1 Kings 2

Chapter 10. Rehoboam, or the Peril of Ungodliness and Pride

Chapter 10. Rehoboam, or the Peril of Ungodliness and PrideHe did evil became he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord. (2 Chronicles 12:14)Something like the great convocation held once on the plains of Delhi to proclaim the sovereignty of the Indian emperor, was the convocation which had been summoned to meet at Shechem in the time of Ephraim for the purpose of crowning Rehoboam as the successor of David and Solomon, the king of Israel. Rehoboam had consented to this arrangement as special compliment to the powerful family of Joseph and tribe of Ephraim. And doubtless, preparations had been made for a pageant worthy of so great an occasion, and for a scene of Oriental magnificence and splendor in keeping with the glory of Solomon’s kingdom. Section I—The Story of RehoboamAn Interruption But there is a sudden interruption of the program before the procession can move or the coronation ceremony begin. There is a deputation which insists upon an interview with the king. And to add special significance to it, the leader of the deputation is a young politician named Jeroboam, who has just come back from Egypt. He had fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of Solomon, when suspected, some years before, of plotting to secure for himself the throne. He has been patronized by the Egyptian Court, and meanwhile has kept in touch with the disaffected leaders in his own and other tribes. They have summoned him back for the coronation, and many a caucus has been held, no doubt, to arrange the policy with which they are to meet the future king. Rehoboam receives the deputation and listens with astonishment to their demands. “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you” (2 Chronicles 10:4). That seemed most moderate and reasonable. There was nothing insulting or unduly insistent in their terms. The taxes which Solomon had imposed for his vast improvements had been oppressive; and still more obnoxious had been the burden of forced labor by means of which the temple and his gorgeous palaces and luxurious parks had been constructed. The delegation simply asked for some letting down of these oppressive impositions. A Reasonable Demand Rehoboam asked three days to consider their demands and, meanwhile, consulted with his advisers. First, he called the old men to him that had been the counselors of Solomon and knew the condition of the people and the kingdom. Their advice was eminently wise. They urged him to conciliate the people and thus win their lasting confidence and loyalty. Then he called to him his boon companions, the young men of the court, and he received what might have been expected—some hot-headed, insolent suggestions. The idea of his conceding anything was preposterous to these young aristocrats. What were kings for but to own and control their subjects? And what were subjects for but to minister to their will? These young braggarts advised, “Tell the people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’—tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions’” (2 Chronicles 10:10-11). A Blunder Rehoboam was delighted with this advice. He saw at once that this would give him the true dignity of a real king. And so he met the deputation again after three days and with lordly and defiant air began to repeat the little speech of folly which his boon companions had dictated. But he had not got more than one-half through when there arose that old, terrible cry which twice before had been the signal for a national rebellion: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David” (2 Chronicles 10:16). Top late, Rehoboam realized what he had done and tried, as weak men do, to compromise. He sent Adoniram, tribute officer, to negotiate with them, but in a moment he fell under a shower of stones. Rehoboam instantly sought safety in flight and returned to Jerusalem, barely escaping with his life. As well might one have tried to stop the rising of the tide or the raging of the storm! The little spark of his folly had kindled a conflagration which would not cease to burn until it had consumed both parts of the now-divided kingdom and covered his name with a dishonor that should never pass away. A Wreck The splendid kingdom of David and Solomon was rent in twain. One section would maintain a precarious and ungodly throne for two centuries and then pass out in seeming extermination. The other, which lingered a little longer, would disappear into exile for a time at least, and its future be overshadowed for 2,000 years, with deepest gloom. Such was the heritage of shame and sorrow which one reckless moment brought upon his people and his throne. All that is left to him now is to gather up the fragments that remain and make the best of his stupendous blunder. A Kingdom Lost How much was lost! The splendid and fertile plains of Samaria and Galilee; the coasts of the Mediterranean; the luxuriant pastures of Gilead and Bashan; the vast regions stretching northward to the Orontes and eastward to the Euphrates, the richest part of Israel’s inheritance, all gone; and five-sixths of its people under the banner of Jeroboam and the 10 tribes! And how little was left! A territory about 50 by 80 miles in extent, not much larger than two or three counties in some of our states. A population at the most of two or three million and a lost prestige among the surrounding tribes and nations, which would soon bring upon him the rebellion of the Philistines and Edomites and the neighboring people and cut him off from the maritime trade which his father had secured to the south. The chief possession that was left him was ancient Jerusalem, its holy sanctuary the temple and the dynasty of David and Solomon. His first impulse was to fight for the kingdom and to put down by force the rebellion, and he immediately levied an army of 180,000 for this purpose. But the message of a prophet forbade this second folly, and so he set himself to work as best he could to safeguard what was left of the kingdom. Fifteen cities surrounding Jerusalem were strongly fortified, especially on the south toward Egypt, their most formidable rival. For a while he showed some zeal and wisdom in arranging the civil government of the nation. An Ungodly Ruler But the fatal defect of Rehoboam was his own character and his lack of real principle and godliness. The text betrays the fatal secret of his life. “He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord” (2 Chronicles 12:14). And so it was not long before the character of the king began to reflect in his government and policy. Evils of all kinds were permitted in the moral, social and religious conditions of the State. Idolatry was even established by sanction of the king, and men and women of the grossest character encouraged, and even appointed in the worship of the groves (1 Kings 14:22-24). The second chastisement soon came in the form of an invasion by Shishak, known in history as Sheshonk, king of Egypt. With a vast army of horses, chariots and countless soldiers from among the cave-dwellers of Ethiopia, he swept overland, crushed the cordon of fortifications which Rehoboam had vainly provided and invested Jerusalem itself with a vast, besieging army. Doubtless, this invasion was, in part at least, suggested and encouraged by Jeroboam in order to weaken and destroy the southern kingdom. Humbled Pride The Egyptians were bought off only by giving them the entire treasure of the city and temple—the vast stores of gold and precious stones that David and Solomon had accumulated for the house of the Lord, amounting to billions of dollars’ worth. All this was stripped from the helpless captive, and Rehoboam was left with but the shadow and mockery of his royal state. The country was placed under tribute to Egypt. God did not utterly destroy them because they humbled themselves before Him, but He sent them this message: “I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance…. They will, however, become subject to [Shishak], so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands” (2 Chronicles 12:7-8). Poor Rehoboam still tried to keep up the show of his kingly state. Instead of shields of gold which Solomon had made to carry before him when entering the temple, he had shields of brass made. But the real glory had departed, and the remainder of his 17 years he just lived out the empty form of royalty and at last passed to the sepulchers of his fathers, leaving behind him the memory and the heritage of having wrecked the grandest empire ever committed to mortal hands and having brought upon his successors an entail of more shame and sorrow than any other king of David’s line. Section II—Lessons Learned From the Life of RehoboamThe lessons of his life are the more significant and profitable to us because he had some good even in his imperfect and blundering life. Had he been one of the great originators of wickedness like Ahab or Athaliah, men might have said that his example did not apply to ordinary lives. But the fact was that he was just like other young men of today—a man with some good in him. But since he had enough conceit and recklessness to make him dangerous, and to wreck his life and the lives of others, makes the picture the more timely, and the lesson the more intensely personal to the men—and especially to the young men of today. Recklessness and Pride

1. His life teaches us of the folly and danger of rashness, vanity and pride. One hasty word is like a spark in a powder magazine and the Apostle James may well say, “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark” (James 3:5). Pride brought Nebuchadnezzar to his fall. It led to Peter’s denial of his Master. It brought Pharaoh’s doom, and it always brings deepest humiliation and punishment, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Let us ask God to keep our temper and our tongue. Evil Counselors
2. His life teaches us of the danger of evil companionship. When Rehoboam’s sinful life is described it is emphatically added: “His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite” (2 Chronicles 12:13). He had a bad mother, a heathen and idolatress, no doubt. How could the issue have been different? How cruel the crime of Solomon to make an idolatress the mother of his son and successor. And his wife was no better. The granddaughter of Absalom, she was probably as beautiful as her grandfather, but she was also as sinful, for a little later in the story of Asa we read that when he came to the throne he put her aside from being queen dowager because of her idolatrous influence (2 Chronicles 15:16). And yet she was Rehoboam’s favorite wife. Little wonder that with an idolatrous mother and a wife who was also an inveterate idolatress his life was all wrong. We all depend to a great extent on the influences that environ us. Weak natures take the coloring, chameleon-like, of their surroundings, and to a greater or less degree it is true of us all, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20). Lost Opportunities
3. Rehoboam’s life teaches us the value and the responsibility of opportunity. What an opportunity Rehoboam had, but what an awful responsibility! For one moment it was in his power to save or to destroy the noblest kingdom of the earth, and once done his act was irrevocable. So to each of us opportunity comes with its far-reaching possibilities of weal or woe and lingers not for our convenience. The decisive word must be spoken; once done—the issues are eternal. There are opportunities of personal salvation; there are opportunities of useful work. There are opportunities for spiritual blessing; there are opportunities for blessing and helping others which come to us all. Over each is inscribed one burning message: “Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). God’s Overruling Providence
4. One reason why our responsibility is so great is because there is a divine purpose behind our actions. The message of the prophet to Rehoboam when he purposed, by force of arms, bringing back the rebellious tribes was this, “Do not go up to fight against your brothers. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing” (2 Chronicles 11:4). God had told Jeroboam through the prophet, Ahijah, many years before, that all this should come to pass and that he should be king of 10 tribes. And yet He allowed it all to come about by human agency and held the agents responsible for their individual actions; but when their acts were finally decided upon they became links in the inexorable chain of God’s fixed purposes. There was a time during which Rehoboam was free to act and by his action save his kingdom, but once having acted he could not play with God’s plans and change the course of events which he himself had determined. Back of his willful, wicked conduct God was overruling his folly for some final purpose of His providence. This made life very solemn. How forcibly the Apostle Peter expressed it when, charging the rulers of Israel with having murdered the Son of God, he said, “You, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” (Acts 2:23). It was their act, their crime, and they were held responsible for it. But at the same time he tells them, “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). God had planned it all, knowing their wicked hearts and how they would act, and had determined to overrule it all for the salvation of men and the purposes of His own glory and yet hold them to the effects of their sin. And so we must ever remember that, while we are acting according to our own caprices and preferences, we are unconsciously fitting into a great chain of causes and effects which God is overruling for some great purpose of His own. Each link that we forge passes into the hands of the Divine Architect and is henceforth beyond our control and yet we are eternally responsible for its power for good or evil. What an awful sacredness this gives to every human act! How carefully we should use the freedom of choice that God has given. What a responsibility rests upon every decision and action of our lives! What would Rehoboam have given to recall that foolish word at Shechem! But it was too late! All that was left him was to meet the inevitable consequences and make the best of what remained. Dear friend, remember as you pass through life that you are touching every moment live wires and the currents of influence you set in operation will soon pass beyond your own control and will influence your own and other lives through all eternity. Wrong at Heart
5. The impossibility of a bad man living a good life. Our text gives us the key to Rehoboam’s failure, “He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord” (2 Chronicles 12:14). He had a bad heart and the outcome inevitably must be a bad life. Men are always making a mistake trying to do good without the necessary spiritual resources. God does not ask us to do better. He asks us to let Him make us better in our nature and then the doing will take care of itself. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Let the fruit alone, get the right sort of tree. It is a new heart you need, not better rules and principles. It is the power of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit alone that will make it natural and spontaneous for you to love and serve. Rehoboam’s fault was that “he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord” (2 Chronicles 12:14). Notice, it does not say “to serve the Lord.” It was not better service that God asked from him, but a disposition to seek and obtain divine grace and help. Oh souls that are struggling in vain to make the crooked straight—the tiger, lamb-like—when will you learn God’s better way: “You must be born again” (John 3:7)? Not Wholly Bad
6. Rehoboam stands as an example of a man that was not bad, who had some good in him, but who was constantly under divine chastening and in the hand of God for judgment and discipline. One is in the heart of God, and the other is in the hands of God. “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Some people never seem to get out of that fearful place. They are always getting into condemnation and compelling God to deal with them in a judicial way. All sweetness is out of their lives, and they seem to have just enough religion to make them miserable. God does not wish to deal with us thus. We are not under law, but grace. Let us come into the place of sonship, of confidence and of loving obedience where through His grace we may ever say, “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (John 8:29). The Two Services
7. Rehoboam is an illustration of the difference between the two services, the service of the Lord and the service of the world. There is a remarkable statement in 2 Chronicles 12:8, “They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands.” That is to say that God allowed His people for a time to be tributary to Egypt that they might find out for themselves how much easier it was to be the servant of God than of the world. Some Christians get very tired of God’s will and long for freedom to live like the world. Sometimes God lets them have it and they find to their sorrow that it is a bitter bondage. For a time the pleasures of the world may fascinate, but in the end they are more bitter than death. Often their votaries and victims find, like Solomon, after his wasted life, that “everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2); and that the only true freedom and lasting happiness are found in His service, who has said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). The World a Cheat I remember a beautiful woman in my early ministry whom I tried in vain to turn aside from the sinful world. She was a professed Christian, but her answer was, “I just love the world and cannot live without it.” Vainly I tried to tell her that the world would cheat her in the end, but she would not listen. The day came—and came, alas, very soon—when she returned to me for counsel and comfort. Her cry was, “I hate the world. I find no interest or pleasure in the things that used to charm me. I care for nothing, my heart is like stone.” It seemed impossible to comfort her, and a few days later her poor little body was taken out of the waters of the river where she had sought oblivion from her bitter disappointment. As I stood by her bier with a deep, unutterable sorrow, that chills the heart even yet to remember, it seemed as if those cold and silent lips were saying, “Do not love the world or anything in the world…. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15-17).

