Bible Survey Archives - Christ Church

The Prophecy of Micah #1

Christ Church on July 11, 2021

INTRODUCTION

Micah was a younger contemporary to the prophet Isaiah, and he ministered across the reigns of Jotham (c. 740 B.C.) and Hezekiah of Judah (who died in 687 B.C.). Other contemporaries would be Amos and Hosea, which accounts for the similar themes of those prophets—they were all confronting the same kinds of cultural problems. The two great issues were idolatry and social injustice. The name Micah is a shortened form of a name that means “who is like YHWH?”

THE TEXT

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In our text, we find a succinct statement of what true religion is supposed to look like. Is God impressed with high pomp or pretentious sacrifices? What could I give that would earn God’s favor? The answer is nothing, nothing whatever, which men of understanding have always understood since the world began. If salvation is not all of grace, then there is no such thing as salvation.

The book of Micah is not a long one, and is a collection of oracles, bundled loosely according to this recurring pattern—warning, oracle of judgment, and promise of salvation. Each of three sections is begun with the call to hear/listen(Mic. 1:2; 3:1; 6:1). The first cycle begins with warning (1:2-16), moves to judgment (2:1-11), and concludes with the first word of hope (2:12-13). The second cycle begins with warning and declared judgment (3:1-12), but then turns to hope (4:1-5:15). The third cycle begins with warning (6:1-16), moves to a lament over judgment (7:1-7), and concludes with a promise of hope (7:8-20).

As it turns out Micah should be credited with saving Jeremiah’s life, even though he lived a century earlier. Jeremiah was accused because he had prophesied destruction for Jerusalem, which was considered as treason by some, but certain elders of the land defended Jeremiah by pointing out that Micah had done the same thing (3:12), and Hezekiah had not put him to death (Jer. 26: 17-19).

YOUR BEST APOCALYPSE NOW

The better days of Uzziah are now in the rear view mirror, and the shabbiness of decadence and decay are definitely starting to show. False teachers are willing to start showing their true colors. “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; He shall even be the prophet of this people” (Mic. 2:11). As things get worse and worse, the fulfillment of earlier dire warnings is entirely missed. When judicial stupor visits a people, the more manifest the problem is, the harder it is to see. “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; And it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them” (Mic. 3:6).

GOSPEL TENSION

Micah alternates between fierce Deuteronomic denunciations and glorious kingdom promises. This gospel is going to conquer the world, but an essential part of the gospel message is found in the key word repent. Repent and believe. Before we ask what we are to believe, we must first ask what we are to repent of. We are to repent of great wickedness, as defined by Scripture, and our views of how high salvation goes will be shaped by how deep we believe the sin went. In the book of Micah, he calls the mountains to witness (Mic. 6:2)—may we learn to do the same. As the Lord taught us, the one who loves much is the one who was forgiven much (Luke 7:47).

This tension stretches from Genesis to Revelation. God is not mocked—a man reaps what he sows, and yet through the death of Jesus Christ, a man does not reap what he sows at all. The curse runs through it all, and yet the grace of God runs as bedrock underneath that.

SO TURN TO THE PROMISE

The judgments in the mouth of Micah were judgments that applied to Samaria and Jerusalem, to Israel and to Judah. But the promises were for the whole world. “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2).

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: For the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Mic. 4:1–2).

AND BACK TO THE TEXT

In this world, what is the consequence of having our sins washed away? What does it look like when God comes down and the mountains of our religiosity melt under His feet (1:3-4)? When God interferes with us, when He saves us, when He fixes us up, what does that look like? What we could not do with burnt offerings, what we could not do with rivers of oil, what we could not accomplish by giving our firstborn for our transgression, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And when He did so, the result in our lives tastes like this. He has shown us what is good. He has taught us what He requires.

He says three things. First, do justly. Second, love mercy. And third, walk humbly with your God. And we can only do this when we come to the cross. Only there can we do what is just. Only there can we love the mercy of God. Only there can we behold the humility of God. In Jesus Christ we can do justly, in Jesus Christ we can love mercy, and in Jesus Christ we can walk with humility. Only there. So all of you, lift up your heads—your redemption draws near. Christ is approaching. Look to Him.

