Micah
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Well, good morning, everybody. How y'all feeling in the post-Christmas glow? This is a weird week, isn't it? Anybody know what day it is? I think it's Sunday, else we wouldn't be here. Somebody called this part of the year the Bermuda Triangle of the calendar, because basically we all just get lost. Nobody quite knows what day it is. You just spend a whole lot of time munching on food that's left over from Christmas and getting ready for the new year. You realize that 2026 is now like four days away.
That starts on Thursday. 2026. You made your New Year's resolutions yet? Written them down? Got a lot of things on there? Going to go to the gym? Going to change the diet? Going to do this? Going to do this? Going to do this? Do you keep your New Year's resolutions list if you make them? Like from this time last year in 2024, when 2025 was rolling along or rolling around, Did you make a list and could you pull it back out and see what resolutions you made? I bet that would be a harrowing experience if you can do that.
Because in a lot of ways, you know, New Year's resolutions are silly. It's just an arbitrary point on the calendar. And yet, for a lot of us, we treat New Year's resolutions as a kind of second chance to do something that we intended to do last year. I mean, the very word resolution means this time I'm going to do it. I am resolved that this time it's going to happen. This time, this time. And so New Year's resolutions become a kind of second chance, or for some of us a fifth chance, or a tenth chance, or a twentieth.
That idea of a second chance is probably something that's going to be preached in a whole lot of pulpits this morning around the country. You're going to have people that stand in pulpits, or stand at the glass podiums at the megachurches, or whatever, they stand behind these days, and they're going to say, you know what? The new year is rolling around. It's time to make new year's resolutions. And you know what's glorious about the Christian gospel? What's glorious about the Christian gospel is that our God is the God of second chances. It's going to get preached. But what I want to try to show you today is that that's not true.
Our God is not the God of second chances. He is far more than that. He is something far more glorious than that. He's the God of salvation. And that's a very different thing. We going to be looking this morning at one of the more obscure books of the Old Testament I don know the last time you looked at this book For me it been a really long time But let me invite you to take a Bible and turn to page 766 well 776 if you using one of these Red Pew Bibles You'll see there on 776 the big word Micah, then inside that you're going to have the chapters of Micah.
We're actually going to be looking at all seven chapters of this book today. We're not going to read it all, so we are going to be kind of bouncing back and forth through it. But hopefully by the end of the sermon, you'll sort of understand the structure of the book, you'll understand its message, and you'll be able to go away knowing God better. Not so much as the God of second chances, but as the God of salvation. Once you get to Micah, you'll notice there that it does in fact have seven chapters. This book is one of 12 that are stacked into the very end of the Old Testament that are called the minor prophets. You've got two kinds of prophet in the Old Testament.
You have the major prophets, so that would be the bigger books. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, those are what are called the major prophets. Then you have 12 that are called minor prophets. Now, right from the outside, you've got to understand that these guys, these prophets, are not called minor prophets because they're unimportant or because they're insignificant or because their message is minor. That's not the point. It's literally because their books are shorter than the bigger prophets' books. That's literally why it is. And so if Micah had extended his book for another 20 chapters or so, we would be calling him a major prophet.
But because he stopped at seven, and the others stopped at, you know, three, four, five, six, two, one, we called them and grouped them together as the minor prophets. We don't know a whole lot about Micah. In fact, everything we know about this prophet comes from his book. And in fact, most of what we know about him, biographically speaking, comes from the very first verse of his book. So if you look at Micah chapter 1, verse 1, there on page 776, everything we know about him is basically packed into this verse. The word of the Lord that came to Micah, there he is, of Moresheth, that's where he's from, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw.
This is the word which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. And that's it. That's pretty much all we know about him. He tells us there that he was from a town called Moresheth. That was one of the defensive towns that surrounded the capital city of Jerusalem. And it says he prophesied in Judah, so the southern kingdom. This is after the civil war in Israel. Southern kingdom of Judah during the reigns of three different kings Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah So that helps us to date it and what we looking at here in Micah is a book that was written about 700 years before the birth of Jesus about 700 years 2 or so years ago, 700-ish B.C. is when Micah wrote.
