THE BOOK OF MICAH: OUR WORLD TODAY

This is the picture of a very selfish society, where people are always focused on ways to make more money. And once they have thought up some new scheme, people ruthlessly implement their selfish ideas. This is spelled out in the next verse.

This is a picture of greed and covetousness. It is a focus on a desire to constantly increase personal wealth, and also increase power over other people, with a total disregard for the suffering their covetous ways will bring to large numbers of people (i.e. in this way they oppress people).

A key element in this process is that such increases in personal riches are not the result of the creation of new wealth. Oh no, in our world today in very many cases they don’t create any new wealth, which would require them to produce new value and new goods.

No, they increase their personal riches by taking wealth away from other people. They re-distribute the existing wealth (taxation, levies, fines, penalties, commissions, exorbitant prices charged by sellers, access to look at things on the internet, etc.) in such a way that they themselves end up with more, while other people end up with less. In other words, at the expense of other people they want to have more without actually producing anything tangible.

For example, many of the billionaires today don’t actually produce anything concrete. Amazon doesn’t produce any goods. Amazon is simply the go-between for the people who own or produce goods, and the people who want to buy those goods. Amazon simply facilitates the sale of goods that other people have produced. But Amazon itself doesn’t actually produce anything tangible. Yet the founder of Amazon is the richest man in the world.

Facebook and Twitter don’t produce anything tangible with a real value at all; they simply facilitate the exchange of thoughts, feelings and ideas between other people. Yet the owners of these companies are billionaires.

The richest people in the past were those who produced tangible goods like cars, furniture, food items, crude oil and gasoline, electric power, houses, tools, machines and appliances, raw minerals, books and magazines, etc. In this way they produced new wealth. They actually produced things that people could take home and possess.

But the richest people today in many cases don’t produce anything tangible at all! They don’t produce anything that people can take home and possess. Instead, the richest people today produce entertainment that amuses us for a while. They take a percentage from the sale of goods that other people have produced. They provide credit (e.g. credit card companies and banks) for other people to purchase things that still other people have produced. They enable other people to interact on social media. They get advertising revenue from the goods that other people want to sell. They get commissions from the work that other people have performed. But the richest companies in the world in many cases haven’t actually produced "new wealth" ... they haven’t produced anything that people can eat or take home and possess and use in their homes. Our world is focused on always making more money. Greed and covetousness are the dominant characteristics of our age.

And when we look at the Book of Micah, it looks very much like Micah was describing our 21st century world of greed and covetousness. But God hates covetousness, because covetousness is anti-God. And so God pronounced a penalty for all of Israelite society.

The "evils" which God had planned against "the family" of Israel back then were the respective national captivities, first for the House of Israel, and then later for the House of Judah. In the end-time fulfillment that "evil" will be what we refer to as "the great tribulation". It will be a penalty for sins, specifically for idolatry and greed and covetousness. This "evil" will entail us on a national level losing all the wealth we have amassed. In the words of Micah 2:4, "we will be utterly spoiled", losing everything we have.

God then continued to say:

This is a way of saying that these greedy people, the leaders in various areas of life, will lose their inheritance in Israel. This will be achieved because these specific individuals shall not have any descendants in the millennium (i.e. "they shall have none" to stake any claims). And even in our present world today there have been many super-rich families that have simply died out soon after the original wealth-accumulator’s death. This is a fairly common God-imposed penalty.

Verse 6 tells us that people in general will not listen to warnings from true ministers of God, because they hate being reproached for their evil ways of living. But their reproach, their "shame", will come and it will not be taken away.

Verse 7 tells us that God could help the people of Israel with all troubles. God will always bless obedience to His laws, and He will likewise always punish all disobedience. It is a matter of cause and effect. If we as nations are being blessed by God, it means that at least to some degree people respect God’s laws and live by God’s laws. But if we as nations are cursed, it means that we don’t make any effort to live by the laws of God, that we treat God’s laws with disdain and contempt.

