Michael was God's prophet in
the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, who were kings of Judah. And he lived in a day much like
the day we live in, very much like our day. And God had poured
out judgment on the land because of their idolatry. And it sounds
a lot like our land. Verse 1, Micah says, Woe is me,
woe is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits,
as the grape gleanings of the vintage. There's no cluster to
eat. My soul desired the first ripe
fruit. You know, God had commanded the
children of Israel when they when they went out and harvested
the crop to leave some olives and some grapes for the stranger
and the widow and the orphans so they could come and glean
what was left. And they probably had not done
that in the field, but what Micah is speaking about here is his
own unfruitfulness. We want and desire to be filled
with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to
the praise and glory of God. That's whatever a believer wants.
But when God makes us honest, we see in ourselves unprofitableness,
unfruitfulness. We see we're cold. We see that
we're sinners. We just see ourselves full of
doubt and unbelief. So he said, woe is me. Woe is
me. And the other cause for Micah's
woe was the sin of the people. He says in verse 2, the good
man is perished out of the earth. There is none upright among men.
They all lie in wait for blood. They hunt every man as brother
with a net. There were few in Micah's day
that loved God and served God. The majority he saw as being
envious and jealous and full of murder, every man out for
self. Does that sound familiar? Sounds
like our day, doesn't it? And in the government, he found
the same. Taking of bribes, he said in verse 3, that they may
do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh and the judge
asketh for a reward, a bribe. And the great man, he uttereth
his mischievous desire and so they wrap it up. That means they
pervert all truth and judgment. It was so in the government with
the princes and rulers, and it was so on the bench with the
judges. Verse 4, the best of them is as a briar. The most
upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The day of thy watchman
and thy visitation cometh. This is what his watchmen had
been prophesying. They had been saying this day
was coming. And the Lord, He had brought this visitation on
them. Now shall be their perplexity. And Micah saw a strange spirit
cast over all the people of the land. And I see that. I've heard so many of you speak
about how it just seems like people's thinking is just so
foreign now. And just so, like there's a cloud
over and there's so much inordinate affection. And this is what he
describes, verse 5. Trust ye not in a friend, Put
ye not confidence in a guide, keep the doors of thy mouth from
her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoreth the father,
the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the men of his own
house. You remember the Lord gave us this warning describing
the days to come, and that was the state of the whole land in
Micah's day, and it very much looks like our day. But what
had all this done for Micah? And this is where I want you
and me to focus here. When you see what's going on
and you experience these things, what has the Lord done with that
for you? And we see here what the Lord did with Micah. It turned
him from looking to anybody but the Lord. Look at this next word,
therefore. Because of all that, he said,
therefore, I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God
of my salvation. My God will hear me. See how it worked in him? It
turned him to the Lord. It turned him away from everything
else to the Lord. I meant to say back at the first
of this year, this is an election year, turn off your TV. And don't post things on the
social media. That just gets believers fussing
with believers is all that does. That's so sad. Turn to the Lord. He's ruling everything. Turn
to Him. He'll hear you. He'll hear you.
You may not think others will hear you. He'll hear you. Go
to Him. Now I want you to see where Micah was during this time
and I want us to focus this on what the Lord's doing for us.
The Lord uses painful things to turn His child from our flesh
to make us entirely depend upon the Lord Himself. Now look at
this. First of all, here's our division.
We see Micah's word to his enemy, which was due to his trust in
the Lord. Now watch, verse 8. Rejoice not
against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. Now that was his confidence.
And then we see his patient submission and the reason for it. Verse
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. And then we see His assurance.
He will bring me forth to the light and I shall behold His
righteousness. Now first of all, Micah's word
to his enemy was full of faith in the Lord. It was not because
of something in him, it was his faith in the Lord. He said in
verse 8, Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall,
I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. Now brethren, God himself has
made this world to be the enemy of his people. God did this on
purpose. He's put enmity between the Lord and His people and the
devil and his seed. Didn't He say that right after
the fall? He put enmity between us. You're not going to see God's
people and the world become friends. It's not going to happen. There's
enmity there. Enmity there. So don't be surprised
when trouble comes and the enemy rejoices in your fall. And the more the Lord uses you,
the more the enemy will rejoice in your fall. David's enemies
rejoiced at his fall. They rejoiced at his persecutions
that he suffered. But when we read the Psalms,
we've seen this. Those are the words of our Lord.