Chapter 11. Asa, or the Fatal Failures of a Well: Meaning Life

Chapter 11. Asa, or the Fatal Failures of a Well-Meaning LifeAsa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done…. Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life. (1 Kings 15:11, 1 Kings 15:14)In Rehoboam we saw the portrait of a bad man with some good in him. In Asa we have the converse picture, a good man with some mingled spots of infirmity and failure. Section I—The Story of AsaJeroboam was still upon the throne of Israel when Asa succeeded his father, or more probably his brother, Abijah. The fact that Maacah, the wife of Rehoboam and his favorite queen, is called the mother of Asa and was specially deposed by him on account of her notorious idolatry, would seem to indicate that she must have been his own mother and not his grandmother. Abijah’s reign had been a brief one, lasting less than three years, and with but one bright spot in all its dark record of sin. And Asa came to the throne in the midst of precedents and conditions little favorable to a reign of piety or prosperity. His reign occupied 41 years and was contemporary with no less than seven of the kings of Israel, namely, Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri and Ahab, in the earlier years of Asa’s reign. He must have ascended the throne while still young, perhaps less than 20 years of age. A Good Beginning His bright and promising beginning was therefore the more to his credit and honor. He immediately instituted the reforms in temple and state so greatly needed, and restored something like even the best days of his father, David. He put away the groves of Baal, the unhallowed priests and priestesses that ministered at their altars and the whole system of idolatry which Rehoboam had countenanced. He even deposed his own mother because she had set up a shameful shrine and an obscene image in one of her idolatrous groves. The temple worship was reestablished in Jerusalem, and “he commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands” (2 Chronicles 14:4). Wise Administration Not only so, his public policy was as wise and sagacious as his personal character was upright. He erected fortresses throughout the land and drilled an army of no less than 580,000 men, including probably almost all the males able to bear arms in Judah and Benjamin. He did not do this in a spirit like that of Rehoboam, of human self-confidence, but in dependence upon Jehovah, who had given them the opportunity to take these wise precautions. “Let us build up these towns,” he said, “and put walls around them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we sought him and he has given us rest on every side” (2 Chronicles 14:7). None too soon did he make these prudent preparations, for suddenly there burst upon his kingdom the most terrific invasion it had ever known. Zerah, the Cushite, known in history as Usarken, the third in descent of Egypt’s kings from the famous Shishak, or Sheshonk, who had captured Jerusalem in the time of Rehoboam, with an army of a million and the usual accompaniment of chariots and cavalry, came up from the south with all the military power and prestige of Egypt to conquer his kingdom and enforce the tribute which probably had been discontinued after Rehoboam’s death. Faith and Death With wise strategy and heroic faith, Asa promptly met the invader. He marched his little army in front of the walled cities which he had forfeited, and thus had his base protected in case of retreat. But he did not count upon defeat, nor even upon his strategy nor his army, but upon the living God. “Lord,” he said, in language never to be forgotten, “there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you” (2 Chronicles 14:11). Not in vain did he claim this high and divine resource. Victory crowned his fight of faith. The Egyptian army was defeated and routed, and so completely overthrown that it was centuries before they ever dared again to cross the Judean frontier. Enormous spoil was recovered, and even the Arabian allies of Egypt, far to the south, were smitten by Asa’s hosts, and vast spoil and herds of sheep and cattle and camels captured and carried back to Jerusalem. Asa’s splendid victory was followed by a public act of national consecration and a solemn league and covenant to serve the Lord with all their heart, and to cut off all who refused to do so. The result of all this was a long period of peace, righteousness and great national prosperity. Evils of Prosperity But few men and few communities can enjoy long continued prosperity. A silent process of disintegration was meanwhile going on in the heart of the king and the spirit of the people and in the 26th year of Asa’s reign an incident occurred that brought to light this baleful process. Baasha, the energetic king of Israel, began a movement against Asa’s kingdom, by building powerful fortifications at Ramah on the border in order to cut off all communication between the two countries, and prevent the tide of immigration that had been setting in toward Judah from the tribes of the northern kingdom. There was also, no doubt, the hint of more direct hostilities as well. The Arm of the Flesh Asa immediately took alarm and instead of turning to God, as he had in the more formidable invasion of the Egyptians, he resorted to diplomacy and sent an immense bribe, which he took from the treasures of the temple, to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria. Asa proposed to him that they should enter into an alliance and that he should attack Baasha and draw off his invading army from Ramah. Asa’s policy was immensely successful for the time. Ben-Hadad attacked and captured a large number of important towns in the northern kingdom and Baasha withdrew his forces from Ramah, while Asa captured the stones that had been intended for its walls, carried them away and built two powerful fortresses for himself. But it was a costly victory in the end. The prophet Hanani was sent to rebuke the king for turning away from God, who had given him such a glorious deliverance in the former and great invasion, and turning to the arm of flesh in his present need. But Asa, instead of accepting the divine reproof, went from bad to worse and became angry with the prophet, threw him into prison and vented his bitter animosity not only on him but on many of his subjects. The spirit that had once been so trustful and holy became soured and malignant, and the good and benignant ruler threatened to become a cruel oppressor. The Physicians Before long a more severe trial came to show the depth of his spiritual declension, and at the same time to give him an opportunity of profiting by the divine discipline. A severe illness came upon him, some form of disease in his feet, perhaps gout or rheumatism. It continued through two whole years, affording him abundant opportunity to learn his lesson and turn to God. But the sad story still moves on in its downward trend. “Even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians” (2 Chronicles 16:12). Egypt in these days had a very high order of medical science, and the museums of Cairo contain many a surgical instrument worthy to be compared with the advanced science of today. This high culture had even reached Judah in the days of Solomon, but hitherto God’s people had not turned back from their ancient trust in the arm of Jehovah. As Dr. Geikie well says, the very fact that Asa’s resorting to physicians is commented upon with such strong disapproval only shows how high the standard of faith still was even in those degenerate times. The issue of Asa’s trouble was just what might have been expected. Very gently he is let down into his humbling grave. Very generously does the record bear witness to his splendid funeral and his high record as a king, but none the less was it a failure, defeat and the grave. “Asa died and rested with his fathers” (2 Chronicles 16:13). But all the delicacy of the historian, and all the gentleness of the inspired penman cannot hide the mournful fact that one of the best of Judah’s kings had fallen from his high estate, and over his tomb invisible fingers had written, “The glory is departed.” Section II—Lessons Learned From the Life of AsaFaithfulness

1. The first lesson is that of faithfulness to God in a place of high trust and hard trial. He ascended a lofty throne in his immature youth with three bad examples before him—his grandfather, his father and his brother—and with an established condition of idolatry and unrighteousness on every side. It was no easy task for a youth to set himself against the powerful current of depraved human nature strengthened with the evil bent of half a century of tolerated sin. Worse than all else, his own mother, the most potent social influence in the realm, was herself the patroness of idolatry, and had no doubt done her best to instill into his own mind her pernicious principles. But in the face of all this young Asa was true to God. With loyal purpose and powerful energy he succeeded in stemming the tide of evil, in turning it backwards and reestablishing the worship of Jehovah and the righteous government of which his ancestor David’s was his lofty example. Let this not be forgotten even when we have to deplore the sad and humbling declension of his later years. God did not forget it, and Asa deserves to stand very high in the roll of Judah’s best kings. God help each of us to be as true in the places of responsibility and trial to which he calls us. Prudence
2. Another lesson is that of prudence and preparation in times of prosperity for days of danger. Asa prepared himself while his realm was at peace and his subjects were at leisure for the emergencies that the future was sure to bring. And so the wise man will look forward and husband the resources of today for the needs of tomorrow. Even the ant prepares its food in summer. Likewise, prudence is one of the instincts with which God has armed us against the vicissitudes of life. The highest confidence in God need not prevent us from anticipating the future and “lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age” (1 Timothy 6:19). Frugality and economy in the practical affairs of life are Christian graces as well as natural virtues. Every young man and woman with even the most limited income should endeavor to save a little not merely for future needs, but for future possibilities of wise advancement even in the business of life. In the spiritual world we can store the heavens with prayer and the day will come when the answer will be poured upon our heads in blessed help and abundant service. We can store our minds with truth and by diligent preparation become fitted for higher usefulness in the work of God. Confidence
3. Asa displayed confidence in God in a time of great trial and emergency. The crisis came for which Asa had wisely prepared; and when it came he did not depend upon his half a million trained militia, nor his carefully established line of fortifications, but upon God. “In your name,” he cried, “we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you” (2 Chronicles 14:11). Faith can never rise to simpler, sublimer confidence than these words express. It was God’s battle and God vindicated His servant’s trust. This is the true spirit in which to meet our difficulties and our enemies. Let us make God responsible, and He will not fail us in our time of need. Consecration
4. The next lesson is the consecration of our blessings. After Asa’s victory, instead of boasting in his own skill and triumph, we find him gathering his people to an act of solemn recognition of Jehovah as the God of the nation. Asa leads them into a league and covenant of fidelity to Him, and swears that whosoever should not seek the Lord should surely be put to death. This does not mean that we are to murder everybody who does not come up to our idea of consecration, but that we are to put to death everything in ourselves that does not answer to God’s supreme claim. The question is pertinent to us. How have we used our blessings? Have we consecrated them to God? What have you done with the means that He gave you as you asked Him to prosper your business? Have you put Him off with some trifling tithe or even less? Or have you given Him all and recognize yourself as but a steward, holding and using everything for His service and according to His will? This is true consecration. What have you done with your health which He gave you back? Have you given it to Him and are you using it sacredly for His service and according to His will, or selfishly for the enjoyment of life or the amassing of riches? God help us to consecrate our blessings. How sad the record of Hezekiah, that he rendered not again according to the benefit that he had received, but turned his blessing into vainglory and display, and brought upon himself and his country the displeasure of God and the despoiling hands of the Chaldeans. Watchfulness
5. Still another lesson is the failure that comes through prosperity without watchfulness. The splendid record of Asa’s first 26 years was sadly dimmed by the later portion of his reign. The king that would despise a million Egyptian soldiers and go forth in faith to overcome them, became alarmed by a little threat from Baasha of the possible invasion of his country, and immediately turned to the arm of flesh and his heart departed from the Lord. Alas, how hard it is for many of us still to stand even God’s best blessings without forsaking the fountain of living waters and turning to broken cisterns that can hold no water. Reproof Refused
6. His worldliness soon led to sin. The prophet that came to reprove him was rejected and persecuted, and the man that had been so devout became the oppressor of his people. His sweetness was turned to malignity and moroseness, and his whole character became embittered. Faith Undermined
7. But unfortunately the evil progression did not stop there! The worst thing about our failures is that they disarm us for the next conflict and leave us to more disastrous failure in some fatal crisis. So it was with Asa. And when sickness came and his health and life began to break down under the lingering pressure of chronic and incurable disease, the same unbelief that had turned from God to the Syrian league for help turned again from God to the physicians of Egypt for healing. We have already seen the inevitable result and mourned his dishonored tomb. But let us not forget the lesson that the failure of today is going to unfit you for the victory of tomorrow. Every time we yield to the enemy, we become disarmed and dismembered for the next test of faith. Dr. Livingston tells of the ant lion of the desert that digs a little hole in the sand the shape of an inverted cone, and, sitting at the bottom, waits for its prey to tumble over the edge. Some foolish traveling ant draws near and, with a curiosity more natural than prudent, ventures to look over the edge of this strange pit, when suddenly the ground gives way and down it plunges headlong on the sloping crumbling incline. The moment it reaches the bottom the sharp scissor-like fangs of the ant lion with a click have cut off one of its feet. With a start of terror and agony it begins to climb back to the top, but just as it reaches the edge again the sand gives way, and again another limb is severed. This continues until at last it falls into the den of its destroyer the mutilated and helpless victim of his devouring jaws. So, too, the devil begins the process of destruction in many a thoughtless life. God help us to “watch and pray so that [we] will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41).

