Part 27

We should call Jehoshaphat a man of conviction and a man who had the courage of his convictions. Altogether, this is the outline of a noble personage--a born king, a man who has a right to the purple and the scepter. When such men ascend thrones nations should be glad and rejoice with a great joy, for their character is grander than their office and their spirit is the best guarantee of the elevation and utility of their regal policy.

Becoming conscious of his power, knowing that his kingdom was established from on high, Jehoshaphat not only did not seek the Baals himself, but he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.

Jehoshaphat was not content with a merely personal religion. He could not convert the hearts of his people, but he could destroy all the symbols of unholy worship.

Men are only required to do that which lies in their power. A proprietor may not be able to make people sober, but he can forbid the introduction of temptations to drunkenness. A parent may not be able to subdue the spirit of pride, but he can in many instances limit the means of gratifying it.

There are reforms which are open to us all--in personal custom, in social habit, and it may be even in imperial ways. Let each Jehoshaphat seize his opportunity and magnify it.

All this would have been comparatively in vain but for another step which Jehoshaphat took. In the third year of his reign he sent to his princes--that is to say, he sent his princes--and he sent Levites, all of whose names are given; and he sent also two priests, Elishama and Jehoram, and their business was purely educational.

“And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.”

This was a mixed commission--partly civil, partly ecclesiastical. The men here mentioned are otherwise unknown. We identify them as educational reformers, or reformers who operated through the medium of education. They were not warriors, destroyers, revolutionists, but men who addressed the mind and understanding and conscience, and caused men to know that the true law was from above and not from beneath.

The book which the commission had in hand was the Pentateuch, or the law of Moses. This was known to be the law which alone could touch all the vital necessities of the commonwealth. Again and again we are constrained to admit that there is a law beyond man, above man, in a sense apart from man. Men are not driven within themselves to find a law, an instinct, or a reason. They have a written statute, an authoritative declaration, a book which Christian teachers do not hesitate to describe as a revelation, and to that they call the attention of men.

If the teacher were teaching out of his own consciousness he would be but an equal, often exposing himself to the destructive criticism of his more advanced and penetrating scholars; but the teacher takes his stand on a book--on _the_ Book, the Bible--a revelation which he believes to be divine and final.

Say what we will, the effect of Bible teaching must be judged by its fruits.

Where are the nations that are most distinguished for wide and varied intelligence, for large and exhaustive sympathy, for missionary enterprise, for philanthropic institutions and for all the elements which give grace and beauty to social existence?

The question should admit of definite reply.

The facts are before men; let them judge fearlessly and honestly, and we need have no apprehension concerning their verdict.

Wherever the word of the Lord has had free course superstition has been chased away, human slavery has been abolished, every instance of intolerance, injustice, unkindness has felt the influence of holy thought. In all these matters discussion should be limited strictly to facts. Thus kings can help nations, not by forcing education, not by attempting to rule opinion, not by setting up standards of orthodoxy to fall short of which is to incur penalty; but by spreading education, by extending light, by cultivating a spirit of inquiry, and by a generous multiplication of all the instrumentalities needed for the destruction of ignorance. What may come of this we are not supposed at this moment to know.

Meanwhile, let us be thankful that we are face to face with a man who has conviction, courage, independence, high patriotism and generous impulse, and let us hope that his end may be as beautiful as his beginning was promising.

JEHU.

While Jehoram was lying ill of his wounds Elisha had called one of the children of the prophets and sent him on a special mission to Ramoth-gilead.

It has been conjectured that this messenger was the Jonah who is mentioned in the twenty-fifth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the second Book of Kings.

Jehu was left in supreme command of the forces at Jehoram’s departure. Nothing is known of Jehu’s origin. From the first, however, it is evident that he was called to special functions. He was one of the men who had been foreseen by Elijah, the prophet, under the divine inspiration.

Elijah was ordered to return unto the wilderness of Damascus, and in the course of his progress he was to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be king over Israel. Whether any communication had been made to Jehu we know not. Yet it is not improbable that this had been done, as we may infer from the way in which he made answer to the appeal when it was addressed to him by the messenger of Elisha.

All the circumstances of the communication are full of dramatic color and impressiveness.

The young man was to take a vial of oil and pour it on Jehu’s head, and say: “Thus saith the Lord: ‘I have anointed thee king over Israel.’” Instantly he was to open the door and flee from the presence of the new monarch. A tremendous charge was delivered to Jehu by the young man:

“And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab, thy master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; … and I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah; and the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.”

