This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 23, 1995.
This morning we are beginning our scripture reading in the prophecy of Micah. This is Micah chapter 4, and we are starting our reading at verse 9. This is Micah chapter 4, verse 9. I will be reading this morning from the New American Standard Version. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s word. Now why do you cry out loudly? Is there no king among you? Or has your counselor perished, that agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth?
Rise and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth, for now you will go out of the city, dwell in the field, and go to Babylon. There you will be rescued, there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemy. And now many nations have been assembled against you, who say, let her be polluted, and let our eyes gloat over Zion. But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord, and they do not understand his purpose, for he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor. Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, for your horn I will make iron, and your hoofs I will make bronze, that you may pulverize many people. that I may devote to the Lord their unjust gain and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth. Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of troops. They have laid siege against us with a rod that they will smite the judge of Israel on the cheek.
But as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel, his goings forth from long ago, from the days of eternity. Therefore he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor has born a child. Then the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel, and he will arise and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they will remain. because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth, and this one will be our peace.
And then turning over to Habakkuk, chapter 2, beginning at verse 2, Then the Lord answered me and said, Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it carries wait for it, for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. but the righteous will live by his faith.
Grant, almighty God, that we may be illuminated by thy word. so as to understand how great and how grievous is our poverty, but also so as to understand how great and glorious are the riches that belong to your eternal kingdom, and understand afresh that we who have been born again are to be carried above all the heavens because we have been made partakers of that eternal life which thine only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, has purchased for us by his own blood. Amen.
About a hundred years before Habakkuk prophesied to Judah, at the end of the 600s B.C., Micah had lived and prophesied to the very same nation. Micah’s prophecy is the kind of prophecy that has become an interpreter’s nightmare. This may, in fact, be its distinctive feature. And that’s probably why you don’t hear extended series of messages on the prophecy of Micah, because it is very difficult to get from one end of that prophecy to the other. And the reason for that is because This prophecy is riddled by sudden shifts in direction, that is, radical changes in tone and mood.
The question has been asked, therefore, how is it that this prophet Micah, one moment, is speaking so severely about the sins of the people and God’s impending judgment, and the very next moment he’s speaking so brightly, so blissfully, so optimistically, so confidently about the coming salvation from the Lord. For example, we have one of the most difficult passages in this regard set before us, from our reading this morning, the end of Micah 4, particularly verses 9 through 13.
Now I’m asking you to pay close attention as we go through this, because it will be imperative that you keep up in order to understand the development and the possibilities of this text. Look at verse 9 first of all, then. At first glance, it comes across quite positively. It’s very upbeat. It sounds like a typical prophet’s message of hope, coming to a despairing people who are faced with great danger. The prophet tells them that they have no reason to wail, to lament, to cry out.
After all, he goes on, do they not have a king among them? And particularly, do they not have a descendant of David upon their throne? And more, Do they not have a counselor, possibly a reference to the high priest, whose services are performed in the temple in Jerusalem? Or possibly a sage, or a popular prophet of the day, living and ministering among them? Why, then, are these people fearful, gripped in agony like a woman in labor?
But now notice the progression as we move to the next verse. Having told them in verse 9 that these people have no reason to fear, to cry out in lament, the prophet seems to go on then in verse 10 to suggest to them that they have every reason to fear, to cry out, and to lament. And you will note that he uses the very same image as you move from verse 9 to verse 10, the woman in birth tents. The prophet here then in verse 10 says that like a woman giving birth, the people will suffer in deportation They will even undergo the extremities, as if through death itself, out of the city of Jerusalem, into the fields, off to Babylon, only there in exile, and through this passage of death, will they know redemption. But before you can catch your breath, the Prophet then, after verse 10, seems to reverse himself once again.
