MICAH 7


15 According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things.

- The days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt: Which trial lasted 40 years Heb.3 :8-9.


I show unto him (Israel) marvellous things


When we refer to the account of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, what do we find? We find that not only did Israel fight as an instrumental means in the case, but that God wrought visibly and powerfully with them,

"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them (the Amorites) unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword" (Joshua 10:11).

Can we forget, also, the dividing of the Red Sea to let Israel through, in which same divided sea, returning to her strength, the Egyptians found their grave?

Can we forget the earth opening her mouth and engulfing the rebellious company of Korah? the flashing forth of fire in the consumption of their sympathisers in the congregation? or the attack on the camp by fiery serpents-the messengers of Yahweh's anger?

Can we forget the dividing of the Jordan, or the downfall of the walls of Jericho before the innocent blast of rams' horns?

No marvel that the nations of Canaan fainted in their hearts at the report of the onward march of this terribly formidable foe. These wonderful works are to be repeated in the earth on a larger scale. Israel is Yahweh's battle-axe and weapons of war with which He will break in pieces the nations and destroy kingdoms in the day of His anger (Jer. 51:20).

Their leader is Emmanuel-the child born, the son given, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father-because of which, the war waged by Israel against the nations, will be distinguished from all ordinary wars. So it is written:

"Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born," etc. (Isa. 9:5).

Seasons 1.64.



16 The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might.

Then the "hour"- the thirty years - of the kings of the earth giving their power to the Beast to make war with the Lamb (Rev. 17:12-14), preceded by the necessity of a reasonable and practical period for the proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel to all nations of earth (Rev. 14:6).

Then the fact that so often in Scripture forty marks a period of trial, transition, testing and judgment.

The necessity of a long time to accomplish the transition

And then the actual fitness and necessity of things. God truly could set up the Kingdom overnight if He chose: consider the vastness of Creation in six days. But He is dealing with men, and adjusts Himself to their limitations, and He has revealed a sequence of events, and purposes to be accomplished, that will require time as far as man is concerned.

The purpose basically is to offer salvation to all, to call for individual submission, to present opportunity, to gradually thresh out the wicked and rebellious while extracting the potential wheat as the human nucleus of the subjects of the Kingdom. This, in dealing on apparently natural principles with the earth's enslaved and drugged and benighted billions, will take time.

The more we consider the magnitude of the undertaking , the more we are impressed that forty years - a generation - is a suitable and fitting time to accomplish these things, and God's ways are always suitable and fitting. We come, in fact, to wonder if forty years is enough, and we conclude that only the almighty power of God could accomplish this purpose in forty years, considering the present state of mankind. If it were just destruction, that would take no time, but it is not: it is transition, education, orderly reorganization, complete renovation.

The present corrupt, debauched, benighted population of the earth cannot be just ushered into the Millennium just because they happen to be alive when Christ comes. We know that character and development must be formed in childhood. We know, as prophesied of the last days and as we see before our eyes, that the present population of the earth is increasingly violent, self-willed, rebellious, animalistic and pleasure-seeking.

The present population is mentally, morally and physically unfit for the blessings and peace of the Millennium - too immoral, too high in their own esteem, in the pride and glory of man. Surely forty years is not too long to prepare a population fit for God's Kingdom.

The complete destruction of all man's rubbishy, ungodly works

Think of what is involved in pulling down all man's ugly buildings, demolishing to the ground all his crowded and vice-ridden cities, cleaning off the face of God's earth all man's rubbishy edifices and constructions, and building an entirely new, permanent, sound social fabric in harmony with nature and with the mind of God.

Even ignorant man himself is suddenly realizing that he is approaching the dead end of environmental disaster in all the destructively blind "progress" and "civilization" that he has been so obsessed in and so proud of. Think of the pollution problem - can this be taken into the Millennium?

All the works of ignorant and foolish man must be swept away - demolished - scraped to the foundation. The Kingdom in its transitional, millennial form is to be built for cleanliness and health and one thousand years' duration. How could any of man's flimsy, rickety, tinker-toy productions have a place in that?- for even now man's proudest works are so quickly obsolete and superseded.

And the earth is full of idols - human memorials, churches, temples, mosques, synagogues -how could all these polluted things stand in God's glorious Kingdom of purity and wisdom and holiness? There must be a thorough and drastic cleansing and purging of the earth itself and of the whole human race.

Bro Growcott 



16 The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf.

17 They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of Yahweh our Elohim, and shall fear because of thee.

O Israel. There can be no mistake here. History proves that since the prophet wrote this it has never come to pass. It is, therefore, in the future. Israel were forty years passing from Egypt to Canaan; they will consequently be forty years in passing from their enemies' lands of the Babylonian dominion into the Holy Land, from Egypt to Canaan; they will consequently be forty years in passing to dwell there as an independent nation. 

In this their transit through "the wilderness of the people" (Ezek. 20:35) they will have to fight their way; and in so doing make the Babylonian nations "lick the dust like a serpent"; a phrase very appropriate to the prostration of the Serpent power.

Exposition of Daniel.



19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

It is Israel according to the flesh, who are subject to the natural laws, that are to be "brought again from the depths of the sea;" beside showing his power, and gaining praise and fame in the earth in drying up, or destroying the Egyptian gulf; the passage of the sea by Israel in Egypt under the leadership of "the Prophet-like Moses," is designed to serve for a national baptism into Christ by which

"all their sins will be cast into the depths of the sea," 

according to the testimony of Mic. vii. 19.

When they passed through the sea under Moses,

"they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Cor. x. 2);

so when saved from their long captivity by Christ, they will be nationally baptized into him by a like marine investment; and thus be able, as "a people saved by Yahweh," nationally to sing

"the song of Moses the servant of the Deity, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous thy works Yahweh Elohim almighty; just and true thy ways, O king of the nations. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy Name? For thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest" (Apoc. xv. 3,4).

The testimony seems to indicate, that at the time of Yahweh's riding upon the swift cloud into Egypt, there will have collected there a considerable Jewish population, which will be grievously oppressed by the king of the north, or Russo-Assyrian Gog. This appears from Isa. xix. 20, which says,

"they shall cry unto Yahweh because of the oppressors, and He shall send them a Saviour, even a great one, and he shall deliver them."

Eureka 10.6.