That’s right. We have a little story here of a man, a biography for you, born in Norwich, Connecticut on January 14, 1741. A member of the Sons of Liberty, he rose to the rank of general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Frustrated by his lack of recognition, he subsequently switched sides to the British and plotted the surrender of West Point.
When his traitorous plans came to light, he escaped capture and eventually made his way to England. He died in London on June 14, 1801. You know who that is? Every American should know who that is.
Benedict Arnold. Even if you didn’t know the particulars of the story, when you hear about a traitor and the Revolutionary War, this is what we think of when we learn our history and we grew up, of Benedict Arnold. As American Christians, however, when we hear the word traitor, who do we think of? Era Judas! It’s actually a description, isn’t it? Again, another biblical word, a biblical concept used in Western civilization.
There are also other words, turncoat, betrayer, double-crosser, defector. That’s a little less aggressive, right? Being a defector doesn’t sound so bad. These are words that we have to describe a person who goes against those, the trust of those closest to them and their responsibilities to them.
It’s not just any sin or violation, for certainly we sin against each other and we are wronged and we wrong each other, but it doesn’t go as far as being a traitor, often. Being a traitor is a very serious thing. Now, of course, being a betrayer or a turncoat can be a small rebellion that doesn’t have major effects and consequences.
Other times, like Benedict Arnold, a small betrayal ends up being very serious in its consequences. But what if you have an entire nation of turncoats? Then what? What if more people stopped supporting each other and started backstabbing each other instead? They turned away from the love they should have towards each other, towards a love of wealth, greed, and money, and their own selves. Then you have a sad, even terrifying, state of affairs that is, in many ways, just one step short of civil war, isn’t it? You cannot rely or trust upon anyone, for all of them have turned into turncoats.
And this is what’s going on here, apparently, in Israel near the end of the Old Testament era here in Micah. The leaders, the first point, are traitors to their people, their own people, verses 1 through 4. It’s a colorful metaphor he has here. Woe is me, it’s the prophet speaking.
The Leaders are Traitors to their People
I’m in a terrible position, life is hard. For I, he describes himself, am like those who gather summer fruits, like those who glean vintage grapes, he describes here. The prophet is a man seeking out the faithful men of Israel and finds none.
That’s what is being described here. The faithful man, he says, has perished. Verse 2, there’s none who are upright, not one.
I can’t find any upright person. I am like, he says, a man going to the field to gather some yummy fruit for the summer, or wonderful grapes, and expect a tasty snack and find nothing. There is no cluster to eat, he says.
Anything that’s there is perhaps the first ripe fruits, and even those seem to be taken as well. It’s all gone. You can’t find one righteous man, you’ve heard that before, in the city, in the nation, in fact.
So, in fact, perhaps it’s not just a metaphor, but he’s also describing a real state of affairs, a picture completely sold out to the highest bidder. The field sold out to the highest bidder. Now that may not sound too surprising to you today, since we’re good old American capitalists, right? But remember the law of Israel when it came to the fields.
Now do you remember? Is it all supposed to be sold out to the highest bidder? Oh no, you’re supposed to leave the corners, right, of the fields for the poor people. Leviticus 23, 22, when you reap the harvest of your land, sell it all to the highest bidder. Be a good capitalist.
Priceless capitalist, I call them. We want a godly capitalist, of course. No, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleanings from your harvest.
You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God. And I’m telling you, there’s more to life than making money.
And Americans still haven’t learned that, it seems to me. They still haven’t learned that. And so, of course, we’re not agrarian today, but I think that general principle is true, is still applicable in a good Christian society, which unfortunately we are less of than when I was a kid.
So however that is manifested with respect to you and your family, with respect to you as a boss of a business, you know, do you consider, and of course we know the Bible means deserving poor. I won’t go down that path, but it means deserving poor, by implication deserving stranger. That has a lot of implications for the issues we have today.
He continues on here and describes more detail what he means by that metaphor, and I’ll explain that to you. He’s looking for faithful men, like he’s looking for fruit and vegetables and things he wants to eat. He can’t find them.
It’s all gone and taken away. And what’s interesting here is the faithful man has perished. That word faithful is the same word used of God, and sometimes is translated covenantal faithfulness, or the loving kindness, right? That old English word there in the KJV, the loving kindness to try to capture two sides, even three sides when I mentioned the covenant, the covenant concept there, because it’s often used with Lord, all caps, right? Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God.
