Introduction:
Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Changes Coming Under Messiah's Leadership (Micah 5:1-15):
- Messiah's people will be Secure . (Micah 5:3-6)
- Messiah's people will be Prominent . (Micah 5:7-9)
- Messiah's people will be Dedicated . (Micah 5:10-15)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:46-01:45
You know, if I was in charge, there'd be a lot of changes. A lot of changes. You're like, like what? Number one, if you are bicycling on the road and slowing down traffic behind you. You will be arrested and fined. The length of your prison sentence will be determined by the brightness of your neon shorts. Number Number two, this whole automatic base runner on second in MLB when we get to extra innings, eliminated forever.
01:49-01:50
Thank you.
01:51-01:51
Thank you.
01:55-01:56
Earn your base runners.
02:00-02:06
Number three, generic ketchup would be outlawed.
02:09-02:11
I'm bringing back prohibition.
02:15-02:22
And it will be illegal to own any kind of ketchup besides Heinz.
02:25-02:27
I got bad news for you.
02:28-02:29
I'm not in charge.
02:32-02:34
I got worse news for you.
02:36-02:40
By next year, somebody else is gonna be.
02:43-03:13
And see, as we turn to God's word, it cannot be lost on us, is what you have is a country lies, theft, oppression, and a land that's full of idolatry and is facing the judgment of God.
03:16-03:19
Like, what nation are you talking about?
03:21-03:23
Talking about the United States.
03:24-03:31
You know, as we study the book of Micah, we're also talking about Israel because both of these nations have a lot in common.
03:34-03:51
So that's why Micah is so relevant for us because the message for Israel facing the judgment of God is the same message for the United States, which is under the abandonment wrath of God that we studied in Romans 1 a few weeks ago.
03:51-03:53
And the message is the same.
03:55-04:03
And I've got such good news for you today, because this is the message of Micah chapter 5.
04:05-04:06
There's going to be a new leader that's coming.
04:09-04:17
A new leader is coming, yes, yes, wickedness is rampant, yes, we're under God's judgment, yes.
04:21-04:26
But someone is coming to make everything right.
04:28-04:29
So we're gonna pray.
04:30-04:31
I'd like you to bow your heads.
04:31-04:32
I want you to please pray for me.
04:34-04:35
And I'm gonna pray for you.
04:35-04:39
This is an extremely difficult passage, but we're gonna get through this together.
04:40-04:49
Pray that I'd be faithful to communicate it, and I'll pray for all of us to have hearts open to receive what it is that God wants to teach us today.
04:49-04:50
Let's pray.
04:55-05:09
Father in heaven, as we turn to your word now, we believe that all scripture has been breathed out by your Holy Spirit.
05:13-05:18
We believe this message is from you.
05:20-05:32
And Father, it's not lost on us how relevant it is, as we're in a nation right now, much like Israel was back then.
05:35-05:40
There's a lot of differences, but fundamentally it's the same.
05:44-05:52
Father, I pray that You'd be at work mightily in Your Word in all of our hearts today.
05:54-05:56
I pray in Jesus' name.
05:57-06:01
And all of God's people said, "Amen." Micah chapter 5, are you there?
06:02-06:02
Look at verse 1.
06:03-06:07
Micah says, "Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops.
06:08-06:10
Siege is laid against us.
06:12-06:14
the rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.
06:16-06:21
So like a lot of prophets do, we're gonna get to the good news in a second, but we gotta get to the bad news first.
06:22-06:23
And Micah says, here's the bad news.
06:23-06:26
Jerusalem is going to be sieged.
06:27-06:30
And Jerusalem at the time is going to have a weak military.
06:31-06:34
And the siege eventually came through Babylon.
06:36-06:41
And he says, the judge, meaning the king, is going to be helpless to resist.
06:44-06:46
So like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on a second.
06:47-06:52
Like I heard Pastor Taylor's message last week about hope, right?
06:52-07:00
So if Israel's defeated, what about all that hope that we saw in the previous passage?
07:04-07:05
It's coming.
07:07-07:11
Chapter five tells us how.
07:12-07:19
It's actually no, chapter five tells us it's not about a how, it's about a who.
07:23-07:25
Look at verse two, I bet you know this verse.
07:27-07:37
But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, "who are too little to be among the clans of Judah.
