2 Kings 15:8-31 - Homiletics

Worldly prosperity not infrequently the ruin of kingdoms.

I. EXAMPLE OF SAMARIA . Scarcely ever was there a more prosperous reign than that of Jeroboam II .—a reign of forty-one years of continual success, uncheckered by a misfortune-Syria defeated, the old border everywhere recovered, Hamath occupied, Damascus brought into a subject condition. As usual, where there is military success, wealth flowed in, and with wealth, luxury. "Great houses" were built ( Amos 3:15 ), "ivory houses;' i.e. houses inlaid or paneled with ivory; distinct mansions were inhabited during the summer and during the winter time ( Amos 3:15 ). The children of Israel passed their lives in Samaria, lying "in the corner of a bed," and in Damascus lounging "upon a couch" ( Amos 3:12 ). " Flagons of wine' were "loved" ( Hosea 3:1 ); "whoredom and wine and new wine took away their heart" ( Hosea 4:11 ). And with this softness was blended, on the one hand, the seductive influence of a licentious religionism, on the other, the coarser and ruder vices to which luxury and self-indulgence inevitably lead. Patriotism disappeared, and self-seeking took its place. "Politically all was anarchy or misrule; kings made their way to the throne through the murder of their predecessors, and made way for their successors through their own. Shallum slew Zechariah ( 2 Kings 15:10 ); Menahem slew Shallum (verse 14); Pekah slew the son of Menahem (verse 25); Hoshea slew Pekah (verse 30). The whole kingdom of Israel was a military despotism, and, as in the Roman empire, those in command came to the throne". Society was corrupt to the core. The idolatries of the calves, of Baal, and of Moloch worked out their natural results, and bore their bitter fruit. "Creature-worship," as St. Paul points out ( Romans 1:23-32 ), was the parent of every sort of abomination; and religion having become creature-worship, what God gave as the check to sin became its incentive. Every commandment of God was broken, and that habitually. All was falsehood ( Hosea 4:1 ), adultery ( Hosea 4:11 ; Amos 2:7 ), blood shedding ( Hosea 5:2 ; Hosea 6:8 ); deceit of God ( Hosea 4:2 ) producing faithlessness to man; excess and luxury were supplied by secret or open robbery ( Hosea 7:1 ), oppression ( Hosea 12:7 ), false dealing ( Amos 8:5 ; Hosea 12:7 ), perversion of justice ( Hosea 10:4 ; Amos 2:6 ), grinding of the poor ( Hosea 12:7 ). Blood was shed like water, until one stream met another ( Hosea 4:2 ), and overspread the land with one defiling deluge. Adultery was consecrated as an act of religion ( Hosea 4:14 ). Those who were first in rank were first in excess. People and king vied in debauchery ( Hosea 7:5 ); and the sottish king joined and encouraged the free-thinkers and blasphemers of his court ( Hosea 7:3 ). The idolatrous priests loved and shared in the sins of the people ( Hosea 4:8 , Hosea 4:9 ); nay, they seem to have set themselves to intercept those on either side of Jordan, who would go to worship at Jerusalem, laying wait to murder them ( Hosea 5:1 ; Hosea 6:9 ). Corruption had spread through the whole land, even the places once sacred through God's revelations or other mercies to their fore-fathers—Bethel, Gilgal, Gilead, Mizpah, Shechem—were especial scenes of corruption or of sin ( Hosea 4:15 ; Hosea 5:1 ; Hosea 6:8 , Hosea 6:9 , etc.). Every holy memory was effaced by present corruption. Could things be worse? There was one aggravation more. Remonstrance was useless ( Hosea 4:4 ); the knowledge of God was willfully rejected ( Hosea 4:6 ); the people hated rebuke ( Amos 5:10 ); the more they were called, the more they refused ( Hosea 11:2 , Hosea 11:7 ); they forbade their prophets to prophesy ( Amos 2:12 ); and their false prophets hated God greatly ( Hosea 9:7 , Hosea 9:9 ). All attempts to heal all this disease only showed its incurableness".