Now, we know from the names of these kings, and from when those kings reigned, that when Micah was preaching and prophesying, this was an incredibly dangerous time in the history and the life of the nation of Israel. The kingdom of Israel had split in half about 200 years earlier, so about 900 years or so before the birth of Jesus. And it had created a northern kingdom that was centered at Samaria and was usually in the Bible called Israel. It maintained the name Israel. And then you had the southern kingdom, which is usually in the Bible called the kingdom of Judah.
And both of those kingdoms, both the north and the south, were now being actively pressed by some enormous world powers. These are tiny little countries, Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. They're tiny little countries. They don't have a lot of power. They're not wealthy. Nothing like that is going on for them. And they're getting pressed right there in the sort of area of the Middle East by these gigantic world empires. So most dangerous at the time Micah was prophesying was this kingdom up to the north called Assyria, which around this time actually invaded and conquered the northern kingdom and almost got to Jerusalem too.
We'll talk about that a little bit later in the book because Micah talks about these armies sweeping in from Assyria from the north and almost making it to Jerusalem before God turns them back. And in fact that invasion of the north by Assyria forms the main kind of historical background of the book. That's what's going on. That's what's in the news. That's the headlines. Northern kingdom invaded, northern kingdom destroyed and carried off into exile. But not only that, you've got Assyria in the north, but also over to the east.
It's not going to be very long before the Babylonians start rising up and making their play for empire too. And so even at certain places in the book of Micah, even though that's a hundred or so years into the future, you can kind of see the shadow of Babylon rising in the east because that's dangerous too. Now in terms of the structure of Micah, it's seven chapters, but it divides extremely neatly into three parts and all three of those parts do exactly the same thing Part one does a certain thing then part two comes along and does the same exact thing and then part three does the same thing again So in terms of exactly what we looking at here you may actually kind of have sort of you know written notes or written transcripts of sermons that Micah would have preached, because they are so similar in structure. There's movement between all three of them. They kind of reach forward into the future as they go, but basically the structure is the same, so you might have three sermons that Micah preached. Essentially, the way it breaks down is like this. You've got one and two. That's the first part. Then you've got three,
four, five, that's the second part, and then you get six, seven, and they do the same thing. It's two parts to each, two parts to each part is basically how you should think about it. So in each part, you get judgment, and then you get salvation. Then you get judgment, then you get salvation, then you get judgment, then you get salvation. It's literally that simple. So you know, you don't need any fancy diagram for this book. All you got to do is think one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, judgment, salvation, judgment, salvation, judgment, salvation. That's how it, That's how it works. So basically what God is communicating to his people is, look, you guys are wrecked in your sin, in your rebellion against me, in your disobedience.
You're wrecked. And what you deserve is death. What you deserve is invasion and exile. But what I'm going to do instead of allowing you to be carried off into exile and killed for your rebellion is that I am going to save you instead. I'm going to restore you to your place and I'm going to establish you in a new, much more glorious, universal kingdom. So it's not just that God says, okay guys, you've messed this up. I'm going to give you a second chance. It's way more than that.
It's a story of a wholly undeserved reversal of God totally and completely changing the outcome of his people's destiny. not because they got a second chance and they worked hard and they earned it but just because he loves them and just because he decides that he's going to save them. So throughout the book, one after another, you see a series of just astonishing reversals that God affects. So Israel is in danger but that gives way to safety. They're under threat but that gives way to triumph.
Israel's enemies are boasting on one day but then they're humiliated by God on the next day. and most of all, sin and death and destruction give way to forgiveness and salvation. And all of those things, all of those things are completely unexpected and holy simply because God wants to do it. So the main idea, here it is, our God's... That is too low a name for him.
He is the God of salvation. Complete, finished, undeserved salvation. That's what I want you to take away from the sermon today. See, it's not just a matter of starting over and trying again. It's not just a matter of writing down a whole bunch of New Year's resolutions that I'm going to do this this year and I'm going to try to please God in this. No, Christianity is about way more than that. It's about God taking it in his own hands to save and to do everything necessary to redeem his people. In fact, to cry out like Jesus did on the cross, it is finished.
And friends, it would be glorious enough. It would be great. It would be gracious of God if he would just give us a second chance. But he does way more than that. He offers us salvation. So I want to try to unfold Micah and explain his book to you this morning by considering three points. And here they are. Number one, a deserved judgment. A deserved judgment. Number two, an astonishing reversal. So you see how that works with the structure?
Judgment, reversal. Judgment, that's the way the structure of the book is. But then I want to show you a third point that runs through all three parts of the book. And I'm not going to give you its title yet because I don't want to steal my own thunder. So you're going to have to click in. You're going to have to come out of the fog. You're going to have to listen and pay attention. And I'll give you that third point later. So here we go. Number one, first of all, a deserved judgment. A deserved judgment. So all three of these sections of Micah begin with God basically just indicting his people for abandoning him.
He calls them to court and he lays charges against them. and he says, you have disobeyed me and you have sinned against me and other people around you too. Now, when God does this in all three of these parts, it not just complaining It not just oh whoa it me I can believe my people are acting like this Whatever am I going to do No he making a legal case against them as their God and as their judge And Micah presents that legal case, the coming of the judge to indict his people as fearsome and devastating. It's not just a complaint. It's a thunderous judgment from the throne on high. So just look at the way he describes God's coming to judge at the beginning of chapter one. We've already read verse 1, but then immediately in verse 2, he gets to what's about to happen here.
Look at it with me. Verse 2. Hear, 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. Behold, the Lord is coming out of his place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? So he's making his case, right? He's saying that when I make this case, I'm not just complaining. I'm not just asking you to do better. I'm coming with fire from heaven to judge you. Look also, flip over to chapter 6, verse 1. Same thing happens here. Again, this is the beginning of part 3, so you get the same sort of, you know, start of the whole thing. Here, he says, what the Lord says, arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people and he will contend with Israel. It's terrifying, isn't it? It's terrifying. It's terrifying to think of the indictment of heaven coming against you and then the Lord himself coming with fire that melts the mountains, turns them into wax to plead his case against you.
But why does he do that? Well, turn with me over to chapter 2 because that's where the Lord really lays it at their feet. Tells them what they've done. Chapter 2, verse 1. Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds. When morning dawns, they perform it because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and seize them and houses and take them away They oppress a man and his house a man and his inheritance Therefore thus says the Lord Behold against this family I devising disaster from which you cannot remove your necks Beginning of 3, chapter 3, he describes this greed in gruesome language.
Chapter 3, verse 1, I said, Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice, you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones who eat the flesh of my people and flay their skin from off them and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot like flesh in a cauldron. And he's saying that's what you're doing to each other. You're eating and biting and gnawing on each other as you oppress one another and take advantage of one another again and again and again.
You're all just out for yourselves and not for anybody else around you. Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, false prophets who claim to be from God are preaching. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. God won't judge anybody for any of this. Look at verse 6 of chapter 2. Do not preach.
Thus they preach. One should not preach of such things. Disgrace will not overtake us. That's a little bit of a funny verse, but basically it's messed up in its structure. But basically what this is is a quote from these false prophets. So you've got, you know, it's the false prophet speaking when it says, do not preach. That's the false prophet. Then you have Micah himself coming in and saying, this is how they preach. So he writes down, you know, do not preach. And then he looks at them and says, this is what they do. So what they're saying is that they're talking to Micah and they're saying, Micah, don't preach like that.
Thus they preach. This is what they say to me. They're saying, Micah, do not preach. Micah, one should not preach of such things. Micah, disgrace will not overtake us. Despite everything that we're doing to bring shame on our people, God will not let disgrace come over us. And Micah says, that's what they're saying to you guys. And then in verse 7, look what he says. He says, should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
So he's saying, of course I'm going to preach this. This is what the word of the Lord is. The word of the word hasn't grown impatient with his word. He hasn't backed off of his word. I'm going to preach it to you despite the fact that they're telling me not to. So do righteously he says But of course they don And Micah says the result is going to be disastrous as God sentences them to be punished for their sin Now throughout the book the punishment or the form that that punishment takes is the form of an invading army from Assyria Which God calls in another prophet the rod of my anger.
