This is God's word. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall sit, shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore, but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its God. but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. 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 former 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 seized 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 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. Now many nations are assembled against you saying, let her be defiled and let our 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 in peace as many peoples and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. Read that far in God's word. As we saw previously in chapter three, Micah warned that the ancient city of Jerusalem would fall eventually because of its corrupt leaders. And here in chapter four, Micah predicted restoration, that the future city of Jerusalem will stand because of the good leader, the Messiah Jesus, providing restoration to his remnant people. Therefore, the people should have great hope Micah's goal here was to warn God's people to repent and turn to the Lord and also to place their hope in Him. It brings us to our main point that Christ our shepherd king was born unto us, taught us, was crucified for us and rose again for us in order to provide us with a road to restoration. First we'll see envisioning the church of Jesus, God's plan for restoring the nations, protecting His people. Secondly, gathering the remnant of Jesus. God assembles his sheep who are lame, driven away and afflicted and he cares for them. And then thirdly, the birth of the rescuer, Jesus. God restores by redeeming his people and removing his enemies. So you know where we're going, and we start back then at verse one. There's an incredible shift I want you to notice from chapter three to chapter four. Chapter three ended with the phrase, mountain of the house. Do you see it? Not the exact last words, but nearly the end of verse 12 of chapter three, the mountain of the house. Now look at chapter four, verse one. Do you see that same phrase, the mountain of the house? It's referring to the temple precincts. the area on which the temple was to be built. In chapter three, verse 12, Micah was writing about the destruction of the temple, and therefore the hill would be reverted back to a wooded height, a forest which would have wild animals in it. And then the very next verse, chapter four, verse one, he wrote about that same place, the mountain of the house, and this time he's writing about the exaltation of the Lord's temple. So there's quite a shift from chapter three to chapter four, and even chapter three, verse 12, to chapter four, verse one. Why do I say all that? Because it introduces the theme of the temple. Formerly, only the people of Israel worshipped God, the God of Israel at Jerusalem. But for this vision, and now for the future of that temple and of the worship of God, there are added many more worshippers from many more nations. Listen again to verse two. Many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. There's that phrase again, the mountain of the Lord. to the house of the God of Jacob. Many more worshipers from many other nations, non-Israelites, non-Jewish people, the Gentiles, if you will, will be streaming in to worship this God at his temple. And verse two goes on to tell us why the worshipers would come from many nations. What were the nations missing at home that they would need to travel and come to Jerusalem? They were missing justice. Remember what we studied last time in chapter three, the pervasive problem of unjust leaders at all levels? And the hint was that the Spirit of the Lord filled Micah with justice. Remember it was chapter three, verse eight, where Micah said, but as for me, I'm filled with the Spirit and also filled with justice. So the nations are discovering that what they're missing is justice, and the only place to find that justice is in the God of Micah, because Micah's filled with justice, because Micah's filled with the spirit of their God, the God of Israel. So the nations were discovering the source of justice is the God of Micah, and that's why the nations were coming. They were missing justice and they were coming to find it. Now in a more grand style in verse three, chapter four, verse three, the Lord shall judge between many peoples and shall decide. See, he's judging, he's judging with justice. He shall decide for strong nations far away. And again in verse four at the very end, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. The nations, many nations, many peoples were discovering that the sovereign Lord God of Israel always deals fairly and justly with all nations, that His law, law is given through His prophets. were just laws. What are the nations seeking as they come to the mountain of the Lord, that is to his temple, to the temple of the Lord God of Israel? The peoples, hint, hint, much like the wise men later in following the star were seeking where Jesus was to be born, these many nations were people seeking God, seeking God's wisdom, seeking God's ways. It literally says that to us in verses two and three, that they're seeking God's ways. nations coming to the house of the God of Jacob seeking true justice and more. Verse 2, that the God of Jacob