I. THE OSTENTATION OF HEZEKIAH. The Chronicler passes a censure upon him. After his recovery he "rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore was there wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles 32:25). He gives a picture of his treasuries, and store-houses, his cities, his flocks and herds. An embassy comes from Babylon, partly to congratulate him on his recovery, partly to inquire concerning the portent of the sun-dial or step-clock. Under these pretexts political views were doubtless concealed. And Hezekiah delighted to receive the embassy, and displayed to them the whole of his treasures and the resources of his armoury, his palaces and his kingdom.

II. THE REBUKE OF THE PROPHET. The prophet, in virtue of his Divine call and his insight into the heart of things, assumes an authority over the monarch, and, coming to him, inquires, "What have these men said? and whence came they to thee?" "He challenges the king to explain his conduct. Jehovah's will is opposed to all coquetting with foreign powers." It is "weaving a web without his Spirit" (Isaiah 30:1). The answer of the king is indirect, perhaps evasive: "They have come from a far country, from Babylon" - as if hinting that hospitality to them was a duty. A second stem question follows: "What have they seen in the house of the king?" And the king replies that he has shown them all his treasures. There is that in the very manner and questions of the prophet which implies censure. What he sees in the act of the king is an uplifting of the heart; not merely pride in his resources and wealth as such, but reliance on worldly resources - a desire to match himself with the great Eastern power on its own ground. And this is an affront to the Divine King in Zion, who had founded it that the afflicted of his people might find refuge therein (Isaiah 14:32). "Not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts" is ever the word, the principle, on which the kingdom must stand. If Hezekiah has violated this, there must be retribution, either in his person or in the persons of those he represents.

III. THE PUNISHMENT. It was to correspond to his sin. "He thought to subscribe his quota to a profane coalition, and his treasures should be violently laid hold of by wolves in sheep's clothing." Babylon had solicited friendship; she would end by enforcing slavery. Calm and dispassionate is the tone in which the prophet speaks. Charles the Great could not help weeping at the sight of the Northmen's vessels, thinking of the calamities which those fell pirates would bring on the flourishing coasts of the Franks. Jeremiah weeps at the thought of the cruelty of the Babylonians. In Isaiah contentment with the patent will of God overcomes his emotional susceptibility. All the boasted treasures of the king are to be carried away to Babylon, and his descendants are to become servants in the palace there. The king bows before the authority of the prophet, recognizing his word as the word of Jehovah, and as good. And further, he is thankful for the respite granted - for the promise that peace and steadfastness shall remain in his days. The chronicler says that he humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of Jehovah came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah. The picture of Hezekiah is that of a king who prospered in all his works. But the incident clearly teaches the danger prosperity brings to character and principle. It is but a "bad nurse to virtue; a nurse who is like to starve it in its infancy, and to spoil it in its growth." "The corrupt affection which has lain dead and frozen in the midst of distracting business or under adversity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon it, then, like a snake, it presently recovers its former strength and venom. When the channels of plenty run high, and every appetite is plied with abundance and variety, so that satisfaction is a mean word to express its enjoyment, then the inbred corruption of the heart shows itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for discipline and too big for correction. Prosperity, by fomenting a man's pride, lays a certain train for his ruin; Scripture and experience teach what a spite Providence constantly owes to the proud person. He is the very eyesore of Heaven; and God even looks upon his own supremacy as concerned to abase him. Prosperity attracts the malice and envy of the world; and it is impossible for a man in a wealthy and flourishing condition not to feel the stroke of men's tongues, and of their hands too, if occasion serves. Stones are only thrown at the fruit-laden tree. What made the King of Babylon invade Judaea but the royal stores and treasures displayed and boasted of by Hezekiah before the ambassadors, to the supplanting of his crown and the miserable captivity of his prosperity?" (South). In the day of prosperity consider! Let

"Consideration like an angel come,
And whip th' offending Adam out of us." J.

1. It would be a mistake to assume that the calamities here foretold were consequent on Hezekiah's fault. So, at first sight, they might appear to be; but we may be quite sure that they were not. For in other places these national disasters are referred, not to one individual delinquency, but to national apostasy and disobedience. It was simply that the pride of the king provided a suitable occasion for intimating the sad humiliations which were in store for his descendants; just as the complacent remark of the disciples called forth the prediction that those great stones of the temple, in which they so much rejoiced, would before long be cast down to the ground (Mark 13:1, 2). We need not, as indeed. we cannot, suppose that God would visit on a remote generation a terrible calamity in punishment of one comparatively small transgression.

