Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

The Prophet begins in a sorrowful strain and there is much that is sad in the chapter, yet there is also much of holy confidence in God.

Verse 1. Woe is me! For Iam as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the first ripe fruit. It is a terrible thing for a good man to find good men growing very scarce and to see wicked men becoming more wicked than ever. It makes him feel his loneliness very keenly—and joy seems to be banished from his heart.

2. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt, every man, his brother with a net. Those were sad times in which Micah lived. And yet, under some aspects, one might be willing and even glad to live in such times, for if ever one could be useful to one's fellows, surely it would be then! God had need of a voice like that of the Prophet Micah in the days when His worship was forsaken and the true faith had almost died out among men! Unless God had left a Micah here and there, the land would have been as Sodom and have been made like unto Gomorrah. So the more unpleasant the age was to the good man, the more necessary and profitable was he to that age!

3. That they may earnestly do evil with both hands. I wish the professed followers of Christ did good with both hands, that is, with every faculty, with every capacity, in every way and at every opportunity, just as wicked men "earnestly do evil with both hands."

3. The prince asks, and the judge asks for a reward; and the great man, he utters his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up. Honesty seemed to have died out of the nation! The highest people in the land, who ought to have been beyond the power of bribery, sold the administration ofjustice to the highest bidder. Ah, those were evil times, indeed!

4. The best of them is as a briar: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of your watchmen and your visitation comes; now shall be their perplexity. Sin brings sorrow in its train and, as nations will have no future as nations, God deals with national sin here upon earth and visits it with national punishment! Now that sin had become so rampant in Israel, it would be the time of their perplexity—and when sins, like chickens, come home to roost, then will be the time of the sinner's perplexity. He lets his sins fly abroad and thinks that like the wandering birds of the air, they will soon be gone and he shall never see them again—but they will all come home to him and he shall be made to bitterly rue the day in which he thought that he could make a profit by transgressing the righteous Law of the Lord!

5. Trust you not in a friend. Put you not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of your mouth from her that lies in your bosom. So saturated with dishonesty had the nation become that the evil had penetrated even into domestic life, so that where all should have been in a state of mutual happy confidence, the Prophet felt bound to tell them that such confidence could not exist between those who appeared to be friends, or even between husbands and wives!

6. For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. And this is still true in a measure, for without the fear of God, you will find that even the nearest and dearest relationships will not keep the unconverted from being the enemies of the godly. In that respect, a gracious man cannot trust her that lies in his bosom, if she is not a true child of God. Now mark the grandeur of faith. Set this white spot right in the middle of the black darkness of which we have been reading—

7. Therefore I will look unto the LORD—There was nowhere else for the Prophet to look! According to what he tells us, all men had become false! "Therefore," he says, "I will look unto Jehovah."

7, 8. I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. [See Sermon #2069, Volume 35—my own personal holdFAST.] Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. And this is all the light that God's people need! Even if it is the darkness of a black Egyptian night into which our spirit has fallen, yet if God shall but appear to us, there shall soon be light for us! Dr. Watts truly sang—

9. I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my cause, and executes judgment for me: He will bring me forth to the light andI shall beholdHis righteousness. Listen to this testimony of the Prophet, tried child of God! Even when in your own household you find enemies, put your trust in God, for He will yet appear to deliver you. Let this be your joy! Sit still in humble patience and "bear the indignation of the Lord," for even though trouble is laid upon you, it is not so heavy as it might have been—and it is not so severe as it would have been if the Lord had dealt with you in strict justice! Therefore in patience possess your soul and wait quietly before your God. Be not without hope. Expect that He will plead your cause and that He will execute judgment for you. Watch for His light, which will most surely come, and in which you shall behold not your own righteousness, but His!

10. Then she that is my enemy shallsee it, andshame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD your God? My eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets. This verse relates to the nation which, at that time, was oppressing Israel. She would have her turn of suffering, for she would be crushed beneath Jehovah's foot as the mire is trodden in the streets!

11. 12. In the day that your walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed. In that day, also, He shall come even to you from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. This is what was to befall those who had sinned against God and oppressed His people—He would let loose the oppressors upon them and they would find foes in every quarter.

13. Notwithstanding the landshallbe desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings. That is an amazing expression, "the fruit of their doings."All doings bear fruit of one kind or another, and sinful doings bear bitter and deadly fruit! Woe to the man who is made to eat the fruit of his own doings! That which men eat on earth they may have to digest in Hell—and there shall they lie forever digesting the terrible morsels which they ate with so much gusto here below!

