As we were singing that, I was thinking about the message from Sunday, for whom did Christ die, and came to see more clearly, again, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. What do we change mankind to? Our kind. Okay, well. It's amazing how some of these hymns just have One thing that becomes a very big thing. Let's open our Bibles to the book of Micah. Micah, chapter one. Excuse me.

I've titled this message, Christ, the heir and glory of Israel. Christ, the heir and glory of Israel. And our text will be found in verse 15 of Micah chapter one. Yet, will I bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitants of Marishah? He shall come unto Adullam, the glory of Israel. As we read the scriptures, we always looking for those those glorious revelations of our Lord Christ. And surely, surely this is one of those. We'll go back to verse nine, if you will. For her wound is incurable, for it has come unto Judah and he has come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. Her wound is incurable.

I was thinking about the miracles that our Lord performed that are recorded in the Gospels, and I can't think of a single miracle of healing that he performed would have been something that would have healed eventually anyway. No reference of the Lord healing a broken bone. No reference of the Lord healing someone who had the flu.

Obviously, whatever our ailments are, we cry out to the Lord for his hand of strength and healing. But when we read about the miracles that the Lord performed, they were always performed on incurable diseases. Leprosy, blindness from birth, those who were halt and crippled, raising some from the dead, he performed those miracles for a reason, to show us what it is exactly he came to do. He came to heal the incurable. All those miracles speak to the incurable disease of sin that we are afflicted with from birth. And we're reminded of that woman who had an issue of blood. She went to every physician that she could find, and she was worse off after having tried to find some healing for her disease until she was able to touch the hem of the master's garment and virtue went out from him. Our Lord came to cure the incurable.

If the problem that we have with sin was just bad behavior, if the problem that we have with sin was just behavior that had turned into an addiction, those diseases are curable by men. They are. People get religion and they change the way they live, they turn over a new leaf, they get serious about therapy and fix their behavioral problems or people just get sick and tired of being sick and tired and figure out a way to change the way they're living so that they can do better and be better. No, behavioral problems are not what are incurable. What's incurable is the disease of sin. Do we need to be saved from the From the power of sin, yes. Do we need to be saved ultimately from the very presence of sin? Yes. But we need to be saved from the penalty of sin. We need to be saved, yes, from sin and from Satan and from ourselves.

Those are powerful enemies that we have no strength against. But ultimately, we need to be saved from the wrath that is to come. We need to be saved from the judgment of God. We need to have that which we can do nothing about, that incurable disease of sin. We need it to be put away. We need God to be satisfied with a sacrifice that will satisfy his justice and put that incurable disease away. Her wound is incurable.

And so in verse 10, the Lord tells those who have this incurable disease, declare ye it not at Gath, and weep ye not at all in the house of Aphra. roll thyself in the dust. Now, Gath, you remember, was a Philistine city that Goliath was from. Now, the judgment that the Lord has already pronounced is that the Babylonians are going to come in and take over, and they're going to take all the people off into captivity. And, of course, the temptation would be to find some some support from neighboring tribes or nations or armies that would help defend you against this powerful force.

What the Lord is saying to me and you in this text is your problem is not Babylon. You know, we live in this Babylonian world, this godless world, and we are exiled in Babylon in a spiritual sense for three score and 10 years. We live in Babylon. That picture of Babylon goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel and goes all the way to the destruction of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. It's the world in which we live. Well, the Lord's saying to me and you is our problem is not Babylon. Our problem is not going to be solved by trying to garner support from other nations to battle against this force that's going to come in. Our problem is with God.

He's saying to the children of Israel, don't go to Gath. Don't try to get support from them. Don't, weep not in the house of Aphra, Aphra, Aphra means house of dust. Don't go to them, they can't help you, they're made of dust just like you are. None of them by any means, Psalm 149 verse seven, none of them by any means can redeem his brother nor can give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their soul is precious.

The Lord says, we have an incurable disease, and if we go to try to find help from man with this problem, they're not gonna be able to redeem us from God. Can one man help another man to order his life a little better? Perhaps, perhaps he can. And we ought to try to encourage one another to that end. But can one man in any way provide a ransom for this incurable disease that we have and deliver us from the wrath that is to come? And the Lord's saying no, he can't, don't go there. Don't go there to try to solve the problem.

