We are coming to the close of this prophet, Micah, whose ministry spanned 50 years. And I have a chart here. Maybe you have this chart because I passed it out before. If you don't, I can certainly get you one. It is a record of from Tilly's book, Mysteries of the Hebrew King. which gives a chronology. We're not saying that it's the right chronology, definitely, but we're just using it as a tool to get a handle on the flow of the kings in the northern and southern kingdoms. And the prophets ministered during these kings. We're studying the prophet Micah, who if you see on the left side here, he ministered in the southern kingdom of Judah. And so everybody in this line is of the Davidic dynasty. That is, they're all descendants of David who sat on the throne. And in Micah, chapter one, verse one, we learn that he ministered during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. And you want to remember that these kings often had co-regents or vice regents. And so in the historical setting of Micah, chapter seven, we want to isolate when Micah is walking about the land in verses one and two in this historical situation. So most of these kings were absolute disasters. OK, the only thing the only one we know that was not a disaster was Hezekiah. Hezekiah brought in a series of reforms during his reign, and because of his obedience to the Lord, this staved off the judgment on Jerusalem for over 100 years. And it did not come until 586, because judgment came right up to the door of Jerusalem in 701 B.C., right to the gates with the Assyrian warlord Sennacherib. But the Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer and struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night. So Sennacherib went home with his tail between his legs. And it tells us what just a little bit of faithfulness can do. God is ready to pour out blessing on anyone that will respond positively to him. Now, after Sennacherib went home defeated, Isaiah tells us in his book that Hezekiah became mortally ill in 701 B.C. And it looked like he was going to go to the grave. But Hezekiah offered another prayer to the Lord, and the Lord extended his life for 15 years. So from 701 B.C. down to 686 B.C. OK, because Hezekiah is going to die in 686. So from 701 to 686, he was the king formally, but he took on his son Manasseh to be the vice regent. And to be a vice regent meant that the son ruled with his father in a subordinate position. So while Hezekiah is formally the king, really it's Manasseh who is running the kingdom. And what Manasseh did was basically he took everything, every reform that his father Hezekiah had made, and he just systematically, one by one, point by point, dismantled the whole thing. And so in verses one through six of chapter seven, it's Manasseh who is reigning. OK, so if it helps you to write Manasseh there. OK. And Micah is having to walk around the mess that's been caused by Manasseh because Hezekiah is ill. He can't really reign. So that's the situation, verse one, woe is me, for I am like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers. There's not a cluster of grapes to eat or a first ripe fig, which I crave. OK, who's me? Who's I? Well, it's Micah the prophet and Micah is walking around Judah and everywhere he goes, it's like a barren orchard. And we don't mean physically. I mean, it may be barren physically. I don't know agriculturally, but what he means is spiritually. He means spiritually, the land is destitute. It's like an orchard after the harvest. It's like a vineyard after the vintage. It's barren. But spiritually speaking, woe is me for I'm like the fruit pickers, like the great gatherers. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat or a first ripe fig, which I crave. You know, in other words, I walk out here and all the godly people are gone. I mean, there's no one righteous. No, no, no, not one. The godly have perished. And that's what in verse two he is putting into plain words. He's telling us the plain meaning of verse one. The godly person has perished from the land. There's no there's no upright person among them. All of them lie in wait for bloodshed. Each of them hunts the other with a net. So let's look at the Hebrew for godly person, because this is probably not the best translation, though it could give you a similar type idea. The godly person has perished from the land. The Hebrew for godly is Kessed, C H E S E D. OK, C-H-E-S-E-D pronounced Chesed. And that's our word for loyal. And it always usually relates to a covenant. So he's saying there are no loyal people in the land. The loyal people have all perished from the land. All right, so who are the who are loyal people? Well, that's a legal term. It's actually a French word from which we get loyalty, but it is a legal term that refers to a person who is loyal or obedient to a standard of law. So what's the law or standard Micah is referring to in the case of Israel? What was the law or standard that they were to obey? It's the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is a standard that reveals the nature of the lawgiver. Since the lawgiver was God and he is righteous, then the law, the Mosaic law, reveals the righteousness of God. It was a revelation of who God is. And it was God's will that they learn this law. that they meditate upon it day and night and not swerve to it from to the right or to the left, but to be very careful to do everything that's written in it. And that is that God's goal for the nation, his will for their life, is that they would learn loyalty to him, to be obedient to this standard, this law. Now, when did they get this law? When did the law originate? It came in Mount Sinai. So let's bring in our framework here. And the nation had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, and God delivered them out of Egypt at the exodus. OK, what did the nation have to do to be delivered out of exit out of Egypt? They didn't have to do nothing. They didn't have to lift a finger. OK, it was all grace. And that's what God's trying to teach to that event. God took and enslaved, beaten, run down people, and he set them free from the greatest superpower on Earth. OK, God systematically dismantled Egypt. He left it in total desolation so Egypt doesn't even appear on the scene for another 500 years. And Israel walked out totally free and with the Egyptian Fort Knox. So think of that great event. And what God did for him, it was all grace. Israel didn't do any works. God didn't ask him to do any works. So the exodus is a great picture of God's grace. Then they marched to Mount Sinai. In fact, God led them there by pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. And again, this is all God's grace leading the nation. Why did he bring him to Mount Sinai? Well, because there he's going to reveal the law, he's going to tell them what his will is for their life as a nation and what his mission is for them as a nation. OK, so now we can talk about obedience. Now we can talk about works. We can talk about learning loyalty to him. But we don't ever start off talking about that. We start off talking about grace. God always does something for us first before he ever asked us to do anything for him. So it's always grace first, then law. And then even then, when he gives us law, he gives us grace to help us fulfill the law because we can't do it in our flesh alone. So turn to Exodus chapter 20, verse one, when you come to the foot of Mount Sinai. OK, having brought them out of Egypt, does God have the right to now ask this nation to obey his law? Yeah, you bet he does. God did a great thing for this nation. I mean, he set them free from an evil, oppressive power. Now, in that situation, is it really too much for God to ask them to obey him? I mean, look at the argument that God is going to make with the first commandment. OK, this is the Ten Commandments. And the first commandment does not begin with verse three. OK, the first commandment for all the Jewish people in real life begins with verse one. Then God spoke all these words. That's a part of the Ten Commandments. In fact, it's that word word, they're words. Debar in the Hebrew, which indicates that properly they're not known as the Ten Commandments. They're known properly as the Ten Words. And then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol. OK, now, having looked at that. And knowing what those people just came through. You see the argument that God is making when he speaks the 10 words. He's not saying, you know, you obey me or else. I mean, he could say that he's God. He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. He doesn't need your permission. He doesn't need mine, but he doesn't frame it that way. How does he frame it? He says, this is who I am. I am the Lord, your God. This is what I did for you. I brought you out of the house of slavery. Now, don't you think that you should obey me? So do you see how it's an appeal? God is giving them a motive to obey. He doesn't just say obey me or else, you know, he says, I did this for you. I did that for you. Now you should obey me. You should learn loyalty to me. And this is what Mike is referring to when he is in Micah, chapter seven, verse one, and he's walking around, Judy, he's walking around, he's looking for somebody, anybody that's obedient to this law, anyone that has learned loyalty. And he can't find anyone. So God had a program for the nation that he elected in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes. They went down to Egypt. Right now, after he saved them out of Egypt, he gave them the law at Mount Sinai and he wanted them to grow spiritually. He wanted the whole nation to learn loyalty to him. So let's do a little historical review. OK, in other words, how did the nation do with their task of learning loyalty to him? Because Moses got the law and while he was because the people said, well, we can't stand this. I mean, you go up there and get the law. And so then you come back and tell us what God says. So Moses goes up there and God gives him the law. And while he was up getting the law on Mount Sinai, what's going on down beneath? See, they're breaking the law. God's while he there, the law is being given, they're breaking the law at the foot of the hill. OK, so God says you better get down there, Moses, the people have lost it. So he goes down there and when he gets down to the base, he's got this big drunken orgy going on. And the center of it all is this worship of the golden bull that they've identified as Yahweh is the one who delivered him out of Egypt. So they were breaking which commandment? They're breaking the very first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. So to illustrate this, what did Moses do? Moses comes down, he's holding the Ten Commandments, right? Apparently they fit in one hand. So it's not this big, huge thing that Charlton Heston is holding. But anyway, that's another story. He cast down this small set of Ten Commandments, and they'd shatter it into pieces. Why did he do that? To show them visually what they had done. See? It was an object lesson. The prophets always do this, right? They use these big, crazy object lessons. That's why I never can figure out why so many people want to be a prophet. I mean, you know, Isaiah ran around naked for a while. I mean, how would you like to be a prophet? You run around in your nation naked for a little while. See how you like that. Hosea had to go marry a prostitute. Okay? That's the prophet. Okay? So do you want to be a prophet now? Okay? Not many people want to be a prophet once they really realize who the prophets were and the kind of things they had to do. But anyway, that's another story, too. So to show them visually what they had done, Moses comes down to the foot of the hill with the Ten Commandments. And what's the first thing he does? He shatters them on the ground to show them that their hearts were shattered, that they had shattered the law, broken in themselves, and they needed new hearts. And so God says, that's it. I've had it with these people. I'm going to destroy them. And he says, I'm going to start over with you, Moses. I'll build a nation from you. And Moses, Moses