In chapter 3 Micah takes the leaders in Jerusalem to task. It’s bad…
“Listen to me, you leaders of Israel! You hate justice and twist all that is right. You are building Jerusalem on a foundation of murder and corruption. You rulers make decisions based on bribes; you priests teach God’s laws only for a price; you prophets won’t prophesy unless you are paid. Yet all of you claim to depend on the Lord. “No harm can come to us,” you say, “for the Lord is here among us.””
Micah 3:9-11 NLT
It’s all about the money. 💰💰💰
I don’t think I need to comment about how this might apply to the Church today.
Imagine being in Jerusalem then. The leaders and priests and other (fake) prophets are saying one thing (it’s all good) while Micah and Isaiah are saying the opposite (judgment is coming). The leaders of Jerusalem are popular, politically powerful, and wealthy, while Micah and Isaiah are being ignored by the leaders but have the TRUE word from God. Which would you believe? Which would you follow?
The prophets were generally despised and ignored. They did not have what we would call “successful” ministries. They were typically persecuted by ones in authority who ALSO claimed to be serving God.
If you study Church history you’ll find that this pattern has never changed. The true people of God are always persecuted and rejected by two groups, not just one:
- The world
- The popular and politically powerful false church
- The Anabaptists were a textbook example of this. They were rejected by the world, but also persecuted by both the Catholic and Protestant state churches in political power. The Waldensians and Lollards were other such groups.
Some caveats before I go on:
- Just because someone is preaching judgment doesn’t mean he is a true prophet. Church history is littered with movements led by men announcing the imminent end of the world and judgment day. They were just nuts with charisma.
- Just because a person claims to be a persecuted prophet doesn’t make him genuine. Some are rejected because people recognize they are quacks.
- Just because a person is popular or influential doesn’t necessarily mean he or she has “sold out to the world” OR that they have been elevated and “positioned by God.”
In ALL situations we have to have spiritual discernment and wisdom that comes from God and His Word. Appearances are deceiving. Success and influence are not a reliable indicator of God’s hand on someone’s life or ministry. Neither are poverty and rejection. We must discern spiritually, not just by observing things in the natural. This is how Jesus does it.
“And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…”
Isaiah 11:3-4 ESV
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
John 7:24 KJV
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
1 John 4:1 ESV
Jerusalem’s leaders were the successful and influential. They were also the ones under judgment. Nothing in the outward appearance would’ve indicated that.
It took boldness to call them out. And Micah boldly prophesies the destruction of Solomon’s temple:
“Because of you, Mount Zion will be plowed like an open field; Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins! A thicket will grow on the heights where the Temple now stands.”
Micah 3:12 NLT
People probably thought he was crazy. The temple has been there for nearly 200 years and it was solid and magnificent. It was on top of a VERY defensible mountain and surrounded by high walls. It sounds impossible that it could be leveled and left abandoned for so long as to have a thicket growing there.
What courage and confidence it must’ve taken to stand there and announce something that would’ve seemed impossible!
Then in chapter 4, Micah shifts into prophecy about the restoration of Zion. And it opens with the exact same prophetic word as Isaiah 2:2-4. And I mean exact. Go ahead. Compare them:
- Micah 4:1-3
- Isaiah 2:2-4
It’s the SAME scripture!!
I don’t know if Micah and Isaiah compared notes or if God just independently gave them the exact same word, but any time something is repeated in scripture, we should pay attention.
Starting in verse 6, Micah begins to prophesy the return of the exiles (which is a comforting thought- that the Lord already has a plan for restoration before the trial of correction even happens… Selah🪑), and the LORD says:
“Those who are weak will survive as a remnant; those who were exiles will become a strong nation. Then I, the Lord, will rule from Jerusalem as their king forever.”
Micah 4:7 NLT
Yahweh is going to personally reign as King in Jerusalem. Forever. And we have to ask if that has happened. And the answer is no. Not yet.
This is another one of those gaps between the mountain peaks ⛰️ of prophecy. ⛰️ Two statements in the same paragraph but separated by… [checks Bible timeline], at least 2,400 years.
Micah even foretells (more than a century before it happens!) exactly which kingdom will take Judah into captivity:
“Writhe and groan like a woman in labor, you people of Jerusalem, for now you must leave this city to live in the open country. You will soon be sent in exile to distant Babylon. But the Lord will rescue you there; he will redeem you from the grip of your enemies.”
Micah 4:10 NLT
Micah tells them that it’s going to happen “soon.” But because many of the people repent, “soon” is 100 years. ⏳
And chapter 4 ends with something intriguing.
“Now many nations have gathered against you. “Let her be desecrated,” they say. “Let us see the destruction of Jerusalem.” But they do not know the Lord’s thoughts or understand his plan. These nations don’t know that he is gathering them together to be beaten and trampled like sheaves of grain on a threshing floor. “Rise up and crush the nations, O Jerusalem!” says the Lord. “For I will give you iron horns and bronze hooves, so you can trample many nations to pieces. You will present their stolen riches to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.”
