Let's open our Bibles to the book of Micah, the prophet Micah, chapter five, Micah chapter five. Last Wednesday night, we looked at that prophecy that Micah makes about the birth of Christ being in Bethlehem, coming to deliver his people. And then in verse four, He goes on to speak of the Lord Jesus when he says, and he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord, his God.

They shall abide for now shall be shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be the peace. This man shall be the peace when the Assyrians shall come into our land. And when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men, and they shall waste the land of the Syria of a Syria with the sword and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof. And thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrians when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. Assyria means steps and Nimrod means rebellion.

I see in the promise that the Lord makes here a great prophecy, a great a great comfort for his people in our futile attempts to establish our own righteousness and to atone for our own sins. Whatever steps we may be tempted to make the Lord notice notice in verse in verse verse six and they shall waste the land of Syria with the sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. It's what we're doing right now. And the Lord causes us to hide God's word in our hearts.

And by the revelation that he has given us of the Lord Jesus, he causes us to waste the land of Assyria, to give up on any hope that we would have to atone for our own sins by making steps. The second part of this prophecy is that the land of Nimrod would also be destroyed by the sword. Nimrod translated means rebellion. In all our rebellion against God's holy law, in all our temptations to sin and in all our transgressions of the law, this man is our peace.

This man is our peace. When Pilate stood after the Lord was beaten to where he resembled no man. Pilate, not knowing what he was saying, brought him before the crowd and said, behold the man. Behold the man. By the sufferings and sacrifices that the Lord Jesus made on behalf of his people, we are beholding the man.

Because we're prone to go about trying to establish our own righteousness. We're prone to try to atone for our sins and our failures by thinking that we might be able to take the right steps. And the Lord tells us in these verses, by the sword of the spirit, by the word of God, you will be reminded again and again and again that there are no steps that we're able to make to satisfy God's justice or reconcile ourselves to God or atone for our sins.

Behold, this man shall be your peace. Hebrews chapter 10 likens the Lord Jesus to the priest of the Old Testament. And the writer of Hebrews says, but this man, this man, after he had offered one sacrifice forever, sat down at the right hand of God. This man. Oh, thank God. that we have a man. How much turmoil of soul our efforts to try to fix our sin problem causes. How much turmoil of soul the shame and sorrow of our rebellion causes. And in all these trials and troubles, the Lord is telling us this man will be your peace. Now notice in our text in verse four, and he shall stand and feed. Now, I don't know what you have it in the margin of your Bible. I have it in mine and I looked it up and sure enough, this word feed is the word rule, is the word rule.

The unbeliever will agree in principle, at least, that there is a God in heaven and that he possesses all power. He's omnipotent. There is a God in heaven and he possesses all knowledge. He is omniscient. He must be eternal. He must be the creator and sustainer of heaven and earth. They will, at least in principle, agree with those things. But when we speak of the sovereignty of our God, the absolute sovereignty of our God, the rule and reign of our God, the natural man will raise his fist to heaven and say, I'll not have that man reign over me.

What is it for God to be sovereign? It is that he does what he wants when he wants, where he wants, however he wants, with whomever he wants, and he asks no man, and he always does it right. The natural man will not have a God who stands and rules over them. One of the evidences of saving faith is that believers rejoice in having a God who's sovereign. A God who all by himself, without any cooperation on my part or any agreement on my part, was able to accomplish my salvation. A God who really is sovereign over all the affairs of man, God that I can rest in and have peace in even when the circumstances of my life are are confusing and hard to have to to rejoice, to be thankful, to be happy that our God is sovereign. No man makes God dependent upon the will and the works and the whims of man.

It is the delusion of the great lie that God has sent. Man has set himself up on the throne of God. What a miracle of grace, what a blessing it is. when the Lord takes us off that throne and makes us thankful that though we were greatly deceived in thinking that we were in control, now we have peace with a God who is in absolute control. What is it exactly that the Lord Jesus came to do? It's an easy question.

