Plain Sermons, preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street. Second Series

by James Galloway Cowan

Jehu, the son of Nimshi, one of the captains of Israel, had been selected and anointed by Divine command, to supplant King Joram, to smite the whole house of Ahab, and to avenge the poured-out blood of God’s servants, the prophets. It is easy to account for the choice of such an agent. God, we believe, performs no miracle unnecessarily. When what He wants exists already, He searches it out and uses it; instead of making a new creation, or changing and converting what, so to speak, comes first to hand. At this time He had need, for His purposes respecting Israel, of a man bold, impetuous, full of vigour, prompt to undertake, resolute, courageous, uncompromising to perform. Such an one pre-eminently, was Jehu; and therefore, said the Lord, “I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel, and thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.”

We know with what alacrity Jehu assumed his office, and set about the discharge of its stern and bloody duties; how he drove furiously to slay Joram, assailing him the while with loud reproaches for tolerating the wicked doings of Jezebel; how he caused Ahaziah, king of Judah, to be slain; how he commanded Jezebel to be thrown from the window, and trod her under foot; how he effected the wholesale slaughter of seventy persons of King Ahab’s sons, of all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining; and how, too, returning from this destruction, he met forty-two of the brethren of King Ahaziah, and caused them all to be slain at the pit of the shearing house. The words of the text introduce us to his last recorded deed of this kind, namely, the destruction by subtlety of all the followers of Baal, and the suppression of his worship throughout the land of Israel.

In reading this narrative, the questions naturally arise, How far were the deeds of Jehu a performance of the Divine will? Was Jehu in any respect, and if so, in what, a holy character? Under what influence did he act, and forbear to act? May we consider these questions rightly, and learn from them lessons of wisdom by God’s grace to be carried out into holy practice!

There is, then, no doubt, because we may read the command for it, in plain words, that God willed the destruction of Ahab’s whole house and the extermination of the abominable idolatry of the Zidonians. Jehu seems, indeed, to have been unnaturally ready for the executioner’s office, to have discharged it savagely, and to have availed himself of what is never needed or allowed in God’s service, of subtlety, fraud, lying: but still, making allowance for excesses, arising from his natural disposition, from his professional familiarity with deeds of blood, and probably from a proud misconception of the authority under which he acted, it must be admitted that, in the main, Jehu so far did the will of the Lord.

Under what influence, prompted by what feelings, he did it, is a question less easy to answer decidedly. There are some—and not a few—who say that his animus was altogether bad; that carnage was his delight; and that he wickedly, and for his own pleasure and private ends, availed himself of the Divine commission, and served himself under the pretence of serving God. That Jehu was selfish there is great reason to believe, and something shall be said on that head presently; but that he was a hypocrite, that his principle, the motive under which he acted, was wholly bad, is proved not to be the case by the inspired commendation of him. God has made even the wicked for Himself, He uses them to accomplish His purposes (as He did the Assyrians to punish the Israelites, Satan to try Job, Judas to betray our Lord); but in such cases as they do of freely devised wickedness, what He overrules for His own good purposes, He condemns and punishes them for their offence, though He makes use of it. Now, in Jehu’s case, He praised and rewarded, and so there must have been something right in him: “And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” And the promise was fully realised.

It seems clear, then, that Jehu’s deeds not only accomplished the Divine will, but that they were done with that design; in obedience and in zeal. They were a soldier’s exact observance of orders, they were the fruits of a servant’s devotion to his master.

We should be able to leave this statement without qualification were it not for two passages in the chapter of the text: the one, that in which Jehu makes such boastful mention of his doings, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord;” the other, that in which the inspired writer records, “Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan.” From the first of these we are compelled to infer that there was an evil leaven pervading his best obedience; and from the last, that other feelings often influenced him beside zeal for God, and other lords had dominion over him; so that he wilfully desisted or was deterred from doing all that was required of him. Hence it is plain that we must revise our estimate of his character, to account both for his zeal and want of zeal.