Having delivered this message, the young man then “opened the door and fled,” as if pursued by fire. We know not whether to pity Jehu under the delivery of this charge. The Lord must have many servants in His household, and some of them are entrusted with hard work. If we could choose our places in the divine economy, who would not elect to be a minister of sympathy, consolation and tenderness to broken hearts? Who would be willing to go forth to fight the battle and endure the trial and hardship of military service? Above all, who would be willing to accept the ministry of shedding blood and cleansing the world of evil by putting to death all evil doers?

We must recognize the diversity of function in the Christian Church, and in every department of human life. Few men could do what Jehu did, but where the special qualification is given the special service is also demanded.

It is pitiful criticism that stands back and shudders at the career of Jehu; it is wanting in large-mindedness and in completeness of view.

The Lord’s work is many-sided, and all kinds of men as to intellectual energy and moral daring, and even as to physical capability, are required to complete the ministry of God.

Today one man is gifted with the power of intercession, another with the talent of controversy, another with the genius of exposition, another with the supreme gift of consolation; one minister must tarry at home and work close to the fireside at which he was brought up; in another is the spirit of travel and adventure, and he must brave all the dangers of enterprise and hasten to the ends of the Earth, that he may tell others what he knows of the Gospel of Christ.

We must recognize this diversity, and the unity that it constitutes; otherwise we shall take but a partial view of the many-sided ministry which Jesus Christ came to establish, and to which He has promised His continual inspiration.

When Jehu came forth he was taunted by the servants of his Lord; they called the young man “mad.” From their manner, Jehu began to wonder whether the whole affair had not been planned by themselves with a view to befooling him by the excitement of his ambition. He said to them, in effect:

“Ye know the man, and his communication in this matter is one of your own arranging. Ye think to make a fool of me, and through the intoxication of my vanity to lead me to my ruin.”

But they denied the impeachment, and their tone so changed that Jehu reposed confidence in them, and told them what the man had said.

Instantly, on hearing the message, they hasted, took every man his garment or coat, and put it under Jehu on the top of the stairs, which they constituted a kind of temporary throne, and then amid loud blasts of the trumpet they cried: “Jehu is king!”

Thus Jehu was suddenly called to royalty and all its responsibilities.

Men should be prepared for the sudden calls of providence. “What I say unto you I say unto all: Watch.”

One is struck by the obedience of Jehu to the heavenly call. There was no hesitation. Men but show themselves to be yet under bondage when they hesitate regarding the calls which God addresses to them.

Jehu was determined to make complete work of his mission. Not one was to escape or go forth out of the city to tell what he was about to do to those who were in Jezreel.

Springing into his chariot and calling for a detachment of cavalry, Jehu set out on his journey of sixty or seventy miles. You can see him almost flying down from Ramoth, which was about three thousand feet above the sea level. Swiftly he crosses the Jordan, and then, turning to the north, he fled over the spurs of Ephraim; then he darted up the Valley of Trembling, made famous in the day of Gideon, and finally he came to the Plain of Esdraelon, where was Jezreel.

Jehoram was unaware of the approach of Jehu. One messenger after another was sent out to make inquiry, but the messengers were ordered behind, and Jehu came forward until he and the king met at the vineyard of Naboth.

The king asked what news was being brought--news of peace or of war.

The question was answered with another question: “What peace can there be so long as the idolatrous whoredoms of thy mother, Jezebel, and her witchcrafts are so many?”

Jehu thus referred to fundamental wrongs. Instead of trifling with details he went straight to the fountainhead, and by the delivery of a profoundly religious message he excited the alarm of those who heard him.

Jehoram was weak and feeble and sought to flee, but Jehu drew a bow with his full strength and smote between his arms, and the arrow went out at the king’s heart, and he sank down in his chariot.

Then Jehu ordered his captain, or squire, to take up Jehoram and cast him into the portion of the field of Naboth, the Jezreelite, that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled.

And when Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw this he sought to flee, but Jehu followed him, saying: “Smite him also in the chariot.” After a hot pursuit Ahaziah was struck at the declivity of Gur, where his chariot was forced to slacken its speed.

Then came the most tragical of all the acts.

No sooner was Jehu come to Jezreel than Jezebel, now old and withered, heard of it, and her blood tingled at the news. She was not one who was easily deterred.

According to the custom of Oriental ladies, Jezebel painted her eyebrows and lashes with a pigment composed of antimony and zinc. The intention of the dark border was to throw the eye into relief and make it look larger. She adorned her head with a tire, or a headdress, and after donning her royal dress she looked out at a window, designing to impress Jehu.

