1 Samuel 14:44

"Thou shall surely die, Jonathan" 1 Samuel 14:44 .

It is king Saul who speaks. Saul, like most men, could be intensely conscientious at times. Something had been done which had offended the king, and he proceeded to examine the people that he might know wherein the sin had been done, "For," said he, "as the Lord liveth, which saveth Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die." Afterwards the lot was taken. The lot fell between Saul and Jonathan; it was taken once more, and the lot fell upon Jonathan. "Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, lo, I must die." Saul lifted himself up in great moral dignity and said, "God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan." These demonstrations of piety or of conscience are always to be guarded against. Ostentatious obedience is very likely to be disobedience. Many men make up for their neglect and even their sin in the ordinary courses of life by doing exceptional things, which are intended to show how grand is their moral dignity. Many a man will be neglectful at home, and yet on some anniversary day will attempt to do an action which is supposed to redeem the reputation or to cover all the neglect and cruelty of the whole year. Many a man will make himself obnoxious to the Church, and become quite a stumbling-block in the way of others, and, then in some fit of enthusiasm will give a large sum of money, or will do some deed that will excite attention and create amazement, and on the strength of that deed will relapse into his former undesirable and repulsive condition. There is a technical consecration; there is a merely conventional piety that lives in ostentation, and that boasts of exceptional and heroic deeds; a piety that comes out. once a year, or that appears biennially or septennially, and does a momentary wonder, and then relapses into the commonplace of selfishness and worldliness of soul. Occasional bigness does but throw into the greater contrast habitual littleness. When a man can be heroic upon occasion he forgets that he is proving that he can be heroic in the general tenor of his life if he so resolve. Sometimes our very greatest efforts are simply witnesses against us. They are not taken in their isolation, but they are taken in their relation to our whole life, and they excite the inquiry, Why could not the man who did so great a deed today live a higher life than he is accustomed to live? We cannot make up in one act for the neglect of a lifetime. Piety is a daily consecration, a continual service, an hourly attention to things divine.