Turning A Minor Prophet Micah 1:2;3:1,5,8-12
A Fall 2025 Sermon Series Micah 5:1-5a;6:6-8;7:18-19
“BAD NEWS – GOOD NEWS”
We're in a series going chronologically through ten of the twelve Minor Prophets. We've heard from Amos and Hosea, and we'll get back to Joel who was the earliest..., but now it's Micah's turn.
We're not told much, but this we know – Micah was a contemporary of the prophets Hosea and Isaiah, who also prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz & Hezekiah, the kings listed in Micah's opening. Micah was from the small town of Moresheth, in the southern kingdom of Judah. His simple beginnings gave him a big heart for the common people of his day. As with all the prophets, God's people weren't particularly keen to Micah, initially turned a deaf ear to his message, which is evident in part by how often Micah writes: “Hear this! Look here! Listen up!” (Micah 1:2-3; 3:1,9; 6:1-2)
Even today, when someone says something we don't like we tend to tune them out. I have a friend on FB who posted...:“My wife says I only have two faults – I don't listen....and something else.”
A cartoon shows a young man reading the newspaper while his wife examines her big toe. “Oh shoot!” she says, “I think I have an ingrown toenail.” He replies, “That's awesome dear.”
She glares at him: “It's not awsome! Are you even listening to me?
Without looking up from his book, he says, “Aww. I love you, too.” “Are you kidding me!”
Such is the plight of the prophets. Micah stands alone in this, however. As far as we know he alone finally was heard. Neither the people nor their leaders listened during the reign of Jotham, nor later during the reign of Ahaz, but finally shortly after Hezekiah took the throne the people finally put down their paper listened and repented, culminating in Hezekiah's reform.
Jeremiah makes reference to it some hundred years later,when he writes: “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah: 'Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble..' (Micah 3:12) Did not Hezekiah fear the Lord and seek his favor? And did not the Lord relent?”
(Jeremiah 26:18-19)
One thing that stands out about Micah is how he composes his message in a series of Bad News Good News proclamations. Many like to share news that way today, but Micah invented it.
A wife borrows her husband's car and later tells him, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that your car's airbag worked perfectly.” (Can you guess the bad news?)
A dentist tells his patient: “I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the operation was 100% successful.” Great! So what's the bad news? “We removed the wrong tooth.”
In another one a woman waits nervously for her husband to return from his skydiving lesson. A pilot approaches her and shares with her that he has bad news and good news, three times over. “The bad news is that your husband boarded the wrong plane. The good news is that I was the pilot. The bad news is that your husband fell out of the plane... The good news is he had his parachute on... The bad news is he hit the ground before his chute could open. The good news is we hadn't taken off yet.”
(“Oh No!” / “Huzzah!”)
What an emotional roller coaster ride for that poor woman! Welcome aboard Flight 707 on Micah the Prophet airline where we're also taken through three series of bad news, good news.
-2-
The bad news begins with an all point, all people alert: “Hear this, all you peoples, all of you, listen earth and all who live in it...! Look! The Lord is coming down...to tread on the heights of the earth. The mountains will melt beneath him and the valleys split apart!” (Micah 1:2-4)
“Oh No!”
Micah informs his audience that God is coming down to make his case causing earthquakes and tumult. Why one might ask? Micah doesn't leave us guessing. “All this is because of the sins of the people of Jacob & Israel. All her idols will be broken to pieces and her temple gifts incinerated.”
(Micah 1:5,7)
The bad news Micah begins with is that the sins of Israel, the northern kingdom, and Jacob, the southern kingdom, have global implications, as his address to the whole earth implies. He notes in the following verses that like an incurable plague the sins of idolatry and empty religion have spread from the northern kingdom, with its capital in Samaria, to the southern kingdom's capital in Jerusalem.
The bad news deepens in the following chapter to address the rampant injustice that has come with it, how the affluent grab up more and more land and property, how “they defraud people of their homes and rob them of their inheritance.” (Micah 2:2) What's more, false prophets have arisen among them who tell Micah and his peers: “Do not prophesy about these things; disgrace will not overtake us! The Lord has not become impatient with us. God doesn't do such things!”
(Micah 2:6-7)
What things you may ask? The same things that Amos and Hosea warned about, that God is going to use their pagan enemies to bring about their destruction. The first of these events was the fall of Damascus in 732 BC and then Samaria, the nation's capital, in 722 BC. Talk about bad news!
That's followed though by a bit of good news. God declares, “I will gather all of you together, the remnant of Jacob and Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in its pasture.” (Micah 2:12)
Huzzah!
After warning of their defeat at the hands of Assyria, and later the southern kingdom's defeat at the hands of Babylon, resulting in their exile in those foreign lands, Micah declares the good news that one day God will reunite them as one people, no longer exiles, and no longer a divided people. What's more, and this is really good news, Their King will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.
