Jehu had a hard task rightly to perform. To execute vengeance, which belongeth unto God, is for a soul that realizes its own shortcomings indeed most difficult. The evil house of Ahab is at last to meet its doom, and Jehu is appointed to the task. In 2 Kings 9:he does his work, and does it thoroughly. It is well to see how he recognizes God's hand and God's word in it all. We are not called upon, like Jehu, to execute vengeance, but we have often in the application of discipline to know something of that faithfulness which does not spare. We are called to bear a testimony and to declare the truth of God, no matter what names may suffer. In all this, promptness and faithfulness are necessary. In chap. 10:we see deceit in the matter of the slaying of the seventy sons of Ahab. He uses an artifice to get the elders to slay them and so to create the impression that they had shed more blood than he. In this, there seems to be a fear to stand alone, a desire to have others share with him in the responsibility and in possible defeat. There seems to be a fear lurking here, which ill becomes one who had the word of God for what he was doing. If he stood with God, he need not fear to stand alone. This deceit must have weakened him in the eyes of the people, as it surely would in the eyes of those who feared God. With us, who have a testimony to give, is there not often this lurking fear, which shows itself in the desire to associate others with us, not realizing that God and His word are our strength and that numbers often mean weakness? If God in mercy add faithful ones to declare His truth, well; but let them come with eyes open, and not be drawn by any thing that has even the appearance of deceit. Jehu thus is going to strengthen his cause in his 'own way. This is self-will; that which does God's work, not in His way, but our own. And how natural that self-will, that which is human strength, is after all weakness!

See Peter ; in self-will he will confess Christ, go to prison and to death. That self-will only takes him to the high-priest's palace and to the fire-there to deny the One who in perfect submission to the Father was witnessing a good confession.

With self-will at work, pride and self-complacency naturally have their place,-"Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord." "My zeal" is what is now before Jehu. God and His word are a secondary matter. Contrast such arrogance with Moses, on the one hand sending the tribe of Levi with drawn sword to slay the idolaters, and on the other interceding for the people. It is to be feared that " my zeal" is before us too often. Christ, not faithfulness is the object. Apart from Him there cannot be true faithfulness. Alas ! much that passes for zeal for Him, in ecclesiastical discipline, or in personal dealings with fellow-Christians is, if rightly understood, but pride at our own unflinching faithfulness. It is not the spirit of Christ, it will do no lasting work for Him. When we think of Him who was consumed by zeal for the Father's house, the most faithful, the most devoted will have little to say about his own zeal.

Next, we find that deceit, practiced at first and not since judged, bearing worse fruit. He links God's name with that of Baal. True, one may say, but in order to slay the false worshipers. This may be good Jesuitism- it is not the practice of the faithful servant of God. See how Elijah acts in a similar case. It is a question of Jehovah or Baal. He does not link himself for a moment with the false. He lets Baal be tested-then God shows His power, and the people see that none of the false prophets escape. Here, too, there is the artifice and cunning which speak of human expedients, of self-will, not of quiet confidence in God, and obedience to His Word. Baal may be destroyed out of Israel, but God is not exalted. With that inconsistency which always is manifested in self-will, even when apparently most faithful, Jehu casts out Baal, and holds fast to the golden calves of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. His zeal does not carry him back in simplicity to God, His altar, His house, His people. After a brilliant flash, the gloom deepens, for soon the Lord begins to cut Israel short, to let the enemy carry away captive those who lived east of Jordan. Thus brilliancy is no indication of lasting work. To be sure, for his measure of service, Jehu's sons for four generations sit on the throne ; but what of this when the nation is still idolatrous, still divided and fast disintegrating ?

Has not all this a word for us ? There has been much cutting off of evil, much faithfulness for God. Do we not well to ask if, while the grosser forms of evil, of insubjection to God's word have been judged and departed from, there may not yet be the holding fast to what would answer to the golden calves ?-the same, doubtless, as the one set up in the wilderness ; something visible to take the place of God-of Christ, whom, not seeing, we trust. Any substitute for Christ, His work, His person, His authority,-no matter by what name this substitute may be called, is in principle a holding fast to the golden calves. Jehu, with all his energy, never takes the place of a mourner who would draw God's people to Himself, so he comes short in his work-he is a failure. His spirit is with us to day. It may carry all before it for a time, but lasting fruit for God there is not. Even now God's people are fast disintegrating-old ties fail to bind them together, and the temptation is to act, as did Jehu, in the pride of self-will. Alas! this but hastens the crumbling. "Come, and let us return unto the Lord." What He needs now is not men like Jehu, but those who, seeing the ruin, will mourn over it, and, setting up the Lord Himself as their standard, witness in meekness for Him. Self-will works ruin.