Rebellion in the Kingdom: Part Three

Look at 3:11: “Yet they lean on the Lord, saying, ‘Isn’t the Lord among us? No disaster will overtake us.’” You want to talk about arrogant! The political leaders Micah was addressing in chapter 3 were the very people he would challenge in the most famous verse in this book: “Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8). These leaders were the antithesis of this truth. They abused justice, they abandoned mercy, and they were full of pride.

God’s response in verses 4 and 12 is sobering. God said in effect, “I’m about to abandon you in the coming disaster. Don’t call out to Me. I will not hear or answer you. You are the source of the destruction that is coming through My judgment because of your evil deeds.” Yet the people continued to be content in their sin. Nevertheless, God was steadfast. “My judgment is coming. You’re going to call out for help, but when you do, I’m not going to be there. I will not acquit the guilty. You will be destroyed for lack of knowledge, but it’s not because I didn’t love you enough to give you the knowledge. It’s because you chose to reject and rebel against that knowledge in favor of your own agenda.”

Micah rebukes a second group of leaders in chapter 3—the religious leaders. He wrote about them in verses 5-7 and 11. Micah was writing this to the persons responsible for leading the people in worship. They were tasked with teaching the people to embrace covenant loyalty, obey God’s commands, and apply God’s counsel. Yet Micah described just the opposite. They had become motivated by greed. Malachi suggested a possible, pragmatic reason for this behavior. In Malachi 3 he rebuked the people for their disobedience in tithing. The people had abandoned that command along with all of the others. This, in turn, placed a heavy burden on the Levites. They were the one tribe without an inheritance; they needed the people to be obedient with their tithes so that they would have the resources necessary for life. As the tithes disappeared through disobedience, the Levites struggled to survive. Apparently, rather than trust God, they began to try to solve the problem themselves by charging the people for their services.

Micah identified two motivational problems of the religious leaders. First, they were motivated by popularity. Remember, Micah preached an unpopular message. The false prophets in Micah’s day wanted to be liked by the people, so they preached a message that appealed to the people. Whether it was true or not was irrelevant. They adopted a preaching style that focused on a positive message over a truthful one. They told the people that they were fine. God loved them, and they were secure because they were children of Abraham. In doing so, however, Micah says they led God’s people astray (v. 5a).

Second, the religious leaders were motivated by greed. Micah said they were prepared to provide a positive sermon for the ones who would give them money, but they stood ready to curse anyone who refused (v. 5b). They were following in the footsteps of the prophet Balaam, who was all about making money (Num 22). They didn’t care about the people at all. Micah’s description in verse 11 was brutal: “Her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practice divination for money.” They were nothing more than glorified fortune-tellers and conmen. This was the group tasked by God with leading the people into a lifestyle of covenant loyalty and obedience, a lifestyle motivated by love for God and neighbor. Is it any wonder that the nations of Israel and Judah were in such bad shape?

We can look around at our own context and find people functioning in the same way. Today there are many religious leaders for whom money is the only motivation of their ministry. God promised the same consequence for the religious leaders as the political leaders. When they called for help in the day of trouble, God was going to abandon them. If it’s possible, however, the religious leaders have a worse fate than the political leaders. God told them that in the hour when they most needed to hear from Him, the silence would be deafening (vv. 6-7). The religious leaders had the potential to hear a true word from God. But God was consigning them to an existence of spiritual darkness. They would never again hear a word from God.

Then we get a glimpse into Micah’s heart. He stands as a man of truth in a land of falsehood and sin. In the face of opposition and danger, he held firmly to God’s truth. In a culture that had abandoned covenant loyalty and obedience, Micah lived as a man of God. How was that possible? Micah himself answered the question in verse 8: “As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the Lord, with justice and courage, to proclaim to Jacob his rebellion and to Israel his sin.” In this verse he demonstrated how he was different from the false prophets around him.

Micah was filled with God’s power. Where did that power come from? It came from God the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit didn’t indwell every person prior to His appearance at Pentecost (Acts 2). Prior to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit did empower some people to fulfill God’s unique, sovereign purposes. Micah said, “I am filled with power, and because of that power, I am able to teach with justice and courage the message of judgment that God has given me!”

When I read this text in Micah, I cannot help but think of some similar verses written by Isaiah, one of Micah’s contemporaries. Read Isaiah 61:1-3:

The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify Him.

Notice that Isaiah’s description of his ministry was very similar to Micah’s. They both were aware that the Holy Spirit had appointed them to a special prophetic work, and they were committed to accomplishing it. What’s even more interesting about Isaiah’s text is that Jesus quoted it 700 years later to describe His own prophetic ministry (Luke 4:16-30). The people who heard Jesus speak these words in the synagogue were amazed at His gracious speech. Then Jesus looked at them in the spirit of Micah and Isaiah and told them that their hearts were so hard that He couldn’t do any miracles because of their lack of faith. Suddenly, the people went from being amazed to being enraged, and they dragged Him out of the city to throw Him off of a cliff. Miraculously, He was able to escape.

The people in the synagogue that day were just trying to do what Israel and Judah had done for centuries, the very thing the political and religious leaders in Israel did several years later when they collaborated to have Jesus sentenced to death: kill the messenger. Only this time, the messenger had come to die. Wicked, selfish men coordinated the death of Jesus the Messiah, but a sovereign God orchestrated it. And through His death and resurrection, Jesus would provide a once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world.

The people in Micah’s day had lost sight of the promise of Messiah. Instead, they were placing their hope in other things. In chapter 1 Micah said they were placing their hope in their government rather than in God to protect them. In chapter 2 Micah said they were hoping in culture, believing that cultural norms defined their ethics, even if those norms violated God’s truth. And here in chapter 3 Micah said they were rejecting God’s counsel in favor of their own arrogant wisdom. The people were holding on to one key idea that was at the root of all of these issues: They were going to be fine, no matter how they lived, no matter what they did, because they were Abraham’s descendants—and that’s just the way it was. Ultimately, the people were placing their hope in their religious birthright. Yet through Micah God was saying, “It’s only through sacrifice that your sins are forgiven, and it’s only through covenant loyalty and obedience that you will receive My favor.” Nevertheless, the people rejected it.

This sounds strangely similar to our own culture. Countless people attend a church on Christmas or Easter Sunday, check the “church” box on their “to do” list, and leave unchanged. They embrace the same philosophy as Israel and Judah. In essence they say to themselves, “Everything’s fine. God loves me, He understands me, and He is unconcerned about my lifestyle choices.” Sadly, their misguided hope in religious activity will send them straight to hell if left unchanged.

Jesus came into our world for one reason: to blow up the myth of religion. He didn’t come so that people could know more about God; He came so that people could know God. But people cannot come to God with an arrogant heart; they must come by faith, with humility, trusting in God’s Son as their Savior and Lord. When Jesus hung on the cross, and God placed our sin on Him, it was to provide a perfect sacrifice for our sin. When God raised Him from the dead, it was to demonstrate that the sacrifice had been accepted and forgiveness was now available. The fact that forgiveness is available does not mean that it’s automatic, however. Each person must make a decision about Jesus. Many will ignore Him; others will deny Him; a few will trust Him. These are the ones who will find that Jesus is the only true source of hope in life!

Those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior face a common danger. If we’re not careful, we may substitute religious activity for a growing relationship with God. Micah is warning us that we can become just like the political and religious leaders of his day. Yet God continues to challenge us to pursue truth and live truth for His glory. That’s His ultimate purpose for our lives, and we will accomplish it as we accept and apply His counsel to our lives daily.