An empty hope.
The wicked man may have gained much of earthly goods. But all he has is temporal and external. Therefore it is useless to him at death, and in regard to all his spiritual needs. We can see the dark features of his miserable prospect in the picture that Job has drawn.
I. HE HAS EARTHLY POSSESSIONS. The foolish man has made gain; but it is useless to him. He is like the rich man in the parable, who was about to build new barns lot his goods when his life was taken and all his wealth lost at a stroke. If a person trusts to his earthly prosperity he is not prepared to confess his true needs. He thinks he is rich when he is miserable and blind and naked (Revelation 3:17). If he has acquired his wealth for himself, if it is his gain, he is in the greater danger of over-estimating it. Self-made men are tempted to think too much of what they have won by their own hard toil.
II. HE HAS NO CLAIM ON THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE. There is nothing for the future. Yet life is brief and uncertain. It must end soon; it may end at any moment. Riches may have been got by a man's own energy; but life is dependent on the will of God. Thus a man gains earthly things; but God disposes of his life. The greater concerns are altogether outside his powers, as they are beyond the region of his calculations.
III. HE HAS NO ACCESS TO GOD IN PRAYER. The wicked man has no right to expect God to hear him in trouble.
1. He will have trouble. All his prosperity cannot exclude the possibility, nay, the certainty, of adversity.
2. He will need God. In trouble he may shriek to Heaven for help, though he never dreams of acknowledging God in times of prosperity. Prayer is so natural to man that it is forced out of the most unaccustomed lips by the pressure of great distress.
3. He will not be heard. Job is right. There are men whose prayers God will not hear. The reason is simply that they do not fulfil the necessary conditions of successful prayer. No man can fall so low, but that if he humble himself and turn and repent, God will hear him. But God will not hear the prayer of the impenitent. When the wicked man fails into trouble, very naturally he will desire to be saved from it. But possibly he may not repent of his sin nor desire to be saved from that; then all his prayer comes from a low, selfish desire to escape what hurts him. Such a prayer cannot be heard.
IV. HE HAS NO DELIGHT IN GOD.
1. He misses the one source of perfect good. Though he gains much, his possessions are external; they do not help or Iced his soul. They are but temporal; when he dies he will leave them all behind. But God, as the Portion of his people, is a satisfying and permanent possession. He, and he alone, both fills all their real need now and endures for ever. To miss God in pursuit of any other aim is to light on an empty hope.
2. He will not continue to seek God. In the agony of the moment a miserable, selfish cry to Heaven is wrung from his heart. But when the trouble is past he forgets his prayer. He will not "always call upon God." So-called death-bed repentances are justly viewed with suspicion. Too often the dying man is only afraid of the dread unknown, naturally desirous of being delivered from its terrors. Too often, if he recovers, his penitence is forgotten with his fears of death, and he lives his old evil life again.—W.F.A.