2. It would be a mistake to suppose that Hezekiah was indifferent to the fate of his posterity so long as he and his contemporaries were secure (ver. 8). So selfish a spirit is inconceivable in so good a man. We have, of course, only a small part of his reply to the prophet; but we may assure ourselves that he meant nothing more than to signify his thankfulness that the judgments of God were to be mitigated by mercy toward himself and his people. The incident may speak to us of ?

I. THE PERIL OF COMPLACENCY. It seems that, after his recovery from sickness, gratitude was lost in self-gratulation. Then came the ostentation which met with the Divine reproof. Complacency is a very "slippery place" for our foot to tread. Only the steadiest can walk there without a stumble. Whatever may seem to justify it - even if it be successful philanthropy, religious service, or delightful devotion - it is a perilous place, in which it is easy to err and almost impossible to keep quite straight with God. Our occupancy of it should be but momentary; gratitude is much safer as well as much more acceptable to God.

II. THE DIVINE REBUKE. God reproved Hezekiah for his foolish ostentation. This is a sin which is no less offensive to him than it is distasteful to us. We can all see and do all feel how very unbecoming is pride in man. For:

1. We have nothing at all which we have not ultimately received from God.

2. Whatever we possess, whether of strength, beauty, faculty, honour, riches, etc., it is all so much more than we deserve.

3. At any moment we may be required to lay it down. Of the house of our power and our possession we are but "tenants-at-will." Who can tell that God may not be about to say to us, "This night' thou goest forth?

III. HUMAN ACQUIESCENCE. "Good is the word of the Lord." God's rebuke may be met with

(1) a sullen, rebellious resentment (Genesis 4:9);

(2) or with a stony and sinful indifference; when he humbles men in his providence, and they take no note at all of the humiliation he sends them, but continue in ungodliness;

(3) or with an ignorant astonishment; when men know not their own spiritual poverty and blindness (Revelation 3:17);

(4) or with a wise and reverent acquiescence (text); - then God is pleased with us, and we rise to higher ground in our Christian pilgrimage. - C.

I. OFFERED FRIENDSHIP MAY FIND GOOD EXCUSES, True in common life of the individual; specially true in the relation of nations. Diplomacy is the art of working out a policy under the shelter of the deception of skilful excuses. It seems to mean a very simple thing; it really works a very subtle work. Baladan had two excuses.

1. His messengers honoured Hezekiah with congratulations on his recovery. A polite thing, quite likely to disarm all suspicions, and win confidence.

2. From 2 Chronicles 32:31 we learn that Baladan also framed a scientific excuse, and desired his ambassadors to inquire concerning the singular astronomical phenomenon which had been reported. All this kept out of sight Baladan's political schemings.

II. OFFERED FRIENDSHIP MUST BE JUDGED BY THE CHARACTER OF THOSE WHO MAKE THE OFFER. It was at least suspicious that Baladan was acting as a rebel against his sovereign lord. Hezekiah might have looked for some schemes of his own in this embassy. Friendship is always the expression of character and the test of character. The friendship of one who is unprincipled is full of peril. "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers."

III. OFFERED FRIENDSHIP MAY PROPOSE MORE THAN IT CAN ACCOMPLISH. So we should distinguish between friendship that is self-seeking and friendship that is weakly gushing, yet sincere. Our friends, in their love, often promise more than they can perform; and we must learn to take the will for the deed, giving credit for good intentions. God never disappoints.

IV. OFFERED FRIENDSHIP MAY HIDE POSITIVELY MALICIOUS DESIGNS. This will lead to references to the offered friendship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the utter baseness and iniquity of Judas in coming to Jesus as a friend on the night of betrayal. - R.T.

I. TEMPTATIONS TO PRESUMPTION.

1. These come partly out of natural disposition. There is an evil of over-meekness; sometimes we find a lack of energy and self-assertion which prevents men from impressing themselves on any sphere of life which they may be called to occupy. But there is much more frequently the evil of over-assertion, that belongs to energetic, enterprising natures, that take life with a strong grip. Many men cannot wait. They form their judgments quickly, and want them immediately acted on. And such persons are constantly tempted to presume. If good men, they act first, and ask of God the approval of their actions. Oftentimes this strong self-willedness is a hereditary disposition, which the Christian spirit has to battle with and overcome. Oftentimes it is sadly fostered by the pettings of childhood, and the false education of youth; and then it is the serious confirmed evil that is hardly overcome even in a lifelong struggle.

