Man' s underestimate of God's anger.
"Who knoweth," etc.?
I. SOME DO NOT KNOW IT AT ALL. They do not believe in God at all, or in a very faint way. Hence they turn at once to what they term "natural causes," when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth. "The fool hath said in his heart," etc.
II. MOST MEN HAVE SOME IDEA OF IT.
1. From the Bible. The records of God's wrath are there writ large—the Fall; the Flood; the destruction of Egypt; the deaths in the wilderness, which were probably the occasion of this psalm.
2. From what they see. Vice and villainy come down with a crash from time to time, and men are forced to confess, "Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth."
3. From sad experience in their own hearts and lives.
4. From the frenzied fears of many godless ones when death seizes them. Their last awful hours betray the knowledge of God's wrath.
III. BUT NONE KNOW IT ACCORDING TO THE FEAR OF GOD THAT IS DUE.
1. They cannot, because of the limitation of human faculties.
2. But they will not know it as they might and should. The thought of it is a terror and torment to them.
3. But they must, if they are to be saved. If we see not our need of Christ, we shall never seek him. "Spirit of God's most holy fear," come to us, that we may come to thee!—S.C.