If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!
Mankind Loves Pleasant Preachers
No one likes to be “preached” at ... unless the preaching is about wine and strong drink and having a party. That is the preaching all unbelievers love. They love to have their “wants” encouraged. It was true in Micah’s day and, as Paul wrote to Timothy, would be true in our day:
2 Timothy 4:3 (ESV Strong's)
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and their desires.
Perhaps Paul was reading Micah when he wrote that insight to Preacher Timothy. In Micah’s day the nation of Israel split into Israel and Judah. Both of them had forsaken God. Both of them had prophets (preachers) who rejected the truth about God’s commands, and especially His judgements. In the verses proceeding the above verse, Micah condemns the false teachers for mocking God’s judgement.
Micah 2:6-7 (ESV Strong's)
“Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”
Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
Has the Lord grown impatient?
Are these his deeds?
Do not my words do good
to him who walks uprightly?
The preachers of the day were warning Micah not to preach the gloom and doom of God’s Judgment. Like people today, they wanted to keep God in the world of love and compassion and forgiveness ONLY. As one commentary stated, they had evidence in God’s Word that He was compassionate:
Exodus 34:6-7 (ESV Strong's)
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, ...”
But, they would conveniently forget the last part of those verses:
... but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Today we have the same problem. Most people believe God is love and has no judgment. They believe He is forgiving and there is no judgment to come. They miss many truths taught in God’s Word. We like preachers who preach about wine and strong drink. They are very popular today. But, they are wrong. God is a God of Love and Judgment. Never does His love and judgment contradict. They are in complete harmony at all times. We are to rejoice in teaching and preaching that preaches both, not just one or the other.
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