Dennis Tuuri

Micah 2, verses 1-5. Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds. When the morning is light, they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields and take them by violence and houses and take them away. So they oppress a man in his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore thus sayeth the Lord, behold, against this family do I devise an evil from which you shall not remove your nets, neither shall you go hotly, for this time is evil.

In that day shall one take up a parable against you and lament with a doeful lamentation and say, “We be utterly dis spoiled. He hath changed the portion of my people. How hath he removed it from me, turning away, he hath divided our fields. Therefore, thou shalt have none that shall cast accord by lot in the congregation of the Lord.

We continue this morning in our series of talks going through the book of Micah.

Short review of chapter 1. It identified the book as being the sure covenant word of God from that first verse that then moved into a description of the judgment that comes forth from God. Remember those verses 2 through four or five give us a picture of God’s heavenly court of justice as it were in which he says his judgment will come upon the whole world beginning with the house of his people the northern kingdom and then moving into the southern kingdom and from there it will go off into the rest of the world and we said before that Micah is followed by the book of Nahum.

Micah describes the rod of God’s wrath is Assyria, Sargon to the northern kingdom, Sennacherib to the southern kingdom, and then following that we have the book of Nahum, which describes God’s wrath and just judgment then poured out against Assyria and against specifically the capital of Assyria, Nineveh. Chapter 1 went on then to describe the basis for that finding of God’s declaration of his judgment against the people and against the world.

And that basis for that judgment was idolatry, was a failure to worship God correctly. And so true reformation, revival, and reconstruction must begin with worshiping God correctly. And it must begin therefore with a repentance before God for violation of his holy law for the failure to love him with all our heart, soul, and might. And then the destruction of God that he brings upon the land is described through the series of 10 cities that we talked about last week.

Well, today we move into the second chapter and Micah begins then to talk about their violations of the second tab of God’s law. They’ve not loved the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and might. Neither have they loved neighbor as themselves. And so Micah 2, the verses we’ve just read, moves into a description then of their violations of the second commandment, the second tablet rather, after describing their violation of the first tablet.

And really, of course, there’s a linkage. The second commandment flows out of the first commandment. And if a man doesn’t love his brother, he doesn’t love God. And if a man loves God, he’ll love those that God has created and called to himself. So let’s take a look then at specifics in terms of this particular portion of scripture. Verse one of chapter 2 begins with the word woe. And this should immediately identify to us that what we have in these few verses here is what is known by some commentators as a woe oracle, a woe prophecy.

And they’re very distinctive elements to these throughout found throughout the prophets and other places of scripture. There’s a description of what men do. There’s the very beginning of the declaration as woe. There’s a description of what they do. Then there’s a description of God’s judgment and the basis of what they do to come upon them. Jesus, of course, used this very form himself in Matthew 23 when he described woe to various Pharisees and others who would not bend their ways as it were to God’s sovereign decree both in terms of their violation of proper worship and also their violation of the proper relationship one to another.

Now the word woe or alas here is another way this can be translated in some of your translations is talked about in First Kings 13:30 as describing the lament for a dead person. Okay. And then again in Jeremiah 22 and following there’s a description of how for the evil one there’ll be nobody to say alas or woe for him when he dies and that is specifically talking in reference to Jehoiakim but when good king Zedekiah dies indeed there will be people who will say woe or alas for Zedekiah now the point of bringing that up is that woe is connected to death in those passages then in the references of First Kings 13:30 Jeremiah 22 and following there’s there’s a correlation of the word woe, the same word that’s used here in the Hebrew, to death and destruction.

And we’ve seen in the covenantal judgments of the first chapter that they often involve this symbol of death to the nation. And so at the beginning of this woe oracle now to specific crimes that have been committed in the both northern and southern kingdom, Micah begins with the description of the word woe that should bring to mind to them death. And indeed death will come upon them. Now the woe is pronounced to those that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds when the morning is light.

They practice it because it is in the power of their hand. The woe to whom the men rather to whom the woes are given are those who use their time use the time when they should be resting instead to use that time to devise schemes whereby they can oppress and steal things from other people. And so the time upon their beds is spent unprofitably. Instead of meditating on God’s word, they meditate instead on the destructiveness that they can cause the next day.

