outlines and suggestive comments.
The wicked build houses on the earth; the earth is their home, where they desire to be, and they imagine to settle themselves in it. The upright do set up tabernacles only, seeking another country, and as knowing the uncertainty upon which the world standeth. For though the habitation of the wicked be a house, and rooted in the earth, yet it shall not only be shaken, but overthrown, and though the abiding of the upright be but a tabernacle pinned to the earth, yet shall it stand so safely that it shall flourish like a rooted tree. Wherefore, when in the Revelation we read “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth” (chap. viii. 13), St. Jerome understands it of the wicked only. For a godly man is not an inhabiter of the earth, but a stranger and a sojourner. And his tabernacle doth so flourish, that it reacheth to heaven, for he hath his dwelling in heaven to whom the whole world is an inn.—Jermin.
The “house of the wicked” may be a most prosperous one, and may seem to be full of peace; but it is doomed. It must become “desolate,” literally astonished; which is the eastern way of describing great downfalls. “But the tent of the upright” (another intensive clause) his slenderest possessions; like a sprout; like some poor tender plant, shall bloom forth. Such is the meaning of “flourish.”—Miller.
main homiletics of verse 12.
What Seems to Be, and What Is.
I. Human nature needs more light than is found in the human conscience. The way which “seems right unto a man” may be “the way of death.” A mariner who has insufficient light to observe correctly the needle in the compass, may think he is steering for the haven when he is taking the vessel straight upon the rocks. He may be very sincere in his conviction that he is going right, but his thinking so will not make it so. He needs more light than he has. So the light of conscience is not enough to guide a man with certainty in the true and right way. If conscientious sincerity was an infallible guide Paul would not have “delivered to prison” men and women for being followers of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts. xxii. 4). The way that in his ignorance seemed right to him, was felt by him to be a “way of death” when his conscience was enlightened. Conscience may be deadened by sin, or warped by prejudice or self-interest; it is not a reliable and certain guide. If it were, it was needless for the Son of God to visit the earth and make known the will of His Father—the revelation of God’s will in the books of the Old and New Testaments is a superfluity. The existence of the Bible is explained by the fact which is found to be true by all God-taught men, that “the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. x. 23). God, by speaking unto men in “sundry times and in divers manners,” and especially “in these last days by His Son” (Heb. i. 1) declares plainly that man needs something outside of himself to guide him into that path of righteousness which alone is a way of life. The history of the world confirms this truth. Observation of every-day life tells the same tale.
II. The need of human nature has been fully met. All that the mariner needs in order to keep the vessel’s head right is light to see the compass. God in Christ is a sufficient light to man. Paul says: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). Christ Himself tells us that it is those only who “follow Him” who have the “light of life” (John viii. 12). That the way thus revealed is fully adapted to meet man’s need is proved by the results which follow from walking in it. The progress which a sick man makes towards health is the most convincing proof of the efficacy of his physician’s treatment. The light which is shed upon men by the revelation of God, and especially by the Gospel, has been proven by its result upon individuals and upon nations, to be all-powerful to turn men from “darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts xxvi. 18). The way of sin is the way of death—death morally, socially, and physically. The way of holiness is the only way of spiritual life to the soul and to the community, and ensures victory over the penalty of bodily death.
illustration.
The Last Words of Hildebrand.—One of the greatest of the sons of earth (if we measure greatness either by posthumous fame or posthumous influence) lay on his death bed. Prelates, princes, priests, devoted adherents and attendants stood around. Anxious to catch the last accents of that once oracular voice, the mourners were bending over him, when, struggling in the very grasp of death, he collected, for one last effort, his failing powers, and breathed out his spirit with the indignant exclamation, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.” . . . That he went into the unseen world consciously and deliberately with a lie in his right hand, is a supposition utterly inadmissible. Passionate earnestness and intense conviction were stamped upon all his words and works. . . . He had climbed the slippery steps of intrigue to the Papal throne, and to set that throne above all thrones of the earth, and to cause everyone, “both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,” to bow down in the dust before it, was thenceforward his sole aim and object. . . . It was for this that he enforced that celibacy of the clergy which has ever since been the law of the Church. He found thousands of married priests ministering at her altars in innocence of heart, thinking no sin, and fearing no dishonour. . . . He commanded them to put away their wives on pain of excommunication, which meant deprivation of all rights, spiritual, social, and human. . . . One cry of indignation, one prolonged and bitter wail of agony, arose throughout Europe, from the Apennines to the Baltic Sea. . . . Wives were torn from their husbands, children from their fathers. Popular fanaticism allied itself with Papal tyranny. . . . There was no pity for worse than widowed wives, and worse than orphaned children flung out upon the cold world to starve. The Pontiff trod his stern, remorseless way over broken hearts. . . . But he had a dangerous antagonist to encounter. . . . The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Church were together to dominate the world. But which of them was to dominate the other? Hildebrand’s long contest with Henry IV. may be said to have decided the question. But with what weapons was it fought? We see the gallant Saxons tempted by bribes and promises to revolt, and then, in their hour of distress, treacherously abandoned by him who was at once their ally and “spiritual father,” and to whom they addressed in vain those noble and pathetic remonstrances which, even to this day, cannot be read without emotion. Thus Hildebrand “loved righteousness.”. . . But the Pontiff, so stern to his antagonists, could be mild to his allies. Keen swords in strong hands were necessary to support his power, the heaviest swords in Europe were borne by Norman knights. Robert, the conqueror of Sicily, William, the conqueror of England, were the representative men of this fierce and fiery race. . . . They were bloody, avaricious and unscrupulous. No more cruel conquerors ever turned a fruitful land into a waste, howling wilderness. No more remorseless oppressors ever trod down the poor with a heel of iron. . . . But their crimes were unrebuked by Hildebrand. . . . William was “addressed in the blandest accents of esteem and tenderness,” while Robert, the tyrant of Sicily, “was embraced and honoured as the faithful ally of Rome.” Thus Hildebrand “hated iniquity.” That “way” in which he walked all his life long with a consistency of purpose and intensity of energy that moves our admiration, seemed “right unto himself,” nay, it seemed to be pre-eminently the way of righteousness, but what shall we say of “the end thereof.”—Etchings from History, by Miss Alcock. See Sunday at Home, February 15th, 1879.
outlines and suggestive comments.