Micah 3:1-12

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? ² Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; ³ Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. ⁴ Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. ⁵ Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. ⁶ Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. ⁷ Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God. ⁸ But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. ⁹ Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. ¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. ¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. ¹² Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

We live in a time and culture in which absolute truth is disregarded. Relativistic thinking dominates the landscape and everyone gets to determine their own truth and define their own reality virtually free of consequence. As Christians, we know that there is absolute truth. Our God is a God of truth and His Word is truth (John 17:17). The prophet Micah carried out his ministry in a time when truth was not given high regard. He prophesied to a people who had been blessed immeasurably with the very Word of God given to them through the Law and the Prophets. Their issue was that they took that access to truth for granted, gave themselves to sin, and raised up people to lead them that would tell them what they wanted to hear. It is to these issues that Micah speaks in Micah 3. When people disregard truth and put their trust elsewhere, the result is disaster. God is unchanging (Hebrews 13:5; Malachi 3:6) and never lies (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). He is always true and trustworthy. We, therefore, must always look to Him and not to ourselves or any other thing. Micah 3 teaches three things we must avoid putting our trust in instead of God.

First, we must avoid putting our trust in political powers. Having good rulers and bad rulers certainly bears consequences on a society. In our time, our elected leaders are a reflection of the hearts of the people of the land. However, God’s people can never put their trust in political leaders to take the place of God. We should expect them to uphold God’s standards as His servants (Romans 13:1-8), but we should never look for them to “save us” in any capacity. They are instruments in the hands of God (Proverbs 21:1). Here, Micah addresses the corrupt leaders of Israel, the “heads” and “princes.” Instead of exercising “judgment,” they had demonstrated that they “hate the good, and love the evil.” They did so by bringing harm to the people of Israel and playing a role in taking advantage of those who needed their help the most, the poor. Verse 3 metaphorically describes how they have mistreated and taken advantage of those they rule over. They are compared to butchers skinning and dividing up animals in slaughter. For their unrepentant sin and extra accountability as leaders. God says that He will not hear them when their destruction comes. This serves as a reminder to us that the greatest of political leaders are men at best and that only God is the righteous and just Judge of the world. He always acts and judges in truth.

Next, we must trust in God, not religious systems. The next group that Micah addresses are the prophets who misled the people. They proclaimed a message of “peace” when in fact God had promised that destruction was coming. They proclaimed the opposite of what God wanted because God’s message wasn’t popular. By proclaiming this false message, God says they “make my people err.” Not only did they proclaim a false message, but they proclaimed a message that was favorable to those who bribed them. When it came to speaking to matters of sin, they dealt favorably with those who gave them money and preached against those who did not. The consequence of this is that they would no longer hear from God and God would shame them. They would “cover their lips,” an action prescribed for lepers and unclean persons in the law. They would become like the outcasts that they had mistreated. In contrast to the false prophets who prophesied according to their own selfish desires and the selfish desires of the people, Micah was “full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might.” He came to “declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.” It has always been the mark of true preachers of the gospel and prophets of God that they preach against the sins of the people. Why? It is because people are sinful and God is holy and righteous. He has called and ordained men to go and expose that sin so that people might turn to God in repentance and faith. It does people no good to receive a message that makes them feel good or entertains them if they leave from hearing that message and continue on the same broad road that leads to destruction. Micah outlines three essentials for a true spokesman of God: the Spirit of God, the bringing together of power and justice (truth and love), and the boldness to speak the truth. What is remarkable is that even with all of this going on in Israel, the people went about their ordinary religious routines. They offered sacrifices, prayed, etc., but they were under delusion because they rejected the God that all of those things pointed them to (Micah 6:6-7). The same kind of dark deception that had fallen on Israel’s prophets and people is the same kind of deception that sin brings on the world today under the sway of Satan’s kingdom (2 Corinthians 4:4). The only hope that people have is not a religious establishment, a religious system, or mere religious leaders. What people need today is the truth of the gospel. We must trust in God, not religious systems.

Lastly, we must trust in God, not changing circumstances. In verses 9-12 the “heads” and “princes” who “abhor judgment, and pervert all equity” and the “priests” and “prophets” that “teach for hire” and “divine for money” are all addressed. This time, God addresses the comfort they had in their sinful ways. They found themselves in favorable circumstances with wealth and power. Further, they trusted in the fact that they dwelt in Israel, a nation blessed by God and so they thought that no harm could ever come to them. What they failed to realize is that their current situation was something that God had never promised would continue for His people and they failed to realize that their sins would actually lead to the consequences that were coming upon the nation. Many people think that because they live in a prosperous land that everything must be okay with God. They think that because they have money, power, or success that that is a sign that God is well pleased with them. People in ministries can even make that mistake. They think that because a lot of people come or participate that something must be going right. That may be the case sometimes, but God never calls us to trust in results or circumstances. Just because something is apparently “going well” does not mean that it is well. The way we must judge everything is by truth and truth alone. We must use discernment to realize that God’s Word is the standard and something is only “successful” if it is faithful to that standard. God reminded Israel that their comfort was a temporary circumstance. Zion would be “plowed as a field” and “Jerusalem as heaps.” Their city would be destroyed and their land left desolate because of the judgment of God for their sins. For us, just because everything is well does not mean “it is well with my soul.” We cannot think everything is right with God because everything seems to be going right in life. Sin always has consequences. We must look to God and His standard and never trust in our ever changing circumstances.

In our time, just as in Micah’s, we are prone to trust in political leaders who make grand promises, religious systems that offer feel good activity salving the conscience, and circumstances that seem favorable. If there’s one thing we can learn from Micah 3, it is that our only hope is God. Political leaders fail on their promises, empty religious systems are deceptive, and circumstances are temporary and misleading, but God never lies (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18) and He does not change (Malachi 3:6). Our only Savior and Hope, Jesus Christ, is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). His Word is our standard and it reveals His will to us. The only place you and I can rightly place our trust is in “God Our Truth.”