Homilist Judges 18:1-31 In those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in… I. ALL MEN HAVE A GOD. 1. Whatever a man's god be, he deems it the greatest good. 2. But man's ideas of God are very deficient and conflicting. Some make a god of the means of gratifying their passions and lusts; others make money and riches their god; others the praise and approbation of their fellow-creatures, and others the outward rites and ceremonies of religion. 3. It is one thing to be religious; another and a very different matter to be godly, worshipping the Father "in spirit and in truth." II. FALSE GODS CAN BE TAKEN FROM THEIR DEVOTEES. 1. Often in life. Many, long before they die, lose the means of gratifying sense; many, early in life, though lovers of money, become pitifully poor; and many, by some means or other, are deprived of the means to pursue their accustomed mode of attending to religious rites, and therefore lose their gods. 2. In death. Sense cannot be gratified in the grave. No miser has ever been able to take a grain of his adored money to another world. The world's praise and blame are equally unimportant when a man feels he is to be ushered before the judgment-seat; and all religious rites and formularies are left behind for ever when we enter a world of spirits. III. THE LOSS, EVEN OF A FALSE GOD, WILL BE FELT TO BE A GREAT LOSS. "What have I more?" To tear the thing we have made our god from us is the greatest bereavement. Even though the thing is bad, it has been loved supremely, and the loss of it will create a vacuum and an agony intolerable. But the conscious loss of the true God — this is the climax of suffering. Then the soul is a chaos, an orphan in the universe. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: In those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel. |
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