The most satisfactory way of viewing him, to make him at all consistent, is to suppose that, after all he was not a changed and converted man, and did not act from spiritual feelings; but that he was hitherto employed in pursuits congenial to his natural taste, and so found his own pleasure in doing the Lord’s. In the destruction of Ahab’s race and the overthrow of Baal, the soldier exercised the profession which he had chosen and loved. In daring exploits and deeds of blood, he found a carnal gratification. Moreover, he was all the while strengthening and advancing his own cause. His throne was unsafe while any of Ahab’s posterity survived to dispute it with him, his people’s allegiance was not sure while there was any link with the Zidonians remaining; and the Lord’s displeasure at the idolatry of Israel, he well knew, would show itself again, as it had done before, in the withholding of prosperity from them, and allowing them to be harassed by their enemies. It was, then, a congenial and politic course which he had hitherto followed. It may have been done with greater ardour and satisfaction, because it was the Lord’s will; Jehu may not at the time have had any distinct perception of the workings of a lower motive, but still he would, doubtless, have done all, and done it as readily and effectually had he owned no allegiance to God, and received no Divine command. This view of Jehu seems to be corroborated by the fact, that when the time was come for him to serve God in comparative quietness, he served Him not; and when the performance of the Divine will in rooting out schism, threatened to break up the separation of Israel from Judah, by restoring the worship at Jerusalem, then he not only desisted from the work of reformation, but gave his countenance to the old error, and encouraged the people to go after the golden calves, that were in Bethel and that were in Dan. And so that which he would have others consider, and which, perhaps, he even believed himself, was zeal for God, was chiefly the indulgence of his own passions and the service of self; and it came to pass, that he who had done well, even according to all that was in God’s heart, henceforth took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel.

Such was Jehu’s zeal—a natural, or mixed, is not wholly selfish zeal, the zeal of Saul who sought to slay the Gibeonites, but spared Agag alive; the zeal of the chief priests and Pharisees who put Christ to death, and demanded Barabbas to be released; not the zeal of Phinehas, of Josiah, of Him who was always straitened till He did His Father’s will; zeal not so much immoderate or blind, as blemished and partial; not being always zealously affected in a good work.

The review of such a character may be very profitable. How many of us, my brethren, are very warm, very exact in serving God, in the things to which we are naturally inclined? How many of us, if we bid not others (as we too often do), “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord,” at least flatter, and puff up ourselves, in the contemplation of the service which we are rendering to God? How many of us have only just as much zeal as squares with our own desires or interests; and in all else, either desist when God urges “Go on,” or persevere when He cries “Forbear!” The zealous man has been advised, by a great moralist, always to suspect that pride, or interest, or ill temper, is at the bottom of his zeal. Provided we guard against the grave error, so prevalent in the last century, of despising and condemning all religious zeal, it is well to entertain this suspicion—of ourselves, I mean—till we have proved it to be false, or by repentance and amendment have made it false. For who does not know how much a proud, carnal, selfish, ill-tempered man or woman may do in the service of self, which has the appearance of zeal for God? What pious labours men will undertake, if they happen to be in the path of their natural inclinations! What warfare they will wage against sins that they have no mind to! What platform speeches they will make, what pamphlets or letters publish, against the disciples of a religious school to which they do not belong! They are zealously affected; they come out and are separate; they are enthusiastic, energetic, noisy; they put forth all their own strength; they invoke the civil power; they would have authority from the synagogue, if it were to be had, to punish all who do not conform; they smite with the sharp sword of a bitter persecuting tongue or pen; they work, they speak, they give, they fight, they endure—all, they say, in zeal for the Lord; and yet, if you follow them into the quiet scenes of life, if you come upon them where self has nothing to gain or enjoy, or where it has anything to lose or fear losing, to all appearance they take no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God. It is very likely that they are not communicants; that they are irregular in their attendance at Church, or greatly wanting in proper demeanour and devotion when there; that they aid but seldom, and slenderly, in the spread of religion around them, and the relief of God’s poor; that they are rarely seen to open the Bible; not men of prayer; exhibiting tempers, and following ways which belong not to the holily zealous; tolerating beneath their own roof, or within the reach of their influence, something as hateful in the sight of God as the calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.