God’s Word for the discouraged. Reading. Micah 7:1-10 Sunday 18th March 2007. Bill Humphries
Micah’s prophetic ministry began at a time of great prosperity in both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
The good times were rolling and for those with the right contacts life was easy and wealth led to greater wealth.
For those without the right contacts poverty led to greater poverty. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
Power and affluence were the order of the day and in a way reminiscent of our society today and its infatuation with the rich and famous…
…. the ‘celebs’ as they are referred to….
The people of Micahs’s day also revered and idolised their rich and famous celebrities.
Unfortunately in their apathy, their lack of concern for the weak of their society, they were blind to the destructive forces that threatened the whole of their society…
The greatest threat was not from enemies from without…. but from greed and apathy within.
God had already told the people what he required from them. Incidentally it’s still the same thing that he seeks from people today. And it does not require a degree in theology to understand. It is simply this…
…….Do what is fair and just to your neighbour. Be compassionate and loyal in your love, and take God seriously. (Micah 6:8 MSG)
Tell me… is that a lot for God to ask from any people?
Micah mourns for what is happening in his nation and among his countrymen as the fabric of society breaks down. ……..Faithfulness, honesty, integrity, trust are all gone.
The wealthy and well connected devise clever schemes to rob and cheat the poor, seizing their homes and land by fraud and violence…….
….. Evicting women from their homes and stripping children of their rights………often forcing people to sell themselves and their children into slavery simply to stay alive.
You can sense Micah’s feeling of isolation as he express his total hopelessness at the decaying moral state of his nation, permeating down from the governing officials and leading citizens.
And the judges, having been paid of with bribes do nothing to help the poor and helpless.
The priests and prophets, those who should be denouncing all the wickedness around them are preaching a message lies that all is well…..
…..Telling the people what they want to hear, whilst lining their own pockets.
The rot and corruption which began at the top has now permeated down through the whole nation and all human relationships are disintegrating and friendship counts for nothing.
In verse 6 of our reading, Micah says, “The son despises his father. The daughter defies her mother. The daughter in law defies her mother in law. Your enemies will be right in your own household.”
As we will see in a moment the family is of utmost importance to God….. However in this ‘me first’ generation where self and the accumulation of wealth was the order of the day….
... Family ties were also crumbling.
Let’s allow our focus to centre for a moment on the importance of family ties.
For we would do well to remember on this Mothering Sunday, that when family ties break down in any society, then that society has indeed reached rock bottom…
……... Because there is no better place to learn the essential principals of life, principals of love, integrity and morality than in the intimacy of the family.
And it is with respect to learning the principals of life within the family that, a certain Christian man who was also well respected for his work within the church, tells a story of how a dog wondered into his home.
His three sons played with it, fed it and soon became quite fond of it. It so happened that the dog had three white hairs on its tail. One day the man and his sons spotted an advertisement in the local newspaper about a lost dog. The description of the stray they had taken in matched perfectly.
The man said, ‘In the presence of my three boys, we carefully separated the three white hairs and removed them from the dog’s tail.’
The real owner of the dog eventually discovered where his stray pooch had gone and came to claim him. The dog showed every sign of recognising his owner, so the owner prepared to take him away.
At that point the father of the three boys spoke up and asked, ‘Didn’t you say that the dog would be known by three white hairs in its tail?’ The owner, unable to find the identifying feature, was forced to admit that this dog didn’t fully fit the description of his lost dog and left.
It is the family environment that shapes our direction in life. And unfortunately, as we are only all too well aware, families through either physical or verbal abuse have the power to damage the emotional well-being of a child well into adulthood and beyond.
But it can also be the seemingly little things that can also speak so very loudly….
For the man in our story, the years passed and he said with sadness…… ‘We kept the dog, but I lost my three boys for Christ that day.’ ……
…….His sons no longer had confidence in what their father professed to be true.
Our children watch the choices we make in all areas of life and learn from the examples that we set. The example that the man set for his three boys was one of lies and deceit.
As we have already mentioned, in Micah’s society family relationship were crumbling, a reflection of the state of a nation that had turned away from God.
Do you think that perhaps we see signs of family relationships suffering in our society of today… and the accompanying breakdown of guidance in those essential principals of life….namely love, integrity and morality.
