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IN the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, another prophet was sent by the Lord to Judah. His name was Micah; that is, humble. He is called the Morasthite, because he was born in the town of Mareshah. You have not forgotten that Eliezer, who prophesied against Jehoshaphat and his ships, was born at Mareshah. There, too, Asa gained the great victory over the Ethiopians. A number of Micah's words have come down to us. He calls the attention of the people of Judah to three different subjects, and each time he arrests them with the words, "Hear ye."

Micah speaks-Ist, of judgment coming on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; 2d, of the birthplace and peaceful reign of Messiah; and 3d, of the Lord's controversy (that is, strife) with His people, and His gracious promises of forgiveness.

Some of Micah's words will remind you very much. of those of Isaiah. You know he lived at the same time, and very possibly was a friend of the great prophet. Micah was equally fearless in speaking to the king and the princes. And when Hezekiah heard the threats of coming evil from the prophet's lips, he feared the Lord, and besought him, so that the punishment was averted, in his days at least.

(Read Micah i.; Jer. xxvi. 18, 19.)

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2. JUDGMENTS ON THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

Micah brings the same complaint against Israel and Judah that Isaiah did. He reminds them of their idolatry, and the multitudes of their graven images. Then he speaks of their sins against their brethren,— how they had coveted their neighbour's fields, and then taken them away by violence. This was no sudden temptation which had overtaken them; for Micah says, "They devise iniquity, and work evil on their beds; and when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hands." With them might made right. But punishment was coming on the people for this: "For behold the Lord cometh out of His place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth." "So that the mountains should be molten under Him," just as easily as wax is melted before the fire.

Samaria, that city full of idolatry and oppression, was to be specially visited. It was beautifully situated on a hill about 400 feet high, and surrounded by a broad, deep valley. But this city, set like a crown on the top of a hill, was to be destroyed. For thus had the Lord said, "I will make Samaria like the heap of a field. I will discover the foundations. I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley." This has come true to the very letter. Many years ago the Church of Scotland sent some of her ministers to visit the Holy Land. When they reached Samaria they read these words of Micah, and wondered what was meant by a heap of a field. One of their number said, "He would expect to find the stones not scattered about, but gathered in little heaps, as men

do before preparing to plough." They found this was exactly the case, the ground was dotted here and there with these little heaps; and in the valley were carved stones, which had evidently rolled down from above. They saw also some new buildings which had been erected on the foundations of former buildings which were thus laid bare-" discovered."

Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was the instrument in God's hand to punish Judah. You have heard how he "came to the gate of My people, even to Jerusalem." Such was the distress in the land, that Micah says, "The women have been cast out of their pleasant houses." Their children were taken captive. False prophets, who indulged in wine and strong drink, were their teachers. Micah was so grieved at the sight of the misery of the people, that he went about stripped of his garment and bare-footed. He wept and wailed like the solitary owl (or rather ostrich), which often groans as if in agony. Micah calls on Judah to mourn, not only in Gath, a city of the Philistines, but in their own borders,-in Aphrah of Benjamin, they were to humble themselves in the dust, and "to shave their heads, making them bald 'like the eagles,' in token of their grief."

These afflictions came on them "for the transgression of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel." The town of Lachish is specially mentioned as the "beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion." This strong city was on the border of the kingdom of Israel; so, very likely its inhabitants joined in the idolatries practised there, and then taught them to the people of Judah.

But Micah does not close the first part of his prophecy without holding out a promise of better things.

He asks, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?" Then he invites the people to arise, to depart from this idolatry; there could be no rest in it, because it polluted them, and would be sure to destroy them, " even with a sore destruction." Then the Lord graciously promises to assemble Jacob, every one. He says, "I will surely gather the remnant of Israel: I will put them together as the flock in the midst of their fold." And who is to be their glorious Shepherd King? The Lord Himself "shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them."

(Read Micah i., ii.; Isa. xxxvii.)

3. MESSIAH'S BIRTHPLACE AND GLORIOUS
KINGDOM.

Micah has spoken to the people, now he turns to the princes set over them. He asks, "Is it not for you to know judgment?" But instead of that "they hated the good and loved the evil," and robbed and injured the people. The false prophets, as long as they were well fed, spoke only "peace." But soon they were to be made ashamed, when there was no answer of God to confirm their words. It was very different from this with Micah himself. He was "full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin." Therefore, when God told him to utter this terrible prophecy, "Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps," Micah knew that the words would certainly come true. And when we read that

centuries afterwards the Roman conquerors levelled the walls, and passed their ploughshares over the site of Jerusalem, we feel, that though God's judgments may be long delayed, they are sure to fall, exactly as He has said.

Micah has this special honour among the prophets, that he alone names the birthplace of Messiah. Listen to his words: "But thou, BethlehemEphratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be the Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." So plain are these words, that when, about 700 years afterwards, Herod in his trouble demanded of the scribes "where Christ should be born?" they could answer at once, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for thus it is written by the prophet." Micah speaks of the time when she that travaileth shall bring forth, "as if pointing to His wondrous birth." The prophet perhaps alludes to that sorrowful hour when Christ was treated so cruelly by the Roman soldiers, when he says, "They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." Micah says of the Messiah, "This man shall be the peace;" just as, long after, Paul says of Christ, "He is our peace."

In words very much the same as Isaiah's does this prophet describe the blessedness of the coming kingdom. Then shall the invitation go forth, " Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Micah, too, tells of the time when "war shall cease, when swords shall be beat into plough

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