God Protects His Kingdom

[Read Micah 5:7-15]

There are a few points in my life that I see as “turning points,” moments when everything changed in my life. In thinking through some of those turning points lately, what has stuck out to me is that most of them are very undramatic in a number of ways. I think many people would assume that my battle with COVID and my recovery from all of that would be a turning point—and it definitely changed some things about me—but I don’t see it as a turning point. Most of the turning points in my life are the result of someone saying something to me or the result of a seemingly small decision. 

One of those turning points happened while I was walking through the woods. As I’ve mentioned, I used to do a lot of nature photography, which meant I spent a lot of time in the woods. I also typically spent that time walking through the woods with my camera praying. On one of those walks I was wrestling with something. I had become increasingly convinced that humility was essential to the Christian life. Not only was I encountering it regularly in my bible reading, but I was regularly encountering it from Christian teachers throughout history. Yet, as I was becoming convinced that humility was key to the Christian life, I was also convinced that I was not very humble—some may argue that I’m still not… So, I remember walking through the woods, thinking and praying about these things, when I stopped. 

I stopped because I was just about to pray, “Lord humble me.” I stopped because I realized what I was about to pray, and I realized the variety of ways God humbled people throughout the bible—Job being one of the primary one’s on my mind at the time. I stopped because I wasn’t going to ask God for something I didn’t actually want. Did I actually want to be humbled? Did I actually believe that humility was the key to living the Christian life? Did I actually think it was a good and beautiful thing to be humbled by God? And was I willing to joyfully accept that from his hand in whatever form it took? I wrestled with that for a long time in the woods, until I finally, with much fear and trembling, said something like, “Alright Lord, humble me. I trust you. I don’t know what that will look like. I don’t know how much it will hurt. Yet, I truly believe that this is what is best for me and for your glory. So, I’m laying my life in your hands.” Interestingly, this act in and of itself is an act of humility. 

This story came to mind because I had a question repeatedly running through my mind as I studied this week’s passage: What are you willing to lose to live the good life that God has for you? That’s a very relevant question to all of us right now. It’s always a relevant question. What if God knew it was better for you to lose your job? What if God knew it was better for you to lose your health for a period of time? What if God knew it was better for you to lose your reputation? What are you willing to lose to live the good life that God has for you? That’s the question we’re building toward in this morning’s passage. 

The passage begins by talking about the remnant again: “Then the remnant of Jacob…” (Micah 5:7, ESV). I want to make sure you recognize the “then” at the beginning of this. That connects this to what we talked about last week. It’s connecting this passage to last week’s passages about the Messiah. What’s going to happen when the Messiah comes and defeats Israel’s enemies and brings about victory? What is that going to look like?

Interestingly, the first image doesn’t sound very promising: “Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples…” (Micah 5:7, ESV). The remnant will be in the midst of many peoples. This is an image showing that God’s people will not be gathered together into one nation at that point, but will be scattered amongst the nations. They will be spread out. 

Then, it shows the effect God’s people will have on the nations as they are spread out. We’re given two images. The first image is that of dew: “Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man.” (Micah 5:7, ESV). The image of dew is the image of refreshing and blessing. Many of the commentators pointed out the importance of dew in a country where there are very, very dry seasons. One commentator said that between June and September it practically never rains. In that scenario, to wake up to a heavy dew in the morning was extremely refreshing and lifted your spirits that had been beat down by the dry heat. So, we’re told that as God’s people are spread throughout the nations, they will bless those nations like an early morning dew, and like a spring shower that brings dead grass back to life. In many ways, this is pointing back to that promise to Abraham, “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2–3, ESV). 

Yet, there’s another image. We read, “And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which, when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver. Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off.” (Micah 5:8–9, ESV). They will not just be among the nations as a refreshing dew, but they will also be like a lion amongst the nations. Their hand will be lifted up over their enemies to the point that no one will be able to stop them. They will emerge as conquerors, subduing the nations where they have been dispersed.

It’s a paradoxical image. On the one hand, as they are spread out amongst the nations, they will provide those nations with blessings and refreshing, but they will also conquer nations. There are some who have tried to answer this paradox by saying that God’s people will be a blessing to the humble and repentant, but destructive to the prideful and rebellious. In some ways that’s true, yet, I think there’s something much deeper which we’ve seen throughout history. We’ve actually watched this happen. God’s people BOTH blessed and conquered a nation at the same time—Rome. In fact, the primary way they conquered that nation was by being such a blessing, and by spreading like leaven through a batch of dough, to the point that they overtook the nation and were lifted up over their enemy. These two things are not exclusive to each other. I also think this is the way God will continue to conquer nations through his people—not through power and violence, but through blessing. As God’s people live in the world as leaven, and continue to bless the world around them like dew and rain, we slowly and steadfastly begin to conquer nations. 

Yet, it’s not us, is it? That’s actually the image in this passage as well. God’s people are being reminded that they are not actually the ones doing the blessing OR the conquering. God is the one doing both. That’s why we read, “…like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man.” (Micah 5:7, ESV). These are reminders that humans can’t control the dew or the rain. It only comes from God—just like the blessing. Even when it comes to the imagery of the lion, we read, “Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries…” (Micah 5:9, ESV). It does not say that they will lift their hand above their enemies, but that it will be lifted up—by whom? God. God will bless those nations through his people, and God will conquer nations through his people. We are not the ones who ultimately bring any of this about. It’s God and God alone. 

Then things change a bit. In some ways, it seems like the next part comes out of nowhere. God has been giving his people this beautiful picture of them blessing the nations and conquering their enemies, but then he begins to talk about cutting things off. We read this phrase repeatedly, “I will cut off…” (Micah 5:10, ESV). The Hebrew word means to destroy and eliminate completely—to wipe out. It’s strong language. And notice who is doing the cutting. God is. God is the one who is cutting off and destroying and rooting out all of these things. And repeated more often than “cut off” is the word “will”. This WILL happen. There’s no stopping God from cutting these things off and removing them. 

