What egregious folly! What will not men believe, provided it be not the truth of God? The poor dark human mind will affect to believe the most monstrous absurdity in order to get a plea for rejecting the plain teaching of holy Scripture. The very thing which men would never think of attributing to a good human government they do not hesitate to attribute to the government of the only wise, the only true, the only just God. What should we think of a government that could not or would not punish evil-doers? Would we like to live under it? What should we think of the government of England if, because her majesty is so kind, so gracious, so tender-hearted, she could not allow criminals to be punished as the law directs? Who would care to live in England?
Reader, do you not see how that one verse which is now before us demolishes completely all the theories and arguments which men, in their folly and ignorance, have advanced on the subject of the divine government? "The Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which ... repayeth them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them; He will not be slack to him that hateth Him, He will repay him to his face."
Oh that men would hearken to the Word of God! that they would be warned by its clear, emphatic, and solemn statements as to coming wrath, judgment, and eternal punishment! that, instead of seeking to persuade themselves and others that there is no hell, no deathless worm and unquenchable fire, no eternal torment, they would listen to the warning voice, and, ere it be too late, flee for refuge to the hope set before them in the gospel! Truly this would be their wisdom. God declares that He will repay those that hate Him. How awful the thought of this repayment! Who can meet it? The government of God is perfect, and because it is so, it is utterly impossible that it can allow evil to pass unjudged. Nothing can be plainer than this. All Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, sets it forth in terms so clear and forcible as to render it the very height of folly for men to argue against it. How much better and wiser and safer to flee from the wrath to come than to deny that it is coming, and that when it does come, it will be eternal in its duration. It is utterly vain for any one to attempt to reason in opposition to the truth of God. Every word of God shall stand forever. We see the actings of His government in reference to His people Israel, and in reference to Christians now. Did He pass over evil in His people of old? Nay; on the contrary, He visited them continually with His chastening rod, and this, too, just because they were His people, as He said to them by His prophet Amos--"Hear this word which the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 'You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.'" (Amos iii. 1, 2.)
We have the same weighty principle set forth in the first epistle of Peter, in its application to Christians now.--"For the time is come that _judgment must begin_ at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (Chap. iv. 17, 18.)
God chastens His own just because they are His own, and that they may not be condemned with the world. (1 Cor. xi.) The children of this world are allowed to go on their way; but their day is coming--a dark and heavy day--a day of judgment and unmitigated wrath. Men may question and argue and reason, but Scripture is distinct and emphatic. "God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hath ordained." The great day of reckoning is at hand, when God will repay every man to his face.