Normally, we think of a prophet as calling people to repentance to avoid the judgment of God. But that is not Micah’s message. The people are beyond repenting. All that awaits them is punishment and exile. They have become fully corrupt – but corrupt in a particular way.

Micah is not calling them out so much for idolatry as he is for religion with no reality. Idolatry is the worship of other gods. Corruption is the false worship of God. It is the twisting of religion into what you want it to be. It is inserting a lie into what we have taken to be true. Idolatry is an overt lie. This is a lie tucked into a covering of truth. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Remember in last week’s lesson the people were asking God what more the Lord could require. Did he want them to give more, to sacrifice more, to accept thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil? What more could they do than they were already doing to please the Lord?

It was very simple, wasn’t it? He did not want more of their religion. He wanted them to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. Just that. They wanted none of that because they had created a religion that allowed them to avoid those things and allowed them, instead, to act unjustly, walk proudly and be unmerciful. Their religion covered them when they plotted evil, defrauded a man of his house and put a woman out of her home for no cause. It was religion for sale. “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money.” It was not idolatry or abandoning religion. It was turning their religion into an accomplice to their corruption. It was a far more sophisticated and destructive sin than idolatry. They had become skilled in doing evil. They had turned deceit into an art. It was not worshipping other gods that was bringing them to judgment but using the name of God to cover themselves and betray Him. They had not walked away from God. They had simply used him for their purposes and no one had stopped them. The priests had accommodated the king by literally shutting the doors of the Temple and the prophets had become endorsers of corrupt leadership. The prophets who were the true watchmen over Israel were either ignored or opposed.

As spoken by Hosea: “Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac. The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.”

So Micah writes, “What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave.”

It reminds us of the passage of Jesus and the fig tree in the New Testament. He expected to find fruit because he saw leaves. That is how it worked with fig trees. The fruit and the leaves came in together at the same time. If there were leaves then there was fruit. But a tree full of leaves – all the outward evidence of spirituality – with no fruit is useless. A person or a church can have all the outward appearances of religious activity and success but those are all leaves. If there is no fruit – no acting in justice, no love of mercy, no humility – then it is useless and, worse, a fraud acting in God’s name. That is what Micah is saying here. There is no fruit – only activity and show. People see leaves and expect fruit but there is none.

He goes on to say, “The godly have been swept from the land; not one upright man remains.” It’s not like the complaint of Elijah when God says, “There are seven thousand remaining who have not bowed their knee to Baal.” God does not disagree with Micah and that is why this is not a call to repentance but an announcement of judgment. The whole society has become corrupt – right down to the roots. There is no trust left. No one can be taken at their word. No one cares for another. Everything is for sale.

“Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire – they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.”

Does that sound familiar? All the choices are between the lesser evils. Everything runs on money and power. The game is rigged in their favor. Those from whom we expect the truth are the very ones promoting the lies.

But that is not the worst of it. Just as the poor will be with us always so will the powerful and corrupt. We will often be faced with two equally bad choices. The worst is when the corruption of leadership – those responsible for watching– filters down to the last remains of trust in a society – neighbors and family. “Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with her who lies in your embrace be careful of your words. For a son dishonorable his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.” The worst is when our leaders set such an example for the rest to follow.

It reminds you of the Red Guard in China or the words of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke. The intentional destruction of family is the worst part of a society’s corruption. “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.” When the family ties are gone there is little hope for the rest.

So, we find Micah not calling the people to repentance. They are beyond that. Now he waits keeping watch for the Lord. But he waits in hope…and that is important.

What does he say? “Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”

They have fallen not due to human frailty but to disobedience and intentional deceit. The only cure for deceit and corruption is the truth. Telling the truth is the first step and there is no basis for hope until we are ready to see things as they truly are. We are not merely frail creatures. We are broken. We are not disadvantaged. We are sinful by nature. All the progress in the world will not change that and there is nothing – not education or a better economy or universal healthcare or human ideas of Justice – that can change that. We lean toward self-deception

But, the simplest truth is full of concentrated hope. Oswald Chambers says time and again that God puts the full force of heaven behind the smallest act of obedience. The simplest denial of truth is full of despair but there is no truth however small without great hope. Alexander Solzhenitsyn quoted a Russian proverb when he wrote, “A single word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

Micah goes on to say that because Israel has sinned – and he does not exclude himself from that – they will bear the wrath of God until God pleads their case and establishes them again.

