MICAH
1:1-2:13 - Micah was a
fearless preacher of God’s Word. His message was not popular: ‘Let the
Lord God be a witness against you’. He was a forthright preacher of
God’s Word. He knew that the people wouldn’t want to hear what he had to
say to them. He demanded that they listen to him. This wasn’t only
Micah’s word. It was the Word of the Lord. That’s why Micah said, ‘Hear,
O peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth and all who are in it’ (2:2). We
cannot afford to ignore the Word of the Lord. We must listen to His
Word. He speaks His Word against us. He says, ‘You cannot save
yourselves’ (2:3). He speaks His Word against us so that we might learn
to rejoice in His Word of salvation: ‘I will bring you together like
sheep returning to the fold’ (2:12).
3:1-5:1 - Micah
speaks to those ‘who hate good and love evil’ (3:2). He calls upon them
to change their way of living. He calls upon them to worship the Lord - ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’ - and walk
with Him - ‘We will walk in the Name of the Lord our God for ever and
ever’. How do we learn to ‘walk in His paths’? We come to His ‘House’.
We listen to His ‘Word’. We pray that His Word will come to us ‘with
power’. We ask Him to ‘teach us His ways’. We pray that we will be
‘filled with the Spirit of the Lord’ (4:2,5; 3:8). We worship the Lord
in His House. Gathered in His House for worship, we ‘receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes on us’. Through His power, we are equipped for witness: ‘you will be My witnesses...’ (Acts 1:8).
5:2-6:16
- In 5:2, we have a prophecy concerning the birth of Jesus at
‘Bethlehem’. This prophecy invites us to ‘go to Bethlehem and see this
thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about’. At
‘Bethlehem’, we see ‘shepherds, glorifying and praising God’ (Luke
2:15,20). We also see Jesus our Shepherd. He is the One whom the
shepherds worshipped. He is the One who ‘will stand and shepherd His
flock in the strength of the Lord...’. He is ‘the Good Shepherd’. He ‘laid down His life’ for us. He is ‘the Great Shepherd’. He ‘was raised from the dead’ for us. He is ‘the Chief Shepherd’.
He will ‘come’ again for us (5:4; John 10:14; Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter
5:4). Jesus our ‘Shepherd’ gives us ‘strength’ to ‘do justice, love
kindness and walk humbly with our God’ (6:8).
7:1-20 -
‘Who is a God like You? You forgive sin... You love to be merciful.You
will again have compassion on us... You will throw all our sins into the
depths of the ocean!... You will bless us... You will set Your love
upon us...’ (7:18-20) - ‘I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the
Nazarene and wonder how He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean.
He took my sins and my sorrows. He made them His very own. He bore the
burden to Calvary, and suffered and died alone. When with the ransomed
in glory His face I at last shall see, ‘twill be my joy through the ages
to sing of His love for me. How marvellous, how wonderful, and my song
shall ever be: How marvellous, how wonderful is my Saviour’s love for
me!’ (Mission Praise, 296).
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