Haggai 2:7 - Homiletics

The desire of all nations.

I. ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED A VISIBLE DIVINITY ; AND SUCH A MANIFESTED OR REVEALED DIVINITY HAS BEEN GIVEN TO MANKIND IN CHRIST . That all nations from the beginning downward have believed in the existence of a Supreme Being has been sufficiently demonstrated by the universality in man of the instinct of worship. Nor have all nations merely wished possess a god, but the Deity they have longed for has been, not a god remaining always little more than a conception of the mind, an infinitely exalted being with whom they could not enter into fellowship, but a God whom they could look upon, or at least think of, as not far from any one of them, a God who could not only come near to them, but to whom they in turn could come near. The lowest forms of religion that have existed on the earth, the religions of men in most degraded conditions, have made this perfectly apparent no less than the elaborate rites of the cultivated and civilized nations of antiquity. What the savage means by putting a spirit into the various forms of nature by which he is surrounded, or by making an idol of wood or stone, and setting it up before him as an object of adoration; what the untutored child of nature thereby means, viz. to express his belief in a power above himself and above nature, and his desire to bring that invisible power or divinity forth into visibility or nearness; that the old religions of Chaldea, Egypt, and Phoenicia did when they deified the hosts of heaven and the forces of nature, or looked upon these as instruments and embodiments of supernatural powers. In their case it was one more effort of the human mind to fetch God out of the far distance and make him a distinct object of contemplation and worship. Then the later religions that prevailed in Persia, India, Greece, and Rome, with their "incarnations," or beliefs in gods who assumed the likeness of men, evinced the same longing of the human heart for a God at hand rather than afar off, a God visible rather than a god who remained always unseen, a God who/night be approached in thought, at least, if not in space, rather than a god who so transcended his worshippers as to be practically inaccessible. And this longing Christianity—whether it be true or no may meantime be left undetermined—meets, as no other religion has done or is likely to do, by placing before man as an object of religious contemplation and worship One who claimed to be the Image of the invisible God, saying, "I and my Father are One," and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."

II. ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED AN ATONEMENT FOR SIN ; AND SUCH ATONEMENT HAS BEEN PROVIDED AS NOWHERE ELSE BY CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY . It is not meant that everywhere and always men have possessed the same clear, definite, exalted, and correct ideas on the subject of sin, sacrifice, propitiation, atonement, as are presented in the Hebrew or the Christian Scriptures. The most affirmed is that while everywhere men have possessed a deep instinctive longing after God, along with this they have always been more or less conscious of unworthiness and unfitness to enter into fellowship with him, have had a secret conviction that the Deity whom they wished to serve was displeased with them, and that they could not enjoy his favour without the intervention of some atonement or propitiation. Hence, wherever man has been found to have a god, there also he has owned an altar. The practice begun at the gate of Eden, of worshipping the Deity by means of sacrifices, and carried forward in the altar building of Abraham and the patriarchs, and finally developed in the Mosaic ritual of priest and victim, has been discovered, on investigation, not to have been confined to these, but to have been followed, with more or less closeness of adherence to the primitive pattern, by every nation under heaven that has shaped for itself a religion. In religions of the most rudimentary type, as well as in those of the highest culture, a place has been reserved for the practice of sacrificing and for the notion of expiation. "The sense of impurity and of the need of expiation," writes Pressense, "are manifested in the most barbarous modes of worship. We admit that the atonement to which they have recourse is often as cruel as the wrath of the deity whom the worshippers seek to appease. There is a phase in which sacrifice is nothing more than food offered to the gods. But a higher idea soon manifests itself. Remorse comes in, the consciousness of guilt prompts the sacrifice, and the priest who at first was regarded in the light of an enchanter becomes a mediator between man and the deity". In addition it might easily be shown that the same ideas of sin, penitence, forgiveness, propitiation, sacrifice, atonement, were present in the religions of ancient Chaldea and of Egypt. And the inference from all is that, irrespective of age or country, and however overlaid with superstition, the deep conviction of the human heart is that man has sinned against God and requires the assistance of a Mediator who shall in some way make peace with the offended Deity, and secure for the offender forgiveness of his transgressions. Well, here again Christianity steps in to supply this demand of the human heart, to answer this pathetic wail for a Deliverer, for One who can make peace and bring forgiveness—steps in as no other religion known to man does, by exhibiting Jesus Christ as Son of God and Son of man ( John 1:49 , John 1:51 ), and therefore as possessed of authority to act as Daysman or Mediator between God and man, laying his hand upon both ( Job 10:1-22 :33; 1 Timothy 2:5 ), by discovering him as standing in the room of sinful man ( Romans 5:6 ), and as making peace by the shedding of his blood ( Ephesians 2:14 ), by presenting him to view as One whose blood is able both to wipe away the guilt of sin and to break its enslaving power. And this, again, is a high certificate in favour of Christianity as the only true religion. For what is a religion worth if it cannot or dare not meet the demands of the human heart and conscience?

III. ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED A DIVINE REVELATION , OR AN AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION OF THE DIVINE WILL ; AND THIS CHRISTIANITY MEETS IN A WAY THAT NO OTHER RELIGION HAS DONE OR CAN DO . Not only have men in every age and country believed that God is, and that by means of sacrifices it might be possible to appease his anger and secure his favour; they have also supposed it within their reach to receive trustworthy information from God as to his will and their duty. In the rudest forms of religion, the media through which such Divine communications have been conjectured to come have been signs in the sky above or on the earth beneath. In unusual phenomena of nature, in unaccustomed sights and sounds, in dreams and visions, men have been wont to see indications of a higher will than their own made known to them for the guidance of their earthly lives. As religion has advanced in intelligence and refinement, special persons have come to be regarded as oracles through whom responses from the heavenly world might be obtained, and messages from the unseen received. Priests and priestesses, seers and sages, have been viewed as standing in immediate connection with the Deity, and as serving to transmit to men the utterances he might wish to make known. Then, too, in many of the world's religions, as in those of Egypt and Persia, India and Arabia, that is to say, in the most developed religions of which we have any knowledge, but especially in Parseeism, Brahminism, Mohammedanism, there have been sacred books in which the revelations vouchsafed to mankind through the founders of these religions have been preserved. Now, in all this, irrespective of the truth or falsehood of these religions, a signal testimony arises to the strength and depth of the desire on the part of man to possess some authorized expounder of the Divine will in the shape of man, or book, or perhaps both; and there is no need to say that God has never gratified this desire outside of the Hebrew or the Christian Church; but of this one may be certain, that the longing for a Heaven-sent teacher was not confined to the Hebrews, with their Moses who spake with God face to face as a man talketh with his friend, but existed as well among the Greeks, Plato, in one of his dialogues, putting into the mouth of one of his disputants the ever-memorable words, "It is therefore necessary to wait until one teach us how to behave towards the gods and men," and into that of another, "And when shall that time arrive? and who shall that teacher be? for most glad would I be to see such a man." Just such a man was felt to be one of the world's greatest wants before Christ came; and when he came just such a man appeared. The verdict pronounced by the officers on Jesus, "Never man spake like this Man," has never been reversed; nor is there the least likelihood that it ever will.

IV. ALL NATIONS HAVE DESIRED AN ASSURANCE OF IMMORTALITY ; AND THAT ASSURANCE HAS BEEN GIVEN BY CHRIST IN A WAY THAT HAS BEEN DONE BY NO OTHER . Whether apart from Divine revelation the reality of a future life beyond the grave can or could be demonstrated, may be doubtful; but this much is undoubted, that in all ages men have believed in the existence of such a life, and have expressed that belief in their religions. The lowest races by their worship of ancestors, the Egyptians by their elaborate ritual of the Book of the Dead, and the ancient Chaldeans by their mythological narrative of the descent of Ishtar into Hades, each in turn showed that they clung to the idea of the persistence of the human soul after death. But, indeed, the notion that death ends all, though the assertion of some philosophers, and though supposed to be the teaching of science, has never at any period been the faith of the generality of mankind, and has never won the assent of the human heart in its inmost and truest convictions. Nor must it be overlooked that this universal belief in a future state is a clear testimony to the heart's longing for a continued existence beyond the grave, and to the heart's wish for some authentic tidings about that unknown land; and nothing surely can be less in need of demonstration, than that Jesus Christ answers man's inquiries about the future life with a clearness and fulness of information in comparison with which the teaching of all other religions, the Hebrew Scriptures not excepted, is as darkness,

LESSONS.

1 . The pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, and of the Christian religion.

2 . Gratitude for God's unspeakable Gift.

3 . The duty of seeking in Christ satisfaction for the soul's true desires.