Dennis Tuuri

And unto the angel of the church of Laodicea, write these things, saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wart cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. And anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down at my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for calling us together into holy convocation in your presence now. We thank you Lord God for the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the peace that it made with your wrath justly due against sinners. We thank you Lord God for his righteousness which you impute to our accounts on the basis of his work and not our work. We thank you Lord God for the new birth of the Holy Spirit that we’ve been regenerated in your sight and stand before you now in the newness of that regeneration having Christ’s imputed righteousness as our own so that we have peace with you through the covenant mediator.

We thank you Lord God for your scriptures and we thank you for the book of Revelation and for the letter to the Laodiceans. Father God, we thank you for reminding us in this call to worship this morning that through chastisement and through the fire comes pure gold at the end of that process, that we have been called to persevere in Jesus Christ, to repent of our sins this day and always, and to move in obedience and submission to your will. And that if we accomplish these things, Lord God, and if your grace brings us through this process, we are given the cup of victory, the cup of eternal life in Jesus Christ, and that we do indeed reign with him.

Father God, we thank you then for this Lord’s day in which we’ve set aside our feet to come together now from our own paths, so that we might come together now and give you worship and praise in this day of holy convocation of the victory of Jesus Christ, and that victory being worked out in the lives of his saints through testing, tribulation, evaluation, repentance, and submission to your holy will. Bless this Lord’s day so that we might rest fully in the work of Jesus Christ and rejoice in that great victory. In his name we pray. Amen.

The Lord hath made known his salvation, his righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Deliver me from the strivings of the people. A people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. The strangers shall fade away. The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock. I exalt him. It is God that avengeth me. He delivereth me from mine enemies. Thou hast delivered me from the violent man. Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen. Great deliverance giveth he to his king, to David.

Scripture is Micah 7:11-17. Micah 7:11-17. In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed. In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. Notwithstanding, the land shall be desolate, because of them that dwell therein for the fruit of their doings.

Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, will I show unto him marvelous things. The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might. They shall lay their hand upon their mouth, and their ears shall be deaf.

They shall lick the dust like a serpent. They shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth. They shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee.

This message will conclude our series of talks going through the book of Micah. And as I pointed out before, this last chapter, chapter 7, sort of sums up the whole book. And we talked about the first few verses being verses describing the great judgment, the finality of the judgment, the desolation, family betrayal, persecution, et cetera.

And then last week we talked about verses 8-10, which are a transitional section in which the people confess their sins and they understand that while there may be specific sins dealt with, generally persecution comes upon us and tribulations and trials, and we might be perfected. Now in the case of Micah, obviously there were very specific sins that brought about God’s judgment, but generally speaking, all persecutions come upon believers because God is perfecting his saints and refining the dross away from the gold.

And so verses 8-10 are transitional into the last section of the book. The last few verses of chapter 7, the verses we’ll consider this morning, are a great statement of the victory that comes as a result of judgment properly responded to on the part of the covenant community. We’ll talk about that this morning, and then next week we’ll conclude with the last three verses, which on the basis of the entire book of Micah, summed up in the last chapter of Micah, was transitioned from judgment to blessing, from curse to blessing, from death to life, as it were.

The last three verses then declare the wondrous marvels of God himself and who he has revealed himself to be throughout this book. And we’ll talk about that next week. I hope that you ponder these things that God is bringing us to in his providence week by week from these books.

On the way home last Sunday from church, I was thinking through the implications of understanding correctly God’s persecutions and tribulations in the land. We’ve talked about that a lot in this church, but because of the emphasis of last week’s verses, I thought about it again. And I thought about it specifically in the context of what for instance we do in trying to affect legislation in Salem. And you see, I began to think through the implications. It really has implications for what bills we decide to get involved with.

