Isaiah 60:12

For the nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish

The character and doom of a corrupt nation

I. THE CHARACTER OF A CORRUPT NATION. The text implies--

1. That there is a certain course of human life which the Bible recognizes as serving the Lord.

2. That nations as well as individuals are bound to pursue that course. There is no sentiment more common, none more philosophically absurd, none more morally pernicious than this: that communities of men are relieved from obligations which are binding upon individuals.

II. THE DOOM OF A CORRUPT NATION. “They shall perish, yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”

1. The doom is most calamitous. “It shall perish.”

(1) Perish as to their national existence. Their commerce shall waste away; their government shall be dissolved; all the institutions they glory in shall die out. The whole land shall be desolate as an old castle, Many great nations have thus died. Where are the empires of the Pharaohs, the Belshazzars, the Alexanders and the Caesars? They have perished, they have utterly wasted.

(2) But there is a more solemn sense still in which nations perish, that is, in a spiritual sense. They shall lose their souls. Not their existence, not their consciousness, not their memories; but their mercies, their friendships, their hopes, their heaven, their God.

2. The doom is most certain. It is here threatened with emphasis--“they shall perish, yea,” etc. All analogy indicates its certainty. Our subject explains--

(1) National convulsions.

(2) The true method of promoting national stability. (Homilist.)