Have you turn to Micah, chapter 1, right after the book of Jonah that we dealt with last week. Micah. There are seven men mentioned in Scripture by the name of Micah, only one of which was a prophet, Micah the Moresbite, who is mentioned in Micah and he's also mentioned in Jeremiah. We'll turn later to Jeremiah 26.18. He's mentioned there. Also in this book of prophecy that goes by his name, we'll see a lot about him here. The name Micah means who is like Jehovah. It's a good name, right? A good name for a preacher. Micah prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah according to verse number 1. Micah 1 once is the word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Moresphite, and the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem." Now, we see that he's called the Morishite because he was a native of an area near Gath called Morisheth, which is about 20 to 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. Now, Micah's prophecy Of course, Micah was a younger contemporary of Hosea and he was also a contemporary of Isaiah, just to give you that. But Micah's prophecy was to the people of Israel and to the people of Judah. Now, this differed from the prophet Isaiah who called the kings of Judah to ask for their habit of looking to Egypt. He called them to task over that and the kings of Israel, he went to task against them for looking to Assyria for help. They were to look to the Lord. And we know that their case was they looked for the earthly help instead of the heavenly help. Micah, on the other hand, we see denounced the depravity of the nation. He denounced the depravity of the nation and prophesied the vengeance of God if they failed to repent. So he actually was to the people, not just the kings. He spoke to the people. Isaiah prophesied to royalty, to the kings, but Micah prophesied mostly to the common people. Isaiah frequented the courts of kings. But Micah was a simple and very unsophisticated country boy from an obscure town. And the political situation during Micah's prophecy is described in 2 Kings, and we're not going to turn there tonight. You might want to write that down and read it so you'll understand his prophecy, where he's coming from better. But it's 2 Kings 15 through 20, talking about the whole chapters. And that's the reason why we're not going to go over there tonight and look through all that. 2 Kings 15-20 and 2 Kings 26-30. Let me summarize for you. King Ahaz had set up pagan idols in the temple. And finally, he just nailed the temple doors shut. You know the Lord didn't like that. Four different nations harassed Judah. Well, after Ahaz was done, when Hezekiah became king, the nation began a slow road to recovery and economic strength. And it's believed by many scholars, based on Micah's hometown, that he was more than likely a poor farmer. He could identify with the common people. He accounts for his identification with the common people because he was one. Micah stands out as a preacher who stood with the poor and oppressed. He regarded selfish luxury and oppression of the poor as the crowning sins of Judah. And the people were being heavily taxed because of the Assyrians. The Assyrians were demanding large payments of tribute to satisfy their lavishness. And the reason why the Assyrians had them under the thumb was because of their sin. If they could get back to the Lord, they wouldn't have that problem anymore. And because of the demands from the poor, and because of the idolatry going on, Micah was called and empowered to declare the judgment of God We're going to take a look at some verses right now. Look at Micah 3 and verse number 8. Micah 3, verse number 8. He says here, Micah said, 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 and to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equities." He's talking to the heads of the tribes here. He was talking not only just to the people, but also to the princes, the heads of the tribes that were part of the problem. Verse number 10 says, They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. In other words, these folks were all about money. They were nothing about truth. Nothing about righteousness. Look at what it says, Yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, is not the Lord among us? They would make a false statement like that. And they would say, none evil can come on us. I mean, we're the Lord's people and there's no evil going to come on us. Well, you're not living right. Look at verse 12. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field. I know a little bit about that. And I think he knew it too. We used to plow our fields. And to get rid of all the stuff that you didn't want in your garden, you had to plow the weeds. There were a lot of weeds that needed to be plowed. He said, for your sake be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. So we see He was calling on them. He was calling out their sin. He was talking about the judgment that God was going to bring. Micah was a man of strong convictions. He was obviously a man of courage as a true preacher. He uncovered sin and he pointed to the coming of Messiah as we'll see here in a minute. As a prophet, he went against the stream of many of the prophets of his time, and he uttered truths that the people did not want to hear. As you read through here, you'll find that there were some false prophets, and they would tell people what people wanted to hear. Well, he wasn't that way. It's what thus saith the Lord. That's what he was about. What thus