2 Kings 1:1-8 - Homilies By D. Thomas

Worldly royalty and personal godliness.

"Then Moab rebelled against Israel," etc. The two Books of Kings, which form but one in the most correct and ancient edition of the Hebrews, whilst they constitute a very strange and significant history, are fraught with much moral and practical suggestion. These verses bring under our notice two subjects of thought—worldly royalty in a humiliating condition, and personal godliness truly majestic.

I. WORLDLY ROYALTY IN A HUMILIATING CONDITION .

1. Here is a king in mortal suffering . "And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick." Nature has no more respect for kings than for beggars; her laws treat them as ordinary mortals.

2. Here is a king in mental distress . On his bed of suffering the king's mind was most painfully exercised as to what would be the issue of his bodily suffering. He sends messengers to the idols in order to ask whether "I shall recover of this disease." No doubt the fear of death distressed him, as indeed it distresses most.

3. Here is a king in superstitious darkness . He had no knowledge of the true God, no enlightened religious feeling, and he sent his messengers to an idol—the god of flies-to know whether he should recover or not. What a humiliating condition for royalty to be in! And yet it is a condition in which kings and princes are often found. The other subject of thought here is—

II. PERSONAL GODLINESS TRULY MAJESTIC . Elijah is an example of personal godliness, though, in a worldly sense, he was very poor, and his costume seemed to be almost the meanest of the mean. "He was a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." But see the majesty of this man in two things.

1. In receiving communication from heaven . "But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite." A truly godly man is ever in correspondence with Heaven; his "conversation is in heaven."

2. In reproving the king . "Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron?" The thing called religion in many countries is just strong enough to reprove the poor, but too weak to thunder reproof into the ear of the corrupt and pleasure-seeking monarchs. In his reproof he pronounces on him the Divine judgment, "Thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die."

CONCLUSION . Which is the better, do you think—a throne or a godly character? Fools only prefer the former; the man of sense, thoughtfulness, and reflection would say the latter.—D.T.