FORTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY Morning JERUSALEM TAKEN Passage to be read: Jer. xxxix. 1-18. 'HE siege of Jerusalem had now lasted, with one respite, for about eighteen months. The courage ΤΗ of the besieged was still unbroken; there was no word yet of yielding up the city. These children of Abraham were unrivalled in resistance, and they have much to teach us when we have to resist. But there was an enemy in their midst more terrible than the Chaldeans. It was the pang and the gnawing of increasing hunger. Day after day saw the provisions grow scarce, and the citizens reduced to greater straits. We have heard most harrowing stories from India of the sufferings caused there by famine. No one who has listened to a missionary from the famine-areas can forget the pictures of destitution that he drew. Well, when we read the book of Lamentations we see such scenes in the highways of Jerusalem. Gaunt men were there, and famished women and children; deeds of unutterable horror were done. And how could starving men defend the ramparts? There was no strength in the bravest of them, to endure. The Chaldeans, like the tide of a great sea, swept in through a breach they had made in the north wall. The doom was fulfilled and Jerusalem was taken. Then followed a period of pillaging. The streets of the holy city ran with blood. The houses were burned, the Temple on Zion was sacked, the sacred vessels were carried off by the conquerors. The remnant of the people were marched away into a life of exile in Chaldea. AND what of King Zedekiah all this time? Our chapter lifts the curtain on that tragedy. It was the hour of midnight when the city was taken, and Zedekiah was in his palace. He would hear, far off, the tumult of the onset; the cry would grow louder and louder through the streets. A dishevelled messenger, panting for breath, would burst into the royal presence with the news. The only hope of King Zedekiah lay in flight. And so our chapter tells us that under cover of night Zedekiah and his family and bodyguard fled. They stole through the park, passed through the southern postern, hurried down by the rough hollow of Kedron, making for Jericho. If they could only cross the Jordan before sunrise, who knew but they might balk the Chaldeans yet? But some one betrayed them-the weak are badly served. They were intercepted before they gained the river. And when the morning rose in the splendour of the East, and touched the quiet hills with golden mystery, it looked on Zedekiah and his sons and the flower of his faithful bodyguard marching as prisoners, to learn their doom from Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah. And what a doom it was! The sons of the king were killed before his eyes, and it was the last sight that the king saw on earth. Zedekiah was blinded, and loaded with chains, and carried away to Babylon, and there he remained in prison till he died. There is a Jewish tradition that he was set to work in a mill. The king, in chains, toiled with the common slave. If so, let us remember the dark lot of Samson, and read the glorious lines of Milton on it : 'Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Had been fulfilled but through my own default.' BUT WT it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the sack of Jerusalem strangely blessed the poor. Perhaps in the bosom of every judgment of heaven there lies an unexpected joy for somebody. The very poor were not carried off to Babylon. Here at any rate blessed were the poor. They received gifts of fields and grants of vineyards from Nebuchadrezzar's captain who had been left in charge. Note, too, that Jeremiah was not made prisoner. Our chapter dwells in some detail on that. The Chaldeans had learned the burden of his prophecy, and they regarded the prophet as their friend. Word came to the city that he should be set at liberty. He was committed to the charge of a staunch and godly home. Perhaps Nebuchadrezzar thought the prophet would exult in the fulfilment of the doom that he had heralded. But it is one thing to be a messenger of sorrow and another to rejoice when sorrow comes. A prophet may be constrained of heaven to speak, yet suffer an agony when the speech proves true. It is never the man whose lips have been touched by God who can find pleasure in saying, 'I told you so.' So Jeremiah was not exultant now. His heart was desolate in a desolate city. He is pictured as sitting in the forsaken streets, or in the cave near the Damascus gate that still bears his name. It is now, if ever, that we find him in the 'attitude of hopeless sorrow' that is attributed to him by Michael Angelo. Now OW note these simple lessons in the chapter. And firstly, good intentions are not enough to save us. If ever there was a man of good intentions, I think that King Zedekiah was that man. He was not a monarch who sinned with a high hand; his heart was in the right place, as we say. He meant well, when he resisted Babylonia. He meant well, when he rescued Jeremiah. Yet for all his well-meaning, here is his end—darkness and worse than death in Chaldea. Mark, then, that we may have the best intentions, and still be castaway. Our hearts may respond to what is bright and good, and life may be a failure after all. From Zedekiah we should learn that courage is needed, and trust in God in the teeth of all appearance, if our path is to move into the perfect day. Next, our weakness is certain to make others suffer. I am sure that Zedekiah was proud of his bodyguard. It was a very gallant and devoted band. And I am certain that he loved his sons. He would have fought to the death for them very gladly. He never wished them ill-perish the thought: but he was weak, and that cost them all their lives. And is not that the worst of weakness always? It involves in suffering our dearest and our best. For none of us can be untrue to God, nor can we halt or hesitate in our obedience, nor can we hearken to the baser voices, nor play the coward when the trumpet calls, but life will be made harder for our friend, and shadows will fall on lives we dearly love, and others will suffer because we are weak. Lastly, we are doing God's will when we little dream of it. Do you think that when the Chaldeans took the city, they knew that Jehovah had foretold that doom? Do you think that they set themselves to work that judgment, because they felt it was the will of God? Chaldea had its own hopes and ends and purposes of vengeance; but behind all, we trace the Sovereign Will. Let us try to realise that in our lives. God is behind us when we dream not of it. We plan and toil, we prosper and we fail, but underneath are the everlasting arms. The Sovereign Will is working to its goal. FORTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY D Evening THE STONING OF PAUL Passage to be read: Acts xiv. 1-20. RIVEN from Antioch by the outbreak of persecution, Paul and Barnabas moved on to Iconium. There was a distance of some ninety miles between the two towns, and now they might reasonably hope to be at peace. Iconium was a fine strategic point. The Roman roads between east and west ran through it. Many a morning Paul would be wakened from sleep by the noise of some caravan under his window, as it rolled westward with its eastern merchandise. And again it would be the tramp of Roman legions as they marched eastward along the military way. All this would set the heart of Paul a-throbbing. Might not his word reach to the end of the world from Iconium? Paul might have settled at Iconium for years if God had not said to him, 'This is not your rest. That is one purpose which persecution serves. It is God's way of bidding His soldiers march. Jesus was thinking of far more than personal safety when He bade His disciples flee from city to city (Matt. x. 23). Just as the gale beats on the falling rain, and drives it away till it falls on distant fields, so persecution, striking on the Gospel, carries it to unexpected spots. Paul and Barnabas had to fly from Iconium. It was the Jews who stirred up trouble again. The apostles were learning, in a very bitter way, how a man's foes are they of his own household. There is no foe so dangerous or so relentless as an old friend who has turned dead against us. |