God has made us free to choose or refuse good or evil Will cannot be coerced and yet be free; coercion here, therefore, would be destruction. But while God does not compel us to choose the right, He induces by gracious promises, and admonishes by alternative penalties. Still we remain free to elect the good with its blessings, or the evil with its entailments of misery. But so loth is He to see His creatures wretched that He has opened a way of repentance and reformation for sinners. In this, mercy is carried to the extreme limit which consists with the welfare of the universe, which must ever depend upon the order and harmony of righteousness. At this point there comes in the law of extremity; and the sinner passing it has to encounter "judgment without mercy."

I. THE OLD PROPHET SOUGHT MERCY.

1. His conduct expressed repentance.

(1) He went out for the corpse of the man of God, and brought it to his home, discerning the hand of God in the judgment. Looking now upon that ghastly form of death he saw his own sad work. He had caused a mischief he could not now repair. How inadequately men estimate beforehand the consequences of their wrong doing! (9.) He decently interred the body in his own grave. This was the only reparation now within his power for the injury he had caused, But how inadequate! What a bitter thought!

(3) He "mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!" This exclamation (הוי אחי) was the refrain of a lamentation (see Jeremiah 22:18). Ward, in his "Manners and Customs of the Hindoos," gives two specimens of such lamentations. There are frequent allusions to these in the prophets (see Jeremiah 30:7; Ezekiel 6:11; Joel 1:15; Amos 5:16, 17; Revelation 18:10-19). With the old prophet this was more than a conventional mourning, he mourned for himself before God.

2. His conduct also expressed faith.

(1) He commanded his sons, when he died, to lay his bones beside those of the man of God. He believed him to be a man of God in reality, notwithstanding this single act of disobedience for which he had suffered death. There are "sins unto death," viz., of the body, which do not involve the final death of the soul. He desired to be with him in the resurrection. The concern of the ancients respecting the disposition of their bodies after death arose out of their faith in a resurrection (see Genesis 1:24 26; Exodus 13:19; Hebrews 11:22; see also 2 Kings 13:20, 21).

(2) He gave as the reason of his command the faith he had in the certainty of the prophecy of the man of God (ver. 32). And in further testimony of his faith put an inscription on the tomb (see 2 Kings 23:17). He desired to be associated in death with the denouncers of Jeroboam's sin rather than with those involved in that sin. Nor would he be identified in the judgment with perverters of true worship.

(3) By this faith his bones were spared when those of the priests and votaries of Jeroboam were burnt upon the altar by Josiah (see 2 Kings 23:19). By a corresponding faith shall we be saved from the judgments of the more illustrious Son of David upon the man of sin of the mystical Babylon.

II. BUT JEROBOAM ENCOUNTERED THE EXTREMITY OF WRATH.

1. He disregarded the goodness of God.

(1) The conditional promises by the hand of Ahijah were very gracious (1 Kings 11:37-39). What a magnificent opportunity he had! But he missed it.

(2) What opportunities have we wasted? Who can estimate their value? No opportunity of glorifying God should escape us.

2. He disregarded his remonstrances.

(1) The judgments upon Rehoboam were lessons to him. The same God who in them visited the sins of Solomon had also set him upon the throne of Israel, and would deal with him upon the same principles. But he sinned against this admonition.

(2) Then came the warning from the man of God at the altar. That God was in this warning was left without doubt by the signs (vers. 3-6). These staggered him for a moment; but there was no true repentance.

(3) Then came the final warning in the death of the man of God for being implicated, though by a deception, in his sin. This also was shown to be from God by miraculous signs (ver. 64). But this also he disregarded (ver. 33).

(4) Now, therefore, the law of extremity must take its course. He and his house are devoted to destruction (ver. 34). This last warning was written in letters of blood. God gave it to Him at the expense of His own servant. And He warns us at the expense of His own Son; and if we finally reject Christ the extremity of mercy is spurned, and we must encounter the extremity of wrath. - J.A.M.

Jeroboam had decidedly a fine start with a flattering prospect of success, a rare opportunity for excelling both temporally and spiritually. There was the promotion of the king, and by God the conditional promise of kingship, together with His guiding, protecting, and counselling presence. Permanent regnancy for himself and his children after him. Hence, having God to begin with, and God's unfailing promise to rest on, provided he fulfilled the conditions, what could he have better, what more? A grand Start! A splendid chance to march to the coveted goal of success on the very threshold of an untried life enterprise. But every fair morning does not end in a cloudless eventide; neither does every such beginning as Jeroboam had culminate in continuance in well-doing. The start may be the best part in a man's life. It was so with Jeroboam.

1. There was manifest distrust of God. Evidently he had forgotten God's promise to be with him and to establish his house and kingdom.

2. This distrust of God led to departure from God. Leaning to his own understanding, he resolved to build two altars and to make two golden calves, and place one of them at Bethel, and the other at Dan, the extreme points in his kingdom.

3. Another point which strikes us in this man's history is his despising Jehovah's warning and servant. These histories of the Bible repeat themselves in the lives around us to-day. There are many men to whom God has given a good start in life. They have been blessed with an auspicious entrance into the world, with social and religious environment most favourable and helpful, God-fearing parents, a religious training, a comfortable home, good education, business tact, common-sense views of life, and men, and things, and, above all, with Heaven's call to fellowship and godliness. Each has started right, with high aims and noble purposes. Public favour has greeted them, success has blossomed in their path of enterprise and effort, until, by sweat of brain and brawn of muscle, and the smile of Providence, they have taken a steady and straight course to wealth and position. But, as in the case of Jeroboam, temporal prosperity has been followed by spiritual degeneracy. A going up in the world has resulted in a going down in grace. Such persons, however, are not left without warning. God's ministers are commanded to prophesy against them. This is done, though it provokes anger and brings disfavour. Faithfulness ofttimes forfeits popularity and position, but it ensures the "Well done" of God. To rebuke sin in high places, to tear the mask from the face of the hypocrite, to denounce a man's pet idol — indifference, intemperance, or impurity — is like touching gunpowder with a lucifer. You must expect an explosion if not an expulsion. Persecution in some form will hound you; but fear not, for He who has said, "Touch not My anointed and do My prophets no harm," covers you with His wings, and smites your persecutors with the rod of judgment.He wastes their strength and withers their health.

1. Learn from this study of character the influence of one life.

2. Learn, too, the danger of attempting to injure God's true servants. "Whoso toucheth you, toucheth the apple of My eye."

3. Lastly, beware of the developing power of evil. The seedlings of sin finding congenial soil grow into a harvest of woe. The rill of evil first, the river of corruption at last. Jeroboam went from bad to worse. Slighting God grew into abandonment of God. Worship through the medium of symbols became rank idolatry. No man intends to become a drunkard when he lifts the first glass to his lips, but he takes the beginning step towards it. The possibilities of sin — the resources of wrong-doing pent up in every man's nature — no mind can gauge, no tongue can tell Safety alone lies in salvation from sin, salvation through the cross — full, free, eternal

(J. O. Keen, D. D.).