1 Kings 18:30

He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

I. The significance of broken altars. That is a simple line from an old chronicle, but it is the present root of many a pathetic human tragedy. It sets out in terms of quite harmless simplicity an apparently incidental fact; really it unveils the spring of the nation s calamity, and reveals the source of her uttermost disaster. Famine is everywhere. What is the root of this menacing peril, what the cause of this desolating misfortune? The whole answer lies in the broken altar. That little heap of indistinguishable rubbish, those few overturned stones, that desolated shrine--these are the central fact, the key to the situation, the pivot upon which the whole thing turns. The nation has been recreant to the sovereign sanctities, it has outraged life’s august supremacies, and at last the inexorable retribution has come, slow but sure-footed Nemesis has overtaken the people; and their pride has been overthrown, their security stripped away, and calamity overwhelmed them. Life is crammed with rich and fruitful symbols. And those few stones, lying in unregarded confusion, are the symbol of a forgotten God. They seem so unimportant, but they are the pathetic mementoes of dead worships, forgotten loyalties, quenched visions, faded raptures, and lifeless loves. That is life’s most arrestive pathos, to have known God and to have been intimate with the Eternal, and to have seen the vision splendid fade into the light of common day, and the divinity of heaven degraded into a powerless commonplace. And that soon runs out into every part of our complex lives and touches each least thing with its paralysing and degrading hand. These two things are inexorably fastened together--the famine in the land is the certain consequence of spiritual disloyalty and recreancy. When the soul becomes materialised, its visions arc quenched, its raptures die, disintegration inevitably sets in, the descent is begun, which, unless it is arrested, can have but one, and that no uncertain end. Life loses its high incentives, the breath of its most spacious inspirations perishes, the spell of its holiest attractions is broken, bit by bit the glory vanishes from the sky, and quenched stars presage the uttermost dark. And this is no capricious law, which once--but once only--worked itself out to its awful issue, and smote them that disregarded the sanctities with the desolation of devastating famine. This is one of those eternal laws of God’s wise government of the world, whereby every outraged piety vindicates its awful holiness and supremacy, and a certain Nemesis is securely fastened to every act of wrong-doing. Spiritual disloyalties degrade physical conditions, and sins o the heart work out their awful issue in plain facts which none can dispute. The punishment may vary, famine or some other scourge of God, but it is never uncertain. And we to-day may be sure that every broken altar in our individual life is mysteriously, but certainly, working to its inevitable close.

II. Repairing the altar of the Lord. He is the real helper and healer of the people, who can put his finger upon the root of their sorrow, who discovers the cause of their calamity and defeat. It is little good to peddle about the circumference, to remedy this evil, to heal this wound, to satisfy this hunger--all these are but varied forms of a sovereign defect, to find and to heal which is the supreme necessity. Things must be seen in their proper perspective, and dealt with in their imperative sequence, before good can be established and welfare made secure. Some might have said to the prophet, “Why trouble about the altar now? Submit the final issue, decide the great question, then build the altar to the certain God!” But with a sure instinct he touched the secret of the nation’s sorrows--that tiny heap of broken stones is the root of all its disasters. The reconstruction of life must begin at the point of its incipient overthrow. However tired the feet may be, and however painful the journey, men must retrace their steps along the sad way of their disobedience, until they stand at the point of their departure from the precepts of the Lord. They must confront the past with wide-open eyes, see every bit of its disloyalty and tragic failure; the erring of heart as well as of feet; its revolt against high heaven and dissonance with the spirit of goodness. Every bit of stable reconstruction either in personal or national life must go back and begin at the point of departure, it must build on the old foundation when every uncertain stone has been removed; so, and so only, can it hope to be secure. And this old story has a pathetic relevancy to the life of many of us today. There was a time when our days were “bound each to each by natural piety.” But bit by bit it has all been changed. The circumstances of life have taken on an added pomp, but a glory has faded out of our days, and we sit listening to strains of distant and ever fainter music, and watch the passing of receding angels. Bit by bit the vision faded, the revelation was withdrawn, the glory vanished, the simplicity departed, the pledge was broken, the purity was despoiled, the integrity disintegrated, and with them the radiant angels of joy and peace have withdrawn. That is the degradation that comes of neglect. No rough hands of ours tore stone from stone and piled the shrine with ruins, day by day we swept away its crumbled fragments, until at last it was gone we knew not how. But oh, “the difference to me”! To-day the ruin is not absolute, the Presence has not wholly gone. But there is only one way. The soul’s intimacy with Heaven must be re-established. (G. Beesley Austin.)

The destruction and restoration of the altar

The altar, the sacred possession of all the twelve stones which Elijah rebuilt to represent the whole of Israel. Broken down and deserted. Apply to practical desertion of worship.

I. When worldliness or any other sin absorbs the soul and prayer is abandoned. Scepticism as to reality and answer to prayer allows the fires to go out and the altar to go to decay. When even preaching usurps the place of worship, so monopolising time and attention that worship is reduced to a minimum.

II. Restoration--effected by calling to repentance, and vindication of the honour of God, Fire must come from heaven to rekindle, and special descent of the Holy Spirit of prayer and supplication will be the answer to diligent seeking.

III. Restoration of the family altar a special demand of our time. General decay thereof. Sad results. Blessed effects of restoring. (Homiletic Review.)

The altar a necessity

An eminent worldling wrote to a learned professor a letter in which he said: “It has been proved in the Colonies that rapid social deterioration follows upon local inability to go to church. If the settlers’ ‘grant’ be so remote that churchgoing becomes an impossibility he gradually ceases to miss it, abandons the weekly burnishing and outside decorum, and the rest rapidly follows.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, far from an Evangelical--but a man of keen insight into the human heart says, “I have in the corner of my heart a plant called reverence, which I find needs watering at least once a week.” (H. O. Mackey.)