Micah chapter 5, we're going
to look at the first seven verses. I'm going to read the first seven
verses and then we'll take a look together. Micah chapter 5, starting
in verse 1. Now gather thyself in troops,
O daughter of troops. He hath laid siege against us.
They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem, Ephrathah,
Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee shall he come forth unto me, that is, to be ruler in Israel,
whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up
until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth.
Then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children
of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in
the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the
Lord his God, and they shall abide for now shall he be great
unto the ends of the earth. 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 rise up against
him seven shepherds and eight principal men. And they shall
waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod,
and the entrances thereof. Thus shall he deliver us from
the Assyrian, 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 they do from the Lord, as
the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for men, nor waiteth
for the sons of men. Now, Obviously, these passages refer
to the Messiah. In verse 2, this is prophesied,
or this is the prophecy of the Lord's birth, coming out of Bethlehem,
Ephrathah, Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me. to be the ruler
in Israel. And that's why the scribes and
Pharisees, they knew the Scripture. And then when the wise men asked
them, they said, well, out of Bethlehem or go here. They were
looking for a ruler, a governmental ruler. They were tired of the
Romanist bondage, that it should be a ruler in Israel. They didn't
understand he was talking spiritual. They thought, well, he's going
to come and conquer and we're going to be saved. I read somewhere this week, it
was J.C. Rowles, on the death of Christ
towards the end of the Gospels. He said, we do great disservice
when we expect physical redemption. The Jews, they were disappointed
that Christ had died. I remember the two on the road
to Emmaus, they said, we thought He was going to be the one that
was going to save Israel. They didn't understand salvation
was a spiritual thing. And I thought to myself, that's
prevalent in our country today. We do err when we look for a
physical redemption because we're not of this world. It's a spiritual
redemption. That's what we're concerned with.
We're concerned, yes, you have good neighbors, good friends,
good family members, friends, and it's nice to have that, but
we are not concerned about physical redemption. We're concerned for
their spiritual redemption. That's why we preach Christ.
So, we're going to look at verse 5 specifically. So when it says,
"...and this man..." Now, that word, man, is in italics. So, it's not in the original,
but it's supplied to us for better understanding. And you say, well,
who's this man? You've got to keep it in context.
You go up to verse 2 and it's speaking of the Messiah. 3, the
Messiah. 4, the Messiah. So, 5, this man. is the Messiah. Yet, by the Holy
Spirit guiding us into all truth, we only need to keep the verse
in context with the chapter. Better yet, as I said, look at
verses 2 through 4, and He's speaking of the Incarnation as
in the Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no misunderstanding
who this is speaking of in verse 5. It's Christ Jesus is this
man. And look at how it's worded,
this man shall be not a peace, not a peace occasionally, the
peace. And if there's anything that
sinners need in this country, that's upside down. In another
country, that's upside down. Any country that's upside down,
if there's anything any sinner needs, it's to have the peace
that God gives through Christ that passes anything we can imagine. So this man, this Christ, shall
be the peace. When? When the Assyrian shall
come into our land." Now again, you can't take this literally
because Assyrians never invaded Jerusalem or entered in Jerusalem
from the time of Christ after. So again, we take it in context. It's prophecy, biblical not literally,
for keeping it in prophetical context, the Assyrians never
entered Jerusalem after the birth of Christ. So, we can look at
this name as it is an adversary. An adversary. An enemy of the
church in general. As we noted throughout Scripture,
the name Egypt or the name Babylon indicates the enemies, they represent
the enemies of His truth, of His people, of His church. And Babylon also means the false. It's a false gospel. But these
are all enemies of grace. So let's view some Assyrians
that we deal with in the scope of saving grace and living by
faith upon the Son of God. So we go back to our text in
verse 5. This man, there's the key. He's always the key. Always
the key. This man shall be the peace when
the Assyrian shall come into our land." Now, do you need peace? When there's nothing wrong, nothing
going on, everything is fine, bills are paid, the economy is
humming right along, everything is going great at work, children
are behaving, everything is going fine. That's a real dangerous
time. Because usually that's when we
go astray. Usually when we have everything
we need, everything we could want, that's when we go astray. That's human nature. That's what
we do. So let's look at these several
Assyrians in the believer's life. Because this is when peace comes.
The first thing I'd like to look at is the Law of God. Ezekiel
18 says, verse 20, "...the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
It shall die. That's the edict. That's the
verdict. That's the judgment against us from birth. Romans
10, we cannot keep the law perfectly, which is our duty. None can keep
it. It's against us. It tells us
what we should do, what we're supposed to do. And God who is
holy gave it. We can't do it. That's an Assyrian.
That's against us. And then Romans chapter 3 says,
none shall be justified by the keeping of the law. So if you're
thinking of keeping it, you better do it perfectly. It
can't be done. Now, the rich young ruler, some
people think, well, yeah, I've done it since my youth. No, you
haven't. That's the delusion of self-righteousness.
