God is against the willful.
The Targum reads," And those that turn after their depravity, he shall bring them into Gehenna as their portion, with the workers of falsehood." Literally, the first sentence of the verse reads, "bend their crooked paths," i.e. so turn their paths aside as to make them crooked ( 5:6). "The expression does not necessarily denote a going over to heathenism; it would describe the conduct of those who, in the time of Jeremiah, made common cause with the enemies of Israel." "The emphasis is on truth of heart and steadfastness, as against the turning back to the old wickedness of idolatry, which had drawn down God's righteous anger. The backslider has desired to cast in his lot with the ungodly; that desire shall be fulfilled to his ruin." "The lukewarm and sly, false, and equivocal ones, are in no way inferior to the open, manifest sinner, as a source of danger to the Church." Carefully notice that it is incipient, not pronounced, willfulness which is here in consideration. The fixedly willful are called the "workers of iniquity." The persons here are those who are willful, but do not realize that they are. The figure is of persons who bend about, from this side to that, of the right road, though they do not step over into by-paths. They do not walk straight on, and steadily. "The wavering, unsteadfast, half-hearted disciple shall be as the hypocrite and rebellious." Illustrate from the warnings of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
I. THE SPIRIT OF WILLFULNESS NEEDS DEALING WITH IN ITS BEGINNINGS. Illustrate by the kindly warnings sent to King Saul, when the spirit of self-will began to be encouraged, and by the reproofs of the living Christ to the seven Churches of Asia. Dealing with it is difficult, because
II. THE DIVINE AID IS READY FOR JUST THAT STAGE OF OUR WORK. It comes:
1. As the discovery of the beginnings of the evil in our hearts. Saul would have gone on sell-deluded, but for the Divine arrest and revelation.
2. As the warning of the real character of the evil. At first the blades of the tare are very like the blades of the wheat. We need a Divine discrimination.
3. As the offer of help for immediately dealing with the evil. When the cancer has threaded the tissue with its fibers the case is hopeless.—R.T.