Hello everybody, and welcome in to episode 167 of the Bible 2021 podcast. We are reading Micah 1 today and our focus is on the Terrible Coming of the Lord. We are a daily 10 minute podcast, where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in Thanks for listening! Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast Don’t forget about our web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more– Click here for our Bible 2021 reading plan\
I am personally wired to be an encourager, I think. I’d rather preach encouragement and hope than doom and gloom and hellfire, but more than my preferences, I want to teach and preach and podcast the whole counsel of God – all of His Word. As we have talked before – God is kind beyond our belief, but He is also a consuming fire. In Micah 1, we will see more of the consuming fire aspect of God. Micah was a prophet who prophesied near the end of the Kingdom of Israel, as the Assyrians were on the verge of invading and basically wiping out ten tribes of Israel, and taking them into captivity. In this chapter, we will see Micah portraying God as coming near to Israel, and it is a truly terrifying scene – the mountains melt, the valleys split, and the whole world trembles. Let’s read our chapter. Buckle up.
John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, is one of my all time favorite preachers. He was such a man of gentleness and humility after his salvation – a great model of meekness and kindness. Interestingly, however, he wrote a hymn based on our passage, and also the book of Amos that is not like your typical hymn – it doesn’t so much make you rejoice but it bows the head and leads to repentance. Both are good things. Let me read a few lines from one of Newton’s lesser known hymns, called “Prepare to Meet Thy God.”
1 SINNER, art thou still secure?
Wilt thou still refuse to pray?
Can thy heart or hands endure
In the Lord’s avenging day?
See, His mighty arm is bared!
Awful terrors clothe His brow!
For His judgment stand prepared,
Thou must either break or bow.
2 At His presence nature shakes,
Earth affrighted hastes to flee,
Solid mountains melt like wax,
What will then become of thee?
Who His advent may abide?
You that glory in your shame,
Will you find a place to hide
When the world is wrapt in flame?
3 Then the rich, the great, the wise,
Trembling, guilty, self-condemn’d,
Must behold the wrathful eyes
Of the Judge they once blasphemed
Where are now their haughty looks?
Oh their horror and despair,
When they see the open’d books
And their dreadful sentence hear!
4 Lord, prepare us by Thy grace!
Soon we must resign our breath;
And our souls be call’d to pass
Through the iron gate of death:
Let us now our day improve,
Listen to the gospel-voice;
Seek the things that are above,
Scorn the world’s pretended joys.
5 Oh! when flesh and heart shall fail,
Let Thy love our spirits cheer,
Strengthen’d thus, we shall prevail
Over Satan, sin, and fear;
Trusting in Thy precious name,
May we thus our journey end;
Then our foes shall lose their aim,
And the Judge will be our friend.
C. H. Spurgeon, Our Own Hymn Book: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public, Social and Private Worship (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1883).
verses 2-5 in this passage really stand out to me – challenging, confronting me…and causing a bit of inward trembling:
Listen, all you peoples;
pay attention, earth and everyone in it!
The Lord God will be a witness against you,
the Lord, from his holy temple.
3 Look, the Lord is leaving his place
and coming down to trample
the heights of the earth.
4 The mountains will melt beneath him,
and the valleys will split apart,
like wax near a fire,
like water cascading down a mountainside.
5 All this will happen because of Jacob’s rebellion
and the sins of the house of Israel.
Matthew Henry has some good words on this particular passage:
The earth is called upon, with all that therein is, to hear what the prophet has to say: Hearken, O earth! The earth shall be made to shake under the stroke and weight of the judgments coming; sooner will the earth hear than this stupid senseless people; but God will be heard when he pleads. If the church, and those in it, will not hear, the earth, and those in it, shall, and shame them. 3. God himself is appealed to, and his omniscience, power, and justice, are vouched in testimony against this people: “Let the Lord God be witness against you, a witness that you had fair warning given you, that your prophets did their duty faithfully as watchmen, but you would not take the warning; let the accomplishment of the prophecy be a witness against your contempt and disbelief of it, and prove, to your conviction and confusion, that it was the word of God, and no word of his shall fall to the ground.” Note, God himself will be a witness, by the judgments of his hand, against those that would not receive his testimony in the judgments of his mouth. He will be a witness from his holy temple in heaven, when he comes down to execute judgment (v. 3) against those that turned a deaf ear to his oracles, wherein he witnessed to them, out of his holy temple at Jerusalem.
Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1532.v
It is good for us sometimes to behold the Lord in His splendor and tremble at His coming.
Bible Memory verses for the month of June: Daniel 6:23 The king was overjoyed and gave orders to take Daniel out of the den. When Daniel was brought up from the den, he was found to be unharmed, for he trusted in his God.
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