xiii. 6. _Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand._
Sad and unnatural is the condition of those to whom the coming of
"the day of the Lord" is a cause for dismay. But this is the
condition of the wicked. They can think of God prevailing and
asserting Himself only with dread. Dread must take possession of them
whenever they think of the future, for the profoundest and most
ineradicable instincts of their nature assure them that the "day of
the Lord"--a day of judgment and retribution--must come.
Thus far all is plain. But when we read and think about what is to
take place on "the day of the Lord" (vers. 7, 8, 15, 16, 18),
astonishment takes possession of us, and we feel disposed to call it
"the day of the devil." How _can_ a day like this be called "the day
of the Lord"? Note--1. That all the cruelties here described were
inflicted by men. 2. That these men were moved to inflict these
cruelties by their own passions; that they acted as free agents, and
without any thought of fulfilling a Divine purpose. 3. That the
supreme passion by which they were moved was the passion of
revenge--of revenge for cruelties equally frightful inflicted by the
sufferers of that day. Nothing can exceed in horror the picture which
the Babylonians themselves drew of the enormities perpetrated by them
on conquered nations. 4. That, consequently, the Babylonians were
reaping as they had sown. The day that was coming upon them was a day
of retribution, and in this sense emphatically "a day of the Lord."
As a matter of fact, retribution is one of the laws under which we
live (H. E. I., 4609, 4611, 4612), and it is a Divine law, a law
worthy of God. It is an ordinance of mercy, for the tendency of it is
to restrain men from sin. By their knowledge of its existence and the
certainty of its operation (P. D., 2995), wicked men are undoubtedly
greatly restrained from wickedness. Were it not for the days when it
is manifestly seen in operation, when great transgressors are
overwhelmed with great sufferings, atheism would prevail; a reign of
terror and of restrained cruelty would begin, and every day would be
a day of the devil. 5. This day, with all its horrors, was an
essential preliminary to the accomplishment of God's purposes of
mercy in regard to His people. For _them_ it was emphatically "a day
of the Lord," for it was the day of their deliverance from bondage, a
day of exultant thanksgiving that the power of their relentless
oppressors was for ever broken (chap. xiv. 1-6). In the history of
our race there have been many such days, _e.g.,_ the French
Revolution of 1789, the American Civil War; days when the worst
passions of humanity were manifested without restraint; but days when
the wisdom of God was displayed in bringing good out of evil, in
punishing the iniquities of the past, in ushering in a brighter and
better era of freedom and justice.
The record of such "days of the Lord" should be eminently instructive
to us. 1. They should teach us the true characters of those statesmen
who use national power for purposes of unrighteous national
aggrandisement. They are patriots but traitors, rendering inevitable
a bitter harvest of national shame and sorrow. 2. They show the folly
of supposing that the great power of any nation justifies it in the
hope that it may safely deal unjustly with other and weaker nations.
Guilty nations set in operation forces mightier and surer in their
operation than any they can command--those forming the
instrumentality by which God governs the earth, and in spite of human
passions, maintains the existence and carrying forward the
development of the human race; these, combining, bring on a "day of
the Lord," in which, by the overthrow of the haughtiest wrongdoers,
His existence and authority, and the folly of the practical atheism
to which great nations are prone, are demonstrated (P. D., 2544).