Very painful must it be to an intelligent spirit to be the executor of Jehovah's vengeance upon transgressors: the pain is only one remove the less to announce the coming doom. Yet, as we gain broader and clearer views of God's administration, we discover that the suffering of a few brings advantage to the many. The splendor and the rare excellence of God's righteousness are thereby clearly revealed. And gradually we perceive that pain and pleasure are matters vastly inferior to right and wrong. The well-being of heaven is suspended upon just government in the universe. Right must be done, though the stars should fall and the material fabric become a wreck.

I. AN AGGRAVATED NATIONAL OFFENSE.

1. It sprang out of an ancient hatred. The then-existent inhabitants of Israel had done the Edomites no wrong. It was simply an ember of an old fire the Edomites had fanned and kept alive generation after generation. Their duty clearly was to forgive and to forget. Centuries before, the blood-stained hatchet ought to have been buried. Heedlessly the Edomites were doing their own nature a cruel wrong. They were strangling their noblest qualities,

2. Hatred, nursed, soon develops into murder. "They had shed the blood of the children of Israel." Murder may stain the character of a state as much as it stains the character of an individual; and every war, unjustly provoked, is only murder. The lives of a myriad innocent men will be required at some tyrants' hands. And this murderous outrage was an act of basest cowardice. They had plunged the sword into Israel's breast when Israel was prostrate and wounded by other foes. It was as black deed as ever had been done under the eye of the sun.

3. Added to this was an attempted spoliation of Israel's territory. "Because thou hast said, These two nations ... shall be mine." Edom had hoped to blot Israel's name completely out of history, and to embrace the sacred territory in the empire of Edom. Their hatred had hatched a purpose to murder and bury a nation - a nation that had been and might again be a blessing to the globe. And the guilt was equally as great as if the vile purpose had succeeded. To the eye of our righteous God there is often a vast volume of crime secreted in a single purpose, in a hidden motive. The quintessence of sin may be found there.

II. CRIME AGAINST A NATION IS SIN AGAINST GOD.

1. God has identified himself with men. This was conspicuous in a marked degree in the case of Israel. Yet this identification with Israel's true welfare is typical of God's fatherly interest in all trustful souls. More or less, God identifies himself with humanity; and no wrong to humanity shall go unpunished. He will champion the interests of the oppressed everywhere.

2. God carefully notes every act of injustice. "I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel." Every whisper of man is heard by God. Such acute hearing staggers our understanding. Yet "he that formed the ear, shall he not hear?" The secrets of imperial councils are all seen and heard by Jehovah. Ultimately, and in the best time, he bathes all wicked designs.

3. Human folly in ignoring God's presence. "Whereas the Lord was there." In every age worldly men concoct their plans as if no God ruled over the affairs of men. Ambitious rulers parcel out a neighbor's territory, totally unmindful that God is in possession. "The earth is the Lord's," and his eye is never absent from his property. The weakest child of man may always summon God to his side - his Helper and Friend.

III. EQUITABLE RETRIBUTION.

1. Divine activity. "I will stretch out mine hand." Hath God, then, a human hand? The language is an accommodation to the understanding of man. God has an adaptation of power more than equivalent to the dexterous strength of the human hand. His almighty hand can reach to the very extremities of the universe. As by a breath of the lips he can create, so by a breath can he desolate cities.

2. Exact retribution. "Sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee." No human judge has ever been able to mete out such exact penalties as God does. A combination of perfect qualities is needed, and this perfect combination no one possesses save Jehovah. It is always a real alleviation if the victim can feel that he has not deserved so much severity; and it is the very core of anguish to realize that the suffering is absolutely just. Conscience itself becomes the executioner of God.

3. The penalty will be set in the light of contrast. "When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate." It is a slight mitigation of suffering when others share it with us. It aggravates our suffering if all around us are bright with joy. The rich man of the parable felt his torment the keener because Lazarus was seen in the repose of blessedness. Isolation in misery is an additional element of woe.