There are a number of bills that have specific application to public schools, some of which we’ve talked about. And you see, if you understand that the problem that we have today in this state is not the state, the people that meet in Salem, but it’s the folks throughout the state who have affirmed the lordship of the state as opposed to the lordship of God, through accepting the state’s benevolences and cradle-to-grave security, et cetera, from the civil state, and you recognize that what’s happening in this state is God is bringing that full bore on the people. You want to send your children to the public school for training and rearing and for them to take over great portions of your parental obligations. Fine. Then you’re not going to be able to expect at all that they’re going to do that in a godly fashion.

And now they’re going to start knocking on your door at a very early age. And the children goes off to school initially to see what good parents you are. So if you’ve given over the kids to the civil state for ages 7 through 18, or whatever it is, they’re going to come in at ages 0 to 6. Now the point is that this is God’s judgment being brought to pass against the professing believers in this state for their failure to walk into conformity to the lordship of God in all areas of life.

And that affects how we go about working in terms of trying to protect people from this sort of legislation. If the private schools of the state of Oregon, for instance, don’t understand the implications of affirming the lordship of the state through registration, and the bill calling for the registration will pass, and it will be God’s judgment upon those schools. And we shouldn’t bemoan that fact. We should recognize that God’s judgment begins to become more and more fully self-conscious in the covenant community, that they might come to verses 8-10 of Micah where they confessed their sins and so are turned and spared from that judgment.

Now I guess what I’m saying is we’re in a particular period of evaluation, testing, and tribulation and God’s judgment in this land generally. But it’s also true of us specifically as individual believers in this church. I think that Reformation Covenant Church is going through some times of trials and evaluation and testing. Individual people more so than other people. And these things are all for God’s purposes of perfecting us to the image of Jesus Christ.

There are a number of situations here at Reformation Covenant Church that need your prayer. And I hope you’re praying for this church on a regular basis. And this is good. I guess what I’m saying is God is preparing the nation of Oregon for a resurgence of biblical Christianity. And I think that this church is part of that process. And he’s preparing this church for its role in bringing that to pass in the state of Oregon through purging out dross and leaven from this church as well.

God calls us this morning to hear the word and his providence that he’s given to us, which is a message of victory and of great blessings. And he calls us then to luxuriate, as it were, this morning in the message of the end result of this entire process. And that is a good thing. It is a thing that gives us hope and assurance for the future instead of despair for the future.

But this message of assurance that we’re going to speak of this morning has a limited audience. In the days of Micah, this prophecy went forth. But there were only certain people that it was meant to assure—those people that had gone through verses 8-10, that had gone through the transitional section of repentance to God for their stiff-necked disobedience to him, a humble submission to him and to what his judgments may be in their lives, and an obedience to his law word, of course, as well.

And so it is this morning that the message goes forth from the book of Micah again that I’ve just read. And yet there’ll be people who hear this message either directly now in this congregation or through the tape ministry or whatever else, and yet have not gone through verses 8-10. These messages—this message of reassurance and of hope this morning—is not one of assurance for them. Indeed, the scriptures say that for that person who continues in a stiff-necked fashion, the message here has no application to them except for the portions of it that talk about the destruction of God’s enemies.

I guess what I’m saying is the transitional part that we discussed last week is essential for the backdrop and the requirement to participate in the blessing part of this passage of scripture before us.

Every Sunday, we’re called together to worship by God. And you know, in the book of Hebrews, it quotes in the Psalms, “Don’t harden your hearts. If you hear the call today, come forward and worship him.” The waters of Meribah, the waters of contention—people grumbled against God. And because of that grumbling, God cursed them. If we grumble against God’s providence in our lives that he has brought to pass, in terms of the judgments or tribulations that we suffer, we haven’t understood verses 8-10, and we don’t enter into the last section of the book of Micah in the 7th chapter.

In the New American Standard Version of Psalm 50, we read this essentially same aspect of a twofold message of blessing and cursing. Psalm 50 begins by talking about how God reveals himself to man. The mighty God, the Lord, has spoken and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shown forth. May our God come and not keep silence. Fire devours before him. And it is very tempestuous around him—very tempestuous around God.

