If you would, let's open our
Bibles to the book of Micah. Micah chapter one, right after
the book of Jonah. Micah, one of the so-labeled
minor prophets, but again, nothing minor about his message. As I
said, this is a study of the minor prophets who had a major
message. So we're going to look at this
prophecy. The title of this message this
evening is God's Judgment from His Holy Temple. God's Judgment
from His Holy Temple. Now that's important, and I'll
show you why in the context here. Micah prophesied somewhere close
to around 700 years before the coming of Christ. In fact, as
we looked at these minor prophets and as we continue through, from
about 800 years, 800 B.C. to 700 B.C., there was a lot
of prophetic activity. God sent message after message
to Israel, the northern kingdom, Judah, the southern kingdom.
He started with Jonah. was probably the first one in
that era, around 790 B.C., and he continued on with prophets
that were sent primarily to the northern kingdom of Israel. That
would be Amos and Hosea, who we already studied. And then
the prophets of the southern kingdom. That would be Isaiah
and Micah during that era. Micah's name means, who is like
unto God. That's what his name means. It's
a form, you know there was another prophet named Micaiah, same kind
of, another form of the name, not the same person. That's what
the name means. Who is like unto our God? And of course that's a rhetorical
question. That's a question that can only be answered this way.
There is nothing or no one like our God. He is holy. That means He is separate, high
above all other beings. He is not a created being. He
is the Creator. He's the Alpha and the Omega
with no beginning and no end. And even Micah's name shows us
that the work of a prophet, God's prophet now, the man who is appointed
of God and gifted of God with the message of truth, the message
of salvation, that his main job is to sanctify the Lord God before
the people, set apart God, to preach the truth concerning God,
who He is and what He's like, what He does, especially how
God saves sinners. how God justifies the ungodly. Because you see, in that way
especially now, we can talk about other ways, you know. There have
been men in the past who have written books on the attributes
of God and you can delineate them and go down through them
and that's okay. Those are good studies. Arthur
Pink wrote a great one, you know, for example. I think we have
it or used to have it in our bookstore. And you can study
that, but really what sets him apart, what identifies and distinguishes
the true and living God in the message of God's prophets and
God's preachers, the witness of Christ's church, is in the
message and the declaration and the revelation of the God who
saves sinners by His grace. He said that in Isaiah, the book
of Isaiah. Chapter 45, he said, who is like
unto me? Who has declared this from old?
Have not I the Lord? I'm a just God and a Savior. Look unto me, no one else, nothing
else. Don't look to yourself, don't
look to your human, those whom you honor among humanity,
but look unto God and Him alone for salvation. And that's what
Micah's name tells us, you can't compare anyone or anything to
God. That's why he said in the first of the commandments that
he gave to Israel, you shall not make any graven image. You cannot draw God. You cannot shape God. That's
why that's idolatry. I'm telling you, you see, that's
the way it is. You can't contain God. And so this is the message
that identifies and distinguishes the true and living God. He identifies
Himself right at the beginning in verse 1 of chapter 1, the
Word of the Lord. That's Jehovah. It's like we
read there in Isaiah 26 and like you read there in Psalm 11. He
is Jehovah. That means something. That means
something. It means God our Savior. God saves. Christ identified
himself as Jehovah, the Savior. He's the great I Am. And so we
see the revelation of God in the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now Micah, as I said, he was
a contemporary with Isaiah and Hosea. Hosea prophesying to the
northern kingdom, Isaiah prophesying to the southern kingdom, Micah
mainly prophesied to the southern kingdom of Judah, but he had
some things to say to the northern kingdom too. But you could kind
of differentiate him not in message, but in his mannerisms from Isaiah
in this way. You'd call Isaiah the city prophet,
you'd call Micah the country prophet, maybe like that. And
so he had the same message. And his prophecy is arranged
in three messages. In this book, seven chapters
now that's divided in the King James Version, there are three
messages or what sometimes you'll hear the word oracle, three oracles. And they all three start with
this word, hear. Hear the word of the Lord. Listen
to what God has to say to us. It's like our Lord, you know,
when He was giving the revelation to John to the seven churches
of Asia Minor, and He always said at the end of that message,
He said, He who hath ears, let him hear. Do you have ears to
hear? Well, hear. It's what Micah is saying to
his generation. I've got a message, and it's
an urgent message, and it's a message you need to hear. This is a message
of life and death. This is not just an opinion of
man, but this is something that you need to hear. Hear it. The
first message is in the first two chapters, and I'm just going
to cover chapter 1 tonight. We're going to read through it,
and I'll make some comments to lay the foundation. And then
the second message begins in chapter 3 and goes to chapter
5 at the end of that, and then the third message from chapter
6 to chapter 7. But here's the thing about it.