Psalm 36, verses 1-4 gives us a description of these sorts of men when we read the transgression of the wicked saith within thy heart that there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatterth himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He hath left off to be wise and to do good. In verse four of Psalm 36, he deviseth mischief upon his bed.

He setteth himself in a way that is not good. He abhoreth not evil. Remember Psalms describes the two ways, the way of righteousness and the way of unrighteousness, evil. And these people are definitely men who are well developed, well down the path as it were toward wickedness when they use the very bed that God has given to them for rest and to meditate upon him for devising evil instead. Psalm 63, verses 6-8 is a description of the proper use of one’s leisure time as it were or one’s time at night before he goes to sleep.

Psalm 63 says, “When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee, The night watches because thou hast been my help. Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after thee. Thy right hand upholdeth me.” Again in Psalm 4:4, “Stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still.” Sela. God has given us rest in the evening. He gives us rest on the Sabbath that we might commune with our own heart and thinking upon God himself, our creator who created that heart.

We might meditate upon his law and his word and We know that in a parallel book Amos that describes the sins of the northern kingdom specifically Micah being directed more to the southern kingdom. We know that they couldn’t wait for the Sabbath to be over. And he says that specifically in Amos, I believe the 8th chapter says you can’t wait for the Sabbath to be end that you might go out the next day and sell the poor for a loaf of bread and to oppress them and to steal from them and to use their poor situation to entrap them into slavery and even their own death.

And so men, the ungodly are described as those use the time of God’s rest, the time upon the bed, the Sabbath day for devising evil instead of communing with God in one’s heart. It’s an indication to us that if we have trouble with sleep, for instance, maybe it’s because our thoughts are impure as we go to the bed. That when we go to bed, we should in those times before we drift off to sleep, we should be meditating upon God, on his goodness, upon the falling short that we’ve done that day, and upon God’s grace and shedding the blood of Jesus Christ that we might have peace with him.

These men don’t do that. These men are covenant breakers. These men despise God, abhore not evil. They cling to evil instead, and they violate the second tablet of God’s law. He says specifically then after saying the extent of their wickedness and using periods of rest from God to devise wickedness and evil and then to do it the next day before God and man as it were, the in the brightness of the day as it were, they go out and commit these evil deeds.

There’s no fear of God before their sight. That’s probably because there’s no presence of God in the nation. Micah now is bringing that to the nation. But the rulers, as we’ll find out in subsequent verses, and the and the prophets, the priests, all these men have despised God’s law. And so, we have a rebelliousness actually coming forth, not just in the night now, when men’s deeds are normally done that are evil, but in the broad daylight, they come out and they do their wicked things.

That should remind us all of our country very much. Okay. Verse two. And they covet fields and take them by violence and houses and take them away. So, they oppress a man in his house, even a man and his heritage. They break the 10th commandment that we just read, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. The commandment then goes on to list what a neighbor’s house or inheritance consists of in the tenth commandment.

And so here we have that same word used. They covet men’s fields and men’s houses and they take them away. And the Hebrew is written here so that it’s like they covet fields and take them away right away as it were. They covet, they take. They see, they grasp. You see, there’s a there’s not a long lingering process leading up to their grasping. They covet it, they take it away quickly. And so they violate the 10th commandment.

Now it’s important to talk a little bit about that commandment. This verse is helpful to us to understand the nature of that commandment. Often times people have thought in terms of coveting as being a desire for things. And yet we know we’re supposed to desire the good things of God where we just read in the Psalms a little bit ago that God gives the good king the desires of his heart. It’s not wrong to want to improve oneself.

It’s not wrong to look and say, “God, this would be good if I could work toward this particular end.” That’s not coveting. Coveting is a failure to accept no at a particular point in time. Coveting is looking towards something, wanting that thing, and not accepting no for an answer from God. Coveting is saying, “I am going to get that thing by hook or by crook. Apart from God’s providence, the reliance upon it, I’m going to create my own ways to get this thing in violation of God’s law.” Indeed, there are some commentators that believe that, and many noted ones, by the way, not just ones you wouldn’t respect, fact of somebody you respect very highly probably who believe that covetousness as prohibited in the tenth commandment always has to be accompanied by an action that God isn’t just prohibiting here an attitude he’s prohibiting an action based upon that attitude now I think that actually goes beyond a little bit what the commandment clearly states but Micah gives us a good picture of that in this phrase that they covet these fields and take them by violence coveting is different from stealing because they covet and then they take by violence.