14. Feed Your people with Your rod, the flock of Your heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.Sometimes there are pastures in the very center of woods—and God's people in Micah's day were like a little flock of sheep hidden away from their enemies in the midst of a wood, but God will bring them out, by-and-by, to far larger liberty. They shall yet have Bashan and Gilead to be their pasture, "as in the days of old." And so the little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a great nation—and they that were hidden away because of their many enemies, shall have such liberty that they shall worship and praise the Lord their God everywhere!

15-17. According to the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt will issue unto him marvelous things. The nations shallsee and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf

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 the LORD our God, and shall fear because of you. The day will come when there shall be such a fear of the people of God upon those who formerly persecuted them that they shall tremble before the Lord and be afraid of the very people whom once they derided and oppressed!

18. Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He never delights in anger, especially in anger against His own people. That is but temporary anger and is, after all, only another form of love—for the parental anger which hates sin in a dear child is but love on fire! May God never permit us to sin without being thus angry with us! We might almost beseech Him never to tolerate sin in us, but to smite us with the rod rather than allow us to be happy in the midst of evil. Perhaps the worst of horrors is peace in the midst of iniquity—happiness while sin is yet all round about us.

19. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us, He will subdue our iniquities; [See Sermon #1577, Volume 27—sin

SUBDUED.] and You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. We read about their sins in the earlier part of the chapter—and what a horrible catalog of evils it was! Yet here we read, "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons inquiry?" Even those mountainous sins of which the Prophet writes, the Lord will tear up by their roots and cast them into the depths of the sea!

20. You will perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. There is our comfort! Our God is the Covenant-keeping God who will perform every promise that He has made. Even "if we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." Blessed be His holy name!

"As for you, also, by the blood ofyour Covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Zechariah 9:11.

THE LORD is here speaking to His ancient people, Israel. That nation had always been preserved, although other nations had been destroyed—and the reason was that God had entered into a Covenant with Abraham on their behalf. Circumcision was the sign and seal of the Covenant, so that God could truly speak of "the blood of your Covenant." The Jews have never ceased to be a nation, though they have been scattered, peeled and delivered over into the hand of their adversaries because of their sins. They may enjoy various rights and privileges in the different countries where they sojourn for a while, but they cannot be absorbed into the nationalities by which they are surrounded. They must always be a separate and distinct people—but the day shall yet come when the branches of the olive tree, which have been so long cut off, shall be grafted in again. Then shall they, as a nation, again behold the Messiah, the true and only King of the Jews—and their fullness shall be the fullness of the Gentiles, also!

All Believers have some share in that Covenant made with Abraham, for he is the father of the faithful. We who believe in Jesus are of the seed of Abraham, not according to the flesh, but according to the promise, and we are pressed by a Covenant which like that made with Abraham, is signed and sealed with blood even "the blood of the Everlasting Covenant." We, too, are saved and kept as a separate and distinct people, not because of any natural goodness in us, or because of our superiority over others, but solely and entirely because the Lord has made an Eternal Covenant concerning us, which is "ordered in all things and sure," because Jesus Christ is, Himself, the Surety on our behalf that its guarantees and pledges shall all be carried into effect.

I. So, applying our text to the Covenant people of God in all ages, we have first to consider THEIR NATURAL AND YET PRIVILEGED CONDITION. By nature they are like prisoners in a pit wherein is no water, but by Grace they are in Covenant relationship to God!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, when we were in our natural state, we were like prisoners. A prisoner is one who has lost his liberty—and that was our condition before Jesus met with us and set us free. We were "carnal, sold under sin," in bondage to our own lusts and held captive by the devil at his will. No doubt we boasted of our free will, but our will, itself, was enslaved with all the rest of our powers. There is no greater mockery than to call a sinner a free man. Show me a convict toiling in the chain gang and call him a free man if you will! Point out to me the galley slave chained to the oar and smarting under the taskmaster's lash whenever he pauses to draw a breath—and call hima free man if you will—but never call a sinner a free man, even in his will, as long as he is the slave of his own corruptions! In our natural state we wore chains, not upon our limbs, but upon our hearts—fetters that bound us and kept us from God, from rest, from peace, from holiness—from anything like freedom of heart and conscience and will! The iron entered into our soul and there is no other slavery as terrible as that. As there is no freedom like the freedom of the spirit, so is there no slavery that is at all comparable to the bondage of the heart!