They rejoiced at our Lord's sufferings. Listen to this from Psalm 22.6.
This is the Lord speaking. He said, I'm a worm and no man.
A reproach of men and despised of the people. All that see me
laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head saying he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him. You see
what Micah was experiencing this. All the Lord's people are going
to experience this because our Master experienced this. Now
listen to Psalm 69, 18. He said, ìDraw nigh unto my soul
and redeem it. Deliver me because of mine enemies.î
And then down in Psalm 69, 26, he said, ìFor they persecute
him whom thou hast smitten.î The Lord had smitten, God had
smitten our Lord. But men took it and said, ìOh, we got
him now. Weíll kick him while heís down.î
They talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. And in
Psalm 71.10, he says, My enemies speak against me. They that lay
wait for my soul take counsel together. Privately, they counsel together
about him. Saying God's forsaken him. Persecute
and take him. There's none to deliver him.
That's what they said about our Lord. So we shouldn't be surprised
if enemies say that about us. But remember this, God permits
this to teach us that the friendship of this world is enmity with
God. Whoever therefore will be a friend
of the world is an enemy of God. And God's just not going to let
us be friends with this world. He's not going to let that happen.
But now hear Micah's word to the enemy. He says, Rejoice not
against me, O mine enemy, when I fall, I shall arise. When I
sit in darkness, the Lord shall be light unto me. The Lord will
allow his child to fall, but he won't allow his child to fall
away. He will not. He will not. Sometimes he's going
to allow you to fall into various afflictions and trials and even
sin. But he won't let his child fall
away. We don't have to look far in Scripture to find that to
be so. We find many of God's saints fall. But when it happens,
the enemy is rejoicing, he's very apt to make us misread God's
providence. Don't, don't, Brother Don, you
said, don't judge the Lord by providence. Judge providence
by the Lord. And don't look at what men are
doing and what men are saying and determine what God's doing
to you. Look to God. He's ruling the
providence. Remember, God's providence is
always for our good. It's always for the good of His
people. As painful as it may be, He judges us now, right now,
so that we won't be condemned with this world. That's a good
thing. My brethren, count it all joy
when you fall into different trials, different sorts of trials
that we go through. Never doubt the goodness of God
in it. Never distrust His mercy. Never stiffen the neck against
how He's dealing with you. We can say with assurance in
our God, when I fall, He didn't say if I fall, He said when I
fall. You're gonna fall. When I fall, I shall arise. As cast down as you might be,
the Lord is going to stir your heart up to remember when you
fall that underneath are the everlasting arms. He is not going
to let his child fall away. His arms are underneath His child,
holding us up, keeping us all the time. He's not going to let
you fall away. Our hope is at God's right hand,
and He's the anchor of our soul, and He's going to enter in and
cause you to look away from this. All else to Him, He's the hope.
He's our anchor. And that's what He's going to
do for His child. Christ bought His people with His precious
blood. He paid a purchase price and bought us, and we belong
to Him. He's not gonna let us fall. If
you've been a believer for very long, you can say amen to that. Because you know, if it wasn't
for His everlasting arms, you'd have fell away a long time ago.
And that's so of every believer. You know, I started out, I was
going to preach from Psalm 71, and in the first verse, David
says, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Don't let me be put
to confusion. Why do we pray that? Don't let
me be ashamed. It's not that we don't trust
the Lord. We know something about ourselves. Lord, please don't
let me be ashamed. Don't let me be put, don't let
me be confounded. But even in the midst of darkness
now, I want you to notice this. He's our light. Look at this. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. Now think about that. You've
experienced this. No matter how bad the trial may
be, I know this in my heart. The Lord's not going to let me
be separated from Him. He's just not. And whatever he does is
going to be for good. It's going to be for my good
and the good of his people. I know that. Even when I'm full of unbelief
and can't look at anything but the waves and I'm sinking down.
