So we enter Micah 4, we have spent three chapters of Micah addressing a culture, a government, a nation, and a governmental system, even religious system, that is bent upon the oppression and destruction of her weaker members. We left off in Micah 312 with this warning. Because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins. And the mountains of the house, a wooded height. Micah is addressing a nation that is under God's condemnation. A nation that because of her wicked deeds can only expect to watch her religious institutions and her civil institutions fall to the ground. In many ways, as you hear the words of Micah 1 through 3, it's hard not to bring those truths into our own present moment. As we look upon a nation, our own nation, which is in many ways set against the Lord. As we think about even our own church history of the last century and seen many occasions where those that call themselves Christians have not spoken what is true and stood up against what is wrong, but have been wickedly complicit in much evil. And the conclusion that we have to go to as we see God's condemnation of his own people is that if our own nation, our own people continue in their ways, there's no reason to expect a different outcome. And yet seeing that and hearing that and understanding that that presents a key question to those of us who cling to the Lord, who hear his word, who love the Lord, who seek his salvation. And what is that question? Where's the hope for us? What benefit is it to us to live in a nation that enters into God's judgment? When the people of Israel experienced these judgments promised here in Micah, when they experienced them both in the invasion of Assyria, that is very near to the events to when Micah is prophesying, and the greater realization of the Babylonian exile, some generations later, there was no joy to those who loved the Lord. There was no release into freedom and prosperity for those who walked with God. Rather, it was horror and trouble and destruction. So what hope is there for God's people? That is the question Micah now turns to as we open Micah four. And what he shows us is that God is going to establish his rule on earth from Mount Zion. And because of that promise and the blessings that will come from that rule, we ought to commit to walk in his name forever. that the hope we expect is the direct rule of the Lord over the nations after he brings judgment. We will look at this text observing how the Lord promises to elevate Mount Zion, how he promises to judge the world, how he promises to bring peace, and how we then ought to respond. First, the Lord will elevate Mount Zion. We see that starting in verse one. 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 people 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. And so as Micah opens up this section of his book, in some ways we should see him shifting audiences. He has been addressing the hard-hearted leaders and prophets and priests of Judah. has been condemning them, calling them to repentance. And their response has been, don't preach, don't prophesy. We don't want to hear it. Now Micah turns and he addresses those of his congregation, as it were, who are soft hearted. who do hear, who do love these words, who perhaps are experiencing the oppression of losing their land, of seeing themselves made destitute, or they're seeing it happening and they hate it and they stand against it as Lot did in Sodom. And to those, Micah has a different set of words and it opens with, it shall come to pass in the latter days. or it shall come to pass at the end of days, it shall come to pass in, now you'll see it translated that way as well. But these words call our minds to the future. The phrase always says, here is what's going to happen. Sometimes these words are what we call eschatological. That is, they draw our attention to the coming day of the Lord, perhaps even to the second coming of Christ. But we also have to let the context drive how we understand the timing of these words. So that is that Micah could be addressing simply after all this judgment happens, this will happen. He could be saying when Christ comes, these things will happen. He could be saying when Christ comes again, these things will happen. But regardless, he's drawing our attention to a future that is relatively remote. And we should listen and hear what is the promise for the future. And as we come into the content of that, we have to remember what Micah has just said. The very last words that has come out of his mouth are Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem will be a heap of ruins. So we are in the context of judgment is certainly coming. And Mike is then saying, and after that judgment comes, here's what's going to happen. The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted above the hills, and people shall flow to it." What we have here is this promise that this mountain of the Lord that has been brought low, that has been brought into shame, that has been ruined and destroyed, God will lift it up so it is in a greater position of honor. than it ever was before, that it will be without competitor, and this will be evident to the whole world, and that the nations will flow to it. And why do they seek out? Why do they come to Mount Zion? Why do they come to this elevated mount? What is it that makes Mount Zion all of a sudden attractive to them? Let us hear what they say. Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. So they're gonna go to the mountain of the Lord and the house of God. When you hear the word mountain, when you see these ideas of mountain in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we have to remember that mountains are where God met with his people. There's this idea in scripture and really in the ancient mind overall that God and man come together to meet on mountains. Eden was almost certainly a mountain. We know that Mount Sinai, where God spoke to his people, was a mountain. We see on Mount Carmel, when God wants to confront his people, he does so on a mountain over and over again. When God is going to meet with man, it happens on a mountain. And so this language is saying, there is this place where you can come and be with God. You can come and meet the Lord. And it's reiterated by that language to the house of the God of Jacob. Come to where the Lord dwells. And as you hear that language, the house of the God of Jacob, that's important because on the one hand, we acknowledge, yes, that God is everywhere. He is not contained to a particular point in creation. He fills creation. He goes beyond creation. So why does God speak of having a house? Why does God speak of having a dwelling place or even a mountain? I'll illustrate it this way. So when I was growing up, I grew up in the days of George W. Bush being the president and being a good Texan, I always loved to hear when he was coming home to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. And that was one of his houses, right? And when he came to Crawford, we always knew that his intent was not to be as much in the public eye, but to go and be on retreat. to go and rest from the constant attention of being President and meeting with the public. But of course, the President of the United States has another house, what do we call it? We call it the White House. And the White House is a different kind of house. The White House is a place established for the president to be present to the public. He does many public appearances there. He meets with leaders great and small there. That is a place designated for him to meet with his people. So the same way God is everywhere, He's not confined to a house, but he establishes a house as the particular place where he makes himself available to the world. And that is what that idea of mountain and that idea of house is communicating. Not that God is somehow constrained somewhere, but he said, here, I'm designating a meeting place between you and between me. And here is where it is. But why are they coming to this meeting place? What do they want to receive from God? You know, most of the time when we think about approaching the Lord and why people would come to him, very oftentimes it's things like material blessing, or it's save my life, or heal me from my sickness, or I want provision for this or that need. What fascinates me is as we focus on the nations coming to the Lord, the focus is not on these material benefits. Rather, they say that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. They're coming to the Lord's house to meet with the Lord, not because they are trying to gain wealth, or protection, or status, or healing, or any physical good, but they come because they want God to teach them His ways. And not just to teach intellectually, but to be taught how to walk after Him, to walk in His paths, to imitate Him in the ways that He would have them live. These are not people coming to manipulate the Lord. They're coming because they want to be like the Lord. And what is bringing them in? For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Why are they coming in? because God's word has gone out from Jerusalem. And if you hear these words and your head doesn't start ringing of Matthew 28, go forth and make disciples, or doesn't start ringing of the pattern we see in Acts, where the gospel begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome, you have missed the point of the New Testament. This is absolutely a promise that we begin seeing fulfilled in the days of the apostles when the spirit comes upon his church and he drives them out and sends them out with his blessing and the nations begin to believe in the Lord and to walk in his ways. So I would tell you what we are seeing here is in part a promise of what God will accomplish through his church. And then you say, though, oh, pastor, this is the church, but this is not Jerusalem. We don't live in Israel. We do not live on the east edge of the Mediterranean. How can you legitimately say that as the gospel goes out to the nations and people come into the church to worship the Lord, that they are fulfilling this promise? I would turn your attention to the book of Hebrews chapter 12. I'll pick up in verse 18. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given. If a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight of Moses that Moses said, I tremble with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And so the author of the book of Hebrews addressing the Hebrews, Jewish converts, the Jews who believed in Christ, who have come into the new covenant. He addresses them and he uses all this language and says, you've come into the church and this is the heavenly Jerusalem. This is the spiritual Mount Sinai. Sometimes we get so hung up with the physical location of Jerusalem that we forget what Jerusalem is. What makes Jerusalem, Jerusalem and the temple? The temple is not the physical location. It is not the building placed there. It is the promise of God. I am there to meet with and bless my people. And that promise has been transferred from a single point on the east side of the Mediterranean to everywhere where God assembles his people in worship. And so the picture we see in Micah is the nations gathering in to the place where they've heard, this is where God has come to meet with you. Wherever that might be, that is where they go. And so the first thing I'd have you see here is that we have a great blessing today, which is that we are in the first fruits of the fulfillment of this promise. We are seeing