Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Daily Bible Reading, Week 14

April 03, 2023 Mark Roberts Season 3 Episode 14
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Daily Bible Reading, Week 14
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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Speaker 3:

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, April the third. I've got my notes on Micah ready to go. I don't have any sermon notes for you because, because I was not preaching at Westside yesterday. I was with the Palm Springs Church of Christ in Orlando, Florida. Actually, it's north of Orlando, just a little bit. And it was a wonderful, wonderful weekend meeting. Really, really glad to be with those brethren and get to know them better. Enjoyed being with them. But it's good. It's good to say that's my last one for a while. I won't be in a gospel meeting again till the end of July. So get to be home for a while. I've got a couple of Wednesdays and, and a day or two of vacation along the way, but gonna be home for a long stretch. Here at Westside, we're gonna work together in the word of God, no notes, but plenty to think about. No sermon notes, but plenty to think about in the book of Micah. Let's get some coffee. I'm, I've got some. How about you open your Bible to Micah, the third chapter. Let's get started. It is Micah chapter three that we're reading today. Micah chapter three, verses six to 12, and the focus here is on the prophets. False and true. Notice right away there'll be no more visions, no more divination. Verse six, essential shall go down on the prophets and the day shall be black over them. These false prophets have helped the people stay in sin. They are responsible at some level for the judgment that is going to fall upon these people. They are not like Micah. Look how brave he is in verse eight, what a strong statement he's making there. And then 9, 10, 11, and 12 really close strongly by saying that all of the offices that the nation needs have been corrupted by the love of my, that's verse 11. It's heads give judgment for a bribe. Its priests teach for a price, it's profits, practice deviation for money. They're in it for the money. And think about how hard it is to be Micah in that kind of situation. He's trying to preach an unpopular truth when people can pay to hear what they want to hear. But when you do that, what do you get? Verse 12, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as the field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins and the mountain of the house of wooded height, judgment will come and it will come because these people have listened to someone who's not bringing the word of God. What a powerful reminder and message for you and me today. Are we demanding the word of God? Are we demanding book chapter in verse, preaching and teaching? That's the differentiator we want, Micah, verse eight. We do not want false teachers and false pro prophets. Verse 11, see tomorrow as we'll begin. Micah chapter four. Hello, Tuesday, it's Micah chapter four that we read today. Micah four, one to five, and this is the message of hope. All of these sermons, we talked about this last week when I introduced you to the book of Micah. All of these sermons begin with the expression here, chapter three verse one, and we'll have notes of judgment. And then somewhere in the sermon there is a discussion of the things that bring hope, lots of that has a very messianic feel to it. Like today. Today it shall come to pass four, one. In the latter days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and people shall flow to it. Many nations, verse two shall come and say, come. Let's go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. This sounds so much like Isaiah chapter two, and if you dive off into the journal articles and the commentaries and encyclopedia, as you can read a long time about the discussion as to who came first, Isaiah or Micah, that's really beyond the scope of this podcast and probably beyond the scope of most of the listener's interest. But these both Micah and Isaiah, these both are talking about something that's going to happen in the future that's gonna be amazing, it's gonna be wonderful. And there is a huge contrast here in chapter four. Now, Zion, that in chapter three is gonna be a plow field. Verse 12, chapter three, verse 12, A heap of ruins. Now it's an exalted mountain, it's lifted up and people were coming and tearing it down and destroying it. Now nations are coming to it in chapter four, verse one and two, and they are saying, Hey, we want to hear the word of God. We want to know God, and they come to Jerusalem so that they can do exactly that. And this will bring all kinds of of peace and security and prosperity. Chapter four, verse three. And then there's wonderful metaphors of agricultural fulfillment in chapter four, verse four, sitting under his vine and under his fig tree, no one will make them afraid. In a farming nation where most of the people are involved in some kind of farm work to hear this kind of thing, we are safe, we're at peace, we're sitting under our vine, under our fig tree. These are the good times. And maybe as you're reading some of this, verse five, for all the people's walk each and the name of the God, we'll walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. It's the knowledge of God and being with God that makes those good times possible. And you may be wondering, well, what exactly is Micah talking about