Chapter 7

Why do the sacred writers give us so many stories of this kind? Surely it is because we need both the warning and encouragement. It is to prove to us that on one side of our nature we are greater than we think, and on the other side weaker and lower than we believe. It is to inspire the diffident with courage, and the despairing with hope, while it pulls up the forward, the careless, and the over-confident with the wholesome and humbling word, "_Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall_." These men of the Bible were strangely mixed. They were conspicuous instances of the contradictions and surprises which are in us all. For that is the point: the thing comes home to us.

Believe me, we are all a riddle to ourselves. Each man is to himself, and each woman too, the greatest of all mysteries save the one greater mystery, God. None of us know of what elements he is composed, and how strangely the good and evil mix and mingle and clash and strive in each day's doings, and through the whole of life. They who believe that the saint is all saint, and the sinner all sinner, are blindly and pitiably ignorant of human nature. God has made no man without putting some little bit of the Divine image in him. The worst has some lingering trace or ruin of it. And the best is not so entirely the temple of the Holy Ghost that no fouler spirits ever obtain entrance there. You may say that you do not believe in a devil. Well, that may be; but there is something like a devil in all of us at certain times, and I would rather believe that it comes from the outside than that it is born and bred and originates within. At any rate, there are in all of us the strange oppositions, the darkness and the light overlapping each other, the evil and the good ever contending, like Esau and Jacob, in the birth hour. The awful and the blessed possibilities are there, and which shall get the uppermost depends first on God, and then upon ourselves.

I.

Remember first, then, that we have all a lower side.

There is in us what I may call a lurking, crouching, slumbering devil, which needs constant watching and holding down with the strong hand of self-mastery and prayer. "Praying always with all prayer, and watching thereunto," says the apostle. In every one of us there is the possibility of falling, however high we stand and however near God we walk. Bunyan says, in his immortal story, "Then I saw in my dream that by the very gate of heaven there was a way that led down to hell." No man, however ripe in goodness, however firmly rooted and grounded in faith, love, and Christian qualities, ever gets beyond the need of vigilant sentinel work--watching himself. He must always be buffeting himself, and keeping under his body, as Paul did, lest he himself should be a castaway. Let him grow careless, presumptuous, neglectful of prayer, and all the old tempers and passions slowly steal in, and bit by bit obtain the mastery, and the Christian disgraces his profession, and the saint becomes a sinner again. Every Christian knows this. He knows the evil powers that are in him.

It is the man who has never fought with his temptation, never prayed, who especially needs to be reminded of it; young men and women who have been well brought up, who have kept themselves moderately straight so far, and who are full of good resolutions. I hear them say, "Oh I am strong enough. I am not such a fool as to throw myself away in the stupid game of the prodigal, in drunkenness, and gambling, and unclean living. I can hold myself in. I can go just as far as I please. I can indulge to a certain extent, and pull myself up just at the moment I please; and as for prayer and seeking God's help, thank my stars I can clear a safe course without all that. I shall not overstep the line you may depend upon it." "_Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this_?"

And I answer, yes--there is quite enough of the dog in you, or of the devil, if you like the word better, to do this and to do worse things--if you play with the dog and let it loose, and let it have a free run now and then. In my time I have heard scores of young men talk in this way. I have heard them laugh scornfully when danger was mentioned to them, and I have seen a few of them fortunate enough to grow up to manhood with a fairly unspotted character; a few, but not many--the greater part have gone wrong, and some deplorably wrong. There is hardly one of us can keep that dog fastened up and chained down always, unless we rely upon a stronger power than our own. It gets loose at times with the best of us--it runs wild and plays dreadful havoc with those who are not the best; there is always in you the baser self--always the dry torches of evil passions which a spark may kindle--always the moral weaknesses and lusts, half-sleeping, which some stronger blast of temptation may awaken and bring out; and if you wish to escape the evil and hold fast to the good, you will commit your way unto the Lord, and put on the Christian armour, and strengthen yourselves by prayer. Do not presume too much--better men than you have fallen every day. God only can save you from yourselves.

II.

It is just as needful to remember the other side--the side of better possibilities.

Some of you are tempted to say at times with Hazael, "_Thy servant is but a dog; how can he do these great things_?" You are disposed to underrate your gifts, your opportunities, your happy chances in life--in a word, your possibilities. You despair of finding any opening; you are sure that you will never hear a call to come up higher; you think your lives must always be ill-paid drudgery, with no promotion. It is sad to work with a conviction of that kind. You never work well if there is nothing to look forward to, and it is cowardly to give way to a conviction of that kind. Perhaps you are not specially clever--no, but there are better things than cleverness in the world, and things which have more to do with life's real successes.