And so where is a covenantally faithful man? That’s the way I would understand that. The loving kindness man of the covenant, if you can make that one word. He’s missing.
They’re all gone. There’s no love for the brethren around them, no mercy for the poor brethren around them, no covenantal faithfulness for anyone else but themselves. That’s the picture you see here, this terrible wretched picture.
And they’re not just missing. They’re replaced by scoundrels and turncoats and betrayers of their own people. Faithless, unloving, greedy men.
It begins with the leaders, at least in his denunciation here, and the prior chapters as well, the rich he goes after. They’re unfaithful in their duties, verses three to four, that they may successfully do evil with both hands. They lie in wait for blood.
Every man hunts his brother with a net. And as we read earlier in chapter two or three, where he says he’d gather them, cut them up into pieces and put them in a pot to devour them. That’s such a strong metaphor.
And what he’s talking about is the lack of justice and the lack of compassion for their own people. And this is what he’s describing here. And in some cases it may actually be blood, as we mentioned.
They may literally be killing them and the rich hiring bullies to take people down. The princes, what do we read here about the unfaithful men, these men who are traitors? It’s the only word I can think of. It’s what I thought.
How would I describe this terrible picture? Well, they’re all traitors. Every man for himself. They care nothing but the basic responsibilities and love and compassion and care for those nearest to them.
It’s in your own household. They’re nothing, no other description but traitors, turncoats and betrayers. The princes take kickbacks, the judges take bribes, and the wishes of the powerful wicked men come true.
It says that the princes ask for a gift, the judges seek a bribe, there it’s actually said in those words, and the great man utters his evil desire. And the idea here is not just that he just says it. Well, we got freedom of speech in America.
People say this all the time. No, it’s they’re saying it to their accomplishments. Look at me, look what I get to get.
I want this, and it happens. That’s clearly the picture here. And what’s interesting is, although it seems almost like every man for himself, it isn’t always the case, is it? Because in true anarchy, it doesn’t fully exist.
Order comes out of the anarchy. Where does that order come from? Those who have the power to impose order, which are typically the rich. And we see a similar thing here.
Princes ask for gifts, the judge seeks a bribe, the great man, so he’s not in position of political power, but he has money, utters his evil desire, so they what? Scheme together. They scheme together for their own mutual benefits. So it’s not even ultimately every man for himself in that sense.
This conspiracy, they scheme, or the word is they weave together their wicked plans. When you are in positions of power and money, it doesn’t take many of you to create a great strong conspiracy, because that’s what it means to be strong and powerful, doesn’t it? It doesn’t take many of you together. Given the list of sins, this conspiracy seems to be a mutual support group of wicked judges letting off wicked rich people off the hook, and the princes turning a blind eye, all interacting perhaps.
Or wicked judges getting away because the princes are turning a blind eye, and the rich man is supporting the judge. However, whoever is supporting whomever, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s just a terrible situation. It’s a terrible thing to see and to behold.
And he’s condemning them, publicly condemning them, for issues of justice, as defined by the Word of God, of gross violations of God’s law, and the Ten Commandments in particular. The violation of the Fifth Commandment. This is a violation of the, being a traitor is a violation of the Fifth Commandment.
Think about it. This is with respect to your relationship, either as a patriot in a nation, your family, your neighborhood. It seems to fit, to me, the position of authority.
You’re denouncing those you have a responsibility towards, because the Fifth Commandment is superiors and inferiors and equals. You violate any of those three, severely enough, you’re considered a traitor, essentially. That would seem to me to be the Fifth Commandment.
And they heap upon this violation other sins, of course. Murder, stealing, lying, and the like, turning a blind eye. What we’re describing here in verse 4, he continues, the best of them is like a briar, the most upright or sharper than a thorn hedge.
Is that a compliment? You’re like these terrible, terrible briars and weeds and destructive bushes you don’t want to hug. They’re not pretty and you certainly don’t want to touch them. They will prick you.
The best of them are the worst of them. The best of them is like a briar, he’s saying. Men who are harmful enough to draw blood, either literally or with their mouth, the best of them is still the worst of them.
That’s what he’s describing here. This is the best they go. It’s just low dirt underground.
Terrible, treacherous people. And it’s not just, we just stopped here with this part of the sermon to perhaps stand and start pontificating against the systematic suppression and oppression of the people by the 1%. Remember that little movement they had back in 09 or whatever it was? Where did it ever go? Oh, that’s right, it’s now the entire Democratic Party.
