Thru the Bible

Steve Schwedt: The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious and amazing you find God's mercy. That's what we learn on through the Bible as Dr. J. Vernon McGee, our Bible teacher, on this five-year journey through the whole word of God teaches us from the Old Testament book of Micah. So, as you get your copy of God's word, open to Micah chapter 4. Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with a special introduction to our study.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now, I want today to finish the thing that we began several days ago when we were talking about the fact that this prophet spelled out sin. He was very specific about it. In fact, to the matter is there were certain things that he mentioned that he dealt with not sin as just a big lump sum of something, but very specifically just what the sins were. It's interesting today that you hear sometimes someone pray publicly, Lord, forgive us our sins. Well, you always wonder, well, what are they? And I remember that Mel Trotter was telling about the time he had a man on his board, and this man would pray every Saturday morning in their prayer meeting.

Lord, he said, forgive us our sins. And so Mel Trotter went to him and says, well, why don't you tell the Lord what it is? And the man says, well, I can't think what it is. And Mel Trotter said, well, guess at it. And Mel Trotter said, you know that he hit it the very first time, and I think that most of us need to spell it out. Micah in his little book, he condemns violence, corruption, robbery, covetousness, gross materialism, spiritual bankruptcy, illicit sex, pride, and bribery, and idolatry. These are the things that he mentions specifically.

I'd like to just mention several of them that he gives us here because it has direct application to us today. It would seem as if he's just writing to us today. He mentions idolatry, and we have here that stated in such a vivid language, by the way. He says, and all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces. All the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate, for she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot.

And that's in Micah here chapter 1 verse 7. And someone's going to say, well, look, we are very civilized today. We don't worship idols. We are not guilty of this sin today. Well, Paul wrote and put it like this, by the way, and he spelled it out. He says, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. That's in Colossians 3 5. And Paul made it very clear that idolatry today is covetousness. And that raises the question, what is covetousness?

Steve Schwedt: We'll hear the answer to that question next time. But now let's thank the Lord for what we're going to learn in his word now. Heavenly Father, thank you that you invite us to come to you. As the prophet Isaiah said, though our sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Such an amazing grace you offer to us. Lord, open our eyes to the wonders of your word and the mercy revealed in your invitation to anyone who believes in the name of Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Here's our study of Micah chapter 4 verses 1 to 5 with Dr.

J. Vernon McGee on Through the Bible.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Friends, we come now to a new section in the little prophecy of Micah. The little prophecy of Micah can be compared to a Jewish day. It's the evening and the morning that you have here. It opens in the darkness of night and the first three chapters of judgment, as we've seen. Who is like unto thee that is a God like unto thee proclaiming future judgment for past sins? That was chapters 1 through 3. But even in that section, that little ray of light like breaking through a very dark, stormy cloud breaks through. But now we've come to a new section here, prophesying future glory because of past promises.

And that's chapters 4 and 5. And there'll be a little judgment in this section, but the glorious thing is that it's now the light with ever now and then a cloud passing across the brightness of the sun. And in chapter 4 that we've now come to, we have prophecies of the last days. Now it opens like this, and I'm reading verse 1 of chapter 4 of Micah. But in the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it.

Now this is a very remarkable passage of scripture that we've come to, and it may sound strangely familiar to some of you because it's very similar to the second chapter of Isaiah. And you must remember that Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah, and the scholars, both conservative and liberal down through the years, have batted the ball back and forth. Did Micah copy Isaiah, or did Isaiah copy Micah? And very candidly, I think that that's more or less a waste of time because nobody has the answer to that. And I like it better like this, that the Holy Spirit is the author, and he was able to say the same thing through Isaiah and Micah.

And the reason he said it twice is because it's important. And that's the reason that we should look at this rather carefully. And it's rather like a story I heard about Mel Trotter, the evangelist of a former day, a man that God wonderfully used. And this man got up to give a message in Atlanta, Georgia, and he said, the sermon I'm going to give, I actually got it from Dr. Morgan. And I've always given him credit for it, but he says, since I first gave it, why he said I found out that Dr. Meyer had it in one of his books.

And he said, I don't know where Dr. Meyer got it, and therefore I do not know who to give credit for it. So, I'll just preach the sermon. Well, I feel that way about Micah and Isaiah chapter 2 of Isaiah and chapter 4 of Micah, the way they both begin. They both go back to one author, and that author is the Holy Spirit of God. But now notice as we come to this chapter here and this verse in particular, opens with this little conjunction but. And that is one that generally is used for a contrast.

And you have a contrast between what went before. And of course, that would be in particular the last part of chapter 3. And the last verse of chapter 3 verse 12 reads, Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Now actually Jeremiah in the 26th chapter verse 18 quotes Micah as saying this. So, Jeremiah confirms it. And it did take place during the time of Nebuchadnezzar when he destroyed Jerusalem. And if you want to know how important that is or how significant it is, then read the first few chapters of Nehemiah, and you'll find out when he went back to Jerusalem, he founded in a mess.

