Just
Dessert
Micah 2:3 “Therefore thus saith the Lord;
Behold, against this family do I devise an evil,
from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither
shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.
4 In that day shall one take up a
parable against you, and lament with a doleful
lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath
changed the portion of my people: how hath he
removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our
fields.”
1. God Against You
2. This Time Is
Evil
3. We Are Spoiled
1. God Against You
The first part of verse three: “Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily:”
Now, this is getting real personal.
This message is “against this family”.
The family here … is the family of Judah.
This scares me. It ought to scare you, if you have any sense at all. I fear God. Don’t you fear God? The “fear” of the LORD is “health” to our navel and marrow to our bones according to Proverbs. [Proverbs 3:7-8]
Now, God is good! We know this to be true! Now, how do we know this to be true? Well, we know this to be true because the Bible tells us … this is so. Amen!
After all, we have the word of God from the Son of God in the Gospel according to Mark in chapter ten telling us this very thing that: GOD is GOOD!
See verse eighteen: “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” [Mark 10:18] We see the very “spirit” of God is "good” in Psalm 143, verse ten: “Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” [Psalm 143:10]
GOD is GOOD!
Do you agree that God is good?
Now, something else, not only is God “good” but the word of God plainly tells us that whosoever seeks God will have the hand of God upon them “for good”. This promise is located in the book of Ezra chapter eight, verse twenty-two: “The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.” [Ezra 8:22b]
It even gets better than this for the blood-bought believer in Jesus Christ in this age we live in [the church age].
We are told that whosoever “doeth good” is of God … WHO is GOOD. “Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.” [3 John 1:11]
The goodness of God is upon us, and in us. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” [1 Corinthians 3:16]
Now, I have gone into all this … only to bring you to this point. Listen to me! God … WHO is GOOD … is capable of devising EVIL against you, or anyone else for that matter. Did you know that?
How does that sit with you? Is not this what the Spirit of God is saying here in verse two? “Behold, against this family do I devise an evil.”
Listen to me, my friend, there is no contradiction shown here concerning the nature and attributes of God. God is good!
Yet, God can devise EVIL [and then can carry out the EVIL that HE has devised] … against whosoever HE chooses and at the same time God is good.
A good God can devise evil things.
Now, notice, the “evil” that God “devises” is not evil in itself. The “evil” that God devises is the JUST punishment for all those who disobey HIM.
What is “evil” towards you [in your opinion] may not be an “evil” at all. The “evil” directed toward you [or to Judah here in this verse] is an “evil” to you, but it is only your earned just dessert. You deserve your just dessert.
Now, God had determined that Judah was not going to get away with their sin any longer … and get away scot free: “neither shall ye go haughtily.”
Now, judgment was upon them! It was “evil” for them but God is good!
Now what about us? We, who live in the end times of the Gentiles, will get our JUST DESSERT just as they did in Micah’s day.
Do you agree that you are evil?
Do you want to save your neck from the evil God has devised for you?
Then, turn to Jesus Christ.
Put your trust in Him, now!
2. This Time Is Evil
The last part of verse three: “for this time is evil”.
Consider this following truth which is located in Ecclesiastes “For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.” [Ecclesiastes 9:12]
Man is very short-sighted. Man needs the wisdom that comes from God.
There are good times, and there are bad times. Not all times are the same. With that said, let me give you a warning. Just as God announced to the Jews in Micah’s day as being a time of evil, the times that are upon us [who live at the end of the church age] are evil: “for this time is evil”.
Now, cheer up, my brother. There are some promises for us to claim [by faith] to get us through an “evil” time. Ready?
This is in Psalm thirty-seven, verse nineteen.
Here we go: “They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.” [Psalm 37:19] How about this one? “Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.” [Ecclesiastes 8:5]
God is good! He knows how to bring us through the time of evil. What a comfort this is to us, the believers and doers of God’s word. Amen!
Now see this promise that God made to the remnant of Israel “in the time of evil” in Jeremiah’s day [in Jeremiah chapter fifteen, verse eleven]: “The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.” [Jeremiah 15:11]
The LORD knows how to preserve HIS own. Amen!
Now, I have a warning for you from God. We cannot afford to be cocky in the evil time, my friend. We need to be careful and wise in all our dealings … while living in “an evil time”.
Carefully consider what the Spirit of God gave [through the prophet] Israel in “an evil time” in Amos chapter five, verse thirteen: “Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.” [Amos 5:13]
In “an evil time” … when living amongst wicked men, we need to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Remember, this is what the Lord said to his disciples in the book of Matthew: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” [Matthew 10:16]
In fact, we are told as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to be wise in “redeeming the time” because of the times we live in “are evil” [in Ephesians chapter five, in verse sixteen]: “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” [Ephesians 5:16]
3. We Are Spoiled
Verse four: “In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields.”
Any nation, and all nations, any person, and all people who turn from God will come to the place of utter spoil. When something is spoiled, it is ruined, and is come to total poverty.
[SPOILED = POVERTY]
This is the very end result of the downward death spiral … that any nation or people will bring upon themselves by giving God “the shove”. The “shove” is the rejecting of the Bible and the God of the Bible.
Anyone with any common sense at all [who is standing outside “doleful” situation and is looking in] will see how God has “changed the portion” of the people.
It is God Who changes “the portion” of our welfare.
It is God that blesses us, and it is the same God Who removes the blessings from us. Do you understand that?
Now, get that into your hard head and down to your hard heart where it will do some good.
It is God [through the Son of God] … Who upholds “all things” [involving the laws of Physics].
If you want to see this truth for yourself, then just go to Hebrews chapter one, verse three: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” [Hebrews 1:3].
It is God Who keeps us all alive. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” [Acts 17:28]
All that lives … depends on God.
What we see in our nation today is a direct consequence of our leaders divorcing the God of the Bible. The divorce proceedings began in earnest in 1947.
I will now quote from our book: Messages from The Messenger:
“From our nation’s birth right up to 1947, our Supreme Court had steadfastly maintained that the intent of our "founding fathers" was for our nation to preserve its Christian principles in order to perpetuate its existence as a nation.
• In 1947, the Supreme Court, in Everson v. Board of Education, totally pulled out of context Thomas Jefferson's reference to a "wall of separation between church and state" in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of January 1, 1802. The letter was to express to the Danbury Baptist Association that there was nothing to fear with respect to the federal government establishing a national church (or a national denomination). The 1947 decision, in essence, declared that we were no longer a Christian nation. Ever since then, the Supreme Court has over and over used this phrase "separation of church and state" to remove Jesus Christ out of our government and out of our public schools.
• The Supreme Court, in Engel v. Vitale, decided to strike out against school prayer (June 25,1962). The goal simply was to get God out of our public schools. On June 17, 1963, in Abington v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett, the Supreme Court outlawed Bible reading in the public schools (without regard to any historical or legal precedent). In this decision, "Bible reading" was considered psychologically damaging. Downward we go!
• With Dekalb v. DeSpain (1967) the decision was to not allow the "Ten Commandments" to be posted in the public schools of our land. Children would not get to see "The Ten Commandments" posted on the wall of the school telling them not to lie, cheat or steal! Those "wooly-headed, bleeding-heart, knee-jerking Liberals" saw to that!
• And if that was not enough, in 1980, with "Stone v. Graham", the Supreme Court decided that the word of God could not even be mentioned in a public school.
This was a long, long way from our beginnings as a nation.”
God has “divided our fields.”
God has brought us to poverty.
God has left us because we have left Him.
Ichabod … The glory is departed … [1 Samuel
4:21-22]