Micah 4:5, commentary and pictures

The words are what many peoples and nations will say in the last days, not what the Lord promises or commands, anticipating a peace not yet realized while each people still follows its own god apart from those who follow the Lord.
They set all other peoples, each going in the name of its own god, over against God's own people going in the name of the Lord their God for ever and ever.
That outward unity is a compromised and divided worship that mixes Christianity with paganism and truth with error under a merely nominal profession, while keeping separate identities, organizations and interpretations under a surface union.
It voices the popular expectation of the world's conversion and a temporal millennium of peace and prosperity through religious and political progress, but the Lamb's kingdom will fill the earth only after the wicked powers are destroyed.
The cry of peace and safety is a delusion and snare before sudden destruction, for lasting peace begins only when Christ comes, sin and sinners are removed, and one everlasting kingdom under one Ruler fills the earth.
At that same time the Lord gathers an afflicted and scattered remnant and reigns over them as a strong nation in Mount Zion forever, while each person may meanwhile follow conscience without persecution, and God's true people are known as righteous children of God rather than by national or popular profession.

Speaker and Timeframe

The talk of God judging among the nations and bringing universal disarmament and an end to war is what peoples will be saying and teaching at a certain time, not a command or promise spoken by the Lord. The words about turning implements of warfare into utensils of agriculture and about walking in the Lord's ways belong to the statement of multitudes of popular professors who expect the world's conversion, and they describe a wide-spread, deep-rooted, delusive doctrine popular among Christian nations that the gospel is to triumph over all error and bring a temporal millennium of peace and prosperity. That cry of peace and safety is a false prophecy beginning in verse 2 and raised by many nations in the last days, and those who proclaim it are forsaken by the Lord and are like soothsayers. The claim to walk in the name of the Lord while retaining allegiance to their own gods is the people's presumptuous compromise that dishonors the God of the first and second commandments, not the Lord's declaration of what will happen.

The passage is not a promise about the new earth, nor what the Lord has spoken for the present time, and it will have no corresponding action. The Lord does not say those words and will not say them, because they will not come true, and in no place does God command the nations to learn war no more. As long as nations as nations exist there will be jealousies, bickerings and wars, and talk of turning weapons into peaceful tools will not disarm the nations. Hearts will not be changed except by the converting influence of the Spirit of God. Wars will cease only when sin is wiped out of the world, when sin and sinners are removed in the fires of judgment and the nations as nations are broken in pieces as a potter's vessel and ruled with a rod of iron in punishment, followed by one everlasting kingdom under one Ruler filling the whole earth forever, while until then the portion of earth is war, strife, persecution and desolation. Instead of present peace, the loftiness and haughtiness of man will be bowed down and made low, with men abandoning their idols and hiding in caves of the earth and clefts and tops of rocks for fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth terribly.

The many nations are still speaking: they anticipate peace while acknowledging that each people will continue to walk in the name of its own god, in contrast to the people who walk in the name of the Lord. This religious division conflicts with the peaceful condition described around the verse. The peaceful conditions just before it are being anticipated, not yet realized, since the nations still acknowledge different gods.

The chapter speaks of war and refers to our times, the last days. It belongs to a prophecy about the latter days, which the parallel prophecy in Isaiah places at the end of the Christian age. Its language of peace is the last-days sentiment of popular churches, spoken at a time when nations are preparing for war and the final conflict, so it describes what people will say rather than what God says will happen just before the final day of battle. In the last days many nations will advocate peace and disarmament, but this does not mean that peace will prevail before the Lord comes, for the prophecy is fulfilled as nations promote peace while preparing for war. The words about turning weapons into peaceful tools stand opposite to Joel's call to turn utensils of agriculture into implements of war and arouse men of war.

Divided Worship Meaning

The verse sets all other peoples, each one walking in the name of his own god, over against God's people walking in the name of the LORD their God for ever and ever. That contrast belongs to the last days, when nations come to learn God's ways and His rule brings peace, and it is read as prophetic evidence of a last-day world federation formed by many people stirring popular sentiment in a worldwide movement for universal peace that seeks united religious leadership and recognition of one spiritual ruler. The explanation centers especially on the preceding words about the law going out from Zion, and the nations' advocacy of disarmament and a reign of peace does not mean universal peace will prevail before the Lord comes. Their words about honoring Christianity do not establish a national religion approved by God, for the true people of God are the righteous, each one a child of God.

The nations profess to walk in the Lord's name forever while each retains allegiance to its own god, a compromise and mixed, divided, idolatrous worship that dishonors the God of the first and second commandments. It mixes Christianity with paganism, truth with error, and light with darkness, and for many is only nominal or popular profession, a nominal civil exaltation of Christianity while accommodating other gods. This is the people's presumptuous description of peace, not the Lord's promise or endorsement of religious compromise, but a false peace that accommodates all Babylon and its mixed worship rather than God's message of true peace. In that last-days setting many peoples and nations invite one another to worship at the Lord's mountain while continuing in their own gods, a worldwide confederacy associated with apostate Babylon and its false proclamation of peace. The surrounding claims of peace and safety are false, for true peace rests on righteousness and union with God, and the Lord instead declares that He will gather His people and give the kingdom to Jesus Christ.

