much every animal has in it what men have,—a body, and brain, and heart;
it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and
loneliness, and fear and madness; it likes freedom, company, and
exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of
cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just
as human beings do: in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have,
and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and so, in one sense, we are all
animals, only more delicately made than the other animals; but we are
something more, we have a spirit as well as a flesh, an immortal soul.
If any one asks, what is a man? the true answer is, an animal with an
immortal spirit in it; and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and
pain, which are mere carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust,
and hope, and peace, and love, and purity, and nobleness, and
independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the
infinite difference between an animal and a man, between our flesh and
our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has done
wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and wicked,
but because he knows from experience that he will be punished for doing
it: just so with a man’s fleshly nature;—a carnal, fleshly man, a man
whose spirit is dead within him, whose spiritual sense of right and
wrong, and honour and purity, is gone, when he has done a wrong thing is
often enough afraid; but why? Not for any spiritual reason, not because
he feels it a wicked and abominable thing, a sin, but because he is
afraid of being punished for it, because he is afraid that his body, his
flesh will be punished by the laws of the land, or by public opinion, or
because he has some dim belief that this same body and flesh of his will
be burnt in hell-fire; and fire, he knows by experience, is a painful
thing—and so he is _afraid_ of it; there is nothing spiritual in all
that,—that is all fleshly, carnal; the heathens in all ages have been
afraid of hell-fire; but a man’s spirit, on the other hand, if it be in
hell, is in a very different hell from mere fire,—a spiritual hell, such
as torments the evil spirits, at this very moment, although they are
going to and fro on this very earth. This earth is hell to them; they
carry about hell in them,—they are their own hell. Everlasting shame,
discontent, doubt, despair, rage, disgust at themselves, feeling that
they are out of favour with God, out of tune with heaven and earth,
loving nothing, believing nothing, ever hating, hating each other, hating
themselves most of all—_there_ is their hell! _There_ is the hell in
which the soul of every wicked man is,—ay, is now while he is in _this_
life, though he will only awake to the perfect misery of it after death,
when his body and fleshly nature have mouldered away in the grave, and
can no longer pamper and stupify him and make him forget his own misery.
Ay, there has been many a man in this life who had every fleshly
enjoyment which this world can give, riches and pleasure, banquets and
palaces, every sense and every appetite pampered,—his pride and his
vanity flattered; who never knew what want, or trouble, or contradiction,
was on the smallest point; a man, I say, who had every carnal enjoyment
which this earth can give to a man’s selfish flesh, and yet whose spirit
was in hell all the while, and who knew it; hating and despising himself
for a mean selfish villain, while all the world round was bowing down to
him and envying him as the luckiest of men. I am trying to make you
understand the infinite difference between a man’s flesh and his spirit;
how a man’s flesh can take no pleasure in spiritual things, while man’s
spirit of itself can take no pleasure in fleshly things. Now, the spirit
and the flesh, body and soul, in every man, are at war with each
other,—they have quarrelled; that is the corruption of our nature, the
fruit of Adam’s fall. And as the Article says, and as every man who has
ever tried to live godly well knows, from experience, “that infection of
nature does remain to the last, even in those who are regenerate.” So
that as St. Paul says, the spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the
flesh against the spirit; and it continually happens that a man cannot do
the things which he would; he cannot do what he knows to be right; thus,
as St. Paul says again, a man may delight in the law of God in his inward
man, that is, in his spirit, and yet all the while he shall find another
law in his members, _i.e._ in his body, in his flesh, in his brain which
thinks, and his heart which feels, and his senses which are fond of
pleasure; and this law of the flesh, these appetites and passions which
he has, like other animals, fight against the law of his mind, and when
he wishes to do good, make him do evil. Now how is this? The flesh is
not evil; a man’s body can be no more wicked than a dumb beast can be
wicked. St. Paul calls man’s flesh sinful flesh; not because our flesh
can sin of itself, but because our sinful souls make our flesh do sinful
things; for, he says, Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
yet in him was no sin. The pure and spotless Saviour could not have
