The Eternal Shepherd Ruler From The House of House of Bread

The Eternal Shepherd Ruler From The House of Bread

Introduction:

David Dawkins Celebrates Christmas
2007 may go down as the year of the cultural success of atheism presumably with more to come in 2008. Atheists have always been around, but lately, it has become very stylish to be an atheist. In fact, atheists have begun to offer Sunday school programs as well as summer camps to indoctrinate the next generation of atheists.

How strange then that we should find something in common with atheists at Christmas time? Richard Dawkins, the leading British atheist who wrote the book, “The God Delusion” has recently come out fighting against secularists who want to ban the use of the traditional Christmas greeting “Merry Christmas.” Dawkins, the leading critic of creationism and fundamentalism, has been quoted as calling himself a cultural Christian!!! He says,
…[Britain] is historically a Christian country. I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.[1]
Can you believe it, Richard Dawkins (the man who wrote that parents who teach their children about God should be considered child abusers) will be singing songs like God Rest Ye Marry Gentlemen and O Come Emmanuel this Christmas? What hypocrisy!!!

It reminds of the scripture “these people honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me” (Is 29:13; Mat 15:8). Albert Mohler says,
At the same time, there is something comforting about the idea that even the world's most famous atheist will move his lips to the songs that celebrate Christ's birth. Perhaps those words will move from his lips to his head and his heart.

We should pray that the words of those carols will fall like rain on the cracked and barren soil of his heart and that God will use them as the means to turn his heart of stone to a heart of flesh.

Our Text this morning is from Micah 5:1-4 (Read Text)

Introduce Micah (briefly):
Title: Micah means “Who is a God like You?” [2]

Date: Contemporary of Isaiah (South) Hosea (North)
During the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (750–686 b.c.) [3]

Theme: 2) indictment against social injustice (2:1-2):
Woe to those who devise iniquity,
And work out evil on their beds!
At morning light they practice it,
Because it is in the power of their hand.
They covet fields and take them by violence,
Also houses, and seize them.
So they oppress a man and his house,
A man and his inheritance.

2) religious corruption (priests and prophets):
Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
Who make my people stray;
Who chant “Peace”
While they chew with their teeth,
But who prepare war against him
Who puts nothing into their mouths (3:5)
And,
Her priests teach for pay,
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the Lord, and say,
“Is not the Lord among us? (3:11)

3) Micah is therefore predominantly a message of judgment (1:3-4):
3 For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place;
He will come down
And tread on the high places of the earth.
4 The mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before the fire,
Like waters poured down a steep place.
5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob
And for the sins of the house of Israel.

4) finally, it is also a message about deliverance: Read 5:1-4

From this Prophets Bard we learn something of the Person and Ministry of Jesus Christ:

I The Person:
1. He is a Man from Bethlehem-
Does it seem odd to you that no one doubts that Buddha, Mohammed and Confucius were real men who lived in history, but the enemies of Christ try to reduce Jesus to a mythological figure? They can’t even accept the minimal assertion that he was at least a man. I suspect it has to do with his many miracles and especially his miraculous birth. But this Christmas, when Dawkins sings, “What Child is this, who laid to rest, On Mary’s lap, is sleeping?” he will be confessing the doctrine of the humanity of Christ.

Jesus was once a helpless, suckling, crying, waking up 5 times in the night, diaper soiling, learning to crawl before he can walk little baby, who became a pimple faced youth and finally a flesh and blood man. The London Baptist Confession reads:
…when the fullness of time was come, [Jesus took] upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary….

Maybe Dawkins will sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing and when he comes to the Stanza that reads:
Christ by highest heav’n adored, Christ the everlasting Lord: Late in time, behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail th’incarnate Deity! Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel

He will be reminded of what our text this morning teaches that…

2. Jesus is an eternal being; Divine Logos; God!

The Messiah’s divinity is only hinted at when the text says that He shall come from Bethlehem, but his coming forth is an exodus from eternity that begins with the ancient of days and was planned before the foundations of the earth. John’s gospel calls him the divine Word. God says,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Is 55:11)

Just so we don’t miss the implied divinity of the Messiah, Micah adds that his goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. This word ‘Everlasting’ means a place of continuous action; one that lacks time, a beginning or end. It is the abode of God alone. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.” Matthew Henry commented on this passage saying:

Here we have, (1.) His existence from eternity, as God: his goings forth, or emanations, …from everlasting, which is so signal a description of Christ’s eternal generation, or his going forth as the Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, that this prophecy must belong only to him, and could never be verified of any other. …[it applies to] no other than to [Jesus] who was able to say, Before Abraham was, I am, Jn. 8:58.[4]

So we see that Jesus is man and Jesus is God. The London Baptist Confession explains it this way,
so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.

Offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Now let’s look briefly at what the text says about Jesus’ ministry:

II. His Ministry:
1. To Rule: “The one to be Ruler in Israel”

Will Dawkins really understand the implications of his Kingship when he sings,
Come to Bethlehem, and see Him whose birth the angels sing; Come adore on bended knee Christ the Lord, the newborn King

Even though it says that he is King of Israel, his dominion is not limited to just a human Kingdom. When Jesus was betrayed and falsely accused, the Pharisees brought him to Pilot and Pilot asked him (Jn 18:33 ff.):
“Are You the King of the Jews?” …. Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world….

But Jesus is not a king like the petty bloodthirsty tyrants who have ruled over the kingdoms of men. His kingship is likened to sheepherding:

2. Jesus ministry is to Shepherd his flock:

Matthew’s version of this prophecy is quoted a little differently; it is a paraphrase of Micah 5:2 and 4:
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel

Jesus is the kind of shepherd who, when he saw the hungry, weak, and hopeless multitudes, “…was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Mat 9:36).

Jesus once told the people,
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep…. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:11 ff.).

Jesus is the kind of shepherd who, if one of his sheep were to go astray, we would leave the ninety-nine and retrieve it- even if that sheep’s name were Richard Dawkins, the renowned atheist and enemy of God. Because when you think about it, before Christ found us, we were all Richard Dawkins’s we were all the enemies of the good shepherd until we heard his voice.

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


NOTES:
[1] See Albert Mohler’s Blog Dec. 14, 2007.
[2]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.). Nashville: Word Pub.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Henry, M. (1996, c1991). Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume (Mic 5:1). Peabody: Hendrickson.