Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: It should sadness us when we see sinful behavior because the Lord is grieved. He would that everyone repent and that none should perish. That is the heart of the Lord. That's kind of what you sense here as Micah howls and wails in despair because of their sins.

Guest (Male): On today's word, Pastor Brett Meador points out the compassionate heart of a just God. When we see God's people rebelling against the Lord, it should be sad in our hearts, even as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Remember, there's a compassion there.

The God of the Bible calls on his people to live righteously but exercises judgment when they don't. Yet the story of the prophet Micah reveals a God of not only perfect justice, but one of deep compassion and mercy seeking restoration in the heart of man. Opening today's word to the book of Micah, Pastor Brett Meador continues sharing a verse-by-verse study.

Brett Meador: Micah chapter one, verse one. It says, "The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem." Now, when you read Samaria and Jerusalem, that's the north and the south. Civil war and there were wars raging even at this time period. There were still wars going on. The political atmosphere during Micah's ministry was that of civil war.

In verse two, he gives us one of his literary signals of sections when he says, "Hear ye" or "Hear." That's like a sign he is dividing into a new section. The first "Hear ye" is Micah chapter one, verse two, where he says, "Hear, all ye people." That's the first marker. The second marker is in Micah chapter three, verse one, where he says, "And I said, Hear, I pray you." Then Micah chapter six, verse one, he also starts that out, "Hear ye now." Some scholars divide the book into those sections, the various "Hear ye" sections, as they call them.

In section one, the first "Hear ye" is the sin of the people, and he's going to call them out for their sins. When he says, "Listen up, hear ye," that's what he's going to do. It says in verse two, "Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?"

He starts off saying the Lord's going to come, and he's basically describing a cataclysmic activity that's going to happen. God's going to come and judge them, and the idea is kind of in a cataclysmic way. As soon as he puts his foot down in judgment, he uses this flowery language, "let the mountains be molten under him." Where's he going to go? He's going to start in the high places. Do you guys remember what they did in the high places?

That's where they worshipped idols and did all kinds of pagan things. The Lord says, "I'm going to put my foot first in the high places, and then those mountains that I put my foot on, they're going to melt and they're going to be destroyed like wax." The idea is Micah saying, "You guys better wake up and fear the Lord." Notice this is that imagery of saying the northern ten tribes are already kind of toast.

He asks in a flowery rhetorical way, "Isn't this the house of Israel? But what about the transgression of Jacob? Is not this Samaria?" The southern tribes would have said, "Of course, Samaria should be judged. They're evil and doing all kinds of bad things." That northern tribe is the people they were having civil war with.

Then the Lord is saying, "But what about Jerusalem?" Micah's calling them all out, saying, "You guys think that the Samaria region is bad? What about Jerusalem, which is the heart of the southern tribe? What do you think God's going to do to you guys? Are you kidding?" It is funny how we tend to think God's going to judge other people, but then you forget what do you deserve. My sins on you look horrible, but my sins on me are not that bad.

That's the way Micah is calling it out. He says, "You think Samaria's bad? What about Jerusalem?" In verse five, when it talks about the transgression of Jacob, there was actually something going on at this time. The people were still worshipping God in the morning at the temple in Jerusalem, but in the evening, they'd go to the high places and worship the pagans at night. That's the way they were rolling.

They're living one way on Sabbath going to the temple, but then they're doing a whole another thing on the rest of the week. He starts then in verse six. He says, "Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.

And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten into pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot." The idea is here just basically sexual immorality.

Isn't it interesting that sexual immorality is not a new thing in history? It's as old as these ancient passages of the Bible. It's something that the Lord very clearly defines in his word. When you sin sexually, the Bible calls that fornication. Fornication means anything that's sexual outside of the marriage boundaries. That's the only boundaries that the Lord says that's what he designed sexual practice for, within the boundaries of marriage.

It's to be enjoyed and it's something that's beautiful that God created. There's nothing ugly about it. The marriage bed is undefiled, the Bible says. Anything outside of that marriage sexually is called fornication, porneia in the Greek is the word. Pornography is where we get that sort of word porn, but it comes from the Greek of fornication, anything that's sexual outside of the biblical form of marriage.

This has been going on forever. There's nothing new under the sun, like Solomon said, and that's why verses six and seven talks about this gathering for hire of a harlot. It's an idiom of their sexual promiscuity that was happening in those days. Micah reacts to this whole thing. Check it out in verse eight.

"Therefore will I wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem." Interesting response here from Micah the prophet. Howl, mourn, this guy is passionate for these people.

What he's howling about is it's bad enough that the northern tribes are going to be wiped out, but he even is howling because he knows Jerusalem's headed the same direction. In some ways, we can say that's what we've seen generationally. We've seen it coming, all the generations of sin and the way it progresses through time. The question is, are you heartbroken for that?

Howling and mourning, that's what's going on with Micah. Very different, by the way, from the prophet Jonah. Do you remember Jonah? Did Jonah howl and mourn because of the sins of Nineveh? No, he howled and mourned because God saved Nineveh. What an interesting change of attitude. These prophets are very different one from the other. I do believe it's more God's heart to be more like a Micah and less like a Jonah.

Even as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, "Oh, Jerusalem," as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. When we see God's people rebelling against the Lord, it should sadness in our hearts. In Acts chapter 20, Paul says to the church in Ephesus, "We've shed many tears for you there in Ephesus." Are you shedding tears or are you more of a Jonah? "Yeah, Lord, let them have it. Crush them." Are you sad and weeping and mourning? Are you a Jonah or are you a Micah?

That's a good question to ask. It should sadness us when we see sinful behavior because the Lord is grieved. He would that everyone repent and that none should perish. That's the heart of the Lord. Anyway, that's kind of what you sense here as Micah howls, wails, and strips himself naked. That is, he ripped his clothes in despair because of their sins, even all the way to Jerusalem.

Now in verse 10 all the way through verse 15, he's going to start using literary things that people that are into that stuff might get a kick out of. You have to read it in the Hebrew text to really get the full idea. You'll miss it all together here in the English translation. What he's going to use is puns and homonyms. Let's read verse 10.

"Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust. Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel; he shall receive of you his standing. For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.

O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee. Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth-gath: the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel."

When you read that, it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Did you notice that? It's actually a hard thing just to read in the English text. If you were to read it in the Hebrew, it just flows right off the tongue. The reason why is because he uses a play on words that's interesting. I'm not going to go through all these, but in verse 10, when it says, "Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust."

What he does here is if you take the couple of the Hebrew words for this place called Aphrah, the Hebrew word for the word dust is Aphar. Aphar, Aphrah, that's the difference between those two words. It's like Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be will be. It's got this repetitive feel with these homonyms and puns or plays on words. If you were living in those days and you talked about the house of Aphrah, you'd think that sounds almost like the house of dust.

That's almost what you'd think if you were reading that. Then he says, "Declare, weep in the house of Aphrah, roll thyself in the dust." It's a play on words and it would just roll off the tongue because the similarity of the words. Let me give you one more example of this kind of play on words. It's all throughout this whole section, verses 10 through 15. The city of Saphir, "beautiful, fair, and comely," is Shafar. Saphir, Shafar.

Those are the two words that are used right there in verse 11. "Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having shame and nakedness." It sounds like beautiful, but it's actually ugly is the conflict there that he's talking about. The whole thing plays on words, which is interesting. Why does he do that? Why does Micah see fit to do a poetry technique? Who knows, but maybe it was to get the attention of the people.

I wonder if the people are like, "This prophet's a little different. Listen to this guy. He says these things that have double entendre or different meanings and puns." Maybe this was a play on words just to help catch people's attention, but it is interesting because the Hebrew people love it because they memorize these sections because they are linguistically profound.

Here we see this radical use of linguistics, and Micah was no dummy. That's the truth of the matter. It says in verse 16, this is a funny one for all you that are follicly challenged. Verse 16, "Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee."

This is interesting. Who wants to enlarge thy baldness as an eagle? Did you know for you bald guys, you're in good standing with the Bible? If you think about it, most of the really solid dudes in the Bible were bald. Paul the apostle was a bald guy. Elisha was a bald guy. Remember when he was walking out of town a bunch of little kids came up and they said, "Go up, thou bald man! Go up, thou bald man!" They were making fun of him being bald.

Elisha curses these people, "Cursed be you," and do you remember what happens? She-bears come out of the woods and eat them all up and crushed their bones. Don't mess with the bald guys. That's a Bible thing. Anyway, all that to say, what's this all about? As it turns out, this isn't actually being bald. This says, "Make yourself bald."

What does that mean? It means they were supposed to shave their heads bald, which in those days, when you do that, it meant you were in deep mourning and struggle. That's what's going on here. Make your head bald and poll your hair is the idea for thy delicate children. In other words, what's going to happen to your children? Shave your head in grief. Enlarge thy baldness as an eagle is not a great term. It sounds so glorious, but it means be sorrowful and be mourning for your children are going to go into captivity from thee.

This is a heavy word from Micah the prophet, and this is what he's talking about. Bald equals grief, remorse, and despair is the idea here. This brings us to Micah chapter two, verse one. It says, "Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand."

The idea, some say, is more of a sexual thing, but there's others who say this is more of them imagining evil ideas. It's interesting the Bible talks about how men have this continual imagination of evil and we invent things of evil. Are we getting good at inventing evil things? There's so many things we could talk about here.

Social media is a plague upon our society. It's weird because it's one of those things that it does some good, too. There's a lot of good you can do with social media, but there's also a lot of evil. That's the way it often is. TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. There's one of the guys who was part of the original deal who is the author of *Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Right Now*.

He's also one of the guys who started it all, but he said it's the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product. When this guy talks, it's a little creepy. The guy who invented the like button says, "Run for your lives." He thought like when you liked something, it would encourage people, it was going to be positive. "Let's have some positive reinforcement."

