The prophet still speaks today- Part 5

Last words are important. Have you considered what you want your last words to be? What are the important messages you would want to pass on before you leave this earth?

In Micah chapters six and seven we find Micah’s last words. They were not funny last words like ‘I drank what?’ (Socrates) or ‘Honey, would you please get me a fork?’ (from the man who owned the first toaster). Micah’s last words were passionate and heartfelt that Micah felt compelled by God to communicate.

With the possible exception of one verse, Micah’s last words aren’t famous. But they should be. The world would be a different place if everyone lived by them.

God’s charge against his people

The book of Micah has three sections: chapters 1-2, 3-5 and 6-7. If you have been following this series you will see that, in many ways, its final section is a summary of the images and themes Micah stated earlier. As with sections one and two, section three begins with a call to attention: ‘Listen,’ Micah declared, ‘God has something to say!’ After getting the people’s attention, Micah then launched into a courtroom scene similar to that found in Micah 1:2.

Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.
Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation;
listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel. (Micah 1:1-2)

The hills and mountains are personified and called upon as witnesses. They have been there from the beginning and have seen it all. Notice how the verses above parallel each other. Line one is restated in line two, line three is emphasised by line four, and lines five and six make crystal clear what is going on. God has a charge against his people, and his people are the nation of Israel.

Israel expected God would rescue them and judge the wicked pagan nations. But here, God was coming to judge them. What a shock! They’d been resting on their laurels (see Micah 3:11), so Micah grabs their attention to show them just how serious the situation was.

Now, while the specific charge isn’t spelled out here, biblical scholars believe that God was charging them with breaking the covenant made between God and the Israelites at Mt Sinai under Moses’ leadership (Exodus 19-24). This was a two-way covenant: God and the people had a part to play. God would bless, love and care for them; they would obey God’s laws—all 613 of them. Fortunately, though, the laws could be summed up in two statements: love God and love others. This was really what it was all about.

Recall God’s faithfulness

God goes on to defend his actions. He calls on Israel to think back and recall his faithful care throughout their history. In verses three to five, God reminds them that he had brought them out of slavery in Egypt, he had blessed them with great leaders, he had reversed the curse Balaak had put and them, and he had delivered them into Canaan.

In other words, God was saying, ‘History proves that I’ve done everything for you. I’m not the reason this covenant isn’t working —you are the problem, Israel!’ And so, naturally, Israel tries to defend herself. She says:

With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:6-7)

Israel claimed they had been doing everything right. After all, they had been bowing low and making sacrifices. Wasn’t that how God wanted them to worship? Yes, they were worshipping, but they had missed the point altogether. God didn’t want mere ritual observance, he wanted right living. And as we’ve already seen, the way people were treating each other just wasn’t right.

God didn’t want showy worship; what he wanted was for people ‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly’ with God. (Micah 6:8). That was what really mattered to God.

This was not secret information or some incredible new way of living that God had only recently come up with. This was the basis of the law that God had made clear to his people long before. Perhaps they’d forgotten, or maybe they’d watered it down or got side-tracked, but whatever their excuse, they should have known better!

God wants justice

To this point, we have heard about what God didn’t want. He didn’t want violence, dishonesty or powerful people oppressing the weak. Now, Micah states this more positively. God wanted justice. He wanted people to be fair and to do what was right. He wanted people to love mercy. Justice on its own can be hard—it’s often too black and white. When exercising justice, it needs to be blended with hesed, a word translated as ‘mercy’ but with a broader meaning that we probably understand. Hesed refers to a covenantal love, a love that won’t let go. This kind of love must work together with justice.

God wanted people to walk humbly with him. A day-to-day, step-by-step journey with God. One in which the traveller recognises they don’t know it all—that they are still learning and sometimes they get things wrong. This is what God wants.  Verses nine to 16 return to the earlier tone of social protest as God got a bit more specific about what sins Jerusalem was being charged for. He mentioned that violence, deception, lies and corruption were everywhere. God couldn’t sit back and ignore such acts, so he pronounced his verdict, finding Israel guilty as charged. Her punishment:

 You will eat but not be satisfied;
your stomach will still be empty.
You will store up but save nothing,
because what you save I will give to the sword.
 You will plant but not harvest;
you will press olives but not use the oil,
you will crush grapes but not drink the wine.
You have observed the statutes of Omri
and all the practices of Ahab’s house;
you have followed their traditions … (Micah 6:14-16)

God’s blessing in the Old Testament was understood in terms of fertility. If you had lots of sons, you were blessed. If your land did well, you were blessed. Here, the blessing was reversed as Micah said Israel would have no productivity or satisfaction from all her hard work.

Israel was compared to two wicked Northern kings, Ahab and Omri, who encouraged Baal worship. By doing this Micah was saying, ‘Remember the northern tribes? Remember what happened to them? Exile, that’s what! And if you continue following in their footsteps, you can expect the same fate.’

With that said, Micah launched back into a lament. ‘What misery is mine!’ he said in Micah 7:1. Just as he did in his lament in section one, Micah poured his heart out. He was frustrated, like someone who worked hard to produce a good crop but gets nothing. Micah had faithfully delivered his message from God, but there was no fruit to show for it.

He felt alone. Like there was not one single upright person in the land—everyone was corrupt. Things had become so bad that no one could be trusted. In Micah three, we learnt that no leaders could be counted on to help the oppressed, but here it goes a step further:

Do not trust a neighbour;
put no confidence in a friend.
Even with the woman who lies in your embrace
guard the words of your lips.
For a son dishonours his father,
a daughter rises up against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law
—a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.
(Micah 7:5-6)

Even the tightest unit in Israelite society was breaking down. One couldn’t even count on their own family anymore.

The last word

But that isn’t where Micah ends. This bleak situation may have been the reality at the time, but Micah was able to look beyond those bleak circumstances and find hope. Despite the difficulties, he said, ‘But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Saviour, my God will hear me.’ (Micah 7:7)

All through Micah, bad news has been interspersed with small sections of good news. And now, as Micah wraps it up, we come to the longest section of good news. His very last word is a strong message of hope:

Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
You will be faithful to Jacob,
and show love to Abraham,
as you pledged on oath to our ancestors
in days long ago. (Micah 7:18-20)

After a long journey of highs and lows, lamenting and rebuking, good news and bad news, this is the note on which Micah leaves us. Yes, God was angry. And yes, Israel deserved to be punished. But Micah’s final word was that God would pardon sin, forgive transgression, not stay angry, show mercy, have compassion, remove sin, be faithful, show love, and keep His promise. What a list! What a life-changing last word!

What Micah was expressing was that despite Israel not keeping her side of the covenant, the relationship between Israel and God could be restored. God was not giving up on his people, even though she had fallen short. He was—and still is—a God of restoration.

And that’s Micah’s last word.

Ponder This

• Micah called the Israelites to remember his faithfulness to them in the past. Have you done that recently? Why not take time to recall where your life once was and the things God has brought you through.
• How does Micah 6:8 look in your life? How can you act justly, show mercy and walk humbly with God every day?
• The forgiveness, mercy and love that Micah spoke for Israel are still available today. Do you need to take hold of these promises for yourself and have your relationship with God restored?