taken man’s flesh upon him if there was any sinfulness in it. The body
knows nothing of right and wrong; it is not subject to the law of God,
neither, indeed, can be, says St. Paul. And why? Because God’s law is
spiritual; deals with right and wrong. Wickedness, like righteousness,
is a spiritual thing. If a man sins, his body is not in fault; it is his
spirit; his weak, perverse will, which will sooner listen to what his
flesh tells him is pleasant than to what God tells him is right; for
this, my friends, is the secret of the battle of life. We stand between
heaven and earth. Above is God’s Spirit striving with our spirits,
speaking to them in the depths of our soul, shewing us what is right,
putting into our hearts good desires, making us long to be honest and
just, pure and manful, loving and charitable; for who is there who has
not at times longed after these things, and felt that it would be a
blessed thing for him if he were such a man as Jesus Christ was and
is?—Above us, I say, is God’s Spirit speaking to our spirits, below us is
this world speaking to our flesh, as it spoke to Eve’s, saying to us,
“This thing is pleasant to the eyes—this thing is good for food—that
thing is to be desired to make you wise, and to flatter your vanity and
self-conceit.” Below us, I say, is _this_ world, tempting us to ease,
and pleasure, and vanity; and in the middle, betwixt the two, stands up
the third part of man—his _soul_ and _will_, set to choose between the
voice of God’s Spirit and the temptations of this world—to choose between
what is right and what is pleasant—to choose whether he will obey the
desires of the spirit, or obey the desires of the flesh. He must choose.
If he lets his flesh conquer his spirit, he falls; if he lets his spirit
conquer his flesh, he rises; if he lets his flesh conquer his spirit, he
becomes what he was not meant to be—a slave to fleshly lust; and _then_
he will find his flesh set up for itself, and work for itself. And where
man’s flesh gets the upper hand, and takes possession of him, it can do
nothing but evil—not that it is evil in itself, but that it has no rule,
no law to go by; it does not know right from wrong; and therefore it does
simply what it likes, as a dumb beast or an idiot might; and therefore
the works of the flesh are—adulteries, drunkenness, murders,
fornications, envyings, backbitings, strife. When a man’s body, which
God intended to be the servant of his spirit, has become the tyrant of
his spirit, it is like an idiot on a king’s throne, doing all manner of
harm and folly without knowing that it _is_ harm and folly. That is not
_its_ fault. Whose fault is it, then? _Our_ fault—the fault of our
wills and our souls. Our souls were intended to be the masters of our
flesh, to conquer all the weaknesses, defilements of our constitution—our
tempers, our cowardice, our laziness, our hastiness, our nervousness, our
vanity, our love of pleasure—to listen to our spirits, because our
spirits learn from God’s Spirit what is right and noble. But if we let
our flesh master us, and obey its own blind lusts, we sin against God;
and we sin against God doubly; for we not only sin against God’s
commandments, but we sin against ourselves, who are the image and glory
of God.
Believe this, my friends; believe that, because you are all fallen human
creatures, there must go on in you this sore life-long battle between
your spirit and your flesh—your spirit trying to be master and guide, as
it ought to be, and your flesh rebelling, and trying to conquer your
spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox in cunning, a peacock in
vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. But believe, too, that it is your sin
and your shame if your spirit does not conquer your flesh—for God has
promised to help your spirits. Ask Him, and His Spirit will teach
them—fill them with pure, noble hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and
with deep, unselfish love to God and man. He will strengthen your wills,
that they may be able to refuse the evil and choose the good. Ask Him,
and He will join them to His own Spirit—to the Spirit of Christ, your
Master; for he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit with Him. Ask
him, and He will give you the mind of Christ—teach you to see and feel
all matters as Christ sees and feels them. Ask Him, and He will give you
wisdom to listen to His Spirit when it teaches your spirit, and then you
will be able to walk after the spirit, and not obey the lusts of the
flesh; and you will be able to crucify the flesh with its passions and
lusts, that is, to make it, what it ought to be, a dead thing—a dead tool
for your spirit to work with manfully and godly, and not a live tyrant to
lead you into brutishness and folly; and then you will find that the
fruit of the spirit, of your spirit led by God’s Spirit, is really, as
St. Paul says, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
honesty”—“whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable
and of good report;” and instead of being the miserable slaves of your
own passions, and of the opinions of your neighbours, you will find that
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, true freedom, not only
from your neighbours’ sins, but, what is far better, freedom from your
own.