A prisoner is also one who feels that he cannot escape from his prison—and that is how we felt. We began to have longings after better things. A heavenly Visitor came to us and dropped a new and strange thought into our minds—and we began to pant after something higher and nobler than this poor world could give us—but we could not reach it, for we were prisoners. We could not escape from the cruel grip of our captor and it became quite clear to us that we could never be delivered from the house of bondage by any power of our own. Do you not remember, my Brothers and Sisters, when you used to sorrowfully say—

"I would but cannot pray I would but can't repent"— and when you could use Paul's words as your own and sadly cry, "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not?" You were still a prisoner, yet you were beginning to be one of the "prisoners of hope."

That is a strange kind of prison that is mentioned in the text—"the pit wherein is no water." In the East, pits were frequently used as prisons. When a tyrant king wished to keep anyone in safe custody and also in ignominy and shame, and sorrow, he would have him cast into one of these waterless pits where the poor prisoner would be beyond human sight or hearing—and with no possible hope of deliverance from his doleful dungeon. Such was our sad state by nature, and well do we remember our first efforts to obtain release! We were in dense darkness and we felt all round the walls of our prison to try to find a door, or window, or ladder by which we might escape, but all in vain. We tried to look up, but we seemed to have been thrust, like Paul and Silas, into some inner prison where no ray of light could penetrate. The fact that there was "no water" in our prison-pit made our agonies all the more terrible! Those of you who have passed through that state of deep conviction of sin know that in such circumstances there is no comfort for the present and no hope for the future—as to the past, there is nothing to look back upon but sin—and as to the future, there is nothing "but a certain fearful looking for ofjudgment and fiery indignation." To a sinner in that condition, there seems nothing within but a heart as hard as stone, nothing beneath but a gapping Hell and nothing around but thick darkness. How dreary and dreadful is the state of man by nature—and how painfully conscious he is of his true condition when the Holy Spirit reveals it to him! Then is he, indeed, like a prisoner in a "pit wherein is no water."

This is the actual state, by nature, of all the elect—they are prisoners, just as other men are—and they are in as dark and dismal a pit and they have as little comfort in it as the very worst of mankind have. Yet, by Divine Grace, they are in an altogether different condition from that of others, for they are in Covenant with God though they are not yet aware of that blessed and comforting Truth! God's election of His people took place long before their creation. Those whom He has chosen unto eternal life were given to Christ in the Covenant of Grace, in that eternity of which we can form so slight a conception. And when they were born into this world, though they were born in sin and grew up to be the children of disobedience—enemies to God by wicked works—yet the Covenant made with Christ on their behalf remained unbroken all the while!

"Well," says someone, "that is strange." Yes, it is strange, but it is true. We must never forget that we were under a Covenant of Works long before we were born. Adam stood as our federal head and representative in that Covenant. You, my Sister, never put out your hand to pluck the forbidden fruit—and you and I, my Brother, never partook of it, yet we all have to share the consequences of Adam's transgression because he was our Covenant head. Do you object to that and say that it was unjust to visit upon us the sin of another? If you do, then you must equally object to the Gospel plan of salvation by the righteousness and death of Another, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the one great federal Head and Representative of all who believe in Him! He took the place of the countless myriads of His elect who had been given to Him by His Father, and died on Calvary's Cross in their place, although great numbers of them had not then been born and, consequently, could not have any virtue or merit of their own! Through His substitutionary Sacrifice, they were even then "accepted in the Beloved" and, in the fullness of time, they become Believers in Him and so enter consciously into the enjoyment of the Covenant privileges which had been conferred upon them from eternity! The Covenant is not made with them when they believe in Jesus—it was made on their behalf by the Father and the Son in the eternal council chamber long before the daystar knew its place or planets ran their round!

See, then, the twofold condition of the chosen—they are like prisoners in a pit wherein is no water, yet is there an eternal Covenant concerning them which guarantees that they shall be brought out of the bondage of their sins and shall be set at liberty forever! Does someone here say, "I trust that such a blessed Covenant as that has been made on my behalf? Dear Brother or Sister, if you have a sincere longing to be a sharer in the blessings of the Covenant of Grace, me-thinks that is a proof that you have an interest in it already! And if you will, at this moment, put your soul's trust in that precious blood that is their sign and seal of the Covenant, then you may rest assured that Grace has inscribed your name from all eternity in God's eternal book!

