Dennis Tuuri

Micah 4:1-5. Micah 4:1-5. But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it, and many nations shall come and say, “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.

For the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.

For all people will walk, everyone in the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God, forever and ever.

This is one of the probably most famous of the biblical passages, particularly of the Old Testament. It’s also noted because it’s repeated almost verbatim. There are a few differences in Isaiah 2:2-4. And of course, this has led to much conjecture amongst various biblical critics as to who wrote these things first.

Did Isaiah first write these words? Did Micah first write these words? Did somebody else first write these words? Who’s copying from who? And of course, for our concern today, we can maybe speculate upon that, but that’s all it is—speculation. What we do know is the fact that these words are repeated in both Isaiah and Micah are no accident. They are given in that way from the hand of God. They’re part of God’s decree for his holy scriptures.

And so we have a two-fold emphasis to these passages. Not only do they paint an idyllic scene that we very much want to see happen in our world, but the two-fold repetition of these in both the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah and then also in other very similar language in other prophets gives us the idea that these things are here indicated twice in the scriptures for emphasis. They’re very important to us.

They’re important that we don’t miss what they have to say about the Christian faith.

Now, as I said, these are very famous verses. Certainly the most famous of Micah’s verses, even though later on in chapter 5, we’ll read the prophecy about Bethlehem. Most people aren’t really familiar with that prophecy so much, but this one, people have repeated this throughout the ages. This idyllic scene it paints.

It’s certainly well known and loved because of the scene it paints of peacefulness and prosperity and the great blessings indicated in it. It’s remarkable for that and how much it really touches where we want to be—that’s what we want out of life. But it’s also remarkable because it’s something that has never been achieved by mankind. It’s remarkable that our world never comes close to approaching—really has not come very close over the last 6,000 years of recorded history to seeing this occur.

Man is sinful and man apart from God cannot have this come to pass.

Matthew Henry said that this particular portion of scripture, following up after chapter 3, and it’s important to look at the context of course always in scripture, but it’s particularly important because the first word of chapter 4 is “but”—which is a connective word back to chapter 3. Matthew Henry in his commentary says this is a very comfortable “but” with which this chapter begins. And if you remember what we talked about last week in the judgment that was portrayed at the end of chapter 3, you’ll know what he means when he says it’s a very comfortable “but.” There is a flip side to the coin of judgment. There is a positive note here that God throws in after giving us some very horrifying pictures to us of judgment in chapter 3.

Calvin notes that Micah in this particular passage of scripture moves from addressing the reprobates in society to addressing the faithful remnant and says that for the reprobates there is judgment and for the remnant there is indeed blessings promised from God. And so it moves from a statement of judgment on the ungodly to a statement of blessing on the godly. And certainly that is there. But I think that the larger movement in this passage of scripture from chapter 3 is from the works of man to the sovereign work of God.

There is a movement toward God and what God accomplishes after talking about man and what he cannot accomplish apart from God. And so we begin our talk this morning by talking about God’s establishment of his holy mountain surely and sovereignly in Jesus Christ.

The passage says that it shall come to pass in verse one. Verse four says “the mouth of the Lord have spoken these things, it shall come to pass.”

There is assurance given to this particular section of the prophecy that God does not want us to miss. Now remember we said that Micah begins in chapter 1 by saying “this is the word of the Lord Jehovah God.” And as such we know that Micah is entirely a book of a sure word. Jehovah does not speak a word that is not sure. But here reiterated for us twice in this passage of scripture are the assurances from God that this shall come to pass.

And no wonder that we need such assurances in a world where we know we are sinful, where these things seem so remote from what happens in our lifetime, and particularly that’s true of America in 1988 in the world indeed across the face of the world today with the secularism that we have and the resultant wars and economic oppression. But God will surely establish his holy mountain and he establishes it sovereignly in Jesus Christ.

So we have a movement from the sinner’s failure in Micah 3 to God’s success and prosperity in Micah 4. There’s this movement.

History is not—Micah does not end with chapter 3. History does not end with a recitation of man’s failures. History is not man’s story. History is God’s story of God’s work in the earth. And so Micah goes on to tell now how God uses the judgment of fallen man and then brings forward a phoenix as it were arising out of the ashes that he’s just described.

Mountain men fail. And we’ve seen that in Micah 3. We’ve seen it in our country as well.

Remember we talked last week about how there are men who are in intermediate levels of authority. He’s not just talking about the Supreme Court justice or the head of the Celtic religion of Israel at the time. He’s not just talking about the primary teacher or prophet in the world. No, he’s talking about all men who are given the responsibility of civil governors, for instance, all men who are called to teach the word of God and all those men who are in particular called to be prophets and to rebuke people for their sinning ways and their failure.

