Isaiah 3:11 Woe to the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As all events are to be made public under God's moral government, it is for His own interest, as well as for the interest of His creatures, that He should apprise them fully of His character and of the principles of His government. As all events are to be made known, both for the vindication of God's character and for the instruction of all moral agents, it follows that the destruction of the wicked will be aggravated by every accession of light to their minds. Every new revelation of God's works or ways which is made to them must conspire, (1) to enlighten their minds, and, (2) by consequence, to deepen their guilt and enhance and aggravate their doom. 1. Men will be held responsible for mercies abused. Hence those things which most please sinners, and which they call their good things, are charged to their account, and they must be held to the strictest accountability for their use or abuse of all their good things. 2. If these are facts, then sinners are getting deeply in debt. Everything, therefore, that now pleases the sinner so much will swell the mass of things that shall agonise him at the judgment day, and throughout his eternal existence. 3. The same principle applies to the entire course of God's discipline towards you, embracing the various rebukes of His providence. All these are measures taken for your good, but if you will not improve them, they will only work out your deeper ruin. How marvellous that wicked men should suppose that these light afflictions are the proper punishment of sin! No; these are only God's means of discipline, employed here in this life for the good of men's souls. Instead of being themselves the retribution due for sin, they are only the guarantees sent on beforehand by the great King, involving His pledge that He will punish sin unless He can secure repentance. 4. All your infirmities and all your sins; also the sins of those who live near you so that you can see the course of God's dealings with them; indeed, the whole history of sin in the universe so far as known to you, — all conspire to heighten your responsibility and aggravate the guilt of your sin. For all these things serve to show you the real evil and wrong of sin; they serve to reveal God's hatred of sin, and to assure you that He must and will punish it. Remarks: — (1) All things work together for good to the Christian, and ultimately, when he comes to see how all things have had this result, he will regret nothing he has ever done, although he may greatly blame himself for all his sins. It is often the case that Christians here learn lessons of deep experience under their sins. They are deeply affected when they see how God overrules even their sins for good to themselves and to others. But nothing of this sort happens to sinners. They are not of those that love God, and they have no reason to expect that God will make all things work together for their good. Hence they must both blame themselves and also regret everything they have ever done. (2) Sinners have never any good reasons for joy. (3) Sinners procure this result to themselves. God gave you voluntary powers, that, on your own responsibility, you might use them for your own welfare. He gave you His Son, and in Him an offered salvation, that you might lay hold of everlasting life. He gave you a Bible, that you might read it and become wise unto salvation. He gave you these and a thousand other blessings, that they might be improved, and if you will not improve them, you have no right to complain of God. (4) Sinners need not be stumbled by any calamities whatever which befall God's real children. Let them not trouble themselves about this matter. The Lord knoweth them that are His, and they shall never lack His constant care. (5) All events that transpire in this world or the next will only make the great gulf fixed between saints and sinners the deeper and the broader — will only make the saints more holy and more happy, the sinners more sinful and more wretched. (6) What an infinite folly is it to judge of things only by their relations to this life! (7) God's conduct in all this is just and righteous altogether. (C. G. Finny.) Parallel Verses KJV: Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.WEB: Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them; for the deeds of his hands will be paid back to him. |
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