from their children forever. Get up! Go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled. It is ruined beyond all remedy.

If a liar and deceiver comes and says, I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer, he will be just the prophet for this people. The next few verses change the setting and speak of hope and the possibility of return to the Lord. Chapter 3 Then I said, Listen you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel.

Should you not know justice, you who hate good and love evil, who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones, who eat my people's flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces, who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot? Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done. This is what the Lord says, As for the prophets who lead my people astray, if one feeds them, they proclaim peace.

If he does not, they prepare to wage war against him. Therefore night will come over you without visions and darkness without divinations. The sun will set for the prophets and the day will go dark for them.

The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God. But as for me, I am filled with power with the Spirit of the Lord and with justice and might.

To declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin. Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right, who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with wickedness. Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money.

Yet they lean upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us. Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field. Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble.

The temple hill, a mound overgrown with thickets. Verse 1 of chapter 2. Woe to those who plan iniquity. Verse 3 of chapter 2. I am planning disaster.

Chapter, verse 1, directed to men. Verse 3, God speaking. Those who plan iniquity is contrasted with what I am planning.

If you check the papers this past week, you will discover that 50 years have passed since a ferocious encounter between the troops of General Montgomery and a very brilliant and brave German general, Rommel, in the deserts of North Africa. Those two men with their troops, they were locked in a very bloody conflict, which robbed many Germans and many allied forces of life. They represented two completely different military plans, and they were on a collision course.

This is what Micah is saying here. He's talking about the plan of God, and he's talking about the plan of man. And he tells us in the context of the 8th century, when he was preaching the 8th century BC, that these plans were completely contradictory.

And the same obtains today. God has a plan. And it's probably the case, as far as you're concerned, in your life, you too have a plan.

And the question is this. To what degree is your plan subsumed in the overarching plan of God? Or to what degree do you live your life in conflict with this holy God? For a man who takes on God is a fool. When the infinite does battle with the finite, it's fairly obvious who is going to win.

So I bring you back once more to the prophecy of Micah, with this particular challenge, and with this opening observation, that God has a plan for our world, and that plan is moving to its consummation. You see, when men contradict the purposes of God, they do not outdo God. What they do is tempt his omnipotence.

And he demonstrates how he is able to achieve his will despite the evil of ordinary people. You say, what do you mean? Well, I'll give you an illustration. Let's go to the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, just for a moment.

Here is Peter. It's his sermon debut. That is, it's the first time he's ever addressed a large congregation, and he does remarkably, as you would expect, for a man who is fully inspired by the Spirit.

The subject matter of his sermon is none other than our blessed Lord, and he's going through what happened to Jesus and why it happened. He tells us in the 23rd verse that this man, the Lord Jesus, was handed over to his enemies. And as a result of him being handed over to these wicked men, he was put to death by being nailed to the cross.

That was the plan of man. Over against that is the overarching plan of God who uses the malevolence, the evil of men, to achieve his will. And you discover that it was within the purposes of God for our Lord Jesus to die such a horrific death so that the possibility of salvation shall be directed towards all the sons of Abraham and Adam.

It was evil on the part of those men who dealt so cruelly with our Lord Jesus. The Bible does give them no absolution at all unless there was repentance. But over against the darkness of the conniving of men is the great and glory of the power of God who can even take men's sin and somehow use it for the ultimate consummation of his will.

Now, this God who was in control of the situation when our Lord Jesus died and brought him back to life reveals, as you continue in the New Testament, that the whole history of man is moving to a specific purpose. For example, when you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, here is the apostle Paul and he's talking about the end time. That is when history has finally run its course.

The last moment on the clock has ticked. You'll never have to put the clock back an hour or put it forward an hour or, like me, never too sure whether it should go forward or backward so you ask your wife who has greater intelligence and she keeps you right or else you'd be late for the church or too early for the church, as the case may be. The time is coming when time shall be no more.

Then, says the apostle Paul, verse 24, 1 Corinthians 15, then the end will come when the Lord Jesus hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And then it goes on to say that when the Lord Jesus has handed the kingdom to the Father the God shall be, verse 25, all and in all.

