with the first point, the background to Micah, the who, what, when, and where of Micah. And so the book of Micah, very helpfully, starts with a very short prelude that helps us understand when, where, and why Micah prophesied. And so we come to Micah 1.1. And this is what really my text is for this morning is Micah 1.1. and 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. So as we look at just this first verse, the introduction tells us three important things. It tells us who the author of the book was, it tells us what the historical setting of the book was, and it tells us who the recipients of the book were in that order. Author, time, and recipients. And the final compiler of the book, the scribe, whose job it was to care for the scriptures, he knew that to understand this book well, we needed to tie it to its historical context. We needed to understand who wrote the book and why they were writing the book so that we could understand what the story was about well. And so I want to look at these three things that are described to us in the first verse. And we'll start with the historical setting. So Micah was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah living about 700 years before the birth of the Messiah. I'm sure many of you are very familiar with those words because we say them every year at Bethlehem Revisited. Micah was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah living some 700 years before the birth of the Messiah, especially any of you who have guided or perhaps the prophet Micah himself who's here somewhere this morning. And this is exactly right. The first verses of Micah tell us that Micah was a prophet during the reign of three kings in Judah, specifically Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah. And this is the same time period in which Isaiah prophesied. Micah may actually have been slightly before Isaiah. And so the end of Micah's ministry probably overlapped the first half of Isaiah's ministry. But they're prophesying during the same time, and especially with the beginning of Isaiah's ministry, prophesying about the same things. He was also a contemporary of the prophet Hosea, who was prophesying in the northern kingdom near the beginning of Isaiah's ministry. And so all three of these prophets have some similarities. But the thing about this time period is this period in which Micah was a prophet was a time of turmoil. But to understand Micah, first we need to step back before we get to this time of turmoil and understand what happened before. The dawn of Micah's ministry coincides with a period of peace and prosperity in both the northern and the southern kingdoms. And so right before Micah shows up on the scene, we have Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam II, the king of Israel. And both kingdoms had peace from their enemies. And both kingdoms grew in prosperity and wealth. It was a good time. in the Kingdom of Israel. In fact, both Jeroboam and Uzziah were some of the longest reigning kings in Israel and Judah. But during this time of prosperity and peace, the people did not seek after God. They did not embrace the covenant. Instead, a wealthy class rose up that oppressed the poor. They refused to deal justly. They won their riches by trampling on the poor, and they served the gods of the people around them. And so to many, especially those in the upper classes, the land appeared to be experiencing the best of the blessings of God. but they were completely disregarding his covenant and despised his rule. And so Uzziah and Jeroboam and the periods of time that they were under were periods of peace. But after the periods of peace, the Assyrians appeared on the scene. And so God had promised to bring an agent of judgment against the people. The prophet Amos had prophesied during the time of Jeroboam. And Amos 3.11 says, therefore, thus says the Lord God, an adversary shall surround the land. and bring down your defenses from you and your stronghold shall be plundered. God had promised your rejection of me will end in destruction. And that adversary appeared in the people of Assyria. The Assyrians came out of the north and they quickly captured the northern half of the kingdom of Israel, the land of Gilead and Galilee and Naphtali. And that's the first thing we read this morning as we started in 2 Kings 15 was the Assyrians come and capture the half of the northern kingdom. But for a time, the Assyrians stopped their advance, and both kingdoms endured, but they endured under the continual threat of a continued Assyrian invasion. And it's at this point that Micah appears on the scene. So both kingdoms endured, but the appearance of God's agents of wrath did very little to change the hearts of the people. Now, the first king of Judah mentioned in Micah, that is, Jotham, was a good king. He was a godly king who ordered his ways before God, according to 2 Chronicles. So, the king of Judah was good, but the people didn't follow after their king. So, 2 Kings 15.35 says, Nevertheless, the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. We have a godly king arise, but the people don't follow after him. And that's the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom continued following after their ways and their practices, did not care what God had said. But then after Jotham, Ahaz reigned in Israel. He was a man of the people and a very ungodly king. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He sacrificed to the gods and the nations. He even sacrificed his own son to the god Moloch. And Ahaz did not trust in God to save Judah, but instead when Syria and Israel came against Judah, he went to the Assyrians and said, you save us. We will become your vassals. And the Assyrians came. They attacked Damascus. They broke up the Israelite-Assyrian alliance that had come against Judah. But the northern kingdom still wasn't destroyed. The Assyrians came closer, but the northern kingdom still endured. But they became a vassal state to Assyria, and their king was placed under bondage. But the situation did not last long. Shortly into the rise of the third king mentioned, that is, Hezekiah, king of Judah, the kingdom of Israel rebelled against Assyria and the Assyrians returned and completely destroyed Israel. They destroyed Samaria and they carried the people away to captivity. And so the slow Assyrian invasion, they started to invade and then they stopped, they kept invading and then they stopped, and finally they destroyed Israel. That's the background of the prophecies of Micah. Micah is actually God's mouthpiece to describe the theological implications of the Assyrian invasion. The Assyrian invasion was not merely a chance political event in world history, but was God's action of judgment against the people who broke his covenant. And so we get to the who that Micah is prophesying to. Micah is prophesying in Judah and Jerusalem while the Assyrians get closer and closer to the city. They started out with their way in the northern part of Israel. They capture northern Israel. They capture a little more. Finally they've captured Samaria and all of Israel's taken over. And at the beginning of his ministry, Micah prophesies about this destruction, the destruction of Samaria. But in the last two oracles, Samaria has vanished and likely has already been destroyed. And so the first oracle is probably before Samaria falls, but the last two is probably after. And after destroying Samaria and tearing off the people captive, the Assyrians continued to come south. They weren't satisfied to take the northern kingdom. They said the southern kingdom will be ours too. They ravaged northern Judah as well and they surrounded Jerusalem. And there looked like there was little hope for the people of Judah. But Micah's ministry seemed to have an effect, because the third king, Hezekiah, was a different king. In fact, it says, there was no king like him who came after. In fact, there was no king even before who was like him, because he turned and sought the Lord their God. There was a short period of revival in the land of Judah, a return to the Lord their God. And so though the Assyrians came even to the very gates of Jerusalem, Hezekiah turned to seek God, and God intervened in a miraculous way to destroy the Assyrian invaders, which was the end of 2 Kings 19 that we read a few minutes ago. And so that's the backdrop of what's going on in Micah, this Assyrian invasion that's coming even to the gates of Jerusalem. And Micah is telling the people, what does this mean, and what should we do about it? And so now that we've got the historical setting, let's turn and look at the author. And who is Micah? What's he doing prophesying? And so the first verse doesn't tell us a lot about Micah, but we can draw three really important things out of the first verse about the person of Micah. Because we see his name is Micah, we see that he's a prophet, we see he's from Moresheth. And each of these details are actually very important. First, Micah was a prophet. We shouldn't overlook the first phrase of Micah. It says, the word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth. the word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth. The word of the Lord came to Micah. He was a prophet in every sense of the word, one who spoke the very words of God. God's spirit empowered and enlightened him somehow so that Micah could speak God's word with authority. So Micah's words are God's words. Micah's words are God's indictment against his people, God's warning of judgment and God's promises. to his people. Micah's a prophet speaking the Word of God. Actually, kids, if you're paying attention, this is going to be the kids' question for this week. Who is Micah? He was a prophet. And what does a prophet do? He speaks the Word of God. Those are incredibly significant statements, ones that sometimes we don't dwell on long enough. But then second, we see Micah was from Moresheth. Moresheth, or sometimes it's called Moresheth Gath, it's a small town that is near to Jerusalem. So it's in the north of Judah, and it was in the path of the Assyrian invasion. As the Assyrians came through Samaria and destroyed the city, and then they marched into northern Judah, Moresheth was in their way. Moresheth was probably destroyed. They probably sacked the town as they came and surrounded Jerusalem. And so Micah has a personal connection to the words of this prophecy. In fact, there's a connection we can feel in this book. Micah is going to wrestle with how to respond to God's words of judgment. For this, I will mourn and wail because the destruction has come even to the gate of my people. Micah sees the judgment of God come against Israel and Samaria. And standing back, he can say, yes, that's good. They have rebelled against God. But his judgment comes even to the gates of Jerusalem, even to his own town of Moresheth. Micah must wrestle with the meaning and the purpose of God's judgment. Why is God's judgment coming here? But then third, we see that Micah's name has a meaning. In fact, many names in the Hebrew language are full of meaning, and Micah's name is significant because its meaning embodies the question that Micah's wrestling with. Micah's name is literally a question. It's, who is like Yahweh, Micah? Who is like Yahweh? And that's what Micah wants to know. How could Yahweh come and destroy his people? How could