Sometimes when the prophet speaks he/she blends future events with the message meant for today. Micah is a great example of that, speaking of things that would happen immediately, in the future and even in days yet to come.
Honestly, as I finish my reading and begin to write I don’t really know where to begin. On one hand much of this book is simply confirming what others have said before. On the other hand, interspersed with the familiar rhetoric is a description of Christ, a revelation of where He will be born and a description of Christ upon His return from glory to rule the earth.
I also note that God seems to be lamenting what He is about to do…it’s clear that He is angry and wants to do it to punish the people, but at the very same time He loves the people and is grieving what will happen to them. So while He is speaking of judgement, He also encourages the people (and maybe we are seeing how God thinks here) as He soothes Himself with thoughts of how wonderful the future will be. If the people are allowed to continue their rebellious ways they will eventually destroy themselves and the earth. They must be punished to correct the rebellion, so that health, peace and prosperity may return.
If you have raised children then this illustration will be familiar to you, even if you haven’t raised kids you were one once, and probably created this situation: It was especially difficult for me to spank our children when they didn’t stop what they were doing,or come when I called them. Almost every time I spanked them for disobeying in that way, it probably seemed pointless to them. I mean, we were all standing in the yard, and I would ask them to stop playing and “come here”…but they were playing, and everything was fine….so they ignored me and kept playing. So I would go and spank them. Now, I never did that simply because I felt they “should listen to their dad”. It was because we lived beside a highway where the cars flew by…and they didn’t stop or slow down (usually). We lost chickens and dogs on that road. I wasn’t going to lose a child. I was always afraid that the kids would toddle down to the road and before I could get there they would walk out into traffic. My greatest fear was that they I would see them walking into the road, tell them to stop, and they wouldn’t…and then get hit by a car. So when they disobeyed and refused the call, I punished them. I don’t know if it ever did any good or not. One of the kids did walk right out into the road and luckily for me that guy driving the car slammed on the brakes and rescued my oldest son from the highway. One second earlier he had been standing right beside me in the garage. Until the brakes squealed, I didn’t even know he had left the garage. Boy was that guy mad! It scared him as much as it scared me. I still remember that day like it was yesterday.
What does any of that have to do with this reading? I don’t know…the thought that comes to my mind is that God is pronouncing punishment, and is going to carry it out even though He really doesn’t want to do it. He knows that He has to do it, as unpleasant as it is…or the people will end up even worse off than they are now.
Several familiar themes: the people are wealthy, content, drinking to excess, rebellious against God’s laws, dishonest, greedy, unwilling to listen
I get the feeling that they looked at the defenses around the city, the political climate and their own stores of weapons and treasures and simply could not believe that anyone could ever take them away.
I also pick up on some other thoughts: God loves the people so much! He knows that He must do this, even though part of Him doesn’t want to. He sees the future as if it were the present. This is beyond my ability to understand, but as I read today I get the feeling that God is looking at the past (hundreds of years ago) and saying to people alive today “why have you abandoned me, don’t you remember what I did for you when….” Well, most of us would consider that God parted the waters, or feed THEM, not US. We weren’t there…it was hundreds of years ago! What does God’s benevolence to them have to do with me? Everything, apparently. Whatever God has done, I should be grateful for, even if it happened years ago, or to someone else. Everything God does is worthy of praise. When God punishes, it’s worthy of praise.
Then, almost immediately after referring to the distant past, we are transported to the distant future, and God promises to bring the people back out of exile, to comfort them and “bind their wounds” and “restore their fortunes”. But that isn’t going to happen to the people listening to Micah. Many of the people listening to Micah will be dead of old age before any of this comes true, and almost none of those who go into exile will return to see great blessings restored upon them. God sees all time and the whole human race differently than we see it, apparently.
The Lord goes on to talk about how a ruler will be born that will rule from Jerusalem, which will be the highest mountain around. People will come from all over to listen, have disputes settled and live in peace. The passage tells us to keep our eye on Bethlehem, and we have discovered that to be true…but none of the rest of that has occurred yet, even though it’s in the same paragraph, almost the same sentence.
With the Lord, a thousand years are like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. Time is meaningless when you are eternal, and live in eternity. Time is a construct, which has beginning and end, something that we can consider, but never fully understand.
At the end of the whole matter, I am left with the impression that God is very good, and even if current events seems to indicate otherwise, I know that in the end…whenever that is, I will not be disappointed in Him. Our fortunes are secure in Christ, even if they don’t bear fruit until years after our death. It’s really only seconds in eternity.
Faithfully,
PR