These are large words, my friends, and promise mighty things. But I dare
speak them to you, for God has spoken to you. These promises God made
you at your baptism; these promises I, on the warrant of your baptism,
dare make to you again. At your baptism, God gave you the right to call
Him your loving Father, to call His Son your Saviour, His Spirit your
Sanctifier. And He is not a man, that He should lie; nor the son of man,
that He should repent! Try Him, and see whether He will not fulfil His
word. Claim His promise, and though you have fallen lower than the
brutes, He will make men and women of you. He will be faithful and just
to forgive you your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
SERMON VII.
RETRIBUTION.
NUMBERS, xxxii. 23.
“Be sure your sin will find you out.”
THE full meaning of this text is, that every sin which a man commits is
certain, sooner or later, to come home to him with fearful interest.
Moses gave this warning to two tribes of the Israelites,—to the
Reubenites and Gadites, who had promised to go over Jordan, and help
their countrymen in war against the heathen, on condition of being
allowed to return and settle on the east bank of Jordan, where they then
were; but if they broke their promise, and returned before the end of the
war, they were to be certain that their sin would find them out; that God
would avenge their falsehood on them in some way in their lifetime: in
their lifetime, I say, for there is no mention made in this chapter, or
in any part of the story, of heaven or hell, or any world to come. And
the text has been always taken as a fair warning to all generations of
men, that their sin also, even in their lifetimes, will be visited upon
them.
Now, it is strange, at first sight, that these texts, which warn men that
their sins will be punished in this life, are just the most unpleasant
texts in the whole Bible; that men shrink from them more, and shut their
eyes to them more than they do to those texts which threaten them with
hell-fire and everlasting death. Strange!—that men should be more afraid
of being punished in this life for a few years than in the life to come
for ever and ever;—and yet not strange if we consider; for to worldly and
sinful souls, that life after death and the flames of hell seem quite
distant and dim—things of which they know little and believe less, while
this world they _do_ know, they are quite certain that its good things
are pleasant and its bad things unpleasant, and they are thoroughly
afraid of losing _them_. Their hearts are where their treasure is, in
this world; and a punishment which deprives them of this world’s good
things hits them home: but their treasure is _not_ in heaven, and,
therefore, about losing heaven they are by no means so much concerned.
And thus they can face the dreadful news that “the wicked shall be turned
into hell, and all the people that forget God;” while, as for the news
that the wicked shall be recompensed on the earth, that their sins will
surely find them out in this life, they cannot face that—they shut their
ears to it,—they try to persuade themselves that sin will _pay_ them
_here_, at all events; and as for hereafter, they shall get off
somehow,—they neither know nor care much how.
Yet God’s truth remains, and God’s truth must be heard; and those who
love this world so well must be told, whether they like or not, that
every sin which they commit, every mean, every selfish, every foul deed,
loses them so much enjoyment in this very present world of which they are
so mighty fond. That is God’s truth; and I will prove it true from
common sense, from Holy Scripture, and _from the witness_ of men’s own
hearts.
Take common sense. Does not common sense tell us that if God made this
world, and governs it by righteous and God-like laws, this must be a
world in which evil-doing cannot thrive? God made the world better than
that, surely! He would be a bad law-giver who made such laws, that it
was as well to break them as to keep them. You would call them bad laws,
surely! No, God made the world, and not the devil; and the world works
by God’s laws, and not the devil’s; and it inclines towards good, and not
towards evil; and he who sins, even in the least, breaks God’s laws, acts
contrary to the rule and constitution of the world, and will surely find
that God’s laws will go on in spite of him, and grind him to powder, if
he by sinning gets in the way of them. God has no need to go out of His
way to punish our evil deeds. Let them alone, and they will punish
themselves. Is it not so in every thing? If a tradesman trades badly,
or a farmer farms badly, there is no need of lawyers to punish him; he
will punish himself. Every mistake he makes will take money out of his
pocket; every time he offends against the established rules of trade or
agriculture, which are God’s laws, he injures himself; and so, be sure,
it is in the world at large,—in the world in which men and the souls of
men live, and move, and have their being.
