How inveterate the love of idols in Amaziah when he worships his captive gods, for he had brought them to Jerusalem! To what did Ahaz sink, and Manasseh yet lower (if that be possible); for to the idolatries and cruelties of Ahaz, he added witchcraft? To the practice of the worst abominations among the heathen, like Balaam he had dealings with a familiar spirit. But notwithstanding this constant and increasing evil until the decree of unsparing judgment, as spoken by Isaiah, and the sign, as well as the occasion seen in the king's leprosy, Judah was accounted, and God dwelt with king and people, as on the ground of covenant responsibility.
But though sovereign grace abounded, and infinite mercy seemed to linger, Judah had now forfeited that place, and they were Lo-ammi. God would have reinstated them and built up their kingdom in more than Solomon splendor and riches if they could have repented, but they would not. Their eyes were blinded lest they should see &c. However mysterious it may appear to us, it is no less true, that God had judicially done to them as He had in judgment done in ages past to Pharaoh; He hardened their heart. But compare the different position and responsibility of the king and people now with what it was under Solomon, for then covenant blessing and privilege depended on the faithfulness and righteousness of the king. If he walked before God (see 2 Chron. 7:17-2217And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments; 18Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel. 19But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; 20Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. 21And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and unto this house? 22And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them. (2 Chronicles 7:17‑22)), the responsibility of the national prosperity rested on the king—thou—but his turning away would surely draw the people after him, and the consequent judgment would be on him and the people—if ye turn away. The turning away was consummated in Uzziah, the measure of iniquity was filled by him (it overflowed under the following evil kings) and the decree of judgment was issued. Their ears made deaf, their eyes blind, heart fat until the appointed time.
If, as the prophet says, the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron (Jer. 17:11The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; (Jeremiah 17:1)), so also is their judgment. Uzziah was a type of that nation which, leprous as he, must endure the deprivation of being cut off from the Lord's house, and be confined in a separate one until the judgment be overpast. The Jews now have no temple and are separate, as a rule, from all Gentiles. But while the mercy of God lingered over the doomed city and nation, it gave a season of joy and gladness to the righteous. There was still the temple for them, and they would find His presence in His house. It would be empty and desolate for the wicked who might crowd to it, and boast of it, as did the Jews when our Lord was here, but there would always be a line of demarcation between them, the house would be full of God's mercy for the righteous, it would be desolate for the wicked (Isa. 1:10-1510Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. (Isaiah 1:10‑15)).
The judgment of God upon this guilty nation takes the form of a delusion. There had been wars, pestilences, and famines, but now something that blunts their feelings. They might have wept and cried to the Lord under the former, as often they did in the times of the Judges; but now they shall simply be deluded. What more terrible judgment, save the eternal one, than “I also will choose their delusions,” and this because when God called, there was none to answer.
A more fearful delusion followed by a heavier judgment will come on Christendom, and for the same reason, because they will not hear. In the past time God called by judgment and by mercy. Now He calls by mercy alone; the message sent is God's love and free salvation. Still men will not hear, “for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:1111And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: (2 Thessalonians 2:11) &c.) On Israel the expression is rather negative (though equally fatal); their heart is made fat lest they convert and be healed. On Christendom it is more positive: not only inability to perceive the truth; but the positive acceptance of a lie, “that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned:” their eternal doom is foretold.
God forebore long with Ephraim, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel?” He bore with greater longsuffering the greater provocations of Judah. For His house was in Jerusalem, and His name was recorded there. When (see Hos. 11:1212Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. (Hosea 11:12)) the covenant was broken which afterward subsisted with Judah after Ephraim (Israel), and judgment was inevitable, there was still, as i t were, the lingering of divine commiseration; for we know Who wept with human tears over Jerusalem.
The interval between the judgment on the ling, and the destruction of the city by the Babylonians, is filled up with the solemn calls to repentance by God through the prophets,—calls to the nation; but words of comfort to the righteous, and the certainty of final deliverance for them. But from the time of Uzziah's leprosy governmental responsibility is set aside, or modified, it becomes more of an individual character. They were to be no longer as a nation the people of God. Lo-ammi was writ large when they were carried to Babylon.
But it is then when the individual in contrast with the nation is addressed that the sovereign grace of God shines forth, and mercy to the transgressor which the law could not hold out, and which indeed ought not, or it would cease to be a, righteous law. But grace is higher than law, and bids it stand aside till the great propitiation is set, forth, which shall proclaim and establish its inflexible righteousness. But God, shall we say? waits not for that supreme moment to declare His mercy but proclaims aloud “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” And so the repentant Israelite returning to the Lord would have all the blessings named in Isa. 55. But these blessings are not merely given as the happy portion of the then repentant Israelite (had repentance been possible) but have a prophetic character. He declares what Israel will be when they turn to the Lord, and the veil is taken away; then all these blessings, will be made good to them both literally and symbolically.
But the proclaiming grace and pardon to the contrite individual in no way condoned the national sin. Judgment on the nation must fall on the righteous as on the wicked. The difference between the righteous and the wicked will definitively and eternally appear in the next life. In this they are mingled together, and the suffering, brought upon themselves by the wicked, the righteous are involved in. Nationally the wicked and righteous are one, and both endure the national judgment. Saints of God now feel the temporal judgments falling on the world, but this is made a blessing and becomes a means of knowing God, and the wonders of redemption in a deeper way. For it enlarges the sphere of faith and trust, and the Christian may take the language of Job, and with a Christian's confidence and submission (which Job had not) say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:1515Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. (Job 13:15)). The Lord knoweth them that are His and is able to preserve in the midst of the fiercest judgment those that trust in Him. How did He preserve His own that were cast into the fiery furnace, the intense flame of which destroyed their executioners while on the three Hebrews there was not even the smell of fire! In the splendor and amid the riches of their Babylonian palaces not so happy or so honored as when walking in the midst of the fire; for they were in company with One Who was like the Son of God! And so with that remnant which God has ever kept for Himself, out of that people, whether the righteous in the past, or the believing portion now joined to the church, the righteous judgment that overtook the guilty nations did not, could not, remove the special care that God takes of the godly. To human eyes they suffer in the same circumstances, and no difference is seen. So it might have been said of Daniel and his three friends. They were captives like the wicked princes, bound with similar chains, carried to the same city, all of them known as captives of Judah. But how they rose to honor in an alien city! True God was carrying out His own purpose, foreordained and immutable; at the same time it was God's reward for their faithfulness. We turn to the earlier words of Isaiah— “say ye to the righteous that it is [shall be] well with him.” If “well” here below in the midst of the fruits and consequences of sin, what must “well” mean in eternity?