The angel told Joseph, you shall call his name Jesus. Jehovah saves, for he shall save his people from their sins. That's what he came to do. to save us from our sins. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, this is a faithful saying, and this saying is worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's what he came to do. First John chapter three, verse five says, and you know that he, was manifested to take away our sins. That's what he came to do.

He came to take away the penalty of sin, the wages of sin, his death. And by his own death, he satisfied God's justice and delivered us from the penalty of sin. He came in order to set us free from the power of sin. There was a time when we were unable to believe sin had such power on us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We couldn't see, we couldn't believe, we couldn't come.

And the Lord Jesus, in sending His Spirit in power and giving us life, enabled us. broke that power of sin and enabled us to believe. And now, as we walk by faith, we have this great promise, sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under the law, but you're under grace. As we are enabled by the Spirit of God to continue looking to the man who is our peace, the power of sin over and over and over again as the one that had dominion over us is broken by the dominion of Christ himself. One day we will experience the deliverance from the very presence of sin. What a day that will be.

We can't do it. We couldn't set ourselves free. We could not atone for our sins to set us free from the penalty of it. We have no real, we have no power in the flesh over sin. Paul said, I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal. My carnal flesh is sold to sin. It can't do anything but sin, because it is sinful. And surely, we will not be able to change this sinful body. This, as Paul calls it, a vile body, will not be able to change it and fashion it like unto his glorious body, according to the working which he able to subdue all things unto himself.

To take this mortal body and make it immortal. To take this corruptible body and make it incorruptible. That's what the Lord Jesus came to do. To deliver us from sin. Sin is the reason that we need a Savior. The solution or at least the potential solution for every other problem that men face in this world can be solved by fleshly means and worldly things.

We're sick, we have medicine and doctors, we're in financial distress, There's a potential for being delivered from that. Spend less, save more, maybe invest in a good investment. There's ways to get out of that. If it's a relational problem with another person, we can work through that and potentially solve those problems.

There is the potential for fixing every problem that we have in this world except for sin. Only God can forgive sin and only God can satisfy the debt that we owe him for our sin. This is why we need a savior. It's because of sin. It's the one and only thing that this world has no answer to. And it's so much deeper than just a behavioral problem. If sin was just a behavioral problem, turning over a new leaf or having a moral reformation or maybe getting religion would be helpful in changing the way that we live. We know that sin is much more than that. It's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of the flesh. It's what Paul said in Romans chapter seven when he said, in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. As as sinners saved by God's grace, and yet bearing this corruptible body and this corruptible mind, we are prone to entertain the thoughts of the Assyrians. Let's go back to our text.

Here's the promise, and he, the Lord Jesus, the one who's born in Bethlehem, shall stand. And how we hope and pray that he stands before us, and that he, yes, feeds us, but rules over us, and does it in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty in the glory.

This is not a ruling that is resisted by God's people. This is not a ruling that is responded to in slavish or cringing fear. This is a majestic ruling This is this is the ability by the Spirit of God to see the Lord Jesus seated on his throne in heaven and to rejoice in knowing that he is he is the majesty of God. He's the fullness of the Godhead. He shall stand and feed and rule in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord, his God, and they shall abide. They'll stay right there. They'll abide with the branch.

They know that unless they abide in Christ, there'll be no fruit in them. And whatever doesn't abide in Christ is cut off and cast into the fire. And yes, that's a reference to the unbeliever, but brothers and sisters, it is a reference to us as well. The wood, hay, and stubble of our own lives will be burned up by fire.

And what a good thing that is. When we look to anyone other than the man that God has made to be our peace, when we're tempted to consider steps to solve our sin problem, this man stands, and he rules in the strength and in the majesty of God, and he speaks to our hearts, and he reminds us again and again and again that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the man of peace. This is not a false peace. This is not a peace, peace that the world speaks of when there in fact is no peace. The world can find peace in their religious attempts, in their freewill decisions, in their dead works. They can find peace. They can salve their conscience for their sin problem. by making attempts to work things out with steps. But it's not so for the people of God.

