And we're going to go to 1 Peter chapter one. 1 Peter chapter one in the New Testament. And then to Micah chapter one in the Old Testament. And let's stand for the reading and hearing of the word. 1 Peter chapter one, we're gonna read verses three through 12. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that not to themselves but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Things which angels desire to look into. We go to the Old Testament, and to read from one of those prophets, chosen men of God, moved by the Holy Spirit, to speak of the sufferings and glory of Jesus Christ that were yet to come, at least in the day of Micah. Micah chapter one, and we will read the first two verses. 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 all you peoples, listen, O earth, and all that is in it, that the Lord be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. The grass withers, the flower fades. The word of God endures forever. Well after our series on the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God and our salvation, we're moving back to the Old Testament and to the book of Micah. Looking at Micah chapter one, largely at verse one but some of verse two and three and really a scan tonight of the whole book in another sense, the message of the prophet Micah. Now this book that we've turned to in the Old Testament, Micah, perhaps needs some introduction for you. A former pastor of mine used to say that there are some books in the Bible, particularly in this section of the Bible, it was a section that he would say perhaps the pages of your Bible still somewhat stick together. You know when you get a new Bible and you have to fan it out and get those pages moving again and sometimes a few of them are stuck together. Well, sometimes we have the propensity, particularly when we get to this part of the scriptures, to either read quickly or sadly, more grievously, not read at all. And there are some reasons for that. In this part of the Bible, particularly in the minor prophets, We read things that we do not often immediately and readily understand. It takes some significant work to read here. There's imagery, there are references, there are references to situations and historical events. that sometimes don't appear at first glance. Either we don't understand them at all, or if we have some rudimentary understanding of them all, we find it difficult to see how they could possibly be relevant to my 21st century sophisticated scientific technological existence. And if Philip the Evangelist, like he did for the Ethiopian eunuch, if he were to jump into your car on the way to work, Not that he's going to do that, but to push the illustration and ask you, do you understand what you are reading? You might ask the question that the Ethiopian Eunuch Act, how can I understand unless somebody help me? Unless somebody help me. And there are a lot of ways that you can get help. to read the Scriptures. But one of the ways God has given you for help is also, not only has He given you the reading of the Word, but the preaching of the Word. And the Lord willing, this series will be of some help in understanding this book of Micah. But let me dig down a little deeper into reasons why perhaps we have difficulty understanding. It's an old book. The book of Micah, apart from other books of the scriptures, might well be older than any other book you've ever read. It's set in a very different time than the time in which we are living. And then not only that, it's not only a very old book, it captures a slice of the life of Israel, the history of Israel that Some commentators think he ministered for 20 to 25 years, others maybe up to 40 years. We're not sure, it's hard to tell, but it's a very narrow slice of a time a very, very long time ago. about 2,750 years ago. To put that into a little bit of perspective, some of you who like English literature, the oldest known work in English literature, Beowulf, is about 1,250 years old. More than twice as old, the Book of Micah. Now, the second thing, it's not only very old, its original hearers. It was not originally addressed to us. Matter of fact, Micah was preaching 2,750 years ago to the people of Israel, both the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom. In verse 1, he received a vision concerning Samaria and Jerusalem, and that's an Old Testament reference to the whole of Israel. But you and I don't live in Israel, and we don't have Direct knowledge, perhaps we will, Lord willing, as we study the book, we'll have better knowledge of the troubles of their day. But it certainly wasn't addressed directly to us in its original form. The Minor Prophets are short books, again, linked to unique and particular moments in Israel's history, and we are often unfamiliar with them. And it's hard for us to grab hold of their meaning. But then the third is that the parties actually listed here, Micah and Israel, they also are long gone. 2,700 or so years ago, they are also no longer living. And when you pile up all these questions, the question might come to your mind, why study this book? And that's the question we hope to answer tonight. Why study this book? And we will answer it from the book, from the word. And