But coveting leads to immediately as it were within a very short period of time taking by violence. And so that’s the proper balance. It’s not just stealing. That’s a violation of the eighth commandment. But it’s this wanting something, this desiring something without the patience that’s required for God to bring us to something in his time according to his law and by the work of our hands. Covetousness can and often does become institutionalized and legalized by political power.

Now, it’s probably true that the 10th commandment in essence sums up the second tablet commandments 6-9 as well. And it’s important to recognize that covetousness means that to want something to then move preemptively to take that from another person, even through supposed legal means according to the laws of the land. Still, it’s a sin before God. It’s a violation of that 10th commandment, even though it may not be technically a violation of the eighth commandment, the particular law system we operate in the context of yet it is certainly a violation of the 10th commandment today.

For instance, private property is pretty much a thing of the past in our land. One commentator referring to the tenth commandment as the modern rewriting of the 10th commandment is the following. “Thou shalt not covet except by majority vote.” And today of course that is certainly the case. The rich use various legal methods and tax laws etc to expropriate to themselves things that have formerly belonged to other people.

We have the diminishment of for instance the individual family farmer and the burgeoning corporate farms people adding as it were houses to houses and fields to fields in a in a parallel passage to our passage this morning in Isaiah 5 we see this sin being referenced in Isaiah 5, verses 8-10 as being those who want to add house to house and field to field in other words they’re not content with their own uh vine and fig tree as where they want more vines and fig trees they want more plots of land and they accumulate all this land to themselves prosperity is not a bad thing and if people have been poor stewards and poor managers of land.

God will frequently put those into the hands of people who will be better stewards. And so it’s not wrong to have lots of land or lots of houses. But to want them because you want them and desire them for yourself apart from God’s providence and to break his law and getting them, that’s wrong. And today, for instance, in our land, this institutionalization of covetousness was probably seen in some of the instances of the tax reform bill that Senator Packwood basically wrote.

We saw revelations in the Oregonian several months ago. Know that there are those who for instance made luxury liners and yet received an exemption from that tax reform bill. Now it’s certainly true that the rich and powerful in America today use the legislative process to fulfill their covetousness. But it’s and certainly most commentators in this passage of Micah see that here. They see this is primarily directed against the rich of Micah’s time.

But it doesn’t specifically say the rich here in Isaiah. It’s obvious that he is talking about the rich the rich men in Isaiah 5. But this verse like the 10th commandment is not limited to the rich. The poor also frequently are covetous. And in our country certainly the poor use the legislative process of majority vote to expropriate funds from other people to take fields as it were to covet them and to take them over.

And so we see this institutionalization not just on the part of the rich but also on the part of the poor in our country. Coveting itself as I said is not desiring something is not necessarily bad. A good reference for that is in Habakkuk 2:9. Habakkuk 2:9 says the following. “Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house that he may set his nest on high that he may be delivered from the power of evil.”

The Berkeley translation reads as following. “Woe to him that acquires an evil gain for his house in order to set a seat on high to be out of the reach of calamity.” You see, woe to him that covets with an evil covetousness, with an evil desire, And so the commandment against coveting is against the sort of coveting we’ve been describing on the part of the rich and the poor in America today that sees things other people has wants them doesn’t work hard to get them over a period of time according to God’s law but instead use legalized theft to seek to accumulate to themselves goods and services.

I mean it is political heresy these days practically to be against the graduated income tax. And yet the graduated income tax is just one small example of covetousness being institutionalized in the tax system itself to all such people, rich or poor, who see what others have and take things into their own hands instead of relying upon the providence of God according to his law word and then working slowly toward the accumulation of those things that’ll be used for God’s purposes.

To all those people, rich or poor, who evidence this type of covetousness, sinful covetousness, to all those covetous ones, Micah says, “Woe to you. death has come to your house. Covetousness is one of the most frequently broken of the commandments. And yet we hear very little about it. Usually we hear lots about, you know, the killing commandment and adultery and stealing. And yet all these are summed up in the covetousness commandment.