Chapter 12. Jehoshaphat, or a Goodman in the Wrong Place

Chapter 12. Jehoshaphat, or a Goodman in the Wrong PlaceShould you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, the wrath of the Lord is upon you. (2 Chronicles 19:2)We have just studied two companion pictures in the story of Judah’s kings. We saw Rehoboam, a bad man with some good in him, Asa, a good man with some faults and now in Jehoshaphat we have a good man without personal faults, but who made the mistake of associating himself with bad men. He was good himself but became smirched by the foul odor of his companionship. This is a picture worth looking at, for it contains a lesson worth learning. Section I—The Story of JehoshaphatJehoshaphat came to the throne of his father Asa and his ancestor David at the age of 35, in his full manhood. He reigned for a quarter of a century, passing away at the age of 60, and leaving behind him a memory fragrant of good works and wise administration. He had seen enough of the mistakes of Asa to learn the lesson, and had so studied the character of David as to understand that he could not follow him blindly, but he walked in the “first ways” (2 Chronicles 17:3) and thus escaped the later dangers of both David’s and Asa’s lives. An Upright Ruler Jehoshaphat’s name means “God is Judge,” and he was true to its high spiritual significance. He walked in the clear light of God and he himself endeavored to judge as the representative of God. His reign began with the wisest and most vigorous administration. He thoroughly equipped his military establishment and had an army amounting to more than a million thoroughly drilled and equipped. He also had a chain of fortifications reaching up into the mountains of Ephraim beyond the borders of Israel, guarding the large frontier which his father had won from the northern kingdom. It would seem as if every adult male was in the army, for the entire population could not have exceeded six or seven million. Jehoshaphat used his resources to the utmost and kept them all in hand. He looked after the civil administration of the state. He appointed courts of appeal with a supreme court in Judah at Jerusalem. He gave the strictest charges to the judges over them to administer their functions as in the very sight of God, for “with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery” (2 Chronicles 19:7). A Godly King He looked still deeper and higher and knew that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and he took pains to instruct his people in the law of God. The Higher Critics say that the law of God was not in existence until the days of Jeremiah, several centuries later. But we find it here in good shape and it had been there ever since the days of Moses, notwithstanding the Higher Critics. Jehoshaphat appointed princes and Levites representing the highest people in the land as a sort of educational bureau. They went all over the country reading the law of the Lord and instructing the people in the principles of righteousness and truth, and thus laying the foundations for true, solid national character. He put aside the vile Asherahs, and banished from the country the images and exterminated the worship of the groves with their obscene forms. In every possible way he reformed his kingdom and established the ordinances of civil government, and the worship of Jehovah. No wonder “great wealth and honor” (2 Chronicles 17:5) came to him, and the fear of him was upon the nations round about, so that they came no more against him, with but one or two exceptions. National dignity and far-reaching influence followed the high principles which he exemplified and according to which he established his temporal throne. Wealth and Power Jehoshaphat was a contemporary of the worst kings of Israel. He ascended the throne when Omri was king, and he reigned all through the time of Ahab, and for the first years of his son Ahaziah. He lived in the darkest age of the northern kingdom. He was also contemporary with the prophet Elijah, although he seemed not to have met him. But he was the intimate friend of Elisha, and we find this great prophet in his camp on one of the most important occasions in the history of his reign. Friendship with Ahab A friendship grew up between the two courts of Ahab and Jehoshaphat, and his chief fault was an intimacy which led to almost all the evils of succeeding years. Three great wars occurred during his reign. The first, resulting from a foolish alliance with Ahab, inveigled Jehoshaphat to fight with the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead. He yielded in a moment of good nature to Ahab, and took his army to the battle. Treacherously Ahab got Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes while Ahab hid to save his own life. Jehoshaphat was sorely pressed and almost lost his life. But he cried unto the Lord in the hour of his extremity and God saved him. He got no honor out of the battle, but God taught him a very solemn lesson. He sent a prophet to say to him, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, the wrath of the Lord is upon you” (2 Chronicles 19:2). Beracah The next great campaign was the one of which we read in 2 Chronicles 20—that great conflict in the Valley of Beracah. There remains to us to the present day one of the most remarkable monuments of ancient times. It is known as the Moabite stone. It tells the full story of Moab during the reign of Jehoshaphat. It is the story of the king of Moab told by himself, how he invaded Israel and captured city after city from the old frontiers of the kingdom of Israel, and followed his victories by the usual cruelty of Oriental conquerors. It was after his northern invasion that, flushed with victory, laden with spoil and with a throng of auxiliary armies from the cities he had conquered, he suddenly appeared just at the edge of the Dead Sea, a little south of Jerusalem, at En Gedi. There were myriads upon myriads of these Moabites and Ammonites, and the crisis hour had at last come. We know the story well of that old battle of faith, where they had not to strike a blow, but sent out the white-robed singers to lead the charge. As they praised the Lord, and as Jehoshaphat stood in the front saying, “Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful” (2 Chronicles 20:20), the great fight was won and the story of Jericho’s walls was paralleled once more, and the Lord sent disaster upon their enemies. The historical explanation is that the Moabites got jealous of their allies on account of the spoils, and when Jehoshaphat got there he found they had killed each other, and there was nothing to do but to gather the spoil. It was a typical victory of faith. The Lord fights for us when we trust Him. A Foolish Alliance The third campaign resulted from another foolish alliance with Ahab’s son. He allowed himself to be drawn into it with a view to recover what Mesha had captured before. The combined armies marched seven days into the desert and found a worse foe than the Moabities, the peril of a water famine, from which their noble army was in danger of perishing. Then the wicked king of Israel gave up, saying, “What!… Has the Lord called us three kings together only to hand us over to Moab” (2 Kings 3:10). How different the spirit of Jehoshaphat even when he is in the wrong place. “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord through him” (2 Kings 3:11)? And, lo, Elisha was in the camp. They brought him to the presence of the kings, and with scorn and contempt he turned from the king of Israel and said, “If I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or even notice you” (2 Kings 3:14). But as the harpist played, the prophetic message came, bidding him to make the valley full of ditches. And then came the flooding of the ditches. In the morning the enemy supposed, from the shadows of the mountains and the crimson tints of the morning skies, that the ditches were filled with blood. They thought the enemy had slain one another, and started for the spoil. They found, however, the armies ready to meet them, and were repulsed with terrific slaughter, and driven back within the walls of their capital. The siege was raised only by the fearful tragedy of a human sacrifice, the only son and heir of Moab being the victim. As the armies of the allies witnessed this horrible sight on the walls of Kir they withdrew in dismay, and Moab was saved from extinctions. This was the last of Jehoshaphat’s campaigns. A Bad Partnership A little later he entered into a business partnership with Ahaziah, a great maritime trust. They built a commercial navy at Ezion Geber, Solomon’s old haven on the Persian Gulf. But before their plans were consummated, Jehoshaphat received another rebuke from the prophet of Jehovah for his compromise with Israel’s wicked king, and the intimation that his enterprise would end in disaster. The result was that “the ships were wrecked” (2 Chronicles 20:37), and the forbidden partnership ruined, and the story of his life closes under the cloud of God’s displeasure. Section II—Lessons Learned From the Life of JehoshaphatFaithfulness

1. The first lesson involved the picture of a faithful servant in a place of high responsibility. He was the servant of the Lord and he recognized himself not as a king for his own benefit, but as a trustee for the nation and for the Lord. Faithfully he served his generation as a king. There is nothing finer in human legends than the old motto of the German and English knighthood, “Ich dien” Handed down to us from the days of chivalry, it has about it a true ring of both human nobility and Christian fidelity—“I serve.” Each of us is a servant. In the constitution of human society no man can be independent. The king upon the throne is the servant of his people. The statesman at the forum is a public servant. The manager of that great corporation alike with the humblest clerk or laborer is a servant of society, and every one of us, whatever our station or calling, is called to serve. Christianity does not change our circumstances, but introduces a motive and a principle which elevates and consecrates every occupation and action and links it with heaven. The sacred talisman which we find over and over again in the New Testament epistles is that little phrase, “in the Lord.” Whether you are a husband or a wife, a parent or a child, a master or a servant, the key to all your actions is your relation to Christ. And the principle which dignifies and dedicates the humblest ministry is this: Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus…. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:17, Colossians 3:23-24) Beloved, are we thus serving our Master and our generation, and winning the glorious guerdon by and by: “Well done, good and faithful servant!… Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matthew 25:23). Faith
2. Jehoshaphat’s life serves as an example of sublime faith in God in the most trying situations. What can be finer than the picture in 2 Chronicles 20 of the pious king of Judah, forgetting all about his great army of more than a million soldiers, and like a helpless child turning to his heavenly Father with the appeal, “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). And then leading forth his hosts behind the white-robed choir of singers to the charge, while he exhorted them, “Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful” (2 Chronicles 20:20). That victory of faith and that Valley of Beracah have become the pattern and the inspiration of countless triumphs to the children of faith in every age. Perhaps the most inspiring feature of Jehoshaphat’s faith was the fact that in nearly all his situations of difficulty and danger he was himself to blame for his misfortunes. But this did not in the least diminish his confidence in God. Like a simple-hearted child he went straight back to the Father he had offended and threw himself upon His mercy and grace. No child of God ever did this in vain. When pressed by the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead he had no business to be there. But none the less “Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him. God drew them away from him” (2 Chronicles 18:31). Again his alliance with the armies of Ahaziah and the Edomites was all wrong. He had no business to be there. But God had anticipated his foolish act and sent the prophet Elisha to be on hand for the emergency. And while the wicked Ahaziah could see nothing but the vindictive purpose of the Lord watching for an opportunity to destroy them, the good Jehoshaphat immediately thought of resorting to his God for “grace to help… in… time of need” (Hebrews 4:16), and the help came. The difference between the good man and the ungodly comes out in the hour of trial. The one sinks into sullen despair, the other rises to a higher confidence notwithstanding even his worst mistakes. The finest chapter in David’s life was when he saw his crimson crime and yet could say, “Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalms 51:7). Will we accept the beautiful and comforting lesson to trust Him at all times, and even in the hour of our deepest failure to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16)? A Good Man in the Wrong Place
3. Jehoshaphat is a picture of a good man in the wrong place. This is a most practical lesson. We may be faultless ourselves and yet neutralize much of our influence for good by evil associations and forbidden situations. Condoning Their Sin
4. Jehoshaphat’s first mistake was his friendly visit to Ahab and the court of Samaria. He must have known the utter wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel, and yet we find him feasting in their palace on terms of equal and intimate friendship. This is all wrong. We cannot sit at the table of the wicked and accept their hospitality and their confidential friendship without being almost compelled to share, or, at least, condone, their sins. It was almost impossible for Jehoshaphat to receive the royal welcome of Ahab and then refuse his reasonable request for help against the enemy. “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). Reckless Compromise
5. Jehoshaphat’s second mistake was his off-handed and impulsive consent to enter into alliance with Ahab and involve his kingdom and army in an unholy war for the sole benefit of that wicked king. There is something very charming in the easy, generous good nature with which he met the request of Ahab, “I am as you are, and my people as your people” (2 Chronicles 18:3). He reminds us of many another generous fellow whose good nature is his bane. “Hail fellow, well met” is what the world calls it. But the sacred dignity of the child of God does not permit us thus to throw down all the bars of our separation and consecration in reckless compromises with the world. We are not as they are nor our people as their people, and we may not share their fearful responsibilities. Such compromises never pay. In every instance Jehoshaphat was the loser and narrowly escaped losing everything. And it will always be true, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20). Forbidden Bonds
6. The intermarriage of his son and heir with the wicked house of Jezebel was the immediate result of Jehoshaphat’s visit to Samaria. We may escape the tiger and fall into the hands of the tiger’s cub. The bloody Athaliah became the frightful link that transferred the curse of Jezebel to the kingdom of Judah and led to the cutting off in the next generation of all Jehoshaphat’s house except the infant Joash, who was saved by little less than a miracle. God has forbidden such intermarriages between His people and the ungodly, and no minister of the Lord Jesus Christ has a right to celebrate such forbidden bonds. And no Christian girl or man is justified in running the risk of disobedience no matter how plausible the pretext may be. I saw the beautiful Arve flow down from the spotless snows of the Alps into the muddy Rhone. For a few hundred yards it kept its crystal current clear, and then it was lost in the foul waters of the larger river. So I have seen a pure young life meet a worldly partner and a godless family. There was a short, brave struggle, and then, alas, the old story was once more proved true, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). The testimony was quenched, and the very soul well nigh sunk in the dark floods of this present evil world. Business and Social Ties
7. A business partnership was the last form of Jehoshaphat’s compromise. Once already had he repeated his foolish mistake of forming a military alliance with Israel. He had joined Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, in the campaign against the Moabites already referred to, and had paid dearly for his error in the narrow escape he had from the water famine in the wilderness. But now he enters into a business partnership to reestablish the commercial navy of Solomon on the Persian Gulf. God sent a prophet to say to him, “Because you have made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made” (2 Chronicles 20:37). Many Christians think that, while intermarriage with the ungodly and intimate social fellowship may be unwise, “business is business,” and it is nobody’s business who are your partners in secular affairs. This is not so. The New Testament distinctly forbids all partnership between God’s people and the ungodly. “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14-15). You may not always lose your ships in these unholy partnerships, but you may lose your peace, your spiritual life and your children’s souls. What a solemn lesson does this good king teach us! How searchingly should the question come home to each of us: Are we in any false position, forbidden connection or wrong place? The, enemy of your soul is the god of this world, who wants nothing so much as to have the credit and countenance of God’s people. He will give a free ticket to any of his excursions for the benefit of your presence and the advertising value of your name, but you will lose much more than your fare. What a solemn prayer is that of the Psalmist: “Do not take away my soul along with sinners” (Psalms 26:9)! What a dreadful thing for the Lord to find you at His coming among His enemies! Once, it is said, in a police raid in New York City, a modest and beautiful young lady, evidently of unblemished character, was found among the women arrested in a disorderly house. She was deeply humiliated and almost ready to die with shame, begging the officers on no account to divulge her name. In a short time she was able to secure the most unquestionable testimonials to her character, and it was very evident she had no sort of likeness to the women among whom she found herself in the police court. This was the explanation: Through an advertisement in the public papers and through the plausible deceit of the runner for this disorderly house, she had taken a room in a most innocent way, in what she supposed to be a respectable building. Before she discovered the character of the other tenants, the police raided the building and without making any inquiry about her she was dragged away in the common net. She ultimately secured her release and narrowly saved her reputation, but it was a very close chance, and there was infinite pathos in her distress and anguish when she found herself in the company of these lost men and women. Even if you yourselves escape defilement, how terrible it would be for the Lord to find you among His foes! Should we not constantly send up to Him the cry, “Do not take away my soul along with sinners” (Psalms 26:9)? And in order to cooperate in its fulfillment, let us not only shun evil, but “avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Chapter 13. Joash, or the Bad End of a Good Beginning

