2 Kings 5:14

2 Kings 5:14

I. The slaughter of the Innocents suggests a thought on the sufferings of children. A man seems to require suffering or to bring it on himself, or to have remedies, or a recompense, or the self-command to bear it. But the case of childhood is utterly different. Pain, and weariness, and aching limbs, and the slow agonies of death are natural in the close of a laborious, overtasked, sin-defiled life, but that infant features should be so discomposed is a thought that offends our natural reason. The question, Is it just? is it the ordinance of a God of mercy? can only be answered by revelation. (1) Reason knows nothing of original sin;it is revelation that instructs us in it. Death and its preceding sufferings entered by sin; and if even infants suffer, they suffer for sin. If these words implied that actual sin is the cause of children's sorrow, they would not only be harsh, but untrue; but that children born in sin are heirs to suffering is a true saying, and not unkind. (2) Children's sufferings imply their need of a redeemer. Christ at His birth drew within the magic circle of His influence representatives of His whole creation. Angels, shepherds, kings, widows, and aged priests are associated with His infancy, and here are infants also. By their death in connection with Christ they seem to signify their acceptance by Him and their seat in His heart.

This thought adds tenfold to the charm and dignity of the age of infancy.

II. This day brings before us in vivid colours the loveliness of the life to come. Children are something like angels to tell us tales of heaven. (1) Their ignorance of evil gives us a faint image of the blessed state of those whose souls are so cleared of sin that they remember it not, and see no trace of it, and feel no breath of temptation. (2) The perfectness of their joy suggests to us of sadder experience something of the security of joy in heaven. Their happiness has something of an unearthly savour. (3) Some of the subtle beauties of heaven are suggested to us by the delight which children have by instinct in glorious colours and musical sounds. (4) We learn, finally, that joy is prepared for the satisfaction of those who suffer in Christ's spirit and for His sake on earth.

C. W. Furse, Sermons at Richmond,p. 273.

References: 2 Kings 5:14 . Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 113; C. Girdlestone, Course of Sermons for the Year,vol. ii., p. 257. 2 Kings 5:15. G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 330.