Effeminate religion.
Moral evil is sadly contagious. The boastful, arrogant temper of the false prophets spread to the women also. It was a time of great excitement—a national crisis, in which all political considerations were intermingled with religion. Amid the general panic of fear, women as well as men were stirred to action. The party who sought God and desired to know his will were a small minority. The major part of the people, both men and women, were carried away by a spirit of carnal wisdom. They cared far more to secure personal advantage than to please God. But the gravamen of their offence was that they falsely assumed to speak in the stead of God.
I. SELF-MADE RELIGION IS VAIN. In every age men have ventured to invent for themselves religious creeds and forms. The human mind has chafed against God's requirements as being irksome and severe, and the world has carved out a religion that shall be self-pleasing, a lullaby to conscience, a sedative to fear. The doctrines and creeds have been spun out of men's self-consciousness, and have had no foundation outside themselves. In the pride of their heart they have imagined that Reason was a god, and that this internal god was supreme. They see vanity and prophesy falsehood.
II. THIS SELF-MADE RELIGION IS LUXURIOUS. All its beliefs and practices are regulated by pleasure. What ministers to present enjoyment is tolerated; what is unpleasant is denounced. "They sew pillows to all arm-holes." Bodily ease is paramount. To crucify the flesh is a heresy. To wear a jewelled cross upon the breast is an ornament, and is therefore approved; but to obey commands which are a burden to the flesh, to bear Christ's cross of pain and reproach, this is contemned. He who really desires acceptance with God may well suspect any religion that panders to bodily pleasure. "He who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God."
III. SELF-MADE RELIGION SEEKS EARTHLY ADVANTAGE. "Will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread?" These self-styled servants of God really cared nothing for the honour of God. They did not scruple to profane his Name, and to trample on sacred things, if only they could gain a pitiance of bread thereby. They made merchandise of religion. It was a religion toe the body, not for the soul. They acted as if gain were godliness. So is it ofttimes now. If religion would ensure prosperity to secular business, many men would profess to Do religious. But if religion frowns upon fraud and deceit, they will eschew it as unfriendly to their worldly prospects. Yet, in the long run, godliness is favourable to every human interest. "It is profitable for all things."
IV. SELF-MADE RELIGION IS HOSTILE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. These false prophets sought "to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live." It seeks to frustrate all God's purposes, to overturn the very foundations of righteousness. God's plan of government is to make righteousness contribute to life. "The just shall live by faith;" "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." But this self-made religion of proud men strives to arrest the processes of God's rule, and endeavours to make the worst things appear the best. "It puts darkness for light, and light for darkness." It would fain slay the righteous; for the godly are as thorns in the sides of the hypocrite. It seeks to confuse men's ideas of truth and error, of right and wrong.
V. THIS SELF-MADE RELIGION IS INJURIOUS BOTH TO THE WICKED AND TO THE RIGHTEOUS. "Ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should Lot return from his wicked way." It is God's wise intention that, in proportion as men are righteous, they should have joy. This is theft encouragement and, in part, their reward. He who seeks to prevent this is fighting against God. But it is a greater wrong still to encourage the wicked in their evil ways. The pains and disappointments which the wicked experience are the thorns with which God would hedge up their way and turn them back. He who promises heaven to sinners is a confederate in their sin, and shall share their punishment. Such a one is a soul-murderer. On his skirts is indelibly fixed the blood of human souls. To encourage false hopes is treason against humanity.
VI. SELF-MADE RELIGION SHALL SUFFER A COLLAPSE. Sooner or later the bubble will burst, for it has no foundation in truth or in reality. It is a mirage of men's heated imagination, and cannot long endure. The God of truth will, in his own time, appear; will scatter to the winds the flimsy fancies of men; and the mischief they have sought to do to others shall return in tenfold disaster upon their own heads. If men will not know and acknowledge God in the day of his kindness, they shall recognize him in the night time of his vengeance. Falsehood cannot perpetuate itself. Like Jonah's gourd, it springs up in a night, and in a night it perishes. But the truth, like its Author, is omnipotent, and must prevail.
"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers.
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies amid her worshippers."
HOMILIES BY W. JONES