Home Life and Influence.

 

Home Life and Influence.

xxxix. 4. What have they seen in Thy house?

State briefly the circumstances that gave rise to this question. It evidently suggests to Hezekiah that he has not made the best use of the visit of the Babylonians. He might have turned it to greater account than the gratification of his vanity by displaying his treasures. Instead of magnifying the greatness and glory of God, and thus lifting the minds of his visitors to the highest themes, he had only held out a bait to their covetous desires, and tempted them to steal the treasures so vainly displayed. This was to be the result of his folly (ver. 6). This is how we miss the great opportunities of our life. There come to us golden seasons when we might bear valuable testimony for God; but we have some petty, personal desires of our own to carry out, and they pass away unimproved. Then comes the prophetic message, borne by our own conscience, that the plan we adopted to gratify our improper desires will only lead us to confusion and unhappiness.

The extent to which Hezekiah came under the censure of God in this matter we shall not now further consider. We shall extend the application of this question to the matter of home life and home influence. So it has a bearing on all of us. “What have they seen in thy house?”

I. It should be seen that our home is the common centre of attraction for all the family (P. D. 1828–1830, 1836).

II. In the home each member of the family should be seen faithfully discharging the duties of his or her relationship to it; husbands, wives, fathers, &c.

III. It should be seen that every Christian gift and grace is carefully cultivated. “For Christ’s sake,” should be the motto of the whole family. In all they do, every member of it should seek to display love such as He manifested when He dwelt among us: His love was patient, magnanimous, sympathetic. This is the way to make the humblest home happy (P. D. 1823, 1834, 1838, 1839).

Closing Reflections.—1. If we do not thus exhibit Christianity at home, it may be questioned whether we possess it at all (H. E. I. 2994). 2. If others know that there is no practical Christianity displayed by us at home, they will rightly set but little value upon our religious performances abroad. 3. It is from the culture of home life that our hopes are to spring with regard to the spiritual life. In the home lurk the disorders that disturb society. The true way to bring these disorders to an end is to endeavour to make the homes of our land the nurseries of every Christian grace and virtue. 4. Let us aim at the accomplishment of the needful national reforms, by each of us doing what we can to make our own home all that it ought to be.—William Manning.

 

Hezekiah Tried.

xxxix. 8. Then said Hezekiah, &c.

In the narrative connected with the text we find much in Hezekiah to be avoided and much worthy of imitation.

I. We find Hezekiah in great affliction. He had recently escaped from great public and national calamity; he is speedily involved in private and personal suffering (ch. xxxviii. 1). “He was sick,” and Isaiah was sent to prepare him for death. He was greatly alarmed at the approach of death (ch. xxxviii. 9–14) How different from St. Paul (Phil. i. 23). He lived in a dark and imperfect dispensation; few then had clear views of the world to come (2 Tim. i. 10). Hezekiah’s faith failed him greatly, and he clung to life with pertinacity.

II. In his trouble he sought the Lord (ch. xxxviii. 2, 3). He made solemn vows of what he would do if spared (ch. xxxviii. 15). When partially restored, he renewed his vows (ch. xxxviii. 19). Thus believers in every kind of trouble should seek comfort of God in earnest prayer; nor is it improper then solemnly to give ourselves to God, and renew our vows. We are encouraged to do this by the speed with which a gracious answer was sent to Hezekiah (ch. xxxviii. 4, 5). Isaiah was hardly gone out from pronouncing the judgment when he was sent back with a message of mercy (2 Kings xx. 4–5). How wonderfully compassionate is God to His feeble people! Their poor, trembling prayers, uttered in fear and doubting, are heard and answered. He not only hears prayer, but answers directly (Dan. ix. 20–23).

III. We find him speedily forgetful of the mercy he had received. Ambassadors arrive at his court. Whence and for what purpose? (vers. 1, 2). What an opportunity for him to redeem his vows, and to proclaim the power and goodness of God to these heathens! Alas! he shows them all his riches, &c., but of God and His temple he says nothing. Flattered and betrayed by the world (vers. 3, 4), what a heart his and ours must be! How could this be? We are told (2 Chron. xxxii. 31) that such is man when left to himself! We are never in greater danger than after seasons of great mercy and special providences (H. E. I. 4902–4904).

IV. He humbly received the rebuke that was sent to him (text). Here the habit of his mind appeared: he had fallen into the sin of vanity, but humility and resignation to the will of God, especially to His afflicted dispensations, were his usual characteristics. A clear evidence of true godliness, meekly and cheerfully to submit to fatherly correctives. Aaron (Lev. x. 1–3), Eli (1 Sam. iii. 18), the bereaved mother (2 Kings iv. 26), David (Ps. cxix. 75).

Lessons.—1. Let us cultivate humility, watchfulness, and jealously of ourselves (H. E. I. 4883, 4901). 2. Let us not be disconsolate because we are conscious of weakness and unworthiness. The errors and failings of the best of men are left on record, not to extenuate our sins, but to save us from despair. They were men of like passions with ourselves—the same infirmities and corruptions—yet God bore with them, and saved them out of all their distresses. Let us therefore “hope to the end,” and “patiently continue in well-doing,” believing that we shall be “more than conquerors through Him who hath loved us” (H. E. I. 1117, 2376).—F. Close, A.M.: Fifty-two Sketches of Sermons, pp. 52–55.

 

Submission Under God’s Rebuke.

xxxix. 8. Then said Hezekiah, &c.

I. The rebuke.

The character of Hezekiah is well known. One of the very best of the kings of Judah (2 Kings xviii. 3–7). Nevertheless even in this excellent man there were moral weaknesses which were displayed when his physical malady was removed. The arrival of the Babylonian ambassadors excited within him hopes of political advantages arising from alliance with the idolatrous king whom they represented, and in order to impress the envoys with a sense of his importance, he made an ostentatious display of his wealth (ver. 2). This displeased the Lord. Why? 1. Because Hezekiah let slip a favourable opportunity of making known to the heathen the glory and the goodness of the God of Israel.[1] 2. Because his ostentation made it plain that pride was usurping the throne of his heart (2 Chron. xxxii. 26).

But this was not the habitual frame of Hezekiah’s mind; he was a good man, and therefore God lovingly chastened him. If it had been the wicked Ahab who had done this deed, the Lord might possibly have taken no notice of it; He might have left that idolatrous sinner to have followed his own devices. But seeing this evil spirit begin to show itself in a pious and humble man, the Lord mercifully and savingly interposes to check it in the beginning (vers. 3–7).