the Lord willing, by the time we have answered the question, you will be eager to read Micah and Obadiah, Nahum, Malachi, before you read anything else. You'll be hungry for the word of the Lord. Well, three things that we're gonna learn from Micah chapter one and verse one. And a little bit from verse two and three about why study this book, why study Micah. And the three things we're going to look at is first, because of its essential substance or character. This book is the word of the Lord. This book is the word of the Lord. It says so directly at the beginning, the word of the Lord that came to Micah. As a matter of fact, we just confessed a moment ago from our larger catechism that the way we begin to read the scriptures is with a high and reverent esteem and with a firm persuasion that they are the very word of God. The second reason. Because although it may not seem evident at first glance that this book was addressed to you, it is addressed to you directly. This is the word of the Lord, not generically, but specifically for the people of God in every age. Micah was prophesying by the power of the Holy Spirit with the edification of the whole church in every age in the mind of God. So number one, it's the Word of God. Number two, it's the Word of God specifically addressed to you. And then number three, because of its essential message, it is at its heart a proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ. It is a proclamation of the gospel in the shadow lands of the Old Testament. So let's unpack those three things from the text. First, it's an essential substance or essential character. This book is the word of the Lord. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of SETI. There's an institute in California called SETI, and there's a bigger movement. Now, the institute is in Mountain View, California. It's funded very, very generously by a lot of people in the tech industry. One of its founding board members was Carl Sagan, the cosmologist. And it employs, right now, about 130 scientists and staff. That's a lot of people, especially when you hear what this institute is intended to do. The name SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is a search, as a matter of fact, the purpose of this organization is to understand the origins and the meaning of the universe. And one of the principal tools to do so is to search for other intelligent life in the universe. And the way that people are doing this, interestingly, is with telescopes. radio telescopes and optical telescopes. And there's a few particular places where telescopes are used extensively for this search. In history, this search actually had its beginnings when radio waves were discovered, and people like, I think, Marconi and Tesla were inventing radio receivers, and they were starting to hear some strange signals. And they supposed, as a matter of fact, at the turn of the century, late 1800s, early 1900s, that maybe they were hearing Martians. I mean, this is serious, what people thought. Maybe they were hearing Martians, that there were signals from space coming in. And that is not what they were hearing. We know that now. But it hasn't stopped people from spending millions of dollars scanning the heavens and listening for anything that sounds different than background noise with the hopes that humanity might receive a message from heaven to explain the origin and purpose of the universe. This is actually a staggering insight into human nature, even though it wasn't intended to be, I think, when it was begun. Desperate for a word from heaven. Now turn to your Bibles. The word of the Lord that came to Micah. This word, inscripturated, written word, is the message from heaven in the medium that God has ordained to communicate divine truth to humanity in every age. The inscripturated and preached word. The book opens with its self-identification, its self-attestation. its own authoritative declaration that the contents therein are the Word of the Lord, Yahweh, the self-existent One, the covenant God of Israel, the God who delivered Israel through the Red Sea on dry land, who called Moses and told him, my name is, I am who I am, Yahweh, the Lord. That's the first statement. It's the Word of the Lord. And the second statement is that the word of the Lord came to a man, Micah of Moresheth. Now, who was Micah of Moresheth? What's a man and what were his times? Well, that Moresheth is his town. It's about 25 miles from Jerusalem. And we don't have a lot more detail about this. You know how you read on church websites, and I think there's a little bit on our website, so I might be undercutting our website, but maybe not. You know how there's now this interesting fascination that there's always a little blurb on every preacher that preaches, and you have to know what his dog's name is, and you have to know what his hobbies are, and all these details about the preacher. We don't have any details really about Micah. We know when he was ministering. We know the time period. We know some of his contemporary prophets. Isaiah was one of his contemporaries. We know that he's referred to other places in the scriptures, but we don't have an extensive biography. We have his