It actually lay there the debris and ashes and rubble and ruin, and it looked like a hopeless task to rebuild the city. But of course, they did that. And it was actually the Talmud, which is a Jewish writing, it records the fact that at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Titus in 70 AD, that an officer in the Roman army, and he's even given the name of Rufus, he plowed up the foundations of the temple with a plowshare. Now there are those that reject that tradition or that's what it was. But actually Jerome noticed it, and Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, also noticed it and recorded it.

I rather think that it is accurate tradition that frankly both of these men, Nebuchadnezzar and certainly this man Titus who hated both Jews and Christians, was certainly capable of doing a thing like that. Well, at least Micah and then Jeremiah quotes him as saying that Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps. Now I'm not concerned about whether Nebuchadnezzar did it or whether Titus did it later on or whether even both of them did it, which I think is accurate. But regardless of that, the facts are, and they have been substantiated, that was the situation in Jerusalem when Nehemiah returned.

And it was the situation of Jerusalem after the destruction of Titus in 78 AD. Now this that's coming up in chapter 4, especially the first part here is in contrast to it. It says, but in the last days. Now he's moving beyond the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of Titus and beyond any other destruction that's taken place to the last days. Now we have seen that the last days are used in the Old Testament as actually a technical term. It 's a phrase that has a very definite meaning. And our Lord identified it and labeled it.

He called it the tribulation, the great one. That is the great tribulation period. That's when these things then would come to pass. And then at the end of them, the Lord Jesus would return to the earth, and his return would end the great tribulation period, which is a brief period of, I believe, seven years approximately that. And then the millennial kingdom is established on earth by the Lord Jesus personally coming to the earth so that the last days embrace both the great tribulation, the return of Christ to the earth, and the establishment of the kingdom here upon the earth, the millennial kingdom.

But in the last days, now he's moved out and beyond all local situations. And he's looking now down to the future. And as we said, the darker it got in Israel, the brighter the future was for these people. And that is always true. They tell me that if you go far enough down in a well and look up, you can see the stars. And when they hit bottom, that 's when they could see the stars. They could see the light out yonder in the distance, the distant future. Now let me read on. But in the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it.

Now we mentioned when we were dealing with this almost identical passage in Isaiah 2 that the word mountain is used literally, and it's also used figuratively. Daniel uses it in a figurative way that that stone cut out without hand, it filled the earth. That stone is Christ that is coming. And it became a great mountain that filled the earth. Well, what does that mean? That is certainly giving a spiritual interpretation of it, and we have no right to spiritualize unless we have scriptural authority for it. And we do for this that what he's talking about here is a mountain of kingdom that's to be established here upon the earth.

But I would not rob it of the literal sense also for the very simple reason that Jerusalem is set upon a hill. Scripture makes that clear. And all you have to do is to go over there and take a look. It's on a hill. And a city that's set on a hill just can't be hidden. The Lord Jesus said, you couldn't hide Jerusalem. So, we're talking about Jerusalem here as we shall see. And it's the kingdom that will be centered there. It will be the capital of the earth. That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it.

Now they're not flowing in that direction right now. The flow is in the other direction. And that's at the time I'm making this tape where the world conditions are changing. You hear this in a month's time. It could altogether be different. But right now the flow is in the opposite direction. This is not being fulfilled today, and of course, will not until Messiah comes. Now will you notice verse 2 in this connection. And many nations shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Now that's not fulfilled. And again may I say that this chapter, and I've called attention now to many chapters, but here is another chapter therefore among many chapters among the prophets that make it clear that the present return of these people is not a fulfillment of prophecy. This has not taken place today. And isn't it ironical that this nation and the nations of the world had their oil supplies cut off? Why? Because of Jerusalem. They want Jerusalem returned back to the Arabs, you see. Don't tell me that Jerusalem is a city that is actually in the hands of Israel, and they've got it back because that's not quite true.

It's not quite accurate in this world today where history is flowing and one crisis after another. And you cannot make any statement on a basis of what is true right now. And that's my reason for saying this. I'm not trying to say because of present circumstances, and some of you'll hear this when the circumstances have changed. But regardless of what they are, we are not seeing the fulfillment of prophecy because the nations of the world are not going to Jerusalem to hear from the Lord by any means. That certainly couldn't be said. And we're told in the word of the Lord will go forth from Jerusalem.

Now that's the one place where I could supply you, which I won't, but I could supply you with the name of several missionaries in that city who themselves are Jewish, who have been persecuted for presenting Christ and the word of God. The word of God is not flowing from Jerusalem. I don't know what I have to say and how many times I have to say it for this thing to get through today that all of this sensationalism that's being built up. And after all, after you've just covered prophecy one time, you have to go back over it and say the same thing.

But this itch today for prophecy causes many men to appeal to a great many baby Christians. Little baby Christians, and they want the bottle, and they want the bottle to be warm and sweet. And therefore it's nice to hear that we're seeing the fulfillment of prophecy, and that means the end is around the corner. And even they set dates. Nobody knows. I think we're drawing near the end. But my friend, I have no direct wire from the Lord, nor do I interpret prophecies certainly like this. And I just wish these brethren would consider all the prophecy.

