Micah Week 1
We’re going to be studying the book of Micah next.
We’re in our 16th week of the Minor Prophets. So I imagine you’re all starting to feel some Minor Prophet Fatigue. So I want to take a moment before we dive into our new book to step back and get a grasp on the big picture of what’s happening in the Bible.
First, here's our timeline again that we’re familiar with. We have our 6 major world powers throughout the biblical age. We have Abraham’s family beginning and becoming a nation that eventually is divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom is Israel and the southern kingdom is Judah. This happens in 930 BC and all of the minor prophets take place after this event. Israel is destroyed by Assyria. We’ve been going through the Minor Prophets chronologically and Micah is going to be our last prophet before Israel is destroyed. Judah is exiled by Babylon, but after some time they return. They rebuild the temple and Jerusalem but are under Persian rule and Greek rule and Roman rule until Jesus with a small break in their for independence.
That’s our timeline, but let’s look at the even bigger picture of what is happening in the story of the Bible.
Explain Standard Plot - Introduction, Turning Point, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution
Map onto it the Bible.
Everything anticipates the need for Jesus or points back to the transformation because of Jesus.
With that said, let’s jump into Micah which falls on the plot line as a place where we are anticipating the need of Jesus. So we’re going to see lots of problems being addressed - here’s where we’re sinful and in need. And we’re going to see lots of anticipation for some future resolution of these problems. This is the pattern in all of the prophets.
Micah can be outlined as taking place in three cycles:
Cycle One (1-2)
Judgment
Salvation
Cycle Two (3-5)
Judgment
Salvation
Cycle Three (6-7)
Judgment
Salvation
1:1
Micah is from Moresheth, which is just a place in the southern kingdom in Judah
He’s prophesying during the days of these kings, all Judean kings
But it says concerning Samaria and Jerusalem, so that is the northern kingdom’s capital and the southern kingdom’s capital. So both nations still exist.
1:2-7
Hear you peoples all of you. Put a box around Hear. We have three cycles in Micah and they are all conveniently introduced with this word. 1:2, 3:1, and 6:1.
God says he wants all the earth to watch. He’s going to demonstrate his justice against the wicked. Israel should have been an example of godliness. Instead they will be an example of wickedness.
Vs 2-4, Underline “The Lord is coming out of his place.” God is depicted as exiting his heavenly throne room to come down to earth. But this is not God coming meekly as a baby in a manger. This is God descending with fury so that even mountains melt like wax beneath him.
Why is he coming? Vs. 5 Underline “All this… of Israel” Is it for the sake of saving and redeeming like Jesus? No this is for sins.
Vs. 6 God will make Samaria a heap. Underline that. This is the last time we’ll hear the name of Samaria mentioned in the whole book. It’s gone. We’ll get a couple more passing references to Israel, but Samaria is done.
Vs 7 Micah highlights a bit of irony. People paid lots of money as part of their worship of idols and they used that money to make golden images of more idols. Now these images will be melted down and they’ll be taken by an enemy who will then forge them into new idols.
1:8-9
Israel has sinned. They’ve worshipped idols. They’re going to be destroyed. We’ve heard this before. But here’s where God is particularly disappointed. “IT” has come to Judah and has reached the gate of Jerusalem. Underline “it has reached… Jerusalem.”Micah is so upset over this that he’s going to lament and wail loudly and even walk about naked in grief and mourning. We don’t yet know what “IT” is, but we’re about to find out.
1:10-16
There’s lots of place names here. This is where a good study Bible is helpful. There are two things worth noting about all of the places.
First, Micah makes a play on words with most of their names. For instance, in verse 10, Beth-le-aphrah means “House of Dust” so he says, “In the house of dust, roll yourselves in the dust” In verse 11, Shaphi means beauty, so “the inhabitants of Beauty will be in nakedness and shame. Also in verse 11 is Zaanan which means go forth. So the inhabitants of Go forth do not come out. And so on, for the others.
The second thing to notice about the towns is their location. All of these towns are in Judah or nearby. They are each within 10 miles of Micah’s hometown Moresheth. And they seem to be located along the road that an enemy invader would take to get to Jerusalem. So with each successive town, the enemy is getting closer and closer.
Which leads to the last thing in this section. Vs 12 we read “Disaster has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem” Underline that. Now we know what the “IT” is that Micah was lamenting over earlier. It’s this destructive enemy army.
Now we know that Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom of Samaria and shortly after that Assyria marched its army all the way down to the gates of Jerusalem to destroy them next. But God miraculously saves them and you can read about that in the book of Isaiah, 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles
2:1-5
Chapter 2 continues in this Judgment portion of the first cycle in Micah
This sections makes you consider the question, what would it be like if God treated you the way that you treat others?
Look at verse 1. They devise wickedness and work evil. Circle devise and evil. What do they do? Vs 2. They covet fields and seize them. Underline that.
Now read verse 3, the Lords says, I am devising disaster. Circle devise and disaster. We learned back in Jonah that the word for evil and disaster are the same word. Sometimes God will work “evil” but it doesn’t mean sin. It means a bad thing like a disaster or calamity.
Then look at verse 4. The people are sad saying, He changes the portions. To an apostate he allots our fields. You can underline both of those.
You see they made horrible plans to steal people’s land, so God makes horrible plans to steal their land.
Again it makes you wonder, how would it go for me, if God treated me the way I treated others. A little bit like the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have God do unto you”
2:6-11
In this last part of Cycle 1’s judgment section, we learn that enemies of God are also enemies of God’s preaching. If you don’t want to be confronted in your sin then you don’t want to hear God’s Word.
Circle the word preach three times in vs 6.
He mocks how their desire to get rid of preaching is self-defeating. DON’T PREACH they say as they preach. We have a few comparable examples in our day of this type of thing. Maybe you’ve heard DON’T BE INTOLERANT! They say as they are intolerant of everyone who disagrees. It’s self-defeating. Another one is THERE IS NO TRUTH! They declare as if it were true.
They are attempting to live in a fantasy land where they never hear anything they disagree with and are never confronted. That’s Judah’s problem in Micah. That’s the problem of the lost today. And it can even be a problem in churches. We’re happy to hear you speak things, but be careful never to confront or disagree with us or as they say “don’t step on people’s toes”.
Look at vs 11. Circle preach and preacher. Micah closes by making another joke saying, if a man preaches about drinking wine, everyone would love him!
If someone came to the church and preached “You’re basically good. You don’t need to change. In fact, it’s everybody else that is the problem.” Everyone would love him! But Micah can only preach the words of God. Or as he says in verse 7, “Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?”
Our last section is the salvation portion of Cycle 1. First was judgment, now it’s salvation.
2:12-13
Here the Lord states that he will gather all of those who are scattered like sheep being gathered into a fold.This is how he protects his people.
As early as Genesis Jacob declares that God has been like a shepherd to him all his life. And all the way in Revelation it is declared that Christ will be our shepherd. Gathering people as sheep is God’s preferred metaphor for caring for them.
When you think of your relationship to God, it should quickly come to mind that we are lost sheep. We are foolish. We are helpless. We are prone to wander. We are not independent, self-sufficient, wise, and pretty good people. We are sheep.
So the first cycle concludes with hope that God will in fact gather those who are his and lead them and care for them. On the other side of judgment is always the hope of salvation.