He’s sorting out people. He’s sorting out men and nations. And so there’s a twofold message that comes forward in the rest of the psalm. Verses 7-14, God speaks to those people that do respond correctly. He says in verse 5, “Gather my godly ones to me. Those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” And the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Verse 14, “Offer to God sacrifice and thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high. And call upon me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you and you shall honor me.” And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.

But to those people that don’t go through the transitional section of Micah 7, verses 8-10, and the rest of the psalm applies to them. But to the wicked, God says, “What right have you to tell of my statutes, to take my covenant in your mouth? For you hate discipline. You cast my words behind you.” Verse 21, “These things you have done and I kept silence. You thought that I was just like you, but I’ll reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.”

He who offers as a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God.

So a necessary introduction to this morning’s talk on the victory of Micah 7:11-17 is that we must order our ways aright before God. It’s not enough to hear the word, as [one] gave in his communion talk a couple of weeks ago. If you don’t do the word, you’re judged by God. But if you do the word, you have a great message this morning of assurance and hope for the future.

The victory of God that comes about through his judgment leads to the glorification of God—that God may be glorified in all the world. And this morning’s text gives us three specific sections and how God is glorified in this process.

God is glorified through evangelistic prosperity. God is glorified through pastures of pleasure for those who have gone through verses 8-10 and responded to God’s chastisement with submission and obedience. And God is also glorified through the humbling of the nations of those that won’t repent before him.

First, the glorification of God through evangelistic prosperity. Verses 11-13. In that day that the walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed. In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria, from the fortified cities, and from the fortresses even to the river, from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. Even our enemies are converted. Verse 12. Who comes to repentance? Who comes to the enlarged city of God? We are told specifically that they come from Assyria and from the fortified cities.

And you’ll see in most of your modern translations that refers to Egypt. From Assyria and from Egypt, people come. Now some people might assert here that these people may be the exiles. Yet the language is such to indicate that is not the case. Hengstenberg in his commentary on this passage says the following:

“The subject in this verse cannot only be the inhabitants of these—excuse me—The subject in this verse can only be the inhabitants of the countries themselves, not the Jews living there. If the latter had been intended, a more distinct indication of it would have been required. The masculine suffix to thee in this verse, verse 12—in other words, not to Zion but to Israel—is opposed to such a reference. This shows clearly that they who come are different from Israel.”

In entire harmony with this prophecy is Isaiah 19:18-20. And if you just turn to that in your scriptures now, Isaiah 19, Isaiah 19 rather 18-20, we’ll see a parallel passage to what we’re reading this morning. Isaiah 19:18. In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to the Lord of hosts. One shall be called the city of destruction. And these are fortified cities again. And Egypt was known for its fortified cities, and that’s why there’s a correlation between Egypt and the fortified cities in Micah 7:12.

But in any event, verse 18 describes the conversion of Egypt. In that day there should be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar of the Lord near its borders. And it becomes a sign and a witness. And then later on in the chapter, verse 23: In that day there should be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance.”

So the picture in Isaiah 19 confirms the picture in Micah 7:12—that even the enemies of God will come to conversion to Yahweh, and they will come in submission to him. This is quite important.

The two terms used distinctly for these enemies are Assyria and Egypt. Assyria and the Egyptians were the worst enemies of the nation of Israel particularly during this particular portion of time. Remember, the Assyrians were that ruthless people. You know, I think I’ve indicated to several of you I’m teaching my children—several of my oldest daughter and another child—world history and give them little pictures to help remember some of this stuff.

And the picture for Assyria is a little flag thing with two flags sticking out of it the way you have USSR in America today. And this flag over here stands for Assyria and this flag stands for Babylon. On the Assyrian flag, there’s a picture of a dragon, a drawing of a dragon, because remember, the Assyrians declared that their king was the great serpent, the great mighty serpent of old and the dragon. And of course, that’s really a euphemism or a name for Satan himself.

And so they’re a very satanic world power at this particular period of time. And on that Assyrian flag, I’ve also got a T on the corner there to indicate that they ruled over people primarily through means of terror. And when the kids reproduced this flag for me, they draw little piles of heads there by that T to remind themselves the Assyrians would cut people’s heads off and pile them up in front of the conquered cities. They use terrorism to demobilize and destabilize the people and to demoralize them.

