250 strict religious code; all these must be swept aside by the advancing spirit of the age. The basis of religion must be widened, its borders extended, its bar riers pulled down, and instead of the “ little gardens walled around,” the world must be invited to enter freely and give its advice and assistance. “ It is too much for you to go up to Jerusa lem.” Of course it is. God’s appoint ed order of true worship always is “ too much” for the ungodly. They want a religion of their own choosing, they pre fer priests after their own hearts— not of the sons of Levi— and-high days and holy days of their own devising. “ These be thy gods, O Israel.” Their yoke is easy, and their burden light. The worn-out creeds of the Bible, the demands for repentance, and the impos sible doctrine of regeneration, need not trouble you. A pinch or two of in cense offered to the calves of gold, the gods of morality and respectability, is quite sufficient.” There is not the slightest doubt that this was the sin of Jeroboam, the sin which is so frequently referred to in connection with other wicked kings. For the Holy Spirit has expressly declared it to be so. Seventeen times, with slight varia tion, we have in the sacred page this mournful refrain: “ Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” And God Himself declared it to be a worse sin than any other. “ Thou hast done evil above all that were before thee, for thou hast made other gods, and hast cast Me behind thy back.” So do all -ifcra dethrone the God of the Bible, and proclaim ways of salvation which He has never sanctioned. And those who lead others astray in religion are worse in His sight than those who sin against the moral code. For the crimi nal, the vicious and the profligate, do not after all exert a very wide influence. Their operations are necessarily re stricted, and by general consent they are held in reprobation. But those who
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S lead others astray in religion sin against the soul, and though they may do it in ignorance, the result is the same; many who might have been roused to listen to the warnings of the Bible are by their soothsaying confirmed in their adherence to the broad way that leadeth to destruction. And as Jeroboam, who may prerhaps have been held in high es teem by the people, sinned in this sense even more than the depraved Ahab, so his end was especially significant. Of all others we read that they died, either from natural causes or by vio lence; they slept with their fathers. But of Jeroboam we are told, “ The Lord struck him and he died.” From all this we learn that God especially abhors anything that perverts His Word and changes the truth of God into a lie. That was the sin of Jeroboam., a great man, a king, and a leader in religion. And because a man’s responsibility must be measured by his position and in fluence, so his punishment, as the author and propagator of a religion false and dishonoring to God, was the more drastic and condign. “ The Lord struck him and he died.” So it will be with many who imagine themselves ardent workers in every good cause, be cause, instead of that strict adhere'nce to Scripture which God demands, their chief text has been, “ Yea, hath God said?” Instead of warning the wicked to forsake his way that he may live, they have proclaimed, “ Ye shall not surely die.” Instead of regeneration, they have been zealous advocates of the “ way of Cain,” and in order to win the favor of the worldly and the irreligious they have sought to make religion easier by nullifying the solemn words of the Bible and brushing aside its demands. And in the day when all things are made manifest, they will stand forth, like Jeroboam, not as co-workers with God, but as "workers of iniquity.”
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