The Awful Coming of God

Introduction

I can only imagine the physical reaction everyone must have felt when bomb sirens went off in London or Berlin during the Second World War. My uncle was 5 years old in Germany and he remembers the terror of those sirens. Imagine what you would feel in your stomach, in your chest, or in your head.

These are the feelings Micah means his readers to have as the coming of a much more violent force than any human weapon; the coming of a wrathful God.

The universal warning of the LORD’s coming.

In verse 1 we are told that the series of prophecies found in this book date from the reign of King Jotham to the reign of King Hezekiah. It is doubtless that the first chapter was prophecied early on since the prophecies speak against Samaria as a city that would soon be destroyed by the Assyrians.

Although it’s clear that the prophecies are specifically for Samaria and Jerusalem, the people groups and political figures they represent, in verse 2 the prophecy is given too all the inhabitants of the earth.

“Let the Lord God be a witness against you,” is addressed to all the nations.

“Holy Temple” literally holy palace, God’s royalty in view.

All the nations need to pay attention because God is coming against them and subjugate the highest places in the world. Verse 4 gives us imaginative language of God’s fearful presence.

Why must all people prepare if this prophecy is concerning Samaria and Jerusalem?

The sins they are guilty of are common among all people, and the judgement that is coming on them will come on all peoples.

God’s people were meant to represent God to the world, but also they are a picture of the human attitude towards God. If Israel and Judah, with all of the revelation of God they had been given, is in such trouble, what about the rest of humanity?

The Occassion: The sins of the two cities.

Verse 5 tells us why God is coming down from his heavenly palace is such a powerful and fearful way. “All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel.

The transgression of Jacob Samaria. The High place of Judah Jerusalem. The sins they are being judged for are observable in the cities that are supposed to represent the centre of God’s people, especially Jerusalem.

God’s actions behind these horrible events (6-7)

Samaria a heap of stone in the open country. A place to plant a vinyard. The city so utterly destroyed that no sign of it remains.

Not just the buildings and foundations, but the images that brought on God’s jealousy find their end here.

“Fee of a prostitute” a mockery of a bride price for which Israel sold herself for. Her “prostitues price” was nothing, and so to nothing the idols she has committed spiritual adultery with go to nothing.

NT warning against Spiritual adultery

James 4:4–5 ESV

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

8-9 The sins of Samaria are pictured as a shameful disease that has spread to the typically more righteous southern kingdom. Micah goes about mourning naked, symbolizing the way exiles will be carried out of Jerusalem.

To the end of the chapter, Micah traces the way that Seneccurib the Assyrian King would go towards Jerusalem to destroy her. Micah toys with the reader’s mind, bringing the threat closer city by city until it would be there. There is also an interesting word play where the meaning of the names of each city corresponds with the verb, however it is really difficult to reflect this in English. For example, the city Shaphir in verse 11 means ‘beautiful’ or ‘dressed up to look beautiful’. So the inhabitants of Shaphir are ironically told to pass on in nakedness and shame.

Conclusion

When God judges the nations, the people of God are untouched. But when God judges the church, the whole world is affected, even if they don’t realize it. God isn’t just coming against his people, he is coming to lay judgement on all wicked people through the hands of the Assyrians and other sovereignly appointed means. The world relies on the faithfulness of the church.

When God exposes patterns of sin in our lives or in our congregation, he is exposing something that, if left unchecked, will lead to our total destruction. When Jesus warns the churches in Revelations 1-3. he is about to remove some of them as legitimate churches.

Thus, when patterns of sin are exposed, it is a time of mourning, fasting, and self-reflection in the church. When it comes out that one member has been living in apostasy, the whole congregation must be grieved, not self-righteously, but still openly weeping for the impurity that has festered and hurt our witness.

The danger of Christian friends with questionable character. Just and Israel pulled Judah into sin, those who call themselves Christians can pull us into sin if we aren’t careful.

1 Corinthians 5:11 ESV

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

Christ has delivered us from our spiritual exile, and so all mourning for sin can and must be followed by glorious exaultation in our mediator and shepherd who is purifying us and making us his people.