When people like your photo, just click like. It would be awesome. Little did he know it would make teenage girls suicidal because they didn't get enough likes for their last picture of beauty. It's harming people and our kids. Psalm 63, verses five, six, and seven says, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice."

Have you ever noticed sometimes it's when you lay down at night to go to bed that you think through stuff? That's where a lot of evil actually happens. That's what the Bible's saying here. These people lay on their bed and devise iniquity, and that's something that we need to replace. Some people go to bed watching late night TV as they're going to bed, and that's the last thing they see in their minds. There's a lot of wickedness and just stuff that shouldn't be in your mind.

We need to do like Psalm 63, the psalmist: "When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate upon thee in the night watches." Focus your heart and your mind on the Lord and his word. I know I sound like a fuddy-duddy, but the enemy is at full-time work trying to mess us up with the imagination of evil things.

He goes on in verse two. He says, "And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil."

Basically, you plot evil things, now I'm going to plot some stuff. Judgment really against you. The Lord said, "I'm going to judge you." In verse four, "In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields."

This is another one of those places in the Bible where Israel would become sort of a byword or a phrase that would have double meaning. You know, they'll be like a name, "Don't be like the Israelis. Watch out for those Israelis because they've done all these evil things and now God's going to judge them." They became sort of a byword is the idea.

Verse five, "Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord." That's just a fancy way of saying there will be no more worshipping of God in that place because of their sins. Verse six, "Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy: they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take shame."

In other words, tell the true prophets to stop prophesying. We don't want to be shamed by the true prophets. We don't want to hear bad things; we only want to hear good things. This is something we saw in Jeremiah's prophecy. We see all these people saying, "We don't want to hear the bad stuff. Only tickle our ears. We only want to hear things we want to hear."

How sad it is today that that's the same pressure. Instead of the prophets, now the pastors and teachers and preachers are being sucked into only wanting to say stuff that's positive and say light, fluffy things. Don't want to hear bad things. They're not getting the truth. That's the sad truth and that's what's going on here. "We don't want to hear bad things."

Verse seven, "O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord straitened? are these his doings? do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?" If you're doing the right thing, these words should be comforting there in verse seven. Are you doing the right thing? Are you walking the straight and narrow?

"Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?" In other words, the word of God should be encouraging. Have you ever noticed that the Bible can do both? It can be a real encouragement as you're thinking, "Yes, I love walking with the Lord and I'm doing the right thing." But sometimes you read the scriptures and it hurts. It can be like a consuming fire.

Fire's a funny thing. Fire can either be warm and cozy and fun and comforting or it can be horrifying and painful and brutal and deadly. I believe the Lord is like a consuming fire. The Bible talks about the eyes of the Lord are like a consuming fire. You say, "Is that scary?" I don't know, you tell me. If you're walking with the Lord and doing what his word says, then his eyes are going to be a fire of warmth and goodness.

But if you're walking contrary to God and rejecting God and his word, then his eyes are a consuming fire of pain and struggle. In Jeremiah chapter five, verse 14, it says, "Wherefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them." That's the scary side of the word of God. The word of God is like a fire; it's either comforting or it's devouring. That's what's being said here in a rhetorical question there in verse seven.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador offering a helpful perspective from today's word. For the righteous and just, word of God presented by the prophet Micah while reminding us of its commitment to restoration as well. I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment for some advice for Christians.

Today's word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon, area where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. Brett's been the pastor of Athey Creek for almost 30 years where the church has grown into one of the largest in the Pacific Northwest. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com.

If you missed any portion of this message, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, Oregon, we also have locations in Hillsboro and McMinnville. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link locations. Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link locations. Brett Meador is with me now.

Brett, the topic of evangelism is something that makes a lot of Christians nervous, especially if they're called to do it. But maybe the best way to share our faith is just telling someone our own personal testimony.

Brett Meador: Yeah, I think that's something we are all authorities on. We know our own story and you can't deny a story of a person. There's people that will try to argue with you intellectually or academically, and you may not be able to hang with people when it comes to some of the heavy doctrines of the Bible.

But that's not what's required of us. What's required of us is to know Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul the apostle came to the Corinthian church and said, "I have determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified." I love that message because Paul was an academic and he could debate the big thinkers.

But he actually realized that's not where the power was. The power is in that testimony of how Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins and him crucified is the answer that we all need. That's a testimony that I can share about my life. I was once lost but now I'm found, I was blind but now I see. That's my testimony and that's what I can say and nobody can say anything against it.

Guest (Male): Such great advice, Pastor Brett. Thank you for reminding us about our personal testimony of what Christ has done in our own life can be such a powerful thing. Well, one last time I want to mention if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett or Today's Word, you can just go to our website at todayswordradio.com.

Next time, Pastor Brett will reflect on the call of God to all who are his to listen and align our lives with the truth of his word. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.