Chapter 15

But now, there is one thing against which I have to warn you most solemnly, and especially in such days as these. You may believe my words to your own ruin, or to your own salvation. They are “the Gospel,” “the good news of the Kingdom of God”—that is, the good news that God has condescended to become our King, to govern and guide us, to order all things for our good. But as St. Paul says, the Gospel may be a savour of death unto death, as well as a savour of life unto life. And I will tell you now; that you have only to do what the Jews just before the coming of our Lord did, and give way to the same thoughts as they, and then, like them, it were better for you that you had never heard of God, and been like the savages, to whom little or no sin is imputed, because they are all but without law. How is this?

As I said before—take your covenant privileges as the Pharisees took theirs, and they will turn you into devils while you are fancying yourselves God’s especial favourites. Now this was what happened to the Pharisees: they could not help knowing that God had shown especial favour to them; and that He had taught them more about God than He had taught the heathen. But instead of feeling all the more humble and thankful for this, and of remembering day and night that because much had been given to them much would be required of them, they thought more about the honour and glory which God had put on them. They forgot what God had declared, namely, that it was not for their own goodness that He had taught them, for that they were in themselves not a whit better than the heathen around them. They forgot that the reason why He taught them was, that they were to do His work on earth, by witnessing for His name, and telling the heathen that God was their Lord, as well as Lord of the Jews. Now David, and the old Psalmists and Prophets, did not forget this. Their cry is: “Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King.” “Worship the Son of God, ye kings of the earth, and make your peace with Him lest He be angry.” “It was in vain,” he told the heathen kings, “to try to cast away God’s government from them, and break His bonds from off them,” for “the Lord was King, let the nations be never so unquiet.”

But the Jews gradually forgot this, and their daily boast was, that God had nothing to do with the heathen; that He did not care for them, and actually hated them; that they, as it were, had the true God all to themselves for their own private property; and that He had neither love nor mercy, except for them and their proselytes, that is, the few heathens whom they could persuade and entice not to worship the true God after the customs of their own country—that would not have suited the Jews’ bigotry and pride—but to turn Jews, and forget their own people among whom they were born, and ape them in everything. And so, as our Lord told them, after compassing sea and land to make one of these proselytes, they only made him after all twice as much the child of hell as themselves. For they could not teach the heathen anything worth knowing about God, when they had forgotten themselves what God was like. They could tell them that there was one God, and not two—but what was the use of that? As St. James says, the devils believe as much as that, and yet the knowledge does not make them holy, but only increases their fear and despair. And so with these Pharisees. They had forgotten that God was love. They had forgotten that God was merciful. They had forgotten that God was just. And therefore, while they were talking of God and pretending to worship God, they knew nothing of God, and they did not do God’s will, and act like God; for (as we find from the Gospels) they were unjust, tyrannous, proud, conceited, covetous themselves; and while they were looking down on the poor heathens, these very heathens, the Lord told them, would rise up in judgment against them: for they, knowing little, acted up to the light which they had, better than the Pharisees who knew so much. And so it will be with us, my friends, if we fancy that God’s great favours to us are a reason for our priding ourselves on them, and despising papists and foreigners instead of remembering that just because God has given us so much, He will require more of us. It is true, we do know more of the Gospel than the papists, how, though they believe in Jesus Christ, worship the Virgin Mary and the Saints, and idols of wood and stone. But if they, who know so little of God’s will, yet act faithfully up to what they do know, will they not rise up in judgment against us, who know so much more, if we act worse than they? Instead of despising them, we had better despise ourselves. Instead of fancying that God’s love is not over them, and so sinning against God’s Holy Spirit by denying and despising the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit in them, we had much better, we Protestants, be repenting of our own sins. We had better pray God to open our eyes to our own want of faith, and want of love, and want of honesty, and want of cleanly and chaste lives; lest God in His anger should let us go on in our evil path, till we fall into the deep darkness of mind of the Pharisees of old. For then while we were boasting of England as the most Christian nation in the world, we might become the most unchristian, because the most unlike Christ; the most wanting in love and fellow-feeling, and self-sacrifice, and honour, and justice, and honesty; wanting, in short, in the fruits of the Spirit. And without them there is no use crying: “We are God’s chosen people, He Has put His name among us, we alone hate idols, we alone have the pure word of God, and the pure sacraments, and the pure doctrine;” for God may answer us, as he answered the Jews of old: “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father: Verily, I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” . . . “The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Oh! my friends, let us pray, one and all, that God will come and help us, and with great might succour us, “that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are sore let and hindered in running the race set before us, God’s bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us,” and enable us to live faithfully up to the glorious privileges which He has bestowed on us, in calling us “members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven;” in giving us His Bible, in allowing us to be born into this favoured land of England, in preserving us to this day, in spite of all that we have thought, and said, and done, unworthy of the name of Christians and Englishmen.

