Hollow grandeur exposed.
There is no doubt that the time of our Savior and the apostles was a time which witnessed some of the worst, the lowest, and the most malign forms of bodily disease. Similarly the time owned to some of the most monstrous types of moral deformity. The same chapter that tells us of the kindly, pitiful, "very present help in time of trouble" that the innocent and God-fearing Peter found, records, as if for telling contrast's sake, the judgment that was divinely aimed at Herod, "suddenly and without remedy" visited on one who now had filled up the measure of his iniquities. A triple type of cruelty, vain-glory, and irreligion is here before us. It is, however, more particularly the crowning and at the same time killing point of a godless career which demands now attention. Notice—
I. A GRAND RECEPTION.
1. It is a reception given by Herod. He wields great power; he is conscious of it. It is no moral power. It is the result of no intellectual force; of no lofty character; of no social attractiveness; of no love to be kind, courteous, helpful in smoothing the ruggedness and softening the hardness of daily life and work. He is on no sort of level whatsoever with those whom he is pleased to allow to swell his vanity and feed the bad fires of his heart.
2. It is a reception given to a large number of those who were for the moment in the position, not of mere subjects, but of abject dependents on Herod. They had already felt his "high displeasure." Because of it they feared for their very bread. More ignorant than he, and driven by the supreme motives of desire of livelihood and business, they have already succumbed, bribing probably Herod's chamberlain, and crouching in their approach to make representations to himself. Yes; they were driven by motive the pinch of which be had never been likely to know.
3. It was a reception which was to be a token of reconciliation; but a reconciliation founded on the entire yielding of the one part and the undisputed victory of the other. That victory was certainly the victory of might, and with every probability the victory of might over right. There had been no genuine compromise, no giving and taking, no kindly considerateness for aggrieved feeling and "wounded spirit." Therefore the grand reception was all to the honor and glory of one called Herod Agrippa the First.
II. A GRAND SPEECH. Not one word of this speech is saved on the page of history. And that loss we may without hesitation count gain. It spares pain to others, and spares something of distinctness of outline to the shame and disgrace attaching to Herod. The circumstances, however, suit nothing else than what shall profess and purport to be a grand speech. The "day" is fixed; there is nothing of an impromptu character about the occasion. The "royal apparel" is brought into requisition; the eyes of many beholders shall flash in the reflection of gold and color, to learn a vulgar wonder and to improve in the commonest covetousness. And the "throne" is set and mounted. None can doubt of what sort the "oration" that followed. It is magniloquence. It is condescendingness. It is self-glorification. It is (on approaching the subject which brought the embassy) sham magnanimity. And under cover of this is a manifesto of take all or the utmost possible, give nothing or the least conceivable. The grandeur of the oration was the grandeur of hollow brass. How much grand speech differs from
III. A GRAND SHOUT. That shout entered into the ears of Herod like the very ministry of satisfaction itself—satisfaction in its most exigent degree, self-satisfaction. Supreme vanity must love a shout rather than articulate language for obvious reasons. The vague looms larger, goes further, amplifies to the gift of the excited imagination, and cannot be held bound afterwards to justify itself. But this shout found words as well, and grand words they were indeed, if true. "The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men" (Acts 14:11) was a testimony, if mistaken in its form, yet true to some extent in its spirit. And if the present testimony have any such substance of truth and of honesty in it, it shall be accepted according to that which it hath, and not condemned for that which it hath not. The words, too, of this shouting are grandly chosen; they are sententious; they are in a sense antithetic; they speak the perfection of commendation for human tongue, which the psalmist would tell us is "the glory" of man's frame. "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!" Herod had taken his seat, and "not angels' voices" could for his ears "have yielded sweeter music" than that shout and the recitative that rose out of it. The supreme point of a delicious intoxication of the conscience's very worst opiate had that moment arrived.
IV. A GRAND EXPOSURE.
1. Herod is proclaimed before men and angels and before, all time, as much as though all time were there and then present, as a typical instance of the man who knows not that his "chief end is to glorify God." Either he knows it not, or he forgets it at an awful moment, or he defies it at the turning moment of his existence. Long proving-time has been his—the decisive crucial moment has come. And this—this, alas!—is its revelation.
2. Herod's "grand speech," of which not one word remains to us (and possibly enough few of its words were heard intelligently by a people who were wrought up and highly excited), is proclaimed to be one that has had for its sole object to lead up to this profane glorification of self, and has been guilty of forgetfulness to glorify God or even of denying glory to God.
3. The very shout of the people and the voice that gave subsequent articulateness to the shout are proclaimed to be really less their shout and their voice than those of Herod himself. Their throats and lips made the sound, but he found the breath for it, and all else, as, e.g. the place, occasion, motive, or inducement. A finale of this kind had been premeditated, if not prearranged and actually organized and got up.
4. Position, power, splendor, wealth, an earthly throne, arbitrary governing, and all the rest of it, are proclaimed here at their true worth. They are shown up as the flimsy covering only of the real in a man, let that real be what it may. They don't keep the weather out; they don't keep disease out; they don't keep malignant and loathsome disease out; they don't shield conscience, heart, or body; they don't keep God out, no, not for a moment. But they do avail to do one thing—they suffice to throw out into amazing prominence the contrast between truth and falsehood, when God enters into judgment, and casts down those whom he never uplifted, and "removes the diadem and. takes off the crown" (Ezekiel 21:26), and rends in twain the gorgeous royal raiment, none of which his hand had bestowed. Then even on earth is seen the manifest beginning of the "everlasting shame and contempt."
5. Last of all, it is here emphatically proclaimed that to omit to take right action and to omit to utter right speech may sometimes justly be exposed to bear all the same blame as to do and to speak the wrong. The apostles once and again, when offered Divine honors, exerted themselves with the utmost energy to refuse it, and gave their abhorrence of the idolatrous offering to be abundantly plain. This was the least that Herod should have done, and what he surely would have done if he had not already willingly "regarded iniquity in his heart." So, when the people gave a great shout and said, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!" and Herod never protested a word, it is the same as if he had done all the preparation, pulled the wires, and spoken the impious words himself. For God searcheth and trieth and knoweth "the thoughts and intents of the heart." And he will not be robbed of his own.—B.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK