The price of complacency and the power of repentance (Mic 3:9-12)
Mic 3:9-12
A generation or two ago, many evangelical churches felt the need to combat ‘works righteousness’, the idea that we can earn or add to our salvation through moral living and good works. The strong message of grace, however, has by now eclipsed the idea of discipleship for many. Among my younger students, I have frequently seen an attitude of apathy when it came to reading God’s word and seeking to know Him more, a lack of enthusiasm to engage in hard work or to develop godly character. While God’s love and acceptance of us is the best news in the world and it is not conditional on what we do, there is something wrong with the message if it does not inspire us to live for the Lord in a wholehearted way.
I am reminded of this attitude, as I read the culmination of Micah’s accusations in chapter 3. On the one hand, the greed for money motivates every area of leadership from the magistrates in court who give unjust verdicts, through the priests responsible for religious instruction, to the prophets who tell fortunes (Mic 3:9, 11).[1] On the other hand, Jerusalem seemingly experiences outward prosperity reflected in its building projects and we do know that such building was going on in King Hezekiah’s time when Micah prophesied (Mic 3:10; cf. 2 Chron 32:27-30). In many traditional cultures today, just as in ancient times, paying bribes was not illegal, nor necessarily disapproved of so that, despite God’s condemnation of it (e.g. Exod 23:8; Deut 10:17), the practice may have seemed acceptable and ‘normal’ for many. After all, the more mainstream an attitude and the more frequently exposed we are to it, the more it becomes commonplace until we lose any sense that it is wrong.
Given the prosperity and seeming success of the city, the people’s complacency is not surprising. After all, they are God’s people, the temple is the visible expression of God’s presence in their midst and since things are going so well, surely there is no reason to assume that anything could be wrong? It can be tempting to be lenient about our sins when there are seemingly no negative repercussions coming from God. Sometimes, however, there is a time-lag between actions and their consequences. The Lord is patient because He is waiting for our repentance, but eventually we reap what we sow (Gal 6:7). This is Micah’s point as he spells out the coming judgment. The people who assumed that the glorious building projects and the temple in their midst was proof of God’s support of them will see the ruin of that very city and the destruction of their temple (Mic 3:12).
At the same time, our reading is also a testimony to God’s enormous grace because Micah’s prophecy did not come true! The Book of Jeremiah records that at Micah’s words King Hezekiah repented, so that Jerusalem was saved from the Assyrians (Jer 26:17-19; 2 Kings 19:5-7; 20:32-34). Thus, the judgment foretold was not set in stone and God responded to repentance in a powerful way. Nevertheless, a little over a hundred years later, God’s people were steeped in sin again and this time faced a threat from the Babylonian empire. Like Micah, Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, but his generation clung to their false sense of security (‘God is on our side’) and refused to repent so that the city was devastated and the temple razed to the ground. Fast forward over six hundred years and the disciples will point out to Jesus the magnificent Temple building, perhaps as evidence of the good things happening in the land, but the Lord’s response points to the coming of crushing judgment (Mk 13:1-2). May we learn from Israel’s mistakes and not take advantage of the Lord’s long-suffering but turn away from known sin whether great or small.
[1] The Hebrew verb here is not ‘to prophesy’ but a negative one that means ‘to divine’, ‘to tell someone’s fortune’.
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