may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. Verse two, second half, the movement of the people toward Jerusalem is now reversed. The people were coming towards Jerusalem and now there's something going out from Jerusalem. Those of you, I'll throw some scientific words in here just for fun. Centripetal force is reversed to centrifugal force. The people were coming toward Jerusalem and now something is going out from Jerusalem. What is it that's going out from Jerusalem? The answer is verse two, for out of Zion shall go forth the law. the law of God and the word, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, that it's going out from Jerusalem as it were to the nations. So both of these are beautiful pictures of the nations coming to worship this God and then God's word being disseminated throughout all the nations. This is later fulfilled. It's fulfilled by Jesus as he famously said, and this is what we refer to as the Great Commission, the big command that Jesus gave to his people to fulfill in Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of whom? All nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So in the church, God teaches his ways to the nations. That's how this is fulfilled. This is a prophecy about the church of Jesus. That's our first point, envisioning the church. Travesty that we found in chapter three was that justice was not known within the courts of Jerusalem during the days of Micah. So it's fitting that part of this road to restoration, I'm calling this sermon Road to Restoration, part of that road included The Lord God himself making his own name renowned throughout the earth for true justice around the world. No more bribery when you come to the Lord for decisions. No more fixed verdicts when you come to the Lord for judgments. The world knew that they could be sure of finding justice if they would turn to God's teachings, God's law, and God's word. What a prophecy. It's amazing. I happen to think Micah came out with it first, and Isaiah borrowed it from him, but you can read it in Isaiah as well. Remember, Isaiah and Micah were contemporaries. Once the disputes were settled by the Lord, as is prophesied here, there's further benefits, not just the introduction of true justice, but also many other benefits besides. Some of them begin to be listed. For example, there'd be no need for instruments of war. Oh, praise his name. No more military basic training camps. The valuable metal wasted in military attacks and military defense, military swords, would be metal that was now instead needed to use to plow the fields, to grow food for people. Peaceful peoples will no longer be overcome with greed, but instead will be sharing, even to the point of extreme generosity. Each person will feel safe in his or her own home and safe in his or her own Field, they could sit down under the proverbial vines, the grape vines, and reflect as they munch on some vines or sip on some wine and think about the wonderful work that they did in their own lands in safety that day. Safe in their own field, under their own fig tree. These are repeated poetic images throughout the Old Testament. Under your own vine, under your own fig tree. Poetic pictures of the good life in the good land. with a good God, they'll not be afraid anymore. Oh, that we could just have that. That all around the world, we wouldn't be afraid anymore. Verse five, further blessings described, for all the people's walk, each in the name of its God, and we'll walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. A beautiful scenario, not just a breather from fighting, a temporary truce in a war, but permanent end. to fighting and that everyone walks in the name of the Lord forever and ever. A beautiful picture envisioning the church and the blessing of the church to the world, as Jesus calls it, salt and light. That was our first point. Moving on to our second, gathering the remnant. These people who are hearing Micah were experiencing, as we saw in chapter three, a difficult life in a difficult city. It was described as the judges being bad, the prophets were false, the city rulers detested justice, and as a consequence, the city had a lot of difficulty. The community of that city disintegrated. They had lost the sense of unity and security, which were the basis for normal living if they did have a semblance of justice. It's described here in two ways. One is in terms of a shepherd and a sheep, and the other is in terms of a woman giving birth. labor pains that lead to that birth. So these two images are dominant throughout the chapter, and hint, hint, will be also mentioned in the next chapter. As a consequence of the community being disintegrated, they lost justice, and what they need, if you'll describe the people in terms of sheep, they need a shepherd. But the intervention of a shepherd would change everything for the sheep. Sheep used to be injured, used to be scattered, used to be afflicted, and in verse six, we see what the Lord does as the shepherd intervenes for them. Let me read verses six and seven. 