Most of you know the story already. These armies sweep in and they completely destroy the northern kingdom. and Isaiah talks about the armies rising like water up to the very neck of Jerusalem before God in this miraculous intervention kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night around the walls of Jerusalem. And this king Sennacherib tucks his tail and runs back to his own home. But before that, God says, Assyria is the rod of my anger. That's how Isaiah talks about it.
And he uses it against his people. the Assyrians were a boasting prideful gross people and yet despite that they're just an instrument of God he's just using them to punish his own disobedient people first time we see them in this book is verse 6 of chapter 1 if you look there therefore I will make Samaria that's the capital of the northern kingdom I'll make Samaria a heap in the open country a place for planting vineyards. It says punishment is first going to come to Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. But then if you look at 8, he laments that, right? For this I will lament and wail because the northern kingdom has fallen. But if you look at verse 9, you see that the destruction comes all the way down to Judah, all the way down to Jerusalem. Her wound is incurable and it has come to Judah, to the south. It has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. In other words, it's the same kind of imagery, right? Only this time it's a kind of creeping wound, right? It's a sort of cancer. In Isaiah, it's water that's coming up to the neck of Jerusalem. If you look at the next
few verses, 10 through 16, you basically have this list of cities that are on the way to Jerusalem. And it's this brilliant poem, 10 through 16, where each one of the defensive towns along the way gets mocked because of its name. So each one is a play on words that uses the name of the town. So look at verse 10. In verse 10, Beth La'afra means house of dust. And what does God say about Beth La'afra, house of dust? She's going to roll in the dust. Shafir, the city of beauty, is now in nakedness and shame. Zana'an, city of going forth, city of going out, now cowers behind its wall. So you see how that's working? And you take the name of the you say, well, this bad thing is going to happen to you based on the name of the city. It's a brilliant point. I mean, you could do it, you know, if you work hard enough with cities in America, right?
So you could thunder down on Chicago and say, oh, Chicago, right? I'm going to destroy you with sickness. You could do this with, you know, oh, Boston, you shall no longer be the boss, right? Or a ton of bricks is going to fall. You could do it. You could just make these things up as you go. But that's what Micah is doing here. He's using these things, these names of these cities, in order to mock each one of these defensive cities as this army makes its way down to Jerusalem. You see the point. The defensive cities are falling, disasters overtaking them one by one as the cancer creeps toward the capital city of Jerusalem and the water rises up to its neck.
But there's even more than that, because behind that and even more devastating than the invading army is the fact devastating in itself that God has simply turned his face away from his people. I mean, we've already read the first few verses of chapter 3 where the people are, you know, eating the flesh of each other and nipping and biting and gnawing on each other. So look what he says, therefore, in chapter 3 verse 4. Because of all of this, then, he says, they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time because they have made their deeds evil.
In the next verses, he takes on those false prophets that are preaching. Don't say that, Micah. Don't say that. He takes them on. Look at verse 6 of chapter 3. Therefore, he says, it shall be night to you without vision and darkness to you without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets and the day shall be black over them. The seers shall be disgraced. The diviners shall be put to shame. They shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God. It's darkness.
It's night because of their sin, because of their rebellion. God has turned his face away from them and there is no word of the Lord that coming to them You see the point right The point is that the Israelites are hopelessly guilty here And the judgment that they receive from God is wholly deserved Now, I think it's really easy for us to read this book from 2,700 years removed and point our finger at the Israelites and say, Aha, you guys deserve what was coming to you. You deserve the invading army. You deserve for God to turn his face away from you.
I think it's easy for us to talk like that. but friends if we're honest I think we can see more of ourselves than we might be comfortable with in Micah's indictment here let me show you just one place turn over to chapter 6 verse 8 it's one of the great summaries in the bible of what God requires of his people there are various ones of these throughout the bible where God will take the whole content of the law and sort of you know pull it down into one or two sentences this is one of those great summaries of the law chapter 6 verse 8. 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. See how he summarizes the law there?
