Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

One of the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation was the motto ad fontes, meaning: “to the sources.” This led them to read the Bible for themselves in the original languages. What they found there they could neither keep to themselves, nor keep quiet about it.The Apostles’ Gospel of free grace, which the Reformers rediscovered, was found by reading Scripture’s witness. The Word of God was the engine for the whole project. As Tyndale discovered the glories of Scripture, he remarked, “Christ desires his mysteries to be published abroad as widely as possible. I would that [the Scriptures] were translated into all languages, of all Christian people, & that they might be read & known.”Calvin frequently exhorted his people to read Scripture: “Thus must we also read the Scriptures. We must greedily, and with a prompt mind, receive those things which are plain, and wherein God openeth his mind. As for those things which are hid from us, we must pass them over until we see greater light. And if we be not wearied with reading, it shall at length come to pass that the Scripture shall be made more familiar by continual use.”A later Reformer insightfully said, “a home without a Bible is a ship without a rudder and a Christian without a Bible is a soldier without a weapon.”We’ve been undertaking to renew a fervor amongst God’s people for the regular reading of Scripture. Our BRC campaign flows from the reality that your spiritual life cannot be sustained by infrequent reading and hearing of God’s Word. The condition of our Nation is directly the result of our neglect of reading, believing, and obeying the Bible. So Augustine was once told, “Take up, and read.” The Reformation we desire won’t come apart from the conquering sword of the Word.In an age where our phones have every imaginable translation of Scripture and even the tools to read Scripture in its original languages, we have opted for the distractions of newsfeeds, quizzes about what our spirit animal is, and all manner of other frivolities. It’s no wonder we are a skittish generation, for we have no foundation and no anchor. Our nation is a crumbling ruin, for we have sought to build on another cornerstone than God’s Word. Our nation is a ship adrift in a hurricane––without sails, oars, or a compass––for we have cast overboard the eternal Gospel declared in Scripture. The church has, all too often, treated the Word flippantly, and this shows in the fact that frequent reading of Scripture is a duty which few have fulfilled. May God forgive us for neglecting His Word, and may He renew in us a hunger for the Bible as never before.

INTRODUCTIONSarah only calls Abraham “lord” one time in recorded history. “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying, ‘After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’” (Gen. 18:11-12). This ought to catch our attention. Why use Sarah as the example of submission? And why appeal to her address of Abraham as “lord?” This isn’t exactly Sarah’s shining moment. What is Peter doing with this reference?When God appeared with two angels on the plains of Mamre, He did so to make two announcements: to reiterate that Sarah would have a son (Gen. 18:10) and to tell Abraham what He was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16-17). Those two announcements were not unrelated: What God was doing with the womb of Sarah was not unrelated to what He was doing with the nations of Canaan (Gen. 18:19). This is in the background of Peter’s instructions to slaves and wives and husbands. What God is up to with kings and governors is not unrelated to what He is up to in homes and families.THE TEXT“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps… Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands… as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror” (1 Pet. 2:21-3:6).THE TUMULT SURROUNDING ISAAC’S BIRTHThe entire Isaac-birth narrative is sandwiched around two tumultuous political events. First, comes the Sodom and Gomorrah story, beginning with Abraham’s famous appeal to God to make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked (Gen. 18:23), securing His promise not to destroy the cities if there are ten righteous there (Gen. 18:32). This is followed by the revelation of just how wicked Sodom is, and that there are not even four righteous there, but God mercifully delivers Lot and his family before the cities are destroyed (Gen. 19:29). We learn that the nations of Moab and Ammon originate from the fearful