National repentance may come too late to avert national ruin.
The crisis of a nation's fate is brought on by slow degrees, and results from a multitude of acts, each one of which, when once done, is past recall. Up to a certain point there is a possibility of retrieval. "Tout peut se retablir," as a great monarch of our own time said. The modes of action that have brought the state into difficulties may be renounced, or even reversed; and recovery may set in as a natural consequence of such reversal. Or the change of conduct may have appeased God's anger, and his favor may raise up the nation which he has depressed, to mark his displeasure. Such was the case with united Israel during the period of the judges. Seven times was the nation for its sins "sold into the hand" of a foreign power, its independence suspended, its ruin all but accomplished; and seven times upon its repentance did God raise up a deliverer who restored it to vigorous life and re-established its prosperity. But this process cannot go on forever. A time comes when the sources of national vigor are sapped, when exhaustion has set in, when foreign neighbors have become enormously powerful, and when it would require, not one miracle only, but a series of miracles, to save the state from the consequences of its long-continued misconduct. Then, although the remnant left may perceive its danger, and regret the past, and repent, and put away the evil of its doings, and even reverse its modes of action, turning to God (Isaiah 17:7) instead of turning away from him (Isaiah 17:10), and looking to the Holy One instead of looking to idols and vanities, it may be too late to reverse the fiat that has long since gone forth, or to arrest the destruction decreed and determined on. The remnant may save their own souls, but they cannot save their country. The "day of grief and of desperate sorrow' comes on, whatever they may do; and the nation perishes in consequence of its past misdeeds, despite its tardy amendment.