Good morning, sisters and brothers. Let me try that again. Good morning, sisters and brothers. Much better. I'm so grateful for this opportunity of fellowship with you, this opportunity to thank you for your fellowship in the gospel, for your support and your prayers, and for this renewed opportunity to spend time with you around God's precious word. For those of you who are unacquainted with our work, outside there is a stall with a little leaflet, a blue leaflet, which is free to take as many as you could make good use of and to do something of what we're doing. There are also two pieces of literature that regretfully are for sale and my wife would be happy to relieve you of any funds that you are carrying and wish to get rid of. She takes all of mine. One of them in fact is a book that the content was more or less delivered to you some short while back on the book of Malachi. And the other deals with the messianic movement with the primacy and sufficiency of Christ as spelt out in the unity of the church. Paul did not look upon the unity of the church as a secondary issue. The unity of the church is an expression of the grace of God. We belong to one another and together we belong to Christ by his merits, not by ours. And so it does not matter what culture, what background, what the color of our skin, whether we can hear or we cannot hear, whether we can see or cannot see. We are one in Christ if we are in Christ. And there is no room to deny the gospel by separation. Yesterday we began looking at the book of Micah. We reminded ourselves that Micah lived at a turning point in the history of his nation because he both spoke of and then witnessed the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, the capital of which was Samaria. And he warned his own nation, Judah, of the impending danger that Judah faces if it continues following the course that Israel followed. We saw God's firm, stern, loving warning. And then towards the end, yesterday we were surprised by a unilateral expression of grace. Totally out of the blue, like a lightning with a dark sky behind it. And I sought to hint, because Micah gives us no more than a hint, that the truths proclaimed in the Old Testament finds their fulfillment elsewhere in what was for Micah yet a distant future. And for us, if we are in Christ, a glorious present. Today we'll be looking in the morning at chapters 4 and 5, and I'll be reading to you from the Maoz version. As I explained yesterday, my attempt is not to give you a well-rounded, comfortable, literary rendering of the text. What I'm trying to do is to give you the text in its bare bones, so that you will get something of a sense of the Hebrew, and something of a sense of the terseness, and sometimes the ambivalence of Micah's message. And so I shall read to you chapters 4 and 5. And at the end of days it will transpire that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be firmly established on the highest of the mountains, and lifted up above the hills, and nations will flow upon it. And many peoples will come and say, Let us ascend to the mountain of God and to the house of the God of Jacob and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths. Because out of Zion will the law issue and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And He will educate between many nations and rebuke immense peoples at a great distance. And they will hammer the swords into hoes and their spears into pruning knives. Nations will not lift a sword against nations, and will no longer learn to wage war. They will sit each under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be none to frighten, because the mouth of Jehovah of hosts has spoken. Even if all nations will frame their conduct, each in the name of its God, We ourselves will frame our conduct in the name of Jehovah, our God, forever and ever. On that day, Jehovah says, I will assemble the lame and he that wandered far I will engather, and those whom I have punished. and I will make the lame into a remnant and the wandered into an immense people and Jehovah will rule over them on Mount Zion from then and forever and ever and you watchtower over the flock high hill of the daughter of Zion all the way to you will truly come the first governance the kingship of the daughter of Zion now why do you cry out? Do you not have a King within you? Has your Counselor perished that pains like those of childbirth have taken hold of you? Be an anguish and give birth, daughter of Zion, like in giving birth, because you will now come out of the city and live in the field, and you will arrive all the way to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Jehovah will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. But now many peoples have assembled against you, saying, Zion will be polluted, and our eyes will see it happen. But they do not know the thoughts of Jehovah, and do not understand His plan, because He has engathered them as one gathers a sheaf to the threshing floor. Get up and thresh, daughter of Zion, because I will make your horn of iron and your hooves of bronze, and you will crush many nations. And I will confiscate their booty and their riches for the Lord of all the earth. Now you enlist in troops, daughter of troops. He has imposed a siege on us. With a staff they smite the judge of Israel on the cheek. And you, Bethlehem of Ephrata, too young to be among the families of Judah. from you will issue for me one to be a ruler in Israel whose origins are from the distant past from when the world began therefore he will hand them over until the time for the one giving birth to give birth and