Audio Download

The Book of Micah – Part 3, Micah 3:1-12

[Study Aired March 9, 2024]

Subsequent to our last Study we were alarmed, yet elated, to see that when we were in Babylon, we were the “oppressors” who wrought “woe” upon everyone else’s spiritual understanding and, most insidiously, our own understanding (Joh 9:41). We are the rulers and prophets the Lord denounces as those first given to understand the incredible gift of not just sonship but, astonishingly, our marriage to Christ! (2Co 11:2). 

Micah 3 is a continuation of our Lord severely warning Israel of their coming physical destruction and is a dire warning for His little flock to learn from our elder sister’s experience given to remaining in the spiritual wilderness.

Isa 42:18  Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 
Isa 42:19  Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?
Isa 42:20  Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. 
Isa 42:21  The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
Isa 42:22  But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. 

Rom 13:11  And this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 
Rom 13:12  The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 
Rom 13:13  Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 
Rom 13:14  But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the lusts of flesh.

It is only fitting that the budding Bride of Christ, the first fruit of Christ, is denounced and chastised ahead of her sisters in Babylon.

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Of course, the answer is death following the One-Thousand Year reign by the “house of God” ruling with a rod of iron in subjection to her husband, Christ (Rev 20:7-10).

Heb 12:6-11  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 
Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 
Heb 12:8  But if ye are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.
Heb 12:9  Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 
Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he [Christ] for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised by it.

Rulers and Prophets Denounced

Mic 3:1  And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads [Rulers and prophets; priests] of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment?

Our backsliding ways, typified by old Israel in the wilderness, didn’t change following Christ’s death on the cross. In fact, they dramatically got worse because of the mostly hidden shift in their spiritual understanding. Christ provided a number of key insights into spiritually understanding scripture. Yet, without Him opening our spiritual eyes and ears beyond His few express examples, our dozy ovine (sheep) minds remain happily mulling regurgitated grass (vegetables as opposed to ‘strong meat’) under a shady tree witless of our dilemma.

Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 

Those two verses starkly contrast the two armies (Son 6:13) which Solomon saw in the Shulamite, with the enigma of the Shulamite’s sudden appearance vexing his wisdom since he wasn’t aware that he needed the holy spirit to understand Israel’s destiny of transitioning from Old Jerusalem to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Both parties carry a “black” characteristic, with the Shulamite (Son 1:6) representing one of the many parables Jesus always spoke and queried by His disciples. The entire Bible is given to the Shulamite, the Bride of Christ, for her full understanding alone of the Lord’s parables. For the other ‘army’ of Babylonian Christianity and the world, their lot is to remain in the symbolised phases of the Moon’s (depicting the church) monthly 27-day average (‘menstrual’) cycle. She brings forth children of the same non-spiritually discerning flesh as she, representing ten of the tribes of Israel, black of understanding in the waxing and waning moonlight characterised as Leah, Jacob’s first wife’s weak eyesight and passion only for equally dull-eyed children and not unity of spirit in her husband.

Babylonian Christianity, symbolised by the Moon, is visibly observed except in extreme latitudes every day and night for 24 hours except for two to three nights (interesting symbolism!) on either side of the New Moon phase. ‘She’, the Babylonian church, is paled into obscurity during daylight by the Son (sun) of righteousness who speaks in parables. She only dimly reflects the Son’s righteousness during the night and remains blind (black) for the remaining few days. It all depicts her torpid arousal for ‘the Christ’ and not being given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Shockingly to us, while observing the infrequency of those who are given to not remain in Christ, the spiritual understanding they did have was taken away and given to the Bride of Christ, the younger ‘army’ (Son 6:13).

Mat 13:12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 
Mat 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 
Mat 13:15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Mat 13:16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

Our eyes and ears are only blessed to the extent our Lord gives us His spirit to discern His spirit. Even then, if we don’t daily exercise His spirit in our lives by dying to the flesh, we run the risk of reverting to being like the Moon with her half-light of understanding. If our Elders and leaders, inclusive of the laity of ‘prophets’, don’t preach the word Christ taught, our Lord will cut off our skin and flesh like an eagle at his prey, just as Micah in like parables as Christ is prophesying in chapter three.