prays. Moses actually goes head to head with the God of the universe. And he actually argues with God in prayer. Why? This is why you shouldn't destroy him, God, which is a model for for prayer. And people think, well, that's kind of a gutsy prayer. Well, if you want to learn how to barter with God, you need to go look at Moses and see how he prayed to God, because Moses is a creature. And yet he goes head to head with the creator of the universe. And he got an answer to prayer. God respected the prayer of Moses, the creature, and he answered it. And so it's a marvelous prayer of scripture. But needless to say, at Mount Sinai, the nation was not loyal to God. OK, we're sketching their loyalty path. It was not loyalty at all. So that generation did not learn loyalty. And what did they do? They wandered about in the wilderness for 40 years and they died off like flies. Then you come to the conquest and settlement period under Joshua. And here's a generation that learns partial loyalty to God. OK, God gives them military victory in the land. OK, they don't know they don't take all the land. They take large portions of the land. They learn partial loyalty to God. He gives them part of the land. It all fits. By the time you come to the end of the judges period, all the tribes are in disarray. There are warring factions between the tribes and the people are tired of the chaos. OK, so. They asked for a king. The last verse of Judges and over in 1st Samuel 8. Now, God graciously gives them a king. They want a king, of course, like all the other nations. And God says, I'll give you a king, but I'm not going to give you one like all the other nations. So he's going to be the king that I choose and I'm going to put limits on the office of the king. So he he chooses Saul and Saul turned out to be a moron. The people expected the king was going to solve all their problems, right? You know, but that shows you that during the judges period, democracy didn't work. During the king's period, the totalitarian government didn't work. OK, why not? Why can neither system work? Well, because they're both run by fallen people. OK, so, you know, you can't expect a fallen king to run a nation any better than a whole group of fallen people. OK, so they're all fallen. Then God chooses David. The nation builds some loyalty to God, don't they? Here's where the nation really gets going as far as building loyalty to God. There were pockets of loyalty. In earlier generations, you know with David, his father Jesse and his father, Jesse's father. And what happened was that these pockets in the nation were growing because they were building loyalty around the family, not just the individual. So you can have individual loyalty, but you can't get anything significant going with just individual loyalty because the individual is not the basic unit of society in God's way of thinking. The basic unit of society in God's thinking is the family. So to get anything significant going, you have to build family loyalty. So far as building a if you want to build a high biblical culture. And it was David's generation that really began to produce and see the effects of two or three generations building loyalty to God. And then it came to Solomon and it was his job to continue to build family loyalty. And he started out really well, didn't he? He started off tremendous. The culture became highly developed and biblical. They were stretching out into every arena of life, music, art, science, all the way down to botany and ichthyology, entomology, architecture. They were bringing the Bible in to apply to every area of life so that they could think God's thoughts after him. They were applying the law comprehensively And they produced the greatest culture the world has ever seen. OK, but Solomon, Solomon then blew it. And he started, the way he blew it, is he started to import these foreign girls. And whenever you do that, you don't just import the girls. You import the pagan baggage that comes with the girls. And this set a rot in that high biblical culture. And it was very quickly destroyed. It shows you how quickly you can destroy a great culture. OK, you really can wipe it out very, very, very quickly. It will take generations to build. You can knock it down in one generation. So by one or two generations, there was not even a vestige of biblical culture in Israel. The kingdoms collapsed. They go into spiritual decline. Both kingdoms declined spiritually very rapidly. God sends them prophets to try to correct them. They don't listen to the prophets. They decline more. They decline more. They decline more. Now we come to Micah's day in chapter seven and you get the historical situation described right in these verses. Now, what is God basically upset with in Micah's day? The nation has not learned loyalty to his law that he gave at Mount Sinai. God had done so many great things for him. You know, it's just like any believer, okay? The moment they became a believer in Christ, something like 40 things happened to that individual. 40 things that God did initially at that very moment of faith for that individual. And then you can look at some Christians 40 years later. And this is what their life looks like. It's total chaos. And you think, what happened to this person? God had done all those things for him. And guess what happened? They didn't learn loyalty to him. See, that's what happened. And that's what had happened to the nation over this period of about seven to eight centuries. He had led them out of Egypt with an uplifted arm. He destroyed nations in the conquest. He gave them judges to solve their problems. He sent them prophets. He gave them a king. He gave them David. And he promised through David, you know what? David wasn't perfect, but David was pretty good. He's the only guy in the Old Testament that I can say was a man after my own heart. The only one I can say that followed the Lord fully. But he's not perfect. And so God promised through David is going to come the ideal king. And that's the Messiah. All this was grace, grace, grace, grace, grace to the