the rest of his brothers will be added and returned to the sons of Israel and he will stand and shepherd in the power of Jehovah in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God and they will be settled, because he will now become great all the way to the ends of the earth. This one will be peace. Should Assyria enter our land and should he set foot in our palaces, we will raise up against him seven shepherds and eight human princes. And they will shepherd the land of Assyria and the land of Nimrod at its gates. And he will rescue from Assyria should he enter our land and set foot within our borders. And the remnant of Jacob will be among many nations like dew from Jehovah, like light rains on grass that does not hope in man and does not expect anything from humans. and the remnant of Jacob will be among many nations like a lion among wild animals, like a young lion among flocks of sheep that if he should pass he will trample and devour and none can rescue. Lift up your hand against your opponents and all your enemies will be slain. And it will take place on that day, says Jehovah, I will cut your horses from your midst and destroy your chariots And I will cut down the fortified cities of your land and destroy all your fortresses. And I will cut out sorceries from your hand, and you will not have those who read the future in the clouds. And I will cut down in your midst your idols and images, and you will no longer bow before that which your hands have made. And I will ground your asheroth from your midst, and I will destroy your cities, and I will act with fury and with anger toward the peoples that have not obeyed." May God be pleased to glorify himself through his word. Our portion, long though it may be, begins with the little word and. In Hebrew, a single letter. And this serves to connect between the destruction of Jerusalem described in the previous chapter and that which follows. Chapters and verses are helpful so long as we remember that they are uninspired and sometimes, therefore, unhelpful. They create disconnections when connections should be seen. And so remember this little word, and, or this little letter, and. The contrast is really quite amazing. A once destroyed and shamed Jerusalem is to become now the glorious focus of international attention. God is not limited by our failures, nor is His grace restricted by our willful sinfulness. The expression, and it will come to pass in the last of days, or at the end of days, should be familiar to us if we have read the scriptures. The prophet is again pointing toward a future. Just how distant, he does not tell us. And what exactly will be the nature of that day, or in this case, at the end of days, we can only learn from the expression itself, which tells us, frankly, very little. However, Micah tells us, I have Paul in mind because I'm still working on Romans, Micah tells us that at the end of days, amongst other things, Jerusalem will be exiled. And exiled to Babylon. And then he speaks of a birth. A birth in Bethlehem of an exalted national leader. We know that those two end of days have already occurred. And this should surely serve us as a warning when we read the scriptures not to think that every time we read at the end of days or at the last days or whatever your translation may say we tend to project it all into what is for us a future. We need to read our Bibles carefully. At the end of days it will transpire that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be firmly established on the highest of the mountains and lifted up above the hills. We should be literalists. That is to say, we should insist on what the Bible means, not always what it says. If I come home and tell my wife that I'm so hungry I could eat a horse, I'm grateful she doesn't take me in a wooden, literal way and serve me a horse for dinner. She understands literally what I mean. The Bible uses human language in human words, in human ways, according to a human understanding. and we should therefore aim at the meaning of the text Micah is not describing some kind of topographical changes but the future importance of Jerusalem when he says it will be lifted up no more than he means to say that every single individual from every single nation will all flow on the little mountain of Jerusalem if you have been there you will know There just isn't room for everybody. Micah is speaking of a restoration of Jerusalem, and therefore, of course, of a restoration of Judah. And while he mentions the house of the Lord, there's no specific reference, for example, to worship by way of sacrifice, or the function of a priesthood. And so we should be very careful not to attribute to this text meanings that are not resident in the text. To what end do the people come? They come to hear the Word of the Lord, the preaching of the Gospel, the very reason for which I assume you have come this morning, to sing and think of God's praises, to offer your heart's worship to Him as you sing His praises, as you pray, as you heed His Word, as you examine your hearts and your lives by His Word, and as you go out into the pathways of life to obey that Word. Micah is speaking of the fulfillment of the promise God gave Abraham, that he would be a blessing to all the nations. But this is not to be the product of human endeavor. It is a work of powerful unilateral grace. Think of the world that the Prophet depicts here. Contrary to modern aspirations in many, many ways, For example, he does not speak of the erasure of national and cultural differences. He speaks of nations, of many peoples, very much like someone hundreds of years later looked