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The text is part of a message which was to be declared in the house of Jacob, and published in Israel. It shows that three results were produced by self-assertion against the rule of God; will the same cause produce the same effect? Let us see the results of self-will as shown in the text, and compare them with the testimony of our own experience.

I. SELF-WILL IN RELATION TO THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT DESTROYS THE NATURAL CAPACITIES AND FACULTIES OF MAN. "Foolish people, without understanding," etc. How different this description to the original portraiture of man! Foolish, blind, deaf — such is man when he has turned his back upon God, and taken life into his own hands. It would seem as if all the faculties of our nature were dependent for continuance upon their religious use; moral paralysis is equivalent to intellectual stagnation; not to pray is to die. Is it not much the same as if a flower should be shut out from the light and dew? The soul is, so to speak, withdrawn from the source of its being — cut off from the fountain of life, and allowed to exhaust its little resources, to languish in loneliness, and to die of hunger. If, then, we leave God, how soon does our poverty come as an armed man, and our want as one that travaileth? We shall most clearly see how the natural faculties of man are impaired, and indeed destroyed, by irreligion, by considering that the same truth holds good in the ordinary business of life, — separation from God means folly, blindness, and general incapacity, even in earthly things. Take the case of our daily bread, and see how the doctrine is sustained. Let any man set aside God's plan of obtaining daffy bread, and call upon his own genius to supply it; let the earth remain uncultivated; let the seed remain unsown: can it be doubted that the insane man would soon be taught by famine what he would not learn from reason or infer from revelation? There is no violence in transferring the argument from the body to the soul: on the contrary, such transference would seem to be a logical necessity; for if God is essential to the inferior, is He not essential to the superior? If man cannot do the less, how can he do the greater? A man who would not eat bread because he could not make his own will dominant through every detail of the process of germination would be pitied or despised; yet men who cannot by their own will or power make one grain of corn for the support of the body are often found resenting God's offers of enlightenment and guidance of the soul! What wonder that God should call upon the heavens to be astonished and the earth to be horribly afraid? And what wonder, repelled and dishonoured as He is, that He should say: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land," etc. Think of God sending a famine upon the soul, — of minds pining and dying because Divine messages have been withdrawn! We know what the effect would be if God were to withhold the dew, or to trouble the air with a plague, or to avert the beams of the sun: the garden would be a desert, the fruitful field a sandy plain, the wind a bearer of death, summer a stormy night, and life itself a cruel variation of death, — so penetrating, so boundless is the influence of God in nature. Is it conceivable that the withdrawment of God's influence would be less disastrous upon the spirit of man? Out of God there is no true being; the spasm, the convulsion, which is mistaken for existence is an impious sarcasm upon life.

II. SELF-WILL IN RELATION TO THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT PLUNGES THE SOUL INTO IRREVERENCE. The "fear" spoken of (ver. 22) may be taken as expressive of homage, veneration, and, in fact, everything that enters into a complete idea of worship. The destruction of veneration may be regarded as the final triumph of self-will. There is a very simple philosophy of spiritual retrogression. It turns upon man's self-magnifying power, and his consequent ambition for self-government. He says: "If there be a God, He is at all events unseen; I am the highest power that comes within the cognisance of my own senses; other beings, such as demons and angels, have been spoken of; but they are fictions of genius, dreams of ill-regulated minds; I am king, I am god." This is the natural creed of Sight, and it has many virtual subscribers. Now, it is to the senses themselves that God addresses the appeal of the text. He would appoint the ocean as umpire in the great controversy. Look, He says in effect, at the sea: it is bounded by the sand; its great fury cannot prevail against the limit which I have appointed: can you enlarge the decree which determinates the movement of the deep? Can you beat back the waves, or silence the roar of the billows? Stand by the seashore, then, and learn that there is a will higher than your own, a power which could crush your puny arm; listen, and let your soul hear a voice mightier than man's; incline your ear, and let the spirit hear the going of God upon the quiet or troubled waves; reflect, wonder, bow down, and worship.

III. SELF-WILL DISSOCIATES THE GIFTS OF NATURE FROM THE GIVER (ver. 24). Revolted man will accept the rain because he cannot live without it, but the Giver will not be so much as named; the corn will be gathered, but those who bear the sheaves will have no harvest hymn for God. How rapid, tumultuous, fatal is the course of moral revolt! The purpose of God was evidently to have His Name identified with the common mercies of life, that our very bread and water might remind us constantly of His gentle and liberal care. He was not to be confided to purely spiritual contemplation, to be the subject of the soul's dream when lost in high reverie, or to be thought of as a Being far off, enclosed within the circle of the planets, or throned in the unapproachable palaces of an undiscovered universe: He desires to be seen spreading our table in the wilderness, causing the earth to bring forth and bud for our benefit, turning our weary feel towards the water springs, and nourishing us in the time of weakness. Men may eat unblessed bread, and be bodily the stronger for it, but it is a sore and lasting reproach to the soul. The course of moral revolt ends in this, ends in the deposition of God and in the worship of self. Man ploughs, sows, reaps, and considers all the influences which cooperate in the production of results as mere features of inanimate nature existing and working apart altogether from intelligent or moral will. The universe becomes a stupendous machine; they who get good crops have used the machine skilfully, and they whose fields are fruitless have misunderstood or misapplied the machine. The universe was designed to be the temple, the very coveting, of God; but the worship of self has wrought a bad transfiguration upon it, and now the thief, the unclean beast, and the lying prophet prevail on every hand. The demoralisation of man may have a mischievous effect upon nature itself. We sometimes speak of a bad harvest: what if behind it there has been a bad life? When the heart is right towards God, God will not withhold His blessing from the earth: "Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise Thee: then shall the earth yield her increase." Physical blessing will follow spiritual worship; no good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly. In the light of these statements we have a double view of the unity of the moral and material systems of government. One view is from the human side: when man sins, commits a trespass in the spiritual region, he finds the result of his sin in the physical department; the reflection of his spiritual misrule is seen in dried fountains and fruitless fields, in devastating storms and fatal plagues; the universe takes up arms in defence of law. Another view is from the Divine side. God shows favour upon the earth for reasons derived from the spiritual character of the people, and demonstrates the superiority of the soul over the body by making its condition the measure of His material benefactions. How terrific, how hopeless, then, is the condition of the sinner!

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,

WEB: "Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,