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. After God would bring them back home from Jerusalem, home to Jerusalem from exile, he would then make them into a strong nation is what he's promising here. Micah is envisioning a time where the people would not repent and stay in the good behaviors according to the covenant. They would fall again back into sin and again and again. If that kept up and then God would judge them, the exile would happen and he'd bring them back from exile and post-exile, this is what would happen. They would be formed into a strong nation. And in verse eight, God addresses Zion and this time, speaking directly to her, you can think of the city as female, so her, God addressed Zion and spoke directly to her in verse eight, listen, and you, O tower of the flock, look at what he calls the city of Jerusalem, O tower of the flock, Hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come. The former dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem. This is again, more poetic language describing a theme of the shepherd, a shepherd king, caring for his sheep, and it's skillfully continued even though the scene is somewhat changing in verse eight. Now this restored capital city was called a tower of the flock. And in those days, you would have a tower in the middle of a field where a shepherd was watching sheep so that from the tower, the shepherd could watch for wild beasts and sheep stealers. And centuries later, there was a certain shepherd who took a look around through the cities and villages where he was, and his name was Jesus, and he saw the same problems that Micah saw here. And we read this, listen carefully, Matthew 9, 36, when Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Same problem, same compassion from the same God, now having come in person. The Lord God is the good shepherd who sees and knows full well the suffering of his people and promises restoration and refreshment and a time of safety under his kingship. Second point was gathering the remnant of Jesus, how he assembles his sheep who were lame, who were driven away, and who were afflicted, and he cares for them. And third, our third point now, moving on to verse nine, the birth of the rescuer. Jesus, God restores by redeeming his people, removing his enemies. Verse nine, 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? If you'll notice in verse nine, the word now, and again in verse 10 in the middle, for now, and again verse 11, the word now. These are signaling words, it'll happen again in chapter five, verse one, these marker words, now, now, now. So there's a new day, he's talking about something different. And here the prediction is, if they didn't repent, if they didn't turn to the Lord and continue to walk with the Lord, then God would need to judge them. And the way he would judge them would be to send the enemy to attack. And once the enemy attacked, then they would start to cry aloud. So his first question is in verse nine, now, Now at the time of judgment, now that I'm sending judgment upon you because you didn't listen, wouldn't listen, would not repent, now, why are you crying aloud? Once the enemy is attacked, you're in pain, you're in distress, and you're crying aloud. And at that time, God would remind them of something. God would remind them of how they had insisted on trusting in their own bad kings, and their own false prophets, and their own corrupt city ruler. that they wouldn't turn, they wouldn't repent, they wouldn't change. All the things that Micah warned them about, they didn't do anything about. So Micah poses these questions in a sarcastic manner. What he's saying to them is, oh now you're crying aloud. I should have heard the crying aloud when I sent Micah to preach about repentance, but I didn't hear it. Why should you be afraid in your new bad circumstances? I'm judging you now and sending Babylon upon you now, but you value your king so much. You value his counsels and his plans. Why don't you just turn to that incredible king that you have? Why is it such a crisis, like pain that seizes a woman in labor? You know, a pregnant woman is going about her day and then the labor pain comes upon her and she can't think about all those other things that she was doing in her day because now the labor pain has taken over her whole mindset and her whole day. That's the kind of idea that they were just going about their lives, not repenting, and God was judging them by sending Babylon and now the big problem is, oh no, Babylon's here attacking our city. shocking, overwhelming, like a woman suddenly in labor. They were overpowered by Babylon. They were not able to cope with the situation. And Micah says to them, oh really? You're about 100 years too late because these prophecies led to what actually happened in history about 100 years, more than 100 years later, Babylon did attack. So here Micah told them that, tell you what, this is what you do now. Go ahead and act like you're acting, because now it's appropriate. Now, God is judging you. So go ahead and act like a woman in labor, because the situation truly justifies that response. Look at verse 10, how he changes tunes and says, 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, and you shall go to Babylon, There, you shall be rescued. There, the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. They had always been saying all along, we will never lose our land, we will never lose our city. This is the city of God, we're the people of God, we're never gonna lose our temple, we're never gonna lose our city. And God says, you're gonna have to go away to a distant land if you wanna have an Egypt-like exodus to bring you home. The first step is to take you