Mic 3:2  Who [we formally] hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from them, and their flesh from off their bones; 

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 
1Co 2:15  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 
1Co 2:16  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Here is one such classic example of spiritually understanding lust, only for the former Babylonian in us to never excitedly see the spiritual principle applied to the entirety of scripture.

Mat 5:27  Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 
Mat 5:28  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart [meaning spiritually].
Mat 5:29  And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Mat 5:30  And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Of course, the renouncement from God of our obsession with all kinds of lust and self-serving rulership over others, rather than judging ourselves first within, meaning spiritually, applies to our understanding of ALL of the Lord’s commands (1Co 11:31).

For the same physically discerning eyes and ears that even Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, likewise possessed, there are some unspeakably harrowing examples of poor wretched dear folk who have literally plucked out their eyes or dismembered their privy parts out of dreadful frustration of not being able to overcome lust, simply because they didn’t understand the recommendation spiritually. Their misguided passion for the Lord can sometimes put us to shame. 

Continuing with our Lord’s warning to us by what Micah prophesied to Israel, he says:

Mic 3:3  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.

Zep 3:1  Woe to her [The Lord’s Elect before spiritual understanding] that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! [Oppressing old Jerusalem/Israel without and unwittingly ourselves spiritually]
Zep 3:2  She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God 
Zep 3:3  Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. 
Zep 3:4  Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. [All those scriptures are formerly (decreasingly) us!].

A genuine offence against a “little one” (representing an offended babe in Christ) and him being misled by the Lord’s Elected kings and priests by them not shouting the trumpet alarm within themselves to prevent deluding a babe is a capital offence (Eze 33). Our former zeal in Babylon was to completely dismember all attempts of a struggling fellow believer to unwittingly render his understanding useless before our delusional self-righteous knowledge. Psychopathically, we mostly unconsciously finish his utter destruction in the form of a sacrifice in a figurative caldron. As such, and forecast by Micah as Israel’s methodology of unrighteously handling the Lord’s word and duplicated by us, the Priests of God, we unknowingly joined the ranks of wicked counsellors.

Eze 11:1  Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD’S house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
Eze 11:2  Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city: 
Eze 11:3  Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh. 
Eze 11:4  Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. 
Eze 11:5  And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith the LORD; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them. 
Eze 11:6  Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain.
Eze 11:7  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it.
Eze 11:8  Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord GOD. 
Eze 11:9  And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.
Eze 11:10  Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Eze 11:11  This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel: 
Eze 11:12  And ye shall know that I am the LORD: for ye have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you.
Eze 11:13  And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? 

The exceptionally high standard of Christ is expected of His Elect to be qualified to represent Him today for their rulership in the One-Thousand Year reign with the rod of iron. If we can’t rule ourselves now, how is the world to honor us as their rulers if we don’t heed Micah’s warning?

Mat 18:3  And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 18:4  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 18:5  And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
Mat 18:6  But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

As endlessly repeated by Israel in the wilderness, we typically see-saw between obedience and wealth-driven play (lust), only to be chastised by Christ, our husband, to the level He deems suitable for our change. In Israel’s case, and because the Old Covenant was unwittingly coming to a not-too-distant end, their chastisement seemed confusingly harsh, causing them to feel utterly forsaken (Mat 27:45-46) as they trudged into exile.

Mic 3:4  Then shall they cry to the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. 

Isa 58:3  Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 
Isa 58:4  Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. 
Isa 58:5  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 
Isa 58:6  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 
Isa 58:7  Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? 
Isa 58:8  Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
Isa 58:9  Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 
Isa 58:10  And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 
Isa 58:11  And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 
Isa 58:12  And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 
Isa 58:13  If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 
Isa 58:14  Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Micah 3:5 is the foundational theme for chapter 3, highlighting the Lord’s very Elect who have gone before the rest of the world as His prophets, having formally held His word unrighteously. We are first to fully understand the magnitude of our self-righteousness. While in Babylon, it is we, the two-fold children of hell, who had gnashed our teeth upon any who would listen to engage in spiritual brawling.

