|
11. There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.
12. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
13. There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
14. There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
Agur here gives in artificial order (as in some of the Psalms) his observations, probably in answer to his disciples’ inquiries. He describes four different masses that came under his eyes — not a few individuals, but generations; a race of men, like a large stock, descending from father to son. Truly “the thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9.) For these four generations belong to every age. They always have been, and always will be, to the end of time.
Take the first generation. What a disgrace to human nature! cursing their parents! Solon, when asked why he had made no law against parricides, replied, that he could not conceive of any one so impious and cruel. The divine law-giver knew his creature better, that his heart was capable of wickedness beyond conception (Jeremiah 17:9); of this wickedness beyond the imagination of the heathen sage. He has marked it with his most tremendous judgment.† The cursing of a parent was visited with the same punishment as the blaspheming of God;† so near does the one sin approach to the other. The rebel against his parent is ready to “stretch out his hand against God” himself, and to “run upon the thick bosses of his buckler.” (Job 15:25, 26.) Many are the forms, in which this proud abomination shews itself; resistance of a parent's authority,† contempt of his reproof,† shamelessly defiling his name,† needlessly exposing his sin,† coveting his substance,† denying his obligation.† Most fearful is the increase of this generation among ourselves. Every village bears sad testimony to this crying sin, that brings down many a parent's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, and spreads anarchy throughout the whole land. No plea of extenuation can be allowed to justify the sin. The authority of parents, even in the lowest degradation, must be respected, when we dare not, must not, follow their examples. But what can be done to stay the threatened invasion of this devastating flood? Once and again let us remember, ere it be too late, discipline, wise, tender, early, discipline; prayer — pleading, patient, believing prayer; diligence — active, direct, prudently applied. Will not our God bless his own means, and give us yet to praise him? Trust, and doubt not.
In what Church do we not find the next generation — pure in their own eyes, yet not washed from their filthiness? (Isaiah 65:5). The Pharisees of the Gospel† were the living picture, devoted to the externals of religion, and to them exclusively; “washing the outside of the cup and platter,” while the inward part was wholly unwashed from its filthiness. We see them in the next generation in the Laodicean Church (Revelation 3:17, 18.) The family at this distance of time is far from being extinct. Their lineal representatives abound among us. Their religion, as of old, is mere ceremony; rigid in forms, but with an inveterate hatred of vital godliness. In the service of the Church they will go through the exercise of confession of sin, and supplication for mercy, as ‘miserable offenders;’ still pure in their own eyes, with no conscious filthiness, from which they need to be washed. Nay — they will even at the Lord's table, engage in a service, as full of contrition and self-renunciation as language could express; yet all this, not to humble the soul in sorrow and confidence, but to feed self-righteousness and delusion. All is formality, and “confidence in the flesh.”
Indeed a thin cloak of profession suffices to maintain this self-gratifying judgment. For everywhere it is the great work of Satan, to delude the sinner into a good opinion of himself. His open profession is “according to the course of this world,” plunging without scruple into all its follies and pleasures. His baptismal engagement is thrown to the wind. He does not pretend to renounce the devil, the world, or the flesh. Creeds are a matter of indifference. For the hearty service of his God he has no care or concern. And yet, withal, he is pure in his own eyes. He estimates himself by some plausible qualities, or some course of external decorum,† while a blind infidel as to the depravity of his nature, which — not the gross acts of sin — gives the stamp to the whole character. Sometimes partial obedience maintains this delusion; while he hides from himself the genuine hypocrisy of secret reserves, which mars all. (1 Samuel 15:13, 14.) He was once impure; but he has gone through a course of purifying observances, has washed himself from his filthiness, little knowing the infinite distinction between being pure in his own eyes, and being pure in the sight of God.
We often see this self-deceiver in the spiritual Church, exhibiting a full and clean profession to his fellow-men; while himself — awful thought! — living at an infinite distance from God. (1 Corinthians 13:1.) He has got notions of the grand doctrines of the gospel, and he finds it convenient to profess them. Salvation by free grace is his creed, and he will “contend earnestly for” its purest simplicity. He conceives himself to distinguish accurately between sound and unscriptural doctrine. He deems it legal to search for inward evidences, lest they should obscure the glorious freeness of the gospel. All this is a cover for his slumbering delusion. His conscience is sleeping in “the form of godliness,” while his heart is wholly uninfluenced by “its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5.) Or perhaps there may be alarming conviction of some powerful corruption, which, if he could master, he would be at peace. But while fixing his eye upon this single sin, he has no conception of the grand fountain of evil within. Sometimes it is the Romish error (common however to human nature) of substituting penance for penitence; some external work of sacrifice for the deep, inwrought principle; or the periodical routine of humiliation, instead of the daily habit. But with all this, there is no mourning for his innate guilt and pollution; no sensibility of sin in thoughts, objects, motives, or prayers; no perceptible change from a proud, self-willed, or worldly spirit. All serves only to soothe his conscience. He is pure in his own eyes — in his own imaginary view and perverted judgment! Yet until he be disturbed in his complacency, how hopeless his condition! (Chapter 3:7; 12:15; 16:2.)
