Come Let Us Go Up

Micah 4:1-13

Welcome! Today we will have a shorter message followed by a time of communion and then a sharing time. We have been studying the book of Micah over the past several weeks, and this week we will explore one of my favorite chapters, Chapter 4.  This chapter is in many ways a break from the first three chapters, which are prophecy and judgement against the people of Israel and Judah. In Chapter 1, Micah, speaking the words of the Lord, pronounces the coming destruction and laments that it is to be. In Chapters 2 and 3, Micah explains further the reasons for the coming destruction; in Chapter 2 the focus is on the acts of the people, on the Israelite society, and in Chapter 3 the focus is primarily on the actions of the leaders of the people. The foretold destruction did come to pass; first, the northern kingdom (Israel) fell to the Assyrians, and later, the southern kingdom (Judah) fell to the Babylonians.

But Micah Chapter 4 looks beyond these events into what was for Micah’s hearers a distant future. Micah wrote this before Christ came and died for our sins and rose from the dead. What future is Micah writing about? Well, I think the things he says don’t find their ultimate completion until Christ’s return, “soon and very soon,” as the song we sang puts it, but there is a degree to which these things are to be for us now as well. The Kingdom of God is coming, but the Kingdom of God is here. It is both “now” and “not yet.” Let’s look at the first several verses.

Den of Thieves

Micah 2:1-13

Good morning.  I hope you all are rested and ready this morning for a full strength dose of truth from God’s Word.  We’re going to continue our series through the book of Micah.  We’re in chapter 2.  God is going to deal with some specific sin areas today, especially coveting and stealing, hence today’s title, “Den of Thieves.”

A lot of the time when someone tells us they are going to tell us what they really think or they’re going to tell us the whole truth, we get a sense that bad news is on the way.  It is interesting that this week, in the How People Grow class that meets at 9:45, the chapter we discussed was on the topic of truth.  And honestly, sometimes, the truth is hard for us to hear.  Sometimes the truth can be painful to us.

However, God is the true God.  In Him, there is no darkness at all.  He is holy and righteous.  His Word is truth.  His Son, Jesus is the truth.  His Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.  But then, contrast that with the fact that God is love.  God’s love sent His Son, Jesus to the cross to suffer and die for our sins.  He has cast our iniquities into the sea.  He has separated us from our sins as far as the east is from the west.

Plague of Idolatry

Micah 1:3-16

Last week Carl set the stage for our study of Micah, putting this prophet in his historical context of the good and evil kings of Israel and Judah, the unfaithfulness of the Hebrew people in following the Lord, and the looming menace of foreign invaders. Carl noted that Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea, with a special focus on the southern kingdom of Judah – though he began his ministry before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722-721 BC. In fact, he prophesies the destruction of Samaria in the section that we will be looking at today.

In the Biblical record, the book of Micah comes right after Jonah, which we looked at earlier this year. The main threat against Israel was the Assyrian empire, and you will recall that Jonah was sent by God to speak out against the sin of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, which led to the temporary repentance of the king and the people there. However, that didn’t last, and by the time of Micah, the Assyrians were back to their former ways and the brutal conquest of the nations around them. God intended to use them bring his judgment on the apostasy of Israel, and he provides a warning of this through his prophets.