hometown. But we don't know this about Micah, that this word of the Lord came to Micah. In other words, it sovereignly, as it were, intruded upon him. that he was given by divine appointment a message from the Lord. That this message came to the man and then through the man to Israel. And that this is God's, again, God's divinely appointed means of communicating with humanity. We have a man here whose function is to be a divinely chosen vessel to communicate the truth of God to humanity. And we're gonna see the scope of that communication in a few moments as we keep studying. A man who was an ordinary man, nothing more than an ordinary man. Similar to what Paul writes to the Corinthians, who is Paul and who was Apollos but minister, servants through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one. But at the same time, a man like Paul in Acts chapter 9, when Ananias is worried about going to see him, knowing that he was a persecutor of the church, the Lord says this, go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. A chosen vessel. So we have a man here, Micah, who's from the little town of Moresheth, who in the providence of God and the divine plan of God, the word of the Lord comes to him. And in that word coming, he becomes a vessel to carry communication from heaven to earth, from God to men. Now that was his function. His commission proper is not recorded in the scriptures, much like the commissions of other prophets. You think of Isaiah and Jeremiah, for example, Isaiah and Isaiah chapter six. But it is here, in other words, the very moment of his commission is not recorded, but here the fact of his commission is recorded in that the word of the Lord came to Micah, sovereignly imposed upon him. the same commission as all other prophets to take a message from the throne of heaven to the earth. Now, this is what we read about, particularly in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, we just read from 1 Peter, but we're going to read from 2 Peter for a moment. 2 Peter tells us, in chapter 1 and verse 21, that prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And here in the New Testament, Peter is explaining what has happened in the Old Testament with prophecy, that the Spirit of God brought the Word of God upon these men. Now, there's one more thing to note. He saw it. The word of the Lord came to Micah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. And there's a reference to the mysterious ways of God. It's a prophetic vision. He comprehends, he understands, he has insight into the purposes of God, and that's what he is communicating. And so there's no need for a desperate search for a message from heaven. The first thing you need to know about the book of Micah is that it is a message from heaven. You're holding it in your hands. Divinely inspired, prophetic utterance from heaven to earth, a reality, the word of the Lord. If we had no other reasons to study this book, this would be enough. As a matter of fact, already now, we should all be ashamed that we have not read it more often. more carefully and more diligently. It's not that we haven't, the Lord knows. But what I'm saying is that the characteristics of this message are that it is the word of the Lord, the inspired, infallible, inerrant words of God, not just words on paper, not just musings of a long-dead prophet to a long-lost people, but to us, the very word of the living God by the hand of a chosen vessel named Micah of Moresheth. This also is going to shape the manner of our study and the reason, it's a good reminder of the reason why we preach Lectio Continuum, sequential expository preaching. Because all scripture, the writings, the word script is in scripture, remember that. All scripture is inspired by God. And the whole of it, without any exception. It's profitable for doctrine, instruction in righteousness, reproof. All of it is profitable. All of it is God-breathed. All of it is authoritative. The heritage of the Reformation is to preach the whole counsel of God and to read the scripture in the original languages, to study it, to make sure that the scriptures are available in the vernacular, the local language. to be committed to reading it at home and in private and in public worship and to sit under its preaching because we believe it to be the very Word of God, the Word of the Lord came to Micah of Moresheth. It also changes our attitude towards this study. Why study? Again, all we need to know is because the Word of God. You hold and we will study the word of the living God, the self-authenticating word, more on that later. And we receive it soberly as the whole counsel of God with its warnings, its joyful promises, its duties imposed upon us, and we do it with worship. in our hearts and minds and submission to God who gave it. Calvin writes this, he says, what took Micah perhaps some 38 to 40 years to preach, you and I can read within an hour. How immense our gratitude should be then if seeing that Micah labored all his life to exhort the people of God, that God has so graciously provided us a brief summary of those exhortations. We ought not to fail to esteem them or neglect to cast our eyes upon them. We study Micah because it is the word of