When for a long time no great changes have occurred in the world, no remarkable judgments, no visitations of famine, pestilence, or war, men are very apt to grow carnally secure, and to take license to sin from the merciful respite which ought to have led them to gratitude, and through gratitude to obedience. At certain periods it has seemed to the Most High to be imperatively necessary to send great calamities upon mankind lest pride oppression, and profanity should cause society utterly to rot.
The fall of dynasties, the overthrow of empires, devastating wars, and dire famines have been necessities of God’s moral government, bits in men’s mouths, bridles for their arrogance, checks to their licentiousness. The Lord is slow to smite the wicked, for his tender mercy is great, and he delights not in the sufferings of men, and therefore he keeps his arrows in his quiver, and hangs up his bow; but, alas, men take advantage of his love to grow grossly sinful, and to blaspheme his name.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The World On Fire," delivered August 3, 1873. Image by binnyva on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
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