The Big Little Village

Greetings and welcome once again to the midweek service from the auditorium of Beacon Baptist Church on Kirkpatrick Road in Burlington, North Carolina. We're delighted to be able to get together in this fashion. We'd long to be able to gather together with the Assembly of the Saints, but that's not wise at this time. We'll continue with our schedule of Sunday morning being the only service right now that we're doing with people present, and Sunday night and Wednesday night in this fashion.

However, this coming Sunday night we are planning a special Christmas program, and so we are planning people present on Sunday night at 6 o'clock, and we hope that many of you will be able to join us. I enjoyed so much hearing the Beacon congregation singing Glory in Excelsis Deo. That is one of my favorite Christmas carols. I don't know. I guess it's the melody. I'm not sure what it is. Of course, it's a good message as well, but I just love that particular hymn, and it is on the program, on the schedule for this coming Sunday morning, so we'll be looking forward to singing that with people present.

This coming Sunday, Lord willing. Well, I trust you are well. There are a number of people who are sick in various ways. It is that time of year, and so people are struggling with illnesses, whether COVID or colds or other things.

It's a lot of that going on at this time of year. We're aware of that, and we trust our health and our well-being into the hands of the Lord. I'm so delighted with the response we've had to our Faith Promise project through this last Sunday.

We have received 72 cards with emissions total just slightly less than 139,000 and a building fund total of about 11,500. So we are coming along very well. We're very close to the totals of last year, and we still have a little ways to go.

Normally, we receive cards through the end of the year and occasionally even into January, though the cards that come in in January make it a little difficult for us to budget because we have to start working on those figures early in the month to get them ready. And so if you are planning to join us, the sooner the better. We would appreciate that very, very much. Now, some have asked about our annual congregational meeting, and we are planning to have it on the first Wednesday night in February as we normally do. It will be here in the auditorium. We won't be able to have a meal ahead of time, but we will gather in this place and practice social distancing and the various precautions, COVID restrictions and protocol that we're observing now.

But we will have a people present service at that time. I'm glad to be able to announce that. We have been conducting a lot of our congregational business by means of email, and you've responded to that well. I thank you for that. When we send a request out for you to consider something and to return your vote, you've been doing that in large numbers.

And I'm very grateful for that. But we really need to get everybody together. So the first Wednesday in February, that's what we plan to do. Now that the COVID vaccine is being distributed, it's very possible that this thing could be winding down pretty quickly. Hard to say. Everything is so new. We've never done this before, never had this before, so we can't say for sure what's going to happen.

But it does seem possible to me that over the next few weeks, things could turn a corner rather quickly. We certainly trust that that may be the case. The scripture in Matthew chapter 1 verse 23 says, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. What a remarkable truth. We're going to be opening the scriptures a little bit later to that prophecy in the Book of Micah that tells us that the birth of the Messiah will be in the town of Bethlehem. And with that in mind, I read the words of this familiar Christmas carol written by Philip Brooks. Well, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above while mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love. The morning stars together proclaim the holy birth, and praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in. O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in.

Be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell, O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Shall we pray? Heavenly Father, what glad news the angels brought that day to the shepherds in Bethlehem. What glad news has been proclaimed to us as it comes down through the centuries, that a child has been born to Mary, and his name is Emmanuel, God with us.

And we stand amazed with wonder, considering this truth once again, a truth that we will never fully comprehend, a truth that we never get tired of hearing. And Father, how grateful we are that you in loving kindness sent your son that undeserving sinners might be saved. Father, we pray that you will tune our hearts to receive your word and to sing your praises. We pray, O Lord, that you will teach us to cast all of our cares upon you, to trust you, the everlasting God, a God who is so gracious to give us your son.

