Exodus 10:12-15 - Homiletics

The terribleness of God's severer judgments.

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the bands of the living God." "Our God is a consuming fire." "If the wicked turn not, God will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors" ( Psalms 7:11-13 ). Every calamity which can visit man is at his disposal. God's punishments are terrible—

I. BECAUSE HE IS OMNIPOTENT . He can smite with a thousand weapons—with all the varieties of physical pain—aches, sores, wounds, boils, nerve affections, inflammation, short breath, imperfect heart action, faintings, palpitations, weakness, cramps, chills, shiverings—with mental sufferings, bad spirits, depression, despondency, grief, anguish, fear, want of brain power, loss of self-controls distaste for exertion, etc.; with misfortunes—sickness, mutilation, loss of friends, ill-health, bereavement, death. He can accumulate sorrows, reiterate blows, allow no respite, proceed from bad to worse, utterly crush and destroy those who have offended him and made themselves his enemies.

II. BECAUSE HE IS ABSOLUTELY JUST . God's judgments are the outcome of his justice, and therefore most terrible. What have we not deserved at his hands? If, after all his gentle teaching, all his mild persuading, the preaching of his ministers, the promptings of his Holy Spirit, the warnings furnished by the circumstances of life, the special chastisements sent to evoke repentance, men continue obdurate—what remains but a "fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries"? ( Hebrews 10:27 .) If each sin committed is to receive its full, due, and appropriate penalty, what suffering can be sufficient? Even in this life, the vengeances that have overtaken the impenitent, have sometimes been most fearful; what must the full tale be if we take in the consideration of another?

III. BECAUSE HE IS FAITHFUL , AND CANNOT LIE OR REPENT . God in his Word has plainly, clearly, unmistakably, over and over again, declared that the impenitent sinner shall be punished everlastingly. In vain men attempt to escape the manifest force of the words and to turn them to another meaning. As surely as the life of the blessed is never-ending, so is the "death" of the wicked. Vainly says one, that he would willingly give up his hope of everlasting life, if so be that by such sacrifice he could end the eternal sufferings of the lost ones. It is not what man feels, what he thinks he would do, or even what he would actually do, were it in his power, that proves anything; the question is one of fact. God tells us what he is about to do, and he will assuredly do it, whatever we may think or feel. "These (the wicked) shall go into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life everlasting" ( Matthew 25:46 ). Oh! terrible voice of most just judgment which shall be pronounced on those to whom it shall be said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" ( Matthew 25:41 )] The crowning terror of the judgment of God is the perpetuity which he has declared attaches to it.