When God judges, he expects us to see what he is doing, and to draw conclusions from it. We tend however to draw the wrong conclusions. We either say, ‘That was a chance event: there is no God governing this world’, or we say, ‘They must have been particularly bad people for God to treat them like that.’ The Lord Jesus warns the people of his day: ‘Those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?’ That is not the message of God’s judgments. ‘I tell you, Nay:’ says the Saviour, ‘but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish’ (Luke 13:4-5). But we are not grateful if we are unconverted people: I am not grateful for my life, my breath, my health, my energy, this life which I occupy, I am grateful for nothing. It doesn't matter what God has done, for like the Jews of old I am not grateful to him.
‘I said,’ – the words of God – ‘Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction.’ This is not God being naïve about human behaviour. Rather, it is an expression what would have been a reasonable response to this warning from heaven. Yes, it would have been entirely to be expected that those who were guilty of the same things, whose consciences accused them too, should say, ‘That might have been me. There go I, but for the grace of God. I have been treated very leniently by my Judge. Surely I must learn a lesson from this, and stop shutting my ears to his message, and stubbornly going my own way.’ Man’s response to the gospel is so unreasonable, and so hurtful to himself. The Lord’s lessons are easy to read, and tinged with mercy up to the point where we have exhausted his patience. Always there is the implication that if we repent, he will modify his severity towards us.
‘So their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them.’ This is not just the expected result of God’s faithful warnings; it is the response that he seeks from us. God is always set before us in Scripture as one who wishes to bless more than to curse. That characteristic of God should be remembered by the guilty sinner. It is an argument for taking his warnings seriously, but it is also an argument for seeing the implied offer of mercy which lies behind them. Do not just look at the warning and see the severity of God, but think of what the warning is intended to produce in us: a repentant spirit. God is not going to refuse us when we come earnestly to him, if he has gone to such trouble to bring us into a repentant state of mind.
‘But they rose early, and corrupted all their doings.’ In the case of Judah and Jerusalem, this warning had no effect. They therefore had to learn that God’s warnings are not idly given. That rod which Christ holds in his hand is not there for nothing. ‘He will rule the nations with a rod of iron’ (Psalm 2:27). Without God’s irresistible grace sinful people will not turn to God. It doesn't matter what God does, it doesn't matter if he plunges the land into recession, into even near starvation. It wouldn't matter if God demonstrated to us in a mighty way the vanity and the emptiness of trusting in human beings and human abilities and human politics; it wouldn't matter if God brought us so low, we still wouldn't learn, we wouldn't cry out to him, we wouldn't pray to him. That is the sinfulness of the human race and here it is in Judah of old.