Now the apostle, he carries this message on and develops it further as he's writing to the Ephesians. He talks about the Lord Jesus, verse 10 of chapter 1 bringing all things in heaven and on earth together under his headship. And when you move on to the apostle John as he writes his revelation he talks about the day that will dawn when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.

You see the point? God has a plan. An overarching plan. All history is moving as a result of his strange and glorious divine.

So back to status. Men have plans. God has a plan.

Not 8th century men are we addressing now. 20th century men and women. Here is the challenge.

Is your plan subsumed into the purposes of God? Or are you taking God on in some sort of intellectual or moral conflict? If so, you are behaving as a fool. You cannot fight this God. And if you know him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus you would not even want to attempt to fight him.

So that is the context with which I introduce you to these particular chapters which are ours for consideration this morning. Here, as I give you just a little synopsis in the second chapter you will find the prophet taking on the whole of the religious indeed the whole of the establishment in his day. Verses 1 and through to 5 of the second chapter he is in effect calling men and women who live as though they are not responsible to their fellows and therefore not responsible to God he calls them to book.

And then from the 6th verse through to the 11th verse he shifts the spotlight from the establishment to the clergy. And he says that men who preach in the name of God will one day be brought to book before God for the content of their ministry and also for the compromise in this case that there has been in their lives. The 12th verse will give you a fleeting comment as to what God can do when people repent and then into the third chapter you get again another summary of the way that people in Micah's day were living as though their plans were super important.