07:38-07:59
"From you shall come forth for me, "one who is to be ruler in Israel, "whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days." Micah says, "Yeah, hope's coming." And hope is coming from a really obscure place.
08:02-08:02
Bethlehem.
08:06-08:13
Now, the name of that city is just so familiar to us, but understand in Micah's day, Bethlehem was nothing.
08:13-08:14
You know what Bethlehem was like?
08:14-08:15
It was like Shekorah.
08:16-08:16
That's where I grew up.
08:18-08:19
I grew up in Shekorah.
08:19-08:22
Shekorah is so small, the city limit signs are on the same post.
08:22-08:23
It is so small.
08:25-08:39
And Bethlehem is so small When you go through the Old Testament, they give these lists of cities and places that were conquered and that were apportioned out to different tribes.
08:39-08:42
Bethlehem didn't even make the map, never made the list.
08:44-08:45
It was nothing.
08:48-08:54
Now, Bethlehem is the most famous city in the Holy Land besides Jerusalem.
08:57-09:04
Hundreds of years before this, God promised to establish David's throne forever.
09:04-09:05
That's 2 Samuel chapter seven.
09:07-09:19
And Micah is picking that up and saying, "Yeah, God will establish a ruler in Israel." And it's gonna be somebody from David's hometown, the Messiah.
09:21-09:22
And you've heard this verse before, right?
09:22-09:24
A lot of times it's read at Christmas time.
09:26-09:31
We know that the Messiah being spoken of here was born in Bethlehem.
09:31-09:33
That's Jesus Christ.
09:37-09:47
And Micah tells us that this ruler would be of old, from ancient days, meaning he's eternal, he's timeless.
09:48-09:53
In other words, the ruler that's coming is going to be God himself.
09:56-10:01
And do you know about this same time that Micah was preaching this?
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About the same time over in Jerusalem, Isaiah was preaching almost the exact same sermon.
10:15-10:17
Another Christmas verse, Isaiah 9, 6.
10:18-10:19
Do we have that for the screen?
10:19-10:20
I can't remember if I sent that one.
10:21-10:22
Oh, there, we did.
10:23-10:27
Thank you, it says, "For to us a child is born.
10:28-10:32
"To us a son is given, "and the government shall be upon his shoulder.
10:33-10:45
"And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, "Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Do you see, it's the same message.
10:46-10:46
It's the same sermon.
10:49-10:51
But you know what happens at Christmas time?
10:51-10:53
This is a popular Christmas verse.
10:54-10:54
We've preached it here.
10:55-10:59
But you know what happens a lot of Christmas time when we preach through this verse and talk about this verse?
11:00-11:04
One of those phrases sort of gets glossed over a little bit.
11:07-11:20
And the phrase is, "The government shall be upon his shoulder." And I think now more than ever, that's the part of the verse that should excite us the most.
11:22-11:25
Because our government's leadership hasn't been stellar.
11:26-11:27
Have you noticed?
11:29-11:31
Well, Israel noticed that in their day.
11:33-11:39
And Micah's message should fire us up too, to say, "Hey, there's gonna be a new leader.
11:40-11:41
He's coming.
11:42-11:56
And under this new leader, there's gonna be some changes." I don't know what he's gonna do about the whole ketchup mess that we're in, but there are gonna be some changes.
11:57-12:10
So yes, this passage is for Israel, absolutely, but also this passage is for us Gentiles who have been brought into God's family through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
12:11-12:16
So this is a message for all of us, specifically targeted at Israel.
12:17-12:19
But on your outline, I want you to jot some things down, please.
12:20-12:22
These are changes coming under Messiah's leadership.
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The Messiah, Jesus Christ.
12:25-12:27
These are the changes that are coming under His leadership.
12:27-12:31
Number one, Messiah's people will be secure.
12:34-12:36
Look at verses three and four.
12:36-12:52
He says, "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.
12:54-13:03
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.
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And they shall dwell secure, Now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
13:14-13:21
Now, just looking at verse three, Micah talks about a lot.
13:23-13:32
I just wanna give us a quick review here to kind of give us some frame of reference, but let this be a timeline of history here, all right?
13:32-13:39
And we'll say, okay, Micah prophesied here, This is 700 BC-ish, okay.
13:41-13:42
Him and Isaiah and the rest.
