Our Daily Homily

Devotional For

December 24

      And the Man of God wept. 2 Kings 8:11
      
      ELISHA foresaw all the evil that Hazael would inflict on Israel, and it moved him to tears. Though he was a strong man, able to move kingdoms by his message and prayer, yet he was of a tender and compassionate disposition. This was he who one moment upbraided the king of Israel for his crimes, and the next called for a minstrel to calm his perturbed spirit with strains of music. The men that can move others are themselves very susceptible and easily moved.
      
      The nearer we live to God, the more we deserve to be known as men and women of God, the more will our tears flow for the slain of the daughters of our people. Consider the ravages that drink, and impurity, and gambling, are making among our people; enumerate the homes that are desolate, the young life that is wrecked as it is leaving the harbour, the awful dishonour done to woman; and surely there must come times when tears well up for very humanity's sake, to say nothing of the pity which they acquire who look at things from God's standpoint.
      
      Jesus beheld the city and wept over it. Give us this day, 0 Son of Man, thy compassion, thy love, thy tears, that we may speak of thy grace graciously, of thy love tenderly, and even of thy judgments with brimming, eyes.
      
          "A broken heart, a fount of tears:
          Ask, and it shall not be denied.'
      
      Wouldst thou avert such issues; begin with the cradled babes of your homes. Win them for God; teach them how to curb passion and subdue themselves. Tenderness and wisdom may arrest the making of Ben hadads.