Daniel 1:1-2

National retribution.

I. HE WHO KNOWS NOTHING OF GOD MAY BE THE UNCONSCIOUS INSTRUMENT OF THE DIVINE WILL . Nebuchadnezzar, who has never heard of the Hebrew prophecies, fulfils their solemn predictions. This throws some light on God's providential relations to evil.

1 . The motives which prompt a bad man to an action may be different from the motives which incline God to permit it. God may permit the action of selfish cruelty because he sees it will issue in righteous chastisement.

2 . A man who ignores the Divine guidance can still go no farther than God permits him. Jerusalem was delivered into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, and only because this was the case was the King of Babylon able to take it.

3 . There is a twofold Divine permission—the moral permission, which sanctions conduct; the material permission, which does not visibly restrain it. We see here that when the latter is accorded, though it does not justify the morality of the agent, it indicates the ultimate working of all things together for God's will ( Psalms 76:10 ).

II. NATIONAL SIN INCURS NATIONAL RETRIBUTION . Though guilt is personal, and though national actions can only be the outcome of individual actions, it often happens that men do in their public capacity what they would shrink from doing in private life. The resultant, too, of the individual actions of all the members of the community may not be a mere multiplication of those actions, but, owing to their mutual interaction, it may be something quite different, and thus characteristic of the nation rather than of the individual. Now, these national actions, when wrong, become distinctly national sins, and incur national retribution, one great characteristic of which is that it happens in this world The retribution for individuals is largely postponed to the next life, perhaps because earthly life is too short for conduct to ripen all its fruits. But we have no reason to believe that the national entity is perpetuated in the next life. On the other hand, the nation survives its individual members on the earth, and lives on from age to age, and thus gives time for the harvest of its conduct to come in. It is one special design of the histories in the Bible to trace this process out. The fate of the Jews is just an instance of it. The same principles apply to all nations.

III. THE EARTHLY GROUND OF CONFIDENCE WHICH TAKES THE PLACE OF GOD IN OUR FAITH MAY BECOME THE VERY SOURCE OF OUR RUIN . Against the advice of their prophets, the Jews had weakly entered into an alliance with Babylon. Thus they were drawn into the quarrel of Babylon with Egypt. Pharaoh-Necho had deposed Jehcahaz, the son of Josiah, for his Babylonian alliance, and set up Jehoiakim in his place. It was natural that Nebuchadnezzar should aim a blow at Pharaoh through his weak vassal, and at the same time reduce to a state of harmless helplessness the people who had been transferred from the protection of Babylon to that of Egypt. If The Jews had been true to their destiny of isolation and simple trust in God, the political cause of their overthrow might never have existed. No foe is more dangerous than the friend who has taken the place of God in our trust.

IV. WHEN THE SPIRITUAL TREASURE OF TRUE RELIGION IS LOST , THE LOSS OF ITS MATERIAL TREASURES MAY FOLLOW AS A WHOLESOME CHASTISEMENT . Nebuchadnezzar carried away part of the sacred vessels of the temple and offered them as booty to his god. No miracle rebuked him as when, in an earlier age, the image of Dagon was found fallen and broken before the ark ( 1 Samuel 5:4 ). [Now there was little spirituality left among the Jews to render their sacred vessels of any real use. They had been already desecrated by the wickedness of the nation. True sacrilege is not pagan pillage, but the association of an immoral character with the observance of religious rites. When the soul has gone out of our religion, it may be well if the external ordinances are disturbed,

HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS