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I. LET JUDAH AND ISRAEL BE TAKEN AS REPRESENTING RESPECTIVELY PROFESSORS OF RELIGION AND THOSE WHO MAKE NO SUCH PROFESSION. Judah did make such profession, but Israel stood aloof, neither worshipping at the temple nor joining in the appointed feasts.

II. OBSERVE THAT ISRAEL IS SAID TO HAVE "JUSTIFIED HERSELF MORE," ETC. (Ver. 11.)

1. This was true, for a sterner sentence went out against Judah than against Israel.

(1) A more infamous name is given to her than to Israel; she is called "Treacherous."

(2) And her punishment was more severe. Israel had long been prepared to mingle more or less readily with other nations. An assimilating process had been going on for many generations, religiously, socially, and politically. Hence they were looked upon much as the Pharisees of our Lord's day looked upon the publicans and sinners whom he so graciously welcomed. And we find that, as a fact, they soon became merged into the nations whither they had been carried away captive. They had no such memories, no such antipathies as the people of Judah, and hence their exile must have been more tolerable. The piteous psalms, which bewail the hard lot of the captive, came not from them, but from the exiles of Judah. It was they who "by the rivers of Babylon sat down and wept as they remembered Zion." The iron entered into their soul as it could hardly have done in the case of Israel. And the like facts -

(1) and

(2) - are seen in the case of unworthy professors of religion. See our Lord's holy hate, hear his scathing words of scorn and doom, in regard to the hypocrites of his day. And the world, too, looks on them with a contempt it keeps for none other. And they suffer as none other can. If the grace of God be still in them, who can describe the remorse, the self-abasement, the shame, with which they view the punishment that has come upon them?

2. And the reasons wherefore it was less tolerable for Judah than for Israel were:

(1) Judah's privileges were so much greater.

(2) Her warnings had been more numerous, more plain, more arousing, more prolonged (cf. the history and previous verses).

(3) Her inducements to loyal obedience were stronger. Hence her sin brought the greater doom, "And the Lord said," etc. (ver. 11). And these are the reasons - greater privileges, louder warnings, more powerful inducements to obedience - which, when they are all disregarded and set at naught, compel, yea, create a scourge for the fallen Church, such as they who have never made any such profession can never feel. Therefore -

III. INQUIRE WHAT IS THE JUST CONCLUSION THAT SHOULD BE DRAWN FROM THE FACT NOW OBSERVED.

1. Is it this: that it is better to be Israel than Judah; to stand aloof from all profession of religion than to make such profession?

(1) No; for it was better to be Judah than Israel. There were possibilities, and these generally realized, of greater blessedness in Judah than could be attained in Israel. Compare the histories of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and see if the brightest and most numerous examples of sanctity, as well as the greatest displays of God's favor, to say naught of the joy of his appointed worship, were not in Judah rather than in Israel. And so in like manner we affirm that it is better to be the avowed disciple of Christ, notwithstanding the possibility of a more terrible fall, than to be numbered with the crowd of those who neither possess nor profess any regard for God. For larger blessing, in the form of increased moral resemblance to God, of joy in God, and of greater security from the power of sin, - these certainly belong to those who are as Judah rather than to those who are as Israel. All God's favor is open to them as it is not to those in whom God's fear does not dwell.

(2) And again, No; for we do not reason in such manner in regard to other thing. True, "He that is down need fear no fall;" but we do not, on the strength of that dismal proverb, begin immediately to prefer the lot of the fallen one to that of him who, by God's providence, is set on high and stands Upright. The rich man does not hasten to make himself poor that he may be free from the fear of becoming so. Nor does the man who is blessed with vigorous health desire the condition of the invalid because in that condition there can be no fear of loss of health. Then why should the far less blessed lot of Israel, and of those outside the professed Church of God whom Israel represents, be preferred to the better and brighter lot of Judah and of God's Church, though a fall terrible and sad is possible here which could not be there?

(3) And it would be right still to prefer the lot of Judah, even if Israel had been simply let alone by God. If God had sent no punishment to Israel, it would have been better to be Judah, with the possession of God's favor, although the possession involved the possibility of its loss, than to have been without that favor at all. But when we see that the judgment of God came upon Israel as well as upon Judah, then much more, notwithstanding the sad fact declared in this ver. 11, was it better to have been Judah than Israel. And so, were there no judgment on the world, and God's anger came only on a fallen Church, better even then to be of the Church than of the world. But when we know that there is a judgment of the world as well as of the Church, that sin has no immunity anywhere, then, though sin in the Church be worse than sin in the world, still let me be there where the favor, the joy, and the grace of God are, and not where they can never come.

2. But the true lesson of what we have been considering is, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Judah, and the Church of God whom Judah represents, need to remember that, notwithstanding their high position of privilege, corruption and sin may lay hold upon them, and should that happen, their sin and their doom will be the most terrible of all (cf. Epistle to Church at Laodicea). Therefore hearken to our Lord's words, "Watch and pray." - C.

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KJV: And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

WEB: Yahweh said to me, "Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.