Mic 3:5  Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

It is the Lord’s Elect, “the prophets” who are learning to be a perfect reflection of Christ for us to ensure that the world hasn’t any warrant for offensive indictment. Just as a husband and wife are to be in perfect unity, and hopefully in Christ before their children, we, too, are that reflection to the world of our ‘children’ who will watch intently to catch us out just as the Jews prepared war against Christ.

Luk 6:6  And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. 
Luk 6:7  And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. 
Luk 6:8  But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. 
Luk 6:9  Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? 
Luk 6:10  And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. 
Luk 6:11  And they were filled with madness [meaning – want of {unrighteous} understanding]; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. 

Lev 20:9  For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

Mic 3:6  Therefore night shall be to you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark to you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

The half-light of the Moon understands that verse to mean that every church other than theirs is wrong and is not aware that all of Babylonian Christianity holds the Lord’s word unrighteously. The sun is fast going down over them, just as it did with us. However, just as the sun goes down, it comes up after the blackness of the night and provides an increasingly clear spiritual vision first to the Bride of Christ.

Rom 3:9  What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; 

Rom 3:10  As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 
Rom 3:11  There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 
Rom 3:13  Their [the Prophet’s…] throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 
Rom 3:14  Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 
Rom 3:15  Their feet are swift to shed blood: 
Rom 3:16  Destruction and misery are in their ways: 
Rom 3:17  And the way of peace have they not known: 
Rom 3:18  There is no fear of God before their eyes. 
Rom 3:19  Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Rom 3:20  Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

It is not Israel’s fault that they, by their orchestrated example, are for the new Elect of God and their spiritual understanding (Joh 15:16  ‘you did not choose me…’). Both Israel and today’s Elect of God did not choose their unrighteous or righteous path, with the latter shuddering at the thought of claiming glory for themselves. The entire Biblical saga is for the Elect to know the way to save the world through their husband, Christ. It is typified by Joseph saving his family from deathly famine (Gen 45).

Mic 3:7  Then shall the seers [We, the prophets who thought to have vision] be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God. 
Mic 3:8  But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 
Mic 3:9  Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
Mic 3:10  They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Mic 3:11  Her heads judge for reward, and her priests teach for hire, and her prophets divine for money [tithes, offerings and paid office of duty]; yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? no evil can come upon us.

Jer 6:14  They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly [analogously singing a song of fools, “we are saved” by the seven-second sinner’s prayer], saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace [imagining that no evil will come upon them delusionally believing that they are the Elect of God].

Eze 14:6  Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Eze 14:7  For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself: 
Eze 14:8  And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign [First in old Israel as depicted here in Micah, and decreasingly us] and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 
Eze 14:9  And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. 
Eze 14:10  And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet [Christ is our Prophet; as he is, so shall we be upon learning from Israel’s God-given mistakes] shall be even as the punishment of him [the Body of Christ!] that seeketh unto him; 
Eze 14:11  That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD.

Mic 3:12  Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest [cut down or utterly consumed by wildfire as happens with fervent heat among the gullies and mountains driven by the violent wind of the Lord’s all-consuming spirit].

With our preceding understanding of Micah 3:1-6, verses 7-12 are a summary of savage indictment against our fast-disappearing evil ways. We are learning to be joyful for the Lord’s siege against our old Israel and Jerusalem within, to have him utterly destroyed. We even more ecstatically come out of our exile in Babylon to rebuild the Lord’s heavenly New Jerusalem within. We have been ploughed of tares before being sown the good seed of Christ. In the meantime, we tend our field within, searching diligently to chip out the tares of falsehoods. No longer ashamed, but destined to become the Lord’s prophets, never again “denounced” as formally we were upon leaving Israel for Babylon (Deu 30:18).

Currently, we are being given the Lord’s white wedding gown made of His righteousness. Our heaving seas are being made calm as we shall hopefully see in the remaining four chapters of Micah.