In Isaiah, chapter fifty-seven, verse twenty-one, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” God has so structured the human conscience that there will never be real peace for those who live wickedly: neither inward peace nor outward peace. As long as they sin, their lives will be like a troubled sea, full of mire and dirt, as in verse twenty. God is opposed to them while desiring that they repent and be saved, as in Second Peter three, verse nine. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
But the wicked would not be healed by God’s grace, therefore would not be healed by His comforts. Their ungoverned lusts and passions made them like the troubled sea. Also, the terrors of conscience disturbed their enjoyments. God hath said it, and all the world cannot unsay it, that there is no peace to those who allow themselves in any sin. If we are recovered from such an awful state, it is only by the grace of God.
And the influences of the Holy Spirit, and that new heart, from whence comes grateful praise, the fruit of our lips, are His gift. Salvation, with all its fruits, hopes, and comforts, is his work, and to him belongs all the glory. There is no peace for the wicked man; but let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, and He will abundantly pardon.
The wicked do see the righteous and are uneasy by them because they can see the peace upon them which they covet.