Sermons on National Subjects

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.

These kings of Assyria thought themselves the greatest and strongest beings in the world; they thought that their might was right, and that they might conquer, and ravage, and plunder and oppress every country round them for thousands of miles, without being punished.  They thought that they could overcome the true God of Judæa, as they had conquered the empty idols and false gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Iva.  But Isaiah saw that they were wrong.  He told his countrymen: “These Assyrian kings are strong, but there is a stronger King than they, Jehovah the Lord of all the earth.  It is He who sent them to punish nation after nation, Sennacherib is the rod of Jehovah’s anger; but he is a fool after all; for all his cunning, for all his armies, he is a fool rushing on his ruin.  He may take Tyre, Damascus, Babylon, Egypt itself, and cast their gods into the fire, for they are no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; but let him once try his strength against the real living God; let the axe once begin to boast itself against Him that hews therewith; and he will find out that there is one stronger than he, one who has been using him as a ‘tool, and who will crush him like a moth the moment he rebels.  His father destroyed Samaria and her idols, but he shall not destroy Jerusalem.  He may ravage Ephraim, and punish the gluttony and drunkenness, and oppression of the great landlords of Bashan; he may bring misery and desolation through the length and breadth of the land: there is reason, and reason but too good for that: but Jerusalem, the place where God’s honour dwells, the temple without idols, which is the sign that Jehovah is a living God, against it he shall not cast up a bank, or shoot an arrow into it.”  “I know,” said Isaiah, “what he is saying of himself, this proud king of Assyria: but this is what God says of him, that he is only a puppet, a tool in the hand of God, to punish these wicked nations whom he is conquering one by one, and us Jews among the rest.  He, this proud king of Assyria, thinks that he is the chosen favourite of the sun, and the moon, and the stars, whom, in his folly, he worships as gods.  He will find out who is the real Lord of the earth; he will find out that this great world is ruled by that very God of Israel whom he despises.  He will find that there is something in this earth, of which he fancies himself lord and master, which is too strong for him, which will obey God, and not him.  God rules the earth, and God rules Tophet, and the great fire-kingdoms which boil and blaze for ever in the bowels of the earth, and burst up from time to time in earthquakes and burning mountains; and God has ordained that they shall conquer this proud king of Assyria, though we Jews are too weak and cowardly, and split up into parties by our wickedness, to make a stand against him.” . . .

This great eruption or breaking out of burning mountains, which would destroy the king of Assyria’s army, was to happen, Isaiah says, close to Jerusalem, nay, it was to shake Jerusalem itself.  Jerusalem was to be brought to great misery by everlasting burnings, as well as by being besieged by the Assyrians; and yet the very shaking of the earth and eruption of fire which was nearly to destroy it, was to be the cause of its deliverance.  So Isaiah prophesied, and we cannot doubt his words came true.  For this may explain to us the way in which the king of Assyria’s army was destroyed.  The text says, that when they encamped near Jerusalem the messenger of the Lord went out, and slew in one night one hundred and eighty thousand of them, who were all found dead in the morning.  How they were killed we cannot exactly tell, most likely by a stream of poisonous vapour, such as often comes forth out of the ground during earthquakes and eruptions of burning mountains, and kills all men and animals who breathe it.  That this was the way that this great army was destroyed, I have little doubt, not only on account of what Isaiah says in his prophecies of God’s “sending a blast” upon the king of Assyria, but because it was just like the old lesson which God had been teaching the Jews all along, that the earth and all in it was His property, and obeyed Him.  For what could teach them that more strongly than to see that the earthquakes and burning mountains, of all things on earth the most awful and most murderous, the very things against which man has no defence, obeyed God; burst forth when He chose, and did His work as He willed?  For man can conquer almost everything in the world except these burning mountains and earthquakes.  He can sail over the raging sea in his ships; he can till the most barren soils; he can provide against famine, rain, and cold, ay, against the thunder itself: but the earthquakes alone are too strong for him.  Against them no cunning or strength of man is of any use.  Without warning, they make the solid ground under his feet heave, and reel, and sink, hurling down whole towns in a moment, and burying the inhabitants under the ruins, as an earthquake did in Italy only a month ago.  Or they pour forth streams of fire, clouds of dust, brimstone, and poisonous vapour, destroying for miles around the woods and crops, farms and cities, and burying them deep in ashes, as they have done again and again, both in Italy and Iceland, and in South America, even during the last few years.  How can man stand against them?  What greater warning or lesson to him than they, that God is stronger than man; that the earth is not man’s property, and will not obey him, but only the God who made it?  Now that was just what God intended to teach the Jews all along; that the earth and heaven belonged to Him and obeyed Him; that they were not to worship the sun and stars, as the Assyrians and Canaanites did, nor the earth and the rivers as the Egyptians did: but to worship the God who made sun and stars, earth and rivers, and to put their trust in Him to guide all heaven and earth aright; and to make all things, sun, earth, and weather, ay, and the very burning mountains and earthquakes, work together for good for them if they loved God.  Therefore it was that God gave His law to Moses on the burning mountain of Sinai, amid thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, to show them that the lightnings and the mountains obeyed Him.  Therefore it was that the earthquake opened the ground and swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses.  Therefore it was that God once used an earthquake and eruption to preserve David from his enemies, as we read in the eighteenth Psalm.  And all through David’s Psalms we find how well he had learnt this great lesson which God had taught him.  Again and again we find verses which show that he knew well enough who was the Lord of all the earth.

