Micah 4:6-13 Hope Beyond Punishment

Intro:

We are going to wrap up our time in Micah 4 today. We will see one last example of how this passage served to give hope and comfort to the faithful in the days of Hezekiah even as the situation around them seemed grim. We will get some more practice in seeing how these types and shadows direct our eyes to the fulfilment of these very prophecies in our day and see the way in which prophets like Micah often zoom back and forth between the present realities and the future promises they were delivering to the people.

As we start it is good just to have a bit of a reminder of how we have gotten here. We have seen that while Micah has prophesied impending judgement and destruction for the sins of the people and their syncretistic idolatry he has now in this chapter begun to hold before them, and will continue through chapter 5 to hold before them this grand hope for a restored future. Particularly we saw last week how this restored future is a reversal and restoration of some of the sinful and wicked circumstances that were the occasion for God’s judgement.

We saw that while the leaders of the people had despised and perverted justice and right judgment that in these coming days of promise God himself would be their ruler and that he would judge rightly and bring justice to bear for His people. We saw that whole the religions leaders, the priests and prophets, had failed to rightly teach the people to walk in God’s ways that in this coming time of hope the people would gather together and be taught God’s ways and learn to walk in them. We saw that the mountain of the house of the lord, the temple and the city of Jerusalem which would be destroyed would once again be lifted up but that this lifting up really would show that Jerusalem and its temple had always been ment to serve as a type of a future fulfilment that we can see actively transpiring today. That this mountain signified the place where men might be, through grace, called up to come into God’s presence and worship Him; and that the temple had stood for a sanctified place where God himself could come and dwell with His people and we saw that these types and shadows are indeed being fulfilled today in God’s church, the Body of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the head where we find that people from all nations may come and worship God and may find that their very hearts are, through the grace of God in the cross of Jesus Christ, sanctified so that we ourselves become the temple, we ourselves becoming the dwelling place of God.

Again, it is so exciting to look at these things and realize that these aren't just grand promises for some idealistic future but that because Christ has come, the one who we will learn about in Chapter 5, the one born in Bethlehem, because He has come we now are privileged to be a part of the realization of these very promises!

So lets take a moment to pray once more and then jump into our text.

PRAY & READ (6-13)

Micah begins these verses with “In that day.” This clearly references back to the opening of chapter 4 and Micah’s statement about the coming latter days. It could be that Micah here is drawing the focus of these people to what specifically it is that God is going to do for the remnant of His people Israel in this time. We have seen much about the nations and the great peace that God is going to bring across various people groups and nations as the gospel goes forth and God’s kingdom expands across the globe but now Micah, in a sense, says that in that day, as those things are being fulfilled or as those things are beginning to be realized here is what God is going to do for you oh Israel.

This thing that God is going to do is:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

I will assemble the lame

and gather those who have been driven away

and those whom I have afflicted;

7  and the lame I will make the remnant,

and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion

from this time forth and forevermore.

Now it is interesting to note that Micah uses a very different word for lame here than what is typically used, especially in prophecies like those from Isaiah. Micah’s use here seems to point us back to a well known story from Israel’s history. We read in Genesis 32 an account of Jacob wrestling with God. As he is going back to meet his brother after leaving his uncle Laban he prepares to meet his brother who he had fled from years earlier because of the animosity that had been built up between them as Jacob had stolen all of the inheritance that Esau his brother was to receive as the older brother. There the night before Jacob is to meet his brother we read this story:

English Standard Version Chapter 32

22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

This is an interesting story and it is right to ask why it was that God touched Jacobs hip and made him walk from that day forth with a limp. Was God punishing Jacob for wrestling with him?

The answer to that question is no. God does indeed bless Jacob, He gives him a new name and assures him of his position as the chosen family through which God was going to carry out the promises made to his grandfather Abraham. Now, Jacob was being blessed by God but at the same time Jacob had to learn a lesson and that lesson came a a cost, when Jacob thought of his limp, a limp that would follow him through life he would always remember the night that he wrestled with God but in that remembrance he would not only remember his wrestling but also that as God had taught him a lesson he had also assured him of his blessing. God had restored Jacob but he had left Jacob with a reminder for always of the cost of striving with God.

It seems as though Micah intentionally reaches back into this moment in his peoples history to teach them the same lesson. God is, in the future, going to wound this people. They have striven with Him. The have not followed Him as they ought and they are going to be wounded but as with Jacob this wound is going to be, as one commentator put it, remedial. This would would remind them forever of the cost of not following God but also of the blessing of being renewed. They are not to be cast off forever, the pain of God’s chastisement would be great but as we have said before, there was to be a blessing beyond the judgement.

We see in this passage a lot of “I wills” and “I haves.” The central actor here is God. The people have been the central actor in their sinful ways and wanderings but now God take the stage as the central actor in their judgement and renewal. He is going to drive them away, He is going to afflict them, but He is going to gather them again. He is going to make them lame, to wound them but that wound will forever remind them that He only wounded them, He did not destroy them forever but saw fit to restore them.

Us or them?

Now as we consider what God is going to do here for Israel it is important for us to remember that even as we have been making the case for these promises being fulfilled here in now in this time of the church this doesn't preclude God saying and doing something specific for and to those ethnic Israelites who would follow Him in grace enabled faith.

Paul tells us in Romans 9 that:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

This is why, while I don't believe in the dispensational division of the peoples of God into jew and gentile I also don't believe that it is right to say that God has nothing left to do with ethnic Israelites. Theirs are the promises and one of those promises is this, that God is going to gather them and that we will inherit the blessings of this kingdom along with them and I believe that this is still taking place today as the continued remnant of the people of Israel is drawn to faith in Christ through the grace of God in the cross.