The Babylonians on the other side used debt. And we’ve drawn that illustration before between the Soviet Union today using terrorism and the United States using debt—both for the same purpose of declaring universal statism and the obligation of the citizen to the state. Assyria, remember, was syncretistic. It brought together all the religions under its one great religion, which was a worship of the state again, and of their rulers, the great dragon, as it were.

Egypt was also very similar in terms of their basic outlook. Somewhat similar in that in Egypt, by the time the dynasties became fully developed, all the various city states of the region had been merged into one big dynasty under one pharaoh. And Pharaoh was seen as divine, and the people were seen as only having worth again in terms of the civil state underneath Pharaoh.

And so for my children, I’ve got a drawing of a pyramid, and all these blocks of the pyramid are the city states, also indicating the individual people only have importance or reality in terms of that civil state or that civil structure under Pharaoh himself, under the great god Pharaoh. So there was continuity between man and divinity through Pharaoh, and man as a result had to be absorbed into the civil state the same way that Assyria absorbed people into its structure, and that was what good progress in history was all about supposedly.

So these represent the two great enemies of Israel. But they also represent a philosophy that is the philosophy of the society of Satan, which sees man only important in terms of the civil state, and that has been with us from the Tower of Babel and from throughout history. Then we see this notion of collectivism, and it’s exemplified here in the text before us if you understand the references here in terms of Assyria and in terms of Egypt. Now this has important applications to us today.

Today, because of course, we stand as the recipients of some of this by way of Alexander the Great, who brought together—I don’t know if you know this about Alexander—but there’s a city that he started in Egypt called Alexandria. When he conquered Egypt and created the city of Alexandria, he then also went to the oracle of Ammon and he got himself declared to be Zeus Ammon and in other words divine—an appropriate pharaoh then. And so Alexander was a pharaoh.

And what Alexander did was he saw himself as holding three titles. The Greeks believed that the city state, the polis, the civil state represented by the city states, were divine, and he was representing the Greek civil state all brought together. The Egyptians saw the pharaoh as divine, and Alexander represented himself as a pharaoh. And the Persians coming down from the Babylonians and others, the Persians saw law as divine, and so he saw himself in three ways divine before God.

And God didn’t put up with that, and shortly thereafter killed him. But the point is that Alexander and the Greek culture generally also posited collectivism as man’s salvation. And they are the recipients of Assyria and Egypt. And when Alexander brought these things together, it was the old Assyrian dream here of world conquest through syncretism all under the civil state brought to pass again. And Alexander took that way of looking at life, the society of Satan essentially, and extended it out over all the known world.

And that’s the heritage that we have today. And that’s the problems that we face today. Now, that was a great enemy. And if you knew about the Assyrians and the Egyptians at the time of this writing of this verse, you understood that this was a tremendous enemy. And yet God said that even those enemies will be brought to submission to me, and they’ll be brought to conversion, and there’ll be a tremendous period of evangelistic prosperity.

I said it has applications to us today because we’re the heritage of all this, and we live in the context of a state and a nation again that is increasingly seeing people as only real or important as long as they affirm the lordship of the civil state. That’s what all these bills in Salem are about relative to child abuse and education and early intervention and at-risk and all this other stuff. It wants you to declare the lordship of the civil state over you as a family. And it wants to bring you into that pyramid. It wants to bring you under the great dragon. It wants to bring you under Alexander the Great in the Greek Hellenic system. It wants to bring you under the civil state.

An interesting corollary to this, by the way, in the time of Greek, of this Greek Hellenic period of the civil state, men being absorbed into it. A side note of that was that some people found the civil state isn’t big enough. They wanted something a little bigger to be absorbed into, and they had mysticism then rampant. And today, whenever you see a society marked by absorption into the civil state, you also see another element of that with people who say the civil state isn’t big enough, and we have it today in terms of the New Age movement. They want to be absorbed into divinity itself, and the civil state isn’t quite big enough or divine enough for them.

