IT is a most unusual thing for a monarch to fall out of a top-story window, but this is what King Ahaziah did. He “fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber,” and was taken up and carried to his bed a dying man.
One would have thought that then, if ever, he would have turned to the living God. But so great was his folly, that he sent off post-haste to seek aid of Baal-zebub, one of the infamous objects of Philistine worship.
You may consider this an unparalleled act of madness, but, alas! it is an act that is repeated in many a case in this twentieth century, On every hand people are to be met who are conscious of being spiritually sick. They know they are not what they ought to be; they feel there is something grave the matter with them. But instead of turning to the God who is so ready to bless and to save, they turn to sonic modern Baal-zebub to recover them of their sickness.
There is INFIDELITY, for instance. How many a man, with goaded conscience and stricken heart, has sought such comfort as the cold shallow unbelief of the day can afford. If his inmost soul could speak, you would hear it talk somewhat after this fashion―
“I don’t like to think of having to meet God; so I choose to believe that there is no God. I feel that, if ever a sinner deserved hell, I do; so I prefer to believe that there is no hell. The Bible tells me who I am, what I have done, and where I am going. It is too personal, too searching. I don’t like it. So I put the Bible on the same shelf with the Koran, and the Talmud, and other old wives’ fables.”
But whoever heard of a man overcoming his sins with the aid of infidelity, or recovering from his sickness through skepticism? Unbelief, with all its pretensions, is a quack physician, and a very sorry one too.
Others there are who betake themselves to a very different kind of Baal. The name of their idol is RELIGION.
Do not misunderstand me. Religion is a grand thing. I pity the man who has none of it. But religion in itself never cured a man of his soul’s sickness. Not a saint in heaven will ever be able to say, “I was saved from my sins because I was religious.”
Religion at best is but an egg-shell. Yet an eggshell is a very important thing. An egg without a shell might go begging round the world before I would look at it, but a shell without an egg would be a worse bargain still. So with religion, if a man has nothing further, it is not worth a snap of the fingers yet a man without it is a man in whom no confidence can be placed.
During the year 1895, God was working in a wonderful way in the city of Kingston, Jamaica. Night after night we saw sinners crowding to the Saviour’s feet. There was a great wave of blessing, and amongst those who attended our meetings were several of the city ministers.
One evening my friend Mr. Mawson and myself had both been speaking on the necessity of having Christ, and not a mere religious profession, as the hope of the soul. “NOT RELIGION, BUT CHRIST” had been our watchword on that occasion. We tried to show the people that salvation does not consist of turning over a new leaf, joining some society and becoming religious, but that it is “of the Lord,” and depends on the simple reception of Christ.
One of the ministers went away and announced that he would preach in his chapel on “NO RELIGION, NO CHRIST.” His aim was to show that it is vain for people to say they believe in Christ unless they prove it by practical religion, and that in this way religion was of great importance.
Now, who was right, that minister or ourselves? I verily believe that both were right.
He was right in refusing to believe in any professed faith in Christ unless true religion was the result; and I am sure we were right in saying that no amount of religion could save a man’s soul, but that only Christ could do that.
Let me warn you, then, against making a Baal of religion. If you feel your need of a physician for your soul, why not turn at once to Christ? Do not walk in the steps of Ephraim, of whom we read, “When Ephraim saw his sickness... then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.”
Why try useless experiments when Christ, full of grace and power, stands ready to save you?
At a testimony meeting, a lady handed in a slip of paper with the following words written upon it:
“I knew and felt my quilt. I knew also that the blood of Jesus could cleanse me. I just turned to Him and trusted Him, and now I stand upon a jinn foundation, the Rock of Ages cleft for me.”
Is that where your hopes are built, reader? How happy to be able to say―
“On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”
H. P. B.