Yahweh come and bring foreign invaders who did not know Him to dispossess those who were covenanted to Him? How could this be part of Yahweh's plan? Micah's prophecies are going to answer those questions. And it's going to show us who is like Yahweh. And so at the end of the verse, Micah's going to ask the question again. I'm sorry, at the end of the book, Micah's going to ask the question again. In chapter 7, we're going to finish the book and it's going to say, who is a God like you? Micah is going to understand at the end of his prophecies that God is God alone, that there is no God like Yahweh. But Micah's a book wrestling with that truth. Who is a God like Yahweh? And so that's the background. We have the Assyrian invasion, and we have a prophet who's experiencing that invasion, speaking out the word of God and wrestling with what that means for him and the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And so now we're gonna turn and look at his book. We're gonna do a quick overview of the book of Micah, and I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail, because we'll get this over the next two months as we go through it. But I'll do three things. First, I'll look at the organization, and then a theme, and then the outline of Micah very briefly. And so Micah's book is a series of oracles. An oracle is a spoken prophecy. Actually, as we go through the prophets, we see that the prophets do a lot of different things as they prophesy in God's name. But Micah's one type of prophecy, an oracle, a spoken prophecy. So Micah probably stood in Jerusalem or somewhere else public and he spoke the word of God, words of God out. And so Micah is speaking to the people of Judah. And there's actually a really clear organization to the book. The book is divided into three oracles. So probably there's a record of three times that Micah stood up and preached to the people the words of God. And each of the oracles starts with a specific word, a specific command. It says, here. Here. And so Micah 1, 2 says, here, 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. And so chapters one and two are the first oracle, starting with the word here. Pay attention. Then we come to Micah 3, 1, and it says, and I said, here. you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel. So we have a second oracle. It's in chapters three and four and five. But then we come to chapter six, verse one, and it says here. what the Lord says. Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. And so these three oracles, Micah 1 and 2, Micah 3, 4, and 5, and then Micah 6 and 7, those three oracles make up the book of Micah. And then there's a very brief introduction, which we just read, and a very brief conclusion at the end of the book. But each oracle follows roughly the same pattern. The oracle starts by proclaiming God's judgment against those who broke his covenant and proclaims that God is coming with destruction. Every oracle starts with an oracle of destruction. But after proclaiming destruction, each oracle moves to a promise of future restoration and salvation. So we start with destruction, moving to restoration. Now, the oracles aren't always balanced the same. The balance of judgment and promise is different in each oracle. In fact, the first oracle, you might overlook the promise because it's very judgmental until the very end there's a hope that there's a restoration. But they get more and more restorative as they go on. But each oracle contains both judgment and promise. And in fact, in the Book of Micah, judgment and promise are inseparable. Most of the promises that are made in Micah are rooted in judgment. They only find their glory and their purpose against the background of God's justice. Without judgment, there could not be promise in Micah. And so Micah joins the judgment of God and the promise of God and makes it one. It says, God's judgment is coming, but God's judgment will bring God's promise. And this is closely related to the theme of Micah. I've called the book of Micah, The Goodness of God's Judgment. In Micah, God proclaims the absolute destruction of both Israel and Judah. And during the time of Micah, Micah would have seen the absolute destruction of Israel. He didn't see the absolute destruction of Judah yet, but his oracles knew it was coming. Even if God would save them now, Jerusalem would be raked like a field with not one stone setting on top of another. And Micah wrestles with this truth. At points in the book, he cries out that he's weeping and moaning over the judgment that will come to his people because he knows their wound is incurable. But through both the explanations of judgment and then the promises of restoration, Micah begins to see that judgment is not only necessary, but judgment is good. Judgment is not only necessary to uphold God's character, but judgment is good. God's judgment will bring about God's purpose and God's people. And this is what we're going to look at as we study Micah. How is God's judgment good? How is God's judgment good? And in each section we're going to see that God's judgment is good. It brings about His purpose and it enacts His salvation. Who is a God like our God? No one. Micah's name means, who is a God like Yahweh? And his book concludes that there is no God like Yahweh. Who is a God like you? Micah is overwhelmed by whom God is because God is perfectly just but also infinitely gracious. How can such things be? Micah will show us that this is a God who works justice to bring about salvation. The glory of Yahweh is that his perfect judgment brings about his glorious salvation. God's judgment must come because apart from judgment there is no salvation. And so my outline