into heaven and saw people of every tribe, tongue, and nation gathered before the throne of God to worship and praise his name. They were distinguishable. They didn't all look alike. They weren't all tall, or short, or Caucasian, or Asian, or dark-skinned. They didn't all speak, if you will forgive me, English, if that's what you think that you speak. Many tongues, many nations. Worthy is the Lamb. Nowadays there's an effort to eliminate differences. Differences between nations, differences between cultures, differences between men and women. There's nothing wrong with the fact that people differ with one another. Variety in God's creation is intended by the Creator, and it finds cultural differences. God created night and day, bird and mammal, creeping things and winged creatures. He created male and female. Differences do not create conflicts. People do. They create conflicts when they void one another because they differ from one another. And the modern effort to eliminate differences and thus promote unity is doomed to fail. To deny the differences between men and women is contrary to nature and cannot contribute to man's truest happiness. The Scriptures speak of the day when people will dare differ from one another because alongside their differences they will be united in the fear of God and in the love of His Word. Differences enrich. Differences enable us to serve each other, learn from each other, each in a different way reflect in a wider, fuller extent the wonderful majesty of our glorious God. No one culture can do that, no one individual, no one sex. And we ought not to be threatened by the fact that we differ, nor should we allow our differences to divide. And I could go on on a tangent here, I've already spoken to you earlier about the importance of this matter. The fact that others differ from us should not be a threat. After all, we differ from them too. God made us different so that dependent upon one another we can grow up together into the full measure of the stature of his own glorious image. I would say more, but I'm preaching from the Old Testament, and so I shan't. A multi-varied world united in a shared desire to do God's will. Many peoples will come and say, let's ascend to the mountain of God and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his path. It's not enough, dear sisters and brothers, to come to the temple of God and to listen to His word. God's truth is not meant to tickle our hearts, but to shape our thoughts and to frame our lives, to challenge and to change our values and establish new priorities. That is what we should aspire to find in our daily life. Comfort is not a Christian value. We think it is not death to die. That is a Christian message. That is the truth of God's Word. Do we believe it? International interest in God's Word, tells us Micah, will bring about a radical difference in the nations of the world while cultures and patterns of life will significantly be affected. The Word of God challenges all the cultures of nations without making them one, changing each one of them. Not only individuals change by conversion. Nations do. Cultures do. The course of history changes. There is tremendous power in a faithful declaration of the Word of God. Have we lost faith in the power of God's Word to create revolutions? Is that the reason for the widespread erosion of gospel preaching? Why people are seeking the kind of friendly gospel in which there are no sharp corners? No transforming challenges? no embarrassing exposures, and then they wonder why their message does not result in the kind of change for which they long, the kind of change witnessed by the prophets and the apostles. If we dared believe and preach the same gospel, if we dared have the same kind of courageous, ambitious, and unequivocal faith, Our message would likewise be capable of challenging our culture and our nations. The word of the Lord will issue out of Zion the law from Jerusalem. Note the word, the law. Jehovah's Word is always either a command or a comfort. They always require of us to aspire after the image of God Himself, as expressed through God's own law. And the nations will learn to conduct themselves on the spiritual and moral level by coming to hear the word of Jehovah. And Jerusalem, or Zion if you wish, will become the moral center of the world. It's not enough to be inventive as Israel is nowadays in so many other areas. Where Israel lacks, we all lack in the fear of God. In a fear of God that is expressed in integrity, in morality, in sensitivity to others. And when the nations come to hear the word of the Lord, if a misunderstanding should arise among them, He will educate between many nations, and He will rebuke immense peoples at a great distance. The Judge of all the earth will establish His justice on earth, and all will embrace His authority. No longer will nations seek to settle their differences by way of war. true peace will reign so that they transform the instruments of death into hoes and knives. They no longer learn how to wage war. Yes, there may be differences, there may be points of conflict in their aspirations, in their needs and in their desires, but they are united nonetheless Because Jehovah's will and glory are their supreme aspiration, their greatest need, their highest, most intense desire. And those are the grounds in which peace can be established in families, in churches, in communities, among nations. The United Nations will never achieve what Jehovah will. the peace and security and goodwill, these summary of humanity's highest ideals will not come about through the efforts of mankind. They are the