Judges 13:1-25 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD… Bless God for Christ, all your offerings go up with acceptance on this altar (Hebrews 13:15). Some lessons of catastrophes: — It seems inevitable that some persons will continue to regard all disastrous occurrences as marks of God's displeasure with His human creatures. The pietist reads of a terrible fire in some city particularly noted for the irreligion of its masses of people, and he believes it to be the judgment of God upon the sinful ones. Morbid Christians too are ever disposed to regard the mischances of their own temporal experience as the punishment God is laying upon them for their sins; and sometimes they are fain to cry out, as in indignation, "What have I done so wickedly as to deserve such retribution as this?" Our Lord neither suffers us thus to assign His judgments to particular instances of offending, nor yet to assume that we ourselves do not deserve quite as much as we ever hear of others bearing (Luke 13:1-5). I. IT IS TRUE THAT THE MOST OF APPALLING DISASTERS FALL IMPARTIALLY UPON THE GOD-FEARING AND IMPIOUS ALIKE. II. MEN WHO DWELL MUCH UPON THE DISASTERS WHICH ASSAIL IN SO MANY DIRECTIONS OUR SOCIAL LIFE GROW SUPERSTITIOUS ABOUT THEM. Every supernatural manifestation, or what seems to be supernatural, inspires fear. No doubt this is because of the consciousness of sin in our lives. III. GOD HAS WILLED TO BE A FEAR-INSPIRING GOD TO HIS SINFUL CREATURES BECAUSE THERE IS NO BETTER WAY THAN THIS WHEREBY TO IMPRESS UPON THEM HIS SUPREMACY, THE ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY AND RIGHT WHICH HE HAS OVER THEM. We do not like to think of our humanity as degraded, yet all sound philosophy insists upon this. Then God interferes with His awe-inspiring visitations, compelling us to remember that there is a greater existence outside the realm of familiar nature, and a Ruler of the universe whom one cannot disobey with impunity. IV. Notwithstanding this truth, THERE ARE QUESTIONS WHICH ARISE, WHICH MUST ARISE, IN MEN'S MINDS CONCERNING THE TREMENDOUS DISASTERS SO OFTEN EXPERIENCED IN LIFE. Granting that no one is free from sin, that no one deserves favour or blessing at God's hands, nevertheless there are many who are loyal at heart and are striving to be good disciples of the gentle Christ. Why does He, who is so good, allow these to be subjected to such terrifying possibilities as Nature's catastrophes so frequently suggest? 1. It may be that He displays His mighty judgments, menacing to the faithful as well as to the irreligious, in order to keep us ever mindful of our unpreparedness for His coming to call us to account. Who is there that is ready at this moment to die? 2. There is nothing which is so well calculated to make us realise the evanescent character of the circumstances which now surround us, as the irresistible breaking in upon the harmony of these circumstances by startling catastrophes and terror-inspiring disasters. Such things awe wise-hearted men, and set them to thinking; and when they think seriously they are sure the invisible and eternal things are more worthy to be considered than the visible and transitory things. V. At this point the question suggests itself, WHY IN DECLARING HIS SUPERNATURAL RULE OVER OUR AFFAIRS BY MEANS OF TREMENDOUS DISTURBANCES OF OUR ORDINARY COURSE OF LIFE DOES GOD CAUSE THE INNOCENT TO SUFFER WITH THE GUILTY, or rather, in view of what I have just said, those who are trying to do His will and to use profitably the lessons He would teach them, as well as the hardened and the despisers of His judgments. 1. As to that let it be noted that while we naturally look upon death as almost the gravest of disasters the individual can experience, from the Christian point of view it cannot be in the least a disaster for him who is prepared to meet his God. The blow of death falls upon those who are left behind, the mourners, the relations and friends of the departed; but for him, if he be Christ's, the passing of the soul is its entrance into the land of life where no further temptation can try it, nor any power of the Evil One cause it to fall from God. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours." 2. So far as the unrighteous are concerned, the sinful, the careless, the impenitent, who have never feared God nor troubled themselves to do His will, we may be sure of this, the bolt of the Divine wrath does not strike them until they have made it abundantly clear to the heavenly eyes that they will never repent, never choose the right. VI. AFTER ALL, THEN, IN SPITE OF THE APPALLING CATASTROPHES LIFE IS SO ABUNDANTLY CHEQUERED WITH, IT IS CERTAIN THAT GOD'S PITY EVER SWAYS HIS WRATH, SO LONG AS PITY CAN AVAIL. From Manoah's word of terror we turn to the wiser saying of his wife. We are to find the assurance of the mercifulness of our Heavenly Father in the good things provided for us in our religion, which are not to be accounted for at all except on the hypothesis of His kindness towards the children of men. 1. "Would He, if He were pleased to kill us, have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands?" Aye, would He, for this is plainly the meaning of that long-ago sacrifice of the pious parents of Samson, have sent His only-begotten Son into the world to die for us the shameful death of the Cross? 2. "Neither," continues Manoah's wife, "would He have showed us all these things." Would God, indeed, if He were hard and relentless in His dealings with mankind have caused to be written for our learning and unceasing consolation the exquisite story of the gospel — all the pathetic details of the human life of the Lord Christ? 3. Once more the spiritually minded woman cries: "Nor would He at this time have told us such things as these." Ask yourself, Christian soul, what are you living for — what is your hope? Is it merely that you may escape eternal fire, or is it rather, and much more a great deal, that you may come to the unspeakable joys? Would God, if He did not love us supremely, have revealed to us all those glorious things of which St. John writes in the Apocalypse — the story of the land full of beauty, of all-satisfying delights? (Arthur Ritchie.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. |
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