Bible Speaks by Rev. L. Althouse

July 26, 2015

Three weeks ago when we began to study the Book of Micah, I indicated although he has traditionally been regarded as a "Minor Prophet, in more recent times Micah is more and more being recognized as a Major Prophet."

I must say as the weeks have come and gone, I have come to the conclusion that Micah’s prophetic utterances are among the most important for Christians, for he points the way to answers that followers of Jesus Christ are as much in need of as those to whom Micah brought God’s message.

Even if only Micah’s seventh chapter had survived to today, his prophetic message would still be one of the most important in the Bible, because he tackled the difficult and important questions and was not intimidated into soft-soaping the unsettling answers: "Woe is me! For I have become like one who, after the summer fruits have been gathered, after the vintage has been gleaned, funds no cluster to eat … The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and the hunt each other with nets" (7:1).

Micah speaks for both himself and the Hebrew people. That the Hebrews will be defeated and taken into Babylonian captivity is secondary. That, in their exploitation of the people and utter indifference to justice for all, is the root cause of their woes.

That is the message in Micah 7:1-7, but in verse 8 he offers the people who will listen a path to follow, for no matter how terrible the times will be there is still hope for those who will say with Micah: "But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation."

After all the terrible events prophesied, how could Micah possibly hold on to his faith? "My God will hear me" (7:7). And his personal assurance can be the assurance of those who hear and respond to his prophecy. Like the people of Micah’s time, we live in a world that is precarious in its balance of a sincere desire for peace and an inherent, overwhelming passion for war and self-destruction. Can we still say and believe, "Our God will hear us?"

Micah’s message to God’s people is that they can persevere: "The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; they shall lick dust like a snake, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their fortresses: they shall turn in dread to our God, and they shall stand in fear of you" (7:16,17).

Micah then comes to a question even more vital: "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? " The "pardoning" and "passing over" are not the attributes of the God to which the Hebrews normally turned. Indeed, these attributes are not of the God to which many Christians turn. All too often He is depicted as an angry and vengeful deity who will smite the reprobates who claim to be followers of Jesus but, as we well know, are marked for the fires of Hell, unless they adopt our version – the only right one – of Christian discipleship.

But the God who revealed Himself to Micah was not that kind of deity. In fact, Micah’s God breaks all the idol images and doctrines: "He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old" (7:18-20).

Micah’s vision of that God who "does not retain his anger forever" is a joyous mystery to me – and, hopefully, to you. How can He be a God of forgiving love, particularly when we all know we are not worthy of His love?

Yes, it is called "grace," but how can grace exist in a world such as ours? How can any being possibly incorporate grace into the Divine Plan? It just doesn’t make sense! But then, it doesn’t have to make sense, for we have human minds and understanding and the grace of God is too high, too deep, too wide, too everything for us to understand.

But we can experience it. We can experience it if we do not think that it is only for "our kind."

On the editorial page of today’s edition of the Dallas Morning News there were two letters by people who identified themselves as Christians. What deeply concerned and disappointed me was their dismissal of those whose methods of worship and witness as the cause of the decrease of Christians and their churches in our society.

The letter writers are among those Christians who are usually identified in the media as "fundamentalists" or "evangelicals" (a misnomer and misuse of the term). How strange that we are wary of fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Jews, but not fundamentalist Christians.

Yet, all three groups embrace a legalism of the kind that condemned Jesus, especially because he said, "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you …" (Mt. 5:21,27,31).

There is one other facet of God’s grace: It is given to us by the Lord, but it is also for us to give to others, especially our enemies, the poor, the helpless and the victims of injustice and vilification. The only way to keep the grace we have received is to share it with those who need it. As John Newton witnessed: