Purgation by judgment.
The blessed age cannot yet come in. If we suppose the prophet to have been reading the previous oracle as a sabbath lesson out of the elder prophet Joel's scroll, he adds the exhortation, "Let us walk in the light of Jehovah!" Then a sudden pause. For he calls to mind the present corrupt condition of the nation. They cannot pass over to that new and happy condition of things as they now are. Peace can only be the fruit of righteousness. God cannot impart blessings for which the heart makes no room.
I. THE REASONS OF DIVINE REJECTION. The nation's practices and fashions are inconsistent with the religion of Jehovah.
1. Wizardry, magic, soothsaying, and augury prevail. These are distinctly heathen, Philistine, practices. The Law repudiated every kind of magic (Le 19:26; Exodus 22:17). Such arts are described under various names in Deuteronomy 18:10, Deuteronomy 18:11. The principle was in every case the same—the attempt to gratify human curiosity and desire by unlawful means. Modern "spiritualism" springs from the same root. The path of true science is above-ground and full of light; that of false science is subterranean and dark. The methods of sound knowledge may be explained to all. The worker of good comes to the light, and hates occult procedure which can give no account of itself. The magical spirit still works against true Christianity, which is the "light of the Eternal." Christian ministers become magicians if they teach that changes can be wrought or blessings secured by the mere administration of sacraments; or by the mere repetition of a formula, such as "I do believe, I will believe;" or by the artificial putting on of a particular frame of mind. Obedience, not the mimicry of it, purity, not the representation of it, is required by God.
2. Ill-gotten wealth and luxury. The people were immoderately money-loving. Like Tyre, they heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the mire of the streets (Zechariah 9:3).
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
The excess of accumulation ever does mean the waste of manhood. A nation is only healthy when the vigor of its masculine intellect goes to promote the ulterior ends of existence. Those ends are spiritual. Wealth should be prized for the sake of leisure, and leisure for the sake of culture. When leisure hangs heavy on the business man's hands, it is a sign that he has been overtrained in one direction. 'Tis a sad failure to be found fit only for grinding at the money-making mill. Such a man cannot enjoy wealth when he has got it. We need a larger conception of the true conduct of life. Men often lose more morally in their rest-time than they can recover in their worktime. No unjust trading can produce real prosperity. England has gained by every act of righteous policy, such as the abolition of the corn-laws, the slave-trade. Whatever is gain to the health of the national conscience is permanent. Every just act is a tonic to the soul.
3. They are full of the materials for war, Their reliance is on horses and chariots. When a nation places confidence on physical force only, it is another symptom of moral enervation. How often has this been seen in history! The very existence of a great armed force is a constant provocative to war. It breeds a martial imagination and a bellicose spirit. National jealousies are roused, and the slightest occasion may set a continent aflame. The people must learn that Jehovah delights not in the legs of men, i.e. in serried battalions, and that in proportion as they lean on armies they are faithless to God. They must learn to say, "Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy" (Hosea 14:3).
4. They are full of idols. This is perhaps the worst feature of their state. The prohibition of idols is grounded in the nature of our thought. The idol defines and narrows what ought to be left indefinable. The Phoenician and other idols introduced into Israel brought down the Divine to the forms and dimensions of the human being, and all human passions the most sensuous could be projected upon them. And when man sees only his idealized self before him in the sculptor's work, he falls to self-adoration. It was quite otherwise with the grand music and religious poetry of the prophets and psalmists. Lofty poetic images by their very vagueness and suggestiveness lead the mind to the truth beyond and behind them. High music and poesy we ever need in worship; but too definite forms fetter the flight of the devout imagination. In general idolatry means self-love, and must ever be antagonistic to pure religion. "Thus man lowers himself, becomes unworthy to appear before Jehovah, and belong to his people." And judgment is inevitable; there can be no escape from it now!
II. TERROR AT THE APPROACH OF THE JUDGE. "Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, fleeing before Jehovah's terror, and the splendor of his majesty." The soul living in falsehood as its element shrinks away from the coming truth which must annihilate it. Men's fears represent to them at last their follies and their sins.
"Like bats and vermin hurrying from the sudden light.
Our sordid vices far from God would take their flight."
The eyes that were not cast down in prayer, the mien of profane impudence that laughed at Heaven, are now shriveled, prone in the dust now before the lonely sublimity of the eternal Holiness. Those who made naught of God must learn that naught can exist which does not exist in God.
"At last we hear a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, Is there any hope?
To which an answer peals from that high land,
But in a tongue no man can understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn,
God makes himself an awful rose of dawn."