Micah: Rescued in Babylon

If you have been stubbornly doing man's ways in your life and ministry, and have been hopelessly clinging to it so that in God's eyes everything you do is corrupt (though in your eyes you look okay), God sends you off to Babylon, for a last chance at revival.

God's people were doing "good" ministry in their eyes, but God saw something else: "Your leaders decide for money, your priests teach for money, and your prophets tell fortunes (not prophecies) for money. Doing things for money is the natural end result of man's ways. Many churches evangelize just to up membership and tithes and offering. Sometimes you'd see born again churches lined up in the same street, competing against each other selling their own brand of gospel. They build magnificent church buildings to lure people in.

So the Lord sends them to spiritual exile to Babylon, letting their enemies win over them. Many churches today are in Babylon while "serving" God. In Babylon, God purges and sifts them, until the remnant appears--those who genuinely repent and go back to God and His ways and Word alone.They won't be purged until exiled to Babylon. They have to taste the cruelty of the enemy, to see the difference between serving God and serving the enemy, to see how pleasant it is to serve the living and loving God. Then from Babylon, God rescues them [Micah 4.10].

But many will not get the picture and continue using man's ways and think God approves of them. "I will take vengeance in wrath and anger on nations that go on disobeying me," [Micah 5.15]. 

Now, call and gifting are irrevocable. Even if you're deep in sin, your call and gifting remain. Thus, many still wonderfully prophesy, speak in tongues, and do miracles and signs and wonders while in sin. They even worship excellently. God sends them to spiritual Babylon to give them a chance. So beware--many so-called "gifted" ministers and churches are wallowing in rottenness in Babylon, still using man's ways and efforts. They hide a lot of things from the public. They cannot be extremely transparent. They demand a lot of "privacy." 

When God wrote the bible, He was extremely transparent. He didn't hide anything. He even exposed bad things about his chosen servants. Can you be transparent about everything--you don't hide anything from public scrutiny? Do you hide in "privacy" skirts?

The call of God's people continued while they were in Babylon, though they had to serve their "sentence" to 70 years. Their enemies thought it was the end of them: "Let them be defiled, and we will gloat over Zion's fall!' But the Word says: "The enemy does not know God's thoughts and plans...Rise and thresh O God's people!" [4.11-13]. 

Some of us are rescued from Babylon. But for most, they stay there.

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