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Micah
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In a time of widespread wickedness, the prophet Micah foretold the coming Messiah who would bring righteousness and peace. Today, R.C. Sproul speaks on the justice, kindness, and humility required of Christ’s servants. For your donation of any...
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To walk humbly with God means to know clearly who God is and to know clearly who you are. If you keep those two identities clear, you're not going to have any trouble walking humbly before God.
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The book of Micah is perhaps best known for this line, what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice or and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? What does this look like in the life of a Christian? And does this mean that Micah was teaching a form of works righteousness this is the Wednesday edition of Renewing youg Mind, and RC Sproul will tackle those questions as we continue our time in his series Great Men to Live By. It's been many years since We've featured this 1979 series on renewing youg Mind, so I do hope that you take this opportunity to request all 13 messages and receive a hardcover book from Dr. Sproul on the life of Joseph when you donate today@renewingyourmind.org well, here's Dr. Sproul on Micah.
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Micah is one of the 8th century prophets. He's considered a minor prophet not because his significance is minor, but because the size of his book is small compared to other writers and because much of the material that we find in the book of the prophet Micah parallels that of the prophet Isaiah. There's a certain sense in which this prophet has been overshadowed and eclipsed by the larger work and significance of Isaiah. It has been said that Micah in a sense combines two other minor prophets, the prophet Amos and also the prophet Hosea. And we recall that Amos had a very strong emphasis on social justice, and his prophecies were basically oracles of judgment and of doom. And in contrast to that, we see the emphasis on God's divine mercy and love and forgiveness in the work of the prophet Hosea. And we sort of see the two Amos and Hosea tied together in the work of the prophet Micah, who recapitulates both the prophetic denunciation of social injustice, as we heard in the prophet Amos, and then has a strong section on the mercy of God and the promises for the future, as we find in Hosea. Perhaps the thing for which Micah is most well known in the Christian community is his prophecy of the coming Messiah. He speaks of the shepherd king, the royal Messiah who is to come to restore the throne to the house of David. And he does it in a rather dramatic fashion, beginning in chapter four of his book. So let's look in this hour at this well known prophecy of Micah beginning in chapter four, he says, but in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, 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. Here we catch the vision that the redemption that God is giving to Israel is not restricted to Israel, but Israel is to be a light to the nations. And that word of God will someday come out of Jerusalem and penetrate the whole world. And he goes on further in the next passage in verse 3, and says, and he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall sit, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid. For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it. So again we have these prophecies of a future Davidic, messianic kingdom, where peace will reign in the world, where the instruments and armament of war will become instruments of peace and of agriculture, and people will be able to sit outside under their tents and in front of their property without fear of being attacked or falling victim to robbers or thieves. And then in verse 10 we read, be in pain and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail. For now shalt thou go forth out of the city and dwell in the field, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there shalt thou be delivered, and there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hands of thine enemies. Now the many nations are gathered against you, but they don't know the thoughts of the Lord. You see, he is predicting the exile. Jerusalem will be carried away captive. But that's not the last chapter. People will think this is the end, but they don't know the thoughts of the Lord. Do they understand his counsel? For he will gather them as the sheaves into the floor. So we have the prophecy of the restoration of the nation, the return from exile, and the establishment again of the kingdom of God. Now this really comes to its most critical point in the beginning of chapter five. And this is the portion that I said was so familiar to people in the Christian community. Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from. Of old, from everlasting. And therefore he will give them up until the time which he which travaileth has brought forth, then the remnant of his brother shall return unto the children of Israel. Here again we have the future prophecy of the remnant that is to be redeemed. And even though Jerusalem is going to be smitten, and as we read in verse one, the judge of Israel will be smacked upon the cheek, nevertheless, he says, out of the Bethlehem Ephratah, though they'll be small among the princes of Judah, not out of Jerusalem, not out of the holy city, but out of this tiny, virtually insignificant village. It is prophesied that the ruler will come who will restore the kingdom of God. All right, I want to turn your attention to the sixth chapter of the book of the prophet Micah so that we can look at his prophetic message to his own age. A divine tribun tribunal is established. And he begins. Chapter six. Hear ye now what the Lord saith. Arise, contend before the mountains. Let the hills hear your voice. Hear this, O mountains. The Lord's