Verses 11 through 13 once more strike the positive note that we discerned in verse 9. Jerusalem’s present difficulty is merely an outworking of God’s remarkable plan. You may want to recall at this point what Jerusalem’s present difficulty was. At the end of the eighth century, you may recall, the ten northern tribes of Israel had been destroyed by the invading Assyrians, and then the Assyrians set their sights upon Jerusalem and swept into Judah and laid siege to the great city. That’s the situation. But as you look at verses 11 through 13 now, you hear in them a positive note.
Jerusalem’s present difficulty, having been laid siege against by Sennacherib and the Assyrians, is merely the outworking of God’s remarkable plan. These nations of Syria, with the hosts that are hers in entourage, these nations are being gathered, thinking that they will gloat over Jerusalem’s misfortune, when in actual fact they are being assembled by God in order to be threshed by Him. that the people are being told that despite the distress, they are to perceive in this distress Zion’s greatest moment. For Zion’s horsemen will ride steeds with iron and bronze hooves. They will grind their enemies to dust. Their king will make offerings to the Lord of the plunder gained from the victory.
So you have here, back and forth, it seems, as you go through these verses at the end of Micah 4, messages about incomparable blessing mingled with messages about impending judgment, good and bad news, etc. But the mixture of these messages, though Despite what we might find in other prophecies, the mixture of these messages here in Micah seems too abrupt and too forced, so much so that in the minds of some they have contended that we don’t have here a single prophecy, a unit of prophecy moving from the beginning of Micah to the conclusion, but rather we have a composition of more than one prophecy. speaking from more than one turn, brought together.
This has been the conclusion of the liberal and the modernist approach that is determined to set, to pit Scripture against Scripture, as if there is inherent contradiction, and thus the Scriptures are not to be relied upon. conservative and orthodox interpreters, when faced with this strain within Micah, have maintained, have attempted to maintain, that what we have here is merely the alteration, the alteration of messages, from weal to woe, from blessing to cursing, and that consistent with what we find in other prophecies throughout the Old Testament. The prophecy of Micah, therefore, holds together in this common two-fold fashion and pattern. But this has left a number, yes, even of conservative and orthodox interpreters, very uncomfortable, because they think, they perceive, that the internal strain to Micah is just too great. And such an approach leaves them dissatisfied. thus forcing them on to a new proposing.
What if the alternating pattern in Micah, that we find here specifically at the end of Micah 4, is because the prophet Micah is actually recording a dispute that he is having, a debate that he is having with other religious figures in Jerusalem at the time. A debate between himself, a true prophet of God, and the company, bureaucratic, party-line, official, paid for favorable prophecies, the company of false prophets that populate the prophetic population. of Jerusalem. The false prophets of Micah’s day preached the message of Jewish invincibility. Jerusalem was impregnable. Her walls could not be breached. That was the official line. And why? Because God was committed to Jerusalem, and he would not let ultimate misfortune overtake him.
False prophets of Micah’s day may surprise you. They don’t use the language of idolatry. They’re not in the habit of invoking the names of idol gods. In fact, they’re very much in the habit of invoking the name of Jehovah, and only the name of Jehovah. They speak in the name of the covenant god, and their religious vocabulary is filled with those references to God’s covenantal dealings throughout the history of his dealings with his people.
But the false prophets, you see, presume upon God, His person, and His promises. They presume upon promises made to Abraham. They presume upon promises made to David. They presume upon promises made with respect to the sanctuary, the temple, and the service of worship that was being performed there. Thus we have, in verse 9, not the voice of Micah, but the voice of the false prophets.
The false prophets saying, there’s no reason for you to wail, there’s no reason for you to be extraordinarily concerned, you have the promises of God, you have the covenant, you have the guarantees with respect to this city, and with respect to the sanctuary of God at his temple.
But Micah, the true prophet of God, responds then in verse 10, and that in language which marks the vain and twisted confidence of these false prophets, despite all of their covenantal references and supposed certainties. In effect, Micah challenges these false theologians by telling them that they and the nation, that they revere and think that is completely beyond any possibility of being lost whatsoever, will in fact be lost. That’s verse 10. But having recorded his own message then, the false prophets come back on Micah with their own message, verses 11 through 13. And here they attempt to bury Micah with a rousing, uplifting message about God’s purpose in assembling the nations at Jerusalem’s gates. They have come not to conquer Jerusalem, but to be crushed by Jerusalem and by David’s invincible descendants. Micah’s response to this starts up again in chapter 5, verse 1.
