Dennis Tuuri

language involves the use of symbols that are then interpreted by the text. A picture is painted by the prophet, but the interpretation of the picture is not left to the imaginations of the interpreter or to his cleverness, but upon a diligent search of the scriptures.

Now, Micah, as a true prophet of God, has painted us a picture, one that could be considered a pretty gloomy picture, pretty frightening picture so far in the book as we’ve studied it to date.

Micah began with the first verse, the introduction to the rest of the book. And then Micah from verse 2 of chapter 1 to verse 11 of chapter 2 gave us a picture of spiraling judgment. Remember the court was convened in heaven as it were. And all the earth is judged before God and found idolatrous and so judged by God. And destruction is foretold then by theophanic imagery. Imagery depicting the coming of God and judgment upon the people.

This picture of the coming of God and smoke and the mountains melting and blood running across the mountains and this sort of thing. These general terms relate to the whole world. Then specifically, he moved in that first chapter to the destruction of Samaria and how Samaria’s walls would be tumbled down into the valley from which Samaria stood on top of the hill there that this judgment would come down.

We had this picture of the judgment upon Samaria. Then we had the picture of the approaching barbarian hordes of the barbarian conquerors painted by Micah along with the dread and destruction that lie in their wake in the following verses in chapter 1 where we went through the march of Sennacherib to Jerusalem. And having painted that picture of judgment for first tablet violations, Prophet Micah moved in the second chapter to second tablet violations.

And he then moved to a picture of greedy, grasping, merciless men pushing the defenseless off of the land, ripping the cloak off of the peaceable stranger or debtor, evicting the widow from her home, and turning the fatherless children out of their inheritance that God had provided to them. The picture of the wicked man, a violator of God’s requirements of true worship in the first tablet and true justice in the second tablet, is then pictured by Micah as judged by God, disinherited, excommunicated, cut off from God’s presence and from an inheritance in the land.

Now, as we went through these pictures of judgment that Micah painted and then the text that interpreted those for us, we also noted parallels to our nation. As we have pondered this fiery picture of judgment in the first two chapters of Micah, our nation’s idolatries, as Samaria’s and Jerusalem’s were, our legion, our leaders, and their cruel victimization of the poor for their political power plays is an abomination and we’ll talk more about that next week, including the false religion exhibited at the Democratic convention this past week.

They ended, by the way, with the battle hymn of the republic. The failure of the judge and the ruler in this nation to protect the unborn infants and hence leading to the slaughter of millions of them is a horror and a blot of shame upon our nation. The failure of our so-called preachers today to proclaim true biblical justice in the cities and in the countryside is fast bringing God’s judgment upon us.

We have seen religious and political syncretism with the two flags of the United States and the Soviet Union flying together literally in major office buildings in downtown Portland. And why not? For they are now both essentially two godless nations. We’ve also seen parallels with the false prophets of America forsaking the requirements of God’s law. Any law but that one they seem to be clamoring in most churches these days.

And also forsaking the accompanying negative predictive portion of that law, its cursings. These false prophets attempt to hold on to only the positive predictive portion, the blessings from that law, leaving behind the law itself and the cursing portion of it. By this they assert cheap grace which is not biblical grace. The churches today preach peace, peace then when there is no peace, when there is no manifestation of God’s order that Christ has affected in our nation, in our communities or in most churches, but we approach a different frame in Micah’s movie this morning, so to speak.

This morning, we approach a wholly different canvas painted by Micah with these two little verses that we’ve just read that have tremendous import for fully understanding this book seemingly marked by so much bad news for modern man. This new portrait is one of reclamation, reconstruction, deliverance, a great reversal, a movement from the agony of defeat, so to speak, to the ecstasy of victory, a movement from bad news for modern man to good news for repentant man.

I’ve given this portion of scripture this morning the beggarly title of “Out of the Foxholes.” It’s a vain attempt to try to capture or to catch the reversal here portrayed. But I hope that you’ll see a much broader picture than that little title suggests. Another title I thought might be appropriate this morning would be “Proleptic Deliverance.” Now that’s a pretty big word, “proleptic.”

A prolepsis is an anticipation of a yet future event. A prefiguring so to speak of what will surely come to pass. Now given that definition then we can say this is a proleptic deliverance painted this morning in these two verses. But we might even be able to say this is a proleptic deliverance for reasons that will shortly become apparent. You’ll note that in the outlines that you have I’ve given you really two sets of main verses.