today God begin to carry out the joyful and wondrous things that he promised from Micah that the nations would come in. You notice I use that language first fruit. You know what is a first fruit? First fruit is when you're sitting there and I think it was a peach tree I had in my in my house back in San Antonio because my peach trees here in Sparta haven't grown enough to have peaches yet but They set peaches and it wasn't a big tree. So it probably had a dozen or a few more peaches on it. But I remember when that first peach got ripe and turned orange and we knew it was ready. And it's so exciting to cut it off and take it inside and cut it up and eat it and enjoy the taste and the sweetness of that fruit. And part of what it made it so good and exciting is we knew that that peach was merely the first one. that there will be another and another and another. And then probably we picked that first peach when it was a little green because we were overeager. And so it wasn't as sweet as it might be, that there was more to come. There is a great, there's a great more to come in the fulfilling of this promise. And the next thing we're going to dwell on here in just a second is the fact that though we see this promise begun to be fulfilled now, we should also recognize it's a first fruit. that the promise has not come in in its fullness, that there is yet more to come. And yet even as we dwell upon that, I would encourage you to notice here that it is the church and it is the proclamation of God's word to the nations that Micah understands to be the means by which the continuing promises that we're gonna see here in the second come to be. The means here that Micah is anticipating is the proclamation of God's word to the nations. That we are about to see how much God intends to accomplish through his word going out. But what is it that God intends to accomplish? What is it that God intends to accomplish? Picking up in verse three. He shall judge between many peoples and shall decide for strong nations far away. And 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. The first thing I would have you note here is Micah is prophesying the direct rule of the Lord over the nations. I have noted before that in Micah one through three, the King of Judah is painfully absent. We have all of this chaos, we have all of this oppression, we have wicked judges and the one man installed by God over Judah to fix the problem, the King. is neither addressed in condemnation, in encouragement, in commendation, or any other way. He is simply absent. And so into that void of Micah's thinking, he introduces not a human king, but the Lord himself ruling directly. He, that is the Lord, shall judge between many peoples. And so the next thing we see here is we're looking forward to a moment in time, Micah is drawing his hearer's attention to the fact that today what you see is little bitty Judah, and little bitty Judah is oppressed on every side and oppressed within and without. But a day is coming where the Lord will rule, yes, Judah, but will extend his rule everywhere. But notice something about this rule. One of the things that really stands out about this whole discussion is we're in an environment where the Jews are facing warfare. Judah is facing warfare. They have, the Assyrian armies have been promised to come and enter into their land, to besiege their cities, to make it all the way to Jerusalem to threaten them. And so we really expect language to come back of the Lord dominating, of the Lord casting the nations back, of the Lord imposing his rule. And yet all the language Micah uses here speaks not of an imposed rule, but of a voluntary submission. That's what verse two is teaching. Come, let us come to the Lord. We have heard his word, we wanna be like him. We want to submit to him. And it really continues in that same way. This is not the judge of judgment of breaking as we sung in Psalm 2, but the language of kissing, kiss the son, lest he be angry. The language of violence and of domination is totally absent here, but rather it is the language of rule and rule brought on to people who are willing. This is not a picture of Pharaoh, but of the Queen of Sheba coming to Solomon. It's not a picture of Sennacherib and his army being broken before Jerusalem, but as a picture of Melchizedek blessing Abraham, kings that are coming and submitting to the Lord voluntarily. Sometimes we are prone to underestimate just how powerful God's word is. And then when God works through it by its spirit, how much he has the ability to bend and to bend the hearts of men to his ways. The prophecy Micah is giving here is a prophecy of great expectation, that God's word will go out and will be blessed in such a way that people, even great and powerful nations, Submit to the Lord willingly. What is the fruit of that rule? He shall judge between many people, shall decide for strong nations far away. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore. The more you dwell on those words, the more stunning they appear. You have to remember in the ancient world that it was iron and bronze implements of war that were the hardest to make and took the most lead time to prepare. So if you were a nation being prepared for war, you would maintain a stockpile of metal swords, iron or bronze swords, and of Spear tip, really spear tips, because the wooden shaft is not hard to come by, but the actual metal tip that makes it dangerous is difficult to produce, particularly in a hurry. And so when he says they're going to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, it's saying we're going to take the weapons that are most hard to produce, that are the most difficult to obtain in a short period of time, and we're going to demilitarize them. We're going to use them