The Prophecy of Micah — Oswald J. Smith

I wonder if you would take your Bibles and turn to the book of Michael in the Old Testament. If you're not sure where it is, perhaps you can find the book of Jonah. It's right after that, the book of Michael in the Old Testament.

Micah’s Prophecies and the Certainty of Fulfillment

And I want you to turn to the first chapter, if you will, and I want to bring a message tonight on the great prophecies of the Old Testament as presented at least in one place in this book of Michael, M-I-C-A-H.

I'm taking time so that you can get it, and then we can follow together in our study this evening. We're turning to the first chapter to commence with, and I want to read from the sixth verse. It's been my privilege to make a very special study of prophecy in the Old Testament scriptures.

If you've never done that, you've missed something that's really worthwhile. There are scores upon scores of predictions in the Old Testament that have already been fulfilled. And therefore, the fact remains that if these predictions have already been fulfilled, all the other predictions in the Old Testament scriptures that have not yet been fulfilled will likewise in their own time and at God's appointed time be fulfilled.

And I know of nothing that gives me greater assurance of the fact that this Bible is the word of God, the inspired word of the living God, than fulfilled prophecy. I'm perfectly satisfied that no man could possibly guess and see prophecy fulfilled, hit or miss, just by guessing.

If God were to be wrong, if some of these predictions should not be fulfilled, then we might have reason to cast doubt on the word of God. But all the predictions that were to have been fulfilled up to the present time have been fulfilled.

And therefore, we realize, we know beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, that all the predictions that are yet to be fulfilled will likewise be fulfilled when the time comes. Now I want you to look at this first chapter, if you will, and the sixth verse.

The Predicted Destruction of Samaria

Michael lived in the 8th century, 800 years before Christ, and he made some of the most amazing predictions that you'll find anywhere in the Bible. He dealt especially with Samaria and with Jerusalem.

I want you to look at verse 6 now, where he deals with Samaria. This is what it says. I will make Samaria like an heap of the field and like plantings of a vineyard, and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover the foundations of it.

Do you realize that just about ten years after this prediction was made, it was literally fulfilled? Ten years before, Samaria was prospering, and no one would ever doubt or ever think of the fact that anything might happen.

And yet this prophet makes this prediction. Within ten years' time, it is literally fulfilled. Samaria became heaps, desolate, destroyed, the capital of the northern kingdom. And this prediction was literally and completely fulfilled just as the prophet said it would be.

Jerusalem’s Judgment for Corrupt Prophecy

Now will you turn over to another great chapter, the last part of the third chapter, and look at the last two verses of the third chapter of Michael. The 11th verse reads like this. Her heads judge for reward, and her priests teach for hire.

In other words, they preach for money, and her prophets divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us. In other words, this verse simply says that the so-called prophets of Israel and Judah were prophesying for what they could get out of it.

They were prophesying for the money they could make as a result of their prophecies. And then he goes on in the 12th verse, and he says this. Therefore, because they do this, 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.

The result of prophesying for money, preaching for money, for what you can get out of it, instead of because God has called you to preach or called you to prophesy, Zion was to be a plowed field, in other words, Jerusalem.

Now, when was this prediction fulfilled? It was fulfilled just about exactly 100 years after, 100 years after. Now, that's a long time. This prophet stands up before the people, and he tells them that Jerusalem is going to be like a plowed field.

It's going to become heaps just as Samaria became heaps. And in 100 years, this prediction was literally fulfilled. Jerusalem was destroyed. Jerusalem did become a plowed field. Jerusalem did become heaps.

Micah’s Vision of the Millennial Kingdom

The prediction was literally fulfilled. Now, when you come to the fourth chapter, you have something really amazing, something most unusual. Starting with the first verse of the fourth chapter, you have a prediction by the prophets regarding the golden age.

Now, this man lived about 800 years before Christ. In other words, he lived 2 ,800 years ago, and yet he makes a prediction. First of all, in the first chapter, that was fulfilled within 10 years' time.

Then the last part of the third chapter, he makes a prediction that was fulfilled in 100 years' time. Now, in the fourth chapter, he makes a prediction that was not to be fulfilled until the golden age.

In other words, after the tribulation, a period that was to continue for 1 ,000 years, according to the book of Revelation. And I want you to look at this fourth chapter, if you will, and let me read a few of the verses.

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. What does he mean by saying the mountain of the house of the Lord?

The word mountain in the prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures simply meant kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah, the kingdom of God's people. Let me read it that way. The kingdom of the house of the Lord, or the kingdom of God, shall be established in the top of the mountains or in the top of the other kingdoms, and it shall be exalted above the hills, the smaller kingdoms, and people shall flow into it, and many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, the kingdom of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of 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 when was this to take place? Not in the prophet's time, not in our time, not in the church's time, but in the time of the millennial kingdom. Therefore it has not yet been fulfilled. Now some of the predictions have already been fulfilled.

