JESUS Our Judge (Micah 1-7)

Jesus will come again at the end of the Tribulation...

(Micah 1:2-4)  "Hear, O peoples, all of you;
Listen, O earth and all it contains,
And let the Lord God be a witness against you,
The Lord from His holy temple.
3 For behold, the Lord is coming forth from 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 be split,
Like wax before the fire..."

Then Jesus will bring all people who became believers during the Tribulation into the Millennium and lead them into the kingdom of heaven.  Not only will the Israelites (and all the rest of the believers) accept Jesus as their King, they will live in obedience to His word...

(Micah 4:1-3)  And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the Lord
Will be established as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
And the peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they train for war...

In Micah, we find this important piece of prophecy, which gave the Israelites so much information about their Messiah.  This information also gives us insight into how prophecy about Jesus has been fulfilled.  Jesus would be born in Bethlehem!  (Therefore He was 100% man, and He is 100% God because....)  Jesus is sent by God!  Jesus is the rightful King!  Jesus is eternal!...

(Micah 5:2)  “...as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”

But because the Israelites would reject Jesus the first time He came to earth, He will return at the end of the Tribulation...

(Micah 5:4)  And He will arise and shepherd His flock
In the strength of the Lord,
In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God.
And they will remain,
Because at that time He will be great
To the ends of the earth.

Micah's personal response is encouraging and inspiring...

(Micah 7:7-9) But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
8 Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy.
Though I fall I will rise;
Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.

9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord
Because I have sinned against Him,
Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me.
He will bring me out to the light,
And I will see His righteousness.

These verses were applicable then, and they are applicable now, not only for the Israelites, but for us.  I know that there are struggles and challenges here on earth, but when I became a Christian, Jesus forgave all my sins, and He is my light that guides me now, and He will one day take care of justice completely, and I do look forward to meeting Him face to face in heaven!

Now at some point, we  ALL will face God and will be judged.  Unbelievers will be judged for their sins, because they have not accepted Jesus' free gift of salvation that forgives sin.  Because they have rejected God, they will go to a place that is absent of God and absent of all good things (since all good things come from God).

For Believers, since all sins have been forgiven after they put their trust in Jesus and accepted His free gift of salvation, they will be judged for their good works, and rewarded for the things that were done with pure motives.  Because of this, we can look forward to heaven and can look forward to standing before our Lord and Savior...

(2 Corinthians 5:1-10)  For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.