Each message that Micah has for his generation begins with God's
just judgment upon Israel and Judah for their sin. God is holy. He will punish sin. Don't ever
think He won't. When we hear so much today, and
listen, I've told you all, and you know it's so, you've heard
it from this pulpit for years and years and years, that God
is a loving, merciful, gracious God. But don't ever, don't ever
think of His love and His mercy and grace without His justice. God is a consuming fire, the
scripture says, to anyone who comes to Him apart from Christ,
without Christ, without being washed in His blood and clothed
in His righteousness. God does save sinners. And he's,
listen, God's slow to anger. We read about that earlier. And
God is, He delights to show mercy, but His mercy cannot be shown,
cannot be exercised without justice. And this is the distinguishing
mark of the God of the Bible, the God of the covenant. So each
message that Micah has for his generation begins with God's
judgment upon Israel and Judah for their sin. But that's not
the limit to the message. It goes on. There's more. There's
more. That fellow on the radio used
to say, here's the rest of the story. Well, I'll tell you what,
we want to hear the rest of the story because the rest of this
story is the message of hope, the hope of God's unchanging
covenant of grace and mercy and salvation in Christ. In fact,
the whole book ends that way. You can go and read the last
few verses of this. But you know, that's the way
the Bible is. That's the way it is from Genesis to Revelation.
That's the law and the gospel. the law to expose our sin and
our deservedness of damnation to show me and you and all men
and women born of Adam the impossibility of being justified before God,
being saved, being blessed, being accepted based on our best efforts. to save ourselves. Our best efforts
to keep the law, that's impossible. For by deeds of law shall no
flesh be justified. But also showing us that that's
by the power of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and drive
us to Christ for salvation, drive us to Him for life, drive us
to Christ for righteousness, for forgiveness by His blood
and glory in Him. In this generation, in the Old
Testament, now you know, and keep this in its context, that
they look forward to the promise of the coming of the Messiah.
That's what the law and the gospel was all about. The law wasn't
just an entity in and of itself given to them by which they could
do their best and be accepted before God. It was a convicting
message. That's what the law was. That's
why the Bible in John chapter 1 and verse 17 says this, that
the law came by Moses, a man. But grace and truth comes by
Jesus Christ. So the law was given to show
them their need of Christ. their need of grace, and Micah
knew that. And I'll show you how we get
this from the context. Look at verse 1. It says, The
word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Moresthite, that's
where he was from, that's south of Jerusalem, in the days of
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, that's the same time
that Isaiah and Hosea prophesied, which he saw concerning Samaria,
now Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
and Jerusalem, and that was the capital of the southern kingdom
of Judah. Now, his prophecy concerns that
which God saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Samaria here is
the capital of the northern kingdom, and it's used as an identification
of the whole kingdom, not just one city. Jerusalem, the same
for the southern kingdom. Well, here's the thing. What
did God see in these countries in these kingdoms, in these capitals. Well, I'm not going to go all
over the scripture here, but I want you to turn to Isaiah
chapter 1. If you want a great description, one of the best
descriptions in the Bible of what God actually saw in Jerusalem,
for example, and incidentally He didn't see much better in
Samaria, He didn't see any better at all in Samaria actually, it's
about the same. But if you want to see what God
saw, what God reveals here, and this is not God looking down
from heaven to find out information now. You understand that. This
is a revelation from God. It's like God is saying through
the prophet Micah, now this is the way I see things. And you
know that's the way things are. You know sometimes the way we
see things is not the way things are. But you can rest assured
that God's judgments are always according to truth. And I'm not
going to read this whole chapter, but I'm going to refer to it
a couple of times tonight. But if you want to see a good description
of the depravity of man, think of man, first of all, at his
best state. And what we would normally think
of a man at his best state would be religious, wouldn't we? Somebody's
dedicated, sold out to religion, doing their best to keep the
law, doing their best to worship and all of that. And man at his
best state, the scripture says, is altogether what? Vanity. Worthless. And what is he talking
about there? He's talking about the highest
that man on his own, by his own will, by his own works, by his
own dedication and affections and thoughts and philosophies,
the best that man can do, the highest that man can reach to.
