The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 94:20
Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with Thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
Wrong legalized
I. Iniquity has a “throne” on earth. It is a ruling power, it has the sway everywhere. Wrong is an imperial power.
II. The “throne” of iniquity is incompatible with God. “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with Thee?” Impossible. It is eternally antagonistic to the Divine nature, law, and procedure.
III. The “throne” of iniquity legalizes wrong. “Which frameth mischief by a law.” In England wrong is legalized. What is war but legalized murder, monopoly but legalized dishonesty, unrestrained accumulation of wealth but legalized greed? What wrongs, alas, our fathers have legalized, from which we are suffering to-day. (Homilist.)
A startling inquiry
I. What is the throne of iniquity? Any government that upholds and protects wrong-doing, or that does not protect the people from the workers of iniquity, is a throne of iniquity. It frames mischief into law:--
1. When it protects that which is morally wrong by legal enactments, and enables men to defend their bad conduct by saying, “I have a government licence.”
2. When it patronizes that which is evil by using it as a source of revenue.
II. Such a throne has no fellowship with God.
1. Because God’s throne, God’s government, is upright, righteous.
2. He never makes a law to protect that which is wrong, nor to regulate evil.
3. He condemns, denounces, and prohibits all evil, both in the person and the state. He has no fellowship with the workers of iniquity.
III. Apply this to the liquor-traffic.
1. The manufacture, importation, exportation, transportation, and traffic in intoxicating liquors, for drinking purposes, is a great wrong.
2. Those who pass enactments to regulate or protect such an evil frame mischief into law.
3. To vote for such laws, or to suffer them to exist if we can prevent it, is to sustain “the throne of iniquity.”
4. Licence laws do not make the liquor-traffic right, but they do make those who enact them accomplices in the crime of the liquor-seller. (D. C. Babcock.).