13:42-13:50
Okay, we'll say, let this mark represent when the Messiah, Jesus, is born in Bethlehem.
13:50-13:54
So we'll just put, you know, we'll just put birth, all right?
13:57-14:01
And then shortly after Jesus birth, 33 years, right?
14:01-14:12
Jesus suffered and died, resurrected, and then in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit came, church is established, right?
14:13-14:15
Well, my timeline's gone down there, isn't it?
14:15-14:18
All right, so don't worry about that, forget that.
14:19-14:31
But sometime in the future, soon, it's going to start the seven-year tribulation that the Bible talks about, seven years of hell on earth.
14:32-14:36
And right before the tribulation, The church is raptured out.
14:36-14:37
We've talked about this.
14:37-14:42
We went through the book of Revelation and we talked about the Olivet Discourse and things like that.
14:43-14:46
But there's seven years of tribulation, okay?
14:46-14:51
And then at the end of the seven years, it's Armageddon, right?
14:51-14:56
Christ comes back to destroy all of the enemies, right?
14:56-14:59
So I'm just gonna put A for Armageddon, all right?
14:59-15:12
And then after Armageddon, After Armageddon, this is Revelation 19, then you get to Revelation chapter 20, and that is the millennial kingdom.
15:13-15:16
Now that's gonna stand for millennial, not Miller.
15:16-15:17
Okay, millennial kingdom.
15:21-15:25
And Revelation 20 says that lasts for 1,000 years.
15:28-15:35
And after that 1,000 years, we're gonna have a new heaven, a new earth, I'm just gonna put new, right?
15:35-15:36
That's the best word there.
15:36-15:38
A new heaven, a new earth, the eternal state.
15:40-15:51
And the reason I'm sharing this with you is this is a period of time that I think a lot of Christians don't even think about.
15:52-15:57
We think, okay, Jesus comes back and we die and then there's heaven and that's it.
15:57-16:05
But the Bible says that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is going to reign on the earth for a thousand years.
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And that is the subject of much of Old Testament prophecy.
16:11-16:24
But the reason I'm doing this outline here is these Old Testament prophets, when they were prophesying, what did they see?
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They saw that the Messiah would be born and they saw Armageddon.
16:29-16:32
They saw that the Messiah would come back and he would conquer the enemies.
16:33-16:36
And they saw that the Messiah would rule over the earth.
16:37-16:39
So these Old Testament prophets saw all this.
16:39-16:43
Something they never talked about was the church age.
16:47-16:50
Jesus actually revealed that in Matthew chapter 13.
16:51-16:52
This was never revealed in the Old Testament.
16:53-16:56
What was going to happen when God's Holy Spirit lives in his people and the gospel advances.
16:57-16:59
Jesus reveals that in Matthew chapter 13.
17:00-17:06
But the Old Testament prophets, you go through and they're like, yeah, the Messiah comes and he conquers and he reigns.
17:06-17:08
He comes, he conquers and he reigns.
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That's what the Messiah does.
17:14-17:22
But the question is what happens to Israel before the Messiah reigns?
17:22-17:36
And he tells us in verse three, look at verse three again, where it says, "He shall give them up." That had a near fulfillment in Micah's day, but that also had a far fulfillment in this.
17:38-17:51
Aside from the remnants of Israel, Israel is temporarily rejected as Gentiles are brought into God's kingdom.
17:52-17:54
That's the subject of Romans chapter 11.
17:54-17:55
You can go home and read that.
17:56-18:02
But that's what he's talking about here when he says, "God shall give them up." All right?
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So look at verse five.
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It says, "And he shall be their peace.
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"When the Assyrian comes into our land "and treads in our palaces, "then we will raise against him seven shepherds "and eight princes of men.
18:19-18:45
"They shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword and the land of Nimrod at its entrances, and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border." Now here in these verses, he's talking about Assyria, he's talking about Nimrod, and here he's using those names in a sort of generic sense to represent the enemies of God.
18:46-18:52
The Bible does that frequently, like in Revelation talking about Babylon representing the enemies of God.
18:53-18:54
We're used to that concept, right?
18:55-18:57
Like we use the word Nazi.
18:57-19:04
We throw that word around a lot, not talking about, you know, the evilness of Germany.