of Micah this morning is going to be pretty simple. I'm just going to title the three oracles and we'll dive into the oracles as we get to our closer study of the book of Micah. We have a first oracle, which are chapters one and two. And in Micah's first oracle, we'll see that God's judgment is gracious. God's judgment is gracious. Judgment is proclaimed against the land, but such judgment ends with salvation. God is going to come and judge his people because the land is full of evil and oppression, but God will not completely abandon his people, but will save a remnant and deliver them from destruction. Then we get to a second oracle, Micah's second oracle, which is chapters three and four and five. We'll see that God's judgment is good. Now, I recognize I've already used the word good a lot. I couldn't think of a better word to put here. It's just good. God's judgment is good. It brings about God's purposes. God's judgment is going to purge the land of evil. It's going to bring restoration in the land. Even through judgment, a king is going to be raised up and established over the people of God. And then we come to a third oracle in Micah 6 and 7. In Michael's third oracle, we'll see that God's judgment is faithful. He keeps the promise of his covenant. God's people have failed to live in covenant with God. And God must destroy them. Can he forget all the sin that has been sinned against him? But though his people were faithless, God will remain faithful to his covenant. He will provide what was promised. The covenant will be restored. And so those are the three oracles. We'll see that God's judgment is gracious, God's judgment is good, and God's judgment is faithful. So at the end, we should join Mike and say, who is a God like our God? There is none like our God. And so this morning, I want to finish by turning to our last point and seeing the connections that happen in Micah, connecting Micah to the rest of the story. Where does Micah fit in the story of the Bible? And so Micah is one of the minor prophets. which are a section of the larger genre of writing prophets. And as we step back and look at the whole story of redemptive history, this is actually one of the major epochs of redemptive history, the writing prophets, the epoch of prophets. And one core thing that the prophets did was they looked back at what had happened, and they looked forward to what was going to happen. They looked back, and they looked forward. They looked back at what God had done before and they tried to understand it in light of God's covenant and God's promise. And then they looked forward to what God was going to do. And so I've said in the other context that the prophets are really the inventors of biblical theology. They tried to make the whole story make sense. What God did before, how does that tie to what God is going to do later? And so for our last point this morning, I want to join Micah in looking back and looking forward. How is Micah looking back at what had gone before? And then how is he going to turn and look forward to what will come? And so we're going to look at how Micah is connected to the older stories of the Old Testament, then look forward, how is Micah bringing us to the New Testament? So let's start by looking at Micah in the Old Testament. So the connection to Micah in the older stories of the Old Testament can be seen clearly in one of the core verses of Micah, and actually probably one of the few verses that most of you could pull out of Micah if I ask you to tell me something about Micah. So Micah 6, 8 says, he has told you, oh man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness. and to walk humbly with your God. So Micah says that God desired two things from his people. So listen to me for a second. Two things from his people. He desired justice and kindness. And then he told them how they were supposed to live in those. They did those by walking humbly with their God. They walked humbly with their God in doing justice and in loving kindness. But these words, we need to think about what these words mean because these two words, justice and kindness, actually underlay the whole story of Micah. Justice is the word Mishpat, and it's a word we studied before. If you remember, it's a while ago now, but try to remember back to Exodus. We studied this word a while ago. It means something like well-ordered. with the connotation that God's people live under Him in a well-ordered household. And so God is going to give judgments or justice and order to His people, and God's people live in that order. And so practically, we might say that it's trying to do the right thing by our neighbor. When we live in God's covenant, we act in the right ways towards our neighbor, which is the sense of justice that we're talking about. We're not talking necessarily about vindictive justice, getting the punishment to the crime, although that would be part of doing the right thing by your neighbor. But what we're looking at is, how do I live in the land in such a way that I'm doing right by each of my neighbors to uphold their claim in the land? And so, that's what Mishpat means. Now, chesed is also a word we studied before. The kindness or loving kindness or steadfast love. It's translated a lot of different ways. But the word is chesed. And it means something like covenantal love. Covenantal love. I will love you according to my covenant. But these two requirements, justice and loving-kindness or steadfast love, the Mishpat and Chesed have a rich history in Israel. They're words that are at the center of God's covenant. And so we'll start with Chesed. God's covenant was an expression of his steadfast love, his Chesed. In fact, the first