Truth-speaking under difficulties.
The prophet is commanded to go down to the king's palace and deliver his prophecies in the royal audience. His mission did not admit of time-serving or evasive utterance. Like that prophet who said to David, "Thou art the man," he had to speak to the king face to face and with great plainness.
I. GOD'S CHILDREN ARE OFTEN CALLED UPON TO WITNESS TO HIM IN DIFFICULT PLACES. In king's courts; in society; in unbelieving homes; in the office, workshop, etc.
II. THEIR WITNESS IS OFTEN IN SHEER CONTRADICTION TO THE ACTIONS AND HABITS THAT PREVAIL THERE. The sin of Judah was flagrant and open, affecting the most elementary laws of righteousness, The Law of Moses guarded the widow and the orphan. The Law of God, in its righteousness, purity, and love, is still strange to the world's life, and is constantly violated in it. But the duty of witnessing is only rendered the more imperative.
III. THEY ARE SUSTAINED BY:
1. The consciousness of inner rectitude and duty.
2. The witness of conscience in the transgressors.
3. The presence and promises of him who sends them.—M.
Building in unrighteousness.
The building of a house, be it small or great, is always an interesting and suggestive process. It is a lengthened operation, expensive, and representing a great part of a man's aims and efforts. Various purposes may be sought in it according to the character, circumstances, etc; of the builder—mere shelter, comfort, splendor, protection. As these come into view the object in which they are to be realized becomes representative of the living personality and character with which it is associated. Jehoiakim was a despot, bent upon aggrandizement, and so he sought to build a magnificent palace with forced, unpaid labor. The ambitions of unspiritual men, the exclusive and absorbing projects of earthly life, resemble the palace-building of this Hebrew tyrant in—
I. THE UNION OF EXTRAVAGANT DESIRES AND DISHONEST, UNLAWFUL METHODS. Easy for Jehoiakim to "go in" for a splendid palace, as he is not in the habit of paying his employee. Are there not many in modern life who act on the same principle? The desire for self-advancement and aggrandizement overtops every other consideration.
1. Unlawful methods of securing these are employed. Speculation; getting on in business in order to get out of it; adulteration; insufficient wages; prices that do not admit of honest manufacture; clap-trap advertisements, etc.
2. Imagining that others exist for the sake of one's self. This reverses the golden rule and the spirit of Christ's life.
II. ITS FUNDAMENTAL SIN. This is selfishness—self-glorification, neglect of God and of human claims. The great principles of the Divine kingdom are contradicted;—justice, mercy, brotherly sympathy, etc.
III. ITS RESULTS.
1. The ruin of the building; i.e. the life-project—the unhallowed aim.
2. The ruin of the builder—for time, perhaps for eternity.—M.
Monumental judgments.
I. EXCEPTIONAL PENALTIES WILL ATTEND THE ABUSE OF EXCEPTIONAL PRIVILEGES.
1. As a measure justice. The position attained by Jerusalem was due not so much to its site as to its being the center of a theocracy. The foundation of its prosperity was a spiritual one. It was God's elective favor which had lifted it up above the cities of the earth. Presuming upon this, the first laws of righteousness had been violated and the whole conditions of the covenant relation ignored. This assumption of the inalienability of Divine blessings is at the root of every great apostasy. It is doubly unrighteous.
The robbery of such things is of infinitely greater heinousness in so far as they transcend in their value merely earthly treasures, and differ from them in the terms of their acquisition. It is free grace and unrequited love that are trampled on, and the punishment must therefore be the more exemplary.
2. As a necessary precaution. Pretensions so great are apt to mislead others. People who say, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we," may be taken at their own estimation if no marked change takes place in their external condition. God, therefore, uses his judgment in its external signs as an index of his reprobation. Other nations than Israel have illustrated this principle in their decline and fall. The great peoples of Christendom are on their trial. There is nothing more hateful in the sight of God than a people that has outlived its religion and yet retains the profession of it. Although the chief penalties of unfaithfulness in spiritual things must be inward, external evidences will not be wanting of what has taken place. How colossal the ruin of a power that has once been Christian, and has been exalted through Divine grace for the fulfillment of pledges, which have never been redeemed (Matthew 23:37; Matthew 11:23)!
II. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD WILL BE ENDORSED BY THE VERDICT OF THE WORLD. Even the ruins of Jerusalem would be a thing to gaze at. Its desolation would be unlike any other. The epitaph of a forfeited spiritual supremacy would seem to be graven on the very stones. There is ever something unmistakable and peculiar in the condition of those who are rejected by God. Their misery is not as other misery, their ruin not as other ruin.
1. The spectacle will be self-explanatory. Not that every sin and failing of God's people would be written in earthly chronicles, but the causes of their decay would be broadly apparent. So is it with the Church from which God removes his candlestick, and the soul in whom the light has become darkness.
2. It will be morally impressive. Even in its misery the people of God will instruct the nations; and the Church of Christ will be a spectacle to angels and to men in its failures as in its successes.—M.