In Isaiah’s time, it seems, God taught the Jews once more the same thing.  He taught them, and the proud king of Assyria, once and for all, that He was indeed the Lord—Lord of all nations, and King of kings, and also Lord of the earth, and all that therein is.  He taught it to the poor oppressed Jews by that miraculous deliverance.  He taught it to the cruel invading king by that miraculous destruction.  Just in the height of his glory, after he had conquered almost every nation in the east, and overcome the whole of Judæa, except that one small city of Jerusalem, Sennacherib’s great army was swept away, he neither knew how nor why, in a single night, and utterly disheartened and abashed, he returned to his own land; and even there he found that the God of Israel had followed him—that the idols whom he worshipped could not save him from the wrath of that God to whom Assyria, just as much as Jerusalem, belonged.  For as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his two sons smote him with the sword, and there was an end of all his pride and conquests. . . . Now Nisroch was the name of a star—the star which we call the planet Saturn; and the Assyrians fancied in their folly, that whosoever worshipped any particular star, that star would protect and help him. . . .  But, alas for the king of Assyria, there was One above who had made the stars, and from whose vengeance the stars could not save him; and so even while he was worshipping, and praying to, this favourite star of his which could not hear him, he fell dead, a murdered man, and found out too late how true were the great words of Isaiah when he prophesied against him.

Yes, my friends, this is the lesson which the Jews had to learn, and which the king of Assyria had to learn, and which we have to learn also; and which God will, in His great mercy, teach us over and over again by bitter trials whensoever we forget it; that The Lord is King; that He is near us, living for ever, all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving; that those who really trust in Him shall never be confounded; that those who trust in themselves are trying their paltry strength against the God who made heaven and earth, and will surely find out their own weakness, just when they fancy themselves most successful.  So it was in Hezekiah’s time; so it is now, hard as it may be to us to believe it.  The Lord Jehovah, Jesus Christ, who saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians, He still is King, let the earth be never so unquiet.  And all men, or governments, or doctrines, or ways of thinking and behaving, which are contrary to His will, or even pretend that they can do without Him, will as surely come to nought as that great and terrible king of Assyria.  Though man be too weak to put them down, Christ is not.  Though man neglect to put them down, Christ will not.  If man dare not fight on the Lord’s side against sin and evil, the Lord’s earth will fight for Him.  Storm and tempest, blight and famine, earthquakes and burning mountains, will do His work, if nothing else will.  As He said Himself, if man stops praising Him, the very stones will cry out, and own Him as their King.  Not that the blessed Lord is proud, or selfish, or revengeful; God forbid!  He is boundless pity, and love, and mercy.  But it is just because He is perfect love and pity that He hates sin, which makes all the misery upon earth.  He hates it, and he fights against it for ever; lovingly at first, that He may lead sinners to repentance; for He wills the death of none, but rather that all should come to repentance.  But if a man will not turn, He will whet his sword; and then woe to the sinner.  Let him be as great as the king of Assyria, he must down.  For the Lord will have none guide His world but Himself, because none but He will ever guide it on the right path.  Yes—but what a glorious thought, that He will guide it, and us, on that right path.  Oh blessed news for all who are in sorrow and perplexity!  Whatsoever it is that ails you—and who is there, young or old, rich or poor, who has not their secret ailments at heart?—whatsoever ails you, whatsoever terrifies you, whatsoever tempts you, trust in the same Lord who delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians, and He will deliver you.  He will never suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way for you to escape, that you may be able to bear it.  This has been His loving way from the beginning, and this will be His way until the day when He wipes away tears from all eyes.