incest of Lot’s daughters (Gen. 19:36-38). That story is followed by Abraham’s sojourn into the land of Gerar where Abraham says that Sarah is his sister and King Abimelech takes her into his harem (Gen. 20). When God appears to Abimelech and announces that he is a dead man because he has taken another man’s wife, Abimelech appeals to God’s justice (Gen. 20:5), and the Lord spares Abimelech who restores Sarah to Abraham (Gen. 20:17-18). The next verse says, “And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said… For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age…” (Gen. 21:1-2).The whole context is about cities and nations and politics. It’s about the struggle and destruction and birth of wicked nations, and the punchline is God’s laughter: the birth of a little baby boy named “Isaac” (which means “laughter”) by an elderly couple. While nations rage and churn, God is bringing their plots to nothing and laughter is being born into the world.CHRIST AND POLITICSThis brings us back to Peter’s exhortation to wives and all of us. Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him “lord,” whose children you are as long as you do well and are not afraid of any terror. But Sarah was afraid, and so she lied about her laughter (Gen. 18:13-15). How is that an example of obedience and courage? The answer is: she repented. She says after Isaac’s birth, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me” (Gen. 21:6). And if Sarah can look back in faith at her laughter as God’s good joke on her, then the same can be said about her incredulous address of her husband as “her lord.” Would she have pleasure with her husband, her lord being so old? The answer was a glorious and hilarious yes – because God is Lord.Now apply this to Christ and politics. It’s easy to read this passage superficially as though Peter is merely saying make sure you obey everything. But remember: Christ suffered at the hands of soldiers, governors, and priests (authorities all) because He would not obey various ordinances of man. Why did Christ suffer? In order to break the back of the greatest tyranny of all, that we being dead to sins, might live unto righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24). Why did Christ suffer? Because in His righteousness, He was in full submission to the will of His Father, committing Himself to the One who judges righteously (1 Pet. 2:23). Why did Christ suffer? Because this righteous obedience to God brought Him into direct conflict with the authorities. But that resistance was not full of cursing and reviling (1 Pet. 2:22-23). The resistance of Christ was full of peace and joy: And this is because the obedience of Christ was an appeal to a higher authority, the Shepherd and Bishop of His soul, and so is ours (1 Pet. 2:25).APPLICATIONSWhat God is up to with kings and governors is not unrelated to what He is up to in homes and families. And God is Lord of the details. He does not destroy the righteous with the wicked. He is busy restoring and healing the righteous, blessing the righteous and making them fruitful, even while He carries out divine bombing runs on the wicked. God’s judgments fall with laser precision, and His mercy is far greater than we can imagine (Lot? Lot’s daughters? Abimelech?). There are more than 7,000 in our land who have not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kgs. 19:18).Do justice in your homes. Obey your husbands. Love your wives. Honor your parents. Bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Repent of all known sin quickly. Forgive quickly. Remove the logs from your eyes so you can see clearly. Have you been living in fear? Repent. Christ is Lord. Has your laughter become cynical and bitter? Or is it the laughter of faith and repentance? You are the children of Abraham and Sarah by faith in the Lord Jesus. We walk through this world as their starry-host descendants. Hold your head up high. “Strength and honor are her clothing; she laughs at the future” (Prov. 31:25).The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel against the Lord, and against His Christ… but He that sits in the heavens laughs… (Ps. 2:2, 4) All authority is from the Lord of Heaven, and therefore, the same standard applies to all authority. Our submission to lawful authority is in the Lord. Do you have to swallow hard at the thought of a wife obeying or disobeying her husband, a parishioner obeying or disobeying a pastor, obeying or disobeying a police officer? But we have only one Lord. He is the Greater Isaac, the Great Laughter of God.

INTRODUCTIONAs you all know, we have seen a steady stream of folks moving to Moscow, and, as you might not know, it shows no sign of letting up. Up to this point, we have all been pretty flexible, constantly dealing with a new situation. This has been true of those of you who have moved, and it is also true of long-time residents—pretty much everyone is a member of a very different church than you were in two years ago. And when confronted with a new situation, like this one, our reflexive action should be to turn to the Scriptures for direction.THE TEXT“Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:21–23).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTI want to follow a typical Pauline pattern with this Petrine text. What is the basic doctrinal foundation upon which we are to build, and then, after that, what is it we are supposed to do? First, what are we to believe and trust? And second, how are we supposed to act?This passage begins with a sincere trust in God. You have believed in God, who raised Jesus from the dead, and who gave Him glory (v. 21). He did this so that your faith and hope might be in God (v. 21). You have been born again, not with perishable seed but rather with imperishable seed (v. 23), an eternal seed. Seeing that you have purified your souls in this way, obeying the truth through the Spirit, what are you then to do?Because all of this is true, because you have embraced this truth, the thing you are to do is love one another with a pure heart, and make sure that the love is unfeigned. A literal rendering of unfeigned would be “non-hypocritical.” Love one another with a cleansed heart (katharos). And the word for fervently means eagerly, like you are running toward something with outstretched arms.Because you have obeyed the truth, and trusted God, and have been blessed with the new birth, your love for one another needs to be all in.LOVE REQUIRES DATAOf course, love wants to do the right thing, because the motives are right, but because we are limited and finite, we need to be taught by the law of God. Say you borrow your neighbor’s lawn mower, and it blows up while you are using it. You want to do the right thing by your neighbor (love), but what does that look like? Scripture tells us. If you borrowed, you should pay him for the lawn mower. If your neighbor came over and was pushing it when it blew up, you don’t. If you rented it, you don’t owe him a lawn mower. That’s what love looks like.SOME SCATTERSHOT EXHORTATIONSWith that in mind, this will be my best attempt to imitate the very end of one of Paul’s letters, when he was running out of papyrus.Conduct all your business in the sight of God. Cut no corners. Do not expect anyone to cut you slack because you are “a brother” or a “kirker.” Remember that regeneration does not make anyone’s memory perfect, so write your commitments down (Ps. 15:4). Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matt. 7:12), which is not the same thing as waiting for others to do unto you as they would have you do unto them. That’s not in there.Be warm and friendly toward everyone, but do not make fast friends too quickly. Do not glom onto anybody. If you make friends too quickly, you will tend to do it on the basis of personality, instead of on the basis of character. Bad companions corrupt good morals (1 Cor. 15:33), and sometimes these bad companions aren’t necessarily bad, just bad for you. Navigating friendship is a big deal (Prov. 18:24)Get your bearings slowly. There is an awful lot going on, and give yourself time to acclimatize before making any major life-changing decisions. We assume that you newcomers will be pitching when the time is right, but if you jump in too quickly, you greatly increase the chances of a misfire (Prov. 18:13).Here is a delicate one. Be grateful for what the Lord is doing here in Moscow, without in any way feeling superior over it. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And do everything you can to avoid disparaging the places you came from. The same goes for your previous spiritual leaders, even if they let you down. Especially if they let you down. Spiritual pride is insidious, and it would be easy to let gratitude morph into pride. But also take that your battle against pride not lure you into ingratitude.If you were to move to Sri Lanka, you would expect things to be different, and so you would be in some measure prepared. But if you move to Canada or the UK, you are constantly thrown by things being almost what you might expect, but which are somehow not. Within the continental United States, there are significant cultural differences from region to region, and then we have our own kirker culture layered on top of that. As Moses knew, it is tough being a stranger in a strange land (Ex. 2:22).Returning to the passage from Peter, be quick to forgive. Love is the only oil that can make this machinery run smoothly. Check that oil regularly. Cultivate your relationship with God the Father through Christ, in the power of the Spirit, because our fulfillment of the second greatest commandment is going to be the direct result of our zeal to fulfill the first.“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20–21).

Just like there are different tools for different jobs, there are different ways of speech for different conversations. For one person, you might need to use a rhetorical chainsaw to chop them down a peg, but often for others a rhetorical bandage is required to heal their gaping wounds. And it takes wisdom to know which tool to use.But notice that regardless of the tool, St Paul says our speech is always to be gracious. Even the strongest rebuke should come from a heart that loves the person we are interacting with.Because the evangelical church today is currently stuck in the “nice" ditch, our temptation here as we seek to be faithful will be to overcorrect and become harsh, uncaring, unloving, and lacking grace toward unbelievers.