We for instance as a nation are scandalized rightfully so about the explicit sexual material that occurs on the television set and the effect that has on the youth. But how many people do you hear bringing up the fact that covetousness is probably the primary way of selling things in this country apart from sexual desires. Sexual desires are part of the subset as it were of covetousness. And so we have a country that is just inundated with a teaching over and over again in the radio, on the TV, in the public media, all the organs of the public media.

Covetousness is enhanced and played to on the part of the nation. How many of us are very careful not to allow our children to watch sexually explicit material and yet let them watch ads that promote a desire of their part to have things they really cannot have and shouldn’t have at this point in time in their lives. Covetousness. Covetousness has its root in a discontentment with one’s station as it were in life.

It has its root in a failure to exercise faith in God’s love and care for us and a desire to set our own terms for what we think we should what we think should be required for our own happiness. Covetousness is a rejection of God and his providence and his decree and his law. And so, is radically anti- good and it’s very evil. Covetousness is in essence self-worship. It’s saying, “I want to determine what things I can have now apart from the providence of God and I’ll take whatever steps I have to take to get them.” Covetousness is idolatry.

Ephesians 5:5 says quite explicitly, “For this you know that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance of the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Again, Colossians 3:5, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection and evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” The double witnessed there in Ephesians and Colossians, we have the plain statement of God’s word that covetousness, far from being just a little funny little sin we sometimes fall into, is in essence idolatry, it’s self-worship at the denial of God’s providence for our lives.

What’s the answer to covetousness? Well, it’s quite simple in the scriptures. The answer to covetousness is a contentment with the station that God has given to us in life. I might add that contentment of course is impossible without a belief in a sovereign, foreordaining providential God who orders every aspect of our lives according to his good purpose and for our well-being, assuming that we’re the elect in him.

God has a great love for us. And that great love provides from his hand what we have at this particular point in time. And he calls us to be content with that contentment. with godliness with adhering to his law word. That’s the answer to covetousness. First Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out, and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.” How many of us need to hear that daily to remind ourselves of that tenth commandment and an acceptance of God’s providence in our lives in terms of material possessions?

Certainly. in terms of relationships, in terms of the people that God has brought us into covenant with, into community with, and with our spouses, our mates, with our children that God has provided to us. You see, all these things are blessings from God. And if we rail against them, if we’re unsatisfied, as it were, with any of these things, it’s a denial of God’s providence. Now, certainly, God wants us to continue to develop and to mature those around us into the image of Jesus Christ.

But to throw it off, to say that I’m not content with my own possessions, I’m going to greedily grasp for another. I’m not content with my wife, so I’m going to greedily grasp for another. This is covetousness and idolatry. It’s self-will, and it’s following your own self as God instead of the Lord God himself. And so, it’s a violation not just of the second tablet of the summation of the 10th commandment.

It’s a violation of the first tablet as well. Well, these men that Micah was talking about were not content. Soon as they coveted, they grabbed. As I said before, Isaiah 5 talks about them as well, saying, that woe unto them that join house to house that lay field to field till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth. In mine ears, said the Lord of hosts, of a truth, many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair without inhabitant.

God’s judgment will come. It’s important to recognize though that it’s not just the tenth commandment that’s broken here and not the not only the eighth commandment as well. When they actually steal these things, as we said, they covet and then they steal, but There’s also a violation here upon the sixth commandment and removal of inheritance of life. These verses talk not just about theft and about covetousness.

They talk about inheritance and they say that what the man takes is not just the house in the field. Says even a man and his heritage at the end of verse two, the inheritance given to him by God, his very life as it were, the continuing aspect of his life that will continue on when he goes to be with his Lord. This is his life. And so the evil covet, they steal And they also attempt to remove life, the inheritance that a person has before God.

Heirship is involved here as well as land. The land is emphatically throughout the scriptures declared and specifically in Leviticus 25:23, the land is declared to be Jehovah, God’s land of which we are only stewards. In Leviticus 25:23, we read, “The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” See, God claims ownership of the land. And so when they try to steal a man’s inheritance given to him by God.

They’re trying to rob God. Additionally, heirship, as we said, is involved. Proverbs 17:2 says that a wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame and shall have a part of the inheritance among the brethren. Scriptures are manifold and numerous that tell us that the goods of the evil are being stored up, as it were, for the righteous to take them when God takes them away from the evil and gives them to the righteous.

