"On every page of the God-breathed writings are many thoughts that stretch out like long, clear arms of light across the darkness, discovering things otherwise hidden and illuminating wider areas than those of the immediate context. They are searchlights. I have selected one in each chapter of Scripture, for at least one central thought in every chapter should arrest the mind and affect the life," wrote G. Campbell Morgan, a skilled, wise, warm-hearted Bible teacher who conducted a classic 3-year study called Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible. Here is the fruit of that research—summarized, illustrated, and amplified with useful details—on all 66 books of the Bible.
DEUTERONOMY, JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH,
1 JOHN, 2 JOHN, 3 JOHN, JUDE, REVELATION
Micah 1:2 "Hear, you peoples, all of you." Micah was a prophet to the people of God, contemporary with Isaiah and Hosea. His messages were concerned with Samaria and especially Jerusalem, the capitals of the northern and southern kingdoms. Micah denounced false authority and announced the true in 3 messages, each starting with "Hear" or "Listen" (1:2, 3:1, 6:1). The first message is couched in the form of an address to all nations and peoples. God wanted everyone to know He would judge His chosen nation because of its apostasy. The nations are called on to listen to His message and witness the divine judgment. Israel, sadly divided into north and south at this point, was chosen as the medium through which the Lord would reveal Himself to all the nations of the world. When Israel obeyed His Word, the nation was blessed and revealed God's beneficence to the world. When it disobeyed His Law, it must be judged and punished, thus revealing the righteousness of God to all the nations of the earth. Either in blessing or in judgment, God revealed Himself to the nations by His dealings with His ancient people.
Micah 2:3 "Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, against this family I am devising a disaster.'" After a graphic description of the coming judgment (1:6-16), Micah declares the nature of the nation's sin (2:1-3): oppressive greed from the ruling classes. It was a time of material prosperity, but this economic power was in the hands of the rulers. Keenly aware of that, they planned and plotted in the night, and in the day carried out their greedy plans at the expense of those not in power. The deepest wrong, Micah reveals, is not that this oppression came from a sudden passion or swift moral collapse, but that it was premeditated. Observe the force of the word devise: "Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds!... Behold, against this family I am devising a disaster" (Micah 2:1, 3). Oppressive rulers deliberately plot and plan in the darkness, devising evil in the night, when their fellow men and women cannot see and do not know. But God is not deceived. He knows, and over against their evil devices is set His devising against them. They devise evil against others, but God devises disaster upon them. There is no escape from God, a fact that brings confidence and peace to those who trust Him in the days most full of the apparent triumph of evil rulers.
Micah 3:11 "Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, her priests instruct for a price, and her prophets divine for money." This second of Micah's messages is directed to the rulers, and is concerned with the coming of God's true Ruler. The highlighted quote exposes the falseness of their authority. The civic rulers exercised their judicial function for reward. They were open to bribery, their decisions bought by those able to reward them. The priests taught for hire, which means they accommodated their teaching to the desires of those who paid them. Truth meant nothing to them. The prophets were seeking money so they practiced divination. That was not the true method. A faithful prophet speaks what God gives him to speak, but God's Word cannot be bought. Therefore those false prophets turned to wizardry and necromancy. The point in common among these princes, priests, and prophets is the desire for self-enrichment. That is the evil principle at work in false authority. When any government is in the interest of the governing classes instead of the governed, it is evil. Let all human attempts at government, whether autocratic or democratic and everything in between, be examined in the light of this principle, and an explanation will be found of persistent failure, and also of any measure of real success. Rule, inspired by the self-interest of the rulers, spells ruin.
Micah 4:2 "Out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Having denounced the false rulers, Micah now describes the good that will come from Jerusalem. He recognizes God's purpose in the life of his people in not existing in an isolation of privilege, but rather as a rallying center for humanity. A day would come when the nations of the world are attracted to the God of Israel and His Word under the Great King, who will be described in the next chapter. Men and women who listen to that King will turn from ways of war to those of peace. Faith in this King brings "glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased" (Luke 2:14). Those with whom He is well pleased obey all that the King has commanded, and are sustained by His Word (Matthew 28:18-20).
Micah 5:2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." Here is the solution to the long problem of human authority. God's Kingdom is realized by the birth of the King who is both human and divine. Notice this detailed and explicit prediction of the birthplace of God's King, and the mystery of His Person. Regarding human history and experience, the town of Bethlehem near Jerusalem is where this King would be born. This was so definite that hundreds of years after this prophecy, both scholarly opinion of the chief priests and scribes (Matthew 2:6) and popular belief of the multitudes (John 7:42) accepted it as true. But God explains through Micah here that this human King is eternal, "from everlasting," words that apply only to God. This One who was born as King in Bethlehem is the source of eternal life. That life is applied to us by believing "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that by believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:31).
Micah 6:3 "O My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me." This and the last chapter of Micah contain the prophet's third and final message from God. It is highly dramatic, beginning with a summons from the Lord extending even to inanimate creation to hear His case against His people. It is important to distinguish between the alternating voices of the Lord, the people, and the prophet. Here the Lord God asks movingly what wrong He can rightly be accused of. His cry is a radiant revelation of His love for His people, and the terrible injustice of their infidelity: they had turn their backs on Him because they had grown weary of Him. They had broken His Law, neglected His Word, and sought to govern themselves and find sustenance in debased forms of life. God's way, by contrast, Micah explains like this: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you but to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God? (verse 7). The nation's defection was the result of something in themselves rather than something in the Lord. The question He asks in His summons is relevant today whenever His people prove unfaithful. There is no fault in God, but plenty in ourselves. His ways have always been those of love, redeeming from bondage, and defeating the evil consultations of those who would harm us. Thus the heinousness of all our wanderings is revealed.
Micah 7:9 "I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him." Here the nation personified is speaking, realizing the truth about itself. Confession of sin and the justice of divine punishment merge into hope and confidence in the redemptive victory of God. The sufferers see light breaking and the righteousness of God becoming manifest. This is the difference between remorse and repentance: in remorse people are sorry for themselves, mourning over sin mainly because of the suffering it has brought to them personally. In penitence or repentance they are grieved by the wrong sin has done to God, and they patiently submit to their personal suffering in the confidence that by it God is setting them free from their sin. These concluding words from Micah are meant to comfort such people: "Who is a God like You, who pardons sin and forgives transgression ...? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea" (verses 18-19).
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| How Micah (around 740 to 690 B.C.) relates to other prophetic writings and historical events. |
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