Micah was filled with visions about the capitals of the two countries that (sometimes) aimed to be God’s people. He shouts to the world that the accusations of the Lord against them, and the movement of a righteously angry God, was all because the rebellion of Israel (Micah 1:5), but he also says the blame for this rebellion is to be cast on the capital city, Samaria. The blame for Judah’s idolatry is similarly cast on Jerusalem.
The idea of the capital city being responsible for the sins of the nation has some merit. The capital is generally has plenty of power, as well as any combination of lots of people, culture, military might, land, and commerce. This all leads to influence… what the capital does, the people could and did follow. This also means that, if capitals are still the epicenters of sin today, we as Christians have a mission field to attend to.
Sometimes Christians take on a Matthew 4:6 approach to Christianity, where God won’t let anything bad happen to them and the angels guard over them. This mindset is not new, for the Jews were upset by Micah’s prophecies of doom and destruction and commanded him to stop prophesying because they were sure that disasters like that would never come their way (Micah 2:6). Micah’s message struck me here. He says in verses 7 and 8 that if they did what was right, they would find comfort in Micah’s message of destruction. Comfort in a story of absolute ruin? The only comfort I can see is that the negative events to come were because God was just giving consequences to the evil of the people, so the righteous would not have to worry. In light of this, I would say not to worry about bad things happening, but instead just to worry about how much you are being righteous and following God.
In Micah 3:5, Micah prophesies of a time when false prophets will be cut off from their prophesying, and immediately following this he declares in verse 8: “But as for me, I am filled with power— with the Spirit of the Lord. I am filled with justice and strength to boldly declare Israel’s sin and rebellion.” I can take two things out of this. First, is that these are qualities of those who are truly prophesying God’s word: being filled with power, justice, strength, and the Spirit of the Lord, and boldly declaring the sins of God’s followers. Don’t let anyone guide you to believe we are not sinners (Romans 3:23). Secondly, these also are qualities that we have if we are truly following after God, and are not polluting his message. II Timothy 1:7 says that God gave us a spirit of power. Isaiah prophesied that when Jesus received the Spirit of the Lord, that he would proclaim justice (Isaiah 61:1), and we have that same Spirit. Paul recognized the importance strength in the Spirit and prayed that the Ephesians would have such strength (Ephesians 3:16). If you lack these qualities, pray for the Spirit of the Lord to fill you with them, because they are strongholds against the devil and his false teachings.
A verse that on its own stuck out to me immensely is Micah 4:5, “Though the nations around us follow their idols, we will follow the Lord our God forever and ever.” Take care to not to give in to the world around you and follow the Lord your God, now and forever onward. Peoples and nations around you will continue to follow their idols, although in the last days, everyone who is not following God will hide in caves from the Lord because they know his wrath is not survivable. (Revelation 6:15-17)
Lift up holy hands in prayer, and praise the Lord, (Psalm 134:2)
-Zachariah
hey you- this is crazy, because yesterday I was thinking to myself what book of the Bible i should hit up next and Micah was the one that came to mind. Glad you’re reading it too.