Notice verse 8:

In ancient times victorious soldiers returning from war would often plunder greedily and indiscriminately the people who had been defeated. This is another reference to greed and covetousness, shamelessly taking advantage of helpless people. Notice the introduction of a time element into this scenario with the expression "of late". It hasn’t always been that way, but "of late" people have become far more greedy.

The next verse continues this description of greed.

This is a society that takes advantage of helpless women, charging exorbitant prices for whatever services are rendered, and cheating helpless women out of their wealth. It is always about money, and how to take it away from other people, especially from those who are weak and helpless.

This deviously obtained wealth is "polluted", and therefore it will lead to a very grievous destruction (verse 10). This destruction is another reference to the great tribulation that will come upon the people of Israel.

God then continued to say:

This is a society that loves false prophets, those that undermine, attack and criticize the ways of God. The religious leaders whom people follow are people who deliberately lie and promote heretical teachings, permissive teachings that people really want to hear. And we’ve had ministers like that in God’s Church, men who deliberately introduced heresies to the people of God. This is a reference to the same time to which the Apostle Paul referred in 2 Timothy 4:3.

The expression "itching ears" refers to: tell me what I want to hear, tell me lies, sweet little lies. It is telling us that people in the Church of God "will not endure sound doctrine". And that has also happened already. In the past 30-40 years many people have walked away from many biblically correct teachings.

Anyway, so Israel will go into the time of the great tribulation. And afterwards Jesus Christ will gather the remnant of Israel, that will survive into the millennium, like a shepherd gathers his sheep into a sheepfold (Micah 2:12). In other words, Jesus Christ will gather the remnant of Israel and then nurture them very carefully, so they can once again grow and develop into large and prosperous nations. That will be during the millennium, the time when Jesus Christ, the Eternal, will be their King (Micah 2:13).

Having shown us the ultimate outcome under Jesus Christ’s rule during the millennium, the account then again reverts to a discussion of the evil leaders in Israelite society leading up to the time of the great tribulation.

The "heads" and the "princes" in our society today are the leaders not only in politics, but also in commerce and in industry and in the information media and in entertainment and in internet marketing, etc. Collectively they are responsible for how society is regulated. All of them really should know what is good and what is the right thing to do. They should know "right judgment".

But they knowingly reject the right way of doing things!

So judgment in our world today is not fair. They deliberately promote what is evil and what is wrong. They viciously attack all who oppose their evil ways. Those evil ways are destroying the nations of Israel. These wicked "heads and princes" do everything they can to promote the total breakdown of law and order (e.g. civic leaders who work to eliminate the police, and who at the same time let criminals go free, leaders who actively oppose existing laws, etc.). And they actively attack those who are peaceful and law-abiding.

They are vicious in their attacks on the good, willing to destroy the character, lives and reputations of any people who oppose them. They threaten and persecute all who oppose their perverse ways and opinions. Those who oppose them are accused of being "racists". They don’t tolerate the truth in any area of life. And they endlessly spread lies.

We are living in very dangerous times!

Verse 3 continues the description of the powerful and the wealthy in our world. They love making rules for other people to live by, while exempting themselves from their own rules.

This is a vivid picture of ruthless greed and covetousness. They can never have enough. It is a picture of the rich and powerful callously destroying people’s lives. They know full well that they are destroying the lives of ordinary people, but they couldn’t care less who ends up suffering. And whenever on rare occasions they themselves happen to end up suffering, having to pay for their own transgressions, then their self-pity knows no limits. And in those situations they very readily and totally hypocritically claim to be the victims of some evil plot. They have a totally perverse frame of mind.

But that’s our world today, and that’s the world which the Prophet Micah describes. And when people in general are suffering, then they cry out to God for help. But ...

God will not help Israel against her enemies, or against the evil leaders within Israelite society. And when the great tribulation starts for Israel, then God will not listen to pleas for help. (For the record, I have no idea when that will be.)

In this context God then addresses specifically the religious leaders amongst the people of Israel.

