Micah 4:1-13
But Micah Chapter 4 looks beyond these
events into what was for Micah’s hearers a distant future. Micah wrote this
before Christ came and died for our sins and rose from the dead. What future is
Micah writing about? Well, I think the things he says don’t find their ultimate
completion until Christ’s return, “soon and very soon,” as the song we sang
puts it, but there is a degree to which these things are to be for us now as well. The Kingdom of God is
coming, but the Kingdom of God is here. It is both “now” and “not yet.” Let’s
look at the first several verses.
In the last days the mountain of the
Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be
exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come
and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the
God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” –
Micah 4:1-2a
The imagery here brings some of the judgment
Micah pronounced in Chapter 1: Look! The Lord is coming from His dwelling
place; He comes down and treads on the heights of the earth (verse 3). And: What
is Jacob’s transgression? Is it not Samaria? What is Judah’s high place? Is it
not Jerusalem? “Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble, a place for
planting vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her
foundations (vs. 5-6).
Tim shared when discussing Micah 1 how peoples all over the world
tend to go to high places and establish altars to false gods there. Why do they
choose high places? Perhaps on some level they think that getting up in the
thin air means they are closer to their gods. But I think it is also part of
the master plan of Satan, who constantly tries to get people to profane the
work and meaning and symbolism of the true God. God has chosen to appear to us
from on high, and Jesus promises to return to us from on high. Satan does not
want us looking up to the high places for the true God, so he gives us
counterfeits to distract and confuse us from looking for God Himself.
Anyway, in this future time that Micah sees, crowds of people,
even nations of people will come to this high place to learn from the true God.
The word stream is really there in
the Hebrew – perhaps even more vividly – what is painted here is a picture of a
river flowing with people. Note that this river flows uphill, since it is going to this high place. This picture
communicates the idea that this is an exceptional event, unprecedented – people
from all over the earth coming to the true God, to learn His ways.
Note that learning is not the ultimate goal, is it? “So that we
may walk in His paths.” Knowing leads
to doing. Knowledge leads to godly action. As we know Him, we love Him, and we
desire to honor Him with our deeds. As He shows us what to do, out of that
love, we do those things.
Do you walk in God’s paths? In my younger years I did a lot
of hiking and backpacking, with my Dad and sister, and we learned to stay on the
path. I remember once, armed with a topographic map, we tried to take a short cut
to a lake, but we ended up stuck at a dead end of a cliff. It wasn’t a very
tall cliff, so it did not show up on the map, but it was enough to force us to
turn around and walk a couple extra miles to make it to the lake. It would have
been faster to stay on the path.
I think there are several serious mistakes we American
Christians often make in this regard. One mistake is to try to stay on the path
without going up, so to speak, to hear Him. That is, we seek to live good,
moral lives, but do so without really seeking Him. The problems with this are
that taking this approach leads to us going on what we think is His path but rarely really is. We tend to focus on the
things we have some power over in our lives and completely ignore the things
that we fail in. And so we go down the paths we want to walk down, the ones that usually make us look pretty
good, rather than the paths that He would have us walk. His paths are often
more difficult, and they often don’t make us look good, at least not at first.
The other problem with trying to stay on the path without
going up to Him is that even if we do somehow find our way to the right path,
His path, we are utterly incapable of staying on it. In our own strength, we
wander off the path after even only a few minutes; our heart and our body
fights us with shocking intensity, and we are overcome. In abject failure, we
become greatly discouraged.
There is no way to successfully walk on His path without
first coming to Him. God’s Holy Spirit is a teacher, it teaches us His ways,
not just in our heads, but on our hearts, and guided by Him and empowered by
Him, we can walk in His paths.
Another mistake we make is that we equate staying on the
path with having some kind of continual emotional experience. I am not saying
that there is anything wrong with having emotional experiences in the context
of seeking God; far from it, but staying on the path is not the same thing as
an emotional experience. Sometimes, walking in His path is hard, or lonely, or
even emotionally draining or discouraging, yet it is what we are to do.
