Judgment and joy.
This forcible, energetic language, in which darkest shadow and brightest sunshine very strikingly intermingle, may remind us—
I. THAT GOD DOES COME IN TERRIBLE JUDGMENTS TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN.
1. Sometimes to men collectively—to societies, to cities, to nations.
2. At other times to individual men. In the special ordering or in the permission of his Divine providence he sends the overwhelming loss and consequently reduced or even impoverished estate, or the wasting and consuming sickness, or the undermining and final destruction of influence, or the shattering of power, or sudden, perhaps violent, death. God lets such things overtake the guilty, that the pictorial and poetical language of the text is applicable. It is as if his "anger bused," as if his "lips were full of indignation;" his judgments come down as an overflowing stream, they cast forth the guilty like a winnowing-shovel; his glorious voice is heard, his arm descends in righteous retribution.
II. THAT THE JUDGMENT OF GOD IS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE JOY OF MAN. "Ye shall have a song, as in the night … and gladness of heart" (Isaiah 30:29); "in every place where the grounded staff shall pass it shall be with tabrets and harps" (Isaiah 30:32). Here and elsewhere the judgments of God are made the occasion of human thankfulness and joy. It is clear:
1. That in such joy there should be no element of vindictiveness. It would be positively unchristian to find a source of satisfaction in the bodily or mental suffering of men because they have injured us (Romans 12:19, Romans 12:20). Christian magnanimity should rise to the height of earnestly desiring that its foes may be won to truth, wisdom, and eternal life.
2. That there may be in such joy the element of righteous satisfaction; not, indeed, that men suffer, but that their sin receives its appropriate mark of Divine disapproval; that the integrity of the Divine rule is vindicated; that God's presence and his holiness are seen to be near and not afar off. This is the spirit of the psalmist (Psalms 97:1).
3. That there may be also the element of human sympathy. Often at such times we have great gladness of heart, because, when he that once "smote with a rod" is himself "beaten down" (Isaiah 30:31), those who were smitten by the oppressor walk in liberty and security. The humiliation of the wrong-doer is the exaltation of the righteous—is the enfranchisement of the holy and the wise.
4. That there will also be the element of holy expectation. When Sennacherib has God's bridle in his jaws and is caused to wander far from his chosen path, Jerusalem is safe and Jehovah's service is secure. When the enemies of religion are scattered, there is a goodly prospect of opened sanctuaries, of multiplied privileges, of increase of piety and virtue on every hand. When the persecutor perishes the minister of truth rejoices greatly, and there is music in the house of the Lord because there is every reason to hope that the Churches, having rest, will "walk in the fear of God … and be multiplied" (Acts 9:31).
1. It is well, in the time of danger or distress, to ask for Divine deliverance.
2. It is better to ask for Divine strength to be enabled to overcome the evil from which we suffer by the good which we do (Romans 12:21).—C.