Micah's Proph ecy.

Micah v, 2.

The Prophecy
Imperiled.

day in every week the Church of Immanuel celebrates the resurrection of her Lord, is it unbecoming that she should one day in every year celebrate that nativity without which there had never been either resurrection or redemption, or even the Church herself?

And now let us attend to the story of the birth of Immanuel.

More than seven centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the prophet Micah gave utterance to the following remarkable prophecy:

Thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah,

Which art little to be among the thousands of Judah,
Out of thee shall One come forth unto me

Who is to be ruler in Israel;

Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.

Without staying to comment on the details of this
prediction, let it be especially noted how particu-
larly the prophet designates the birthplace of the
promised Messiah. Gazing down from the mount
of prophecy, casting his piercing glance over all
the world, his prophetic eye at last rests on a little
village six miles south of Jerusalem; and he an-
nounces, with the confidence of one who had been
an eyewitness of the scene, and was describing it
historically, that in Bethlehem of Judea shall be
born One who shall reign, the universal, everlasting
King. And, committing his oracle to the keeping
of the God of Abraham and of David, Micah
lies down to sleep in the sepulchre of his fathers.
And now century after century creeps on,
each plunging into the abyss of eternity. And

each century, as it takes its awful plunge, carries down with it the ruin of many a scheme and the downfall of many a kingdom. Untold times during these seven hundred years does the oracle of Micah, the seer, seem on the point of dissolving into space. Feebly flickering and glimmering in the dreary night that is creeping over the land of promise, ever and anon it seems as though it must go out forever as some fresh tempest of foreign fury sweeps over and desolates the Holy Land. Invader after invader marches through the country. Uncircumcised heathen sit on the throne of David. The idols of Nebuchadnezzar are enshrined in the holy places. Jerusalem yields the key of her fortress to Alexander. The Egyptian Ptolemies renew the yoke imposed by the ancient Pharaohs. The bugles of Antiochus the Great resound from Lebanon to the Sea of the Dead. At length Judea shakes beneath the heavy tramp of the legions of Pompey. The scepter has departed Genesis xlix, 10. from Judah, and the ruler's staff from between his feet. The throne of David, once so august, has crumbled into ruins. Flocks of sheep still graze on the hill-sides of Bethlehem, but no scion of the royal house is there to tend them, or to echo the pastoral song of the monarch-minstrel :

Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Nevertheless, the oracle has gone forth that out of Bethlehem Ephratah shall go forth One who shall shepherd Israel. But how can the oracle be fulfilled? Behold, then, a wonderful movement of that almighty finger at whose touch creation sways.

Psalm xxiii.

Cæsar's
Luke ii, 1-6.

cree.

De

Gal. iv, 4.

Far off across the Mediterranean, on another continent, revels in imperial splendor Cæsar Augustus. Little does this monarch, on whose brow glitters the crown of an almost universal empire, dream that, while the world is kneeling before him, he himself is an appointed instrument for the execution of a purpose conceived from before the Book of Esther. World was. That same Almighty God who, through the restlessness of a Persian monarch, had rescued from annihilation the national stock from which his anointed was to spring, prepared a birthplace for his anointed through the edict of a Roman emperor. For, when the fullness of the time had come, and the Christ was to be born, Cæsar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be enrolled. And, since it was the Jewish custom that each Israelite should be registered in the birthplace of his chief ancestor, Joseph and Mary went up from Nazareth in Galilee, where they were living, to Bethlehem in Judea, where their ancestor David had been born, to be enrolled. And it came to pass, while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered; and she brought forth her first-born son, even Immanuel. And thus a minute prophecy, a thousand times imperiled in the course of seven centuries, was at last minutely accomplished. Oh, who does not feel that a God is here? Who can resist the conviction that this God has had from the beginning his purposes, and actually controls every movement of every human will?

Cæsar's Free

dom.

Yet there is no reason for supposing that Augustus Cæsar, in issuing his decree for a universal

men.

census, was conscious that in so doing he was preparing the way for the accomplishment of an ancient prediction. A Roman, he cared nothing for the Hebrews. A pagan, he knew nothing of Messianic prophecies. His issuing a decree of enrollment was nothing unnatural or extraordinary; it was one of the commonest acts of a political ruler, and he himself was one of the most methodical of Yet who can doubt that Cæsar Augustus, in issuing this decree, was accomplishing a predetermined purpose of the Ancient of Days? Nevertheless, nothing is clearer than this: Cæsar Augustus, in publishing this edict, and Joseph and Mary, in visiting Bethlehem in accordance with its requirements, acted as perfectly free, voluntary beings. They governed themselves according to circumstances-circumstances perfectly natural in themselves. Augustus ordered the registration because he was a man of method, and wanted imperial statistics; Joseph and Mary visited Bethlehem in order to obey the mandate. And yet in doing so were they not fulfilling-it matters not how unconsciously to themselves—a certain prediction? Were they not chosen to be instruments of a certain purpose? Was it not divinely foreseen, and divinely foreseen because divinely foreordained, that Cæsar Augustus should issue this decree, and that Joseph and Mary should visit Bethlehem?

Now, I have not alluded to this matter for the purpose of attempting to solve a frequently propounded problem-namely, the reconciliation of divine sovereignty and human freedom. I have alluded to it simply for the purpose of showing

that when we look at this problem in its historic, practical, matter-of-fact aspect, the difficulties vanish. When God, through his prophet Micah, foretold that his Messiah would be born at Bethlehem, he intended that the virgin mother of that Messiah should be brought to her ancestral city by a decree of a Roman emperor. But this Roman emperor issued this decree, not because he was aware of this prophecy, and wished to fulfill it, but because he was an emperor, and desired a census. He simply did as he chose. Just here we leave the point. Considered practically in its matter-of-fact aspect, this subject presents no difficulty. It is only when we pry into that domain of infinite problems which God has not opened to us that we become bewildered and lost. Let us be content with reverently believing what God has been pleased to reveal to us; that will be quite enough for the blissful conDeut. xxix, 29. templations of an eternity. The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Duty, not metaphysics, is our rule for life.

Bethlehem.

Micah v, 2.

And now let us revert to the story of the nativity.

Six miles south of Jerusalem, on a limestone ridge, lies the beautiful hamlet of Bethlehem. Little as it was among the thousands of Judah, it had already earned an illustrious place in Hebrew Gen. xxxv, 16- history. Hard by, seventeen centuries before, the patriarch Jacob had buried his beloved Rachel, and reared a pillar over her grave; it is called the Pillar of Rachel's Tomb to this day. On its em

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