Homilist Zechariah 14:16 And it shall come to pass… I. IT IS A DUTY BINDING ON ALL PEOPLE. "The feast of tabernacles was meant to keep them in mind that, amidst their abundant harvests, and well-cared-for fields and vineyards, that as in the desert, so still it was God who gave the increase. It was therefore a festival most suitable for all the nations to join in, by way of acknowledging that Jehovah was the God of Nature throughout the earth, however various might be the aspects of nature with which they were familiar. Besides, there can be little doubt that by the time of Zechariah, and probably long before, this feast had become a kind of symbol of the ingathering of the nations" (John 4:35). — Dr. Dods. Whilst the thousands neglect public worship, not a few argue against it, they say it is uncalled for and unnecessary. In reply to this we state, where there is genuine religion — 1. Public worship is a natural development. The Being we love most we crave an opportunity for extolling, we want that all shall know His merits. 2. Public worship is a happy development. What delights the soul so much as to hear others praise the object we love the most? This at once gratifies the religious instinct and the social love. 3. Public worship is a beneficent development. There is nothing that tends so much to quicken and ennoble souls as worship, and nothing gives such a vital interest in one soul for another, as public worship. II. ITS NEGLECT EXPOSES TO TERRIBLE CALAMITIES. 1. The greatness of the punishment. "Upon them shall be no rain." Now the absence of rain involves every temporal evil you can think of, famine, pestilence, loss of physical enjoyment, loss of health, loss of life. 2. The fitness of the punishment. (1) To the offence. "The withholding of the rain."(2) To the offender. The idea of not having rain would not, perhaps, terrify the Egyptians, for they had the Nile. Hence a plague is threatened to them. The punishment here was to come because of the neglect of public worship. And this is punished by — (a) Loss of the highest spiritual enjoyments. (b) Hereafter, by the reproaching of conscience, and the banishment from all good. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. |
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