I know that. And that's light. Even when you're
in the midst of darkness. You know, a regenerated sinner
is the only one that knows anything about this. Because you're the
only one that has light. And you've got to have light
to even know you're sitting in darkness. You can't know that you're sitting
in darkness unless he's giving you light. You won't hear a man
that's kindled sparks and he's walking in his own sparks that
he's kindled. He never complains of sitting
in darkness. He's always strong. Because he
don't know what darkness is. You got to be regenerated and
given light to know what darkness is. Then you know when you're
sitting in darkness. But even in the darkness of trial,
His words are a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. You
have His light even in darkness. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
should be my light. But why does the Lord permit
darkness to spread over the hearts and minds of His people? Why
does He allow that? And in the providence, why does
He do that? We have so much pride that I
am 100% convinced that's the number one reason is our pride. We have so much pride and we
have to be humbled. We have so much self-righteousness,
we gotta be brought down from it. We have so much self-exaltation
and self-dependence, it's all, we gotta be laid low. We've got
to be made to not trust self. That friend he says don't trust,
He's in your bosom and mine. The flesh. God makes us experience
darkness because the more we behold our weakness, the more
He manifests that He's our strength. The more you see yourself weak,
the more you're going to know Him to be strength. And we don't
appreciate light until He brings you into darkness. You don't
appreciate light until He makes you... You know, you use this
for an example. When you go to this word and
it's dark to you and you just can't get light. You go to it
and nothing's speaking to you. Your heart's not being moved.
What does that do for a believer? That makes you appreciate the
times when you go to it and it jumps off the page. Right? And that's what it's like
in our trials and our troubles is when he brings you in, you
know there's darkness. But at the same time you know
He's light. But that makes you appreciate His light. Makes you
long for His light. It's not until you lose joy and
comfort that you really, really appreciate joy and comfort. All other wisdom's got to be
brought to an end. He got to be our wisdom. We get
to thinking we know which way to go and we know how to do and
where to go and what to do. He's going to have to bring that
to an end. He's going to have to bring it to where we don't
have any wisdom but Him. Lord, I don't know what to do. You know what's the best thing
to do when you don't know what to do? Nothing. Wait on Him. Look to Him. He knows what to do. He brought
you there to show you He's the only one that does. All strength
but the Lord's strength. All righteousness but the Lord's
righteousness. We got to be brought there where
we're not looking anywhere but to Him. He wouldn't allow us
to sink in the depths, but for one reason, He gonna bring you
to cry out, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. I'm fearful of folks that haven't
experienced the depths. especially in conversion. There's
a lot of folks that have such an easy, easy walk into this
holy way and never experienced the depths. I just believe we're
going to have to know something about our sickness to love the
physician. I believe we're going to have to know something about
our darkness to love the light. We're going to have to see something
about our sinfulness before we appreciate that he's our only
righteousness. Got to be in the depths to be
able to cry out of the depths and say, Lord, I need you to
help me. I need you to save me. I was
talking to a brother the other day, and we were talking about
how I don't think the Lord really teaches us anything except for
trials. I believe it's the trial where
you learn. And aren't we so foolish that we get so murmuring and
complaining when a trial comes? That's the good time. That's
when He's teaching us. That's when He's teaching us. You go through these dark times
and you don't see the wisdom of the Lord in it while it's
happening. Because we're looking at the waves. We're just creatures
of flesh and we look at the flesh. We ought to look up. We ought
to look to Him and we look to ourselves and others and we,
you know, wring our hands over what we're going to do. The whole
purpose is to stop all that. That's the purpose. I've preached
this so many times, and I pray to Lord to let me learn it. Because
I just keep on, keep on, keep on wringing my hands. And I need
to just, you know what it makes you learn? It makes you learn
just how much unbelief you have in you. It makes you see that
you just, when he talks about a mustard seed, that's about
all we got. as a mustard seed of faith. But he's going to bring us into
communion with Christ's suffering. That's something that I have
to say. I've learned a few things here
lately. You be the most beloved brother
to your brethren. And you'll listen to them, you'll
hear them, you'll want them to confide in you, You want to help
share their burden. But you and I, eventually, will
grow weary. See the phone ring? I just don't
want to get it. He don't. You think of how much
sin you've confessed to Christ. And he hasn't grown weary of
it yet. He hasn't grown weary of it. He doesn't. These are
things we learn, you know? He never runs out of strength. He is constantly making you have
light in the misty darkness. So we say, rejoice not against
me, enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. That
is not being presumptuous. That is knowing the faithfulness
of our God. And when I sit in darkness, I
will have some light. He is going to make sure I have
light. Look at this second thing. The reason He was patient and
submissive is this, he said, I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I've sinned against Him until He plead my
cause and execute judgment for me. The Lord brings us to know our
sin and He sets it in the light of His countenance. He makes
you see your sin by His light. You know, there's a lot of sin
that we have that we don't know that we have. There's a lot of
sin that we try to hide from ourselves. It's called self-justification. We have a reason why we do it.
