Thus far Micah’s opening sermon has focused on the judgment of God, detailing all of the ways that Israel had violated the Covenant, being unfaithful to God’s perfect Law and therefore deserving the wrath of God. Micah had shown the people that they had no place to hide from God’s coming judgment.
God’s people, the people that He had called out as His special possession, 1Peter 2:9, had compromised with the unbelievers, adopting their worship, adopting their sexual ethic, chasing after things which cannot satisfy, Isaiah 55:2, and in the process earning for themselves, not the peace and prosperity that they imagined, but rather earning for themselves the discipline of their Father in heaven. Hebrews 12:6 Despite Micah’s warning, they had ignored, to their peril, the dire curses contained within the Covenant: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Romans 1:8
This is exactly what they had been doing: suppressing the truth in their wickedness. Rather than living under the mercy and humbly obeying God’s law, which brings life, James 2:12, they had become haughty, refusing to listen to God’s prophets. They placed themselves above God’s law, ignoring mercy, doing whatever they pleased, coveting and seizing property. They were merciless, stealing, evicting women and children from their homes, dreaming up new ways to do evil, and legitimizing their sin by hiring priests who approved of their practices.
With itching ears they gathered around themselves teachers who would legitimize their own desires. 2 Timothy 4:3
Was there no hope?
Where there is no hope, people frequently either give up in despair, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, or live lives of hedonism. They try to squeeze some fleeting joy out of their ultimately meaningless and hopeless existence. As the Apostle Paul said, if there is no hope, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. 1 Corinthians 15:32
But God’s people do have hope. When God first called the people of Israel to himself He made a Covenant of the Promise with them, swearing that He would always uphold the Covenant.
When God made his Promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself… And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
Hebrews 6:13-19
That means that even when God’s people are unfaithful God will remain faithful, showing them mercy, because He will never renege on His Promise. He must remain true to Himself. 2 Timothy 2:13 But this does not mean, as many believe, that God overlooks the sins of His children. No. Being a loving parent, God disciplines those whom He loves, Hebrews 12:6, so that they may work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12
Why had Micah been so harsh in his prophesy?
Like Adam in the garden of Eden, we like to make excuses, preferring to call our sins, mistakes, white lies, poor choices, and momentary lapses in judgment, as if we were not opposing the God of truth and actually doing the will of God’s enemy, the father of lies, Satan. We like to compare ourselves to others so that we can convince ourselves that we are not that bad. “I know I sometimes blur the lines but I’m not as bad as you, or her, or them, or fill-in-the-blank.”
The Law is preached in order to make sin manifest and prepare hearers for the Gospel.
(Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress and Concordia, 1955)
The knowledge of the depth of our sin comes only through thoroughly understanding the requirements of God’s law. Romans 3:20 This exposure of our sins shows us our brokenness and rebellion and shows us our utter need for the Gospel. The law exposes the feeble excuses and lies that we make up as we try to rationalize and justify our sins. We must be brought to understand that we are without excuse. Romans 1:20 We must be shown there is nothing that we can do to save ourselves. We are lawbreakers. We are condemned to hell. God is angry with the wicked everyday. Psalm 7:11 God’s wrath remains on them. John 3:36
Only after being wrecked and awakened by the law to the fact that we are utterly wicked before the Holiness of God does the good news make sense. All of our pretenses are destroyed. We must stand before God as His enemies, condemned, before we understand that our salvation can come only through our merciful God who loves us and gave Himself for us. John 3:16 The mercy of God was displayed to the world when Christ took our sins and our excuses on Himself and carried them to the grave.
He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness
and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession,
zealous for good deeds. Titus 2:14
Because even though we were all, at one time, His enemies, Christ is pleased to call us out of our rebellion and bring us into His Kingdom family.
While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:10
And what is the hope, the good news, that Micah introduces in his first sermon?
Micah 2:12 I will surely assemble, Jacob, all of you;
I will surely gather the remnant of Israel;
I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah,
as a flock in the middle of their pasture;
they will swarm with people.
13 He who breaks open the way goes up before them.
They break through the gate, and go out.
And their king passes on before them,
with Yahweh at their head.
After their judgment, after God’s children are enslaved by Assyria, after they realize that they brought this judgment upon themselves by their wickedness, and after they repented of their sins, God was going to again gather His people, the remnant, the sheep of His pasture. And note, this pasture is going to swarm with people.
I will surely assemble, Jacob, all of you;
I will surely gather the remnant of Israel;
I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah,
as a flock in the middle of their pasture;
they will swarm with people.
The remnant of Israel will be gathered. And jumping ahead to Micah’s second sermon we learn that, in fulfillment to the Promise made to Abraham, God will add to the remnant a vast number of the peoples of the world… the swarm spoken about here.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. John 10:16
If you are not Jewish by birth and yet you now believe in the God of Abraham, following Jesus Christ the good shepherd, you are part of the prophesied swarm. The people that God has called as His ambassadors, 2 Corinthians 5:20, to represent Him before the whole world. And as your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers hear the Gospel, understanding the ruin of their lawless sin and the wages of death that their sins have earned, Romans 6:23, and learn how Christ paid their death penalty with His life, they will be drawn by the Holy Spirit to accept that Good News. As that message goes out the earth will be filled more and more with the growing swarm.
How is God going to gather His sheep?
Micah begins to reveal some of the details of God’s master plan.
First, He is going to send someone to prepare the way,
He who breaks open the way goes before them.
In the normal course of events, before a King or world leader comes to a city an emissary or advance team is sent to make preparations.
Who was going to break open the way for the King?
That is finally revealed to us in the New Testament:
In those days John the Baptist came,
preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’” Matthew 3:1-3
God sent John the Baptist to Israel to prepare the way for the coming King by calling the people to repent of their sins.
He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:16-17
And what did the people see when they went out to hear John the Baptist?
They break through the gate, and go out.
And their King passes on before them,
with Yahweh at their head.
They saw their King, the Lamb of their God, Yahweh. They heard John declare: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John 1:29
They heard the voice of God saying: This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Matthew 3:17
In the Old Covenant a spotless lamb was sacrificed to atone for the sins of the people. We now understand that the Old Covenant lamb was only a placeholder or substitute, looking forward to the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.
He was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
and by His wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5-6
Micah has had hard words for the unfaithful apostate Old Covenant Church, hard words which apply equally to His New Covenant Church: hard and frightful words to drive us to despair. But embedded in Micah’s message is the seed of the greatest story ever told, the Promised coming of a Redeemer King to save His sinful, hopelessly wayward, rebel people of the world. Even though we never could have deserved it, nevertheless God is rich in mercy.
God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. Ephesians 2:4-5
In New Covenant language, Micah’s first sermon may be summarized as follows: Repent of your sins and believe in Christ, the Lamb of God, so that you will not perish but have everlasting life.