Micah 2:12-13. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.
We have here great and precious promises, which the Lord is giving to the Church. May He grant that, by His Holy Spirit, in His sheer mercy, our souls may have a saving interest in these promises. This prophecy was given by Micah for the comfort and consolation of the Church in his day and generation. He prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and we are told this prophecy was concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. The great matter for us this evening is to refer to some extent to the evangelical aspect of it, and at the back of our minds we have the historical aspect. These words were coming somewhat strongly before my mind for our service this evening, and there are some expressions here which are difficult to follow. Nevertheless, we should take time over them, and then leave these difficulties we find in the Word of God but do not have an entrance into; at the same time we should leave them simmering in our minds and watch for some understanding as to their meaning. My remarks with regard to this holy portion of the Word of God must be tentative or provisional, subject to abundant revision,^2^ but the great matter is that, if we seek to be foursquare with the Word and labour and pray and seek some entrance into it, we may gather here a little and there a little, and get something to benefit our souls.
Let us look at the historical background, where this prophecy was in part fulfilled – even as an illustration – before going on to remark on the evangelical aspect, which is the main part. Micah prophesied before the long captivity, and he gives them in advance this revelation from the Most High: “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction”. The people were in fact saying, Jerusalem is our rest, and Micah – as they said later of Jeremiah – is a false prophet, and the best thing we can do is to cut him off altogether and get rid of him; throw him into a dungeon and just give him bread and water. At the same time, the Lord had a Jacob among them – a real Jacob of God, the “remnant of Israel”. This expression, “O Jacob”, is opened up to us in the expression, “the remnant of Israel”. It is a parallel remark throwing light on the other one. We have in Psalm 24 a statement of who the spiritual Jacob are, and who wear the “garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”. These form the Jacob of God and the remnant of Israel – the Israel inside the external Israel. Not all that had circumcision and the covenants were the true Israel, but the Lord had a “remnant”, and if we are not of the internal Israel, we cannot be part of the true Israel of God; we do not know what real holy fear is, nor do we know the power of holiness, unless we are like this Jacob, who seek His face with their whole heart’s desire and who are gradually learning.
Seek to be among them. You may just here and now shut your eyes, if that will help you, and plead with the Lord that He would graciously bless you, not for your sake – do not have the rashness to do so – but for the Redeemer’s sake. The Redeemer fills eternity and inhabits it; He is infinite in His being; He is inexpressibly worthy, and He can place you among them, not for your sakes – and you do not want that, I hope. Nevertheless He may bless you and me for Christ’s sake, “at [our] petition”. That is a very nice phrase in the Bible (Est 7:3). This portion of Scripture was given for the glory of God for more ways than we know in order to be bread and wine to his broken-hearted Jacob. If we had as much feeling as these excellent men of God – Micah, Jeremiah and Isaiah – and were enabled to put ourselves in the place of these noble servants of the Most High and if we had been with them, then we could see that they were speaking with a lump in their throat. They were giving out these excellent things – there is a remnant of us left, a stump in the ground – but if you listened to them there was a sob in their voices. The tears were trickling down, and God was at their back putting their tears in His bottle and writing them in His book.
Another brother came along and said, “Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come”. In the midst of it, the Lord whispered a word in the ear of Micah; He said, Say this to My Jacob and this to My remnant of Israel – these godly women in the village and these men. This is to be a rod and a staff to them, for there is a dark valley ahead and it will last 70 years, and the holy city will be forsaken for a long, long time. Will He forsake them for ever? O no. “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold.” And although the Lord’s people suffered outwardly on account of the calamity that came upon the land as a whole – Daniel and Ezekiel and hundreds more – nevertheless they had the secret consolations of the Holy Ghost. The hand of the Lord was upon them for good, and the Angel of the Lord encamped round about them.
