Plowed
As A Field
Micah 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.
10 They build up
Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 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? none evil can come upon us.
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.”
1. The Fairness Doctrine
2. The
Innocent Blood
3. The Love of Money
1. The Fairness Doctrine
Verse none: “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.”
Micah the prophet of God pronounces judgment to a people who “abhor judgment”.
The leadership [the heads of the house] are cross-wise with God. Being cross-wise with God means … they were perverted.
There has always been [since man was expelled from the Garden of Eden] the tendency for men to group together for the purpose of designing PERVERSION.
Now, we all have this very same tendency, and this tendency came from our parents … Adam and Eve
. [The problem has been around for nearly six thousand years.]
The problem is rooted in our SIN nature. READ your Bible! BELIEVE your Bible! You will see it for yourself that the BOOK confirms it to us that the number one problem in the world is “sin”. Here is the condemnation from a righteous God: “for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:” [Romans 3b:9-10]
As in Micah’s day, so it is our day. Here is Isaiah speaking: “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” [Isaiah 59:14] Where is fairness?
2. The Innocent Blood
Verse ten: “They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.”
These princes and heads of Judah and of Israel were building their empire with “blood”. This was not just blood, but it was innocent blood. This is what perverted men do today. It is as it says it is in Psalm 94, verse twenty-one: “They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.” [Psalm 94:21]
• “That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee. But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities: Then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.” [Deuteronomy 19:10-13]
• “When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.” [Matthew 27:24]
3. The Love of Money
Verse eleven: “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? none evil can come upon us.”
Money is not the problem. It is not a root of all evil.
Now, the King James Bible preserves the truth! It is “the love of money” that is the root of the problem. “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” [1 Timothy 6:10]
What drove these leaders and these priests was “reward”. Evil comes when men love money. Perversion comes when covet money. These leaders and these priests were all perverted. Their “love of money” caused them to pursue reward.
To pursue reward … they took reward … to kill innocent persons.
Here was the condition of the Jewish nation in Micah’s day: “The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.” [Micah 7:2-3]
This is very same condition that we are in today.
LISTEN and get it down. The innocent in the land will suffer evil when the leaders of the land are willing to kill the innocent in order to take “reward”.
Now, what does God have to say about all this? What will God do to those who kill the innocent for gain?
The answer is in Deuteronomy chapter twenty-seven, in verse twenty-five. We find this. “Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.” [Deuteronomy 27:25]
The LORD has a curse to pay back in kind for all those who prey upon the innocent. HE will curse you! The leaders of Judah were placing themselves under the curse of God.
Verse eleven: “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.”
Therefore, the curse was upon them: a fait ac•com•pli.
This is a noun: pl. faits ac•com•plis (ftä-kô-pl, -plz, ftä-), which means “an accomplished, irreversible deed or fact.”
Now, Zion was set to “be plowed as a field” and Jerusalem to “become heaps” and mountain where the Temple of God was to become “as the high places of the forest.”
The Judgment of God was come to Judah.
We [in our day] are in the same place as it was in Micah’s day.
“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?” [1 Peter 4:17]