How will you not with him freely give us all things? And so we are confident that the needs that we have in our lives, which are so small compared to the need of salvation, will be met by the God who has given us a Savior. So we thank you for these things, and we pray that you will guide and direct us and open our hearts to these wonderful truths tonight as we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. Covering our prayer requests at this time, or at least some of them, we're grateful that Stephanie Corbett has improved with her battle with Corvid. We are praying for Gibsonville Mayor Pro Tem Mark Shepherd as our government official of this week. Please pray for Tracy Airy, who will be having foot surgery on Friday, December 18. Continue, please, to pray for Drew Guthrie as she is dealing with cancer. Pray for Larry Hunter.

He was originally scheduled to have a procedure relating to cancer on Tuesday, and through a mix-up with the doctors, a failed communication, he was not able to have that. And they are rescheduling it, we trust, very soon. But pray for Larry Hunter. We're mindful that Jane Latour has tested positive for COVID. We're praying for her. We're mindful that Jack Lyle has tested positive for COVID, and we're praying for him. We are continuing to pray for Alice Marley as she's now home recovering from a fractured pelvis. And for John Spencer, who will be having hernia surgery this coming Friday, as we're also praying for Shirley Watkins, who is home now with some health issues ongoing. We have been asked to pray for Falls Academy in Raleigh that's been hit hard with COVID. We're praying for Harold Lynch Jr., who is now in peak resources, rehabilitating because of his health problems. We are glad to report that Jack Petry has now taken up residence in an assisted living facility in Pittsburgh near his daughter, Cheryl, and seems to be adjusting very well. We're praying for Ronald Stinnett, who has Parkinson's and a crushed vertebrae.

This is Alice Marley's son-in-law. We're praying for Roger Thompson, who has neurological issues, an uncle of Sue Vestal. And for Mark Verdi, who's in the hospital in Ohio with COVID, a brother-in-law to Nancy Verdi. And I understand his case is fairly severe. We're also praying for Josh White, who will be deployed for 14 months.

This is a nephew of Ken Elliott. We're thankful that Stuart Waugh is still on schedule to return to Zimbabwe tomorrow. We trust that that will take place.

Up until now, there does not seem to be anything to prohibit it. And so we're praying that he'll be able to go ahead as scheduled, return to his home in Zimbabwe, to be reunited with his family that lives there. A number of his family members, two of his children and others are there. And to be able to meet with the pastors that he hasn't been able to meet with personally for a long, long time.

He's looking forward to that as they are as well. We're praying for missionary Mike Webster, who serves in France, who's dealing with colon cancer. And we continue to pray for Trevor Johnson and for Paul Snyder, also missionaries that we are in partnership with who are home because of health issues. We are praying for God's strength to be ministered to several in our congregation who have lost loved ones to death. An aunt of Art Pope Beth Barker passed away. And a friend of Art Pope Robert Trace also passed into eternity. And an aunt of Carly Carnes, Sally Hochman, died recently. We've been praying for Amy Hill's father, who went to the hospital with heart issues.

He's now out of the hospital and is doing much better physically. But Amy has asked us to pray for his salvation. We are praying for Logan Lee, who has brain cancer, a name that has been given to us by Paul Ellis. We're praying for Dean Vaughn, who is Michelle Lau's brother, who has cancer.

And also for Naomi Williams, Amy Freeman's mother, who is battling cancer and is having a PET scan early next week. Now, some missionary communications. We have this thank you card that came to us from Sherry Morris of the Hearts Cry Ministry. Dear pastors and family, with deepest appreciation, I want to thank you for your sweet gift of $275 to me for this Christmas. I want to thank you as well for your tremendous commitment these many years to this ministry. Your faithful prayers for a hearts cry for my mother and my family have not only been felt, but proved his amazing watch care in each area of my life. Press on, Sherry Morris.

Let's see. I've got several things I'd like to read. I have a short personal note here from Tim Easley of International Intercession. It's at the bottom of a month of a prayer letter.

I'll just read the part of his personal note. He writes, Dear Greg and Beacon Folk, I hope you have a meaningful Christmas holiday season. Thank you for your faithful gift to our mission's efforts overseas.