If you have in you some power of plodding, to do steady work, doing it always honestly; if you have perseverance, self-control, a sense of duty, a determination to do always the thing that is right, all will be well--these are the qualities which lift a man up to the best places, and one of those places is being prepared for you if you are worthy to fill it. You say, perhaps, "I can never be a good man. I can never be a Christian. I am not made for these high things; it is not in me." I answer, "It is in you, or if it be not in you now, God will put it in you if you diligently ask Him."

Nay, truly, there are the germs of goodness in every one of us. Thy servant is something more than a dog, though he calls himself that, and nothing else. There is something of the religious emotion in you, and that means there is something of the Divine. You have dreams at times of a beautiful life, you have longings for it, sometimes you even set out to reach it--and these are all touches of God. They all prove that the Holy Ghost sometimes pays at least a passing visit to your hearts. You do not know what God can make of you until you trust and try Him. There are greater things by far in you than you have guessed. Have confidence in Him, and He will bring them out. I can see a man of God in you, a pillar in the Church, an honour to the town. I can see a Christian mother in you, a half-sainted woman full of good works, bringing children up to noble lives. It is there in many of you, if you do not despise and neglect the gift that is in you, but use it and cultivate it prayerfully, and let God bring it to perfection.

MANASSEH

BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.

"Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem."--2 CHRON. xxxiii. l.

Fifty and five years--he wore the crown a longer time than any other of the house of David. Of all the kings that reigned in Jerusalem, this man's reign filled the largest space; yet he is the one king of Judah about whom we are told least. In the modern city of Venice there is a hall which is adorned with the portraits of all the doges or kings who ruled that city in the days of its splendour--all except one--one who made himself infamous by evil deeds. Where his portrait ought to be, there is a black blank space which says nothing, yet speaks volumes; which says to every visitor, Do not think of him, let him be forgotten. In some such way Manasseh is disposed of by the sacred writers. They hurry over the fifty-five years; they crowd them into half a chapter, as if they were ashamed to dwell upon them, as if they wanted the memory of them and of the man to be forgotten. And that was the feeling of all the Jews. Century after century, and even to the present time, Jews have held the man's name in abhorrence. Do not speak of him, they say. He was the curse of our nation. He denied our faith. He slew our prophets. He brought Jerusalem to ruin.

Yet, strange to say, the man so hated and cursed was once a nation's hope and joy. When his father, Hezekiah, lay sick unto death, his greatest grief and the profoundest sorrow of his people was caused by the thought that he was dying childless. They prayed for his recovery mainly on that ground. He recovered, and married, and a child was born, and the glad father called him Manasseh, which means, God hath made me forget--forget my sickness and my sorrow; and all over the land the ringing of bells was heard and shouts of rejoicing, and the prophet Isaiah sang of the child's birth in those triumphant words which we have often heard since in another connection, "_Unto us a son is born, unto us a child is given_"; and they thought that all would go well now that there was an heir to the throne, and they prayed that he might be sturdy and strong, and get over all the ailments of childhood. They hoped more from the child than they did from God. Their prayers were granted. God gave them their desire, and the result was such as to make us doubtful whether we are always wise in pressing such prayers. We are never sure that it will be good for us, or good for our darling child, that its life should be spared and prolonged in some time of crisis. Often the early death which we dread may be far less cruel than the evil which waits beyond. Better to leave these things in God's hands, and say that will be best for all which seems right to Thee. A whole nation prayed for the birth and preservation of this son. That same nation came to curse the day on which he was born.

Strange that a father like Hezekiah had a child like this. Hezekiah was, I think, the best of the Jewish kings, wise and brave, gentle and strong, full of reverence and faith, pre-eminently a man who walked with God and strengthened himself by prayer, and fought as earnest and true a battle for religion and righteousness as we have recorded in the Old Testament. How came it that the son was in all respects his opposite? Did an evil mother shape him, or what? We cannot tell. These are among the saddest mysteries of human life. The law that a child's training and environment determine the character of the man, often fails most deplorably. The wisest man may have a most foolish son; the godliest home may send forth a reprobate; the child of many prayers may live a life of shame. When a young man goes wrong, it is often both unjust and cruel to lay it on the home training, and to say that there has been neglect or want of discipline, or want of right example there. It is adding another burden to hearts already weighted with intolerable grief.

