Micah 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: The prophet’s second message describes specific sins
Micah 2:1
THE PROPHET’S SECOND MESSAGEIn this chapter Micah describes the specific sins of the people. Judgment came upon these people because they had gone into idolatry with all that that implies. Idolatry in that day represented gross immorality, and the wages of the harlots ran the “high places.” Prostitution was the source of funds for their religion since sex was associated with idolatry. We find that the same thing is true today in the occult and in Satan worship. I think there is a connection between the occult of today and the idolatry of Micah’s day. Sex plays a very prominent part in both of them.
They are a revelation of man breaking God’s commandment. Sexual sin and idolatry seem to go together. They destroy the home and destroy the sweet and tender relationship between a man and a woman in marriage. When sex is kept within the marriage relationship, it can become the sweetest and most precious thing on earth. When a nation moves sex out of that context and encourages illicit sex in the name of religion or “new morality,” it is evidence of the fact that the nation is in decline and is actually on its way out. The sins which Micah will denounce in this chapter are sins against one another, sins against mankind, while in the first chapter their sins were in their relationship with God. You see, when a man is not right with God, he cannot be right with his fellowman. And when a man is right with God, he can be (although he doesn’t always choose to be) right with his fellowman. We have an illustration of this in the lovey-dovey movement which started several years ago with the “flower children” in the San Francisco area. Because they were far from the Lord, the movement lapsed into gross immorality, and it wrecked the lives of many young people. My friend, when you are not right with God, you will not be right with other people. Chapter 2 is not going to be pretty. You will not find it to be the most beautiful chapter in the Word of God. But it reveals the sin of a nation, which caused its destruction. It is well for us as God’s people and also for our nation to listen to Micah and to wake up. Although this may include the practice of illicit sex, it primarily refers to evil of other sorts. When they go to bed at night, they don’t go to sleep but lie there and devise and plan iniquityand chances are they are engaging in it at the same time. I have had some experience with folk like this. A wife complained to me bitterly that when her husband comes home, he doesn’t leave his work in the office but brings it with him. And when he goes to bed at night, he lies there conniving what he will do the next day. No wonder the wife was contemplating divorce. “When the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.” That is, they are able to execute what they have planned. It is also true in our contemporary society that the sinner and the ungodly are successful. The wealth of my own country is not in the hands of the godly todayalthough it was at one time. Money means power, and the ungodly are able to carry through that which is wrong. This is the chief reason that my nation is in its present predicament. The real problem is not an energy shortage nor the incapability of this or that political party.
The root of the problem is that power is in the hands of the ungodly. This is the same sin which brought Israel down. Micah, as we have already noted, presents a philosophy of human government which God follows. If you doubt this, read the history of the fall of great nations. When wealth and power get into the hands of a few ungodly people, God moves in judgment. Micah is still speaking of those in his day whose lives were characterized by doing eviltwenty-four hours a day. Now he is being specific
Micah 2:2
“They covet fields, and take them by violence.” We have an example of this being done by Israel’s royalty in the case of Ahab and Jezebel. In 1 Kings 21 we have the record of King Ahab coveting the vineyard of Naboth. Like a spoiled brat, he wanted it, although he didn’t make a move to get it. However, his wife Jezebel was a sinner who believed in action. She immediately set about getting the vineyard by eliminating Naboth. So what the heads of government practiced, those down below began to practice. The wealthy began to seize the fields that they coveted because they had the money and the power to do it. My, how that method is being used in our contemporary society! The little businessman doesn’t stand much of a chance for survival in the culture we have produced. The big operators are in control, and they frankly say that they are in for the profits. But sometimes the word profit is a synonym for covetousness. And this was the great sin of Israel. I have never understood why any man would want more than one million dollars. I have always thought that if I had that much money I would never want any more. It seems, however, that when a man gets one million dollars, he desires two million dollars. With two million dollars he can’t eat any more. He can’t sleep any more. He can’t indulge himself any morehe can only drink so much, and he can only sin so much. A million dollars will enable a man to do all that he wants, but men want to continue to get richer and richer and richer. The old bromide “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is the story of mankind. And Micah is speaking into that situation. Notice that evil men will covet fields and houses and take them by violence. God not only gave the Land of Promise to the nation Israel and put them in it, but He also gave each tribe a particular portion of the land. Then He gave each individual a particular plot in the tribe to which he belonged, and that plot was his heritage. Then God instituted certain laws so that a man could not lose his land forever. During the Year of Jubilee every mortgage was canceled, and every bit of property was returned to its original owner. However, the Year of Jubilee only came every fifty years.
If you lost your land the second year after Jubilee, you would have to wait forty-eight years to reclaim it. You could get very hungry in that length of time! Even though God had made laws to protect the poor, the rich always found ways to get around them, of course. All through the Scriptures we see that God is on the side of the poor. As Abraham Lincoln used to say, “God must love poor people because He made so many of them.” And the Lord Jesus Himself experienced the poverty of this earth.
Micah 2:3
This is a very interesting verse. God has said, “I condemn you because you lie on your beds and plot evil.” Now He says, “I am going to plot evil against you.” What does He mean by that? Was God actually going to do that which was evil? No, God intended to punish the evildoers, which was right, but from their viewpoint it was wrong because they wouldn’t like that. They would call it evil. Today even some Christians condemn God for permitting certain things to take place. In other words, they are saying that God is doing evil. Well, God beat them to it; He said that He would do evil from their viewpoint. If they continued sinning, he would stop them with judgment. In fact, He said to Israel, “I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks.” God intended to put around those necks the chains of bondage. And the people of Israel were led captive into Assyria, one of the most brutal nations that has ever been on the topside of this earth. God adds, “Neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.” How haughty and proud they had been! My own nation is presently in this same position. In many countries that I have visitedSouth America, Europe, Africa, and AsiaI have found that Americans are not loved, and we haven’t been loved for many years. Why? Because we have been haughty and proud. Yet we had the temerity after World War II to tell the world that we were going to lead it to peace! We thought the American dollar would solve the problems of the world.