When Assyria comes in, look, look at verse five. And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrians shall come into our land. They come in all the time. And when he shall tread in our palaces, he dances in the thoughts of our minds and tempts us with things that we might could do to make up for our sin.

Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men. And those shepherds will raise the sword of the spirit. It's what we're doing right now. Peter, Simon, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep and remind them, tell Israel that their God reigneth. He reigns.

And he has He has by himself put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself once and for all. And any thoughts or feelings that we might have, even the feelings of guilt and shame that come as a result of a sin, even if we think, well, I know there's nothing I can do to atone for it. Guilt can be penance, can it not? And we feel as if we can't come boldly before the throne of grace to find help in our time of need until we show God through some steps of sorrow and some steps of penance that we really, you see?

Asher, that's the father of the Assyrians. His name means steps and he creeps into our palaces and he would rob us of the peace that we have with Christ by tempting us to think that we might could figure out a way to solve this sin problem. And they shall waste the land of the Assyrians with the sword. The Lord told the children of Israel in the Old Testament, when you build an altar, an altar was a place of making sacrifice, an altar was a place of communing with God.

When you build an altar, do not put any steps on it. I think about those pyramids down in Mexico, and we've walked to the top of them, and they're very steep, and there's no way that a priest with a robe would be able to walk up those steps and make sacrifice without exposing himself to those below. And that's exactly what God says, when you make an altar, do not put steps for you will expose your nakedness.

That's all steps do. And every religion has a set of steps and it is natural for us because we still have this works mentality, don't we? We still have these thoughts that this is why we need to keep hearing the gospel because we will try to fix our own sin problem if we can. And all we do is expose our own nakedness.

This man shall be your peace. And when the Assyrians come in and tread in your palaces, I'll send some under shepherds, some principal men, and they will wield the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And those Assyrians will be driven back to their land. And you will find again and again, the man of peace. who gets all the credit and all the glory for having done all the work all by himself.

So many ways in which we try to fix our sin problem, whether it be the feelings of shame or whether it be trying to do something good to make up for something bad or, you know, it just, no. Syria. All the religions of the world have them. The only difference between one religion and another religion is what steps you have to go through in order to get to heaven. What happens? What happens when you when you can't step anymore. You can't make another step. You fall. You just fall. You fall right there in your place. Perhaps you remember the events that took place in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. when Derek Redman, he was running the 400 yard race, 400 meter, I guess it is. And he was a contender for meddling.

And about halfway through that race, he pulled his hamstring and immediately fell to the track. Of course, the rest of the runners made it to the finish line. And Derek, Redmond will never be known for having won a race. But I don't suspect that there's more videos that have been played of any other Olympic event than the one where Jim Redmond, Derrick's father, pushed his way through the guards at the track and went out to the track and took his son and got under his son's arm and walked him limping to the finish line. That's what happens when you can't take any more steps. You just fall right there. And the Lord picks us up and he takes us. He takes us to the finish line. There's plenty of biblical examples, starting in the garden. Was Adam's making of fig leaves, aprons of fig leaves to cover his nakedness, not steps on his part to try to atone for his own sin? Does our nature not go all the way back to that?

Was David's attempts to try to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba when he called him back from the battlefield? Was that not David's attempt to try to cover up his sin problem? And then when Uriah refused, David had Uriah killed in battle? And then finally, when Nathan comes to David in Psalm 51, no, David writes Psalm 51, but when Nathan comes to David and says, David, thou art the man, David's heart is smitten, but that was nine months later. And David in Psalm 51 says, thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. And you just wonder for the last nine months, how many times David went to the temple and made sacrifice. Trying to save his conscience, not just from what happened with Daseba, but what he did to Uriah and his hundred men.

You see, we do that. Thou desirest not sacrifice, else thou would give it. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, thou will not despise that. Why won't he despise it? Because it's he that gives it. He causes us to just stop taking steps and just say, I need the man of peace to deliver me from my sin problem. The Assyrians have come into the palace. Lord, I need to be delivered.