In any event, that’s the sort of situation we suffer today. And so when God tells the Israelites that their worst enemies, the collectivists of Egypt and Assyria, will be brought to conversion to God and recognizing that they are not God, but they’ll be brought to conversion to God, that should give us great comfort in terms of our situation. It means that if I can use some specific terms here, the Virats of our day—okay, maybe not her individually, but the Veraratz personalities out there, the Neil Goldmans, people that are characterized by that understanding of the civil state as supreme to be owed allegiance to—will be brought to conversion as we go through verses 8-10.

Then when the church learns its lesson, as it were, God will then add to the church’s number with great evangelistic prosperity. And so God is glorified through judgment, church repenting, and then God bringing about evangelistic prosperity. He is glorified through all that. The strength and the enemy’s stature of those that are around us will be converted by God to be used for his purposes. They will come to worship God.

And of course, there’s a corollary to that. If even the enemies, if even the Veraratz of our day are going to come to conversion to Jesus Christ, then certainly the people that lie in the great middle ground who aren’t self-conscious with all this stuff and who aren’t tremendous enemies of the church self-consciously—we should see, we should anticipate even more. The enemies are converted. We’ll have massive numbers of those people in the middle converted as well.

Secondly, the whole world is pictured as converted here. It says that the conversions that will come to you from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. Hengstenberg in interpreting this phrase in their commentary said that, in other words, what this means is that from every land situated between seas and mountains—that is to say, from all the lands and provinces of the earth. The coming out of all lands is not to be understood as just passing visits to Canaan or Zion, but as coming to connect themselves with the people of God, to be received into fellowship with them.

Hengstenberg again quoting on this passage says, “But then by the expression from sea to sea, from mountain to mountains, which are equivalent to from every sea to every sea, et cetera, all barriers in general are completely removed.” Okay, just like back in earlier in this book—remember, “He’ll be great unto the ends of the earth” is what the scripture said earlier in the book of Micah.

But before such glory can be restored upon the people of God, the irrevocable judgment must first have done its fearful work—verses 8-10. But that work being accomplished, then we have a picture here of the whole world being converted, and the gospel prosperity extending out not just to enemies and individuals but to the whole world itself. And that’s the picture given here.

Now, again, this is the same picture as another corollary passage to identify this is the actual intent of the text. In Zechariah 9:9, we read, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.” Obviously, you know, we all know what that refers to. The coming of Jesus Christ.

Verse 10 says though that as a result of this, “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off. And he, that is the one who comes, Christ, shall speak peace unto the heathen, the enemy nations, and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth.”

So a little bit more explicit in that text. But Micah here in chapter 7 essentially says the same thing. From sea to shining sea, from mountains to mountains, the entire world will come to conversion in Jesus Christ. Worldwide evangelism and conversion is spoken of here—not just a remnant mentality, but after the true Jesus Christ comes and all this is brought to pass, and it all focuses down to him. Then the gospel era, the new covenant, is marked by gospel prosperity extending to enemies and extending over the face of the world. And that’s the sort of thing that God holds out there for us to help us get through verses 8-10.

Now, he throws in a little caveat here. He throws in verse 13 telling us that some shall not come to conversion. There will be a small portion relative to the expressions used of the whole world. There will be some in the land outside of the church who won’t come to conversion. It doesn’t mean that every last person will be saved. It means that most of them will be, but there will be some that won’t be saved. And their portion is desolation, justly being judged by their deeds.

Calvin said that this verse was thrown in here by the prophet to terrify hypocrites, and remind us again. We’ve got to go through verses 8-10 self-consciously, and not just by way of show to other people, but before God being submissive and humble to his will. You know, if we don’t do that, then we share the terror and desolation of verse 13.

It’s worthwhile to point out here though that the picture now is a completely different one than the picture has been up to now. Up to now, up to the coming of Jesus Christ, we had a small, relatively small group of people. We had a garden originally, and man is kicked out of the garden. And the garden’s a little bitty portion guarded by an angel, so we can’t get back into the garden. And the whole rest of the world is thorns and briars and whatnot.