And right here you have it described in the book of Isaiah chapter
1. Look at it. He talks about in verse 2 of
Isaiah 1. He says, Hear, O heavens, and
give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
Now, I want you to see as we read down there, he's talking
about a religious people here who are doing their dead-level
best to try to establish their own righteousness before God.
who are doing their best to keep the commandments. And he says
in verse 3, the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's
crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Even a dumb ox and a dumb ass knows more about their creator
than Israel does. Fallen, sinful, depraved man. That's what he's saying. And
he says in verse 4, a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors, they've
forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel
unto anger, they are gone away backward. And then he goes on
to describe that this is a heart matter, this thing goes all the
way to the heart. Why should you be stricken anymore?
You'll revoke more and more. The whole head is sick. The whole
heart is faint. You see, that's the problem with
sin. It's not just an outward problem.
It's not just in what we do or what we don't do. It's what we
are by nature. Isn't that right? What is it? The psalmist said, man who drinketh
iniquity like water. In other words, the only thing
that'll nourish that sinful passion and flesh. Well, you look at
this, and you see such descriptions, and you wonder, what in the world
were those people doing? That must have been awful. They
must have been like Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, look down at
verse 9. Now again, you read the whole chapter on your own.
We studied this before. Well, he says, except the Lord
of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, We should have
been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah."
In other words, except there was a small remnant, and of course
the Lord identifies that as a remnant according to the election of
grace, doesn't He? God chose them in Christ, saved
them by His grace, except there was just a small part of this
nation that turned to the Lord and worshipped him aright from
the heart by his grace in Christ, the whole nation would have perished
under judgment just like Sodom and Gomorrah." What were they
doing? Look at verse 10. Here's what
they were doing. "'Hear the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me?' They were sacrificing. Weren't
they supposed to sacrifice? Yes. They were commanded to,
weren't they, to bring their oblations and their offerings?
It's a part of the Old Covenant, the ceremonial law. And he said,
but to what purpose? What's the motive? What's the
meaning behind these sacrifices? They looked upon their efforts
in those sacrifices as recommending them unto God, not what the sacrifices
represented and typified, the blood of the Lamb of God, the
blood of Christ. He says, saith the Lord, I'm
full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beast.
I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he
goats. They've missed the message. They've missed the meaning of
these things. They've missed the gospel in these types and
pictures that God gave them. Verse 12, when you come to appear
before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my
courts? Look at verse 13, bring no more vain oblations. An oblation is an offering. Coming
to God with an offering. A vain oblation is an empty offering. It's a worthless offering. Why
were their offerings worthless? He says incense is an abomination. Weren't they required to burn
incense in the holy place? He says it's an abomination.
You know what abomination means? That means it's filthy. It means
it's cursed. The new moons and Sabbaths. He
says, the calling of assemblies, the worship services, I cannot
away with. It's iniquity, he said, even
the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts, my soul hateth. They're a trouble unto me, I'm
weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, you know what they're doing? When they spread forth
their hands, they're praying. Your prayers, I will hide mine
eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood,
or bloods. What was wrong here? What was
going on in Jerusalem? What was going on in Samaria?