Well, we have gotten this world into a mess, haven’t we? And American diplomacy has been nothing to boast about since World War II. Why has our record been so poor? My personal opinion is that the judgment of God is already taking place. I love my country, and it breaks my heart to see it continue to fall into the hands of the godless rich. Let me repeat that it is not the method of government but the character of the men who govern that makes a nation great.
Micah 2:4
Great confusion was coming and “doleful lamentation"a very unusual expression in the Hebrew language. It probably would not be possible to translate into English exactly what Micah was saying. There was no hope at all"We be utterly spoiled [destroyed].”
Micah 2:5
There have been various interpretations of this. Perhaps it means that there will be no more worship of God in that place.
Micah 2:6
This was a time when God cut off the flow of the spirit of prophecy. Why? Because the people wouldn’t hear it, and there came a famine of the Word of God. “Are these his doings?” God has told them that He, too, is plotting evilthat is, what they call evil, because it is going to be a judgment against them. “Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?” Though the message is harsh, God’s people will accept it, and they will obey it. This is not a delightful passage like Psalms 23 or John 14, but God gives it just as much prominence. In fact, He put it in the second chapter, rather than in the fourteenth or the twenty-third, so we would not miss it.
Micah 2:8
God is saying that, although they are His people, they have become His enemies, and one of the evidences of this is the way they treat the poor. God always insists upon justice for the poor. His charge is: “Ye pull off the robe with the garment from them.” A man’s robe was what he slept in. In other words, they would take a man’s bed out from under him. That was how far they were willing to go to rob the poor.
Micah 2:9
“The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses” probably refers to unprotected widows who had inherited homes from their husbands. “From their children have ye taken away my glory for ever.” Even the young children were deprived of what God had given to them. And they would grow up in rebellion. In our day the rebellion of youth is, in my opinion, permitted by God to try to shake us out of our lethargy.
Micah 2:10
They were attempting to solve their problems and to be at rest without being at peace with God. “Because it is polluted, it shall destroy you even with a sore [great] destruction.” Because of the pollution of their sin and their heartless oppression, the land would cast out its inhabitants.
Micah 2:11
This is biting sarcasm. God is saying, “The kind of prophets you want are those who will approve of your sins.” My friend, in our day many people do not want the preacher to say that drinking is wrong and that drunkenness is bad. Even in our churches many pastors are approving of social drinking. They insist that we are living in a new day, and, since we are not under the Mosaic Law, we can do these things. While it is true that we are under grace, there is one sure thing: if you love God, you are going to go keep His commandments, and He certainly does condemn drunkenness. The false prophets in Micah’s day were not condemning the sins of the people. They were popular preachers, saying what the people wanted to hear.
Micah 2:12
PROMISE TO THE REMNANTThe message of judgment which Micah has been delivering has been very harsh, but here at the close of the chapter is a very beautiful little prophecy which shines like a ray of sunshine that breaks through the dark clouds of a stormy day. You have noticed, I am sure, that when God speaks to them of their sin, He addresses them by the name Jacob. So when He uses that term in this verse, the implication is that He is going to show mercy to them, not because of their worthiness or because of some fine character trait, but because of His own grace. “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee.” This was not fulfilled after the Babylonian captivity, and it has not been fulfilled in their recent return to their land because He says that He will assemble “all of thee.” At the present time, there are more of the nation Israel in New York City than there are in the whole land of Israel. Also, there is a great company still in Russia and in other countries of the world. So God has not yet assembled all of them according to this prophecy. “I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.” Now for the remnant He uses the name Israel. God has always had a faithful remnant out of the nation, and actually He has never had more than the remnant. There never has been a time when it could be said that 100 percent of the nation had turned to God. And it was always for the sake of the remnant that God was gracious to the nation. In the future day that is coming, even in the Great Tribulation period when we are told that all Israel shall be saved, who is meant? Well, it is all of Israel which belongs to that company of 144,000.
The Book of Revelation makes it clear that they will be sealed (sealed, I believe, by the Holy Spirit of God) and will be able to survive the Great Tribulation. But that will be only a remnant of the nation. After all, there are probably three million Jews in Israel and probably twelve million in other lands, so that 144,000 could be nothing more than a remnant. “I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah.” Bozrah was a place of many flocks of sheep because of the excellent pasture lands. When God brings His people together like the sheep of Bozrah, the Twenty-third Psalm will be fulfilled: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures …” (Psa_23:1-2). “They shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.” The great noise will be due to the fact that a great number will return to the land. When God returns the nation to their land, it does not mean that all of them are going to be saved by any means; but it will be a tremendous event. Since what we have seen of the return of Israel to the land has caused such great rejoicing among prophetic teachers, think what it will be in this future day!
Micah 2:13
“The breaker is come up before them.” The “breaker” is the one who clears the way, removes the obstacles, and leads them. I believe this refers to their entering the millennial Kingdom when the Lord Jesus Christ will be the one to lead them, as He will have returned to the earth at that time. This verse refers to Him as the Breaker, their King, and the Lord (Jehovah).