Micah 5:2-4 English Standard Version

2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.

4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.

To the ends of the earth is not a period of time, it is the area of the earth. It is where east meets west. We often look at the prophetic word and read into it what we hope to see without taking in the whole counsel of God.

Also note that the return is not to the house of Israel but to the people. It is the family of God in which we, having placed our faith in Christ, become sons and daughters of God.

This is the church age and as such the only thing we need to concern ourselves with is His reign. We dwell secure in Christ. That is not the same as being secure in the world. The emotions we have about what is happening to the world and in the world has little to do with our life in Christ.

We live and love in the here and now, from one end of the earth to another. It is not a time without end, it is a place without limits.

We hate seeing what is happening. What are we to do about that in whatever time remains for us? The same as in the beginning, love and obey God as best we can for as long as you can.

Two more important words appear in verse 2, for now.

This is what we have for now. We have no control over what happens next. All we have is for now. His reign is not over, not yet.

Our emotions may get the better of us because we hate what we see in the world, but this world will come to an end, just not yet.

Hear God, believe God and obey God is all we can do to be effective servants to Him.

Don’t ask more of ourselves than what He asks.

Exodus 10:26 English Standard Version (ESV) “Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.”

Seeing the title Left Behind might have brought into memory a few movies about future events. This is about a life left behind when we began to follow our Lord as new creations in Christ.

We drag the carcass around with us. As much as we would love to embrace this new life, the old body is still being dragged around with us. People we have not seen for some time after our conversion might recognize our corpse and think we are still the same.

When looking for a bible verse containing the exact phrase “left behind” I found it here in Exodus. It is pertinent to our discussion in a couple of ways. We will have to take sacrifices of our old life in order to live for Christ. We will not be allowed to perform the old rituals of a sinful life if we are to follow Christ. The second part is that we do not know when we will have to make those sacrifices.

We leave that life behind us so that at some future date we will not find ourselves “left behind” in a different way. That is the message of those movies. The faithful will be snatched away.

Those movies try to shock people into accepting Christ. No one wants to be left behind. One of the more dramatic scenes in one movie was of a church where only a few were taken and there was shock among those that thought they should have been taken, including their pastor.

It is a telling tale for sure but the worldly will accept the movie as being a work of fiction that has no reality in it for themselves. They only care to be entertained. A Star Trek movie holds more possibilities for them than eternal life.

When witnessing to the lost, the life we left behind holds a real tale of real people and a real need for change. We will make a better impression on them than a poorly written screenplay.

We are real people with real stories about lives that were unsatisfying, painful, and headed for destruction in a real and painful way. They stand a better chance of seeing their own lives in us than in a movie.

People do not change all that much in their sin behaviors. Labels change but the sin does not. What does change is the speed in which some sinners die before they hear the truth. Some of the drugs today are more deadly that what was circulating back in the 60’s.

“Times a wastin.” “We’re burning daylight.”