This Christmas gift is also a big help. And he goes on and says a few things and signs blessings to Tim Easley. Herb and Wanda Taylor, who were up for our tri-state fellowship meeting this last Monday, write, Dear Brother Greg, we want to thank you for your kindness to provide for our meal at the restaurant this past Monday night. It was a joy to be able to be there for the pastor's fellowship. And the time to visit together is always encouraging. I thank you so much for your kindness to us. It was also a blessing to be able to stay in the missionary house. We are always comfortable there.

And it was so nice to be there and not travel back to Greenville that evening. Thank you for that special blessing. We appreciate you folks and the ministry at Beacon. We are grateful to be ministry partners together. May you have a blessed Christmas, Herb and Wanda Taylor, Hispanic Ministries with Baptist Church Planters.

All right. I have several others, but I want to read this one from David Vaughn in France first because if I leave it till last, I may run out of time and I don't want that to happen. The Vaughn's serve in the south of France. We actually are partnering with three missionaries in France.

I mentioned Mike Webster a little bit ago. He lives in northern France, having served many years in French-speaking Quebec and now more recently in French-speaking France. And then we also support Tim and Ruth Bixby also in northern France in the Paris area. And if I have time, I'll read a little bit from their life and ministry tonight. But we also support David and Nicky Vaughn in the south of France. And you may not be as well acquainted with them because it's been quite a while since they have visited here.

And also because we don't get as many prayer letters from them as we do from some missionaries. So that's why I wanted to be sure and read this one that came just a few days ago. I'm reading excerpts from it. It's about three pages, typed, small print, closely spaced, so I won't be able to read it all.

But I'm going to read some excerpts. It's very interesting, I think. Anyway, he says, Dear friends, we are thankful for our little group that is gradually growing again after losing several people in the autumn of 2019. We have five new people attending, two of whom who have asked for membership and the others visibly hungry for God's word and happy to have found us. Though we are still a very small group, it is encouraging that 80 percent of the adults are at midweek prayer meetings by Zoom and that the quality of these times of prayer makes us typically come away with thankful hearts. The lockdown has obviously hampered our evangelistic efforts.

Please pray for us that we might not stagnate in this area but continue to find and seize opportunities to share the gospel with those who do not know Christ around us. I paused to say the first part of his letter talked a little bit more about the lockdown, which is more severe in France than it is in America and has pretty much curtailed all church meetings for the time being. Now, here's the part I have found fascinating, and I wanted to share this with you. He says, in my last letter, I wrote that we are developing close ties with two small gypsy churches composed of people who have come out of a large French Pentecostal gypsy denomination. Now, we're not so familiar with gypsies.

They're not a big part of the landscape in America, but they are very prominent in a number of European countries, and in France there are, I think, at least half a million of them or so. They tend to be a tight-knit group, don't mix and mingle very well with the rest of the population, and this is quite a breakthrough that I'm sharing with you tonight. He says they, these two churches, are now Reformed Baptist churches and have adopted the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, which we also use.

This is a mammoth change in theological perspective for them. These two churches are closely connected, though they are 90 minutes from each other. There are many family ties among their members, and Noyo, a man in his 60s, is the only ordained elder for both groups. A heart-cry mission has agreed to help these two gypsy church plants if I would take responsibility to train and prepare for ordination to two young leaders, Michael and Joseto, who are preaching and doing the real pastoral work among them.

The church plants desire to call these men for eldership, and from our experience with them, they are certainly qualified on every level for this office. And then he says some other things that I'm going to skip over at this time and pick up here as he talks about the background of these people and their Pentecostal background. He says they say that although they were active members of their Pentecostal church for 20 years, they had never heard or understood why Jesus died on the cross. They knew he had done so and that it was important, but they had no idea how it related to them or salvation.