The
law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge
between many peoples and
will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their
swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not
take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. – Micah
4:2b-3
So clearly in a collective sense this is
“not yet”; we still have armies and prepare for wars, and we still have wars.
Even in peacetime we maintain our military because we know that at any time an
enemy may arise that seeks to do us harm. But a day is coming when all will
know that this will never again be necessary.
It is interesting to me that a prophecy in
Joel 3 describes the reverse – verse 10 says “Beat your plowshares into swords,
your pruning hooks into spears.” Doesn’t that figuratively describe the history
of the world? Times of peace are replaced by times of war. Peace is simply the
time between wars. Peace is always temporary. But a day is coming when war will
never come again. A day is coming of eternal peace.
Do you know what a plowshare is? It is the
cutting blade of a plow. What does a plow do? It breaks up the ground so that
when the seeds are sown, they can grow and take hold in good soil. What about a
pruning hook? A pruning hook is a curved blade used like we use pruning shears.
What is the point of pruning? It removes dead, diseased, or damaged tissue from
plants and trees, and also removes parts that are growing where they shouldn’t
grow. We have a struggling dogwood tree at the front of our house, and this
spring, I noticed that more new growth was coming from down near the roots than
up top where it should be. So even though it wasn’t the right time of year to
prune, I chopped off all that growth down low, and within a week, our whole
family noticed how the tree quickly transferred its energy into growing the
upper parts of the plant, as well as producing flowers. Both the plowshare and
the pruning hook are used to prepare for growth, for fruit.
There is a basic meaning to this passage
that in this future time, people won’t have to neglect their plots of land or
their vineyards but can focus on properly preparing for a good harvest. But I
think perhaps more is implied here. It’s not just the land that is readied for
fruit, but lives. In this future time, we will be fruitful. If we are talking
about heaven, then no, we won’t be out sharing the gospel anymore, but we still
will be fruitful, abundant in the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And
if we really are seeking the Lord, walking in His paths, then this is not only
a “not yet” thing but also a “now” thing. I’m not saying there won’t be
conflicts in this world, but as much as it is up to us, we won’t be using
“weapons of war” but instead “plowshares and pruning hooks.”
Everyone
will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will
make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations may walk in
the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for
ever and ever. – Micah 4:4-5
What a contrast to God’s condemnation of the people in Micah
2:1-2, where it says, “Woe to those who plan iniquity, to
those who plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they carry it out because
it is in their power to do it. They covet fields and seize
them, and
houses, and take them. They defraud people of their homes, they rob them of their
inheritance.”
Mostly in America we still live under rule of law, and we do not
have to constantly worry about someone taking our property, our possessions.
But even in America there are places you don’t want to go to at night, places
you should never go alone. In much of the world there is more danger, more
widespread corruption, more living under fear that someone will take what they
want from you by force or by abuse of authority.
But Micah 4:4-5 describes a world in which there is no fear.
There is no one to make them afraid. Most Christians, if they are honest, do
have fears lurking back in their brain somewhere. Certain things trigger this
fear. A news story says that a famous stock prognosticator predicts a major
market crash. Another story warns of the inevitable results – massive
inflation, massive unemployment, civil unrest, even government collapse – of
our ever growing national debt. Yet another story warns of the end of
civilization as we know it when (not if) an electromagnetic pulse from the sun
wipes out our power systems and electronics. Any of these things could return
us to a state in which we do not live under rule of law but under rule of
force. Now I’m not saying these fears are necessarily unfounded – for all I
know, tomorrow morning we will have a stock crash followed by a collapse of our
financial and government systems at noon and a devastating solar storm in the
evening! But even if these things happen, I do not need to live in fear. If you
have put your trust in the Lord, accepted His gift of salvation through
repentance and faith in Him, then you are not “of” this world; it is only a
temporary home. In our eternal home, we will not want; in our eternal home, we
will not fear. This is “not yet” but we can live without fear “now” by resting
securely in His promises.