But look, it’s not the 1%. It’s everybody here. Here.
And it’s becoming that way in America. It doesn’t matter what party it is. It’s everyone is wicked.
Do not trust a friend. Do not put your confidence in companions, he says. In verse 5, the selfishness, the backstabbing, the traitorous leadership is common among the people as well.
The People are Traitors to their Families
Guard the doors of your mouth for her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, the daughter rises against her mother. What a terrible thing to behold.
The selfishness, the lack of trust, the backstabbing, it’s among the people too. That’s one reason why the leaders are that way. That’s who they’re gonna vote for.
You cannot trust your neighbor, you can’t even trust your friend. You have to be wary, wary, tight-lipped and watchful, withdrawing into your own family to protect yourself. Every family for itself.
Every man to his own tent. You read a couple of times there in Judges and elsewhere when they’re defeated. But we find out even if you flee from your friend and don’t put confidence in your companion and you guard the doors of your mouth and you come and turtle down into your own house, you can’t even trust your wife.
Guard the doors of your mouth, it says, from her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, daughter rises against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.
What a terrible, awful, horrid situation to be in. I can’t imagine it. I mean, we think it’s bad in many ways in America, but wow.
Yeah, you can’t, you can’t trust your own family. You can’t rely upon your own family. It seems to be something short of a civil war, the saddest picture of societal decay.
Widespread faithfulness, faithlessness among friends and family. I don’t think it’s every single individual in Israel to be sure. It’s not usually the case.
He’s emphasizing and highlighting and making a strong point how widespread it is. It’s reached critical mass now that the common person doesn’t trust, the average person doesn’t trust his own family. Maybe it was every family.
It doesn’t really matter at that stage because maybe it starts becoming your family because you see it all the other families. You start second-guessing yourself. I don’t know.
Now Christ here actually applies this passage in Matthew 10 34 to 36. Matthew 10 34 to 36 we read Christ explaining, do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth, but did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against his mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household, Christ said.
The division he brings as pictured in Micah, of course. The picture here in Micah is a division of political and social division, right? Society’s breaking down, the politics is breaking down, the legal system is breaking down, and Christ applies it to the spiritual reality of the gospel. And when the gospel comes along and division comes into the family, he shows, in other words, that the gospel riles people up towards more division or more properly, not that the gospel is at fault and does the riling and poking and goading in it of itself, but that wicked men don’t want to hear the gospel.
And so that which should be a sword to slay them to new life in God becomes a goad instead, and they fight against it, and they hate it, and they’re riled up. It’s how they respond to the gospel is what Christ is showing in very stark language in quoting Micah. It’s quite, quite amazing and it’s quite heart-wrenching to read this passage and then quote it again by Christ.
People already sin against each other. Sometimes it gets so bad the entire society is full of traitors and defectors towards other gods and their own selfish desires. And today we see more divisions, of course, because people are becoming more pagan and rejecting the Christian heritage of America, and you need to teach your family and remind them of this fact, of where we are, and prepare accordingly, financially, physically, and spiritually, but spiritually especially, to verse 7. Therefore, I will look to the Lord.
I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Well, hear what? What’s he crying out for? He says, woe is me.
I can find no faithful men. He’s crying for faithful men. He’s crying for deliverance of this wretched society, of this wretched church.
Ultimately, only God is faithful, even when we’re faithless. When times are tough, the tough rely on God, and that’s what he does here. He’s outnumbered.
It’s just enemies everywhere. That’s the typical plight, it seems, of the prophets, but here is an interesting, very detailed description we don’t see often in the rest of the prophets, where he describes down to the layer of the people and the judges and the families themselves, of how untrustworthy they are, how much they’re willing to sell each other out for a dollar or a quick buck. So he’s in a terrible position compared to other prophets, it seems to me.
You can pray, confess in these situations, and pray some more to cry out to God to deliver us from the traitors in our midst, and they are there. There are traitors in the churches. The nature of a traitor, of a betrayer, of a turncoat, is you don’t know until it’s too late, right? Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
They might have grown up among you. Dr. Coppice gives a story of pastors like that, and they stand up and they say, well, I’ve been this way in my whole life, and I was in the closet for a long time, and whoops, I’m on my own, see ya. He betrayed the Christian faith, betrayed the office, he betrayed the church.