gifts of God from the Prince of Peace, when he subdues human hearts and teaches them to love generously instead of succumbing to selfishness, personal, or national. That is the problem in the Middle East today. Two nations selfishly vying one against another, each one demanding a kind of justice that is absolute on their terms and would spell injustice to the other. It's interesting that Micah uses the words of an earlier prophecy of Joel. Proclaim this among the nations, says Joel. Prepare a war. Rouse the mighty men. Let all the soldiers draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. And Micah takes this and turns it on its head. He's not misquoting. He's not misusing the scripture. Similarity does not mean identity. saying, talking with one of you yesterday and trying to make that point, here it is again. He's simply using a phrase to tell us that the day will come when what Joel spoke of will be no longer, but the opposite will be brought in by the hand of God. And thereby Micah provides us with a picture of what every Christian family every Christian congregation, every society should be like. What it was intended to be. Devoted to God, responsive to His will, obedient to His commandments, and enjoying His blessing. And when people conduct themselves one in relationship to another in this way, They will each sit under his vine and under his fig tree and there will be none to frighten because the mouth of the Lord of Jehovah has spoken." How do we respond to such a promise? Well, I hope our response is similar to that that Micah offers. Even if all the nations will frame their conduct each in the name of its God, we will have been transformed and we will not conform ourselves to this world. We will frame our conduct in the name of Jehovah, our God, forever and ever. And on that day, says Jehovah, I will assemble the lame and he that wanders far I will then gather, and those whom I have punished. And I will make the lame into a remnant and the wandered into an immense people, and Jehovah will rule over them on Mount Zion from then and forevermore. Notes, dear sisters and brothers, whom God gathers. the sinful whom he had punished, the lame. We admire strength, but God chooses not the wise, nor the strong, nor the noble, nor the competent, but the lame and the weak. And if we are honest with ourselves, Regardless of whatever strengths we may believe we have, in the presence of God, we are all lame. And it is when we recognize that, that these words become words of comfort. I will assemble the lame. and I will make the lame into a remnant, and the wandered into an immense people, and Jehovah will rule over them on Mount Zion forever and ever. And you, watchtower over the flock, high hill of the daughter of Zion, all the way to you will truly come the first governance. Skipping over Saul, illegitimate because he was what he was, The first governance in Jerusalem was that of David. The kingship of the daughter of Zion. God makes a promise. But then Micah asks, in light of that promise, now why do you cry out? Do you not have a king within you? Has your council a parish that pains like those of childbirth have taken hold of you? Jerusalem is described as a watchtower over the flock, a kind of vantage point that is higher than anything else and therefore isolated. No other trees, nothing else around it. That's how Jerusalem would feel when surrounded by enemies. Why are you crying out? Do you not have a king? Has your counselor perished? The question is really too edgy, is it not? On the one hand, although a descendant of David was on the throne, most likely Ahaz at the time, Micah says that the people behave as if the king was nonexistent or at least dysfunctional. There was no one to lead the nation in its defense. On the other hand, they behave as if not only the king is dysfunctional, but as if God has been removed from his throne. And so they are now crying out in anguish as if in childbirth. Cry out, he says. Because you will now come out of the city and live in the fields. Jerusalem will be conquered. And you will be driven out of the city. And you will arrive all the way to Babylon. We made mention of this yesterday. Now, in Micah's day, Babylon was under the heel of Etheria. But you see, Micah wasn't reading tomorrow's newspaper. Nor was he so politically savvy that he could discern political trends and recognize that Assyria would be weakened and Babylon would rise. No, no. He spoke by the Spirit of God. Micah's God is the Lord of all that occurs. The true sovereign of Assyria, of Babylon, of Judah, of Israel. And it is He who determines all events. All the way to Babylon. And there you will be rescued. There Jehovah will redeem you from the hand of the enemies. Even as Jehovah smites. And even as Micah threatens, a word of encouraging comfort is offered. But now many peoples have assembled against you saying, Zion will be polluted and our eyes will see it happen. They do not know the thoughts of Jehovah. They do not understand His plan because He hasn't gathered them as one gathers a sheep to the threshing floor. Get up and thresh, daughter of Zion, because I will make your horn of iron and your hooves of bronze and you will crush many nations and I will confiscate their booty and their riches for the Lord of all the earth. Now, speaking of either Assyria or of Babylon, You enlist in troops, daughter of troops." And then speaking on behalf of Jerusalem, He has imposed a siege on us. He, that is Jehovah, not they. And with a staff they smite the Judge of Israel on their cheek. So Micah is alternating between comfort and castigation between promise