Micah here tells the false prophets that David’s present descendant will not break the heads of his enemies, but rather he will be one who is smitten upon his chief. One cannot imagine a greater humiliation for a world ruler to actually be slapped across the face. Can you imagine someone doing that to the President of the United States? Think of this one who sits upon the throne of David, being slapped across the face. So Micah comes back at the beginning of chapter 5, speaking out against the pretensions of the false prophets. It can’t happen here. It won’t happen to our king. It’s impossible.
Micah underscores it by his own prophecy that this one who sits upon David’s throne will in fact be stricken. He will be made to suffer deep humiliation, and through him the nation also will suffer that humiliation. However, Micah lets it be known as the prophetic juices are really flowing now. Micah 5 verse 2, as if that word about the smitten cheek of Israel’s judge had triggered in him the most profound prophetic impulse. Israel’s true king, Judah’s magnificent deliverer, will not be stricken unwillingly, but will take to himself humiliation, even giving himself over to obscure beginnings. Even though he is from eternity, he will come to the least of the villages of Judah, to Bethlehem.
This one who was first will make himself last, and it will be by that route that he is made first again. You must go through humiliation in order to see exaltation. You must go through death in order to see life. That’s the lesson. That message has no part in the theology of the false prophets of Israel. They have no room for humiliation. They have no room for suffering. They have no room for death. glory must be ours by right.” What kind of a God is it, anyway, that makes his people pass through such?
What follows to the end of Micah 5 his mighty relentless assault upon the message of the false shepherds of Israel, as he takes their message that precludes suffering and even denies it, and turns it into the only means of advance and life. from the Assyrian invasion, verses 5 and 6, to the exile, verses 7 through 9, to the inevitable purgation and devastation of the nations, verses 10 through 15.
God causes His advance through the sufferings of His people, but most particularly and especially through that willing suffering and humiliation of Judah’s greatest son. the one whose birth is spoken of in verse 2. So we see after this exercise that Micah’s prophecy is no easy matter. It is a complicated enterprise, but it is even more complicated still, because it is made much more complex by the turn of events that came about at the end of Micah’s ministry. You see, the distress had indeed been severe for Judah and Jerusalem during Micah’s ministry.
At the time of the Assyrian siege, the king had indeed suffered greatly, as had the people. But as you know, the nation survived. It survived that ordeal. Assyria, by the workings of God, not because of the workings of the Judeans, Assyria itself was made to retreat as if it were a defeated army. to recoil from the walls and the gates of Jerusalem. And Judah as a nation, with its throne, was there. But now are you able to perceive, are you able to get inside of the minds of these people as this turn of events takes place? Yes, suffering came, but it didn’t last. Death knocked on the door, that it didn’t come in.
And very likely, the people, as a consequence, began to reassess Micah’s message. In light of that which had transpired, the popular theology began to arise. It relaxed the message of judgment and allowed itself to be influenced, however unwillingly, by portions of the false prophet’s message. And as a result, over the next 100 years, as we make our way to the time of Habakkuk, to the time when the Assyrians will no longer be the threat, but rather the Babylonians, the popular sentiment grew that God would not allow Israel to die, that God might well bring his judgments to be sure that those judgments must be read only as a chastisement, only as a correction.
We did not die in Micah’s day, and we are not going to die now. In fact, we can go back to Micah’s prophecy, reading it wrongly, and come to that very conclusion. Popular theology, therefore, became convinced that God would not—no, let’s go even further, let’s make it even stronger—God could not. Think of that. God could not, it was impossible for God to let Israel die. And that because such an event would be a denial for God of his very nature and a contradiction to his very being. That’s what they thought.