here? And I think in some ways it may be that he's referencing a return to the Babylonian captivity. But notice for one, it shall come to pass in the latter days. Latter days has come to mean to most people, the end of all things, the end of the world. And there'll be battles and all kinds of craziness beasts rising up out of the sea and anything else they can find from a Hollywood movie and stitching together various parts of Daniel in the Book of Revelation. But that's not what it means in the Bible. We want to use Bible phrases, Bible words, and Bible ways in the last days, the latter days. We'll see this as we study the prophet Joel. We'll see this in other places as we're reading in our, in our prophetic reading schedule this year, this is about what it's about. The Christian dispensation, the last period of earth, the last timeframe, not in the last five minutes before Jesus comes, but this last period, there's the patriarchal period. God speaks to the head of the family. There's the Mosaical period, God works through the Mosaical covenant, the law of Moses. And then there's the Christian period inaugurated by Jesus death bar and resurrection, then begun truly formally on the day of Pentecostal Acts chapter two. That's the last timeframe, not anything else after that. Nothing else is coming after Jesus' timeframe, after the Christian period. In the latter days, something incredible is going to happen. It's gonna happen in Jerusalem. And like I said, we're gonna see that in Acts chapter two. Hope that helps you as you think a little bit further here about the book of Micah. Lots of judgment stuff and that's not great, but it's pretty. Yeah, it's pretty great to read this note of hope. Something incredible is going to happen and maybe that ought reinforce our faith in God. Who else? But God could take a city that's plowed like a field, a heap of ruins, and make it this exalted place where the nations come to learn about him. See you tomorrow. We'll continue in Micah, the fourth chapter. Welcome to Wednesday. It is Hope Day. We're halfway through the week and today we're reading in Micah the fourth chapter. We're gonna read Micah four beginning in verse six through the end of the chapter, verse 13. And this continues some of that message of hope. God begins by making the lane strong. The people who rebuild the nation, who God uses to rebuild this nation are the most unlikely of people. You can't do anything with these kinds of folks, particularly when you think about the level of medicine and technology that they had in biblical times. And yet, this is who God can use because of his power. Those who were cast off, verse seven will be made a strong nation and then they'll be a tower reestablished. In a vineyard you would have a big tower where there could be a watchman established and where you could watch for thieves and for marauding raiders, that kind of thing. And of course, as as hi Israel's greatest king watched over his flock from Jerusalem, his strong tower. So once again, Jerusalem will be that kind of strong tower. It'll be the center of everything that God is doing. But then verse nine, things turn away. There's discussion about the now, what is happening now and what God is doing now and what God is doing now is punishing these people because they're idolatry, because they're not walking with him. But notice verse 12, they don't know the thoughts of the Lord. They do not understand his plan. God is at work even in the exile. And in fact, verse 13 talks about how Zion will be invincible. Maybe that speaks to what happens under he zaya when the Assyrians come up against Jerusalem and an angel of the Lord slays 185,000 soldiers in one night. Maybe that's what verse 13 is looking at. But God is at work. We're talking so much about drawing near to the Lord. What we need to see here is that even in turbulent times, God is at work to accomplish his purposes. Think about that. Let that build more faith in you. Even when you suffer or you're confused or you're unsure, uncertain, what is God doing here? God is at work. We may not know his thoughts or understand his plan, verse 12, but God is accomplishing his will. Tomorrow we read Micah chapter five, see ya Thursday. It is Thursday. And today we read Micah chapter five verses one to six. And if you've been liking Micah before, you are really gonna like what you get outta Micah today, the famous Bethlehem versus found in Micah five in verse two. But when you know the context and the passages that's surrounded, it becomes even more meaningful. So here comes a siege, Micah five verse one, and the king is being attacked. This probably is the Assyrian siege during he's time. And here come the Assyrians. They get mentioned again in verses five and six, what's God gonna do about that? And the answer is, out of the smallest, tiniest little town that doesn't amount to anything, God is going to do something amazing. Bethlehem Ith, who are too little to be among the Klans of Judah from you shall come forth for me. One who has to be a ruler in Israel who's coming forth is from of old, from the ancient of days. This sounds a lot like Daniel seven. This sounds a lot like first Samuel seven. It sounds a lot like Isaiah 11. It's very messianic. Rith here, by the way, means fruitful and is the name of a district in Judah where Bethlehem was located. So maybe a small area there, maybe kind of like a county would think about Fort Worth and Tarrant County, o Bethlehem. In a PTH county, you're so small you don't