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We'll use that word just talking about a bad person.
19:10-19:14
It's kind of what Mike is doing here when he talks about the Assyrian.
19:15-19:20
He says that Israel is gonna have a full crew of leaders, seven shepherds, eight princes.
19:21-19:25
But notice, He doesn't say, "We are going to conquer.
19:25-19:30
"We are going to make secure." He makes it very clear that it's the Messiah's victory.
19:30-19:33
He, He shall deliver us.
19:36-19:37
He's talking here about Revelation 19.
19:38-19:46
He's talking here about Armageddon, which leads into Revelation 20, the millennial kingdom.
19:50-19:53
Like, well, what's the millennial kingdom like?
19:56-19:58
Well, there's two phrases he uses here.
19:59-20:02
I don't want us to get too lost in the weeds here, because that's not Micah's point.
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There's two phrases he uses here to describe what this kingdom is like.
20:11-20:14
When Christ reigns on the earth, these are the two phrases.
20:15-20:38
Verse four, "They shall dwell secure." Verse five, "He shall be their peace." I've got to be honest with you.
20:42-20:44
I wasn't sure how to roll this out to you.
20:48-20:49
I mean, I understand what's going on here.
20:49-20:52
I've spent a lot of time studying eschatology.
20:53-20:57
I spent so much time this week reading and studying this passage.
20:58-20:58
That's not the issue.
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where I struggle with this passage as a pastor, is how to make you excited for it.
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And that's not a criticism against you at all, but let's be honest.
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Most of us have only ever lived in peace.
21:21-21:26
Most of us have only ever known peace and security.
21:30-21:39
When was the last time you had fear in your home that a group of Assyrians were going to come in and murder your family and take all of your stuff?
21:40-21:41
Probably never happened to you.
21:43-21:44
That's all we've ever known.
21:44-21:44
It's a blessing.
21:50-21:52
But you know, I wish I could give this message to Israel.
21:55-22:06
Do you know, as of September the 8th, They estimate there were more than 42,000 deaths in the Israel-Hamas war.
22:10-22:12
Do you think this message would have hit them different?
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To say there's gonna be peace and security in your land?
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When you live in constant fear, that you might get blown up today.
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42,000.
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That's a number to us.
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You know what that is to Israel?
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Those are sons and daughters.
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Those are parents.
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Those are brothers and sisters.
22:56-23:02
"Here's your babies." I wish I could give this message to the Ukraine.
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Since the Russian invasion, there have been somewhere in the neighborhood, reports vary, I read several of them, but there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 deaths.
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That's a number to us.
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Do you know what that is to the Ukrainians?
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As your sons and daughters.
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As your parents.
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As your brothers and sisters.
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As your babies.
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I wish I could give this message to every victim of terrorist attacks, school shootings, Antifa riots, but mark this, when the Messiah rules, there is going to be peace all over the earth. And God's people will dwell secure. And I want to say this, I want to say this, Number two, jot this down, Messiah's people will be prominent.
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Messiah's people will be prominent.
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Look at verse seven.
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Excuse me.
24:36-25:19
It says, "Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, like dew dew from the Lord like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man, nor wait for the children of man. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations in the midst of many peoples like a lion, among the beasts of the forest like a young lion, among the the flocks of sheep, which when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
25:21-25:40
Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off." Again, that might not seem like something that would fire us up, But you know who that does fire up?
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Israel.
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Do a little study of Israel.
25:45-25:48
Israel's always had a target on her back.
25:50-25:51
Everybody's always gone after Israel.
25:52-26:01
And here Micah says the remnant of Israel in the millennial kingdom, he says she's gonna be like two things.
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And I gotta tell you, I spent a lot of time this week while you're doing what you're doing during the week.
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I spent a lot of time this week to wrap my brain around this, because he says, "Israel will be like dew and a lion." That That is a paradoxical description.
26:31-26:33
For one nation to be like both of those?
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What do they have in common?
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What does dew and a lion have in common?
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Well, we don't have to guess, and we don't have to wonder, because he tells us right in the text what they have in common.
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Look again, he talks about the dew and the showers.
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Because he says they don't wait on man.
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Do you notice that?
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What's that mean?
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That means if you went outside and said, "You know what?
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I want to mow the grass early this morning, so I'm going to put the dew off for two hours so the grass is dry." Can you do that?