Chapter 13. Joash, or the Bad End of a Good BeginningJoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years of Jehoiada the priest. (2 Chronicles 24:2)Jehoshaphat died at the age of 60 amid the peace and honor which his lofty character and righteous reign had so well earned. But he left to his family and his kingdom, through his weak and foolish compromises with wicked men, a heritage of sorrow. He sowed the wind and left them to reap the whirlwind. Section I—The Background of JoashJehoram Jehoshaphat was succeeded by his son Jehoram at the age of 32. Already this young prince with his father’s consent had allied himself with the wicked house of Ahab by marrying Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. True to her influence he signalized his ascension to the throne by murdering his six brothers and thus leaving himself without a rival. He next proceeded to undo all the good work of his father’s reign and reestablish the vile worship of his wife’s family, and restore the altars of Baal and the groves of Asherah with their obscene rites all over the land, so compelling the men and women of Judah to minister at the impure altars of the Sidonian religion. Elijah It was in this connection that the prophet Elijah for the first time interposed in the history of the southern kingdom. He sent what the chronicler calls “a writing” to the wicked king, rebuking his daring impiety and announcing to him the judgment of God upon his kingdom and also upon his own person in the form of a loathsome and fatal disease. It was not long until the judgments of God began to materialize. First the Edomites revolted and regained their independence. And next the Philistines and Arabians invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem and carried off his treasure, his wives and his sons, leaving only the youngest son, Ahaziah, to continue the dynasty. Soon after the final tragedy came, and by a hideous living death, his miserable life was ended, and his body literally fell to pieces as Elijah had predicted. His funeral was as ignominious as his reign, and even his own subjects refused to bury him in the sepulcher of the kings. Ahaziah His youngest son, Ahaziah, succeeded and was the mere puppet and tool of the queen mother, Athaliah, during the one short year of his infamous reign. He went with Ahab’s son to fight the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead, and while resting at Samaria to be healed of his wounds he fell into the hands of Jehu when he was executing his terrible judgments upon Jezebel and her house. Along with Jehoram, king of Israel, he was slain as well as a large company of the princes of Judah, who were at the same time on a visit to the northern court. Athaliah Athaliah, his mother, infuriated by the destruction of her family, seized the opportunity to usurp the throne. To make her possession the more secure, she murdered the entire royal seed of her own family. At least she thought she had. But in this she was mistaken, for another woman was raised up by God to counteract her wicked policy and save the house of David from extinction. Jehosheba, the wife of Jehoiada, the priest, and herself the daughter of King Jehoram, though not by Athaliah, was used of God to save the infant Joash from the wholesale assassination. She hid him first in the storeroom of the palace among some clothes. Afterwards she smuggled him into the temple, where for six years he was brought up under the care of herself and her husband. There they trained and prepared Joash for his future destiny. Meanwhile, during those six years, Athaliah held a carnival of idolatry and crime. Doubtless this carnival of revelry was one of God’s providential instruments in preparing the way for her final overthrow by producing a growing reaction against her own daring wickedness. Section II—The Life of JoashThe Revolution At length the crisis hour came for which the faithful leader had long been preparing. On a certain Sabbath morning a large company of princes, priests and Levites, whom Jehoiada had taken into his confidence, were armed and stationed within the temple courts. At the appointed moment the little king was brought forth from his hiding arrayed in the royal robes and placed on an elevated dais in sight of all the people, where he was solemnly anointed and crowned. The scroll of the sacred law was placed above the crown upon his head as the sacred symbol of his authority and the law of the kingdom. At the same time the shout was raised and taken up by the great multitude outside, “Long live the king” (2 Chronicles 23:11), until the ominous sounds reached the ears of Athaliah in her palace. Startled but not afraid—true to the audacious courage of her brilliant but wicked mother—she immediately hastened to the scene attended, according to Josephus, by her military guards. But the guards of Jehoiada were already posted and armed at the temple gates and she was compelled to enter alone. The moment her eye fell upon the coronation scene she took the situation in and made a wild appeal for popular sympathy, crying, “Treason! treason!” (2 Chronicles 23:13). But there was no response. The revolution was too well planned for failure. Jehoiada immediately ordered that she be carried from the sacred precincts of the temple to the horse gate in the rear, where baggage and beasts of burden entered, and there slain. And so without a note of sympathy or a hand raised to help her she fell in her own blood, rendering blood for blood for the murders and outrages that have so well entitled her to be called the “Bloody Mary” of her time. The Good Boy King Joash was now established upon his throne without a rival or a challenge. Under the wise and venerable counsel and cooperation of the good Jehoiada, the first part of his reign, covering perhaps about 25 years, was worthy of the best traditions of Jehoshaphat and David. It was indeed a unique and beautiful spectacle to see that boy king of only seven years zealously and loyally restoring the sacred temple that had been the shelter and home of his early years. The Change But after the death of Jehoiada there came a melancholy change. That grand old man lived to the extraordinary age of 137, so that he must have been over a century old when he led the brilliant coup that dethroned Athaliah and restored the dynasty of David. He was buried like a king in the sepulcher of Judah’s kings, and his character and influence had held the nation loyal at once to Jehovah and Joash to the very close of his venerable life. But when he was gone it was soon apparent how little of the character of Joash was his own and how much but the reflected goodness of his teacher and foster father. Fashion The young king began to court the society of the aristocracy of the kingdom, and these had always been the patrons and friends of idolatry. Judah and Israel got their fashions and their fine arts from the splendid commercial capitals of Tyre and Sidon. And along with their fashions and their culture came their idolatry. Ritualism The old and simple faith of Judaism seemed dull compared with the splendid ritual and the mystic philosophy of the Oriental faiths. And just as today the intellectual conceit of our times is running after such fads as Christian Science and Theosophy, so it was then, and Joash’s unstable mind was soon carried away by the popular fashion and the old altars were established and the groves of Isis and Asherah were again swarming over all the land. Reproof Rejected Then God sent the prophet Zechariah to reprove the sinful king. Instead of humbling his heart he murdered the prophet. The blood of the first martyr of Israel stained the sanctuary of the Lord and left such an awful shadow upon his name that Christ Himself refers to the “blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary” (Luke 11:51) as the climax of Israel’s crimes. The Sad Ending After this pronounced and aggravated step Joash’s iniquity ripened fast and judgment followed swiftly. Hazael, the king of Syria, with a small army invaded Judah. But the sacred narrative adds with strange emphasis, “Although the Aramean army had come with only a few men, the Lord delivered into their hands a much larger army. Because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers” (2 Chronicles 24:24). Jerusalem was captured and despoiled of all its treasure and the princes of Judah carried captive. Joash himself was left on a bed of painful sickness. The climax of the tragedy soon came when two of his own servants, doubtless representing the anger and disappointment of the people at their terrible defeat slew him upon his bed, and his dishonored body, although buried in the city of Jerusalem, it was refused a place in the sepulchers of Judah’s kings. Could there be a contrast more pitiful and terrible than that between the child king of seven years with his fresh and glorious crown upon his radiant brow, as he began his reign amid the benedictions of heaven and the shouts of his people’s acclamation, and the ignominious grave of the same king after 40 years of failure, disobedience and divine judgment? It reminds one of the familiar story of Raphael’s painting of John the Beloved and Judas Iscariot, for which the model in each case was the same, the first a radiant youth in the beauty of innocent manhood, the second the same Man_1:12 years later when sin had set its awful mark upon his disfigured face and debilitated frame. How tragic the story! How solemn the lessons! Section III—Lessons Learned From the Life of JoashJehoshaphat’s Mistakes

1. The first lesson relates to the misery that follows the mistakes of a good man. Jehoshaphat little dreamed of the heritage of woe he was bequeathing to posterity when he celebrated the marriage of his son and heir to the daughter of Jezebel. Just as many a Christian father and mother would not believe even if they were told by an angelic vision of the sin and ruin they are preparing for some loved child long after they have gone to heaven by introducing them to the pleasures and temptations of the world. The Power of a Woman
2. We see the power of a woman for good and for ill. What could be more bitter than the awful blight that Athaliah brought on all she touched! But what could be more blessed than the wise and beneficent goodness of that other woman whom God raised up to counteract her influence and save young Joash from her bloody hand? If woman can be the worst of transgressors and tempters she can also be the best of our earthly blessings. Oh woman, how great are the possibilities of your destiny! A Child
3. We see the value of a child. How beautiful the light this story sheds on childhood. A little babe of one year old was the sole link that saved the dynasty of David and the very lineage of Jesus Christ. “Only a child”—never say it again. That child may carry in its bosom the destiny of a nation or a world. Motherhood
4. Another lesson deals with the sacredness and influence of motherhood. The value of that child is the measure of your responsibility to teach him or to save him. Never think it a trifling task to train the future teachers, preachers and statesmen of our land. The first five years of human life strike the keynote of all later life. The mother, the nurse or the teacher that can seal these earliest impressions upon the child’s mind, is the most potent influence in every human life. And if perchance you have no children of your own to train, like Jehosheba, play the part of motherhood to some of His lambs who are wandering without a shepherd, or worse, with motherhood which brings nothing but a curse. A Bright Example
5. Joash stands as an example for every child. This is a message not only to parents and teachers, but to children themselves. What fairer picture could be set before you than this little child king devoting himself to the house of God? The house of God stood not only for the Church today, but for the cause of God. Children should be taught to love the services of God’s house. The Sunday school is not a substitute for public worship, and childhood is just the time to receive and seal those spiritual impressions which form the religious character of men and women. Thank God for the little hands and hearts like Joash that are building the temple of the Lord and sending forth the gospel to a perishing world. Leaning On Others
6. The story of Joash also shows us the danger of leaning on others. After all the good things we have said about the foster parents of Joash, they proved to be—at least in a measure—his bane from the fact that he had leaned too much on them, and did not possess those elements of personal character and fixed principle without which the best examples can be of no permanent value to us. There are plenty of people who easily absorb, chameleon like, the colors that surround them. They can repeat glibly the spiritual phrases they have heard until they have learned to think they have a corresponding experience. But when they come under different influences they take on the next color just as readily. Joash was like Jehoiada as long as the old priest was near. But he was just as ready to absorb the ideas and imitate the vices of the cultured people who surrounded him after Jehoiada was gone. It was the old story of Joshua and the next generation. As soon as Joshua was gone they relapsed into their old ways. So how often we find the families of Christians and ministers going into every excess of worldliness and sin after the best examples have been given and even the best beginnings have been made. Rest in nothing less than personal character and conviction. Hereditary religion cannot avail you. Do not accept the faith of your fathers because you were born in it, but get your convictions from your Bible and in your own heart; and when “the rain descends, and the winds blow” you will find your house is on a rock. Public Men
7. This story provides a noble example for public men. The story of Jehoiada is a splendid pattern for the statesman of today. The curse of our modern political life is selfishness and timeserving. This grand old man had no end but to honor his Master and help his king to be good and glorious. He lived for his God. Oh, the politicians that have twisted and writhed under all the contortions of political compromise to gain the highest offices, and ended their careers in bitter disappointment! God save the young men of today from selfish ambition! It will always defeat itself, and uprightness, honesty and sincerity always win. Progression in Sin
8. We see the bitter progress of sin. How swift and terrible was the fall of Joash! Beginning in the company of the worldly and wicked, it led on fast to idolatry and irreligion. Who could imagine that fair boy, with the crown upon his brow and the Word of God as a bright diadem upon his head, a child of Cain, with the blood of the first prophet’s murder upon his hands? Oh friends, if some of you could see your future as God sees it and the lengths to which your wicked heart will carry you yet and from which His grace is trying to hold you back, you would cry out with agony and say, “Lord, save me from myself!” Retribution
9. Joash provides us a lesson in the inexorable law of retribution. “Whatever he has done must be done to him” (Leviticus 24:19). This old aphorism is as true as the law of gravity, and our lesson is full of its illustrations. Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah and Joash all found it true. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). The dart you hurl will come back to you and “you may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). Grace
10. Finally, it is a delight to find back of the story of Joash one of the most glorious revelations of the grace of God. For it was in the reign of Joash that the first of Judah’s prophets arose and left us his beautiful message in writing. It was the prophet Joel. It was when this backsliding king was bringing on his country every calamity that Joel stepped forward and called for a national fast to avert the threatened judgments, and in response to the repentance of the people uttered those sublime prophecies and promises which have been the keynote of later prophets and even of many of the apostolic messages. It was he who taught them the coming of the Holy Spirit who would put into our poor, helpless, human nature a power which the law could never give—to keep God’s commandments and be steadfast in His ways. There is a humorous story of a little girl who was set at a tedious task by a Puritan aunt who required of her the hemming of a lot of napkins. The little fingers stood it for a time and at last grew tired and resolved to strike. With a quaint fancy she determined to stop at the 101st stitch, and under no condition would she make “the 102th [sic].” Very slowly did she carry out her stern resolve, for she felt it meant a great crisis. The last two or three stitches were held back long and gravely, but at length the fatal number struck and the napkin was thrown aside with its unfinished task. The punishment was inexorable; no food until the work was finished. But the little will was as resolute as the Puritan aunt’s, and supper passed and the night rolled on with no relenting. The story is told in much greater detail than would suit our purpose to repeat. Suffice it to say that it was pathetic to see the little hungry girl watching the chickens eat their corn and wondering how it tasted. It was still more heartrending to watch her as she slept and dreamed that night, and see the suppressed sob and hear the half-uttered sentences that told of the feasts that were passing before her slumbering mind. At last the aunt could stand it no longer. She went to her minister for advice, but the minister’s wife gave her little comfort and suggested some sharp things about the spirit of the gospel rather than the law, which must have had their effect. The good lady broke down, awakened the slumbering child and told her to hurry and dress and come down for supper. You may be sure this did not take very long, and when they met in the dining room and looked at that laden board with plates for two, it turned out that good auntie, with a better heart than she had been given credit for, had fasted too. The little child, before she sat down at the table or touched the viands for which she was famished, flung herself into her auntie’s arms and cried, “Auntie, I took the 102th stitch before I came downstairs.” Yes, friend, that is the old story of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the face of God. That is the only thing that can break the heart and change the life. That is what the Holy Spirit has brought. You cannot do it, but you take Him and then He will do it for you. Oh, accept His grace and receive the Holy Spirit!

