Micah 3:4

"Then shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them; yea, he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings."

No one squeals for mercy like the violent criminal whose bloody and heartless wickedness results at last in his arraignment before the bar of justice, the tragedy of our own times being that instead of receiving prompt and adequate punishment, the criminal is often the beneficiary of a sob-sister coddling and leniency that take no account whatever of what the crimes deserved. The ultimate justice of God will not be thwarted by any such foolish leniency. Yes, of course, the false rulers would scream to God for mercy, but at a time long past any opportunity for repentance. "He will hide his face from them." Proverbs 1:24-28, in great detail, describes the unavailing prayers of the wicked who waited too long to repent. "I will laugh in the day of your calamity: and I will mock when your fear cometh." When the promised punishment came to Israel, there were prayers and screams to God, old hyprocrites praying in public to high heaven, sudden and enthusiastic revivals of old forms and services of holy religion; but the time for all that had passed. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace; but now are they hidden from thine eyes" (Luke 19:42). That heart-breaking story was unfolded in Israel when the Babylonians came (586 B.C); but it happened a second time, as prophesied by the Saviour himself, when the Romans came in 70 A.D.