Session 19 Old Testament Overview - Johan & Micah
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The document provides an analysis of the biblical books of Micah and Jonah, highlighting Micah's themes of judgment, mercy, and the promise of salvation through a future king, while contrasting this with Jonah's story of reluctance and eventual obedience. Micah prophesies a remnant of Israel that will be saved, emphasizing God's desire for restoration despite Israel's sins, and showcases the character of God in relation to sin and mercy. Jonah, on the other hand, exemplifies the importance of caring for all nations and illustrates the irony of gentiles, like the Ninevites, understanding God's mercy better than His own prophet.
Session 19 Old Testament Overview - Johan & Micah
- 1. Old Testament Core Seminar Class 19 “Johan and Micah” Old Testament Overview 1
- 2. Introduction - Micah 2 • Jonah and Micah - One is a popular story – so well known that the main theological point is often overlooked. • The other is a little known prophet – but one who preaches a message of OT expectations and hopes. • Jonah comes before Micah – but we’ll look at Micah first. Why? • Because in so many ways Jonah forms a foil to Micah. • What Micah is about are exactly the things that Jonah does! • And those that the pagan, non-Israelites in Jonah repent of. • So looking at the themes of Micah and then applying them to Jonah will get past the familiar Jonah story into his message of judgment and mercy—judgment to Israel and mercy to her enemies.
- 3. Introduction – Micah – Theme 3 • Historically Micah is the latest of the Minor Prophets so far. • 1:1 lists kings who reigned during Micah’s ministry (it was also during the ministry of Isaiah). • They are all Judean kings, but his prophesies concern both kingdoms during the end of the 8th century. • As the book opens, Assyria is about to invade Israel. • By the end, the invasion is complete with the Northern Kingdom conquered, scattered, and completely annihilated. • The South remains but also endure that same threat.
- 4. 4 • This invasion and dispersion of the northern tribes is a major theological conundrum. • They are Yahweh’s people. Is He casting them off? Is He not fulfilling His end of the covenant? • Of course the answer is “no.” The fault is not with Yahweh! • His judgment could have been stayed had Israel kept her end of the covenant, and that there is still hope if she’ll yet repent. • But since she won’t, Micah’s message flashes to the future … • To a day when a remnant of those dispersed will be saved through a future King in the line of David. • Micah’s message: God will judge all people; yet he will save a remnant through a future King.
- 5. 5 • Even though Israel is lost, all hope is not lost. • However, not every individual of Israel will be saved. Only “the remnant” will. • In the “book of twelve” we’ve seen several new themes emerge. – The theme of divorce that emerges first in Hosea, – The Day of the Lord that starts in Joel. – The idea of a remnant was mentioned in Amos—it is in Micah that it becomes a major theme, and it will continue so. • It always comes up in the context of salvation. • The remnant are those who will still be saved even after the fall of the North and the South … those who repent. • The two nations are cast off, but those who repent will make up the returning, saved remnant. • And this salvation will be accomplished by the great and final coming King.
- 6. 6 • In Micah we’re seeing another significant piece of foundation being laid for the New Testament. • Paul writes, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” • Those who repent of their sins through faith in Jesus Christ are the remnant. • In Jonah, the category of the remnant will eventually be expanded to include even those not ethnically descended from Israel. • So when we see this being fulfilled in the NT through the church. • Is this what some call “replacement theology?” • No! The prophets have been preparing us, starting with Micah!
- 7. Micah – Style 7 • Micah is a masterful writer. • He uses rhetoric, word play, powerful images, and a sharp wit. • However, much style and sophistication is lost in translation. • For example, in a passage at the end of chapter 1 Micah proclaims a series of woes on towns throughout Judah. • Micah is doing two things there. – First, the towns Micah mentions trace the route Sennacherib would take as his army marched towards Jerusalem in 701 BC. – Second, each woe he proclaims is, in Hebrew, a word-play or a pun on the name of the town. • To get the full sense of Micah’s writing, read this book with the help of a good commentary or introduction, or a different translation.
