1. It will be my endeavour to show you how to acquire this assurance; and, first of all, avoid religious excitement avoid the cultivation of feelings which, however sincerely entertained at the time, have to confess their hollowness in the searching privacies of the chamber. We are told, remember, to "pray in secret" — "not to let our right hand know what our left doeth" — "to commune with our own heart, and to be still"; we are to ask God to try and prove our sincerity, as being able to accomplish what is not in the power of either ourselves or of the world. Until, therefore, we are assured, by secret self-examinations, that these rules and descriptions are practically exemplified in our own lives, we should avoid obtaining, by public excitation, a character for religious zeal to which conscience in private gives the lie. When once a man feels that he has a character for religion to sustain before the world, which he cannot support satisfactorily when alone — when to men he must appear one thing, and he involuntarily knows that to himself he is another — he has made the first step towards hypocrisy, and hypocrites God always deserts!

2. Let me tell you another way of both increasing and proving your zeal, which is this — be fervent in prayer. You will often find — the very best of you, I fear — that when your prayers are ended your thoughts have throughout been wandering, and that scarcely a petition which fell from your lips had any real sense attached to it: other things were in your mind, interesting and absorbing it.

(A. Gatty, M. A.)

I. BAD MEN ARE GLAD OF THE APPROVAL OF RELIGIOUS TEACHERS IN THEIR SCHEMES. The multitudes exhibit the deep and unshaken belief that there is an impartial and omniscient Power, who maintains a perfect government in His universe. Spite of all denial, infidelity, and bravado, the wicked have the stubborn conviction that God will visit for their sins.. At the same time, the desire is strangely parent of the hope, that He can be persuaded to mitigate the judgment, or consent to their malign plans. His representatives are regarded as clothed with a certain authority which may be helpful or prejudicial. If their sanction can be obtained, the evil-doer often fancies the Lord is thereby committed. The anathemas of Pope Gregory brought the haughty Henry IV. to his feet in abject entreaty, while the tormenting conscience of Charles IX. was quieted, for a little, at the news of the "Te Deums" sung in Rome over the massacre of the Huguenots. The Divine will was thought, in both cases, to accord with the act of His vicegerents. It seems to be forgotten, that, if any servant is false, his Lord is not therefore untrue; if he is mistaken, his liege is not also; if he gives permit to wrong, the "God without iniquity, just and fight," does not. The statutes of Christian states may allow and protect slavery, prostitution, dram-selling, easy divorce, but he who thinks therefore to have secured the approval of his Maker in such practices is utterly deceived. The wink of devils ought to bring even a slender saint to his senses. The smile and applause of the wolf ought to create suspicion in his unwary partner. While the world endures, he will try to secure the alliance of the shepherd. Returning to the pair, of such contrasted presence, hurrying on towards Samaria, we catch another sentence from the excited soldier's lips, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." At once we bethink ourselves that —

II. TRUE PIETY IS NEVER BOASTFUL. Jehu verily thought that he cared much for Jehovah, as he gloated in imagination over the complete destruction of the worshippers of Baal. Idolatry had proved the weakness of the nation and undermined the throne. He was king, and would sit secure only when these perfidious, irreligious subjects were slain. He found that, to rid the earth of them, was to exalt his own name and prestige. The "stroke of policy" was a stroke of piety. He and the Lord were fighting together. He, at any rate, would get great glory out of it. "My zeal" must advertise itself — can never survive unless it does. Holy ardour, on the contrary, is never aware of its own exhibition. The scourge in the hands of the Christ was the token of his zeal for the honour and purity of His Father's house. It was a ready means to a worthy end — aimed at effect indeed, but not display. John the Baptist, of fiery purpose, was content to be only "a voice," that the Messiah might be seen. Mary's box of ointment has shed its sweet perfume of loving unworthiness through the centuries, but she never dreamed of its mention as a costly offering. All the really great things which the disciples of Christ have performed have been without ostentation or consciousness of their superiority. It is a Hindu saying that, "Lowliness excites no man's envy," but it does inspire the like grace in a sincere heart. Well had it been for this hero of Israel, if he could have heard the later word of one, every whit his equal in false zeal, but who had learned in the white light of Divine rebuke, that "the things which are despised hath God chosen, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence." We watch now for the illustration of the single-hearted soldier's zeal, and witnessing the trap set and sprung, and the revolting butchery, are forced to conclude —

III. THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS ARE LIKELY TO REGARD THE SUGGESTIONS OF THEIR PASSIONS, AS THE DIVINE COMMAND. It was a momentous order which Jehu received from the prophet, to destroy the whole reigning family. It came to a ready spirit. By the solemn law of the nation the unfaithful king and all related to him had forfeited their claim upon life. It was a fatal transgression to depart from the Living God. The executioner might be pestilence, or flames leaping from the clouds, or an invading host, or some mighty man armed for the work. Right thoroughly it had been done. The ghastly pile of seventy heads of princes, laid on either side of the gate of Jezreel, had witnessed to this servant's energy and fidelity. The taste of blood had created, as in the tiger, an imperious thirst. A wild glare was in his eye as the Rechabite tried to read its secret. Interpreting his orders that not only the dynasty of Ahab, but that of Baal too, must fall by the sword, he set about it in terrible earnest. Craft and cruelty combined against priest and devotee. All who had come up to the solemn festival came, instead, to the shambles, and not one escaped. So Mahomet-Ali conquered the Mamelukes; so Amalric stamped out heresy in Languedoc, bidding: "Kill them all. The Lord will know who are His." It ws the complete and final overshow of the accursed system of Baal worship. Was it not, like the hangman's act, a dread necessity? We cannot answer; but, till we find precise instructions for such wholesale slaughter, we shall presume he exceeded his commission. So have men ever since been construing their low .inclinations, as being also the good pleasure of their Creator. Every form of sin has "had such apology." Divinities have been invented to favour and further the most depraved appetites, while, to-day, not a few are trying to believe that God is "altogether such an one as" themselves. To make our own moral standards, is to antagonise the eternal laws. The closing scene of the tragedy passes before us. It is evident from it, that —

IV. TO DESTROY ONE FORM OF SIN IS NOT TO ABOLISH ALL. We see this zealous soul going straightway to offer sacrifice at the shrine of the golden calves, after the fashion of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin. Even if Jehu had been familiar from youth with this corrupted religious system, he did know that at Jerusalem the .true God was worshipped, not in the likeness of living things. His besom could have swept away the altars and images of the one form of idolatry as well as the other. Not seeing nor embracing his opportunity, he gave the lie to all professions of love and jealousy for the Lord. "His zeal for righteousness did not turn inwards and burn up his own sins." The popular faith answered well enough for him. He would be as good as the average. What a pattern of the modern saint! Hot in indignation toward that which affects him not; very careful where his seeming interests are involved, the old couplet fits him well, as all who —

Compound for sins they are inclined to,

Condemning those they have no mind to.Such easy terms do men make with God! Such choices are they ready for, and pride themselves in! Making a merit of temperance, they indulge in lust; lavish with their wealth, they are vindictive toward one who has wronged them; harping much on philanthropy, they are untrustworthy. One sin cherished is enough to keep the soul for ever under condemnation. A slight flaw in the diamond renders it unfit to be set in the crown. Heaven is lost by withholding the whole heart. This career, so startling and dramatic, terminated sadly. Reward was given for his grim but appointed service. Judgment was visited for his profane worship. His strong arm lost its terror. His last days were clouded by the denial of his ambition, that his name might abide in the rulers of the future. Furious driving is sure to end in wreck, unless the omnipotent hand is also upon the reins, guiding the impassioned soul along the King's highway. That he spurned it is plain, as we read in Hosea: "And I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel."

(Monday Club Sermons.)

1. Zeal is the same word as fervour. In its forcible original meaning, it is the bubbling up of the boiling spirit; the opposite of an impassive, cold-hearted indifference; the outburst of that generous indignation which cannot endure to see right trampled underfoot by might; the overflowing of that gratitude, devotion, love towards God, which counts no toil irksome and no suffering intolerable if it may express its own sense of His greatness, of His goodness, of His long-suffering of Christ, and draws others by its example to know and to speak good of His name; the glowing warmth of that Divine humanity which would willingly spend, and be spent, in snatching but one or two brands from the burning. This is what we mean by zeal. The zeal of Jehu was of a lower order than this. Yet even Jehu may reprove. Would that there were more of us — must I say, that there were any of us? — who could say in any true sense, like Jehu, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord!" Any zeal for God, even an ignorant, a mistaken, a rash zeal, were better far for us than none. Instead of it what have we? We show our zeal for God — if that sacred name can thus be parodied — chiefly by the infliction of arbitrary and most dis. proportionate punishment upon offenders, not against the moral law of God but against the moral law of the world. Where God has spoken, man may sin and scarcely suffer; where the world has spoken, no sorrow and no suffering, no lapse of time, no sincerity of repentance, and no consistency of amendment, is allowed to replace the erring man or woman within the pale of a human sympathy, or even of a Christian charity. Such is zeal for God, when debased and disfigured by the modifying hand of man.