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Can you do that?
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Are you able to accomplish that?
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to say, "Dew, just wait two hours.
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Is that possible?
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Shout it out, come on, not a trick question.
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Okay, no, you can't accomplish that.
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It's gonna happen." Dew is refreshing and it gives life.
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And there's nothing that man can do to stop that from happening.
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The lion among the sheep is the next picture.
27:57-28:01
What happens when you have a hungry lion in the midst of sheep?
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Do those sheep stand a chance?
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What's gonna stop the lion?
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What's gonna stop the lion?
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Nothing.
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Nothing.
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It's gonna conquer.
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When a lion is hungry and it's tearing through a sheep, there is nothing that's gonna stop that.
28:26-28:27
Ah, are we starting to see the connection?
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Israel, this is what Mike is saying.
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Israel is going to be prominent during the millennial kingdom of the Messiah, and there is nothing that anybody can do about that.
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By the way, if you have any anti-Semitic tendencies, I'd encourage you to repent, because this is what we're dealing with.
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But you know, for Micah to say this to Israel in this day, and even honestly saying it to Israel today, that must have seemed like such a foreign concept.
29:14-29:16
I mean, look at the history of the nation of Israel.
29:18-29:31
Everything from the Philistines to the Assyrians to the Babylonians to Rome, Holocaust, wars.
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Micah says that when the Messiah reigns, nations are gonna be blessed by, or fear the nation of Israel.
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Messiah's people will be prominent.
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And number three, write this down, Messiah's people will be dedicated, dedicated.
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you're going to see these last few verses hit like a hammer, just boom, boom, boom.
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It's just like a verbal, repeated hammer strike.
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What he's saying here is God is going to do some things in and for his people.
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Look at verses 10 and 11.
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He says, "And in that day," again, we're talking about the millennium, "And that day," declares the Lord, "I will cut off your horses from among you, "and I will destroy your chariots, "and I will cut off the cities of your land "and throw down all your strongholds." You're like, yeah, his enemy's right.
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No, he's talking to Israel.
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What God's saying is he's going to remove military security from Israel during the millennium.
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Why?
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Why would he do that?
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'Cause God's saying, "You're gonna trust me.
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"You aren't gonna trust your military.
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"You aren't gonna trust your equipment.
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"You ain't gonna trust your battle strategies." Messiah says, "No, no, no.
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"You're gonna trust me." And the theme carries on.
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Look at verses 12 through 14.
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He says, "And I will cut off sorceries from your hand, "And you shall have no more tellers of fortunes, "and I will cut off your carved images "and your pillars from among you.
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"And you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands, "and I will root out your Asherah images from among you "and destroy your cities." See, it's the same theme.
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God says, "In this day, not only am I gonna remove your military, I'm also going to remove your religious substitutes." God says, "You know what you're gonna learn?
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You know what the Messiah here, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, you know what He said?
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He says, "You know what you're gonna learn?
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You're gonna learn to worship only me." We spent some time already in this series talking about idolatry.
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Something has your attention, your affection.
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And we live in a time of idolatry that, it's just, we're so drowning in it that we don't even recognize it.
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But the day's coming, he goes, "Now, now, you know what worship's gonna be like?" He goes, "I'm gonna remove everything else "that you're worshiping, and you're going to learn "to worship only me." You're like, "Wow, what about people that aren't on board "with all this stuff that Mike is saying?" Well, look at verse 15.
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"In an anger and wrath, I will execute vengeance "on the nations that did not obey." Vengeance is what is needed for justice to happen.
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And God's enemies are gonna pay, but they're gonna pay.
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What's he saying here?
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Simply this, my friends, God is so serious about the holiness of his people that he is going to remove anything that would distract them from Him.
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This is one of the things that I'm most looking forward to in the kingdom of the Messiah, in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
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This is one of the things that makes me most excited Is God making us fully, actually, holy?
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Look, I get it.
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I know that I am pronounced holy because of Jesus Christ.
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I get that, all right?
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I've been preaching that for a while.
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I get that.
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Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished, God sees me as holy because He took my sin away.
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I get that.
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But you know, sometimes, a lot of times, I don't feel very holy.
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Do you, Do you ever just get tired of yourself?
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Does that ever happen to you?
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It happens to me.
