Greetings this morning from Mid-America Reforms, the school that I come from. You're, in many ways, getting an ease into the weeks that you're going to have Mid-America people filling in here, because I'm a student. And next week, you're going to have Dr. Strange, and he's an amazing preacher. So if you can get through today. No, just kidding. Today we're going to turn in God's Word to Micah chapter 1, and we're going to be looking specifically at verses 1 through 7. Micah chapter 1, verses 1 through 7. It's on page 776 in our Pew Bibles. And this is the Word of God. the word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear you peoples, all of you. Pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you. The Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley, and uncover her foundations. All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces. All her wages will be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste. For from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return." Thus far, the reading of God's holy and fallible word. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we come before you humbled that you would give your word to us. We thank you for your grace in condescending to us, coming down to our level and speaking to us through your scriptures. We do pray that you would be with us today as we unpack these verses, as we explore what Micah was saying to the people of Israel. Lord, I pray that you would help us to keep our eyes and our ears open. Pray that you would use my words, that they would be instructive. and that I would preach the gospel to your people. And I pray as well that you would be with the people hearing this word, the people sitting in your house, that they would be edified and encouraged, comforted by your word. We pray this, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, Last September, I was sitting after class going through my social media, and I came across a tweet that was kind of blowing up at the time. And I'm not on Twitter, by the way, but I saw this on Facebook. It made its way to Facebook. It was that crazy. And this tweet was from a seminary in New York. a seminary called Union Seminary. And I'm not here to bash other seminaries. Of course I love my seminary, but this was one that just popped off the page to me. The tweet said this. Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Today we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt, and sorrow in prayer, offering them to the beings who sustain us. but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life? Of course, I had to read that twice just to believe what I was seeing. That was kind of amazing. I did a double take and then sure enough, that was actually what they said. And they had pictures of people kneeling in front of potted plants, confessing to them, praying to them. And it just struck me, this is where our culture is at. preaching to the creation rather than to the creator, the one who made the plants. Essentially, it comes down to idolizing what God has made rather than who God is, worshiping God for who he is. Well, if you think that's bad, the idolization, the idolatry that was going on in Micah's day was even more severe in many ways. It was more obvious, of course. But Micah came to God's people with a word, a word of caution. And that word that we're going to unpack today is really summed up in this theme statement here. Micah reminds Israel that God, the judge, is coming in power. So Micah reminds Israel that God, the judge, is coming in power. And we're going to look at this in three different points. First, we're going to look at the timely message of Micah. And then we're going to look at the powerful coming of the Lord. And then we're going to end with the just judgment on Israel. So first, the timely message of Micah. We have to ask, who is Micah? Where is he speaking from? What is his authority? Well, as we take a bird's eye view of this, we see in verse 1 a very brief overview of the ministry of Micah, the introduction to this prophet. That verse says, The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. First of all, the word of the Lord came to Micah. the servant of God, the prophet of God. So we know from this, the word of God coming to him, that he was a prophet. He was supposed to speak God's word in power to God's people. God had tasked him with bringing his powerful word to the rebellious people of Israel. Now right off the bat, We must understand that this is grace. This is God's condescending to his people, graciously giving them the word, the prophetic word of Micah. If we really think about it, we know the history of Israel in broad strokes, right? Israel was a very rebellious nation. They turned from God over and over. He brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they continued to turn away from him. Every time you think, man, God saved them again, maybe they're going to learn their lesson. Nope. There they go. Rebelling again and again. By rights, God should have, God could have just said, I've had enough. You've turned away too many times. But the wonderful grace that we see in the Old Testament is that God continues to pursue his people. Just as he pursues us today, God pursues his people through the prophets, by sending a word to the prophets, reminding them that their God is there, and their God is just, and that their God offers forgiveness for sin. Another thing we notice about Micah from this is that he's not referred to as the son of somebody. Usually the prophetic books open up with, you know, this is so-and-so, the son of so-and-so. It's supposed to spark a trigger. It's supposed to spark a note of remembrance. And the people who are hearing this, they hear, oh, he's the son of that man. I remember that man. He was the mayor of our town. But here