The Pulpit Commentary — Micah — Section 120

labourers. If you seem to have laboured in vain, you can add, "My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God" (Isa. xlix. 4). He will rccorupeuse y-ou accord- ing to the natural results of your life's work, "the fruit of your doings" (Isa, iii. 10). Yet this fruit must vary with the qua.lity of our work (see this lesson taught in 1 Oor. iii. 8-16). But the truth of our text has its shady as well aa its sunny side. 3. .A. nation tDill ~ recompe11$ed acc<Yrd,ing to its nati011al sine and the fruit of thtm. Illust.: Great Britain and the opium traffic. Even national repentance and reforma- tion may not avert some of the clisastrous consequences of past transgressions. Colonial alavery h1111 left some of its foul stains on the present generation. 4. Sinners must atDGU "the harvest " which is •• the end of the wo1-ld" before they can receive the just reoompffl,W of their deeds. William Cowper, in a letter to John Newton, alluding to the translation of Homer on which he was engaged, says very truly, ".An author had need narrowly to watch his pen, lest a line should escape it which by possibility may do miechief when he has been long dead and buried. What we have done when we have written a book will never be known till the day of judgment ; then the account will be liquidated, and all the good that it has occasioned will witness either for or against UL" Homer himself supplies an illustration of this. We are told it was the • Iliad' that did much to mould the character of Alexander of Macedon, The life· of Alexander was the inspiration of two other notorious warriors-Julius Cresar and Charles XIL of Sweden. In contrast to the posthumous influence of Jonathan Edwards, there stands on record the baneful effect on a village in Berkshire of the infidel, wit, and libertine, Lord Bolingbroke. He died in 1751; but he had so poisoned the minds of the poor villagers against religion, that three quarters of a century afterwards " the fruit of hill doings" was most distinctly to be traced. Nor need our acts be flagrantly evil to bring forth bitter fruit. The neglect of dnty tends to make others neglect it, and thus to leave that duty altogether undone. The neglect of "assembling ourselves together" in public worship tends to the dissolution of such assemblies and the abandonment of such worship. The fruit of secret discipleship would be the dying out of Christian Churches. What can be the fruit of sin but llorrow, suffering, loss? "The harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow" (Isa, :xvii; 11). Even though sin be forgiven through repentance and faith, the consequences of misused or wasted years will remain. And as those consequences, ever widening, cannot be summed up till the great day of God, "we must all be made manifest before the judgmenkeat of Chrut; that each one may receive the things done in the body, accord- to wl:.at he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Let us therefore "make it our aim . . . to be well-pleasing unto him" (2 Cor. v, 9, 10).-E, S. P. Vere. 18, 19.-Matchle&s mercy. "The Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved ihee,n These words of Moses receive a striking illustration in the fact that every one of the "minor n prophets who threatens jndgments against Israel ends by promises of deliverance which anticipate the days of the Messiah. In none is this more strikingly seen than in Micah, In this chapter the prophet, who has been lamenting the universal corruption of the people (vers. 1--6), finds comfort in God alone, to whom he looks with submission and hope, and obtaina an auurance of renewed Divine favour when the chastisement is past (vera. 7-13). This encourages him to pray (ver.14), His prayer is answered by a promise of deliverance such aa God accomplished for hie people in Egypt (vere.15-17). Upon this he breaks forth in adoration of God's matchless mercy, and anticipates the fulfilment of promises which would only be realized by the coming of the long looked- for Deliverer ( vera. 18-20; and cf. Luke i. 70---76). This matchless mercy is ehown both in God's essential character and in hie treatment of sinners, Each clause suggests some fresh thought on this attractive subject. L "Wao IS A GoD LIKE UNTO THEE?" The reference to the Exodus (ver. 15) reminds us of Mosea' words (Exod. xv. 11). If there is none like God, "glorious in holine1111, fearful in praises, doing wonders," what wonder can be so great as deliverance from sin? If even ungodly men are charmed into a~oration for a brief period at eo~o deliverance from dauger, how profoundly and unceasingly should we adore and glorify God for aalvation from sin, which is a more dreadful evil than cholera, lunacy, or death! :Notice how a question like thiB is often asked or answered; e.g. in regard to _God's on. vn. 1-20.J THE BOOK OF MICAH. 123