Micah, for some of us, is an unknown book, and perhaps the very first thing we should do is to read the book of Micah from end to end. Micah is called a minor prophet, yet centuries after his death we find his prophecy playing a fundamental part in the search for Christ. So mighty is his prophecy that it is quoted to Herod by the rulers of the Jews and becomes the authority for the guidance of the wise men from the east. Will your words be accepted absolutely centuries later as the last authority in men’s search for God? Would to God we bred such minor prophets in our generation! And as Micah was accepted by Jewish princes, Gentile overlords and Eastern potentates alike as the one who pointed to Christ, so let us be humble enough to allow him to point us also to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. All the prophets, as many as have spoken, will, if we allow them, lead our hearts to Christ, and Micah is by no means the least of these. It is the word of the Lord which came to Micah, and it was indeed the Word which he saw. Micah looked forward and saw the Word. The apostles declared that the Word was made flesh, manifest among them. We, looking back, must not fail to see that this is the same Word. “Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: ” cries Micah, for this message is not to the Jewish people only but to “all people that on earth do dwell,” for this is the great gospel of the Lord manifest in flesh among men. “And let the Lord God be witness against you.” The call is to repentance. The witness against us is the righteousness of Christ. It is only as we see His life on earth that we can realize how terrible is our sin and iniquity before God.
“Hear, all ye people;” says Micah, “hearken, O earth, and all that therein is and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.” Who was it said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again?” Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you are not mine but the Father’s.” God through Christ was speaking to the whole earth, and Jesus Christ on earth was the repository of the Spirit of God, His holy temple made manifest. God in Christ spoke to men from His holy temple, not from a temple made by hands. Christ was holy, from His virgin birth to His sacrificial death, and the iniquity of Samaria in our day is to obscure that fact, for Samaria represents the false gospel of works. Micah speaks in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. In other words, there is a sad three-fold decline in spirituality among the very elect, and if Micah is not relevant in our day, what is? Our so-called prophets do not point men to a holy God, to a spotless Christ, but to a new morality. The hill of Calvary is obscured by the hill of Samaria. Our ministers are kings of Samaria, not shepherds of the flock. Is Micah not relevant then? Is it not time to turn back to the greatest authority on the birth of Christ, an authority not even questioned by Herod? Is it not time to see again what Micah saw, the Lord God speaking from that holy temple manifest among men? Is not this the Word spoken of by John? Is not the righteousness of Christ the witness against us? Micah was not an Israelite but a Morasthite, an outsider, for all Israel and Judah were turned aside together. Christ came to Israel as an outsider, for Israel had piety and righteousness and holiness in abundance even as we, yet God called on them in that state to repent.
Now read the first chapter of Micah again and answer God’s question, “What is the transgression of Jacob, and what are the high places of Judah?” Micah says, “For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.” Christ was God come down. Did our Lord then tread upon the high places of the earth? Where are the idols today, and the Roman gods, the Greek myths, the Inca sun-worshippers? Trodden down. But by whom? By God come down. Christ was not some new teacher, but God come down, the holy temple of God manifest among men. His life is the witness against us. Man cannot be holy apart from God in Christ. Man cannot be righteous apart from God in Christ. Man has no piety apart from God in Christ. Micah follows Jonah, where the teaching is, “Repent.” Just as Christ was against the false teachers and religious leaders of his day, so God is against our modern religion. Christ came down and re-made the earth so that Calvary became the highest hill, seen from the four quarters of the earth. The mountains were molten under Him and the valleys cleft, as wax before the fire and as waters poured down a steep place, and only one hill was to be seen. At Calvary Christ re-made the earth, re-shaped its very foundations, treading down its high places and melting its mountains, in order that Calvary might be seen from pole to pole, from sea to sea. Was this then some new teacher? No, this was God come down, as Micah foresaw, as Peter declared, as we see looking back. “For the transgression of Jacob is all this,” says Micah. Yes, for the sin of the people, the elect of God, Israel. And because they refused the teaching of Micah though they could quote it verbatim, so we the Gentiles are privileged to see what they were too blind to perceive, God in Christ come down to earth.
Now what is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? If religious leadership, religious teaching, religious discipline etc., tends to obscure the Cross of Christ, the work of Calvary, it becomes the “transgression of Jacob” whereby the people of God are made to sin. And this begins to affect even Judah, the very elect as we say. So as religion chips away steadily at the hill Golgotha, so the Cross of Christ diminishes in our sight, till other sacrifices appear more acceptable to God. Good works begin to rise in our estimation till even philanthropy assumes respectable proportions. So Israel turns from the sight of the Cross to a view of morality, and Judah turns from the contemplation of the Cross of Christ to regard holiness. It is for this cause that God will again come down to sweep away all our high places and bring in a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We are wrong, wrong, wrong! How do we become right? According to Jonah we must repent, from the king on his throne (our religious leader) to the cattle in the field (our Sunday service)! According to Micah we must wail and howl, go stripped and naked. Why? “For her wound is incurable.” The disease among us is so deep-seated, so rooted in our religious beliefs that it is now incurable. If we are too late for Jonah, when we reach Micah there is no turning back. Only those who see as Micah saw can testify to the Lord’s advent. It is at Calvary we see that this was the Son of God, this was the descent spoken of by the prophets, this was God come down. If we keep our eyes on the Cross of Christ so that Calvary begins to rise again in our estimation and our former high places are trodden down in our sight, we shall get a fresh vision of God.
