Judges 13:1-25 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD… We, too, draw just such opposite conclusions from the same admitted phenomena. The facts of life are the same. We admit into the great problem of existence the presence of the powers of this life and of the life to come. There is the world of regret and sorrow, and the world of cheerfulness and hope; there is the secret of the angel's name, and there is religion, with its rocky altar of sacrifice; there is the fire of man's communion with God ascending to heaven, and there is an admitted power in our lives "doing wondrously." And yet, as in this grouping of the forces and interests of life around Manoah's altar, men draw diametrically opposite conclusions. Let us look at three of the common facts of life concerning which we may draw right or wrong conclusions, according as we look at them through desperation or through hopefulness. I. Take, first, the thought of CHARACTER. This includes the entire world of conduct and action — the question of law and authority, the right or wrong quality of a man's motives and his deeds. How are we to regard all this? Is there such a thing as absolute right and truth? Would it exist anywhere if man did not exist? Is it from a God, a Being whose lines have gone out into all the world? Is this power which makes for righteousness, as Matthew Arnold calls it, a motion, an impulse from a seat and source of law, or is it only like some wild, driving gale whose conflicting winds have no definite whence and are seeking no final whither? The Manoah type of mind declares, here are glimpses of some power "working wondrously" in the midst of life; but we can make nothing out of them. We have seen strange sights in the history of humanity and in the experience of our own souls; but we can see nothing but despair and death before us. The other, the religious type of mind, pleads with the wiser wife and mother, would we have all these visions and intimations if there was not a reason for them? Would the Lord have received our offerings, and have told us all these things if He were only pleased to kill us? II. Look at the fact of LIFE, with all its laws, physical, mental, and social. Look at this wondrous organism of ours, with its complex and far-reaching functions. We move through the world as the planets whirl on through space, each soul being a world of its own, with its own laws, and tendencies, and orbit. Is it any wonder that philosophers are forever investigating its meaning and giving us new views of the relationship between the working principle in life and the working principle in death? One side declares we have seen all these wonders, therefore we, too, must die; life is only the bubbling up of a few moments' consciousness, like the evanescent spray in the leap of Niagara's plunge, and then all is deep and quiet again. The other class says, No; this existence is not a mere guess; there is law, and Providence, and love in it; if the Lord were pleased to kill us He would not have told us such things as these. III. There is the question of THE FUTURE. It is very strange to think how theological theories and opinions go in sets and groups. It is impossible to have them separated or to hold them singly. One view leads on to another and draws it after it by a logical necessity. If you deny a personal immortality, you will find that locked up with this negation is your disbelief in a God; or, if you deny a God, you will find that immortality goes with this fundamental denial. Grant the premises of hope or of despair, and the conclusions will haunt you just as your shadow plays round your hurrying form under the successive street lights of a city in the darkness of night. At one moment it follows, at another it precedes your step, but it is always about you, because a shadow, after all, is only the deprivation of light due to a body. And so, with reference to the future, there is no standing-ground between the creed of despair and the creed of hope; between a blind force working in the smoke of our best sacrifices, and a messenger from God working wondrously, as the flame of our truest love ascends and is accepted. And thus we should value the revelation Christ has made, when once we feel from what that Saviour rescues us! (W. W. Newton.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. |
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