This was to show them that the Lord would bring down His hand on Jerusalem, but would stay “His rough wind in the day of the east wind”. He would never make a full end of them because He had a cause, and the Redeemer was to come in the fullness of time, and hundreds of prophecies were to be fulfilled. How was this prophecy fulfilled in due course, say after the captivity? My answer is, so far as is necessary at present: It was fulfilled in what Ezra did. You have the case of Nehemiah also, coming to the land of His fathers, and mourning on account of how the temple was, and how Jerusalem was and the land of the sepulchres of the godly. The very dust of the godly is dear to the people of God.
If you keep to the example of Ezra – you have an account in his own book – of how he became the leader of the people in the days of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, and perhaps that throws some light on this. You see that the people gathered at the river of Ahava and fasted there and pled with the Lord to bless them and take care of them. Ezra was their leader, and spiritual leader too, and the Lord blessed them. I may use the language of Solomon in the dedication of the temple: “If they sin against Thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not), and Thou be angry with them and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near; yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto Thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly; if they return to Thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which Thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which Thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Thy name; then hear Thou from the heavens, even from Thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Thy people which have sinned against Thee”.
You have it being historically fulfilled to the letter: how they had this prayer at the River Ahava, and how the Lord was entreated by them. The Lord answered their prayer by giving a token for good. I cannot say if the Lord gave Ezra some special revelation or message, but in any case the Lord showed His favour towards them. This will help us later on in the evangelical aspect of the promise, but what are we to understand by the breaker? And in what sense did he come up? Was Ezra the breaker? I think he was. If you consider their condition in the land of their captivity, they were “scattered sheep”, and the Lord caused Cyrus to publish a proclamation that they should return. He lifted up their heads and breathed the Holy Spirit into the souls of many. They were brought to say, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord”; we desire to get back now to Jerusalem and the land of Judah to see if we can help with the building of the temple. The Lord was Himself the Breaker, and He gathered in, in this way, from the different cities one here and one there; they were all touched with the finger of the Most High. Where are the people being gathered? At the bank of the River Ahava. That bank of the River Ahava I take tonight to be a suitable illustration of the “fold” that we read of in our text. They were gathered to a “fold” and they entered into a covenant with the Most High. They pled for mercy from the Most High, and the Lord was entreated for them. He blessed them and visited them, and from that “fold” by the banks of the River Ahava, they went away safely.
Ezra was offered a bodyguard, but he refused and put his trust in the Most High. The Most High was the Breaker, breaking up obstacles in the way, and from that “fold”, where they made great noise “by reason of the multitude of men”. The Lord still continued as the Breaker, although there was no visible pillar of cloud going before them. As the Angel of the Covenant went before Israel in the wilderness to seek a place of rest, He really was going before them: “The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rearward”. Ezra was on that occasion, under the Most High, the Breaker or leader of the people; he was their counsellor, perhaps in a similar way to what Moses was towards the Children of Israel. When the day came to move forward from that “fold”, they knew that they had a token for good – probably a comforting message from the Most High – and the Lord was with them as their King.
It is useful to look at the matter from the historical point of view, but it is well for me now to pass on to the great matter, which is the gospel use to be made of this prophecy. We will try to pick out particularly the points which are useful for the Church of God in all ages. The first thing is to point out that all are in captivity, just as the Jews were literally. All who form the true Jacob of God are brought, by the Holy Spirit, to know that they are in captivity. The second thing is the “Breaker”, and we emphasise here that the Most High is the Breaker, although He may use Ezra and others as ambassadors under Him. But He is the “Breaker”, in the Person of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bishop of our souls – the divine Breaker and He brings sinners to the “fold”. The third thing is that once the Lord Jesus Christ brings them to the “fold” by the Holy Spirit, as the Jews gathered at the River Ahava, from that point onwards He is still the Breaker till they reach the promised land in glory. He goes before them and provides pasture for them, guiding them in the good way. The moment they come to the “fold”, they have passed through the gate of the enemy and out of the land of captivity. Whoever they are, and however the Lord may deal with them, He will never forsake them; from that day they are in a state of reconciliation; that state is unchangeable, as the divine essence is unchangeable. From that point onwards – from passing out of the gate, into the state of reconciliation – they have entered into a covenant and are joined to the Lord. There is a flow of love and liberty – a flow and reflow of light and life between their heart and the heart of the Saviour. There you have the beginning of the new life; they have reconciliation and regenerating grace, and they are in the fixed state of justification and adoption, and they go on with the Saviour as the Breaker, all the way until He brings them into the Father’s house. The King passes before them. Is this a careful and scriptural and evangelical use of such a prophecy as this? I hope it is. I hope we would not have the presumption to offer it to you otherwise, but may the Lord be guiding us into the enriching and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit!