controversy, you strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. Okay, God calls the people together for a testimony. And he begins in verse three. O my people, what have I done to you? Why have I wearied? You testify against me. You see how the courtroom drama opens? God calls forth his people as witnesses. He puts them on the stand. And what is it that he wants them to do? Before I render my judgment against you, God is saying, I'm going to give you the opportunity to put me on trial. So come on, come forth and bear witness. Give your testimony of how I have violated the covenant, how I've broken the law, how I have mistreated you. Come on. You notice how so often in the New Testament, particularly Jesus, when he describes the Last Judgment, how does he describe it in terms of the testimony of the wicked? Silence. Every mouth will be stopped in the last day. No one will have anything to say against God because everyone will know plainly that it'd be supremely stupid to make accusations against God. And then in verse seven, he said, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers, of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? The prophet has announced God's judgment on the land. And so what's the obvious question that somebody's going to raise if they've just heard that God is angry and he's going to get him? Well, what would be the first thing you'd want to know? What can we do? What can we do to assuage his anger? What can we do to mollify his wrath? What can we do to stop the judgment from falling? Shall we offer sacrifices? Shall we go beg for forgiveness? Should we be in sackcloth and ashes? Shall we pay tithes into the storehouse? Shall we volunteer for missionary service? Shall we promise to go to church every Sunday for the rest of our lives? Is religion in its essence to be found in those external acts of liturgy? They're not unimportant. But are they the essence? This is the question, and the question here is rhetorical. The answer is obviously, what? No, that won't do it. Verse 8. He has showed the O man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? What is the essence of the Christian faith? What is it that God wants from me? Well, thank goodness, God tells us. Micah boils it down. He said, did you hear what Amos was talking about? What was Amos talking about? Justice. Let justice flow down like an ever rolling stream. That's what I want from you. I want justice. I don't want you to just have doctrines of justice and abstract principles of justice and declarations and constitutions of justice. I want you to do justice. That was basically the message of Amos, wasn't it? And so Micah says, you want to know what to do? Do justice. Isn't it strange that when God condescends to simplify things for us and tell us, okay, now Here are the ABCs. Here are the things I really want you to be concerned about, to major in where the emphasis should be that we should miss that, let's jump to the New Testament. Suddenly across the ages, listen to the prophet Jesus speak, and they say, okay, Jesus, we hear all these commandments that you give us and all the things that you want us to do, but can't you prioritize the goals for your people? Can't you manage us by clear objectives? Can't you make it clear? What are the ABCs? The number one things that you want us to do? And Jesus Said, yes, I'll boil it down for you. I'll make it as simple as pie. Seek ye first protoss the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things. Everything else that we're talking about will be added unto you. Everything else is icing on the cake. Keep your eye on the issue. Jonathan Edwards said it this the seeking of the kingdom of God and the pursuit of righteousness is the main and central business of every Christian life. What does God want from you? He wants righteousness. And yet here's what grieves me. When's the last time you heard a Christian in casual conversation say, see? How can I be more righteous? It's a dirty word in the church. It's a dirty word. We almost never talk about righteousness. We talk about being spiritual, don't we? Oh, I want to be more spiritual. What do you want to be spiritual for? What is the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit? What are the fruits of the Spirit all about? Why does God want us? I mean, God does want us to be spiritually oriented, and he certainly cares about our morality and our piety. But those things are all merely means to an end. What God wants is righteousness. If you're spiritual, if you say your prayers every night and mark it on the calendar and read your Bible every morning and have your quiet time and your devotions and say all the right words during the day and use nothing but Christian jargon and nomenclature, you can sound and be very spiritual. But that does not mean that you will be righteous. Righteousness simply means doing the right thing as it's defined by God's commandments. Jesus put it another way. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. I want righteousness. I want obedience. And in the context here, he's talking about justice between man and man. He says, are you quoting Bible verses while you're cheating your neighbor? Are you doing your quiet time and then gossiping and slandering people during the rest of the day? You may be spiritual, but you're not being righteous to exploit people, enslave people, be unfair to people. Do you judge people more harshly than you seek to be judged? Do you always have a tendency to read everybody else's acts in the worst of all possible lights and your own discrepancies in the best of all possible light? That's not a just and equitable way of doing things. I want righteousness in my land. I don't want laws passed on the basis of lobby groups, special interest groups, vested interest groups, personal gains. I want Them passed on the basis of righteousness. And in my courts. I want that blindfold back on, lady Justice. I want justice. God says, now you say, well, wait a minute, we have justice. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our justification. Yes, but especially for those who are justified. That's when the seeking after righteousness begins. The whole doctrine of sanctification presupposes that God has freely justified you by the basis of imputing to you the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You start with the imputation of Christ's righteousness, but that begins the quest, the passionate pursuit, the violent take, taking the kingdom of God by force. Seeking after righteousness in labor, in management, in politics, everywhere you are justice. Righteousness is what is to be the goal of the Christian. What do I require? I've shown you what I require. I want you to do justly. What else? The law of mercy. God's characterized himself by a long suffering, patient kindness. Kindness is a fruit of the spirit. Christian people can get all out of whack here and say, okay, I'll do what God requires me. I am going to seek for justice. You sin. You get it? That's just. Who can fault you? But that quest for justice and righteousness is to be carried forth in the context of a passion for mercy. Does not God temper his own justice by his grace? His whole nature is that of a just and holy God who is at the same time long suffering, slow to anger, patient, merciful, kind. One of the strange ways to translate this concept here of mercy, some have translated it steadfast love, and another translation is awkward in English, but it really gets to the heart of the concept to love loyally. Can I trust you? You can be loyal to me. Well, our whole relationship with God is defined in terms of a commitment, a pledge that's established on the basis of trust. And God said, look, I'm going to be your God. I'm going to be your Redeemer. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now, that trustworthiness of Christ, which mirrors and reflects the previous trustworthiness of YHWH as the covenant Lord of Israel, God is now saying, I want to see that among my people, not just that you trust me, but that you start to trust each other, that you have a kind of love in the fellowship of brothers and sisters that is based on loyalty. Now, what God is saying is that the fellowship of saints should be characterized by a kind of love and mercy that is loyal, not blind, not indulgent, not crazy, not without discipline. We see that Jesus Says, you know, in the New Testament, there's a love that covers a multitude of sins. Hey, I know you're a sinner. You know me, I'm a sinner. There are certain sins that are so grievous and so destructive to the Christian community that we must have confrontation and there must be discipline. We know that side of it. But there's a mentality that wants to jump on every tiny little indiscretion that's diabolical. There should be a patience, steadfastness among ourselves, to be patient with each other as we grow in grace and nurture in Christ as we're seeking that righteousness. I'm to be loyal to you. That's the way God is, and that's what he's saying. We're supposed to be loyal to each other. And once you know I'm loyal to you, you'll hear my criticism. Well, I don't want to hear criticism from somebody who's not loyal. I don't trust it. Jesus himself said to the Pharisees, hey, you run around, you tithe, you're minting, you're coming. You do all that check off your list every day, all the righteous things you do, but you omit the weightier matters of the law. What were they? Justice and mercy. That's the essence. Righteousness and loyalty. That's what God wants from his people. That's what makes a godly man. And finally, and we don't want to leave this out because it's the thing upon which the other two totally depend. To walk humbly with your God. Is there any other way to walk with God but humbly? What does it mean? To walk humbly with God means a lot of things, but the simplest thing I can say is to walk humbly with God means to know clearly who God is and to know clearly who you are. If you keep those two identities clear, you're not going to have any trouble walking humbly before God. If you ever get confused as to who God is and who you are, maybe you can walk with God, but the walk won't be such a humble one. But as long as you know who God is, who you are, you can walk humbly with God. And finally, that's what we must do if we're going to bear the kind of fruit in our lives that Micah is calling for. A life that is characterized by justice and balanced by mercy, steadfast love, loyalty. That's what God requires. It's not an option. It's the duty of every Christian.
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We don't tend to like the word duty, but God does call us to a life of obedience. May he grant us the grace to humbly strive for righteousness in all of life. You're listening to Renewing youg Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Don't go anywhere as I have a guest in the studio who I'll introduce to you in just a moment. This series on the Old Testament Prophets from RC Sproul is 13 messages, and we'd love for you to have access to all of them. Simply call us at 800-435-4343 or visit renewingyourmind.org and give a donation in support of this daily outreach and we'll unlock the series for you in the free Ligonier app. Plus, we'll send you a hardcover copy of a book by Dr. Sproul on another great man to live by, Joseph Dr. Sproul traces the sovereign work of the Lord in the life of Joseph from Dreamer to deliverer. Learn about Joseph, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, Habakkuk, Jonah, Isaiah, and more when you respond to this week's resource offer@renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes. And don't forget that there's a global digital offer available for our global listening audience@renewingyourmind.org Global well, Ligonier Ministries has just released the findings of our 2025 State of Theology Survey. I'm joined in the studio by our CEO and president, Chris Larson. Chris, thank you for being with us. Could you remind our listeners what the State of Theology Survey is?