II. Now let us turn to the second part of our subject which is THE MEANS OF THE DELIVERANCE OF THESE COVENANTED ONES—AND THE EVIDENCES OF THEIR DELIVERANCE.

The text says, "By the blood of your Covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." I think this means, first, that the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the essential matter of the Covenant In order to make the conditions of the Eternal Covenant effective for His people, it was necessary that Christ should be obedient unto death and that His blood should be shed for many for the remission of their sins. When, by faith, I look upon the blood of Jesus—whether I see it streaming down in the bloody sweat of Gethsemane or flowing in the crimson rivulets at Gabba-tha or in the sacred streams of Golgotha, I see in that precious blood of Christ the essential matter of the Covenant, and I sing, with sadness on His account, but with rejoicing on my own—

"Oh, how sweet to view the flowing Of His sin-atoning blood! By Divine assurance knowing He has made my peace with God!" Yes, O blessed Jesus, You have fulfilled on our behalf Your part of the Eternal Covenant! You have met all the demands of Infinite Justice even to the uttermost farthing! Your Father justly requires perfect obedience to His holy Law and You have rendered it in Your pure and spotless life. The offended Majesty of that Law demands adequate punishment for man's multiplied violations of its just requirements—and Your one Infinite Sacrifice has fully paid the penalty, so that Divine Justice is completely satisfied and the dishonored Law is magnified and glorified. Thus it is that God can "be just and the Justifier of him which believes in Jesus," for in the Person, life and death of Christ, their Covenant Head and Representative, all claims upon Believers have been discharged forever!

Further, the blood of Jesus is also the Seal of the Covenant Speaking after the manner of men, until the blood of Jesus had been shed, the Covenant was not signed, sealed and ratified. It was like a will that could only become valid by the death of the testator. It is true that there was such perfect unity of heart between the Father and the Son, and such mutual foreknowledge that the Covenant would be ratified in due time—that multitudes of the chosen ones were welcomed to Heaven in anticipation of the redemption which would actually be accomplished by Christ upon the Cross. But when Jesus took upon Himself the likeness of men and in our human nature suffered and died upon the accursed tree, He did, as it were, write His name in crimson characters upon the Eternal Covenant and thus sealed it with His blood. It is because the blood of Jesus is the Seal of this Covenant that it has such power to bless us and is the means of lifting us up out of the prison-pit wherein is no water. Let me put it thus to some of you who have long been under conviction of sin. You have been trying in your poor way to keep the Law of God, but you have utterly failed to do so. You know that there are many precious promises in God's Word, but you get no comfort from them. Why is that? You feel that you are like a prisoner in a pit—and that you are shut away from the Presence of the thrice-holy God—and that His awful attribute of Justice bars your way like the flaming sword at the gate of Paradise, so that you cannot come near to Him. Then you listen to the Gospel, of which the sum and substance is this—that Jesus Christ has fully atoned for the sins of all His people, that He has suffered everything that they deserved to suffer and that God has accepted His substitutionary Sacrifice as a sufficient Atonement for all who believe in Him. As soon as you trust Him, you are lifted up out of the prison-pit, your feet are set upon a rock and a mug of grateful praise is put into your mouth! You are not afraid of the sword of Divine Justice now—no, you go and stand beneath the flashing blade and trust to it to defend you against all your adversaries! You rightly say, "As Jesus suffered in my place, Justice demands that I should go free! He has discharged all my liabilities. The Law has no longer any terror to me." So you see, Beloved, how the blood of Christ's Covenant brings the poor, trembling, despairing soul up out of that dread prison "wherein is no water."

Now I want, dear Friends, to ask you all to answer honestly one or two questions that I am about to put to you. The first is—Do you know what it means to be delivered from that pit by the blood of Christ's Covenant? Perhaps I ought first of all to ask—Do you know what it means to be a prisoner in that pit wherein is no water? Have you ever moaned and groaned under the weight of your sin? Have you ever smarted under the lash of that ten-thonged whip of the Law? Has your conscience, itself, been sufficiently awakened as to condemn you? Have you ever been brought to such a state of self-despair that you could see nothing but death and damnation written upon everything that pertains to you? Was your comeliness withered, your strength dried up and your pride humbled so that you had to sit in sackcloth and ashes and cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" as the leper of old had to warn others to keep away from him? If not, I fear that you have never proved the power of the blood of the Covenant, for he who has never been humbled has never been exalted!