They had never heard of justification by faith, not the term nor even the concept. They had no concept of Jesus being our substitute who suffered the wrath of God due our sins and our place. He says these comments are simple descriptions of what I've been told by these people, but they are not intended to imply that all Pentecostal groups would share this degree of deviation from biblical teaching.

Michael told me recently that in a pre-membership class, he was explaining the biblical concept of imputation. He said that as he taught these gypsies about the imputation of our sins to Jesus on the cross and the imputation of his righteousness to us, there were tears streaming down several of their faces as they rejoiced to fully grasp what the gospel was all about. You may ask, what did these gypsies hear all these years in their churches?

I asked precisely this question to one of them. This man told me that Jesus was not ever presented to them as a savior to deliver them from God's wrath and reconcile them back to God. They were never told that this is why they needed Jesus or that this is what they should trust him particularly for. He also told me they never once heard that to become a Christian, he needed to repent from sin. He said that Jesus was presented to them as the one who could heal them of sickness, provide them with material prosperity, and rescue them from sadness and troubles to make their lives on earth happy. It was a therapeutic Jesus and a here and now gospel, not a redeeming Jesus and a gospel of eternal life in the world to come.

I skip over some other paragraphs to pick up toward the close. He says, we cover your prayers for our relationship with and ministry with these dear people. We never expected to be involved with the gypsy community in France. A couple of the French people in our church plant are even having a hard time getting used to this new development because the typical French person disdains the gypsy community and regards them as a bunch of thieves. But we have been won over by the sincere Christian faith and love of these gypsy converts and counted as a high privilege to be associated with them. I've given you detailed information that you can pray for our ministry on the local church level of these four towns. But we want to urge you to think beyond the bounds of our local ministry to these few. Please pray that the Lord would use our Reformed Baptist gypsy friends to cause a true biblical gospel in its saving power to spread among the 400,000 to 600,000 gypsies spread throughout France. Pray for a major transformation among the Pentecostal gypsies of this country. Pray that the solid Reformed teaching of Michael and Joseto, which is being broadcast each week over the internet and is available for download, would be watched by many and bear much fruit. With sincere gratitude for your prayers and partnership in the gospel, signed David Vaughan. All right. Now, do I have time?

I think I do for a couple more communications. I'm going to read a little bit relating to the Bixby's in France. This is in the monthly publication of EMU International. It comes out of their mission board in Greenville, South Carolina. And it highlights a number of the missionaries that are part of their board and their work. It says, We received some very sad news earlier in October from Tim and Ruth Bixby. Ruth's father unexpectedly passed away on October 19. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer, but the prognosis was that he was not in immediate danger and would undergo treatment. Born in 1951 in Savannah, Georgia, Richard Pankey, Sr., became an airplane mechanic and pilot.

It is said that he could fix anything. Rick and his wife, Judith, were residents of Wake Forest, North Carolina, and active members of Friendship Baptist Church in Raleigh. One of his greatest passions was missions, and he participated in numerous work teams to foreign countries. He also loved singing in the church choir and playing in the orchestra. His love of music spilled over to his children and grandchildren. Rick and Judith have a son and three daughters, two of whom are married to ministers.

They also have 13 grandchildren. Having been called about her father's death, Ruth and Tim Bixby began calling for plane tickets for Ruth and their youngest son to fly stateside for the funeral on October 24. The Bixbys were surprised to find very inexpensive tickets so that the entire family of seven could travel from Paris to Raleigh. Tim and three of the older children, Micaiah, Miriam, and Gabriel, returned to France on October 30, while Ruth, Simeon, and Zachary, and by the way, today is Zachary's birthday, and Zachary remained with Judith for a short time longer. In God's providence, the Bixby children were out of school for the fall break, so they did not need to miss any school. Also in God's providence, the Coles, another missionary family joining the Bixbys, were already scheduled to visit the Bixbys in Seychelles, so while the Bixbys were at the funeral, Michael Cole was able to fill the pulpit in Seychelles. These two EMU families missed fellowshipping with one another, as was previously planned.

