Because I have called and you refused,
I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
Because you disdained all my counsel,
And would have none of my rebuke,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your terror comes,
When your terror comes like a storm,
And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
“Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord,
They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way,
And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them;
But whoever listens to me will dwell safely,
And will be secure, without fear of evil.”*
* These words must ever possess a tender and precious interest for the writer. It was through having learned them as a lad in the Sunday School that I was, when 14 years of age, truly awakened by the Spirit of God to see the awful result of rejecting the call of the Gospel.
Unable to shake off the vivid impression of God’s righteous wrath if I longer refused His grace, I fell down before Him, confessing myself a lost, undone sinner, and found in John 3:16 the solace my conscience needed: ”for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It was a night to be remembered forever! Praise you and bless you, Lord!
It must be evident to all who like this is to the gospel call, with it’s attendant warning of coming judgment if despised. On the face of it, it is the Old Testament way of saying, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatever a man sows that shall he also reap. For he that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8). The principle abides whether applied to sinners or saints. But surely in Wisdom’s cry the “ministry of reconciliation” may be readily recognized. It is
“God beseeching, man refusing
To be made forever glad.”
And what must the inevitable result be?
Ah, dear unsaved reader, if into the hands of such a one these pages fall, remember there is not only a world in which you can say “No” to God, the God of all grace; there is also a world in which He will say “No” to you, if you meet Him as the God of judgment. There is not only a scene in which Wisdom’s cry can be despised; there is also a scenewhere your cry shall be despised if you enter it a rejector of the message of grace.
There is not only a place where you, in your folly and carelessness of heart, can laugh at the entreaties of Wisdom; a day comes on apace when wisdom shall laugh at your calamity, and mock your bitter anguish.
Mark well; it is not God as such who will ever laugh at the grief of one of his creatures, however abandoned and iniquitous: it is Wisdom who speaks. That wisdom which you now despise will then mock your hopeless wails.
What can be worse for a lost soul than to have to remember, in the abyss of woe, gospel messages once indifferently listen to, the Word of God once treated as a subject unfit for serious consideration; and then to have to cry in despair,“Jesus died, yet I am in hell! He gave himself for sinners. He provided a way of salvation for me, but, like the fool that I was, I spurned His grace till grace was withdrawn, the door of mercy was closed, and now I am to be on the wrong side of that closed door forever!”
Thus will wisdom laugh at your calamity, if you go out into eternity in your sin. Nor can any blame God that it has fared so ill with them.
All shall own that it was because they hated knowledge and chose not Jehovah’s fear. Turning away with the simple, they are slain; prospering in their folly, they are destroyed. So shall it be with all who despise Wisdom and ignore her entreaties.
But all who hearken shall dwell safely forever quiet from fear of evil.
“Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall soround him” (Ps. 32:10).
Nor must we think only of the warning to the unconverted. Even to those who are secure for eternity an apostle had to right, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:15,17).
It is true of Saints as of sinners that we reap as we sow. The believer cannot take his own way with impunity. If he turns away from the house of Wisdom, to pursue the path of folly, he too must hear the mocking laugh at the last of that Wisdom which he had dared to despise.
The chastisement of the Lord must invariably follow departure from the ways that be in Christ.
It is important to remember that the moment a poor sinner trusts the Lord Jesus as his Savior, his responsibility as a criminal having to do with the judge is over forever.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
But, that very moment, his responsibility as a child having to do with his Father begins; and that Father, “without respect of persons, judges according to every man’s work” (1Pet. 1:17).
His new responsibilities springs from his new relationship. Henceforth he is to be “reckon himself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).
If he fails to do this and allows himself to become indifferent to the will of God, he must know the rod of his discipline.
“The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Pet. 2:9). It is in this world that the Christian is dealt with for his failures.
The unjust will be dealt with in that day of wrath; though even here sin brings suffering in their case as well.
Let us remember then, that “the time is come that the judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that know not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet. 4:17,18). (Commentary by H.A. Ironside)