That intermediate level of leadership, I guess is what you could say, is what he talked about in Micah 3. Remember he said that they built the city but they built it upon blood. And so in our country today the intermediate layers of government, as it were, the men who wear robes, the pastors in the churches, the judges in the courtrooms and the professors in both seminaries and colleges—all those men have been washed away almost to a man, 90% of them at least, probably into secularism and into anti-Christianity.

And as a result of society, they have built in America in 1988 is not a good society. It’s a society that is ready and indeed judgment has already come to its very door.

Mountain men fail and these mountains that they develop, the cities that they build as it were are judged by God and thrown into confusion and into disrepair and eventually the very abolishment of what they have created. The downstream culture created by these mountain men have failed.

But God now brings up a picture of the mountain that he establishes surely and sovereignly in Jesus Christ.

John Marsh in his commentary on this particular verse—that God will surely establish this, “it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord of the hosts shall be established”—he says this shows that quote, “by some change impossible of achievement saved by God, the radical new age would be holy of God’s making. Universal peace would be by miracle.”

Now don’t get concerned that I use the expression “new age” there. That’s an expression. We’ll read Calvin here in a couple of minutes and he talks about the new age as well and I’m sure that he was not a new age advocate. That expression is not new to our day and age. It’s been appropriated of course as many good expressions from God have been appropriated by those who are radically opposed to Christianity and those who participate in new age movement today.

But just because a man uses a phrase like “new age” in his commentary should not have us peg him as a new ager. That is silly.

In any event, Marsh says that the radical new age should be holy of God’s making. Universal peace would be by miracle. Now, there’s certainly a lot of truth to that and that’s the first point we’re trying to stress—that God sovereignly brings this to pass. What we’ve read just now. But it’s also important to see that in terms of miracle, yes, it is a miracle what comes to pass.

But the whole passage talks about a process by which that mountain then establishes downstream culture, as it were—the expression we’ve used several times in the last few weeks. It establishes a society and a world that’s built upon the teachings that come forth from God. And so, there’s a process and work here. And it’s not just like God snaps his fingers and everything’s done. No, God establishes a mountain.

People come to it. They learn from him. They learn various things we’ll talk about in a minute. And they then affect the world that he’s in. So there is a process. It is miraculous of course because God establishes the cornerstone as we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes. And then God moves people from rebellion against that cornerstone to participation in the work that comes forward from that stone to build the mountain of God and to establish the whole world as really the dwelling place of God.

So he’s half right and half wrong. But the important thing to remember is that God sovereignly brings this to pass. And he brings it to pass in Jesus Christ.

Now Christ is not mentioned in this passage specifically by that name of course, but the allusions are heavy throughout the passage. The phrase—the chapter begins rather—”but in the last days all this shall come to pass.” The “last days” in the Old Testament always refer to the messianic age, when Messiah would come.

Those are the latter days, the end of the days, the last succession of days as it were, that’s talked about. For instance, in Hosea 3:4-5, we read the following:

“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without a teraphim. Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.”

And of course, we’ve talked about this before—the redemptive historical thrust of the scriptures, the Old Testament. What’s being talked about in Hosea is that there will come a time at which all sacrifice will cease. There’ll be no nation. There’ll be no king. There’ll be no priest. And that has happened in the intertestamental period. And then he says, but at the end of that time, the children of Israel return.

They’ll seek the Lord their God and David their king. He doesn’t mean that David would be resurrected here. He means that whom David imaged, or was a shadow of—Jesus Christ, the Messiah—would come. And that is the time: the coming of David the king, the coming of the Lord their God, establishing the ultimate sacrifice, establishing the Prince of Peace as it were, in establishing the true King of Kings. When he comes, they will fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

The latter days are spoken of as messianic times.

Now, we said before, but repeat it again to remember it: that Micah takes place in a historical context, of course, within a 100 years. Without a 100 years after Micah gives the prophecies that he’s given here, God will indeed send the people into total deportation into Babylon and that the country will no longer be a country. There’ll no longer be a people. There’s a restoration approximately 70 years at the end of that time with Nehemiah.

But Daniel tells us in his visions that the true restoration that is pointed to by this verse as all other verses relating to the last days will occur at the end of seventy times seven years. And that of course is the time of the coming of Messiah Jesus Christ. And so that’s the flow that’s going on here. That’s what’s being pictured. Christ comes in AD—in the beginning of the years—in the year of our Lord.