Why it's okay for us, but as soon as somebody else does it,
it's not okay. That's hiding our sins from ourselves. We may not always be guilty of
the sins that this world charges us with, but this is what we
know. I have sinned. Whether the charge
is true or not, I know this, I've sinned. Whatever they charge
me with, they don't know the half of it. Can you say that? The Lord will make us know it.
Job said, you write bitter things against me, you make me to know,
make me to possess the iniquities of my youth. Moses said, thou
hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the
light of thy countenance. It's painful, but it's necessary.
Because that's when we're brought to confess our sin. That's when
we're made to loathe ourselves. That's when we're really made
to loathe ourselves is when in the light of His countenance,
He makes you see your sin. The grace of repentance is one
of God's greatest gifts to us. It's as needful as faith and
love and hope and every other grace He gives. But when He gives
you repentance, that's God, that's a gift. It's a gift. And when He makes His grace known,
the weight and the burden of our sins, when He makes you feel
the weight of it, He says, I will bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against Him. Have you sinned against
the Lord? Has He made you feel the weight
of His indignation against it? Now it's not the fury of His
indignation, because Christ went to the cross for His people and
He bore the fury of God's indignation. And so now the Lord says, fury
is not in me. He put our sin away. He made
us righteous. He redeemed us to the Father.
And He says, fury is not in me toward my people. It's not the
fury of His indignation. That's not what we're talking
about. It's fatherly chastisement. But He will make you know the
weight of your sin and the weight of His indignation against it.
And it's heavy. But He gives you with that, He
gives you submission and patience to bear it, to bear His chastening
hand. He's going to make you to know, fear He's not in him, But He's
going to make you know it's a loving, fatherly, chastening hand that
He's put upon you. Look at Lamentations 3. This
is what Jeremiah was experiencing. You know, if you go through these
scriptures, you start seeing every one of God's prophets and
His people experience this. All God's people do. Look here,
Lamentations 3.19. He was brought to say right here,
my strength, my hopes perished from the Lord. The Lord made
him see he had no strength in himself. Remembering my affliction
and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still
in remembrance and is humbled in me. It's humbled in me. This I recall to my mind and
therefore I have hope. It's of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed. because his compassions fail
not. They're new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The
Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore will I hope in
him. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It's good that a
man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. Look down at verse 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain? A man for the punishment of his
sins? Why complain about that? Let us search and try our ways
and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with
our hands unto God in the heavens. You know, the saddest thing,
and it's sad to the child of God that God is chastening, is
when I start looking at the child God's chastening. instead of
looking at my own sin. That's a terrible place to be,
because I'll be the next one. This is what Michael was saying,
I'll bear the indignation of the Lord, I'll submit to it,
I won't murmur, because I deserve ten times more. I get so weary of hearing people
How are you doing? Better than I deserve. Oh, I
hate that self-righteousness. I hate it. You're dang right
you're doing better than you deserve. You're a million times better
than you deserve. But can you be punished for your sin and
be chasing and everything be going wrong and say, I'm getting
better than I deserve? How about then? See, the chastisement of our
peace was on Christ. By His stripes we're healed.
You're going to be brought into the communion of that when the
Lord lays chastening on you and you see that you're getting infinitely
less than what you deserve, it turns you to Christ to see that
He bore what you deserved. And the little light affliction
you're bearing, you look at Him and you think, I just never have
entered into what He suffered. the chastisement of my people."
This is crushing me down, this little light affliction. Look
what He suffered. See what I'm saying when I say
it brings you into communion with His suffering? It brings
you to see the load that He bore for His people. But how good
that our Father does this. If He left us to the spirit of
pride and self-righteousness in us, He blesses even the chastening,
so He silences us. He makes us appreciate His chastening
hand. Can you? He makes you see how long-suffering
He is in mercy. He makes you sing with Calper.