count for much. But that's where God's going to start. That's where God's going to begin everything. And that's going to be the beginning of the Messianic time. There'll be times verse three, when Israel appears to be abandoned until the Messiah comes, there's a reference there to the rest of his brothers. That's probably the Messiahs people, but the Messiah doesn't count on military strength. Verse four, he shepherds in the power of God. And then Micah completes that by mentioning as Syria probably because the as Sirian armies weren't on the way when he was writing this and preaching this. This becomes a tremendous demonstration of the power of God. The uh, people in Judah and Jerusalem feel helpless before usy. We'll read some of that when we read in Isaiah and over in Kings about Hezekiah's reign and how terrifying and awful it was. Only God's power could deliver them and God did deliver them. So we get kind of a double layer here. You get, I'm gonna do something great out of Bethlehem and and then there's some references to ending the siege and and taking on the Assyrians and giving God's people the victory. And that's one level. But you know what? The next level, at the highest level, what Micah's really looking at is the coming of the Messiah, the defeating of sin and darkness by the Messiah, giving the opportunity for all people to know the Lord. Kind of see two layers there, and I think that helps us as we think about what the Lord is doing, maybe the emphasis here needs to be as we draw near to God, that God does amazing things out of tiny and insignificant things because that emphasizes God's strength and power. Do you want to know God? Part of knowing God, drawing near to him is knowing what to expect, knowing how God operates, knowing what God likes to do, his usual standard operating procedure. And if you know Micah five, two, you know that when all hope seems lost, look for something useless and insignificant and small. And that's probably what God's going to use to bring victory and to deliver his people. O Bethlehem, pth, you are too little to be among the clans of Judah, but from you shall come forth. For me. One who's a ruler in Israel who's coming forth is from of old, from the ancient of days. It's Jesus the Messiah. Think how famous Bethlehem is, even to this day. See you tomorrow. We'll complete Micah chapter five. It's Friday. You made it through the week, and it's Micah that we're reading. Micah chapter five, verses seven to 15. This is another oracle of hope. The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people. The Messiahs people will be everywhere among all the nations. Verse eight, like a lion among the beast of the forest and the people of the Messiah will go everywhere in victory and in many ways they're an instrument of life, but for those who reject the Messiah, they're an instrument of destruction. You have to see kind of both sides of all of that. We might think about the gospel here. The gospel changed the world. It couldn't be stopped. Jesus says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against his kingdom, against his church, can't be stopped. The gospel brings life, but if you reject the gospel, then it's an instrument of condemnation in death. Finally then verses 10 to 15 talks about how God is gonna purge his people. This is about his people and the word destroying verse 10, ESV is probably better purge here. And the emphasis is that God's punishment of Israel is to help them. It's designed to bring them back to him. One scholar said the Lord himself will pop Israel's titanic, bubble of pomp and pride being full of yourself is no way to be ready for the Messiah. And so God is gonna root out idolatry. Look at the verse, verse 13. You'll bow down no more to the work of your hands. Work of your hands. That's an idol. Root out the ASRA images in anger and wrath. I will execute vengeance on the nations that do not obey, that would include God's people. They need to be purged so they can be the people of the Messiah. There we go. That's another weekend, Micah. And I hope that you are liking Micah as much as I am, some challenging ideas, but some ideas of hope amongst all that dark judgment kind of language. I appreciate you listening to the podcast. Hope that you are following it, subscribing it to it so that you're getting it automatically and regularly would certainly appreciate a rating and review that genuinely helps it rise to the top of the search engines and the algorithms, the things that determine whether we're gonna be seen. If somebody goes looking for a Bible reading podcast, give us a rating, give us some kind of review and that will help the podcast. Tell somebody about the podcast and encourage them to read their Bible with you and to listen to this podcast so they'll better understand what God's word is saying. Until next week, then may your coffee be delightful. I hope your Friday is wonderful and I hope that the Lord will be with you today all day. See you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Westside church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with mark. For more information about west side, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.is that's upbeat with two P'S UPP, B E A T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others. And we look forward to seeing you again with a company coffee, of course, on next Monday,

Intro April 3
Monday Micah 3:6-12
Tuesday Micah 4:1-5
Wednesday Micah 4:6-13
Thursday Micah 5:1-6
Friday Micah 5:7-15