Micah 6:9 The LORD's voice cries to the city, and the man of wisdom shall see your name: hear you the rod, and who has appointed it. I. PUBLIC CALAMITIES ARE THE VOICE OF GOD TO THE NATION. The dispensations of God are particular or general. The particular affect individuals; the general affect a nation or a world. A nation is but a larger family, a more numerous and extensive household. "The voice of the Lord crieth unto the city" — against the city. Why? On account of our national sins. They are many and great. Have not profligate luxury on the one hand, and commercial covetousness on the other, marked the latter period of our history? Gross immorality, daring crime, heaven defying impiety and blasphemy raise their unveiled, unblushing fronts in the broad light of day. Lying, uncleanness, and fraud are to be reckoned among the crying sins of our country. The voice of the Lord crieth against us on account of the little improvement we have made of our religious advantages. How few are living under the vital influence of those doctrines and principles, which distinguish the Gospel of the grace of God from all other systems! The voice charges us, not only with a shameful neglect of the Gospel, as a matter of personal concern, but also with indifference respecting its diffusion through the earth. II. IT IS WISDOM TO SEE AND ACKNOWLEDGE GOD IN PUBLIC CALAMITIES. His great, and venerable, and inviting name of wisdom, power, and love is inscribed upon all HIS works, and there it is seen and read by the man of wisdom. But especially it is visible upon the gloomy clouds of affliction. Multitudes live, and act, and form their judgments as if there were no Divine government — as if chance were universal monarch, They look only to secondary causes. The text implies that it is the part of folly not to perceive and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in public calamities. Such insensibility is an evidence of positive wickedness, approaching to atheism. III. IT IS OUR DUTY AND INTEREST TO IMPROVE PUBLIC CALAMITIES. Why does a father chastise his children? That they may be improved by his correction. He uses the rod, not to gratify his own temper, but to profit them. It becomes our duty to seek personal improvement from the dispensations of our Heavenly Father. It is not only our duty, it is our interest to improve public calamities. The first lesson to learn is to examine and abase ourselves before God. 1. To be cheerfully resigned to the Divine will. 2. To bear upon our minds the claims which our rulers have on our prayers. 3. To nourish solemn and practical reflections upon death. 4. To derive improvement from this public calamity — the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales — by seeking deeper impressions of the truth, that all is vanity except the Gospel (John East, A. B.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. |
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