In John chapter 21, Peter makes this statement, I go a fishing. Now this was after the Lord Jesus had already sent word, tell Peter and the other disciples that I've risen. And this was after the Lord Jesus had appeared in the upper room with the disciples. And even after he had appeared with Thomas the second time, when Thomas fell at the feet of the Lord Jesus and said, thou art my Lord and my God.

And yet Peter, reflecting on what he had done, not only does he go back to his fishing profession, he figures, well, I'll just go back to what I know. Maybe if I work hard enough, I can be of some use to God, but surely I'm not going to be able to have a position in his kingdom. Peter doesn't just go by himself. Peter takes Thomas, Nathaniel and John with him. How easily influenced we are by one another when one gives the idea that there are steps that you can take to fix this problem.

And when the Lord Jesus comes to the Sea of Galilee and says, children, And the Lord was pretty much their age. And that word children means a little child. Little children. The scripture says they didn't know who he was. They didn't know it was the Lord.

Cast thy net on the right side of the boat. And they did. And Peter said, or John, John said, it's the Lord. Peter jumped in the water and swam to shore. What did Peter say? Oh, depart from me, Lord, for I'm a sinful man. You know he said that on his knees before the Lord Jesus Christ. He had finally quit taking steps, and he came as a broken man, a broken and contrite heart before the Lord Jesus.

You've got to fix this sin problem. I can't do anything about it. I can't atone for my own sins. I can't take any steps. The woman with the issue of blood had run out of steps. She had spent all that she had on physicians and was worse off now than she was before.

And that's what steps do. Anytime we try to fix our sin problem without falling before the Lord Jesus, We end up worse off than we were before. Oh, if I could just touch the hem of his garment and crawling through the crowd, she does. And the Lord says, who touched me? Virtue has gone out from me. And immediately she was cleansed. Oh, that we would quit taking steps.

Come to our wits end, come to the end of our efforts to try to fix our sin problem and fall before the Lord Jesus Christ. This man shall be your peace. One of the evidences of being a believer is that you can't find any peace in all the efforts that you make to try to fix your sin problem. The only time that you can find real peace of soul, peace of heart where you can rest is when you're able to come to Christ. Isn't that true? And yet we keep doing it. We keep doing it. We keep trying to go back to the law.

Now I know that Judas was the son of perdition and I know that he was ordained of God as a vessel fitted for destruction to what he did. Nevertheless, what did Judas do when his conscience smote him about what he had done? He ran back to the law. He ran back to those Pharisees, those lawmongers, and he thought, well, I'll just return the money. And that didn't help. And so he took the final step. Was Judas thinking that maybe I can atone for my sins if I just commit suicide? I don't know what he was thinking. I don't think there's any way to rationalize suicide. But the point is he was taking steps to try to fix his problem. And though he wasn't one of the Lords, I know that, you know that. Theoretically speaking though, in light of what we're talking about, had he come to Christ, he'd have been forgiven. He'd been forgiven.

I'm going to send seven shepherds and eight principal men. And eight is the number for grace in the Bible, by the way. It's the number for grace. And they're going to take the sword, and they're going to slay these Assyrians which have come into your palace. And they're going to remind you again and again And again, that this man shall be your peace. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 34. This is where we live, brother. This is where I live. I assume it's where you live. Exodus chapter 34, we'll read verse six.

And the Lord passed by before him. Moses is back up on the mountain of the law, and the Lord put him in a cleft of a rock. The first tablets had been broken, and now the Lord's going to write the law again. And when the Lord passed by him, he proclaimed the Lord, his own name, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, forgiving iniquity and transgression. and sin.

This word iniquity means to bend or to twist or to distort. I believe that it's a description of our self-righteousness. It's a description of our attempts to atone for our own sin. It's a description of what we do, good things that we do, in order to try to make up for the bad things. If we think in any way that we can make steps to fix our sin problem, then we are distorting, we are twisting, we are bending the truth of the law.