It's just, it's the Ten Commandments. It's the whole law of God. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. You ever applied those things to your own heart, your own actions, your own words, your own thoughts. Do justice. What does that mean? Well, you read the book and you find out that it's not some sort of, you know, exalted, out-of-reach social ideal that only congressmen can do anything about. That's not what this is. I know it gets put on t-shirts and, you know, books and all the rest as some kind of exalted thing.
And all we need to do as people is just elect the right people and then justice will be done and kindness will be loved and, you know, the government will walk humbly with God. Somehow we think this is a verse about government. It's not. It's not redistribution of wealth. It's not building certain social systems. That's not what this verse is talking about at all. No, it's a very personal way of talking to individual Israelites about how they are acting in their everyday lives. It's telling them, look, do you want to do justice? Well, stop cheating each other.
Stop trying to get some kind of a cheat code from your fellow Israelites. Stop trying to get something out of them. Stop trying to claw money out of them. stop defrauding other people stop selling something for more money than you yourself know that it's worth stop plotting to undermine other believers and take what's theirs stop lying at work to push yourself higher stop making decisions where the only good comes to you and not other people Act on other people's behalf and not just your own.
Do justice. That's what God requires. Friend, do you do that? Do you treat people with justice? Or are you constantly just looking for a good deal? You're constantly just looking to take advantage of people around you. To get just a little bit more out of them than they are getting out of you. Do justice, he says. But there's more love kindness. You see there what God requires is not just a kind of begrudging rightness.
He doesn't require us to just draw very sharp straight lines in the ground and say, that's it, that's as far as I will go and no further. Justice requires of me this and that's all I'm willing to do. That's not what God wants. He says, love kindness. Have a desire to do good to other people. Not just to do what's right with regard to other people, but to do what's good for them. So much so that you even love to go beyond what's strictly right and strictly just. And be positively kind and merciful.
Do you do that? Do you love to do that? I mean, you realize that's the word, right? We are to do justice, but we are to love kindness. It's a very different standard. And there's a way to be kind to people because you think of it as just a kind of duty. And then there's loving to do good to people. That's what God requires. I wonder if that describes you. Walk humbly, he says next, with your God. In other words, know him and know your place before him.
Know that you are a sinner in need of his grace. Know that he is the only one that can save you. know that he is the one who will sit on the throne at the end of time and judge you for how you've lived your life. And know that he is the only one who can offer mercy to you and save you. Walk humbly with your God. Do you do that? Do you think at all about your God? Maybe you don't come to church all that often and this feels a little heavy, but that's the question that this text is asking you.
Do you walk humbly before your God or do you just ignore him? Are you just apathetic about him Do you just go through life assuming that well I just accomplish this and then I accomplish that and I don know if there a God or not and I don really care Friend if that you you need to walk humbly before your God. You need to know him and you need to know your place before him. Don't think, the scriptures say, more highly of yourself than you ought. Walk humbly with your God. That's what God requires.
but look at the verses just before that, 6 and 7. So we're still in chapter 6, but I want you to just flip the page back. Look at how Israel responds to this indictment. You see the quotes there at the beginning of verse 6. This is the Israelites speaking. With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Now that sounds pious, doesn't it? It sounds like maybe that's an example of walking humbly before your God, and yet it's exactly the opposite of that because what the Israelites are doing there is not walking humbly before God. They're trying to buy him off. God, what do you want from me? Am I supposed to bring you a lamb, a year old that's spotless and without blemish? Maybe if I give you my firstborn son, the fruit of my loins, Maybe if I give you that, you'll be satisfied. What do I have to do, oh God, to buy you off?
Do I have to tithe to the church? Do I have to give a big gift? Do I have to go to church? Do I have to stop doing this or that for 40 days? Do I have to go to the mission field? What do I have to do to make a payment, God, so that you'll get off my back? But friend, you see the folly of that, right? I mean, you see the silliness of that kind of bargaining, that kind of negotiating with God. There is no payment that you could give that would be sufficient. Not your whole life, not every year of your life, not every possession that you own would be sufficient to pay your debt to God.
