Royal Robes and Sackcloth
And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.
II Kings 6:30
Jehoram, walking the walls of famine-stricken Samaria, wore a king’s garments without but sackcloth next to his flesh. What a picture of this poor world today, spiritually starving trying to be gay without to hide the floom within! The robes of royalty without but the rags of a beggar within! How it illustrates the plight of every sinner bedecked without in the colorful garb of this world but clad in the filthy rags of self-righteousness in his inmost soul!
Alas, there are too many in our churches robed in a profession of piety, a form of godliness; but beneath the sham, the shame-the sackcloth of fear and doubt and sin.
What a Samaria of hunger and want is ours today! God grant us a few lepers in the gate, as in the long ago, who will venture forward to find the bounty that God has prepared for all who trust Him and who refuse to sit still until they die!