Micah 5:1-2; God Turns the Tables of Power (The Small Are Glorified).

Class Outline:

Wednesday December 11, 2024

Main idea: God turns the tables of power: the small and humble is clothed in glory. 

 

MIC 5:1 "Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of troops;

They have laid siege against us;

With a rod they will smite the judge of Israel on the cheek. 

 

Oracle: MIC 5:1-6. Micah takes us back to the siege of Jerusalem by Assyrians. We’re at 701 BC.

 

In this oracle, Micah exhorts the faithful remnant, who are holed up within Jerusalem during the siege, to galvanize themselves into a troop. 

 

They smote the judge (king Hezekiah) on the cheek with mocking him, the people, Jerusalem, and most deadly for themselves, the one and only God. 

 

2KI 18:23

“Now therefore, come, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.”

 

Micah then gives the faithful troop of weak sheep their hope to press on. Yahweh will bring His triumphant ruler. 

 

MIC 5:2 "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 are from long ago,

From the days of eternity." 

 

The salvation of that enormous host in MIC 4:1-5, cannot happen until the Messiah rules - is great to the ends of the earth (5:4).

 

As Judah’s once proud Jerusalem is besieged and humbled, Micah turns to little Bethlehem as Israel’s source of hope. The little town is now exalted with God’s glory as it is addressed only by God.

 

Bethlehem - house of bread. (JOH 6:35)

Ephata - fruitful. 

Both indicators of the Messiah’s career. (JOH 12:24)

 

God will be faithful to His covenant with David. MAT 1:1. 

 

The doorway through which Messiah would step forth onto the stage of the world would be the same one as David who played his own important role in sacred history. 

 

God the Son becoming a man (incarnation), denying Himself the sovereignty of deity for a time, is the ultimate turning of things upside down. 

 

Theology Corner: Doctrine of the humiliation of Christ. 

Incarnation 

Suffering

Death

Burial. 

 

Incarnation: 2 Cor 8:9

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich

(PHI 2:6-7; HEB 2:9)

 

He remained fully God but veiled His divine attributes. (Doctrine of hypostatic union)

 

Hypostatic union: In the incarnation of the Son of God, a human nature was inseparably united forever with the divine nature in the one person of Jesus Christ, yet with the two natures remaining distinct, whole, and unchanged, without mixture or confusion, so that the one person, Jesus Christ, is truly God and truly man. 

 

It is the most amazing fact in all history that one who was eternal and infinite God should take to Himself the lowly nature of a man and should then continue to exist for all eternity as fully God and fully man as well, united in one person. 

 

Though David’s house failed, God’s covenant to David will never fail. 

 

PSA 89:3-4 [God has a play list that includes songs about these wonderful truths]

"I have made a covenant with My chosen;

I have sworn to David My servant, 

4 I will establish your seed forever

And build up your throne to all generations." Selah. 

 

In contrast to the proud and powerful clans of Judah, Bethlehem was little and insignificant. God chooses the weak and lowly, not for some romantic idea, but because all men really are. The bravado and arrogance of man is completely misplaced and is the result of sin. 

 

1CO 1:27

God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong

 

Strength in the world is always based on an independent nature and therefore sin. 

 

Lowly Jesus, who was born in a stable, whose birth was announced to lowly shepherds, and who was circumcised by parents too poor to offer as their sacrifice at His circumcision anything more than the young pigeon. 

 

Luke 2:22-24

they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord … and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, "A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons."

 

LEV 5:7

'But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord his guilt offering for that in which he has sinned, two turtledoves or two young pigeons,

 

Upturned tables!:

 

In Luke’s birth narrative, we go from Zacharias in the Temple to Mary in Nazareth. Temple in Jerusalem to scorned Nazareth; from respected priest to unknown teenage girl. While Herod and Emperor Tiberius sit in lavish style on their thrones in their palaces, the infant Messiah is in a dirty feeding trough in a small, discarded town; Jesus is surrounded by dirty animals and witnessed by dirty shepherds while the kings are surrounded by splendor; clothed in rags, clothed in robes - God cannot state it enough that everything in the world is going to be turned upside down by the Shepherd-King. 

 

Application:

 

Be humble (too broad - let’s get specific).  

 

Step 1: Self-examination. How do you do it? Honesty, before God’s Word and prayer. 

          Ask - In what areas of my life do I not live humbly, i.e. fully dependent upon God. 

 

Example story: Saul vs. David.

          How do you take constructive criticism?

 

The proud look down on others because they do not look up to God, and so in the Bible the proud are constantly presented as God’s enemies. 

 

ISA 13:11

Thus I will punish the world for its evil,

And the wicked for their iniquity;

I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud,

And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. 

 

Take an honest inventory and ask God to show you where you walk with Christ and where you are still living in worldly pride. 

         

Also, stay positive. There are places in your life where you are humble. Talk to God in prayer about them and rejoice with Him that by Christ’s awesomeness they exist in you. By His work on the cross (redemption) He has made you small through crucifixion. 

 

This Christmas, be small and rejoice in Him.