The ambitious spirit in man.
The word "Lucifer" means the "light-bringer," and so has been in modern times associated with our matches. As standing in this text, it has often been taken as a synonym for Satan; but it really is a highly poetical description of the King of Babylon, and the Babylonian empire is in Scripture represented as the type of the ambitions, aspiring, tyrannical, and self-idolizing power. Isaiah 14:13 gives the supreme boasting of this king: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." "Babylon had shone forth in the dawn of. the world's history with surprising luster, but was perverted by self-admiration." It should be remembered that the ancient Oriental notion was that kings were incarnations of the Divine, and everything was done to sustain this sentiment. We have evidence of this as regards Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, Such a sentiment must have fostered national ambition to an extravagant height. Treating the King of Babylon as a type, we consider the general subject of the "ambitious spirit in man," observing—
I. THAT IT IS THE SPRING- OF ENTERPRISE. The true spring of human enterprise should be loyalty and devotion to God. Next to that we place supreme desire for the well-being of others, the "enthusiasm of humanity." But these have been made to give place, and self-interests have fashioned the ambitions which have inspired men to heroic and persevering deeds, in all the various spheres of life. Illustrate, from commerce, science, travel, literature, and extension of kingdoms. Ambition has been the source of achievement and the spirit of progress. It may be shown how far it has thus proved an element in the well-being of the race. Without ambition the world could never have been won for man.
II. IT IS ALSO A CONDITION OF INDIVIDUAL GROWTH. Without it a man remains in the educational anti intellectual range of his class, and the social sphere in which he was born. Illustrate from the farm-laborer, who, through a long life, plods on his simple way, attaining nothing, because utterly lacking the inspiration of ambition. The spread of education is chiefly important for this—it shows higher levels, and starts ambition. A man ceases to grow when he ceases to aspire. And the infinite perfection of God is the sublime height set before us. We may all grow on until we have become like him.
III. IT IS THE SPIRIT IN MAN TO WHICH RELIGION APPEALS. Religion finds it crushed down into hopelessness, and it touches it, quickening it into new vigor and hope. Religion finds it diverted to base and merely self-seeking ends, and it brings it back to the right lines, and makes it noble and self-denying. Man, made in the image of God, and made for God, must want to reach God. Religion sets God before him—so attractively in the person of the Lord Jesus—that the ambitions are drawn in, and become one supreme ambition to be worthy sons and devoted servants of the Lord God Almighty. The Christian ought to be the most ambitious of all men. A Christian without his sacred ambitious does no honor to his name.
IV. IT IS THE SPIRIT IN MAN WHICH MUST BE KEPT UNDER STRICT LIMITATIONS. Because ambition so soon and so easily gets beyond self-control—the control of the sanctified self—and becomes self-willed, self-seeking; a mere striving to attain, whether God will have us attain or not. Then ambition is like that of the King of Babylon, and it must bring us under Divine arrestings, checkings, and judgments. The law of limitation is, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." There is no fear for the influence of any ambitions that come after, this first and supreme one. The sin and folly of men's usual ambitions lie in their putting God last. It is with them "all of self, and none of thee."—R.T.