Chapter 14. Joel and His Times

Chapter 14. Joel and His TimesThe word of the Lord that came to Joel. (Joe 1:1)As a lighthouse is planted on the storm-beaten shore and shines in the midnight darkness, so God’s lighthouses all along the shores of time are placed amid the darkest scenes of human history. It was when Ahab and Jezebel were deluging Samaria with martyr blood and idolatrous iniquity, that Elijah was sent with his heavenly messages and holy fire. It was when Israel was sinking to her long night that the prophet Hosea came with his message of mercy for God’s prodigal people. It was when Jerusalem was passing into the shadows of the tragedy of the Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah hovered as a guardian angel over her darkening night. And so it was in the days of Joash, after the good child king had become the cruel oppressor and had brought upon himself and his country the judgments of heaven, that Joel was sent as the first in that illustrious series of sacred prophets which includes Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and other honored messengers of God’s prophetic will. The name Joel is the same as Elijah, only inverted; it means “one whose God is Jehovah.” It is a revelation at once of the greatness and goodness of the Lord, and Joel’s message is true to the meaning of his significant name. The Text of Later Prophets Joel’s little book, which would just about fill a column in one of our modern daily papers, contains the keynote and the kernel of the most important messages of the later prophets. Amos begins his longer message with a direct quotation from Joel as a sort of text for his whole book. Isaiah expands the thoughts which Joel uttered into the larger and loftier message of his pen. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, quotes the prophecy of Joel as the very foundation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which had just occurred, and which was to continue through the whole New Testament age. And even the great Apocalypse of John is but a larger unfolding of the promise of the Lord’s coming, which Joel gave in brief outline. Thus our prophet becomes the pioneer of all Judah’s prophets and the forerunner of the gospel of the New Testament, and the very Advent of the Lord himself. Let us briefly glance at the outline and plan of this prophetic volume. Section I—a Vision of JudgmentIt begins with a vision of judgment. Primarily, it is a visitation of locusts, one of the most fearful plagues of Eastern countries, but this is but a type of the greater judgment referred to again and again throughout the book as the “day of the Lord.” Locusts Joe 1:2-12, Joe 2:1-11The picture of the locust army is most vivid and dramatic. The sound of their wings is like the distant rumble of the chariots of a mighty army amid the mountains. Like clouds of darkness they cover all the heavens and the sun and moon grow dim and the stars withdraw their shining. Over every barrier they march resistlessly on, everyone in his place like disciplined soldiers, and swords and spears are powerless to turn them aside. Up the city walls, over the houses, in through the crevices of the windows, everywhere they swarm and everything is destroyed before them. The cattle perish on the blighted fields, the vintage is blighted on the mountains, the fertile valleys are like a withered desert. And the very offering of the temple is impossible, because everything has been devoured. The locusts themselves at last become their own destroyers, as they perish of starvation on the land which they have stripped of vegetation, and their corrupting bodies cover the land from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, until the stench fills the air and brings pestilence to the people. A Type of Future Judgment Joe 1:13-20In this terrible visitation, the prophet saw the type of God’s final judgment on the wicked. The heaven and the earth are full of flaming symbols and pledges of that one day at which the scoffer laughs in vain. Yonder lake of brimstone in the valley of the Jordan remains to this day as a fragment of the hell that infidelity derides; while the earthquake that so often shakes our planet, and the flaming star that disappears in a cataclysm of fire are other witnesses to this same truth. All these are but pointers to that great day for which all other days were made, “The day of the Lord,” which draws nearer as the story of human history hastens to its consummation. Section II—a Call to Repentance Joel brings us a call to repentance. In view of this visitation of judgment which is darkening their priests and the people to individual and national repentance. “Return to me,” he cries in the name of the Lord, “‘with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity” (Joe 2:12-13). The people are to gather from their homes, the children and their mothers are assembled in the great congregation, the bridegroom and the bride are commanded to weep between the porch and the altar, and the whole nation bows prostrate and pleading at the feet of their King. The Ministry of John In all this we have the echo of God’s ancient law and the picture of the ministry of John the Baptist, which was soon to be ushered in with its message of repentance. And while this is not the whole gospel, it is the foundation of the gospel. Its place is primary and necessary. Without a deep and thorough conviction of sin there can be no true appreciation of the atonement and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And without a similar and deeper conviction, not merely of our past sins, but of our deep sinfulness of nature, we cannot pass on to the higher experience of sanctification and a mature spiritual life. Yes, and it is also true that before great public blessings can be poured out upon the Church of Christ and the work of God there must be the same profound preparation as in Joel, by humiliation and waiting upon God for his mercy and blessing. Section III—a Promise of Mercy and RestorationJoel proclaims a promise of mercy and restoration. Not in vain did they wait upon their God. “Then the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people” (Joe 2:18). “Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the Lord has done great things” (Joe 2:21). Mercy and Deliverance First comes His mercy and forgiveness. He is still the same. He delights not in judgment. He waits to be gracious. He loves to forgive and save. Next, He delivers from the temporal judgment that was impending. He removes the destroyer from their midst. The same God still says to us, “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment” (1 Corinthians 11:31). Chastening may be averted by repentance and obedience. The Past Recovered But best of all, He promises to make up for what they have lost. There is no more precious promise in all the Bible than Joe 2:25 : “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.” There is a false theology of hopeless fatalism which tells people that although their past may be forgiven and their future assured, yet they must reap the consequences of their follies and pay the penalty in the life of their errors and sins. This is not the gospel. Jesus Christ has borne all our curse and the life that fully trusts Him may claim His restoring, as well as His redeeming grace, and the undoing of all that our sin has done. Augustine found himself a physical and moral wreck, yet he arose from the ruin of his youth and fortune to live to an old age of vigor, honor, happiness and worldwide blessing to millions. His life is but a sample of what God is doing today in the bodies and the families and even the fortunes of many a man and woman who has been snatched as a brand from the burning, and used as a torch to light the darkness of other lives. Is there anyone reading these lines whose life is a wreck, and whose crimes have ruined others along with you? Listen to the message that comes back to you from the man whose God was Jehovah: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (Joe 2:25), and you, too, may become a monument to the fact that Nothing is too hard for Jesus, No man can work like Him. And not only shall your past be undone, but your future shall be filled with overflowing blessings. “You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed” (Joe 2:26). God is able to satisfy every need of the human heart and even of our mortal frame, and the life that was as dark as despair may be as bright as heaven. Section IV—The Coming of JesusNext, there is the promise of Jesus Christ. Joel’s prophecy passes on to a higher plane, and next it reaches the coming of the Savior Himself and His incarnation as “He appeared in a body” (1 Timothy 3:16). “Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other” (Joe 2:27). This sublime promise is more than deliverance, more than the coming of blessing, prosperity and happiness. It is the coming of their God to dwell among them. It is the fulfillment of that lofty dream which we find in ancient poetry and mythology, and which was embodied in the idolatrous systems of Greece and Rome and breathed out in the ancient books of India. It was the cry of an embodiment and incarnation of God Himself. It was the cry of Philip, expressed a little later in the New Testament, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (John 14:8). And God has answered that cry. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). The Visitation of God The gospel begins with the visitation of God Himself. The Babe in Bethlehem’s manger was no mere child of mortal mother. His high and glorious name, Immanuel, meant, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). The prophet that announced Him could literally say: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68). It is no small or trifling matter that the hands into which God has committed the eternal salvation of your soul and mine are more than human hands, even the hands of the everlasting God. This is the fundamental fact of Christianity; God has come into our nature and our planet and He is God and none else. Section V—The Outpouring of the Holy SpiritPentecost Joel tells of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is Joel’s next and greatest message. It was this that Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost. It is this that has given character to our age—the Holy Spirit as a divine enduement for life and work. Let us note a few points in this promise of the Spirit: Afterwards (a) It was to be “afterward,” that is, it did not belong to the Old Testament dispensation, but to the New. The Holy Spirit was to be the gift of Christ and to come after His earthly ministry had been finished (Joe 2:28). Poured Out (b) God was to “pour out” (Joe 2:28) the Spirit. It was to be an abundant and boundless bestowment. Under the former dispensation the Spirit was limited to a few persons and special occasions, but now the Holy Spirit is given without measure to all who can receive Him. Upon All People (c) He was to be poured out upon “all people.” Former visitations of the Spirit were limited to the Jewish people, but this was to be a universal and worldwide blessing. All Ages and Classes (d) All ages and classes were to receive His influences and there was to be no distinction of men or women, old or young, lord or slave, but the humblest and most illiterate were to be as competent to receive His gifts and work for His cause as the most cultured and lofty minds. Supernatural Signs and Wonders (e) It was to be accompanied by supernatural signs and miraculous powers, such as marked Christ’s personal ministry, in the healing of the sick, the casting out of demons, etc. These are still manifested wherever the Holy Spirit is fully recognized and we fully claim His working. Continuous (f) The outpouring of the Spirit and the effects of his presence were to continue up to the very close of the age and down to the coming of the Lord. Joel distinctly declares in this prophecy that the supernatural signs are to lead up to the coming of that great and terrible day of the Lord. The promise of Pentecost was not a temporary, but a permanent one, and the Church of Christ has a right to expect the same divine presence as in apostolic times. Indeed, this was the reason why the Lord Jesus claimed to perform all His miracles, not through His own personal deity merely, but by the Holy Spirit. And so the very same Agent who wrought the miracles of Christ is still present in the body of Christ to work through His name as of old. Widespread Salvation (g) The Pentecostal blessing was to be accompanied with a widespread work of salvation. He adds, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joe 2:32). The presence of the Holy Spirit produces power in the ministry and conviction in the hearts of the people. It is the only secret of soul winning. If we want to see more saved today we must seek the same Source of supernatural power and meet the conditions which He Himself has given for the enduement of His Church and people with “power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Israel’s Remnant Along with the salvation of multitudes, there is also a special promise of the salvation of the remnant of Israel. The translation here is a little faulty. A literal rendering of Joe 2:32 is: “And in the remnant, such as the Lord shall call.” By the remnant is meant the children of Abraham, who are in the world today and who are blinded for the present to their true Messiah, but in due time shall have the veil taken away and receive Him as their King. Meanwhile, however, the apostle says: “So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). That is, some of the children of Israel are even now being led to accept Christ, as well as the great multitudes from among the Gentles who receive Him. We are, therefore, to expect the conversion of Jews in our day, not in large numbers at present, but as a remnant, a little sample as it were, of the whole nation which is yet to crown Jesus as their King. Let us be true to this part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us seek for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and thus be carrying out the purpose of the Holy Spirit, the plan of the Lord Jesus and the preparation of His second coming. Section VI—The Day of the LordJoel proclaims the coming of the day of the Lord. This is the climax of Joel’s vision. (a) It is to be preceded by preternatural signs. “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Joe 2:31). (b) It is to be ushered in by war and tumult. “Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors!” (Joe 3:9). “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears” (Joe 3:10). “Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side” (Joe 3:12). (c) It is to be accompanied by the angels of heaven. “Bring down your warriors, O Lord!” (Joe 3:11). These are the mighty angels who are to accompany the final appearing of Jesus Christ. (d) It is to end in the overthrow and destruction of the ungodly nations. Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow— so great is their wickedness! Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! (Joe 3:13-14) This is the same figure that John uses in the book of Revelation, where the “winepress of God’s wrath” (Revelation 14:19) is used to describe God’s final judgment upon the wicked nations. (e) It is to be also accompanied by the revelation of God in His glory. “The Lord will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble” (Joe 3:16). (f) It is to be a day of salvation for His own people. The Lord “will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel” (Joe 3:16). Literally, this means the “harbor” or place of refuge on that awful day. When the heaven and the earth will be dissolved the only place of refuge in all the universe will be the Rock of Ages, the bosom of Jesus. Let us make haste to make it our refuge now. (g) All this is to close with the personal reign of Jesus Christ on earth. “Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill” (Joe 3:17). Israel shall be restored, the earth itself shall be reconstituted, “the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias” (Joe 3:18). (That is, the desert where the acacia always grows). This is a little foregleam of that glorious day which is soon to dawn upon our dark and wintry world. Not always will Israel’s tribes be scattered and despised. They shall yet “sing in the heights of Zion” and “sit under [their] own vine… and fig tree” (Micah 4:4). Not always will the stormy winter, the yawning ocean and the devouring grave blight this sin-cursed earth, but some day earth will be a summerland of love. “There was no longer any sea” (Revelation 21:1). “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4). “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). Come quickly!