He comes in time to then build his mountain of people, his church, his kingdom upon the rock that is himself. He is that cornerstone. He is the rock that Daniel pictured coming to fill the whole earth and which destroys all of the kingdoms. The last kingdom that Daniel mentions being the Roman Empire, but destroys all other false empires that would rise up against him as well. Jesus Christ is the rock, the foundation stone.

He is the mountain of God and he comes to build then his established church and his kingdom as a mountain. The mountain grows to fill the whole earth.

Matthew 5:14 says, “Ye,” speaking to the people that Jesus was addressing, of course, as Jesus said this, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” He told them that you, my disciples, you who hear my words and act upon them, are lights, and you’re a city that sits on a hill.

You’re established as the city of God, his dwelling place, as it were, and men see that city. He says, goes on to say, “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that you may—that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.”

The gospel age is marked by a prosperity as Christians conform themselves to the will of their Lord and King Jesus Christ that then becomes a magnet of light, as it were, like a light in the darkness, drawing those creatures that were once bugs and yet come into the light and become glorious creatures and obedient to Jesus Christ.

We’re to be a shining example in the world. The nations will see the church and a sphere of influence that they then create and the communities around them and they say “who has such a god.”

Remember in Deuteronomy they look at the civil laws of the nation of Israel and say “who has such a god that can give such great laws. These are great laws.” But those laws were simply an indication of what would happen when Messiah came to build his temple, to make the people willing to follow him.

In Haggai 2:5-9 we read the following:

“According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt so my spirit remaineth upon you among you. Fear ye not, for thus sayeth the Lord of hosts. Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. And I will fill this house with glory, sayeth the Lord of hosts.

“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, sayeth the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, sayeth the Lord of hosts. And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Again, messianic reference, of course. The nations are shaken. All things come to pieces as it were. And then comes the desire of all nations—Jesus Christ—comes to do his work. And with the judgment of Jerusalem in AD 70, this is all brought to pass.

The desire of the nations shall come. He fills the new house, which is the church, the kingdom age, of course, with glory. And it has a greater light, a greater glory than that of the former. Because now with the coming of Jesus Christ and the gift of the spirit, the kingdom expands over the face of the earth and is no longer contained in one specific geographic location.

John Calvin writing on these verses says the following:

“The extremity of days the prophet no doubt calls the coming of Christ. For when it was—for then it was that the church of God was built the new. In short, since it was Christ that introduced the renovation of the world, his advent is rightly called a new age. Calvin was a newager in that sense. And hence, it is also said to be the extremity of days. And this mode of expression very frequently occurs in scripture.

“And we know that the time of the gospel is expressly called the last days and the last time by John in 1 John 2:18, as well as by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews in Hebrews 1:2, and also by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1. In this way of speaking they borrowed from the prophets on this subject. Some remarks were made on the second chapter of Joel. Paul gives us the reason for this motive of speaking in 1 Corinthians 10:11 when he says—Paul speaking now—upon whom he says the ends of the world are come. Definitively, as Christ then brought in the completion of all things at his coming, the prophet rightly says that it would be the last days when God would restore his church by the hand of the redeemer.”

And so God sovereignly establishes his holy mountain, its influence in the world. And he does that in Jesus Christ and his coming. God will of assurity then sovereignly establish the permanent dwelling place of himself on the earth through Messiah Jesus Christ through his work. And the covenant mediator then was Jesus Christ who came 2,000 years ago to do just that—what these verses tell us that it should do.

Kuyper and their commentary on this passage say that all this—what follows in the passage, that is—however incredible it might appear, not only for the Israel at the time but even now under the Christian dispensation will assuredly take place. For the mouth of Jehovah, the true God, hath spoken it. It will not be through any general humanitarian ideas and efforts, however, that the human race will reach this goal, but solely through the omnipotence and faithfulness of the Lord.

We’re in that age now when God’s omnipotence and faithfulness to his people is manifesting itself in the world and that mountain is being established and increasingly throughout time.

God sovereignly and surely establishes his kingdom mountain in Jesus Christ and he establishes it for a purpose. We move on then to say that God establishes this for the purpose that he might teach men and nations his law word.

James Montgomery Boyce in his commentary on this passage talked about Roosevelt, FDR, who gave a speech on January 6th, 1941, in which he listed four freedoms that were important for the world. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Now Micah’s list here of the freedoms that will be the result of God’s manifestation of himself and his Messiah Jesus Christ begins with freedom from ignorance of the law.

