3. To dread sin as the greatest of all evils —
[Though at first sight this passage may seem to weaken our dread of sin, yet, in reality, it is calculated to impress us with a holy fear of offending God. The covenant made with Christ does indeed secure the salvation of his people : but does it provide them impunity in sin? No — on the contrary, it engages God to punish sin, yea, to punish it effectually ; and never to leave his people under its dominion y. Is there then room to say, I shall be saved, though I commit sin ? No : for either God will " drive it out with the rod of correction," or leave it as an indisputable mark that we never belonged to him at all2. Let us never then make Christ a minister of sina; but learn from the very grace that saves us, to glorify him by a holy conversation0.]
k Gal. iii. 17. > Col. i. 19. John i. 16. m Gal. iii. 16.
n 2 Cor. i. 20. ° Phil. iii. 9. p Rom. viii. 38, 39.
i Jer. xxx. 11. * Lam. iii. 39. s 1 Cor. xi. 32.
1 Mic. vi. 9. u Isai. xxvii. 9. x Heb. xii. 10.
y Rom. vi. 14. z 1 John iii. 9, 10. a Gal. ii. 17.
0 Tit. ii. 11, 12.
t 2
god's anger a reason for turning to him.
Ps. xc. 11, 12. Who knoweth the poiver of thine anger'? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that ice may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
THIS psalm is entitled, " A prayer of Moses the man of God." It seems to have been written by Moses on account of the judgment denounced against the whole nation of Israel, that they should die in the wilderness3. It had been already executed to a great extent, God having consumed multitudes of them in his anger b: and the period of man's life was then reduced to its present standard of seventy or eighty years0. From this awful demonstration of God's displeasure, he is led to this reflection : " Who knoweth the power of thine anger?" And then he prays, that the whole nation might be induced by the shortness and uncertainty of their lives to seek without delay the favour of their offended God : " So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
In accordance with our text let us also contemplate, I. The inconceivable weight of God's anger —
Of course, in speaking of God's anger we must divest it of all those tumultuous feelings, which agitate the minds of men ; and conceive of it as manifested only in his dispensations towards the objects of his displeasure.
Let us contemplate it then,
1. As it appears in this world —
[The whole world bears the evidence of being under the dis- pleasure of an angry God. The creation itself, even the animal and vegetable, as well as the rational parts of it, is greatly chano-ed since it came out of its Creator's hands. A curse has been inflicted on it all, on account of sin. Storms, and tem- pests, and earthquakes, and pestilences, and diseases of every kind, and death with its antecedent pains and its attendant horrors, are all the sad fruits of sin, and the effects of God's anger on account of sin. Death has obtained an universal
a ver. 3. b vcr. 5 — 7. c ver. 10.
651.] god's anger a reason for seeking him. 117
empire, and "reigns even over those who have never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," as well as over the actual transgressors of God's law.
But the anger of God is yet more strikingly visible, in those particular judgments which God has executed upon men from time to time. Behold the plagues in Egypt, the destruction of the Egyptian first-born, and of Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea! behold the awful judgments inflicted on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and on the myriads, who, by their lewd- ness, their unbelief, and their murmurings, drew down the wrath of God upon them d ! behold fire and brimstone rained down from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities of the plain ! yea, and the whole world, with every living creature except those contained in the ark, swept away by one universal deluge! — -these serve as awful proofs of God's indignation against sin, and his determination to punish it according to its deserts.