out of what you are so secure in so that you can find your security only in me. You find that in exile, and then there I'll rescue you. There I'll redeem you. But I'm not going to redeem and rescue you when you're not repentant and you're sitting fat and happy in your capital city. assuming and presuming that I'm never going to be insistent enough about my holiness to do something about it. It's appropriate now, he says in verse 10, to groan, to writhe in agony. Step one, leave the city. What, leave the city? Yes, leave the city of Jerusalem. Step two, set up camp in an open field, because somehow on the way from Jerusalem to Babylon, they spent a lot of nights out in the open. Step three, go to Babylon. Go ahead and arrive there. It's gonna be your home for approximately 70 years. Step four, wait. Wait for what? Wait for the Lord to rescue. There he will rescue. Wait for the Lord to redeem. There he will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. Notice the word there is repeated twice in verse 10 on purpose, not at home. Not in Jerusalem. God will not restore them from Jerusalem, as they had pridefully assumed. Instead, God will restore them from there, from Babylon. Exile first, then restoration. Death first, then resurrection. Verse 11, how many nations, now many nations are assembled against you, saying, let her be defiled and let our eyes gaze upon Zion. In contrast to verse two, where the nations were gathered to Zion for instructions. We want God's instructions, God's law, God's word. Please teach us. Oh no, that's not that way anymore. That's no longer verse two. Now we're in verse 11 and here the nations are gathered to Zion for destruction of her. It's like dogs gathered around some dead creature. The nations are gathered around Jerusalem because they want some goodies. They want a hand at helping to destroy this. After Babylon came through and ravaged it, whatever's left, the nations are gathered. Each nation under its own flag would gather against Jerusalem, letting their eyes gaze upon it. They can hardly believe that the magnificent Zion capital city, God's own city, has been destroyed. The holy city would be defiled when those foreign soldiers were teared down the walls and teared down the temple, and especially the most holy place of the temple. And the nations would celebrate their victory precisely because it was that city that sent news out to the world saying, we're holy and you're not. They claimed to represent the heavens. and heaven on earth and represent the God of the heavens, the creator God. That city used to condemn other nations for their wickedness, but now those nations had overcome the city in their wickedness, and it was validation time for the wicked soldiers in verse 11. But that's not the end of the story. Verse 12, but they, those wicked soldiers, gathered around Jerusalem like dogs licking their chops They do not know the thoughts of the Lord. They do not understand his plans, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. Now a common picture in the Old Testament for judgment was sheaves being gathered and made ready for threshing on the threshing floor. These nations were the tools of their own defeat, even though they didn't realize it at the time. They did not know the thoughts of the Lord. God would outwit them. And it's a picture of what would happen many years later. When God would outwit the devil at the cross of Jesus, what seemed like a defeat when Jesus died was actually victory for God and the kingdom of God. Paul said it this way to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 2, 7 and 8. We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. Listen, none of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, 1 Corinthians 2, 7-8. In the same way we could kind of talk about verse 12, if you use that kind of sentence and talk about verse 12 in our text here, you could put it this way. None of the soldiers understood the thoughts of the Lord. For if they had, they would not have gathered around to attack the city of Jerusalem. They were unaware of what was really happening. God had gathered them in order to judge them because he was now acting as the shepherd of his people. Verse 13. He changes it all when he gives a new command to his people, and he says to them, arise and thresh. What a verb. A command to thresh. It's a threshing for, designed for God's judgment against the nations, and who are the threshers? Who will be the instruments in God's hands to do his judgment, to do his threshing? He calls upon his people, the daughter of Zion, to arise and thresh. How will they be strengthened enough to do that? Oh, don't worry, God says in the rest of verse 13, for I will make your horn iron. I'll make your hooves bronze. You shall beat in pieces many peoples, imagining the threshing, right? Tramping on the grain in order to separate the husks from the good grain. At the end of verse 13 we read, and they shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. Remember the symbolism and the themes of greed? And now God is saying the wealth of the nations will be devoted to his service. He'll use it to rebuild his temple. Here God commanded his own people who are blockaded in Jerusalem to get up and go out of Jerusalem and to attack. It puts you in the mind of chapter 2.13, doesn't it? He who opens the breach goes up before them, they break through