And then we may be certain that God will also fulfil to us the glorious promises which we find in another Psalm: “If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I shall learn them, this land shall be my rest for ever. Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein. I will bless her victuals with increase, and satisfy her poor with bread. I will deck her priests with health, and her holy people shall rejoice and sing.”

XVIII. NATIONAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all; that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you. . . . And ye shall know that I am the Lord.—EZEKIEL xx. 32, 33, 38.

A FATHER has two ways of showing his love to his child—by caressing it and by punishing it. His very anger may be a sign of his love, and ought to be. Just because he loves his child, just because the thing he longs most to see is that his child should grow up good, therefore he must be, and ought to be, angry with it when it does wrong. Therefore anger against sin is a part of God’s likeness in us; and he who does not hate sin is not like God. For if sin is the worst evil—perhaps the only real evil in the world—and the end of all sin is death and misery, then to indulge people in sin is to show them the very worst of cruelty.

To sit by and see iniquity going on without trying to stop it, is mere laziness. The parent, when his child does wrong, does not show his love to the child by indulging it, all he shows is, that he himself is carnal and fleshly; that he does not like to take the trouble of punishing it, or does not like to give himself the pain of punishing it; that, in short, he had sooner let his child grow up in bad habits, which must lead to its misery and ruin for years and years, if not for ever, than make himself uncomfortable by seeing it uncomfortable for a few minutes. That is not love, but selfishness. True love is as determined to punish the sin as it is to forgive the sinner. Therefore, St. Paul tells us, that we can be angry without sinning; that is that there is an anger which comes from hatred of sin and love to the sinner. Therefore, Solomon tells us to punish our children when they do wrong, and not to hold our hands for their crying. It is better for them that they should cry a little now, than have long years of shame and sorrow hereafter. Therefore, in all countries which are properly governed, the law punishes in the name of God those who break the laws of God, and punishes them even with death, for certain crimes; because it is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And this is God’s way of dealing with each and every one of us. This is God’s way of dealing with Christian nations, just as it was His way of dealing with the Jews of old. He never allowed the Jews to prosper in sin. He punished them at once, and sternly, whenever they rebelled against Him; not because He hated them, but because He loved them. His love to them showed itself whenever they went well with Him, in triumphs and blessings; and when they rebelled against Him, and broke His laws, He showed that very same love to them in plague, and war, and famine, and a mighty hand, and fury poured out. His love had not changed—they had changed; and now the best and only way of showing His love to them, was by making them feel His anger; and the best and only way of being merciful to them, was to show them no indulgence.