Psalm 127: Enemies in the Gate

Christ Church on February 21, 2021

INTRODUCTION

We live in a generation that wants to define family in radically perverse and demented ways. In times like this, it is easy to allow phrases like the traditional family and the biblical family to blur together, as though they were the same thing. But the biblical family is much more militant than the traditional family, and much less sentimental. And this is one of the reasons why the traditional family has had such trouble defending itself against the onslaught of the “brave new family.”

THE TEXT

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows: For so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; So are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, But they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:1–5).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

All of our labors are futile unless the Lord gives success to the work (v. 1). The one who builds a house cannot complete it unless the Lord is actually the one building it (v. 1). If the Lord is not protecting the city, it doesn’t matter how many sentries you post (v. 1). It is vain for you to wear yourself out if God does not want to give it to you (v. 2). So when the Lord is building a house, how does He do it? Children are a heritage from the Lord, and His reward is the fruit of the womb (v. 3), but the first principle applies even here. Unless the Lord blesses the child-rearing, the thing is fruitless. The children of one’s youth are described here as the arrows in the hand of a great warrior (v. 4). A man who has a quiver full of loyal children will not be ashamed when he confronts his enemies in the gates of the city (v. 5).

COME NOW, YOU WHO SAY

The Lord’s brother James warns us about our tendency to go in for arrogant planning. “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”” (James 4:13, NKJV). What we ought to say is quite different. “Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that”” (James 4:15, NKJV). Our lives are in God’s hands, completely and utterly and finally. As Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,” which means that they skid sideways.

“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; Ye eat, but ye have not enough; Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; Ye clothe you, but there is none warm; And he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6).

“Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deut. 8:11–14).

If God’s blessing is not resting on it, depend upon it, you will be able to do nothing worthwhile with it. If the blessing of God is present, then both wings can fall of and it will still fly. This is true of farming, of inventing, of painting, of woodworking, of writing, and of anything else that we might decide to do. And it most certainly applies to the building of a house, to the rearing of children.

And it is here that we have to distinguish the difference between genuine faith and high-flying presumption. From fifty yards away, they can both look equally crazy.

NOT A SENTIMENTAL MOVE

We all love the fact that children are a blast, and nobody should mind the fact that we love it. But this psalm is not about the patter of little feet around the house. This is not about your Christmas photo album. The ancient world, when they went to war, had a clearer view of what was at stake than do we (Hos. 13:16; Amos 1:13). A kindergarten class is a packet of warrior seed.

A quiver holds arrows, and a warrior holds arrows in his hand as well. The man who has children in his youth is a man who has grown children when he is still active and in the fray.

ENEMIES IN THE GATE

The city council of an ancient city was found in their gates. It is where their elders sat. It is where decisions were made, and transactions conducted. If a showdown occurred, that is where it would occur. So there are two things to note about this.

The first is that a man is contending with his enemies in the gate, and his sons are there with him. His sons are present in the gates when this happens, and (this is important), they are on their father’s side.

The second thing is that these are not foreign enemies, besieging the city from outside, but rather domestic adversaries, belonging to the opposition. A righteous man, together with his arrows, stands against all enemies “foreign and domestic.” The issue is righteousness, not party, or tribe, or nation. And a blessed father brings his children along with him in their shared loyalty to truth and righteousness. The glue that holds such families together is outside the family. This is fundamental.

Every attempt to get families, or nations, or churches to hold together apart from Christ (Col. 1:18) is idolatry.

CHRIST IN THE GATE

Remember that Jesus is Jehovah, Jesus is Yahweh, Christ is the Lord (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10: 9,13). So unless Christ builds the house, then forget about it. Unless Christ is guarding your nation, forget that too. Your heritage in your children, if it is to be a true heritage, must be from the hand of Christ.

Look to Him for every blessing. Look to Him for every deliverance. Look to Him.