I'll tell you exactly what it was. It was religion without
truth. It was religion without grace. It was religion without Christ. That's exactly what it was. It was their efforts at religion
that they believed made them righteous before God. It was
their efforts that they believed recommended them unto God. You
can find another description of it in the book of Philippians
chapter 3 when the Apostle Paul is talking about what he thought
before conversion recommended him unto God. I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews. I was circumcised the eighth
day. You see, those things don't save sinners. Religion won't
save you. Religious activity, religious
sincerity will not save you. It will not. Remember we read
it this morning in Romans chapter 10 and verses 1 and 2. They had
a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. They were in their
religion, they were trying to establish a righteousness of
their own rather than being submitted to Christ and His righteousness
as that which alone saves and recommends us unto God. Back
in Micah chapter 1 now. That's what was going on in Samaria. And I know there were a lot of
different things, there were a lot of different degrees of
depravity and idolatry that were going on. You know, once that
kind of thing started, once man gets so involved in his natural
ways of works, free willism, all of that, the way that it
goes is just down, down, down, down. Worse and worse and worse. And that's what he's talking
about here. Now, if you want to read about what was going
on in Samaria specifically, just go back and read the book of
Hosea. Remember that. But look at verse 2. Now look
at Micah chapter 1. He says, Now this was a message
for Judah and Israel, but it's also a message for all without
exception. Christ told his disciples to
go in all the world and preach the gospel. So it's not just,
this is a message that Micah brought to this nation, but it's
a message for all to hear. And he says, "...and let the
Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple."
Now this is important, and this is why I entitled the message,
God's Judgment from His Holy Temple. First of all, he identifies
himself Jehovah God, And it's almost like he's saying here,
God, Jehovah God, Jehovah, the God who justifies the ungodly,
the God of promise, takes the witness stand against you. And
he does it from his holy temple. Now, you cannot overemphasize
that these identifications of God and his holy temple place
these charges within a particular context. And you know, whenever
it comes to understanding Scripture, context is everything. And I'll
take it all the way back to Genesis and carry it all the way through
to Revelation, the context of the whole Bible. What he's talking
about here, the Holy Temple. What is the Holy Temple? Well,
you know what the Temple was in Jerusalem. You know about
the tabernacle. That tabernacle, God told Moses
when He brought Israel together at Sinai to build that tabernacle,
and He told them how and what materials to use, and He gave
the gifts of those artisans to build all those things, its walls,
its vessels, everything about it, and it was built for one
main purpose. That tabernacle. And that was the tent that they
moved around. And then later on, under Solomon,
they built the permanent structure called the temple, the holy temple.
And that was, in essence, as far as his glory is concerned,
the dwelling place of God. Now, it didn't contain God. You
can't contain God. He's omnipresent. He's spirit. You can't build a house for him
and say, God, now you're there and not anywhere else. But that's
where his Shekinah glory dwelt, as it were. That's where the
greatest revelation of God to men, sinful men, was to be found.
And that tabernacle was built for mainly one purpose, and that
was to house the Holy of Holies. And what was in that Holy of
Holies? Well, mainly it was the Ark of the Covenant, that box
made of Shittem wood, typifying the humanity of Christ. overlaid
with gold, typifying the deity of Christ, covered with the mercy
seat, and the high priest was to come in one time a year, remember,
and he was to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice from off the
altar, the altar that was outside in the court, that was the place
of judgment, he was to sprinkle that blood, the blood of the
lamb, over the mercy seat. And what did that typify? That
typified the gospel. of God's grace in Christ. That typified, pictured, foreshadowed,
and communicated the message of how God is just to justify
the ungodly. The gospel message of God's grace,
how He saved sinners by the blood of the Lamb. Put away our sins
by the blood of Christ. The blood of animals wouldn't
do it. That was just a type. That was just a picture. That
was just a foreshadowing. But behold the Lamb of God, John
the Baptist said, by the blood of Christ, the blood of His cross,
He put away our sins. The righteousness that He would
establish whereby we as sinners can stand before God, having
that righteousness accounted, charged, imputed to us, we stand
before God. That's what that whole temple
was for, to house that holiest of all. And so what he's saying
here is that God is bringing judgment upon Israel and Judah
from that place. from that holy temple where God
reveals himself as the God of salvation. So what's the issue
here? Well, that tells us that Micah's
message of judgment and later on hope in Christ is a gospel
issue. This is a gospel issue. It's
not just an issue of you fellas have just not done what you're
supposed to do. They didn't. They didn't do what
they were supposed to do. But it's a gospel issue. And
it strikes at the glory of God. Think about it. God, we read
it in Isaiah 1, God hates religion without truth. What is the truth? Salvation by God's grace through
Christ. God hates religion without heart. And the only way that religion,
listen, the only way true religion, what James calls true religion,
undefiled, the only way it's going to be from the heart is
when God the Holy Spirit convinces us of sin and brings us to a
broken and contrite heart, to know that nothing we do Nothing
we attempt to do can save us or recommend us unto God. I'm
a sinner like that publican. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I have no hope of salvation,
no hope of forgiveness, no hope of being accepted, justified
before God, but in the blood and the righteousness of God
the Son incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's when it comes
from the heart. All people can be sincere without
that. There are many people who are
sincere in false religion. They're so sincere. But sincerity
is not the issue. It's sincerity in the truth of
God's glory in Christ. Religion without grace works
religion. God hates it. And He's going
to judge from His holy temple. This is the way God saves sinners.
