i.14. _Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear
them._
It is the Almighty who here speaks, and His speech is a protest to
men who imagined that by their worship they would conciliate and
please Him. Their worship He rejects: it was polluted by the
pollution of those who offered it. Instead of cleansing them, as they
vainly dreamed, they had defiled it. It is the Almighty who speaks,
and in what terms of intensity of pain! He speaks as one who has long
been burdened by a load that has at length become intolerable.
Strictly speaking, it is of worship offered to Him by ungodly men
that He here expressed His abhorrence; but it is not conceivable--it
is contrary to repeated declarations of His Word to suppose--that
this is the only form of human transgression that is grievous to Him;
and therefore we may fairly widen our contemplation, and consider--
+I. God's sensibility to human sin.+ God is unchangeable; with Him
there is no fickleness or caprice (James i. 17); this is one of the
glories of His nature. But how strangely have philosophers and
theologians interpreted this sublime declaration! They have presented
us with a deity impassive as the stars, which shine with equal
splendour upon the display of great virtues and the perpetration of
hideous crimes, calm, serene, undisturbed by anything that takes
place on earth. Not such is the God of the Bible. He thrills with
intensest emotions of delight or of disapprobation, of joy or of
sorrow (Jer. ix. 24; Nahum i. 6; Zeph. iii. 17; Gen. iii. 6). Let
philosophers call these "anthropomorphic representations" if they
will, but words have no meaning if such declarations do not teach
that God is stirred by emotions which are determined by the character
and conduct of men. He is no cast-iron deity: He is "the living God."
Sin is hateful to Him, because 1. _It is an infraction of that order
which He has established for the moral well-being of the universe._
As the Sovereign of the universe, He is bound to resent and to punish
any injury done to the meanest of His subjects.[1] 2. _It is a
defiance of His authority._ Every sinner is a rebel against the
authority of the King of kings; and that king would be unworthy of
his crown who could see his authority defied without feeling any
emotion of displeasure, or without taking steps to vindicate his
authority. It was precisely this selfish and pusillanimous weakness
that made our Stephen despised and hated by his subjects. With God
there is longsuffering and tender mercy, but there is no weakness.
Sin is more than a defiance of God's authority; it is--3. _An offence
against His feelings._ It is contrary to what we may call His
instincts.[2] That which is contrary to our best instincts fills us
with disgust and anger. What profound emotion is stirred in a man of
generosity and benevolence by a story of oppression and wrong!
_e.g.,_ the effect upon David of Nathan's parable (2 Sam. xii. 5).
Whole communities have been roused to uncontrollable indignation by a
crime of unusual atrocity, even though no member of the community has
been directly affected thereby. "Lynch Law." So all sin, as sin,
arouses the Divine disgust and indignation. "My _soul_ hateth."
4. _It is a degradation of those whom God loves._ We all condemn and
loathe drunkenness; but who of us loathes it as does that mother who
is being hurried by it to an untimely and dishonoured grave? God
loves us more than any mother ever loved her son, and His hatred of
sin is proportioned by His love for us whom it degrades and
destroys.[3] 5. _It is often a wrong inflicted on those whom He
loves._ Few men sin without wronging others as well as themselves.
Now with what anger do we burn when we detect our children defrauding
and oppressing each other! But between the sputtering of a
lucifer-match and the glowing fires of a volcano, there is not so
much disparity as between the anger which the spectacle of sins
against brotherhood kindles in us and that which it rouses in God
(Jer. ix. 9). To form any adequate conception of the offensiveness of
sin to God, we must remember that these considerations do not operate
singly, but operate in combination to make it hateful to Him. How
marvellous, then, is His endurance of it! Consider, then--
+II. God's patience with human sin.+ He speaks here of being
"troubled" by the worship of ungodly men; it is a burden of which He
is "weary." Why, then, does He bear it for a moment? Why, then, does
He not give quick vent to the indignation that burns within Him, and
consume His troubles with swift destruction? He bears with
us--1. _That by His patience He may appeal to our better feelings._
He does us good, and not evil (Matt. v. 45), that we may be made
ashamed to sin against such generosity. When men are not altogether
hardened in iniquity, there is nothing so likely to overcome them as
a requital of wrongs by blessing,[4] especially where he who so
requites it has full power to avenge himself. By His long-suffering,
God has led countless thousands to repentance. 2. _That He may set us
an example of self-restraint._ It is because He is Himself so slow to
anger, that He is able to warn us against vindictiveness. God does
not only lay upon us precepts of excellence: He Himself embodies
them. 3. _That He may place the righteousness of his judgments beyond
dispute._ A space of grace and forbearance seems necessary to enable
onlookers to perceive that the awful doom which at length will come
upon sinners is fully deserved, and is perfectly consistent with His
own mercifulness. If "Wisdom" had not "called," reproved, counselled,
"stretched out her hands" in entreaty, the stern words in which she
announces the awful and irrevocable doom of her despisers would shock
us (Prov. i. 20, 32). 4. _That a moral probation may be rendered
possible._ If punishment always instantly and obviously followed
transgression, the world would be ruled by terror so overwhelming
that free agency would be destroyed, and virtue consequently rendered
impossible. For such reasons as these, God bears with sinners, and
"sentence against an evil work" is not executed speedily.
+III. God's protest against human sin.+ God suffers under human sin,
but He does not suffer in silence: He vehemently protests against it.
Two reasons should lead us to heed this protest:--1. _Gratitude._ He
might have sent vengeance without warning. His protests and
threatenings are proofs of His love. All that is noblest and best in
us should lead us to give instant and thankful heed when God appeals
to us, and says, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
(Jer. xliv. 4). But if sin has so debased your nature that higher
considerations such as this cannot move you, then I appeal--2. to
your _instinct of self-preservation._ God's protest against sin is no
unmeaning form: His threatenings against sin are no empty words
(Prov. xxix. 1). Rightly considered, the sinner's untroubled
condition is the most awful of all warnings.[5]