4. The desolation was to be final. No prospect, not the most distant, could be entertained of relief. The stroke was to be, not disciplinary, but utterly penal. It was to be a perpetual desolation. The race was to suffer extirpation from the district.

5. The edict was confirmed by an oath. "As I live, saith the Lord God," this shall be done. This form of speech by God is a further accommodation to men. As an affirmation makes a deeper impression upon the minds of men when accompanied by an oath, by a solemn appeal to the presence of God, so God condescends to speak to men in such manner as shall most powerfully affect them. From God the simplest form of words is enough. "He is not a man, that he should lie." A word from him creates or destroys. But he speaks by way of oath, in order to arrest our thoughts and to convince our judgment.

6. Conviction of God's jurisdiction often comes too late. Men ignore God's presence and God's interference in human affairs, until events force upon them the fact that they are fighting, not simply against their fellows, nor contending against adverse circumstance, but are verily fighting against God. At length, out of the chaos of atheistic thoughts there looms the form and features of the living God. But the knowledge comes too late. They know God as their overpowering Foe, whereas they might have known him as a gracious Friend. - D.

As Palestine was preserved from the enmity of Mount Seir by the presence of Jehovah, so the Church, and each separate member of it, is constantly kept by the power of a present God, despite the rage of adversaries.

I. A DESPISED PEOPLE CONSTANTLY TRIUMPHANT BECAUSE "THE LORD WAS THERE." The people of God have always been, in every age, a hated and despised people. This may be seen if you will notice a few facts.

1. The adversaries of God's Israel have often thought in their hearts that they would utterly destroy them. One of the Roman emperors set up a monument, "In the memory of a destroyed superstition called Christianity." But was our holy religion destroyed? Could the dragon prevail against the remnant which kept the commandment of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ? Behold the multitudes who this day bow the knees at the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord being there, immortality, nay, eternity was in the Church. God is eternal, He is in the Church, and His Church is immortal too.

2. The enemies of the Church have frequently shown their scorn of her by the ridicule which they have cast upon her attacks. But as the cake of barley bread fell upon the tent of Midian and smote it that it lay along, even so the Church is more than conqueror. Sydney Smith said, when Carey talked of evangelising India, that a consecrated cobbler was going out to preach the Gospel to educated and enlightened Hindoos, but the consecrated cobbler took his post and digged in India a well of which thousands shall yet drink. That man of God has placed the battering-ram of the Gospel in such a position that ere long the hoary bastions of idolatry will tremble, and the world shall see that the weakness of God is stronger than man.

3. The world's estimation of the Church has frequently been seen in the way in which it will mock at all her teachings. The wise men of this world have always something far superior to anything that the Bible can reveal. Ah! we can well endure their boastings, for the doctrines of grace are the loftiest of all philosophy and the most intellectual of all teachings — because Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is in them; and where God is, there is perfect wisdom; where God is, there is incomprehensible knowledge.

4. Do they not, also, very frequently cast in our teeth our trials? Nebuchadnezzar can cast in but three, he cannot, however, cast out the fourth; where the Church shall be, Christ shall walk the coals with His people, and they shall come out of their trials triumphant, for God is there. Where God is, there is everlasting love; where God abideth, there is immutable affection; and therefore let this be our comfort, God is with thee, Israel, passing through the fire.

5. The world shows its disesteem of us by the way in which it often treats the Christian. It sees him poor and naked and miserable, and therefore pushes him about as though he were a beggar and not one of the blood royal. Little do they know that, however poor the Christian may be, the Lord is there. The very honour and dignity and majesty of Deity itself guards every follower of the Saviour, however much he may be despised among men.

II. THE MAN OPPOSED AND YET A CONQUEROR.

1. The early convictions of a newborn soul are always the subject of Satanic attack. Satan hopes that with the laugh, the jeer, the jest and merriment he will destroy utterly all convictions of sin; little does he dream that "the Lord is there," and where God sends the arrow home, no devil can ever draw it out.