(Micah 2:13)
The reference to the king passing through before them is a phrase used elsewhere in scripture, most notably by Mark when he writes that “As Jesus went out to (his disciples), walking on the lake, he was about to pass by them.” (Mark 6:48) The phrase...signals a theophany, a moment in which God reveals himself to his people. Micah notes that in the future, when divisions disappear among us, there will be a great theophany in which we'll recognize who our true King/Lord is, & we'll follow him!
That good news is followed by more bad news as shared in chapter 3. “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort what is right...; because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field and Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple an overgrown hill...”
“Oh No!” (Micah 3:9,12)
Again Micah becries false prophets who lead (God's) people astray and of the nations' leaders who are more concerned with retaining power and padding their wallets than with the welfare of those who are most at risk, who are not treated fairly, much less compassionately. How relevant is that?! Micah's repeated call to listen, and heed his warning, is as urgent as it is timeless!
-3-
Micah follows this up with more good news, pointing ahead to a distant time in which the exiles will return, all people groups will seek God's presence and worship him side by side, national disputes will be settled, war will cease, a spirit of contentment will arise and hurts healed. “In the last days..., peoples and nations will stream to the Lord's temple - nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. In that day, I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles!”
Huzzah! (Micah 4:1,3,6)
It's out of this long passage of hope and good news that we have one of the most beloved messianic prophecies in the Bible, where Micah not only foretells the location of the Messiah's birth, 700 years before Jesus is born, but also that that this shepherd/king is the source of true peace, a ruler who was, is and is yet to come, whose global reach and impact will be unparalleled in human history!
“But you, Bethlehem, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. He will shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, and his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth - and He will be our peace...!” (Micah 5:2,4-5)
This is the passage King Herod is told about when he asks his experts where the messiah is to be born. 'In Bethlehem in Judea,' they replied, 'for this is what the prophet wrote.' (Matthew 2:4-5)
What follows is first the quote from Micah 5 and then the good news about this Shepherd King who comes preaching: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, and those who hunger and thirst for justice and righteouness, who show mercy - for the kingdom is theirs, they're the salt of the earth!”
(Matthew 5:3-5,13)
Then whiplash, Micah returns to more bad news! “The Lord has a case against his people!” (Micah 6:2) Again, he cites their weakness for idolatry and their tendency to rely on empty religion, making sacrifices while ignoring his call for justice and mercy: “God has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does he require? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
(Micah 6:8)
The book ends with a final note of good news. Beginning with a rhetorical question, a wordplay on Micah's name which means in Hebrew, “Who is like the Lord?”, Micah asks a truly timeless question: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives transgression...? You will again have compassion on us; you will hurl all our sins into the very depths of the sea!”
Huzzah! (Micah 7:18-9)
As one person noted, when he does so, he posts a sign that reads: “No Fishing Allowed!”
It's good news particularly because Micah has pointed to how this is possible. God intervenes in the midst of our divisiveness and woundedness, he came to bring peace between peoples torn and splintered apart, and inner peace to those troubled by past or current mistakes, and he does so as one whose origins are from ancient times, and yet is born among us in the humblest of ways, to show us how to walk humbly with our God, by pursuing justice for people groups at risk, as did Jesus himself, and by showing mercy to those in need right around us, one hurting soul at a time. That's grace!
In his 1997 book, What's So Amazing About Grace, Phillip Yancey writes rather prophetically: “Perhaps the reason politics has proved such a snare for the church is that power rarely coexists with love. People in power draw up lists of friends and enemies, then reward their friends and punish their enemies. Christians are commanded to love their enemies. Chuck Colson, who perfected the art of power politics under the Nixon administration, wrote that he has little faith in politics to solve the social problems of today. 'Our best efforts at changing society will fall short unless the church can model to the world how to love as Jesus loved.' (Chuck Colson) He told of how Mark Hatfield, an outspoken political opponent of Nixon, repeatedly visited him when he retreated to San Clemente after his fall... When Colson asked Hatfield why, he said: “To let Mr. Nixon know that someone loved him.”
-4-
“Politics draws lines between people; in contrast, Jesus' love cuts across those lines and dispenses grace. A friend of mine worked at a pregnancy counseling center. A committed Catholic, she counseled clients to choose against abortion and let her find adoptive parents for their babies. Pro-choice demonstraters often picketed the center. One cold, snowy day she brought out doughnuts and coffee and told them, 'I know we disagree on this issue, but I still respect you as people, and I know it must be cold standing out here all day.' Her act of mercy left them speechless.
In the timeless words of Martin Luther King Jr: 'Power without love is reckless and abusive. Power at its best is love implementing the demands for justice.'” (Martin Luther King Jr)
(from Phillip Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace)
Out of Micah's bad news comes some very good news. We can can know what God is looking to see more of from those of us who claim His Son as our Savior. “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good and what He requires: To act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God!”
(Micah 6:8)