“In that day,”
declares the Lord, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and
those I have brought to grief. I will make the lame my
remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in
Mount Zion from that day and forever. As for you, watchtower of the flock,
stronghold of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you;
kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.” – Micah 4:6-8
The Lord does not see as we see. He does not look down (or look away) from
the disabled, from the damaged, from the broken. Rather, He lifts them up and
shows off His love for them. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the
meek. Blessed are the persecuted. Here are some of my favorite verses:
"The Lord is close to
the brokenhearted and
saves those who are crushed in spirit."
– Ps. 34:18
"He heals the
brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." – Ps. 147:3
Again, this is “now” and “not yet” – we live in
the promise of it now; and imitating the Lord, we bestow it on one another now,
but the Lord Himself will wipe away every tear in the “not yet.”
In the final verses of this chapter, Micah moves
back from the distant future to the time which is before them, a time of exile.
But even there he reminds them that these difficult times are temporary, that a
restoration, redemption will come.
Why do you
now cry aloud—have you no king? Has your ruler perished, that pain seizes you
like that of a woman in labor? Writhe in agony, Daughter Zion, like a woman in
labor, for now you must leave the city to camp in the open field. You will go
to Babylon; there you will be rescued. There the Lord will redeem you out of
the hand of your enemies. – Micah 4:9-10
And he also tells them that justice will come;
their sin has caused their destruction, but the ones who hurt them will also be
judged. They too will pay for their actions.
But now
many nations are gathered against you. They say, “Let her be defiled, let our
eyes gloat over Zion!” But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do
not understand His plan, that He has gathered them like sheaves to the
threshing floor. “Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion, for I will give you horns of
iron; I will give you hooves of bronze, and you will break to pieces many
nations.” You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the Lord, their wealth to
the Lord of all the earth. – Micah 4:11-13
In the midst of these visions of what was
to come, what should be and can be for us now, and for what yet is to come, I
am drawn back to the single most important event of all history – the cross.
Although by “Daughter Zion” God primarily was referring to the Israelites of
the time of Micah, there is a sense in which Jesus, God’s One and Only Son, was
a “type” of Daughter Zion. He too, in a very real sense was exiled – He had to
leave the city to “camp” in the open field. He went to a Babylon of His own –
the cross. But there, unlike the Israelites, He had no promise of being
rescued, and indeed, it was God’s will for Him not to be rescued, for He, in not being rescued, was becoming our rescuer. The Lord did not redeem Him out
of the hand of His enemies, because it was through this that He would redeem us.
Just as the nations gathered against Israel
said, “Let her be defiled, let our eyes gloat over Zion,” Jesus’ enemies called
Him names and spat on Him, and cursed Him. They shouted “Crucify! Crucify!”
They wanted a guilty prisoner released so that the one who had no sin would die
as one of the worst criminals. But just like Babylon, they did not know the
thoughts of the Lord; they did not understand His plan. And although God does
not want anyone to perish but wants everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter
3:9), the day of the Lord will come like a thief (2 Peter 3:10). He offers
salvation to all, but those who refuse Him will reap what they have sown. They
too will be gathered like sheaves to the threshing floor, for that is what all
of our sins deserve. This would be our fate as well if it were not for Jesus
going the cross for us.
He knows we are forgetful and that our hearts are quick to jump off His paths, and so He instructs us to remember Him
with the bread and the cup. The early church did this; as it says in Acts 2:42,
they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
We are now studying God’s Word together; we will soon have a sharing time
together; we will close it with prayer together – teaching and fellowship and
prayer. And now we will remember Him with the bread and the cup. These are the
very things the disciples did in Acts as the church, the initial followers of
Jesus. Jesus Himself began this tradition at the Passover supper before He was
crucified:
While they were
eating, Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it
to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.” Then He took a cup, and when He had given
thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. –
Matt. 26:26-28
And so, as it says in Micah 4:2, “Come let us go up.” Let us come to the Lord, admitting our total
dependence on Him and thanking Him for becoming our exile so that we could be
forever rescued. Go ahead and form groups of two or three, get a piece of bread
and a cup, and spend time taking turns praying together out loud, in
thanksgiving and praise and in worship of our Maker and our Savior.
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