Now in this theology we can hear the sounds of the covenant. God’s faithfulness to his people, his promises. Yes, they’re yea and amen. But we can also hear in this theology the echoes of the false prophets and their presumption, their arrogance, even going so far to say what is possible for God and what is not. Judah, having survived the Assyrian onslaught in the days of Micah, now adjusts its theology in the days of Habakkuk. And it has been my contention that even Habakkuk himself has voiced and embraced that theology.
He gives expression to it in its most sanitized form in his first chapter. Now, it can be debated as to exactly where he begins to express this deformed theology, but it may well be with the last lines of verse eleven. Now, you know this section, verses 5 through 11 in Habakkuk 1, are thought to be, as a unit, the statement by God in response to Habakkuk’s complaint, uttered in verses 2 through 4. But as you come to the end of verse 11, you find a very interesting sentence.
And one has to wonder whether this is the voice of God or it’s the voice of Habakkuk. his own conclusions as to what God has said, but they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their God.” This is his commentary, I believe. The Chaldeans, the Babylonians, are coming. They are coming to judge. Habakkuk shores himself up with this confidence this conviction, but they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their God.” Then, for the next verse and a half, Habakkuk delivers to God the official popular theology of Judah. Why, you’re the everlasting God, are you not? And that fact guarantees, does it not, an everlasting existence for national Israel.
The judgments that are coming, therefore, from the Babylonians to us can only be merely slaps upon the wrist. But Habakkuk’s response from that point on, from the latter part of verse 13, proves that this prophet has been fairly unsettled by the ominous threat of Babylon on the horizon. Indeed, after boldly declaring in verse 12, we will not die, hear him in this, we will not die. It seems that as Habakkuk progresses in his description and in his response to God, he is faced with the fact that that which he thinks is impossible is in fact possible, that death itself does fall.
Yes. God’s answer to Habakkuk will be that only through death, through the loss of everything, will life be found. And as you move into that second chapter, only he who is righteous by faith will live. Do you grab hold now of the significance of justifying faith? Justifying faith is the kind of faith that actually has the capability of penetrating death. Justifying faith so relies upon God that it is actually capable of grasping life beyond death. And that was certain. Now, I don’t know about your concerns. You may be worried about your budget. You may be worried about your marriage, where your kids are going to go to college, how you’re going to pay for it. You may be worried about tomorrow.
And you may be supremely indifferent, at least externally, about the issues of death. And you may put on a very good front. You may walk around very confidently. Death will not touch me. I’m fine in the face of it. If I probe your conscience, if I get inside your mind, I’m confident that when we start talking about death, we are talking about the thing that you know in the very depths of your heart to be the most important thing. There can hardly be a subject greater.
Justifying faith answers death, and it resolves your fears. Because it belongs to justifying faith, to penetrate death, and to grasp the life that is beyond. That’s what justifying faith does. And be assured that even this act of justified faith is not your work, it is the work of God in you, and even for this you must give him thanks and praise. It is so beautifully worked out, you know, in Jesus himself. For before you had justifying faith, Jesus had justifying faith. And with that faith in his Father, he reached beyond death itself to such an extent that he was able to say, at the moment of death, into thy hands, I commit my spirit.
Well, what of you? Life’s greatest question is death. How are you answering it? May it be that you answer it as Micah the prophet. as Habakkuk after him, as Jesus himself in whom you trust. Be with us, O God, be with each one of us, For father, it may well be that there are some here who are terrified by death and its prospect. There may be others who content themselves that they’re not worried about it at all, and that vainly, conceitedly. Yet you, O father, have taken the greatest issue and made it your own, and brought resolution to it through the death of your son, who in his death reaches out beyond death to grasp life by committing himself to you and entrusting himself to his faithful father. O Lord, we ask that we then would know the full and beautiful content of this justifying faith which you give as a gift of your gospel. May we, each one, know this justifying faith, and that one to whom that faith binds us. We pray it through him, apart from whom there is no hope
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