1. They are all in captivity
1. They are all in captivity, and their captivity is more dreadful than ever the captivity of Babylon was. Ask yourself: Did my soul find out I was in captivity morally, a captive in my mind? Ask the Lord to show you this, and that you are a captive of prejudice and of ignorance. By nature, we are a lump of ignorance and, although godly parents would tell us of the love of a Divine Saviour, the whole thing would be “as a root out of a dry ground” to us, unless the Lord in infinite pity would anoint us with spiritual discernment. And He may have to shake us over the mouth of perdition, so that we see “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” and see the waves splashing on the shores of eternity, before we will be convinced.
Unless you have grace, you will be found cursing God in a damned eternity; think of it. Remember that cursing God is part of what those who will be sent there will be doing. Ask the Lord; cry to Him if you cannot pray; say to Him: In mercy, for the Redeemer’s sake, show me myself. What does that man mean who is saying, My soul is a captive of this bitter root: pride and self-seeking and worldliness, for instance? Have mercy upon my soul; “Thy mercy unto me do Thou extend”.
Seek in earnestness and seriousness, from your heart; plead with the Lord not to leave you shallow and superficial – some nice morality on the surface without the truth of the law and the sanctifying truth of the gospel in you. Ask Him to put it down into you and under you and wrapped round you so that the devil can never untie it. If your soul is bound up in the bundle of life and well-knotted in the covenant of grace and you get Christ in the promise, then you will be happy and you will be safe; you are delivered from your captivity. The captivity of my soul by nature is a captivity to the love of sin, and that means darkness, rebellion, pride, worldly-mindedness, and no appetite for the worship of God. Who here has an appetite for the vicarious atonement of the Saviour? Show me a person who is getting a sweet taste of it; and if the vicarious atonement is as warm blankets round their soul, I would like to shake hands with them. And with the blood of the covenant sprinkled on us, I think we will meet in heaven, even with all our failings.
Captive of Satan
The next thing is that you are a captive of Satan. He can lead you captive at his will, and perhaps you will not know it is he. Perhaps you may be at prayer and you think you had first-class liberty, and all the time you are doing the work of the devil. You are in captivity to sin and Satan, and usually, where that is the case, you can speak about a hundred things: music, literature, Greek philosophy and moral philosophy and what not, and you can be a scholar and be moral (and outward morality is a great blessing through restraining grace). But when a godly man or woman speaks to you about regeneration and about justification, your mouth is closed, or else you will put the cart before the horse and pretend you are godly and show yourself a fool, speaking about things you do not know, while showing that you do not know what you are speaking about. If you do not know, hold your tongue. “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.”
I remember, when I was young, being in a room with the late Mr Macfarlane and him saying, “The carnal mind is enmity against God”, and I remember thinking it was some fierce animal that was so savage as to attack the Most High, and I thought I would like to frighten it away. I had no more knowledge of the Word of God than one of the lower animals.
Captives to the Law
We are not only captives to sin and Satan, but we are captives to the law. Captivity to the law invariably follows captivity to sin. Where there is the root principle of hatred to holiness and opposition to God, that man is in captivity to the law – and it is in us by nature. That is another way of saying that the law has something to do with you. However easy you may feel and however far away you may put the day of death, if you go into eternity without being united to the Lamb, as the branches are to the vine – and drinking in the merits of the atonement and glorying in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that “the world is crucified unto [you], and [you] unto the world” – if you do not have that in your conscience and heart, the law will sooner or later want to speak to you.