- 8. 10Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust. (KJV) 11Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel; he shall receive of you his standing. 12For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem. 13O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee. 14Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth-gath: the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. 15Yet will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel. 16Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee. 8
- 9. Micah 1:10-16 Don’t gossip about this in Telltown. Don’t waste your tears. In Dustville, roll in the dust. In Alarmtown, the alarm is sounded. The citizens of Exitburgh will never get out alive. Lament, Last-Stand City: There’s nothing in you left standing. The villagers of Bittertown wait in vain for sweet peace. Harsh judgment has come from God and entered Peace City. All you who live in Chariotville, get in your chariots for flight. You led the daughter of Zion into trusting not God but chariots. Similar sins in Israel also got their start in you. Go ahead and give your good-bye gifts to Good-byeville. Miragetown beckoned but disappointed Israel’s kings. Inheritance City has lost its inheritance. Glorytown has seen its last of glory. Shave your heads in mourning over the loss of your precious towns. Go bald as a goose egg—they’ve gone into exile and aren’t coming back. (The Message) 9
- 10. I. God wants wrongs to be rebuked 10 • First, Micah wants us to know that God wants wrongs to be rebuked. • Israel and Judah were marked by sin - a host of social and economic sins, including covetousness, theft, fraud (2:2), dishonest scales (6:11), bribery (3:11), deceit (6:12), violence and bloodshed (6:12 and 3:10). • Religious sins, including witchcraft (5:12), idolatry (1:5-7), an unwillingness to heed the Lord, and a desire to listen to false teachers (2:6, 11). • At root, this sin is a matter of the heart. “you . . . hate good and love evil” (3:2). • Israel was in violation of her covenant by deliberate and willful apostasy and in the way she lived.
- 11. 11 • She treated God’s word with distain. Read 2:11. • It wasn’t their interest in wine and beer, but their willingness to sacrifice truth for the sake of it. • Picking prophets based on how optimistic their outlook was! • So God will judge. Publicly and severely. Read 1:3. • When God treads, he doesn’t skip lightly; the earth is crushed beneath him. • His judgment is powerful. And it is personal. • He delights in showing wrong to be wrong and himself to be right. • If you puzzle over God’s wrath and the idea of hell, from this passage … God’s wrath is real. • He has a capacity for wrath and is committed to responding to our sin in wrath. • How much does God hate sin? Jesus’ death shows the extent to which God was willing to go to deal with it.
- 12. 12 • As a result, we should take the warnings in the Bible very seriously. • Israel’s judgment was real … endured, and so will ours be. • One of the acts of God’s grace is the very stern warnings in the Bible. • Israel heard it from Micah, but the same idea is echoed again in the New Testament. • Hebrews 3:12-13. “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end”
- 13. II. God wants his people to be restored 13 • God wants sin rebuked and punished, but he also wants his people to be restored. • This is the second major theme in Micah. • God does not leave his people without hope. • Micah concludes each passage of judgment with a passage of hope for salvation and mercy. • Read 4:6-8. • If God only judged, everyone would be lost and destroyed! • His grace elects to save a remnant spared from the judgment and set apart to be His people. • For them He promises mercy and salvation. • He promises to restore them to their land. • Partially fulfilled by bringing Judah back from exile in Babylon.
- 14. 14 • But God promises an even more profound salvation. • Micah points forward to a final and lasting salvation in the central passage of the book. • In Micah 5:1-5 • God promises a: ruler over Israel from Bethlehem who will shepherd his flock and be their be their peace.” • God will save his people not only from an earthly exile – He will give them a king who will provide perfect security and peace … God!
- 15. III. God wants his character to be known 15 • God wants to be known. • He judges sin and shows mercy to display his character and be glorified and acknowledged by all people. Three ways: First, through the acknowledgment of his supremacy. • Read Micah 4:1-3 • God’s people are made up of those who stream to his mountain and seek to walk in his paths—both Jews and Gentiles. • God’s redemptive plan ends with his universal rule over all creation—mercy over his people and judgment over all else.