2. And this brings us to apply to ourselves, in the way of counsel and warning, the unfavourable part of the character before us. Jehu had a zeal for God, but Jehu nevertheless took no heed to walk in God's law with all his heart.(1) There is great force in that word, "took no heed" — observed not, as the margin renders it — to walk in God's way. We all know what heedlessness is in a child. In the things of religion, in the ways of God and of the soul, we are all too much children. To the heedlessness of human nature most of our sins may be traced up. "Wherewithal shall a man cleanse his way?" etc. (Psalm 119:9).(2) Jehu took no heed to walk in God's law "with all his heart." Is not this the fault in our service, the cause of our heedlessness, that the heart is not right with God? Therefore it was that Jehu gave zeal, but could not give obedience; gave zeal, but could not give consistency; gave zeal, but could not give love. And therefore it is that we too often give neither zeal nor obedience, neither zeal nor love. Christian zeal, like Christian- faith, worketh by love. If you are tender to the suffering, if you are plain with the sinful — yet both alike in humility and in all kindness — then you may hope that your zeal has something in it of Christ. But, most of all, look within. Look to the heart. See whether there is any love of God there.

(The Dean of Llandaff.)

II. TO ACQUIRE THIS ASSURANCE, AVOID RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENT. We are told to "pray in secret" — "not to let our right hand know what our left doeth." We are to ask God to prove our sincerity; the recesses of the soul are His dwelling-place. Until we are assured, by self-examination, that these descriptions are exemplified in our own lives, let us avoid obtaining, by religious public excitation, a character for religious zeal to which conscience in private gives the lie.

III. GENUINE ZEAL, FOR GOD IS FOUNDED AND MATURED IN THE HEART AND CHARACTER BY THE COUNSELS OF THE SPIRIT. After Paul's conversion, three days of blindness and fasting were necessary for the conviction of his error and the growth of a counter resolution. His sub. sequent zeal in the ministry shows that the principles must be established by an inward conviction, and not be moved by mere outward impressions (1 Corinthians 9:26, 27).

IV. INSTEAD OF CONGRATULATING OURSELVES, THEN, THAT WE KNOW NOTHING OF THESE FEELINGS, LET US BE HUMBLED THAT WE ARE DEVOID OF THEM. In wanting them altogether, we want that without which religion is an empty profession.

V. WHEREVER THERE IS A TRUE FAITH, THERE WITH BE A ZEAL WHICH WILL THINK NOTHING TOO GOOD TO GIVE UP FOR (Galatians 2:20). Pray for (Romans 10:2), which manifests itself in a holy love, and consistent obedience. Such a zeal had Daniel, Shadrach, etc.; Paul (Acts 21:13); David (Psalm 73:24, 25). Such a zeal may not, at present, obtain the applause of men; but it will not be forgotten when (Luke 12:8), and when every act flowing from love to God in Christ shall be recorded before assembled worlds.

(H. Blunt.)

I. FALSE ZEAL. Jehu is an instance of this. Proceeding from —

1. Natural energy of character (2 Kings 9:20, 24, etc.).

2. Sense of being appointed and qualified for some particular service (2 Kings 9:1-7).

3. Seeking praise. of men (text). The heart may nevertheless be not right with God — may be going after its idols (2 Kings 10:29, 31).

II. TRUE ZEAL. St. Paul is an instance of this. In him zeal for the Lord was visible, prominent, as in Jehu; but with this difference: in Jehu it resembles the fitful flashes of a thunderstorm, sudden and vivid, contrasting with, yet not dissipating, the darkness out of which it springs. In St. Paul it ever burns with clear and steadfast light, illuminating the entire course of his life, and shedding a halo of glory around his martyr death. We see its commencement (Acts 9:6); its continuance (1 Corinthians 9:26, 27; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 3:13, 14); its close (2 Timothy 4:6-8). Whence this difference? St. Paul was naturally an idolater no less than Jehu. His idols were self-righteousness, Judaism, Pharisaism — zeal very similar to that of Jehu (Philippians 3:4-6). These, however, were overthrown when Jesus was revealed to him as his Redeemer, convincing him of, and cleansing him from, sin; making known to him the true character of God. Thenceforward his motto was, "God, whose I am, and whom I serve" (Acts 27:23).

III. LESSON FOR US. No true zeal for God until and unless we know Him as the "only true God and Jesus Christ," etc. (John 17:3). No true zeal for Him until we have personally realised His loving, self-sacrificing zeal for us in our salvation through Christ Jesus.

(R. Chester, B. A.)

2. But Jehu's character was stained by vindictiveness, The bloody role assigned to him by the Omnipotent was congenial to his nature. He was ready enough to obey God so long as the Divine command fell in with his own ambitious and bloodthirsty passions. A man who wished the stones cleared away from a little plot of ground once called together the boys of the neighbourhood, and setting up a mark outside of his ground, proposed that all should throw stones at it. The stones were soon removed. How ready we are to do God's will when it happens to coincide with our own feelings! "We seize eagerly, says Goethe, upon a law that will serve as a weapon to our passions."

