Micah 3
A Faithful Leader
(Micah 3)
Jason Procopio
On continue dans la trame que Michée a commencé dans ce livre : dans le chapitre 1, il dénonçait l’idolâtrie du peuple de Dieu, et annonçait le jugement qui viendrait à cause de cela. Au chapitre 2, il dénonçait l’oppression du peuple de Dieu, des gens qui profitaient de la pauvreté des autres pour amasser plus de richesse pour eux-mêmes, et Michée a annoncé le jugement qui viendrait à cause de cela.
Maintenant, au chapitre 3, il se tourne vers la corruption des leaders du peuple de Dieu—à la fois ses leaders politiques et religieux.
We’re continuing today in the same trajectory that Micah started in this book. In chapter 1, he denounced the idolatry of God’s people, and announced the judgment to come because of it. In chapter 2, he denounced the oppression of God’s people—the rich who oppressed the poor to gain wealth—and Micah announced the judgement to come because of that.
Now, in chapter 3, he turns toward the corruption of the leaders of God’s people—both the political and the religious leaders.
Everyone knows the fear of people with great power doing horrible things. We know the history of the world; we know how political and social leaders have so often been untrustworthy and committed terrible acts against those under their power. So we can be easily and naturally suspicious of those in power.
For a long time, spiritual leaders were mostly exempt from this suspicion, because they were supposedly working “for God”. For a long time, you would think that if there was anyone you could trust, it was your pastor (or your priest). But history has shown us that this isn’t necessarily the case either. Spiritual leaders have proven themselves to be just as susceptible to corruption and abuse as anyone. And their corruption is particularly insidious. Because they claim to speak on God’s behalf, people listen to what they say, and implicitly trust what they say. I’ve said it several times: there is no better (or worse) job for an abusive, controlling person than the job of pastor, because you have much more opportunity to abuse and control people than you might have elsewhere.
So Micah chapter 3 is one of the most frightening chapters in all of Scripture for me. Firstly, because it’s frightening to think the kind of leaders he describes actually exist (and they do); and secondly, because I now find myself in a position of leadership, and I know how easy it would be for me—and any leader—to fall into a similar trap.
Micah has two separate groups of people in his sights in this chapter, but because of the society in Israel at the time, these two groups are very connected. The first group is the political leaders in Israel: in v. 1-4 he’s speaking to the “heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel”. But at the time, the rulers frequently consulted with the “prophets” Micah addresses in v. 5—those men who had the responsibility of listening to God and communicating his messages to the public, and teaching the people about God’s law. We see that neither group is doing their jobs appropriately. When the prophets said things the leaders of Israel didn’t like, they sought to silence and even kill them. So many false prophets came, speaking in the name of God but announcing the lies that the leaders wanted to hear.
These two groups together had incredible power over the people, because they exercised (at least in the eyes of the people) their own power and God’s. So they were able to abuse them in order to feed their own appetites, and ultimately lead God’s people astray (v. 5).
That is what Micah is denouncing in this chapter, and that is why judgment is coming.
The Abuse of Unfaithful Leaders (v. 1-3, 5, 9-11)
The essential accusation God is announcing through Micah in this chapter is that the leaders in Israel are using their authority and power to take advantage of the people who are under them. That the prophets in Israel are using their spiritual influence to take advantage of the people who listen to them.
He begins in v. 1, speaking of the leaders of the people:
And I said:
Hear, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Is it not for you to know justice?—
In other words: you, of all people, should know better than this. You are the rulers of your people. You know the Law, and you know the generations of leaders who came before you. You are not ignorant of what is just and what is unjust. You should know better. But—he says in v. 2:
2 you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin from off my people
and their flesh from off their bones,
3 who eat the flesh of my people,
and flay their skin from off them,
and break their bones in pieces
and chop them up like meat in a pot,
like flesh in a cauldron.
