828. 1SA 4:21. ICHABOD, THE DEPARTED GLORY

1Sa_4:21. Ichabod, The Departed Glory

"And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed."’971Sa_4:21.

Among the godly Israelites there was an intense regard manifested for the glory of God, and the honor of his name. This they preferred to all earthly considerations of any and every kind. It alike glowed in the bosoms of the women, as well as in the men of Israel.

The chapter in which the text is found, records a fearful conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines. On this occasion the results were most disastrous. The ark was taken’97the sons of Eli slain; and Eli also, the venerable prophet of God, fell down and died at the tidings conveyed to him. The wife of Phineas was near the hour of maternity; and when she was told the whole series of distresses, she was seized with the pangs of travail; and though she heard from the attendant women that a son was born, yet it availed not; but on this melancholy occasion, and in the bitterness of her grief, she gave to her offspring a name expressive of Israel’s disasters and woes; for she named the child "Ichabod!" saying, "The glory is departed." Such is the literal history of the text.

We design, however, to give it a general application; and to look at it as,

I. Expressive of the consequences of the first transgression.

As applicable,

II. To the aspects of the visible church of God in various ages.

Let us look at it,

I. As expressive of the consequences of the first transgression.

I do not take into account at this time, the whole physical and moral grandeur which distinguished the world before the entrance of sin; but I confine our views to man, the most noble and exalted of God’s works.

Now, first contemplate him in the tremendous reverses which characterized his history, in connection with his moral fall. Look.

1. At his exclusion from the peaceful abode of Eden.

His first dwelling was Paradise. A place of abounding blessings. Here he had every luxury for all the senses of the body’97for the exercise of the mental faculties, and for the realization of perfect bliss. Doubtless, angels looked on with delight and joy. There was not one ingredient of earthly blessings lacking. With this, too, he had dominion over the inferior creatures. "And God said, let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."’97Gen_1:26. How peaceful, dignified, and blessed was man! But, behold the effects of his transgression! He is arraigned at the Divine bar’97convicted of transgression’97and doomed to toil, and sorrow, and death. And at length, he is driven out from Eden’s peaceful scenes into the wide world, to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; until he should return to his native earth. "So he drove out the man;" and Ichabod was written over the gates of Paradise,’97The glory is departed:

We write the inscription,

2. On the bodies of the human pair. The human body was marvellously formed.

God was its artificer. Its erect form’97wonderful parts’97intellectual head’97the face divine, were worthy of God as his last and best work. So in the body, originally, there was no pain’97no disease’97no fatigue,’97he had perfect physical enjoyment. But see the effects of sin on the human physical constitution.

(1.) To Eve, and women. They were to bear the dreadful unutterable sorrows of travail and child-bearing; and both were subject to disease and death, as the general result of sin. Go to the slave, toiling under a burning sun,’97to the patient, racked with pain,’97to the death-bed of a fellow-being struggling with the agonies of mortality,’97to the corpse, the earthly remains of a human creature’97to the grave, the loathsome charnel-house of the dead. On each scene, may we not write’97Ichabod! The glory is departed. We inscribe it also,

3. On the immortal soul of man.

See the brief description of the soul’s pristine grandeur. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."’97Gen_1:27. Now, look at man in his intellectual and moral nature. His understanding is the sun of the soul. His judgment the assayer, or tester of truth. The affections, like flaming cherubim, ascending in pure and holy love to God. The conscience, exercising its control as God’s vicegerent on the throne, and whispering peace. The will, swaying an undisputed authority, in harmony with God’s mind and law.

And then, look, at the results of transgression! See the effects of the fall! Ignorance and darkness of the mind’97the sun of the understanding eclipsed. Error and delusion perverting the judgment. The affections earthly and sensual. The conscience perverted and false. The will disloyal and rebellious. How striking God’s account of the antediluvians. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."’97Gen_6:5. (And Psalm xlix. Gen_6:12 and Gen_6:20.) "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"’97Jer_17:9. So the whole of the first part of the epistle to the Romans, is confirmatory of this.