saith the Lord. And because of that, He was stoned, which is the usual lot of a faithful prophet. Now the key verse is Micah 6 and verse number 8. This is the key verse of this book. He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly, with thy God. And we'll talk more about that here in just a little bit. But let's examine the prophet Micah tonight. First I want us to see Micah's message. Micah predicted the fall of both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. He predicted both falls. And both falls did take place. We know that the northern tribes fell to Assyria. The southern tribes fell to Babylon. And this was God's discipline upon His people, actually showing how much He cared for them. You know, when I was growing up, my parents would discipline me. I failed to see the love. Now that I'm growing up, I see the love. Amen? And they did it because they loved me. And when you discipline a child, you do it out of love because you want them to grow up right. And so God also disciplines His people because He cares too much to leave them in their sin. God loved His people too much to leave them alone in their sin. That's what they thought they would have liked for Him to do. Just leave us alone, God. But if God had left them alone, Sin can be the results of sin without the Lord even intervening. It can bring about a chastening in your life unlike anything else. Sin is bad for you. It just really is. We see here the message, Micah's message. I want to give you a three-fold message here. First of all, back to Bethlehem, Micah 5 verse 2. We talk about this verse during Christmas a lot. Verse number 2 says, But thou, as a prophecy related to Bethlehem and Christ being born there, but thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, 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. What he wanted them to do is get back to the messianic hope. They had taken their eyes off of the fact that a messiah was going to come one day. They didn't have their eyes affixed there. This goes back to King David who did so much for the nation and to whom God promised that He would raise up the Messiah who would reign in Israel's coming golden age. And that golden age is still to come. It's called the millennial reign of Christ. During the thousand year literal reign. That's what the Bible teaches and that's what we believe. I know that there are folks who try to spiritualize it and try to make it something that it's not. I just believe the way that God gave it and the way that the Bible says it. So they needed to get back to Bethlehem. They needed to get back to looking for Messiah. They needed to get back to ethical righteousness. And that's what chapter number 6. Look at chapter number 6 and verse number 8. Chapter 6, verse number 8. He has showed the old man what is good and what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. Micah brushed aside all the former religious ritual in favor of a three-fold righteousness given by God. Having a heart for others and for God. He wanted them to do justly. In order for you to do justly, your heart's got to be right. It just has to be. If your heart's not right, you're not going to do justly. You're going to do wickedly. That's what they were doing. They were doing wickedly. He wanted them to do justly. He wanted them to love mercy. They were not merciful in their care for those that were poor. They just weren't. If the Lord was in direction of their life, they would be merciful to those people. The Lord will have mercy on those that are merciful. That's part of Christ's Beatitudes. And we know that that is the case. And he said to walk humbly with God. Well, you're not going to walk with God with sin in your life. You're just not going to. And so the key to all of this was righteousness. A righteousness based on God's salvation that changes one's heart. And that's what's still needed today. We need a salvation that changes the heart. People are not going to change until God brought that change in the heart. And so this is what he was saying. The righteousness based on salvation that changes one's heart is what he was looking for and what God was looking for. And then to flip back to Micah chapter 4 and verse number 1 through 3 here. And we see not only back to Bethlehem, back to ethical righteousness, but here we see in this chapter and in chapter number 5, back to the Prince of Peace. Look at verse number 1. And he looks toward the last days. He says, but in the last days, It shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And that's what will happen when Jesus sits on the throne there in Jerusalem. It says that many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, For the law shall go forth out of Zion. Zion is just another word for Jerusalem. And the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. That's a play on words with the Hebrew. A Hebrew repetition. And then verse number 3. And He shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks A nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." Now, that's when true peace is going to come about. When the Prince of Peace is on the throne, Micah preached a message that the reign of Messiah was Israel's only true hope of peace. And it still is. They can have all the peace talks they want to. They can have all the presidents try to talk Israel into the concessions to try to have peace with Hamas and with Iran and whatever they want to do. They're not going to afford peace that way. All it's going to do is it's going to increase