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The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers - For their ingratitude idolatry, iniquity, and general rebellion.

Wroth was the Lord against your fathers with wrath - othat is, a wrath which was indeed such, whose greatness he does not further express, but leaves to their memories to supply. Cyril: “Seest thou how he scares them, and, setting before the young what befell those before them, drives them to amend, threatening them with the like or more grievous ills, unless they would wisely reject their fathers‘ ways, esteeming the pleasing of God worthy of all thought and care. He speaks of great wrath. For it indicates no slight displeasure that He allowed the Babylonians to waste all Judah and Samaria, burn the holy places and destroy Jerusalem, remove the elect Israel to a piteous slavery in a foreign land, severed from sacrifices, entering the holy court no more nor offering the thank-offering, or tithes, or first-fruits of the law, but precluded by necessity and, fear even from the duty of celebrating his prescribed and dearest festivals. The like we might address to the Jewish people, if we would apply it to the mystery of Christ. For after they had “killed the prophets” and had “crucified the Lord of glory” Himself, they were captured and destroyed; their famed temple was levelled, and Hosea‘s words were fulfilled in them; “The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince, without a sacrifice and without an image, without an ephod and without teraphim”.

God's almighty power and sovereign dominion, should engage and encourage sinners to repent and turn to Him. It is very desirable to have the Lord of hosts for our friend, and very dreadful to have him for our enemy. Review what is past, and observe the message God sent by his servants, the prophets, to your fathers. Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings. Be persuaded to leave your sins, as the only way to prevent approaching ruin. What is become of our fathers, and of the prophets that preached to them? They are all dead and gone. Here they were, in the towns and countries where we live, passing and repassing in the same streets, dwelling in the same houses, trading in the same shops and exchanges, worshipping God in the same places. But where are they? When they died, there was not an end of them; they are in eternity, in the world of spirits, the unchangeable world to which we hasten apace. Where are they? Those of them who lived and died in sin, are in torment. Those who lived and died in Christ, are in heaven; and if we live and die as they did, we shall be with them shortly and eternally. If they minded not their own souls, is that a reason why their posterity should ruin theirs also? The prophets are gone. Christ is a Prophet that lives for ever, but all other prophets have a period put to their office. Oh that this consideration had its due weight; that dying ministers are dealing with dying people about their never-dying souls, and an awful eternity, upon the brink of which both are standing! In another world, both we and our prophets shall live for ever: to prepare for that world ought to be our great care in this. The preachers died, and the hearers died, but the word of God died not; not one jot or title of it fell to the ground; for he is righteous.