The NT has a particular warning for husbands. That warning is expressed by Paul in Col. 3:19, when he admonishes, “Husbands, love your wives, & be not bitter against them.” Modern translations render this phrase as “do not be harsh with them,” which is true enough. But translating it that way changes our perception of where the sin lies.In our modern age, a husband telling his wife she may not do “thus and such” could be viewed as harsh, while a husband not objecting to his wife getting an abortion is considered being an understanding husband. But the Apostle is far less concerned in this verse with the actions of the husband than he is with the condition of the husband’s heart.A husband can grow bitter toward his wife, and if he allows that bitterness to fester it can eventually become evident through harsh actions, demeaning words, or violent behavior. He may begin to have a wandering eye, or he might withdraw into a cold shell of indifference, or he might explode with violent anger. Those actions are the poisoned fruits which arise from the bitter root. The bitterness might arise because the husband tried to lead and the wife didn’t follow, or it could arise because he’s an insecure puppy and his wife didn’t like his Facebook post, or it could arise because she gossiped about him to all her friends. Nevertheless, whatever precipitated the bitterness, it’s a husband’s duty to root up that weed as soon as he sees it appear. From that root arises adultery, murder, divorce, and abandoned children.Bitter husbands invert the atmosphere of their home. What should be the warmth of Gospel forgiveness & joy, becomes the harsh winter of stewing frustrations, unrepented sins, and a tangled web of slights, wounds, and broken trust.In an age where we face a profound vacuum of godly masculinity, men in the church have continued to harbor a diseased and deformed perversion of masculinity. Either through pride or insecurity, men withdraw into passivity, refusing to lead their wives and homes because of a bitter heart. Or else they explode with unrighteous wrath for the littlest of grievances. If Christian men would shew forth the glory of the cross and of the Father’s love, our Christian homes must reflect it at all levels, and this begins with husbands and fathers leading their homes in repentance and true faith in Christ.

The consolation section of the second cycle is long, encompassing two whole chapters—chapters four and five. We will therefore be working through this section over the course of a few weeks.Remember that Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, and was probably his disciple or protégé. His dependence on Isaiah can be seen in our text this morning, in the passage about beating swords into plowshares.THE TEXT“But in the last days it shall come to pass, That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: For the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; And none shall make them afraid: For the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever” (Micah 4:1–5).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTSo what will happen in the “last days”? We come now to a word of consolation for the faithful. All the warnings and judgments will fall upon Israel and Judah, but what should the faithful Jews cling to? After all the judgments, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established, above the hills, and people will flow there (v. 1). Many nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord, and they will encourage one another to do so. Let us go there, and learn obedience (v. 2). The elevation of Zion is a figure of speech indicating that the throne of the God of Jacob will be established there. Jehovah will rule, judging many people, governing strong nations, and they will not learn war anymore (v. 3). They will beat their swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks (v. 3). No longer will a man lock his house at night, and no longer will men have to lock their cars (v. 4). Men can sit under their own vines and fig trees without fear of danger. The mouth of God has spoken it (v. 4). The next verse looks back over the whole process of this happening. It will not happen all at once—there will be a time when the nations will continue to walk in the names of their gods, but the faithful will walk in the name of their Lord and God forever and ever (v. 5).FULFILLMENT IN THE CHRISTWe know that this consolation is fulfilled in and through the Messiah because later in this section we find the prophecy that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2).We can also ascertain this by comparing Micah with his mentor Isaiah. Our text this morning is basically a verbatim citation from Isaiah 2: 2-4. But what will happen according to Isaiah in these last days, and when are these last days? In Romans, Paul defends his mission to the Gentiles by citing a battery of Old Testament passages (Rom. 15:9-12), the last of which is Isaiah 11:10.But the verse just before it (Is. 11:9) says that the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And then what?