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The Lord is now going to search the heart, to turn out the corners of the inmost recesses of the mind, the idol and favourite sin. He will proceed to do a spiritual work; He will lay aside His hammer with which He has broken the wall, and no more will He tear and rend the garments which cover falsehood: He will enter the heart, He will name the idols one by one which occupy that secret sanctuary; He will name them, He will bring them forth to judgment, and He will conduct that most penetrating of all criticism, the judgment of the thought and motive and purpose of man. "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me," — came to be looked through, weighed, measured, and adjudged. No office can save men from Divine criticism. How comforting is this thought, though terrible in some aspects! It were well that our judges should be judged, else who can tell to what extremes of folly they might go, hounded on by ambition, or stung to further issues by envy and malice? The higher the office, the greater the responsibility; the larger the privileges, the greater the sin if they are outraged; the more brilliant the genius, the more infamous the mischief if that genius be perverted. The able man, the man of faculty and education, can do more sin in one moment than a poor uneducated soul can do in a lifetime. Elevation aggravates sin. The place of the disease indicates its fatal character — "in their heart." This is heart disease. Men almost whisper when they indicate that some friend is suffering from disease of the heart; there is hopelessness in the tone: great allowance should be made, they say, for a man who is suffering from heart disease; be must not be startled, or excited, or suddenly pounced upon; his wishes must be gratified, they must as far as possible even be anticipated; and any little impatience he may show must be looked at charitably. The talk is humane, the considerateness is full of affection, the conditions imposed are suggested by reason. Is there not a higher disease of the heart? What is the meaning of this disease of the heart, this idolatry in the inmost soul? When a moral disease is of the heart it means that the disease is liked, enjoyed; it is wine drunk behind the door, it is a feast of fat things eaten in secrecy; every mouthful so sweet, so good, so rich. When a disease is of the heart in a moral and spiritual sense it means that it is consented to; it is voluntary, it is personal, it is desired; there would be a sense of loss without it. Disease of this kind, too, is most difficult of eradication. It is not in the skin, or it might be cut out; it is not in the limb, or it might be amputated, and the knife might anticipate mortification: the evil is in the heart; no knife can touch it, no persuasion can get at it; nothing can be done with it but one thing — only a miracle of the Holy Ghost can overcome that difficulty and turn that disease into health. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? We have no idols of a visible kind, it may be, yet we may be the veriest pagans in our hearts. We say, How distressing that poor human nature should fall down before stock and stone and worship it! and we, inflated pagans, worship a golden calf, a tinsel crown, a sounding name, a crafty policy. Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? Certainly we are. No man can escape this accusation. It is subtle, far reaching, all but ineradicable. If we do not face such difficulties our piety is a stucco that will peel off in the wet weather, and leave the ghastly moral ugliness exposed to public scorn. Doubt may be an idol used to diminish responsibility. Others, again, may have in the heart an idol called Ignorance, kept there for the purpose of diminishing service: we will not go into the dark places of the city, then we need not attend to the cries which are said to be arising there from overborne and hopeless humanity; we will keep on the broad thoroughfare, where the gaslight is plentiful; we shall see the surface and outer shape of things, and then retire to rest, saying that, say what fanatics may, there is really a good deal of solid happiness in the city. Have we not an idol in the heart we call Orthodoxy, which We keep there in order to enlarge moral licence? Is there not an intellectual orthodoxy and a spiritual heterodoxy often united in the same man? "Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus Saith the Lord God: Repent." When did the Lord ever conclude a discourse without some evangelical tone in it? The Bible is terrific in denunciation, awful beyond all other books in its denunciation of sin and its threatening of perdition; yet through it, and through it again, and ruling it, is a spirit of clemency and pity and mercy and hope, yea, across hell's burning mouth there lies the shadow of the Cross.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.

WEB: Then came certain of the elders of Israel to me, and sat before me.