Open the Bible UK Daily

Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! Micah 2:1 These people are intentionally pursuing the wrong path. Their plan is to make money by taking advantage of vulnerable people: 'They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance” (2:2). In farming communities, the land is everything. If you lose your...

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:11-12 “Revelation” is the word that we use to describe how the invisible, incomprehensible God has made Himself known. You can come to know God, not through your own ideas or...

I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, “My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.” Isaiah 48:5 A large part of the world’s religion is precisely this: speculation about the nature of God. Men (and women) have thought, talked, meditated, and written about what they think God is like. Twenty-first century...

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Psalm 34:8 How can we come to know the sovereign God of the Bible? We can’t see Him, hear Him, taste Him, touch Him, or smell Him. God is invisible. More than that, He is incomprehensible. This really is about the most fundamental question a human being can ever ask: How can I know God? How could we, a small fragment of creation, in such a small window in t...

Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile. Micah 1:16 Shaving the head was an act of mourning before the Lord. When one sees a disaster happening in the land that he loves, that person will mourn for himself and for his loved ones. Disasters will always have one of two effects in your li...

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Deuteronomy 29:29 In America, where I have been a pastor for many years now, some people are confident that they know why God sends disasters. Some would say it is because of abortion. Some would say it is because of America’s policy towards Israel. Some would even say that it i...

“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10 Job was the righteous man who suffered incredible loss in a terrorist attack and a natural disaster on the same day. We know Satan’s hand was behind what Job suffered, but the Bible does not allow us to think for a moment that Satan operates as a free agent. Martin Luther once said,...

Disaster has come down from the LORD. Micah 1:12 We must affirm that God is in control not only of good things but also bad. This isn't easy. In fact, it is so difficult that some Christians have felt that it would be better to keep God at a distance from disasters altogether. Back in the eighteenth century there was a movement called deism. Deists believe that God created the world but then He st...

For this I will lament and wail... Micah 1:8 Notice Micah’s response to his own message! Here is a man with the Word of God, who also shares the heart of God. Micah says that the wound in the Northern Kingdom is “incurable” (1:9), and that Samaria’s resistance to God has essentially reached the point of no return. Micah cannot change the course of these events, but his tears show that he really ca...

For behold, the LORD is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. Micah 1:3 Micah begins with a terrifying scene: God rises up from His dwelling place and comes down to the earth. And He is coming to make His case against the peoples of the earth (1:2). We are given a description of the terror of what happens (1:4). Steven Spielberg would have a field...

The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah… Micah 1:1 Who is Micah? What education does he have? What does he understand about the complexity of city life, or business, or international politics? What does he know about the psychological roots of dysfunction in the family? What does this country bumpkin think he has to say to the...

The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah… Micah 1:1 In Old Testament times, Micah was a common name, rather like Smith today. We are told that Micah was from Moresheth, a tiny little farming village about 20 miles from Jerusalem. It was about as obscure a town as you could imagine. And who was Micah? At the beginning of the prop...

He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. 2 King 18:5 Some people have been blessed with a wonderful upbringing. Your father loved you, spent time with you, and was a role model for you. But others have had a very different experience. Perhaps your father was a picture of what you do not w...

The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth… Micah 1:1 If you had lived at the time of King Ahaz, you would probably have felt everything was lost. But God did a new thing through King Hezekiah. You can apply this to any great crisis in your family, your business, or your nation: God can bring a great revival from the worst disaster. A resurrection can only happen when something is dead....

The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Micah 1:1 Micah’s ministry spanned a period of about 50 years (750-700 BC). He lived and preached at the same time as the prophet Isaiah. During this time, Israel was divided in two—the Northern Kingdom (often called Samaria), and the Southe...

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Job 1:1 Job was the most righteous man of his time. Yet he suffered a terrorist attack and a natural disaster on the same day. The Sabeans came and murdered his servants and animals, and then a hurricane came and flattened the house where all of his children w...

“The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD. Isaiah 65:25 The great promise of the Bible is not just that God will restore His people, but that He will restore creation. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. Old hostilities will be reconciled: “T...

“They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be.” Isaiah 65:21-22 The important point here is that people will settle down in heaven. In this world, many people find a home, but oftentimes they don’t get to enjoy it. A...

“No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.” Isaiah 65:20 Taking the last part of this verse first. Isaiah is telling us that death will be no more. He is using the analogy of what we can understand to point us toward what, right...

“Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” Isaiah 65:17-19 When God...

“They shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." Isaiah 66:24 When Jesus spoke about hell, He used these words from Isaiah 66:24 to describe its awful reality: “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:48). The fire speaks of God...

Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame; behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.” Isaiah 65:13-14 God Himself is speaking here, and He describ...

They shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD to my holy mountain Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66:20 What a marvellous picture: People from all the nations are gathering before the Lord. In Jesus Christ, they have become brothers and sisters. And the missionaries who proclaimed God’s glory in distant lands will have the joy of bringing these redeemed people from the nati...

“They shall declare my glory among the nations.” Isaiah 66:19 There is an old (but profoundly unhelpful) phrase that is often quoted: “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” How in all the world can you communicate the gospel without words? You can convey love without words, but love is not the gospel. You can bring hope without words, but hope is not the gospel. The gospel...

“And from them I will send survivors to the nations… to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory.” Isaiah 66:19 Notice that there are two descriptions of the people to whom God sends His missionaries. First, God sends His missionaries to those who “have not heard my fame.” We would call them “unreached” peoples. People who have never heard. God sends missionaries to co...