Alright, if you would, turn to the book of Micah tonight. We're still in our study on the minor prophets. Micah is the next in line. We finished Hosea last time. Micah is a little different. Again, as I normally do when we start a new book, I brought my study Bible so I could read some notes out of it. just as an introduction. Micah is one of the very few of the minor prophets that is prophesying mostly to Judah, but more importantly, mostly to Jerusalem. He does prophesy to the Northern Kingdom also sometime during his ministry. I believe I read, well, it was around 722 B.C. that Assyria captured Israel, the Northern Kingdom, overthrew them and took them captive. So that was during his time. In the first, as we'll see when we get there, in the first verse of chapter 1, Micah prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So from 739 to 731 was Jotham. Ahaz was from 731 to 715. And Hezekiah was from 715 to 686. And I don't remember for sure. I didn't look this up, but I believe Hezekiah may have been the last good king that Judah had. Is that right? There was one more? You know what? It was his son after him. His son after him was the last good king. I can't remember his name. But anyway, So he covered the, he prophesied in the days of three different kings. So he lived a fairly long life. He's called, he was called from a rustic home like Amos. He come from out in the country. We don't know what his occupation was, if he was a farmer or what he was. Amos would pretty well know that he was a farmer. He talks about that. Micah, we don't know for sure. But he left his home to deliver a stern message of judgment to the princes and people of Jerusalem. So like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he went to Jerusalem to prophesy. And he was burdened by the abusive treatment of the poor by the rich and influential. So he went to preach to the poor people and to prophesy against the rich. The prophet turns his verbal rebukes upon any who would use their social or political power for personal gain. Well, we have that today, don't we? And it's not just, I know all of us here, anyway, that are present here are conservatives, but it's not just the liberals that are wicked. The conservatives in our government are just as wicked, if you want to get down to it. They're in it for the money. And so, one third of Micah's book exposes the sins of his countrymen. Another third of the book pictures the punishment God is about to send. And the final third holds out the hope of restoration once that discipline has ended. Speaking of the 70 years of captivity, and certainly there was some sort of a restoration, but not completely at the end of that. Through it all, God's righteous demands upon his people are clear. And it quotes Micah 6 verse 8 here. To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. It's what we're told to do, right? His name means who is like, who is Well, I can't pronounce it, but the Hebrew spelling of his name means, who is like Yahweh. It was shortened. The Greek and the Latin titles shortened it to Micah, which means, who is a god like unto thee. Well, his name means the same, it's just in chapter 7, verse 18, He references his own name with the phrase, who is God like unto thee? Now, we know his hometown was Mosheth Gath. We see that in the first chapter. It was located about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem on the border of Judah and Philistia, where the Philistines were from. near Gath. Again, like Amos, Micah was from the country. His family and occupation are unknown. But more, Shethoth, the place he was from, was in a productive agricultural belt in the land in that day. So it's very possibly that he was a farmer. But again, we don't know for sure. He was not aware of the political situation as Isaiah and Daniel were, but he showed a profound concern for the sufferings of the people. In other words, he was there trying to help the poor and the downtrodden. His clear sense of prophetic calling is seen in chapter 3, verse 8, which says, But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, Israel his sin. We've already talked about the time period when this book took place. His strong denunciations of idolatry and immortality also suggest that his ministry largely preceded or came before the sweeping religious reforms of Hezekiah. So Micah's prophecies would have ranged from about 735 to about 710 BC. He was a contemporary of Hosea in the Northern Kingdom, which means they lived at the same time. Did they know each other? We don't know. It doesn't tell us. And he's also a contemporary, or lived around the same time as Isaiah, who was also in the court of Israel, or of Jerusalem, I'm sorry, the court of Jerusalem. So he was there at the same time as Isaiah also. Let's see. During the ministry of Micah, the kingdom of Israel continued to crumble inwardly and outwardly. That means spiritually and physically began to continue to crumble until its collapse in 722 BC. And that's talking about the kingdom of Israel is the northern kingdom. The Syrian empire under four different kings, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce their names, reached the zenith of its power and became a constant threat to Judah. Babylon was still under Assyrian domination at this time and Micah's prediction of future Babylon captivity for Judah in chapter 4 must have seemed unlikely because they were more concerned with Assyria than they were Babylon. Assyria controlled Babylon at this time. They had no idea that Babylon was going to be the