It is a “righteous thing” with God (2 Thess. i. 6, 7), though to men it seems an incredible paradox, and a news far more wonderful than acceptable, that there should be such a transmutation of conditions on both sides, to contraries.—Trapp.
Though the afflictions of good men seem sharp and grievous, yet they are not perpetual. Before ever God bring His into troubles, He appointeth how they shall be preserved in them, and pass through them, and get out of them. He doth as well see their arrival, as their launching forth, and the end of the boisterous storms which they must endure as well as the beginning and entrance thereof.—Dod.
In this world trouble is a common place, as the world is, both to the righteous and the wicked, and it beseems them both. The one has his proper and due place, the other has his place of honour. For, as St. Basil saith, He that saith that tribulation doth not beseem a righteous man, saith nothing else but that an adversary doth not beseem a valiant champion. Sometimes God Himself doth put the righteous into trouble, and then as the place belongeth to them, so St. Chrysostom tells us, God doth it rather by the trouble to bring us to Himself. Sometimes the injustice or malice of men doth thrust them into it, and then, God delivering them, puts the wicked in their place. For this world is full of misplacings, the wicked being seated where the godly should be, the godly seated where the wicked should be. God Almighty is pleased sometimes to put things in order, and, showing mercy to the righteous, doth give the wicked their due place.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 9.
The Just Man Delivered from the Mouth of the Hypocrite.
I. We have here—1. A character most difficult to maintain. The actor cannot always be playing his part, he must have times when his own individuality asserts itself—when he appears the man he really is. The man most in love with the dramatic art finds a few hours’ practice at a time enough for him, and feels it a relief to throw off his stage character and be himself again. He cannot, if he would, be ever trying to live in an experience that does not belong to him—be ever assuming an individuality which is not his own property. It would be an intolerable burden to be always endeavouring to sustain a part. A hypocrite has set himself a hard task. He has undertaken to pretend to be living a life which he knows does not belong to him, and which he never can possess unless his whole nature is regenerated. Now to keep up the deportment and to use the language that belongs to a true nature must be as difficult as for a professional actor always to be playing the part of a king. The hypocrite must sometimes feel that his life is a sort of treadmill, and must sometimes be overcome by his real self in spite of all efforts to prevent nature from asserting her rights. No hypocrite can be always in his stage dress. The character is difficult to sustain. 2. A character most injurious to mankind and most miserable for the man who owns it. The actor plays his part by assuming the character of another man, but he does this without necessarily injuring himself or any of his fellow-creatures. But it is not so with the hypocrite. If a bad man assumes the garb of a good man he tends to lessen the estimation of real goodness in the minds of men. The existence of false coin makes us suspicious of genuine gold. The hypocrite must be conscious that he is a living lie, and so a living curse to his fellow-creatures, and this consciousness can but make him miserable. 3. A character in danger of becoming irreclaimable. A man who tries to pass for a scholar when he is utterly ignorant is the most difficult person to change into a scholar. The man who desires to be always first among his fellows is the least likely to become a qualified leader of men. We have it on the best authority that whatever such a man may desire, that “whosoever will be chief shall be a servant” (Matt. xx. 27). He is only fit for a low position who is ever straining every nerve after a high one. The hypocrite is ever desiring to pass for what he is not—he is ever desiring to fill a place for which he is utterly unfit. He is less likely than the most openly vicious man ever to become in reality that which he is ever seeming to be. This was the judgment of the Son of God concerning the hypocrites of His day: “Verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matt. xxi. 31). 4. A character most hateful to God and to man. A hypocrite must be disliked by those whose character he endeavours to personify. The good must hate hypocrisy because, as we said before, it lessens the power of goodness in the world by making men suspect the really good. A hypocrite is hated by other hypocrites. If a man wants to utter false coin himself, he prefers to enjoy a monopoly of the business. The more of it there is in circulation the less likely people are to be deceived by it. A hypocrite is hateful to God. No sin is so denounced under both the old and new dispensations as the sin of hypocrisy. “Incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with it. . . . Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth” (Isaiah i. 13, 14). The God of Israel reserves these burning words for His own people, who were drawing near to Him with their lips, while their hearts were far from Him. The most terrible denunciations of the Son of God were uttered against those who were guilty of this sin. “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” is repeated again and again in one discourse (Matt. xxiii).
II. The chief instrument used by the hypocrite. “The mouth.” The power of speech is a most precious gift of God, and is intended by Him to be an instrument of blessing to the human race. It is the most precious instrument of good that the hypocrite is here represented as turning into an all-devouring weapon of destruction. He is like a man who gives potent poison for healing medicine. He may have disguised its deadly nature under an unknown and high-sounding name, but this will not lessen its deadly effects. The hypocrite is the man who above all others is skilful in making words the means of concealing thoughts—who speaks so plausibly that men believe they are drinking a healthful draught when they are imbibing a deadly poison. The tongue of the hypocrite destroys his neighbour because he makes him believe that he has his welfare at heart when he is really plotting his destruction. He makes him believe that some utterly worthless commercial speculation is sound and profitable, and so involves him in material destruction. Or he persuades him that a certain course of dishonest conduct is without moral danger, and so brings him into spiritual destruction. His neighbour’s destruction is certain in proportion to the strength of his confidence in the words of the hypocrite.
III. The means of deliverance from the hypocrite’s mouth. “Through knowledge shall the just be delivered.” The just man possesses a knowledge of God, and thus has a correct standard of character by which to judge men. If a man walks in the light of the sun he will be able to avoid pitfalls and open graves. A just man has an acquaintance with the character and the laws of God. He “walks in the light” (1 John i. 7). And this gives him an insight into character—this furnishes him with a test to “try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John iv. 1). The more men come into contact with reality the more quick will they be to detect unreality. The more men know God the more correct will be the estimate they form of their fellow-men. The Spirit of wisdom is a Spirit of “enlightenment” on this point as on all others (Eph. i. 18). The scripture which is the “inspiration of God” “furnishes the man of God” with a means of escape from the snare of the hypocrite’s mouth (2 Tim. iii. 16). The knowledge which is derived from its study is a foil for the attacks of the most subtle seducer.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Haman, under the pretence of loyalty, would have destroyed a whole nation (Esther iii. 8, 13). Ziba, under the same false cover, would have destroyed his neighbour (2 Sam. xvi. 1, 4). The lying prophet, from mere wilfulness, ruined his brother (1 Kings xiii).