The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-09-17
Sunday School Lesson for September 18
Captivity of the Ten Tribes.
Kings XVII, 0-1S.
BY j. e. GILBERT, D. D., L. D.,
Secretary of American Society of Religious Education.

unto absolute and unlimited license. |
psalm ii: 2.)
APOSTASY.-There Is no hope of re-
form in the man who is offended when
rebuked for sin, who increases in sin
because urged to forsake it. In such
a case the whole nature is involved,
the will as much as the intellect and
affections. He Is then unalterably join
ed to his evil way. CHos. iv: ~ The
laws of the spiritual nature have been
broken, and an abnormal state induced
from which there is no escape by any
power in the man himself. Into such
condition has Israel come through CEN
turtles of obduracy. There was a com
plete abandonment of the religious
faith previously held, and the adoption
in it's place of a system of worship de-
rived from other nations, from the
Egyptians and the Canaanites (Verses
16 and ~ The downward movement
of great people, apparent to the
teachers of the time, became more
rapid as the years passed and ended in
total apostasy. How shocking were
their practices the historian portrays to
us. They caused their sons and daugh-
ters to pass through the fire, a system
of conservation also employed, among
thy ancient Druids, as Caesar shows.
| (Gallic War; They used divination and
! entertainments and worshipped the host
of heaven. e Peter ii: 22)
| DESTRUCTION.-T are those
who think of God as a being of
| unlimited love, who imagine that with
! infinite good will He regards all men
as children. whatever their character
and conduct. But there is in Him an
element of justice so that He distin-
guishes between the righteous and the
wicked, rewarding the one and punish
inE the other. There came, therefore,
a time when the forbearance of the AL
mighty ceased. His patience toward
Israel was exhausted, and His love was
changed into anger. Verse 49, The
nation which He had established and
maintained. which He had nourished
with peculiar care as His own, He now
removed out of His sight-He looked
upon it no more with favor, but doomed
it to destruction. A remnant only, the
| tribe of Judah, one out of twelve of the
original group of tribes was spared.
And that tribe was suffered partly for
David's sake, q Kings XI: 49, and
partly for Jerusalem, the city and its
temple, the memories that clustered
about it, the influences that centered
in it, and the future that would spring
from it.
CONCLUSION-The chief thought OF
the lesson is that uttered by an orator
during our revolutionary period. There
is a just God who preSides over the
destinies of nations" States arise ant
fall according to His will. Ordinary
men do not see Him at work in history
They see only the strivings of mortals
each intent on his own business anC
pleasure. BY help of the Holy Spir
the sacred writers beheld the Almighty
thrusting into the free actions of mel
His own wisdom and power to ac
complish what men could neither plai
nor foresee. Another great point in th
lesson is the disclosure of the secret o
national decay. In a recent speech Lore
Salisbury declared there We're tw
kinds of nations, the living and tn
dying, and that all the former ar
Christian. This truth is illustrated il
the fate of Israel. When the people di,
wckedly and practiced idolatry tn
seeds of dissolution We're sown. Si
is the source of national death, becaus
| it pollutes the whole body polite, dis
turbs the proper relations of mer
alenates them from God, deprives then
of His favor, provokes His judgmen
and weakens the public faith