The intimacy of any relationship is made up of time spent together and the quality of what is shared together, within that time……
…. If a family spends its precious time together in front of the television set, that is not intimacy…..
… and very often the principals likely to be picked up are those of that flourish in the unprincipled worlds of East-Enders and such like.
Let me ask a question…….
Do television soaps, reality shows and suchlike simply portray the fabric of our society as it exists today?
……Or does our society itself, seek to emulate the lives of soap characters, pop stars and such like to the extent that television…. rather than reflecting the fabric of our society……. is actually shaping and moulding the fabric of society?
Do you think it possible that we have been slowly anaesthetized as programmes gradually sink ever lower….
……But not too much at once….
….First letting us get used to one level of deprivation and accepting that as the norm …
…. before taking us down to another level.
What we in the west call entertainment, the African Church calls voyeurism and pornography…. The western church used to send missionaries to Africa….. Today, God sends missionaries from Africa to us.
Family life is central to the well being of any nation and it will always be the saddest casualty in any nation that turns from God…. Ephesians 6:4 says – Take your children by the hand and lead them in the way of Jesus.
I said a moment ago that families are of the utmost importance to God…… God himself divinely established and instituted the life of the family as being central to the life and well-being of all people……
…….They were his ideal environment for people since the creation of the world.
Right at the beginning of the Bible, we read in Genesis 2:24 - A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
It’s interesting that God, when he first called Abraham did not say that all the people of the earth will be blessed through you….. What he did in fact say is that “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:3)
And let me say a word about those who do not have a family, those who are alone in the world….
….In Christ all believers are part of the family of God. As it states in Ephesians 2:19 “You are members of God’s family.”
In Psalm 68, God is described as Father to the fatherless….
….In Deuteronomy God is described as - The great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the stranger. And God says, “You shall also love the stranger.” (10:17-18)
Time and again in the Scriptures God speaks of the alien in your midst, he speaks of the widow and the orphan as representing the weakest in society…
. He states that he himself will take up their cause and will consider any un-acceptance or rejection of them as un-acceptance or rejection of himself.
So important is the family of believers to Jesus, is that he said that he will consider hospitality shown to the least of his brothers and sister as hospitality shown to him.
But to those, who like the people of Israel and Judah of Micah’s day, who selfishly refuse to render any assistance to those in need. This is what Jesus said he will say to them on judgment day:
“Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons! For I was hungry and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me anything to drink. I was a stranger and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked and you gave me no clothing. I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.”
And they will reply, “Lord, when did we ever see you as you have just described and not help you?’” And Jesus said he will answer, “I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.”
That is strong language that Jesus uses.
Folks we would do well to remember that God has a special place in his heart for those people who are lonely or abandoned……
… Just as he had a special place in his heart for the people abandoned through the erosion of human compassion so evident in Micah’s day.
But you know, Micah’s message is not a message of doom. It is a message of hope and restoration.
Because although he certainly proclaimed that God’s judgment would come, and come indeed it did…
The northern kingdom of Israel was finally conquered by the Assyrians in 722BC and the remains of the population were deported.
The southern kingdom of Judah, due to the reforms of King Hezekiah and the humble repentance on behalf of his nation of King Josiah fared better…..
…. However with the death of Josiah, the nation again turned away from God, and was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586BC and the survivors were deported to Babylon.
… It was a terrible time to live through.. Or to die in.
……..But as I said, Micah’s message is a message of hope because, as we shall now see, God purposes were not to totally destroy, but to discipline his people.
The prophets Isaiah, Hosea and Amos, were around in roughly the same time frame as Micah, and they also warned the people of the dangers of their indifference to the poor and needy…
….... and of the hypocrisy of their religious complacency in which they praised God with their lips while their hearts were far away making their praise nothing more than empty words and ritual. (Is 29:13)
In Amos 3:2 – God says of Israel and Judah, “From among all the families on the earth, I chose you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins”
Can we grasp how merciful God is being here?
Now you might look at me and say, “Hold on a moment, God says to these people, ‘From among all the families on the earth, I chose you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.’ ……And you ask, can we grasp how merciful God is being here?”
Well, in verse 2 of our reading, Micah says:
“The Godly people have all disappeared. Not one fair minded person is left on the earth.”
