FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture References – Micah 7:1-9, 18-20

Looking back on the last lesson we see that Micah may have overestimated his situation, but his conclusions were not drawn in haste. There was ample evidence all around that evil was winning over good and in Israel and in all the world. He looked at it from this standpoint. “Where good and godly people ought to be there are evil, murderous ones.” As he wrote, “They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.” – Micah 7:2.

To lie in wait for blood is to be willing to commit murder if need be to get what one wants. This was the common law of the city. Everybody was capable of it. There was no such thing as trust and loyalty. Greed and lust were such that people would trap and ensnare their own siblings if the price was right.

Wait a minute! Is this Micah or a daily newspaper? What about all these spying charges in recent years? People have sold out the safety and security of the rest of us to those who might do us harm by making available highly classified information for a price; and not just a little slipup in many instances but by making careers of spying.

What about that company a couple of years back who knowingly manufactured defective pacemakers and acted, quite consciously with intent, to cover up the problem? People’s lives were on the line when those faulty devices simply stopped functioning. It wasn’t just a season’s worth of products; the intentional bad production had gone on for five years before the word leaked out. In other words, if the price is right, let our sisters and brothers in the human family die to keep the profits up. We’ve seen this recently with the COVID-19 situation and some of the same people responsible are actively admitting to gearing up for something in 2025!

What do you say about those who know, as all of us now do, that drinking alcohol and driving kills people, the majority of them innocent. People know this and still continue to drive on our streets and in our neighborhoods without any regard or forethought.

Micah then zooms in, on the power people, the rulers and the upper-class types.

That they may successfully do evil with both hands— The prince asks for gifts, The judge seeks a bribe, And the great man utters his evil desire; So they scheme together. The best of them is like a brier; The most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. – Micah 7:3-4.

The leaders of the people of Israel weren’t even casual in their evil deeds; they sought diligently, with eagerness and preparation, to do wrong, such as selling justice and doing it openly, without shame. They were so willing to do wrong that they went public with the news that they could be bought. As a group, they planned together and then wove their evil into society. The best of them would hurt persons as would a brier on the stem of a lovely flower or thorns in a row of hedges. How much like what is going on in our governments today!

Now Micah didn’t think this could go on and on, but rather than thinking his people, their whole society, would finally self-destruct, he saw some light, it was only a small ray, but it was some light. He doesn’t elaborate at this point in his oracle. He only mentions it: “The day of your watchman and your punishment comes; Now shall be their perplexity.” – Micah 7:4. Micah believed that in a state of evil, people and nations would ultimately fail. The prophet believed with all his heart that those sold out to evil and not to God would be plundered by others who lived for evil. After such a confrontation, there would be “perplexity” some versions call it “confusion,” a total disorganization of life. When this came, it would mean light for the nation as a whole because evil would have been defeated.

As it is now, there was little to no righteousness among the leaders; that was clear. Micah also knew that there was little to no righteousness among families and friends. He warned:

Do not trust in a friend; Do not put your confidence in a companion; Guard the doors of your mouth From her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own household. – Micah 7:5-6.

As he looked around he saw that even normal family relationships and friendships had disintegrated; there was no absolutely no respect and no trust that he could see.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References – Micah 7:1-9, 18-20

The sense of the predominance of evil at work all around us is at times debilitating. As best we can tell, there is little good in our lives and our world that goes unchallenged or unchecked by some evidently demonic force. In Dickens’s works, “The best of times and the worst of times,” is a very nice way of being able to describe one’s era and circumstances, but many people can only see, and for good reason, the negatives. This is, for them, the worst of times.

The world is in bad shape; so what else is new? The world has always been in sufficiently bad shape to allow doomsday naysayers to have a following by talking about the inevitable and imminent end of it all. Plenty of these doomsday naysayers are crackpots, but some of them are sincere people who simply cannot see how the world in its condition can go on. And, as much as anything else, the basis for regarding the world as in bad shape is immorality. Every now and then, some specific instance of immorality comes along which emphasizes this fact and solidifies a view of the prevalence of ungodliness which many of us vaguely sense most of the time; some particular immorality which is a real focus on the darkness in which we feel that we live and of the little light that ever seems to break through. Those “specific instances” become a stack-pile on which we gather all our free-floating feelings and ideas making the evidence for our pessimism, for us, uncontestable.

The evidence that grabs me in regard to hopelessness of the world is the strength of organized crime and the drug-dealing subculture. I start thinking things are really bad when people expect and tolerate illegality at the highest levels in our government. I become ready to give up on the world when I have to think about all the numerous and vast methods of mass destruction available to just about anyone. To imagine that humanity has created devices which can destroy not only our enemies but also our allies and the world itself, is chilling. To think that apocalyptic imagery no longer comes from the imaginative interpretation of biblical and literary symbols, but from real possibilities is terrifying. Disfigured beings and an earth ablaze are no longer wild ideas but what can be expected because of devices human beings have created and are willing to use under certain circumstances.

Micah is speaking for us, isn’t he? What he says sounds exactly like what we sometimes say and what we read that others are saying all the time. Listen to the prophet!

How miserable I am! I feel like the fruit picker after the harvest who can find nothing to eat. Not a cluster of grapes or a single early fig can be found to satisfy my hunger. – Micah 7:1 (NLT).

This is the expression of prophetic lament. This is how the prophet feels as he considers the decadence of his society, the complete absence of righteous people. Reflect on what he says for a moment and you begin to feel his darkness and hopelessness. His vain search for godly people is, to him, like the seeking of a desperately hungry person who goes into an orchard after the summer fruit has been picked or into a vineyard after the grapes have been gathered; needing to find some fruit for sustenance, but finding none. It’s the feeling of a hungry person who goes to one more place to find food, just knowing that when all other sources have failed, this one will not. It’s a feeling of need, anticipation, and desperation. And, then, it’s a feeling of frustration because the food has been there, very recently, but has been taken; somehow that’s more assaulting than finding that the food is long gone or has, in fact, never been there.

Micah thought that morality and righteousness had characterized his people. These godly traits nourished the people and their society and had guided other nations. It was, after all, the responsibility of the chosen people of God to be a light to the nations in service to God, live in obedience to God’s will, and live and act according to God’s standards of morality. And hadn’t there been times when that had been done? Certainly there had been. But now, as Micah saw it, there were no righteous people left in Israel, none at all. The nation, for Micah, was like a vineyard or an orchard with no more fruit.

From what he saw among his own people, Micah made that virtually inevitable jump to universalize all he felt and saw. If there are no righteous people in Israel, there must be no righteous people in the world. He lamented, “The faithful man has perished from the earth, And there is no one upright among men.” – Micah 7:2. What a lonely and frightening feeling. It’s bad enough to feel that morality is completely absent in your family, or among a group of friends, in an academic community, a city, or a political party. Maybe each of us has felt that at one time or another. But to feel that way about the whole of creation?

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Where noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation®, NLT © 2015 by Tyndale House.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.