2 Chronicles 12:8 Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. They shall be servants to him [for a short time], that they may discern my service and the service of the kingdoms of the lands; i.e. that they may see that my rule is not so oppressive as that of foreign kings (Keil). God would let Rehoboam and the princes of Judah be for a time subject to Shishak - be in his power, be at his mercy, be compelled to go through the miserable humiliation of buying him off - that he might be able to contrast the honourable and happy service which he had known for three years (2 Chronicles 11:17) with the unendurable subjection to which he was now reduced. He should feel and know that the way of transgressors is hard; that between the bonds of the Lord and the yoke of the stranger there was all the difference between blessedness and misery, between a holy service and a degrading servitude. I. THE DEGRADING SERVITUDE. "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants [or, 'slaves'] ye are to whom ye obey?" "Ye were the servants [slaves] of sin; ... Being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness" (Romans 6:16-18). 1. Sin is a foreign power. It is a stranger; it is an interloper; it has stepped in between ourselves and God; it is like the Egyptian forces that came up against Judah and Jerusalem, and sought to bring the people of God into captivity. Sin is our natural enemy, whom we have greatest reason to dread. 2. Sin proves a hard master, and forces to a cruel bondage. It is the ultimate source of poverty, and that is a hard master; it leads to vice, and that holds its victims in the most degrading thraldom; it throws around its subjects the coils of procrastination, and these hold the spirit in an evil circle from which it tries vainly to escape; it takes men further and further away from God, and leads them down to sources of satisfaction that are sure to fail and to end in disappointment and heart-ache; it is a sorry servitude in which to suffer; it is in very striking contrast to - II. THE HOLY SERVICE OF THE SAVIOUR. TO recognize the claims of our Divine Father and Redeemer, to yield ourselves in glad self-surrender to him, to spend our days and powers in his service - what is this? 1. It is the one right thing to do. It is to be fulfilling the greatest and strongest of all obligations. 2. It is the path of true liberty. Every servant of a Divine Saviour can say and sing - "In a service which thy love appoints There are no bonds for me, A life of self-renouncing love Is a life of liberty." 3. It is the secret and the source of lasting peace and of abiding joy. 4. It is the commencement of that life which is "life indeed," which is the beginning and foretaste of "eternal life" - the life which is of God, for God, with God, in God. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. |
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