That's the delusion of fallen head first, headlong, completely
in Adam. We think we're better than we
are. Thus, the holy, pure law of God
is against us. There's no peace in its precepts. We sinners, by nature and practice
and ability, cannot stand under it. Yet He, the Scripture says,
is our peace. He died for our sins and rose
again for our justification. This man shall be the peace. If we are foolish enough to run
back to the law, it condemns us. How do we find peace? He's our peace. This man is the
peace. Don't try to keep it. Flee to
Christ. Flee to Christ. Secondly, what's
another Assyrian? Satan. Satan as our Assyrian
adversary. He's too powerful for us. Turn
to Revelation chapter 12. That's why the archangel said,
the Lord rebuked thee. We are no match for Satan. He's
always accusing the brethren. But he is a defeated foe. Our Lord led him captivity captive,
slew and threw him down. His foot's on his neck. He was
crushed. Revelation chapter 12, starting in verse 9, And the
great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil,
Satan, which deceives the whole world. He was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. For
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them
before our God day and night. And they overcame Him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and
they loved not their lives unto death. Rejoice! We have peace. Our victory is
sure and certain, and it is only through the Lamb of God, the
glorious Emmanuel. That's our second Assyrian. The
third Assyrian is sin. Sin. What a tiresome Assyrian
indeed. Every time we wake up, sin is
present with the believer. Every time we do sin, it grieves
us. We're grieved by the Holy Spirit,
as it should be. Yet we echo Paul's sentiments
in Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? Who for sure? This man. This man has conquered sin. This man brings peace. He which hath begun a good work
will finish it. Who is able to keep us from falling?
The Lord Jesus Christ, Jude 24. He is able to keep us from falling,
stumbling. And yet, we confess our sins. But that's an Assyrian. It's
blocking our way. It's an enemy. It's an adversary
of us, of grace. What's another Assyrian? The
fourth thing. The troubles in this life are truly an Assyrian. The world. These should be seen as they
truly are. And they are brought forth by
the hand of God. He teaches us. He teaches His
children. He chastises us, though we don't
see it every time. These are Assyrians. And we must
quickly go to the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to John chapter
16. John chapter 16. Oh, the trouble that we have
in this world. John 16 and verse 33. These things, says Christ, have
I spoken unto you, O sons and daughters of Jacob,
that in me you might have peace. In the world, you have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. We don't need to take this on.
He has fought for us. He has fought for us. 2 Corinthians
chapter 1. 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 5, for
as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also
abounds by Christ. Sufferings. We're going to suffer.
We're going to struggle day in and day out. But He, this Man,
is our peace. It is enough to know that all
our sorrows shall yield, as Paul says, the peaceable fruit of
righteousness. The world just gives tribulation.
And the more time you spend in this world, like we saw this
morning, Righteous Lot, his spirit was vexed. Every day, vexed. Every day. I would say that this
country, I don't know about other countries, I would say this country,
it's reached that. You can't go outside, you can't
do this, you can't read anything in the newspaper. There's always
something that dishonors the Lord Christ. All the time. All
the time. We're going to suffer. It's given
unto us to suffer, but as well to believe. So, these are our
Assyrians. The Law. Satan. Sin. our troubles in this world as
we sojourn through this life. But lastly, death. Death is called
the king of terrors. That's an Assyrian. Our text
says, this man shall be the peace. When Satan, our sin, and this world and death
come into our land and tread upon our palaces? How are we
going to rise up against it? How are we going to lay waste
the land of Assyria with the sword, this man? Death is coming. It's not if, It's when, but I
will say this, and I've emailed somebody the other day. If we
could just see, like we sing that song, that we're immortal
here until our work is done. If we could just see that, he says that once is appointed
once, appointed, appointed, ordained, Now we talk a lot about it, we
talk a lot about sovereignty and ordination and predestination,
all these different things, and these are nice words. We don't
have to believe it. You're not going to die before your time,
no matter what comes. I don't care what they call it,
and you know what I'm talking about, we're not going anywhere
until the appointed time. Because He's our peace. He is
in such control of everything. Why do we fear? Why do we fear
what people say? Why do we fear what people think?
Because we're sinners. Saved by the grace of God. And
that's all we are. That's all we'll ever be. But death, we're going to have
to face it. Melinda and I, we were talking
to relations and friends and stuff, and the conversation is,
and I said something, I said, the Lord will. Well, we're gonna
make our plans for next July, or we're gonna make our plans,
I don't know. I don't know. And this is, you
hear the world talk like they've got tomorrow. That's the way
the world talks. Now again, be responsible, work,
take care of your children, raise them, do all these different
things. But if the Lord wills, we'll go to see this event or
we'll go to see this, we don't know. But I know who has these things
in his hands, who controls all this stuff. He is, I just love how that's
worded. The peace. The peace. Perhaps this Assyrian causes
our soul much anguish and fear and trembling. Our text still
holds true. He shall be our peace, even in
death. He, it is said, has abolished
death. Does not the New Testament say
He has abolished death? Doesn't the New Testament say,
death, where is your sting? Doesn't that the scripture say
in John, and I had to look at this because I was at work, yes.
He that believeth upon Christ shall never die spiritually. We don't want this
body anyway. It's rotting, it's decaying.
But mortality is going to put on immortality. And only God
in Christ can turn this curse into a blessing. To live is Christ,
but to die is gain? You won't hear that in this world.
You will not hear that world. It's always feeding the flesh
more what we can do or what we can get. And we get caught up
in that. No, no. Remember well, I don't have this
piece up. That's because you there's no
Assyrians. There's nothing going everything's going great But
when the Assyrian comes in whatever form whatever manner He'll be your peace to die is
gain indeed So I say in closing do we know this? He's called
the consolation of Israel This peace, and I look this word
up, it's soulless. Do we know this soulless, this
peace of Israel? Just trust Him. Look to Him. Like Nathan said last, there's
life in a look. There's life in a look. There's
death all around us. Look to Him. He'll show you what
you are. He'll show you your need. And
He'll show you He's your peace. And trust Him. For He is the
believer's only peace. Our problem is we start, we try
to seek peace by things in this world. And it's never, it's just
temporary. It's always temporary. To God
be the glory. Bruce, would you close this please?