Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you early… The faculties of man are too limited to comprehend the nature of the Divine judgments. The direction of events in the moral government of the world baffles his investigation. With respect to individuals, those afflictions are improperly called "judgments" which may be merely instances of trial or discipline, or even of highly beneficial example. Yet we can seldom err in calling those evils which visit a nation by the name of "judgments." We may justly consider them as the penalty and correctives of a people's sin. For, as such collective bodies may have national iniquities of a flagrant kind, and as they can exist in that collective capacity of sinning as nations only in this world, we may conclude that such wide visitations of evil are nothing less than national chastisements, or a general penal discipline of the people so afflicted: Still their object is always some ultimate good. 1. The perversion of great wealth in a life of dissipation and voluptuousness, idleness and uselessness, as it is a spectacle by no means uncommon, so is it a most offensive and insulting sight in the eyes of Him "who maketh poor and who maketh rich." 2. This leads me to another crying sin, that seems to pervade all the ranks of modern society — "the love of money": that which the apostle calls "the root of all evil," and, by another name, the most offensive to a jealous God, who claims for Himself and His service the powers of the mind, the strength of the body, and the yearnings of the heart, namely, "idolatry." It is habitual covetousness, which early blights and mildews the tender shoots of religion in the breast, hardens every finer feeling, and concentrates every thought and care and wish upon self. 3. Another alarming sin of our country is pride. 4. This leads me next to our ingratitude. 5. The virtual unbelief, the practical infidelity of the present day. National sins are, after all, the collective vices of individuals; and every man has his own peculiar sins, which must weigh also upon his country's welfare. For the removal, therefore, of present, and the prevention of future judgments, we must look to the correction of individual character. (A. B. Evans, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. |
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