Chapter 15. Micah and His Message

Chapter 15. Micah and His MessageMicah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, “This is what the Lord Almighty says:‘Zion will be plowed like afield,Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.’“Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did not Hezekiah fear the Lord and seek his favor? And did not the Lord relent, so that he did not bring the disaster he pronounced against them? We are about to bring a terrible disaster on ourselves!” (Jeremiah 26:18-19)This brief reminiscence, a century and a half after the days of Micah the prophet, throws an interesting light upon his writings and ministry, and shows us the high place of respect and honor that he held in the estimation of his country. Section I—The Life and Message of MicahMicah was the second, in order of time, of the prophets of Judah whose writings have been preserved to us. His period was perhaps a century later than that of Joel, whose life and writings were our last theme. The powerful impulse given to the spiritual life of the nation through Joel’s ministry survived him for more than 100 years. The great revival that he had inspired continued to bear fruit through the reign of three successive kings, and the prosperity and blessings which God had given them in connection with that revival were abundantly fulfilled during the succeeding century. Amaziah Amaziah, the successor of Joash, began his reign well, but ended like so many of his dynasty, in a sad declension from God, and brought upon his kingdom grave calamities. Uzziah But Uzziah, his successor, raised the dignity and power of Judah to a higher plane than any of his predecessors since the days of Solomon. For more than half a century he carried the victorious arms of Judah against all the surrounding enemies of his country. He again brought under tribute the Philistines on the west, the Arabians on the south, and the Ammonites on the east. He fortified Jerusalem and other places with the strongest defenses, and the latest military engines of his time. He organized a powerful army of more than 300,000 men and established the prestige of his name among all the surrounding nations. The record in Second Chronicles speaks in the most emphatic terms of his power and prosperity: “As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success” (2 Chronicles 26:5). “Because he had become very powerful” (2 Chronicles 26:8). “His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful” (2 Chronicles 26:15). His end, however, was like the others, overshadowed by a dark eclipse. The spiritual vitality of even the good kings of Judah did not seem sufficient to outlive their natural life. Like some tree rotten at the heart, which decays and falls before its time, so most of them ended their career with a record of humiliation. Destroyed by Prosperity With Uzziah it was his very strength that at last destroyed him. In his presumptuous willfulness, he insisted upon entering the Holy Place and offering incense at the altar where only priests might minister. The high priest, with 80 of his assistants, tried in vain to withstand him. As Uzziah pushed his way through, the hand of God smote him with a withering leprosy. And Josephus tells us that in the same hour an awful earthquake shattered the temple and rent the ceiling, so that a gleam of sunshine poured through the breach and disclosed the white face of the stricken king, who himself was only too glad to escape from the awful Presence that he had insulted. God’s blessings, however, continued to be manifest even through the reign of his son and successor, Jotham, who was a good king, and whose 16 years of sovereignty were summed up in the honorable mention of 2 Chronicles 27:6, “Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the Lord his God.” But all the while the leaven of wickedness had been working in secret even in Jotham’s time. It is said, “The people, however, continued their corrupt practices” (2 Chronicles 27:2). The death of Jotham was the signal for the outbreak of the malignant disease that had been slowly developing. Ahaz Ahaz, Jotham’s successor, was perhaps the worst of all Judah’s kings, and only the difference of a single letter in his name distinguished him from Ahab of Israel. They both reached the climax of royal iniquity. Not only did Ahaz yield to all the public tendencies of the corrupt people, but in every way he endeavored to promote idolatry and ungodliness. He sold his country to the new Assyrian power which had risen up on the Euphrates under the famous Pul or Tiglath-pileser. He despoiled the temple of its precious jewels and gold to pay tribute to the Assyrian king and secure his help against other adversaries. And while visiting Damascus his artistic fancy was struck by a beautiful altar which he immediately copied and had set up in the temple at Jerusalem, and there he himself ministered as a priest in the idolatrous ceremonies which this altar represented. The house of God was apparently closed to the worship of Jehovah. The vile and obscene rites of the Baal worship were reestablished all over the cities and the land. And he even offered one of his own children as a human sacrifice on the altar of Moloch. He seems to have been a special devotee of fine art, and proved, as has so often since been proved, that aesthetic culture has no connection with moral purity or spiritual uplifting. So inveterate did his wickedness become, that the only standard of comparison left for the biographer is himself, and one sententious phrase sums up the black record of his crimes, “Thus did that king Ahaz.” Micah It was during the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz that Micah’s ministry began. It seems to have reached its climax in the early days of Hezekiah, who followed Ahaz after that monarch’s miserable reign of 16 years and found the kingdom a heritage of shame and peril. One single incident is left us in the book of Jeremiah respecting the results of Micah’s testimony in connection with Hezekiah. Hezekiah’s Conversion It would seem as if he had the high honor of being the instrument of Hezekiah’s conversion, even as the prophet Isaiah had afterwards of being the teacher and counselor of the same glorious king. Word had been brought to Hezekiah that Micah was uttering loud and fearful denunciations against the kingdom, and even proclaiming the utter destruction of Jerusalem, and that “Zion will be plowed like a field” (Micah 3:12). This was looked upon as a dangerous and perhaps seditious agitation, and men like Joash and Ahaz would have speedily ended it by the prophet’s arrest and perhaps execution. But Hezekiah was of a different mold. He heeded the terrible warning, humbled himself before God, summoned the people to repentance, averted the curse and brought upon himself and his kingdom the glorious days of blessing which made his reign the brightest epoch of Jewish history after the days of Solomon. This incident gives our prophet a very high place of importance and distinction, and entitles his message to our most careful consideration. His Personality The personality of Micah is not left to vague conjecture. His own writings give to us a most vivid picture of the man. In contrast with the courtly Isaiah and the polished Elisha, who were the companions of kings, Micah was a typical Oriental prophet. He came from a country village on the borders of the Philistines, and seems to have been not unlike the great Elijah in the quaintness and weirdness both of his dress and his gestures and expressions. While speaking, perhaps on some street corner or in the temple to the assembled multitudes, very much as a street preacher would address the crowd today, his gestures and tones would become wild and violent. Stripped to the waist, until he seemed almost naked, with his tangled hair streaming behind, and with violent gesticulations and cries of anguish, he would depict the horrors that were coming on the land, as though enacting the very scenes in a sort of pantomime. Describing his own manner in Micah 1:8-9, he cries, no doubt as he had cried while uttering his message before the crowd, “Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. For her wound is incurable; it has come to Judah. It has reached the very gate of my people, even to Jerusalem itself.” And then looking down to his old home and the villages of his childhood, he cries out as he sees their destruction passing before him in vision, “Tell it not in Gath; weep not at all. In Beth Ophrah roll in the dust. Pass on in nakedness and shame, you who live in Shaphir” (Micah 1:10-11). “Those who live in Maroth writhe in pain, waiting for relief, because disaster has come” (Micah 1:12). “Shave your heads in mourning for the children in whom you delight; make yourselves as bald as the vulture, for they will go from you into exile” (Micah 1:16). The name of Micah is quite suggestive; it means “Who is like God?” And it is the basis of one of the finest passages of his prophecy. In Micah 7:18 the prophet makes a play upon his own name: “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin?” It is beautiful thus to have the man identified with his message and the name will suggest to us the practical lesson of impersonating our own sermons and making our messages the echo of our lives. Section II—Micah’s Message for Our TimesIn studying the writings of these ancient prophets we must ever remember that most of what they said was of special local and temporary interest, arising out of the circumstances that called forth their message; then continuing with some special prediction for future times. The prophets of Israel were the counselors of their age, the moral and spiritual teachers of their times, and therefore we must not seek to find in all their messages some special vision applying to our age. The moral and spiritual lessons are of permanent value, but much of the colorings belong to local and temporary conditions. At the same time, interspersed with these immediate messages, we find ever and anon some glorious vision that reaches out to coming ages and contains the substance of some larger prophecy of later times. Let us gather out of Micah’s remarkable little message of less than 4,000 words, about the length of an ordinary sermon, his special messages for our times. Judgment

1. First there is God’s judgment against sin. The searchlight falls upon the scene and what a picture do we behold of the secret thoughts and even dreams of sinful men. “Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it” (Micah 2:1). How solemn to think that God sees us in the darkness of the night and even in the dreams of our slumbering hours, as we live over our thoughts and perhaps our sins. Next we have a message of judgment against the rulers of his people: But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin. Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right; who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness. Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us.” Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. (Micah 3:8-12) This was the message which led to the conversion of Hezekiah and the awakening of the people to a sense of their sin and danger. The searchlight falls again and now we have a view of the desk of the dishonest merchant and the contents of his safe and the ungodly methods of the trust and syndicate which may well speak words of warning to our own selfish and grasping age. Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short ephah, which is accursed? Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights? Her rich men are violent; her people are liars and their tongues speak deceitfully. Therefore, I have begun to destroy you, to ruin you because of your sins. (Micah 6:10-13) Next there rises before us the godless home, where confidence is destroyed, affection blighted and selfishness and distrust destroy the very shrine of national virtue and honor. Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire— they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen has come, the day God visits you. Now is the time of their confusion. Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with her who lies in your embrace be careful of your words. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies are the members of his own household. (Micah 7:3-6) Such are samples of Micah’s messages of warning which are as timely today as they were 2,700 years ago. Righteousness
2. Micah presented the true way of righteousness. In chapter 6, we have an incident recorded from the lost history of Balaam and a little dialogue of Balak, king of Moab, which does not appear in the story given us in the book of Numbers. There we find Balak asking about the way of acceptance with God and inquiring whether those human sacrifices so horribly real in the bloody idolatry of the Moabites were acceptable to heaven. Micah gives us the answer: My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam the son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:5-8) Can anything finer in the definition of divine ethics be found than this? What does God require of us? Just three things: The first is practical righteousness towards our fellow-men, “to act justly” (Micah 6:8). The second is a kind heart, more than righteousness, even love and beneficence, “to love mercy” (Micah 6:8). And the third is the higher world of the spiritual life that knows God, loves God, reverences God, obeys God, walks with God, “to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). There is the whole story of a true life, and the principles of morality and piety can make no advance on Micah’s definitions. Christ
3. Micah’s message foretold of the coming Savior. Micah goes far beyond the role of a moral reformer. He was a gospel minister and his messages and his vision pointed forward with clear supernal light to the coming of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it was his message that localized the birthplace of the Babe of Bethlehem and enabled the Scribes and Pharisees to tell the Magi where they should find the Holy Child. Here is Micah’s ancient message: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be their peace. When the Assyrian invades our land and marches through our fortresses, we will raise against him seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men. (Micah 5:2-5) How simple and sublime the picture of Jesus Christ: the Babe of Bethlehem and yet the Everlasting One whose goings forth have been of old, even from everlasting; the Shepherd of Israel who shall feed His flock; and the King who shall rule and defend them and be the Prince of Peace to protect them from their enemies. All other helpers should fail them and he would give them up until “she who is in labor” (Micah 5:3), that is, the Virgin Mother, should bring forth Israel’s true King and man’s Redeemer. The Coming Kingdom
4. Micah presented the millennial vision. Micah passes far beyond the cradle of Bethlehem and the Shepherd of Israel, and he gives us the substance of that glorious vision of the reign of righteousness and peace, which runs through all the later prophets. Isaiah quoted literally from this passage and made it the text of one of his earlier messages: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. (Micah 4:1-4) What is this mountain of the house of the Lord that is to rise above the tops of the mountains and be the light and the glory of the coming age, and the metropolis of the millennial world? What can it be but the new Jerusalem which John describes in the book of Revelation, which is to come down from God out of heaven and overhang this earth during the reign of Jesus and His saints, and from which like a glorious city from the skies, He and His saints shall govern the earth below for 1,000 years of peace and blessing. We may well bless Micah for the bright and prophetic vision and pray and labor to hasten its coming. Israel
5. Micah brings a message that tells of Israel’s future. He does not forget his own country in his prophetic vision. Micah sees notwithstanding their judgments and calamities, that even out of the Babylonian captivity and other trials, there is yet to come a destiny of surpassing glory when Israel shall be the queen of nations and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion, forever. “In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. As for you, O watchtower of the flock, O stronghold of the Daughter of Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to the Daughter of Jerusalem.” (Micah 4:6-8) The day for building your walls will come, the day for extending your boundaries. In that day people will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, even from Egypt to the Euphrates and from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the result of their deeds. Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, which lives by itself in a forest, in fertile pasturelands. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in days long ago. “As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show them my wonders.” (Micah 7:11-15) Salvation6. Micah presents God’s mercy to His erring and sinful people. Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago. (Micah 7:18-20) This passage, which we have already said is a play on Micah’s own name, gives us a striking and most comforting revelation of God’s infinite mercy and grace—so ready to forgive, so reluctant to destroy, so compassionate in His pity, so mighty to subdue as well as pardon all our iniquities, so faithful to His promises in all His blessings. Such is our God, and well may we say, “Who is a God like you?” (Micah 7:18). What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus, What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. Warning7. Micah also presents the danger of neglected warnings. Notwithstanding all the infinite mercy of such a God, the story of Micah teaches us the folly of neglecting and despising His warnings. Our text reminds us that his ministry began with the most severe denunciation of the people’s sins and that it was through heeding these warnings that Hezekiah, the king, was himself saved and enabled to become the savior of his people. This incident was turned to account 150 years later, when the foolish king of Judah was threatening Jeremiah with death because he dared to warn them of God’s coming judgment. He was reminded of the wisdom of his ancestor, good Hezekiah, in turning at God’s reproof and averting the impending judgment. Let us likewise learn the solemn lesson. As well might you strike back at the forked lightning of the skies, as try to trifle with God’s unchangeable word. You never can turn it aside, but you can turn aside from its path and escape its stroke. Jeremiah sent to the king of Judah a scroll of warning, and the insolent king took his penknife, cut it into shavings and threw it into the grate. Had he destroyed it? Far from it. The next day there came back to him a second edition of the prophet’s scroll, rewritten and written larger, with judgment added to judgment and curse to curse, and the awful message that in his insolent pride he should perish for his sins and be buried like a donkey (Jeremiah 22:19). Nor was it long till this daring rebel against the word of God met his awful fate. Outside of the walls of Jerusalem, his body fell in a vain conflict with the Chaldeans and his unburied remains were hustled away like the body of an old beast of burden, while tradition whispered that on his brow was stamped an awful mark, the name of the demon that had misled and destroyed him. On the other hand Hezekiah listened to the prophet’s message and, turning aside from the stroke of judgment, found instead the loving welcome of a forgiving Father and a beneficent Friend. So you will find, if you heed His message and turn at His call. Listen to Him as he cries, “If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you” (Proverbs 1:23). Listen again as He pleads, “‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezekiel 33:11). Three centuries ago, two lads in Germany were strolling musicians and both ungodly. Suddenly one day one of the boys was struck by lightning and his companion gazed with horror upon the spectacle of his lifeless friend. He heard in it the warning voice of heaven, he turned immediately to God and that little German lad became Martin Luther, the great reformer who gave to us the Bible. A century ago two young men, graduates of a New England college, and both skeptics, were off on a revel in a country inn. After a night of debauchery they lay down together to sleep. The next morning one of them awoke to find his companion beside him cold and dead. Springing up with horror, he recalled the last night they had spent on earth: the reckless and godless way they had talked and lived; the holy teachings and examples of his father and mother and the prayers they had offered in vain. And in this stroke he saw God’s last message of warning to him. He listened; he repented; he hastened to his home to begin a new life. That awakened student became Adoniram Judson, the man whom God honored as the pioneer of American missions and the gospel in Burma. Today hundreds of thousands of souls bless his name. Oh, careless one, stop and think! God has often warned you. Your father, your mother, your Sunday school teacher, your pastor, many a message that you can recall, many a warning voice that comes back to you, even from the graves of friends that died to awaken you from your indifference—these are the voices that are calling to you. And perhaps the touch has come yet closer to you in your own very body when sickness laid you low, or some sudden accident brought you within a hair line of eternity and God said to you, “Go thy way for this time.” Perhaps the words you are reading now may be God’s last warning voice to you. Oh! heed then and turn at His reproof, lest it should be true of you, “A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1).

