CONTEMPT OF SPIRITUAL PRIVILEGES PUNISHED
‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.’
The language in which the Old Testament is written is one possessing but few and simple words, rather than a copious, elaborate, and precise vocabulary. The word ‘know’ is used to mean a mere act of the mind on some object with which it becomes incidentally acquainted, and is employed to describe all the manifold stages of experience up to the highest and closest intimacy. Here it includes the whole special care of a watchful Providence over the nation of Israel—the great love He bore and manifested to His people, the choice He made of them out of all the nations of the earth. When man is said to ‘know’ God there is implied belief, fear, love, trust, service, worship. ‘You only have I known.’ So that here we are told of—
I. The spiritual privileges of God’s people.—By God’s knowledge of the people is implied: (1) His choice of them. If we examine the whole history of Israel as recorded in God’s Word, shall we not find that they were His select people? To them were committed ‘the oracles of God.’ Jehovah made Israel the depository and storehouse of His knowledge. So has God to-day made His Church the sacred depository of His truth, and, in a limited sense, every member of it. God has chosen us in Christ. (2) God’s care of them. God cares for the Church and every member of it. (3) God’s love of them. In proof of both these, examine the sacred records of Israel’s history.
II. The punishment of despising these privileges.—They are despised when God is neglected, and the wicked heart follows its own will. (1) This punishment is disciplinary. ‘God chastens in proportion to His love in the day of grace. Here “the most merciful Physician cutting away the cancerous flesh spareth not that He may spare; He pitieth not that He may have the more pity.” ’ As disciplinary it is in love, for ‘whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ (2) This punishment is finally penal. Ye would not have Me as a Father, ye shall have Me as a Judge. ‘Nearness to God is a priceless, but an awful gift’ (cf. Jude 1:6; Ezekiel 9:6; Luke 12:47-48; 1 Peter 4:17). As penal it is in judgment that God visits.