for farming. It's sort of the picture as if the U.S. decided that we were going to take all the tanks in the arsenal and scrap them and turn them into new cars. Or if we were to take all the ICBMs in the arsenal and take the nuclear warheads and use them to shoot satellites into the sky instead. It is that kind of picture, taking the most critical weapons the nation had and totally setting them aside. And not only that, but they won't learn war anymore. They'll set aside the tools of war and they'll set aside the knowledge of war. I am a soldier. We study what war requires and we train for it. I on a monthly basis, but you have many, many service members who are doing it on a daily basis because to fight and to win wars requires skill. It requires study. It requires practice. For a nation to say we're going to dismantle our military such that there will be no institutional knowledge of how to fight a war is stunning. If our president came up and said that's our plan today, it would be considered unbelievable that we would make ourselves that vulnerable. And that's what I want you to see here, is that for nations to do this shows they feel at complete security. The nation knows there is no external threat. There is no possibility of another nation coming to war against them. They see that because of the security that the Lord has brought and the peace the Lord has brought, that all that military expenditure is a waste of time and money that are used for growing your crops and enjoying prosperity. But it's not only an external piece, it's an internal piece. They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. Remember, Micah has spent three chapters dealing with the great issue of oppression of the weaker members of Judean society by their own people. So that men were not sitting under their vine or under their fig tree. They were worried and scared. Who's going to take my land? Will I possess it? Will I keep it? They were threatened on every side. And God says, I'm gonna impose my rule on the nations, but he's also speaking here to his own people. I'm gonna impose my rule on you, Judah, on my people, such as this problem of you being oppressed by your own leaders will end, and you won't be in fear anymore. Rather, you'll sit under your vine and under your fig tree. What wonderful language to those who in Judah were farming for their sustenance year after year after year. It's a picture not just do you hold your land in security, but working the land is hard work, bringing the produce out requires time and effort and energy. And Micah is speaking of a moment where the land is fruitful enough and the people are secure enough that they have time not to be constantly in labor and burden and toil, but the work reaches a moment where they say, You know, right now it's good. My harvest is coming in. I can sit under my tree and enjoy what the Lord has given me. I can sit here and know that it won't be ripped out of my hands. I'm safe. I'm secure. I am prosperous. This is language of Sabbath rest, of God giving rest to those who have come under his rule. And how has this happened? We should recognize we hear that language of the direct rule of the Lord. That is of course, speaking of the direct rule of the Messiah, of Christ Jesus, whom every tongue will confess that he is the Lord to the glory of God, the Father. That he is the one who will impose and bring this rule over the nations. And he will be the one that can stand over the nations and end wars, why? Why do we have war in this world? We have war in this world because nations have disputes and there is no greater power over them that either by, as it were, the power of influence or the power of violence can make them stop. War continues today between Ukraine and Russia because there is no power in the world strong enough to impose a peace upon them. And yet we look forward to a day when Christ Jesus installed as King over the nations, we'll be able to impose peace and to make peace happen because of the authority God has vested in him. We look forward to a day where the world will dwell in security. And I hope what you see here, right, is this is why I use the language of first fruit. We know that God has begun the process because we see his word going out. We see the nations coming in. But we recognize we are far from this point that we are not seeing the nations at peace. Rather, we're seeing the nations at war. We are not seeing men living in their own homes and their own vocations. at peace and security, but we all turn around and we say, what about this? What about that? What about rising prices and inflation? And will I have my job next week? And what's the government going to do? And what are the people down the street going to do? We don't have that security. We are still waiting for it as the people in Micah's day were waiting for it. We have not received this peace in fullness any more than the people in Micah's day have received this peace. And so we face many of the same fears and worries that they do. And this gets into why verse five is so important. 