nation. Did the nation respond with thankfulness and learn loyalty to him? No, they blew it. Now, Mike is running around the land. He can't find anybody that's loyal on the whole land. OK, before so before we we look at what he does, just the last observation in verse two, notice the mention of the land. See, that should strike you because that's one of the promises, right? God promised them a land, a seed, a worldwide blessing. And this should strike you, because if you can't find any loyalty in the land and the nation has divine title to the land, but you don't have any loyalty in the land. And her enjoyment of that land was conditioned upon loyalty. Well, what do you think is going to happen next? They'll still have the divine right or divine title to the land, but they won't be enjoying it because where will they be kicked out of the land in exile? So that's what's on the horizon now in verse two. OK, if Micah didn't find any loyal people in the land, what did he find? Well, all of them lie in wait for bloodshed. Each of them hunts the other with a net. And it's a description of the general chaos. In that society, I mean, every man, he doesn't just mean males, by the way, he means every person in Israeli society, man, woman, youth, they plot, they conspire, they murder. That's what he means, all of them lie in wait for bloodshed, that's murder. But what's the sin underlying murder? See, people don't just wake up one day and walk out the door and go murder somebody. That's not the way it works. OK, people don't just wake up one day and go commit fornication. That's not the way it works. If murder is the overt sin and somebody is acting on it, what's the what's the covert sin? John tells in his first epistle that it is it's hatred. Hatred. If we hate our brother, then what we're saying is, you know what, I'd rather than not even hear. Just get rid of him. So the next step is when I hate in my heart as well, act out on it and murder them. So all of these overt sins that you see in verse two are betraying covert sins in the heart. See, it's not true that the law just addressed external behavior. I mean, the Pharisees reduced it to that. And sometimes Christians get in on their idea that the Pharisees were right about the Old Testament law. No, they were not right about the Old Testament law. Jesus Christ insists on the Sermon on the Mount that the law reached down to the depths of the human heart. OK, because underlying each one of these external sins like murder or fornication is an internal heart issue. So if all of them lie in wait for bloodshed, it's an indictment of their hearts. Their hearts were full of hatred for their fellow countrymen. So all of them lie in wait for bloodshed, each of them hunts the other with a net. OK, the net was what you go out, you hunt and you fish with, right? It's a tool to capture prey. So they always picture, the net always pictures a destruction of freedom. It destroys the freedom for a creature to move. It isolates it. And when you get in a society that is so rampant with crime, all freedom, real freedom, has really been destroyed. Because everybody's running around doing whatever's right in their own eyes, and society turns into chaos. And it's really not safe to go outside of your place of safety when it's chaos outside. And so to knock people off, if you're one of these corrupt individuals, you have to use complex crimes. to lure people out of their safety so you can trap them and murder them, which is what they were doing. So verse three concerning evil, both hands do it well. You know, the law said that both hands were to do what to do good. Both hands were to take care of the orphan and the widow and the poor. And yet both their hands did evil, and not only did they do evil, but they did it well. And that's significant because what it means is they have trained their hands to do evil. I mean, it's one thing to do evil. It is another thing to do it well. We all do evil, but we do not all do it well. OK, to do it well requires that we have trained our sinful flesh in evil ways. So how do we train ourselves in evil ways? Well, what we do is we we we do evil and we some sin and then we don't confess it and we get we don't get restored to fellowship. Then we do it again and we don't confess it and then we do it again. And we don't confess, and then we do it again and we don't confess. And what we're doing is we're training our sinful flesh in a pattern. And the more we do it, the better we get at it. And this is what we mean when we say someone is developing or has developed a habitual sin problem. That is, every time you do evil, you're training your flesh in a direction. And the more you do that, the more deeply embedded becomes a habitual sin pattern. And what that means in the long run, it's a devastating thing. And it means that it becomes more and more difficult to get out of these patterns. I mean, you just can't a person in that situation can't just confess their sin and that's it. Everything will be hunky dory because every time we sin, what happens to our mind is it's darkened. And then you sin again and your mind gets darker and you sin again and it gets darker. And it's a subtle loss. of eyesight, spiritual eyesight, so to speak, every time we sin. It's very subtle. So while you think you may be seeing clearly because it's just like your physical eyes, if they decayed like mine did and you can't see anything without your contacts on, it's a very slow process. It didn't just all happen in one day and all of a sudden I was a minus six in my right eye and a minus 5.75 in my left eye. It was like minus 0.5. It was a gradual thing and it's subtle. But you don't realize you're not saying clearly you think you are. And that's what these people are doing. They think they're saying clearly, but sin has gradually darkened their rational faculties and they're actually blinding them to reality. And in that situation, it's really hard for a person in case, in fact, in Hebrews chapter six, it talks about it can get so bad that it becomes impossible to confess, impossible to get restored. And