A Warning from the Prophet Micah

Melting earth

This past week I ended up reading the book of Micah.  I'm not really sure why I was in Micah.  I was just flipping around and decided to read it.  As I went through the book, a couple things stood out to me that I want to briefly share.

In Micah 1:1-6, God sends a warning to the people.  Their rebellion is going to bring about the judgment of God.  However, the image of judgment is not one of God hurling lightning bolts from the sky or raining down brimstone.  Instead, Micah says that God is actually going to set foot on this planet.  When God does this, the mountains will melt underneath God's feet (this is what I've tried to depict in my elementary Sketchbook diagram).  See, the Scriptures teach that God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29).  This is a metaphorical way of saying that God is dangerously holy.  So the day of fire described by Micah is really the day when the whole earth is consumed by the holiness and justice of God.  This is good news for the righteous and bad news for the unrighteous.  The righteous will be able to dwell in the presence of God's holiness because they are themselves a consuming fire.  For the unrighteous, the day of the Lord will be a day for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is what Micah explains in Micah 2:1-5.  In this passage Micah proclaims woe against the powerful, the oppressors, and the unjust.  These are people who lay in bed at night dreaming about how they can cheat and extort people.  In the morning, they rise and go about their unjust ways.  On the day of the Lord, God will repay these people according to their deeds and right the wrongs they have committed.  My natural reaction to a passage like this is, "Yeah, Lord, you get those evil people out there!  You show them!"  However, if we go on and read Micah 7:1-6, we should have a much more sober attitude about ourselves.  In this passage, Micah reveals the depth of evil and wickedness that dwells in the heart of each human being.  The same evil is in my heart as is in the thief or the murderer.  Maybe I don't act on those evil desires, but they are there nonetheless.  In this case, we all need to throw ourselves at the mercy of God.  None of us are holy in and of ourselves, yet one day we are going to stand in the presence of a holy God.  Our prayer should be that God would forgive us, deliver us, and transform us into holy beings who can stand in the presence of God's consuming fire on that day.  Amen.