Page:Instruments Of Music In The Service Of God.pdf/4

 ask a change of God's order, even when perverted by bad men to evil ends, was to reject God as their Ruler and King. God warned them of the evils the kings would bring upon them, but granted their request and permitted them to make the experiment of serving God in a government of their own, of seeking earthly greatness through an earthly kingdom, and at the same time trying to serve him in his appointments. He permitted this that they might prove the evil results of supplanting God's order with their own inventions. All that pertained to the kingdom and its earthly greatness is given to us as warning to be avoided, not as example to be followed. In this double effort God permitted them to introduce, and tolerated things that would promote earthly grandeur and display while seeking to do the things that he commanded. Two accounts of this experiment are given. One of these is by the prophet Jeremiah, as is generally believed, in the books of Samuel and Kings. Jeremiah was a prophet of God. A prophet was the mouthpiece of God and spoke for him to men. He gives especially the efforts to serve the Lord and the failures through the kings. The other account — supposed to have been written by Ezra, the priest gives — the things done to exalt and glorify the nation among other nations, and is contained 1n the books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. A priest spoke to God for the people. These last were written to excite the national pride, to arouse the people to reestablish the kingdom in its former glory after the return from the captivity of Babylon. Hosea (13: 9-11. R. V.) tells the origin and the end of the experiment: "It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against me, against thy help. Where now is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? I have given thee a king in mine anger, and have taken him away in my wrath." God gave them kings to punish them for desiring to set aside his government; and when the punishment of the kings drove them away from God instead of drawing them back to him, he took the kings away in 2