Micah 1:3-5
"Look, the Lord is leaving his place
and coming down to trample the heights of the earth. The mountains will melt beneath him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax near a fire, like water cascading down a mountainside. All this will happen because of Jacob’s rebellion and the sins of the house of Israel.
Before the lands of Samaria had been built up as a fortified city, before Shemer sold it to Omri, the lands were like vineyards. The prophet Micah speaks against the sins of Samaritan idolatry. He gives God's indictments against them, and predicts the throwing down of all their vainglorious deeds.
What was their sin?
Covetousness, violence, and oppression. They worked evil against the people in order to steal their lands. They used lawfare to steal from those who were not politically aligned with the powerful houses. It wasn't enough for them to have their portion, they wanted what others had and if they couldn't have it honestly they'd take by other means.
Micah 1:6-7. Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap — A heap of ruins. And as plantings of a vineyard.
And so, God's judgment is to reduce their city and their lands into a pile of rubble. God's preparing to plow their glory into a field, and crushing their pagan idols into dust. And he accomplishes this through the invasion by the Assyrian kingdom of Shalmaneser whose armies tore apart their city, stone by stone. And they broke down their idols into tiny pieces to get at the precious metals and stones they were made of.
It's ironic this judgment. The very things that the Samaritan people idolized of the pagan nations like Assyria, were what was taken from them. The Samaritan's loved wealth and land, precious resources and rare minerals, and they followed the religious paths of the pagans as well. And God sends the pagans to destroy their temples and melt down their houses of the holy. Everything they idolized was what ultimately became their ruin. The order of the sin was the order of the punishment.
Samaria was a crown of pride [Isaiah 28:1], resting on the head of the rich valleys of Israel. And God reduces its palaces into heaps of rocks. The once glorious city is disassembled and the rocks are laid out like vineyards, using the stones to build terrace fences and walls dividing the fields. Terrace-cultivation replaces the terraced city streets of sin.
What's the lesson for us today, on this side of the cross?
1 Peter 2:5
"you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
The lesson is, the Lord might come into your sinful situations, and likely, because of your stubbornness and willful ignorance, he's going to have to take measures that will tear down all that you've built up for yourself. All your false idols. All your lies. All your secrets and the violence you've done to his Word. He'll disassemble your altars to your false gods and he'll cultivate you into a vineyard where he can grow his kingdom. You'll be built up as his spiritual house.
A living stone in his house...
Ephesians 2:21
"in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord."
...a very specific kind of building with an anointed purpose.
"You know that you are God's house. The spirit of God lives in you." [1 Corinthians 3:16]
God will cultivate his kingdom within the hearts and minds of his reborn children. Rebuilt into temples of sacrifice, into people living holy lives, into obedient children no longer subject to ignorance and sinful passions. Holy living temples of excellence.
It's not mystical, it's not by witchcraft, it's not some virtue-signaling nonsense. It's how all God's creation was intended to be from the beginning. It's everything the atheists say they wanted, an active, present God who makes things right within his people. It's been accomplished in Jesus Christ and is actively being built by The Holy Spirit.
It may not look like what an atheist thinks things should be, they'd rather we were all automatons with no free spirit and will. But God is getting it done in his way. He designed our spiritual houses and He gives us the tools to make it happen.