For the most part, children will follow their parents in what is good, and those nursed in prayer will grow up praying men. But there are hideous exceptions, and sometimes the most Christlike people have this cross to bear; and it is the most heart-crushing of all to see children turning aside from all that they have held dear, and by the whole course of their lives mocking the religious ideals and hopes which were cherished for them. God save all you fathers and mothers from this calamity, and God save all our young people from crushing tender hopes in this cruel way.

Manasseh's life was spent in undoing what his father had done. It seemed to be his great ambition to overturn and destroy the sacred edifice which his father's hands, with untiring prayer and devotion, had raised. Hezekiah had taught his people to trust in God, and in reliance on His help to sustain a noble independence separate from heathen alliances. Manasseh hastened to join hands with Babylon, and make his nation the vassal of a great heathen empire. Hezekiah had swept the land clean of idols. Manasseh filled every grove and hillside with these vain images again. Hezekiah had restored the Temple worship and the Mosaic ritual, and the moral law, and laboured to establish a reign of sobriety, purity, justice, and order. Manasseh outraged all the moralities, and delighted in introducing everywhere the licentious abominations of the neighbouring peoples. Hezekiah had cultivated and encouraged prophecy, and gathered about him great and noble souls like Isaiah and Habakkuk. Manasseh drove them from his presence, and finally slew them.

There were new lights in those days, as there are now. Men who sneered at all the old thoughts and ways, who swept Moses aside with disdain, and thought that David's psalms were poor and feeble things, and that the old-fashioned religion was narrow and provincial, and that the stories of victories won by faith and miracles wrought by prayer were worn-out fictions. They said that if the nation would prosper, it must turn its back on all this stuff, and follow new methods, and profess a new religion. Let them make the great empire, Babylon, their model, with its advanced civilisation, and science, and literature, and vast stores of wealth, with its worship, too, of the sun, and stars, and fire, its religion full of jollity and license, which contrasted so happily with the sober and severe worship of Jehovah, and did not trouble men with unwelcome moral precepts. See how great that empire had become, and how stationary and unprogressive was their own little kingdom, because it clung to the old ways. That was what the new party said. Away with the old-fashioned thoughts and the old-fashioned trusts and beliefs and worship. We are wiser than our simple-minded fathers. We know a few things more than these narrow-minded and crazy prophets. We will have all things new.

And Manasseh, being a young man and as foolish as he was young, drank in greedily their counsels and made himself their leader. For it is ever the temptation of young life to think lightly of their father's wisdom, and to despise what they call the narrow religious beliefs, and the careful moral scruples of the old, and to fancy that they know all things so much better than those who have gone before. They want to try experiments of their own with life, and shake off the shackles of old moral laws and religious creeds, and be free to do and think as they please, and put the Bible away on the shelf, and shove prayer aside as a sort of worn-out heirloom, and have a merrier and better time than the old folks knew. That was the course which Manasseh took, just as headstrong and irreverent youths take it now.

Then followed that time which the Jewish people never speak of without shame--a hideous reign of idolatry, and immorality, and injustice; an awful period of persecution for the few righteous and God-fearing people who were left when the prophets had been sought out and slain. Isaiah sawn asunder, Habakkuk stoned to death, the faithful driven into dens and caves of earth. It is of this time that we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in that graphic account of the martyred faithful: "_They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented: of whom the world was not worthy_" (xi. 37, 38). A few years of this sufficed to pull down the whole fabric of religion which Hezekiah had so painfully and patiently raised. For it is so easy to destroy; so easy for folly and irreverence to pull down what wisdom and goodness have taken years in building; so easy for a vicious and irreligious son to bring shame and ruin upon the house which a godly father and mother have spent a lifetime in rearing with honour; so easy, by a few rash acts, to destroy the character and reputation which the prayers and training of years have sought to establish. It is the easiest thing in the world to undo and overturn; there is no cleverness and courage required for destroying, the cleverness and courage are called for in building it up.