The problem is that God has told us what is good and we have failed at it. Just like the Israelites. And so when God judges, it will be a deserved judgment. Because the darkness is deep. But of course in Micah, the darkness, the silence doesn't last. Praise God, it's pierced by a completely unexpected light. reversal see when when God reverses this situation of the Israelites where they're sunk in sin and rebellion against them when he finally reverses that it's it's not just a second chance that God gives his people it's an absolutely mind-blowing about face it is that they are headed in one direction toward destruction and he simply turns them around and gives them salvation so that's what happens at the end of all three sections of this book. You can see it most clearly and over and over, I think, in chapter 4. So if you look at chapter 4, I mean, you can look at how chapter 3 ended. You've got the mountain of the house left desolate. I mean, it's just a horrible picture
there at the end of verse 3. But in 4.1, everything's restored. I mean, look, verse 12 of chapter 3, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height. In other words, everything is going to be destroyed. But then, chapter 4 verse 1, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it. Just utter and complete reversal. The nations even draw there to hear the word of the Lord. It's just an amazing about face in its fortunes. Look down also at 6 and 7 of that chapter 4. In that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted. And the lame I will make the remnant and those who were cast off a strong nation. The Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore. Verse 8, Jerusalem is returned to royal glory. And then 9 through 13,
and these are just glorious verses here. The two greatest threats to the nation's existence are turned on their head. Verse 9 of chapter 4. Why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished that pain seized you like a woman in labor? Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country You shall go this is one of their great threats to Babylon And there you shall be rescued There the Lord will redeem you from the hands of your enemies Now look at 11 Many nations are assembled against Jesus. Bad stuff. Saying, let her be defiled. Let our eyes gaze upon Zion.
But they don't know the thoughts of the Lord. They don't understand his plan. That he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. In other words, it's not these nations that are threats that are in charge of this whole thing. It's God. They think they've gathered together to mock the people of God, to destroy Jerusalem. And yet God says, but you don't know my thoughts. They don't understand that the reason I have gathered them together as a great army around this city is so that I can destroy them all at once. You see the reversal that's going on there?
Israel thinks they're doomed. I mean, they think they're done. And yet God reverses their fate. Flip over one page to chapter 7. Look at the way this is described in chapter 7, verse 8. This would be the Israelites singing here. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his vindication. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? It's amazing, isn't it? Israelites singing, even though they know their sin, they know their rebellion against God. They know what they deserve, and yet they also know that God is going to come and render judgment for them. And then their enemies will see. And they'll be ashamed of having questioned.
And just step back and think about this for a little bit. Just everything you've seen there. Look at that and see the difference between what God is doing here and simply giving people a second chance. And it would be glorious if God went to his people and said, you deserve to be destroyed, but I'm going to give you another chance. You have a hundred years from this point to make things clean, to make things right. And if you get it right this time, well, then we're good. You get a second chance. He doesn't do that. And why? Why doesn't he do that? Because he knows who they are.
He knows who they are as people In fact you know what he could say to them is look if I did give you a second chance to make this right you mess that up too You need stronger medicine than a second chance You need God simply and completely and totally without your help to save you. And a second chance says, God, I'll do better next time. God, I'll contribute something. And then then you can look at the job that I did with my second chance, and you can save me because of that.
Oh God, you give me a clean slate. You give me a clean piece of paper, and I'll return it back to you, and you'll love it. But God knows that's not true. God knows that if he did give you a clean slate, a clean piece of paper, you would just muck it up again with your sin. So what does he do? He doesn't give his people a clean slate. He gives his people Jesus' slate. Isn't that a glorious truth? Isn't it amazing that what God gives to you is not a chance to make yourself righteous, but he gives you the righteousness of somebody else.
You didn't live that life. Jesus did. And yet God looks at that slate and accounts it to you. some of you know all of this deeply. Some of you know deep down in your heart that a second chance doesn't do any good because you've been praying and hoping from the very bottom of your heart that God is not just the God of second chances but of hundredth and ten thousandth chances and you're just hoping you haven't run out. But listen to me.