commandment was founded on God's steadfast love. We can go to Exodus 20 verses 5 through 6. It says, You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love has said to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. steadfast love has said is the repeated word in the proclamation of God's name so we can come to Exodus 34 when Moses said stood on the mountain and the Lord proclaimed his name before me and said it says the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love has said Keeping steadfast love has said for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Since God had shown his steadfast love to Israel, and that is what the covenant is about, God showing covenantal love to Israel. Israel was to show covenantal love to each other. God entered into covenant with them. They must live in his covenant. And then Mishpat is the same way, justice. It's a word that's found at the core of the covenant. So again, try to remember back to Exodus. After the 10 words, God gave a long list of judgments or rules to Israel that described how they were to live in his land, the attitudes and actions that would constitute living in the covenant of God. And these words were titled, or these rules were titled with the word Mishpat, Exodus 21.1. Now these are the rules, the Mishpat, that you shall set before them. So understanding covenant love, the people of God should live in justice, in Mishpat, doing the right thing by their neighbors to show that we are the covenant people of God. Justice was at the heart of the covenant. God's people were to live as a well-ordered household under his rule. And so to do justice, to act in the right way towards your neighbor, would be a practical outworking of living under God's covenant. Justice would be the fulfillment of God's covenant in the people of God. And so the covenant of God is at the heart of Micah. God's people must be living according to God's covenant. That's the indictment that Micah makes. God's people must live according to God's covenant. But God's people have not lived in God's covenant. They have not been full of justice and kindness. Instead, they have been full of oppression and greed. They have grown rich. and done evil to their neighbors. The people of God's land are not living as part of God's covenant, and they must be thrust out of God's land. They must be destroyed because God's covenant must be upheld. Micah is an indictment against the people of God, claiming that they have failed to keep God's covenant. But God's covenant will not ultimately fail because God will keep his covenant. So God's people have failed to live in covenant, they must be destroyed, but God will still do what he promised. So Micah ends with a promise that the blessing of God's covenant will prevail, that God will pardon iniquity, he will pass over transgression, he will not remember his anger forever, but he will delight in steadfast love and faithfulness once again. And so at the heart of Micah is God's covenant with the house of Israel. How is this covenant going to be fulfilled? Because it's broken to pieces right now. What's God going to do about that? So that's looking back, Micah in the Old Testament. But now we'll look forward, Micah in the New Testament. So Micah is not often quoted in the New Testament, partially because there's only seven chapters. There's only so many verses you could possibly pull out of Micah to quote in the New Testament. But there are some clear connections between Micah and the New Testament, themes from Micah that permeate the New Testament. In fact, verbiage, words from Micah that uphold the New Testament. And so the first theme that we're going to look at this morning is the theme of purification. In Micah, God is going to come and purify his people through judgment. He's going to remove the evil from the land. The land has become full of evil and oppression, and God must come as a blazing fire to destroy that evil so that his land remains pure. And we see this in Micah 4 portrayed as God threshing the sheaves. He gathers his people and he threshes them to keep the grain and to throw away the chaff. He will purify his people and get rid of that which is worthless. So he says, but they do not know the thoughts of the Lord. They do not understand his plan. He has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. He will purify his people. Then we come to the New Testament, and the New Testament opens with these words from John the Baptist, Luke 3.17. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The story of the New Testament would be the ultimate and final purification that God had promised in Micah. The people must be purified in Micah. God's judgment must come. And the story of the New Testament would be the story of judgment that will destroy sin from among God's people and bring restoration to the land. God's judgment will purify. people. But then we'll look at a second thing. Micah is about a better king, the reign of a better king. God will raise up a better king in the midst of judgment to rule over his people in righteousness. And so we can just step through Micah. Micah 2 finishes by promising that there will be a king that will lead God's people out of judgment. Micah 2.13 says, he who opens the breach goes up before them. He's going to lead them out of the destruction. So he who opens the breach goes up before him, and they break through and pass the gate. Going out by it, their king passes on before them. The Lord is at their head. So there's a king that's going to lead them out of judgment, and then Micah 5 promises that a king will be raised up in the midst of judgment. But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are