And so he repeats his argument with different words directing his attention first of all once again to the political establishment the first verse through to the fourth verse then again to the prophets or the religious clergy from the fifth verse to the seventh and then he makes some contrasting observation about himself and his own commitment to God and as a minister of his word to the people in his day. What is God saying to the United Kingdom today? You know the tabloid press for whom I have got very little respect maybe one or two exceptions they tried to make a monkey out of the inspector of police of Greater Manchester some years ago it's not for me to comment on his abilities as a policeman but the reason why they ridiculed him was this that he dared to suggest that God still speaks today and that is a claim that in the modern media is so ridiculed you would feel that anyone who dares to repeat it also will get the spotlight and therefore as a result their criticism and to some degree the established church has muted its own declaration that God speaks today simply because it is not an acceptable thing to assert but the fact of the matter is this the God who spoke in 8th century BC is the God who speaks in the 20th century the God who spoke to Israel is the God who speaks to the United Kingdom so what is God saying to the United Kingdom? I dare to tell you that God is saying this that our land is under judgment you are under judgment because of the danger of giving up everything that you ever originally stood for our God is saying that your economy is not divorced from your morality have you never learned the lessons of history? Israel was economically strong when she was spiritually great a kingdom never holds together more than when its citizens are committed to a defined morality when they recognize the difference between goodness and evil between black and white in the 1950s when philosophy was riding the crest of the wave in our country we had not only the philosophical school of what was known as logical positivism into which I'll not go this morning asking for a hearing but we were told that ethics were situational that meant to say that you could not in any one situation say that one thing was right and another thing was wrong and the net result of all this now you may not have worked it through or even think that it's relevant in the 1990s but it is the legacy of that was the permissive society which will no longer legislate or even say that certain acts the sexual area are wrong in themselves because they are an affront to the revelation of God and if you live in this fashion ultimately you will find that your society begins to decay in other words if you eat away at the family concept which is what the permissive society is doing then you will have more divorce you will have more children who are growing up with single parent families the state will have to come to help that family and rightly so because there is not sufficient finance you take it down that particular line and you will discover that a society that moves towards anarchy is a very expensive society to maintain and that's what Micah was saying and that's what the Bible has always been saying and that's why when I put up the question what is God affirming towards the United Kingdom in these days the answer can be none other than we are under judgement our reputation has been affected by our inability to reason why do we no longer have the influence that we used to have as a nation in the theatre of this world's nations the answer I say my friend is this we fail to reason things out anymore we allow the philosophy of permissiveness in all its areas I'm not just speaking in terms of sexuality I'm talking in the terms of economics we go for the big buck the people who did well out of the property boom and now the property boom has gone and the net result is that you get many people who are depicted here in terms of widows and orphans you get exactly the same thing in our country people are losing their jobs by their thousands what is the reason for this mismanagement? yes, but where does the mismanagement, where is it traceable back to? well, I argue it's traceable back to a breakdown in spirituality it's traceable back to a breakdown in confidence and trust in one another you see, these things, the smug satirical programs on ITV and BBC these things that they laugh at these are the very things that were holding our society together this is why we need to protest when gnawing away at the very vital of the United Kingdom are the attacks of those who would throw Christianity and all it stands for overboard and what the church needs more than anything else in the 20th century are the modern equivalents of Micah's who are prepared to call the spade a spade and tell the establishment the truth and the established church where it has gone wrong does a preacher have a right to make any sort of comments like the ones that I am making after all, this has been one of the problems of evangelicalism touch on this social issue you get yourself into the political issue and then you get some recoiling and saying this is the social gospel as though the gospel I preach has got nothing to do with the way ordinary people live I mean, that is an utter nonsense buy their fruits, says our blessed Lord you shall know them if there is no practical spin-off for the gospel then I quit what's the point of preaching the gospel? you want a definition of preaching? listen to a man baptised by the spirit of God say so verse 8, chapter 3 ask for me, I am filled with power with the spirit of the Lord and with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression to Israel his sin hear this you leaders of the house of Jacob you rulers of the house of Israel who despise justice and distort all that is right who build Zion with bloodshed and so forth you see you just cannot argue against the propositions that I have been bringing before you because they are not mine they are embedded in the Old Testament and they are also fleshed out and developed in the New Testament in the person of our beloved Lord and his disciples your doctrine is addressed to your life that's what Micah is saying his theology has to be applied and he throws the equivalent of a hand grenade into the establishment circles in his day you say what do you mean? why do you use those strong terms? well I have to use those strong terms want to keep you alive and listening attentively to what I have to say and secondly I didn't mean alive I meant alert and secondly because it is true go to the end of the third chapter on what did the Hebrews in Micah's day build their hope? well you see they were citizens of Jerusalem what is Jerusalem? well it's the capital of the Holy Land the Holy Land therefore it's the holy city what is the crowning glory of Jerusalem? is it not the temple? the greatest wonder of the ancient world to the extent that the people in a more