I feel sure that some of us here can answer, "Oh, yes! We remember well when we were humbled so that we felt ourselves to be less than nothing and vanity—and we realized that, by nature, we were totally ruined and undone—and blessed be God, we also recollect the time when a Power infinitely above our own, drew us up out of the pit in which we were imprisoned." But, my dear Hearers, have you also been conscious of the working of this Almighty Power? Have you felt a mysterious influence, which you could not comprehend, drawing you out of your natural state and giving you new thoughts, new desires, new hopes, new joy and also new pains? Certainly you have never been delivered from this waterless prison by any power less than the Divine, so if God's hand has not yet been stretched out on your behalf, you are still in the pit! Or, as Peter said to Simon the sorcerer, you are still "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity."

Is there anyone here who is in that pit, yet who earnestly longs to escape from it? Is your soul yearning to be delivered, not only from the consequences of sin, but from the sin, itself? Are you panting after reconciliation with God and acceptance in the Beloved? Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Then you are already among those whom the Savior calls blessed and to whom He has given that gracious promise, "they shall be filled." Such longings as these grow not in Nature's soul—they are the product of Divine Grace. Therefore, be very thankful for them, for they are at least hopeful indications of the Holy Spirit's working within you! And you may rest assured that where He has begun a good work, He will continue it until He brings it to perfection. He will never lift you part of the way out of the pit and then let you fall back again into the prison—He will bring you right out, even as the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt with a high hand and a stretched-out arm!

If you have been delivered, I feel sure that you will prize your deliverance. I would give little for what you call your grace if you would not willingly part with all else that you have rather that part with that! A slave who has been set free will value his liberty beyond all price. The man who can talk lightly of being free, never knew what bondage meant. I fear that none of us think highly enough of what the Lord has done for us. We get to worrying ourselves because He has not done more for us, because we are not yet perfect—how much better it would be if we would praise and bless Him for all that He has done for us! Remember that you are a free man even though some links of your chain are still clinging to you. Thank God that the chain is broken and that the last links shall soon be snapped—and you shall be perfectly delivered from the badge of bondage! Therefore be of good courage, prize your deliverance and praise Him who has done such great things for you!

Surely, too, if you have been drawn out of this pit wherein is no water, you will love your Deliverer and you will desire above everything else to live to Him and to labor for Him all your life! I hope you can truthfully say to your Lord—

I trust that you have dedicated yourself wholly to your Lord—perhaps not in writing, yet just as truly as if you had set your signature to such a covenant as some have felt moved to leave upon record. If you have resolved thus in your heart, you can say with me at the moment, "Lord Jesus, I am Yours—body, soul and spirit—wholly Yours, only Yours, always Yours. You have bought me for Yourself, not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with Your own most precious blood and, therefore, You shall have me with all my powers, all my possessions, all my possibilities in life and in death, in time and in eternity! I give all up to You absolutely without reserve, that You may do with me whatever You please and whatever will bring most Glory to Your holy name. I fear there is much dross still remaining in me—in all the gold You have given me in Your wondrous Grace. If it seems good in Your sight, put me into the hottest furnace, but O Lord, do take away all the dross and then fashion me into a vessel meet for Your own use!" The man who can truthfully talk thus to the Lord Jesus is in the Covenant! And by the blood of the Covenant he has been brought forth out of the prison wherein is no water!

Perhaps you are afraid to say as much as this, lest it should seem to be presumption on your part. Well then, possibly you can say, "I dare not talk as some do about their attainments in spiritual things, but I do trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. My sole reliance is upon His perfect righteousness and His one great Sacrifice for all." Then, my Brother or my Sister, you are among those who have built upon the Rock and you shall be preserved in the greatest storm that can ever beat upon you! You are no longer a prisoner in the pit wherein is no water! Faith in Jesus is not the heritage of the slaves of sin and Satan—it is the portion of those who are free men and free women in Christ Jesus—and if He has made you free, you are free, indeed, and you can never be enslaved again! You are at liberty to walk wherever you will on all the holy land which is the purchase possession of the children of the King! Every promise that He has given to His chosen people is a promise to you, so take full advantage of all your privileges as a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ! You are now His and you shall be His when this world is on fire and when all things that are of time and sense shall perish in the last great conflagration! You shall be His amid the pomp and terrors of that tremendous day and you shall be His amidst the splendor and Glory of eternity!

If any here are still prisoners in the pit wherein is no water, may the Lord even now bring them forth by the blood of His Covenant, that they may share with all the chosen ones, all the blessings of that Covenant now and to all eternity! And too Him shall be the praise and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.