The Coles are planning to return stateside early in 2021 to begin their long-postponed furlough, praying that the COVID crisis in France and the USA will not interfere with their trip or meetings with supporters. So that's a little more background with the death of Ruth Bixby's father. Then we have an update from Josh and Amy Jensen, who also serve at the same board, who are involved in Bible translation work in Cambodia, and I want to read about that. Ever since the final check on Matthew was completed in early August, the Jarai translation team has been busy getting the text ready for distribution. It's taken longer than expected, but Matthew is now typeset and printed, as well as being bundled into an app, and we're starting to distribute the books and app church by church. After the consultant finished checking Matthew with our team in August, we called a few Jarai pastors together and read through the entire book aloud over the course of three days. This reading led to several more days of work revising the translation in places that we found problems, mostly awkward or unnatural wording. Once the text was thoroughly revised, we printed several drafts to present to the Translation Oversight Committee.

They chose the smaller size blue cover with double columns. The printing was done as a local copy shop with a glued binding. We're selling copies for $1 each, a price decided by the Translation Oversight Committee. Last week we packed up the first batch of printed Matthews, and on Thursday, October 22, we called together 20 church members from Seinkanning Village to give our distribution plans a test run.

We spent three hours introducing the book, including how to use cross references, footnotes, and glossary entries, and then reading from chapters 12 and 13. We hope to replicate this program in every village that has a church, but instead of limiting the number to 20, we will invite anyone who is interested, and I'll stop reading at that point. It gives you a little bit of idea of what goes on in the work of translation. Vital, vitally important in these places where they have no copy of God's word in their language. All right, with that, we will open our Bibles tonight. And as I told you earlier, our focus tonight is actually the prophecy in the book of Micah concerning Bethlehem as being the birthplace of Christ. But we're going to have to start in the New Testament and then work our way back to Micah and then back forward to the New Testament again because it's only with the information we have in the New Testament that this prophecy in Micah really comes into focus and becomes completely clear to us.

I don't know how clear it would have been to the original readers in Micah's day. The importance of Bethlehem, of course, comes to bear in the well-known account in Luke chapter 2, and I'll read it. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

The census first took place while Kyrenius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, every one to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Well, the circumstances leading to Bethlehem are explained for us in Luke chapter 2. Otherwise, we might wonder how did it come to pass that Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem? How did these residents of Nazareth, a town in Galilee in the northern part of Israel, how did they come to be in Bethlehem in Judea in the south part of Israel at the time when Mary's child was born?

And Luke chapter 2 provides the answer. It has to do with an imperial decree that Caesar Augustus decided that it was time to conduct a census, which also involved taxation of all of the citizens in his vast empire. It would seem that this was something of a rolling census. In other words, each country, each location didn't conduct it at exactly the same time. It took probably over the course of even several years, two or three years or so, for the entire empire to conduct this census, but it nevertheless was carried out and the time had come for it to be conducted in the land of Israel. And furthermore, this census, which was universal throughout the empire, was based upon heritage.

There was a heritage-based requirement that the census be taken place, take place in the town, not necessarily of one's birth, but of one's heritage. Now we don't know. Joseph may have been born in Bethlehem.

We really are not given that information. But we are told that he went to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. He was a descendant of David, and Bethlehem was the city of David, the great king of Israel. Now that information, Joseph's lineage from David, is given to us in the opening verses of Matthew's Gospel. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew opens with the genealogy of Joseph and then gets into the account of Christ's birth.

But it begins this way. I'm not going to read the whole genealogy. But Matthew 1 says, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Now that, of course, says this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. But as you read down through it, you realize it is the genealogy of Joseph. And it becomes a genealogy of Christ because Joseph legally adopted Christ to be his son. But Mary was not represented in the genealogy that is given to us in Matthew. That's Joseph's genealogy. And it traces Joseph back to David, he was a descendant of David, through Solomon. In fact, you can trace it right through the royal line.