that's how I take you were 64 for all of you who want to know. OK, and that's where the nation had come to. Then it's not that they. Couldn't confess their sin is that they're not going to. They wouldn't. Their minds were so dark to the point they couldn't. They would never do it. OK, they not only did evil, they did it well. They had trained their sinful flesh. They were experts in evil. They could have multiple. complex crimes going on simultaneously in their society, and everybody was involved in it. Then he gives one example of a complex evil crime committed up in the upper echelons of Israeli society. He says, the prince asks also the judge for a bribe, and the great man speaks the desire of his soul, so they weave it together. See, it's a complex crime. It's a tapestry of people involved. You have the prince. The prince is a government official. He goes down to the judge, he pays the judge off because he wants a judgment against some citizen. And the great man, the great man is the rich man in society. He has certain interests in it as well. And they put it all together into a grand scheme to defraud people. And this was in the court system. And you know from the law, it was illegal for a judge to take a bribe because what would that do? What did God say it would do? If a judge takes a bribe, it blinds the eyes of the judge to justice. OK, that's what I'm talking about. Sin, blinding your eyes, destroying your ability to see reality correctly. And that's what it did to the judge. And this is going on. You know, the judges, I mean, the men who are supposed to know the law inside and out, they were, you know, Ivy League school lawyers, that kind of equality. And they were supposed to apply it equally to everybody in Israeli society. And they were taking bribes. They were especially to take care of the poor, the widow and the orphan, right? But they were taking bribes from the prince, from the great rich man in society, and this blinded them what the truth was. And guess what they started to do? They started in the court system to redefine what is right and what is wrong. Now, that's the real evil. I mean, that is the real perversity when you're legislating from the bench that what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong. I mean, you know, your society has had it. It has reached the most perverse kind of evil when it's doing this kind of thing. When the courts are rewriting the standards of the law, and whenever you do that in Israeli society, since God is the law giver, once you rewrite the law, you rewrite the nature of who God is. You redefine God. And that is the most perverse kind of evil in society. A society that redefines the nature of God, and out of that, Out of that theological idolatry in the heart, they redefine laws that govern society, man's relationship to man. And in a society like that, once it has reached this point, you can never get true justice. I mean, the whole thing becomes one big cauldron of corruption. So think in this society, if this was your society, and it may very well be, what can you do? OK, if somebody gets ripped off and they take you to court, the people in the court are the grandmaster ripoff artists. So do you think you're going to get justice there? For them to give you justice is to condemn their own actions. And you work your way into a situation where it's impossible to get straight a crooked society. The whole system has gone kaput. OK, when right has been redefined as wrong and wrong has been redefined as right. That's it. OK, verse four. The best of them is like a briar, the most upright, like a thorn hedge. I mean, this is the best people. The best people in society will rip you off. They don't care about you. They don't care about they only care about themselves. And once you observe that in your society, I mean, all the best people in your country totally ripping you off, you're in big trouble. You are in big, big trouble. It's a completely selfish culture, self-seeking, individualistic. Everyone does what's right in his own eyes, joins up with other people in their own little interest group to argue, you know, plot against every other little interest group. It's chaos. And this is the best people in society. I mean, we're not even talking about the worst. This is the best folks, the people you thought you could trust. You could trust them yesterday. You can't trust them today. Micah says, the day will come when you post your watchman, your punishment will come. So we want to understand the watchman, OK? The watchman refers to two men in the scriptures. The first man it referred to was the man who would keep watch over him physically. And the second man is the one who would keep watch over him spiritually. The man who kept watch over Israel physically was the soldier. He was a member of the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. And his job would be to sit up high on the walls of Jerusalem and keep watch over the city. And if he saw danger approaching, he would alert the authorities. So their job was to watch over the city. And if some danger approached, a military threat was approaching, they would notify the high command. Then you had the other kind of watchman, and he was a spiritual watchman. It was his job to keep watch over the people spiritually. He was the prophet. And so he would keep watch. And when God spoke to him or he gave him a vision or gave him a dream or spoke to him, he would warn the people. And sometimes he would use the lawsuit format, like we saw last week in chapter six. Other times he would go directly to the king and he would just deliver the message. But the whole point was that God appointed these watchmen to watch over people's souls, to call them back to the law, to call them back to the standard, because they had failed to learn loyalty. And it was their job to correct the nation and get them back on track to learning loyalty. Now, one of the characteristics of the watchmen, a key characteristic, whether they be keeping physical watch or spiritual watch over the nation, is that they be alert. I mean, it