force that was going to come to Jerusalem. Is Christ mentioned in Micah? Well, yeah, He is. In Micah 5, chapter 5, verse 2, in one of the clearest and most important of all Old Testament prophecies, it says, But thou, Bethlehem, Ephratah, Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is, to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." So the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, of Jesus Christ, part of that prophecy is in Micah. the place that Christ will be born. Remember in, where was it, in Matthew chapter 25, or Matthew chapter 2, verses 5 and 6, the priests and the scribes, they quoted from this. Remember when Herod asked, where is the child going to be born? They said, well, in the scriptures, in the prophets, this is what, it was Bethlehem. So they knew. They knew he was supposed to come out of Bethlehem. And remember though that this prophecy in Micah is around 700 years before the birth of Christ. It's a true prophecy, there's no doubt. There's no way that Micah would have known what was going to happen without God telling him what was going to happen. In Micah 2, 4, and 5, there are some other prophecies that tell of the righteous reign of Christ over the whole world later, whether it's in the millennium or in eternity. So we have that prophecy there. Micah's main purpose in his prophecies is to expose the corruption and the injustice in Judah. And that's what God has sent him to do. He's a prophet to the downtrodden and exploited people of Judean society. He prophesies during a time of great social injustice and boldly opposes those who impose their power upon the poor and weak for selfish ends. Corrupt rulers, false prophets, and ungodly priests all become targets for Micah's prophetic, his prophetic words. So, enough of the introduction, or that part of the introduction. Again, in my study Bible, it has sections in each chapter. In verse 1, it's called the introduction to the book of Micah. One verse introduction. So, let's go to chapter 1 and verse 1. The word of the Lord that came to Micah, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem." Why does he mention Samaria and Jerusalem? Well, remember what we just said in our introduction. He's prophesying mostly to Judah and Jerusalem, but Assyria has not taken the northern kingdom yet. So he will prophesy a little about Samaria also. So what was Samaria? Samaria was the capital there in the Northern Kingdom. So, if you remember from the book of Hosea, we just finished, Ephraim, the tribe of Ephraim, who was there, ruled from that part of the country. Now, verse 2, we see him prophesying about Samaria, the judgment that's going to come on Samaria. Verses 2 through 8. Hear all ye people, hearken o'er, all that therein is, and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place." Now remember, this is Samaria, God is going to send the king and the army of Assyria to overthrow the northern kingdom. And you notice he talks about the high places? Why? Well, because remember what they did? They took the high places that had originally been built or had been used to worship God, to offer sacrifices to God, and they turned them into places to worship idols. And God's going to come. He says God's going to leave His place and come. Well, we know God doesn't He doesn't physically come to do this. He sends the army of Assyria. But He is there guiding them. He's not guiding His own people now. He's guiding their enemy. And we see that with Nebuchadnezzar and his army when they come against Jerusalem. He does the same thing. For the transgression of Jacob is all this. And for the sins of the house of Israel, Transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? So, remember Samaria was not supposed to be what it was. Jerusalem was supposed to be the capital of the nation of Israel. But after the death of Solomon, Things went bad. The politicians got corrupt. Or, well, maybe they were already corrupt, and they just finally got to do what they wanted to do. And so they split the country. They split the nation. And you had the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard, And I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof." So he's going to destroy Samaria. Now, remember in the New Testament, Samaria plays a totally different role, doesn't it? What was going on in Samaria in the days of Jesus' ministry and of the early days of the church, the churches? Well, if you remember some of the travels that Jesus and his apostles made into Samaria, Samaria and Judea were not friendly towards each other, mostly because what was in Samaria were half-breed Jews. They were not of the full bloodline like the people in Judea were. They were, those who had been taken captive, or they were the descendants of those who had been taken captive and who had intermingled with other nations. And so, some say that maybe they were the Ten Tribes. I don't think so, because there's no talk of the Ten Tribes coming back until during the Tribulation. But they certainly were part of Israel, But they weren't full blood, in other words. well and how I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like a dragon's and mourning as the owl's. Now, if you remember what we have been studying Hosea, again, you see the same thing. Basically the same prophecy here, just worded a little bit different. Micah tells that God's gonna come down and destroy all their false gods. How's he gonna do that? With the army of Assyria. They're gonna come in. Remember, it's my understanding anyway, these false gods that