Hope Found • Micah 7:1-10, 18-20
By Don Hicks
Micah tells us: “But I will look to the LORD, I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me” (Micah 7:7 CSB). Let’s look closely at this very good news. God will specifically “hear me.” The hope found in this prophesy is a personal, loving relationship with the God of the universe. “God is love” (I John 4:8).
Greg Pouncey, senior pastor of First Church, Clinton, and the LifeWay commentator for this quarter, correctly reminds us, “Before a person can long for salvation, he has to be aware of his sin.”
A greatly discouraged Micah said, “Faithful people have vanished from the land” (Micah 7:2 CSB). It was not true that all the faithful people had vanished. Micah’s preaching was very strong in identifying the terrible influence of the sins that enslaved people. Micah listed in the last chapter of his book the terrible things the people were doing to each other:
— They wait in ambush to shed blood. (Have you read a newspaper’s headlines today, about the shedding of blood in our great state of Mississippi — in your local community?) They hunt each other with nets.
— Both of their hands are good at accomplishing evil. (In today’s world this could be phishing and on-line or Internet fraud).
— Judges demand bribes.
— Powerful men communicate their evil desires. They plot together. (Check your evening TV news.)
— They are like a briar, or worse than a hedge of thorns.
Remember, we’re studying the hope found in Christ, not in other people! Micah tells in verses five and six we must trust the LORD:
— Not a friend or close companion.
— Not your wife.
— Not a son, who might consider his father a fool.
— Not a daughter who may oppose her mother or even her mother-in-law.
— Not a man’s enemies, who might be of his own household.
Jesus quotes Micah 7:6 in Matthew 10:34-36 to caution us against placing our faith in anyone other than Christ alone: “Don’t assume that I come to bring peace on the earth, but a sword. I came to turn a man against his father…, and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household” CSB).
Jesus goes on to teach why He said there would not be peace in the world when He said, “The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or a daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37 CSB). Micah’s prophesy taught us in verse:
— 7:7a – “But I will look to the LORD:
— 7:7b – “I will wait for the God of my salvation.”
— 7:7c – “My God will hear me.”
— 7:8d – “The LORD will be my light.”
— 7:9c – “He will bring me into the light; I will see his salvation.”
Micah makes a list at the end of chapter seven of what our hopes are in the Messiah, Jesus the Christ:
— He will Shepherd His people with a staff.
— God will perform miracles for them as in the days of the Exodus from Egypt.
— Nations will stand in awe of God.
— Micah worships God in verse 7:18, saying, “Who is a God like you, forgiving iniquity…?”
— Not holding on to his anger forever.
— Delighting in faithful love.
— Having compassion on us.
— God will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
— He will show loyalty to Jacob and faithful love to Abraham.
— Keeping his promises to our fathers “from days long ago.”
The idea of casting something into the depths of the sea was a particularly strong statement for the seafaring Jewish people. Nothing was lower and more remote than the depths of the sea.
Jonah expressed a very Jewish description of the depths of the sea in Jonah 2:3-6 — “The water engulfed me up to the neck;the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. I sank to the foundations of the mountains, the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!” (CSB).
God promises to throw our sins farther away than the depths of the sea.
Hicks is missions director for Jasper Association in Bay Springs. He may be contacted at donaldwhicks@gmail.com.