God. We study Micah because in the kindness and grace of God, we have a God who speaks and is not silent. And his grace provides us with clarity in his word. Second reason. Second reason. Because it was addressed by God to you directly. There is a narrower audience, going back to verse 1. In the word of the Lord, it came to Micah of Moresheth, and the narrow audience is defined here by a time period and then a nation. And now we're going to get a little more detail on when Micah was ministering. He's preaching in the days of, you read the kings of Judah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Now that isn't to say that he's preaching all the way from the beginning of Jotham's reign all the way to the end of Hezekiah's reign, but in that period his ministry overlaps these three kings. Again, some have said 20 to 25. We just read a quote from Calvin, up to 40 years. It's hard to know exactly the length of his ministry, but we know the dates of those kings, and so we know that roughly that period starts about 2750 years ago, that's 750 BC, and then to 687 BC, that's the end of the reign of Hezekiah. Those are the days in which he's preaching a long time ago, a different world. The nature of that audience, the days of Micah, were these. It was a period in Israel's history where largely, really until Hezekiah, Israel experiences a period of freedom from Assyria's threats. Later in Hezekiah's reign, Assyria does come right to the gates of Jerusalem and threaten it, but there's a period actually of significant prosperity and general political and geopolitical peace for Israel. In this period, the wealth of Israel grows. It's trading relationships. A wealthy upper class develops. There is some measure of freedom and peace and prosperity. At the same time, when we read prophets like Isaiah and Micah, we know that there was significant corruption, immorality. and immodesty in Israel that Israel actually looked, in a sense, a lot like our age looked at this period. If you think of Isaiah, how he describes the people of Israel, he says this in Isaiah chapter three. He's speaking of Israel, same time period, then Isaiah and Micah. The Lord stands up to plead, stands to judge the people. It's Isaiah three and verse 13. The people are oppressors. The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and his princes. For you have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor, says the Lord God of hosts? There were those who were rich and wealthy. and who through corruption and violence were grinding the faces of the poor. Moreover, the Lord says, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making jingling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion. The Lord will uncover their secret parts. The Lord will take away in that day the finery, and he goes on to describe all of the jewelry and the outward adornment. And it looks very much like an age in which people are in love with pleasure, beauty, riches, and power in Israel without any regard to justice or the poor. And God proclaims judgment. Instead of a sweet smell, there will be a stench. Instead of a sash, a rope. Instead of well-set hair, baldness. Instead of a rich robe, a girding sackcloth. There's a period of luxurious living at the expense of the weak. and the pursuit of sinful pleasure. Micah talks about the following sins in verse seven of chapter one. There's carved images that need to be beaten to pieces. There's idolatry in Israel. There's theft. Fields are coveted and taken by violence. Also, houses are seized. They oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. The leaders of Israel, chapter three, the heads of the house of Jacob, They hate good and love evil. They strip skin from my people and flesh from their bones. They eat the flesh of my people. They flay their skin from them. God is angry with their corruption. There's even a reference to human sacrifice Perhaps a reference here to what happened in the days of Ahaz when Ahaz offered his own son in the fire, chapter 6 and verse 7. Will the Lord be pleased with 10,000 rams, 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Israel, though wealthy, and apparently peaceful in the main, is engaged in all sorts of wickedness. The message of the prophet then, again back to chapter one, is to repent, verse five, all this is for the transgression of Jacob, for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What are the high places of Jerusalem? Are they not, of Judah, are they not Jerusalem? Israel, northern and southern kingdom, is filled with idolatry, the love of luxury, the oppression of the weak, corruption, wickedness, false and bad leaders, and even references to child sacrifice here. The message is repent. Chapter three in verse eight, the message again is, but truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord of justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Now hear this, it's a call to repentance for an abject outright wickedness to turn to God to believe his promises that Jerusalem and Samaria, the whole nation, northern and southern kingdom would turn back to God. But back to the other question, how is this a call to you? Look at verse two. This prophecy is delivered publicly