II. The manner in which it was received.

Sharp as was the rebuke sent him by Isaiah, Hezekiah so received it as to give a rare example of pious and cheerful resignation (text). Both parts of his reply are remarkable. 1. “Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken.” None but a child of God could have used this language in sincerity, under such trying circumstances. But he has such faith in God, that although it is impossible for him to foresee what wickedness his posterity would commit, he knows that the decree will be found to be righteous (1 Sam. iii. 18). But doubtless he meant something more than submission to God’s sovereignty; he meant to acknowledge the goodness of the Lord to himself, of which this very rebuke was a new manifestation (H. E. I. 190–196, 162–165). 2. “He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.” That is, God hath been pleased to inform me that my children are to be carried into captivity and to suffer much affliction; but in my grief for this, I must not forget to thank Him for His tender mercies to myself. He has declared that I shall have peace, and this is far more than I deserve.

Application.—1. We may learn what exceeding sinfulness and immense danger there often is in sins which we are apt to pass over as trifles, and hardly to notice in ourselves (H. E. I. 4897, 4898, 4516). 2. Remark an inestimable privilege of the children of God’s love: they may fall into the very same troubles as their naughty neighbours, but in the one case calamity is the angry lash of the law, in the other it is the faithful rebuke of an anxious Father. 3. For the history of God’s dealings with Hezekiah we may infer what must be the wisest wish for any man to make, viz., that God would take us into His holy keeping and choose our inheritance for us. If we were left to determine for ourselves, some would choose one thing, and some another. Yet “sorrow is better than laughter;” and the history of Hezekiah is proof of it (H. E. I. 211, 3986, 3998–4001). 4. If sin have brought rebuke unto you, search and try your ways, that you may see what your transgression and weakness is; and then accept the chastening of the Lord as a token of His love (H. E. I. 144–147). 5. Whatsoever may have befallen you, remember always that the mercies which remain are far greater than you deserve; and that in the day of prosperity, no less than in the evil, there is need for perseverance and watchfulness (H. E. I. 4888–4890).—Archdeacon Bather: Sermons on Old Testament Histories, pp. 275–285.

 

ADDITIONAL OUTLINES.

---

Instinct Followed—Reason Disregarded.

i. 3. The ox knoweth his owner, &c.

“We are wise.” So spake the Greek of old in the pride of his intellectual powers, and so speak many in our own day who have imbibed the spirit of the Greek. Reason is a wonderful faculty, and there have not been wanting, in any age of the world, those who have felt elated by their successful exercise of it. It can look before and after, deriving experience from the past and suggestions provision against the future. It can explore the hidden secrets of Nature and render the world of matter subservient to man; it can turn in upon itself and speculate upon its own processes; nay, it can teach us something of the existence and attributes of the Most High. Such being the triumphs of reason, it can hardly be matter of wonder that the wise men of this world plume themselves on the attainment of those triumphs.

The vainglorying of men, however, whatever form it may assume, is abomination in the sight of God. In the scheme of salvation which God has devised there is no room for boasting either of our moral or intellectual endowments: “It is excluded.” That scheme is essentially humbling in its character; it is so constructed as to shut out pride at every cranny where it could possibly insinuate itself; it is such as to stop every mouth and bring in all the world guilty before God. And not only guilty, but blind also. He will have all the world convicted in the court of Conscience of folly, no less than of sin. In order to bring His people to this conviction, he expostulates with them in many passages of His Word on the vainglorious boasts they were in the habit of uttering, shows them their utter emptiness, and exhibits the inconsistency of man’s moral conduct with his pretensions to wisdom and enlightenment (cf. Jer. viii. 7, 8).

Our text implies two things—1. That the religion subsisting between the brute creation and man is in some measure similar to that which subsists between man and God; and, 2. That the acknowledgement made by dumb animals of their relation to mankind strangely contrasts with the natural man’s refusal of acknowledgement to God.

I. We are to compare the relations subsisting between an inferior and a superior creature with those subsisting between a superior and the Creator. Note, though these relations may be susceptible of comparison, and may be used to lift up our minds to apprehension of the truth, there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type out the higher. The distance between man and the inferior creatures, if great, is measurable; whereas the distance between finite man and the Infinite God is incalculable.

The dumb creature recognises the master whose property it is: “The ox knoweth his owner.” What constitutes man’s right of ownership in the ox? Simply the fact that he bought it. He did not create it. If he supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws, nor by regulating the springs of its animal economy. That is the sum of his ownership. But what constitutes God’s right of ownership in us, His intelligent and rational creatures?

1. We are the work of His hands. Creation constitutes a property in all our faculties and a claim to our services which no creature hath or can have in another.

2. Our property is most entire, our claim of right most indisputable, in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. The flocks and herds in the possession of civilised European settlers in uncivilised countries are often swept away by a barbarous horde of native freebooters. Imagine, then, a case in which, it being impossible to bring the offenders by justice (by reason of their numbers and strength), the owners of the cattle should effect a ransom of their property by laying down a sum equivalent to its value. Is it not thenceforth theirs by a double claim—the claim of original ownership and the claim of subsequent ransom? Such is the claim which God has over us. That claim, grounded originally upon the fact of creation, has been confirmed, enlarged, extended a thousand-fold by the fact of redemption (1 Cor. vi. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19).

3. Our text suggests another detail of the claims which our Heavenly Owner has upon our allegiance: “The ass knoweth his master’s crib.” He knows the manger at which he is fed and the hand that feeds him. Here is a palpable claim upon regard, although by no means so high as those previously advanced. It is a claim appreciable by the senses, capable of being understood and responded to by the mere animal nature. In palliation of man’s neglect of those claims of God which are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation and redemption are not cognisable by them. These stupendous facts are transacted and past. But even this paltry justification is entirely cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to God for his daily maintenance, for the comfort and the convenience even of his animal life.[1]

Observe, also, that it is not the brute creation in a savage state whose relations towards men are here drawn into comparison with the relations of man towards God. To illustrate his argument the inspired writer has chosen instances from the domestic animals, who share man’s daily toils, live as his dependants, and are familiarised by long habit with their master’s abode and ways of life. In drawing out the contrast, he does not mention mankind generally, but “Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” It were in some measure excusable that the heathens should refuse acknowledgement to the living God, whom they know not. But what shall we urge in extenuation of the indifference of “Israel,” who from his very infancy has been of the household of God, domesticated by the hearth of the Universal Parent, and furnished with every means of access to His presence?

II. A contrast is drawn between the acknowledgement made by dumb animals of their relation to their owners and Israel’s refusal of acknowledgment to his God.

The cattle “know” or recognise the voice of their owner; his call they heed, in his steps they follow; irrational creatures though they be, they are not insensible to their benefactor’s fond cares. What a cutting reproof of the insensibility of God’s people!

1. They recognise not God in His warnings, whether they be addressed to them as individuals or to the nation of which they are members. Afflictions arrest them not in their career of vanity and sin. Judgments stir them not out of their lethargy of indifference. They hear not, see not, God in them.

2. They do not acknowledge God in His mercies. God’s blessings of Nature and Providence are accepted by them as a matter of course. If regarded at all, they are traced no higher than to secondary causes. The continual experience of them renders them not one whit more submissive to the yoke of God’s service. As to the higher blessings of forgiveness and grace, they feel no need of them, and evince no gratitude for them.

Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange insensibility. It is not that “Israel” lacks the faculty of apprehending God, but he will not be at pains to exercise that faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the truths now set forth, but that he does not lay to heart this knowledge, nor allow it its due weight.—E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 153–181.

 

The Cessation of War.

ii. 4. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

A prediction of times yet to come. It is never yet been fulfilled. It is true that when the religion of Christ came to the world it came with the spirit and principles of an all-pacific dispensation (“On earth peace, goodwill towards men”); and true that, in the degree of its actual prevalence, this has been the effect. But how far is this from anything adequate to the terms of the prediction, which exhibit a bright and ample idea of this spirit and tendency of Christianity realised, reduced to fact, on the great scale!

I. War has been a prominent character of all ages.

1. Man, when he came fresh from his Creator’s hands, must have had in his soul the principle of all kind affections (Gen. i. 27), a state of feeling that would have been struck with horror at the thought of inflicting suffering. Yet in the first family of man war and slaughter began. Men may argue and quibble against our notion of “the fall,” but here was fall enough! and demonstration enough!

2. War prevailed among the antediluvians (Gen. vi. 5, 12). We are told of some that “became mighty men, men of renown.” How? Partly perhaps in a war against savage beasts, but far more in the exploits of that “violence” which filled the earth, and doomed it to be overwhelmed.

3. War prevailed among the race descended from Noah. It was by the descendants of the only faithful friend and servant of the Almighty found on earth that the desolated world was to be repeopled, and we might have hoped for a better race, if human nature were intrinsically good, or corrigible by the most awful dispensations. But the Flood could not cleanse the nature of man, nor the awful memory of it repress the coming forth of selfishness, pride, ambition, anger, and revenge. (1.) The history of the Jews is to a large extent a history of wars. (2.) The history of the other races is a history of their conflicts with each other, of a terrible process by which the smaller states were absorbed in others, until they were all included in the Roman empire. How many millions of human beings were destroyed in the process! (3.) Since that period the history of the world has been to a large extent written in blood.[1]

Reflections:—1. What a state of the spirit of mankind is here disclosed to us! 2. What a state of Christianity, or to any real prevalence of it, among the nations denominated Christian! 3. How necessary that all religious persons, especially tutors and parents, should set themselves systematically, as opportunities offer, to counterwork that maddening enchantment of the “glory” of war; of war considered merely as the field of great exploits. Let them strive to break up, in the view of young and ardent minds, this splendid, pestilent delusion about heroes, conquests, fame, and glory.

II. War is not necessarily sinful, nor are those engaged in it to be always condemned. Defensive war does not violate Christian principles. Nay, it is sometimes a duty.[2] An opposite opinion is held by some who rest on the literal and extreme construction of a few expressions, such as “Resist not evil,” “Give place to wrath,” “Love your enemies,” “To him that smiteth thee on one cheek, turn also the other.” These interdict revenge. But their unqualified literal interpretation requires that Christianity should subject mankind universally to the unrestrained will of whoever is the most unjust and wicked; should teach that so long as there are men who have more of Satan and Moloch in them than the rest, and are intent on practicing oppression and cruelty, it is the absolute duty of Christians, as such, individually and nationally, to let them do it,—at least rather than resist them in such a way as to endanger their persons. This would be a delightful doctrine to all the tyrants, bigots, slave-drivers, robbers, and murderers! But the magistrate is not so to leave the matter to God’s disposal, or to refrain from using the “sword” against the doers of evil. And the government of a nation is but a magistracy on a large scale.

But those principles upon which a Christian casuist would justify war, under certain possible circumstance, would not justify perhaps one in twenty of the wars that have been waged. Very rare has been the instance of a war, on either side, strictly and purely defensive, of either the nation itself or any other endangered or oppressed people depending on its protection. Hence—

III. We rejoice over this prediction that war is to cease on the earth.

1. This prediction spreads a visionary sense before us so new, strange, and delightful, that nothing but prophecy, and faith in the Divine power and goodness, could enable us to expect its realisation.[3]

2. It is difficult to conceive the practicability of its attainment. For it is something intrinsic in the soul and nature of man, throughout the whole race, that war has sprung from. There is the hot and terrible element that has burst abroad in so many thunders. And yet is it man that is to be universally at peace! How can it be? (2 Kings vii. 2). Vicious selfishness, ambition, envy, rivalry, rapacity, revenge, these are the things in men that cause wars between them, on the small scale and the great. How can these ever be so repressed, subdued, extirpated, that all war shall cease?

3. Certainly not by experience, philosophy, or civilisation.[4]

4. Nothing will operate efficaciously to this grand effect that does not go deep into the constitution of men’s souls, and quell internally those fatal passions which have perpetuated external war. And that is what cannot be done by any civilisation, national refinement, science, or even an enlightened theoretical policy. All these may be but like fair structures and gardens extended over a ground where volcanic fires are in a temporary slumber below. All these may be shattered and exploded by some mighty impulse of ambition or some blast of revengeful anger. No; there must be a greater, nobler power brought into prevalence among mankind. Nothing springing merely from the action of the human mind can suffice. It must be something coming from heaven. Christianity is the appointed and qualified agent.

IV. It is credible that Christianity will cause wars to cease upon the earth.

1. It has accomplished something in this direction already. To it is mainly attributable the mitigation of ferocity and exterminatory rage, so evident in modern wars. We dare not assert even that it may not have prevented some wars.

2. It is essentially a peacemaker. Look at its genuine tendency, as displayed on the smaller scale, in a family, a neighbourhood, a district: a family in a constant state of hostility within itself, but at length the members of it are converted by the religion of Jesus Christ. The consequence how happy! (H. E. I. 1126.)

3. Precisely as it progresses among any people it will produce a distaste for war.[5]

4. Consequently its progress among the nations is a progressive abolition of war. Every extension of this blessed religion is so much gained against war; quenching still another and another spark of infernal fire; repressing in some more minds those evil passions which are the prompters and the essential power of war.

5. Christianity is progressing among the nations.

6. Consequently it is reasonable to cherish the hope of a scene of universal peace (P. D. 2675).

Concluding Reflections.—1. The universal cessation of war means much more than merely the cessation of much mischief. Think what will be effected when the wealth, time, labour, art, ingenuity, of truly Christian nations are directed to the noblest purposes of peace! 2. Extirpate the war-spirit from your own breast. The selfish, proud, arrogant, envious, revengeful, are essentially of the war tribe, however, little they have to do with actual war, however much they may condemn and profess to deplore it. Such individuals are not fit for that future terrestrial “kingdom of heaven.”—John Foster: Lectures, Second Series, pp. 142–173.