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For example, do you know how many times in my life that I've seen God provide and the most mind boggling, staggering ways I've seen God make perfect provision.
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I could write volumes of books on the way God has provided.
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But you know when a new need pops up, I start to worry.
36:08-36:12
And then, and then I start to think of ways that I can bail myself out.
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And I think of ways that I can take care of myself.
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And then God, God provides again.
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And I am so ashamed that I ever doubted him.
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Anybody else?
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Don't leave me up here.
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Or, you know, I fast and I pray and I get into His Word and I am living a worshipful life.
36:50-37:58
suddenly my affections and time are being spent on insignificant, worldly things. And I am so ashamed that I got sidetracked. I just get tired of myself sometimes. Don't you? You're like, "Yeah, I get tired of you too, Jeff." No! Don't you get tired of yourself? This is why we take great joy in knowing that when Messiah sets up his kingdom, all self-reliance and all idolatry is going to be eliminated. No fellowship with God. We will enjoy worship of the Messiah as we should.
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It's the message of Micah 5. Did you see it? The Messiah's people are going to be secure, and they're going to be prominent, and they're going to be dedicated. So the The question really that you need to ask yourself is this, am I one of Messiah's people?
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As we said, I hope this isn't a surprise, spoiler alert, we know who the Messiah is.
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Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem exactly as Micah said, and also prophesied in the Old Testament as that this Messiah would suffer and die to take away the sins of his people.
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The Messiah, the Old Testament tells us also that he would raise from the dead.
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You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.
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He would raise again to give us eternal life.
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And Jesus would do all of that to secure for us these precious promises of the Messiah's kingdom.
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So, with all of Micah's talk of Messiah and His kingdom and people trusting only Him and worshiping only Him, I have to ask you, are you yearning for that now?
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You know, something really hit me this week, kind of in a fresh way.
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We think of this millennial kingdom of Jesus being way far off in the future, but it hit me.
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It hit me this week.
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Do you know how close it is?
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It could be within a decade.
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Because the Bible says the last period of time on the earth is seven years.
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This could happen at any moment.
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And then the Bible says this is right after that.
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So all the stuff we're talking about could be happening within a few years.
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And you can be a citizen of this today.
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So worship team comes forward.
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I'm gonna ask you to please bow your heads with me.
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Just bow your heads.
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I just want you to listen to me for a minute.
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We're going to pray.
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If there's anybody here that is like, "You know what, I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure I'm a part of this kingdom.
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I'm not sure I belong to the Messiah.
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I'm not sure that I really have believed.
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I don't have confidence that I'm going to be a part of this.
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Well, you know what the wonderful news is?
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Today's the day that that can change.
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I'm gonna lead us in a prayer, and I want you to pray along with me.
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But I want you to come and see me right after service.
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I'm gonna be in guest reception.
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If you need to make that decision to turn from your sin and receive Jesus Christ, you need to do that today because this kingdom's a lot closer than we think it is.
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Father in heaven, what glorious promises.
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And Father, we confess to you that I'm sure this hits Israel a lot harder than it hits us, because we haven't known the savage war that Israel has experienced over and over and over and over in her history.
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She's experiencing it right now as we pray to you, Father.
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We thank you that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, have been grafted in. We can enjoy the blessings of the millennium because of what Christ accomplished on our behalf.
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Father, I want to pray for any here who don't know You, that today would be the day that day would say, "I'm done. I'm done playing church. I'm done with this half-hearted commitment.
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I want to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." Father, I pray if there's anybody that is experiencing the Holy Spirit conviction right Now I pray they couldn't leave this building until they talk to one of our pastors, one of our elders.
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Father, we don't want anybody to be excited over a future they'll never have.
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So Father, let us embrace the glorious promises of Jesus Christ.
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and practice now what we will be doing throughout the millennium and throughout eternity beyond.
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Father, we are going to worship.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Micah 5:1-15
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What is the significance that the “ruler in Israel” would be from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)?
Micah 5:7-8 tells us that in Messiah’s kingdom, Israel will be like dew and like a lion. What do these pictures mean and how can they both be true at the same time?
In Micah 5:12-14, God promises to remove idols from Israel during the Messiah’s kingdom. Why does God do this, and not just command Israel to not worship them?
Breakout
Pray for one another.