The consequences of sin are God's work. The miseries consequent on sin
are self-inflicted, but they are also God's judgments on sin. We may
say that sin automatically works out its results, but its results
follow by the will of God on account of sin.
That work is a necessity arising from the nature of God. It is foreign
to His heart but not to His nature. God is both 'the light of Israel'
for blessing, and 'a consuming fire.' The two opposite effects are
equally the result of the contact of God and man. Light pains a
diseased eye and gladdens a sound one. The sun seen through a mist
becomes like a ball of red-hot iron. The whole revelation of God
becomes a pain to an unloving soul.
But God's very love compels Him to punish.
Some modern notions of the love of God seem to strike out righteousness
from His nature altogether, and substitute for it a mere good nature
which is weakness, not love, and is cruelty, not kindness.
There is nothing in the facts of the world or in the teachings of the
gospel which countenances the notion of a God whose fondness prevents
Him from scourging.
What do you call it when a father spares the rod and spoils the child?
Even this world is a very serious place for a man who sets himself
against its laws. Its punishments come down surely and not always
slowly. There is nothing in it to encourage the idea of impunity.
That work is to Him an Unwelcome Necessity. Bold words. 'I have no
pleasure in the death of a sinner.' 'He doth not willingly inflict.'
The awful power of sin to divert the current of blessing. Christ's
tears over Jerusalem. How unwelcome that work is to them is shown by
the slowness of His judgments, by multiplied warnings. 'Rising up
early,' He tells men that He will smite, in order that He may never
need to smite.
That work is a certainty. However reluctantly He smites, the blow
_will_ fall.