corruption has struck too deep to be cast out, once again the anger of
the Lord is provoked; but this time it comes in a different guise. The
armies of the Assyrians, not the prophets, are its messengers now.
Israel had made itself like the nations whom God had used it to
destroy, and now it shall be destroyed as they were.

To be swept out of His sight is the fate of obstinate rejection of His
commandments and pleadings. Israel made itself the slave of evil, and
was made the captive of Assyria. Self-willed freedom, which does as it
likes, and heeds not God, ends in bondage, and is itself bondage.
God's anger against sin speaks pleadingly to us all, saying, 'Do not
this abominable thing that I hate.' Well for us if we hearken to His
voice when 'His anger is kindled but a little.' If we do not yield to
Him, and cast away our idols, we shall become vain as they. Our evil
will be more fatal, and our obstinacy more criminal, because He
called, and we refused. 'Who may abide the day of His coming? and who
shall stand when He appeareth?' These captives, dragging their weary
limbs, with despair in their hearts, across the desert to a land of
bondage, were but shadows, in the visible region of things, of the far
more doleful and dreary fate that sooner or later must fall on those
who would none of God's counsel, and despised all His reproof, but
cling to their idol till they and it are destroyed together.



DIVIDED WORSHIP

'These nations feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'--2 KINGS
xvii. 33.