I could pick it up here somewhere. David the king, verse 6, begat Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begat Rehoboam. Rehoboam begat Abijah. Abijah begat Asa. Asa begat Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat begat Joram. Joram begat Isaiah.

I stop there. But many of you who know something of the Old Testament Scriptures will recognize those are the kings. In the line of David, Isaiah is one of the best known ones.

Where Isaiah said, in the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. And so this genealogy traces David's royal line from David to Solomon right on down until eventually we get to Joseph. We read in verse 16, and Jacob begat Joseph, and here's where the wording changes suddenly. Up until this time, it has been the son of Elihu begat Eliezer.

Eliezer begat Matan. Matan begat Jacob. Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So even in the genealogy, the record of this, the virgin birth of Christ is carefully preserved, is carefully declared that Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom was born the Christ. This is not that Joseph was the father of Christ.

He was the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ. But Joseph was of the line of David. Now, there's another genealogy in Luke chapter 3 that's different from this one.

Most Bible scholars believe that that genealogy represents the genealogy of Mary. And interestingly, Mary turns out to be a descendant of David as well, but not through the royal line. She traces hers back to David through another son of David, Nathan. Nathan wasn't the son of David who became the king after him.

Solomon was. Joseph's lineage traces through the royal line, back through Solomon to David. Mary is a descendant of David, but not through that royal line.

Now, that's significant. But what that tells us is that whether we're speaking of Christ's physical birth to Mary or his legal adoption by Joseph, he actually was in the line of David in both cases, though through a different line of descent. But Mary was a descendant of David. Joseph was a descendant of David. And so Jesus was a descendant of David by his physical birth through Mary. He was a descendant of David by adoption by Joseph and was in the royal line in that way. But all that to say that this is what brought Joseph to Bethlehem. He was of the royal line of David, and that's where he needed to go for this census to be taken.

And so Joseph complied with the Roman census. Mary went with him. Now, some have wondered why, when she was so close to delivering the child, why would Joseph take her that 85, 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem? Why didn't he leave her in Nazareth? Why didn't he leave her with her parents?

Well, there's two answers to that question. From the divine standpoint, he didn't because God had determined that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. And this is how God arranged the circumstances for that to take place. But from a human standpoint, I think the answer probably is, once Joseph took Mary into his own home to be her protector, then he was not going to let her out of his immediate presence, his immediate protection.

He felt an obligation to have her with him at all times, and so he took her along. And that's what brought them to Bethlehem, and that became the location of the birth of Jesus. It's really extraordinary how God arranged all of this to fulfill the prophecy in Micah that we're going to look at briefly in a moment. How Mary got there at the right time to deliver the child in that place would almost seem to be beyond human ability to arrange, but God worked everything out. The census, the requirement of the census, on the mind of Caesar Augustus, the timing of the census, it had to come about at exactly the right time, the arrangement to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, all of that is quite amazing when you think about it, but it all came into place perfectly so that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

I won't go into the section in Matthew chapter 2 where it's clear that the Jewish scholars recognized that Micah was predicting the location of the birth of the Messiah. The Magi, wise men we generally call them, came from the east and they inquired, where is he who is to be born king of the Jews? We've seen his star in the east.

We've come to worship him. Where is he? Where is he to be born? They made this inquiry of the king, Herod. Herod, shall we say, did not give that news a friendly reception, not by a long shot, but he immediately turned that question over to the Jewish scholars.

Where is the Messiah to be born? And they answered accurately in Bethlehem, Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet. And they quote this very prophecy which we find in Micah chapter 5 verse 2. What is surprising, I suppose, to most people is they heard this report from the Magi, they identified the right location for the birth of the Messiah, but they seemed to show no curiosity, no interest, no excitement about the possibility even that their long-awaited Messiah had come. They represent religious people who knew a great deal about the Bible, about the Scriptures, and yet really had no heart yearning for their Messiah.