It may be inscribed,

4. On man’s spiritual state. Originally, he had a place in God’s family

’97he enjoyed God’s favor’97he had communion with God; and, therefore, was a partaker of Divine blessedness. But now, as fallen, he is an alien’97outcast’97wanderer’97rebel’97and an heir of wrath and perdition! How fearful the change that has come over his spiritual condition! How deplorably altered his position as a moral being! The crown fallen from his head’97the sceptre snatched from his hand’97and the inheritance of honor and glory forfeited by his treason against the royal authority of heaven. He had occupied a station but a little lower than the angels; and had possessed a preeminence over all the other works of God’s hands,’97but see his miserable and low estate, by reason of his transgression! He is now inwardly blighted in his moral powers’97he has the trembling appearance of a wretched culprit; and instead of being God’s vicegerent on earth, and the monarch of this lower world’97he becomes an exile from his original blissful domain, is doomed to toil, sorrow, affliction, and death. No greater contrast can be conceived, than our first parents in innocence, and honor, and blessedness; and then viewed in their estate of apostasy and moral woe.

How truly Ichabod may be inscribed upon it,’97"The glory is departed."

But, we apply the text,

II. To the aspects of the visible church of God, in different ages of the world.

1. In reference to the Jewish church.

See it in its original constitution and glory; and then behold it when it had only the external rites, and ceremonies, and symbols left,’97as it was in truth, in the days of the Redeemer. Hear what he says of the temple, of the Priests, the Scribes, the Pharisees, and of the services. How all was changed. The nation was apostate, and the ecclesiastical powers corrupt; and deceit and hypocrisy, like a leprosy, defiled the whole body of the professing people.

Let it be remembered in proof of this that the Pharisees had more sound doctrine, and were more exact in their religious services, than any other class among the Jews. Yet, hear Christ’s denunciations of their gross infatuations and self-delusions. Professing to be God’s temple, he declares them to be "whited sepulchres." Professing to be God’s people, he declares that they are "a generation of vipers." Professing to delight in prayer and beneficence, he declares them to be ostentatious "hypocrites and devourers of widows’ houses." Professing to be zealous to proselyte others to their faith, Jesus declares that their converts only became more manifold the children of darkness. How fearful this picture, thus drawn by him who could not err!

Alas, the glory was departed! Then apply it,

2. To the Christian church, and that very soon after its establishment.

See it at first in its regenerated character; its members born from above’97partakers of the Divine nature’97their spirituality, how prominent and striking’97their unity, how entire’97their love, how fervent and beautiful’97their zeal for Christ, how intense and self-denying!

Then see the lamentable change: the awful errors in doctrine’97their early corrupt practices’97their carnal dissensions’97their indifference to the Scripture rule of faith and order’97their neglect of Christ’s glory!

The deterioration of the first Christian churches was most rapid and extensive. The account of the gross evils that crept into the church at Corinth, soon after it was founded, is quite appalling. A careful perusal of the third, fifth, and eleventh chapters of Paul’s first epistle to that church, will most amply corroborate the truthfulness of these statements. And these, and similar evils, spread among the other churches, so that a century scarcely passed over before the Christian church was torn with schism, marred with unsound doctrines, and polluted with heathen practices. It is thus that we read the rebukes and admonitions which pervade the Divine letters to the seven Asiatic churches, as given to us in the Revelations of John. Alas, how soon upon Christ’s heavenly kingdom on earth, to a great extent, was the inscription of the text applicable’97"Ichabod, the glory is departed!"

We apply the text,

3. Very extensively to the visible Christian church now.

Is there one section of the church of God with much of the primitive spiritual glory left? Is it the Romish Church, that harlot of abominations? Is it the Greek Church, with its tawdry vestments, and pompous yet unmeaning ceremonies and puerilities? Is it the ancient Nestorian Church, where with much that is ancient and simple, there is the silence and formalism of death? Is it the Reformed Churches of Germany and France? The Lutheran, or any other, where Neologian sentiments and mixtures of doctrinal corruptions, have left only a cold ecclesiastical system, instead of a vital power? Is it the Episcopal Church of England, in its state hierarchical pomp, and having within its bosom every error’97from the lowest Socinianism to the worst and most superstitious dogmas of Rome? Is it the Wesleyan Church, with their primitive power and spirituality exchanged for priestly assumptions, and lordly exhibitions of ecclesiastical tyranny? Is it the Congregational Church’97whether Baptists or Psedo-Baptists’97where often, beyond the maintenance of a cold routine of services, there is scarcely a pulse beating in sympathy with the sorrows of our suffering humanity, where there may be doctrinal truth, and church membership lights, but where the benevolent outgoings of a true Christian spirit are feeble and languishing?

