Please turn in your Bibles to the prophecy of Micah. Jonah, Micah, Nahum, one of those little prophecies tucked away. Prophecy of Micah, chapter 5, we're going to be meditating on verses 1 through 5. 5a, just the beginning of the verse there, but I will begin reading at verse 6 of chapter 4. Listen to the Word of God, Micah chapter 4 at verse 6. In that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted. 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. And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, the form of dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain sees you like a woman in labor? Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from this 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. Now many nations are assembled against you saying, let her be defiled and let her eyes gaze upon Zion. 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. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze. You shall beat them in pieces, like you shall beat in pieces many peoples, and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops. Siege is laid against us. With a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. 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. 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. 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, and he will be their peace. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray for God's blessing on it. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for holy scripture. We receive this word, Lord, as given to us by divine inspiration. May you bless it to our hearts. May we know Christ through it, and may our faith be greatly nourished. We ask that you would keep away distraction and fatigue or pain. Help us to think carefully upon your word. We pray that your word would go forth in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. My brothers and sisters, I want to ask you to go back in time with me. We're going to go back around 2,700 years, a long time. And you are all Jews, inhabitants of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion. But it's not a beautiful day. The gates to the city are barred shut. None have gone in, none have come in, none have gone out for weeks, for months. The Assyrian Empire stands at your doorstep. Soldiers surround the city. The city is laid siege. Children play in the streets, a little more hungry than usual. A little less food is put on the table. Pantries are scarce. And everyone wonders, will we survive Sennacherib's army? Will they invade the city? Is this it? Two prophets are seen in the city. You see them going here and in and out of the temple frequently with their prophetic mantles slung over their shoulders, one by the name of Isaiah and the other Micah. And they have given us words of hope, words of encouragement. I want us to hear this prophecy of Micah as they would have heard it. And I want us to hear it as we also must hear it in our own day today. It's a remarkable prophecy for a number of reasons. One is its specificity. This prophecy was given roughly 700 years before Christ was born, and it specified the very city that he would be born in. I think it also gives us some very clues about his mother's circumstances as well. We'll look at that in a moment. It's remarkable because of the hope that it gives, and it's remarkable for another reason, the deferment. Deferred pleasure, deferred fulfillment. Prophecies are unique things. They are like a life vest thrown to a drowning person, and you grab onto it for dear life, and it will save you, but you must cling. And whether you're a child or a mother and father in Jerusalem and wondering whether or not you will survive Sennacherib's forces, You cling to the words of the prophet and believe in God. Hang on to this prophecy. It will save you. I give you the word of God with a theme, God gives his people hope in the coming of another shepherd king from Bethlehem. We're going to see in this passage Israel's distress, We're going to see the ruler's exalted origin, and then again, the distress of Israel, and then the ruler's exalted and glorious reign. But first of all, Israel's distress. As I mentioned, Micah's time period is the same period of Isaiah. Chapter 1, verse 1 will give us the dates. He is ministering to God's people during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. That's in chapter 1, verse 1. Roughly, we're looking at the year 750 to 700 BC. And punishment is coming upon the nation of Israel. During Micah's reign, the northern kingdom, the 10 tribes have already been deported throughout the Assyrian Empire. So the northern kingdom of Israel is gone. And all that remains is Judah in the south with Jerusalem, its capital. In chapters 1, 3, and 4, exile is promised even to the tribe of Judah. You see there in verse 10 that we read of chapter 4, you shall go to Babylon so they know that there is destruction awaiting them. Very difficult word for them to receive from the prophet. In this chapter, a whole bunch of sins are listed, particularly in chapters, rather, two and three, I mean. We have pride, idolatry, oppression, presumption, all kinds of sin, and sin is ingrained even in Judah. And so they're going also to be exiled as well. Chapter four, we have a description of restoration. the restoration of Jerusalem and the revival of God's people. So there's grace, there's hope, there's promise. And chapter five that we know so well with the Christmas season upon us, chapter five tells us who's gonna do it. Where is this salvation gonna come from? Who's the man? And so that's what we're thinking about this morning, is Israel. You see in chapter 5, verse 1, muster your troops, so daughter of truth, siege is laid against us. That's the scenario, 701 BC, Sennacherib's armies are around the city, and Hezekiah is the king. This is recorded in 2 Kings 18. Look at how the verse begins. Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops. Now there's some words, that's why I began reading at verse six of chapter four. If you look at verse nine, it says, now why do you cry aloud? The word now just jumps out at you. Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Verse 11, now many nations are assembled against you, saying, let her be defiled. Verse five, chapter five, one, now muster your troops. So we have these nows where there's a sense in which Israel is being mocked. They're being challenged. We hear in this word, now muster your troops, O daughter of troops, the taunt of Sennacherib. You remember that in your Bibles, how he mocked Israel. He defeated all the other gods of all the other nations, and Jerusalem alone was standing, and would their God be able to defend them? Remember how Hezekiah pours out his heart before the Lord as he opens up that letter and pleads with God for grace. We have here a taunt pointing to Israel's inability to defend herself. A daughter here refers to a personification of Israel often used with tenderness and affection. But here we think of weakness. Oh, daughter of troops. She is unable to defend herself. It says here that with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. The judge is Hezekiah. You strike the king, the king's the judge, you strike him on the cheek, intense humiliation. His city is surrounded, his people are hurting, children are crying, everybody's scared, and he can't protect his people. He is a weak king. And there's shame there. In Isaiah's prophecy, he speaks about, in Isaiah 7, the Assyrian Empire coming up to the neck. So intense and almost to the climax is the destruction that will reach Judah. Records from the Assyrian Empire tell of Sennacherib boasting of Hezekiah. Sennacherib says, I shut him up like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with an earthwork. So we have these extra biblical records of Sennacherib's mockery of Hezekiah. At last, there is a good king on the throne in Judah. They've had a lot of bad kings, but they have a good king. Hezekiah is one of the best. But Judah is too far gone. A popular word we hear in the political arena today is the word systemic. We hear that word a lot, systemic racism. Sin is systemic. Sin is ingrained in the hearts of the children of Israel and it refuses to be uprooted. Siege is laid against the city. This is Israel's distress. Who will bring deliverance? From what quarter will it come? Well, Micah gives hope to the people of Israel. He says there will be a redeemer, a ruler, and he will come from Bethlehem. We see that secondly. Look at the word but. We thank the Lord for those words in scripture, but God. In Ephesians chapter 2, but God, we were lost in sin, but God showed us grace. Israel is in great distress because of her sin, but God. And we have in verse 2, but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, the Lord is going to bring a ruler. from the village of Bethlehem in the district of Ephrathah, a little town five miles to the south of Jerusalem. What are we told of Bethlehem? That it's too little to be among the clans of Judah. It's a very, very small little village. So insignificant that when Joshua divided up the territory and he ascribed to Judah certain towns with their cities and villages, Bethlehem wasn't even mentioned among the 115 cities that were mentioned. It's a very small town. In fact, the word clan in verse two is the word that means thousands, probably referring to the military tribune. The idea is that Bethlehem was so small that it could not even muster a thousand fighting men. Like this is an insignificant little hamlet. And yet out of this little village will come a ruler. And I think what's so encouraging about this is the remembrance that David came from Bethlehem. David's family came from Bethlehem. And that gives us great hope because David was Israel's greatest king. He was the greatest and the best. And what we have here is this hope given Israel of a revival of the Davidic dynasty. But look at this with me. It says, but you, 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. Now this is odd because aside from David, all the other kings of the line of David, all the Judaic kings were from David's line. All the other kings were born where? Jerusalem. But now we have a king who's being born in Bethlehem. What does it tell you? It tells you that Jerusalem is not what it once was. There are no Judaite kings, Davidic kings reigning in Jerusalem if we have to go back to Bethlehem for another Davidic king. And we're going to look at that in a moment, but there's things in these verses that give us angst. But nevertheless, here is the hope that even as David came from Bethlehem, so would another Davidic ruler arise, a David-like ruler, a son of David, who is like David, a man after God's own heart. For example, in