Here God tells us that the false evil religious leaders do four things:

1) They actually cause people to err. They do this by encouraging people to sin, and by promoting heretical teachings.

2) They "bite" people, meaning that they aggressively attack people who disagree with them.

3) They cry "Peace", meaning that they have a facade of piousness and sanctity. For that matter, they may even get a "Nobel Peace Prize" for their supposed efforts towards peace. But it is nothing more than a hypocritical facade.

4) They prepare war on those who oppose them, those who don’t give them the things they demand. They are always looking for more money, and they expect other people to pay their bills. And they pressure the rich to support them.

These religious leaders described in verse 5 are totally selfish in their ways. They don’t really care for the people they supposedly "serve". So in the next verse God tells us what will happen to those religious leaders.

When the great tribulation starts these religious leaders will simply not understand what is happening. They will be clueless. And they certainly will not understand why these things will happen. They will not be a help to anyone, because they themselves are an active part of the evil, greedy, covetous world in which we today live.

So during the great tribulation religious leaders will have no answers. They have no understanding. In this context the Prophet Micah felt emotionally stirred up to present a warning message to the people of Israel.

Micah felt compelled to spell out the real causes for these national calamities, causes which all the other religious leaders of his day didn’t really understand. So now Micah addresses his warning once again to the leaders in society.

These are the leaders who pervert what is right. They hate godly standards and godly judgment. They are partial in their judgments, applying specific penalties for breaking certain specific laws to their personal enemies but not to their friends. Verse 9 is happening right here and right now. We see the perversion of justice on an almost daily basis.

In verse 11 Micah elaborated further.

The greed and covetousness are brazenly open. They all want money. The secular leaders expect bribes. The politicians expect bribes for favorable decisions, and the religious leaders will for a fee tell people what they want to hear. That’s our world today.

This perverse state of affairs will be punished by God with total destruction.

Back then the penalty God imposed was the total destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Over 600 years later Jerusalem was once again destroyed, this time by the Roman armies. And in the yet future destruction of Jerusalem at Jesus Christ’s coming the Mount of Olives will be divided by a huge earthquake (Zechariah 14:4), and Jerusalem will be destroyed.

In the Bible we have two similar expressions, which people sometimes confuse. We have the expression "in the last days", which is a more general expression that can apply to different periods of time. And we have the expression "the time of the end", which refers specifically to the three-and-a-half year period just before Jesus Christ’s second coming.

Both of these expressions are thoroughly discussed in my November 2016 article "This Is Not Yet ‘The Time Of The End’". Here in verse 1 this is the more general expression that is used to refer to both, events before Christ’s return, and also to events after Christ’s return.

The rule of Jesus Christ will replace all these human rulers and leaders. Verse 1 refers to the establishment of the Government of God over this whole planet Earth. And then many nations will readily submit to the rule of Jesus Christ.

At His return Jesus Christ will have dealt with all the rebellious people on Earth, both Israelites and non-Israelites.

"Judging many nations" takes place in the period leading up to Jesus Christ setting up the Government of God in Jerusalem. The nations will be judged in the time of the seven last Trumpets and the seven last Plagues.

"Beating their weapons into farming tools" takes place after Jesus Christ has started to rule this whole Earth. "War" is something that is learned, and Satan is the teacher. War is an expression of greed and lust and coveting (see James 4:1-2), wanting something that another nation lays claim to. And warfare will no longer be taught in any nation.

The absence of all war will then open the way to real contentment.

This is a picture of the total absence of covetousness, a picture of contentment and satisfaction. There will be peace and security when Jesus Christ rules the world.

This is a reference to the millennium, when Jesus Christ will have "144,000 Elohim" assisting Him in ruling this Earth. Some of those 144,000 Elohim will be kings over whole nations, while others will be rulers (or "kings") over a number of cities. All of the 144,000 in the first resurrection are designated to be "kings and priests" (see Revelation 5:10).

