And then, the Holy Spirit convinces man of judgment. He shows man that God cannot suffer men, or angels, or any other rational spirits and immortal souls, to be unlike Himself; that because He is the only and perfect good, whatsoever is unlike Him must be bad; because He is the only and perfect love, who wills blessings and good to all, whatsoever is unlike Him must be unloving, hating, and hateful—a curse and evil to all around it; because He is the only perfect Maker and Preserver, whatsoever is unlike Him must be in its very nature hurtful, destroying, deadly—a disease which injures this good world, and which He will therefore cut out, burn up, destroy in some way or other, if it will not submit to be cured. For this, my friends, is the meaning of God’s judgments on sinners; this is why He sent a flood to drown the world of the ungodly; this is why He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; this is why He swept away the nations of Canaan; this is why He destroyed Jerusalem, His own beloved city, and scattered the Jews over the face of the whole earth unto this day; this is why He destroyed heathen Rome of old, and why He has destroyed, from time to time, in every age and country, great nations and mighty cities by earthquake, and famine, and pestilence, and the sword; because He knows that sin is ruin and misery to all; that it is a disease which spreads by infection among fallen men; and that He must cut off the corrupt nation for the sake of preserving mankind, as the surgeon cuts off a diseased limb, that his patient’s whole body may not die. But the surgeon will not cut off the limb as long as there is a chance of saving it: he will not cut it off till it is mortified and dead, and certain to infect the whole body with the same death, or till it is so inflamed that it will inflame the whole body also, and burn up the patient’s life with fever. Till then he tends it in hope; tries by all means to cure it. And so does the Lord, the Lord Jesus, the great Physician, whom His Father has appointed to heal and cure this poor fallen world. As long as there is hope of curing any man, any nation, any generation of men, so long will his Spirit strive lovingly and hopefully with man. For see the blessed words of the text: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man. This must end. This must end at some time or other. This battle between my Spirit and the wicked and perverse wills of these sinners; this battle between the love and the justice and the purity which I am trying to teach them, and the corruption and the violence with which they are filling the earth.” But there is no passion in the Lord, no spite, no sudden rage, like the brute passionate anger of weak man. Our anger, if we are not under the guiding of God’s Spirit, conquers our wills, carries us away, makes us say and do on the moment—God forgive us for it—whatsoever our passion prompts us. The Lord’s anger does not conquer Him. It does not conquer His patience, His