He won't save you in any other way. He won't save you by any
other person or by any other work than Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. He's going to judge sinners from
His holy temple, as it were. Religion without Christ, without
resting in Christ, looking to Him, exalting Him. That's why
John the Baptist said, I must decrease, He must increase. You
see, what they were doing, And they thought they were doing
it by the law, was actually a denial of the law. Because that law
was given to do what? To expose their sin and lead
them to seek and find salvation by the grace of God in Christ.
You see, the issue in Israel and Judah, in Samaria and Jerusalem
in that day, my friend, it's the same issue. It was the same
issue in our Lord's day when He came upon the scene in His
public ministry and He told them, He said, accept your righteousness.
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no way, no case, no wise, enter the kingdom of heaven."
Same in Paul's day. He said, what was Israel trying
to do? What were they seeking after? They were seeking after
righteousness, but they didn't find it. Why? Because they sought
it by works and not by faith. What is it to seek righteousness
by faith? To seek it and find it in Christ. Don't seek it anywhere
else. You won't find it. It's not there.
You say, well, that's not the way I see it. Well, that's the
way God sees it. That's what he's saying. Look
at verse 3. And I'll tell you what, it's
the same in our day too, isn't it? People trying to work their
way and earn their way into God's favor by something that will
not work. It's sad. Well, look at verse
3, he says, "...for behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His
place," that's His holy place, "...and He will come down and
tread upon the high places of the earth." The Lord comes out
of His holy temple. Not only can this high places
of the earth, not only can that refer to the majestic places
of the physical creation which God created, But it can also
refer to that which men by nature exalt and in which we by nature
seek refuge and safety. That's a good picture of men
seeking salvation in the high places of the earth. It's a good
picture of men seeking salvation by their own righteousness, by
their own works, safety and peace in anything but Christ. Well,
God's going to come forth out of His place, and He's going
to judge that. He's going to expose that for
what it is. It's iniquity, He said in Isaiah. All your new
moons, those high places, all your prayers, all of your religious
activity, without truth, without grace, without heart, without
Christ, He's going to topple them down. Verse 4, He says,
"...the mountains shall be molten under him, the valleys shall
be cleft," that means split in two, "...and waxed before the
fire, they'll melt, He says, and as the waters that are poured
down a steep place, these mountains will sink under his feet, valleys
split apart. Everywhere that men seek by their
own works to rise up to God and every place in the valley that
they seek to hide from the wrath of God is going to be brought
down and exposed. The rock mountains, that's what
this literally is, the rock mountains will crumble into gravel, the
river valleys will leak through the earth like a sieve. You see,
all that men by nature exalt and in which men by nature seek
refuge and seek life. You know, whenever it talks about
water like that, that's life. That's the source of life, especially
if you lived in the desert. And he said, where you seek life,
it's going to sink through the earth like a sieve. That's like
false religion. That's like religion that man
concocts for himself. There's no life there. There's
only life in Christ. That's why he told the woman
at the well, I'm the water of life. He that drinketh this water,
he said, there'll be fountains of living water welling up in
him. He says, ho everyone that thirsteth. Come forth and drink. Whosoever will, drink of the
water of life freely. Don't try to dig your own cistern,
your own well here. Christ is the water of life.
