Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIIIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIII
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible -- Commentaries; Bible. Ezekiel -- Commentaries; Bible. Matthew I-VIII -- Commentaries; Bible. Minor Prophets -- Commentaries
The idolaters walking in the name of their god is a rebuke to the
Christian men who with faltering steps and many an aberration are
seeking to walk in the name of the Lord their God. If He is in any real
and deep sense 'our God,' we shall see in Him the realised ideal of all
excellence, the fountain of all our blessedness, the supreme good for
our seeking hearts, the sovereign authority to sway our wills; the
measure of our conscious possession of Him will be the measure of our
glad imitation of Him, and our joyful spirits, enfranchised by the
assurance of our loving possession of Him who is love, will hear Him
ever whisper to us, 'Be ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect.' The desire to reproduce in the narrow bounds of our human
spirits the infinite beauties of the Lord our God will give elevation to
our lives, and dignity to our actions attainable from no other source.
If we hallow His name, we shall do His will, and earth will become a
foretaste of heaven.
III. The worshipper will resemble his god in fate.
We may observe that it is only of God's people that Micah in our text
applies the words 'for ever and ever.' 'The peoples'' worship perishes.
They walk for a time in the name of their god, but what comes of it at
last is veiled in silence. It is Jehovah's worshippers who walk in His
name for ever and ever, and of whom the great words are true, 'Because I
live ye shall live also.' We may be sure of this that all the divine
attributes are pledged for our immortality; we may be sure, too, that a
soul which here follows in the footsteps of Jesus, which in its earthly
life walked in the name of the Lord its God, will continue across the
narrow bridge, and go onward 'for ever and ever' in direct progress in
the same direction in which it began on earth. The imitation, which is
the practical religion of every Christian, has for its only possible
result the climax of likeness. The partial likeness is attained on earth
by contemplation, by aspiration, and by effort; but it is perfected in
the heavens by the perfect vision of His perfect face. 'We shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is.' Not till it has reached its goal
can the Christian life begun here be conceived as ended. It shall never
be said of any one who tried by God's help to walk 'in the name of the
Lord' that he was lost in the desert, and never reached his journey's
end. The peoples who walked in the name of any false god will find their
path ending as on the edge of a precipice, or in an unfathomable bog;
loss, and woe, and shame will be their portion. But 'the name of the
Lord is a strong tower,' into which whoever will may run and be safe,
and to walk in the name of the Lord is to walk on a way 'that shall be
called the Way of Holiness, whereon no ravenous beast shall go up, but
the redeemed shall walk there,' and all that are on it 'shall come with
singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.'
'A DEW FROM THE LORD'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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