How deep and thorough? 'Don't trust anybody'

Micah 7: [4] The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

"He's saying, 'All it's going to do is stick you and tear up your clothes.' In other words, 'The day of wrath is coming, the day of visitation, the day of vengeance, the day of God straightening things out is coming.'

Verse 5: [5] Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

"That's how deep and how thorough the corruption is: 'Don't trust anybody.' 

"That's not a verse you want to put in your daily reading and say, 'That's the verse I'm supposed to follow.' That's a verse with a context but, in general, it's good advice," says Richard Jordan.

Psalm 118: [8] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

[9] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.

"It's always better to trust what God says instead of what men say if what men say contradicts what God says. Confidence in anyone ahead of confidence in God is a fool's errand. 

"Notice another context like Micah in Jeremiah 9: [1] Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

[2] Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
[3] And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.
[4] Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
[5] And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

"They literally take aim at people and deliberately lie about it. That's why he says about them in Micah 7:2: [2] The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

"The good men have perished that everybody does evil with both hands--eagerly, earnestly. The princes, and the judges, and the great men--they all are out with both hands trying to do evil. So don't trust people.

"Verse 3 says 'they bend their tongues like their bow for lies.' Think about that. You teach your tongue to speak lies. They literally have an education process, a training process, where they develop better ways to deceive people. You say, 'Whoah.' 

"When I was a kid coming out of high school, it was, 'You gotta get your education. Education is the answer.' You read passages like that and you think, 'Uh . . .'

Verses 6-7: [6] Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

[7] Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

"The Lord says, 'I'll melt them.' You know what you melt somebody with? He's going to turn a blowtorch on them; put the fire on them.

"So what's the believing remnant to do? The believer in Israel is not to trust human viewpoint, not to trust the lies of the religious system out there, not to trust the lies of the political system, the economic system. The answer's not in ANY of those things.

"The answer is in verse 7: [7] Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

"Go to Jeremiah 17: [5] Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

[6] For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
[7] Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
[8] For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
[10] I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

"You want the curse, that's how you get it. You want the blessing, that's how you get it. Now, that's a general truth and it's a specific truth for these people in Israel at this time. Then he says, 'I will wait for the God of my salvation.'

"When I read that I think, 'We just read back in Micah 1:3: [3] For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.'

"So, when he says, 'I'm going to wait on the Lord, the God of my salvation,' it's like he's saying, 'He's coming, I know He is, so I'm just going to wait on Him. I'll wait on the good ride; I won't jump on the bus right now.'

Micah 7: [8] Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

[9] I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.

" 'Don't get a big head, you see me go down,' talking about Israel, 'because I'm going to rise.' You know why? Because the Lord's going to be a light unto me, and when they sit in that darkness waiting, look at who they're waiting with. 

Verse 7: [7] Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

"There's the Father, the Son and the Spirit. They've got the triune God on their side and they're just going to wait and trust Him to do what He told them He would do, and they tell their enemies, 'Don't get the big head because He's going to set it right.' "