Pursued by (Authorized Version), into (Revised Version), darkness.
I. A WOEFUL FATE.
1. The picture. That of a defeated enemy pursued by a victorious general who comes up behind his foes like the shades of night upon a wearied and dispirited traveller stumbling forward upon an uncertain and perilous way, as Abraham fell upon the kings by night and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah (Genesis 14:15); or, who drives them on before him into the gloom of night, where they encounter unforeseen dangers and perish, as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah did when chased by Chedorlaomer's troops (Genesis 14:10).
2. The interpretation. The defeated enemy is the sinner; the pursuing conqueror is either darkness, meaning those calamities which God has ordained to follow sin, or God himself, by whom the sinner shall be chased into such disastrous overthrow. In either case, with darkness behind or darkness before—and, in reality, it is both behind and before—the condition of God's enemy is pitiful indeed.
II. A CERTAIN DOOM. Pursued by or into darkness. There is no "peradventure" about the lot of the ungodly. What is here predicted is not contingent, but absolute; not what ought to be merely, or what may be only, but what shall be.
1. God's Word hath declared it. "The wicked shall be silent in darkness," etc. (1 Samuel 2:9); "The eyes of the wicked shall fail," etc. (Job 11:20); "He shall be driven from light into darkness" (Job 18:18); "Let their way be darkness and slippery places" (Psalms 35:6); "The candle of the wicked shall be put out" (Proverbs 24:20); "The children of the kingdom [who have become God's enemies] will be cast into outer darkness," etc. (Matthew 8:12)—"And the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).
2. God's character requires it. If his love and mercy make it sure that none who return to him will be rejected (Isaiah 55:7; Jeremiah 3:22; Hosea 14:4), his holiness and justice render it equally imperative that the impenitent and unbelieving, the rebellious and disobedient, should be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of God and from the glory of his power (Romans 1:18; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Peter 3:12).
3. Sin itself ensures it. Every action that a man performs carries in its own bosom its reward or punishment. "The wages of sin is death," just as certainly as "the fruit of holiness" is "everlasting life" (Romans 6:21-23).
III. A JUST RETRIBUTION. To be pursued by or into darkness is a fitting lot for those who in their lifetime have loved the darkness rather than the light.
1. The law of moral retribution demands that this shall be so. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). He that walks in darkness here cannot hope to walk in light yonder; he who does the deeds of darkness on earth will not likely begin to do deeds of light in heaven.
2. The character of the wicked makes it certain that this shall be so. No being can act otherwise than in accordance with its nature. Mere change of place suffices not to alter one's nature. No reason to think that passing from one form of existence to another will effect any radical transmutation of one's being. Hence they who have died in darkness will (in all probability) continue to dwell in darkness.
LESSONS.
1. Forsake sin. "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness."
2. Follow holiness. "Walk as children of the light."