II. EXAMPLE OF TYRE . The prosperity of Tyre in the seventh and eighth centuries before our era was extraordinary. She was mistress of her sister cities, Sidon and Gebal and Arvad; she ruled over a hundred colonies; on her island-rock she was safe from Assyria; the trade of the world was in her hands. "Situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people for many isles" ( Ezekiel 27:3 ); full of worldly wisdom, the wisdom that gets increase of riches ( Ezekiel 28:3-5 ); rich beyond all conception in precious metals, and in gems ( Ezekiel 28:13 ), and in spices, and in broidered work ( Ezekiel 27:9 .2, 24), and in ivory and ebony ( Ezekiel 27:15 ), and in all manner of merchandise; approved, respected, called "the renowned city, strong in the sea" ( Ezekiel 26:17 );—she had reached the acme of her glory, of her wealth, of her greatness. But with what results to her moral tone and temper? Her heart was "lifted up" ( Ezekiel 28:5 ); her pride became excessive; she said in her heart, "I am of perfect beauty" ( Ezekiel 27:8 )—"I am a god; I sit in the seat of God" ( Ezekiel 28:2 ). "Iniquity" of every kind was found in her ( Ezekiel 28:15 )—envp ( Ezekiel 26:2 ), and "violence" (verse 16), and corrupt wisdom (verse 17), and profanation of sanctuaries (verse 18), and even dishonesty in her traffic (verse 18). And with iniquity, as usual, came ruin. Because of her pride, and her envy, and her violence, and her other iniquities, God brought a fire into her midst, which devoured her and reduced her to ashes ( Ezekiel 26:18 ). The Babylonians were made God's instrument to chastise her, and carry off her wealth, and break down her walls, and destroy her pleasant houses, and slay her people with the sword ( Ezekiel 26:11 , Ezekiel 26:12 ), and make her a byword among the nations ( Ezekiel 27:32 )—a desolation, a hissing, and a terror (verse 36).

III. EXAMPLE OF ROME . The ruin of Rome was undoubtedly wrought by that long career of unexampled military success, which began with the closing years of the Second Punic War, and continued till she was the world's mistress. The wealth of Carthage, Macedonia, and Asia flowing into her coffers, destroyed the antique simplicity and severity of manners, stimulated ambition, provoked inordinate desire, and led to those terrific civil wars, in which the blood of the noblest and the bravest was shed like water, and " Rome fell ruined by her own strength" (Horace). It was not the influx of the barbarians that destroyed Rome; she fell from internal decay. The decline of Roman civilization dates from before the fall of the republic. It was then that population began to diminish, and the pure Roman blood to be mingled with the refuse of every nation. Slaves, freedmen, clients, glided into the tribes and gentes, and were followed by absolute foreigners, Greeks and Egyptians and Syrians, effete races in a state both of physical and moral degradation. "The Orontes flowed into the Tiber." The very names of those in the highest position became grotesque and strange, such as Cicero and Cato would have pronounced manifestly barbarous. A decay of moral principles followed this admixture. Slavery prevailed, and slavery in ancient as in modern times was "a hotbed of vice and selfish indulgence, enervating the spirit and vital forces of mankind, discouraging legitimate marriage, and enticing to promiscuous and barren concubinage. The fruit of such hateful unions, if fruit there were, engaged little regard from their selfish fathers, and both law and usage continued to sanction the exposure of infants, from which the female sex undoubtedly suffered most. The losses of Italy from this horrid practice were probably the greatest; but the provinces also lost proportionally; the imitation of Roman habits was rife on the remotest frontiers; the conquests of the empire were consolidated by the attractions of Roman indulgence and sensuality; slavery threw discredit on all manual labor, and engendered a false sentiment of honor, which constrained the poorer classes of freemen to dependence and celibacy; vice and idleness went hand-in-hand, and combined to stunt the moral and physical growth of the Roman citizen, leaving his weak and morbid frame exposed in an unequal contest to the fatal influences of his climate". It was a race which had thus lost its stamina, and become effete and worn out, that succumbed to barbarian inroads which, a few centuries earlier, it would have repulsed without any difficulty.