Whatever allowance we may make in other cases for the pressure of constitutional temperament, here at least the want of all cheering influence is a plain proof of self-delusion. Vital religion is the sugar in the liquid, which impregnates the whole contents of the cup. The path may be thorny, and our light darkness. But sweetness will be mingled in our sorrow, even till the last drop in the cup of life shall be spent. The formalist's religion is a piece of polished marble in the cup, externally beautiful, but cold and dead; impregnating nothing with an atom of sweetness.
The power of this self-delusion is, that man has no natural conception of the deep stain of sin, such as nothing but the blood of sprinkling can fetch out. The man of God, bathed in the tears of penitence, cries out for this sprinkling alone to “purge him.” (Psalm 51:7.) The tears of the purest repentance in themselves are impure and abominable.† It is not the exercise of a day to know the full extent of our corruption. As the Lord leads us into the light of our own hearts, we behold “greater and yet greater abominations.” (Ezekiel 8:6.) The conscience purged from sin becomes more clear for the discovery of remaining pollution. Those who are the most purified will have the deepest sensibility of impurity,† and will most deeply value “the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness,” with its free invitation — “Wash, and be clean.” (Zechariah 13:1.)
Sinner! if thou be found unwashed from thy filthiness, must it not be certain exclusion from that “place, into which shall not in any wise enter anything that defileth”? (Revelation 21:27.) Awful indeed will be the final sentence — “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still”! (Ib. 22:11.)
The next generation provokes our sorrowful amazement. O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids lifted up. Such intolerable arrogance! What greater anomaly does the conscience afford than that of a proud sinner! his eyelids being lifted up, instead of being cast down to the ground. Such is his self-confidence even in the presence of his God! (Luke 18:11.) And before men — all must keep their distance from these swelling worms! We may see this pride embodied in a system — “the Man of sin, sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God”! (2 Thessalonians 2:4.) We may see it in worldly greatness — in the pride of Moab;† the prince of Tyre;† the boasting Antiochus;† Haman in all his glory;† “Herod arrayed in his royal apparel;”† Nebuchadnezzar in his self-pleasing contemplation, before the severe chastening of his God had taught him the wholesome lesson — “Those that walk in pride he is able to abase.” (Daniel 4:30.) In a lower level it is the pride of birth, rank, wisdom, riches, or accomplishments. In every circumstance is this high look specially hateful to God;† and the day is appointed in his own purpose for its prostrate humiliation. (Isaiah 2:12.) Meanwhile little is it conceived, how really contemptible this pride makes its deluded votaries appear before their fellow-creatures. (Psalm 101:5.) One beam of the divine glory,† and one sight of the cross of Calvary,† must at once dispel their vain splendid illusion.
The last generation appears before us as a monster of iniquity. We can scarcely draw the picture in its full colors. Conceive of brutes with iron teeth — a wild beast opening his mouth, and displaying, instead of teeth, swords and knives, sharpened ready for their murderous work. (Psalm 57:4.) Yet withal, these cruel oppressors are marked by pitiful cowardice. They vent their wantonness, only where there is little or no power of resistance. It is not the wolf with the wolf, but with the defenseless lamb; devouring the poor and needy from off the earth,† — “eating up my people” — not like an occasional indulgence, but “as they eat bread” their daily meal, without intermission. (Psalm 14:4.) Such cruel oppressors appear from time to time as a chastening curse to the land; nay, they were found among the rulers of God's own people,† even among the teachers of religion,† cloaking their covetousness under the garb of special holiness. God would thus shew us a picture of man left to himself. When the reins are loosened or given up, is there any length of wickedness, to which he may not proceed?
Indeed the four generations teach us this lesson, most valuable, yet most humbling, thoroughly to know. Yet so depraved is man, that he does not understand his own depravity. Nothing is so much hidden from him as himself. (2 Kings 8:13.) He keeps a good opinion of himself, by keeping the light out of the heart and conscience. His imagination fancies good, where there is nothing but hateful deformity. Under this self-delusion, we deal so gently and tenderly with sin, that no conflict is maintained with it, no sorrow or burden felt concerning it. How deeply do we need the searching light and convincing power of the Spirit of God, to shew us our abominations; to make us tremble at the sight of them; and to let us see, that our remedy must come from God every moment; that no partial change, no external polish, nothing less than the creating power of God, can reach the case for a cure! (Psalm 51:10.)
Adored indeed be the grace of God, if we be not in one or other of these generations! But let us remember — “Such were some of us” — either disobedient to our parents, or self-righteous in the church, or proud and contemptuous, or cruel and oppressive. But we are washed from our filthiness. (1 Corinthians 6:11.) Therefore — “who maketh thee to differ?” (Ib. 4:7) is the profitable recollection, when we are disposed to forget from whence we are raised, and to whom we owe all that we have and are for his service.
|