the pressure against Israel, and Israel needs to look for the coming of the Prince of Peace. Look at Micah 5, verse number 2. And where we just read verse 2, let's pick up in verse number 3. Verse 2 talks about that Christ would be born, that Messiah would be born there in Bethlehem. Really, one thing about verse number 2 there, it speaks of His preexistence. The preexistence of the coming Prince of Peace, whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting. He's God. There's deity right there. Look at verse 3. Therefore will He give them up until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord and the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall abide. For now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrians shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men. They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with the entrances thereof. Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land, when he treadeth within our borders, and the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, and as the showers upon the grass that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men." Now, all that talk of what was going to happen with the Assyrians, I believe all that takes place there at the Battle of Armageddon. You've got really not just the Assyrians. The Assyrians were known as being oppressors. Well, in that end time, the whole world is going to be oppressors. And so the Assyrian is talking about the great oppression, and that's why Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh, because Assyrian was so oppressive against the people of God. That's why last week we saw that. Now, here it's talking about, I believe it's looking forward to that time when the whole world will come with that same fierceness, of Assyria against the Lord, and the Lord is going to take care of that. Now, the Messianic predictions form the most significant passages in Micah. And of course, as I said, we know that the only true hope of Israel's peace is the Messiah, and we know that that's the only true hope of world peace as well. I think it's been many years since I ever watched a beauty gadget. But you know, they would ask the contestants, what do you want? And inevitably, somebody would say, I want world peace. I want world peace. Well, you know what? It's not going to come. It's not going to come until Jesus comes back. And it's not going to come until He sets up His kingdom there in the millennial reign. And so it's not only Israel's hope, it's the hope of the world. Now we see not only Micah's message, but we see Micah's legacy. Hold your place here. Let's turn to Jeremiah 26. Jeremiah 26. And we see him mentioned here. Jeremiah 26. Two verses here, verses 18 and 19. It says in verse 18, Micah the Morphite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Zion shall be plowed like a field, We read that, right? And Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountains of the house as the high places of the forest. Did Hezekiah, king of Judah, and all of Judah put him to death at all? What we see here is Jeremiah is basically on trial. He's on trial. And somebody came to his defense and said, wait a minute, back when Micah preached, They didn't take Micah's life. They put him to death. Look at verse 19 again. Did Hezekiah king of Judah put him at all to death? Did he not fear the Lord and besought the Lord? And the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them. Hezekiah got the kingdom turned around. He got them to repent. And it went well for them. Thus might we procure great evil against our souls. If we fail to turn, it's not going to be good for us. So anyway, I just want you to see his legacy there. But the most outstanding incident in Micah's prophetic career was his preaching which led to the Reformation under Hezekiah. Some call it Reformation. Some call it Revival. When King Hezekiah and the people repented, God turned from the fierceness of His anger. Hezekiah's good reign helped postpone Judah's punishment. It was still to come. It still came, but it came not during Hezekiah's years, but after his. Now we see Micah's power. We read that in Micah 3, verse number 8. where he said, but truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. Micah was chosen as God's messenger to the people and the secret of his power was the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his life. And in the book of Micah, penned, is characterized by deep spirituality, and it's a very simple style when you read through it. And let me encourage you to read through it sometime this week. But we see Micah's power there with the power of God. That's how he was able to stand and preach the way he did. And we see Micah's boldness. Now listen, the Spirit of God will give you that boldness. Sin and corruption the sighing and agony of the people over the misrule of men and authority, all these heads of the tribes and all, looking out for number one, how they could make the best money. That's what they were all in about. And so all of that and the insistence on return to God were all dealt with in no uncertain terms. He said, you've got to return. Return to the Lord or you're going to pay. There are three parts to Micah's prophecy, each beginning with an admonition to hear and closing with a promise. The first admonition is there in Micah 1, verse number 2. Look at what he says here. Hear all ye people, hearken, O earth, and all that is therein. Let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple. So