And Boyce pointed that out. Now when Boyce wrote that, it struck me as very forcefully at the time that the first thing he establishes here—that God will establish his holy mountain and will teach the nations—there will be freedom from ignorance of the law. And that has been one of the disastrous results on our nation today: that the churches have failed in their obligation to teach the word of God.

There is a dearth of biblical teaching in our day and age. You visit most churches in this country or even in this community. And what you’ll hear Sunday morning are a lot of experiences, a lot of personal anecdotes, scripture or two read, maybe some interesting applications brought out, very little exposition of the holy word of God. You see, that is the beginning place of the judgment upon America—when the church stopped teaching the word of God in its entirety.

We have a responsibility to make sure that we understand that Jesus Christ came with his teaching, that his word might go forth into all the world. He sent his disciples out to teach all nations, right? And so it’s our responsibility to take the word of God wherever we’re at. And unfortunately today, the church fails to walk obediently to that simple command just to teach the scriptures. And that’s the beginning place of so much that happens in this text before us.

It is important that we recognize that we all have responsibilities to teach the word of God, to read it. God has given it to us. He’s given it to us in our language, in our vernacular, and he’s given us people today that can help us understand that word as well. He’s given us understanding also by the Holy Spirit, who is the one teacher that we—the only one teacher that we need. The Holy Spirit teaches us his word.

We have an obligation: if we understand this word and we’ve moved exegetically through various texts in the scriptures and we understand it and have come to believe it and understand its application to our day and age, we all have a responsibility then to turn around and manifest this word wherever we’re at to teach other people the word of God. If a dearth of biblical preaching and teaching is at the root of the many problems that we face in our country, then we all in this congregation have an obligation and the great privilege to go forward carrying this word into whatever relationships we have outside of the institutional church.

We can teach men the word of God. It’s very important.

Notice too that when he says in verse two that many nations shall come and say, “come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways”—that’s really the first mention in Micah of the word “nation” since verse from chapter one. In chapter 1 verse two, he mentioned nations and we said then that God’s judgment was upon not just the Jewish people, the Israelite nation, the covenant people, but upon all the world, covenantally represented by Israel. And now he returns—then, after having gone through this long exposition of God’s judgment upon Israel and by way of verse two of chapter 1—also we understand to be upon the whole world.

He then returns to establishing his kingdom and the teaching of his kingdom to all nations, not just restricted to Israel, not just restricted to a particular geographic locality or particular people. The kingdom is inaugurated here not by might, either. Notice that from this text. Rather, the kingdom is expanded and extended over the world by people coming to conversion, receiving instruction from God through his scriptures as faithfully taught by his elect community.

Now, notice also here when it says that we’ll go up to the mountain of the Lord and he will teach us of his ways, it goes on to say “we will walk in his paths.” In verse two, “for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” And you know there’s a parallelism there? You realize that in the responsive readings that we do in our church all the time—”the law shall go forth of Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”? You see what he’s saying then is that what goes out in terms of the teaching? People flow in, the law comes out, flows out to the world. The law shall go forth.

That is the word of God. The word of God is Torah. It is a law. It is a command word to us. It doesn’t just mean that the law is restricted to specific commands. But it means that all of the word of the Lord, by way of the parallelism used, is a law. It is a command word to us. It is a description of what our requirements are to obey God and to worship him. And so the use of the term “law word” may sound a little funny to us when we first came across it, but you know that’s exactly what Micah here says it is.

It is a law word. And if we teach the word of God as anything other than a law word, then we’re doing disservice to this prophecy of what we’re supposed to do to extend the kingdom of God. You see, it is absolutely essential for the establishment of the downstream culture that God brings to pass through the work of Jesus Christ and his church, his elect community, his kingdom. It’s absolutely essential to that work that we understand the scriptures as a law word and that we then teach it to the nations as a law word, as a command from God, not just as interesting information to us.

And you remember last week we talked about the unfaithful priests. And the unfaithful priests, Micah told us in chapter 3, taught for a price and they built knowledge upon the almighty buck as it were. God here is described as a teacher—and a teacher of true truth. A law word of his is his covenant word. God teaches true truth, whereas the false priests taught a perverted word for the price of a dollar. And so God is seen in juxtaposition to man. God comes along as the true teacher.

Now it’s interesting too to remember here that he’s using the picture here of Jerusalem—the establishment of Jerusalem on the top of the hill. Obviously reference to God dwelling amongst his people. Remember that the temple of course was his place of special residence until Jesus Christ came and then created the new temple of his church. Remember at the center of that temple was the holy of holies, and that’s where God really dwelt.

