Micah 4:5 For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever. The survey of missions under their most glorious aspects may keep men from considering them under less striking, but not less important points of view. Missions, whether successful or unsuccessful, so far as the conversion of pagans is concerned, return one hundredfold multiplied to the land whence they sprang, — return in demonstration of human corruption, and of the need of a Mediator; and of the truth and power of the Gospel, — return in a stimulus to self-examination, in incentive to prayer, and in warning against caring for others, and neglecting ourselves. It is a very peculiar use which may be said to be made of missions in our text. The heathen are surveyed not as abandoning their falsehood and superstition, but as adhering to them with the greatest earnestness and tenacity. From this steadfastness of the heathen the argument is drawn for making the resolve, "And we will walk in the name of our Lord God forever and ever." If the pagan adheres to what is false, we will cleave to what is true. The tenacity with which false deities are adhered to, does but set in stronger light the fickleness of the professed servants of the true. What the missionary ascertains is not that idolaters refuse to add to the number of their idols, but only that they will not exchange their idols. If they admit new, they nevertheless adhere to the old. Shall the pagan adhere to his idols, because they were the idols of his fathers; and shall we virtually revolt from that God whom our ancestors served, and whose truth, though at the cost of substance and life, they handed down to us as the most precious possession? We may change our gods, if we will, yielding to the opposition of science, falsely so called; we may burn incense before images, which the madness of speculation would set up, when reason is too proud to bow meekly to revelation. In either case we should be "changing our glory for that which cannot profit." Our God is the God of the Bible, a God who has revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, providing through His obedience and death for our pardon and life. We ask the missionaries this question, Has a people ceased to "walk in the name of its god"? They have as yet nothing very encouraging to answer. There are cases of individual conversion. The missionary report is a report of adhering to error, and opposition to truth. What inferences are to be drawn from this report — inferences reproachful to ourselves, or containing lessons which it may become us to study and apply with the utmost diligence? The gist of the text is, that the tenacity with which the heathen adhere to their idols, helps to condemn, or display in its atrociousness, the conduct of the Jew, or the Christian, who shall renounce or be cold in the service of his Creator and Redeemer. (Henry Mevill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever. |
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