spiritually healthy era used to chant in worship using the words the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord it became if you like one of their spiritual songs and what they meant by that was well the temple of the Lord is where God localizes his presence where he manifests his power and his glory and there was something wonderful about the temple not as a building but as the place where God met with people now they forgot the principle and they hung on to the building and the building becomes just like a charm just like a fetish and they believe that because they live in Jerusalem because theirs is the temple in the center of Jerusalem therefore they are safe and Micah says not a bit not a bit he says you see that temple it will be overgrown with thickets you see those walls of Zion they'll be knocked down Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble a mound overgrown you've got to have guts to say that you really have it's difficult for us to understand the courage that Micah had in those days as he was pulling the carpet from under the feet of men and women who thought that they were spiritually secure the temple doesn't mean a thing Jerusalem doesn't mean a thing the church of England doesn't mean a thing wording tabernacle doesn't mean a thing in itself it's what the church of England should stand for it's what the tabernacle should stand for it's what this country should stand for there are no religious charms there are no fetishes this is part of clairvoyance it's part of paganism it never was, never can be, never will be part of Christianity and so you see when Micah comes along in that second chapter spilling over to the third he disabuses the establishment of the notion that they're secure and he tells the clergy that theirs is the double responsibility and therefore the double guilt for leading people astray look at verse one of the second chapter whoa! in one sense you don't really need to go any further than the first word I will because I'm a preacher but it really is all encapsulated in that word that whoa! that whoa is the same whoa as Jesus uttered when he looked at Jerusalem and when he spoke of the of the heretical clergy the hypocritical clergy in his day when we bury that little mite of three months later this week or maybe the beginning of next there'll be a whale God does not rob us of our humanity even when he indicates that the future is glorious for those who've gone beyond it is not wrong to cry it is not wrong to weep but here is the funeral dirge whoa! you've got to hear it not just read it whoa! why? well, says the prophet there are those who plan iniquity on their beds it's an interesting study again we can't go down this line but you can check it through yourself if you want as to what you should do in those early hours in the morning when perhaps you're awake or those the half hour or so before you go to sleep at night Psalm 4 verse 4 in your anger do not sin when you are on your beds search your hearts and be silent these people however these rich people they were just working out at night how they could add more houses to the houses that they already had they were engaging in the sin of covetousness they were exploiting their fellows of their inheritance the land of Israel was always special to God in Old Testament times you did not deal in a cavalier fashion with the land it was God's great gift to Abraham and for the sons of Abraham to play monopoly with the land of Israel was so blasphemous but monopolies played with land today mortgages higher than they should ever have been people who bought as a result of advice that was given and now the crash comes with many of our folk with ten and twenty thousand pounds of debt and not even a house to show for it I have got no simplistic answers but I do tell you what the root of the problem was and is therefore says the Lord whenever you get the word therefore in scripture you know that it's part of the reasoning this is happening therefore this is if you like this is the tat for the tit this is the way that God is to react to what others have done the Bible tells us in the New Testament what a man sows that will he also reap says John Calvin it is the peculiar office of God to render to each the measure of evil they have brought on others so God is saying to those who brought about this problem in Israel in the 8th century well I'm planning disaster against you from which you cannot save yourself you have in your power ridiculed others in your powerlessness verse 4 taunt songs will be composed and directed towards you and you will be in a state where you will cry we are utterly ruined why are they ruined well because the people of God the spiritual righteous people very often the poor people in Jerusalem and its environment have been so dastardly treated by these Jews who should have known better look at the latter part of verse 4 the astonishment there with the exclamation mark rightly placed by the translators of the NIV he takes it from me yes indeed this is God you see God in his grandeur God in his omnipotence allowing Jerusalem to be stormed allowing these exploiters to be taken away and cast into other nations he God assigns our fields to traitors can this be the case would God act in such a summary fashion the answer is yes he will because God is a God of justice you see God is not just this loving compassionate ever forgiving God who will tolerate evil and injury directed towards the orphans and the widows who are helpless there is such a thing as the wrath of God the wrath of God revealed against all men who under heaven hold the truth of God and unrighteousness that applies to the Jew as well as to the Gentile therefore says the prophet in verse 5 you will have no one in the assembly of the Lord to divide the land by lot what does he mean the excommunication of the people to whom he was directing his comments will be absolute you remember that verse in the Psalms that talks about the line has fallen on pleasant places well that devolved from a Jewish practice of dividing land they did it by a solemn act of casting a dice and as a result of what the dice showed land apportionment was what was made out therefore if the line fell on pleasant places it was that in the allocation of land you had done very well you will have no one in the assembly of the Lord to divide the land by lot excommunication is what the prophet in the name of God was declaring to these people for the way in which they were living now quickly not just the establishment but also the clergy and in this respect they are more to be blamed because well they should have acted in a in a different fashion the prophet here begins with their preaching and ends with their preaching verse 6 contrasts with verse 11 they tell him not to preach they put a ban on his preaching don't preach that stuff why? well you know you're upsetting people surprise surprise what is preaching supposed to do? the preacher