And God sat upon the ark of the covenant. That was his throne as it were. And inside that ark, there were three things. And one of those things that was in that ark was a pot of manna. And that manna of course symbolized the gracious nourishment that God provided for his people, for his covenant people. God’s word that he talks about here is going forth from his special dwelling place—is what that manna symbolized.

It is a gracious nourishment from God to the nations that they might grow in grace and in obedience to his word. And so the false priest taught for hire. God teaches righteously. God’s teaching of righteously is by way of a picture now of one of the three elements that resided in the holy of holies in the ark of the covenant—the manna. And it’s to give nourishment then to the nations roundabout.

Today, as I said, we live in a nation that is starving for biblical truth. We live in a nation that has no manna being issued forth from most of the institutional churches. Now, remember that these verses don’t just refer to the institutional church. These verses refer to the establishment of the kingdom of God and its going forth. You are all members of that kingdom of God and you have requirements. Having gone up to the holy mountain of God, motivated by the Holy Spirit, brought to conversion in Jesus Christ and come into God’s presence and received his word—you have an obligation then to stream down, as it were, from the mountain as you go into the world the rest of this week with that word, teaching and preaching people who are starving for the word of God.

God establishes this mountain that he might teach the nations. He also establishes it, however, that he might adjudicate between men and nations. He that he might render decisions. He judges among the nations.

Verse three: “and he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations.”

God’s kingdom is built and established, and it is extended not just by the intellectual transference of knowledge. That is not the sum total of God’s teaching of his law word. It is a law word and it has authority to it. His law has applications to all disputes between men and also between nations and have an affected reconciliation between himself and those people that are pictured as streaming up to him.

He then affects reconciliation amongst the men themselves in their disputes and also then amongst nations who submit themselves to his authority. God reconciles the people to him and they stream up. He then causes reconciliation amongst men and between men and indeed between nations who are made willing. And Psalm 110 says, “the people be willing in the day of thy power.” And these people come forward willing to hear the judgments of God as it relates to their disputes.

Nations come forth, strong nations and many peoples. Remember the unfaithful ruler in Micah 3 announced, pronounced judgment for a bribe. But almighty God here is seen as rendering righteous judgment and producing peace and order in the world. Because of that righteous judgment, the false judge produces unholy judgment for a bribe. And his judgment produces chaos and disorder in the land. God’s law, his rule with a golden scepter rendering judgments among nations, produces order because it’s a righteous judgment that is built upon his law word.

Now I said that the holy of holies contained manna. Another item in that holy of holies and the ark of the covenant was Aaron’s rod that blossomed. Now that’s interesting. How that one isn’t particularly well known as being in there. And then if you do remember that there’s Aaron’s rod in there, most people don’t remember the incident that caused that to bud and blossom and we don’t really remember what it’s for.

In other words, well, you remember Korah rebelled against Aaron and Moses with 250 of the princes of Israel—elected officials, high men as it were in the community. And they said, “Well, now God makes us here’s all of us and we’re all priests and prophets before him. So, what are you guys to reign over us?” Well, of course, when doing that, they were rebelling against God himself and his reign over them.

Well, a plague struck out and then God, at the end of this occurrence, this description in Numbers 17, tells them to take 12 rods from the 12 nations—12 tribes, as it were—and write a different name of a tribe upon each of the 12 rods. And upon the rod representing Levi, he wrote Aaron’s name. And then they put those rods in the tent of meeting. And he said, “I’ll cause one to blossom, and I’ll show you who is my authority in the land.”

The next day, Moses came back, and the rod that was Aaron’s rod, that has his name inscribed upon it, had blossomed. It had leaves, it had blossoms, and it had fully mature ripe almonds as well. And so, this almond rod had blossomed. And the whole point of that is that God demonstrated his authority in the land immediately, of course, through his officials that represent him. But still, it was an assertion of the authority of Aaron and through Aaron, the authority of God in the land. And so the authority of God is talked about as well in the establishment of his kingdom talked about in Micah 4.

He renders judgments for nations. He holds his mighty rod over the nations and it’s a staff of judgment. And so people have to acknowledge not just his interesting things that he teaches them in his word, not just transference of knowledge, but they must become submissive to his decision. And if we are the people of God who enter into that holy mountain, then we must come to hear God’s word today and throughout the days. I hope you read your scriptures and you go to it.

Let the scriptures render decisions upon you and judgments for you in the paths that you’re going to walk in during the week. Don’t just go off in what you think is correct or right. Submit yourselves and your wills to the decisions of God the judge who in his scriptures renders decisions for us as well. And then of course to his mediate authorities in church and state also.

