Micah 6
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Indictment of the Lord
Indictment of the Lord
So we have shared a great deal of the Lord’s complaint with his people.
Israel and Judah alike have fell into sin, and God has sent punishment upon them for the way they have lived and acted.
But yet, in the midst of sin, there is hope. God has promised that a remnant would be saved on the last day.
So lets begin this morning as we continue in this study.
Verse 1
1 Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
So the chapter begins with a call for the people to pay attention, to hear and listen what the Lord is about to tell them.
The Lord calls for them to arise, stand up and get ready to speak , to defend your case before the mountains. The mountains are serving as jury if you will, they will hear and decide the punishment of the nation.
Why are they called to plead their case before these objects, like hills and mountains… They have stood by and watched, they have witnessed how Israel has lived in relation to the covenant of God.
Here is an idea of what is happening.
27 And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God.”
And this naturally feeds into verse 2
2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has an indictment against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
So the mountains are called to hear the charges the Lord is bringing His case against the people… When He says He will contend with Israel, he is speaking of Judah but there are those in the Northern Kingdom as well that He is addressing.
Twice in this verse the Lord has used the word indictment, There are sure certain charges against these people, He has keep a perfect record of all done, good and bad.
Noe verse 3
3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
Notice the Lord called them ‘my people” that is covenant language. They were His people and He was their God. And He poses the question, “...what have I done to you?”
The idea here is like this, what more could I have done for you my people? I have not burdened you or wearied you...
The term wearied is the idea of burdened, I have not done this is reminiscent of what Jesus will say to the people in Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The Lord has always cared for his people, He most certainly did not make life hard on the people. But sadly they didn’t allow Him to walk with them and care for them as He wanted too.
He calls for them to answer Him his charges, it is like the idea of “what do you have to say for yourselves.”
Now verse 4
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
Listen to the Lord’s aid.. He reminded them how He brought the people (their ancestors) out from the land of bondage. There is a little word play there, essentially the Lord is saying instead of weighing you down, burdening you, I brought you up out of the land of bondage. I gave your freedom.
In truth He tells them, I have given you life. the law and even gave you great leaders. I set Moses over you as the spiritual leader and along with Aaron as a priest and finally Miriam as a prophetess and poet among the people.
And even now, they have a good king Hezekiah, and they have prophets with Isaiah, Micah and Hosea during this time.
Now verse 5
5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
And the Lord has even turned the enemies curses to blessings.
The Lord calls for them to remember back in time, remember what happened to King Balak when the King wanted the false prophet Balaam to pronounce a curse on Israel ( Numbers 22-24)
Balak wanted Balaam to call down a curse on Israel, but the Lord frustrated Balak’s plan and forced Balaam to prophesy good for Israel.
Listen to this action in Deut 23....
3 “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5 But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you. 6 You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.
So in all of this, the Lord has exhorted his people to remember how he brought them from the plain of Moab to Canaan.
The Lord declares I have been and continue to be faithful, but what about you all.
Now we enter into a new section as the Lord speaks to them.
Verses 6-7
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
So now the defendant Israel gets the chance to respond to the Lord. so the collective people express this response.
The people begin by asking what they should bring to the Lord to please Him when they come to worship Him.
They tell the truth , He is an exalted God
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
Then they make suggestions… burnt offerings, oil, rams… and sadly they even speak if they should offer their first born children to the Lord. Will this atone for our sins....
Listen friends offerings never take the place of obedience to God’s will.
And God never would ask us to offer a child to Him. The Ammonites sacrificed their children to their god Molech, and this practice spread to Phoenicia, Canaan, and even to the people of Israel.
So what does God desire.....
Lets look at verse 8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
This verse stands as a motto of the alcove of religion in the reading room of the Congressional library in Washington.
The says I have told you man, man stands for corporate Israel.
God does not desire ritual sacrifices apart form a changed life. A changed life is one that is given over completely to the covenant Lord.
So God’s people much change their heart and thier ways
3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.
So God gives three requirements...
A. Act Justly… it doesn’t mean talk about it, it means to do it yourself
B. Love Mercy… Mercy here equates to God’s faithful covenant love.
C. Walk humbly with their God....Walk mean to live a certain way, to walk carefully with your God.
So God is calling us to treat people fairly, love others faithfully and live carefully, walk carefully in front of God.
Now verse 9
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city—
and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!
Since the people are very far from actin gin the spirit the Lord has just mentioned to them, he begins to rebuke sternly becasue of sin.
The voice of the Lord is calling, the city probably refers to Jerusalem and that would speak for the nation itself.
They were to fear the name, literally the Lord himself. Man that is a big one.. mankind has forgotten that we live in the presence of a holy God and we should be careful. But people sin openly, they throw it up in the face of God… how sad
And to fear the Lord also has the meaning of worship, we are called to worship him. He is the one and only, our Holy God.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Now verses 10-12
10 Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12 Your rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Here the Lord provides other reasons for the soon coming punishment that they Lord will execute upon them.
The Lord begins asking shall I forget the wealthy wicked of Jerusalem. These that have stored up their stolen treasures, can I forget those who cheat others for their own gain.
The Lord goes on and says can I forgive the merchants that cheat others, they give people less than what they paid for using faulty scales cheated the people. Their pockets grew fat and the peoples belt lines smaller.
And finally verse 12 tells us that Jerusalem and it inhabitants, the rick there in are denounced again. They became wealthy through greed and fruad.
Their evil oppressive attitudes and actions had infected the general populations of the city
They did evil, spoke evil and sadly the Lord says no one could be trusted there. They were ripe for judgement, divine judgment.
Now verses 13-15
13 Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not preserve,
and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
God is at work against you of Jerusalem, Judah, We know that by 722 the Assyrians were attacking Jerusalem, and then Babylon would come in just a hundred years. all this was because of their sin.
God says they will eat and not be satisfied… because of their sin, their will not be enough to eat. Locusts, plagues, blight, and or famine they will be hungry.
Next they will store up food, they will work in hopes of meeting their future needs, but sadly the enemies when they strike will carry off or burn up their food stores thus leaving them without..
The sword speaks of violence and destruction in battle.
finally in verse 15, the Lord says you will plant but sadly not harvest any crops. The people will suffer..why. Because of their sins.
Friends if God holds them accountable, how can people in our world today expect to escape judgment. Sadly they will experience judgment because they refused to turn to God.
Nothing will be left because they refused to turn to the Lord and confess their sin
Now lets look at verse 16
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri,
and all the works of the house of Ahab;
and you have walked in their counsels,
that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”
God’s people are condemned for observing the statues or ways of Omri and his sinful son king Ahab.
20 Can wicked rulers be allied with you,
those who frame injustice by statute?
Both of theses, Omri and Ahab were bad kings of the northern kingdom.
Omri founded a dynasty as well as Israel’s capital city in Samaria.
Samaria represented the polices these kings promoted, these evil, wicked ways and the Lord hates it.
Finally God says I will bring ruin to you speaking of Samaria and Israel as well, they will suffer ruin
The same sins that ruined them will fall and ruin Judah as well so that they are made desolate and taken into captivity as well.
It reminds us that God holds people accountable for their actions, so what is the response.
A. It is Jesus… We turn to him and the we learn to walk with Him. The blessing is, walking in a way that is pleasing to God.