Inheritance and heirship is a matter of faith. It’s not a matter of bloodline. It’s a matter of the faith line. I think this is probably coming home real clearly to some of us in our congregation right now. I’m just so pleased that we talk about the necessity to guard our future, to guard our children and our possessions as well in terms of wills. And we’ve all almost everybody in this church has moved in obedience to that and trying to fulfill the obligations they have according to God’s word in that way.

But of course, along with obedience comes trials and testing and difficulties as well, and I know that some of us in terms of our wills have had some difficulties along this line because we see inheritance and heritage is not belonging to us but being a stewardship from God. And so when we look at what’s going to happen to our wealth and to the greatest wealth God has given to us for the future, our children, we have self-consciously attempted to make sure that they end up with covenant-keeping families.

And sometimes that’s involved a denial or a clear indication of the primacy of the faith line over the bloodline. And can get the bloodline very unhappy. What we talked about a few weeks ago in terms of the limitations of the family, in terms of the faith, family, the church, I think many of you are probably meditating upon those things over the last couple of weeks as you face some very irate relatives.

But in any event, we have to recognize that inheritance and heritage that’s talked about in Micah as being violated by these evil men is an indication of the faith we have in Jehovah God that we have what we have from him to be used for his glory. It’s sin. to yield the blessings that God has given and so richly provided to us to heathen to pagans or to the antinomian Christian or anyone who will exercise improper stewardship of the assets God has given to us to do that to turn these things over to the pagan or the one who will not exercise proper stewardship is to forfeit the future for the sake of present peace and that is a bad bargain to make.

Jesus Christ is the heir of all things. We’re told that in Hebrews 1:2. The point of saying that is that all these things, as we’ve said according to Leviticus 25, and again repeated that these things are all Christ’s possession in Hebrews 1:2. The point is that these are God, God’s assets, not ours. So when the covetous rob a man’s inheritance, it is a radical and rebellious act against God, against God’s order and providence.

It’s a grievous sin of robbery from God that will not go unpunished. And so Micah goes on then in verses 3 through 5 to describe God’s judgment upon those who violate the second tablet. Lex Talionis, the law of retaliation, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. And we see that in play in verses 3 through 5. Boyce in his commentary on this passage cites Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta, The Mikado, where the chorus goes, “My object all sublime I shall achieve in time to make the punishment fit the crime.”

One of the verses goes like this. “The billiard sharks whom anyone catches his doom’s extremely hard. He’s made to dwell in a dungeon cell in a spot that’s always barred. And there he plays extravagant matches in fitless finger stalls on a cloth untrue with a twisted cue and elliptical billiard balls.” Lex Talionis The pool shark is made to play forever with elliptical billiard balls.

And I’m sure Roy doesn’t have any of those at his house, but if you’ve ever tried to play with one, you can’t do it. And so God’s judgment, as we’ve said this many times, involves the principle of Lex Talionis. Indeed, Galatians 6:7 affirms that from the new covenant believer as well. He says that God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he’ll reap. And these men had been sowing to their destruction by the violation of the second tablet.

And God now begins to bring that to bear. They had devised evil. They had thought upon their beds of ways to enact evil. And so the first thing we read in verse three from the Lord is, “Behold, against this family do I devise an evil. You’re going to plan evil. I’ll plant evil against you.” You notice he doesn’t say against these people. He says against this family. Why is that? Well, that’s because the evil that the men who had devised in the first couple of verses took away a man’s inheritance, his house, his family.

And so they’ve devised evil against a man and his whole family. God then brings about evil against their family, visiting the iniquity upon the children of these men who would visit their evil iniquity upon the children of the covenant keepers. They sought to oppress the poor or others who they would steal these things from them, take their inheritance. They sought to oppress them. And so God now says that their judgment will involve slavery and oppression.

“Ye shall not remove your necks.” Okay, he’s bringing a yoke to bear upon them that they can’t get their necks out of. They sought to enslave people. God now enslaves them instead in conformity to Deuteronomy 28 beginning at verse 47 when we read, “Because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness, and in want of all things.