I’ve given you the verses we’re talking about this morning, verses 12 and 13, being broken up into the major points, but then I’ve also accompanied them with verses from chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Micah. Now, that’s because the basic pattern or outline from this morning’s passage in verses 12 and 13 of chapter 2 is the same as that found in Micah 4:6 through chapter 5. And those would be good verses to ponder and meditate on this Lord’s day.

We have here then a snapshot of what will be much more fully fleshed out in those chapters. Now, between this little snapshot and that full development of this proleptic deliverance as it were, we’ll see judgments upon the false rulers, the rulers who don’t rule properly next week following that judgment upon the false prophets and following that judgment upon the offices of prophet, priest, and king in the land.

And then we’ll get into this full-blown deliverance passage. We’ll take some time as we come to that particular portion of the book in chapters four and five to consider each component element that we’ll talk about this morning in much more detail then. But this morning, I would be very pleased if you catch a glimpse of the main theme here, that of deliverance, biblical deliverance. This theme will be more evident as we tie this portion of the text in with what will come in chapters 4 and 5 and even more developed in our mind as we look forward from the time period of Micah to consider the tremendous deliverance that both the deliverance from Sennacherib talked about this morning and Babylon talked about in chapters 4 and 5 as well as Sennacherib, but also throwing in the Babylon element that will come in 150 years or so from the writings of this prophecy.

These deliverances however were mere foreshadowings of course of the greater deliverance to come with Jesus Christ. And that’s why I say this is a proleptic deliverance passage. Finally we’ll consider the continuing nature of biblical deliverance as we look at a few brief portions from the early writings of the church in the years of our Lord so to speak.

For these passages this morning declare quite strongly that all history is Christ’s history that all years are his years. So then our developing outline of Micah in this series begins with the first verse which is an introduction, chapter 1 verse 2 through 2:11 judgment on the two nations, chapter 2:12 and 13 this morning proleptic deliverance, then Micah 3:1-2 judgment on the representatives of God first in the state then the prophetic office and then the prophet priest and king lumped together, and then Micah 4:1-5:9 a protracted set of verses dealing with deliverance to this morning’s text.

Then we see first of all an assembling of a remnant pictured and then exposited for us by Micah’s prophecy and the accompanying prophecies in chapters 4 and 5. First of all, the remnant is of course a very important theme in the scripture and it’s an important theme to our verse as well this morning. The assembling of the remnant begins with the remnant being assembled by God at Jerusalem. Now the fact of the remnant is talked about in various parts of scripture.

But one interesting passage is in Isaiah 5:3 when we read the following. For thus saith the Lord God, the city that went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred and that which went forth by the hundred shall leave 10 to the house of Israel. And then again in Amos 6:9, “And it shall come to pass that there remain 10 men in one house that they shall die.” And he goes on to say that there might be one man left hidden in the back room.

This is decimation. You’ve heard of that term, decimation of an enemy. Decimation originally meant reduction to one-tenth of the original size, to a decimal point from 1 to 0.1 or from 100 down to 10. And Amos in his judgments upon the northern kingdom in chapters 5 and 6 tells us that the nature of that remnant will be a decimation of the original population. The point is that a remnant of course is a reduction in size from an original group of people.

And so it’s important to recognize that’s a continuing theme as these prophetic books deal with the northern and southern kingdoms during this time and for the next 200 years. Isaiah, who he said many times as a contemporary of the prophet Micah, named his son, “A Remnant Shall Return.” That was central to his message that although the judgments of God are being portrayed, still a remnant shall return.

Now, God says in this passage that he will assemble Jacob, all of thee, and this is an indication, as we said a couple of weeks ago, that those who call themselves sons of Jacob, as it were, and yet don’t do the deeds of that, don’t manifest the grace shown to them to others, are really not of the covenant people. And so the remnant is what is left of true Jacob as it were in the midst of the covenant land.

Now, it’s important to recognize that this remnant is actually assembled by God. That’s a easy thing to just kind of gloss over, but it’s an important thing to remember because it declares God’s sovereignty, his election, his calling, and as a result of that, his grace to the remnant population. It says that God will surely assemble, oh Jacob. And the Greek, the Hebrew verbs there are very emphatic in that this is a deliverance that will come to pass.