Next, to speak of Scripture. I might quote texts innumerable to prove
that what I say Scripture says also. Consider but this one thing,—that
there is a whole book in the Bible written to prove this one thing,—that
our good and bad deeds are repaid us with interest in this life—the
Proverbs of Solomon I mean—in which there is little or no mention of
heaven or hell, or any world to come. It is all one noble, and awful,
and yet cheering sermon on that one text, “The righteous shall be
recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner,”—put in a
thousand different lights; brought home to us a thousand different roads,
comes the same everlasting doom,—“Vain man, who thinkest that thou canst
live in God’s world and yet despise His will, know that, in every
smiling, comfortable sin, thou art hatching an adder to sting thee in the
days of old age, to poison thy cup of sinful joy, even when it is at thy
lips; to haunt thy restless thoughts, and dog thee day and night; to rise
up before thee, in the silent, sleepless hours of night, like an angry
ghost! An awful foretaste of the doom that is to come; and yet a
merciful foretaste, if thou wilt be but taught by the disappointment, the
unsatisfied craving, the gnawing shame of a guilty conscience, to see the
heinousness of sin, and would turn before it be too late.”
What, my friends,—what will you make of such texts as this, “That he who
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption?” Do you not see
that comes true far too often? Can it help _always_ coming true, seeing
that God’s apostle spoke it? What will you make of this, too, “That the
wicked is snared by the working of his own hands;”—“That _evil_”—the evil
which we do of its own self—“shall slay the wicked?” What says the whole
noble 37th Psalm of David, but that same awful truth of God, that sin is
its own punishment?
Why should I go on quoting texts? Look for yourselves, you who fancy
that it is only on the other side of the grave that God will trouble
Himself about you and your meanness, your profligacy, your falsehood.
Look for yourselves in the book of God, and see if there be any writer
there,—lawgiver, prophet, psalmist, apostle, up to Christ the Lord
Himself,—who does not warn men again and again, that here, on earth,
their sins will find them out. Our Saviour, indeed, when on earth, said
less about this subject than any of the prophets before Him, or the
apostles after Him, and for the best of reasons. The Jews had got rooted
in their minds a superstitious notion, that all disease, all sorrow, was
the punishment in each case of some particular sin; and thus, instead of
looking with pity and loving awe upon the sick and the afflicted, they
were accustomed, too often, to turn from them as sinners, smitten of God,
bearing in their distress the token of His anger. The blessed One,—He
who came to heal the sick and save the lost,—reproved that error more
than once. When the disciples fancied a certain poor man’s blindness to
be a judgment from God, “Neither did he sin,” said the Lord, “nor his
parents, but that the glory of God might be made manifest in him.” And
yet, on the other hand, when He healed a certain man of an old infirmity
at the pool of Bethesda, what were His words to him? “Go thy way, sin no
more, lest a worse thing come unto thee;”—a clear and weighty warning
that all his long misery of eight-and-thirty years had been the
punishment of some sin of his, and that the sin repeated would bring on
him a still severer judgment.
What, again, does the apostle mean, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when
he tells us how God scourges every son whom he receives, and talks of His
chastisements, whereof all are partakers. Why do we need chastising if
we have nothing which needs mending? And though the innocent _may_
sometimes be afflicted to make them strong as well as innocent, and the
holy chastened to make them humble as well as holy, yet if the good
cannot escape their share of affliction, how will the bad get off? “If
the righteous scarcely be saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner
appear?” But what use in arguing when you know that my words are true?
You _know_ that your sins will find you out. Look boldly and honestly
into your own hearts. Look through the history of your past lives, and
confess to God, at least, that the far greater number of your sorrows
have been your own fault; that there is hardly a day’s misery which you
ever endured in your life of which you might not say, ‘If I had listened
to the voice of God in my conscience—if I had earnestly considered what
my _duty_ was—if I had prayed to God to determine my judgment right, I
should have been spared this sorrow now?’ Am I not right? Those who
know most of God and their own souls will agree most with me; those who
know little about God and their own souls will agree but hardly with me,
for they provoke God’s chastisements, and writhe under them for the time,
and then go and do the same wrong again, as the wild beast will turn and
bite the stone thrown at him without having the sense to see why it was
thrown.