And he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he hath destroyed thee. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young. And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle and the fruit of thy land, and thou shalt be destroyed, which thou shalt shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kind, or flock to thy sheep until he have destroyed thee.”

God brings slavery and judgment upon them through another nation. And indeed, he was to cause that to happen to the southern tribe whom he is here addressing. Assyria would invade and take over these lands that the covetous ones had accumulated to themselves. They now fall into the inheritance of the Assyrians. God would abase their pride as well. God says that not only will I bring a yoke upon your neck, you shall not remove.

Neither shall you go haughtily. The beginning of their covetousness was their pride of life as it were, the reliance upon their own selves for life instead of God. Pride is part of God’s judgment against them. They will be abased and he’ll bring mockers upon them. Verse four, in that day shall one take up a parable against you and lament with odious lamentation and say, now it’s important you get the picture here.

What he’s saying is there’s going to be someone going to bring a parable against you. One of the ways to translate parable there is a taunt song. Okay? You know how the kids go out and taunt each other sometimes about their weakness as they see in the other children. Well, God’s going to bring men against these men to taunt them and as he brings judgment upon them and to laugh and make fun of them, to mock them as it were.

And these people are going to say, “We be utterly spoiled. He hath changed a portion of my people. How hath he removed it from me, turning away, he hath divided our fields.” Now, isn’t that just too bad for you? That’s a taunt song. See, and that’s what they’re going to do. God’s going to bring the marauding nations upon these people that have broken God’s law, the second tablet, and they’re to taunt them when they fall into these sorts of judgments from God.

The taunt song includes the theft of the stolen land by foreigners. They had stolen this land through covetousness. And God now says that these people will be saying, they’ll be taunted for saying it. “We be utterly destroyed. He hath changed the portion of my people.” See, God’s going to bring the Assyrians in to steal the land that they stole. Additionally, they’re going to give it to others. “Turning away, he hath divided our fields.”

Now, the word “he” here refers both to the Assyrians and beyond the Assyrians, God and his providence. Okay? But God uses the instrumentation of the Assyrians to affect these things. And the Assyrians actually did come in, steal lands, they’d reapportion the lands. Remember, the Assyrians did not really stay put in an area. They’d bring other populations in and whatever, and they divide up the inheritance among sometimes even the inhabitants of the land.

And so, it’s conceivable that what’s happening here is that not only is their land being taken from them, it’s then reapportioned, as it were, and given to some of the poor people, the very people that they had stolen it from in the first place. Or even worse, he’s given it to foreigners, to people from other nations that the Assyrians would bring in to populate the areas that they took over. And so God’s judgment comes upon them.

They stole they’ll have things stolen from them. And God’s lex talionis then comes to completion in verse 5. “Therefore, thou shalt have none that shall cast accord by lot in the congregation of the Lord.” Two things are mentioned here. First, the disinheritance of the godly. They sought to disinherit other people. And God in the summation call of his judgment here in verse 5 says, “You will not have any to cast accord lot in the congregation.” In other words, when reapportionment comes in the basis of lot in the land where the people are restored, you won’t have anybody there to be reapportioned to.

You’re going to be disinherited. You’ll have no land because you stole land from other people. Lex Talionis eye for an eye. But secondly, more than that is being said here because the word congregation of the lords, the word It’s the closest Hebrew word we have that is translated congregation here to the word church. And the point is they’re not going to have any inheritance because they’re not going to be part of the congregation of the Lord.

They’re going to be excommunicated. I guess even stronger than that, the Catholic Church has an anathema, I guess, is what it is where they don’t just excommunicate somebody and eventually they can repent and come back in. They annihilate them. They cast them into the outer darkness forever and ever. And so God is saying that’s what’s going to be true of these people. They’re not going to be part of the congregation of the Lord at all.

They’re not going to have land. They’re not going to be part of the communion covenanted group as well. They planned iniquity. God planned their disaster. They robbed families. God robbed their family. They stole inheritance. God removed their inheritance forever. They broke communion as it were in the land. And God cast them out of communion with himself and with his covenant people.

Now, the scriptures give us a good example. So, we could talk about for a couple of minutes here to kind of reinforce these things in our mind. And brings in both aspects of inheritance and of covetousness and the violation of the second tablet. In First Kings 21, we read about Ahab, Jezebel and Naboth’s vineyard.