This isn’t a possibility. This will happen. God is God’s sovereign election again is portrayed even in the sense of the verb tenses themselves in this passage. So God will surely assemble. Remember we said in Micah 1:1 the introduction of this that this was a covenant word from the Lord the covenant name Jehovah to the people and it the covenant word means it is a sure word. And this is even emphasized more strongly in verse 12 in terms of the assemblage of the remnant. It’s important to recognize that since this is God’s providence and election at work here and his sovereignty that this is the gracious action of a loving God.

Total judgment is certainly legitimate covenantally for the sins of the people that have been described so far. Remember we’ve talked about covenantal judgment and God certainly is within his rights to wipe out the entire nation as they exist at that particular point in time. But God in his pure grace has redeemed a remnant here. And so he instructs us of his grace and his love as well as his wrath in this particular portion of scripture.

This is similar, of course, to God’s deliverance of the people from out of Egypt. And we’ll draw correlaries to that as we get to the end of this morning’s message. The point is that grace is established. In Micah 7:18, we have another reference to the remnant in the book of Micah. “Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy.” You see, the remnant wasn’t a pure lamb, as it were, spotless. The remnant wasn’t sinless. The remnant had sins, but God in his grace and mercy decided to save a remnant by his grace, by his mercy, as this passage in 7:18 so clearly describes. And so, the remnant is assembled by God graciously, sovereignly, his election of a covenant people to serve himself.

The term is also used in Revelation 12:17 and without looking at the text, it’s important to remember there as we pointed out before that the remnant there are described in contemporary terms post-Christ’s work on the cross. The remnant is described as being people that do two things. One that keep the commandments and two they have the testimony of Jesus. And so those who keep the commandments and have the testimony of Jesus are the remnant today.

Now, one other form note here as we go through this passage. He says, “I will surely assemble, oh Jacob, all of thee. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.” These are parallel passages. They’re statement and response. Remember, we’ve done that. We did that a little bit ago with the psalm we read. There’s a frequent device used in the scriptures of this antipal response in the part of the person being spoken to that’s going out here.

So, these passages could certainly be used appropriately in a liturgical service and we could have responses instead of reading the scripture text this morning done them responsively. Additionally though, I think a really important part in terms of the judgment and both cursings and blessings declared by God in these passages is that God gives a two-fold witness in the context of the verse itself. “I will gather I will surely gather surely assemble, oh Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant.” He gives a two-fold witness of his grace, his sovereignty, and his election here. And he gathers them at Jerusalem. And now that isn’t immediately evident from the text, but remember the situation that’s been described here. There is some exegetical reasons for tying this back to Jerusalem as well.

In verse 13, he says, “The breakers come before them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate.” The gate and the other that should I believe that’s a deliberate divisor put into the text to remind us of the use of the term gate two times previous to this in what we’ve seen in this prophecy so far.

In chapter 1:9, remember there he said that he has come unto the gate of my people even to Jerusalem. And then again in verse 12 inhabitants of Marath wait carefully for good but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. And so here we have the mention of the gate again and that’s a literary device to bring us back to the gate of Jerusalem talked about twice in chapter 1. And so there’s internal evidence that this is talking about Jerusalem.

Additionally, of course, Isaiah the as I said the corollary prophet in this period of time described Israel as a hut in a cucumber field in Isaiah 1:8 and that corresponds it’s an infallible inspired description of Hezekiah’s position being hemmed up in Jerusalem at the time of Sennacherib and remember Sennacherib gives us a secular historical confirmation of that when he says in his writings that are preserved to this day that he had Hezekiah caged like a pen pinned up like a bird in a cage and he wouldn’t let anybody go in or out of the city at that point in time when he finally got to Jerusalem.

And so this gathering of the remnant is indicated both in literary devices and in corollary passages in Isaiah as well as the general flow of Micah here to be at Jerusalem. And so the picture here is that the towns mentioned earlier in Sennacherib’s march have fallen one by one. The invader has come into the land and he now has come to the very gate of Jerusalem. And it’s at that gate of Jerusalem inside the city of Jerusalem itself has now become as it were a city of refuge for all the people escaping out of the countryside to come to Jerusalem and be penned up there as a remnant preserved by God in that fashion.

So at the end of this first picture we should have this picture in our mind of perhaps a geographical drawing of the southern kingdom and in that southern kingdom most of the land is devastation and conquered by the enemy and by God’s curse actually upon the people but there’s a little tiny spot there Jerusalem in which the remnant has been gathered to protect them from the devastation by God’s grace and by God’s deliverance.

