Micah Part 2

Introduction:

My first sermon at North Hills was 2/14/16, 9 years ago this past Friday.

The sermon went 55 minutes, which at the time someone told me was the longest sermon ever preached here. And I’m still here. We’ve beat that a few times since then too.

My sermon title was Love Is… from 1 Corinthians 13.

And 9 years later we still know that the same is true…Love is revealed perfectly in the person of Jesus.

Let’s pray.

Transition to the text: Turn with me in your Bibles to Micah 4. Today we come to one of the most well known sections of the OT to Christians. The prophecy of the coming Messiah. In the midst of so much judgment and wrath, we get a giant snapshot of the grace and love of God. Messiah is coming.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The most well known verse in all of the Bible speaks to the grace of God and love of God perfect given in the person of Jesus.

This is the way in which God has chosen to demonstrate His love and grace. Messiah is coming. And with Messiah, there is rescue from our sins now, and rescue from a wicked and evil world later.

We look at the world and wonder when will God fix this? How long oh Lord must we await rescue.

But we do know that things aren’t right. We do know that there is a way things ought to be.

Even atheists admit that. There is something very wrong with our world. Jesus came to the world to save us from our sin. But still the world is wrong. We just have redeemed people awaiting our salvation. But there will come a day when all things will be fixed.

In this way, we as Christians have a lot in common with our OT brothers and sisters. We look forward in hope.

Big Idea: Knowing that things aren’t RIGHT, God regularly tells His people that RESCUE is coming.

1. Imperfect human KINGDOMS will be replaced by God’s perfect KINGDOM. (Micah 4:1-5:1)

Explanation: In 4:1, Micah moves from the impending judgement of Judah to the last days and the kingdom of the Messiah.

Micah 4:1–2 ESV

1 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, 2 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, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

I think it’s safe to say that many of the god-fearing Jews living in and around Jerusalem recognized that their government was wicked and evil. But what could they do?

Judah was never a democracy. Those who called the leaders to account usually ended up in prison or dead. How do you live a godly life in a godless society? I’m so glad we don’t have to worry about that dilemma in our day in age. RIGHT?!

Judgment was coming on that godless nation and for some, there was a feeling of hopelessness, because, if Judah and Israel can fall, where else would they go? It’s true the other nations were infinitely worse.

So in a sense, chapters 4-5 and written as an encouragement to those people that there will come a day when you won’t have to be subject to wicked kings and godless nations. There will be a day when all will be right.

Things may not be right right now. But take heart, rescue is coming.

Imperfect kings and imperfect kingdoms will give way to a perfect kingdom led by a perfect king. And yes, the eternal kingdom will be a monarchy.

I know in the USA we don’t like kings and queens, but let’s not mix this up, God’s kingdom is not a democracy. We don’t get a say in the way God rules.

But that’s ok, because the perfect kingdom is led by a perfect king leading redeemed people.

When we think about our imperfect governments today, the primary reason that they are imperfect is that they are made up of imperfect leaders leading imperfect people.

We have differences of opinion and philosophies of government and people will fight to the death over their ideas. And we don’t have an impartial referee to help us determine what is right and wrong, what laws are just and which are unjust.

That won’t be a problem in the perfect, eternal kingdom of God. Right and wrong will not be subjective. The perfect kingdom will be ruled according to the perfect word of God.

And everyone will recognize it as such.

So what will this kingdom look like?

Jerusalem will be the capital. (Whether that’s Old Jerusalem or New Jerusalem.) Sorry, it’s not Washington, DC.

There will be government. And that government will render decisions for distant nations.

There will be no more war: Micah 4:3

Micah 4:3 ESV

3 He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; 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;

4. No world hunger and no crime. (Micah 4:4)

6. No atheists. Everyone is a Christian (Micah 4:5)

7. The kingdom will be made up of those the world rejected. (Micah 4:6-8).

8. Any threats against the Kingdom of God will be immediately dealt with. No more patience. (Micah 4:9-13)

Illustration: Can you imagine how awesome heaven is going to be when we aren’t arguing incessantly about politics. No political pundits debating anything.

Because there won’t be anything to debate. God’s kingdom will be perfect. And it starts with the redeemed people no longer having a sin nature. We won’t be perfect in the way that God is perfect, but we will be without sin and fully trusting our God.

Application: There are lots of discussion about whether we, as Christians, should try to build this kingdom now through imposing our Christian values on the world. I’m not going to answer that for you.

What I will say is that every single Christian needs to be living their daily lives as a citizen of that future kingdom. Our loyalty and citizenship is first and foremost to that. Our conduct should represent our Christian values and worldview regardless of what we see in government.

Pictures of the future about living in the hope of our salvation. And we need to live in light of that hope.

2. Imperfect human KINGS will be replaced by God’s perfect KING. (Micah 5:2-15)

Explanation: Merry Christmas! Again, Micah 5 is one of the most familiar OT passages because of it’s connection to the nativity story.

Micah 5:2–6 ESV

2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. 3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. 4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. 5 And he shall be their peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men; 6 they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border.

The Messiah is coming. This is the promise of God and the hope of Israel to keep them looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.