And then in verses 11 through verse 14, different cities of Judah and Israel are identified. And what the Lord's saying through Micah to the children of Israel, don't think that gathering together all the different cities and all the different tribes is gonna provide for you the defense that you need against this army because your problem is not really with Babylon, your problem is with me. I'm the one that's sending Babylon and no effort on your part and no support that you have giving to one another is going to deliver you from this judgment. Turn with me to Psalm 146, Psalm 146. Look at verse, look at verse three. Psalm 146, put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth. He's dust. It's dust going to dust, trying to find deliverance. In that very day, his thoughts perish.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord, our God. Man can help us. Every man at his very best state is altogether vanity. And no man can deliver us from this incurable disease. They are all just as powerless as we are. There is one God and one mediator between God and man. the man, Christ Jesus. So here's the message for us, brethren. The Lord is reminding us that we've got an incurable disease. Babylon can't help us. The world can't help us. And even the people of God from other cities in Judah and Israel, they really can't help us. Not with this problem.

And then comes the word of hope. Again, verse 15, yet, yet. In spite of the fact that no man can redeem another, in spite of the fact that we have a God with whom we must do, and that only God can deliver us from God, Yet, will I bring an heir unto thee? Will I bring an heir unto thee? There must be an heir, a promised heir, not an heir that is the works of man's flesh like like Abraham and Sarah tried to produce with Hagar and produced Ishmael.

The first time air is mentioned in the scriptures is in Genesis chapter 15. Turn with me there. Genesis chapter 15. Yet I will send them an air. Here will you be delivered. Here you will find your hope. Here you will find your rest. In the air, not in the Philistines, not in Gath, not in men of dust, but in the air that I will send.

Genesis chapter 12, God calls Abraham, Abram, out of the Ur of the Chaldees. Genesis chapter 13 and 14, we have the story of the battle of the kings, and Abraham delivering Lot, and Lot going, dividing the land. And then chapter 15, we have that the story of, well, here it is, let's read it together, chapter 15. After these things, after the battle of the kings, after these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, and thine exceeding great reward. Now, the Lord, chapter 14, also we have the story of Melchizedek at the end of that chapter. And now the Lord's gonna speak to Abram and tell him not to be afraid. I'm your shield, I'm your defender, and I am your exceeding great reward. And Abram said, verse two, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eleazar of Damascus? All I have, I don't have any children. I'm up in age.

All that's in my house is this servant, Eleazar. Is he the one that's going to inherit everything? And Abram said, behold, to me thou hast given no seed. And lo, one born in my house, This Eleazar is who he's referring to here. Is he gonna be my heir? This is the first time we have the word heir in the scripture. Is the Eleazar going to be the heir of the promise that God made to Abraham? In verse four, and behold, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

Time goes on. Nothing happens. Abraham is up in years now, and he and Sarah get the idea that God needs help. God can't do this without our participation. And so you go into my handmaiden, Hagar, That will become your heir. And Ishmael is born as a child of the flesh. And Ishmael is now 14 years old. Abraham loves Ishmael. Ishmael has been raised by Abraham. He's been taught by Abraham. But Isaac now, the child of promise, has been born.

And we read in chapter 21, verse 9, and Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Ishmael is a teenage boy, and he is mocking, as often teenage boys will do, Isaac. Wherefore, Sarah said unto Abraham, cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous unto Abraham's sight because of his son.

Now turn together to Galatians chapter four, the Lord interprets this event for us. In Galatians chapter 4, verse 22, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman and the other by a free woman. And he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh.

It was Abraham and Sarah's plan to help God fulfill his promise to give them an heir. The heir would come through Isaac. And we know that Isaac is a type of Christ. Most clearly seen when Abraham took Isaac up to the mountain, take thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest. And Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac on that altar, showing us what the father did in his love to lay down the life of his son for the redemption of his people. Sarah's 90 years old. Abraham's 100 years old. It's a miraculous birth. But Ishmael thinks he's somebody. Bondwoman is a picture of not a promised heir, but an heir that was produced by the flesh.

Verse 24, which things are an allegory? For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. So now the Lord's telling us this story of Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael and Isaac is a picture of the two covenants. One, a covenant of works. One, a covenant of law. One, a covenant of flesh. an heir of promise, a miraculous birth.

And this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with their children. So Jerusalem was in bondage to the law. Jerusalem was trying to, the Pharisees were promoting a works gospel, just like the religion today is, is a covenant of works. If you do this, if you put your hand to it, if you bring your faith and your repentance and your works, then God will reward you with an heir and you'll have the promise of salvation, putting your hand to it. Verse 26, but Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all.

For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not. We couldn't bear a child, but he's telling us to rejoice, that bearest not. Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for desolate hath for the desolate have many more children than she, which hath a husband.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that is born after the spirit, even so it is now. He that has something to Ishmael thought he had something to be proud of. He was the eldest child. He was the child of Abraham, and he mocked young Isaac.

Nevertheless, verse 30, what sayeth the scriptures? And we just read this in Genesis 21. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Now, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 1. Look at verse 2.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, verse one, spake in the times past unto our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. God has appointed the Lord Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son, the heir. who gets it all.

Now, in Romans chapter eight, the church is called a joint heir with Christ. If a man only has one son and all of his possessions go to that one son, what is the only opportunity for anyone else to enjoy the benefits of those possessions? To be the wife of that son. to be married to that son. The only way anyone else could have access to the wealth of the father, if there's only one son, is to be married to that son. He has appointed him heir of all things. Matthew chapter 21.

The Lord gives a parable of a owner of a vineyard who leases that vineyard out to husbandmen and expects profits to be sent to him. And the profits don't come when it's harvest time. And so the owner of the vineyard sends his servants to get the profits and they beat the servants and the servants come back. And so the owner of the vineyard says, I'll send my son. Surely they'll respect him. And when the husbandman saw the son coming, they said, this is the heir. Let us kill him that we might have his inheritance.

Now that is exactly what the bond woman does. That's exactly what the child of the flesh does. That's exactly what the thieves and the robbers that try to come in some other way than by Christ It's a works gospel. It's trying to cure this incurable disease with the arm of flesh. And that's where this whole story meets the gospel for you and me.

The Lord's saying the Babylonians are coming in, but your problem's not with them, your problem's with me. You have an incurable disease. Don't go to Gath. Don't go to men of the dust. And don't try to rally the forces thinking that you're going to defeat the enemy. You have a problem with me.

Yet. In spite of. Here's your one window of hope. Here is the one way of salvation. Go back with me to our text, verse 15. Yet will I bring an heir unto thee. Don't try to produce an heir by the works of the flesh. Don't try to solve this incurable disease with the help of man. I'm going to bring an heir.

And I'm going to give him everything. He's going to possess it all. All salvation will be found in him. All blessings will be found in him. The fulfillment of all the promises of God will be found in him. And your hope will be to be found in him, in him.

I will bring in air, O inhabitants of Mirashah. Mirashah is a little hill, that's the translation of Mirashah. I'm gonna put my king upon my holy mountain of Zion, Jerusalem is called, it says, built on a mountain, but it's, I mean, as mountains go, that's not much of a mountain. It's more of a little hill, kind of like Mount Dora up the road, you know. But God calls it a mountain.

And he calls all the churches, these mirashas, these little hills that are here and there, and that's where my presence is going to be. That's where Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him. And more importantly, that's where the Lord Jesus went to the cross at Mount Zion. And so he says, I will bring an heir unto thee. Here's your hope. You won't find hope anywhere else, but oh, what hope you will find here. I will bring an heir, an only heir, unto thee, O inhabitants of Mirashah. Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy presence? Who's going to be able to stand on Mount Zion? Who's going to be able to stand in the presence of God? And the Lord answers the question.

He that hath clean hands, that means he's Hands of the works are our works. You put your hand to the altar, you defile the altar. Put your hand to the sacrifice, you defile the sacrifice. Here's where, and our Lord was wounded for our transgressions. Those spikes were placed in his hands in order to show that the sinfulness of our flesh has been put away by the sacrifice that Christ made. He that hath clean hands. How am I gonna have a clean hand?

I'm gonna have to be found in him, the air. I'm gonna have to be found in Christ. And he's that hath a pure heart and has not lifted up his soul under vanity or spoke or has spoken or sworn deceitfully, never made a promise he didn't fulfill. That's who can stand in my presence. One who never made a promise that he didn't keep One who never had a thought in his heart that was deceitful. One who has clean hands. That's who's gonna stand in my presence. Who will stand at his holy hill? Well, we know who that describes. And that's what our Lord's telling us through the prophet Micah. This is a gospel story for you and me.

Yet, in spite of the fact that you have this incurable disease, in spite of the fact that you can't find any help anywhere else, yet I will bring an heir unto you, O inhabitants of Merishah, and he shall come unto a dulem. He shall come unto a dulem, the glory of Israel.

Now quickly turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 22. 1 Samuel 22. Adullam translated means justice. Justice. If God's, if this incurable disease and this And this problem that we have with God, not with Babylon, not with the other enemies, but with God himself, is going to be cured. Then number one, we have to have an heir. But number two, the heir can't speak for us unless the justice of God is satisfied. Justice has to be satisfied.

Now, David is fleeing from Saul. And Saul's out to kill him out of jealousy, just like Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael persecuting the child of promise. And it goes all the way back to, I mean, it continues in every relationship. Oh, this is the story of Saul. And David, Saul's jealous of David. God has chosen David. God has taken his hand off of Saul. Saul is determined to get rid of David so that he can be the heir of the throne. Still the same story, isn't it? It's told over and over again.

And so David flees to the cave of Adullam. We just read in Micah, I'm going to send an heir And he's going to bring a Dulem, which is the glory of Israel. And here we have David in 1 Samuel chapter 22. David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of a Dulem. And when his brethren and all his family and all of his father's house heard it, they went down Now notice who goes down to him, his brethren and those that are of his father's house. David is a picture of Christ going to the cross. The Lord Jesus goes to satisfy God's justice by making himself a ransom. We can't find a ransom in another man. We have our ransom in the air. And all of his brethren, and all that are of his father's house, come to a dulem. And notice the description of these that come to a dulem.

And everyone that was in distress, in distress, that means they had no place else to go. They were, as we would say, between a rock and a hard place. They had no one to go to but David. It wasn't a choice. They were pressed into that place where they had to go to a dulem to be with David. They that were in distress and everyone that was in debt, these men had a debt they could not pay. And David promised to deliver them.

You and I have a debt to God that we absolutely cannot pay all eternity. would not be sufficient to satisfy the justice of God. That's why hell is eternal. Hell is eternal because all the punishment of hell will not be sufficient to satisfy what God requires for the punishment of sin. And so we have a debt we can't pay. Even if we tried to pay it, all eternity would not be sufficient to pay the debt that we have. and everyone that was discontented.

Now this word discontented doesn't mean that they just weren't happy with their circumstances. In the margin of my Bible, the word discontented is translated bitterness of soul. They could find no rest. They could not find no peace. They went here and there trying to pay their debts and try to get themselves out of this distress. like the Ethiopian eunuch who traveled all the way up from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, thinking that the God of the Jews would be the right, would be the true God, and yet left with no hope. And going back home on the road in Gaza, God sends a preacher, preaches to him the Lord Jesus, and he believes. but desperately trying to find the woman with the issue of blood, desperately trying to find hope. They were discontented. They were in bitterness of soul.

They couldn't find any rest. They couldn't find any, they had an incurable disease and they couldn't solve it. Oh, they've tried turning over a new leaf. They've tried all the counseling and all the help of the Philistines and all the help of the other men of Judah and Israel. They couldn't find any relief from this problem that they have with none other than God himself.

And God says to them, be of good cheer. I will bring unto thee an heir. an heir, O inhabitants of Mirashah, and he is going to come unto a dulem. He's going to go to the cross. And that cross, notice the wording in your text, in Micah chapter 1 verse 15. He shall come unto a dulem, the glory of Israel. Yes, he will be the glory of Israel, What he does at Adullam will be the glory of Israel. Paul said, I will glory in the cross of Christ. He is our glory.

And what he did at Adullam in satisfying the justice of God is the only hope that I have for this incurable disease. Any other problems that I might have, I can find a way around them or fix them one way or the other. All the problems we have in this world will ultimately be solved either by money or by time. What a blessing it is when the Holy Spirit shows us that we have a problem that no amount of money nor an eternity of time can solve. We have an incurable disease and we have a God who demands an heir and who has provided an heir.

We have a God who demands justice and he has provided justice. And though Babylon is here and we're in the midst of it, and we can find no help in Gath, nor among all the Children of Israel, God says, I will bring an heir unto the inhabitants of Maryshah, those who are on my hill, and he shall come unto Adulam, the glory of Israel. And notice verse 16.

You know, baldness in the Old Testament is a picture of shame and repentance, kind of like the sackcloth and ashes. That's what it's a picture of. I think it was Jeremiah that shaved his head bald in order to show, or Ezekiel, I can't remember, shaved his head bald in order to show repentance and shame and sorrow for the sins of Israel. Make thee bald. and pull thee for thy delicate children, enlarge thy baldness as the eagle, for they are gone into the captivity from thee.

I believe what the Lord's telling us there is the posture that we come before him in is a posture of of repentance, it's a posture of faith, it's a posture of humility, it's a posture of submission. Blessed are they who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they that mourn, mourn for their sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, the heir and the glory of Israel. What a savior.

Our heavenly father, thank you for sending your son to be our heir and to go into a dulem to satisfy your justice. Lord, might we glory in the glory of the cross. Lord, might we be always in a posture of humility before the we asked Lord that your Holy Spirit would remind us of the things that we've heard and seen as we walk through this land of Babylon. Lord, Remind us of your grace and of your promises in Christ. For it's in his name we pray, amen. 256, let's stand together, 256.