Sorry, I can’t help the fact that I enjoy both science fiction and Arnold Schwarzenegger films. So when I read our text Micah 7:1-10 again today, verse 5 jumped out at me and called to mind the older and better Schwarzenegger 1990 version of “Total Recall.” Micah says, “Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace.”
In “Total Recall,” of course, Arnold’s character Douglas Quaid discovers that his memories have been altered and that the person he thought was his loving wife Lori is part of a conspiracy to keep him from remembering his role in a revolution on Mars. Lori and Quaid end up in a battle to the death as trust evaporates and the deception is revealed.
The beginning of Micah 7 is a depiction of the final outcome of a society like the one described in our text last week, the last half of Micah 6. In Micah 6:10-12, God voices His great displeasure with greed and the cheating and dishonesty it engenders. Here in Micah 7:2-6 we see the outcome of such practices in the evaporation of human trust, even between the closest and most intimate of friends and family members.
As a pastor I can testify to how terribly often I’ve heard the story of how greed dissolved trust in a family when aged parents became incompetent or passed away. It happened in my wife’s family. Love of money and selfishness has many and varied consequences, but the way it breeds suspicion and distrust is one of the worst.
Micah also points in verses 3 and 4, very relevantly for us, to the failure of trust in public officials in a society motivated by greed and profit. Officials and judges take bribes, the powerful get what they want and justice is perverted. And “the best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge.” In other words, you don’t want to get very close to people, especially those in positions of power, whose driving aim is to accumulate wealth.
Unlike last week’s text, which was unrelenting bad news, we come to some grace at the end of the passage. Verse 7 is a deep expression of trust in God, which in its context echoes the closing verses of the prophet Habakkuk.
In verses 8 to 10 we are reminded that trust in God (and perhaps in each other) is not just an individual matter. We hear Jerusalem (Zion) speak with confidence in God that her enemies will be defeated. She acknowledges her sins against God in verse 9, but trusts that her punishment will be temporary and that God will save her.
Again, the city is speaking as one voice, all the people together as one person here at the end of the text. That’s the context for salvation, for deliverance from our enemies. God brings into His community of grace, a community where we actually can learn to trust each other and trust Him.
after reading the grim warning, i decided to bring oatmeal to prepare tomorrow morning. in tough situations we must do what we can to encourage one another.
Quoting verse 2: “…there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net.” This reminds me of a move called “The Purge” where for one annual 12 hour period, all crime is legal. The rest of the passage fits in with the idea of the movie as “The Purge” is used as a means by the authoritarian government to encourage poor people to kill each other, leaving only those wealthy enough to afford protection.