Earlier God is raised up and is reigning over the nations and here God is raising up and reigning over this remnant of Israel that is going to be saved.

The promise to this faithful remnant is summed up in verse 8. The former dominion shall return. There will be a King that reigns over God’s people from the hill of Zion. Hopefully you are well tuned now to hear that imagery in light of Christ reigning now over His people as the head of the church. The point is that there is one mountain and the remnant of Israel and the nations of the world are all being draw to salvation to this same mountain and the same King and this is all happening right now in this time of grace and repentance and faith in Christ Jesus the king of the mountain.

Hope in Judgement

This promise is so important though for Israel because of what follows. We see in verses 9 - 11 what seems to be a passage of judgement. This passage ought to ring some bells if you have been following along in the 5 day reading as we have been in Isaiah, Micah’s older contemporary ad have been learning more about the reign of Hezekiah.

We read in 9 - 11

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Now why do you cry aloud?

Is there no king in you?

Has your counselor perished,

that pain seized you like a woman in labor?

10  Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion,

like a woman in labor,

for now you shall go out from the city

and dwell in the open country;

you shall go to Babylon.

There you shall be rescued;

there the LORD will redeem you

from the hand of your enemies.

11  Now many nations

are assembled against you,

saying, “Let her be defiled,

and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

We know from Isaiah 39 that though Hezekiah was faithful for most of his reign that after his illness and recovery there was a change. Envoys had come from this far away place called Babylon and Hezekiah had shown them all that God had given him, he had showed off and Isaiah comes to him at the end of Ch 39 and says:

English Standard Version Chapter 39

3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.” 4 He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

We read then that Isaiah was displeased, as we read it seems to point to there being something else going on, seems to be that Hezekiah has either grown complacent, or has grown comfortable in his prosperity, that he thinks less of God and God’s people than he once did, that his primary concern is now his own peace and comfort in his old days and we read that Isaiah says this to him:

English Standard Version Chapter 39

Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: 6 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. 7 And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

“There sill be peace and security in my days”

This is the first thought that comes to Hezekiah in light of God’s words of judgement! Yes, something was terribly wrong with God’s king and the people are meant to understand that this is not good. In fact the person who compiled the book if Isaiah then chooses to place a prophecy immediately after this story that beings:

English Standard Version Chapter 40

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

Indeed in light of the failings of their king they desperately needed to be comforted.

This is the likely background for these verses here:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Now why do you cry aloud?

Is there no king in you?

Has your counselor perished,

that pain seized you like a woman in labor?

10  Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion,

like a woman in labor,

for now you shall go out from the city

and dwell in the open country;

you shall go to Babylon.

The failures of their king and their own sins as a nation had assured that they would be taken captive to Babylon!

But this is not a passage of judgement this is a passage of promise. We read that from Babylon, there as they are judged for their sins there they:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

shall be rescued;

there the LORD will redeem you

from the hand of your enemies.

Judgement is coming but they shall be redeemed out of judgement. God is going to wound them as He had their father Jacob but He is going to deliver them.

We read further that now the nations are going to be gathered together against them.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Now many nations

are assembled against you,

saying, “Let her be defiled,

and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

However these nations do not realize that the God of Israel is the sovereign God of all the earth.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

But they do not know

the thoughts of the LORD;

they do not understand his plan,

that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

Though for a time God has gathered together these nation against Israel they don't realize that He is going to in turn use Israel against the nations in the future.

Israel is told:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

Arise and thresh,

O daughter of Zion,

for I will make your horn iron,

and I will make your hoofs bronze;

you shall beat in pieces many peoples;

and shall devote their gain to the LORD,

their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

Micah now zooms back out in scope and gives us this imagery of the church triumphant. All of those who have been gathered to Zion are now commanded to thresh. Threshing was the process by which you would beat grain to separate the kernel that you would eat from the chaff that would be blown away by the wind or gathered and burned. The kernel was the good thing the rest was trash. When you thresh you gather the treasure, the valuable thing and you get rid of what is worthless.

God’s people are now called to thresh the nations and to devote their gain to the Lord.

We do this now through the preaching of the gospel! I have become convinced that much of the language we read throughout the prophets, and even the Psalms for that matter, about the coming victory and dominion of God’s people ought to be read in light of the plundering of the nations that is taking place right now through the preaching of the gospel. We read in Matthew about the binding of the strong man so that his house can be plundered and the context drives us toward the reality that the strong man is Satan and that God thorough His Son intends to plunder the strong mas house and we read in Revelation 20 that

English Standard Version Chapter 20

And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer,

This all of course connects with what we have been learning and will continue to learn together as a church but we see that Satan is bound that he might not deceive the nations any longer that he might not prevent the spread of the Gospel, the strong man is bound and we are in the midst of plundering his house. The nations and the prince of this earth the Devil have no greater treasure than the peoples that inhabit the nations and from the moment that Christ ascended into Heaven to the right hand of the father the task has been given to His church to go an plunder the nations of their wealth, to thresh them and deliver the riches, the beloved converts who respond to the preaching of the gospel, to the Lord of the whole earth! We find that quite literally that task was begun by a remnant of ethnic Israelites that He had gathered to himself through His ministry of proclaiming the coming of His Kingdom.

Closing

As we close I want to give us two points of application.

While there is a promise explicit to Israel in these verses about being wounded and God’s gathering of the lame this doesn't stop us from applying this text to ourselves more broadly as well. We ought not forget who we were and what wounds God may have given us as He drew us into his family as well.

Go forth and thresh! This is the ultimate application of this passage. This is the beauty of seeing this typology and imagery in these passages of victory. We get a glimpse of the power that accompanies us as we go out and proclaim the gospel to the nations!