Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/spurgeon/ps14.4

Text File | 1993-03-24 | 7KB | 123 lines

                           EXPOSITION.

        Hatred of God and corruptness of like are the motive
forces which produce persecution. Men who having no saving
knowledge of divine things, enslave themselves to become workers
of iniquity, have no heart to cry to the Lord for deliverance,
but seek to amuse themselves with devouring the poor and despised
people of God. It is hard bondage to be a "_worker of iniquity_;"
a worker at the galleys, or in the mines of Siberia, is not more
truly degraded and wretched; the toil is hard and the reward
dreadful; those who have no knowledge choose such slavery, but
those who are taught of God cry to be rescued from it. The same
ignorance which keeps men bondsmen to evil, makes them hate the
freeborn sons of God; hence they seek to eat them up "_as they
eat bread_,"--daily, ravenously, as though it were an ordinary,
usual, every-day matter to oppress the saints of God. As pikes in
a pond eat up little fish, as eagles prey on smaller birds, as
wolves rend the sheep of the pasture, so sinners naturally and as
a matter of course persecute, malign, and mock the followers of
the Lord Jesus. While thus preying, they forswear all praying,
and in this act consistently, for how could they hope to be heard
while their hands are full of blood?

              EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

        Verse 4.--"_Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge_?"
Men's ignorance is the reason why they fear not what they should
fear. Why is it that the ungodly fear not sin? Oh, it's because
they know it not. "_Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge_?"
Sure enough they have none, for "_they eat up my people as they
eat bread_;" such morsels would scald their mouths, they would
not dare to be such persecutors and destroyers of the people of
God; they would be afraid to touch them if they did but know what
they did.--^Richard Alleine.

        Verse 4.--"_Who eat up my people as they eat
bread_."--That is, _quotidie_, daily, saith Austin; as duly as
they eat bread; or, with the same eagerness and voracity. These
man-eaters, these _Laobo'roi_, cruel cannibals, make no more
conscience to undo a poor man, than to eat a good meal when they
are hungry. Like pickerels in a pond, or sharks in the sea, they
devour the poorer, as those do the lesser fishes; and that many
times with a plausible, invisible consumption; as the usurer,
who, like the ostrich, can digest any metal; but especially
money.--^John Trapp.

        Verse 4.--"_Who eat up my people as they eat bread_." Oh,
how few consult and believe the Scriptures setting forth the
enmity of wicked men against God's people! The Scripture tells us
"_they eat up God's people as bread_," which implies a strange
inclination in them to devour the saints, and that they take as
great delight therein as a hungry man in eating, and that it is
natural to them to molest them. The Scripture compares them, for
their hateful qualities, to the lions and bears, to foxes for
subtlety, to wild bulls, to greedy swine, to scorpions, to briers
and thorns (grievous and vexing things). The Scripture represents
them as industrious and unwearied in their bloody enterprises,
they cannot sleep without doing mischief. Herodias had rather
have the blood of a saint than half a kingdom. Haman would pay a
great fine to the king that the scattered Jews (who keep not the
king's laws) may be cut off. Wicked men will run the hazard of
damning their own souls, rather than not fling a dagger at the
apple of God's eye. Though they know what one word--aha!--cost,
yet they will break through all natural, civil, and moral
obligations, to ruin God's people. The Holy Ghost calls them
"implacable" men, fierce and headstrong; they are like the hot
oven for fury, like the sea for boundless rage; yet "who hath
believed" this Scripture "report"? Did we believe what enemies
all wicked men are unto all saints, we should not lean to our own
prudence and discretion to secure us from any danger by these
men; we would get an ark to secure us from the deluge of their
wrath; if at any time we be cast among them and delivered, we
would bless God with the three children, that the hot fiery oven
did not consume us; we would not wonder when we hear of any of
their barbarous cruelty, but rather wonder at God's restraining
them every day; we would be suspicious of receiving hurt when
cast among light and frothy companions; we would shun their
company as we do lions and scorpions; we would never commit any
trust or secret into their hands; we would not be light-hearted
whilst in their society; we would not rely on their promises any
more than we would on the promise of the devil, their father; we
would long for heaven, to be delivered from "the tents of Kedar;"
we would not count any of the saints secured from danger, though
related to any great wicked man; we would not twist ourselves
with them by matching ourselves or children to these sons and
daughters of Belial; neither would we make choice of devils to be
our servants.--^Lewis Stuckley.

        Verse 4.--This is an evil world. It hates the people of
God. "Because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth
you." #Joh 15:19|. Haman's hatred was against the whole seed of
the Jews. When you can find a serpent without a sting, or a
leopard without spots, then may you expect to find a wicked world
without hatred to the saints. Piety is the target which is aimed
at. "They are mine adversaries because I follow the thing that
good is." #Ps 38:20|. The world pretends to hate the godly for
something else, but the ground of the quarrel is holiness. The
world's hatred is implacable: anger may be reconciled, hatred
cannot. You may as soon reconcile heaven and hell as the two
seeds. If the world hated Christ, no wonder that it hates us.
"The world hated me before it hated you." #Joh 15:18|. Why should
any hate Christ? This blessed Dove had no gall, this rose of
Sharon did send forth a most sweet perfume; but this shows the
world's baseness, it is a Christ-hating and a _saint-eating_
world.--^Thomas Watson.

                       HINTS TO PREACHERS.

        Verse 4.--"_Have all the workers of iniquity no
knowledge_?" If men rightly knew God, his law, the evil of sin,
the torment of hell, and other great truths, would they sin as
they do? Or if they know these and yet continue in their
iniquities, how guilty and foolish they are! Answer the question
both positively and negatively, and it supplies material for a
searching discourse.

        Verse 4.--(first clause).--The crying sin of
transgressing against light and knowledge.

        Verse 4 (last clause).--Absence of prayer, a sure mark of
a graceless state.