But the passage goes on to talk about the remnant as a flock in the second half of verse 12 and also in the passages from chapter 4:8 and 9. I’ll put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, the flock in the midst of their fold. They shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. So here we have a picture changed a little bit. Now the remnant is described as a flock and there’s some distinctive things told us about that flock.

In this picture that Micah paints here, first he says that they were gathered as the sheep of Bozrah. Now in Isaiah 34:5 and 6, we read the following. “For my sword shall be bathed in heaven. Behold, it shall come down upon Edomia and upon the people of my curse to judgment. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood. It is made fat with fatness and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams.

For the Lord hath the sacrifice in Bozrah.” And so God judgment upon Bozrah, a actual place here indicated by Isaiah, involved the destruction of their lambs and their goats and their sheep. And so apparently at Bozrah, and plus there’s other historical confirmation of this. It was a particularly good pasture area. And so there was lots of sheep at Bozrah. And so what God is telling us here by comparing the remnant to the sheep of Bozrah is that there’s going to be a bunch of them there.

There’s a multiplication of the sheep that occurs as it were as these refugees come streaming into Jerusalem from the devastation being caused to the people out here in the surrounding areas around Jerusalem. Now, additionally, the phrase that he would make them as the flock in the midst of their fold, that again has a reference to multiplication of sheep within a protective area. And so, here we have a two-fold witness again of the multiplication of the sheep, the remnant as it were, affected by God.

But we have another picture as well in terms of this multiplication is a kind of a blessing, I guess, that he gathers together a large number of the remnant and they multiply. And by the way, that would probably remind us of Egypt. Of course, there was a remnant there that God had established and maintained in Egypt. And of course, under the penned up condition that they were in, they multiplied greatly, and so they came out of mighty nation.

But in any event, so God prior to their deliverance multiplies them, causes them increase, but they’re still frightened of men. “They shall make a great noise by reason of the multitude of men.” And there’s been various discussions about this, but I think that the best demonstrates that these are sheep mating making bleating sounds being frightened by men. In fact, the New English Bible translates this “which stampedes at the sight of a man.”

See, God isn’t mixing his metaphors here. He’s giving us this picture of gathered sheep. Men come to a sheep pen and make any commotion and the sheep go crazy. If you ever seen sheep, you’ll understand that they just go crazy with fear. And so the remnant is pictured as a frightened group of sheep here. This is of course the response of the sheep to both the prophecy that Micah has been giving to them and then the fulfillment of that prophecy that takes place in their lifetime.

And I suppose that perhaps over the last two months as we’ve been talking about the tremendous judgments from God and the correlations between God’s judgment upon the nation and that pagan state of that nation and the pagan state of our own nation and of our own churches and of our own judges and of our own rulers that many of us maybe at this point in time in our homes like frightened sheep.

Not in this series but earlier I remember one of you saying that you thought maybe I should they should send me their counseling bill because they needed to go get calmed down by somebody someplace after one of my sermons. Certainly these prophecies are meant to frighten people and to kind of wake them up from their slumbers. Remember, we talked about that before. We read from Calvin’s commentary on this that people tend to slumber and we need to be woken up.

And so, Micah’s prophecies do that to us. And believe you me that if the Russians invade tomorrow, which I’m not saying they will do, I don’t think they will do. But if they did, or if anybody came across the border tomorrow and these prophecies were brought to your mind, you’d probably quickly become like that frightened group of sheep. You’d begin to have some fear and trepidation. And so, it’s a proper, it’s not an improper response.

Of course, it’s improper to stay in that fear. It’s proper to turn to what we’re going to be talking about this morning in terms of deliverance. But it’s certainly the first reaction to the sheep as they’re gathered as a remnant. But important in terms of this allusion that these people are like a sheep now and that God has gathered this remnant is the fact that obviously then here these people have been gathered not without a shepherd.

God has brought them together. They may not be aware of that, but God has assembled them. He’s brought them into his fold. He’s guarding them. He’s providing for them even though they may be unaware at that of that at a particular point in time. And so the shepherding of God among his people is also taught by these passages. So now at the end of the second point of our outline, then the picture should be changed a somewhat.

You should have that same picture, the geographical area of the southern kingdoms, and you’d have the whole devastation around, but now you got Jerusalem identified not just as a remnant, but as a protected fold, the shepherd over them, multiplying in there. Okay? Not just kind of digging fox holes and staying in the fox with another being multiplied by God ready for deliverance. Additionally, in that picture, of course, as the devastation continues throughout the land, more and more people stream into that little city.