Now the wish of the Jews all along, and especially in Ezekiel’s time, was to be like the heathen—like the nations round them. They said to themselves: “These heathen worship idols, and yet prosper very well. Their having gods of wood and stone, and their indulging their passions, and being profligate and filthy, covetous, unjust, and tyrannical, does not prevent their being just as happy as we are—ay, and a great deal happier. They have no strict law of Moses, as we have threatening us and keeping us in awe, and making us uncomfortable, and telling us at every turn, ‘Thou shalt not do this pleasant thing, and thou shalt not do that pleasant thing.’ And yet God does not punish them, as Moses’ law says He will punish us. These Assyrians and Babylonians above all—they are stronger than we, and richer, and better clothed, and cleverer; they have horses and chariots, and all sorts of luxuries and comforts which we Jews cannot get. Instead of being like us, in continual trouble from earthquakes, and drought, and famine, and war, attacked, plundered by all the nations round us, one after another, they go on conquering, and spreading, and succeeding in all they lay their hand to. Look at Babylon,” said these foolish Jews, perhaps, to themselves; “a few generations ago it was nothing of a city, and now it is the greatest, richest, and strongest nation in the whole world. God has not punished it for worshipping gods of wood and stone, why should He punish us? These Babylonians have prospered well enough with their gods, why should not we? Perhaps it is these very gods of wood and stone who have helped them to become so great. Why should they not help us? We will worship them, then, and pray to them. We will not give up worshipping our own God, of course, lest we should offend Him; but we will worship Him and the Babylonian idols at the same time; then we shall be sure to be right if we have Jehovah and the idols both on our side.” So said the Jews to themselves. But what did Ezekiel answer them? “Not so, my foolish countrymen,” said he, “God will not have it so. He has taught you that these Babylonian idols are nothing and cannot help you; He has taught you that He can and will help you, that He can and will be everything to you; He has taught you that He alone is God, who made heaven and earth, who orders all things therein, who alone gives any people power to get wealth; and He will not have you go back and fall from that for any appearances or arguments whatsoever, because it is true. He has chosen you to witness to these heathen about Him, to declare His name to them, that they may give up their idols and serve the true God, in whom alone is strength. He chose you to be these heathens’ teachers, and He will not let you become their scholars. He meant the heathen to copy you, and He will not let you copy them. If He does, in His love and mercy, let these poor heathen prosper in spite of their idols, what is that to you? It is still the Lord who makes them prosper, and not the idols, whether they know it or not. They know no better, and He will not impute sin to them where He has given them no law. But you do know better; by a thousand mighty signs and wonders and deliverances, the Lord has been teaching you ever since you came up through the Red Sea, that He is all-sufficient for you, that all power is His in heaven and earth. He has promised to you, and sworn to you by Himself, that if you keep His law and walk in His commandments, you shall want no manner of good thing; that you shall have no cause to envy these heathen their riches and prosperity, for the Lord will bless you in house and land, by day and night, at home and abroad, with every blessing that a nation can desire. Moses’ law tells you this, God’s prophets have been telling you this, God’s wonderful dealings with you have been telling you this, that the Lord God is enough for you. And if you, who are meant to be a nation of kings and priests to God, to teach all nations and serve solely Him, fancy that you will be allowed to throw away the high honour which God has put upon you, and lower yourselves to the follies and sins of these heathen round you, you are mistaken. You were meant to be above such folly, you can be above it; and you shall not prosper by serving God and idols at once; you shall not even prosper by serving idols alone. God will visit you with a mighty hand, and with fury poured out, and you shall know that He is the Lord.”

Well, my friends, and what has this to do with us? This it has to do with us—that if God taught the Jews about Himself, He has taught us still more. If he has shown signs and wonders of His love, and wrought mightily for the Jews, He has wrought far more mightily for us; for He spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us. If He promised to teach the Jews, He has promised still more to teach us; for He has promised His Holy Spirit freely to young and old, rich and poor, to as many as ask Him, to guide us into all truth. If he expected the Jews to set an example to all the nations around, He expects us to do so still more. And if He punished the Jews, and drove them back again by shame, and affliction, and disappointment, whenever they went after other gods, and tried to be like the heathen around, and despised their high calling, and their high privileges, He will punish us, and drive us back again still more fiercely, and still more swiftly. God has called us to be a nation of Christians, and He will not let us be a nation of heathens. We are longing to do in these days very much as the Jews did of old; we are all too apt to say to ourselves: “Of course we must love God, or He might be angry with us; and besides, how else should we get our souls saved? But the old heathen nations, and a great many nations now, and a great many rich and comfortable people in England now, too, get on very well without God, by just worshipping selfishness, and money, and worldly cunning, and why should not we do the same?—why should we not worship God and Mammon at once, and serve God on Sundays, and the selfish ways of the world all the week? Surely then we should be doubly safe; we should have God and the world on our side both at once.”