Here in Micah 4:5 we see a contrast between "we" and "all people". But this verse is also a picture of peace and harmony. Here "we" refers to Israelites, and "all people" refers to all the non-Israelite nations in the millennium. What this verse is showing is that all of the 144,000 Elohim will be administering the laws of God in their respective areas of responsibility. Notice that both groups will "walk" in the laws of God.

When it says that everyone from all nations will walk in the name of "his" Elohim, this is a reference to the Elohim from amongst the 144,000, who will be the king over that person’s particular nation or city. This means that all people will listen to the instructions they will receive from the Elohim who will be the God-appointed King over them.

This verse presents a picture of harmony, not one of competition or confrontation. The Elohim in both expressions in this verse are teaching the same laws and the same will of Jesus Christ during the millennium. This verse is showing the 144,000 kings and priests of Revelation 5:10 fulfilling the responsibilities they will have been given. This verse shows people during the millennium from all nations willingly submitting their lives to God’s rule.

Micah 4:6-7 shows Jesus Christ leading the remnant of Israel out of captivity and once again enabling them to grow into strong nations, who will overwhelmingly very willingly submit their lives to God. And verse 8 shows that Jerusalem will become the world capital during the millennium.

Verse 9 starts with the word "now". This refers to the fact that meanwhile (i.e. for the immediate future) there is going to be a captivity for Israel, when they cry out for help. Verse 10 shows that Israel historically did go into captivity to Babylon, and that Israel will in the future once again go into captivity to Babylon, and then, at the start of the millennium, God will intervene and bring Israel back from captivity.

In verse 11 God says:

In our world today there are many nations that actively hate the nations of Israel, and who desire to see the Israelite nations destroyed. Their hatred for the nations of Israel will be one particular expression of Satan’s "great wrath" (see Revelation 12:12) at the end of this present age.

But those nations don’t understand why God is allowing them to destroy Israel, and they will be in for a huge shock when God in His own time then intervenes for Israel and punishes these anti-Israel nations. In the words of Micah 4:12, "they know not the thoughts of the Eternal". And then the nations of Israel will again be victorious against all their enemies (verse 13).

Israel’s enemies will be punished in the events that surround the second coming of Jesus Christ. And so Micah 5:2 then presents a prophecy for the coming of the Messiah, who will save Israel from their enemies.

This is a prophecy that Jesus Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Now notice verse 3.

What is this verse speaking about? Do you know?

God will give "them", i.e. Israel, up until a certain point in time. So God gives Israel into the hands of her enemies until a specific event takes place. What is that event?

That event is when "she", i.e. the Church of God, brings forth children. When will that be? That will be the time of the first resurrection, when 144,000 firstfruits will be born into the Family of God.

Who are "the remnant of His brethren"? They are the physical human Israelites who live through the great tribulation and on into the millennium. They will all return to the areas which Jesus Christ will give to the tribes of Israel.

An amplified version of Micah 5:3 might read:

That will be the start of Jesus Christ’s rule over the earth with power and authority. As verse 4 says, "He shall be great unto the ends of the earth".

Verse 5 reverts back to the time of Micah, when the Assyrians invaded and conquered the Northern Kingdom.

Since there is no clear indication that these "seven shepherds and eight principal men" were ever at any time in the past involved in the overthrow of Assyria, it seems that this is a reference to a yet future time, when Israel will have been conquered, i.e. at the time of the great tribulation. Then it will be Assyria’s turn to be defeated. I have no idea whatsoever as to who these "seven shepherds and eight principal men" will be, or how this whole situation will unfold. But the next verse makes clear that Assyria will be defeated through the efforts of those fifteen men.

"Thus shall He deliver us" means that God will deliver Israel from the Assyrian captivity by using "seven pastors and eight principal men" to achieve the destruction of Assyria. "With the sword" means that Assyria will be defeated militarily, by military warfare.

The next verse implies that this is something that will happen at the time leading up to Jesus Christ’s return. The remnant of Israel will then be a blessing for all nations.