It was surely designed that in the church of Jesus, not only should truth be preserved and holiness exhibited, but that the mind and heart of the Saviour should be found so dwelling in his followers, that they should be blessings to all around them. As he went about doing good, so should they. As he was the friend of the poor and the wretched, so should they be. As he mixed with the masses of the people to bless them, so should they. As his spirit sympathized with all the neglected and oppressed, and down-trodden of mankind, so should theirs. But in our day we often see mere worldly men, and oftentimes infidels, more acutely sensitive to the sufferings of the people than Christian churches are. In great movements of real unmistakable philanthropy and self-denial, the churches of the day are most wofully deficient’97most disastrously in the rear’97instead of having the front position in every cause that can bless man and glorify God. Hence, men of the world, of generous hearts, look, as they well may, with distrust on Christian teachers and professors. Alas! there is not one church in Christendom to which, to some extent, the inscription may not be affixed’97the glory is departed!

The entire church of God requires to be aroused from its slumbers’97stirred up from its apathy’97and quickened afresh for its great work of saving men, and glorifying God.

Application

But Ichabod need not be the abiding inscription on man’97on our world’97or on the church of our Redeemer; for,

1. The gospel brings back the glory of redemption to man. He need not perish; but, by faith in the Lord Jesus, he may be restored to the divine image and favor, and eventually to eternal life.

It is most clear that the departed glory would never have returned, but for the gracious intervention of God. God became man’s help in his low estate’97his compassionate Friend when exposed to ruin and woe. He therefore revealed to the guilty culprits, when arraigned before him, the blessed intimation that the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the first ray of hope that gleamed upon our benighted and sin-smitten world. And this light gradually increased: it grew brighter and brighter, until at length the day-star arose, and the fields of Bethlehem resounded with the angelic anthem, sung at the birth of man’s Redeemer. Christ came as the orb of day to enlighten the world. He came to bring back the forfeited glory; and he effected his great work. He redeemed man from the condemnation of the law, and the power of death. He opened back for him a way to the holiest of all. He suffered the just for the unjust, to bring man again to God. And now the blessed gospel not only reveals these truths, but offers to man the restoration of the departed glory. By faith, Christ, the glorious Saviour, is received into the soul, and thus men again become the happy and dignified sons of God. Joh_1:11, Joh_1:12.

2. The New Testament is sufficient to restore the glory to the church. Nothing has so tended to impair, and weaken, and carnalize the church of God as the admission of human authority, and the setting up of human ceremonials, for the guidance and observance of Christ’s disciples. Jesus designed his religion to be eminently simple, and free from all glare and show. He designed the clear exhibition of faith in himself with its necessary fruit, as all-sufficient to discipleship. But how melancholy is the exhibition now presented; the church of Jesus divided into fractions! All sorts of creeds, and forms, and ceremonies introduced. Human authority riding rampant over the precepts of Jesus; and pure, simple Christianity almost lost in the tawdry vestments in which she has been robed. What is to be done to bring the church again to her pristine purity, that she may shine forth in all her original glory?

Let the whole church of Jesus return to a prayerful study of the divine word, and to a faithful imitation of the churches’ first order and spirit; and thus Zion may arise and become a universal praise in all the earth.

3. The Holy Spirit waits to confer the glory, both on man, by his renewal and sanctification, and on the Church, by investing it with all heavenly graces’97and thus making it as a fruitful garden of the Lord.

It can never be admitted that God desires the church to remain thus distracted, divided, feeble, and almost uninfluential. On the contrary he waits to pour the Spirit out from on high. He waits to visit his vineyard with all the reviving influences of his grace. He waits to convert the dreary arid desert into a fruitful field. Now these displays of heavenly love and power should be sought in earnest and importunate prayer. If he gives his Holy Spirit to individual believers when they ask him, how much more would he send abundant and copious showers of his divine and fructifying influences on the Church, if his people unitedly sought it by believing prayer. But it must be sought before God will send it; for without the earnest desire for the blessing it would be unvalued, and bestowed extensively in vain.

Finally’97Remember that the desires and travail of Christ’s soul are connected with the glorifying of his church. And as his reward is most certain, and his expectations cannot possibly fail, then so surely shall Zion be redeemed, and she shall yet arise arrayed in all the glory of her Head and Lord.

The Redeemer’s final triumphs shall beautify his church, and fill the whole earth with his glory.

"Sovereign of worlds, display thy power;

Be this thy Zion’s favored hour:

Bid the bright morning Star arise,

And point the nations to the skies.

Set up thy throne where Satan reigns,

On Afric’s shore, on India’s plains,

On wilds and continents unknown;

And be the universe thine own.

Speak, and the world shall hear thy voice;

Speak, and the desert shall rejoice;

Scatter the gloom of heathen night,

And bid all nations hail the light."

Autor: JABEZ BURNS