He's not the God of second chances. He's not the God of ten thousandth chances. He's the God of one chance. And we, you, I, all of us blew it. But thank God he's not just the God of one chance. He's the God of the great reversal. He's the God of saving people who totally do not deserve it. He's the God of bringing life out of where there is only death. Some of you need that desperately. because you've spent years of your life just running around in the rat wheel of second, third, fourth, fifth, chance, new, New Year's resolution, all the rest of it.
And you need to get out of that. You need to come to the God who saves. How do you do that? Well, I'll tell you that in just a minute. But if you a Christian here today then I want you to just pause and see the hugeness of your salvation for just a minute In the light of what Mike has been telling us I want you to see the hugeness of your salvation I want you to just think for a few minutes about how amazing it is that you're saved in the first place.
Let me give you a little thought experiment here. Where do you think you would be right now in your life? Where do you think you would be if God had not pulled you out of your sin? Where do you think you would be if God just allowed the sin in your heart to just flow, right? If he let you be as sinful as your heart would want to be all on its own, if God didn't stop that flow, where would you be? It's a good thing to think about. It's a good thing to think about it. You know, if you're 50, 60, 30 years old, it doesn't matter.
but just think about where you would be right now in life if God had not pulled a massive reversal in your heart. Think about that. And let it fill your heart up with thankfulness. Look at the very last three verses of Micah, chapter 7. This is a good prayer as you think about this. Chapter 7, verse 18. Who, O God, is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression, for the remnant of his inheritance.
He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You, O God, will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. It's glorious, isn't it? But how? How does it happen? Well, this is point three because Mike is pretty clear about it. He does this. He pulls off this great reversal through the great king and his people.
God pulls off this great reversal, point number three, through the great king and his people. So all three prophecies here, all three sections of this book, end with the appearance of a great king who's going to show up and rule his people and protect them and save them. It's through him that this great reversal is going to take place. Now, before I show you a couple of places where this is, I want to just stop for a second. some of you I know are like all right good we've gotten to the Jesus part of the sermon right this is going to happen in every sermon that we have in the Old Testament we will get to the to the Jesus part and so you're just kind of shuffling in your seat and and settling in this is where Greg's going to show me the places where Jesus kind of shows up in the Old Testament right kind of reminds me of a joke right where the Sunday school teacher looks at the little kiddies who are out around and says okay Right, because that's the answer to everything at church.
Jesus, you don't even have to listen to the question. You know the answer is Jesus. So some of you are kind of just unsurprised when we see Jesus yet again here. But why? I mean, why is it that you can trust so fully that even when we're looking at the Old Testament, we will always get to Jesus? Why are you able to trust that? Because actually, if you start to think about it, that's pretty astonishing. I mean, we're talking about books that were written seven centuries, ten centuries before the birth of Jesus, and yet you come in here with full confidence that I'm going to show you Jesus in those books.
And it's not going to be a stretch. You're going to see it with clear eyes. If you think about it, that's astonishing. It's astonishing, right? So that little bit of, you know, ho-hum that you feel, that little bit of kind of boredom, like, oh, here we go to the, you know, the boring part of the sermon. In some ways, it's not good, right? It's not good to be bored with the Word of God. So I should preach at you and tell you, you know, that boredom is bad, and you should be astonished by the Word of God. But on the other hand, I'm kind of like, ah, you know what? That boredom is also being born of a trust that has been born and bred in these people for years because we look at the Old Testament and we see Jesus over and over and over again.
In other words, part of what that means is that you have come to trust God's word. You're totally convinced that it points to Jesus, and so you're not astonished and shocked when you see him there. However you want to think about that, whether you want to work on the sense of boredom and have a little more astonishment when you do see Jesus or whether you just want to kind of rejoice that you not astonished Praise God for his word and lock in on it See what he has to say to you Anyway, all this amazing reversal, Micah says, happens by the hand of the king.