As Jehu looked up to the window he exclaimed: “Who is on my side?” He ordered the two or three eunuchs who looked out to throw down the painted woman. Jehu knew that the cruel queen was intensely hated by the palace officials.

The two or three eunuchs who had been accustomed to crouch before her in servile dread now saw that Jehu was in the ascendant, and in obedience to the demand of the regicide they threw her out of the window.

Such has ever been the policy of sycophants--the rats of court--who only linger there with a view of seeing how much they can appropriate or destroy.

No sooner was Jezebel thrown down than some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and she was trodden under foot.

Here, again, we see the end of wickedness. For a time there is escape, but in the long run there is ruin.

Look at Jezebel, and learn the fate of the wicked. No such fate, in a merely physical sense, may await the iniquitous now; but all those intermediate punishments simply point to the last great penalty: “The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment.”

One can pity Jezebel as her flesh was eaten by the dogs and her carcass was made as dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, and we almost shudder with horror as we think that she was to be so torn to pieces that none should be able to say: “This is Queen Jezebel.”

But all this is wasted sentiment, unless we reason from it toward spiritual conclusions.

We are so much the victims of our senses that we can pity with great compassion those who are smitten with bodily disease, or are torn limb from limb in consequence of some wicked deed; but it seems impossible for us to rise to the conception of the terrible penalty which is to fall upon the soul for violating God’s commandments and defying God’s power.

Instead of being appeased by the fate of Jezebel, Jehu sends out a decree that the whole family of Ahab shall be massacred--that the kinsmen of Ahaziah and the Baal worshipers shall be extirpated from the face of the Earth. He takes a new point of departure when he challenges the sons of Ahab, saying:

“Look even out the best and meetest of your master’s sons, and set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”

All this was a declaration of warlike intention on the part of Jehu. But Jehu’s character as a soldier was too well known to permit the rulers of Jezreel and the elders to entertain the thought of encountering him in open battle. So they made this answer:

“We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any king. Do thou that which is good in thine eyes.”

Then Jehu set up a test of their obedience. He did impose on them hard work. He said:

“If ye be mine, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.”

The word was enough. The heads of seventy men were put into baskets and sent to Jehu at Jezreel. Jehu pronounced the men who had beheaded the sons of Ahab guiltless in respect of their deaths, because what they did had been done judicially, under royal command.

Some think that Jehu wished to make them guilty of the massacre of the princes, while he had slain but one king. On the whole, however, it is better to consider that Jehu exculpates the men who had only executed his command.

The slaughter of the priests is one of the most dramatic incidents in all this portion of biblical history. Jehu proceeded by way of strategy. It is impossible to justify the spirit of the policy of Jehu in this matter. He said he would serve Baal “much.”

It has been thought that he was thinking of his intended holocaust of human victims; but, whatever his thoughts, it is impossible to deny that the impression he produced was that Jehu was about to become a worshiper of Baal. This reading is imported into the narrative in these words: “But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal.”

Now a solemn assembly for Baal was proclaimed. From all Israel the devotees of Baal came, so that there was not left a man that came not. The house of Baal was full from one end to the other. And they were all clothed with appropriate vestments.

Jehu was careful that not one worshiper of Jehovah should be in the assembly, but those of Baal only.

When the worshipers went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings Jehu stationed fourscore men without, and said: “If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him.”

Then came the moment of massacre.

“And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.”

Jehu’s guards, having completed their bloody work in the court of the temple, hastened up the steps into the sanctuary itself, which, like the Temple of Solomon, was made after the pattern of a fortress.

The images of Baal were brought forth out of the house of Baal and burned. The image of Baal was broken down, and his house was broken down, and the whole scene was utterly dishonored and desecrated.

“Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.”

But the way was wrong. Perhaps, for the period within which the destruction took place, it was the only ministry that was possible. The incident, however, must stand in historical isolation, being utterly useless as a lesson or guide for our imitation.

We are called upon to destroy Baal out of Israel, but not with sword or staff or implement of war.

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds of Satan.”

Jehu did his rough-and-ready work--a work, as we have said, adapted to the barbaric conditions under which he reigned. But there must be no Jehu in the Christian Church, except in point of energy, decision, obedience and single-mindedness of purpose. A Christian persecution is a contradiction in terms.