First Kings 21, why don’t you turn there? Spend the last couple of minutes talking about this. Probably most of you are familiar with this story. I hope that your children are becoming familiar with it. It’s an excellent story God has given to us to demonstrate the importance of not violating the second tablet. First Kings 21 came to pass in those days that Naboth the Jezraelite had a vineyard which was in Jezrael hard by the place of Ahab king of Samaria. So it was close to it. In other words, Ahab spake unto Naboth saying, “Give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs or vegetables.” Now this is what happens about a hundred years prior to Micah’s prophecy.

Okay. and says that, you know, obviously Ahab is king of Samaria and the northern tribe is what we’re talking about here., and Ahab wants to take the vineyard of Naboth and turn it into a vegetable garden. Well, I think that’s kind of interesting in itself that he wants to take a vineyard, an example of God’s blessing and of God’s uh prosperity than fruitfulness give a people and turn it into a land of vegetables.

I guess maybe that says we should be liking the vine and the fruits thereof more than vegetables. I don’t know. Well, anyway,, Ahab wants turned into a vegetable garden because it’s near unto my house. He says, “And I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it, or if it seemed good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.” And Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid it to me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.”

Naboth’s refusal to sell, recorded here in the scripture, is a religious act on the part of Naboth. Naboth’s refusal to sell his land was a religious act on his part. Naboth had an eye, so to speak, on God’s law. We read in Leviticus 25:23, that the land belonged to God and was to be given to him to man for stewardship, that they were strangers on the land, as it were. Naboth recognized this. He had a vineyard, a good vineyard, so much so that it attracted the eye of the king. And so, Naboth was a dominion man, and he knew that ownership of the land was for stewardship.

And certainly, Ahab would not be a good steward of his land. Naboth’s view of the land was a trust from God to be used for God’s glory. Naboth had a view to the future while Ahab was tied to the present. Naboth was a dominion man while Ahab was an idolater. Naboth knew that Numbers 36:7 required that the land not be transferred between tribes or family groups. He knew God’s law and so he refused to sell this land to Ahab.

Naboth’s response then was, “God forbid that I should sell the inheritance of my fathers.” Ahab, however, was not a man of contentment nor of godliness. Ahab had a desire for a vegetable garden. He had a desire that he could not say no to. He was covetous, as it were, of this land, for his vegetable garden. He wouldn’t accept the answer of no. Jezebel, who of course has no link to the covenant people, who was a brought was a idol worshipper from her earliest days, and brought that idolatry to Ahab.

Jezebel very self-conscious in other words in her movement away from covenant keeping. Jezebel with without this linkage to the covenant line of faith saw matters very clearly from her perspective. And she says to Ahab, “Well, what’s the problem here? Aren’t you the king of this land? It’s okay. You’re going to get that land.” See, she was one of the pagan gentile kings, as it were, the Canaanite kings that Deuteronomy 17 said they couldn’t place over them.

She had that concept of the king. God says it’s okay to have kings, but you can’t have gentile type kings, Canaanite type kings who would rule not by service but by oppression. And so Jezebel says, “Now you’re a king, right? You’re a good Canaanite king here. You can get this land.” Ahab then of course moves to take the land.

Well, let’s go ahead and read the text. Verse four, Ahab comes into his house heavy and displeased, starts pouting around, says, “I can’t have this vineyard.” Verse 5, Jezebel his wife came to him and said, “Why is thy spirit so sad.” He tells her what happens. Verse 7, Jezebel his wife says unto him, “Dost thou not now govern the kingdom of Israel.” In verse 7, “Arise and eat bread. Let thy heart be merry. I’ll give thee the vineyard of Naboth Jezraelite.” Verse 8. “So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with the seal, and sent the letters into the elders to the nobles that were in his city dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim fast, and set Naboth on high among the people, and set two men, sons of Belial, wicked, evil men, before him.

bear witness against him, saying, ‘Thou did blaspheme God and the king.’ And then carry him out and stone him that he may die.” And that’s exactly what they do. They carry him out. They stone him. He dies after falsely accusing of accusing him. And so Ahab allowing his wife to do this becomes a participator in the breaking of the 10th commandment by coveting, by not saying no to his desire. He breaks the eighth commandment by actually stealing this from the dead Naboth.