before the world. The indictment of Israel is for the world to hear, all peoples. Hear all you peoples. Listen, O earth, and all that is in it. And now we're starting to string the logic of these first verses together. The word of the Lord came to Micah. It came particularly directed in the days of these three kings of Judah. It came to Jerusalem and Samaria, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. But it came also with the world as witness to the righteousness of God as he deals with his people. And the whole world is addressed in the book of Micah. All humanity without distinction, hear all you peoples, listen, oh earth and all that is in it. Why? Let the Lord be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. Watch how God will deal with Israel. Come and watch the works of God. Gaze upon my judgments. Bear witness. to my word, my prophet, his message, and my actions. Listen. Hear all you peoples. Listen to my indictments, my judgments, and my promises, and the key question. is did this happen? Look at verse three. Listen, the world is to listen. Verse three, why? For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place. He will come down and tread the high places on the earth. In other words, listen, God is about to take action. Hear the prophet, watch the action of God, and pay attention. Hear all you peoples. The question that the world is called to answer It's twofold. First, do you hear the message of the prophet? And number two, did what God said he would do through Micah actually come to pass? Did these things happen? Did the Lord come down in judgment? Was Israel taken captive? God promises in chapter three in verse 12, that because of you, Zion shall be plowed up like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest. Micah is prophesying that if Israel doesn't repent, God will come down and with destruction level Jerusalem and the temple. Did this happen in history? Yes, through his instrument Nebuchadnezzar, God judged his own people. Was Israel restored? Chapter four. In the latter days, was the mountain rebuilt? And did the nations of the world called in chapter one to listen? Did they stream into it? The answer is yes. In these days, as the mountain of Zion, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is built and the gospel goes to the ends of the earth. The call is this, the word of the Lord came to Micah. The world, listen, watch, see the works of God in history. Was a ruler born in Bethlehem? Chapter five and verse two, but you Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth the one who is to be a ruler in Israel. Was there a babe born in Bethlehem who would rule Israel, execute the judgments of God, rule the world, and proclaim peace for sinners? Listen, world, to Micah. Listen to the word of the Lord. How about another question? What is God like? Look at the end of the book, the last chapter. Verse 18 of chapter 7, who is a God like you? pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham which you have sworn to our fathers from days of old. The question is will God all the earth be faithful to his covenant to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Will he forgive a wandering people? Will he rescue them? Will he save them? Will he send a redeemer? Will he bring temporal judgments in order to bring them back to repentance? Yes, yes, yes. Because this is the word of the Lord to Micah. That means it's addressed to you and to all humanity. All scripture is God-breathed. All scripture, therefore, profitable for doctrine, reproof, instruction in righteousness. And when Paul wrote those words to Timothy, he had particularly in mind the writings of the Old Testament, including the book of Micah. Again, back to the SETI project and its foolishness. To look for messages from heaven. The reality is that we don't have to look for... You know what they're actually looking for? They're having radio telescopes scanning the heavens and they're seeing if there could be, you know, if they find a signal that's even a regular pulse, like on-off, on-off, on-off. There are people jumping up and down thinking maybe we found life and the meaning of the universe. What we do As we come to the written word, words from God accommodated to our understanding, not on, off, on, off, but filled with clarity and meaning concerning his purposes to Israel, inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to prophets long ago. Things which Peter says angels desired to look into. This is what we have here in our hands. And the prophet here is specifically speaking to the whole church, here Old Testament Israel, but also New Testament Israel, and also to the whole world, that this is God's means of direct, clear communication to humanity. Addressed, verse two, to the whole of humanity, hear all you peoples, listen, O earth, and all that is in it. In other words, it was intended by the Spirit for you and me. By divine and wonderful providence, this message is still circulating tucked into your Bible in the minor prophets of the Old Testament. In an age where we face the same temptations that Israel did in the days of Micah, we need it. One more thing, because it proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ, I've