Rain is a blessing on agricultural land, leading to the production of large crops. The Israelites, who are likely to be the first people who will come to a real repentance at the start of the millennium, will be powerful examples for all other nations to emulate. This is another way of stating Zechariah 8:23.

This same point of Israel again having a position of power is further elaborated in verse 8.

All enemies of Israel will also be enemies of Jesus Christ, and they will be defeated. All opposition to Christ’s rule will be put down (verse 9).

The last six verses of chapter 5 then focus on another aspect of the rule of Jesus Christ. At the start of the millennium there will be very great changes from what we have in our present world.

This reference to horses and chariots is a reference to military armies. At the start of Christ’s rule all armies worldwide will be destroyed, and all military weapons will be destroyed. This is a reiteration of what we saw in Micah 4:3, nations converting their weapons into farming implements. In that way there will be no more weapons for warfare available for any nation.

When the seventh plague of Revelation 16 is poured out, then there will be an incredibly powerful earthquake, which will destroy all cities worldwide (see Revelation 16:17-20). Nothing from any present or past civilization will survive into the world that Jesus Christ will rule. Micah 5:11 is a reference to this event.

And then verses 12-14 describe the total and utter destruction of every facet of every false religion that exists anywhere on earth. That includes everything that has anything to do with demonism (verse 12), and with images and idols and religious artwork and religious jewelry (verse 13), and every religious building of any kind (churches, cathedrals, temples, shrines, monuments, mosques, synagogues, etc.) (verse 14). It will all be totally demolished, so that no vestige of any false religion remains.

Verse 15 then tells us that all this destruction upon all the nations of this world, which destruction takes place when the seven last plagues are poured out, is an expression of God’s anger and God’s fury upon rebellious humanity. It will represent the start of Jesus Christ’s rule "with a rod of iron" (see Revelation 19:15), severely punishing all human rebellion.

And then Jesus Christ will again reason with those people who survive into the millennium.

GOD REASONS WITH HUMANITY

God will reason with "the mountains and the hills", meaning with the people of Israel and with all other nations. God will open people’s minds to understand the truth of God, and God will then explain what He requires from human beings.

God has a great complaint against Israel. And Jesus Christ then spells out the problem. This event is something that happens right at the start of the millennium. Christ will reason with the Israelites who are left at that point. This way of dealing with those Israelites who survive into the millennium will be an example to all the other nations, regarding how God will deal with all people.

God will ask: why don’t you obey Me? What are your excuses? Tell Me where I have not dealt fairly with you? The point is that Israel does not have any excuses, none whatsoever. The point is that whenever God has blessed Israel, Israel has sooner or later always responded with rebellion, rejecting God’s ways, accepting pagan customs and pagan traditions instead.

Look at what God has already done for Israel in the past.

When people really submit themselves to God, then God will always help. And then God will also provide good leaders, like Moses, Aaron and Miriam at the time of the exodus. And when evil leaders, like Balak the king of Moab, try to have Israel cursed, then God has intervened and blessed Israel instead.

So God has always done good for Israel. Therefore why are you, Israel, not living by the laws of God?

In response to this situation Israel then asks: what must we do to be accepted by God? Do we have to bring sacrifices to please God? Must we bring big and expensive sacrifices? Will God expect us to sacrifice our own children to Him, something various pagan religions in past ages have done for their gods? Just what does God want from us?

No, God is not looking for any of the above. Throughout the Bible God has showed us what He is really looking for in us. Micah has summarized what God is looking for very succinctly in verse 8.

At the beginning of the millennium Jesus Christ will explain to mortal human beings that God’s whole way of life is summarized by three statements:

1) To do justly, meaning to live by God’s commandments and laws.

2) To love mercy, meaning having a genuine attitude of compassion and concern for other people, and an eagerness to forgive and be reconciled whenever problems do arise.