 

God Exalted in the Great Day.

(Advent Sermon.)

ii. 17. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

Two questions: What is “that day?” How shall the Lord then be exalted?

I. “That day.” “The first five verses of this chapter foretell the kingdom of the Messiah, the conversion of the Gentiles, and their admission into the Church. From the sixth verse to the end is foretold the punishment of the unbelieving Jews for their idolatrous practices, their confidence in their own strength, and distrust of God’s protection; and, moreover, the destruction of idolatry in consequence of the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom.”—Lowth. But here, as in many other portions of Scripture, a larger and remoter meaning looms beyond and behind the first sense of the expressions, which would otherwise be too big and swelling for the actual interpretation of them. Compare the description in which the text twice occurs with the almost parallel passages in chap. v. 14–16. How magnificent! What startling terms! What emphatic iterations! Surely a want of fitness and congruity would almost be felt if expressions such as these referred only to some temporal calamity of the Jewish nation; surely we cannot mistake in looking onward to some mightier catastrophe, to some final exaltation of God and abasement of all creatures. By “that day,” therefore, we mean what is elsewhere called “the day,” “the great day,” “the day of judgment,” “the great and terrible day of the Lord”—the consummation of all things.

When that day shall come I do not know, and I am content to remain in ignorance. It may come suddenly, without warning, unannounced. Then it is for men always to have their lamps burning and their hearts in readiness, lest they be taken by surprise. It may come with great signs preceding and accompanying it. Then it is for men, according to their capacity, to note and discern those signs. It is the very uncertainty connected with it that is to make us watchful (Matt. xxiv. 36, 42). We are to be vigilant and observant, without pretending to determine what God has left unrevealed. Such attempts have in all ages been made, and in all ages have been falsified. The failure of those attempts has not only covered those who made them or believed in them with ridicule, it has brought into discredit the sacred Book which the aim was to expound. It is our first duty and highest interest to be at every moment prepared; but a far other and better preparation may, and must be made for it, than in the futile endeavour to discover its precise date.[1]

Equally unwise is the disposition to specify with a minute particularity the events which are to usher in the great day of the Lord, or the convulsions of nature which shall herald and proclaim it, or the astonishing circumstances with which it shall be arrayed. God has chosen to involve them in a mysterious and solemn indistinctness. In bold and sublime figures the inspired writers have delineated a scene which must stand singular and by itself, without any precedent or parallel, and which, therefore, neither human language can directly express nor human understanding adequately comprehend. Instead of endeavouring to explain the images and symbols employed, prudence will lead us to confine ourselves to the very words of Scripture, such as Dan. xii. 2; Joel iii. 11–15; 2 Cor. v. 10; Matt. xxv. 31, 32; Rev. xx. 11–13; 1 Cor. xv. 51–53.[2] On these declarations we should meditate with serious and chastened minds, for if Scripture be true these words cannot be without a real and solemn meaning, and that meaning can only be that there shall be a day in which the world shall be judged by God in Christ, and that from before the Divine tribunal the good and the evil, separated from each other, shall depart to destinies final and irreversible (P. D. 2109).

II. In that day the Lord alone shall be exalted.

1. How is this possible? Is not God always exalted far above all blessing and praise? He will then be exalted in the sense in which He is now said to be glorified. He will be exalted in the visible homage and submission of an assembled universe. He will be exalted by the full manifestation of His attributes, in their unclouded and effulgent lustre, but the exhibition, before men and angels, of His omnipotence and justice, His wisdom and truth, His love and mercy, of the holiness of His law, the equity of His administration, the abundance of His grace, so that all hearts shall be bowed down at His footstool, and every mouth shall be stopped.

2. In that day God shall be exalted alone.

(1) The text may lead our minds to other deities as opposed to Jehovah. They shall indeed be gone; in that day they shall be seen to be less than the least of all their worshippers.

(2) It will be the great day of the disclosure of all things; and all creatures shall see the Lord as He is, and themselves also as they are. Therefore shall all the highest orders of celestial intelligences, the cherubim and seraphim, and all the ranks of existence which may occupy the interval between man and His Maker, veil their faces before His throne; they shall be as nothing in His sight. Then shall all creatureship fall low before the one Creator; all derived, dependent being shall shrink into its true dimensions before the Absolute, the Eternal, the I AM.

(3) Even Christ Himself, His office as the Messiah having been accomplished, and His administration of the Church, in His human character, being brought to a close, shall resign His mediatorial sway (1 Cor. xv. 24–28; H. E. I. 985).

(4) But our chief concern, as we are men, is with humanity: “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.”

That day shall indeed declare the impotence of human power, the emptiness of human ambition, the nothingness of human renown.[3] The very circumstances on account of which men have most lifted themselves up in their lifetime will be the occasions of their profoundest humiliation then.

In that day our sinfulness shall sink us into the dust, and cover us with shame and confusion even more than our vanities. Shall any one of us hope then to be exalted, when the memories of us all shall retrace so many sterile and unproductive intensions, so many good impressions never fostered and ripened into fruits of righteousness, so many talents misused by our iniquity, or buried by our idleness? Then there shall be no more concealments, no more deceits, no more false excuses, no more of those pretences, equivocations, subterfuges, and sophisms which our reason is now so fatally ingenious in playing off upon itself (P. D. 661, 2106). Oh, think of these things, and let not your sins be dearer to you than your salvation. Think of them ere the night cometh, and the sun of your probation has quite gone down.

“The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” Will He then confound the righteous with the wicked? As compared with God there shall be no distinctions between men. All men on that great day at the bar of the Omniscient and the All Holy shall have upon them a universal sense of imperfection, unworthiness, insufficiency, nothingness. But as compared with each other there will be immense differences between them. It is one purpose of the great day to make manifest to all orders of being the infinite value and superiority of moral goodness, the infinite preciousness of a holy obedience above and beyond all else; then God, who sees it in secret, will reward it openly. When the wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the people that forget God, the righteous shall shine forth as the stars of heaven. Therefore estimate all things now as you will estimate them then. Lean less upon earth and man and the things present, set your affections more upon the things to come, upon heaven, and upon the Ruler of heaven. Cultivate diligently those dispositions which are pleasing in His sight. For then, when all social forms shall have vanished away, when all material substances shall have been obliterated, as the shapes in a cloud, and dissipated as the morning dew, your moral temper will abide with you, and your spiritual state, as discerned by the unerring Judge, will decide, and will attend, your immortal destiny (H. E. I. 720).—James Shergold Boone, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 359–399.

 

The Inexcusability and Hopelessness of Unbelief.

v. 4. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

In a subsequent verse God condescends to explain what is here meant by His “vineyard,” so that there might be no doubt as to the scope and import of the passage (ver. 7). God has done everything which could be done for the spiritual culture of His ancient Church (vers. 3, 4). This assertion that “as much had been done as could be done” is very affecting and startling. And if this could be said of the Jewish vineyard, what shall be said of the Christian?