we don't have any introduction like that. Mike is literally a nobody. He's not important in himself and neither was his personal background or place. We notice he's from Morisheth. So we look through the scriptures looking for other occurrences of this city called Morisheth and it does show up once. and Jeremiah talking about Micah of Moresheth. And then, of course, it shows up later in this very chapter. But other than that, Moresheth was a very small town that was not mentioned. It wasn't a famous city like Judah or Jerusalem or Samaria. This was a tiny town. So we see that Micah was a small town prophet with a big message for the nation in its entirety. Third, we see that he was prophesying during the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah. Well, if you were like me, you had to go and look up what each of those men did, what each of those kings was involved with. We know most of them turned and were fickle kings, but it's good to kind of remember exactly what each of them did. Jotham was a pretty decent king. He wasn't perfect by any means. He didn't get rid of all the idolatry that was in the nation of Israel, but at least he served God. Jotham was a pretty decent king. But then he was followed by Ahaz. Ahaz was an evil king. In 2 Kings we see that Ahaz sacrificed his own son. He sacrificed his children. to false gods. This is the epitome of evil. When you see somebody sacrificing their own child, you know this guy is a bad guy and that he is leading the nation into sin. And then he's followed by Hezekiah. Hezekiah overall was a pretty good king, but he flip-flopped. He didn't trust in God all the time. Many times he trusted in the nations around him, the military might of the nations around him. So we see the rulers of Israel, not great guys. Some of them are better than others, but they all need a reminder. They all need a wake-up call. So this is the setting that Micah found himself prophesying in, a land filled with idolatry and perversion to a people who are led by weak and wicked kings. Some of these kings did repent when they heard Micah's message. We see this in Jeremiah 26, that Hezekiah listened and he heeded Micah's warnings. But on the whole, Micah's message fell on rebellious ears. So now we know who Micah was and who he ministered to, but what was the purpose of his message? The purpose was firstly to call Israel and Judah to repentance and to warn them of the coming judgment. We see this in the tail end of verse 1, when he singles out Samaria. And we know that Samaria is the capital city of Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel. And he singles out Jerusalem. That's the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah. Now in his book, we see him especially focused on Judah, but for good reason. Partway through his ministry as a prophet, Micah's prophecies about Israel, the northern kingdom, they came true. The Syrians came. They came to the rebellious land of Israel and they wiped out the Israelites. They took the Israelites into captivity, into exile. never to be fully restored again. So really, Micah talks to the people of Judah mostly. But he does so powerfully. He says, look to your northern neighbors. You're probably related to some of them. Look to what happened to the Israelites in the northern kingdom. I prophesied that. God told me that was going to happen. And now when I warn you of what is going to happen to you, you can tell that I'm speaking the truth because this prophecy came true. This really makes the message to Judah even more powerful. As Micah continues his ministry to the people of Judah, they only need to look north. And they would know that he was a true prophet carrying the word of God to them. Well, the second purpose of Micah is seen in verse 2. Micah's message is not just for the people of Israel and Judah, but it's for the people of the world as well. We see this in verse 2. He says, Hear you peoples, all of you, pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. Micah calls on the people of Judah, of Israel to listen, to hear and to pay attention. This message is for all men. He speaks to the nations around those who see the example of Israel and Judah. He says, wake up, look at what's happening in the very backyard of the people of God. Mike is not calling the world, though, to come and be spectators. He's not calling them to come together and eat popcorn and watch a divine smackdown. He's not saying, hey, come watch what I'm going to do to the people of Israel. It's going to be fun. No. He's going to the people of the earth, and he's saying, look what I'm doing to the rebellious people who I have saved so many times. Look what I'm going to do. Take heed because this is how powerful I am and this is what I do when my people disobey. So really Micah calls the earth to come and see what God will do to those who sin against him. God is a witness against them. God is in his holy temple in the world by contrast. is unholy, impure, sinful. This is really a judicial hearing that Mike is telling the earth to see what God does in righteous judgment to those who sin against him, those who don't repent and turn to him. It's a very sobering, sobering message. But finally, we come to our final purpose. And that is to point us to Christ. We sing a song, in faith the prophets look forward to Christ coming. And that's what Micah is really doing here in his book. Not so much in this chapter, although you can make an argument for that, and I will. But really, what Micah is doing in his book is saying, look, you have sinned. God is bringing judgment. But guess what else comes to the people of Israel? A savior. Forgiveness. That's what he's prophesying. Well, this last summer I was serving at a church in Concho, Arizona, which is in the middle of nowhere. It's literally an hour away from the