“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; To it shall the Gentiles seek: And his rest shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10).In that day, the day when the earth is filling up with the knowledge of the Lord, Paul will be defending his mission to the Gentiles.CONSOLATION FOR THE FAITHFULGod always reserves a remnant for Himself, and when they are done listening to Micah’s fulminations, they might be quite dismayed. And so Micah turns to reassure them that it all has a point—all the drama of the Old Testament era, all these judgments, and the vast expanse of blue ruination have a telos. God is up to something, and what He is up to is the coming of the Christ.HOW IT ENDS, HOW IT GOESThose who love God and His law want Him to come down in one fell swoop, and start taking names.“Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence” (Isaiah 64:1).We look at the high impudence of man, and we know how insolent it is, and so we are often exasperated with how patient God is. And so God reminds us that His sovereignty extends over more than just ethics. He is the sovereign of time and of history. He tells us not to steal and commit adultery, but He also tells us to wait patiently as He defers judgment.He defers judgment in His mercy. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:8–9). Where would you have been if God had listened to all the saints and ended the world two years before your conversion?As this is developing, the peoples will walk in the name of their gods (v. 5). Let them. The time is coming when they will be jostling each other to get to the mountain of the Lord (v. 2). They will be taught, and will walk in obedience (v. 2), and they will be obedient to the point where the nations will study war no more (v. 3). God has said it (v. 4).THE MOUTH OF THE LORD OF HOSTS HAS SPOKENJehovah has spoken it. This is going to come to pass. But when Yahweh speaks, what does He say? What is the Word of God? The gospel answer is that Christ is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). That Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).The spoken Word that conquers everything is Christ. Christ is the crucified Word, and He is the buried Word. He is the Word that rose from the dead, and who sits at the right hand of the one who speaks a new world into existence. And as He speaks, that new creation takes shape. But only in Him, only in Christ.

It says in Ecclesiastes 7:8 that "the end of a thing is better than its beginning; the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit." What is it that makes the end of something better than its beginning?

I’d like to aim this exhortation towards the single adults in our congregation. I’m fond of telling singles, “Your days of singleness are numbered. Either you’ll get married, or you’ll die unmarried.” Now, before you singles sigh & say, “Thanks a LOT,” let me explain. Regardless of how your singleness comes to an end, God instructs you to learn to number your days. Time is a form of wealth; as the old adage goes: “time is money.” So, turn a profit on having a less encumbered schedule than a married couple with 5 kids. You may not have many mouths to feed, but become the sort of person who can (and does) feed lots of mouths. For men this means choosing work over sloth, for women it means choosing hospitality over being a busy-body. Single men, get the dilly out of your dally. You aren’t designed to sit around, waiting for the world to come to you. As God once took dust & created man, men should take the dust & create crops, inventions, websites, architecture, and so on. Don’t wait around hoping for something to happen, that’s how you become a slave (Pro. 12:24). Apply yourself to wisdom, and thus learn diligence in whatever trade you set your hand to.Single women, waiting for the Lord to interrupt your plans by bringing a man to pursue you doesn’t equate to idleness. A wise woman builds her house (Pro. 14:1), while a foolish one is a hurricane of idle clamor (Pro. 9:13-14). Sharpen your skills of hospitality and industry. Drink deeply of the pure milk of the Word, while avoiding the fumes of feminism which has successfully poisoned generations of women to despise their feminine glory.Our sons & daughters have been raised to extend indefinitely the folly of their adolescence. Instead of growing into hardy men, and glorious women, we see a generation of timid boys and insecure girls who don’t know the difference between their respective glories. Masculinity has been labelled a toxin, while femininity has been shamed by the lust of porn and transgender madness. We are reaping what we’ve sown, and so we must turn from the cultural folly, and this begins with singles turning to God’s Word and obeying what it says about the strength of young men and the glory of young women.More could be said on all this, but let me simply repeat: your days of singleness are numbered, so make them count.

