2. When God says that He remembers all our wickedness, He means us to understand that He will exhibit it all. Why did He tell this people that He remembered all their wickedness? The Scriptures answer that question. They inform us that He intends to make use of the stores of which memory is possessed, and that He intends to make this use of them—to hold them up to the gaze of the universe. They teach us that the conduct of every individual will be investigated and published. “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.” “Every idle
word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Important purposes will he answered by this. A declaration will be made of the righteousness of God in condemning the ungodly. He will hold up to view the nature and extent of the requirements He made of us, their reasonableness and beneficialness we shall all acknowledge. He will then make known the innumerable acts of goodness He bestowed—His forbearance to inflict punishment, and the various methods He employed to bring us to repentance. And by the side of all this He will exhibit our conduct toward Him—our ingratitude, our disobedience, our perverseness. And with what enormity will these things then appear invested! So guilty will thy conduct then appear, O sinner, that thou wilt be constrained to exclaim: “Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because Thou hast judged thus.” What an exhibition will he made on that day!
3. When God says that He remembers all our wickedness, He means us to understand that He will punish for it all, if it be not repented of. The maintenance of law and order in the universe require the Divine Being to display His abhorrence of transgression. And how can that abhorrence be suitably displayed otherwise than
by punishment? And the punishment must be of a degree to represent the guiltiness of the conduct. It must be impartial, and be inflicted therefore on every transgressor. The rich man cannot buy exemption from it. The man of mighty intellect, or powerful eloquence, cannot persuade himself, not to say the righteous Judge, into the belief that he ought to be exempt. The man of good desires and pious resolutions, he who was born of praying parents, and often bowed his knees at the footstool of his Maker, but delayed to surrender his heart, cannot escape. No, my friends, the decree of the Almighty has gone forth, it is irreversible—there is none more righteous, and none that will more certainly be fulfilled: “Though hand join in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished.” “The wicked shall be driven away in his wickedness.” “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” What a mercy that we are not receiving our merited punishment at this moment! And why are we not? Because the God whom we have so shamefully and inexcusably resisted and provoked “is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Opportunity is afforded for repentance. He employs means to bring us to repentance. How good, how loving, God is! “God is love.”
Can any of you still resist the strivings of his Spirit? “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?”
Christ has died that you might live, live with Him in His kingdom of glory for ever. He shed for you His precious blood. For you He now intercedes at the right hand of the Majesty on high. And if you come to Him, however guilty you are, truly sorry for your sins, and believe His own gracious declaration, that He came into the world to save sinners, to seek and to save that which was lost, He will pardon and bless you. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
God remembers all our wickedness. How much of it do you remember? How little of it do any of us remember! The past is to a large extent a vague and dim expanse. Many of you have climbed these noble hills, and as you stood on the summit, you observed that distinct as were the objects near, those remote were quite indistinct. It is but a few conspicuous objects you can discern at any considerable distance. Just so it is in reviewing our past lives. We can call to mind a few things. We can remember well—ah, we cannot forget, we have often wished
we could, an act of rebellion against our parents of which we were once guilty; of obstinacy toward a master; of ingratitude toward a benefactor; of dishonourableness toward a friend, or unkindness toward a neighbour. There are several sad deeds in the life of every one of us which we cannot forget, but how many which we have all forgot. The things we can remember are as the milestones to the weary traveller, far, far apart. Yes, we forget, but God does not. He remembers them all. There is not a single improper word we have ever uttered, not a wrong feeling we have cherished, not an ungodly deed we have done, not a duty we have neglected, but God knew it, will exhibit it, and if unrepented of, will punish for it. Hear it, ponder it, hide it in the depths of your heart, God remembers all our wickedness.
Having considered the import of the declaration as it regards Almighty God, we come now to consider—
II. The charge against the Israelites. They are not charged, you observe, with denying the truth the Divine Being affirms respecting Himself, or even with doubting it. They admitted it, believed it, but it was unpalatable to them, and therefore they put it away from their thoughts. What a melancholy exhibition of character was