nearest grocery store. And in this little town, by God's providence, we found another fellow who is not going to our church, but he was raised in the Reformed faith. He was raised in an RCUS church, a little German denomination. And he was going to a church that was largely not preaching the Word of God anymore. He had been with that church for a long time, and he really stuck with that church, even though the gospel wasn't being preached on a weekly basis. And he did notice, though, that when guest pastors came, they always preached Christ. No matter what their text was, they always preached Christ. And he was a little confused. He said to me, you know, what's up with this? Does everything really have to point to Christ? It seems like sometimes they're taking these old Testament passages and just finding Christ in it somewhere. And I kind of smiled and I was like, yes, Christ is everywhere. It's not just finding Christ in the old Testament. Christ is there. Christ is literally on every page of the old Testament. And you might say, well, I don't see Christ in this passage. But we have to understand that he's here in this book, in this passage, in two ways. First of all, by contrast, by contrast. So Micah is prophesying and he's showing Israel just how bad they are and just what is coming to them. They've sinned. They've followed idols. And what is coming is judgment. So the contrast of that, the opposite, the flip side of the coin is really this. Sin needs to be forgiven. The opposite of sin is forgiveness. The need for forgiveness is there wherever sin is found. So Micah is pointing them to their own sin, but really what he's saying is you need to repent. You need to turn to God and he will forgive you. He will give you grace. But then also he points to their judgment, the destruction that's coming. And of course we understand where there's judgment, there's also a call. There's a pointing to Christ. Micah is saying, yes, judgment is coming, but if you repent, Christ is there. Christ will give you forgiveness. So, in pointing to rebellion, in pointing to destruction, he also points us to the contrasting repentance, forgiveness, salvation in Christ. But then we also see in a very direct way that Micah points to Christ by prophecy, and we're going to speed ahead here a little bit to Micah chapter 5. Just look at Micah chapter 5 verse 2. He prophesies to the people of Israel, to the people of Judah, and he says, But you, O Bethlehem of Frotha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth to me one who is to be ruler of Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days. Then he continues, he says, therefore he shall give them up until their time when she was in labor has given birth and the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel and he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall dwell secure. For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be their peace. This is talking about Christ. There's not many other options. Micah is not talking about the kings that are coming. The kings that are coming are weak men. They, they're not coming to bring peace to the land of Israel. Instead, they bring war and destruction and judgment. He's pointed to Christ. He's saying in every circumstance you find yourself in, in judgment, in sin, Christ is there to give you peace. Brothers and sisters, we know how destructive sin can be to our lives, how it can mess with our head, it can mess with our hearts. We find ourselves in sin that just doesn't give up, that doesn't go away, that doesn't relinquish its hold on our lives. I dare say every one of you knows what I'm talking about. It's a sin that you just don't want to give up, even though you know it's hurting you. Micah is pointing to idolatry here, but pretty much every sin fits the bill in our lives. We need Christ. We need not just a Christ to comfort us. We need that, of course. We need Christ to comfort us, to give us peace. But we need Christ because He brings forgiveness for us. He gives us forgiveness. He washes our sins away in His blood. We see this again if you look forward even farther in the book of Micah. We see this in Micah chapter 7. This is really the punchline of the whole book, and we know that because Micah's name really means, who is a God like you? Who is a God like Yahweh? And we see that right here in verse 18. He starts out his sentence here with this question, who is a God like you? Pardoning iniquity. passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance. He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love." What a comforting word. Brothers and sisters, when you are facing sin this week, when you are fighting sin, when it feels like sin is inevitable, maybe it's a lack of trust. Anxiety builds up inside you and you don't trust God to have the best plan for your life. When you feel that rising up inside you, you say, I don't want to distrust God. I want to trust God, but I just keep doing it. I keep being anxious. Have comfort in this. Christ forgives and then Christ gives peace. We have a wonderful savior, one who doesn't just forgive us and leave us justified. No, he forgives us and then he gives us peace. Well, as we continue on, we must understand that God's grace is promised. But before God's grace is really delved into in the book of Micah, he continues to talk about their sin and God's coming and judgment and justice. And we see this in our second point, the coming of the Lord. In the first two verses, we see the coming of the Lord described by Micah. The first thing we see is the raw power of God. He says in verse 3 and 4, For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place." This is the raw power of God, brothers and sisters. Here Micah is using anthropomorphic language to describe God and His wrath to His