Since the fall, man’s default setting is to turn glory into shame. David asks in Psalm 4: “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?” Paul speaks of enemies of Christ “whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame (Phi. 3:19).” In other words, unregenerate man’s desires have been so disordered by sin, that what ought to have been a glory has become a shame. This then leads them to glory in what they ought to be ashamed of.Porn shreds the glory of sexual delight to tatters. The anxiety over healthy eating drains food of all its joy, and thus ruins table fellowship. Hard work is replaced by government stimulus checks. Instead of a nation full of industry, music, color, and feasting, we’re beginning to see only the drab grey of totalitarian covetousness. The glory has turned to shame.Desire isn’t your problem, it’s that you’ve turned your desires in on themselves. But desire isn’t nourished by created joys. Desire can’t hold itself up. We’ve tried to prop up our longings like a skyscraper that uses toothpicks instead of bolts. Desire was intended to drive us to delight preeminently in God, and while resting in Him receive all the other joys with gratitude.The reason for which we were made was for our delight to be completely satisfied. It wasn’t so that we’d be always desiring but never possessing. Our chief end is, after all, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” These desires are our human glory, so long as the desires find themselves first and foremost resting in the Triune God. As we delight in God, our glory is made truly glorious. But if you insist on delighting only in created joys, your glory will turn to shame.Too often, our desires aren’t set on Christ alone. We long for the fleeting joys of earth, willing them to last just a bit longer, but still they slipp through our fingers. Instead of directing all our desires toward Christ, the fount of all Joy, we’ve hewn out broken cisterns which cannot hold water. Unless the Spirit grants us a new heart, our desires will collapse upon themselves like a black hole of selfishness. Our nation grasps for all the pleasures, and is still left vacuously hungry. This generation has forsaken the Living Waters of Christ, and now we’re a parched people. Even in the church we have all too often set our hearts on earthly trinkets, expecting them to bring the gratification that only comes through the death and resurrection of Christ and our union with Him. May we seek God’s forgiveness for, to paraphrase Lewis, settling for puddles, when God is an ocean.

We begin the second cycle of prophetic ministry from the great prophet Micah. Remember that he ministered over the course of forty years or so, and yet was able to summarize his message in these seven short chapters. That is probably one of the reasons why his words are so potent.In this second cycle, the words of warning and the words of judgment are combined, and so the next message will go straight to the words of consolation.THE TEXT“And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; Who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; And they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron . . .” (Micah 3:1–12)SUMMARY OF THE TEXTMicah begins by addressing the civil rulers. Hear, oh you heads and princes. Shouldn’t you understand judgment (v. 1)? But instead you have inverted everything, hating the good and loving evil (v. 2). Instead of feeding your people, you feed on them. You flay them, you pull the flesh off their bones in order to eat it, you break their bones, and chop them up in pieces so that they might fit in your cauldrons (vv. 2-3). When they get in trouble, and cry out to Jehovah, He will be merciless to those who have been merciless (v. 4). He will turn away His face. The prophets who spoke lying words, who would bite with their words while mouthing peace, plotting their war again Jehovah, what will come of them (v. 5)? Instead of a vision, their night will be pitch black. The sun will go down on their prophecies, and they will minister in darkness (v. 6). Their seers and diviners will be abashed, and will have no answer from God (v. 7).But Micah was ready to stand against them all. He was filled of Jehovah’s power, and fully ready to declare the sin and transgression of Jacob and Israel both (v. 8). Hear this word, you princes who twist everything (v. 9). You seek to build your city on the foundation of blood and iniquity (v. 10), which is why it will come to nothing. Your judges look for bribes, your priests are hirelings, and your prophets are willing to see visions for a fee (v. 11). Is it any wonder that everything is corrupted? Even so, your will dare to claim the presence and protection of Jehovah (v. 11b). And this is the reason why Zion will be plowed under. It is the reason why Jerusalem is going to be transformed into heaps of rubble. The mount of the house (i.e. the Temple) will be like the high places of the forest, meaning that trees will grow there (v. 12).Some years later, when Jeremiah prophesied that the Temple of the Lord would be laid flat like Shiloh (Jer. 26:6, 9), the priests and prophets and people gathered against Jeremiah to kill him. The princes of the land refused to kill Jeremiah, and the elders of the land defended him by pointing to this verse from Micah (Jer. 26:18; Mic. 3:12).MORAL INVERSIONIsaiah pronounces a judgment on those who invert all the basic moral categories (Is. 5:20). Micah charges the rulers of both kingdoms with a gross dereliction of their duty—weren’t you supposed to know what justice is (v. 1)? But instead of that, you have decided to hate what is good, and to embrace what is evil.This is an inescapable reality. There is no way for rulers abandon good in order to adopt a studied neutrality. There is no such neutrality. To decide to celebrate wickedness is therefore a decision to persecute those who testify that your deeds are evil.CRUELTY & ITS PRETENSESTheir rhetoric and their stock photos are all about normal, happy people, and the cry goes up that we should coexist, and love everybody, and make no distinctions, no exceptions. You have seen the bumper stickers.But it always ends in blood (v. 10). At the first they keep up the pretense, but a time eventually comes when all the hot bile of their hatred comes pouring out. They flay their victims. They crush their bones. They chop the meat of their people up, and then stuff their stew kettles full. They despise the people they rule over. And as they are shepherds who feed only themselves (Eze. 34:2), the time necessarily comes when they feed on the flocks—instead of feeding the flocks.AVARICE IS WHERE IT BEGINSThe mission of those who love the law of God is to uphold justice, and the only basis for justice, which is the holy character of God. When rulers—whether princes, judges, prophets, priests—decide that the first thing is to “get ahead,” it is not long before they are pursuing mammon instead of justice. The heads judge for reward (v. 11). The priests will teach you about the grace of God for a sum (v. 11). The prophets will give you a word from God if you cross their palms (v. 11). What is the end result of all such mercenary ministry? The end result is that all true justice is abhorred (v. 9), and the meaning of equity is distorted beyond all recognition (v. 9). This should not surprise us. We live in a time when words like justice, and equity, and reconciliation, and love is love is love derive all their definitions from the lexicons of Hell. And it all began with mammon.INEXORABLE JUSTICEBut God is hard to those who are hard. God is merciless to the merciless, and those who love their cruelties drag a host of cruelties down upon their own heads.God put no words in the mouths of these characters (v. 5), so they come up with the word peace all by themselves (v. 5). But while they speak that word with their mouths, they also bite with that same mouth (v. 5), and they war against God. Very well, then. God will return fire (vv. 6-7).THE COURAGE OF MICAHOn one side were arrayed regiments of falsehood and unbelief, and on the other side was Micah. Micah was clothed in power, judgment, and might, and this enabled him to tell both nations what their sin was. He was equipped to do this without a spirit of timidity. His message was not an “it seems to me” message, but rather a “thus saith the Lord” message. And is this not what our diseased generation needs to hear? Hear the Words of God, you sinners.CONSOLATION COMINGIn the text of Micah, we will come to the consolation in our next message. That consolation, that salvation, comes through Christ and only through Christ. But before we come to that point, we need to let the message of this chapter settle down into our bones. We tend to have shallow views of Christ because we have shallow views of our sin. We heal the wound lightly, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace (Jer. 8:11). We want a slightly damp Jesus-washcloth that we can use to dab around the edge of our wound. But the wound is deep, and gangrenous, and self-inflicted, and we are entirely unconscious, and only the grace of God can admit us into His ICU—a place where He makes all the decisions. Our condition is indeed desperate. In fact, the image of an ICU patient is too weak—we are actually dead (Eph. 2:1-2).But Christ is the resurrection and the life.