God’s Divine Judgement
Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.
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They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
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Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.
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In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.”
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Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.
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“Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”
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Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
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But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.
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The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.
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Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.
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If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!
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I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.
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He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.
In the late 2008, the world was stunned after news broke out about the biggest investment scandal of all time. It was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered. Bernie Lawrence Madoff was arrested and tried for the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65billion. He was at one time the chairman of Nasdaq stock exchange. The Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business. Celebrities and other known personalities fallen victim in that scheme.
Today, we will continue in our sermon series on Micah. I was given the task to speak on chapter 2. Last Sunday, Pastor Jerome gave us a concise yet powerful introduction about this minor prophet named Micah. He ministered as a prophet during the time of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah around 750 - 686 B.C. which makes him pre-exilic prophet before the siege of Judah in 586 BC.
The sermon for today is divided into 4 parts
God’s judgment against oppression (verse 1-3)
A lamentation for the removal of his people (verse 4-6)
A reproof for their injustices and delight in false prophets (verse 7-11)
A promise of restoration (verses 12-13)
God’s judgment against oppression (verse 1-3)
Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.
They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.
The accusations are astonishing; some of its own citizens are now perpetrating violence against their fellow Jews by seizing fields, houses, and robbing people of their inheritance. If we go back in time to the leadership of Joshua, son of Nun, after the successful conquest of the promised land. The Lord had given each tribe their own territory according to its needs by God’s divine providence.
Although the subdivision of the land was fair and square, the tribe of Ephraim was complaining that their territory was relatively small in comparison to their population. God had told them through Joshua that they were free to expand their territory by defeating their enemies. They added more territory through conquest and not at the expense of their fellow Jews. God did not take a part of another tribe’s territory and give it to the tribe of Ephraim. God wants each one of us to live with contentment. We allowed discontentment in our hearts until we wanted what our neighbors had. Instead of looking up to God to provide, we look at our neighbors.
During the time of Micah, the Lord’s anger was provoked when the leaders of Israel and Judah - the political leaders, religious leaders, and business leaders were failing to model the love for God and neighbor. They had forgotten this and had started to acquire more property by exploiting their fellow citizens. Instead of contemplating God’s goodness and faithfulness throughout the day. They devised wickedness in their hearts and minds before going to sleep to be carried out the next day. God had designed a special provision to protect the widows and orphans in the form of a kinsman redeemer, like what Boaz did to Ruth. They failed to protect the vulnerable and the weak. They found an opportunity that we can take advantage of.
Because of their shameless acts of exploitation and abuse, God had pronounced an oracle of doom. A judgment that will surely come to pass, when it came, people were taken out of the land in waves of succession. They march out from their land in shame with the chains around their necks as a part of the spoils of war like a piece of property.
As George Washington says, “Freedom and property rights are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other.” In their greed to acquire more, the Jews lost their freedom and the rights to their property when the Assyrians came to take the 10 Northern tribes and 100 years later the 2 Southern tribes by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. At the end, they eventually lost everything. God had given us richly to enjoy, but not at our neighbor’s expense.
I knew of someone who exploited his siblings’ property through deception, that property became a curse rather than a blessing to him and his family. They chose coveting over contentment, stealing over earning, and lying over honesty. They eagerly desire that which is not their own; that is the root of all bitterness, the root of all evil.
A lamentation for the removal of his people (verse 4-6)
In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.”
Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.
“Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”
They devised iniquity with a great deal of cursed art and policy, they plot on how to do it effectually to not to expose themselves or bring themselves into danger or under reproach. Perhaps, they found a loophole in the system and use legal means to seemingly acquire their neighbor’s property in a somewhat legitimate way. They use tricks and deception to get what they want. They had forgotten that God sees and knows everything, that even the desires of our hearts are not hidden from him, and all are exposed before him. They devised iniquity in the stillness of night because it is in the power of their hand and what they covet, they take away.
They failed to realize that for God, there is no difference between day and night. They don’t care about the means of how they get it as long as they get what they want, disregarding God’s law and their neighbor’s welfare. They might had forgotten what king Solomon had written in Ecclesiastes.
“Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.”
(Ecclesiastes 5:19 ESV)
Let us be reminded that our possessions, profession, positions, and even our family are a gift from God. Let us not forget that Lucifer was once an archangel close to God and had fallen because of covetousness, because he wanted to be equal to or higher than God. Adam and Eve also fell upon the serpent’s temptation when they were deceived that they would become like god if they ate the forbidden fruit in the middle of the garden. At the end, they realized that it was an empty promise that brought death, suffering, and sorrow not only to them but to the entire human race when the entire creation was put under a curse. If they had only realized the magnitude of the destruction that they caused, perhaps they would have stayed far away from the tree in the middle of the garden.
A reproof for their injustices and delight in false prophets (verse 7-11)
Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war. The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.
Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.
If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!
Here are the 2 sins charged against the people of Israel, the judgment denounced against them for each, such judgments as exactly answer the sin - persecuting God’s prophets and oppressing God’s poor.
They are in opposition to God’s messenger, the prophets of God. They want to silence them, they don’t want the truth, and to be rebuked for their sins. To the point that they even persecute them for telling the truth.
For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 30:9-11 ESV)
Do these things sound familiar to us in this day and age? Perhaps, you might say that we are in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have never seen a persecuted church here. But if you go to another country, it is even illegal to bring a bible, and once they see you in possession of the book, you will go directly to jail.
People do not even need to go to church today to hear a sermon. We can do it the the comfort of our living room. We now have a choice of which sermon we want to listen to today. Like going to a restaurant buffet, we now have the choice of what we want to eat according to what we crave that day. We have a selection and variety of foods before us, and we can choose between Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Korean, and perhaps American food.
People are attracted to health, wealth, and prosperity gospel preachers whose message is void of the full counsel of God. They will preach according to the needs of the people and not from God. They are people pleasers and want to satisfy their itching ears with feel-good sermons. Instead of looking up to God on what to preach, they solicit topics from people on what they want to hear.
Instead of becoming good under shepherds, they became waiters asking the sheep what they wanted to eat. I hope that after this message, I will still be invited to preach in this church. Given this opportunity to stand before you once a year, I have been compelled to preach with conviction the whole counsel of God. I don’t offer junk food but solid food coming from the Word of God.
The people of Israel and Judah had missed the opportunity for a genuine reformation. They were not convinced to turn away from their sins because they despised the messenger of God. In spite of their unfaithfulness, God is still patient with them in sending his prophets until such a time that God sends his only begotten Son, hoping that they would listen to him, but he too was silenced and later on killed and crucified on the cross of Calvary.
We can still feel the presence of God through the power of the Holy Spirit because of God’s commitment to his bride, the church. There will come a time when God’s ministry will cease after the bridegroom takes away his bride and will be with him forever. God loves his people so that He does not seek their full destruction because even after God’s pronouncement of judgement, there is still a hope of restoration.
A promise of restoration (verses 12-13)
I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.
He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.
After God’s pronouncement of wrath, this chapter concludes with the promise of mercy and restoration in 2 folds. The first fold was when the Jews returned out of Babylon, which is a part fulfillment, and the second fold will be accomplished during the second coming of Christ.
We might say, “How about us? If there is a promised restoration for the people of Israel, what is in store for us? We have a promise of restoration and inheritance also in Christ. When we went to Israel during the winter months in 2019, I brought with me a souvenir from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. I was growing up with the desire to become a Jew to partake in that special blessing. Paul had reminded us in the book of Romans that it is not necessary.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:12-13)
When Christ said, “It is finished or Tetelestai. At the same time, the curtain that separates the holy place and the holy of holies was torn from top to bottom, which not only signifies that the Jews now have full access to God. It is also true that the division between Jews and Gentiles was also abolished. It was not only the Jews who had full access to God’s full benefits, but it is also true for us Gentiles as long as we are united in Christ.
The promise of blessing and full restoration can only be found and enjoyed fully in Christ. After all, what is the chief end of man according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism? It is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. This only means that the ultimate purpose for which humans were created is to honor God and find their ultimate fulfillment and happiness in him.
