2 Kings 10:1-17

Jehu wrote letters and sent to Samaria.

Jehu

Jehu. He did not rest until he had destroyed the house of Ahab and the worship of Baal. There are many Jehus to-day and there is much Jehuism: religion that goes a long way, and is very earnest and zealous--only there is a fatal but in it.

I. Jehu spends all his time in hacking at other people’s sins. Perhaps it is too much to expect a man to do more than one thing well, but somehow one does expect that when a man is so tremendously in earnest against other people’s sins he should occasionally see to his own. Have we not often met the man? Have we not heard him denouncing the dreadful heresy of other people: storming them with hard words--papist, heretic, infidel--and then he goes down to his Bethel? “See my zeal for orthodoxy.” Yet he goes hard, loveless, unbrotherly, the day through. And Jehu is not always in a carriage driving furiously. I have met him sometimes with shuffling steps, whining and whimpering about other people’s dreadful doings, holding up hands of pious horror and shaking the head sternly in an agony of concern as to what will become of them! And yet he too has his calves at Bethel My dear sir, what will become of you? Your Jehu comforts himself that his zeal against Baal will be set over against the little matter of Bethel and the golden calves, as if the Almighty kept a debit and credit account, and that the balance will come out on the right side. Never, Jehu--never. You are not only omitting some trifling detail of religion,--it is the undoing of it all. And look again. There was a terrible danger that Jehu should be satisfied with what he had done. If anybody spoke to him about the calves at Bethel, he would take refuge at once, “But see what I did to Baal.” If any one called him an idolater he would say. “See how I served God in the matter of Ahab.” Ah, it is a terrible thing to cheat even ourselves thus.

II. Jehu served God just so far as he could serve himself, and no further. If Jehu was going to be king, then of course he must get rid of Joram: and if he meant to keep the throne, then his safety will be to get rid of the whole house of Ahab; for so long as one was left there would be a centre for disturbance and plots. His safety depended upon the clean sweep that he made. And the priests of Baal would be another source of mischief. So Jehu cried, “Come, see my zeal for the Lord.” And the whip cracks and the horses gallop and not a prince of Ahab’s house or a priest of Baal is left. Then Jehu goes down and worships the calves at Bethel, and worships them for the same reason--that it served his purpose. Yes, Jehu, we have seen thy zeal--thy zeal for thyself. The calves at Bethel were put up at the first as a matter of policy. When the two kingdoms were rent in twain, by possessing Jerusalem Judah had the advantage of the temple and its holy associations. So the king of Israel said, “It will never do to let my people acknowledge the supremacy of. Judah by going up to worship. To expose them to this temptation to return to Judah is too much.” So he set up the calves at Bethel and at Dan, and cried, “These be thy gods, O Israel.” Now the same policy that prompted Jeroboam to put them up, prompted Jehu to keep them up. I know that he could explain it all and satisfy everybody--except those that were stupidly particular, you know, and quite ignorant of the ways of the world. “You see I did not set them up; I would not have done such a thing on any account, and I cannot, but wish that they never had been set up. Of course Jeroboam is to blame, very much to blame. But now that they are set up and the people are accustomed to them, it would never do for me to interfere. They would not understand it. Really, it may seem otherwise to you, but a man in my position has to be very careful--very.” It is an utterly mean and despicable kind of religion this, serving God just as far as it serves our own purpose. To be religious, chiefly on Sundays, not because sin is hateful, but because it is the proper thing;--religious not from many love to holiness, but because it may be expedient in the long run. True religion may have its source in selfish motives, as great rivers may have their rise in marshy swamps--but Jehuism ends there. It is all through a subtle self-service. What suits me and my interests, that decides the whole duty of man.

III. Then again, Jehu goes so far in serving God as it suits his tastes. He liked furious driving and fierce excitements. Set him up behind a pair of wild horses and he was in his element. He was a soldier, and such cruel and bloody horrors were what his nature and his calling inclined him to. But when Ahab’s household was slain, and Jezebel was dead, and the worshippers of Baal murdered, and the image burned, and the temple of their foul idolatry left for ever defiled--then it was quite a different thing for him to go troubling himself about pleasing God in the thousand little matters of everyday life. Some people will be religious so far as it suits their tastes. “I like it” settles everything. We cannot help our tastes and preferences--they are gifts of God like our instincts, of which they are indeed part. But the danger is when we exalt our tastes into that which regulates our duty. Many a course has for its only reason and its bit of poor defence, this--I like it. Now if religion mean anything at all, it means that I am bound to consider first and foremost in everything what God likes, and to serve Him: and I am bound to consider my likes in reference to my brother and see that I offend him not; to consider his preferences and his claims; to stay myself in my furious driving and fierce destruction, lest I should ride over him. Religion is not a system provided only to quiet my uneasy fears, and to put into me happy feelings, and to tell me not to worry myself--a ministry to our selfishness and indolence--vices that no religion need fatten, they know how to take care of themselves, and failings that no religion can satisfy. If religion mean anything it means this, and if it have any reality in it, it will show itself thus--I am bound to deny myself wherever I can really help any man in God’s world. And to us workers in the Church is there not here a word of warning? All that Jehu did was done by him as the servant of the Lord--yet the very bustle and energy of the service shut out the times of meditation and waiting upon God by which he was to learn what he had to do and to find the fitness for doing it. The work, however well done, is but very ill done which steals from us the time of quiet communion with God. The reason of Jehu’s failure is not far to seek. He walked not in the way of the Lord with all his heart, because his heart was not in it. There is the secret. Let Jehu be handling the reins, or in the excitement of the battle, and there all the man appeared. No task was too difficult for this determined man; no position was too exposed for his courage; nothing was too much to expect of him. But when it was to do the will of God in other things, then Jehu had excuses and hindrances ready by the score. Then the strong man was really so weak and helpless. Ah, so it is that to-day there are many Jehus--men who have a whole heart for anything, everything, but the service of God. Here is a man of business--how he can stick at it, grudging no labour, sticking at it day and night in the hope of increasing his returns--“a smart fellow,” men say, “and very clever.” But for the Lord this man can only sigh. Here this earnest man can content himself with excuses. Once more Jehu’s name is mentioned--And Jehu slept with his fathers. The restless energetic life was over. The furious driver could not escape the old enemy. He lies and looks back upon his course, and looks forward into that dread world which is opening before him. The coveted crown is passing to another head; the sceptre is falling from the trembling grasp. (M. G. Pearse.)

The scavenger of God

By the philosopher, and still more by the philosopher who believes in the Divine guidance of human affairs, the true relation of Napoleon to the world’s history will be reduced to a very simple conception: that he was launched into the world as a great natural or supernatural force, as a scourge and a scavenger, to effect a vast operation, partly positive, but mainly negative; and that when he has accomplished that work he is withdrawn as swiftly as he came. Caesar, Attila, Tamerlane, and Mahomet are forces of this kind; the last a much more potent and abiding factor in the universe than Napoleon; another proof, if proof were needed, of how small is the permanent effect of warfare alone on the history of mankind. These men make great epochs; they embody vast transitions; they perplex and appal their contemporaries; but when viewed at a distance they are seen to be periodical and necessary incidents of the world’s movement. The details of their career, their morals, their methods, are then judged, interesting though they may be, to be merely subordinate details. Scavenger is a coarse word, yet it accurately represents Napoleon’s first function as ruler. The volcano of the French Revolution had burned itself out. He had to clear away the cold lava; the rubbish of past destruction; the cinders and the scoriae; the fungus of corruption which had overgrown all, and was for the moment the only visible result. .. Then he is a scourge. He purges the floor of Europe with fire. (Lord Rosebery.)