Peter, Are You Serious? Micah? (1)

Our survey has shown that Peter was accurate when he said all the prophets foretold his generation (Acts 3:24). We have verified that Moses, Samuel, Obadiah, Joel, Amos, Jonah, and Hosea did so and that their prophecies fit well in our inmillennial model of prophecy.¹

In this post, we will examine Micah’s² writings—did he also speak of the “last days” of the Mosaic age?³

Micah prophesied in Judah in approximately 735–700 BC. He witnessed God’s judgment of Israel (the ten northern tribes) by the Assyrians around 722 BC. Like the other prophets, Micah warned the Jews about this judgment. He also described the later judgment coming against Judah and Jerusalem.

Micah showed how these judgments related to the Lord establishing His house in Zion in “the latter days” (Mic 4:1–5).

In this post, I want to examine three divisions of these judgments.

God’s Judgment of Israel

Through Micah, God said He would judge Israel before establishing His house (Mic 1:1–7). This section contains helpful information about interpreting other prophetic passages.

Timing

God makes a provocative contrast regarding His judgment of Israel. It would originate in the Lord’s holy temple in heaven (Mic 1:2). It would conclude with the temple in Jerusalem lying in heaps (Mic 3:12). This contrast of temples creates an outline of Israel’s future: God would judge the apostate nation, including her temple. At the end of that process, He would establish His house in Zion.

The New Testament describes the fulfillment of this prophecy. God destroyed the earthly temple, and He built His new house—the church (1 Tim 3:15)—in Peter’s generation.

Vocabulary

Micah described these judgments through the use of standard prophetic terms. These included the Lord coming to punish the wicked: “For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth” (Mic 1:3). Of course, no one thought they would see the Lord personally. Instead, they would observe His agents—the Assyrians.

The prophet said this coming of the Lord would bring a cosmic collapse. “The mountains will melt under Him, and the valleys will split like wax before the fire” (Mic 1:4). However, the physical mountains remained upright when God judged Israel through the Assyrians. 

Samaria, Israel’s capital city, would become desolate (Mic 1:5–7). Exalted prophetic imagery almost always has a kernel of physical reality in it. Here, the physical reality is “a heap of ruins in the field.” Desolation is an excellent word to describe it.

God describes the wicked nation as a harlot (Mic 1:7).

This outline and these terms are essential for our interpretation of New Testament prophecies like the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–38) and Revelation.

God’s Judgment of Judah

God would also judge Judah before establishing His house (Mic 1:8–2:5). As with Israel, God would come to Judah, even to Jerusalem’s gate (Mic 1:9–16). “He is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem” (Mic 1:9 KJV). John Gill says this refers to “Sennacherib, king of Assyria,” coming to Jerusalem as recorded in 2 Chronicles 32:1.⁴

From our New Testament perspective, we know this judgment of Judah extended to Peter’s generation when God established His house (Mic 4:1–5). This viewpoint allows for the possibility that the “heir” and “glory of Israel” in Micah 1:15 is the Messiah—our Lord Jesus Christ. This identification sheds light on Micah’s following statements.

The judgment of Judah would involve someone taking up a parable and a lament against Judah when the glory came (Mic 2:1–4 KJV). The final “woe” and the “disaster” Micah foretold (Mic 2:1, 3) came to Judah in the “great tribulation” Jesus described (Matt 24:21). It occurred in Peter’s generation (Matt 24:34), in fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy.

Our Lord took up parables to describe that catastrophe: the parable of the fig tree (Matt 24:32–33); the parable of the two servants (Matt 24:43–51); the parable of the ten virgins (Matt 25:1–14); etc.

Jesus also uttered a woeful lament in this context: 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” (Matt 23:37–39)

These parables and laments would declare that God “has changed the heritage of my people” (Mal 2:4). The judgments God brought through Assyria and Babylon brought significant changes. Still, Judah had an earthly inheritance, including Jerusalem and the temple … until Peter’s generation. In that period, God changed Israel’s inheritance from an earthly to a heavenly one. Because of that change, Peter could say, 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. (1 Pet 1:3–4)

As God finished judging Judah, He changed Israel’s heritage.

God’s Judgment of False Prophets

God would judge Israel’s false prophets before establishing His house (Mic 2:6–11; 3:1–12). The Lord accused Israel of rejecting His prophets and listening to the liars among them:

“Do not prattle,” you say to those who prophesy. So they shall not prophesy to you; they shall not return insult for insult.… If a man should walk in a false spirit and speak a lie, saying, “I will prophesy to you of wine and drink,” even he would be the prattler of this people. (Micah 2:6, 11)

Jesus said these false prophets would be active in the “last days” of the Mosaic age (Matt 24:11, 24) in Peter’s generation. 

Micah gave another lightning flash of glory in this section (Mic 2:12–13). As God finished judging the false prophets, He would “gather the remnant of Israel’ and “put them together like sheep of the fold” (Mic 2:12). God did this in Israel’s “latter days.” He sent His “angels” (messengers) to gather His elect unto Christ (Matt 24:31) and put them into one fold (John 10:16).

In the meantime, a time of darkness would prevail between Micah’s day and this final judgment of Israel’s false prophets. “Therefore you shall have night without vision, and you shall have darkness without divination; the sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be dark for them” (Mic 3:6). Paul has this darkness in mind when, in Peter’s generation, he says: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Rom 13:12).

This judgment of Israel’s false prophets would end with the destruction of “the mountain of the temple” (Mic 3:8–12).

Conclusion

God spoke from “His holy temple” in heaven, and the temple on earth fell (Mic 1:2; 3:12). Everything in between—the judgments of Israel, Judah, and the false prophets—was necessary for God to establish His house in “the latter days” (Mic 4:1).

The apostles wrote the New Testament from this perspective. Here is one example:

Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those [Mosaic-age] things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the [messianic-age] things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. (Heb 12:27–29, my brackets)

God did everything necessary to establish “the mountain of the house of the Lord” in the last days of the Mosaic age. We received the everlasting kingdom in Peter’s generation.

Our response? “Let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”

1. Please consider becoming familiar with the inmillennial view of prophecy. You can read a summary version here or tackle the full book-length version here. The title of the book—Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days—hints at the reason for my suggestion. This model says the “last days” are identical to Peter’s “these days”; both terms refer to the “last days” of the Mosaic age. This perspective will shed light on the prophets as we work through them.
2. The image in this post is Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst (1592–1656). It is in the public domain.
3. Also, consider watching the sermon I preached about this material at Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Opelika, AL, on September 3, 2023. You can watch it here.
4. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–10; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 6:555.