Psalm 89, The Lord here shows us that he will be faithful to his covenant to David. Psalm 89, once for all I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon, it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies. God swore to David that his line would continue in perpetuity forever. So even though dark days were in store for Israel, they knew that God would revive the dynasty of David. God says that this Davidic ruler would come forth for me, showing that this new ruler who would revive the fortunes of Israel would be uniquely God's servant. And that too, we're going to see multiple references back to David. That, too, harkens back to David, because God said this to Samuel. How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons. God says, I have provided for myself a king. And we have here Micah saying that God will provide a ruler from David's city for me. God's own king. God's appointed and anointed king to restore Israel from all her sin and subjugation. We have this word here about his exalted origin. He comes from the city of David, Bethlehem. But there's another note about his exalted origin. For you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. You know, think about prophecies as they always are future-oriented, aren't they? You're always anticipating a fulfillment somewhere down the road. This prophecy is unique because it actually tells you to look forward and to look backward. It tells you to look backward to David running around the streets in Bethlehem. David coming out of Bethlehem as a young man of 15 or 16 years old who's going to slay Goliath with a stone in his sling. But the prophecy tells you to look beyond David, look back, look way back, look to Abraham and a covenant made with him, and a promise. And look beyond Abraham, look back, look further back to Noah, and look back, look way back, look back to Adam, and a promise given to his wife, that there was a seed. who would come forth from her who would crush the head of the serpent. Look back to the beginning of time. Micah is saying that this ruler who arises out of Bethlehem is from of old. He had been carried in the prophecies of ancient times and had been consistently set forth before God's people in whom they might hope that one day there will be this one who will come. who will crush the head of the serpent, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. When Micah says that he is from of old, I think there is even here the hint of eternity. In Psalm 74, verse 12, it says the following, yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. So whether or not Micah understood or intended to say that this ruler coming forth out of Bethlehem is himself eternal, I think there is within the text a suggestion of it. That he goes back beyond Adam and Eve. Before the first dawn of the rising sun, the Son of God accepted His commission to come down to our planet in the lineage of David. To come forth from the city of Bethlehem to give us hope and salvation in the midst of systemic sin, weakness, subjugation, and humiliation. The children of Israel, while the city walls are barred and the armies surround the city, are given hope in the Davidic and divine origin of a ruler coming forth out of Bethlehem. But the text continues because there is continual distress. It says, therefore, he shall give them up. He shall give them up. As I noted, if the ruler is going to come forth from Bethlehem, And that means things are not well in Jerusalem because kings are born in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. We know the rest of the story. The northern tribes are gone, have been gone for about 20 years by now, but Judah will not last. God will honor the prayer of his servant Hezekiah and send an angel of the Lord who will kill in one night 185,000 soldiers of Sennacherib's army. Sennacherib will go home and he will be killed. But who is Hezekiah's son? Manasseh, the worst king in Israel's history. We have Josiah to look forward to. He's one of the best, every bit as good as David. But Josiah's reforms are superficial. His sin is systemic. and not even a Hezekiah or a Josiah or a David can redeem Israel from her sins. And so the passage tells us, and so Micah said to the children of Judah that God was going to give them up. It's a terrifying word. It's alarming. God was gonna give them up. How could God do that? Jeremiah, who prophesied during the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, when Israel is given up, Jeremiah said, For thus says the Lord, the whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end. And it says here in verse 31 of Jeremiah chapter 4, For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one giving birth to her first child, the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands. Woe is me, I am fainting before murderers. You can see the army of Nebuchadnezzar streaming into the city now, without mercy, slashing with the sword left and right, and hundreds and thousands of citizens of Jerusalem are slaughtered like sheep in the streets. God is going to give them up. In the year 587 BC, the army of Nebuchadnezzar sacks Jerusalem. Countless lives are lost. The nation is deported. The glory departs from the temple and the temple is reduced to a heap of charred rubble. 