Here's one that has yet to be fulfilled and will not be fulfilled until the golden age has been established. And in the third verse it says,. And he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off.

The End of War and the Reign of Peace

Now listen. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But all you have to do is to read that verse to realize that it has not yet been fulfilled.

We're still waging war. We're still training soldiers. We're still fighting battles. Never once has this prediction been fulfilled. But God says that there's a time coming which we know of as the golden age, after the church age ends, after the tribulation is over.

There will come then the golden age which revelation tells us is to last for a thousand years. And during that time there will be no war. There will be no soldiers. Nobody will fight. There'll be no war of any kind whatever.

The nations will beat their swords into plowshares. In other words, there will be farming, but there will not be fighting, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Now that's the great hope of mankind. There is a day coming when nation will not lift up sword against nation, when there will be no more war. But when there will be peace, war will have ended for at least a thousand years.

There will be no war among the nations of the world. That prediction has never, never been fulfilled. It's going to be fulfilled in the golden age, after the church age has ended, after the tribulation has also come to an end.

Then there will be a golden age in which men will know nothing about fighting, nothing about war. There'll be no swords. There'll be no spears. There'll be no cannons. There'll be no warships, no war vessels of any kind, no navies.

Every navy will be gone and war will have ended. You and I should know that, that this day is not going to continue forever. This age is going to come an age when war will cease and there'll be no more fighting among the nations of the world.

But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree. In other words, there'll be peace, complete peace, when men can quietly sit down under their own vines, under their own fig trees, and none shall make them afraid.

The newspapers will have nothing to write about war or the threat of war. None shall make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it. Now this is God's Word. A day is coming, God states, when war will end, when there will be no more navies, no more battleships of any kind, whatever, when men will quietly sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and when there will be worldwide peace, peace the like of which this world has never known in its entire history.

Israel Gathered Under the Lord’s Rule

The sixth verse, In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that is lame, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted. Who's he speaking of? He's speaking of his own people, Israel, the Jews.

God has driven them out. God it was who drove them out of their own land because of their disobedience, because of their sins against him. But there's going to come a day, he says, a day when he'll gather them again and bring them back once more.

And I will make her that was lame a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them. At last, the Lord shall reign over them. Now, God does not reign over the world today.

Satan reigns over a great part of the world and many nations of the world and many people in the world. But there's a day coming when the Lord alone will reign over the world because Satan will be bound and he'll be in a bottomless pit and he'll be there for a thousand years.

Assyria, Babylon, and the Future Kingdom

The Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth even forever. Now, when you come to the tenth verse, you have the word Babylon used. During the time the prophet lived and wrote, Assyria was the great power.

But he predicts that a day would come when Assyria would be conquered and overcome and Babylon would take over the reins of government and Babylon would reign instead of Assyria. Now, all this has to do with the future, not our day, not this day, not the church age, but the golden age, the next age, the age that is to follow the church age, the millennial age, the age that will follow the great tribulation then these predictions will be literally and completely fulfilled.

Micah’s Prophecies of Christ’s Suffering and Birth

But now when you come to the fifth chapter, the prophet goes back. He doesn't talk about the future. He doesn't talk about the golden age. He talks about the future, but not about the distant future. He talks about a nearer future and he says in the last part of the fifth verse, They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.

What's he talking about? What is he referring to? A time coming when he says they would smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. Who became the judge of Israel? Who was the judge of Israel?

Of course there is only one solution to the problem. He's referring directly to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the day when he stood on trial before the Pharisees. And you remember in the New Testament Scriptures it tells about how he was smitten on the cheek.

Again and again the Lord Jesus Christ was smitten as he stood there in the midst of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And this prediction was literally fulfilled when Jesus was smitten as he stood in the midst of the Pharisees and the Sadducees on the day of his trial.

They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. So this prediction has been fulfilled. It was fulfilled nearly 2 ,000 years ago. But it wasn't until nearly 800 years after it was given that it was fulfilled.

And then it was completely fulfilled. And then most amazing of all is this second verse of the fifth chapter. But thou Bethlehem. Think of a prophet speaking of Bethlehem 800 years before the prediction was to be fulfilled.

Bethlehem and the Coming Ruler

And thou Bethlehem. He says of Bethlehem, Thou be little, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah. Yet out of me shall he come, shall he come forth unto me. That is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

For the conclusion of Dr. Smith's message on prophecy, please turn this tape over. Now when was this fulfilled? Do you remember how the wise men came to see the ruler of Judah in order to find the babe that had been born of whom they had been told?

The wise men came and they wanted to know from Herod where he was. All they knew was that he was to be born in Bethlehem. That they had been told. Herod told them where Bethlehem was and satisfied their curiosity.