already said a little bit about this, We turn again to the New Testament. I made a reference, getting ahead of myself, to this in 1 Peter chapter one. But in 1 Peter chapter one, we read it a moment ago, the salvation that we have in Christ was written down and scripturated through the prophetic ministry of the Old Testament prophets. of this salvation, what you and I have in Jesus Christ in the new covenant, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. That in Bethlehem, Ephrathah, a ruler would be born. You know in Matthew chapter two, that when Herod is trying to figure out where the Christ would be born, it's that very text that the scribes and the Jewish leaders bring back to Herod to tell him to look in Bethlehem. The prophets were prophesying of the grace that would come to you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand, listen, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. In other words, the intention of the Old Testament prophetic ministry was to point to the new covenant realities of Jesus Christ crucified, risen again, and ascended into heaven. To them it was revealed that not to themselves but to us they were ministering things which now have been reported to you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. You see, what Peter's saying is, he gives a summary of salvation in Christ. He says, you've experienced it, you've lived by faith in the Son of God. And then he's saying, this is what Micah was writing about, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is what Micah was writing about, something of the contours of redemption through Christ in the shadowlands of these three kings of Judah, 2,750 years ago. About the sufferings and glories of Jesus Christ. And so when we read through the book of Micah, we should be expecting signposts that point to Jesus. types and shadows on every page of the Old Testament, not only in Micah, in the Exodus, and the Passover lamb, and the sacrificial system, and in Jacob wrestling with God, and the promises of a son and a redeemer and kings to Abraham, and in a king named David, the shepherd king of Israel, who skillfully shepherded the people of God. All of these pulsing with significance as they point to Jesus Christ. Micah's no different. We read looking for the signposts that point us to Jesus. We read not only of the character of God, his covenant love, chapter seven and verse 18 to 20, that he forgives sins and iniquity and transgression, that he remembered his promises to Abram, that he didn't destroy his people, but he had mercy. But we read about the very one through whom the mercy comes, Jesus Christ. It's all in the book of Micah. Look at verse three of chapter one. The first intimation is there. For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place. He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. Again, in verse chapter 5. The ruler in Israel coming from Bethlehem, beginning in verse three, therefore he shall give them up until the time that she who is in labor has given birth. Then the remnant of his brethren shall return to the children of Israel. He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, and the majesty of the name of the Lord is God. They shall abide. From now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and this one shall be peace. Language pulsing. with Christ who is our peace, proclaimed to a luxury-loving, corrupt, idol-worshiping, wandering people in the days of Micah of Moresheth. This is one of more of the evidences that the book of Micah is the Word of God. What does our confession say? The consent of all the parts is one of the beautiful evidences that this is the Word of God. the whole of the scriptures show us Jesus Christ. By one Holy Spirit, one message to humanity of salvation through sinners through the blood of the Lamb. A message for Israel. The word of the Lord to Micah of Morisheth in the days of Jotham. Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear all you peoples. Repent and believe is the message for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Read, study, listen, repent, believe. These are things that angels desire to look into. Why read, study, preach Micah, the word of God. addressed to you concerning Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord our God, we pray for grace to read and mark your word well. to search its pages, to receive its truth, to believe its message, to recognize and submit to its power, to live with it as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, to search the pages of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, for all the signposts pointing ahead to the sufferings and glories of Jesus Christ. and to be ever thankful that you raised up a chosen vessel to whom you gave your word, who saw your purposes for Israel. Lord, we pray that you would give us grace to go home and not only read this book, but the whole of this book, the Bible, with the reverence and godly fear and the hunger and the interest to receive a message from heaven, the word from you. We pray that you would grant us the Holy Spirit that we might understand what we read. We might believe and live for your glory. We ask for Jesus' sake, amen.