Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
A religious city terribly degenerate
I. A professedly religious city terribly degenerated.
1. The princes are mentioned. They are “roaring lions.”
2. The judges are mentioned. They are “evening wolves.”
3. The prophets are mentioned. They are “light and treacherous persons.”
4. The priests are mentioned.
These “polluted the sanctuary,” by desecrating the sacred, and outraged the “law,” by distorting its meaning and misrepresenting its genius and aim.
II. A professedly religious city terribly degenerated although God was specially working in its midst. “The just Lord is in the midst thereof; He will not do iniquity: every morning doth He bring His judgment to light, He faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.”
1. The wonderful freedom which the Almighty allows to wicked men on this earth. Though He strives to improve them, He does not coerce them. He makes no invasion of their moral agency.
2. The tremendous force of human depravity. What a power sin gains over man!
(1) Do not hinder Christian propagandism from entering a city because it is nominally Christian. The Gospel is wanted there perhaps more than anywhere else.
(2) Do not expect that the world will be morally renovated by miraculous agency. Almighty Goodness does not coerce. There is no way by which mere force can travel to a man’s soul. (Homilist.)