Micah 3 - Introduction

You Hate The Good and Love Evil

Micah Three

God had a cause against the leaders of His people. Instead of leading in a godly way they were very violent and wicked. God spoke to all the people, but leaders have both a special accountability and responsibility to God. God said of the leaders, you "hate the good, and love the evil." The leaders were just pushing the people deeper and deeper into poverty, consuming them like cannibals eating the flesh of people. This figure should have awakened the conscience of the people.

Sadly those leaders and the people remained in their sins. When they cried out for help God did not and would not hear them. (Psalms 66:18; Proverbs 28:9) If you are living in sin and cry out to God for help with some difficulty you should only expect silence. The promise to the obedient is that God will make His face to shine upon His people. (Numbers 6:24-26) Here the prophet says concerning this disobedient people, "God will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them."

Micah expressed God's anger against the false prophets that spoke to His people. These false prophets said they brought peace and comfort to God's people when in fact they brought neither. God said, "The sun shall go down over the prophets." The false prophets would be carried into captivity. The day of restoration that would give comfort to others would be a day of darkness and calamity to them. Micah, God's true prophet, was contrasted with those false teachers. He was full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. He was on God's side. He spoke of and he spoke by the power of God. The Old Testament prophets had the job of exposing sin. Micah was no different. The warning from Micah could easily be spoken to the people of our day. "The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us?" (Micah 3:11) The leaders and the people had a false confidence. Judgment was coming and they felt that they were right with God when that was not the case at all. The people of Judah responded to the preaching of Micah. A great revival came in the days of Hezekiah.