¹Now you are walled around with a wall;
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel
upon the cheek.

²But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
³Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.
⁴And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth;

¹⁰On that day, says the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;
¹¹and I will cut off the cities of your land
and throw down all your strongholds;
¹²and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more soothsayers;
¹³ and I will cut off your images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
¹⁴and I will uproot your sacred poles from among you
and destroy your towns.
¹⁵And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey.

There is an order in this passage. Verse two introduces a messianic prophecy which is cited in Matthew. For Herod wanted to know where the babe would be born… and was told Bethlehem, as Micah prophesied…

[And here is an example of limited responsibility. Herod then killed the children. But the scholars who answered the question are not responsible for that. Herod is].

And the consequences of the Messiah and his teaching are that…

1. The occult will stop. “I will cut sorcery…” There is no room for an amalgam of witchcraft or spiritualism within the church. We are to rely on Christ.
2. The use of pagan images or syncretic, tribal versions of worship will stop. God will take our idols away. Now, the idols for this  day are strong. Consider this bit of moronic hamsterization.

Paul Mackay yesterday presented the group’s submission on Ms Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. The submission said it was difficult for employers to find suitable temporary staff to fill parental leave vacancies.

“Employers who have been forced to bear considerable replacement costs, or to find those amongst their other employees willing to provide cover, may well think hard before again employing a woman of child-bearing age.”

Business NZ accepted that attitude could be seen as discriminatory but Ms Moroney said it was “from a bygone era” and echoed the views of Mr Thompson, who resigned last year after his suggestion that menstruation could be a factor in women being paid less than men caused an uproar.

“It is out of step with what I understand modern-day employer attitudes are towards women and I cannot explain, for the life of me, why an organisation like Business NZ would come to select committee with this type of written submission.”

After presenting the submission, Mr Mackay said Business NZ was not saying that extending paid parental leave would discourage employment for younger women. “What we’re saying is research shows that might be a possibility and we should make sure we design that possibility out before we move ahead.”

Feminism is, like all ideologies, an idol. Among other things it worships work. And unionist feminist hacks like Moroney do not understand that many women actually love babies and want to have a husband who earns enough to allow her to be home with them. Six months is not long enough with a little one.

Besides, the Employers org. is speaking truth. We end up employing temp. staff frequently because a nurse, a doctor, a psychologist, an occupational therapist… is at home with the baby. Most of these women return part time, because they are not worshiping work or a career — they are too smart for that. And to just ignore that is to ignore human biology.

Finally, Micah has a warning to those nations who remain wedded to the occult and to idols. They will be destroyed. They will not survive.

I am afraid that the West is in that position. Unless we repent, we will go under the winnow. God has raised some pretty evil cultures and used them to do this — the Assyrians were bastards, as an example.  We need to repent in the church. And the church needs to proclaim some pretty unpopular teaching to the wider society.