3. Jehu was a kind of human tiger, and only too glad to have God use him as such. He had, indeed, a sense of destiny, like Napoleon or Stanley; but this destiny impelled him along the grooves of his own lust for rule and thirst for blood. His personal enemies, — the family of Ahab, which stood between him and the throne, the worshippers of Baal, who might cause his royal head to rest uneasy, — he went at them as if armed with a firman from the Almighty. He was like an executioner hacking his victim to pieces with fierce glee. It was as if a Christian, moved by Scripture precepts drawn from a far-away age and from a legal dispensation, should beat his child in anger. How different the spirit of a father whom I knew! After using the rod prayerfully, reluctantly, and even tenderly, he broke it up and threw it into the fire. Jehu was like some of the old divines, who seemed to preach hell with a gusto. Jehu is like a minister secretly rejoicing over the heresy of a successful rival and suddenly becoming valiant for the very phase of truth which his erring brother has slighted.

(E. Judson, D. D.)

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2 Kings 10:1-3

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2 Kings 10:1-9

     5203   acquittal

Catholic Spirit
"And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him, and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered: It is. If it be, give me thine hand." 2 Kings 10:15. 1. It is allowed even by those who do not pay this great debt, that love is due to all mankind, the royal law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," carrying its own evidence to all that hear it: and that, not according to the miserable …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

False Civilization
JEREMIAH xxxv. 19. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever. Let us think a while this morning what this text has to do with us; and why this strange story of the Rechabites is written for our instruction, in the pages of Holy Scripture. Let us take the story as it stands, and search the Scriptures simply for it. For the Bible will surely tell its own story best, and teach its own lesson best. These Rechabites, who …
Charles Kingsley—Discipline and Other Sermons

Which Sentence Dishonoreth the Holy Martyrs, Nay Rather Taketh Away Holy Martyrdoms Altogether. ...
3. Which sentence dishonoreth the holy Martyrs, nay rather taketh away holy martyrdoms altogether. For they would do more justly and wisely, according to these men, not to confess to their persecutors that they were Christians, and by confessing make them murderers: but rather by telling a lie, and denying what they were, should both themselves keep safe the convenience of the flesh and purpose of the heart, and not allow those to accomplish the wickedness which they had conceived in their mind. …
St. Augustine—Against Lying

The Hebrews and the Philistines --Damascus
THE ISRAELITES IN THE LAND OF CANAAN: THE JUDGES--THE PHILISTINES AND THE HEBREW KINGDOM--SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON, THE DEFECTION OF THE TEN TRIBES--THE XXIst EGYPTIAN DYNASTY--SHESHONQ OR SHISHAK DAMASCUS. The Hebrews in the desert: their families, clans, and tribes--The Amorites and the Hebrews on the left bank of the Jordan--The conquest of Canaan and the native reaction against the Hebrews--The judges, Ehud, Deborah, Jerubbaal or Gideon and the Manassite supremacy; Abimelech, Jephihdh. The Philistines, …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 6

Justification by an Imputed Righteousness;
OR, NO WAY TO HEAVEN BUT BY JESUS CHRIST. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This is one of those ten excellent manuscripts which were found among Bunyan's papers after his decease in 1688. It had been prepared by him for publication, but still wanted a few touches of his masterly hand, and a preface in his characteristic style. He had, while a prisoner for nonconformity, in 1672, published a treatise upon this subject, in reply to Mr. Fowler, who was soon after created Bishop of Gloucester; but that was …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Whole Heart
LET me give the principal passages in which the words "the whole heart," "all the heart," are used. A careful study of them will show how wholehearted love and service is what God has always asked, because He can, in the very nature of things, ask nothing less. The prayerful and believing acceptance of the words will waken the assurance that such wholehearted love and service is exactly the blessing the New Covenant was meant to make possible. That assurance will prepare us for turning to the Omnipotence …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

Elucidations.
I. (Deadly Sins, cap. ix., p. 356.) To maintain a modern and wholly uncatholic system of Penitence, the schoolmen invented a technical scheme of sins mortal and sins venial, which must not be read into the Fathers, who had no such technicalities in mind. By "deadly sins" they meant all such as St. John recognizes (1 John v. 16-17) and none other; that is to say sins of surprise and infirmity, sins having in them no malice or wilful disobedience, such as an impatient word, or a momentary neglect of …
Tertullian—The Five Books Against Marcion

The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint.
1. The carnal mind the source of the objections which are raised against the Providence of God. A primary objection, making a distinction between the permission and the will of God, refuted. Angels and men, good and bad, do nought but what has been decreed by God. This proved by examples. 2. All hidden movements directed to their end by the unseen but righteous instigation of God. Examples, with answers to objections. 3. These objections originate in a spirit of pride and blasphemy. Objection, that …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament