Rebellion in the Kingdom—Part Two

Clearly, the people had become comfortable with stealing. This is violation of the eighth commandment, “Do not steal” (Exod 20:15). Stealing had become a way of life for them as love for neighbor had been abandoned. According to verse 9, the leaders in Israel had grown brazen in their coveting and stealing. They were even willing to force widows out of their houses, stealing the inheritance away from their children. What depth of evil is this? But, again, once love for God and neighbor has been jettisoned, every other command will be abandoned too. A culture that embraces stealing can always justify its actions. People say to their neighbors, “You’ve got too much anyway. You won’t even miss it if I steal it. Besides, why should you have something that I don’t?” Sadly, this had become the thought process in Israel and Judah. Now, I would expect this if Micah were talking about Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, or any of the other unregenerate people groups mentioned in the Old Testament. But Micah wasn’t writing to them; he was writing to the Jews—people who have the covenant and the law and who know better.

Micah continued to reveal the depth of their sin in 2:11. The people had become content with lying, in violation of the ninth commandment, “Do not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Exod 20:16). Liars led them, and so the people followed their example. Micah said that even the religious leaders were liars. They were content to share a message that was simply a lie. I’m sure they sounded like many of the false teachers in our own day: “You’re doing just fine. You don’t need to worry about how you live. Just be positive, think happy thoughts, and everything will be great in your life! Imagine how you want your life to be, and then speak it into existence by faith. You don’t have to worry about sin. There’s no such thing as consequences. God loves you! He is gracious! Everything will turn out great in the end!” Such are the lies of every false prophet, in both Micah’s day and our own. A steady diet of these lies made it easy for the people to become expert liars. It was now part of their religious DNA. God’s people had embraced deceit, coveting, stealing, and lying, and these sins now defined their lives and culture.

At the heart of all these sins, however, was one fateful decision—they had rejected God’s truth. God had told them what He required. He had called them to be loyal and obedient, but they had refused and rebelled. You can’t love your neighbors and treat them deceitfully; you can’t love your neighbors and covet and steal their possessions; you can’t love your neighbors and lie to them or about them, all the while convincing yourself that everything is okay simply because culture says it is.

As you can imagine, the people hated Micah’s message. Quite frankly, they wanted him to stay quiet: “‘Quit your preaching,’ they preach. ‘They should not preach these things; shame will not overtake us’” (2:6). I can almost hear the people ranting against Micah, “Enough with the heavy-handed preaching already! Everything’s cool; at least, that’s what all the other prophets are saying! We’re Abraham’s kids—we’re going to be fine! Stop already!” They weren’t Micah’s fans.

In Micah 2:7 we see God’s response. God can hardly believe what He is hearing! While the people were living in denial, believing that all would be well because of their national identity, judgment was right around the corner. God had been more than patient with His people, urging them through the prophets to repent of their sin and renew their covenant loyalty and obedience. Yet they continued unabated in their sin. Finally, God asked an amazing question: “Don’t My words bring good to the one who walks uprightly?” God was reminding His people that covenant blessing results from covenant loyalty and obedience. God said, “My word is a gift to you, and you’re rejecting it. It is the key to My favor and blessing in your lives!” This is the important truth God wanted them to understand: His word always brings good to the heart and life of the one who receives it. Unfortunately, His people were ignoring it at best, or rejecting it at worst.

So it is with us today. The problem is never with God’s Word. The Bible always accomplishes the work ordained for it by God. The problem is always in our own hearts. If we don’t love God’s Word, it’s because we don’t love God. This text should convict us and give us pause when we think about our own hearts and our own propensity to be deceitful and covetous, prone to stealing and lying. Like Israel and Judah, we dwell in a culture that tacitly affirms all of these activities. If we’re not careful, we can be drawn into the subtle lies of culture. Like the leaf that slowly meanders downstream, we can be pulled slowly along until we awaken one day to find ourselves way downstream, looking just like the culture around us. And God, who is our Father, must now discipline us because we’re not allowing His Word to shape our lives. As a pastor, I am just as susceptible to this as anyone in God’s kingdom. I acknowledge that this is a difficult message to hear. I understand the attraction of preachers who tell you that you can name and claim your way to success and prosperity, but that’s not going to help you in the long term. God’s truth helps us, and it stands at odds with a culture like Micah’s and our own.

Earlier in this chapter we saw the paradigm that God created for His people. It represented His will for them as they loved Him with their whole hearts and loved their neighbors as themselves. The following chart demonstrates what the people chose instead.

On the right side of the chart, we see what happened when the people replaced God with idols, swore allegiance to them, and found themselves in bondage. We are reminded when we look at it that if we choose this approach to life, we will experience the same outcome. Yes, God stands ready to forgive us if we confess our sins, but we are not free to determine the consequences that will accompany them.

The left side of the chart reveals the choices they made in regard to loving their neighbors. They had become a culture that was totally self-absorbed. Sounds like our own culture, right? Everything was about their happiness and success. Everyone around them was just a prop in their own personal dramas, existing solely to make their lives better. Rather than love their neighbors with affection and hospitality, the people in Israel and Judah chose to love themselves. In doing so they discovered a simple truth: When you love yourself, you will focus on two very selfish things.

First, you will be concerned with your own self-preservation. You will be concerned about yourself and what you have to do so that your world is the way that you want it to be. If you have to covet to get what you want, so be it. If you need to steal what you want, that’s okay too. Remember Bernie Madoff, the former nonexecutive Chairman of NASDAQ? He ran a Ponzi scheme that is thought by some to be the largest of its kind in history. He swindled thousands of people out of billions of dollars. How does that happen? It happens when there is no love for neighbor and the primary purpose for life becomes self-preservation. If one must covet, steal, and lie to preserve the kind of life one wants, then that’s just the way it has to be. Madoff wanted to be a multimillionaire, own amazing properties, travel to exotic places, and run in the circles of the elite. I’m sure he thought, “What’s the big deal? I have a lifestyle to support. Get over yourself and quit being so judgmental!” His sentence of 150 years in prison gives evidence of the foolishness of his choices.

Second, the byproduct of self-preservation is self-service. Left unchecked, self will totally dominate your life. That was the condition of both Israel and Judah when Micah preached these sermons. It’s easy to see why they didn’t like them. If you embrace self-love over love for your neighbor, you will begin to make every decision on the basis of its personal value to you. How will this decision benefit your life? How will it make you more successful? How can it make your life more enjoyable? As a result, you will avoid any type of activity that is inconvenient or impedes your own personal agenda.

Because the people had adopted a lifestyle of self-preservation and self-service, God was preparing to take drastic actions against them (2:3-5). The key word here is “disaster.” We’ve already seen that word in 1:12. The Hebrew word can mean “bad,” “evil,” or “wicked,” but you get the idea. God wasn’t talking about a blip on the radar screen of their lives; He was talking about the epic destruction of their nations. He was preparing to put a yoke on the neck of His people, and it was a yoke the people would not be able to pull off. God said, “My discipline is going to be so severe, I’m not only going to take you out of the land, I’m going to give your land to foreigners.” God had been calling the people back to Himself for years, but the time had come for judgment. Still, the people continued to ignore Him. They were so in love with the culture around them, they could no longer hear God’s voice. So they simply said, “Quit your preaching . . . shame will not overtake us” (2:6).

When I read this, I cannot help but be reminded of God’s purposes for our lives. God saved us to live for His glory, not to succumb to the philosophy of our secular culture. God wants us to love Him, not the idols we are so prone to erect in our hearts. He wants us to love our neighbor, not be consumed by thoughts of self-preservation and self-service. God saved us to set us free from those things. He wants us to care about the people we encounter in our lives—our family, friends, acquaintances, and even total strangers. And because we care about them, we will care for them, looking for opportunities to show God’s love by meeting their needs.

When God speaks to us about things He wants to change in our lives, we have two options. We can ignore Him, like Israel and Judah did, or we can listen to Him. God wants us to listen to the Holy Spirit, confess our sins, and follow Christ. When we do, we will experience God’s blessing. But if we choose to ignore God, then He must take steps to save us from ourselves. God is a loving Father—His discipline, though painful for a season, will ultimately produce the “fruit of peace and righteousness” (Heb 12:11). James gives us the simple solution: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas 1:22). God wants us to love Him and our neighbors, being motivated by truth so that our lives bring glory to God.

Sadly, many people have placed their hope in culture. They are allowing culture to define their self-concept, their personal priorities, and their understanding of success. They are hoping to navigate the challenges of life through their own abilities, yielding to every sin imaginable as they embrace a philosophy of self-preservation and self-service. However, Micah reminds us where real hope is found.

Hope can never be found in the dictates of sinful culture. Hope can only be found in Jesus. Love for God and neighbor frees us to experience God’s blessing and to share that blessing with others. When we live with our hope centered on Christ, and our lives are demonstrating love for God and our neighbors, the difference will be so obvious that it will point people toward Jesus so they can find hope too!