536 BC, a remnant returns. But the glory is never regained. There's an initial period of roughly 100 years where we have some minor prophets, we have called them, not because they're minor, we just wrote smaller prophecies, but we have those 12 minor prophets. Micah's in that category, but he was not in that period of history. We have those prophecies, but then Israel enters the Dark Ages. We have about 400 years. That's about double our history as a nation. where there's virtually no word from the Lord, no prophets. He shall give them up is a word that makes your bones shake and it almost makes your mind snap. He will give them up until, like the word but, until the time There's a restriction. It's not going to be forever. It's not indefinite. The distress will break. The dam will be breached. Until the fullness of time, as Paul refers to it, when she who is in labor will give birth. And I think the prophet's doing something here because he's referred to the daughter of Zion in verse 5, a phrase that is heard even previously, for example, in verse 10 of chapter 4, wreathe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. So we have within the prophecies this personification of Jerusalem as a collective people personified as a woman in labor. But I believe what Micah is doing in chapter five is that he condenses that image from a people to a person. God's gonna give Israel up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth. And you see the pronouns then become personal as we look ahead to verse four. And he shall stand. and he will shepherd his flock. The woman who is in labor is no longer the city, but it's an individual. And what's really interesting, we don't have the time right now, but if you were to go to 2 Kings chapter 19, you'll see that when Isaiah, the prophet, is speaking to Hezekiah, he refers to deliverance coming from the virgin daughter. We always think of Isaiah 7 as the chapter when Isaiah prophesied about 30 years before Micah. Isaiah said that from the virgin would become a son who we would call him Immanuel, God with us. But also Isaiah says it to Hezekiah that the virgin daughter of Israel would give birth. And I think Micah's picking up on this. They must have had coffee together and talked and shared notes. Would have been a remarkable thing just to sit at the table with these brothers. This is amazing. Micah's saying that in the fullness of time, this woman who is in labor would give birth. A birth to a ruler. Birth to a deliverer. And when she is given birth, it says that the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. So the ruler that is born from this woman will be a brother in Israel, like David, a brother to his siblings. And this son of David, this brother in Israel coming forth out of Bethlehem would give deliverance. the royal brother would reunify the people of God, the rest of his brothers, probably referring to the 10 tribes that were deported in 722, that this ruler and elder brother would reunify the children of God and would one day and would make them again one people, one church. Let's conclude with examining the ruler's glorious reign. What a beautiful picture we have here of this brother of Israel. It says that he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord as God. And they shall dwell secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be their peace. Another image of David. We're looking backward. The ruler will be like his forefather. Like his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, King David. Because David was a shepherd before he was a king. He was a good shepherd. He never ran away from his sheep. He killed a lion and a bear with his own hands. He would lay down his life for his sheep. The ruler coming out of Bethlehem would be a shepherd like his forefather. Not the shepherd of animals, but the shepherd of people. He will stand like David stood. unflinching, unyielding, a man of indomitable strength and courage, a man who would put a stone in a sling and throw it at the giant, not fearing his own safety. He will stand, indicates his permanence, his strength, and his courage. This shepherd ruler is not going to flee from wolves. He will defeat them. He will defend and feed his flock. This shepherding motif is one that Micah likes. He brings it up in chapter two at verse 12. It says that I will assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture. He picks it up again in chapter five, which we're looking at, and then he returns to the same theme in chapter seven as well at verse 14. Shepherd your people with your staff. The flock of your inheritance will dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, prophesying during the years of the deportation to Babylon, picks up this same shepherding motif where the Lord says in Ezekiel chapter 34, says, all the shepherds of Israel have devoured the sheep, but I will give my own shepherd. I the Lord will be their shepherd, he says in Ezekiel 34. And so Micah says to the children of Israel, consider Bethlehem The virgin will give birth to another Davidic king. And like his forefather David, he will shepherd Israel. All the multiple references, and there are a few more, to David, do not diminish, but instead intensify our expectations of the glory of this ruler. David was the man after God's own heart. To say that he was like David, that he would be another David, is not to diminish him, but rather to intensify our hope. But what we have coming out of Bethlehem is a person grand and great. Just the man we need to destroy the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans. To destroy the kingdoms of men. And to elevate the kingdom of heaven. He will shepherd the Lord's people with strength and majesty. shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God." So similar to David. Do you remember when David faced off with Goliath. Listen to David. David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defiled. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with the sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand. David says to the Philistine, I come in the name of the Lord. And Micah 5 says that this shepherd will come in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. It's just a virtual copy of what David said to Goliath is now said to the son of David who will come forth in the name of the Lord his God as David did before Goliath. In the strength that David had by the Holy Spirit, so will this son of David possess strength to destroy the enemies of God's people and to bring them into a land that is safe. and secure from all harm. And he will shepherd them in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. Majesty is a word that means to rise up, to lift. And the Lord will be exalted, the name of the Lord will be lifted up in this shepherd king. He will lift up the name of the Lord Yahweh. He will not only lift up Israel, but He will lift up the Lord, His God. He will present the majestic and glorious name of His Father. And all Israel will know that He is the Father's Son. And His name will be majestic. His name will be so greatly exalted that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is the Lord. To the glory of God, His Father. He will walk through the streets and villages of Israel and the majesty of God will cloak Him. And everyone will see that here has come a shepherd king like David. So much like David. He could have been a cloned copy of David. And yet so very better. And yet so more wonderful. Because we see here in our text that Israel will dwell secure, not even David could secure that. and his name will be great to the ends of the earth. Listen to this, this is another reference to David. It says here in 2 Samuel 10, and David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him. Isn't that amazing? All those references, David's name became great. It became greater, David's name became even greater. And Micah says, and this shepherd king, his name will be even greater than David's. David's kingdom restrained the borders of Palestine at Ammon, Moab, and those were all in subjugation. In Egypt, they played tribute. But this Davidic king, his kingdom will encompass the planet. His name shall extend to the ends of the earth. His kingdom will cover this globe. So great will be the name and the kingdom of this king. Micah pulls out all the stops. He revives the abandoned nostalgia of David's glorious reign and points to one still greater, David's Lord. In the fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham, he will be great to the ends of the earth. His kingdom will include planets. The contrast here is so stark because in verse two, it's a little town of Bethlehem. And in verse four, the little is contrast to the greatness. That Bethlehem is eclipsed by a kingdom that covers the planet. And the sheep of his pasture, well secure. And he will bring their peace. It concludes in verse five, he shall be their peace, their prince of peace. We see the people of Israel, the enemies scattering in disarray just after the angel killed the 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. They fled in terror. That's kind of the memory in our passage. The enemies disperse in disarray. The prince of peace has come from Bethlehem. A reversal of verse one where siege is laid against us. Now the people are safe and secure. The shepherd stands in their midst. Brothers and sisters, when Isaiah gave this prophecy, they had about another 700 years to wait for its fulfillment. Faith clings to promises for a dear life. And I'm asking you to do that today. God gives us a promise. And we have seen the shepherd ruler. He has come. But we're also waiting for the fulfillment of another prophecy. We shall do this in remembrance of him and proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. And it might be another 700 years, and there may be a time when we are given up, as it were. to the sword, to persecution, but let us cling. Let us cling in dear life to this precious and powerful word. The king has come. He has come forth for me, says the Lord, and he has shepherded his flock. This prophecy is gonna give us fortitude. It's going to give us staying power, particularly because we know this one's already been fulfilled. We're just waiting for his return. Brothers and sisters, we are the sheep of his pasture and the flock of his fold. Christ Jesus himself stands in our midst to shepherd us. He does this even as we turn our attention to the sacrament. We do that in the great hope that he is coming again. God give you grace. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we have this great peace in our hearts to know that sins are pardoned in the blood of the lamb, that Christ, the greater David, is our king and shepherd. Let us know and enjoy today his shepherding rule in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.