Isaiah 66:3-4 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The rebuke of unrighteousness.

We have—

I. FOUR OFFENCES SPECIALLY HATEFUL TO THE HOLY ONE .

1 . Insincerity. These worshippers who brought their bullocks, their lambs, their prescribed oblations, were as guilty in the judgment of God as if they brought to his altar that which was an abomination in his sight. Their guilt lay in their insincerity; their heart was far from God when their feet were nigh his house.

2 . Heedlessness. When God calls and we pay no heed to his voice, we commit an aggravated offence against him.

3 . Wilfulness. The "choosing of our own ways," instead of submitting to the Divine will, is a perpetual disobedience, a sustained disloyalty.

4 . Arrogance. "Doing evil before mine eyes," though conscious of the presence and the observation of God.

II. GOD 'S GRAVE REBUKE OF THIS UNRIGHTEOUSNESS .

1 . He will make the fears of the guilty to be fulfilled— will "bring their fears upon them." The apprehensions of guilt may safely be taken as prophecies of evil. Sin is at least as mischievous as it seems to the sinner. If men who are living in obdurate rebellion against God have impressions or intimations of evil consequences, they may be sure that ruin is on the road, and will before long confront them.

2 . He will visit with unexpected sorrow. "I will choose their delusions [calamities]." Not that God ever arbitrarily punishes his children, but that he does often bring down upon the guilty sorrows and calamities which they did not apprehend—from which, indeed, they imagined themselves to be secure. No man can possibly foresee where a sinful course will lead him, and in what it will land him.—C.