THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
"Eternal Ruler Out of Little
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prca.orgDear radio friends,
Continuing our
series on the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ from the point of view of the
power of God to accomplish salvation, we turn today to a beautiful prophecy found in
Micah 5:2.
There we read these
well-known words: “But thou, Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee
shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth
have been from of old, from everlasting.”
Micah the prophet
lived during the days of Isaiah and good king Hezekiah, days when the fierce
It was because of
their sin, the sins of drunkenness, materialism, and the failure to have
compassion for each other. The people of
God at this time were boasting in their name, but their heart was far from the
living God. Their lives were filled with
everything except repentance.
In verse 1 the
prophet Micah calls the people to congregate, to come together. He says, “Now gather thyself
in troops, O daughter of troops.” Then
he goes on to say that their judges (or their princes) would be shamed before
them, they would be dishonored. “They
shall smite the judge of
In strong contrast
to this judgment and to this shame: “But
thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, out of thee will come forth the eternal ruler.” God will bring the eternal ruler, who will
also bring with Him great blessings. The
prophecy of Christ’s birth in Micah is the prophecy of the coming of the
eternal Sovereign of all majesty. Though
He would come out of a lowly and little place called
Words fail us when
we begin to think of the wonder of the gift of Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son
in our flesh, of the One whose goings forth are from old, even from
everlasting, the eternal Son born in our flesh.
Words fail to express the beauty, the majesty, the wonder of the
Sovereign God born in such lowliness, growing up, never sinning, sovereignly choosing to lay down His life for those who hate
Him. Let us be amazed at God’s
grace.
And let us look
afresh at His coming in the light of Micah’s words, words that tell us that an
eternal ruler came out of little Bethlehem.
Now the Bible itself plainly links
Micah 5:2
to the birth of Jesus Christ. We have that in
Matthew 2:1-6,
when the wise
men, who had seen His star, appeared in
There was another time that this
Micah 5:2
prophecy was quoted. That is found in
John 7,
where we read, “Others said, This
is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of
But now, if we are
to understand and worship, we must see that Micah is emphasizing the
unlikelihood of His being born in
Now the question
is, Why? Why
does God do this? He is always doing
things for a purpose. Why does He choose
that Jesus be born in
Where would we
expect an eternal Ruler to be born?
Well,
God is free. He is not impressed by any human achievement
or worth. He is never constrained by any
human greatness, to be in our debt. That is how Paul puts it in I
Corinthians 1,
where he says that not many mighty
after the flesh have been called, but God has chosen the weak and lowly things
in order that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord. And that is exactly the point of
Micah 5:2.
God is doing a thing in every
generation that will give Him the glory and shut our mouths in taking the
credit for anything. God is choosing a
way that is least likely, in order to close our mouths, so that we might find
all our boasting in Him and not in our proud accomplishments. God chose a stable, so no innkeeper could
boast. God chose a manger, so no
carpenter could boast. God put Him in
swaddling clothes, so that no seamstress could boast. God saw that He was born in
He chose freely, as
He chose all the elect. That is the
deepest meaning. Every aspect of Jesus’
birth drips with God’s pure grace. God
did not choose us because of some merit in us.
It was not that God said, “Well, after all, they are not like other
people. They are pretty good people down
there over where you are. Look at their
respectability, their accomplishments, their industry, their thrift. Well, of course, I will choose them.” Oh, no!
You and I do not receive the blessings of Jesus Christ because we deserved
it, earned it, merited it, or made ourselves worthy of it, or are of better
stock than anyone else. We do not receive
forgiveness and glory and salvation because we have made ourselves
squeaky-clean and are better than others.
But this is the message of the birth of Jesus Christ: The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared
(Titus 2:11).
The grace of God
appeared in the most unlikely place—in
But as the birth of
Jesus in
Notice two things
about Him that Micah tells us.
First, He is
eternal God. “His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” He is able to say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He is able to say (
Prov. 8),
“When
there were no depths, before the mountains were settled, before he had made the
earth, I was there.” As eternal God He
entered time. He who is unbounded, He
who is eternal, now bound Himself in the human body. Everlasting God is a baby, of which men could
ask, “How old are you?”
Second, He comes
out of the counsel of God’s grace and unconditional love. “He shall be a ruler in
Now, when we
consider the majesty and the immensity, the beauty and the glory of God in
Jesus Christ, and the unworthiness, sinfulness, and vileness of ourselves,
creatures made from the clay, and then consider that God’s eternal Son would so
come and so love us, then we cry out, “Glory to God in the highest.” Then we pause and we wonder: Who is this that is born in
Why is He born so
lowly? Because of something in me! Because I am a filthy
sinner. Why would God do
that? Out of His
incomprehensible and unfathomable and glorious love. God’s love is cause by itself. Because He would. Therefore, let all the earth be silent and
let all the earth praise Him.
We can draw out
some implications.
If He has eternally
loved us, will He stop? Will He change
His mind? Will He grow tired of us? Will He leave off loving us? No, no, never. Eternal knows no end. “Whose goings forth have
been from of old, from everlasting.” Our
Savior came out of eternal love. Will He
lose me now? Will I slip out of His
fingers? No, never. Our salvation is in the eternal Son and out
of the eternal love of God. So we can
say with the poem: “My name from the
palms of His hands eternity cannot erase; and pressed on His heart it remains
in marks of indelible grace.” God has
fulfilled His promises. They are
sure.
Micah’s prophecy is
intended to underscore that God is the God who multiplies His blessings and
fulfills His promise. The eternal Ruler
came out of little
And that is how it
comes to us today. In the darkness of
our impossibility, as we see sin mounting up around us, God says, “I have made
a promise. I will keep this promise.” All the promises of God are utterly
sure. And the promise of His Son and of
His Son’s second coming in power and great glory is absolutely sure. This will stand.
Micah said in verse
4 of chapter 5, “And he shall stand and feed [or shepherd] in the strength of
the Lord, in the majesty of the
name of the Lord his God; and
they shall abide: for now shall he be
great unto the ends of the earth.” He
will stand! He will shepherd. He will not leave us without our needs and
without spiritual food. In the strength
of the Lord His God, He will take care of us.
And then we shall abide! Nothing
can remove us from the grace and from the love of God.
We have wonderful
peace. Micah says, “And this man shall
be the peace.” Micah is not speaking
here of political peace. He is not
speaking of peace between nations. The
nation of
So look to little
Let us pray.
Father, as we
celebrate the wonder of the birth of Thy Son Jesus Christ at this time of the
year, we pray that our hearts may be truly humbled before the revelation of Thy
eternal and unfathomable love. We thank
Thee that though we deserved it not, Thou hast given Thy Son to suffer and to
die in order that we might live forever with Him. Seal Thy Word unto our hearts in this
day. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.