Verse 8, this is God's word. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look upon her. Now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. A day for the building of your walls. In that day, the boundary shall be far extended. In that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt and from Egypt to the river, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. but the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants for the fruit of their deeds. Read this far in God's word. Finally, after Micah had preached to the big city of Jerusalem, all these chapters, all these sermons and messages that contained in the book of Micah that we've studied so far, finally, the city had taken to heart both parts of Micah's message. God's message through Micah. The first part of God's message was his judgment against sin. God is a holy God and he's serious about sin and needs to judge it wherever it is. The second part of God's message through Micah to the city of Jerusalem is God's restoration after the judgment. Judgment unto restoration. Both parts of Micah's message, the city of Jerusalem is now ready to fully embrace. The city is receiving the message of the prophet. Because the city of Jerusalem had finally, finally embraced from God's hands both His judgment and His restoration, the city is now looking forward, looking ahead to the future with bright hope and predicted coming triumph. Why? Because the city was the community of the Lord God. And God had sent his prophet to restore that community. This passage is about God's promise. It's about God's covenant. It's about God's grace. It was God who retained the role of senior partner in the covenant, if you will. And that the city of Jerusalem had retained the role of junior partner in the covenant, if you will. So when the junior partner of the covenant between the city and her God, Messed up. When the junior partner, Jerusalem, broke contract, it is significant what God would decide to do then. What will God do, the senior partner of the covenant, when the junior partner, Jerusalem, has broken contract? Will he burn them up? Will he give up on his city? We know what God did. We've been studying it all along. God sent Micah. God sent his prophet Micah to the city to ask the people to turn back to God. Follow Micah as he did in verse seven. I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Have the people of Jerusalem turn back to God along with the prophet Micah. God's message is that he would receive his people back with the grace of God, with his full pardon. The people were in darkness. God would bring them back to light as we read and as we'll now study. It brings us to our main point in your bulletin. The personified Lady Jerusalem knew that her fall was due to her sin, so she accepted from God's gracious hand her darkness to light pathway. First, we'll see how Jerusalem expressed her faith to her enemies while she sat in darkness, verse eight. Second, we'll see how Jerusalem clung to the promise that God will bring her to light, verse nine. And third, we'll see in verses 10, 11, 12, and 13, how Micah looked to the future and saw more judgment and more restoration. So we begin with verse eight. I hope you caught it in my main point of the sermon. Lady Jerusalem, personified Lady Jerusalem, that's key to understanding this passage. We couldn't handle more verses? Have a whole nother message for the rest of the chapter? We've got to grasp this personified Lady Jerusalem. I'm spending the next few minutes trying to help you to see the key to the passage. Verse eight, our passage begins with some person speaking, right? It was not an individual person who's speaking, but rather a group of people speaking as it were through that person. So we know this for sure because when we get to verse 10, the enemy will ask to the city, where is the Lord your God? And the word your in the Hebrew indicated it was a singular of the group. The best I could do to explain is like a team. Okay, team. Okay, family. Okay, church, talking to, okay, class, like a teacher would do. So it's the group, and then the group is answering collectively, where is the God of y'all, they might say in verse 10. Okay, so the person speaking in verse eight and saying me and I in verse eight is the God of y'all. Like in the phrase, rejoice not over me, and the person saying, when I fall, I shall rise, is actually the whole community of the city of Jerusalem, okay? Imagine they've gathered at the temple, and they're now responding as a city, as a community, to Micah's messages. Remember back in verse seven, where Micah asked them to look to the Lord, and now in verse eight, the city is looking to the Lord. So verse eight began with a statement of confidence. spoken by sinful Lady Jerusalem. She is the big city, she's sin city that has been accused all through this book of the sins we studied. And yet despite that, and despite having a holy God, she remained confident that after she fell, she would also rise. She testified her expectation that after she sat in darkness, she will be brought to light again. And so this was Jerusalem. expressing her confidence that God was coming to save her. So the city of Jerusalem had a message to say to those who rejoiced over her downfall. That's how verse eight begins. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. It's basically saying, mockers, stop mocking. This same kind of idea is also found in Lamentations 3.14, where the community had become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. Why should the mockers stop mocking? Why should those who are rejoicing over the downfall of Jerusalem stop rejoicing? Because God, is a God of reversal. He has sent Micah to say two messages. One is judgment and the other is restoration. So God is planning to restore Jerusalem. So Jerusalem is saying to our enemies, don't rejoice over Jerusalem's downfall because whatever situation there is in Jerusalem that you're mocking, that you're rejoicing over, will end up becoming your own situation. there will be a flip-flop of the enemy and Jerusalem. God will place the taunters into the very situation about which they're taunting Jerusalem. When all that happens, the rejoicers, the enemies, will wish that they had not added rejoicing over the downfall of Jerusalem to their list of sins against God and his people. So Lady Jerusalem here is actually giving wise advice in verse eight. If only the enemies had the ears to hear, because she's saying to them, rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. The opposite is also implied. Those enemies of God, those enemies of Jerusalem, when they rise, when the reversal happens, what happens? They will fall. When they rise, they will fall. When she falls, she will rise. It's a reversal on both sides. So that's point one. Make sure you understand verse eight, how Lady Jerusalem is speaking and how the reversal is coming. She's speaking to her enemies. Now we can build on that in verse nine in point two. Jerusalem clung to the promise that God would bring her to light. Verse nine simply continues the statement of confidence found now in verse eight, and Micah's building quite a case here. So we could say first building block was verse eight, and now we're gonna have four more building blocks because I'll take each aspect of verse nine in sequence, and so it's four more parts. We'll call them verse 9a, 9b, 9c, and 9d, the next building blocks of Micah's logic. So verse 9a we read, I will bear the indignation of the Lord. Here, Lady Jerusalem understood that despite her sins, she would not be destroyed by the indignation of God. Wait, what? She wouldn't be destroyed by the wrath of God? She would be able to bear the wrath of God? How's that? I thought the wrath of God obliterates. See, this is only because, building on what she already testified in verse 8, now in verse 9a, that in her case, And only in her case. God's wrath for her was temporary, and in her case, God's wrath was designed in order to restore her. For her, the Lord will be a light to her. You notice that. Now building further, 9b, we read what Lady Jerusalem says next about the reason why the wrath of God came against her, namely, because I have sinned against him. So here the city, she Jerusalem, clearly understood that she had sinned against the Lord God himself and she was able to properly interpret the downfall of her city. It came because of her sin. Building to the next concept, 9C, we read further, until he, the Lord, pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. So the people of God living in Jerusalem as the faithful remnant understood God's actions in her case to be remedial, disciplinary, not final judgment, not penal judgment, not destructive judgment. God was understood and pictured here accurately as an advocate for Lady Jerusalem. It is the Lord God now pleading her cause for her. As for the enemies attacking Jerusalem, God would execute judgment For her, he would side with his own people, Jerusalem, and against the enemies who were rejoicing over her downfall. Jerusalem had heard Micah's sermons. Jerusalem was turning to God right along with Micah. Jerusalem was hearing God. And God was hearing Jerusalem. Let the enemies beware. A reversal is in the works. We build on now further verse 9D. We read what Lady Jerusalem said in conclusion. He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his vindication. Another word for salvation. It's a repeat of the use already found in verse eight of the darkness to light movement. Now couched in terms of salvation or vindication. Here Lady Jerusalem described her salvation by God with the concepts of darkness to light. It's as if, Lady Jerusalem, the whole city was in a dark dungeon. Doesn't that fit for what we studied last time, from verses one to six, about the devastation of society crumbling? She was in a dark dungeon, but the Lord would come. and there's nothing the Lord can't do, so he would come to a society crumbling such as the city of Jerusalem, and he would come and bring her out of that, from darkness to