3) To walk humbly with God, meaning having a frame of mind of seeking to please God, and seeing our own total insignificance before God (see Isaiah 40:15-17; etc.). To walk with God means that we accept God’s leadership and willingly follow Christ "whithersoever He goes" (i.e. like the 144,000 do in Revelation 14:4).

All the other specific laws of God do nothing more than amplify these three overriding statements. It is not difficult to understand what God expects from us human beings.

Micah continued to say:

"The rod" stands for penalties, and it is God who has appointed those penalties. And what God cries out is that there is a reason for every penalty that God has established. Every penalty that we incur means that we have in some way transgressed somewhere. When we suffer in some way, in most cases that is a direct consequence of something we have done (and sometimes, a consequence of something someone else has done).

We need to "hear the rod", i.e. recognize penalties from God for what they are, and then heed the correction that is implied in the penalty. Penalties are designed to motivate us to change, not only to change our actions, but also to change the way we use our minds.

But very few people are willing to change the way they use their minds. Most people are not prepared to change. They want to be accepted the way they are, without having to change in any way. And they remain that way even in the midst of severe trials and tribulations.

Most people want to be accepted just the way they are, because they hate having to change. But God never accepts any human being on our (i.e. human) terms. God demands that we change. There is no place in the Family of God for anyone who is not prepared to change!

This once again reverts to the greedy, covetous ways that dominate life in our modern societies today. The "treasures of wickedness" refer to the wealth that is accumulated by greed, i.e. giving very little for the prices that are charged. "Scant measure" refers to giving the customer less than the customer should be receiving for that price. This is stated quite plainly in the next verse.

The rich men are those who are influential in society. And it is the rich men who cause most of the problems for mankind, both at the time of Micah and also today.

It is the rich who instigate violence. Without support from rich people all violent attempts to overthrow existing systems of law and order will fail. All such attempts to overthrow an existing order need major financial support. And there are always some rich people who are willing to provide such support, because they have that type of mind.

For example, almost 90 years ago now, back in the 1930s, without the financial support of rich German industrialists Adolf Hitler would never have been able to gain control of the German government. And Hitler then instituted a reign of violence and terror, that only ended with Germany’s total defeat in World War II.

The same approach of rich people sponsoring violence can also be found in examples with other countries.

In principle it is no different today. It should not be surprising that we today have billionaires in our society, who have devoted very large sums of money to overthrow the current rule of law in the nations of Israel, and who actively sponsor terrorist movements.

As just one example, without the support of rich people our "Black Lives Matter" movement here in the USA would have fizzled out into obscurity. It took the financial support of rich people, with control over powerful organizations, to turn this aggressive movement into a powerful and highly influential force, which openly threatens the very fabric of American society. Rich men are responsible for all the mob violence we have experienced over the past almost two years.

And lying and deceit are an ever-present part of this process. Such people never tell us the truth. Micah 6:12 applies as much to our world today as it did to Micah’s own time. Back then the rich men were devious and deceitful. But in time they were also punished by God.

These are penalties for inciting violence, and for greed and hypocrisy. And ultimately these penalties will lead to the national destruction of the nations of Israel, again leading us to the time of the great tribulation.

And that time may then also be preceded by a time of scarcity and famine, as indicated in the next two verses.

This is a description of God’s penalties imposed on a national level. And the next verse shows that all these penalties are because of the perverse leadership that controls both the governments, and also industry and commerce and entertainment and the information media. It is all embraced by the term "the statutes of Omri".

Omri was the father of Ahab. Omri instituted perverse customs and laws, and he promoted idolatry. And his son Ahab continued in those ways. And when Ahab married Jezebel, he firmly entrenched paganism in Israel. The worst form of paganism at that time was Baal-worship, which was later wiped out by King Jehu. But overall, idolatry has always continued to be a problem in Israel.

We today are also faced with "the statutes of Omri", meaning totally perverse laws and regulations. And even as back then God punished Israel for the ways of Omri and Ahab, so also today God will punish us for the anti-God laws and ways that our governments have enacted. God will also make us "a desolation".