Micah 4:11-13 NLT
Has this ever happened?
When have many nations surrounded Jerusalem intent on destroying it, only to have the tables turned and they are the ones destroyed?
We haven’t read any such thing yet in Israel’s biblical history. Nothing like that happens after the exile. The Romans gathered around Jerusalem in 70 AD but the Jews were the ones trampled. And then they were gone as a nation until 1948.
I can only think of one instance where the nations are gathered around to attack Jerusalem only to be crushed themselves.
“When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison. He will go out to deceive the nations—called Gog and Magog—in every corner of the earth. He will gather them together for battle—a mighty army, as numberless as sand along the seashore. And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them.”
Revelation 20:7-9 NLT
If you’re feeling particularly studious, you should go read Ezekiel 38 & 39. It’s the only other place in the Bible where a battle with Gog and Magog is described. And at the end of the battle, God tells Ezekiel to call all of the birds and animals that eat carrion to come to a banquet. And a banquet just like that is described in Revelation 19:17-18.
This battle doesn’t sound like anything we’d see today. The kinds of weapons Ezekiel describes (39:9-10) are all primitive– bows & arrows, shields, sticks and spears. In an age where battles are increasingly fought with very high tech weapons, if the text describes primitive weapons that leaves us with a couple options:
- This already happened in the past and somehow we have zero record of it in history
- It will happen in the future (which implies that something major is gonna change)
- The weapons are symbolic and not literal
Keep this detail in mind.
The catastrophic events on earth that are described in Ezekiel 38:19-20 include mountains being “thrown down”, so I think it’s reasonable to assume that the battle of Gog & Magog has not yet occurred. Last time I checked, the mountains were still standing.
So…
- If it hasn’t happened yet
- And the weapons are primitive
- And Revelation 20 says it’s “after the thousand years come to an end”
- And if the thousand years are the 7th day of the millennial week…
- And we are very close to the end of the 6th day of the millennial week…
Then I think it’s reasonable to consider that technology as we know it is going to be completely obliterated on planet earth sometime in the fairly near future. You know all those post-apocalyptic movies where people are surviving with primitive tools? They may not be entirely wrong. I suspect that the return of Christ and the Day of His Wrath is basically going to throw human civilization back into the Stone Age for a thousand years.
This is not something I’d pound a pulpit over and insist is THE correct interpretation ‘cuz that would just be silly. We won’t KNOW for sure til it happens. But I hope it at least gets you thinking about future history.
On to Micah chapter 5…
Some very specific Messianic prophesies…
“Mobilize! Marshal your troops! The enemy is laying siege to Jerusalem. They will strike Israel’s leader in the face with a rod.”
Micah 5:1 NLT
“And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.”
Matthew 27:30 NLT
Notice again how the prophecy of the striking is in the same breath as the siege even though they actually occur more than 700 years apart.
God is tucking these little details in the text. They are hidden in plain sight and yet scattered throughout the Bible. This is so that no one could “cut out” a single section that contained all the Messianic prophecies. With the prophecies scattered like so much glitter, it guarantees no one could remove every last flake unless they just got rid of the whole Bible.
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.”
Micah 5:2 NLT
This foretells Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and that He will be sent from God and eternal. Verses 3-5 are also about the Messiah. He will be:
- Born of a human woman
- A shepherd-king of Israel who leads in the Lord’s power
- Highly honored around the world
- The source of peace
Verses 5-6 are the reason that some scholars suspect that the Antichrist will be in some way connected to Assyria, which is modern Iraq. Verse 6 says that the previously mentioned Shepherd (Jesus) will “rescue us from the Assyrian when he invades our land, And when he tramples our territory.”
Micah 5:6 NASB2020
Daniel 11:36-45 speaks of a future king (often interpreted as the Antichrist) who invades “the glorious land” and Israel is miraculously rescued from a time of “great trouble” followed by a resurrection. It sounds an awful lot like a future reference.
Back to Micah 5. From verse 7 to the end of chapter 5 we have a description of a remnant of Israel returned to the land. But it doesn’t match history. Micah describes Israel wiping out its foes like a lion amongst a defenseless flock of sheep. And God is with them pouring out His vengeance and fury on all the nations; destroying every scrap of idolatry and witchcraft. To me, that sounds more like Revelation 19 than Nehemiah. So there may be a few prophecies in Micah that have not yet been fulfilled.
Micah has more to say and we will get to it in the next post. He’s going to return to warnings of coming destruction and exile and end with trust in God’s power and love.
😅 whew… I think I need a recovery shake or a protein smoothie 🥤or something. This was like leg-day at the gym.
Yeah- This is definitely heavier lifting than Kings and Chronicles. Rest up.
To The Reader 