ESCAPING THE CITY OF MAN

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Micah 2:8-12 ESV

But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war. The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever. Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction. 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! I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.

¶ The people of Israel in the 8th century B.C. were in their "days of wine and roses". Not unlike us, it was hard for them to imagine why a prophet would come among them warning of destruction and deportation. Instead of relying on the Lord as their Rock and their salvation, they built prosperity on legalized dispossession and robbery, the power of the strong over the weak. What is prophesied for those living under such a system? It meant:
1. Relocation: To be taken out, to be physically removed from their accustomed sinful structures of acquisition.
2. Redistribution: To reverse the accepted habit of seizing from trusting people their dearest things.
3. Reconciliation: to be re-gathered as one flock under the Lord as our one true Shepherd. 

These things, this complete work of healing: relocation, redistribution, and reconciliation, are things government can support, but cannot impose. These things are for God to accomplish among the ready, willing,  joyous, and peculiar people He calls his own.

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