Why not go through the Bible and consider all of these prophecies? We have to do it in this Through the Bible program. And it's quite obvious that when you look at a prophecy like this, you just can't say this is being fulfilled today. As far as I know, the Bible Society is not publishing Bibles in Jerusalem and sending them out to the ends of the earth. That's one thing you couldn't do that. It just would be impossible to circulate the New Testament from that place. The word of God is not going out from Jerusalem today.

So, let's not build up an emotional complex here that because certain things have happened, we're seeing prophecy fulfilled. I just want to know the prophecies that are being fulfilled, this one is not. Now verse 3, And he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off. Who is this? Well, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Messiah. When he returns to the earth the second time, he has not yet come, and these things can't come to pass until he does. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Now that's on the United Nations. And if those boys really have, which I don't think they have beaten their swords into plowshares, they've just got a bigger instrument to beat each other over the head. And if they're turning their spears into pruning hooks, they're not using that pruning hook to go after fish. They're using those pruning hooks to gouge some other nation or some other people, and especially those that are weaker than they are. May I say to you that we're not living in the day when you can do this sort of thing. And I don't think that that should be on the building of the United Nations because of the fact that that is probably the biggest boxing ring that there is in the country.

They are really knocking each other out there. There's very little agreement there. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Now it's obvious we haven't come to that. And only when the Prince of Peace is ruling, he's not ruling today, my friend. And as a result, we are not to beat our swords into plowshares. We should keep our powder dry. And this idea that you can disarm America, and now they ought to cut down on armaments, and certainly anyone that believes in peace and wants peace would like to see the armaments cut back.

And we'd like to see our tax dollars going into something else. But my friend, long as we are living in a big, bad world, and long as we're living in a world not of make-believe, but of reality, long as we're living in a world where you have to get right down with the nuts and the bolts and deal with things as they are, the Lord Jesus said, a strong man armed keepeth his household. How does he keep it? By turning the other cheek. That's not what he said. He said that he keeps it by being armed.

Now that is a philosophy today that's not popular anymore. They quote just one side of the teaching of Jesus. And my friend, when you go to the sermon on the mount to get that, remember it's the king speaking, and he's speaking of a time when he's going to be reigning on the earth. And I just happened to discover that he's reigning in the world today. Now when he reigns, I intend to get rid of any protection. I'll take off every lock off of the door. But until then, I'm not only going to put one lock on, I got two locks on.

And I think you'll be wise if you do that sort of thing. We're living in that kind of a world. These prophecies are not for the present hour. They're for the last days, if you please. And let's put them in their proper context. Now verse 4, will you listen? But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make him afraid. Now you want to tell me that that's being fulfilled in Israel today while they're frightened to death? They're absolutely frightened. Why? They are not there according to fulfillment of prophecy.

That's why. For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it. Now God has said this. God says when he puts them there, they'll live in peace. They're not living in peace. For all people will walk, everyone in the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. And there's a much better translation of that than this. The American Standard version has it for all the peoples walk, everyone in the name of his God. And we will walk in the name of Jehovah our God forever and ever.

The thought is in the past they walked after their own God. But in the future they're going to walk in the name of Jehovah our God. That is the thought of the verse. We leave off there, and until next time may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwedt: If you've been on the Bible bus for very long, you know it's the heartbeat of this ministry to pray and actively share God's word with every tribe and nation on earth. And we believe that together we have a unique opportunity to be used by God to get his word out. Right now Through the Bible is translated into over 250 languages. But we know that God hasn't called us to do this alone. So, we invite you to partner with us in prayer. And if God's spirit prompts you to invest in the practical needs of keeping the Bible bus on the road.

You know Through the Bible is a completely God-prompted, listener-supported ministry. So, if you feel like he's maybe nudging you to supply a tank of gas or provide an oil change to keep the Bible bus rolling in your neighborhood and around the world, give us a call at 1 800 65 Bible or click on donate in our app or online at ttb.org. And as we've said before, and will say until the Lord returns, your prayers are the thing that we need the most. So, please remember to ask God to multiply this ministry in the hearts of those who listen.

And then ask him to reach more people every day with the good news of Jesus Christ and ask him to continue his work in our hearts, helping us to know him better and serve him more boldly as a result of our fellowship with him. So, as we go, I want to remind you that if you're looking for a resource by Dr. McGee, well, we're here to help. Just visit ttb.org or call 1 800 65 Bible. And remember you can always write to box 7100 Pasadena, California 91109. In Canada box 25325 London, Ontario N6C 6B1. I'm Steve Schwedt.

So grateful for your company here on the Bible bus with us for our life-changing journey through the whole word of God.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Well, ride the Bible bus for five years and you'll be amazed at what God teaches you from his word, about what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. It's a blessing that keeps on going. That's what we believe at Through the Bible.