How will God establish peace on earth? It begins with God judging. Here are three more things Micah tells us:

God will gather. “I will assemble the lame” (4:6). These people have been injured by others’ cruelty. They have difficulty getting where they want to go. Imagine the Lord saying this to you. He will not allow your wounds to keep you from the blessing He wants you to enjoy. He is gathering His community: “Come to me, all you weary and I will give you rest” (Mat. 11:28).

God will rule. “The LORD will reign over them” (Mic. 4:7). The same Jesus who says, “I will give you rest,” also says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” (Mat. 11:29). Those He gathers, He also rules. To rule means to give direction. And “many nations shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’” (Mic. 4:2). Here is a community of people who say, “Without you, Lord, we would make a mess of our lives.”

God will redeem. “The LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies” (4:10). “Redeeming” is buying back what would otherwise be lost. You will see God’s strong arm revealed as He breaks the dark powers around you and in you.

God will fulfil His promise by judging, gathering, ruling, and redeeming. These are the things Christ does for all who will come to Him, and that is why you can have hope.

Is this something that you would want to be a part of?

Peace on earth sounds great, but how will God deal with the problems around us and the problems within us? The first thing Micah tells us here is that God will judge, and that this judgement will have two parts.

First, God will resolve disputes among His own people. So many disputes among God’s people never get resolved. But here we read that Christ will resolve them.

Second, God will judge the enemies of His people: “Many nations are assembled against you” (4:11). That’s the reality. In Micah’s time—and this has been true ever since—there have been many nations who have wanted to destroy Israel. They want to invade the land and to do violence. What is God going to do about that?

Micah says, “They do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor" (4:12). What happens to sheaves on the threshing floor? They are destroyed. God will remove those who persist in evil from the earth.

People often say that a God of love would never send people to hell. That sounds good but it hides a great naivety about the power of evil. We need someone who can overcome the power of evil (human and demonic) that spoils life in this world.

Who can stop the thief or the murderer? Who can break the drug cartels or the terror cells? Who can break down the structures of self-interest that leave half the world hungry, while the other half is drowning in gluttony? We need the judge. Without the judge, the vision of Micah 4 would only be a dream, as it has been throughout human history.

What is your reaction to God’s work of judgement?

“The house of the LORD” is the temple, and the temple in the Old Testament was the place where God’s presence came down on the earth. God had said that He would meet with His people at the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25:22).

The ark was housed in the temple and when Solomon’s temple was built, the cloud of God's presence filled the temple. So, when we read about the temple (or the house of the LORD) in the Old Testament, we are talking about the place to which God had said He would come.

Micah foresees a day when God would visibly come to His temple: “Many nations shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’” (4:2).

The “he” here is obviously God Himself. So, Micah is talking about a day when the presence of the Lord will be known to all the nations of the earth. People will come to see the Lord, to hear His teaching, and to walk in His paths. This is what he is saying!

God is invisible and so, if He is to be seen and known and heard, He must take some visible form. That means Micah is clearly anticipating a day when the Messiah, the Christ, will come to the temple in Jerusalem. There will be a day when God will draw near and His presence and His Word will be made known on the earth.

Can you imagine what this would be like?