Now, my friends, God will not allow us to succeed on that plan. We are members of His Church, whose head is Jesus, who gave Himself for sinners; whose members are all brothers of His Church, which is held together by self-sacrifice and fellow-help. If we try to be like the heathens, and fancy that we can succeed by selfishness, and cunning, and covetousness, God will not let us fall from the honour which He has put on us, and trample our blessings under foot. He will bring our plans to nought. Whomsoever he may let prosper in sin, He will not let those who have heard the message prosper in it. Whatever nation He may let become great by covetousness, and selfish competing and struggling of man against man, He will not let England grow great by it. He loves her too well to let her fall so, and cast away her high honour of being a Christian nation. By great and sore afflictions, by bringing our cleverest plans to nothing, He will teach us that we cannot worship God and Mammon at once; that the sure riches, either for a man or for a nation, are not money, but righteousness love, justice, wisdom; that this new idol of selfish competition which men worship nowadays, and fancy that it is the secret cause of all plenty, and cheapness, and civilisation, has no place in the church of Jesus Christ, who gave up His own life for those who hated Him, and came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father; not to enable men to go to heaven after a life of selfishness here; but by the power of His Spirit—the spirit of love and fellowship to sweep all selfishness off the face of God’s good earth. By sore trials and afflictions will God in His mercy teach this to England, and to every man in England who is deluded into fancying that he can serve God, and selfishness at once, till we learn once more, as our forefathers did of old, that He is the Lord. Because we are His children God will chasten us; because He receives us, He will scourge us back to Him; because He has prepared for us things such as eye hath not seen, He will not let us fill our bellies with the husks which the swine eat, and like the dumb beasts, snarl and struggle one against the other for a place at His table, as if it were not wide enough for all His creatures, and for ten times as many more, forgetting that He is the giver, and fancying that we are to be the takers, and spoiling the gift itself in our hurry to snatch it out of our neighbours’ hands. In one word, God will not give us false prosperity, as the children of the world, the flesh, and the devil, because he wishes to give us real prosperity as the sons of God, in the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us.

XIX. THE DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM.

And it came to pass that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred and eighty five thousand: and when they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.—2 KINGS xix. 35.

YOU heard read in the first lesson last Sunday afternoon, the threats of the king of Assyria against Jerusalem, and his defiance of the true Lord whose temple stood there. In the first lesson for this morning’s service, you heard of king Hezekiah’s fear and perplexity; of the Lord’s answer to him by Isaiah, and of the great and wonderful destruction of the Assyrian army, of which my text tells you. Of course you have a right to ask: “This which happened in a foreign country more than two thousand years ago, what has it to do with us?” And, of course, my preaching about it will be of no use whatsoever, unless I can show you what it has to do with us; what lesson we English here, in the year 1851, are to draw, from the help which God sent the Jews.

But to find out that, we must hear the whole story. Before we can find out why God drove the Assyrians out of Judæa, we must find out, it seems to me, why He sent them, or allowed them to come into Judæa; and to find out that, we must first see how the Jews were behaving in those times, and what sort of state their country was in; and we must find out, too, what sort of a man this great king of Assyria was, and what sort of thoughts were in his heart.

Now, by the favour of God, we can find out this. You will see, in the first thirty-seven chapters of Isaiah’s prophecies, a full account of the ways of the Jews in that time, and the reasons why God allowed so fearful a danger to come upon them. The whole first thirty-five chapters belong to each other, and are, so to speak, a spiritual history of the Jews, and the Assyrians, and all the nations round them, for many years. A spiritual history—that is, not merely a history of what they did, but of what they were, what was in their inmost hearts, and thoughts, and spirits; a spiritual history—that is, not merely of what they thought they were doing, but of what God saw that they were doing—a history of God’s mind about them all. Isaiah had God’s spirit on him; and so he saw what was going on round him in the same light in which God saw it, and hated it, or praised it, only according as it was good, and according to the good Spirit of God, or bad, and contrary to that Spirit. So Isaiah’s history of his own nation, and the nations around him, was very unlike what they would have written for themselves; just as I am afraid he would write a very different history of England now, from what we should write, if we were set to do it. Now what Isaiah thought of the doings of his countrymen, the Jews, I must tell you in another sermon, next Sunday. It will be enough this morning to speak of the king of Assyria.