Think, again, of your past lives, and answer in God’s sight, how many
wrong things have you ever done which have _succeeded_, that is, how many
sins which you would not be right glad were undone if you could but put
back the wheels of Time? They may have succeeded _outwardly_; meanness
will succeed
so—lies—oppression—theft—adultery—drunkenness—godlessness—they are all
pleasant enough while they last, I suppose; and a man may reap what he
calls substantial benefits from them in money, and suchlike, and keep
that safe enough; but has his sin succeeded? Has it not _found him
out_?—found him out never to lose him again? Is he the happier for it?
Does he feel freer for it? Does he respect himself the more for it?—No!
And even though he may prosper now, yet does there not run though all his
selfish pleasure a certain fearful looking forward to a fiery judgment to
which he would gladly shut his eyes, but cannot?
Cunning, fair-spoken oppressor of the poor, has not thy sin found thee
out? Then be sure it will. In the shame of thine own heart it will find
thee out;—in the curses of the poor it will find thee out;—in a
friendless, restless, hopeless death-bed, thy covetousness and thy
cruelty will glare before thee in their true colours, and thy sin will
find thee out!
Profligate woman, who art now casting away thy honest name, thy
self-respect, thy womanhood, thy baptism-vows, that thou mayest enjoy the
foul pleasures of sin for a season, has not thy sin found thee out? Then
be sure it will hereafter, when thou hast become disgusted at thyself and
thine own infamy,—and youth, and health, and friends, are gone, and a
shameful and despised old age creeps over thee, and death stalks nearer
and nearer, and God vanishes further and further off, then thy sin will
find thee out!
Foolish, improvident young man, who art wasting the noble strength of
youth, and manly spirits which God has given thee on sin and folly,
throwing away thine honest earnings in cards and drunkenness, instead of
laying them by against a time of need—has not thy sin found thee out?
Then be sure it will some day, when thou hast to bring home thy bride to
a cheerless, unfurnished house, and there to live from hand to
mouth,—without money to provide for her sickness,—without money to give
her the means of keeping things neat and comfortable when she is
well,—without a farthing laid by against distress, and illness, and old
age:—_then_ your sin will find you out: then, perhaps, my text,—my
words—may come across you as you sigh in vain in your comfortless home,
in your impoverished old age, for the money which you wasted in your
youth! My friends, my friends, for your own sakes consider, and mend ere
that day come, as else it surely will!
And, lastly, you who, without running into any especial sins, as those
which the world calls sins, still live careless about religion, without
loyalty to Christ the Lord, without any honest attempt, or even wish, to
serve the God above you, or to rejoice in remembering that you are His
children, working for Him and under Him,—be sure your sin will find you
out. When affliction, or sickness, or disappointment come, as come they
will, if God has not cast you off;—when the dark day dawns, and your
fool’s paradise of worldly prosperity is cut away from under your feet,
then you will find out your folly—you will find that you have insulted
the only Friend who can bring you out of affliction—cast off the only
comfort which can strengthen you to bear affliction—forgotten the only
knowledge which will enable you to be the wiser for affliction. Then, I
say, the sin of your godlessness will find you out; if you do not intend
to fall, soured and sickened merely by God’s chastisements, either into
stupid despair or peevish discontent, you will have to go back, to go
back to God and cry, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.”
Go back at once before it be too late. Find out your sins and mend
them—before they find you out, and break your hearts.
SERMON VIII.
SELF-DESTRUCTION.
1 KINGS, xxii. 23.
“The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy
prophets.”
THE chapter from which my text is taken, which is the first lesson for
this evening’s service, is a very awful chapter, for it gives us an
insight into the meaning of that most awful and terrible word—temptation.
And yet it is a most comforting chapter, for it shews us how God is
long-suffering and merciful, even to the most hardened sinner; how to the
last He puts before him good and evil, to choose between them, and warns
him to the last of his path, and the ruin to which it leads.