doesn't do any good to have a soldier sitting up there on the wall asleep. I mean, the only good that might come of it is, you know, maybe maybe he falls off the wall and kills himself. OK, that way does everybody else a favor and we can get a real soldier up on the wall who will keep watch. And it doesn't do any good to have a prophet who does not genuinely hear the voice of God, some self-proclaimer. Just like it doesn't do any good at all to have a pastor who doesn't study the word of God. I mean, how can you keep watch over the spiritual well-being of people if he's asleep spiritually? You know, he's not paying attention to the voice of God in the scriptures. And so one of the key characteristics of a good watchman is that he is alert. He's got to be paying attention. I mean, he has to know what the threats are. He has to know the enemy. He has to know what kinds of enemies that weapons the enemy has at its disposal. He has to know the lines of supply. He has to know the size of the enemy army. He has to know what the vulnerability abilities are of the city. He has to know a whole series of things. And you can't just stand up there and watch him. No, he has to be trained to be a watchman if he's going to actually watch over men. And that goes for spiritually or physically. And the thing about this period, and that's why you don't get past the teachers who aren't trained. I mean, it's just a stupid thing to do. Just like it's a stupid thing to put people out in battle that have never had any training. What a dumb thing. What a terrible thing for those people to put them out in front of bullets. What a terrible thing to put a pastor up in front of Satan's schemes. It's going to get wiped out. The thing about this period of Israel's history, OK, in the 8th century when Micah was prophet and Isaiah was a prophet with him, right? You can see him there. And Hosea is up in the north. This period is called the kingdoms in decline. Remember, there's no loyalty in the land. They're both decaying spiritually very rapidly. And in that scenario, you had true prophets and you had false prophets. OK, Micah is obviously the true prophet. He was alert. He actually did watch over the spiritual well-being of Israel because he actually did hear the voice of God and he had the boldness and the courage to warn this people. But then you also had a whole lot of false prophets. I mean, there was a whole lot of them because there were nobody, no people in the land that knew the law. So what it did was it created a vacuum to be filled by all these false prophets. It's the same thing in the church today. They'll accept anybody who wants to get up there and say it, tell a story. OK, because these people have no idea what the Word of God teaches. We've been far too many generations. I mean, you're talking about back to the modernist, fundamentalist controversy. You're talking about four generations where we haven't had good Bible teaching in this country. And that scenario, I mean, do you really expect the person in the pew to have a really solid biblical foundation? You can forget it. If it hadn't been for the Schofield reference Bible in 1909, it would be worse off than it is now. I mean, that that Bible, whether you were a reformed or dispensational scholar, didn't make a difference. OK. What it did is it put a little armor in the people, in the pew, so they could sit there and listen to Mr. Liberal, you know, talk about the resurrection and flowers and spring and all that, and realize, hey, this guy doesn't even believe it for one second. Okay? But if it hadn't been for that Bible, a lot of people out there wouldn't have known. They'd have just sucked it and gone right along. Well, that's where most people are today. And it had the same effect here, is that when you have a nation, Israel is so stupid spiritually. Anybody can come in and say, I got a voice. I got a word from God. You know, I had a whole slew of these false prophets want to be. They're just trying to make a buck. And since they didn't have any revelation from God, they couldn't possibly be alert to the dangers that were facing that society at all. So they just made stuff up and they wanted to line their pockets like most people do. So what did they do? Well, they did what every self proclaimer does to line his pockets. And here it is. It's just real. This is real profound, you know, promise blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing. Tell everyone in the nation what they want to hear. Oh, you're going to have prosperity. Your economy is going to come back booming. Your agriculture is just going to keep on prospering. And it's nothing but blue skies. And the people, oh, they like to hear this. Oh, this sounds good. And they're getting rich. And as long as you donated to him, he told you all the good things. And if you don't donate him, donate to him, then what's he going to say? Well, your family is going to be cursed. So everyone wanted to hear the good. And so they lined the false prophets' pockets. And so you had true prophets and false prophets during this period, but you had a lot more false prophets because that was lucrative business. You had only a few true prophets because it's not so lucrative when you tell the truth, which is just another reason, okay, to add, why not to follow all these people who claim to be prophets today? I mean, watch out what these people do. All you have to do is watch them for about 10 minutes. It doesn't take that long, okay? They're going to ask for money, money, money, money, money, They say, you give me money and God's going to bless you. He's going to make you prosperous. It's all the prosperity gospel. And it's all the sad thing is the terrible thing about it all. It's all the poor people they give to because they're always in a pinch and they're trying to get out. They'll do anything to get out. And you can tell they're false prophets simply by the fact that they're trying to line their pockets with money. And the pattern in Scripture is that the guys that are getting filthy rich and trying to line their pockets with