least among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth from me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose going forth or coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. And so then we can come to the New Testament again. The New Testament opens with these words from Micah, Matthew 2, 4-6. It says, Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people. The story of the New Testament will be the story of the king promised in Micah. In the midst of judgment, a king would rise up, a king would deliver his people, and a new shepherd would lead them into the land. And so Micah is behind the story of the New Testament. The story of the New Testament will be the story of purification. Sin must be destroyed. And the story of the raising up of a king, the land will be restored. And so we can easily connect Micah to Jesus. Jesus fulfills both of these things. In fact, both of these quotations that I just did in the New Testament are specifically about Jesus. Jesus was the king born in Bethlehem of Judea who fulfilled the promise of Micah. It says, this is Him. The promise of Micah is coming true in Jesus. And Jesus is the one, the judge who would come to purify God's people from sin. In fact, we can return to Luke 3 and see that very specifically this is talking about Jesus coming and threshing the sheaves and purifying his people. It says, starting in verse 15, as the people were in expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all saying, I baptize you with water. But he who is mightier than I is coming. The straps of his sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Jesus came to fulfill the themes of Micah. And so it should be no surprise that Jesus is actually the answer to all of Micah. Micah's wrestling with how God's judgment could possibly be good. Assuredly, it's necessary. We can all look at Scripture and say, God's judgment must come because He's a holy God. But how could it bring good to God's people? From Micah's vantage point, it must have seemed impossible. God, you're destroying your people. Where is this going? Yet God promised that His judgment would bring good to His people. And as we step to the New Testament, that's only because Jesus is able to reconcile God's judgment and God's mercy. It is Jesus who will bring great good to God's people out of God's judgment. And so the book of Micah is calling us to see Jesus at the center. He is the answer to Micah's question when he's saying, who's a God like you? Who's a God like you? How can you pardon iniquity and transgression in sin? The answer is in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God's judgment will purify a people for God. Through Jesus, God's judgment will restore the land and bring God's people back into the land. Through Jesus, God's judgment will set up a king over the people of Israel. And through Jesus, God's judgment will provide the covenant promises to the people of God. Micah is steeped in who Christ is. And so the final thing we'll do this morning is ask, how then do we connect Micah to ourselves? So I'm not going to do a lot of application this morning. This is an introduction, an overview sermon. And we're just doing a quick overview of the book. But I want to think about what attitude should we come to the book with? What should we be looking for as we read this book? How do we apply it to ourselves? And three things. So three attitudes that I want us to come. First, as we approach Micah, we should look for an exhortation. We should look for an exhortation. Micah is calling God's people to live in covenant with God. What does God require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? And we have been called to live in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. We're in much the same, not exactly the same, and I've taught on that in many other places, but we're in much the same position as the people of Israel were under Micah. We are in covenant with God, and so we ought to take these exhortations to heart. justice and kindness, mishpat and chesed ought to mark our lives because they mark God's character. So we should listen to the exhortations of the book. The book is going to call us to things, and we ought to say, yes, those are the things that ought to mark our lives. How can I run after these things that Micah's holding us up to? How can we apply them to ourselves as members of God's covenant? So come to Micah listening for an exhortation. How should we live in God's covenant? But then second, we should come to Micah to hear a warning. To hear a warning. Micah sternly warns God's people that those who fail to live in God's covenant will be completely destroyed by God. That's at the heart of Micah. God's going to come with complete destruction. And God's character hasn't changed since the word of the Lord was revealed to Micah. If we are members of God's covenant, we should take heed. Despising God's covenant can only lead to destruction. So take a warning. God will come with judgment. If we are found to not be in his covenant when he comes, not be living according to his covenant, we will be like the people of Micah's day and destroyed in the midst of God's wrath. So hear a warning and turn away from sin. And then, but third, then as we approach Micah, we should find a promise. Beyond exhortation and warning, Micah promises that God will be faithful to his covenant and he will provide salvation. And this is our hope and our rest. In the midst of exhortation and warning, we must take heed to the exhortation. We must listen to the warning. But amidst our failures, because we do fail, amidst our failures, we have something to cling to, the promise that was found