2. The temptations come partly out of circumstances. In the desperateness of business pressure, the almost bankrupt man presumes on his friends, acts wilfully, and even brings others down in his ruin. But circumstances of success prove even greater temptations. Nebuchadnezzar is the type of the presumers, as he stands in the midst of his city, saying, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?"

II. SIN OF PRESUMPTION.

1. It is sin against man's creaturehood. Man is not an independent being. He cannot stand alone. "No man can keep alive his own soul." He has nothing of his own. Then he has no right to presume.

2. It is a sin against a man's childhood. Parents have to repress this spirit in their children, because it is subversive of true home-life. And so must the great Father.

3. It is especially sin in man as redeemed. Because, as redeemed, man is the humbled sinner, who is made a monument of grace, and ought to walk humbly with God, always coming after him, and never pressing on before. The evil of this sin is seen in the deterioration of Christian character which follows whenever it is indulged.

III. PUNISHMENT OF PRESUMPTION. Usually this comes by the failure of the self-willed plans; or the sad results that follow the self willed course that is taken. In the case of Hezekiah God sends a vision of what will follow out of that embassy of which the king was so proud. It was the thin end of a wedge. Driven home, by-and-by, it meant the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of Judah, by those very Babylonians. Hezekiah boasted in order to get a worldly alliance. His boastings excited cupidity, which presently led to the carrying away of the exhibited treasures. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" into the sin of presumption. - R.T.

I. ORDER OR DISORDER? The manifest presence of a strong hand keeping every one in order and everything in its place; or the painful absence of it?

II. OBEDIENCE OR DISOBEDIENCE? Filial readiness and even eagerness to comply at once with the parents' wish; or the lingering step or even the entire disregard of that desire?

III. COURTESY OR DISCOURTESY? Habitually becoming behaviour at the table and the hearth; or the unwise neglect of those smaller observances which minister to the beauty and the sweetness of daily life?

IV. LOVE OR INDIFFERENCE, OR POSITIVE DISLIKE? The presence of that warm affection which should bind husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, in the bonds of happy and enduring fellowship; or a cold and sad indifference to one another's well-being; or a still sadder animosity and persecution?

V. SELFISHNESS OR SYMPATHY? The confinement of thought and care to the four walls of the home establishment; or a considerate and generous regard for the wants and wishes of neighbours and fellow-citizens?

VI. PIETY OR WORLDLINESS? Family worship, and - what is better still - a prevailing religious tone, as if parents and children all felt that temporal success was a very small thing in comparison with spiritual worth; or the language and habits of an ignoble and degrading worldliness? - C.

I. COMPREHENSIVE LOSS. "Nothing shall be left." "All that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carded to Babylon." Exactly. There is always a Babylon which itself becomes a ruin. Grecian art is taken to Rome, there to be demolished in the sacking of the city. Treasures are taken in after years to Paris, there to be lost in flames. How few relics of any time or nation remain! and in due course these are lost to the possessors. If this is true on the great scale of nations, how manifestly true it is of ourselves! Let us look around on all the present possessions of earth, and remember that, so far as we are concerned, "nothing shall be left." "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be?"

II. IMMORTAL GAIN. The prophet is true in this revelation of loss. So is the apostle true when he says, "All things are yours." All that a man is remains, and all that a man does in loyal service remains. So there is permanence amid impermanence. The tabernacle totters, but the tenant lives. "The outward man perisheth, but the inward man is renewed day by day." All that is in thine house is lost, but all that is in thine heart is immortal. It behoves us, therefore, to remember that the true jewels are soul-jewels; the true ornament is in the hidden man of the heart; the imperishable wealth is in the sanctities of Heaven and the smile of God. "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." - W.M.S.

I. FUTURE THINGS THAT FLING SHADOWS OVER THE PRESENT.

1. The fear of the young Christian that he will not hold out to the end, Often a morbid fear; always an unworthy fear, because it really means our doubting whether God can keep us safely to the end.

