Great Themes of the Bible
JUDGMENT
HE IDEA of judgment appears early in the Bible. '"'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. xvii. 25). He will, because He is the Judge of all the earth. He gives charge to all, takes cognizance of all, and will pass sentence upon all. God Almighty never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of the creatures, either by withholding that which is right, or by exacting more than is right.
1. THE WORLD UNDER JUDGMENT The prophet Isaiah paints in greater detail the very dark and melancholy scene which God's judgment will produce upon a sinful land (Isa. xxiv. 1ff.). The earth is stripped of all its ornaments and looks as if it were taken off its basis. It is made empty and waste, as if it were reduced to its first chaos—nothing but confusion and emptiness again, "without form and void"'.
The whole " world languisheth and fadeth away"', as hastening towards a dissolution. It is at the best like a flower which withers in the hands of those that please themselves too much with it, and lay it in their bosoms. The Lord that made the earth, and made it fruitful and beautiful for the service and comfort of man, now makes it "'empty, and maketh it waste''. For its creator is and will be its Judge. He has an incontestable right to pass sentence upon it, and an irresistible power to execute that sentence. It is "the Lord that hath spoken this word'', and He will do the work. It is the curse that hath "'devoured the earth", the general curse which sin brought upon the ground for man's sake, and all the particular curses which families and countries bring upon themselves by their enormous wickedness. See the power of God's curse, how it makes all empty and lays all waste. Those whom He curses they are cursed indeed.
Persons of all ranks and conditions shall share in these calamities. "It shall be as with the people, so with the priest." This is true of many of the common calamities of human life. All are subject to the same diseases of the body, sorrows of