And so, that’s how the multiplication takes place. But third, this passage goes on to tell us not just that there’s a remnant assembled and that they’re supernaturally provided for and guarded by God, but it goes on to say that there will be a time at which the remnant will come out as they’ve now gone in to the protected city of refuge. “Verse 13, the breakers come up before them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it, and their kings shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.”

That’s a tremendous verse, and I hope you appreciated the tremendous songs we sang about that already this morning in response to the psalm itself, which also teaches the same thing. He’s a tremendous truth found throughout the scriptures, and I hope that we can do some justice to this passage as we consider this for a few minutes now. Deliverance out of the foxholes. There will be a time of change as it were in the nation.

The men, the lambs, the frightened sheep that have been gathered by God as his remnant, who have been multiplied by God and guarded by them now move out from Jerusalem. They’re not to stay there. They’re to break out. It’s important to recognize in this that they are led by God. And there’s three terms here, I believe, that refer to God. God is the breaker, the deliverer. God is the king. And God is the Lord, the covenant God of Israel.

Says that the breaker has come up before them. And the breaker, some people think in the terms of the allusion to the sheepfold is a big ram that would go out and break through a particular area to lead the flock out of it. And that’s not a bad picture here. Now it’s important to recognize that historically, of course, they did have a king Hezekiah. His prayers were answered. They were delivered. And so Hezekiah in a sense was a secondary means by God that provided for this breaking out of the city of Jerusalem so he could go back into the rest of the land then.

Additionally, when the men were brought back from the captivity of Babylon, they had some ruler to lead them back in as their head. But ultimately, of course, all these things pointed to the one who would affect the true breaking out and deliverance and the strength being exhibited here, which is God, Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 42:7, we read that Christ came to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

You see, in Jerusalem. They were in prison, so to speak, gathered as a remnant, kept safe, but still imprisoned. And Christ comes that through his work, he might affect the deliverance. He might break out as it were, and lead people into victory and into life and into blessing before God. The reference then is primarily to God who had of course led them out of Egypt as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

God’s strength and might are obviously referred to in this first description of the leader of them, the breaker out, the one who breaks forward and does accomplishes victory for his people. In 2 Samuel 5:20 and 24 that we’ll read a couple of minutes later. But in that passage of scripture, David is battling with the Philistines. And the same expression of terms of God breaking through the enemies is used there.

And we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But the important thing to note there in 2 Samuel 5:20 and 24 that even though David goes out and conquers the Philistines, the description, the inspired description, the infallible description of God’s word to that is that God has broke out among the enemies. Okay, that God has affected this deliverance. The strength of God has stressed his ability to deliver.

But secondly, it says that they come out and the king shall pass before them. God the king passes before the people. And of course, Isaiah 6:5, he says that my eyes have seen the king Yahweh of hosts. Instead of mine eyes have seen the glory describing the march of Sennacherib and certainly there is the judgment of God described in that. But now we see God going before the people in deliverance. And Isaiah says, “My eyes have seen the King Yahweh of Hosts.” Psalm 48:2 says, “The Jerusalem is specifically the city of the great king.” We’ve all sung that little whatever you call those little tidbits of song we sing.

But anyway, Jerusalem is obviously described as the city of the great king. And so here we have the deliverance from the city of Jerusalem, the breaking out, being affected by the great king of that city. His authority over the nations is here interest. He’s king of kings and lord of lords. His law word, his command word, the king gives laws to the people and the people follow them. And so when God uses the term king here to describe the one who leads them out, the deliverer is ruler over the nations affects victory for his people as they walk in obedience to the king’s law.

And then finally, it says the Lord on the head of them. The Lord there is the covenant word Jehovah described as the covenant head of the people. And so now his covenant name and his covenant mercy are stressed as they were earlier in terms of terms of describing the remnant people. Isaiah 52:12 says, “For ye shall not go out with haste, nor by flight, for the Lord Jehovah will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rearward God, Elohim, strong one.” The covenant God leads, and the covenant God who is also strong and mighty takes care of their people coming upon them from the rear as well.

They’re protected and led by God. By God, the breaker forth of deliverance the strong one, the king, the mighty one who rules with his law and the covenant God who extends mercy and grace to his covenant people. As I said, it’d be excellent for you to ponder the verses that we give you there, Micah 4:10-5:9 later in the afternoon. We don’t have time to deal with them all in detail right now, but you’ll see that same thing being talked about particularly in Micah 5:1-6.