2. Fears born of the difficulties of times of business depression. Parents often talk, in their homes, about the workhouse, in a joking way, which nevertheless means that the shadow of it lies upon their lives. A dread of failure and bankruptcy broods over many a business man. Unworthy dread, in view of the promise, "Verily thou shalt be fed."

3. Fears growing out of conditions of health. The exaggeration of this is observed in cases of religious mania or nervous depression. Then all the future is black and hopeless, and the soul immovably accepts the idea that it is for ever lost. These fears, alas! often inspire the suicide to his self-murderous deed.

4. Fears that gather about the certainty of judgment when the conscience bears testimony to guilt. A whole life may be shadowed by a crime. It is not the memory of the crime that flings the shadows; it is the conviction that the crime must come up again to view some day, and make its appeal for vengeance. In one way or another shadows lie on all our lives.

II. PRESENT THINGS THAT RELIEVE THE SHADOWS FLUNG BY THE FUTURE.

1. Human hope. The most indestructible thing in human breasts.

2. Right estimate of life; as the sphere in which a great moral purpose is being wrought out: character is being moulded by the mingled influence of things evil and things good.

3. The comforting promises of God; which assure us of Divine overcomings and overrulings.

4. And the assurance of the abiding Divine presence, which is a constant sweet light that, falling on the very shadows, touches them with golden glowing, even as dark evening clouds are kindled into glory at the after-sunset. - R.T.

I. CHRIST'S LEGACY WAS PEACE. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." This is not peace of condition, but peace of conscience. The ocean, like Christ's life, may be troubled outwardly, but there is rest at the heart of it. We cannot judge by the surface-features of life. We must enter within to know if there be really peace. We must see the man in trouble, trial, solitude, and death. Then we shall see how true the acclamation is, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Bunyan had peace in Bedford Gaol; so had the confessors and martyrs of olden time.

II. CHRIST'S ATONEMENT GIVES PEACE. "Having made peace through the blood of his cross." We may be unable to give a theory of the atonement that can cover all its meaning - from the days of Anselm until now men have debated about that; but in depths of agony about sin we feel the need of a Saviour, and rejoice to sing -

"Nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to thy cross I cling."

III. CHRIST GIVES PEACE THROUGH TRUTH. He tells the truth about our moral state and condition. He reveals the truth concerning the nature and purposes of God. He unveils the immortal life, not only as a doctrine, but in himself, in heavenly beauty of the earthly life. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." How comfortable it is to rest on this gracious promise, and to know that the True One cannot lie! - W.M.S.

I. SOME THINK THEY SUBMIT WHEN THEY HAVE ONLY CEASED TO CARE. The two things are quite distinct. A man only truly submits while he keeps his care, and has his personal desire and wish still vigorous. True submission is the voluntary giving up of one's own wish because we accept the wish of another. The glory of it is that it is hard. It is easy enough when we have ceased to care.

II. SOME THINK THEY SUBMIT WREN THEY ONLY LIE DOWN UNDER GOD. As dying people, if asked whether they submit, will often say, "Oh yes; there is nothing else I can do." God is too big for them - that is all. If he were not, they would still struggle against him. This is the Mohammedan form of submission. "Allah Akbar!" - "God is great!" "Islam" - "We must submit to him." The exaggeration of this kind of submission is found in the Eastern doseh. Men lie down on the ground side by side, and let the king ride on horseback over their shoulders. Our God asks for no such submission as that.

III. SOME THINK THEY SUBMIT WHEN THE BURDEN IS LIFTED FROM THEM TO REST ON OTHERS. A very comfortable, but very mean, sort of submission. A selfish submission that acquiesces in a will of God that shields ourselves, whatever others may have to suffer. This was Hezekiah's submission. "Good is the will of the Lord in judgment, for he has shifted it over to make things comfortable for me." It is impossible to give Hezekiah much credit for so poor a submission as that.

IV. TRUE HEARTS THINK THEY SUBMIT ONLY WHEN THEY LOVINGLY ACCEPT THE HOLY WILL, WHATEVER THAT WILL MAY INVOLVE. Submission is the expression of confidence, the breath of trust, the sign of perfect love. It is the uttered child-heart. It cannot make any qualifications. Its unceasing refrain is, "My Father knows." The one sublime example of submission is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, though the holy will involved bitterest personal suffering, could sincerely say, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." After Christ the world's great figure of submission is the venerable Moses, ascending Nebo to receive the kiss of God and die, "with Canaan's goodly land in view." - R.T.