light. As a result, at the end of verse nine then, she will gaze upon the Lord's salvation, experiencing his vindication, enjoying the undeserved gift of God's freedom, light, and love and salvation. Okay, so that's verse eight and verse nine. We're done with our first two points. And our third point, Micah looked to the future next and saw more judgment and more restoration in verses 10, 11, 12, and 13. So verse 10 envisions more judgment from God on the enemies of Jerusalem. Now you remember in those days, there were two classic enemies of God, enemies of God's people. Babylon, the capital city of Babylon is Babylon, right? And then you have Assyria, the capital city of Assyria. I should hand out a quiz. The capital city of Assyria, Nineveh, right? I'll tell you why I'm saying those in a moment. So which is it that's being mentioned? Well, since verse 12 mentioned Assyria, it's more fitting here in verse 10 to say it's Assyria, whose capital city is Nineveh. So in order to better understand verse 10, we could read it by replacing the pronouns with personal pronouns, so that her becomes the personified enemy. If we've already personified Lady Jerusalem, can't we also personify the enemy, the capital city of the enemy, so it becomes Lady Nineveh? You with me? Lady Nineveh, the enemy city of Assyria, against Lady Jerusalem. So if I supply those, I think it'll shed a lot of light on verse 10 for you. You ready? Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her, Lady Nineveh, who said to me, Lady Jerusalem, where is the Lord your God? My eyes, that's Lady Jerusalem's eyes, will look upon her, Lady Nineveh. Now she, Lady Nineveh, will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. I hope that helped verse 10 make more sense. The point is this. One cannot be brought down any lower than the mud of the streets. Jerusalem has been warning her enemies, don't rejoice over my downfall. There's a reversal coming. And the reversal is going to be so severe that you will be trampled down like the mud of the streets. The ones who you formerly rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem will themselves be covered with shame. And the shame is poetically pictured as the trampled mud of the ancient streets. By the way, you know what else besides mud is found in ancient streets, right? And so verse 11 says, a day for the building of your walls. In that day, the boundaries shall be far extended." So the walls of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, formerly torn down by Lady Nineveh and the enemy army of Assyria, now being rebuilt, right? And victory, not just rebuilding the walls, but expanding the area the walls protect. All this is symbols of victory in verse 11. In addition, the remnant people that were formerly scattered all over the earth would be called upon to come home. they would return to re-inhabit this rebuilt Jerusalem. The reversal from God. Then we get to verse 12. Now to explain verse 12, I've got a few parallels from scripture. And if you don't catch it, I'll just summarize it at the end. But try to track for three different parallels from verse 12. The first parallel will sound familiar. Zechariah 9, verses 9 and 10. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous, and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey. on a colt the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." That was Zechariah 9, verses 9 and 10, and the reason it should sound familiar is we often read that on Palm Sunday. It's a prophecy of the Lord Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a little donkey on Palm Sunday. But notice it's mentioning the same kind of thing from verse 12. You have the river, the classic big river in those days was the Euphrates River, and also mentions from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. It's talking about territory, that the territory is going to be expanded. The second parallel is from a royal psalm, Psalm 72, verse 8, which reads, may he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. Does that sound familiar? The second parallel is repeating some of the phrases from verse 12. The third parallel in God's promise going all the way back to Abraham, when God promised Abraham land, the promised land, In Genesis 15, 18, it was land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, end quote, Genesis 15, 18. So those three parallels were only meant to help us shed light on verse 12, to show that the returning exiles were coming back to Jerusalem to get ready for the arrival of? God's good king at Jerusalem. You remember, the one that Micah told them would be born in Bethlehem in chapter five. That good king is coming, because if you're going to turn the city around, if you're all going to be pursuing God along with the prophet Micah, you're going to want good priests and good prophets and a good king. You're going to need a good king to lead in Jerusalem, right? So the one who would be born at Bethlehem would be ruler in Israel, chapter five. Whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days, chapter