So God comes that he might judge the nations and teach them. And he also comes that he might rebuke sinning men and nations.

“He shall judge among many peoples and rebuke strong nations afar off.”

Now, it’s important again here to see the correlation between this passage and the passage we just read in Micah 3. The third group of mountain men as it were who failed in their responsibilities were the prophets. And the prophets, it says, divined for money. People would go to the prophets with questions and say, “Well, am I doing right? Should I do this? Should I not do this?” The kings would do that as well. And the prophet would say, “Thus saith the Lord.” And he would rebuke the people if they were in sin. And we see that, of course. We’ve talked about Micaiah, son of Imlah, back earlier in covenant history, and how he rebuked the king who asked him to come forward. But most of the prophets at that time were on the king’s payroll, and they would tell the king whatever he wanted to hear as long as he kept them fat and happy.

And when Micaiah, the son of Imlah—a different Micah from this text, but the same namesake basically—when he told the truth, he was thrown in jail. So the prophet has an obligation to be counseling, I guess is one way you can look at it, counseling men and nations, rulers of nations as well, in terms of their ethical behavior. Okay? And people would come to him for advice and counsel and he then would speak the word of the Lord and frequently that would be a rebuke for sinning men and nations.

And I think this is really—we’re not going to dwell on it a long time, but it’s a very important point—as you counsel people from the word of God. As people come to you with things they’re concerned about or issues they’re concerned about. It’s important that we recognize that rebuke, reproving people for sin that leads to certain actions that they have problems with, is an essential part of what God’s immediate rule in his kingdom is all about.

It’s important that if people come to you and you know they’re in sin, don’t hold back and think that you’re going to be kind and gentle to them and not talk about their sin. You’ve got to rebuke them. Now, do it in love, of course, but remember, we’ve talked before—we don’t remember the reference right now—we’ve talked about how the time that we’re talking about here will be characterized by the covenant people: one man being behind us.

And when we turn to the wrong path and go to the left, he’ll whisper into our ear, “Go to the right.” That’s a rebuke in a sense. See, you’re going the wrong way, turn to the right way. And we should be careful that we do that with one another in this church. When we know that people are in sin, go to those people and rebuke them gently but firmly and say, “Thus saith the Lord, God of hosts, this is the wrong way to travel. You better get back on the path here.” Now you could be wrong, of course, and you have to be open to that. But the point is that it is an important part of the prophetic work of the church to rebuke sinning men and nations. And that was part of what God did here. He rebuked correctly. He brought men to task for their sin and he called them to repentance.

As the false prophets had divined for money, failing to rebuke the sinners, so now the true prophet, God himself, rebukes the nations and individuals for violations of his law. Rebuke is an essential component then of counseling. The prophet would be sought by men for advice and counsel and he would then rebuke them for their sins and call them to repentance and counsel them to proceed in the strength of the Lord.

Now another important implication of this as well: the fact that God rebukes many nations is that while this kingdom building process—or the downstream culture building process from the mountain—is established, there will be nations that will need to be rebuked. Okay. So that shows that this is a progressive development. It doesn’t happen like that. The establishment of the cornerstone happens with the work of Jesus Christ. But then the downstream culture that this is talking about takes time to develop. And in that time, nations will need to be rebuked for sinning actions.

And notice here that God establishes this kingdom work on the basis of his law word being taught, rendering correct decisions, and then being viewed to rebuke people that refuse to come into conformity to his law. This is very important.

Calvin comments on this fact in his commentary on Micah, thusly: “Correction,” and speaking of this specific thing, God rebuking the nations: “Correction is indeed necessary, but God employs no external forces, nor any armed power when he makes the church subject to himself. And yet he collects strong nations. Hence then is seen the power of truth. For where there is strength, there is confidence in arrogance and also rebellious opposition.

“Since then the word, without any other helps, thus corrects this perverseness of men, we hence see with what inconceivable power God works when he gathers his own church.”

Get the point? God establishes this work not by the strength of his arm in terms of forcing people into submission. He makes the people willing. And that word that goes forward, the law goes forward out of the mountain into the world. It then has the power to do all these things. And what an incredible amount of power God’s truth, his word, gives to mankind to walk in righteousness.

So God establishes his kingdom with the preaching, which is the power of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and all its implications.