who goes for popularity should never enter the pulpit the lifespan of Old Testament prophets was not terribly long so they didn't have a queue muzzle Micah you are saying disgrace will overtake us should you be saying such thing verse 7 this is all parodying this is all in semi-mockery of what the false prophets are saying should it be said O house of Jacob is the spirit of the Lord angry? how can God be angry with the house of Jacob we can quote so many scriptures which say that God will love Abraham's seed forever and forever how can you come along and talk about the anger of God how can a 20th century preacher say that God can be a God who is angry a God who can consign people to hell you can't say that sort of thing you don't know the scriptures the answer is the problem is on the other foot my friend you only know some of the scriptures you don't appreciate that there is a condition attached to and so Micah stands these prophets up and he he puts them right my words you see the gap there those of you who are following the NIV the first half and the second half of verse 7 because we've now moved into Micah's positive preaching my words do good to those who are upright it's only the fact that well amongst the people of God there are those who are now behaving like the enemy of God the Old Testament legislation says that when a stranger passes through your land you do not rob him but you're stripping the robe off him the New Testament says you do not take a widow woman's land and as a result make her children without any help whatsoever thus they're sent off as slaves you don't behave like this if you do well you take away my blessing from the children my blessing from the children suffer little children to come unto me forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven you see the knock on from the Old Testament to the New Testament God is concerned about children God is concerned about the poor touch them and you touch me exploit them and you exploit me exploit me and you are taking divinity on as your enemy you see how powerful is this stuff get up, go away verse 10 this is not your resting place you have no right to be in Jerusalem you have no right to be in the temple you have no right to be in the Holy Land you have no right in the purposes of God in the covenant of God because that covenant is not unconditional how a man lives is judged by God what a man sows therefore he will reap therefore you don't want me but says Micah and you hand it to him he's got a sense of humour in his invective look if a liar verse 11 and a deceiver comes along if a prophet who could be described as this comes and offers to be your pastor I will prophesy for you plenty of beer then well you'd have a church meeting you'd have him in you see how astonishing this all is and yet it's not that removed from the 20th century ask how some of our ecclesiastical dignitaries assume the place of influence that they have and check them on the basis of their theological belief and their commitment to the morality of the Old and the New Testament I don't say all I say check some you see Micah has a great deal to say to the 20th century I haven't as you would have anticipated without being a prophet got to the end of what I wanted to say the third chapter is really a rerun in terms of directing criticism towards the establishment and to the clergy as you find in the second chapter and you'll have to work through it on your own but just in the last couple of minutes look at verse 8 you see here is Micah this is in the third chapter and he's saying as for me and the way that I preach I can't really help what I have to say I'm filled with power with the spirit of the Lord with a sense of justice and might and so he lets rip once more against those who built Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with wickedness the leaders who judged for a bribe and the priests who ministered if you crossed their palm with silver and he predicted doom Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble but look my parting shot it didn't happen not then it did ultimately happen but you see I get great help from Micah as a preacher because as a result of Micah's preaching and the finding of the scroll in the temple that is the record of the book of Deuteronomy and the ascension to the throne of King Josiah something like a reformation and a revival broke out Jeremiah chapter 26 makes reference to this the preaching of Micah had made an indelible impression on the citizens of Jerusalem and when they are next confronted with a great catastrophe they recall what Micah of Morisheth the prophet prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah he told all the people of Judah this is what the Lord Almighty says Zion will be ploughed like a field Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets and the result was that Micah was not put to death by Hezekiah he listened to what the man had to say and as a result a reformation broke out in the land as a reformation broke out as a result of Whitefield and Wesley in the 18th century when England was on the course for disaster almost ready to ape what was happening in France my friend don't you understand there is the possibility of recovery even for our country today but it is on the basis of God's revealed law the established church does no justice to its people if it refuses to enhance and to make plain the New Testament ethic those who have influence in our BBC in the trade union congress amongst the hierarchy of government officials of the government they must be informed that this country I measure my words is facing the wrath of God unless there is a return to the old fashioned values of the gospel that is not a bible ranter from the south coast I have got the whole of history on my side to demonstrate the point this is not political preaching this is the application of the good and great and glorious gospel of Jesus Christ who is prepared to do dealings with sinners on the basis that they repent as Micah smuggles in those verses that we didn't go into in our bible study this morning as to the possibility of Jerusalem being redeemed and Zion being returned to its former pristine glory it is a strange way of God to condemn it is the natural way of God to forgive he longs to forgive he does not want to condemn but he will do the latter if there is no repentance and that is the burden of Micah we're going to sing a hymn which Evelyn has written it's coming up on the overhead some of you have got the words who can't see the overheads oh Lord most high and holy God we in your presence humbly bow the tune is one that you will know a brief prayer after we've sung it and then we take a few moments together some of you will have to go I trust not that many let's come around the table of our Lord and make our own affirmation and assent to what I've tried to share from the word of God this morning ascendance oh Lord we in your presence humbly bow