Chapter 16. Hezekiah, the Best of Judah’s Kings

Chapter 16. Hezekiah, the Best of Judah’s KingsHezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. (2 Kings 18:5)This is very high praise that the Holy Spirit gives to good King Hezekiah, placing him higher than even David or Solomon. Doubtless he deserved this lofty tribute, for while he was not free from blame, his faults were less than theirs; while his confidence in God and his faithfulness to God’s great trust were worthy of comparison with the highest examples that had gone before him. His Age He lived in a stirring time, like the age in which we are living today. The 20th century is not more intense in its forces and bearing upon future ages than was that age before the cross. It was an epoch age of human history. It reads like a thrilling drama. It looks like a game on a great chessboard with an invisible hand moving the pieces. It was the age of Babylon and Rome, the founding of those great empires, that were to rule the world in succession as the “wild beast” powers. It was the time when the Assyrian was in all his glory and cruel power, and Sargon, Shalmaneser and Sennacherib and other names that have been written deep upon the history of the world and upon their own tablets, were making the earth tremble with the shock of battle and the tread of their victorious armies. Hezekiah lived as the contemporary of these great events and had a very prominent and honorable part in them. God brought him to the front and used him as His instrument to humble the pride of the world’s greatest masters. We can only understand the book of Isaiah as we read it in connection with the reign of Hezekiah and the story of his crimes. Hezekiah was the son of the worst of Judah’s kings, the wicked Ahaz. He came out of the densest darkness into the brightest light, and the glory that shines upon his reign is all the brighter because of the disadvantages that preceded it, the difficulties that environed it as he began his reign. Section I—The Story of HezekiahHis Conversion

1. Hezekiah’s conversion was through the ministry of that strange weird figure, Micah the prophet. Suddenly he appeared in Jerusalem in one of the street services held by ancient prophets. In his grotesque dress and with wild gesticulations and striking pantomime, he was going through the very scenes of the siege of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people. They brought word to Hezekiah of this agitator that was disturbing the people. Unlike other kings, who might have silenced him with a shower of stones, Hezekiah listened to him, needed his message and turned his own heart to God in deep humiliation. Hezekiah called upon his people to repent and humble themselves before Jehovah and, if possible, avert the terrible judgments of which they had been forewarned. God heard their prayers, gave to Hezekiah the true spirit of penitence and godliness, and for the remainder of his reign, shed upon his kingdom the richest glory and blessings. Thus, Hezekiah’s conversion occurred through the faithful message of an obscure prophet, a humble and somewhat singular man. But he did not allow his prejudices or his pride to prevent his receiving God’s message from the humblest source. So let us be willing to hear God speak, no matter through what sort of voice. Most of our blessings are hidden in disguise and the devil puts up a scarecrow wherever there is a cornfield. You never see a scarecrow in the woods. Whenever you see anything that appeals to your prejudices, look out for the corn. Don’t miss the blessing and be cheated by your own pride out of the blessing God has for you. Hezekiah listened to Micah and got his blessing and spent his life transmitting it to his kingdom. His Administration
2. Hezekiah brought about the reformation of the kingdom. He found it in a dreadful condition. Ahaz had closed up the temple of God, filled it with heathen altars, covered the city and country with shrines of Baal and Ashtoreth, built up the high places and the groves devoted to obscene idolatry and made the temple of Jehovah almost a stable. Hezekiah immediately set a large force of men to work, and in a fortnight had restored the temple and made it fit for its ancient worship. Then he summoned his people from all Judah and from the tribes of the Northern Kingdom, which had already been scattered by the fall of Samaria, and. the captivity of Israel under Shalmaneser. He sent messages by post to every corner of the land and invited them to Jerusalem. They responded and for a week they held the ancient Passover. The blessing was so great they resolved to hold it another week, and the blessing deepened and the presence of God was made manifest. The heart of the nation was turned back again, and they renewed their covenant with Jehovah and He with them. The sacred historian concludes the record of this wonderful convocation and sums up the narrative by the emphatic statement, “There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place” (2 Chronicles 30:26-27). Hezekiah’s religious reformation was followed by a radical reorganization of the entire administration of both the secular and religious affairs of the kingdom. The idolatrous images were broken to pieces and the groves and high places throughout Judah were abolished, the old Levitical system of tithes was reestablished and ample provision made for the public services of divine worship. Public improvements for the supply of the city with water so that it could stand a siege, storehouses for the increase of grain and wine and oil and large estates with flocks and herds and great wealth are added to the record of his enterprise and prosperity. The character of the man is finally summed up by the author of the book of Second Chronicles in several striking sentences: “… doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered” (2 Chronicles 31:20-21). The writer of the book of Second Kings uses equally strong language: “There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook” (2 Kings 18:5-7). His Policy
3. Hezekiah’s policies were in conflict with the spirit of his age. The book of Isaiah gives us the inner side of Hezekiah’s life and reign. Isaiah was his intimate friend and trusted counselor, and in their long and strenuous conflict for the honor of God and the independence of their country they stood heart to heart and hand in hand. Hezekiah’s greatest opposition in his work of reform came not from hostile nations but from the politicians of his own country. Generations of moral corruption and spiritual declension had corrupted the principles of the most influential among the people. The men of wealth and rank as a rule were out of sympathy with the high religious principles and the lofty views of Isaiah and Hezekiah. They believed in what would be called today, “political expediency.” They had little faith in anything directly supernatural, and their creed might fairly be expressed by the popular proverb: “God helps the man that helps himself.” Therefore they laughed at the idea of looking directly to Jehovah to interpose in any practical form for the help of their nation in the political dangers that were thickening around them. And they insisted that the king should avail himself of every political “pull” that could be used to advantage against the encroachments of the powerful Assyrian king that was every day becoming more and more the menace and terror of the Western nations. The nations of Palestine, Syria and Northern Africa had formed a confederacy to resist the Assyrian conqueror. Egypt, the oldest and most powerful of these nations, was the fomenter of these political intrigues, but in the critical moment Egypt had shown that she was utterly unreliable and very likely to leave her allies to their own resources and look out for herself. The Egyptians at Jerusalem were constantly insisting upon the Egyptian alliance and Hezekiah and Isaiah stood firmly against it. Many of the most impressive chapters in the book of Isaiah, such as the 30th chapter, have specially referred to this conflict. The Spirit of the Age It was only an older form of the irrepressible conflict that is still going on between God’s true witnesses and the spirit of “the present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). We find it today as much as in the days of Hezekiah. Its watchword is “compromise.” Its ethics may be summed up in a few popular maxims: “Don’t be extreme;” “Don’t be righteous overmuch;” “Go with the majority;” “Keep in the popular current;” “Don’t make too much of what you call your ‘principles’;” “Meet the world half way in order to lift it to your plane;” “All is well that ends well;” “Let us do evil that good may come;” “Don’t be too particular about the means employed if you are accomplishing a desired end;” “Don’t give offense by preaching too closely to the prevailing sins among the fashionable and wealthy members of your congregation;” “Be moderate, be prudent, be politic.” And so the Church today has gone into the arms of the world and lost the presence and power of her Lord, and every true follower of the Lord is called upon in some way to face this public trend, and to stand often with the keenest anguish and the loneliest sorrow in the minority, even against the religious world, with his rejected Lord. But it was this isolation of Judah through Hezekiah’s faithfulness that saved her at last, when the Assyrians swept over the land and fell like an avalanche on the other members of this Egyptian league, and Judah was spared the ruin that overwhelmed them. Then, when the crisis came to her, God proved Himself better than all the cavalry of Pharaoh and mightier than all the power of Sennacherib. His Healing
4. A closer test of his faith is now pressed upon him. Suddenly in the midst of his great reforms and his splendid reign, a strange message comes to him from God, which seems to sound the knell of all his hopes and plans: “Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover” (2 Kings 20:1). There seems to have been no reason for this in his own life. We hear so far no censure of his conduct, and in his own confession, written after his healing, we find no consciousness of sin. Perhaps he says too much about the uprightness of his life when he tells the Lord, “I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes” (2 Kings 20:3). But at least it reveals a good conscience and a heart that had no condemnation for itself. And yet the message came to him and came from God that all his plans and aspirations must be buried in an early grave, for as yet he could not have been 40 years of age. A Hopeless Case The king was stunned by this sudden and terrific blow, and it is not strange that for a little while he sank in discouragement and turned his face to the wall in the gloomiest despair. But right here let us quickly grasp the precious lesson that comes to us from his experience. Do not turn your face to the wall, no matter what the discouragement may be. Do not give up your faith and hope lightly if all within you and all around you, and even all above you, seem to combine in one black shroud of despair. There is no reason that you should give up your confidence. A humble heathen woman once came to Christ only to meet repeated refusals from Him, until at last she lay helpless at His feet, not only rejected but insulted and reminded that she was only a dog. But not for a moment did she give up her trust. Indeed, she even wrung a plea from His refusal. And the Lord was so pleased with her faith that He surrendered and told her she could have whatever she wanted. There is another case. It is the story of Paul. There had come to him a terrible affliction and his physical strength was crushed out, so that he despaired even of life. And when he went to God about it in prayer, he tells us that the answer he got was death, but did he give up to death? No. But he tells us his trust was in “God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9), and he claimed a deliverance as mighty as even an act of resurrection. He rose up in victory and tells us that He “delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). The Victory of Faith So, after awhile Hezekiah’s tone changed and his attitude also. From looking at the blank stone wall he began to look up, and immediately his prayer changes and he cries, “But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this” (Isaiah 38:15). Already the steps of Isaiah are heard at the threshold of his chambers, and the message comes from God, “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life” (Isaiah 38:5). Hezekiah has left us the diary of his illness and it is interesting to go with him through the first wailings of his unbelieving prayer; it sounds very much like many of our useless prayers. I said, “In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years?” I said, “I will not again see the Lord, the Lord, in the land of the living; no longer will I look on mankind, or be with those who now dwell in this world. Like a shepherd’s tent my house has been pulled down and taken from me. Like a weaver I have rolled up my life, and he has cut me off from the loom; day and night you made an end of me. I waited patiently till dawn, but like a lion he broke all my bones; day and night you made an end of me. I cried like a swift or thrush, I moaned like a mourning dove. My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens. I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!” (Isaiah 38:10-14) But the moment he begins to talk about looking “to the heavens” and turns to God in simple trustful prayer, God meets him in the spirit of his prayer. And so He still waits to be gracious even in the darkest hour to all who can trust Him. A Preparation for His Work Doubtless Hezekiah needed this experience of a stronger grasp on God in preparation for the great conflict which was yet to come to him as the leader of his nation in a severer test of faith. The experience of divine healing through which God brings His people is not an end, but a means to something higher. God was preparing His servant Hezekiah for a great public service, and He brought him through this vivid personal experience of God’s all-sufficiency, that he might remember it as an inspiration to his faith when the graver crisis of his country came. And so God’s leading in your life and mine is designed to show us His all-sufficiency and prepare us for higher ministries in helping others, and trusting Him in the supreme emergencies which come to every good cause. Temporary Failure
5. But now there comes a brief eclipse of this glorious sunrise—a temporary failure. The writer of the book of Chronicles puts it very briefly but emphatically. “But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah” (2 Chronicles 32:25-26). The extraordinary deliverance and the supernatural sign that accompanied it, had excited the profoundest interest and wonder throughout the world, and ambassadors came all the way from Babylon to congratulate him. Then it was that his heart became lifted up and he showed the ambassadors the treasures of his palace and brought upon himself the terrible threat that these treasures should yet be taken by these very Babylonians and carried away to Babylon. There was one merciful reprieve, namely, that the judgment would be deferred until after his days and should come in the time of his successors. But he rose above this failure through sincere repentance and God restored him to His favor and blessing, and enabled him to reach the supreme climax of the life of faith before the chapter ended. It is so delightful to find one life that did not close in disaster, one sun that went down “largest at its setting,” to prove that God is “able to save completely” (Hebrews 7:25), and to keep to the end those that truly trust in Him. Sennacherib
6. The supreme trial and triumph of his faith came in his dealings with Sennacherib. At last it came, the terrible Assyrian invasion. Again and again it had been warded off, but ever and anon it returned. Shalmaneser had swept over the land in the early part of his reign, and had blotted out Samaria and carried captive the tribes of Israel. Sargon had followed him and covered the Western world with terror in his conflict with Egypt and the surrounding nations. At last Sennacherib came. Once and again he passed by Jerusalem. On one occasion he was bought off by an immense bribe from Hezekiah and marched away without assaulting the city. The second time he brought the army up to its gates, and sent an insulting message and demanded its surrender. But, encouraged by Isaiah, Hezekiah refused his demand and God sent “a rumor” as Isaiah had predicted, that filled him with alarm, that the Egyptians were marching against him with a powerful army. A third time he sent a more insulting message, for now the Egyptians had been defeated and there was nothing between him and his prey. In the most offensive manner, the Assyrian ambassador shouted his blasphemous message in the hearing of the army, telling them of their helplessness, inciting them to mutiny and despair and laughing to ridicule the idea of their God protecting them against the gods of the Assyrians who had already triumphed over all other nations and divinities; and promising clemency if they but yielded the city up to his demands. It was indeed as the king expressed it in his message to Isaiah, “a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace” (2 Kings 19:3). But he and Isaiah together took the insulting letter of Sennacherib and quietly “spread it out before the Lord” (2 Kings 19:14), and then in a simple prayer reminded Jehovah that the battle was His, and the insult against Him, and besought Him: “Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God” (2 Kings 19:19). God’s Answer It was not long until the message came to Isaiah that God had accepted the challenge of the impious king, and that He would answer him. The message of God is sublime in its majesty. He recognizes that Sennacherib has been His instrument and scourge, but now that he has overstepped his limits and defied the God that used him as a tool, he shall find his helplessness and his doom. “Therefore this is what the Lord says,” the message concluded, “He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here” (2 Kings 19:32). “By the way that he came he will return” (2 Kings 19:33). “I will defend this city to save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant” (2 Kings 19:34). The Destroying Angel As sublime in its simplicity is the record that follows: “The angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there” (2 Kings 19:35-36). It is not often that secular poetry so nearly approaches the very spirit of the inspired record as does Lord Byron’s picture of the Assyrians overflow: The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their heart but once heaved, and forever grew still. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the hammers alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Asshur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted, like snow, in the glance of the Lord! This stupendous miracle left its impression not only on Hezekiah, but on later times. Several of the Psalms seem to have been specially written and chanted in connection with it, especially the 46th, 48th and 76th. Section II—Lessons Learned From the Life of Hezekiah1. The hardest places and the darkest times need not discourage us, but may become occasions for the highest faith and the noblest lives. Hezekiah the Good came as the successor of Ahaz the Infamous. And so your life may be linked with the most opposite and uncongenial surrounding, and these may be but a foil against which God will bring forth the very trophies and triumphs of His grace.
7. Each of us is being prepared for our victories on the public stage of life and service by our personal experiences and triumphs. It was Hezekiah’s healing that fitted him to understand God’s all-sufficiency and prepared him for the great emergencies which afterwards came to His country. And so God is bringing us to our personal tests not that we may be crushed by them, but that we may get strength from them for some grander service yet in store. Are you triumphing on the lonely battlefield of your own heart and preparing to lead others in the future in some high service?
8. We can rise above our failures. Hezekiah failed even after his healing, but the eclipse did not continue, the shadow passed and a brighter radiance returned to his life. Do not let your faults discourage you any more than your sicknesses and trials. Learn to rise above yourself and in the strength of God be avenged upon your worst failures and your saddest memories. This is indeed to defeat the devil and turn his weapons against him.
9. Hezekiah teaches us to put the whole strength of our being into everything God calls us to undertake. Always let us be our best. There is nothing finer as a watchword for our young manhood that talks so much about the “strenuous life,” but often does so little. “In everything that he undertook,… he… worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered” (2 Chronicles 31:21).
10. Finally, the supreme distinction of Hezekiah’s life was his faith in God. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that, “there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him” (2 Kings 18:5). That was the secret of Hezekiah’s faith and prosperity! It was not his wisdom, his uprightness, his earnestness, but it was his faith. And the reason that faith is so important an element in every true life is simply because it links our nothingness with God Himself. Works stand for the best that we can do. Will we learn this lesson, and, losing ourselves in true humiliation, find ourselves in simple faith? Then every hard place that faces us, every trial that confronts us, every impossible situation that defies us, will be but another opportunity for revealing God and showing that He is the “El Shaddai,” the All-Sufficient One. The watchword of our life will be, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14). In other words, it is God’s business to fight the battle and win the victory and it is ours to follow and say, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns” (Revelation 19:6).