This word in the New Testament, iniquity, in the New Testament means to be ignorant of the law, to be ignorant of the law. Now I want to make a distinction because this is very important. Hebrews chapter one, verse nine says, the father is speaking to the Lord Jesus and he says, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. He loved righteousness. He loved the perfect obedience of God's law. That's what righteousness is. and he hated iniquity.

That is any attempt to satisfy the law of God with the works or will of man. It is to bend the law of God. It is to be ignorant of what God's law requires. Turn with me to the book of Titus. Chapter 2, verse 13. Here's the believer's hope. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous for good works. Does this mean that believers disregard good works? No. It means that when we're able by the Spirit of God and through the faith that God gives us to rest in Christ, the man of peace that God has given us, who loved righteousness and hated iniquity and has redeemed us from all our iniquity, then he puts in our hearts a willing spirit, a loving spirit to serve him and to do good works, not dead works. Iniquity is dead works. It's going about trying to establish your own righteousness.

Let's go back to our text quickly. Micah chapter five. Verse five, and this man shall be the peace when the Assyrians shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principled men, and they shall waste the land of the Assyrians with the sword and the land of Nimrod. And we just read in Exodus chapter 34 that the Lord would forgive Iniquity and transgression.

A transgression is different from iniquity. Transgression is open rebellion. That's what Nimrod's name means, rebellion. It's the disobedience. It's not just, well, we've never been able to keep God's law and we're sinful by nature. That's true. But child of God, let's be honest. How many times we found ourselves in direct conflict, in direct rebellion against what we know is right. That's transgression.

That's Nimrod. So the Lord says, I'm going to send these shepherds and these principled men with the sword of the spirit to point you to the man of peace because he's gonna deliver you from thinking that you can atone for your own sins by steps and he's gonna forgive you of your transgression and deliver you from the power of sin. How are we delivered from the power of sin? When we find ourselves drowning in the sea of rebellion and Nimrod, we do what Peter did.

Lord, save me. Lord, save me. We love God's law. We do. But the weakness of the flesh and the enticements of the pleasures of sin and the allurements of the world and the temptations of Satan all take their toll on the believer. We find ourselves in the land of Nimrod and we need the man of peace to come and deliver us from our rebellion. from our disobedience against God.

And that's the promise. That's the promise that the Lord has given to us. Closing, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Most of you are very familiar with this passage. We've looked at it over the years on several occasions, but it's just such a wonderful passage. Second Corinthians chapter 10, beginning in verse three.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. We don't try to conquer the temptations of the flesh with flesh. We don't fight fire with fire. We don't think, well, I can overcome this. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not carnal, they're not fleshly, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

When the stronghold of transgression, when the temptations of sin, when the allurements of the world take hold of our thoughts and our words and our actions, Verse five, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. This is different from iniquity.

He's gonna forgive us of iniquity. He's gonna deliver us from the Assyrians, the attempt to atone through steps for our own sin. And he's gonna deliver us from the power of the devil and the power of the flesh and the power of sin. How's he gonna do it?

He's gonna bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Is it in the believer's heart to obey the Lord? Absolutely. Absolutely. We wanna honor the Lord. We want to obey him. We want to be willing, loving children and servants of God. What do we do when everything in us is contrary to that? What do we do? We renew our dedication, our commitment, and we're back to steps now if we think that I'm going to We bring those thoughts and imaginations of rebellion against God into captivity by looking to that man of peace and his perfect obedience. He's the only one that kept God's law and it's his obedience Stand fast in the Lord. Resist the devil in the Lord. Yes, what does that mean?

Looking to Christ, the man of peace. The sword of the spirit is wielded to bring us again and again and again to faith in Christ. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for Micah, this brother who lived so many years ago and knew by experience and knew by revelation the very things that we would face in our day. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Forgive us, Lord, for trying to take steps and oh, forgive us. for our rebellion against thy law, and cause us in our iniquity and in our transgressions to look to the man who is our peace. For it's in his name we ask it, amen. 127, let's stand together.