O but I have plenty of liberty in the world, you may say; I pay my way at the butcher and grocer, and what noise is being made about this holiness and my unholiness and sin and lack of preparation for eternity, and the lack of the fear of God and holy love? I am free; I am my own master. I am not going to pay attention to you. But the Judge will say, Stand here; do you love that law?
Your conscience may be asleep and doped, but when the Most High touches it, it will burst on you like a volcano, and you will agree with it when it charges you. Although you may be able to hush it till death, I desire to tell you in compassion and love that you will turn against yourself and waken in remorse – not repentance, which is entirely different.
When your minister here, Mr Mackenzie, will be preaching to you, watch with lynx eyes what he sets before you. Keep your mouth well open and swallow down the truth as it is in Jesus. See if it helps your soul, for when the law turns on you, your condition will be truly awful if you are not in Christ, in the cleft of the Rock of ages. The anguish, remorse and pale face you will have that day cannot be put in language, and you will go down to hell before the look of the Most High under the sentence of the Law. You have heard this from the ambassador of the Lord who used to be here,^3^ for many years, and from your present minister, and I am only trying to put in a word or two as this came strongly before me today.
We have to consider the two sides of the law: the demand of the law and the penalty of the law. So long as we do not satisfy the demand of the law, we must face its penalty. The Saviour met the demand of the law; in effect He said to the law: I love you and I am to satisfy you, and He met the penalty. He could say, The sword of justice will pass into Me, but it will not pass through Me; I will open My bosom to the flaming sword, but not one inch of it will come out on the other side, for I am going to quench the flames in My soul and exhaust them for ever and ever.
Unless you are in Christ Jesus and under the shelter of His wings, there is nothing for you but the holiness of God to come into conscious contact with your naked soul, and if the infinite essence of the Most High comes judicially into contact with your naked soul, you are bathed in hell. That is what happens, and you are in a fixed state; you can neither go north, south, east or west. You are in the presence of the Most High, and you cannot get away from His judicial presence.
The Jews were evidently scattered sheep away in Babylon. And see how we are scattered on the mountains of vanity: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way”. Some of us are scattered to the way of the flesh, others to greed for money, others to greed for learning, but we are all scattered sheep on the mountains of vanity. That was true of all who are saved: millions and millions, like the sand on the seashore. They are brought to be like Jacob in grace. (We better not gather stones to throw at poor Jacob’s faults. As far as possible, it is wise, loving and tender to cover over the faults of the people of God, and if we have to mention them, as David, Peter – and Jonah too; the Lord put him into the whale’s belly to learn a lesson or two – let us do it in love and tenderness. It will not do for you and me to speak superciliously of Jacob, asking, What right had you to be so deceitful? We need not go past ourselves. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”)
If the Lord does not carry on the good work He has begun, if we are left to ourselves, we will break out again almost as if we had no grace at all. We should see then our need of the Saviour and His finished work on account of seeing the old Jacob here, and the deceit and subtlety that poor Jacob exhibited. That would be bitter to the excellent man Jacob, who was very beautiful at last, and today is beautiful in the palace above. But what would be more bitter to him in later days was not so much that he deceived Isaac, but that he deceived himself. He thought he had plenty of liberty, but he was deceiving himself all the time – he was self-deceived. Have we not to look back to the time when we thought we were our own masters, and must we not say to our heart, Fool, you deceived yourself? If you have received mercy, you will acknowledge that sin deceived you – you were self-deceived.
^1^The first part of a sermon preached in Glasgow on 27 April 1936, the Monday of a communion season, and taken down by a hearer. Mr Macfarlane (1889-1979) was at this time minister of the Dingwall and Beuly congregation.
^2^That is, as to the interpretation of the particular text.
^3^A reference to Rev Neil Cameron.