And he breaks the sixth commandment by actually murdering Naboth. And additionally, of course, he bears false witness against Naboth or his wife arranges for that. And so, Ahab is a picture of these men that Micah spoke to. But as in Ahab’s day, there was judgment from God in Micah’s day as well. And in Ahab’s day, we read later on in the passage that Elijah comes to Ahab in verse 17. “The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria.

Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he whither he has gone to possess it. Thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus sayith the Lord, hast thou killed and also taken possession?’ And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, ‘Thus sayith the Lord, in the place where dogs lick the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine?’” And Ahab said to Elijah, “Hast thou found me, oh mine enemy?” And he answered, “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord?

Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, will take away thy prosperity, will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel. and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin and of Jezebel also spoke the Lord saying the dog shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezrael him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dog shall eat him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat you see when he says here I’m going to make you like Jeroboam and I’m going to make your house also like Baasha though Jeroboam was remember he was the bad king that started the whole northern kingdom into idolatry by setting up the two cows.

He talked about Jeroboam a lot. Eventually God said your idolatry has gotten such that I’m going to wipe out not just you but your whole line your descendants your family are going to be put to death. Baasha later then rose up and killed the sitting king who was a descendant of Jeroboam. And God then were also later on with Baasha although he was fulfilling God’s word of judgment against the family of Jeroboam.

Also the family of Baasha was done with by God the same as he had done to Jeroboam cut off forever. And now Ahab comes the son of Omry. Remember Omry built Samaria. Ahab comes along and does this terrible thing. And as a result in response to this sin of Ahab, the violation of the second tablet, the violation of the commandment not to kill, not to bear false witness, not to steal and not to covet, which is idolatry and a violation of the first two commandments as well.

The word of God comes through Elijah the prophet to Ahab and says your posterity will be destroyed. You’ll be cut off forever. You’ll suffer a terrible death and so will your wife because of this great sin that you have done. Elijah brought him a message of God’s lex talionis. Death disinheritance totally cut off. Excommunication comes both to Ahab and his wife Jezebel and their descendants like Jeroboam as we said before and like Baasha.

Why? Because of a little vineyard. Not an important event in the history of man. A little vineyard a fell head. A king wanted it. King wouldn’t accept the answer no. King murdered because of it. And because of that, God brought tremendous judgment upon that man. That vineyard, Naboth’s vineyard, represented God’s life for the nation. The life of the covenant community is tied to inheritance. Future orientation accompanies inheritance.

And that’s the life of the covenant community. Stewardship is required of those that will inherit. That vineyard then represented contentment with calling with a reliance and dependence upon God’s stewardship and a view to the future. Ahab’s seizure of the vineyard meant a total forsaking of God of God’s commandments certainly of God’s inheritance in his land. A forsaking of God’s covenant community and a rejection of God’s providence.

A failure to be content with godliness. A rejection of God’s decree in the affairs of men. Ahab the king couldn’t settle for being a king and for the blessings that he had as king. He needed to stretch out and grasp for Naboth’s vineyard. But in doing so, he stretched out and grasped at the very life of the covenant community. Land, people, and God. That’s the three elements that are found in the kingdom.

A land, a people, and a king who rules over them. Ahab reached out for the land. He killed the people that God had put in that land. And by so doing, he reached out to try to strike God, as it were. to his providence. Ahab struck out at life and at God when he reached out grasping at that vineyard, but he ended up with a handful of nothing, with dust, with wind, as it were, and with a cursing from God upon his head.

100 years later, Micah would decry or would rather describe and tell of the same judgment from God in relationship to the same sins found in the people of the southern kingdom that we have just described 100 years earlier in the northern kingdom. 700 years or so after the prophecy of Micah we’ve been talking about this morning, men would again reach out for yet another vineyard and strike at the greater Naboth, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was the son of the owner of the vineyard. Remember that parable that God had told them. And in a vain attempt to grasp for themselves the blessings that apart from God are but cursings, men tried to strike out at the Son of God himself and kill the son’s, the owner’s son, that they might take possession of the vineyard of the future for their present gain. And they attempt to secure, they then attempted to secure Jerusalem, as it were, from this Messiah who they thought would bring—