We read of Ahab in the first lesson this morning as a thoroughly wicked
man,—mean and weak, cruel and ungodly, governed by his wife Jezebel, a
heathen woman, in marrying whom he had broken God’s law,—a woman so
famous for cruelty and fierceness, vanity and wickedness, that her name
is a by-word even here in England now—“as bad as Jezebel,” we say to this
day. We heard of Ahab in this morning’s lesson letting Jezebel murder
the righteous Naboth, by perjury and slander, to get possession of his
vineyard; and then, instead of shrinking with abhorrence from his wife’s
iniquity, going down and taking possession of the land which he had
gained by her sin. We read of God’s curse on him, and yet of God’s
long-suffering and pardon to him on his repentance. Yet, neither God’s
curse nor God’s mercy seem to have moved him. But he had been always the
same. “He did evil,” the Bible tells us, “in the sight of the Lord above
all that were before him.” He deserted the true God for his wife’s idols
and false gods; and in spite of Elijah’s miracle at Carmel—of which you
heard last Sunday—by which he proved by fire which was the true God, and
in spite of the wonderful victory which God had given him, by means of
one of God’s prophets, over the Syrians, he still remained an idolater.
He would not be taught, nor understand; neither God’s threats nor mercies
could move him; he went on sinning against light and knowledge; and now
his cup was full—his days were numbered, and God’s vengeance was ready at
the door.
He consulted all his false prophets as to whether or not he should go to
attack the Syrians at Ramoth-Gilead. They knew what to say—they knew
that their business was to prophesy what would pay them—what would be
pleasant to him. They did not care whether what they said was true or
not—they lied for the sake of gain, for the Lord had put a lying spirit
into their mouths. They were rogues and villains from the first. They
had turned prophets, not to speak God’s truth, but to make money, to
flatter King Ahab, to get themselves a reputation. We do not hear that
they were all heathens. Many of them may have believed in the true God.
But they were cheats and liars, and so they had given place to the devil,
the father of lies: and now he had taken possession of them in spite of
themselves, and they lied to Ahab, and told him that he would prosper in
the battle at Ramoth-Gilead. It was a dangerous thing for them to say;
for if he had been defeated, and returned disappointed, his rage would
have most probably fallen on them for deceiving them. And as in those
Eastern countries kings do whatever they like without laws or
parliaments, Ahab would have most likely put them all to a miserable
death on the spot. But however dangerous it might be for them to lie,
they could not help lying. A spirit of lies had seized them, and they
who began by lying, because it paid them, now could not help doing so
whether it paid them or not.
But the good king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, had no faith in these flattering
villains. He asked whether there was not another prophet of the Lord to
inquire of? Ahab told him that there was one, Micaiah the son of Imlah,
but that he hated him, because he only prophesied evil of him. What a
thorough picture of a hardened sinner—a man who has become a slave to his
own lusts, till he cares nothing for a thing being true, provided only it
is pleasant! Thus the wilful sinner, like Ahab, becomes both fool and
coward, afraid to look at things as they are; and when God’s judgments
stare him in the face, the wretched man shuts his eyes tight, and swears
that the evil is not there, just because he does not choose to see it.
But the evil was there, ready for Ahab, and it found him. When he forced
Micaiah to speak, Micaiah told him the whole truth. He told him a
vision, or dream, which he had seen. “Hear thou therefore the word of
the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by Him. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that
he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And there came forth a spirit,
and said, I will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also:
go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying
spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken
evil concerning thee.”
What warning could be more awful, and yet more plain? Ahab was told that
he was listening to a lie. He had free choice to follow that lie or not,
and he did follow it. After having put Micaiah into prison for speaking
the truth to him, he went up to Ramoth-Gilead; and yet he felt he was not
safe. He had his doubts and his fears. He would not go openly into the
battle, but disguised himself, hoping that by this means he should keep
himself safe from evil. Fool! God’s vengeance could not be stopped by
his paltry cunning. In spite of all his disguises, a chance shot struck
him down between the joints of his armour. His chariot-driver carried
him out of the battle, and “he was stayed up in his chariot against the
Syrians, and died at even: and the blood ran out of his wound into the
midst of the chariot. And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria;
and the dogs licked up his blood there,” according to the word of the
Lord, which He spoke by the mouth of His prophet Elijah, saying, “In the
place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, whom thou slewest, shall
dogs lick thy blood, even thine.”