There is a peculiar argument thus suggested, which, wrought out, will show that men are inexcusable in persisting in their unbelief, since nothing more could have been done to win them to the side of righteousness and to turn them to God. Notice carefully the variety of the arguments addressed in Scripture to the thoughtless and obdurate. At one time they are attacked with terrors, the picture being set before them of Divine wrath; at another they are acted on by the loving-kindness of God, and allured by the free mercies of the Gospel. In the text it is not precisely either the one or the other of these methods. There is nothing alleged but the greatness of what has been done for us—a greatness such that nothing more can be done, consistently, at least, with that moral accountableness which must regulate the amount of influence which God brings to bear on men. If this be so, if we are not convinced and renewed under the existing instrumentality, there is nothing that can avert from us utter destruction.

But is this so? Review the means provided and proffered for our rescue, and let us see whether any of us can be other than silent. If we were arguing with a man who disbelieved the existence of God, we should probably reason up from the creation to the Creator. Our adversary might challenge us to prove that nothing short of Infinite Power could have built and furnished the planet. It may be allowed that certain results lie beyond human agency, and yet disputed whether they need such an agency as we strictly call Divine. We do not, therefore, maintain that the evidences in creation are the strongest which can be conceived. Hence we should not perhaps feel warranted in saying to the atheist, “What more could have been done to produce belief in you if you resist all these tokens of God in Nature?” But if we cannot say to the atheist, when pointing to the surrounding creation, “What more could have been done that has not been done for your conviction?” we can ply the worldly-minded with this question when pointing to the scheme of salvation through Christ. We deny that the worldly-minded can appeal from what God has done on their behalf to a yet mightier interference which imagination can picture. It is the property of redemption, if not of creation, that it leaves no room for imagination. Those who turn with indifference from the proffers of the Gospel are just in the position of the atheist who should remain such after God had set before him the highest possible demonstration of Himself. It is not, we think, too bold a thing to say that, in redeeming us, God exhausted Himself—He gave Himself. And we may not argue that, resisting what has been granted, you demonstrate that you cannot be overcome, and thus your condemnation is sealed by the incontrovertible truth involved in the question of the text?

Looked at more in detail, the argument is—I. As much has been done as could have been done, because of the Agency through which man’s redemption was effected. In looking at the cross, considering our sins as laid on the Being who hangs there in weakness and ignominy, the overcoming thought is, that this Being is none other than the Everlasting God, and that however He seem mastered by the powers of wickedness, He could by a single word, uttered from the altar on which He immolates Himself, scatter the universe into nothing, and call up an assemblage of new worlds and new creatures.—What a condemning force this throws into the question of the text! If it give an unmeasured stupendousness to the work of our redemption, that He who undertook, carried on, and completed that work was “the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person,” then surely what has been done for the “vineyard” proclaims us ruined if we bring not forth such fruits as God requires at our hands.—If the extent of what has been done may be given in evidence that if it prove ineffectual there remains nothing more to be tried, what say you to the justice of the question? what to the condemnation under which it leaves the worldly-minded and rebellious?

II. As much has been done as could have been done, regard being had to the completeness and fulness of the work, as well as to the greatness of its Author. We might have been sure beforehand that what the Divine Agent undertook would be thoroughly effected. The sins of the whole race were laid on Christ. There is consequently nothing in our own guiltiness to make us hesitate as to the possibility of forgiveness. The penalties of a violated law have been actually discharged.

The scheme of redemption provides also for our acceptance, so that happiness may be obtained. If it met our necessities only in part, there might be excuse for refusing it our attention. When you add to the unsearchable riches of grace in Christ the continued and earnest agency of the Holy Spirit, have you a word to plead against the remonstrance of God in the text?

III. We are bound to regard the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the grand revelation of future punishment and reward. Until the Redeemer appeared and brought more direct tidings from the invisible world, the sanctions of eternity were scarcely, if at all, brought to bear on the occupations of time. So imperfect had been the foregoing knowledge regarding the immortality of the soul that Paul declared of Christ that He “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel.” Much of what has been done for the “vineyard” consists in the greatness of the reward which the Gospel promises to righteousness, and the greatness of the punishment which it denounces on impenitence.

It was not redemption from mere temporary evil that Christ effected. Redemption does not make men immortal, but, finding them so, it sheds its influence throughout their unlimited existence, wringing the curse from its every instant, and leaving a blessing in its stead. The Gospel sets before us an array of motives, concerning which it is no boldness to say, that, if ineffectual, it is because we are immovable; if heaven fails to attract, hell to alarm—the heaven and the hell opened to us by the revelation of Scripture—it can only be because of a set determination to continue in sin. What more could have been done for the vineyard? If you are waiting to be forced, you are waiting to be ruined. “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.”—Henry Melvill, B.D.: Golden Lectures, pp. 485–492.

 

Moral Perversity.

v. 20. Woe unto them that call evil good, &c.

If the judgments of men are habitually influenced by their affections, it is not surprising that their speech should bear the impress of the same controlling power. What we hear men say in the way of passing judgment upon things and persons, unless said deliberately for the purpose of description, will afford us, for the most part, a correct idea of their dispositions and prevailing inclinations. There is, indeed, a customary mode of talking in which familiar formulas of praise and censure as to moral objects are employed as if by rote; but this dialect, however near it may approach to that of evangelical morality, is still distinguished from it by indubitable marks. One who thus indulges in the use of such expressions as imply a recognition of the principles of Biblical morality, but whose conduct repudiates them, in expressing his opinions on moral subjects avoids, as if instinctively, the terms of censure and of approbation which belong to Scripture. He will speak of an act or a course of acts as wrong, perhaps as vicious,—it may even be as wicked, but not as sinful. There are crimes and vices, but no sins in his vocabulary. Vice and sin are referable, it would seem, to an abstract and perhaps variable standard, while sin brings into view the legislative and judicial character of God. Two men shall converse together upon truth and falsehood, employing the same words and phrases; and yet when you come to ascertain the sense in which they severally use the same language, you shall find that while the one adopts the rigorous and simple rule of truth and falsehood laid down in the Bible and by common sense, the other holds it with so many qualifications and exceptions as almost to render it a rule more honoured in the breach than the observance. But who does not know that men are often worse in the bent of their affections than in the general drift of their discourse? If we err, therefore, in the application of the test proposed, we are far more apt to err in favour of the subject than against him. He who is invariably prompted, when there is no counteracting influence, to call evil good and good evil, is one who, like the fallen angel, says in his heart, “Evil, be thou my good!” and is, therefore, a just subject of the woe denounced by the prophet in the text.

I. The expression is descriptive of those who hate good and love evil—not of those who err as to what is good and what is evil. A rational nature is incapable of loving evil, simply viewed as evil, or of hating good when simply viewed as good. Whatever thing you love, you thereby recognise as good; and what you hate or abhor, you thereby recognise as evil. No man can dislike a taste, or smell, or sound which at the same time he regards as pleasant, nor can he like one which he thinks unpleasant. But change the standard of comparison, and what appeared impossible is realised. The music which is sweetest to your ear may be offensive when it breaks the slumber of your sleeping friend; the harshest voice may charm you when it announces that your friend still lives. The darling sin is hated by the sinner as the means of his damnation, though he loves it as the source of present pleasure. When, therefore, men profess to look upon that as excellent which in their hearts and lives they treat as hateful, and to regard as evil and abominable that which they are seeking after and which they delight in, they are not expressing their own feelings, but assenting to the judgment of others. And if they are really so far enlightened as to think sincerely that the objects of their passionate attachment are evil, this is only admitting that their own affections are disordered and at variance with reason. It is as if a man’s sense of taste should be so vitiated through disease, that what is sweet to others is to him a pungent bitter. So the sinner may believe, on God’s authority or man’s, that sin is evil and holiness is good, but his diseased eye will still confound light with darkness, and his lips, whenever they express the feelings of his heart, will continue to call good evil and evil good.

The three forms of expression in the text appear to be significant of one and the same thing. The thought is clothed first in literal and then in metaphorical expressions. The character thus drawn is generally applicable to ungodly men. If the verse be taken merely in this general sense, the woe which it pronounces is a general woe, or declaration of Divine displeasure and denunciation of impending wrath against the wicked generally, simply equivalent to that in chap. iii. 11.

Such a declaration, awful as it is, would furnish no specific test of character, because it would still leave the question undecided who it is that chooses evil and rejects good. But the prophet is very far from meaning merely to assert the general liability of sinners to the wrath of God. In view of the context, then, consider—

II. An enumeration of particular offences then especially prevailing. The text is the fourth in a series of six woes denounced upon as many outward manifestations of corrupt affection then especially prevalent, but by no means limited to that age or country; and these are set forth, not as the product of so many evil principles, but as the varied exhibition of that universal and profound corruption which he had just asserted to exist in general terms. 1. The avaricious and ambitious grasping after great possessions, not merely as a means of luxurious indulgence, but as a distinction and a gratification of pride (ver. 8). To such the prophet threatened woe (ver. 9), and to such the Apostle James also (James v. 4). 2. Drunkenness (ver. 11). Here also the description of the vice is followed by its punishment, including not only personal but national calamities, as war, desolation, and captivity. 3. Presumption and blasphemy (vers. 18, 19). 4. Moral perversity, as set forth in the text. 5. Overweening confidence in human reason as opposed to God’s unerring revelation (ver. 21). 6. Drunkenness, considered, not as in the former case, as a personal excess, producing inconsideration and neglect of God, but as a vice of magistrates and rulers, and as leading to oppression and all practical injustice (vers. 22, 23).

This view of the context is given for two reasons—1. To show that in this whole passage the prophet refers to species of iniquity familiar to our own time and country; and 2. Chiefly to show that we have in the text the description of a certain outward form in which the prevailing wickedness betrayed itself. An outward mark of those who hate God and whom He designs to punish is their confounding moral distinctions in their conversation. Consider, then—

III. How moral distinctions are confounded. When one admits in words the great first principles in morals, yet takes away so much as to obliterate the practical distinction between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, religion and irreligion, he does virtually, actually, call evil good and good evil. When one admits generally the turpitude of fraud, impurity, intemperance, malignity, &c., and yet in insulated cases treats these as peccadilloes, inadvertences, &c., he cannot be protected by the mere assertion of a few general principles from the fatal charge of calling evil good. And as a counterpart of this, he who praises and admires all goodness in the abstract, but detests it when realised in concrete excellence, really and practically calls good evil. And he who, in relation to the self-same acts performed by different men, has a judgment suited to the case of each, all compassion to the wilful transgressions of the wicked, and all inexorable sternness to the infirmities of godly men, to all intents and purposes incurs the woe pronounced on those who call evil good and good evil. These distinctions may at present appear arbitrary, frivolous, or false, and, as a necessary consequence, the guilt of confounding them may almost fade to nothing,—to a stain so faint upon the conscience as to need no blood of expiation to remove it. But the day is coming when the eye of reason shall no longer find it possible to look at light and darkness as the same, and the woe already heard shall then be seen and felt. From the darkness and bitterness of that damnation may we all find deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord!—J. Addison Alexander, D.D.: The Gospel of Jesus Christ, pp. 568–578.

 

The Service of the Seraphim.

vi. 1, 2, 5–7. I saw also the Lord, &c.

In that perfect prayer which our Lord bequeathed to His disciples we are taught to ask that God’s will may be done in earth as it is done in heaven. Thus angelic service is set before us as a model and pattern. Not that the services we are called upon to render are the same with those assigned to angels. Their sphere is heaven, ours for the present is the earth; and each of these spheres has its distinct and peculiar duties, appropriate to the nature and faculties of its occupants. But the spirit in which the employment of angels and men should be prosecuted is the same. One common sentiment—the sentiment of adoration and devotedness—should animate and govern them all. Hence the passage before us, although containing a record of the transactions of another sphere, contains a lesson, if not respecting the nature of our duties, yet respecting the method in which we should seek to fulfil them.

I. The twofold life of a servant of God, whether human or angelic, is here very beautifully exhibited to us. The seraphim are represented as veiling their faces and feet with their wings while they stand in adoration before the throne of God. But although engaged in ceaselessly adoring the Divine perfections, they do not lead a life of barren contemplation. The words, “with twain he did fly,” intimate to us that they are also engaged in the active execution of those errands with which God has charged them. The Christian’s life, like that of the seraphim, branches out into the two great divisions of contemplative devotion and active exertion. It is the life of Mary combined with that of Martha (P. D. 2417).

1. The devotional branch of the Christian’s life. In the exercises of the closet and of the sanctuary are to be found the springs of the Christian’s exertions in his Master’s cause. These exercises are not originating sources of grace, but they are channels and vehicles through which God’s Spirit conveys Himself to the soul—pitchers in which may be drawn up the waters of the River of Life to refresh and recruit the energies of him whom a painful resistance to evil within and without has rendered weary and faint in his mind (H. E. I. 3426, 4107, 4108, and 3438–3448). If devotion be essential to the perfection of a seraph’s service, how much more essential must it be to ours, our necessities being so immensely greater than those of the bright inhabitants of heaven! The exigencies of our time make devotion especially needful now. The present is emphatically a period of the world’s history in which “many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased.” Moreover, there is a revival of outward energy and activity in the cause of religion. This is a blessing. But remember, days of excitement are not days of deep devotion. There may be much of rapid movement abroad in the world without a corresponding adoration of God in the secret chamber of the heart—much of flying without veiling of the face.[1]

2. The outward manifestation of the Christian life discernible by the world. Care must be taken not only that the lamp shall be filled with oil, but that there shall be a light shining before men (Matt. v. 16; H. E. I. 1042, 1044, 3906). The seraphim are not so wrapt up in adoration of God that they are forgetful of active service. “With twain they did fly” for the execution of the errands on which they were commissioned.