There’s a lot that could be connected with this language, but two things come to mind for me—especially when you think about Israel. When you think about Israel, and their ceremonies, and the imagery of something being cut off, what do you think about? Circumcision, right? This word is used to describe circumcision, and the cutting involved with that. What most people don’t know is that throughout the Old Testament when people make a covenant with each other—an agreement—the literal Hebrew is “cutting a covenant”—which fits well with the idea of circumcision. So, there’s a lot of covenantal language connected to the idea of cutting things off. It’s an image of God coming into his people and cutting things off to restore them in covenant communion with him. 

He begins by saying, “And in that day, declares the LORD, I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots; and I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds;” (Micah 5:10–11, ESV). That sounds like interesting things to cut off from a nation you just said was going to conquer, right? You’re going to remove their war horses, and their chariots and their defenses. That sounds rough doesn’t it? That doesn’t sound like a good thing or a blessing, does it?

He goes on, “and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes; and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands; and I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities.” (Micah 5:12–14, ESV). He’s going to cut off all of the false religion, all of the false spirituality, all of the occult practices that have crept into his people. He’s going to wipe it out.

Why? Why is God promising to do all of these things that seem like they are going to hurt? Why all of this cutting?

I came across this quote from a puritan writer where he said, “When the devil cannot destroy the church by violence, he endeavors to poison it.” (Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment). Satan doesn’t just continually attack the church over and over again. Eventually, he sits back and begins to slowly poison it, allowing that poison to spread like bad leaven through a batch of dough. Slowly, God’s people begin to allow idols to take root in their heart, then those idols take root in their homes, then in their society, then in the church. Slowly, God’s people begin to rely on their power, then on the power of their people, then on the power of their nation and military. All the while, they are slowly slipping and sliding away from their God. 

So, God has to act in a powerful—and often painful—way to begin unpoisoning his people. He does that by removing all of these idols that we’ve built up, grabbed hold of, and put our trust in—even important things like our military. God’s goal is to methodically work through his people and remove anything that is hindering them from putting their full faith and trust in Him. What are you willing to lose to live the good life that God has for you?

To make this more intense, notice that God never tells his people HOW he’s going to cut these things off from them. What’s he going to do to cut off their military and defenses so that they rely on him? What’s he going to do to cut off their idolatry and false religion? I think we’re given a hint in this passage that connects to last week’s passage. In this passage we read this line, “I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities.” (Micah 5:14, ESV). That sounds really rough, their cities will be destroyed. Yet, we know when this happened, right? Their cities were destroyed when they were hauled off into exile, when they went off into Babylon. I came across an important line in the United Bible Society Handbook (as a side note, Don Slager is an editor of this series) that said this, “Historically it was indeed during the exile that the people of Israel finally overcame the temptation to worship idols.” (Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on Micah). God cut off his people’s reliance on the military by sending them off into exile. God cut off his people’s trust in idols and the occult, by sending them off into exile. What are you willing to lose to live the good life God has for you?

This isn’t an image of God cutting off and removing things because he likes to cause pain and hurt. It’s actually the opposite. It’s a picture of God cutting off and removing things that are actually harming and hurting and destroying his people. He’s removing poison and cancer from his people. He’s purifying them. You could even say that he’s sanctifying them. He’s making them holy. 

And to drive this point home even further, this final section of cutting things off seems to be a condition of the first few promises God made to his people. How are God’s people going to be a blessing amongst the nations? They will be a blessing after God cuts off all of their false reliance on anyone other than him. They will be a blessing to the nations once they are sanctified and made holy. How are God’s people going to be like a lion amongst the nations, conquering without anyone to stop them? They will conquer after God cuts off all of their idols to the point that they finally and fully put their hope and trust in Him. THEN they will conquer. THEN they will be a blessing. What are you willing to lose to live the good life God has for you?

Once again, this brings us back to Jesus the Messiah. This is why Jesus didn’t come as a military leader. It would have only caused his people to put their hope and trust in the wrong place. This is why Jesus didn’t come as a politician. It would have only led God’s people astray. This is why Jesus didn’t come as an economist or an entertainer or whatever else you could come up with. Instead, Jesus the Messiah came to sanctify his people—to make us holy. He came and lived a perfectly holy life in our place. He came, and died on the cross. He was cut off so that our sin and shame would be cut off from us. He was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to cut off anything that would hinder us from following and trusting in God alone. Jesus came to save and create a holy people for himself, so that his holy people could be a blessing amongst the nations and would eventually conquer the nations by blessing them in God’s power. 

I’ve continually asked the question, “What are you willing to lose to live the good life God has for you?” but I could easily phrase that a different way, “What are you willing to gain, by stripping off whatever hinders you from the good life God has for you?” We have to realize that we don’t lose anything, ultimately, in following Christ and entrusting our lives to God. It may seem like we lose something, but in the end all we do is gain. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35, ESV). At times it may seem like you’re losing your life—and you are to some degree. You will lose the life that you have chosen for yourself, a life that is apart from God’s design for you. And in losing that life, you will save your life, and gain not only the life God has designed for you—the good life—but you will also gain eternal life with him. What are you willing to gain, by stripping off whatever is hindering you from the good life God has for you? 

I also want us to remember how we bless the world around us and how we conquer. We do it through sanctification. Don’t underestimate the power of being transformed in the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus Christ. That will change the world. Rather than continually holding our breath, putting our hope and trust in so many other places and things to change the world, we should focus heavily on becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. As we do that, the world will be blessed, and we will overcome.