You have the description in verse 2 of chapter 5. “Thou Bethlehem of Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.” And so the whole context of Micah 5 rather is this deliverance. And the deliverance is stated as being the result of the one that comes forth in Bethlehem of Ephrata pointing of course to the coming of Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem.

And so when we think about that, we should think of this deliverance and this reversal that is accomplished by God. So it’s important recognize that the nation, the remnant are led out of the foxholes by God. But it’s important also to remember here that they’re led out and that the remnant then advances in victory. Okay, it advances in victory. In the middle of this verse where we read the breaker has come up before them, then it says they have broken up and have passed through the gate and are gone out by it.

And then it goes back to describing the deliverer and their kings shall pass before them the lord at the head of them. That middle section there used a series of three verbs. Now Hengstenberg in his commentary wrote of this verse that these three verbs they break through they march through they go out describe in a pictorial manner progress which cannot be stopped by any human power. And so though they’re led by God they go out and they march into victory.

It’s important to see then that Deliverance involves not just an escaping out of the situation, but deliverance is a turn from cursing into blessing. It’s a turn from defeat into victory. That’s what’s being described here. They’re brought into the remnant protection that they might then later go out into the nation as a conquering people. This is spelled out quite clearly in the parallel passages in chapter 4 of Micah.

Verse 10 says, “You’re in travail. You cry out because of this pain again.” And these same three things that we’ve talked about apply to those verses that same pattern very they talk about the pain the crying out but then it says in chapter 4:10 that thou shalt go forth out of the city okay and then he says you’ll go to Babylon but you’ll bring get brought forth out of Babylon as well and then in verse 11 of chapter 4 “now also many nations are gathered against thee that says let her be defiled let her eye look upon Zion but they know not the thoughts of the Lord neither understand they his counsel for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor.”

These pagan nations are gathered by God as sheaves into the floor. And then he says in verse 13, “Arise and thresh, oh daughter of Zion, for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.” In verse 7 of chapter 5, “the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass that careth not for man. They shall be among the Gentiles, in the midst of many people, as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who if he go through both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.”

These are descriptions not now just of Jesus at their head. These are the description of the remnant as they come out of the city thrashing the nations. God has gathered the ungodly around that they might turn around and thrash those people and execute God’s wrath upon them. They go out as lion among sheep, devouring as it were. And so the picture here is one of a reversal from this crowded, frightened lamblike people, led out now by the great shepherd, the great deliverer, the great Jehovah God, the great king into victory into the nations around them.

Deliverance from Babylon and redemption are here spoken of. The men, as I said, are gathered outside the fold. But they don’t know that God has gathered those pagan men for the purpose that he might execute his wrath through his secondary means, his people. The flock moves out. It’s very important here to recognize the people’s participation in the battle and victory that ensues upon the deliverance of the remnant. Just like David in his battle with the Philistines, remember we said that God broke them out, but David executed then God’s wrath upon the Philistines.

Thirdly, it’s important to recognize that the remnant advances in victory and they do that outward, not upward or downward. Okay? The way that the remnant goes out following its head is not up and it’s not down. Now, I could get this is a passage of scripture that I could get quite charismatic maybe a bit allegorical about, but there is ways to describe this truth that might get across to you a little better. I’ve heard TV people do this sort of thing at the passage of scripture, and it’s certainly appropriate here to remember that when God delivers his people, they don’t go up in the picture given for us here by Micah.

They’re not rescued out, as it were, at the nick of time, and then everything is toil and chaos on the earth. They don’t get raptured out in terms of deliverance. They get led out the front door, okay? They don’t burrow down like an ostrich with his head in the sand and hide and hide and hide and go back into the backmost room forever. They may have been provided a holy foxhole here as it were, but they will come out and they don’t continue to burrow down.

They don’t get beamed up. They go out the front door. That’s so important to recognize and this is not just in Micah too. This is the pattern we’ll see in a couple of minutes throughout the scriptures this same pattern of judgment from God remnant preserved protected and shepherd by God turned around and delivered by those by God going out and then bringing men and nations to true worship to Jesus Christ.

That’s the picture throughout the scriptures. You see, it’s so important. We don’t teach our children that they’ll get beamed out of these problems, but they’re to go out the front door. We used to sing that song, you know, “so high you can’t go over it, so low you can’t go under it, so wide you can’t go out it, you must go in at the door.” And I suppose that this morning the picture is that we must go out at the door.