The final element found in the ark of the covenant were the tablets—the tablets of the law word of course. Most people realize that and those tablets of the law word of God symbolize the standard to which we are all individually, nationally and in all associations to submit ourselves in humble obedience. And so when you’re rebuked according to the law word of God, submit yourself to that rebuke. Don’t think, “why is this guy doing this to me?” Recognize that he loves you in this church and he thinks it’s important that you not move into an area of cursing in a particular area of sin, but rather move toward blessing as we conform ourselves to God.

So then God’s action in this passage of scripture is seen as Jesus Christ coming forward out of Zion as a stream of life. Jesus rides forth, in the chariot, as it were, teaching the nations, judging the nations, rebuking the nations, and thereby conquering and conquering and spreading his kingdom abroad in the world. That’s God’s establishment of his kingdom. And that’s what’s primary in the passage before us. But there’s also a response on the part of the people. The people respond to this obedience.

First, they respond by streaming to their creator. It said that the people, end of verse one, shall flow unto it. And the word here for “flow” is the word—it’s only used four times in the scriptures. It means to sort of sparkle like a river. But it’s the root word then for the stream that is talked about, and you—that word is used 250 times in scripture.

Point I’m trying to make here is that it’s an interesting picture that God gives for us. He has this mountain that God establishes in this picture and then he has people flowing or streaming to the mountain, which is kind of reverse, isn’t it? You know, really the stuff should be streaming out, but here the people are streaming up to God. And I guess I shouldn’t make too much out of this, but again, as we were on vacation and I noticed these streams and they were talking about how the salmon would have to work their way up that stream—the stream, the salmon in a heavy run stream as it were, flow back upwards to where they were bred from, where they were, where their original origin came forward from.

And what God says in these scriptures is that we will come back to our creator and we’ll flow upstream, as it were, like those salmon flow. And yet we’re moving by an impulse from God that brings us back to our origins, back to the creator, Jehovah God. It’s also a picture of the reversal of nature, isn’t it? That there will be this great change and the stream will flow—will now flow upward to God for instruction in his words.

Now, apart from those pictures also, we also recognize that when the people are said to stream to the mountain of God, whether going up or going down, we have lots of people involved. We don’t just have a few people coming up to God. We have this big streaming effect of many people. I thought about it today as we were getting ready for the service and we were all coming up about 5 or 10 minutes till 10:00 and we were streaming up those stairways, you know, up the mountain as it were to hear God’s word preached and to come together in convocation for him.

And it’s kind of tight out there in that hallway, you know, and so all of us are kind of streaming along going at the same speed. Well, that’s the picture God gives here. So, there’s lots of people involved in this. There’s a superfluity. There’s a lot of people involved who are going to be converted during the gospel age. And it’s a picture of the prosperity of gospel preaching. And there is a joyousness and willingness indicated here as well.

They don’t come towed, as it were. God converts them and they’re towed to that as it were by him. But then upon conversion, they stream to God. They’re joyous and they’ve been made willing by God in the day of his power, as Psalm 110:3 says. And why do they stream to their creator?

First, they come that they might walk in his ways. And what does that mean? Well, the scriptures go on to tell us that walking in his ways means accepting his teaching. We come to church to be taught. We come to the word of God to understand more about who he is and as a result of that what our obligations are. That’s what we pray in our prayer of illumination when we sing that little song. We ask for God to reveal himself to us in the scriptures. And we ask then that he might give us open eyes to see who he really is. And we also pray that we might then be instructed in his word that we might obey it.

We might understand who we are better and our obligations to him. And when you read the scriptures during the week, you should read it with that understanding. When you read it to your children, help them to see that first and foremost, this is a revelation of the person of God, our creator, and then his responsibilities to us. And so, we stream to God on a daily basis, hopefully to accept his teaching and to obey his decisions.

We’re to submit our thoughts to the mind of Jesus Christ and to his teaching. We’re to submit our wills to God’s decisions and to God’s judgment, to the King of Kings. And we’re also then to respond contritely to the rebukes that he gives us throughout these scriptures. You can read a scripture and you’ll recognize time and time again—at least we do in our family devotion—that we violated this particular law and this verse is telling us about what happens to violators of God’s law. People who don’t use their tongues correctly, for instance. And so we should accept that rebuke from God when we read in the scriptures.

And that’s why we stream forward to hear God’s word: to submit our pride, we submit our thoughts to his teaching, our will to his judgments, and we submit our sense of pride and arrogance to his rebuke, to be humbled by him and to be broken by him and be useful for him once more.

The result of all this, the response of the people, is a movement from death to life, from disorder and chaos to order, from having no standard to God’s standard. To move toward God’s society of law and order—not the conservative vision of peace and prosperity. Much more than that is pictured here.

