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“I WILL ARISE…” – Micah 7:8

 

WHO WILL ARISE ? Let us follow through the steps in the Bible on this.

 

1.        The LORD HIMSELF  - Ezekiel 34:11ff., Hosea 13:14, Matthew 17:22-23.
The Lord did not regally regard fallen man, but came after him, as a farmer after straying sheep. When surrounded and murdered by ‘wolves’, and dined on by ‘foxes’, Christ simply fulfilled His destined deliverance of the sheep, dying not for His own failure, but for their sin, a sacrifice performed by hate, worked in love and stupendously effective: Matthew 26:28-29. So it was foretold as the mission was given advance notice for millenia, in increasing degree in the last one before God actually did it (cf. Isaiah 49-56, Hosea 13:14, Ezekiel 34, Psalm 40, 22, 16, Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 5 -6, Joyful Jottings 22-25).

 

2.        The SOUL REDEEMED – Luke 15:18, Ephesians 2:6. Recall how the prodigal son, coming to himself, filled with the workings of repentance, deep in grief at his own folly, thought of his father’s house, and said: I WILL ARISE and go to my father! Such is the repentance not to be repented of! (II Corinthians 7:10). This done, one finds as written through Paul in Ephesians 2:6, that one is sitting in heavenly places, being firstly, justified in the presence of God by His redemption, a residence for the Holy Spirit by His grace, imbued with His inspiration and kindness, then enabled in HIS perspective, to see far further and to know more clearly than ever before, and indeed, to find the liberation from cultural, geographical, even hereditary limits, in the presence of Him who being infinite, can expand at will what is to be done - as at the Exodus and cause it to be done, while we marvel.

  

3.        Our PRESSING PROBLEMS – Mark 11:23 : like mountains these will ‘arise’ to be cast into the depths of the sea. To be sure, you may suffer, and WILL if you are His, for all who wish to LIVE in godliness MUST suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12); but the mountains are the things that offend righteousness, block the will of God for your life. TELL THEM! In faith do it in the name of Christ, and they will go.

 

Always remember that confrontation with evil can be purifying, its overcoming glorious, and the good you seek however chastened you may be, wrought with joy. It is a joy that no one takes from you (John 16:22). Indeed, Peter tells us of the JOY UNSPEAKABLE, like a solar flare, an outthrust not form the sun but from the Son of righteousness, which envelops you in its holy brightness.

 

4.        ISRAEL as the Lord acts at the END OF THEIR ROAD –
Micah 7:8, Ezekiel 39:1-3, Zechariah 12:10.

Micah 7 is one of the most affective chapters in the Bible. Thrust down, degraded, despised, the darkened mass of Jewry looks to its deliverance after suffering the penalties of abominable disdain for the Lord Himself, their King when He came, and for hundreds of years of intrigue and guile before it, culminating in it.

 

Then for many the light comes, their deliverance arrives, and as we read in Zechariah 12:10,  the Lord Himself is active in bringing these back to the faith, and casting out the rambunctious nations which would not let Israel live! Into the true Gospel they come (as in Micah 5 where you see His birth in Bethlehem); and into the covenant true from Abraham they return, focussing on that same Messiah in whose name was smitten the head of the ‘Serpent’, the Satan, the adversary who lost his place and lives in disgrace with so many followers. This cast down,  they come.

 

Rhapsodic with delight at this divine deliverance after all their own faithfulness:

WHO, they chant, WHO IS A GOD LIKE YOU, WHO DELIGHTS IN MERCY.

 

Nor is this all, for He acts both to “SUBDUE OUR INIQUITIES” and “CAST ALL OUR SINS INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.”  The very name ‘Micah’ signifies WHO IS LIKE THE LORD! The Christian, Jew or Gentile alike, knows that there is absolutely NONE like Him (cf. Psalm 89:6, John 1:14, John 8:58), and the knowledge of Him as Lord and Saviour fills us with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8).

So does a vastly increased Jewish contingent join the covenant Christ gave to His Church, on equal terms (Romans 11).

 

 

5.        The SAINTS at their RESURRECTION – I Corinthians 15:42-44, Revelation 11:12.
These also, they arise!

Since the saints are beleaguered as the antichrist comes towards his final rule, short like lightning, but like that too, dangerous for the dazzled, there is momentary rejoicing by the people of polluted heart and fallen spirit. Yet the Lord cries to His faithful body of witness: COME UP HERE! and they are gone, as His angels gather together His elect (Matthew 24:27-31, Revelation 11).

 

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed” – I Cor. 15:56-57.

 

 

6.        SATAN with his messy ‘messiah’ with fraudulent ‘faith’ in the RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY of the doomed,  arises only to meet the LORD IN HIS FATAL IMPACT - Revelation 19:17-20.

 

This shabby spiritualist has long inhabited many synagogues of Satan (Revelation 3:9, cf. II Corinthians 11!), spurious assemblies and even ‘churches’, and led a vast multitude astray. Such, who if unrepentant pay for their presumption, now are exposed as false witnesses, not sects only, not unfaithful Jews only, but masses in fallen denominations, no small part of the entire fabrication of fancy which for many replaces the faith. Seeking to attack the Lord, this Satanic morass of misled mortals is arguing with a hand, with sheer steel. The Lord in His majesty as the Word of God, with His saints, brings condign judgment and due end to this flamboyance of flashy delirium which has snatched from many, both their heads and their hearts.

 

It is then that the CURTAIN … FALLS
on the FLAGRANCY OF EVIL,

and the LORD RULES on earth, for “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).  

 

Rejoice therefore, if you are the Lord's, for this moment is approaching like an express train, and you can if you listen, already hear its thundering roar on the vibrating rails, as it comes in a D-day for which Normandy was merely a human prelude. But this, it is divine! Delight in Him, you saints, and if you find evil, “OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD”, for this is your calling, meet hostility with holiness and hatred with pity, seeking always to provide and present the Gospel of divine Grace if by any means some may see His face, and not their own disgrace.

 

Are you downcast ?  arise! Are you troubled with self-pity ? Arise. Are you stunned by some defeat ? Arise and go to your Father.  Cast ALL your care upon Him, for HE CARES FOR YOU
(I Peter 5:7). He cares so much that He came and did it all; and will return, and then you will indeed arise, who trust in Him. On Him, you can rely, though the heavens and earth depart (Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 51:6); and they will, but He will neither leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).