The disappointment that awaits God's enemies.
All the enemies of God have, some day or other, an awaking. The designs which they cherish, the selfish hopes in which they indulge, are mere dreams. Even when the dreams are realized the result is disappointing. No man ever yet found the pleasure of success equal to his expectation. If there is a little satisfaction at first, fruition soon begets satiety. "Vanity of vanities," says the preacher, "all is vanity." But, for the most part, the dreams are not realized. God arises, and his enemies are scattered; those that hate him have to flee before him (Psalms 68:1). The schemer finds himself baffled just when he thinks success most certain. Dishonesty is detected; the bubble of speculation bursts; unexpected obstacles arise; a sudden death or a sudden outbreak of war deranges the best-laid plans: the fortune just about to be made vanishes into the air, the dreamer "awakes, and his soul is empty"—all his hopes have passed away "at an instant suddenly." There is but one security against constant disappointment, which is to trust all to God, to have no will but his, no desire but that expressed in the prayer, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth."
Two kinds of spiritual blindness.
Spiritual blindness is not the natural condition of man. God has given to all men a certain power of spiritual discernment. He is "the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). Children are invariably found to be teachable at an early age—to have a power of receiving and appreciating spiritual verities. The spiritually blind have become such, and in their condition we may trace two stages.
I. THE INITIAL STAGE. The commencement of spiritual blindness is a willful shutting of the eyes. Instead of seeking to see, striving to see, looking out for the spiritual in life and action, men turn away from it, "wink with their eyes," put veils over them, refuse to let the light of truth shine in upon their understandings. They "love darkness rather than light" (John 3:19). The whole of life should be a continual exercise of the spiritual discerning power. Men give the power as little exercise as possible. They weaken it by disuse. After a while they deprave it, so that its judgments become uncertain—even false.
II. THE FINAL STAGE. In Scripture the final stage is called "a reprobate mind," literally, "an undistinguishing mind ( ἀδοκιμὸς νοῦς)." By the law of God's providence, the willful shutting of the eyes leads on to an inability to see. The moral vision becomes actually distorted. The "light that is within a man becomes "darkness;" and then, "how great is that darkness!" "Bitter is put for sweet, and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20), "good for evil, and evil for good." The state is hopeless, irremediable. It results naturally from the repeated sins against light of the first stage; but it is none the less God's judgment upon the sinner. Hence it has been called "judicial blindness"—an expressive name.
God's hatred of mere lip-service
Lip-service is offensive to God on two accounts.
I. IT IS DISHONORING TO HIMSELF. It implies, either that he has not the power of reading the heart and of perceiving when worship is rendered to him sincerely and when feignedly, or that he does not care which kind of homage he receives, whether adoration is offered to him really or formally. In the one case he must be considered as a Being of very limited power and capacity; in the other, as a Being indifferent to the gravest moral distinctions. To profess loyalty to an earthly monarch without feeling it would be to insult him grossly. How much more to seek to pass such a cheat on the King of heaven!
II. IT IS DEGRADING TO THE CREATURES WHICH HE HAS MADE IN HIS OWN IMAGE. All falsehood is degrading to those who condescend to it. False pretences, flatteries, insincere professions of love and devotion for the purpose of winning favor and approval from those to whom we address them, are among the basest and most contemptible acts to which a human being can stoop. They are lies, and lies which have their origin in downright unadulterated selfishness. False professions made to God are also foolish, idiotic lies, which cannot possibly impose on the Being who is the Object of them, and which do not very often impose even on such of our fellow-men as witness them. It was their insincere "lip-service" which caused our Lord to denounce the scribes and Pharisees of his time as "actors," or "hypocrites".