Messages To The Righteous And The Wicked


Isaiah 3:10, 11
W. Clarkson
These verses are parenthetical. "They assert the doctrine of 'future rewards and punishment' in a spiritual and not a mechanical sense. Good deeds ripen into happiness, as evil deeds into misery" (Cheyne). The point of impression may be stated thus -

I. TO THE RIGHTEOUS - GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE NOT INDISCRIMINATE.

II. TO THE WICKED - GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE INEVITABLE. "The pious are graciously assured, that in the worst of times, and under the most trying circumstances, God will be their Friend and Rewarder; while the ungodly are equally assured that they shall suffer merited punishment' (Henderson). Compare the Divine pleadings with Cain (Genesis 4:7), and Abraham's pleading over guilty Sodom (Genesis 18:25). See Asaph's perplexity because it was so often ill with the righteous, and well with the wicked (Psalm 73.). How can God answer those who, looking cursorily upon life, say that the earthly lot of the righteous and of the wicked is very much the same? His answer may be set forth under the following divisions.

1. God cares for the righteous, and has some kind purpose towards them in letting them suffer.

2. The righteous should be willing to accept of a share of suffering, which aims at the correction and salvation of the many.

3. God keeps the conscience of the righteous quiet under suffering, and so he does not feel its real bitterness.

4. God can keep the righteous from sharing suffering if it pleases him so to do, just as he saved Israel in Goshen from the plagues that smote the rest of Egypt. To the wicked God's judgments have a bitter sting, for they are conscious of the connection between their sins and their judgments, unless conscience is utterly dead, and then there must come for them an awful day of awakening. And if the wicked do escape calamities here, there is the inevitable day coming when he must receive "according to the deeds done in his body." - R.T.

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