Here is a reproof of the monastic principle, that seclusion from the society of our fellow-men and from the active duties of life is necessary in order to secure an uninterrupted period of leisure for solitary spiritual exercises. Undue predominance is thus given to one branch of God’s service, to the prejudice and neglect of the other and no less important branch. Exercise as well as nourishment and repose is essential to the health of the body, and so toil in the vineyard—earnest endeavour to advance the kingdom of God in our own hearts and the hearts of others—is no less essential to the health of the soul. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;” but for what purpose? That they may walk in good works, and run with patience the race that is set before them (chap. xl. 31; H. E. I. 1736–1742).

II. Some practical lessons concerning the maintenance and manifestation of the twofold Christian life.

1. A lesson as to the spirit which should pervade all devotion. These bright and glorious beings are without sin. Still, such is their sense of the infinite distance between themselves and their Creator, that they veil their faces and their feet before His throne in token of adoring reverence. The first and most essential element of devotion is a feeling of deep awe flowing from a sense of God’s transcendent excellences and leading to profound self-abasement (H. E. I. 3798, 3799, 5074). If reverence was befitting in the seraphim, how much more is it necessary in sinful men! (Luke xviii. 13; Ezra ix. 6).

The vision of God wrought in Isaiah a feeling almost akin to despair. It seemed to him as if the perfect holiness of God was engaged to banish for ever every creature possessing the slightest taint of moral evil (ver. 5). In vers. 6, 7 we have the glorious remedy. What is the significance of the symbols? By the work of the Son of God a mighty Altar of Propitiation has been reared up, and thence there comes to the penitent sinner cleansing as well as pardon. The “live coal” is an emblem of that love and zeal in God’s service with which the Holy Spirit imbues the souls of these who flee to the Altar of Atonement as their only refuge from the wrath to come. A participation in that Spirit’s influence is absolutely essential to our true participation in the chorus of the angelic host (H. E. I. 2887).

2. A few words on that active service which is the outward manifestation of the principles nourished by devotion. (1.) We must prepare for it by the care and culture of our own heart.[2] (2.) There is also an outward work which God has made binding on all of us. He has assigned to each of us a certain position in life. Every such position involves its peculiar responsibilities, snares, and occupations. The responsibilities must be cheerfully and manfully met, the occupations diligently fulfilled, as a piece of task-work allotted to us by the Lord of the vineyard (Eph. vi. 7). Besides, God has intrusted to us, in various measures, substance, time, abilities influence, and these we are diligently to use for the promotion of the cause of God in the world. In our busy path through life, which brings us in contact with so many individuals, opportunities are ever and anon presented to us of being useful to our fellow-men; and to watch for, seize, and improve such opportunities is not the least important of these branches of active service (P. D. 40, 3567, 3569).

Conclusion.—1. It is not the intrinsic dignity of our duties, nor the large result of our fulfilment of them, which renders the diligent performance of them an acceptable work in God’s eyes. The great design of our being places in this world is not that we may do some signal service, or large amount of service, to our Creator, but rather that we may execute the service (be it great or small) allotted to us in a spirit of fidelity, zeal, and love. The spirit which is thrown into and pervades the work is everything—the work itself (comparatively) nothing. Be the sphere what it may which Divine Providence has assigned to us, let the duties of it be executed in a seraphic spirit (P. D. 1484). 2. We have overwhelming motives, if we did but rightly appreciate them, to devotedness of our every faculty to the services of our God. The redeemed sinner owes to God far more of allegiance than the angel who has retained his integrity. Angels no such Fall have known, “angels no such Love have known,” as we.—E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 77–99.

 

The Moral History of a Rising Soul.

vi. 5–8. Then said I, Woe is me, &c.

Whilst holiness is the normal, depravity is the actual state of man. A restoration to that spiritual condition is his profoundest necessity, his want of wants. The recovery of holiness involves the recovery of all other good. There seem to be, in the nature of the case, five states through which the soul must pass in this all-important and glorious transit.

I. A vision of the Great Ruler as the holiest of beings. Isaiah had this: “Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Three facts will show that a spiritual vision of God is the first step of the soul towards holiness. 1. There can be no excitement of the moral sensibilities and powers without a vision of God. Show me a soul that has never had an inner vision of God, and you show me a soul whose conscience, whose moral powers, are entirely dormant. The passions, the intellect, the imagination may move, but the conscience, the heart, the moral essence, the self of the man, moves not—is dead. 2. The means which God has ever employed to restore men are visions of Himself. What is the Bible but a record of Divine visions and manifestations to man? What is the Gospel—“God’s power unto salvation”—but the manifestation of the Eternal in Christ? Here He appears to man in the “face of Jesus Christ.” 3. The history of all restored souls shows that the improvement commences at this stage. The explanation which Paul gives of the first upward movement would generally be true of all: “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me,” &c. What the sun is to the plant, God is to the soul.

II. A profound consciousness of our fallen state. “Then, said I, Woe is me,” &c. His consciousness included four things—1. A deep sense of his personality. “I am undone.” He feels himself singled out from the millions. When conscience is touched, she breaks the bond, individualises the man, and makes him feel as if he stood alone before the Eternal Judge. 2. A sense of personal ruin. “Woe is me, for I am undone.” My prospects are blighted, my hopes are gone. 3. A sense of personal ruin arising from a sense of personal sin. “I am a man of unclean lips;” I am a sinner, and therefore “undone.” 4. A sense of personal sin, heightened by the remembrance of his neighbour’s sins. “I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” So long as conscience is torpid, men often make the sinful conduct of others an apology for their own; but when conscience awakes, such sophistries depart.

III. A removal of the crushing sense of guilt. “Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand,” &c. Three thoughts are suggested by this—1. There are Divine means for the removal of sin. This “live coal,” this altar, and seraphim in the vision, symbolise this truth. 2. The means are something in connection with sacrifice. Fire is a purifying element, and is regarded as the emblem of purity. This “live coal” was taken from the altar of burnt-offering. The fire of that altar as at first kindled by the Lord, and ever afterward kept burning. What is the power that takes away sin? The Divine Word in connection with Christ’s sacrifice—the doctrine of the Cross. This, like “fire,” has a purifying power. 3. The means are employed by a Divinely-appointed ministry. Let that seraph stand as the emblem of a true minister, and we see that his work is to take the purifying elements from the altar and apply them to men.