But now the picture is that the extension of the covenant community goes over the whole world, and there’s a little small portion out there of people that still refuse to bow the knee. And their portion is desolation. But see this big shift: from small garden, big world to now big garden, big city, and very small exterior world to the community of blessing.

Now, that garden illustration is also pointed out in verse 11. God is glorified through gospel prosperity that the vineyard of God’s blessing is expanded. Verse 11: In that day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed. Now, first of all, the decree being far removed—the term for decree there, the word used there, is normally rendered law or statute. But I want to read you a couple of other verses that help you understand the sense of its use here.

In Job 26:10, we read, “He hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end.” Job 14:5: “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.” And the root for the word bound and law and statute and decree here is found when God gives his law to man in Exodus 32:16. “And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tablets.”

So to grave, to inscribe, produces God’s law. But also to grave or inscribe produces boundaries for the waters or for the life of a man. And here the reference is clearly used to say that the boundaries of the people—their walls—where those walls are to be built will be greatly expanded, as we said, really to accommodate all these new converts. That expansion will occur in tremendous portions. The boundaries will be far removed from where they currently are now. They’ll be pushed way out.

And of course, at the coming of Jesus Christ, we see the shift in the promise attached to the fifth commandment from the land that God gives you to live in, referring originally to Canaan, to now the whole earth after the coming of Jesus. Those boundaries, the decree, the fixed establishment of God’s borders for his holy, heavenly people are pushed way out.

Now, the other thing that’s important about this verse that isn’t readily apparent is the word for walls here is not the normal word used for city walls. The word walls here is very distinctly used as the term that normally applies to vineyards, not to city walls. And so the picture here again is that the garden of Eden, the vineyard of God as it were, grows to fill the whole world. Still, a small portion out there of unbelievers, but the day of gospel prosperity means that the vineyard is greatly expanded out, and the boundaries for it are moved way out.

Hengstenberg again, quoting on this set of verses, says that the whole passage then shows that God’s people are to be the magnet that draws them. As they, of course, reflect God, that is, that draws the heathen and they shall become the objects of the longing of the nations. Even the most powerful and hostile nations. And that’s the central intent of the verse.

Now, these are mighty words of assurance to us today, sitting as the people who are judged in Micah’s day were in desolation or isolation, being set apart, little tiny numbers, little enclaves of churches here and there. We’re going to go up to Seattle and have a big convocation of all of maybe 300 people. See, we’re in the period that the people of Micah’s time were when they were being judged by God’s sin. But God says that don’t focus on that. Realize that as you submit yourselves to God and are obedient to God, he then wants you to look at what’s coming down the line for you here. The light at the end of the tunnel, as it were.

And that light means you won’t be little isolated pockets of people. All of Portland will convert, essentially. There’ll still be some people that won’t, but the glory of God will fill the world. And the preaching of the gospel will once again determine the affairs of men.

Those of you who have done any study of history for the last 2,000 years know how much the scriptures have influenced the law systems that we have in most of the Western world. The historical content of what’s occurred has been in relationship to the preaching of God’s word. Economic systems, law systems, all these things were based upon God’s word self-consciously.

If you go back a couple hundred or 500 years and start scraping off the dust from the altered history books that we have, you get back there and see what really went on. You’ll know, for instance, that the English common law system was based upon the scriptures—the oral tradition and the written tradition going back to the rulings of the elders, the written tradition going back to the case law itself.

One small example point is that this is not without precedence in the past, and it should encourage us that in the future we will see the same sort of gospel prosperity, the same sort of expansion of the covenant people. All of Portland, all of Oregon essentially—all being, not taken in its literal total sense, but in the majority sense—all of Oregon will come to conversion and come within the walls of the church, which will have to be expanded to accommodate those people. And so the garden of God then grows to fill most of all the earth. Okay.

Another implication of that, of course, also is that we don’t want to look just for gospel prosperity in America. The whole world is what’s talked about here. All nations. Okay.

