THE FUTURE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED UNAVOIDABLE AND INTOLERABLE.
EZEK. xxii. 14.
Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.
IN the former part of this chapter, we have a dreadful catalogue of the sins of Jerusalem; as you may see from the first to the thirteenth verse. In the thirteenth, which is the verse preceding the text, God manifests his great displeasure and fearful wrath against them for their iniquities. “Behold, I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee. 1” The expression of God’s smiting his hand, signifies the greatness of his anger, and his preparing himself, as it were, to execute wrath answerable to their heinous crimes. It is an allusion to what we sometimes see in men when they are surprised, by seeing or hearing of some horrid offence, or most intolerable injury, which very much stirs their spirits, and animates them with high resentment; on such an occasion they will rise up in wrath and smite their hands together, as an expression of the heat of their indignation, and full resolution to be avenged on those who have committed the injury; as in chap. xxi. 17. “I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the Lord have said it.” Then, in the text, the punishment of that people is represented.
1. The nature of their punishment is more generally represented in that, God will undertake to deal with them.—The prophets could do nothing with them. God had sent them one after another; but those sinners were too strong for them, and beat one, and killed another. Therefore now God himself undertakes to deal with them.
2. Their punishment is more particularly represented in three things, viz. The intolerableness, the remediless-ness, and the unavoidableness of it.—The intolerableness of it: can thine heart endure?—Its remedilessness, or the impossibility of their doing any thing for their own relief: can thine hands be strong?—Its unavoidableness: I the Lord have spoken it, and wilt do it.
Doctrine
Since God hath undertaken to deal with impenitent sinners, they shall neither shun the threatened misery, nor deliver themselves out of it, nor can they bear it.
In handling this doctrine I shall, 1. Show what is implied in God’s undertaking to deal with impenitent sinners. 2. That therefore they cannot avoid punishment. 3. That they cannot in any measure deliver themselves from it, or do any thing; for their own relief under it. 4. That they cannot bear it. 5. I shall answer an inquiry; and then proceed to the use.
I. I shall show what is implied in God’s undertaking to deal with impenitent sinners. Others are not able to deal with them. They baffle all the means used with them by those that are appointed to teach and to rule over them.-They will not yield to parents, or to the counsels, warnings, or reproofs of ministers: they prove obstinate and stiff-hearted. Therefore God undertakes to deal with them. This implies the following things:
1. That God will reckon with them, and take of them satisfaction to his justice. In this world God puts forth his authority to command them, and to require their subjection to him. In his commands he is very positive, strictly requiring of them the performance of duties, and as positively forbidding things contrary to their duty. But they have no regard to these commands. God continues commanding, and they continue rebelling. They make nothing of God’s authority—God threatens but they despise his threatenings.—They make nothing of dishonouring God; they care not how much their behaviour is to his dishonour. He offers them mercy, if they will repent and return; but they despise his mercy as well as his wrath. God calleth, but they refuse. Thus they are continually plunging themselves deeper and deeper in debt, and at the same time imagine they shall escape the payment of the debt, and design entirely to rob God of his due.
But God hath undertaken to right himself. He will reckon with them; he hath undertaken to see that the debts due to him are paid. All their sins are written in his book; not one of them is forgotten, and every one must be paid. If God be wise enough, and strong enough, he will have full satisfaction: he will exact the very uttermost farthing. He undertakes it as his part, as what belongs to him, to see himself righted, wherein he hath been wronged. “To me belongeth vengeance.” Ibid Deut. vii. 10. “He will not be slack to him that hateth him; he will repay him to his face.”