in Jesus Christ. And so we come here in exhortation, here in warning, but rest in a promise. The Savior has come, the King has been raised up, and we can find mercy in Him. So this morning I was contemplating reading through the book of Micah, but we've been here a long time this morning. So I'm just going to encourage you, just sometime this week, gather your family together, read through the whole book of Micah. Take it for a family worship one night, or even this afternoon if you have time, read through the book of Micah. It's an excellent book. Just prepare yourself to hear it, read through it together. And we've read plenty of scripture this morning, so I'll leave it there, and we'll close with a word of prayer. Father, you are a just judge. You are the one who will come down from heaven with blazing fire to rend the mountains, to melt them before you, to make known your holiness and your power and your justice and your judgment. And Father, that is very good. Father, you cannot let sin persist in this world. Father, to do so would be a travesty. And so Father, we rejoice in your judgment. Father, as we look at Micah, we try to see how you were teaching us that your judgment must come, but your judgment is very good. But Father, we also come to Micah as those who have failed to live in justice and in kindness. Father, we are guilty as much as the people of that day were. And so, Father, we pray that Your judgment would come, but we pray that Your judgment would come in the person of Christ, that in Him we would be purified from our sins. Father, our sins must be destroyed, but please destroy them in Christ. Give us a new heart. Father, bring restoration through Christ that we might walk in newness of life in Him. Father, we pray that you would, through judgment, raise up Christ as our King, that you would give us hearts that desire to run after Him and to obey Him, to live in submission to what He has called us to. Father, I pray that you would find us in covenant through Christ, that in his blood we would be washed clean, and in his blood we would receive the promise. Father, that's our only hope, and I pray that Christ would be exalted and glorified as we study Micah together, that we might see him more for who he is, that our hearts might love him more as we see more of him. It is in Christ's name we'll pray. Amen. to open it up if there's any questions or comments or other discussion coming in. Yeah. So then three oracles, one per king, as far as the timing? Yeah, actually, that would be a good thought. But I don't think so. In fact, as we read the written prophets, one thing that we should probably recognize is the writings don't contain everything the prophets said. the writings probably contain, well, the writings definitely contain exactly what God wanted to be remembered through all generations. But Mike, as a prophet, probably didn't speak just these three things. And so he existed as a prophet for maybe some 40 years. But these three things summed up his prophecies, and were three prophecies that he spoke about that were recorded and contained in the word of God. But then, as to timing, I think the first one was probably during Jotham, before the fall of Samaria, because we see Samaria and Jerusalem referenced in the first prophecy. The second two, the only thing I can probably say about them is that they're probably after the destruction of Samaria, because Samaria never appears in the second two prophecies. The second prophecy talks about Jerusalem being raked like a field, being knocked down. And so as the Assyrians come, they surround the city. The city wasn't destroyed. And so if it was before that, the people might have thought, Micah is a false prophet. So there's at least some thought that it might have happened after that. The Assyrians leave and Micah keeps prophesying and saying, the Assyrians left. But listen, your failures in covenant will bring back a destroyer. This city will be destroyed through that. So that's my best understanding. My best guess is the first one was early, the second two were late. First one maybe in Jotham, the second two in Hezekiah. He obviously was there during Ahaz's reign. I'm not sure how that fits in. Anything else? Yeah. What were the sins of Jeroboam the son of Naboth that equaled the poster child? So Jeroboam the son of Naboth, so we go back, David, Solomon, has a son, Rehoboam. Rehoboam foolishly lost the kingdom, but also because God was judging. And Jeroboam set up the northern kingdom, rebelled, took 10 tribes from him. And so there are several sins that make up Jeroboam and why he becomes the poster child. One, he rebelled against the king. He was not placing himself under the rule of David and under the rule of David's son. Even though it was ordained and given by God, he was a character who rebelled against the king. But then second, as he set up this kingdom, not only did he rebel against his king, he ended up rebelling against his God. He looked at Jerusalem and said, You know what, if people keep going to Jerusalem and sacrificing to Yahweh, they're going to recognize they ought to be under the Davidic king. And so Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, he fashioned two calves. He set them up, one in Samaria and one farther north in a city that I'm not bringing up right now. But he said, don't go down to Jerusalem anymore. sacrifice to these two calves. And so he rebelled against the king, and he worshiped other gods. And so it's a character of those who are not in covenant with God who rebel against his covenant. And so then he becomes a poster child, the first and the greatest two who rebelled against God. Anything else? I'll turn it over to Dan.