Leadership in the churches, another way of betrayal isn’t just standing up and saying, I’m wicked, or I’m gonna promote wickedness, is when they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, right? That’s gonna happen. Pastors and ruling elders aren’t perfect, to be sure, but again, the idea of a traitor is, it’s such a nature, the sin is so serious. If they’re coming to take down the false wolves are, and they’re there drooling, and you can’t miss them, but the man backs away because he’s a coward.
The pastor does, and the ruling elders, oh, we don’t really want to, you know, stop them, and maybe we can try to negotiate with these wolves. They’re betraying their sheep. They throw down their staffs, and they run away because they’re just hirelings, when they shouldn’t have been.
So that’s what, that’s how it happens. It occurs in the church, not just in society. It’s a lost concept, to be sure.
I like to, once in a while, when I put up some of the news stuff to keep people informed on Facebook, I’ll say something like, being a traitor is a lost concept. The word traitor is not in the American dictionary anymore. It isn’t.
It just isn’t. It may be there in the military dictionary, but it used to be there in a non-military dictionary. We’d be like, there’s something wrong.
Let’s take this guy out. This is terrible, and we have the same thing in the church. It seems like many people in the church don’t understand the concept of loyalty.
That’s the flip side, right, of being a betrayer. The positive is you’re supposed to be loyal. Well, I’m only loyal when they’re loyal to me.
Well, there’s some truth to that, but usually what people mean by that is, they did me wrong, and I’m gonna hold a grudge, right? That’s a little different, isn’t it? It’s kind of hard to be loyal to somebody if they’re not going to be loyal to you, and they’re just out of here. Okay, well, you’re on your own. I’ll have to deal with the family I have here, or the church I have here, and the friends I have here.
That’s where you are at times. But it’s a biblical concept, loyalty, and we ought to meditate upon that to see where our loyalties lie with God and his people and our families, or with strangers and those who can scratch our itch, our theological desire, our sins, and appease us and appeal to us. Pray that God would deliver the betrayers from their own lusts.
Pray for those who are turncoats, who are no longer loyal when they should be. And sometimes after exhausting all social, political, and ecclesiastical options, what are we left with? Because it doesn’t always work, does it? You can’t always get justice. A priest on that.
You come here to verse 7. I will look to the Lord. I’ll wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me, even if I have to wait my entire lifelong day.
God Will Save Us from Our Traitors
Wait. Having done all, you just wait. It’s in God’s hands.
But you can always examine yourself. Are we faithful? Are we loyal? Are we eager to be defectors for a quick buck, for feeling good, for someone with a winsome smile, whatever the situation may be. And even when we defect, we can always repent and turn back to our friends, our family, our churches.
We can persevere, as I preached to you this morning and prayed for as well, in faithfulness until Christ returns to pray, to work to that end, always being alert and watchful of your own life. God has indeed promised that for us. In 1 Peter 1-5, we read that we who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
He will preserve us. He will never leave us. He is the most loyal.
He will always keep his covenant. And you can rely upon that. And that should strengthen your loyalty to him and to his people.
Philippians 1-6 reminds us as well, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. You may wonder, perhaps, some of you, that will I be someone like that? Will I be a turncoat? Will I drop my loyalty for a cheap pot of porridge, like Esau? He was just loyal, wasn’t he, to the covenant. If you have that struggle, I urge you to read 1 Peter 1-5, Philippians 1-6.
Pray to God and ask for more strength to believe and follow him. Of course, if you have sin that you believe is part of the betrayal, then ask for repentance. Seek out repentance.
Keep fighting for repentance and don’t ever give up. Always come to church. We’re always here.
Tell your friends this. Tell your family members this. We will never turn them away from the door and stop praying for them.
We will never stop praying. When we see Christians defect from God’s kingdom or society crumble towards mutual suspicion, cry out for God’s mercy as he does, but always cling to Jesus and wait. Wait, I say, on the Lord.
Let’s pray. Precious Lord above, God our Savior, you who are faithful to the covenant, we who in many ways feel unfaithful, but, my God, may we be encouraged to know that we are faithful to the extent that we have not denounced you, Lord, and we strive to fight against sin, even if we’re not always successful. To that extent, you are working in us, so let us not become perfectionistic that way, God, but rather rely always upon you and to be encouraged to see some effort and fruit in our lives, to be loyal to you, your gospel, to your law, to one another, we pray.
Help us, Lord, and protect us from sin and from those who would betray you. In your name we pray. Amen.