And again, this encouragement is written to those trying to live a godly life under godless leaders. Who shirk the laws of God and laugh in the face of those calling them to account.

First don’t worry about your present circumstances. Judgment of the enemies of God, domestic and foreign is coming. And God will restore His faithful remnant.

One thing you’ll immediately notice about this section is that about half of it is strikingly exact to the circumstances described in the early parts of the New Testament. It’s further evidence that Jesus was and is the Messiah. But the rest doesn’t match at all.

Jesus came first in peace. Micah speaks of war and conquering His enemies with the sword.

So you have to do one of 2 things.

Take what is literal as literal. What didn’t literally happen 2,000 years ago, you spiritualize as Jesus’ spiritual war on our sin and the devil.

Or the parts that don’t match up, you take a continued promise to us still in the future.

I take the second approach because 1. it makes no sense to take 1 set of promises as literal and the 2nd as figurative. And 2, we already know that Jesus is coming back. He told us as an encouragement to stay faithful. So in this, a promise still remains for the faithful in all generations.

God is not done rescuing His people. In this way all Scripture is applicable to all generations. As we see, even the Minor Prophets.

I like to think of the Minor Prophets as the OT Revelation. Because so much of it deals with the second coming of the messiah.

Illustration: Something that I’ve often struggled with is how the 1st century jewish people could get Jesus so wrong. From an OT perspective, He met all of the qualifications to be the messiah. Born in the right place at the right time to the right family. On top of that, He did incredible miracles that authenticated His message. He was a great teacher and clearly a righteous and devoted man of God.

So what happened? Was it really that they were power hungry?

I’m more and more convinced it’s because they stopped taking their own scriptures literally. They ran into the same problem that many scholars and Christians do today. They wanted to spiritualize everything that didn’t make sense to them.

For example, Isaiah 53:5

Isaiah 53:5 ESV

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Christians look at that and say, that’s Jesus.

Jewish people read that and say, the suffering servant is a figurative representation of all of Israel.

How can the Messiah, be the one to rescue them from their enemies and and establish the Kingdom of His father David forever….and suffer and die for the people?

They also obviously took the passges related to the Messiah’s divinity as figurative of His being a really good guy.

Isaiah 9:6 ESV

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Because there is only one God and God is spirit, how can a man be God?

So they took it figuratively.

And it’s easy for us to look back and laugh at them and be like, “how could you be that dumb?” It’s so obvious. Well yeah, we have hindsight and the Holy Spirit.

All that to say, as a Christian, we are still looking forward to the coming of Jesus.

We can’t put our hope in anything else. Jesus is coming. And He is king.

Application: So why does He delay? What’s taking so long? Many have used his delay as a reason for why He’s not real.

But Peter tells us…

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Jesus delay is God’s patience and grace. And yes, we’ll have to endure godly living in a godless world under varying degrees of godless government. But our eyes must be forward.

Response: Are you still looking forward to the RETURN of the MESSIAH?

Conclusion: I know that so often I tell anyone who will listen to read your Bible.

Have a questions about theology? Read your Bible.

Want to know God’s plan for you? Read your Bible.

Having difficultly making a decision? Read your Bible.

Having doubts? Read your Bible.

Full of the joy of the Lord? That’s the best time to read your Bible…and the one we often neglect because we falsely think that’s when we don’t need it.

God has given us His word and it is sufficient and clear that we can know God, know Jesus, and be saved from our sins and come into a right relationship with Him.

The Bible tells us why there is suffering in the world.

The Bible tells us why people are evil.

The Bible even tells us why there are wicked and corrupt nations.

Believe it or not, God even tells us why certain things are sinful.

God tells us why He ordered the Israelites to essentially commit mass genocide. He tells us repeatedly so if we are still uncomfortable with it, that’s on us.

He has told us over and over again.

There have been times that I have asked Amanda a question about something to do with the athletic program at North Hills. (She’s the athletic director if you don’t know). And more often than not she will say, “Read your email.”

Often people will ask me a question about something church related or about an event coming up. And they are holding in their hands, the means for getting the answer to their question. Read your bulletin. Read your church newsletter.

As Christians, when we have questions, we are literally holding in our hands, the means for answering those questions.

But my guess is someone along the line has wrongly told you you can’t take this literally. Just read your Bible.

Ok, ok. I know.

At North Hills you are always free to ask your question. There is no dumb question and we will freely tell you what we believe the answer to be.

And I won’t ridicule anyone for having doubts or questions. We welcome them.

But I’m going to take you to scripture for the answer. I’m going to ask, are you reading your Bible regularly. Are you praying regularly.

And if the answer is no, I’ll give you your answer, but I’m going to challenge you begin reading your Bible.

The jewish people in the time of Jesus did not have Amazon.com to order a torah in 2-5 business days. They usually had one scroll for the whole town and it may not have even had the whole OT.

We don’t have that excuse. You can download it on your phone for free and search based on topic. If you don’t have a physical Bible, I will gladly give you one.

And yes, it’s possible to take the Bible literally and not seriously. So do both.

Because we have a job to do. Until the whole world hears.

Let’s pray.