and pass the gate, going out by it, their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head. They could not have won any such victory without the Lord as their leader. The only way to have lasting peace is to have God deal with his enemies. The one who is coming, We'll do that. The one who came did that. I'll give you a hint. It's the same one who's coming again. And the first time he came, he was born in Bethlehem. I'll give you one more hint. He'll be a shepherd. And you can look ahead at chapter five, verse two. You've probably received dozens of Christmas cards in your lifetime that have chapter five, verse two in them, but now you understand the context. What have we seen? Christ our shepherd king was born to us, taught us, crucified for us, and rose again for us in order to provide us with the road to restoration, and visiting his church, gathering the remnant, and the birth of the rescuer. And putting it all together, chapter two, three, and four here have a few concluding comments. What we really need is for God to be the judge, God to be the prophet, God to be the priest, God to be the king, God to be our leader. Can we even imagine what it would be like if God were central to every aspect of all of our lives? Micah can imagine it. He's written it down here for us in brief format. You're basically saying things like this. We need the teaching of God's word. We need to understand God's ways. We need to know how to continue to walk in God's paths. We need freedom from war and fighting. Take the resources that are used to fight and use them to bless the lives of people. Who keeps on hating and attacking? We need God to change our hearts so that warring hearts become hearts of peace. Once the resources that were used to go to war are turned into other projects, then there's enough food for everyone, there's enough lands for everyone, enough homes for everyone, for everyone to have his own vine and his own fig tree without fear and without theft or robbery or attack or even being concerned about such. It is significant that the nations first learn God's word, verse two, and then there's the absence of war in verse three. True peace is given out by God through his church and his scriptures. True peace is based on knowing God himself through his word and the good news of the gospel of grace by which we can live holy lives, passionate for justice and passionate for mercy according to his law and his word. We need God to change hearts. So instead of being like the hearts of these bad kings and prophets and judges, they become hearts like Micah, filled with his spirit, filled with justice, filled with his love. We need God to change hearts so that the greedy hearts we read about in chapter two, instead of desiring more for self, desire to share. Who keeps coming up with these scams to rip off people, especially the elderly? Who comes up with these things? Can't we find these people? But above this being a police and investigation concern, we need God to change their hearts so that no one anywhere would want to rip off people and invent new scams. We need honest hearts, in fact, generous hearts. This chapter four is a picture of the kingdom of God seen in the true church of Jesus Christ, and it's a prophecy about Jesus himself walking in the midst of his church and his people being a blessing to the world. Once we learn to walk in the name of the Lord our God, we become agents of renewal in the whole world. We know justice, and we start to bring it into all of life. We know truth, and so we share it with everyone. We know how to bring order out of chaos, and that's what everyone needs. The first step is for each of us to receive God's instructions through his word. God's transformation of our hearts is empowering for us to live it out with an eye to providing God's justice, God's salvation for all. I have a quick story to kind of illustrate this, how we need God to do it because we can't. The Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court that he escaped conviction on a technicality for theft. He thought this fellow had broken into a house and stole stuff and got away with it. So he said this to the man from the bench. He says, I know you're guilty, and you know you're guilty, And I want you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser judge, and that there you'll be dealt with according to justice, not just according to human law. You know that very same man, that same burglar, went right back to stealing? How do we know that? Because one day, while he was busy burgling, he was surprised by owner of the house in Antwerp, Belgium. thief decided to run. So he fled out the back door, climbed over a nine foot tall wall, and dropped down on the other side and thought he was free, but he had literally found himself in the city prison. I tell you that story to seek to illustrate that when God is working, it all works out. New Testament apostle Paul agreed with the Old Testament prophet Micah in giving hope for restoration like this, even while still engaged in the spiritual fight for justice and mercy, for love and walking in God's name. Here's what Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 6, 12. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Because that's true, Paul also wrote this. I'll end with this, Ephesians 6, 10. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the blessing.