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The State of Theology is a project that we launched back in 2014 and it was intended to take the theological temperature of the United States ad population. But we also wanted to press into those who have evangelical beliefs and try and do a little bit of comparison back and forth.
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What was the motivation for launching the State of Theology Survey?
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Well, it seems that everybody today enjoys a poll or a survey and they're going to read what people believe about this thing or that thing. But we didn't see anybody actually polling and surveying on theology and what the Bible teaches about really big topics that you get these questions wrong and in some cases is the difference between heaven and hell. And so we wanted to elevate the visibility of the theology of the Scriptures that we advocate for at Ligonier and be able to come alongside of the local church and helping to educate why these topics are so important.
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You can find the results of the State of theology survey@thestateoftheology.com Chris, since we launched this, as you said, in 2014, and we do this every couple of years, have the results of this survey informed any of the strategic approach to our outreach at Ligonier Ministries?
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Well, by God's grace, because Dr. Sproul was so clear in what he taught about the theology of the Bible, Ligonier doesn't have an identity crisis. It's one of the great blessings that we have even being able to carry on in our mission today. We know who we are and we know what' and so we are all about theology, theology, theology. But this has helped us to articulate from a quantitative perspective and hopefully for others as they look at this study, those areas that the church needs to continually reaffirm. And Dr. Sproul would make this point many times, that one generation has to reaffirm what a previous generation has held so dearly. We cannot just assume these truths will be passed down to the next generation. And in so many ways, then Ligonier is seeking to remind the church of the theology that we hold so dearly that is derived from the Scriptures. And we need to articulate that and pass down that truth to our neighbors and to the next generation.
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When the first results came out 11 years ago, we had Dr. Sproul in the studio, and I'd just love our listeners to hear his reflections on those results.
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You read this whole survey, and it seems to me that what comes screaming through not just on the doctrine of Scripture, but on the doctrine of God, of Christ and everything else, is the pervasive influence, not simply of liberal Christianity, but of humanism, that it is a secular understanding of the things of God. And what's most frightening is that the secular views are found strongly within the church, even within those churches that claim to be evangelical. Since I began ministry 50 years ago, at that time, liberal Christianity was completely dominant in America, and there was precious little biblical Christianity to be found. I had a heart for evangelism, but my biggest concern as a theologian was to help those who had been converted to Christ to come to a mature understanding of the things of God, a deep understanding of the content of the Bible, both Testaments, and a theological awareness that would shape their lives. I mean, the New Testament calls us to have a renewed mind. That's why we call this program renewing your mind, that our mind is not to simply reflect the contemporary views of a given secular society, but they are to reflect the mind of Christ.
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Dr. Sproul's summary there of what he saw in that first survey, sadly, we continue to see these trends. And so the longitudinal nature of this survey, being able to come back around to these questions every couple of years, it has continued to show that the evangelical church is not growing in its understanding of theology. And so this is a rallying cry for Ligonier, but also many biblical ministries and churches to continue to come back to the theology of the Scriptures and to guard against liberal and progressive drifts, which are always nipping at our heels.
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Chris, as we think about these results, how is Ligonier seeking to help turn the tide of theological error?
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Ligonier Ministries strives to come under the local church, and we're serving churches around the world, of course, from many different denominational perspectives. And so we are praying that the Lord would continue to raise up biblical preachers who are bold in their proclamation of the gospel and the whole counsel of God. But obviously, we are trying to encourage God's people to be together on the Lord's day, worshiping together, having faithful elders to be able to shepherd them and nurture them with God's word and by God's grace. There are so many faithful churches that we are working in lockstep with. And so we do want to encourage and exhort people to be a part of the local church. And sadly, it still seems that we've got work to do in educating on why that is important.
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Well, we'll have Dr. Stephen Nichols with us tomorrow to share more of the bad news. But if you'd like to explore these results, you can find them for yourself@thestateoftheology.com well, Chris, thank you so much for being with us today.
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Great to be with you, Nathan.
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If you have studied Romans or the history of the Protestant Reformation, then you're likely Familiar with Romans 1, verse 17 the righteous shall live by faith. The Apostle Paul there is quoting from the Old Testament, and it's that book and that prophet that R.C. sproul will consider tomorrow. So make plans to join us Thursday here on Renewing youg Mind.
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Sam.