they have in the Northern Kingdom are not the same false gods that Assyria worships. They were false gods from the other countries around Israel in that time. Assyria's, remember Assyria's a much younger nation than Israel is. They haven't been around all that long. And so, Assyria is going to come in and they're going to destroy everything. All their false gods, all their idols, all their places of worship. Now, verses 9 through 16 is the judgment on Judah that's coming. Verse 9 says, For her wound is incurable, for it is come unto Judah. She is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all. In the house of Aphra, roll thyself in the dust. Pass you away, thou inhabitant of Sapphire. Having thy shame naked, the inhabitant of Zanin came not forth in the morning of Bethazel. He shall receive of you his standing. Zanin is a country of of flocks. It's farmland. It's where they're, not really farmland, but it's where they had flocks of sheep and cattle and all that, all their animals. This was a place that's, it's gonna, they're gonna take, they're gonna overthrow all this. When the army of Nebuchadnezzar comes, they're gonna, they're gonna do a little bit different than what Assyria did. They're still gonna destroy a lot of things, But they're going to take more things back than Assyria does. They're going to keep the fat of the land, if you will. For the inhabitant of Meroth waited carefully for good, but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. He knows what he says there, but the evil came down from the Lord. Well, God doesn't do evil things, does He? Well, He uses He uses evil men. He doesn't, maybe it doesn't do the evil himself, but he dictates it to evil men. He, if you remember in our past studies, he referred to, there's been evil men that he has used against Israel that He referred to his, to as his men. Not in a way of salvation, but they were men who did his bidding. They did what God told them to do. And it was usually, maybe always, they had no idea that it was God telling them to do it. They just thought they were doing what they wanted to do. But God said he was in control of the situation. And that's what he mentions here. O thou inhabitant of lashes, bind the chariot to the swift beast. She is the beginning of the sin of the daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel are found in thee. So he's given a little bit of a history lesson. This is where it all started, he says. This is where Jerusalem went wrong. shalt thou give presents to Morshidgeth. The houses of Echezib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. They're going to be a snare, in other words. He's going to lay in wait for them. Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Marishah. He will come unto Adalim. the glory of Israel. Make thee bald. Now, I want you to pay attention to this last verse. Make thee bald. Pull thee for thy delicate children. Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle, for they are gone into captivity from thee. What's he mean by that? Well, if you remember in a Jewish tradition, it was part of the law when a man was in mourning was the only time he was ever to shave his head. He was to have hair other than not long hair. The Jews, just like it's taught in the New Testament, they were taught not to have long hair like a woman would. If it were the time of mourning, they were told to shave their heads, and that would signify that they were in mourning. Remember, there was times in the Old Testament where men, their wife died, children were killed. There were other instances, and you see where they would shave their heads. and shaved their beard, not just their head, but they shaved their whole face and head and everything. They had beards back then, and so they would shave their beard and their hair, their head. And he says, enlarge thy baldness as the eagle. In other words, shave it all off. You're not going to have anything. For they are gone into captivity from me. Who's he talking about? Their children. they're going into captivity. And you see that, especially in the book of Daniel, and a little bit in Ezekiel, where you see where Babylon, one of the things they did in the first stages of the captivity was they took back all the young people. Why? Well, they indoctrinated them, hoping that they would persuade the older people. What do we see today? What's going on in our school systems that hasn't been for some time? They're indoctrinating the children. The enemies of God are indoctrinating the children in our school systems. It's not just there. My wife and I are advocates of homeschooling, but you look at some of the homeschool material, and it's no different than what you see in the school system. You gotta be careful where you get that stuff from, too. Sometimes, The homeschooling stuff, because it is so-called Christian-oriented, can be worse because they try to force their doctrine on people. And it's evil doctrine sometimes. It's wicked. It's not any good. It's not any better than what you would get in the public school. So you have to be careful about those things. So we'll stop there for tonight. We'll pick up with Chapter 2 next time. We'll see, we might can do two chapters next time. They're both short chapters. Micah has seven chapters. So it's not, and they're all fairly short chapters. So we'll see, we'll get through this book fairly quickly probably. Should be done with it by the end of the year I would be, would be my guess. And then we'll move on to the next lesson. So that's all we have for tonight.