The tragedy of the nation is summed up in one word, 'They hearkened
not.'
That power of neglecting God's voice and opposing God's will is the
mystery of our nature. How strange it is that a human will should be
able to lift itself in opposition to the Sovereign Will! But stranger
and more mysterious and tragic still is it that we should choose to
exercise that power and find pleasure, and fancy that we shall ever
find advantage, in refusing to listen to His entreaties and choosing to
flout His uttered will.
Such opposition was Israel's ruin. It will be ours if we persist in it.
'If God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee.'