Secondly, God is glorified through pastures of pleasure. After saying that all these people are going to be brought into the covenant community and its blessings, he then describes the blessings that occur within the context of that vineyard in verses 14 and 15.

Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine inheritance, thy heritage which dwell solitarily in the wood in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvelous things.

So we have here a description of pastures of pleasure. It’s interesting that in all three of the sections we’ve looked at now from Micah—first, remember, in Micah 2:12, there was a couple of short verses of hope. The breaker will go out before them. The rammer, as it were, the lead of the flock. The image of the pasture and the shepherding image is seen in Micah 2:12. And the first passage relating to the end purpose of all this in Micah 4:6-8, and in chapters 5, that long section of hope and of optimism in terms of history—that section also had great references to the shepherding image in it. And now in the third great section of blessing here at the end of chapter 7, we also see the shepherding image as part of it. And so this permeates all three of Micah’s several sections of blessing to come to the people.

Let’s examine that a little bit. These are pastures of provision, pastures of food. Feed thy people. Psalm 81:16, we sang this song a couple weeks ago. Uh, one of the verses, verse 16 from Psalm 81, says, “But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” And he says, “That’s if you come to repentance.” If you go through verses 8-10 of Micah 7, he says, “I’ll feed you with the finest wheat. I’ll give you honey from the rock itself. Okay? And that’s the picture of the great pastures of provision, the pastures of pleasure that we have that God provides for us. A great place to meditate upon.

And God will bring this to pass as he will successfully bring a group of people through verses 8-10. And those people will be fed in a super abundant way from him. Now, the term used for feed here, though, is a little bit broader than just referring to food. The term is used in its most basic sense to feed domestic animals. It’s used in the scriptures to denote the feeding of, for instance, sheep, asses, cattle, and gazelle fawns. But synonyms of this term include the term shepherd, to herd, or to pasture.

The term here used was a title of kings in the countries roundabout in that particular period of time. The term is really inclusive of all the duties of the shepherd. Okay, the term feed here and its various forms of that particular Hebrew word refers to all the duties of the shepherd: the pasturing, to find the pasture, to clear the pasture of obstacles or any dangers in the pasture, to provide a fence so that the straying sheep might be restrained either through discipline or through a physical fence, and if necessary to watch out, of course, for enemies so that the pasture might be safe. And all these things are really connoted with the term feed.

Certainly referring to food, but also referring then as an implication of this to safety from enemies. The second distinctive thing given to us here then through the pasture and pleasure description in these verses from Micah 7: the rod. It says, “Feed thy people with the rod.” And again, the rod is a sign that God’s going to protect his people from their enemies. The rod is used throughout scripture. The term here for obviously relates to corporal punishment. More than that, it’s God’s rod of wrath and of grace. It’s grace to the people that he protects with that rod, and it’s wrath to the enemies that would seek to break into the flock.

And so throughout the scriptures, I could give you lots of references where the rod is used for both guiding and also punishment to protect the flock under the power and authority of the shepherd who wields that rod. And so certainly here, when God says that he’ll feed his people with his rod, we’re to expect that as in Psalm 2, the nations that would try to break into his people and hurt them will be dealt a fairly radical blow from the King of Kings. They will be shattered like earthen vessels, as it were. We had that illustration here several years ago, a couple years ago, I guess. I thought I’m not doing it again today, but at any event, the rod speaks of safety from enemies as well as feeding and pasturing of the people.

And third, I think it also relates to the discipline that he’ll exert within the flock. The rod is not just to get rid of the enemies breaking into the flock. The rod is not just the symbol of the pasture and the provision of the pasture and food by the shepherd. The rod is also a symbol that he’ll correct his own people in terms of any disputes they have one with another.

People who herd sheep, I don’t know this for a fact, but I read it and believe it, that sheep are prone to wander away from even the pleasant fields or the nice brooks that might be provided by a good shepherd. And they’ll wander away from a nice green valley and find themselves ultimately in rocky places where there’s no food and no drink. They’re that silly. And we’re that silly as well. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

The rod is used, however, by God to bring his people back and to correct them so they don’t go walking off like that. And so we have also here in the pastures of pleasure God’s discipline and chastising his people so they might be benefited by the shepherd. The rod is used then to designate—it’s interesting—the same term for rod is used to designate a tribe in the scriptures. And lots of times when you read the word tribe in the Old Testament, it’s the same word that means rod. It also, as I said, designates the ruler who has the scepter, and it also designates the way he rules over those people.