And you’ve got to be prepared and prepare your children for an advancing forward into the world, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, bringing men to conversion. That’s slaying them as it were. Remember, we have an offering here and we bring ourselves as a holy offering to God as Romans 12 instructs us to. do a living sacrifice. And so we bring men and nations to Jesus Christ as well. Living sacrifices.

We go out and preach the gospel and convert men. And that’s our task. And that’s our mission to go out, not to go up or down. We are supposed to go forward then following our mighty king, battling victoriously, proclaiming the crown rights of him who is at our head, King Jesus. And so now the picture that Micah has painted has really changed because now you’ve still got that picture of the southern kingdom.

You’ve got Jerusalem as the remnant there. The people could collected the lambs gathered. They all come streaming in because of these enemies out here and a remnants preserved. And then at some point in time, God says, “Okay, we’re going out the front door now. We’re going to go into victory. You’ve learned your lesson. You’ve come to obedience to the great king. And now he’s going to lead you into God’s wrath upon the pagan nations around you.” And so that’s the picture described now of bursting out to conquer as it were.

And there’s another good exercise for you the rest of the afternoon is to take passages of scripture about God bursting out and You’ll see that God causes his people to burst out whenever he delivers them. Multiply as that were over the face of the earth and there’s a bursting forth and the same word is used there. In other places, God is described as bursting out upon his people in terms of sin. Oza, the man who for instance caught the ark and properly they when they moved the ark not according to God’s holy order, God burst forth upon the people and put a mark upon them.

In any event, that’s what’s described now. Then the remnant now burst forward going forth into victory, not going up down but out. Okay, there’s a historical picture behind all this that we’ll talk about for just a couple of minutes. Now, in Egypt, the people were also brought forward. In Psalm 78, we read beginning at verse 50. “He made a way for his anger. He spared not their souls from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence. He smit all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham, but made his own people to go forth like sheep like to go forth like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. He led them so unsafely so that they feared not. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.”

You see the same picture? God bringing forth his sheep, his remnant collected community. Bring them out now of Egypt caused him to go forth not up or down but out. And so God affected that in Egypt. In Isaiah 40:11, “There shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria like as it was to Jerusalem in the day that he came out of the land of Egypt.” You see the obvious correlation to Egypt from these passages. We’re talking about the deliverance from Assyria. Isaiah says there going to be a remnant. There’s going to be a highway for that remnant.

They’re going to go out again in victory into salvation. Just like in the days of Egypt, there was a remnant and there was a highway as it were provided that they come out of Egypt. Correlations to Egypt. Another correlation we’ve talked about before is the correlation to the Philistines. We’ll just go over that real cursory. You can look those verses up later if you want to. 2 Samuel 5:20 and 24. David says, “Should I go up?” God says, “Yes, go up. I’ll deliver the Philistines into your hand.” David goes up, slays the Philistines, and says, “God has broken forth and conquered these enemies.”

Later, the verses we’re talking about this morning specifically, of course, relate to the deliverance of the people from Sennacherib. And in 2 Kings 19:31-37, we read the following. “For out of Jerusalem, again, out of Jerusalem, shall go forth a remnant, And they that escape out of Mount Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

And by the way, there’s a correlation back to Jerusalem in terms of Mount Zion described as Jerusalem. There’s another text to prove that the deliverance, the remnant was established in Micah 2:12 at Jerusalem. Any event, they’ll go forward out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria. He shall not come into the city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast a bank against it.

By the way that he came, by that way shall he return, and shall not come into the city, sayeth the Lord. I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake. And it came to pass the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians and 185,000. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib goes home and he then is killed while he’s worshiping his false gods.

That’s the specific reference to this morning’s verses that deliverance at the time of Hezekiah from the people from Sennacherib by God’s mighty hand and so they could go back out the gate and live in safety again. Babylon the fourth corollary: Isaiah 48:20 “go ye forth of Babylon flee from the Chaldeans with a voice of singing declare ye tell this utter it even to the end of the earth say ye the Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob” and so though they were going to go into captivity in Babylon several hundred years later still they were prophesied in terms of Isaiah’s prophecies that they would come forth of Babylon singing, not you know in great sadness but delivered by God and singing because of it.