- 16. 16 Second, God wants his character to be known through the remembrance of his righteousness. • In chapter 6 God recounts His blessing and salvation towards Israel, from Egypt and slavery, the leadership in Moses and Aaron, triumph over enemies and entrance into the promised land. • The story of God redeeming his people replays the redemptive story. • We are part of the story—as redeemed people or rebels whom he has condemned. Third, God wants his character to be known through the demonstration of his mercy. • God wants his people to be restored which includes forgiveness of sin. Read 6:18-20. • These are the three big themes that underlie the Christian gospel. • A just God who claims to forgive sin, that he might be glorified.
- 17. Conclusion 17 • Do you want God’s character to be known? • Do you rejoice when you see sin, your sin, justly dealt with? • Do you rejoice when you see God’s mercy through another’s salvation? • God’s promised in Messiah chapter 5 – a ruler for God’s people who will establish perfect peace and security – was understood by NT authors as a prophesy about Jesus. • Jesus is the ruler that God has sent to execute judgment and to save his people. • How can you receive God’s redemption? Repent of your sins. • Micah only saw dimly the Messiah but we see clearly that God took the punishment his people justly deserve upon himself through Jesus’ death on the cross.
- 18. Jonah - Historicity 18 • Is Jonah a true story? The story is often dismissed as a parable or a fable because of how fantastical it sounds. • Compare to the parables Jesus tells in the Gospels, or like the fables of Aesop. • It is long—a whole book of the Bible. • It is detailed, populated with life-like characters, and set in an identifiable, historical place and time (8th Century BC Nineveh). • And, more importantly, Jesus treated it as an historical happening.
- 19. Jonah 1 19 • In chapter 1 God calls Jonah to preach to Ninevah. • Instead, he flees, boarding a pagan vessel headed to Tarshish. • God sends a storm. • The pagans fear the storm and begin praying, while Jonah sleeps. • The sailors resist throwing Jonah into the sea when Jonah volunteers to jump – it was most likely suicidal. • They ask God for mercy as they throw Jonah overboard 1:16. • In contrast to Jonah who at the beginning “ran away from” (1:3). • So who is following the Lord? • Irony abounds, a theme that will come to full maturity in the New Testament book of Acts. • The book of Jonah tells us God deals with the Gentiles, in his mercy he enables some to fear Him, to come to know Him, and even show some traits of godliness. • Chapter 1 ends with Jonah inside a fish for 3 days & nights.
- 21. Jonah 2 21 • Inside the fish Jonah repents and prays to God. • He praises God for saving him from drowning, even while he is still in the belly of the fish. • Jonah knows that even if he is going to die in the fish, he must still acknowledge God’s goodness and mercy. • He has been humbled. “'I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.” 2:4. • Jonah knows he has been punished, yet he humbly seeks God’s forgiveness. • “Salvation comes from the LORD,” Jonah prays (2:9). • Jonah truly recognizes that God is a God of mercy.
- 22. Jonah 3 22 • Jonah fulfills God’s command and preaches to Nineveh. • Notice he only preaches about God’s impending judgment. • No admonishment to repent of their sin nor offer the possibility that judgment could be averted. • Again the pagans outshine God’s prophet as they respond immediately with repentance. Read 3:5. • The King of Assyria, who only heard the message second hand, “proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth,” (3:6) • His proclamation called the people to fast and “call urgently on God” and “give up their evil ways and their violence,” … “God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger” • Note the contrast to Jonah—when did he repent? • The Assyrians repent after an unknown foreigner preaches a single sermon. • The King of Assyria understands God’s mercy better than Jonah.
- 23. Jonah 4 23 • … the climax of the book drives home the book’s theological message. • Most neglect this part of the story. • Read 4:1-3. • God’s response is in the form of a living parable: – a plant grows up to give Jonah shade as he sits on the mountain side, – and then God kills it. • God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" • God said, "You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left --- and much livestock?"
- 25. Conclusion 25 • With that climactic line, the book abruptly ends. • The story shows us how Jonah ought to be as zealous as God for the salvation of other peoples. • To be God’s people is to care for the nations the way He does. • God cares about all people. There isn’t any nation beyond God’s salvation. • Jonah assumed God’s covenant was exclusively for one people. • God cares … we too should care. • Jesus commanded his disciples—and that includes us—to “go and make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28:19). • Who are we? The humble Assyrian king? Or the reluctant prophet Jonah.