So look with me at the end of the first section, chapter 2, verse 12. Chapter 2, verse 12. So the reversal in this section has already happened. the indictment, then you have salvation. And then look at 12. I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. So that's the salvation, right? That's how I'm going to save you. But look how it happens in 13. He who opens the breach goes up before them.
They break through and pass the gate, going out by it. And then look, their king passes on before them, the Lord, Yahweh, at their head. Did you see it? It's shadowy, right? It doesn't give you a whole lot of detail. And yet he's saying, the way I'm going to save you is through a king who will be Yahweh. Their king goes out before them, Yahweh, at their head. Turn over to chapter 5. this is the famous Christmas one that shows up on Hallmark cards every once in a while chapter 5 verse 1 now muster your troops O daughter of troops siege is laid against us with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek but you O Bethlehem Ephrathah who are too little to be among the clans of Judah from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel whose coming forth is from of old from ancient days therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth and then
the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel he that's the king shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the lord in the majesty of the name of the lord is god and they shall dwell secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be our peace do you see what that's saying I mean it's it's telling you that Israel is given up until this king comes. But when he does come, everything changes. Death turns into life. Danger turns into safety Threat turns into triumph Humiliation turns into celebration Guilt turns into forgiveness You see what Micah saying here Again, it's cloudy, right?
You don't get to see everything. You get to see pieces of it. But what Micah is telling us is that all this great reversal that God does, all of this salvation out of hopelessness that God does, He does through the King, through Jesus. I mean think about Jesus' death I mean it's just a mass of reversals right? You have the perfect sinless Jesus taking the punishment for sin. You have the eternal Son of God being forsaken by His Father. You have a curtain that separated humans from God being ripped in two from top to bottom. You've got Jesus crying out with His last breath it is finished as He dies but it's in triumph not defeat and then you've got us, guilty sinners, being declared righteous and not guilty by the great judge. God justifying the ungodly. And then, of course, at the end of the story, you've got the greatest reversal of all.
When this angel comes and shatters the darkness with, I think, the greatest declaration that's ever come from the lips of any created being. I mean, he couldn't have even understood all the implications of what he was saying, but he says to these women, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen. The angel couldn't have understood. He'd never been touched by death. The angel didn't know what it was to die, but the women did. The women knew. And it was earth shattering to them. Listen, friend, don't let this new year pass.
just marking the beginning of your 4,000th chance. Don't walk away from here just starting your 4,000th first chance. Walk away from here not with another chance, but with a total, complete, finished salvation in Jesus. How do you do that? How do you do that? How do you not just have another week to start over again? How do you go from death to life? Friend, you do it like this. it's easy there's no ritual there's no burning in the bosom that you've got to feel there no emotional catharsis that has to happen it a decision it understanding yourself and your God and your place before him and then acting in a decisive moment It to recognize that you deserve judgment profoundly and completely You are a sinner and a rebel against God and what you deserve is death.
So you recognize that, you acknowledge that, you agree with God about that. And then you trust entirely in the one who reversed death. You trust in the one who offers to stand in your place. You offer to let his record serve as your own. Who offers to let his death stand as your own. To reverse guilt and give salvation. Friends, we live in a world that is in crying need of reversal.
But we serve a God who takes no greater joy than to take everything we know, everything we expect, and surprise us with something entirely different and entirely glorious. And think about the women at the tomb that day. They didn't expect any glory. They expected a terrible job of anointing the executed body of the guy that they thought was the great king. And then God reverses it.
Why do you seek for the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. Now friend, what you need, what you need is not a new resolution. You need salvation. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you that you are the great God of salvation. That you are the God of the great reversal. That even though we're sinners and rebels against you, in your kindness and in your compassion and your love, you didn't leave us there.
But you sent your son, Jesus, the eternal second person of the Trinity, to live for us and to die for us and then to rise so that united to him by faith we might rise right along with him. God, help us to remember these things. Help us to glory and revel in these things. Father, we pray that you would cause us to rejoice in knowing that you have saved us totally and completely and irrevocably. We thank you for these things in the name of Jesus, our King and our Savior.
Amen.