That union keeps separate identity, every one sitting under his own vine and fig tree, while joining in a general universal work that is only surface union and not genuine conversion or unity in Christianity. Many nations and churches unite in an enlarged work of evangelization and revival, expecting the conversion of the world as the dawn of the approaching millennium when the knowledge of God shall fill the earth, yet still retaining their separate denominational organizations and identity. They agree on some points and seek to establish God's law as they interpret it, while each holds distinct beliefs and interpretations, so the prophecy does not describe universal conversion or a world united in genuine Christianity but religious compromise among nations. That picture is applied to Protestants and Catholics working together for laws enforcing Sunday observance as a false standard.

Professedly Christian nations gather to Jerusalem expecting the Lord to overthrow their enemies, remove all war forevermore, and from that time establish His kingdom of eternal peace in this sin-cursed earth, declaring that they will walk in the name of the Lord their God for ever and ever. To walk in the name of the Lord in truth means to be strengthened in Him, to stand by His truth, to uphold the memorial of His name, and to know and honor Him, with His name in their foreheads, walking in Him continually.

False Peace Movement

Micah 4:5 describes a latter-day worldwide religious confederacy and federation in which peoples follow their own gods while joining together in a common movement that also claims to walk in the name of the Lord. Many nations and churches unite in a general, universal work of evangelization and enlarged revival to accomplish the expected conversion of the world, while still retaining their separate denominational organizations and identity, every one sitting under his own vine and fig tree and walking in the name of his own god while professing to walk in the name of the Lord forever. That movement seeks united religious leadership and recognition of one spiritual ruler, and forms through many people stirring popular sentiment, with broad tolerance so long as peoples join it. It is a nominal form of religion and feigned obedience and compromise, as people seek to exalt Christianity in civil affairs, and it is associated with Jerusalem. This common movement is not the close unity called for by the gospel, does not describe universal conversion or a world united in genuine Christianity, but suggests religious compromise among nations.

That outward unity is only surface union, in which people agree on some points and seek to establish God's law as they interpret it, while each still holds to distinct beliefs and continues in the name of its own god. In that picture Protestants and Catholics work together for laws enforcing Sunday observance as a false standard. It is the pride of self-exaltation and self-righteousness of a self-exalted church lifted up by the restored church-and-state principle through religious legislation and national decrees, exalted above the hills with peoples flowing into it because the cross has been removed from Christian profession.

It expresses the widespread, deep-rooted, delusive doctrine popular among Christian nations and popular professors who expect the world's conversion, that the gospel is to triumph over all error and bring a temporal millennium of peace and prosperity and the dawn of the approaching millennium when the knowledge of God shall fill the earth. In that expectation a future period of peace comes when nations learn war no more and a universal spiritual kingdom fills the earth through political and religious progress and temporal progress and political freedom. That expectation is rejected, for the Lamb's kingdom will not be established on earth and will not reign on earth until the wicked powers are destroyed and the wicked are destroyed and the saints' bondage ends in the Jubilee. The words about turning implements of warfare into utensils of agriculture stand opposite to Joel's call to turn utensils of agriculture into implements of war and arouse men of war, and the verse belongs to words falsely attributed to the Lord by proud, wealthy, popular religious powers as a cry of peace and safety, while the actual condition is that the Lord's remnant people are driven out and afflicted.

The foretold cry of peace and end of war was fulfilled in widespread peace appeals, declarations, and disarmament advocacy before nations plunged into war. Many peoples and nations speak of peace in the last days and proclaim a doctrine of universal peace and the time when nations no longer make war, even while war preparations continue and there is intense preparation for war. Nations of a world federation proclaim peace and an end to war for a time, but this peace is not lasting because it is not founded on God. Their use of prophecy to claim that peace had arrived did not mean lasting world peace had come; their declaration itself was what Scripture had foretold. That peace cry is a false message and a delusion near the day of God, not the Lord's promise of peace, when sudden destruction will come.

That promised universal peace is not realized by the nations as they are, because their cry is deceptive and they lack righteousness, which comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. It is a false peace that accommodates mixed worship and allows all Babylon, a message of political peace and not true peace from God, while claiming that God supports it and that each people may worship its own god while professing to walk in the name of the Lord forever. That claim represents a false peace that mixes Christianity with paganism, truth with error, and light with darkness, whereas true peace rests on righteousness and union with God, and sanctification requires truth. The talk about God judging among the nations and bringing universal disarmament and an end to war is what people will be saying and teaching at a certain time, not a command or promise spoken by the Lord, and in no place does God command the nations to learn war no more. As long as nations as nations exist there will be jealousies, bickerings and wars, and talk of turning weapons into peaceful tools will not disarm the nations, for hearts will not be changed except by the converting influence of the Spirit of God.