he called on them and really called them on the carpet for their sin. And notice that's a first admonition, but look at the first promise. If they were to do that, look at verses 12 and 13. He said, I will surely, chapter 2, verse 12, I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold. They shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up. before them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it. And their king shall pass before them and the Lord on the head of them." Micah's prophecy here focuses on two great events. Judas' return from captivity in Babylon and the great gathering of all believers when the Messiah returns. When Messiah returns, not for the rapture, but when He returns at the end of the tribulation period to set up His Kingdom, there can be a great gathering of of believers there. And God gave His prophets visions of various future events, but not necessarily the ability to discern when these events would happen. Remember, we talked about this. Some of you that have been with us for a while, they would see mountaintops. They would see God doing this, and God doing that, and God doing the other. They didn't see the valleys in between, the valleys of time in between. For example, they could not see the long period of time between the Babylonian captivity and the coming of the Messiah. It sounds like it goes right from one to the other. But they could clearly see that the Messiah was coming. And that's what's important. Where they failed at was they failed to keep looking for the Messiah as they should have. And when He came, they missed Him. When He came that first time, they missed out on Him. We need to keep in mind that the purpose of this prophecy was not to predict exactly how this would occur, but that it would occur. And this gave the people hope and helped them to turn from their sin. Let's take a look at the second admonition there in chapter number 3 and verse number 1. Look at what it says. It says, And I said, Here I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel. And that's there to tribal leaders. Is it not for you to know judgment? And in admonition, the leadership of the house of Israel was faltering, and he's calling them to get back to what they were supposed to be. We see the second promise over in Micah 5. Look at verse number 10. And this is when God rules in His eternal kingdom looking toward that day. It says in verse number 10, And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots, and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds, and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands. And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee, so I will destroy thy cities, and I will execute vengeance and anger and fury upon the heathen as such as ye have not heard." So, listen, when God rules in His eternal kingdom, Our strength will not be found in military might, but in God's almighty power. You know, when the Lord comes back, when you read that passage here in Revelation 19, the Lord comes back. All He does is speak words. He destroys the enemy with the words of His mouth. We're coming back with Him. Well, we don't have to fight. He's doing it. He will destroy all of the weapons that people use for security. There will be no need for armies because God will rule. Our hearts should not be ruled by fear of invasion or nuclear attack. I know a lot of folks are shaking in this time in which we live. about what might happen. But our confidence should be in God. Yes, something bad might happen, but it's in God's hands. And you're not going to change it. If God does it, you're not going to change it. You might as well just say, look, I'm not dependent on the Son of the Lord. So we see now the third admonition in chapter 6, verses 1 and 2. Chapter 6, verses 1 and 2 here. the third admonition, Hear ye now what the Lord saith. Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath a controversy with his people, And he will plead with Israel. Now we see here that Micah pictures a courtroom. God called to the mountains to confirm the people's guilt. The mountains would serve as excellent witnesses for it was in the high places that people had built pagan alters and had sacrificed to false gods. But let's look at the third promise. the final promise there at the very last there from Micah 7 verses 18-20 as we wrap this thing up. It says, Who is a God likened to Thee that pardoneth iniquity? and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us, He will subdue our iniquities, and Thou wilt cast all their sins to the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old." And that comes when seeing Him whom they pierce, they repent. They repent. That's the third promise there. So if you want a quick outline of the book, and we're close with this, chapters 1 and 2 are regarding the trial of the capitals. Talking about Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, and Samaria, the capital of Israel. And the trial of the capitals, he lays out where they have gone wrong. And then the trial of the leaders. Again, that's the tribal leaders. who the people looked up to, the heads or princes of Israel and Judah. And that's in chapters 3 through 5. And then the trial of the people there in chapters 6 and 7. Let me encourage you again to read this prophecy in its entirety and let the Lord speak to your heart. That's our Bible study for this evening. We'll set that aside, pull back out our prayer list, we'll pray for the needs, and we'll be dismissed with this prayer.