They really weren't students of Scripture for the spiritual benefit that it would bring to their soul. Now having said all that, we turn to the prophecy in Micah chapter 5. And here's what we read in verse 2.

But you, Bethlehem, Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. In this prophecy of Micah, which most Christians don't know very much about, if I said to you, tell me something about the prophecy of Micah, what would you tell me? If I said, give me some of the contents of the prophecy of Micah, what would you tell me? You might know the text that we are looking at tonight, but probably you wouldn't know anything else from the book of Micah, at least if you're like most Christians.

I can tell you that there are actually quite a few statements in Micah that are familiar statements, but many people don't recognize them as coming from the prophecy of Micah. For example, it's Micah who says in chapter 1 verse 10 this well-known phrase, tell it not in Gath. In other words, don't publicize shameful reports to unsympathetic persons. Tell it not in Gath.

Gath was a Philistine city. And what he's saying is, don't report to the Philistines the bad news of calamity that has come in Israel. Don't publicize shameful reports to unsympathetic persons. Don't tell it in Gath. Keep it to yourselves.

Keep it where it belongs. Don't tell it to the enemies of God. A very familiar statement.

You find it quoted quite often. Micah's also the one that talks about beating your swords into plowshares and also talks about every man sitting under his vine and fig tree, this picture of peace, prosperity, and safety. He's the one who tells us that God wants us to do justice and love kindness.

And he's the one that states a man's enemies shall be those of his own household, picked up by Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 10. So all of those are familiar statements from the prophecy of Micah. Micah's not really quite as obscure as you might think, but it's not the best known book in the Old Testament, but this prophecy is well known. And what is this prophecy again?

Well, it is the prediction of where Messiah is going to be born. But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth are from of old from everlasting. In this small and largely insignificant village, too small to be noticed, little among the thousands of Judah.

It's a small town. If it were not for the fact that David was born there and has made Bethlehem famous, I suppose, as his birthplace, it probably would have escaped notice altogether, that is until, of course, it became the birthplace of Jesus. But out of Bethlehem is going to come a very significant person. David, of course, was a significant person that came out of the little village of Bethlehem, and he is a forerunner of a more significant person. And that more significant person, of course, is the Christ, who is sent by God, yet out of you shall come forth to me. This is the prophet speaking for God in my Bible.

The word me is capitalized to indicate that this is speaking about Yahweh. There is going to come out from me, sent by Yahweh, sent by Jehovah, a ruler in Israel, so this is going to be a king, but one who has been active for all eternity. The one to be ruler in Israel, whose going forths are from of old, from everlasting.

Now, this is a short text, a concise text, but it says a lot. Out of Bethlehem will come a king of Israel, one who will rule Israel, and this one is eternal. He is from everlasting. He is almighty God. He is Immanuel, God with us. He will have quite a mission, it goes on to say in the next couple of verses, I won't read them now, but he will shepherd his flock, he will lead and sustain his people, and he will extend his influence to the end of the earth.

He's not going to simply minister to Israel, but he's going to have a worldwide influence, and he will be the one to bring peace to this earth. We love that message at Christmas time. Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king, and this message of peace, peace on earth, good will to men. It really is the longing of every heart. What is all this unrest in our country today? What are all these protests, all these marches in our country today? Well, there are different elements, of course, different factors that play into all of this, but more than anything else, it's that people of all kinds, of all stripes, of all classes, of all political persuasions, from the left to the right and everything in between, are longing for a time when all of this turmoil will be over. You say it's a strange thing for people to want to be bringing an end to turmoil by stirring up turmoil.

I know, there's a lot of strange things, a lot of inconsistencies that go on, but that's really what this is. We demand peace. What are they marching for?