five. So the point of verse 12, if you missed all that, verse 12, the point is that the vision of Micah here included the picture of Jerusalem once again becoming the capital city of a vast domain. and getting ready for the arrival of God's chosen king to lead them in righteousness and holiness so they don't fall down in the same way as they fell down in sin in the past. Then one more verse tonight, verse 13, while Jerusalem was being rebuilt, what would happen to the rest of the earth? Interesting, verse 13, but the earth meaning like all the other nations of the earth besides Jerusalem and Israel, the earth, but the earth in contrast to what's happening in Jerusalem, but the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants. Now, why would God do that? The last line of verse 13, for the fruit of their deeds. Huh. It turns out the Holy God is consistent with himself that if he's willing to discipline his own city, Jerusalem, he's also willing to destroy any nations that will not live according to his holy standards. The fruit of their deeds is what they deserve for the things they've done, says the holy God, says the creator God. Same God who would discipline his capital city, Jerusalem, for their sins, is the same God who would also destroy all the nations of the earth for their sins. So the point of our study is the salvation of God's people from any enemy. Let's say the enemy is themselves because they're destroying themselves with sin. God will intervene and take away their own sin because he's a God who will bless His people despite any enemy. Let's say the enemy is Egypt and they're being enslaved by Egypt. God will intervene and save them from Egypt and bring them out from there. Or let's say the enemy is the attack of Assyria. God will intervene and protect His people from the attack of Assyria. So this hope, this hope that God's salvation applies to His people, saving His people from any enemy, from all enemies, takes us all the way back to the faithfulness of God to his covenant. He promised he would protect his people. He promised that he would give them a land. He promised that he would restore them. All of these are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is now setting up shop in the Jerusalem that is the New Testament church. He's now expanding his vast domain called the kingdom of God to all nations, and that he is calling his people to come home and to worship him from the heavenly Jerusalem. What have we seen tonight? That the personified Lady Jerusalem knew her fall was due to her sin, so she accepted from God's gracious hand her darkness to light pathway. First, she expressed her faith to her enemies while she sat in darkness. Don't rejoice over me, she said to her enemies. And secondly, we saw how in verse nine, Jerusalem clung to the promise that God would bring her from darkness to light. And thirdly, we saw how Micah looked down the road into the future and saw more judgment and more restoration, which is a picture of the New Testament church. So my conclusion is exactly that. The New Testament church echoes Lady Jerusalem. Our enemy is our own sin, which leads to death. But God has committed himself to save us from any enemy, including our own sinful nature. We are filled with sin, yet the judgment of God for our sin fell upon Christ, cleansing us from our sins, so we're forgiven, we're actively being restored by our God of grace. We, the church, can say to the enemies of Christ, rejoice not, for when we fall, we will be picked up. When we, the church, enter darkness, we will again have light from our God of grace. The New Testament even picks up some of the teachings of Micah and the language of Micah in places such as Colossians 1, 13 to 14, how Paul wrote how God the Father, quote, has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Notice that the source of our salvation in that verse, Colossians 1, 13 to 14, is not the absence of our sins, it's the forgiveness of our sins. which has come to us through Jesus Christ alone. Another place in the New Testament that echoes Micah is this concept of being brought from darkness to light once more, where Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5, starting in verse four, but you are not in darkness, brothers, verse five, for you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness, Verse nine, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. First Thessalonians chapter five, several verses there. Furthermore, as we gather as a church tonight, as we gather Sunday by Sunday, we gather in order to worship, much like the city of Jerusalem gathered at the temple in order to give its collective answer to Micah, all the prophecies of Micah. to answer, and that's an act of worship, to come to God. The people of Jerusalem gathered at the temple to worship God, we symbolically come to the heavenly Jerusalem tonight. We, the people of God, have become the temple of God, waiting to go home to the heavenly Jerusalem. The Jerusalem this time is filled with the holiness of God. We never forget that God is holy, and that he insists on holiness. And so listen to what the writer to the Hebrews says, and it sounds a lot like our passage tonight, describing our approaching this holy God in worship. And it says this, you have come to Mount Zion. Zion is another word for Jerusalem. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering. And here's the next few verses later, Hebrews 12, 28. So, See the similarities between personified Lady Jerusalem and the New Testament church, the Bride of Christ, her, her or she, we. Whenever the church faces a setback, whether it's a setback of our own sin or the setback of the attacks of the culture, whether we are struck down, Our future recovery and our renewal to a place of stability once more is fully anticipated by us, by the same covenant God, who has now fulfilled that promise through Jesus Christ, in the promise of God's gracious restoration, and then the fulfillment of his gracious restoration through Jesus' death and resurrection, we find our resilience. We already possess our resilience because we already possess God's promise of grace, that he is a God of grace, he's our God of grace, and his promises of restoration, his promises of pardon, his promises of rebuilding come to us despite our history, despite our personal failings. No darker calamity can strike the New Testament church than was already struck when Jesus bled to death on the cross and was buried. No brighter prosperity can be claimed by the New Testament Church than was already made true when Jesus rose again from the dead and secured our salvation and God's grace to us. So we could echo the words of King David, as I said in our call to worship, this is why I picked the call to worship, Psalm 27, applied to Jesus, we can say this, He, Jesus, is my light and my salvation. Or we could echo the words of Lady Jerusalem from our passage, He will bring me out to the light. Or we could echo the words of Paul, that God the Father has delivered us from the domain of darkness. He has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, Colossians 1. Or we could quote our own closing hymn tonight, which goes like this. Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings. When comforts are declining, he grants the soul again a season of clear shining to cheer it after rain. The New Testament church is not those who claim to be innocent. Far from it. Lady Jerusalem was not one that claimed to be innocent. Far from it. We know our sins, as did Lady Jerusalem. We have heard God through his prophets and apostles. We've heard God through his son, the Lord Jesus, and we've reached the point to be able to accept whatever God has for us in discipline, accept whatever God has for us in suffering, accept whatever God has for us in mercy and rescue, completely undeserved. And when God comes to us in his prophets, say Micah, and gives to us hope, gospel, restoration promises, and when God comes to us in his Son, the Lord Jesus, and gives us hope and restoration and promises, we receive it. We remember God's holy, which means it's of God's very nature to punish sin. We saw that at the cross. But we also remember that it's God's very nature to be gracious to sinners, and we see that at the cross. We see both at the cross, His holiness and His graciousness. We see both in ancient Jerusalem, Lady Jerusalem. We see both in the Christian church. So you won't find the New Testament church asking, what have we done to deserve this? No, we know full well what we've done to deserve this. We've each sinned against God in order to deserve this. Rather, It's when God pours out his grace again and again and again on the New Testament church, it is then that the church rises up and asks, what have we done to deserve this? Yet before we close, we address those who rejoice at the failings of the church. Remember how the passage began in verse eight? Rejoice not over me, O my enemy, when I fall I will rise. The New Testament church is conscious of being sinners. We're also conscious of being sinned against. The malicious laughter rejoicing against the disaster of Jerusalem is still present in the world today. We call it kicking a man when you're down. What do we do with such rejoicers, such mockers? We do the same as ancient Jerusalem. We do the same as Lady Jerusalem. We depend upon knowing that we can indeed depend upon, we depend upon God to repay the mockers by God vindicating his people. When God saves, God is doing right. When God rescues, God is making things right. Remember, he's both holy and gracious. So the church is called to let God, in God's good time, deal with those who are rejoicing over the failings and falling of His church, let the culture mock us. We counsel them not to, because God calls upon Lady Jerusalem, God calls upon His bride, the bride of Christ, His church, to do what was in the last phrase of the famous verse of Micah 6, verse 8, to walk humbly. with your God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we praise you for your grace to