THE LAST DAYS AND THE RESTORATION.
Micah 4:1-4, Micah 4:6-7.
I). “In the Last Days” (Micah 4:1-5).
So far in the book of Micah it has been a message of doom and gloom for the recalcitrant people of God, with just a glimmer of hope for the faithful remnant. But as the dark clouds gather over Jerusalem, the prophet lifts up his eyes and sees the sunshine beyond his own temporal limitations.
Jerusalem, even Jerusalem which has just been threatened with destruction by the LORD, will be raised up once more. Not as an idolatrous high place, but as it should be, the mountain of the LORD's house, exalted above all hills, and the place where people gather to worship.
According to the Apostle Peter, the last days began at Pentecost, but there are many layers to this prophecy of Micah. Prophets see many things through their temporal prism, like an astronomer who sees clusters of stars with no gauge to determine which are nearer and which further away.
In the relatively short term, the Temple would be rebuilt just 70 years after its destruction by the Babylonians.
The Temple was also the site of many of the scenes in the Gospels and Acts, and it was from here that Christ's message went forth to all the world.
It is possible that the picture of many nations coming to the house of the God of Jacob represents the progress of the gospel from that place: “for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”
As the word of God goes forth from Jerusalem, there is a change in the whole of society.
People may easily forget that the gospel came from that city, and fail to take stock of the amount of good which Christ's message has done in the world (as opposed to the downright evil which Church, churches or so-called ‘Christian’ people and peoples may have done!)
Where the gospel rules, God judges. It is a right judgment, rather than the perverse judgment of the princes of the house of Israel in the previous chapter. “Strong nations afar off” are rebuked.
Not only this, but the nations begin to use their resources for something other than war.
And now at last the dispossessed are no longer fearful of those who exploited and oppressed them, neither their own people nor the invasion force of the enemy. This is a certainty: “for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
II). THE RESTORATION.
Micah 4:6-7.
As Micah continues his words of encouragement to the remnant of Israel, he uses the expression “In that day” (Micah 4:6) instead of, ‘In the last days’ (Micah 4:1). This is possibly nothing more than literary variation.
The short-term fulfilment of the promise in the following verses lay in the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. In the long term the words can be taken to refer to the post-Pentecostal era of the Church right up to the final return of Christ. When we hear of “the lame” being gathered in to the kingdom of God, I can’t help thinking of the earthly ministry of Jesus Himself:
‘The blind receive their sight,
And the lame walk,
The lepers are cleansed,
And the deaf hear,
The dead are raised up,
And the poor have the gospel preached to them’
(Matthew 11:5).
Against the backdrop of the devastation of Jerusalem which the prophet had envisaged in the earlier chapters, which would come about as a result of sin, “her that halteth” being made a “strong nation” (Micah 4:7) has echoes of Jacob’s experience when He wrestled with God at Penuel (Genesis 32:24-32).
Jacob refused to release the angel until he received a blessing, and whilst he went away from the experience ‘limping,’ his name was changed from Jacob (=usurper) to Israel (=he who strives with God).
Now the Israelites are brought back from their affliction and restored to the land. They are promised that the LORD will reign over them “for ever.”