2. Then, as the fend has tried to destroy conviction, he will next shoot his arrows against our faith. Poor, feeble follower of Jesus, he will worry thee. But the faith which God gives to us overcometh the world — yea, and overcometh the old dragon too.

3. Have not you always found that not only your faith but all your good works are the subjects of Satan's attacks? I never yet had a virtue or possessed a grace but what it was sure to be the target for hellish bullets; whether it was hope bright and sparkling, or love warm and fervent, or patience all enduring, or real flaming like coals of fire, the old enemy of everything that is good has tried if he could destroy or mar it. And why is it that anything virtuous or lovely survives in you? There can be no reason given to this, but "God is then."

4. Note how sedulously Satan aims against the perseverance of God's people. They will never hold on their way, saith he. You and I have thought we never should. And yet you have not fallen from grace yet, not yet have you disgraced your character, not yet gone back to your old lusts. How is this? Why, God was in you, and if He had not been there, then indeed had you been a prey unto your adversaries. A Christian is something like an express train. On some of our railroads, you know, there are express trains which do not stop to take water, the water lies in a trench in the middle between the rails, and as the train runs it sucks up its own supply of cold water, and so continues its course without a pause. Our God in grace has forestalled our needs, He prepares supplies for His own people, so that without their stopping to seek the streams of creature confidence, sometimes without the use of means, He is pleased to speed them on their pathway towards heaven, fed by a Divine arrangement of grace. Oh, it is blessed to think that if God be there, everything a Christian can want for his final persevering, for his eternal life, is ready at hand.

5. I have no doubt, beloved, we shall find that when we come to die, our dying confidence will be the object of the enmity of all the powers of hell. Perhaps like John Knox you may have your blackest day at the last, but oh! thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have no fear for our dying confidence, for "God is there," even there where the billows are the most tempestuous and the water is most chill; we shall feel the bottom and know that it is good, our feet shall stand upon the rock of ages even in our dying moments.

III. A DESOLATE SOUL NOT DESTROYED, BECAUSE GOD IS THERE. "My purpose is," says Satan, "that be shall dwell forever with me, in misery extreme. I have laid hold upon him," says he, "and he hath made a league with hell. He is mine, he is mine forever." But stop, stop, the Lord was there before the devil. Does the devil purpose? Ah, but God's purpose is older than the devil's purpose. Does the sinner make a covenant? Ay, but then, God's covenant was made before that sinner was born, and what is the devil's purpose compared with God's purpose? You see, God is there before him — "Whereas the Lord was there." "Ah, but," said Satan, "he is mine, I will have him, I will go and take possession, he is mine"; and so he is about to enter the vineyard, and take possession of the vines of sour grapes, when lo! someone meets him on the threshold, and says, "What dost thou here?" "I am come to take possession," saith he. "Take possession!" saith Christ; "I have a claim upon this vineyard, I bought it and paid for it with drops of blood; what dost thou here? Thou sayest, 'I will possess this land,' whereas the Lord was there": and He shows the fiend the print of the nails, and points to His wounded side, and says, "Whatever thy claim may be, Mine is a higher claim; I bought, I paid for, I have the acceptance from the Divine hand, and this vessel of mercy was Mine, Mine long before thou couldst have any claim upon it."

IV. The same, dear friends, is true with regard to THE ENTIRE WORLD. The world cannot be destroyed, because "Jehovah is there." This world once shone, like its sister stars, bright and fair, but a sad shadow of eclipse was thrown upon it — it became swathed in the mists of sin. and though the glory of the Lord hath risen upon it, yet still much of the gloom and the thick darkness continues. Shall that darkness cover all the nation? Shall the light become dim forever? No, no; "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Shall its groans and travails end in nothing? No, no; the day cometh when "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

( C. H. Spurgeon.).