Manasseh succeeded to his heart's content. People followed him greedily, except the steadfast few. And presently the prophets were all gone, and the worship of the true God was nowhere practised except in secret, and the sacred names were no more mentioned, and the land gave itself up to all the foul rites and the shameful indulgences of the heathen world, And then God's retribution came swiftly. Where the rotting carcase was, there the eagles gathered together. These same Babylonians whose ways the renegade Jews had so much admired and imitated, swept down upon them with the talons of a vulture, with cruelty that spared neither tender woman nor innocent child, and Jerusalem was burned with fire, and Manasseh carried off in chains and flung into a foreign prison to muse in solitude over the end of his projects, and to find out there that the old ways had been the best.

There we are told that he repented, that he was stricken with shame because of all the evil that he had done, and turned with prayer and humility to the God whom he had defied. And we are told that God was merciful and heard his entreaties, and accepted his repentance, and brought him back after sorrowful years of imprisonment to his land and throne. This is the part of the story which most people emphasise. That, they say, is the main lesson of the story--Manasseh's repentance, and how God accepted the rebellious sinner at the last and forgave him all his iniquities--and they draw from that the conclusion that it is never too late to turn to God, and that all the dark doings of a man's life are swept clean away, if at any time the heart repents and believes.

But this is not the part of the story which the sacred writers dwell upon. In the Book of Kings, where there is another version of Manasseh's doings, no mention is made whatever of the repentance, and here it is only briefly recorded, and in a somewhat sorrowful tone.

He came back humbled and forgiven, indeed, but not in a happy state of mind. He came back to a ruined kingdom; to a sinful and demoralised and destitute people; to see everywhere the sorrow, and the evil and the misery and shame which his doings had caused; to be reminded continually that his life had been a great wicked and foolish blunder, and that there was no undoing the mischief which he had done. For the sake of his repentance he was spared a little longer, but there could be little joy in the remaining years of a life like that.

I think that that is the experience of most men who turn away in their youth from the example and precepts of godly fathers, who reject the truths which make life sober and strong, who betake themselves to thoughts of infidelity and ways of sin, and fancy that they can live life happily without God and prayer. There comes a time when they are made to feel that their life has been a mistake, that it would have been far better for them to have stuck to the old ways, that those believing fathers whom they laughed at were right after all; perhaps they repent and go back to God at last, and He accepts them; but whether repentant or not, they always carry with them an awful burden. Shame is upon them for the evil they have done, shame for the life that has been spent to so little purpose, regret and humbling that they cannot undo the blind and guilty past. Repentance at the best is a poor business when it comes in the evening hours of life. Better then than never; but better far to have gone with God from the beginning. That, I think, is the lesson which the wise man will find in the story of the evil king.

AMAZIAH

BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.

"And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this."--2 CHRON. xxv. 9.

Amaziah, King of Judah, belonged to that numerous class of men who wish to stand well with both worlds. He was what we call in religious matters half-and-half. He wanted to secure the favour and protection of God without losing much or anything of the ungodly helps and advantages. One hardly knows whether to describe him as a bad sort of good man, or a better sort of bad man. He was like those gentlemen in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ whom Bunyan names Mr Facing-both-ways and Mr Pliable. It depended very much on the company he was in, whether he showed a religious face or assumed the other character.

We have an illustration of this doubleness in the incident recorded here. He was preparing to go to war against the neighbouring nation of the Edomites, or probably he had learned that they were about to make war on him. For these neighbours, like some others you know, were always ready to pick a quarrel. Edomite and Jew were never long without a scrimmage or a battle. Amaziah, with this business on hand, took count of his forces, found that he had three hundred thousand soldiers; big enough battalions if they had only had a leader with a big heart. David had scattered those Edomites with an army not one-twentieth part the size of that. But Amaziah was not a David. He must needs have more men. He sent, therefore, to the king of Israel to hire another hundred thousand, and paid him down an enormous sum of money for the loan. Now these men of Israel and their king had fallen away from God, and become heathen people, worshippers of Baal, foul and immoral as the Edomites themselves. But Amaziah thought that was of no consequence so long as he could increase his fighting force. The money was paid, and the hundred thousand hirelings came.

And then suddenly appeared another man whom he had not sent for, one of those prophets or preachers whom kings and other people find very troublesome at times, who upset all the nice arrangements, and stop the business which promises so well, with an unwelcome "_Thus saith the Lord_"; prophets who do not know how to flatter, who cannot be bought for a hundred talents, or for any price, and who say what God has given them to say whether the great folk like it or not. This man came uninvited, and told the king that he must pack off these mercenaries to their own country again, for God was not with them, and God would not be with him if he joined hands with idolaters and paid them to fight his battles.