Chapter 17. Manasseh, a Miracle of Mercy

Chapter 17. Manasseh, a Miracle of MercyI will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 15:4)This was God’s estimate of Manasseh 100 years after his wicked reign. This was the testimony of Jeremiah the prophet after a century had passed, and the impartial scales of time had weighed the man’s life and character. Notwithstanding all the crimes of later kings it was Manasseh’s wickedness that primarily brought about the captivity of Judah and the ruin of Jerusalem. Section I—The Story of ManassehManasseh was the son of Hezekiah and Hephzibah, the wife whose name is so fondly mentioned in the prophecies of Isaiah as the type of God’s own beloved bride. Doubtless she was a good woman, and Jewish tradition even connects her with the prophet Isaiah, as his own daughter. The name was given to Manasseh probably out of compliment to one of the leading tribes of the Northern Kingdom, which had so recently been broken up and carried into captivity, and whose remnants Hezekiah had endeavored to gather around the old standard at Jerusalem. There can be little doubt that Manasseh’s education and training up to the death of Hezekiah were all that the influence of his own parents and the good Isaiah could throw around him. His father died while he was yet a lad, and, at the early age of 12 years, the boy king found himself suddenly raised to a throne. Judah had its good child kings, such as Joash and afterwards Josiah, but in Manasseh she was to find a ruler who, both as boy and man, was utterly and inveterately bad. Bad Influences From the very beginning, Manasseh took his stand with the aristocratic party, who had always favored idolatry and had maintained a suppressed but unceasing protest against all the reforms of Hezekiah. In those days, Nineveh, Babylon and Tyre were the great centers of culture and fashion, and their religious ceremonies were observed on a scale of impressive splendor, beside which the simple and spiritual worship of the temple at Jerusalem seemed crude indeed and utterly unfashionable. There were about ancient idolatry, with all its grossness, certain sensuous attractions which appealed to the tastes and passions of the human heart. All the accessories of art and music were added to its attractiveness. The objects of worship included the sun, the moon, the stars and the most impressive and beautiful objects of nature. Its places of worship were the mountain, the grove and the lofty roofs where the heavenly bodies could be seen and worshiped in all their majesty. It is said that when Pompey, the great Roman general, visited Jerusalem, he was amazed at the simplicity of the temple, which was just an empty sanctuary, containing no statuary, paintings or works of art, but was a magnificent solitude. He could not understand that Divine Presence which filled those sacred courts with a higher majesty than earthly ornaments of art. So Manasseh and the idolatrous party in Jerusalem despised the old and obsolete religion of the past age and went in without restraint for the newest thing in religion. The temple of Jehovah was soon filled with heathen idols and obscene images. The groves and high places with their carnival of license were reestablished. The worship of the host of heaven and all the mummeries of spiritualism were publicly recognized, and even the horrid rites of Moloch and the human sacrifices that accompanied them were instituted in the Valley of Hinnom. Manasseh himself afterwards set the example of offering his own children in living sacrifice at the horrid shrines. Not only so, but idolatry soon became aggressive and the religion of Jehovah, which had been at least tolerated in the worst reigns that had preceded, was now placed under the ban of a bloody persecution. It is thought by many that Psalms 79 is a description of the horrors of this persecution. O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble. They have given the dead bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead. (Psalms 79:1-3) In this awful persecution the prophet Isaiah himself is said to have perished, and it is to him that reference is made in Hebrews 11:37 : “They were stoned; they were sawed in two.” Jewish tradition affirms that the venerable prophet was placed inside a hollow tree, and by the orders of the cruel king, his body was literally sawed to pieces with the tree. This fearful carnival of cruelty and idolatry was permitted to run its terrible course for 50 years. The worst of the reigns of Judah was also the longest, and this prodigy of sin actually ruled, or misruled, God’s heritage for no less than 55 years. Carried to Babylon At last retribution came. More than once during his reign had the Assyrians invaded Palestine. In the tablets that have come down from the reigns of Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus, perhaps the two greatest Assyrian monarchs, we find Manasseh himself among the tributary kings who were represented as paying their tribute to the great conqueror in one of his Durbars. But at last the divine vengeance closed around him. Jerusalem was captured and the king himself was taken in chains to Babylon, which was now one of the capitals of the Assyrian empire. The story in Chronicles states that they “took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:11). This expression literally means by a hook in his mouth with a chain to grit, and leading him like a wild beast, while his limbs were loaded with fetters. This custom is represented on many of the Assyrian monuments. The same Hebrew word is used in Job 41:2, about the hook in the mouth of the great leviathan: “Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?” And so at last the end had come to this long and sinful career. Found Mercy And yet even for Manasseh there was mercy. There is nothing in the whole Bible more wonderful and touching than the account of his repentance and forgiveness. “In distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13). We know that the Assyrian king about this time released another royal captive, Necho, king of Egypt, and sent him back to his kingdom under a covenant, that he should be the loyal servant of Assyria against the rebellious parties of his country. The same wise policy may have dictated Manasseh’s release. But Manasseh at least fully understood that it was to the Lord he owed his deliverance. Last Years When the blessing came, he did not forget to show his gratitude and faithfulness. The last years of his reign appear to have been spent in an honest effort to undo his former crimes. He reorganized the civil and military government of the kingdom. He put away the idols from the temple and the city, and restored the worship of Jehovah throughout the land. And it did seem that the ancient worship was fully reestablished, with, however, the exception that the high places remained and became the scenes of the worship of God, instead of the ceremonies of idolatry. But it was impossible for him to effectually turn back the tide that he himself had so fully set in motion. After his death at the age of 67 we find his son Amon plunging headlong into the same sins and crimes in which his father had so long set the example, and, even worse than his father, refusing to be warned, but defying heaven and leaving this fearful record against his short and shameful career: “But unlike his father Manasseh, he did not humble himself before the Lord; Amon increased his guilt” (2 Chronicles 33:23). Amon’s name is an Egyptian one and was given him doubtless in his father’s evil days, as a compliment to the Egyptian idolatry. The son proved true to the evil associations of the name and succeeded in undoing even the better work of his father’s last days, by which he had sought to atone for a wasted and destructive life. Section II—Lessons Learned From the Life of Manasseh1. It teaches us that goodness is not hereditary. Manasseh had the best of parents, but this did not make him a good boy or a righteous man. God permits these sad misfits in family life to teach the young as well as the old that they cannot depend upon the piety of others but that each soul must stand alone with God and know Him for itself. 2. “Even a child is known by his actions” (Proverbs 20:11). Manasseh at 12 years of age was the father of the man that afterwards developed in all his monstrous cruelty. The tendencies of character begin early to show themselves. The Lord Jesus was only 12 years of age when he was found sitting in the temple “about his Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). And Nero, who afterwards developed into a monster of crime, spent his childhood tearing off the legs and wings of flies, and graduating in the school of juvenile cruelty. Let the boys and girls who read these lines remember that the habits and tendencies you cultivate or allow today are going to last through life and determine your future good or evil. And let parents and teachers remember that the issues of life for most people are determined in the first 12 years of existence. 3. Manasseh teaches us of the power of bad men to undo the work of the good. The saddest thing about Manasseh’s life was that he spent it tearing down all that his good father, Hezekiah, had built up. How sad it is that “one sinner destroys much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:18). A child can burn up the building or the papers that a lifetime has been spent in preparing. Many a man has brought into his home, through an ungodly wife or the tolerated sins of his children, the forces that are to render futile all the work for God in which his own life has been spent. 4. The crime of causing others to sin. It was the aggravation of Jeroboam’s bad life, that he not only sinned, but “caused Israel to commit [sin]” (1 Kings 14:16). The same terrible charge is recorded against Manasseh: “But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites” (2 Chronicles 33:9). Dear friend, are you reproducing your sinful life in other lives? Are you planting seeds of evil which will blossom and bear fruit when you are moldering in the dust? Someone has said about moths that “they have no teeth, but they have children that have teeth.” And so there are lives that do not reach their full fruition until they themselves have passed beyond the scene and left others to carry on the sad results of their influence. Have you started some other life on a wrong career that will continue after you, perhaps, have been saved from your follies and crimes? 5. There is the lesson provided by the rejection of light. “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention” (2 Chronicles 33:10). This is the worst aggravation of sin: to commit it in the face of light; to know the right and do the wrong; to refuse the warning voice of God and recklessly trample on all the appeals of His love and the very mercy that would save you from yourself. You know how it would irritate you for some child or servant to coolly ignore your call and walk on in insolent silence. How must God feel when He calls us again and again and we trifle with His authority and His love? “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light” (John 3:19). Dear friend, is this your condemnation? 6. “Be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). Man is often baffled in tracing human crimes, but God has an automatic apparatus that always finds its way to the guilty. It is said that a French gentleman having been frequently robbed by his own servants, at length by the advice of a detective, placed a lot of gold coins as a bait in their way, and covered them with a chemical substance which would afterwards leave a stain upon the hands of the thief. Soon afterwards he called the household together with the detective, and after all had denied, the officer insisted that they should show their hands. Sure enough, the guilty tint had already begun to appear upon the fingers of one of the pages, and seeing with horror the telltale traces of his crimes, which even he had not noticed before, he confessed the whole series and begged for mercy. Yes, in God’s unerring economy each of us is carrying our own judgment with us, and there will be no need for other evidence than the sensitive records of our own conscience and the imprint of our own acts upon ourselves. Manasseh’s punishment came at last. It does not always come in this life to every sinner, but come it will, and many a lost soul would have been thankful if it had come to him in time to save from eternal exposure and punishment. 7. Manasseh’s life shows us the infinite mercy of God. Even Manasseh’s judgment was but a stepping stone to his salvation. Was there ever a more wonderful object lesson of God’s forgiving love? He hearkened to the cry of this wretched man, who repented only when cornered by his own crimes, and forced to give up the struggle. There was nothing noble in his surrender. There was nothing that would appeal to human mercy. But God heard even Manasseh’s cry and God will hear the sinner’s cry, even when there is nothing to plead for him but his utter worthlessness and misery. And the infinite mercy of Jesus Christ never thinks any case too hard, even Manasseh’s. 8. There is the lesson of the sediment of sin. Manasseh repented and was forgiven, but alas, he could not blot out all the effects of his wretched life. He tried to reform the nation, but they only came back halfway. Doubtless he tried to reform his own son, but Amon refused to follow his father’s later steps and persisted in the sinful career which that father himself had taught him a little earlier, and he outran even Manasseh’s example and died in open rebellion against God. If Manasseh could have looked down from heaven upon the next generation, he would have seen his people under the leadership of his own boy drifting back into the old current of his own sinful career, and reaping the fruits which he had sowed. Joseph Cook used to say that the question of the future is not a question of eternal punishment, so much as of eternal sin. If men are not going to stop sinning here, what likelihood is there that they will stop sinning under the worse influence of the hereafter? And eternal sin must ever mean eternal suffering. Amon stands before us as a type of something even sadder than Manasseh. It is the soul that will not cease sinning. It is the hell which begins on earth and only needs the atmosphere of a lost eternity to develop into the worm that never dies and the fire that shall never be quenched. Let us take care how we trifle with sin. It is the most fearful thing in the universe of God, and it carries its own retribution along with it. Someone asked a poor old black saint how it could be possible for God ever to find brimstone enough to make the hell which the Bible talks about, and the old saint silenced the skeptic by an answer that deserves to be well pondered: “Oh, honey, dey’ll carry dere own brimstone wif dem.” The difference is that in this life it is possible to get the brimstone out, but there it will be too late.