and punishment or should we rather say between punishment and promise and he's describing a situation in which the nations will gather around with one intent but God has another and he's calling upon Judah to trust in the Lord and to arise and face the enemy and promises that if they will so do he will make their horns of iron their hooves of bronze and they will thresh the enemy like one lays sheaves on a threshing floor and tramples upon them to separate the grain from the husk but now he says Now they have imposed a siege on us, and with a staff they smite the Judge of Israel on the cheek." We do not know of a specific historic incident in which the King of Israel was smitten on the cheek by an enemy. But we're not literalists. We do know that when Jerusalem was destroyed, Zedekiah, the King of Judah, was brought to Riblah before the king of Babylon, humiliated, blinded, put in chains, and carried to Babylon. Now they smite the king of Israel on the cheek. And then, amazingly, once again, this amazing promise, and you, Bethlehem of Bethrata, too young to be among the families of Judah from you will issue for me one to be a ruler in Israel whose origins are from the distant past from when the world began and he will stand and shepherd in the power of Jehovah and the majesty of the name of Jehovah is God who is this indescribable individual whose existence is from when the world began and yet he is born in Bethlehem. Who rules and does so in the power of Jehovah. Micah does not tell us. And so, if you don't know your Bibles, you'll just have to keep guessing and read your Bibles until you discover. but we have a picture here of humanity and divinity related in one person a mighty powerful one who rules by the power of Jehovah his God who is both with God and is God and when this one rules tells us, Micah The remnants of Jacob will be among the nations. And then he gives us two pictures. First of all, like dew from Jehovah, like light rains on grass that does not hope in man and does not expect anything from humans. A source of blessing. And on the other hand, like a lion among wild animals, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, that if he should pass, He will trample and devour and none will rescue. These are the promises and these are the warnings that Micah issued to the people of Judah, his own people. He tells us that God will accomplish His purposes among the nations. And I will cut out sorceries from your hands, and you will not have those who read the future in the clouds. And I will cut in your midst your idols and your images, and you will no longer bow before what your hands have made. And I will ground your Asherah from your midst, and I will destroy your cities. And earlier He said, I will destroy your chariots and your horses. We spoke of that yesterday. It is not that God is responding to Israel's repentance, but that He is changing them, bringing them to repentance. Ripping sin from their hearts. Salvation is of the Lord, from beginning to the end. And God looks upon His people and says, I am a covenant God. Sister and brother, have you failed the Lord? He is a covenant God. Are you in sin? He is a covenant God. He will tear that sin from your heart. He is true, though every man a liar. He will dash your idols into pieces. He will cut out your sorceries. He is a saving God. And this is Micah's repeated message. Not a God to be trifled with. Not a God who sweeps our sins under the carpet. A God who hates sin with all the fury of his holy majesty. And at the same time, a God who saves those who fail him and fail themselves. And so, sister and brother, each one as an individual. Turn your hearts to Him. He is able to save. Let's summarize. God's anger is for a time. His grace is forever. We can always turn to Him. And we always should. The future is not to be found in ritual or in the renewal of sacrifices. but of the instruction in the hearing and in the heeding of the Word of God. God has a plan that includes all nations, a plan that is contiguous with the covenants, with the promises, and with the commands He gave Israel. Unity does not mean the elimination of differences. God created a multi-form world and we should project that multi-formity particularly in our Christian community. God is not stymied either by man's supposed strengths or by man's weakness. He glorifies himself by saving and cleansing the sinful and by strengthening the lame and the incompetent. God is the faithful ruler of his people. We can trust him and we can face life with the confidence and with the knowledge of the fact that he is the Savior. Let us so do. Let us pray. God of glory, God of grace, to whom everything belongs and to whom all nations owe allegiance, change us. Make us faithful citizens of your kingdom. Give us grace to hear and to heed your holy word, to continue in hope and to labor in the knowledge that your purpose will be fulfilled. Grant us grace to respect those who differ from us and with them to serve you. Your strength is made perfect in weakness. We are weak in every respect. Open our eyes. Work through us in spite of our weakness. Strengthen our faith in you and increase our fear of you and get yourself glory. Teach us to look beyond the visible and to see. Enable us to face life with with courage and in the knowledge that you rule over all and that you direct all according to your will. Teach us to dare, to respond to the challenges of life and to trust you in the hardest of circumstances. Glorify yourself, Lord, through our weakness and accomplish in us your perfect will. We ask in the name of your Son, ruler of all the nations,