And they left Jerusalem and they made their way to Bethlehem. They saw the star again that they had seen in the east. And when they got to Bethlehem they saw the Lord Jesus Christ there in a manger where he had been born of Mary.

Now listen to this verse that Herod gave to the wise men. Here it is. But thou Bethlehem. He said, Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah not a big city, just a small town yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.

Now he hasn't yet become the ruler. Jesus Christ is not yet reigning on his own throne. He is not now the actual ruler of Israel. That part of the prediction has yet to be fulfilled. But he's coming back one of these days.

And for a thousand years he's going to rule over Israel during the days when there will be no more war. This verse is speaking about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it adds these words. Whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting.

There you have the deity of Jesus Christ. He was God. He came from everlasting and he's going to live unto everlasting. From everlasting to everlasting. He came from the beginning. He always had been.

He was the second person of the Trinity. Therefore he was God. And he became God incarnate in the flesh as he lived in this world. And one of these days he's coming back and he's going to take over the reins of government and he's going to rule and rule for a thousand years.

God’s Mercy and the Removal of Sin

Now then, that prediction has yet to be fulfilled. Part of it has been. All of it has not. He has been born. He was smitten on the cheek. That's all been fulfilled. But he's yet to be ruler over Israel.

That part of the prediction is still in the future. Now turn if you will, because I see I have to skip a lot. I've come to the end. We're almost through and I'm turning to the last verses of the last chapter of Michael.

The seventh chapter. I want to draw your attention as I close to the 18th verse and to the 19th verse. And we'll leave you to read the other verses. And this will be but an introduction. And then you'll come to this verse, the 18th, and you'll read these words.

Who is a God like unto thee who pardoneth iniquity? Thank God iniquity can be pardoned. And God pardons iniquity. And passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. Listen to this now. He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy.

I'm so glad that God delights in mercy. I'm so glad that he's not going to retain his anger forever. He is angry against sin, but he's not going to retain that anger forever. He delights in mercy. That's what this verse says.

One of these days, he's going to put away sin completely and he'll not have to contend with it anymore. And during the millennial reign of Christ, there will be righteousness instead of sin. Nineteenth verse.

He will turn again. He will have compassion upon us. Thank God he's going to have compassion upon the people who will be living at that time. He will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities.

And thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Now if they're cast into the depths of the sea, how are they ever going to be resurrected? How are they ever going to be found again? How deep is the sea?

So far as we have found out, the deepest spot in the sea is about six miles. Six miles straight down. The deepest place in the sea. In other words, you do not strike land when you go down in the sea until you have traveled down a distance of six miles.

What do we know about conditions down there? We know practically nothing. Practically nothing. We've learned little or nothing about the conditions that obtain six miles below the surface. Six miles down.

We do not know what kind of creatures live down there. We know very little about the depths of the sea. And God says when He deals with man's sin, finally, He'll cast it into the depths of the sea where we'll know absolutely nothing whatever about it.

It will be gone. And gone forever and forever. Thus God is going to make an end of sin. In another passage, He says He's going to cast it as far as the east is from the west. How far is the east from the west?

Nobody knows. Nobody can tell the distance of the east from the west. And God says that's where man's sin is going to be cast. As far as the east is from the west. And in this verse, He says He's going to cast it into the depths of the sea.

That prediction is going to be fulfilled. It hasn't yet been fulfilled. But it will be one of these days. Jesus came the first time to establish His kingdom. But the Jews wouldn't have Him. They cast Him off.

They set away with Him. They refused to accept the kingdom that He wanted to establish. And so He left. But He's coming back again. He's going to establish the kingdom that He promised He would establish.

And He'll rule and reign in that kingdom for a thousand years. That day is yet to come. I'm so glad I'm a Christian. I'm so glad that I can look forward to a great future, a marvelous future, that God has portrayed in His words for all mankind, for all those who will accept Him, for all those who will follow Him, for all those who will serve Him, there will be peace in this world one of these days.

And war will be forgotten and remembered no more again forever. May God hasten that day where you and I will be during that day only God knows. But I'm sure we'll be we'll know what's going on. We'll know something about what is happening upon this earth.

And the generation that will be living then will be the most numerous generation that has ever lived upon the earth, millions upon millions of people. But it'll be a time without war, a time without bloodshed, a time of eternal peace.

May God hasten the day. Shall we bow together in prayer? Our loving Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that beyond the difficulties of these days that so many people face, some to a greater extent than others, but everybody some of the time, we thank Thee that there is coming a day when God will vindicate the righteous.

We commit ourselves to Thee, this passage about the kingdom to Thee in Jesus' name, Amen. Shall we stand and sing just the first verse of hymn number 137? 137 as Mr. Hunt leads us, Jesus shall reign where 'er the sun doth his successive journeys run.

The first verse, then Dr. Edmondson will close in prayer.