In a lot of cases, they're marching for an end to violence, an end to injustice, an end to discrimination. They want to see a time when peace shall descend upon the earth and all of these things shall be resolved, but seem not to understand how that is going to happen. It's only going to happen in one way, when this ruler, born in Bethlehem, will take up his reign of righteousness upon the earth. Of course, what we know now is that that only takes place at the second coming of Christ. The two different comings were not that clear in Old Testament prophecy. There were things said about the coming Messiah, some things that related to his first coming, some things that related to his second coming, but oftentimes they weren't clearly distinguished in the Old Testament prophecies.

Many times they were rather intertwined. All of these things he will do, all of these things he will bring, all of these things he will accomplish. Now we know some of them in his first coming, where the foundation is laid for all the rest, and others of them to be brought about in his second coming. How is this going to be done, this bringing about a universal rule of peace? It's going to come about by the proclaiming of his word. That's what we are told here, actually.

I'm looking for it. Verse 4, and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord. What is feeding his flock? We're talking about his sheep.

We're talking about a spiritual relationship. How are the sheep of Christ fed? By the word of God. That's how they are fed, and it is through this proclamation of the word that these things will be brought about. Now we're looking forward to that day when the word shall be ministered so powerfully that it truly shall subdue all sin, all rebellion, all injustice, all that is wrong, and bring about a rule of perfect righteousness. That day will not come until Jesus comes again, but in the meantime, we have the powerful word of God that we can proclaim.

It's the same word that has the power to accomplish all these things. We need to trust it. We need to proclaim it. We need to be faithful in ministering it.

May God help us to do it. But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose going forths are from of old, from everlasting. Shall we bow as we close in prayer? Father, we thank you that such a ruler has come, and we thank you that such a ruler is coming. And we thank you that the ruler who has come has ministered his word to our hearts and has made us his subjects, has placed us in his flock, and is feeding us by his word.

We thank you that we have the privilege of ministering that word to others. We want to pray for all of our government officials. We pray for President-elect Joe Biden as he comes to assume the leadership of the United States of America. We pray your blessing upon him, your strength be given him, your wisdom to guide him. We pray, O Lord, that you will enable him, yea, that you will guide him into making wise decisions. O Lord, our country needs divine direction.

We pray that you will give that guidance to us. We want to praise you that Stephanie Corbett is improved from her COVID. We pray for Tracy Aries. He faces foot surgery on Friday. We pray for Larry Hunter as he'll be having upcoming surgery very soon. We are mindful that Drew Guthrie is battling cancer, and we commit her to your care. We pray for Jane Latour and Jack Lyle, who've tested positive for COVID, that you might minister to them.

We pray that in your kindness you will give them a relatively mild case. We pray for Alice Marley as she's home recovering from her fractured pelvis. We pray for John Spencer as he has coronary surgery on Friday. We pray for Shirley Watkins as she continues to struggle with health issues.

Father, we are sorry to hear about the outbreak of COVID at Falls Academy in Raleigh, and we commit them to you and pray that you'll minister to their needs. We pray for Harold Lynch, Jr. We pray for John Petry, thanking you that he can be in a facility near his daughter in Pittsburgh. We pray for Ronald Stinnett, for Roger Thompson, for Mark Verde, struggling with COVID in Ohio.

We pray for Josh White. We pray for Stuart and Laverne Waugh, that they may be able to make this journey to Zimbabwe tomorrow on schedule. We pray for Trevor Johnson and Paul Snyder and Mike Webster and their various needs. We pray for those who have lost loved ones to death, for the family of Beth Parker and Sally Hochman and Robert Trace. We also pray today for Billy Hill. We pray that you might minister to all of his needs. And we pray for Logan Lee as he is facing treatment for a brain tumor. We also pray for Dean Vaughn, Michelle Lau's brother, and for Naomi Williams, that you might help her as she continues her battle with cancer. And now, Father, we commit ourselves once again into your care. O Lord, how good you have been to us. Help us to respond in loving obedience and in faithful service to the one who loved us and gave himself for us as we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.