Bastards may escape the rod, sunk in earthly vain delight,
but a true-born child of God must not, we would not if we
might. We don't want to be spared the
ride. But with the chastening God gives
this sweet hope, verse 9, the Lord will plead my cause, He
will execute judgment for me. This is the chief cause right
here, to make us behold we have an advocate with the Father,
the Lord Jesus Christ. John said, my little children,
these things write unto you that you sin not, don't sin. We ought not sin, don't sin. But when you do, this is where
God's going to bring you to see, I've got an advocate with the
Father. You go all your life and you try to be faithful and
you try to do what you can for your brethren and you make a
slip up and your brethren won't forget it. God won't remember
it. He says it's in the depth of
the sea, I won't remember it. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for
our sins and not for ours only, but for His people scattered
all over the world. We have an advocate with the
Father. I've got a lawyer in heaven, I've got a counselor
in heaven, and He's pleading His person, His glorious person,
and His work for me, and He's saying, that's mine. I bore His
punishment. I bore the fury. I paid the price. And He says this for you, believer,
be merciful to Him. He's just dust. Aren't you glad
you have an advocate with the Father? I couldn't plead my cause. What if God left you to plead
your cause and make your case before Him concerning your sin?
Could you do that? I wouldn't know where to start.
I got no ground to stand on. But I've got a righteous advocate
who is my righteousness and he can plead it. It's so sad. It's so sad. No charge can be laid to the
count of one for whom Christ died. Lord help me remember that. Help me to remember that. Not just when my brethren are
being nice to me, but when they're not. I want to be a brother. I want to be a brother. When
you fall flat on your face, I want to be a brother. I want to be
a help for you. I want to be an encouragement
to you. God, help me from being a Pharisee to you. Oh, help me. I want to be a brother to my
brethren. When I'm not, when I get lifted
up in pride and I get in that place, what I'm probably forgetting
is how many times My brother has come to my defense and I
didn't even know it because of my self-righteousness. He's probably
come to my defense so many times and encouraged brethren to overlook
my self-righteousness and here I am being self-righteous to
him and didn't even know it. Christ our advocate never fails.
Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul, thou hast redeemed
my life. He never fails. Look at this
last thing. Every believer has this assurance.
He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold His
righteousness. He will bring me forth to the
light. The light of His countenance, the light of His grace, the light
of His pardoning mercy and love, He's going to bring me to see
that all my sins are put away by the blood of Christ, And whatever
false charges are laid against me, I have to trust him, because
I can't do nothing about it. I have to trust him. But I believe
he'll bring me to the light. He may let you be thrown in prison
like Joseph, may let you wallow in the dung for a little while,
but in the end, he's bringing all his people to the light.
And we're going to behold Jesus Christ, our righteous advocate,
who's been pleading our case the whole time. You know, every
trial is for this. Every trial is for this. Every
trial is to bring you to see He's your only light and He's
your only righteousness. and your only trust. If you go
read Psalm 71, I'll give this away because I'm probably going
to bring it out in another message, but I love how in verse 1 he
says, Lord in thee do I put my trust. You get down to verse
5 and he says, Lord you are my trust. Lord you are my trust. That's where he brings you. I'm
not just trusting in my trust being in him. I'm trusting him
to be my trust and keep me trusted. And He will. He will, brethren.
He'll keep you trusting Him. He bought you. Lord, help us
to remember these things. Help us to remember the purpose
for which you do these things. Help us to remember that you
took a worthless fisherman who wouldn't be attractive to the
Jews at all and sent him to the Jews, and that you took a polished,
Jewish student of the law and send him to Gentiles. Help us
to know that what you're doing in our lives is to humble us
from our pride. What you're doing in our own
lives and what you're doing in the lives of our brethren is
to bring us down. Thank you, Lord. Even in the
darkness, we have your light. And we know you're going to do
right by your people. You're faithful. You won't deny yourself. Lord, make us suffer for our
sins. Make us to be chastened and to
bow and submit. Make us confess the things that
are so. And Lord, save us from the things
that are not. Forgive us our sin. Keep us, Lord. Keep us looking to You. Make
us better believers. Make us better brethren. Make
us better servants. For Christ's sake, for His honor
and glory, amen.