2 Kings 18:5-7 - Homiletics

God's service not really a hard service.

God's service is not the hard service that some suppose it to be. No doubt it involves a certain amount of pain and suffering. For, first, there is no true service of God without self-denial; and self-denial is painful. Secondly, it involves chastening at the hand of God; for "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" ( Hebrews 12:6 ); and chastening is "not joyous, but grievous' ( Hebrews 12:11 ). But there are to be set against these pains so many and so great compensations as leave a vast preponderance of advantage, and even enjoyment, to the godly over the ungodly.

I. THE SATISFACTION OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE . Just as there is nothing so painful, so depressing, so burdensome, as an evil conscience, the continually abiding sense of guiltiness and ill desert, so there is nothing which is a greater comfort to a man, more calculated to sustain him and maintain within him a perpetual quiet cheerfulness, than "the answer of a good conscience towards God" ( 1 Peter 3:21 ), the knowledge that one has striven and is striving to do God's will, and that by God's grace one has been kept from falling away from him. Notwithstanding their self-depreciation and self-distrust, good men have, on the whole, a self-approving conscience ( Romans 2:15 ), which is a source of inward satisfaction and enjoyment.

II. THE ESTEEM AND APPROVAL OF GOOD MEN . There is implanted in man a love of approbation, the gratification of which is the source of a very positive pleasure. Godly men, good men, whatever amount of dislike they may arouse among those whose designs they thwart, or to whom their lives are a continual reproach, elicit from the better sort a much greater amount of very warm and cordial approval. This cannot but be a satisfaction to them. The praise of men is not what they seek; but when it comes to them unsought, as it will almost certainly come at last, it cannot fail to be grateful and acceptable.

III. TEMPORAL PROSPERITY ARISING FROM MAN 'S RESPECT AND ESTEEM . The approval of our fellowmen naturally leads on to temporal advantages. Men place those whom they esteem in situations of trust, which are also, generally or frequently, situations of emolument. They make them presents or leave them legacies. They give them their custom, and recommend their friends to do the same. The worldly maxim, "Honesty is the best policy," witnesses to the worldly advantage which accrues, by mere natural causation, to the upright, honest man. "All things work together for good to them that love God;" and, generally speaking, even this world's goods seem to gather round them, and to cling to them, in spite of their slight esteem for earthly dross, and their proneness to scatter their riches on those around them.

IV. TEMPORAL PROSPERITY ARISING FROM THE DIRECT ACTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE . Of this we have in Hezekiah a notable example. He "clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments … and the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth ." The Divine blessing rested on all that he did; God "prospered him in all his works." When he seemed at the point of death, he miraculously recovered from his sickness, and God added to his life fifteen years ( 2 Kings 20:6 ). When he provoked a judgment by indiscreet ostentation, the boon was granted him that the judgment should not fall in his days ( 2 Kings 20:19 ). When an overwhelming calamity seemed about to fall upon him, and to crush both him and his nation, the catastrophe was averted by a stupendous miracle—the Assyrian host was destroyed, and the peril escaped ( 2 Kings 19:35 ). "Riches and honor exceeding much" were given him ( 2 Chronicles 32:27 ), and he was "magnified in the sight of all the nations" ( 2 Chronicles 32:23 ). It may be said that all this was abnormal, and belonged to " the age of miracles;" but the principles of God's action do not change, and if we examine human life at the present day dispassionately , we shall find that still, as general rule , if men cleave to the Lord, and keep his commandments, and depart not from following him, he will be with them, and will, more or less, prosper them.