Nothing can withstand the hand of God's justice and wrath against
sin or give life but Christ. Look at verse 5. He says, For
the transgression of Jacob is all this. This is the reason,
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 are the high places
of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? God says all this judgment is
coming down because of Jacob's sin. So you ask the question,
what is Jacob's sin? And he says, he's literally saying
here, isn't it obvious? Look at all the religion, the
false religion that's taken up in Samaria, the idolatry, and
in Judah. That's Jacob's sin, they've left
God. They've left and ignored the
grace of God for false religion, works religion, proud religion. And so he says in verse 6, Therefore
I will make Samaria as an heap in the field. In other words,
Samaria is just going to be a heap of rubbish. going to bring it
down, a vacant lot. He says, and that's the plantings
of a vineyard, and I will pour down the stones thereof into
the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof." In
other words, he's going to expose the foundation. And that's interesting
when you consider the language of the gospel as Christ presented
it in the Sermon on the Mount. Because what he's literally describing
here is the destruction of Samaria and the northern kingdom at the
hands of the Assyrian army in 722. They're going to be destroyed.
But spiritually speaking, there's a picture here. And what he's
talking about is the destruction of all false refuges, all false
foundations by the judgment of God in Christ. Now, you remember
in the Sermon on the Mount, at the end of that sermon, what
Christ said. He said, He that heareth my words and doeth them,
He's going to be like a man who builds his house on a rock. That's the foundation. And he
says, the winds will come, the rains will fall, and that house
will stand. Why? Because it's got a nice
coat of paint on it? Or because the mortar and the
bricks are just really, really well made and well put? No. It
stands because it's built upon a rock. That's the kid. Now, those who do not hear his
words, his words of grace, his words of life, he said, I liken
that to a man who builds his house upon sand. And when the
rains come and the winds come, his house will fall. Why? Because
it's built on sand. And that's what he's saying here
about Samaria. I'm going to expose your foundation for what it is.
It's nothing. It's sand. And it won't work. The Bible tells us that there's
no other foundation that can be laid but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Look at verse 7. He says, "...and
all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces." That's
their idolatry now. all the hires now listen to this
he said all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire
and all the idols therefore thereof will I lay desolate for she gathered
it of the hire of an harlot and they shall return to the hire
of an harlot all of her idols all of her earnings that's what
a hire is it's what you earn You get a job, you go to earn
money, right? You're hired, they say. It means
you're going to earn money. That's what he's talking about.
And what this... I'll tell you what he's talking
about. It's a great description of works-oriented religion. Those
who believe that God will save them and bless them based on
their works and their efforts, they're not willing, loving bond
slaves, bond servants of Christ. They're hirelings. That's what
they are. Serving God in order to earn
His blessings, or earn His favor. Salvation for hire. God did His
part, now you do yours. If you do this, God will give
you in return. That's hiring. That's the hiring
of a spiritual harlot, is exactly what it is. So God says, I'm
going to give them their hire. Well, what is their hire? Well,
it's what you can earn. What can we earn? Well, the Bible
tells us in Romans 6 and verse 23, the wages of sin is death. That's what we can earn. But
the gift of God, not what you earn, the gift of God, a free
gift, an undeserved gift, an unearned gift, the gift of God
is eternal life. But somebody had to earn it,
whether it wasn't me, it wasn't you, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. He earned it. He paid the price. So look at verse 8. Micah says,
Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked,
I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the
owls. He's lamenting and mourning over
the sin of his people. This is the prophet's sorrow.
And I'll say it this way, though we recognize God's justice in
punishing all sin, we ought to sorrow over the destruction of
the wicked because of this reason alone, but for the grace of God,
there goes I. Am I right? I am what I am by
the grace of God. And here the prophet is a living
illustration of the nakedness and the shame of the nation too.
Standing before God in our sins. Think about it. Standing before
God in religion won't do it. That's nakedness, that's shamaness.
Standing before God without righteousness. Look at verse 9, he says, "...for
her wound is incurable, for it's come unto Judah..." "...he has
come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem." These wounds... Isaiah described them, wounds
and putrefying sores. They're incurable because, and
you know why they're incurable? Because there is absolutely no
cure for sin without Christ, without His blood and righteousness.
No cure. My friend, without Him, your
disease of sin, my disease of sin without the grace of God
in Christ is totally incurable. And that's what they're rejecting.
There's no judgment of wrath for God's people in Christ. We
have the cure. That's why Christ called himself
the Great Physician. He has the cure. What's the cure
for all my sins? His blood. The blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses me from all sin. Without him, there's no cure.
Now, from here on to the end of the chapter, he mentions a
lot of different cities. And I'm just going to briefly
give you these things. But they knew these cities. These
people that he's preaching to, they knew them. It'd be like
if we're here in Ashland, Kentucky, and if I talk about Ironton,
everybody here knows what Ironton is, then Huntington, Catlixburg,
Russell. You'd know those cities. And
they conjure up certain ideas in your mind. And that's the
way it was in these cities. So listen to what he says here.
He says in verse 10, "...declare ye it not at Gath..." You remember
Gath? Goliath was from Gath. That was
a Philistine city. He says, declare you it not in
Gath. Philistines were great enemies
of Israel and Judah. And what he's saying, don't tell
it in Gath because all it would do is give us shame and dishonor
in the sight of our enemies. It would give them reason to
blaspheme. You see, the counterpart of that
for God's people in Christ is this, whosoever believeth in
him shall not be ashamed. So if you don't have Christ,
don't declare it in Gath. Don't bring that shame on us.
He goes on, he says in verse 10, in the house of Aphra, roll
thyself in the dust. That's talking about mourning.
Mourning. Don't let them see us mourn.
Rolling in the dust. The dust of our despair. John Bunyan called it the slew
of despond. You know the counterpart to that
for God's people in Christ is rejoice in the Lord. We don't
have to roll in the dust. We don't have to wallow in the
slew of despond because Christ is our hope. Christ is our joy. Christ is our peace. Look at
verse 11. He says, Pass ye away or pass
on your way, thou inhabitants of Saphir, having thy shame naked. The word Schaefer, that means
fair and beautiful. And what he's talking about is
all your beauty will be turned to shame. Everything that men
by nature exalt. and hold up as beautiful as an
abomination in the sight of God. That's why our only hope is to
turn to the beauty of Christ. Psalm 90 and verse 17 speaks
of it. It says, "...let the beauty of
the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of
our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."
Why? Because of the beauty of the Lord. He's beautiful. Verse 11, he says, "...the inhabitant
of Zanan, came not forth in the morning of Bethesda, he shall
receive of you his standing." What that's talking about, that
word Zion means going out. And it's a picture in the wordplay
here that he's doing is people going out of bondage, going out
free. And what he's simply saying here
is you're not going to go out free. You're going to stay in
bondage because without Christ there's no freedom, there's no
liberty, there's no liberty of sin. You see, in the law and
in sin there's nothing but bondage, trapped, held captive. You know, one of the things I
like about the scripture when you do word studies like this,
you know, over in Luke chapter 9 and verse 31, you don't have
to turn there, but the Lord, on the Mount of Transfiguration,
it said He spoke with Moses and Elijah, that's the Law and the
Prophets, and it says the subject of their discussion in that Mount
of Transfiguration was His decease, which He should accomplish at
Jerusalem. And that word, decease, if you translate it literally
from the Greek, you know what the word is? It's exodus. It's
going out of. In other words, what he's saying
here, the death of Christ is a leading his people out of the
bondage of sin and Satan and the law. They go free. That's
why Paul said in Galatians 5, 1, stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free and don't be entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Well, he says, the inhabitant
of Zion and came not forth in morning. He's not going to come
out. He's going to be in bondage crying. And this Beth Ezel, he
shall receive of you his standing. This Beth Ezel, that means standing. What he's saying is they won't
stand. They'll fall. You see, he's giving them these
pictures to show them, you look to that city, you're going to
fall. You can't stand before God on
your own, in your own works, in your own goodness, you have
none. He goes on, look at verse 12, he says, for the inhabitant
of Meroth, Meroth means bitterness, he waited carefully for good.
