"Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee." Crime is inimical t;o physical .h~alth and eLrength. 'l'he dieeaees that prevail in cities are, in most ca889, traceable to their crimes. In every sin there is a germ of physical disease, a something which -tends to disturb the nerves, taint the blood, and sap the constitution. 2. Deaolatwn. "In making thee desolate because of thy eins." What is desolation? It is not th6 .mere loss of property, CriendR, or the external means of physical enjoyment. A. man may have all these and yet be desolate. It is the awful sense of lonesomeness, desertion. A desolate man is one who neither loves nor is loved; and sin produces this state. Few states of mind are more awful or more crushing than the sense of aloneness. 3. Dusatisfaction. "Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied." Of whatever a sinful man partakes, however delicious the viands, however choice and costly the provisions, he has no satisfaction of soul. He has in connection with, and in spite of, all a hunger ,deep, gnawing, unappeasable. Sin and satisfaction can never coexist. 4. Disappoint- ment. "Thou shalt sow, but thou ehalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine." A. sinful soul can never get out of its labour that which it expects. He toils hard for enjoyment, but all the toils are fruitless; enjoyment is not won. The autumn comes, and the fruits are gathered iu-the wheat, the olives, the sweet wine; but they do not bring him what he has struggled for-true enjoyment. He has laboured for that which satisfieth not. -6. Destruction. "Thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the 11word." Henderson's translation of this seems to me good: "Thou shalt be inwardly depressed; thou mayest remove, but thou shalt not rescue, or what thou reecuest I will give to the sword." CoNCLUSlON. Mark the law of retribution. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; " "Be sure your sin will find you -0ut," Not more certain is it that the rivers flow to the ocean, the planets follow the sun, than that eufi'ering follows sin. Sins brings with it disease, desolation, diasatisfac- tion, disappointment, deetruction.-D. T. Ver. 16.-0mri and .Ahab: lessons worth study. "For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people." On the long dark roll of human infamy there are few darker names than those of Omri and .Ahab. The former, who at first was an officer in the army of Israel (1 Kings xvL 30), through blood and slaughter took possession of the throne of Israel, which he held polluted and disgraced for twelve long years. He built Samaria and made it the capital of the ten tribes. Ahab was his son and his successor, and rivalled even his father in immorality and impiety. He established the worship of Baal as the national religion. I draw three lessons from this passage. I. THAT THE RELlGlOUB SENTIMENT lN MAN IS OFTEN TERRIBLY PERVERTED. Omri and Ahab were not only idolaters themscl ves, but established idolatry in their country. They worshipped Baal, the god that was worshipped by the Carthaginians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and others-the god, it is supposed, who is sometimes called Moloch, to whom the Ammonites made their cruel and bloody sacrifices. For the service of this god Ahab established a numerous hierarchy of priests. The religious sentiment in man is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature. Man is made to worship, and to worship the one true and living God only. But so blinded is Lis intellect, so debased his nature, so utterly corrupt, that, instead of worshipping the infinitely Great, he falls down before the infinitely contemptible. The perversity of the religious sentiment: 1. Explains the errors, crimes, and miseries of the world. Man's strongest love is the spring of all his activities, the fontal source of all his influence. When this is directed to an idol, the whole of his life is corrupted. 2. Reveal, man's absolute need of the gospel. There is nothing but the gospel of Christ that can give this sentiment a right direction. II. TUAT OBEDIENCE TO HUMAN SOVEREIGNS 1S SOMETIMES A GREAT CRIME. Thea worship of Baal was enacted by the "statutes" of Omri and enforced by the practice of Ahab. If the e~tablishment of a religion by law can make it right, it was right that THE BOOK OF MICAH. [en, vu, 1-20:
the people should worship Baal. But it was not right; it Will! wrong. A human lnw,. enacted by the greatest sovereign in the world with the sanction of the most illustrious i;t.atesmen, if it is not in accord with the eternal principles of justioe and truth, as -revealed in God's Word, should be repudiated renounced, and transcrressed. 0 •• Whether it is right to obey God rather than man, judJe ye." Ii I. THAT THE CRIMES OF EVEN TWO MEN M.\ Y EXERT A CORRUPTING INFLUENCE UPON 1111,LIONB IN FUTURI:' GENERATIONS. The reigns of Oinri and .A.hab were ages before the time when Micah_ lived. Notwithstanding, their enactments were still obeyed, their examples were still followed, and their practices were still pursued, 'fhe wickedness ?f theae two men was now, ages after, perpetrated by a whole nation.. How· great the mfluence of man for good or evil! Verily one sinner destroyeth much good. From one corrupt source may flow a stream of polluting influence that shall roll down· all future times, widen and deepen in its oourse, and bear tholll!auds on its· bosom- to crime and ruin. "Our many deeds, the thoughts that we have thought, They go out from ns thronging every home; And in them all is folded up a power That on the earth doth move them to and fro; And mighty are the marvels they have wrought In heart.a we know not and may never know." (F. W. Faber,) D.T.