Fishers and hunters.
I. THE CHASE. The guilty will be sought after for punishment. If they do not seek God in penitence he will seek them in judgment. However far we may flee from obedience we cannot flee from responsibility. Jonah fled "from the presence of the Lord "(Jonah 1:3), but he was overtaken by a Divine judgment. If God s present long-suffering makes him appear indifferent, the day will come when his wrath will be swift, searching, and far-reaching. Then none of the impenitent can escape. None can hide from the approaching doom; hunters "shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." It will be useless then to "call on the hills to cover us," etc. None will be overlooked. Fishers will come with their drag-net, gathering all classes as fish of all kinds and of all sizes are collected in the sea. Rank counts for nothing when kings are hunted like foxes; intellectual ingenuity can then find no covert of sophistry beneath which to elude the keen scent of the bloodhounds of justice; exceptional originality can secure no position beyond the reach of the broad sweeping net of a general judgment.
II. THE REASON FOR EXPECTING A FATAL RESULT TO THE CHASE. God undertakes the direction of it (verse 17). He knows all; he is ever watching every one of his children, for their joy if they are obedient and submissive, for their shame if they are rebellious and impenitent.
1. God's eyes are upon their ways. He does not depend upon hearsay evidence, upon the testimony of his emissaries. Hence
2. God's eyes are upon their ways. He notes conduct, action, behavior.
3. God's eyes are upon all their ways. The most secret do not escape his notice. Little faults are observed; hidden sins are known; all is fairly weighed and compared. God does not select conduct for judgment; he observes both the good and the bad, and judges of the whole.
4. Iniquity is not hidden. God looks beneath the ways to the iniquities which prompt them; he reads the heart, and judges of conduct by motive. Who can escape such a searching ordeal?
III. THE FATAL END TO THE CHASE. (Verse 18.) After conviction follows the sentence.
1. This is a recompense. It is earned and it is fairly proportionate to guilt. None of us dare ask for the simple reward of our conduct.
"Consider this—
That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy."
2. It increases in severity with the increase of sin. The successive sieges of Jerusalem were successively more terrible; so were the repeated raids upon Rome. The longer we treasure up wrath for the day of wrath the greater must be the weight of it that will ultimately burst on our heads.
3. It is justly required by great sin. This was