Remnant and True Peace

At that same time the Lord gathers an afflicted, driven-out, scattered and humble remnant and reigns over them as a strong nation in Mount Zion forever. That remnant is the final part of the church living on earth before Christ comes, called out after the signs in the heavens. The surrounding talk of peace and safety and of walking in the Lord's name is the presumptuous boast of many peoples and multitudes of popular professors seeking the world's conversion, not the Lord's declaration of what will happen, for they claim to walk in His name while retaining allegiance to their own gods in a compromise that dishonors Him. Only afterward does the Lord Himself speak, to gather His persecuted people in the day of that imaginary triumph through earthly governments and to give the kingdom to Christ.

God's faithful remnant remains loyal to Him while the nations boast that war will cease and that they will learn war no more. The peaceful words are men's declaration about the present world, which will end in war, not God's promise for the present world. The prophecy thus describes a divided spiritual condition in the last days: widespread imagined security alongside a faithful people committed to God, with affliction for the remnant and hatred, war, and intense preparation for war among the nations.

The cry of peace and safety is false, a delusion and snare before sudden destruction from which they shall not escape. Many nations and many people in the last days raise that cry and accept that message of peace and security just as sudden destruction comes, pursuing warlike preparations while deluding themselves with hopes of peace. Such declarations do not mean destruction has been averted or that lasting peace has arrived, and people must not be deceived by them. Lasting peace begins only when Christ the Prince of Peace comes, sin and sinners are removed, the earth is cleansed, nations as nations are broken as a potter's vessel and ruled with a rod of iron, and one everlasting kingdom under one Ruler fills the earth, until which the portion of earth is war, strife, persecution, and desolation.

In the last days a government would be established where God's true people could be protected in civil and religious liberty and worship according to conscience. That government is identified with the United States and its constitutional protection. Its establishment is connected with the end of the scattering of God's people and with the promised restoration of God's government and people, in which the Lord's people remain faithful to Him forever while other peoples follow their own gods.

Scripture Parallels and History

Micah 4:2-5 is closely similar and parallel to Isaiah 2:2-4, with nations flowing together and speaking fair words of peace about what many people and nations would say and do in the latter days. Because of that resemblance, a saying found in one may also have been spoken by another prophet, even if that prophet's written version has not survived. The fourth chapter belongs to the prophecy concerning the latter days and greatly resembles the prophecies of Isaiah, the early contemporary of Micah.

Micah prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah as Isaiah's contemporary, and his prophecies greatly resemble Isaiah's. His prophecy foretells Christ's coming very definitely, with Micah 4-5 giving very definite prophecies concerning the birth of Jesus, and holds out wonderful promises to the repentant sinner. His name means who is like Jehovah, and he was born in a little village southwest of Jerusalem.

The character of ancient Israel's government described with this verse together with Micah 4:4 is compared to a republican form of government. That contrast between peoples walking each in the name of his god and Israel walking in the name of the LORD was part of the model that early American settlers sought to follow in establishing a religious commonwealth and an asylum from persecution. Micah 4, read with Revelation 12, shows Babylon as the beginning of the sevenfold system of church-and-state power, beginning when Judah was taken captive to Babylon.

The people's words about turning implements of warfare into utensils of agriculture stand opposite to Joel's call to turn utensils of agriculture into implements of war and arouse men of war, in striking contrast to the concurrent prophecy of war. Those words are not God's declaration that nations shall cease to learn war nor what the Lord has spoken for the present time, but only what the people shall say when they deceive themselves with the widespread, deep-rooted, delusive doctrine popular among Christian nations that the gospel is to triumph over all error and bring a temporal millennium of peace and prosperity and with the illusion that they stand at the entrance of a resplendently glorious era of peace. It will have no corresponding action, for Micah 4 speaks of war and refers to the last days and our times, with Micah 4:1-7 as a last-day prophecy whose promise of peace is proclaimed alongside preparations for war as nations speak of peace while building armaments on an unprecedented scale. Instead the loftiness and haughtiness of man will be bowed down and made low, with men abandoning their idols and hiding in caves of the earth and clefts and tops of rocks for fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth terribly.

Liberty and Faithful Walking

The verse states the enduring principle of religious liberty, that every person may walk in the name of his own god according to conscience in matters of faith and worship, while those who worship the Lord walk in His name forever. That freedom means private belief is not to be persecuted and religious conscience is not to be controlled by the state or visited with civil molestation. Civil law still governs conduct that affects the community, forbidding acts that violate the laws agreed upon for everyone. That distinction was embodied in a colony's laws protecting worship according to conscience while restraining lawless conduct. In the setting of the first five verses it belongs also to a government that protects freedom of worship and conscience, the United States with its constitutional protection of civil and religious liberty.

The true people of God are the righteous, each one a child of God, in contrast to a merely national profession of Christianity. The broad acknowledgment of Christianity by the nations does not establish a national religion approved by God. Many accept it only nominally or profess it while it is popular and prosperous, while others accept Christ in heart and life. The verse's contrast therefore stands between peoples following their own gods and those who walk in the name of the Lord.

In wartime that contrast continues, as peoples seek their gods amid anxiety about the future, and through that seeking they may be led to the one God their Father. The nations, each following its own god, stand opposite God's people who remain faithful to the Lord. Nations may advocate disarmament and a reign of peace, but that does not mean universal peace will prevail before the Lord comes.