When Christians see evil, they are not to assail it with weapons of war; they are to preach against it, to argue against it, to pray about it, to bring all possible moral force to bear upon it, but in no case is physical persecution to accompany the propagation of Christianity. Not only so. Any destruction that is accomplished by physical means is a merely temporary destruction. There is in reality nothing in it.

When progress of a Christian kind is reported it must not be tainted by the presence of physical severity. We can not silence evil speakers by merely closing their mouths. So long as we can hold those mouths there may indeed be silence, but not until the spirit has been changed--not until the very heart has been converted and born again--can the evil-doer be silenced and his mouth be dispossessed of wicked speech and filled with words of honesty and pureness. Jehu himself was not a good man. “From the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them.”

For reasons of state policy, Jehu maintained the worship of Bethel and Dan.

“But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart; for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.”

Jehu had done homage to Jehovah by extirpating the foreign Baal worship, but he patronized and actively supported the irregular mode of worshiping Jehovah established by Jeroboam as the state religion of the northern kingdom. He attempted to serve God and Mammon. Religion was to him but a political instrument.

Jehu did the particular kind of work which had been assigned to him--a work of destruction and blood. Perhaps he alone of all the people of his time could have accomplished this task. But Jehu must stand in history as a warning rather than as an example.

JOB.

Sometimes I have most clearly seen the whole tragedy of Job in a waking dream, the whole passing before me in twilight shadows, losing itself in thick darkness, reappearing in light like the dawn--always changing, always solemn, always instructive; a thing that surely happened, because a thing now happening in all the substance of its eternal meaning.

Is it a pillar grand in height, and finished all over with the dainty care of an artist whose life has been spent in learning and applying the art of color?

How stately! How Heaven seeking because Heaven worthy! While I admire, I wonder religiously.

I see the hosts of darkness gathering around the erstwhile flashing capital, and resting over it like midnight sevenfold in blackness; then the lightning gleams from the center of the gloom, then the fire-bolt flies forth and smites the coronal once so glorious, and dashes it in hot dust to the Earth, and the tall stalk--so upright, so delicate, so like a well-trained life--reels, totters and falls in an infinite crash!

Is it true?

Every word of it. True now--may be true in thee and me, O man, so assured of stability and immovableness. There is danger in high places. Is there a Spirit which hates all noble-mindedness and seeks to level the spiritual pile with mean things? Evil Spirit! The very Devil--hating all goodness because hating God!

But stop.

After all, who smote the pillar? Whose lightning was used to overthrow the fair masonry?

O God of gods, the devil’s Creator and Master, without whom Satan could not be, nor hell, nor trees forbidden, nor blast of death--O Mystery of Being--what can our souls say in their groaning? And how, through anguish so intolerable, can they pray?

I am afraid to build, because the higher the tower the more deadly the fall. Dost Thou watch our rising towers and delight to rain Thy fires on them, lest our pride should abound and our damnation be aggravated by our vanity?

And God’s own Book it is that tells the good man’s pains, and that revels in swelling rhetoric over the rottenness and despair of the man who feared God and eschewed evil! And what unguided hands--if hands unguided--set the tale of wrong and woe and sorrow next to the very Psalter? Is not the irony immoral, because cruel? Or is there meaning in all this?

Is it Life’s story down to the very letter and jot of reality? How better to come out of the valley than to the harping and song of musicians who have known the way of the Almighty and tasted the counsels of Heaven?

Cheer thee, O poor soul! Thou art today miserable as Job, but tomorrow thou mayest dance to the music of David. Tomorrow thou mayest have a harp of thine own.

A tree of the Lord’s right hand planting arises loftily and broadly in the warm air. Birds twitter and sing as they flit through its warp and woof of light and shade. It is a tree whose leaves might heal the nations.

What sudden wind makes it writhe? What Spirit torments every branch and leaf? What Demon yells in triumph as the firm trunk splits and falls in twain? Was it grown for such a fate as this?

Better if the seed had been crushed and thrown into the fire than that it should have been thus reared and perfected and then put to shame among the trees of the field.

Who can give speech to this flood as it plunges from rock to rock in the black night time? Hush! There is a man’s voice in the infinite storm: “Let the day perish in which I was born! Let it be darkness; let that night be joyless, let no song enter into it; let them who curse the day stigmatize it who are ready to stir up the leviathan. Why died I not from the womb? Then had I lain down and been quiet; I had slept; … there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the wearied mighty rest; the prisoners sweetly repose together, they hear not the voice of the exactor, and the slave is free from his lord.”

These are human words, but are they not too strong, too rhetorical, to be true?

No! For who can mechanize the rhetoric of woe?