And so, when we read here to feed thy people with the rod, the rod includes then the presence of the king who’s holding that rod, the people that he rules over—the tribe—it’s specifically used in scripture, and the means whereby the king rules over those people: defending those people from outside attack, disciplining those people, and feeding those people as well.

Now, all this, of course, should bring to mind Psalm 23. Philip Keller, writing in a commentary on Psalm 23, noted that sheep need freedom from four things before they can be made to lie down. You know, he says, “It makes me to lie down in green pastures. And Keller says that sheep need freedom from four things before they’ll do that, before they’ll lie down and rest.

The four things that they need freedom from are first of all fear. If they’re fearful, they won’t lie down. Secondly, friction from others of their own kind. If they’ve got problems within the herd, they won’t lie down. Third, flies or parasites means they won’t be able to lie down—enemies as it were. And then fourth, food. If they don’t have adequate food and haven’t been fed, they won’t lie down.

And so unless sheep are free from fear, tension, aggravation, and hunger in these senses of the term, they won’t lie down. And what we’ve just gone through: God provides food, protection from enemies, both real and imagined, in our fears, okay, and also the rod of discipline to correct us when we bump up wrong against one another and to help us understand how to relate to one another in a biblical fashion. And he gives us his rule and authority in the sense of the internal community of the flock itself to resolve disputes.

God then provides safety from enemies, real and imagined, and also then safety from the crippling internal dissensions that also could occur within a flock. And so I guess what I’m saying is all these things equal down to one other description of the pasture of pleasure. And that is that it is a pasture of pleasant rest.

Rest is the end product of an understanding of God’s provision of all these things. And these are the things that God promises to people who are submissive and obedient to his will. This is what will happen. So I guess that, you know, they had that old song, “When I’m tired and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep.”

Well, you can kind of count both at the same time. And as you’re counting the sheep, meditate upon the blessings that you’re one of God’s sheep and he provides all these things for you. You remember Psalm 23 says, “In the midst of the enemies, God prepares a table for me in the presence of mine enemies.”

So we get together every Sunday and we remember that this is a day of victory. This is a day of resting in the work of Jesus Christ and recognizing that as we’re submissive and obedient to his will, and then we have the table downstairs, and God does indeed prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies, and we can rest because we know that he has provided for all these things.

All this, of course, is a picture of the victory won by Jesus Christ. We graze on food which is given to us by him, and remember each week that apart from his blessing, that food does not give life and blessing to us. It’s only in the covenant and in the covenant continuity that we have with him that we experience these things that God promises. These things to those who are submissive and obedient to his will. Okay. Pastures of pleasure.

They’re also pastures of precedence. God gives us historical precedence here to help us remember that this has come to pass in the past and it will come to pass in the future as well. Talks about Bashan and Gilead—to feed them in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old. And it’s in Numbers that I gave you the references on your outline there that these two places were known particularly for their excellent pasture lands. And so again here he gives them a picture of an actual land that had good pastures as an example of what they’ll be coming into.

Now, it’s interesting that this particular part of land had been lost by Jeroboam. Remember, Jeroboam is the one who split off the northern kingdom. He took over those areas from the people that were dwelling there at the time. But he soon lost them within a couple of decades to the Assyrians. So the Assyrians had control of Bashan and Gilead, the enemies of Israel. And then after that, the Babylonians and Persians had control of those lands.

And so what he’s doing here is he hearkens the people back to the days of Solomon when they had those areas, when they had great pastures from God. And he says that’s that happened back then. That’s a shadow of what’s going to happen in the future in the coming covenant mediator Jesus Christ. And of course, there was also a partial fulfillment in the restoration to the land in the days of Nehemiah.