HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-11.-DelineaUons of deep transgresBi()'TI,, right~ retnln,,tion, and Divine equity. We have in these verses three pictures, drawn by a master-hand, and very suggestive of practical teaching. I. A PICTURE OF DEEP TRANBGRE88ION. (Vere, 1, 2, 8, 9.) Observe delineated in it: 1. The abuse of privilege. (Ver. 1.) What a boon is night I "The season of repose; the blessed barrier betwixt day and day," when the hum and bustle, the anxiety and fatigue, of business is suspended, when the tired artisan rests from his toil; when the voyager on the wide sea forgets awhile the perils of the main; when the warrior ceases for a time to hear the roar of the cannon and to face the foe; and when all nature is hushed to slumber, save the weary watchers by the bed of suffering, and wakeful, loving mothers tending their dear ones in their quiet nests. We bless God for the day with its early sunrise, its noontide glory, its evening shades; but we bless him also for the night, with her sable mantle, her vague solitude, her quiet rest. And this high privilege was grossly abused. "Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds I" (ver. 1). It was not that evil thoughts unwillingly invaded their minds, but that they deliberately planned evil-they devised it. It is one thing for evil thoughts to enter the mind in its quiet hours unbidden; it is quite another to entertain these; and worst of all is it to "devise" these, and in the very seasons given to man for rest, to be found plotting and contriving harm. So has it ever been with the ungodly, that they have abused God's beet gifts (Ps. mvi. 4; Prov. iv. 16). 2. The non-improvement of opportunity. (Ver. 1.) Each morning comes bearing to us a new gift of time from our God. With our waking hours comes the Divine call to fresh service. Strength has been gathered up, now to be expended in the improvement of the opportunities of holy service which will assuredly arise. Happy they who begin the day with God, and then go forth to hallow every engagement of life, and to use for him every opportunity which may be given- " Trne hearts spread and heave Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun: Give him thy first thoughts, so she.It thou keep Him company all day." The grave charge here urged was that with the bree.king of the day they went forth to renew their evil deeds; that the fresh strength imparted to them by God became employed by them aF:ainst him; the evil plotted by them in the night they went forth with the morning's dawn to commit; the energies which ought to have been conse- crated to God they devoted to dark and daring deeds of impiety. "When the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand" ( ver. 1). 3. The perversion of power. (Vers. 2, 8, 9.) Both Micah and Isaiah laid stress upon the prevailing sin of covetousness, leading the mighty and influential to pervert the power and influence they possessed, to the injury of the feeble and obscure, oppressin<> and tyrannizing over them. Thus they are charged here with (1) unscrupulously depriving them of their inheritance (ver. 2); (2) stripping of their raiment peaceful, unoffending persons (ver. 8); (3) driving widows from their houses, and causin<> fatherless children to suffer from w1mt and neglect (ver. 9). In this way the sad picture of shameless sin here presented to us is rendered increasingly dark through the prevailing sin of covetousness, lending to harsh oppression and grievous wrong. 4. The wilful refection of light and preference of darkness. (Vers. 6, 11.) To the true prophets of the Lord, who sought to bring home to them a sense of their guilt, and to lead them to return unto the Lord, they said, "Prophesy ye not" (ver. 6), whereas to lying spirits they would readily give heed (John iii. 19, 20). II. A PIOTURE OF MERITED CHASTISEMENT, (Vers. 3, 4, 6, 10.) The main feature in this picture is the illustration it affords of the retributive character of the Di viue chastisement for sin. Observe: 1. They bad " devised" evil against other,; now '..'2 THE BOOK OF 'MICAH. [on. rr. 1-13,
<10<1 would" devise" evil against them (ver. 3). 2. They had oppressed others; now they should be oppressed (ver. 3), and even their own sad elegies, wrung from them Lhroug_h t.hdr sorrow, should be ta.ken up and repeated against them in sheer mockery by their oppressors (vers. 4, 5). 3. They had voluntarily chosen their fa.lee prophets and had welconwd their lying words, and they should now get no comfort from the words of hope which, in the da.rk days, should be spoken by the true prophets, and which should prove consolatory to the remnant of God's people who had remained faithful ( ver. 6). 4. They had cast out the widows and the fatherless, and they should he themselves cast out (ver. 10). We look on this picture of coming chastisement, and we lea.rn from it that retribution follows sin; we see in it an Old Testament illustration of the New Testament assurance that "whatsoever a man soweth that ~ball he also reap" (Gal. vi. 7, 8). ' III. A r1c·1-eRE OF THE DIVINE EQUITY. (Ver. 7.) God, through his prophet expostulated with the people who bad acted so unworthily, who bore the name of Israel, but who so dishonoured their pious ancestry; and declared to them that his ways were not unequal; that rectitude and mercy characterized all his operations; that through all he had been seeking their good; that it was not his will that the threatened woes should befall them; that this was entirely their own a.et; and that ueither their sins nor their sorrows could truthfully be charged upon him. There a.re many such passages scattered througbont the prophetice.l writings, in which God deigned to expostulate with the erring-passages which a.re inexpressibly tender and touching (Jer. ii. 5; Isa.. v. 4; xliii. 22, 25). So Christ to the Jews of his day, when they took up stones to stone him, asked, " For which of these works do ye stone me?" (John x. 32). And the same Divine voice expostulates with us in our sinfulness; and our response should be, "Unto thee," etc. (Dan. ix. 6, 7). These Divine expostula- tions are the arrows of conviction coming from God to the hearts of men, and which, unlike the poisoned arrows of the ancients that carried death in their flight, carry mercy and life into the human soul