audience. Anthropomorphic, that's a $500 word. What does that mean? God is using words that we can understand. He's drawing a picture for us. As we read this, we have to understand that God is coming. That part is literal. But when he comes, he's not going to have a giant foot that steps on a mountain. That's the image that Micah gives us so that we understand just how powerful God is. Just how amazing God is. We can't really fathom how powerful and how dismaying God is when he comes in justice. Remember that Israel is intimately familiar with their idols, pretty much only. They're comfortable with the idols that they control. Their gods never show destructive power. They just sit there in their little shrine, and they're really easy to take care of. All you have to do is give them a little food offering once a day, and then later on you can come back and eat that. That's an easy god to take care of, an easy god to worship. They don't have to worry about that guy, that idol coming down and stepping on mountains and flattening them. So Micah's message to the people of Israel is really a terrifying one. A powerful message of a God who is coming in anger that cannot be controlled, that cannot be contained. This is a God who cannot be appeased. So in contrast to the idols that Israel knows and loves, Micah describes a God who's on the move. He's leaving his place. In verse 3, he's coming from heaven to walk among his people. Remember for a minute the story of the golden calf back in the Exodus. Moses goes up on the mountain to talk to God. They can see the lightning. They can see that something is happening up there on the mountain. But they forget so fast and they turn to Aaron and they ask for a God, an idol, who they can worship. People of Israel wanted a God who walked among them, who they could touch, who they could stand in front of, and they could see a powerful image of just how depraved they were, just how sinful they were. They didn't want a God who was in heaven, who was ruling them through Moses. Remember the result of that? God came down and he struck them down. He sent judgment on them. That was the result of wanting a God that you can touch and feel. That's what Israel got. A God who came down and rained down destruction on them. Now God is coming in much the same way that he did after the golden calf. He's coming down to be with his people, and he is coming in all of his fearful might. He's coming from heaven, and the earth cannot stand before his awesome power. Now we don't have mountains around here, but we've all seen travelogues. Most of you have probably been on vacation to mountains. I met my wife near the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, and those are big. They're giant. You look up and you realize that you probably couldn't climb that in a day if you wanted to. It would take a couple weeks for me for sure. That's how big the mountains are that God has created. And now he comes and he steps on them and they're flattened. Imagine the amount of force that it takes to level a mountain. What has that destructive power? Hurricanes can't flatten a mountain. Earthquakes can rumble a few rocks off, but they're not going to level a mountain. The only one who can truly show this kind of power is God. So what do we take from this description? What do we say? Do we sit back in our pews here and say, oh, thank goodness God is on our side. We don't have to worry, right? We don't have to worry because God's on our side. Brothers and sisters, we cannot grow too comfortable with our God. We should never assume that we are free from the sin of idolatry. We should never assume that we are free from rebellion. We are God's creatures. We sin against him, and we deserve justice, pure and simple. This is a warning for us. God came for Israel to judge, and God came to Judah in judgment as well later. We should look at these examples of divine justice. We should tremble. We serve a God who will not be replaced by anything. We serve a God who created, and he can destroy what he created. Now, brothers and sisters, as we think about this powerful God, we need to examine our lives. Do we serve God the way we need to, the way we should? We often serve idols without realizing it, really. I think as we gear up for this election, we see this over and over. I'm not going to talk politics, don't worry. But this is something that I see every election cycle. No matter what party you're in, you think that your leaders are the answer. You think that the government is the answer. As long as we just elect the right people, we can fix our country. We can have a powerful country again. Brothers and sisters, too often we worship our nation. We put our trust in a government that can be toppled in an instant by God. God is the leveler of mountains. He controls everything down to who wins a popular vote. how long a politician lives. He controls everything. We shouldn't put our trust in the political arena. We should trust in God, that he will do what is best for us and that he is a just God and the king over all of his creation. But that's only one thing. We look at our lives and we see idolatry over and over. If you really think about it, we often trust in money, in entertainment, in success, in the lives that we've built. One of these that has really struck home to me as I've gotten older, as I've been in seminary for longer, is using entertainment as an idol. When I was a teenager, I loved watching movies way more than I loved going to church. I was a movie fanatic. I could pretty much just sit there in a movie trivia night or something and I could pretty much win every time. Over time, I realized that that was my way of escaping. Escaping sin, escaping pain, escaping the thoughts that would crop up, am I really following God the way I should? Every time I had a sobering thought like