Sermon Tone Analysis
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The ministry of Micah vs. 1
I don’t think I go through a day without wandering about what is going on.
Read or watch the news, you can’t help but think that.
That's what’s going on here.
But Micah points out an external concern.
Two great concerns dominate this period of Israel’s history, one external and one internal.
The external concern was the spreading power of the Assyrian empire: the same Assyria whose capital had been brought to repentance by the preaching of Jonah about a generation earlier.
By now Assyria had returned to its rapacious ways.
As the superpower of its time, and under new and vigorous leadership, Assyria cast its shadow far and wide.
Assyria’s policy was to recruit a vast standing mercenary army that was practically invincible in battle.
To pay for these forces, they intimidated their surrounding kingdoms to extract crushingly high tributes.
“In other words,” writes Waltke, “the conquered nations supported the international army that raped them.”
The political history of this era consisted mainly of rebellions small and large against this policy, to which Assyria would respond with overwhelming and savage force.
Conquered peoples would be relocated en masse into the vast Assyrian domains, and conquered lands were organized as permanent Assyrian provinces.
one external and one internal.
The external concern was the spreading power of the Assyrian empire: the same Assyria whose capital had been brought to repentance by the preaching of Jonah about a generation earlier.
By now Assyria had returned to its rapacious ways.
As the superpower of its time, and under new and vigorous leadership, Assyria cast its shadow far and wide.
Assyria’s policy was to recruit a vast standing mercenary army that was practically invincible in battle.
To pay for these forces, they intimidated their surrounding kingdoms to extract crushingly high tributes.
“In other words,” writes Waltke, “the conquered nations supported the international army that raped them.”
The political history of this era consisted mainly of rebellions small and large against this policy, to which Assyria would respond with overwhelming and savage force.
Conquered peoples would be relocated en masse into the vast Assyrian domains, and conquered lands were organized as permanent Assyrian provinces.
As the prophets saw it, the political and military problems were mere symptoms of a greater and deeper problem.
So there was the second problem: the moral and spiritual condition of Jerusalem.
Just as Western civilization has abandoned its Christian foundations in our time, Judah had abandoned its religious heritage.
Despite an outward embrace of biblical religion, Jerusalem had turned its heart away from the Lord, and the fruit of its unbelief was rampant corruption and vice.
Transition: I think when we look around us, we see the outward threats and the inwar.
Micah has a lot to say to us today.
Just as Judah’s kings had to respond to danger, we too live in a threatening world, and Micah calls us to a calm reliance on our faithful God.
And just as Jerusalem’s true religion was revealed by its outward conduct, our profession of faith is likewise tested by our obedience to God’s Word.
Micah asks us a question: are you in as much wonder of the one who created and sustains all things, or are you wondering more about what is going on around you?
God judges based on His holiness.
vs 2-7
Vs. 2: Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it.
God is sovereign over everything.
This isn’t spoken to a specific person, but to all the people of the earth.
Micah’s God isn’t a national, tribal deity; he is the God of the universe.
“Lord God” really means sovereign Lord.Micah is say, “Look, everything that is about to happen, politically and militarily, are all my acts of divine sovereignty.”
Micah wants us to see a God who is sovereign over all things and tells us that all history is theological.
“Witness against you” not among you, but against you.
The nations are to know not only that the Lord will judge his people, but also that he will judge them.
God says to the people, “Come, see what I am about to do to my own people for their sin.”
Vs. 3 -4.
high places, mountains will melt, valleys will split open.
The Lord is coming out of his place.
What display of awesomeness.
Vs. 4 shows the catastrophic consequence of God’s coming to the earth: creation essentially disintegrates before him.
This doesn’t just show God’s power over nature, but to emphasize his terrifying might against rebellious humankind.
John Calvin writes: “Such figures of speech symbolize how defenseless we are, how totally unable to resist God.
For if God should suddenly appear, who could withstand his furor?”
Ultimately, the scene of creation melting at God’s approach belongs to the last day, but that final judgment “is anticipated in every prior intervention of God in judgment in the affairs of men.”
The religious leaders serving in Jerusalem’s temple might speak lightly about sin, but the Lord who dwells in the heavenly temple will come to “tread upon the high places of the earth.”
Phillips, R. D. (2010).
Jonah & Micah.
(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & I. M. Duguid, Eds.) (pp.
147–148).
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
There’s no benefit for the church be light on sin.
The religious leaders serving in Jerusalem’s temple might speak lightly about sin, but the Lord who dwells in the heavenly temple will come to “tread upon the high places of the earth.”
And why does God come down with such force?
Why does he call the nations together so that he can be a witness against them: verse 5
Phillips, R. D. (2010).
Jonah & Micah.
(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & I. M. Duguid, Eds.) (p.
147).
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Vs. 5 Unlike the deities of the world, our God is not capricious.
he don’t give into a sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behaviour.
He doesn’t have mood changes.
It’s because of transgressions: Word meaning rebellion.
and Sin, meaning failing to meet a standard.
Vs. 6 But it’s not against the nations that God brings judgement, it’s against his own people.
People are danacing and celebrating that God is going to come and judge the nations like Assyria.
And as they dance, they hear those words, Jerusalem?
Samaria?
It is thier judgement that God comes to bring.
Vs. 7 What is the charge here?
It’s the idols.
God here is shown as the ultimate iconoclast as God gathers the idols and smashes or burns them up.
God will not share himself with any other.
Just picture the people as they hear this: relieved.
God will destroy Samaria: how fitting!
But then the knife comes home.
Has not Jerusalem become like Samaria?
Are not the sins of Samaria the very sins currently cherished in Jerusalem?
God is coming to trample the high places: but look around and notice that Judah’s capital itself is one such high place in its arrogance and idolatry.
This must had shocked the people hearing this.
They were the heirs of Abraham, Moses, and David, the people who possessed the Bible and worshiped at God’s true temple.
But here is the problem: corruption had set in.
False worship was tolerated.
Sexual promiscuity had become common.
Greed dominated civic government, injustice grew uncontrolled, and the ruling class oppressed those beneath them.
God had warned Jerusalem through the prophet Amos, but few had listened.
Now, under the weak leadership of King Jotham, God was setting up Jerusalem for fire and destruction.
God would come to judge, for, as the apostle Peter later wrote, “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” ().
Let me ask you this: Do we see how similar this situation is to that of the church?
Those other churches that don’t believe in the gospel anymore?
Good redennse.
They deserve that.
They don’t believe in the Bible anymore.
They‘ve given up and compromised so much, they aren’t even a church anymore.
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