Translate

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Are We Living In The Last Days? YES We Are




Micah 4:1-13 NIV









The Mountain of The LORD








1In the last days

The Mountain of The LORD'S Temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.







2Many nations will come and say,


“Come, let us go up to The Mountain of The LORD,
to The Temple of The GOD of Jacob.






HE Will Teach us HIS Ways,
so that we may walk in HIS Paths.”
The Law will go out from Zion,
The WORD of The LORD from Jerusalem.
3HE Will Judge between many peoples
and Will Settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.






Nation will not take up sword against nation,






nor will they train for war anymore.






4Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
For The LORD ALMIGHTY Has Spoken.
5All the nations may walk
in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in The Name of The LORD
our GOD for ever and ever.








The LORD'S Plan




6“In that day,” Declares The LORD,

“I Will Gather the lame;
I Will Assemble the exiles
and those I Have Brought to grief.
7I Will Make the lame MY remnant,
those driven away a strong nation.
The LORD Will Rule Over them in Mount Zion
from that day and forever.
8As for you, watchtower of the flock,
strongholda of Daughter Zion,
the former dominion will be restored to you;
kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.”
9Why do you now cry aloud—
have you no kingb ?
Has your rulerc perished,
that pain seizes you like that of a woman in labor?
10Writhe in agony, Daughter Zion,
like a woman in labor,
for now you must leave the city
to camp in the open field.
You will go to Babylon;
there you will be rescued.
There The Lord Will Redeem you
out of the hand of your enemies.
11But now many nations
are gathered against you.
They say, “Let her be defiled,
let our eyes gloat over Zion!”
12But they do not know
The Thoughts of The Lord;
they do not understand His Plan,
that HE Has Gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
13“Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion,
for I Will Give you horns of iron;
I Will Give you hooves of bronze,
and you will break to pieces many nations.”
You will devote their ill-gotten gains to The Lord,
their wealth to The Lord of all the earth










Micah 4





In The Last Days




GOD'S Promises, Goodness, Truth, Do Not Fail. HE Withdraws HIS Presence from those who do not receive HIM, only to those who will receive HIM. Mercy is the sequel and end of chastisement.


Micah then joins on this great prophecy of future mercy to the preceding woe, as its issue in the order of GOD'S Will. "And it shall be." He fixes the mind to some great thing which shall come to pass; "it shall be."


For "the mountain of the house," which should be as a forest and which was left to them desolate, there is "The Mountain of The LORD'S House established;" for the heap of dust and the plowed field, there is the flowing-in of the Gentiles; for a Law from GOD HIMSELF going forth through the world; for the building of Jerusalem, one universal peace.


In the last days - Literally, the end of the days, that is, of those days which are in the thoughts of the speaker. Politically, there are many beginnings and many endings; as many endings as there are beginnings, since all human polity begins, only to end, and to be displaced in its turn by some new beginning, which too runs its course, only to end.


Religiously, there are but two consummations. All time, since man fell, is divided into two halves, the looking forward to CHRIST to Come in Humility; the looking forward to HIS Coming in Glory. These are the two events on which man's history turns. To that former people the whole period of CHRIST'S KINGDOM was one future, the fullness of all their own shadows, types, sacrifices, services, prophecies, longing, being.


The "end of their days" was the Beginning of the New Day of CHRIST: the Coming of HIS Day was necessarily the close of the former days, the period of the dispensation which prepared for it. The prophets then by the words, "the end of the days," always mean the times of The Gospel . "The end of the days" is the close of all which went before, the last dispensation, after which there shall be no other.


Yet this too have "last days" of its own, which shall close GOD'S kingdom of Grace and shall issue in the Second Coming of CHRIST; as the end of those former days, which closed the times of "The Law," issued in His First Coming. We are then at once living in the last times, and looking on to a last time still to come. In the one way Peter speaks 1 Peter 1:20 of the last times, or the end of the times , in which CHRIST Was Manifested for us, in contrast with the foundations of the world, before which HE Was Foreordained.


And Paul contrasts GOD'S Hebrews 1:1 speaking to the fathers in the prophets, and at the end of these days speaking to us in The SON; and of our LORD Coming Hebrews 9:26 at the end, consummation, of the times , to put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself; and says that the things which befell the Jews 1 Corinthians 10:11 were written for our admonition, to whom the ends of the times (that is, of those of the former people of whom he had been speaking) are come; and John speaks of this as 1 John 2:18 the last time. In the other way, they contrast the last days, not with the times before them but with their own, and then plainly they are a last and distant part of this their own last time.


The SPIRIT Speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith; In the last days perilous times shall come : There shall come at the end of the days scoffers : They told you that there should be mockers in the last time. The Mountain of the House of The LORD shall be – abidingly.


Established - He does not say merely, "it shall be established." Kingdoms may be established at one time, and then come to an end. He says, "it shall be a thing established". His saying is expanded by Daniel;



"In the days of these kings shall the GOD of Heaven Set Up a KINGDOM which shall not be destroyed forever, and It Shall Abide Forever" Daniel 2:44.



The House of The LORD was the Center of HIS Worship, the Token of HIS Presence, the Pledge of HIS Revelations and of HIS Abiding Acceptance, Protection, Favor. All these were to be increased and continuous. The image is one familiar to us in the Hebrew Scriptures. People were said to go up to it, as to a place of dignity.


In the Psalm on the carrying of The Ark thither, The Hill of GOD is compared to the many-topped mountains of Basan Psalm 68:16-17, (the Hermon-peaks which bound Basan,) and so declared to be greater than they, as being the Object of GOD'S Choice. The mountain where GOD was worshiped rose above the mountains of idolatry. Ezekiel, varying the image, speaks of The Gospel as an overshadowing cedar Ezekiel 17:22-23, planted by GOD upon an high mountain and an eminent, in the mountain of the height of Israel, under which should dwell all fowl of every wing; and, in his vision of the Temple, he sees this, the image of the Christian Church Ezekiel 40:2, upon a very high mountain.


Our LORD JESUS Speaks of His Apostles and the Church in them, as Matthew 5:14 a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid. The seat of GOD'S Worship was to be seen far and wide; nothing was to obscure it. It, now lower than the surrounding hills, was then to be as on the summit of them. Human elevation, the more exalted it is, the more unstable is it. Divine Greatness alone is at once solid and exalted. The New KINGDOM of GOD was at once to be "exalted above the hills," and "established on the top of the mountains;" "exalted," at once, above everything human, and yet "established," strong as the mountains on which it rested, and unassailable, unconquerable, seated secure aloft, between heaven, whence it came and to which it tends, and earth, on which it just tests in the sublime serenity of its majesty.


The image sets forth the Supereminence of The LORD'S House above all things earthly. It does not define wherein that greatness consists. The flowing in of the nations is a fruit of it Micah 4:1-2. The immediate object of their coming is explained to be, to learn to know and to do the Will of GOD Micah 4:2. But the new revelation does not form all its greatness. That greatness is from the Presence of GOD, revealing and evermore teaching His Will, Ruling, Judging, Rebuking, Peacemaking  Micah 4:3-4.


"The 'Mountain of The LORD'S House" was then 'exalted above the hills' by the Bodily Presence of CHRIST, When HE, in the Temple built on that mountain, spoke, preached, worked so many miracles; as, on the same ground, Haggai says, 'the Glory of this latter House shall be greater than the glory of the former' Haggai 2:9." "This 'Mountain,' the Church of CHRIST, transcends all laws, schools, doctrines, religions.










No comments:

Post a Comment