God redeems his servant Jacob. Verse 21, “They thirsted not when he led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He claved the rock also and the waters gushed out.” Obviously a picture of Jesus Christ. All these things point to Jesus Christ. “There’s no peace, sayeth the Lord, unto the wicked.” That’s how that passage ends.

The fifth corollary: Satan himself. As we said, these things all pointed to the work of Jesus Christ and the affecting of deliverance by him. Hebrews 2:14 says that Christ came that he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. 1 John 3:8 says, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil, that he might wipe out Egypt, Sennacherib, Babylon, the Philistines, Satan.” Okay, that’s what all these things pointed to.

John 12:31 “Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” Jesus accomplished it. He said, “It will surely come to pass in the dead.” Having accomplished that though, remember our picture is one not just of God leading him out and killing all the enemies. It’s of the remnant then also going forward, isn’t it? And so also God brings his judgment upon apostate Judaism in AD 70. Luke 21:6, Christ said, “Behold, the days come in which there shall not be one stone left upon another in this temple. that shall not be thrown down. You remember that they had to eventually destroy the brazen serpent because it became an idolatrous practice to the people. And so they destroyed it. And Jesus said here that temple will be an idolatrous practice for those who reject me as Messiah in AD 70. I’ll come and destroy that out of the land. I’ll remove that idolatry. And so the deliverance continues in terms of apostate Judaism there.

And then finally, all enemies. Romans 16:20. We’ll start at verse 19. “For your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf. But yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” See, we’re promised there the same thing. We’ve been the remnant delivered by Christ.

We go forward then and God bruises Satan under our feet. We have victory. We go out, not up and not down. We go out. By the way, I read verse 19. So you’d recognize the correlation that promise is given. The God of peace shall bruise under your feet to those who follow the prescription of verse 19. Your obedience has come abroad unto all men. If you’re not having that sort of perspective in terms of victory, maybe it’s because you’ve forsaken the obedience required in verse 19.

Revelation 2:26 and 27. We’ve talked about this before, but Christ, it says that “he that overcomes, keep my word to the end. Him, I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken as shivers even as I received of my father.” Revelation 1:5 and 6 “and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth.

Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins of his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” Hath made us kings and priests. You see he says that Jesus accomplished these things. He’s prince of all kings. He’s king of all kings and he’s made us kings. And so the verses we read from Revelation 2:26-27 says that Jesus rules the nations with the rod of iron and he expects deliverance for his people who go out by the gate and now they rule as well under King Jesus.

They rule with the rod of iron people. These are tremendous verses teaching this same expositionally from scripture the same that this picture of Micah has painted for us that deliverance is a deliverance from bondage from being enclosed to a protected remnant out the gate into victory. How often do the scriptures have to tell us this truth before we finally catch on to it? How many times must God demonstrate throughout history his victory for his saints?

How long will the children of God look with eyes of sight instead of with eyes of faith at the world around us? We have pondered correlations between Micah’s time and our time and the judgments thereof. And we know and we’ve talked about this several of us even this past week that even now the noose is tightening around the neck of the church as it were little by little the state increases its control.

Steve Samson and I were at the rose gardens the other night with our wives and walking around and he was saying that really the hub of his thesis there’s a thesis that his doctoral thesis was that is that the state having given a period position of control to certain things always works the borders, the boundaries, and so continues to expand its authority outward to these fringe areas.

And it keeps going out and out and out and out and out, taking up more and more territory. And while that’s going on, of course, the church is being encircled, and the noose is drawn tighter and tighter and tighter around the neck. But you see, it’s exactly as in the times of Micah. Sennacherib came. The noose got tighter and tighter and tighter around Jerusalem. And Sennacherib thought, I’m going to win. And just like today, the humanists think we’re going to win. We’re going to wipe them out, but it’s not to be.

God is causing this to come to pass for judgment upon the nations surely, but then to redeem a remnant out of this society to lead them forth in victory. He’s gathered the state as it were for judgment. And that judgment is now beginning to become manifest and will become increasingly manifest as they move closer and closer to God’s holy people. You see, Howard L. asked me, thought we had a letter from a fellow that talked about the homosexuals coming out of the closet, and Howard L. said we ought to write a article about Christians coming out of the closet.

Well, that’s right. Out of the closet, out of the foxhole, out of the sanctuary. It doesn’t matter what, you know, picture you put on it. The point is that we’re called to follow King Jesus and that he’s affected victory and deliverance. And that’s what this passage in Micah points to.