The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 442

rare affection and clovotion, to which Solomon brou.ght all his wisdom and for which ho obtained the most o.clvanced culture of his time, brought to desolation by the ruth- less hnnd of the heathen I '£bat glorious, that sacred, that beloved building, meeting- place of Goel and m1m, where the people of God realized their highest privileges, and recognized their relation to their Redeemer and to one another, burned and desolatec!, the foot of the idolater intruding into its holiest sanctue.ry, and the hand of the spoiler taking away its most sacred treasure I II. lTs SADDEST HISTORICAL ANALOGUE. Once there lived upon the earth a Son of man who could say of himself without presumption, "In this place is One greater than the temple" (Matt. xii. 6); and he once spake of" the temple of his body" (,Jchn ii. 21). And well, indeed, might the Son of God speak thus of himself; for was he not the manifeste.tion of the Divine to the children of men, and did he not reveal the truth of God to mankind, and in hie presence men drew near to God as they did not even in "the holy of holies"? We know how that living temple of God suffered from the rude violence of men, and at last" with wicked hands was slain." No such desecration took place when the temple was burnt and spoiled as was witnessed when Jesus Christ was crowned with thorns in the soldiers' hall, and was crucified at Calvary. III. ITs LAMENTABLE ILLUSTRATION NOW. Where shall we find the visible, approach- able, appreciable manifestation of God now? Where, but in the life and the character of good men? We are the temple of God when we a.re what our Divine Father created us to be; such are we then, that, as men draw nigh to us and observe us and learn of us, they know God and learn of him. But how may this temple be desecrated and destroyed? 1. By the profanation of our powers and our affections. When our powers are expended on the furtherance of that which is evil and on the production of that which is baneful; when our affections a.re wasted on those who are unworthy of our love; when we prize and when we pursue that which is below our true aspiration, and which leads us downward and backward ;-then the temple of God is despoiled and desecrated. 2. By the guilty forfeiture of our life. What a destruction of the temple of God is a guilty suicide! And they are many who take their own lives. It is not only those who shoot or hang themselves that commit suicide; it is they who deli- berately and repeatedly do those things which they must know a.re destroying their vitality and taking away their life; these are men who put a brand to the temple which God as well as man has built. IV. !Ts EXCELLENT OPPOSITE. This is found in the reverence we pay to the human body as the temple of God; the habit of regarding our bodily frame-and how much more our human spirit !-as a sacred thing, because it is (because we are) the very dwelling-place of God (see 1 Cor. ii. 9, 16, 17; vi. 19; 2 Cur. vi. 16; Eph. ii. 20, 21; 1 Pet. ii. 5). It is this elevated and ennobling thought which, more than any other, stirs and strengthen us to "purify ourselves even as Christ the Lord is pure ; " to seek, by earnest effort and frequent prayer, for the utmost attainable sanctity of spirit and of life.-C. Ver. 20.-&i'le. "And them . . . carried he a.way to Babylon; where they were servants [slaves] to him and his sons." The captivity of the Jews in Babylon may be regarded in three lights. I. As A PENALTY. It undoubtedly was that ; nothing can be clearer than that they were permitted to be " the prey to the teeth " of the enemy because of their sins. The very next verse (21) intimates that it was disobedience to the Law of God that resulted in the denudation of the land. And the truth that national calamity is the conse- quence of national transgression is "writ large" and plain on every page of this Book of Chronicles. He may run that reads it. Sin entails penalty. The truth is written on the pages of national and individual history as well as on those of the Word of God. Every nation and every man may make up its (his) mind that, _sooner or later, sin will entail defeat humiliation, bondage. The penalty may take various forms, but penalty will most su~ely come. It may be obviO'll,Sly physical, or it may be principally spiritual; it will al.most certainly be both the one and the other. But no man can harden him- self against the Holy One and prosper. Whoso sinneth against him "wrongeth his own soul;" he deprives himself of i_nestima.blo good! and he makes himself th~ victim of deep and lasting evil. The children of Judah lil Babylon had often occasion to say,  446 THE SECO~D BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [arr. xxxvx. 1-23,