To bear is the word “endure” which can also mean “to accept responsibility for.” We need to accept God’s justified anger and accept the consequences of that. The worst thing we could do would be to try and justify our sin and avoid the consequences. But we live in a time where people do not believe in God’s anger nor do we believe in accepting the consequences of it. In fact, it is even wrong for God to be angry at all. Religion is a pain killer, a genuine opiate to mask the truth that we are fallen and in darkness. After all, God is love. He forgives and forgets. We want happiness but not genuine hope. Hope begins with the truth but happiness is an imitation of hope. We want forgiveness with no discipline and pardon with no consequences. Or, if there are consequences we want it to be over with quickly. Yet, it took one entire generation in the wilderness and two generations in exile for God to clear away the effects of their sin. It was not “Forgive me and I’ll do better next time” because the sin had eaten away the foundations of the society. There was nothing left to rebuild on.

God’s anger is not losing his temper. It has a purpose and a term. Jeremiah says, “The Lord’s anger will last until He has accomplished what he intends.” It is hard to understand but we live for the term of his anger without losing his love. He does not withdraw from us and sometimes he is the closest in his judgement of us. His anger is for our good and not his release of emotion. His anger is not a tantrum but a means to an end – and the end is always bringing people back to a right relationship with him. His anger is, unlike ours, productive and purposeful and the end result is always good for God’s people. His anger is more like discipline than simple punishment because the end result is for our good and His glory. Hebrews 12 says, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons…No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Like all the prophets, Micah was telling the people they would be better off praying that God’s anger would come sooner rather than later. Otherwise, they would just fall deeper into sin.

Still, the ultimate purpose of his discipline is not our good but his glory – and that does not play well in a world caught up in self-improvement and self-interest where we believe even God’s greatest interest is us. It’s not. Listen to Ezekiel 36. “I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. Therefore say to the house of Israel, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.”

In other words, God’s ultimate interest is in His holy name and ours should be as well. God will be shown as holy through us and that means doing whatever it takes to keep us from misrepresenting him. That was the sin of Israel that Micah was addressing. They had profaned the name of God by making a show of worship without the reality of righteousness. Worship was an experience but not one that demanded obedience.

But, the judgement is always in the context of hope. What comes at the end of his anger is always explained. Punishment and the promise always go together in God’s anger. His purpose is never retribution but regeneration. Human anger is always at the end of the line, the last straw. God’s anger is, in a sense, the beginning of something. But his anger has to clear away the sin before He can begin. That is the hope in which Micah waited, wasn’t it? He knew the anger had to come before the rebuilding and he was waiting expectantly for it. There had to be consequences before there could be reconstruction.

Did any of you ever hear the words from your mother, “You just wait until your father gets home.” What was the waiting like? Terrible, wasn’t it? Not for Micah because he knew the sooner Israel was disciplined the sooner the rebuilding would begin. That was his hope.

God says he will rebuild what has been rubble. “The day for building your walls will come, the day for extending your boundaries.” It before the society is rebuilt their hearts must be rebuilt. Ezekiel 36 says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. I will save you from all your uncleanness.”

Rebuilding hearts is first and then rebuilding the nation. “On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate.”

Whatever God had to destroy He will rebuild and the rebuilding will be a time of joy. Chuck Colson said shortly after becoming a Christian, “My greatest humiliation was the beginning of God’s using my life.” That was what Micah was waiting for patiently and hopefully. He knew the humiliation had to come before the next chapter of Israel’s life. It wasn’t resentment – like Jonah – that made him sit and wait. It wasn’t despair. It was knowing that God’s wrath had to work before his rebuilding could begin.

And then we discover that God never builds back the original. He always builds greater than there was in the first place. Through Isaiah the Lord says, “In a surge of anger I held my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer. “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed. I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children’s peace.”

That is what Micah waits for in hope instead of calling for repentance. There will be rubble for a time but then rebuilding. There will be desolation but then redemption. There will be darkness but then light. There will be deceit but then truth. Violence but then great peace.

But first there must be the outstretched arm of God that clears the ground for what is to come. That is our hope and God’s place of beginning.