that, I'd pop in another movie, pop in another TV show. This is something that pops up so often. We rely on these things to numb us, to keep us from thinking about what truly matters. Our sin, the justice of God and our Savior. And we think of the other things, money, success, the lives we've built. So often we put this above God. It's more important than serving and following God. The real root of all this, though, is self-idolatry. Every time we sin, We are putting ourselves up as God. We're saying, who am I going to follow here? God who's laid down his law says we need to act in a certain way, or am I following myself? Who's God here? When we follow ourselves, we are saying we are God to ourselves. It might not be as visible as carving an idol out of a log and worshiping that, but that's what we're doing. We're serving ourselves. So, brothers and sisters, as you examine your life this week, remember this, though. We serve a God who is coming. The Lord is coming, and if your trust is in your material belongings or your comfort or your entertainment, God will bring judgment on you. God will bring justice. God is not mocked. You're probably like, who's this kid coming in here and just preaching justice, judgment? This is the word of Micah. This is not just my opinion. First and foremost, God is a just God. Now it's good, it's necessary to talk about how God is a loving God, how God is a forgiving God, how God brings grace to his people. But first we need to get this. God is a just God. He will forgive, but He won't just let you slide. He won't just let sin slide. Now we come to our third point, and we're really going to unpack this. Before we move to forgiveness and peace and grace, we're going to unpack the judgment on Israel. This is, again, the northern kingdom. In verse 5, we really see this start. He says, for all this, for the transgressions of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? The northern kingdom. Is it not Samaria, the capital city? And what is the high place of Judah, the southern kingdom? Is it not Jerusalem, the capital city of that? Therefore, I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards." In this set of verses, we see him addressing both Samaria and Jerusalem, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah through their capital cities. And Micah asks, what is the sin of Jacob? What is the sin of Israel? It's Samaria, the capital city, the hub of the nation. It's the concentration of rebellion that is found in Samaria, the rulers who are found there, leading by example, leading their people in idolatry. What is the sin of Judah, the southern kingdom? What is the high place of Judah and really of all the house of Israel? It is Jerusalem. Now, the language of high places is really a fascinating little detail here. Here, Micah, by using this is reminding us of the idolatry that we see in Israel. High places are the altars that were built to false gods. And of course, we've seen this imagery already in verse three, you know, for behold, the Lord is coming out of his place and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And then in verse 4 we see, of course, these are mountains, but the language of high places is a pun. It's wordplay. He's saying, yes, he'll tread on the mountains, but he's also going to tread on the altars that you use to serve false gods. How ironic that God is going to come down in power, and yes, he's going to step on mountains, but he's also going to step on the false gods. He's going to show them who's really divine. These high places, though, that highlights the sin of Jerusalem. Jerusalem has become an altar to a false god, a corruption of the worship of Jehovah. As the people of Judah turn to Jerusalem, they don't turn to Jerusalem as the holy city of God. They turn to it as a place where they can satisfy their cravings. where they can serve idols, where they can serve their own pleasure. Well, in verses 6 and 7, we see Micah focus powerfully on the coming judgment of Samaria. He says, therefore, I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations. All of her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, and all of her wages shall be burned with fire. All of her idols I will lay waste. From the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return." This is the applied judgment of God. This is not language that is supposed to help the people of Israel understand what the power of God is. This is concrete language. This is Him actually coming down and laying waste to the cities and to the strongholds of Samaria, of Israel. First, he promises the destruction of their cities, their walls, and their foundations. Judgment would come to the cities of Samaria in the destruction of everything they built and everything they trusted in. Their wealth, their comfort, their strength would be wiped out. They would not have a single wall to hide behind. Here God is making the point that He is more powerful. He's more powerful than the idols, of course, but He's definitely more powerful than the walls that the Israelites build. They trust in these walls. But God shows them, no, they're really weak when you think about the power of the Creator coming in anger. Now, along with this, we see the idols and the marks of false worship would be decimated completely. Not only is God more powerful than the rebellious humans and their walls, but he's also infinitely more powerful than the false gods made by human hands. Even saying more powerful is a bit of an ironic way of saying it because these false gods, they're literally logs, stones. Pieces of material that have been shaped, they have absolutely no power. Not only is God more powerful than these men, but he's more powerful than their weak statues. We see this, of course, in the eventual fate of Israel. In 2 Kings 17, we see Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, coming and taking the people of the northern kingdom into exile. They march off into captivity, into slavery, because of what they did. God says, where are your gods? All gods made by men are useless. paid for by the wages of sin, by the wages of a prostitute. How shameful it is that their idols, their temples, their way of worship was paid for by adultery. God says, you got these idols shamefully and it's going to return to a shameful end as well. We see the folly and the end of idolatry clearly in the New Testament as well. In Galatians 6 we see this, God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. God is not mocked and he has never been mocked. The Israelites tried to replace God with their own strength, their own rebellion, but God mocks them. This warning is to us today too, not to trust in our own strength, not to trust in our own comfort, but to look in fear to God, the powerful creator, the just judge. Now, as we mentioned before, this is only the very first part of the story, and the next sermon that I preach here will get even more into the grace, the compassion of God to His people. But we see here in the book of Micah cycles of sin, judgment, forgiveness, and grace. That's our comfort. Micah doesn't just leave us with, oh, God is coming to destroy you. He's coming to judge you. You should have behaved. Everything is lost. Oh, well. Micah leaves us with a word of hope. Those passages we read earlier, Micah points forward to Christ, the one who comes, the one who saves, the one who has mercy on his people. God requires his people to turn to him in fear and trembling. Brothers and sisters, this is the first Sunday that I've been with you, so I don't know the makeup of your congregation. And I'm assuming a good many of you are Christians, probably most of you. Many of you have served God for the entirety of your lives. Some of you may have even just been recently converted. But the gospel here today is to both those who have been Christians for a good long time, who have known God and walked with God for their whole lives. And the gospel is to those who don't know him yet, who are trapped in their sin, who feel like they just cannot escape this guilty burden that they carry. That is the Christ, that is the forgiveness that Micah is prophesying about. There's always hope. To those of you who are already saved, who recognize your total dependence on Christ, your Savior, rejoice, brothers and sisters, rejoice in the fact that God chose you. God has pulled you like a brand from the fire. Despite the way you lived without anything in you that made him choose you God chose you Loves you cares for you God sent you grace when you didn't even deserve it. It's amazing. Isn't it brothers and sisters? God's grace is a wonderful thing but God's grace is also there for those of you today who do not know him and Maybe you feel the weight of sin bearing down on you. Maybe you don't. Maybe you haven't been convicted yet of your sin. Hopefully, this sermon has been a bit of a wake-up call. We need to understand that when we are living without Christ, we are living in idolatry. But when we're living in sin without Christ, all it takes is turning to God and pleading with Him, Lord, save me. Save me, send your grace because I surely cannot save myself. And of course, we know that the Christ who is prophesied in this book came down from heaven, walked among us. He sacrificed his life. He shed his blood. so that we could be saved. Each and every one of us have sinned in word, thought, and deed, enough that we deserve death and hell. Each one of us deserves to see God coming down in judgment. But thankfully, Christ is our hope. Christ is our lifeline. Turn to God, brothers and sisters, turn to God, depend on him, pray that he will save you and he will love you. If you turn to him, he will not cast you out, he will not ignore you. God delights to save his creation. God delights to save those who turn to him. This doesn't mean, when I say turning to him, that doesn't mean that you have to get your life in order. It doesn't mean that you have to learn how to be perfect, and then God will save you. No, brothers and sisters. All it takes is turning to God in fear, saying, I need your help. I don't deserve your help, but I need it. Please send your son. And He will forgive. He will comfort your hearts. He will bring you peace. So brothers and sisters, as we close here today, let me leave you with this word. We are called to repent. Look to the power of God over Israel, but also look at His power to redeem, to save, to restore and to comfort. Turn to God in fear, yes, but also turn to him in hope, in repentance. When you see idolatry in your life, in whatever form it crops up in, turn away from it, reject it, repent of it, but also turn to Christ. Trust in the one whose blood is not useless. Trust in Christ, the Son of God, who is not handmade. Trust in Christ, whose coming guaranteed his people hope and forgiveness, whose blood washes away our sins and gives us peace. Let's pray. Dear God, we turn to you. After hearing about the sin and the judgment and the justice on your people, we turn to you in fear. We know that each of us is unworthy. But Lord, we thank you so much for sending your son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us, who comes to be our shepherd, who comes to comfort us, to love us, to forgive us, to cast our sin into the very depths of the sea where he cannot see it any longer. Dear God, we thank you so much for your mercy and for your grace. I pray, Lord, that you would help us in this week to live as those who are saved, to turn our backs on the idols that we love and that we cherish, and to turn to you, our Savior. We pray this, Lord, in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.