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. What is the temptation? As we see that God has made big promises, and yet we don't see those promises fulfilled. Whether it's big promises for what he's going to do with us individually, what he's going to do with us as a church, or what he's going to bring about in this world. The temptation is to become discouraged. To begin to doubt, maybe God isn't going to fulfill his promises. Maybe he isn't going to bring this to bear, or maybe something has gone wrong with his plan. And the temptation then is to turn to the worship of other gods. This is what plagued Israel. And what sorts of gods would they worship? We think about the God Baal they would worship, who is the God of fertility, the God of rain and of produce. We are not so direct as to worship Baal, but I think we can sometimes call him by another name of the economy. That which brings us the fertility, the produce, the things we need for life, and we stress and we worry, and we will do all these things to feed the economy. And sometimes we can worship Mr. Economy as if he was Mr. Bale. Bale was also in times regarded as the God of War. We don't profess to worship of God of War, but sometimes we will call the God of War the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security or Sometimes we'll call them just the police. But regardless, there's still that temptation. This isn't being accomplished. God isn't bringing peace. So I have to look somewhere else for the peace God will bring. They worshiped Molech, which simply means the king. And you might know that the worship of Molech was associated with the worst forms of human sacrifice, the offering up of infants killed before this God, seeking that he would give them security. This sort of idol worship characterizes our nation. When you see the prevalence of abortion, when you see the way that people clings to it, like it's the most important thing in the world, it is because they are engaged in Mulek worship. They are worshiping a false God, seeking the security that he offers. Or you might think of Pharaoh, the God that the Israelites knew so well in Egypt. Part of the war going on between Pharaoh and the Lord is Pharaoh claimed to be God. Pharaoh claimed to be the one who brought all security and health and prosperity to his people. A human deity. And I think many of our neighbors and we may be tempted the same way to worship the same deity under the name of the government. We gotta fix the government so we can get these blessings here that God offers. I bring these up, and there's many other examples to say, it is easy for us to assume because we don't have statues that we bow to, that we don't have gods with weird Canaanite names, that somehow we are invulnerable, we are not tempted by this idol worship. But we must recognize that the culture around us worships the same idols under different names. And they call you day by day by day. Hey, look, your God's not getting the job done. Come worship our God. See, your God's not getting the job done. Come worship our God. Your God's not blessing you. So we got this plan over here that'll bring it about. There's always that pull, trust in something that isn't God to obtain these things that are promised. So Micah looks at those who are hearing the Lord and trusting in the Lord. He says, here's what God is promising to accomplish for you. These are promises that you will experience. He says, I'm telling you these promises so that when you see all the nations walking in the ways of their gods, you will not be tempted to follow them because here's what's going to happen. A day is going to come when they won't walk in the ways of their gods anymore. They will walk in the way of your God. And what a tragedy it would be if when they're all streaming in, you've abandoned hope in the true God and are out there, not under his blessing, but under his judgment. And so the exhortation, Micah puts it this way, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. And this is what I want you to walk away with. You live in a world that is full of chaos and wrongdoing. It is very easy to become disappointed. to look at what is going on and say, God, are you coming through? Are you gonna take care of us? Are you gonna protect us? Has your church gotten too far off the rails and your promises have failed to come to pass? Or am I personally too broken and you're not going to bring me peace? What Micah is urging the people to do and urging you to do. is to pull God's future promises into the present. I don't mean that you're seeing them happen right now, although in some ways you are, but rather to pull the implications of God's future promises into the present. To say, I know that God is going to come through. I know that I'm not experiencing peace today, but a day is coming when I will experience peace today. I am not experiencing settled prosperity, but God promises that day is coming today. I do not see Jesus on the throne. I'm not denying that he isn't on the throne. I'm saying it's hard to see. But I know a day is coming when no one will be able to ignore that fact. And so how does that change me today? Today, I will not walk after the false gods, but I will walk after the Lord. I will live today in the certain hope of what I know he is bringing forth to me, knowing that some of it I will experience in this life and much of it I will not experience until the life that is to come, and yet I know it is coming. So rather than wandering off in despair and discouragement, I will today walk in his paths, knowing that those paths lead to living under his rule, to living in his peace, and to living in his prosperity. Let us pray. Father, we confess that we are far too prone to losing hope in your promises. That very often, Lord, today fills our perspective in such a way that we forget the tomorrow that you have promised you are bringing. And Lord, our lack of perspective leads to much sin. It makes us vulnerable to the temptations of Satan and this world in our flesh. It makes us weak when we ought to be strong. It makes us proud when we ought to be humble. It makes us discouraged when we ought to be confident. So Lord, we pray that you would impress upon us the many promises you've made to us, promises that we look forward to uncertainty, and that you'd help us to live day by day, not in light of the despair of this world, but rather in the hope of the reign of Christ Jesus that will very soon be revealed to all.