2 Kings 10:9

Who slew all these?

The wholesale slaughter

I see a long row of baskets coming up towards the palace of king Jehu. I am somewhat inquisitive to find out what is in the baskets. I look in and I find the gory heads of seventy slain princes. As the baskets arrive at the gate of the palace, the heads are thrown into two heaps, one on either side the gate. In the morning, the king comes out, and he looks upon the bleeding, ghastly heads of the massacred princes. Looking on either side the gate, he cries out with a ringing emphasis: “Who slew all these?” There is no use of my taking up your time in trying to give you statistics about the devastation, and the ruin, and the death which strong drink has wrought in this country. When I look upon the desolation I am almost frantic with the scene, while I cry out: “Who slew all these?” I can answer that question in half a minute. The ministers of Christ who have given no warning; the courts of law that have offered the licensure; the women who give strong drink on New Year’s Day; the fathers and mothers who have rum on the sideboard; the hundreds of thousands of Christian men and women in the land who are staled in their indifference on this subject--they slew all these! I am now going to tell you what I think are the sorrows and the doom of the drunkard, so that you to whom I speak may not come to the place of torment.

1. The first suffering of the drunkard is in the loss of his good name. God has so arranged it, that no man ever loses his good name except through his own act. All the hatred of men and all the assaults of devils cannot destroy a man’s good name, if he really maintains his integrity. If a man is honest, and pure, and Christian, God looks after him.

2. Another loss which the inebriate suffers is that of self-respect. Just as soon as a man wakes up and finds that he is the captive of strong drink, he feels bemoaned.

3. I go further, and say that the inebriate suffers from the loss of his usefulness. Do you not recognise the fact that many of those who are now captives of strong drink, only a little while ago were foremost in the churches and in reformatory institutions?

4. I go on, and say that the inebriate suffers from the loss of physical health.

5. Again: the inebriate suffers through the loss of his home. I do not care how much he loves his wife and children, if this passion for strong drink has mastered him, he will do the most outrageous things, and if he could not get drink in any other way, he would sell his family into eternal bondage. How many homes in our city have been broken up in that way, no one but God knows.

6. But my subject takes a deeper tone, and that is, that the inebriate suffers from the loss of the soul. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)