God's righteous displeasure against sin is an abiding reality.
"God is a righteous Judger," etc.(Revised Version). Confidence in Divine … justice is one of. the deepest roots of religion. On this faith Abraham based his daring but humble intercession for the cities (Genesis 18:25). To this justice the psalmist, deeply wronged and falsely accused, makes impassioned appeal. This (and many other passages of) Scripture is grievously misjudged if read as the outpouring of personal revenge. David is perfectly willing to suffer, if he deserves it (Psalms 7:4, Psalms 7:5). The enemies against whom (here and elsewhere) he appeals are not merely his private foes, but God's enemies public rebels against law and truth, "workers of iniquity." "God is angry … every day." Q.d.: God's righteous displeasure against sin is an abiding reality.
I. CONSCIENCE PROVES THIS. Conscience is the echo within the soul of God's voice, accusing or else excusing" (Romans 2:15), praising or blaming, saying always, "Thou shalt do right; thou shalt not do wrong." This voice may be dulled and silenced by the practice of sin ("conscience scared," 1 Timothy 4:2), or perverted by false philosophy or false religious belief. But it is God's witness, for all that. Note that praise and blame imply one another. If God had no holy wrath against wrong, he could have no delight in and approval of goodness.
II. GOD'S CHARACTER PROVES THIS. The more benevolent any one is, the more odious cruelty is to him; the more truthful, the more he hates and despises lying lips; the more generous, the more he scorns meanness; the more just, the more indignant he is at injustice. So, summing up every morally good quality under "holiness," every immoral quality under "sin," the more we think of God as perfectly holy, the more we must infer his hatred of sin. It is "that abominable thing" (Jeremiah 44:4).
III. GOD'S LOVE PROVES IT. (See on Psalms 5:4, Psalms 5:5.) Suppose a mother sees her child ill used, tortured, murdered; a son hears his parents foully slandered; a loyal soldier sees insult offered to his sovereign; a true patriot finds his country unjustly assailed;—just proportionate to the warmth of love is the flame of righteous indignation. We do but maim and caricature Divine love if we deny God's righteous anger against sin.
IV. GOD'S DEALINGS PROVE IT. In point of fact, every day brings new examples—new proof is needless—that it is a righteous thing with God (2 Thessalonians 1:6) to punish sin. In some cases the connection is obvious (e.g. disease from intemperance, gluttony, licentiousness), the road to ruin short and open; in others, it is slow and hidden (as the destruction of trust and respect by lying, of all that is noble and joyful in life by covetousness). We are all so bound up that the pure and innocent suffer through the vicious and unprincipled. But the main lessons of providence are plain. "Righteousness exalteth a nation;" "The wages of sin is death."
V. THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION FROM SIN PROVES IT. The transcendent sufferings of the Son of God admit no rational explanation but that given in Scripture "He hare our sins;" gave "his life a ransom" (1 Peter 2:24; Matthew 20:28; comp. Romans 3:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Apart from this reason, the death of Jesus would he the darkest enigma in God's providence; the most inexplicable, discouraging, and melancholy event in human history. Never forget that in not sparing his Son (Born. 8:32) the Father was, in truth, taking the burden of our sin on himself.
CONCLUSION. To treat sin lightly is to set our judgment up against God's; to show ourselves out of sympathy with him and unlike him, and therefore incapable of communion with him here or of happiness in his presence hereafter.