….This means that as a righteous judge, God had every right to destroy them all.
But such is the mercy of God that his discipline worked to preserve his people ……and not destroy them.
Israel and Judah’s existence, strength and prosperity. Their privileged status as God’s chosen people, chosen from all the families on the earth, carry responsibilities.
Our privileged status, called and chosen by God to be like his own Son Jesus Christ, also carries responsibilities….
… Hence the strong language that Jesus uses regarding those who refuse to help the least of his brothers and sisters.
Hebrews 12:10says, “God’s discipline is always right and good for us because it means we will share in his holiness.”
God’s looking at the big picture, the eternal picture. That of restoring to himself all things in heaven and on earth through his Son, Jesus Christ.
And through his discipline a remnant of people returned to Judah after the Babylonian exile and rededicated themselves to the service and worship of God.
Again I say, Micah’s message is not a message of doom and disaster but a message of hope and restoration….
……. Because Micah foresaw and prophesied that through that remnant of people that rededicated themselves to God would come not only the restoration of the nation..
…But also, through the generations yet to come, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Micah prophesied the birth of Jesus some seven centuries before it actually occurred…… He even foresaw that it would be in the town of Bethlehem.
In that prophecy he speaks of a the woman in labour giving birth to her son, a ruler of Israel coming from among the people, yet one who origins are from the distant past.
One whose origins are in fact from everlasting.
Micah says that he will stand to lead his flock with the Lord’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God…….
…. He will be highly honoured all around the world. And he will be the source of our peace. (5:2-5)
Micah’s message is a message of the mercy and compassion of Almighty God.
For us today, living in the 21st Century, Micah’s message.. …..as it was for the people of his day…. and has been for the people of every other century between then and now..
….is a call to return to God in repentance, to receive cleansing and forgiveness.
It’s a message to governments and those in positions of authority and leadership to govern with justice and compassion….. Not to pervert justice…. or turn a blind eye to corrupt practices.
It’s a message to businesses to be honest in their dealing…
…..For world conglomerates to pay fair prices to struggling third world farmers and growers. ….To put people ahead of profits.
It’s a message to the church that the Word of God is not for compromise…….. That the church is not called to compromise the Word of God in order to appease the society of today……..
…But to boldly preach the Word of God to the society of today… without compromise.
It’s a message for us all to look out for the poor and needy, for the weak and helpless.
It’s a message for the people of this country who think that this is a Christian nation…..
……… A message that God does not want empty praise or meaningless rituals……… But wants heartfelt obedience and commitment to his Son Jesus Christ.
It’s a call for all people to awaken from their infatuation with the glossy veneer popularised by the media, the shiny magazines and reality shows, to awaken to the real world.
As I said a moment ago, a call to return to God in repentance, to receive cleansing and forgiveness.
The apostle John is known as the apostle of love and in his first letter, in his love for us he warns us:
“Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you.”
John is not speaking here about love for the beauty of God’s creation, he is talking of the world of human ambitions and desires that are in direct opposition to the values of the Kingdom of God.
He goes on to say:
“For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. (1st John 2:15-16)
I would like to use an analogy of a flock of birds, all following the leader.
For the leader, think of the glossy veneer world of the latest fashion trends set by the rich and famous.
For the flock of birds think of the people of the world seeking to be associated with those physical pleasures.
You know they say that birds of a feather flock together, and that is very true… But always remember, Eagles soar alone.
There is a story of how a man found an eagles egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen.
The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
All his life the eagle did what the backyard chickens did, thinking he was a backyard chicken……
………He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old.
One day he saw a magnificent bird fly far above him in the cloudless sky……
……. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbour.
“He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth – we’re chickens.”
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.
(Anthony DeMello.. The Song of the Bird.)
The choice is ours…..The choice of whether to flock together with the trends of society….
To be part of the in-crowd of today that has no time for or need of God in the blindness of their rejection of him…
To thrash our chicken wings, so to speak and fly a few feet into the air.
Or to soar above as if on eagles wings.
To stand up and be counted as one who remains faithful regardless of anything else……
….. To pick up, carry and pass on the baton of our spiritual heritage.
The Bible says that those whose trust is in the Lord will fly high on wings like eagles.