They wait for good, but it won't come. See, they wait for blessing,
but they'll receive cursing. I tell you, you can wait and
wait and wait, but without Christ, there's no good from God. There's
no blessing from God. He goes on, he says, but evil
came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. You know
what Jerusalem means? That's peace, the city of peace. There'll be no peace coming from
the city of peace. That's what he's saying. There's
no peace without Christ, for Christ is our peace. Verse 13,
O thou inhabitants of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift
beast. This Lachish was a place, they
say, where the city of Jerusalem and Judah, they kept their chariots
and their horses corralled. And what he's saying, he's referring
to their faith in their own military power, their own chariots, their
own horses. Remember that psalm that says,
some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember
the name of the Lord our God. We put our trust in God. You
see, no military might, no military fortress, no military power will
be able to deliver you from the wrath of God. Only Christ and
Him crucified and risen again. Verse 13, she's the beginning
of the sin to the daughter of Zion. That was Israel's first
sin. That is dependent upon themselves and their own power. You remember
even when they came out of Egypt and they stood on the banks of
the Red Sea, they looked at the military might of Egypt and they
said, well, we can't overcome that. And they began to complain. When they came to the brink of
the promised land, they sent spies over who come back and
said, they're too big for us, they're too powerful, we can't
do that. Well, we're not depending upon our power and our might
and our armies and our strategy, we're depending upon God. We
look to Christ for salvation. How we run the race of grace?
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He
says, for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee,
verse 14, therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth Gath. Now what does that mean? Well,
Moresheth Gath literally means Gath's possessions. And he's
talking about here an inheritance, giving gifts of inheritance.
And he's simply saying that you'll give gifts And you'll be bound
to a foreign nation and forced to give gifts to them. And those
gifts that you have, the good things that you have to give,
they won't be used for God's glory. They won't be used for
your own benefit. They'll go to benefit a foreign
nation in whom you're in bondage to. And then he says, the houses
of Aqzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. Aqzib means
a lying refuge. It means deceit. And that's what
your hope is if it's not in Christ. It's a lying refuge. It's a deception. Verse 15, yet will I bring an
heir unto the own habit of Marisha. Again, a possessor or an heir.
And he's saying, you're going to have heirs. You're going to
spawn children, your heirs, to possess your treasures, but it's
not the heir you want. You see, it's going to be ungodly
people that inherit your possessions. And then he says in verse 15,
He shall come unto Adullam, the glory of Israel. You remember
David ran to the cave of Adullam? You remember that? It's 1 Samuel
22. There's a great picture of Christ
there. We don't have time to go over
and look at it again. But here's what he's saying.
David, he ran to the cave of Adullam. That's a great picture
of Christ and His chosen people, justified, redeemed, and called.
But Israel, they'd lost sight of that. They'd lost sight of
the truth of what even King David and the covenant with David and
the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob before him were all
about. They'd lost sight of it. And they longed for the days
of David, the glory days of David. Have you ever longed for the
glory days of the past? Oh, I wish it could be like it
was in the 50s or whatever, whatever time you exalt. And that's the
way they did. Oh, if we could just get back
to the days of the glory of David. But they didn't long for it because
of the spiritual truths and types and blessings that David received
as king and what he typified, the king of kings. They longed
for it because of physical prosperity and power in the kingdom. And
they thought that was the glory of Israel. That was our glory. That wasn't their glory. Their
glory wasn't in their army and their riches and their power
and their goodness and their might. And so he says, well,
here's the glory days of David. David was fleeing. He was on
the run. He was a renegade. He was a fugitive. And he had to live in a cave.
And so what you think are glory days and what you think of as
your glory will be your downfall. And so he says in verse 16, he
says, What he's talking about there, that shaving of the head,
that signified mourning. And he's saying instead of seeking
glory days in David, you ought to be mourning over your sin.
You ought to be grieving over your sinfulness. Everything you
exalt and have confidence in, you ought to cry over and run
to Christ for all salvation. That's the only hope for any
sinner.