It’s no accident that he likens the oppression of the leaders of Israel to cannibalism: that’s what it feels like to be abused by such people. If we want and example of what this might have looked like, we can think of the behavior King Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12, which produced the division of the kingdom. Solomon had already put the people of Israel under heavy labor to build Jerusalem (and his own royal palace). His son Rehoboam, rather than lightening this load, made it heavier still…just like the Pharaoh from whom God had rescued his people in the first place.
Unfaithful leaders act like this because they are hungry. Their god is their belly, as the apostle Paul would later say (cf. Philippians 3.19). They are ravenous, and the people under their care are a means to feed their appetites.
He quickly turns to the prophets, in v. 5:
5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
who lead my people astray,
who cry “Peace”
when they have something to eat,
but declare war against him
who puts nothing into their mouths.
The prophets are even worse than the leaders. They are doing the same thing—feeding their appetites—and using their spiritual authority to declare God-sanctioned peace to those who give them what they want, and to declare God-sanctioned war on those who don’t give them what they want.
So finally, in v. 9, Micah addresses the two groups together, addressing both the rulers in Israel and the prophets under one heading:
9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel,
who detest justice
and make crooked all that is straight,
10 who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe;
its priests teach for a price;
its prophets practice divination for money…
The interesting thing here is that we can see corruption on two levels: large-scale—like King Rehoboam, whom we saw earlier—and small-scale. And in reality, this corruption happens even more often on the small scale. Political and military power are not the most frequent forms of power that people abuse. Emotional power, social power, spiritual power are more insidious because they’re harder to spot.
These leaders will seek to use people for their own gain—whether it’s reputation or pleasure or spiritual power—and when they don’t get what they want, they use the Bible to make those people believe God disapproves of them; they use the Bible to make people believe they are sinning, when in fact they are simply resisting the sin of the leaders. And these leaders can do it, because they know the Bible better. They have the authority and the charisma and the power of intimidation, which they can wield against those who know less, or who are more timid, or who seem weak.
So we need to see the subtlety here. He’s not saying these people are preaching false doctrines. He’s not saying they are rejecting the Law of Moses. He’s saying they abuse their authority and influence, using it to crush the weak and get what they want from them—even using the Word of God itself as a weapon against their people. It’s subtle because—like we saw a few months ago, in the Sermon on the Mount—it is possible to listen to someone preach and hear nothing wrong. The things they are saying come from the Bible, and they are analyzed rightly.
But how do they wield the influence they have gained from their teaching, in their relationships with others? Do they use their platform to feed their own desires?
That is the question, and that is what these people are doing. And the tragedy is that they don’t even see it. Micah says in v. 11 that the leaders take bribes, they profit from their manipulation of the Law…
…yet they lean on the Lord and say,
“Is not the Lord in the midst of us?
No disaster shall come upon us.”
You use your power to build yourself up at the expense of the people under your care…and yet you count on the Lord’s protection! These people do what they do without giving it a second thought, and it never occurs to them that God might disapprove. They continue to believe God will indiscriminately give them what they want; they make the mistake of believing God is as impressed with them as they are.
And here, God says no.
The Judgment of Unfaithful Leaders (v. 4, 6-7, 12)
The people in these different positions of power use their power to abuse others and profit from them, and yet they count on God to be in their corner. But God will disabuse them of that illusion.
First, toward the leaders and rulers. He says (v. 4):
4 Then they will cry to the Lord,
but he will not answer them;
he will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have made their deeds evil.
God loves his people with perfect love; but sometimes that perfect love means letting someone endure the consequences of their actions. We have a really hard time accepting that God does this, but it’s really not hard to understand.
In our house we’ve always told our kids: “Obedience brings joy; disobedience brings sadness.” When our kids are little, the joy of obedience usually comes in the form of reward—a hug or a thank-you or even sometimes permission to do something they want to do. And the sadness of disobedience comes in the form of discipline—they lose something they want, so they’re sad. So you might say it’s a rigged game.
But that rigged game reflects reality. When you’re older, and you disobey in bigger ways, or obey in bigger ways, you reap the consequences of those choices, and those consequences are far more serious than losing your dessert after dinner. Because God is good, and only commands good, obedience to his commandments always brings joy in the end, because that’s how the world works; and disobedience always brings pain in the end, because that’s how the world works. He knows, because he created the world to work in that way.
God will not continue to bless the leaders of his people when they make their deeds evil. They will cry to him, and he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time.
That’s what happened. Assyria invaded Israel in 722 B.C. and the people of Israel went into exile. Babylon invaded Judah in 597 B.C. and the people of Judah went into exile. The people cried out to God to protect them, and God did not answer them at that time. He allowed them to be taken away, far from their homes, into exile.
Same thing for the prophets. The prophets declare peace on those who give them what they want, and war on those who don’t. So he says in v. 6:
6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
and darkness to you, without divination.
The sun shall go down on the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them;
7 the seers shall be disgraced,
and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God.
This is exactly what happened. After the final book of the Old Testament (the book of the prophet Malachi), the prophets fell silent. There was no more prophecy, no more word from God, for roughly four hundred years, until John the Baptist arrived on the scene.
And the people noticed. The fatal flaw of abusive spiritual leaders is that they always believe no one will notice when they use their power abusively. They will think they can continue faking it, and no one will see. But sooner or later, people will notice. And people will stop listening. And they will be put to shame for their presumption.
Like before, Micah brings the two groups together and proclaims of both groups—the leaders of Israel and the prophets—in v. 12:
12 Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
What happened soon after? The people were sent into exile, and Jerusalem was sacked and pillaged. But it goes even deeper than that. “The mountain of the house” sets up a contrast we’ll see in verse 1 of the next chapter, which speaks of “the mountain of the house of the Lord”. The temple in Jerusalem was constructed on a small mountain in the city. This was where the presence of God dwelled with his people. God will promise to come back and dwell amongst his people, but for now, he won’t be there. The temple of God without the presence of God is just a heap of wood on a hill.
The Coming of a Faithful Leader (v. 8)
So we have the accusation against the leaders of Israel and the prophets; and we have the consequence of judgment that will fall on them for their sin.
In the middle of all of this, however, we see something interesting. Micah has foretold the judgment on the false prophets in v. 6-7, warning them that they will look for signs and see nothing; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall cover their lips, for their is no answer from God.
But Micah gives a mighty contrast in v. 8. He speaks of himself, comparing the powerlessness of the false prophets with the power given to him.
8 But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the Spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
Contrary to the false prophets, Micah is filled with power; his power comes from the Spirit of the Lord himself. This means that his prophecy is trustworthy—it is not Micah speaking, but God. And his word is a word of justice and might. When Micah speaks on behalf of the Lord, if he says that something is sin, it is sin. If he says that something will happen, it will happen. Because God is the only truly just God, and he is the only one with the strength necessary to bring his will to pass, and Micah is communicating God’s words to the people, and not his own.
And what is the goal of his prophecy? What is the message God has empowered Micah to communicate? He has sent him to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
We’ve seen this for the last two weeks already: this is what God does. He is not abandoning his people; he is telling them what they need to hear. It is not cruel for a doctor to tell a patient that he has cancer. When he gives this prognosis, it is to help the patient—because when you know what you’re sick with, you can begin to treat it.
What the people need to hear at this moment is that they are sinning. It is not cruelty, but love, to tell them that they are sinning, because as we saw before, God judges sin in order to extract it, so that it will no longer weigh on the people at the final judgment.
We can even see this in the trajectory of the story after Micah; God’s judgment on his people didn’t mean that he abandoned them.
The people were sent into exile, as we saw, but eventually the exiles were freed. The people of Israel returned to Samaria and intermingled with the foreign nations who had come in to occupy the land—this is how they became what came to be known as “Samaritans.” And the people of Judah returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the walls, and God restored the kingdom.
But not completely—not yet.
At the beginning of the New Testament, the people find themselves in exactly the situation Micah describes. The prophets have been silent for four centuries now. Micah’s prophecy has been fulfilled. The people of God are desperate, waiting and hoping that God will speak to them once again.
And finally, at the right time, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself, arrives. He comes to the Jews, he is born as a Jew, and grows up among them. And at the right time, he begins announcing the good news of the kingdom.
And what is that good news?
We find the very first summary of the good news Christ proclaims in Mark 1.14-15:
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The first call on all of us once we hear that the kingdom of God has come is the call to repent. To “repent” simply means to turn your back on sin and walk in the other direction—to walk in obedience to God rather than in obedience to your sinful desires.
Here’s the point: God exposes the sin of his people because that is what is keeping them from him. It’s impossible to repent if you believe you have nothing to repent, impossible to receive forgiveness if you think you have no sin to be forgiven.
You see, from the beginning God has always followed the same pattern with his people: he exposes their sin, showing them the ways in which they have rejected him; then he judges that sin, because the sin is killing them; then he offers them hope for redemption. Every time.
Jesus Christ takes up Micah’s role of prophet, filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord and with justice and might, to declare to his people their sin. Then in an incredible reversal of expectations, instead of judging his people like he did in the past, he lets the judgment fall on himself, instead of his people. He absorbs the wrath of God against the sin of his people once and for all, and calls them to believe in the gospel—that in Christ, the judgment has already been rendered, and redemption is now possible.
Application
Now it would be easy to look back over Micah chapter 3 and imagine that it applies to pastors or people in positions of authority—and that’s true. Micah 3 is a vicious condemnation of unrighteous leaders, and every pastor should take it very seriously. Because as I said before, there is no better job for an oppressive person than a pastor. An egocentric person, who is tempted to use others to get what they want, is in a perfect position to do that to terrible effect if they become a pastor.
But this text doesn’t only apply to pastors, for two reasons.
Firstly: we all sit under the authority of leaders, and we have to know that not all leadership is trustworthy. Micah gives us the marks of abusive leadership, and it’s pretty simple. Abusive leaders serve themselves rather than the people under their care. They claim to speak on behalf of God, but their words serve to build themselves up, at the expense of those they are preaching to.
Like I said earlier, but this can be incredibly subtle, especially in this age of social media and podcasts and blogging. We don’t just see it through pastors using their platforms to get rich. Someone could preach and teach extremely well—even faithfully—and then use the influence they build for themselves to wound others. They can inspire such loyalty—simply through the talent at their disposal—that people will follow them anywhere…and let themselves be abused. Why? Because the person doing the abusing is, by all appearances, speaking faithfully about God, and speaking on behalf of God—and who is more likely to be wrong? Little me, who’s only just started reading the Bible? or the teacher I’m listening to who has three degrees and a following of thousands of people? Surely he must be right.
Leaders can use the power of their personality to bully others into doing what they want.
Micah’s condemnation of abusive leadership should send us this clear message: we have permission to not follow leaders like this, even if what they say from their pulpit (or their webcam) is right. Just because they are solid Bible teachers does not mean we should believe what they say about anything else. If we spot this kind of behavior in a leader—and I am including myself in this—we have permission to reject their leadership. And we should—because no matter how talented they seem, we’re not called to follow talent. We’re called to follow Christ.
Secondly: Micah’s condemnation of these leaders applies to all of us because we all have power, to a certain extent. In any relationship—in our families, in our friendships, in our church—we have the power to influence those around us, to help or to hurt. And we will often be tempted to use that power and influence to get what we want…even if we have to hurt others to do so.
So we need to ask ourselves: how do we wield the power we have? What is our goal? Is it to maintain our reputation? Is it to gain more power or pleasure for ourselves?
Or is it to help our brothers and sisters? The reflex of every Christian ought to be to get on our hands and knees, that our brothers and sisters might stand on our backs. To push ourselves down, that they might be lifted up.
This is how Christ used his power. Matthew 20.26-28:
“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He was the opposite of the types of leadership Micah is condemning in chapter 3. He made himself nothing, and took on the form of a servant, so that we might be reconciled to God. He served us by extracting our sin, and nailing it to the cross with himself, that we might no longer be under it.
This is the kind of leaders—this is the kind of people—we are called to be. And because Christ already did it for us, and took our judgment, and freed us of our sin, this is the kind of people we can be.