money are always the guys who are the false prophets. And it's the true prophets that can't get a hearing. I mean, nobody like these guys. I mean, it's tomatoes at Amos. I mean, who wants to be that guy? Now, look at the middle of verse four. What they do to all the apostles, I mean, this is not too hard to see these patterns. They killed all the apostles, killed them all. What they do to the Lord Jesus Christ, they love him. Give him a bunch of kisses. Kill them. You tell the truth, you might get yourself killed. Okay, just know that. Doesn't mean don't tell the truth. Just know. Now, look at the middle of verse 4. See if it doesn't make more sense to you now. Okay, the day is going to come when you post your watchman. In other words, this is not the true prophet of God, see? This is... These people have no spirituality posting their own watchman. Okay? This is the false prophet that's been authorized by the state of Israel. And he is in alert, see? He's asleep. He's sitting up in the tower asleep. And so when the destruction comes, they're not going to give a warning. Then you have the true prophets like Micah and Isaiah, and they're alert. See, they actually did get the voice of God, and they're warning the nation, you're on a path of spiritual destruction. And so they would send a warning down to the authorities, and the authorities would say, well, you're not state authorized. I mean, you don't work for the government here, so you just better get out of here. You're just trying to stir everybody up. We don't like your message. Doom and gloom. But see, they were all setting themselves up. Because Micah says in verse 4, your punishment will come. In other words, you didn't pay attention to the true prophets. I sent them to you, but you listened to all these false people who have no idea what the true standard is. They don't know the law. You failed to learn loyalty to me, so guess what? Your physical destruction will come. And you won't have any idea when it comes that it was coming. It's going to be a total surprise attack. That's why he says, Their confusion will occur. And it just means they'll be standing around in utter astonishment. How could this happen to our country? All the state authorized profits that is nothing but blue skies, prosperity, abundance, agricultural freedom, economic development. What is all this destruction? And people will just be standing around totally dazed and confused. How could it happen? So let's go back to verse two and we'll show all the connections here. A verse to theological evil. OK, this is where it all starts. The loyal person has perished from the land. That is, they they totally disregarded the first table of the law. They totally disregarded the first three commandments. Theological evil, where does that lead to social evil disregard for the second tablet of the law, commandments four through ten described when he says there's no upright person among men. OK, it's just bloodshed. So that's social evil. The theological evil is underneath, the social evil is breaking out and now it can't be contained. I mean, the moment that theological evil really gets going in a country. Inevitably, this social evil is going to be breaking out and it's going to be all chaos, as he describes. All of them lie in wait for bloodshed. Each of them hunts the other with a net. That's murder. Verse three, concerning evil, both hands do it well. What does that mean? That means they've trained their sinful natures in evil, right? So that they not only know how to do evil, they're really good at it. Verse 3, the prince asks also the judge for a bribe, and a great man speaks of the desire of his soul, so they weave it together. Complex crime involving secret planning, bribery in the courts, manipulation, deception. It's chaos on a societal level that destroys standards of right and wrong, redefines everything. Till finally, verse 4, the best person in your whole society is like a briar. The most upright people are like a thorn hedge. Now, in that kind of a society, when the best people will rip you off without thinking twice about it, I mean, what kind of a condition do you think their heart is in? I mean, they're dark. They are black places. I mean, these people couldn't perceive anything correctly anymore. And so it was a perfect vacuum. for false prophets to come in. They could tell them anything they wanted to hear. They'd believe it. And they were telling them everything they wanted to hear. They were doing it. They were telling them, oh, all kinds of blessings coming, because that's what the people wanted to hear. And if they told them cursing is coming, they'd say, oh, I just can't believe it. And if you tell them their society's on the brink of collapse, you know what? They'd just write you off. And the reason they'd write you off is because they don't want to believe it. It's like in this country. And if you tell people we're on the brink of economic collapse, they'll laugh at you. They don't believe you. I mean, you can show them all the statistics, you can show them pretty fuzzy graphs, but people won't believe it. Why not? Well, because they don't want to believe it. I mean, you could have all the evidence, all of it pointing in one direction. And people wouldn't do a single thing to prepare. They just sit there and pray, Oh, God bless America. Oh God, pour out your spirit on us, give us a revival or something. God say, what's wrong with you people? I gave you every sign in the book. I gave you every opportunity in the book and you've rejected me. You kicked me out of the schools. You kicked me out of everything. You redefined right and wrong. What's wrong with you? Do you think I'm going to bless you? No. He says, you better wake up. You better get right with me. Now, that's the way it was for Israel. And that's why it says at the end of verse four, confusion is going to occur, because when the whole society collapses, people are going to be standing there in the wake of a national disaster. They just can't believe it. How could this happen? How can we fall as a nation? What went wrong? It shows you. It shows you. How dark their hearts were spiritually, how stupid they were spiritually, we saw that two weeks ago, Micah, Chapter six. So it's nothing new to say that they were stupid spiritually. We've already seen that report. So now the true prophet, OK, the true watchman gives his warning in verse any verse five. Anyone who will pay attention, Micah proclaims, do not trust in a neighbor. Do not have a confidence in a friend from her who lies in your bosom, guard your lips for son treats father contemptuously. Daughter rises up against mother, daughter in law against mother in law. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. Now, if you if you go slow through that, you'll see. That there's an ascending scale of intimacy, I mean, in other words, It starts with someone who's as distant as just your neighbor. And then it moves into the circle of those who are your friends. And then it moves into a closer circle, even to your own wife. And your own family. OK. So relationships on every level. Are breaking down between. Men. And but what is he saying on a deeper level? That's that's easy enough to see, because you may remember that Jesus picks this up, right? And he quotes this in Matthew, chapter 10. OK, verse six is loosely quoted by Jesus in Matthew 10, and it is applied. To. The first century nation of Israel, so. We can say, look, these are very close relationships here that are being broken up. Why? Well, ultimately, it's because of theological issues. We can't get people's hearts straightened out with God because we're not allowed to talk about that in our society. That's no-no. You don't talk about that. But until we can talk about that, you can't get the problems fixed, see, because that's the root. I mean, the rest of it, the social stuff, that's just fruit. OK. People do want to get along with other people. And here you see they can't. But people want to be close to other people. There's inside each one of us a desire to have peace with every one of us, to get close to people. That's why there's a cry for world peace. I mean, can't we just all get along? Yes, we can. We can. There's a way. But what is the way? See, how can we ever get to world peace? Answer? People have to get right with God first. The God of the Bible, not just whoever they choose to be God. OK, the God who is the creator, the sustainer and the redeemer of man. It's the only way. And if people don't get right with this God first, then they can never get right with people. OK, so the vertical relationship comes first. Then the horizontal relationships can come and blossom, but only in that order. OK, I'll quote Jacques Hulot again. I quoted this on Sunday in another lesson, but here it is again, the same idea here in verses five and six. So let's look at it. From the beginning, man worked desperately to have his own little world independent of all that God desired. OK, he's talking about the beginning of the new civilization that began with Noah. OK, not with Adam, but he's talking about the new civilization that began with Noah and his family. When did men try to build their own world independent from God? After the flood. Tower of Babel. OK, remember the history. OK, God said after the flood, he said, I want you to subdue. I want you to multiply. I want you to scatter over the face of the whole earth. You catch the third one scatter over the face of the whole earth. Is that what they did? No, I mean, that would require trusting God. I mean, it's a harsh world out there. It's dangerous. We don't want to go out there and build a new civilization that glorifies God. I mean, that means I have to trust him that he's going to take care of me in that dangerous environment. I mean, who knows what's out there? All I know is I've got a I've got a I've got to insulate myself against this God. I mean, I've got to get together with some other people and together we'll build a kingdom of man and we'll protect ourself from this intervening God. So Ewell goes on to say, man wanted to build a city from which God would be absent, but he never managed to do it. What's his point? OK, at the Tower of Babel, I mean, it's an attempt to build. It's an attempt by man to build an autonomous kingdom of man. And most of you have seen this picture before. What does that mean? I don't want to hear what God has to say. I don't want to hear the Bible. I don't want to listen to the scriptures. You know, we we we want to dictate what reality is. We want to legislate our own kingdom independent of any so-called God that might interfere in our business. We want God out of the picture. Man is self-sufficient. Now, that's man's fleshly desire right there always has been. Always will be. It's exactly what Israel is trying to do in this chapter in the 8th century. They're trying to build a prosperous kingdom of man. Look what it developed. Total social chaos. The whole national disaster. The whole thing went to pieces. And this is where we'll always end. And this is where the world is headed right now. Okay? At this very moment. I mean, I can teach you the text. You know, I taught you the text, I executed the text, you know, I did. I just told you what it said. And you can look at our world right now and you say, yeah, so many parallels. I didn't have to manipulate the text to show you the parallels. It's right on the face of it. And apparently what God is saying is you can never, ever build an autonomous kingdom of man. Only when people get in a right relationship with God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross can they have a right relationship with one another. When we are OK, then God will realize it among us. OK, but not before. So that's the end of Israel's attempt to build a kingdom of man. They had become like all the other nations. It failed. And next week we'll see what God has in store for the believing remnant of Israel. That is, once they come into a right relationship with God, what will it be for the world but blessing? Well, we have five minutes, so If anybody has any questions, I'll gladly try to redirect you to the scriptures.