What are the results of this, of this movement? Well, the scriptures go on to tell us the beautiful results of no war and material prosperity. The important thing to see here is that the people, when responding to God and submitting their wills and their prides and their thoughts to him, move from being warlike creatures to peacelike creatures.

Says that he does these things. And in verse four, verse four rather:

“He shall judge among many people, rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

They move from being warlike and contentious to being peaceful. And I was thinking as I was reading these verses a couple weeks ago that this would be quite a hard thing on four-year-old boys. Now, my four-year-old boy asked that I not talk about him in the sermon today. So, I won’t talk about him specifically, but I think lots of four-year-old boys, ones I’ve seen and other boys as well, they like to shoot guns. They like to play with tomahawks. They like to box. And there’s an aspect of that which is important in our day and age, of course, to teach our children to be able to defend themselves.

But it goes beyond that, doesn’t it? If we’re honest about it, we recognize in our children that it goes beyond that. We see in our little children that like to contend and fight with one another. We also see fallen man, don’t we? Men like to fight. Men like to mix it up. And the scriptures are clear here that without the reforming power of God and his word, his judgments, and his rebukes, men fight war against one another. That’s their nature, their fallen nature.

And so, it’s going to be tough on some little four-year-old boys as God brings this to pass more and more. Recognize the implications of this.

However, men are told not simply to stop doing something, or it is described that men won’t just stop doing something—that is, using their swords and learning war. But rather the men move to the positive, don’t they? They don’t just get rid of their swords, they beat them into plowshares. They don’t just get rid of their spears, they beat them into pruning hooks. And so God’s vision of law and order is not just a restrained society. God’s vision of law and order is a society that moves from sin and from contention and from no peace to doing things that are productive, that are dominion tasks in terms of developing the earth that God has given to us.

In this specific example, to move from the negative to the positive is what’s required. And of course that’s a picture of biblical repentance. We’ve talked about it before. The scriptures don’t just say “stop stealing.” Say to those who steal, “stop stealing and work with your hands that you might give to him that doesn’t have enough to eat.” See, that’s what the scriptures are all about. There’s no neutrality. God doesn’t posit a neutral Christian who just stops doing things.

Reverend Rushdoony—he said in a recent—I don’t remember if it was a sermon, I think it was in questions and answers afterwards—he had a question about the idea of separation and how does that impact upon something he was mentioning. And he said, “Well, you know, for many years, separation in terms of Christianity has been seen as a lot of don’ts. You know, ‘I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t about the girls that do,’ that sort of stuff. ‘Don’t go to movies. Don’t drink.’ That’s separation. Most people have taught from a Christian perspective.”

The Rushdoony’s point was that we’re separated to do something. We’re separated that we might be holiness unto God. That we might perform at the work of our hands good tasks that he’s given us to do. That we might use the tongue that once slandered somebody to now build that person’s reputation back up. Okay? Or the hands that once stole to now work positively. So it’s so important we recognize biblical separation and what God calls—says that men will do if they’re truly repentant and come to him for instruction, judgment, and rebuke.

They turn from waging war instead to being peaceful and to doing correct biblical tasks with their implements. They turn to dominion—men exercising dominion over the world, taking care of it, guarding it, and bringing it also into nourishment for him. Okay.

God teaches us. We listen and obey. He renders decisions. We submit ourselves, our wills to them. He rebukes our ever-present sins and we move then from death to life contritely but joyfully into the blessings that he has provided.

And indeed we are then blessed by God.

The third point of our outline: the peoples are blessed by God. There is a downstream cultural manifestation to the effects of what he has accomplished here. And we’ve talked about it a little bit already. The point is there as a result then in the culture around us. The culture moves from cursing to blessing. And so that is very important to see here—that the people are actually blessed by God as they move in obedience to his law word.

As then a nation has the preaching of true biblical teaching. As the nation has righteous judgments made and rebuke of sin, then there are cultural blessings that are found in it. And if we miss cultural blessings today, if we’re on the verge of warfare and economic collapse, then it means that there’s an absence of at least one of those three factors and usually an absence of all three.

And so today the mountain men, as we said last week in our country, have failed. They failed to preach the word of God. They failed to give God’s judgments the basis for civil judgments and all other judgments as well. And they failed to rebuke sin and guard the holy table of God as an example of that. And as a result, we don’t have cultural blessing. We have cultural cursing.

One of you was talking to me last night on the phone about the homosexual initiative and some advertisements that’s being planned. And I got to thinking about it after I hung up. I thought, you know, a good picture…