IV. An ever-open and sensitive ear to the voice of God. “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying,” &c. Three thoughts will develop the general and practical meaning of these words—1. God has deep thoughts about our race. The Bible reveals some of these thoughts, and so does Nature. 2. Just as the soul is cleared of sin does it become conscious of these thoughts. Let the conscience be thoroughly cleared of sin, and it will hear the voice of God in every sound and see His glory in every form. The universe to a holy being is the tongue of God (P. D. 2545, 2552, 2560, 2563, 2564). 3. This consciousness of the Divine thoughts about our race is a necessary stage in the moral progress of the soul. It is only thus we walk with God, as Enoch did of old.

V. A hearty readiness to do what the Supreme Will commands. “Here am I; send me.” I am ready to do whatever Thou commandest. Send me anywhere, at any time, to do any work; I am ready to catch the slightest whisper of duty; my soul stands with plumed pinions.—David Thomas, D.D.: The Homilist, vol. v. pp. 411–418.

 

Sanctuary in God.

viii. 14. And He shall be for a sanctuary.

Not a few mourn, in the midst of a busy, bustling age, the loss of sacredness in life. Not the false “sacred”—that which is merely ascetic separation from life and duty; nor that which is merely solemn “sacred”—the dull heavy monotony of gloominess.

We naturally say that if this is God’s world, if civil and civic duties, social responsibilities, are God-ordained, it is likely, at least, that here we may be able to secure a heavenly citizenship amid earthly cares and customs. This is exactly what God reveals in the text. Sanctuary, He says, is not in mere place; not in separation from manly duty; I open up my very nature to you. How often this idea recurs in the Scriptures! God is our refuge and rest, our hiding-place, our dwelling-place.

I. The sacredness that a reverent heart desires. Something within us asserts its dignity when society is frivolous and gay, and when the routine of life brings us into association with lives where the light even of conscience burns low, when the reverent wonder that filled even pagan hearts has given place to scientific explanations of every spiritual function. When we are brought into contact with all this, then it is that we find how the high tides of the world cover the little green knolls of devotion, and sweep away alike the altar of prayer and the harp of praise. In all earnest natures there comes, at times, resentment at all this. We believe the Divinity within us. We believe the high call of seer and prophet to nobler ends; we believe, above all, that Lord of life and light who tells us that the life is more than meat, and who fed His own life by the mountain prayer and the garden solitude. We should seek to secure the sacredness we feel we need, not in morbid methods, but in ways that are human, and ways that are Divine because they are human. Christ lived and worked amongst men. We, too, may secure sacredness for our lives; we may carry in our mien and breathe in our converse the springs of hope and faith and love which flow still from Zion’s sacred hill.

II. The sacredness that makes sanctuary in God himself. “He shall be for a sanctuary.” He whom wicked men dread and flee from; for, as of old, darkness cannot dwell with light, nor irreverence with reverence, nor mammon-worship with devotion to God. We may carry very bad hearts into very beautiful places. Place is easily made unsacred, but into fellowship with God there can enter nothing that is false, or worldly, or vile. “Sanctuary in a person?” Yes; for even here, in this dim sphere of earthly friendship, our best sanctuaries, apart from Christ, have been men and women,—those who bear His likeness, and who do His will. “Sanctuaries?” Yes; for with them we are ashamed of unworthy motive, of impure thought, of unsacred aim. Take Christ with you, and every place is sacred. This is our living sanctuary; we abide in Him who says, “I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.” And if by His own Divine nature He is a sanctuary, He is also by experience too. How much the human sanctuary of friendship is beautified when there is oneness of feeling about the battle and burden of life! It is nothing, then, that when we speak of sanctuary in Christ we should mean “sympathy,” all that belongs to a brother born for adversity—to Him who, as a “Man of Sorrows,” was “acquainted with grief” (liii. 9)? We know indeed but little of the realities of religion unless we have found such a living sanctuary in Christ Jesus the Lord (H. E. I. 968–975).

III. The sacredness of all the future days. “He shall be.” Names vary in interpreting what God is to suit need and experience. We translate the want, and then God’s name is translated to meet it. I am hungry—He is Bread; thirsty—He is Water, &c. The word “sanctuary” meets special wants. Life is not always a seeking for a refuge, but it is so especially at certain times and in strange and desolate experiences. We are alone in a strange city. The child must leave home to teach, to toil, to live; the weakness will come which presaged decline and death; the soul does feel that some lights are lost to faith and that others are going dim. He shall be for a sanctuary. Let the hours come; He will come too. Who can make retreat into his own heart and find perfect sanctuary there? Christ alone could do that. We cannot. Nature cannot afford us the sanctuary we need; she has healthy anodynes of atmosphere that afford us deep and quiet retreats, but sanctuary, in the highest sense, she has not. Christ, and He alone, will be now and for ever a sanctuary (H. E. I. 2378–2387).

IV. The sacredness of personal life in God. We can have no safety or rest in Churches as such. They are helpful; they are houses of fellowship and centres of usefulness. But we cannot say, as Mediævalism said, “Enter the Church and be saved.” The soul’s relation to God is personal and individual. Whether this relation of faith is real, vital, each soul can attest for itself; and that living relationship is all that can ever make life sacred to any man. When the life is hid with Christ in God, all is well, for all is sacred; and nothing that He has created us to do or to enjoy is common or unclean. So may God help us to keep a sacred life which finds sanctuary in the Saviour, until we find it where there is no temple, but where there is sanctuary in God (Rev. xxi. 22, 23).—W. M. Statham: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii. pp. 131–133.

 

Wise Lessons from Wicked Lips.

ix. 10. The bricks are fallen down, &c.

Jesus said, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light,” meaning that they excel them in shrewdness and tact. Men of the world do not readily submit to defeat and failure, but strive to convert defeat into victory, and failure into success. In this respect, therefore, the children of this world are worthy of imitation. Within the spiritual, Christian sphere we might well emulate them in the determined, hopeful, persevering, progressive, patient spirit with which they prosecute their affairs. Of this the text affords illustration. The children of this world, of whom it speaks to us, are worthy of our imitation in the following respects:—

I. They proceed with a defined purpose. The bricks mentioned as having fallen down were not a heap of burned clay, which somehow had got piled up, no one could tell how. They had been built by human hands, and the builders had heads as well as hands. But now that the bricks had fallen, in making up their minds as to what should be done, they proceed with a defined purpose. The architect precedes the builder; the head leads the hand. They build not at random. They first say what they will build, and how. They also resolve once more to beautify their surroundings with trees, and they make their choice. This time they will not have sycamores, but cedars.

The same principle should underlie the building up of all Christian character and work. Knowledge and zeal should ever be in partnership. The hand should be under control of the head. Everything should be done well, because done wisely. One purpose should run through and be supreme in each life. Striving, and toiling, and fighting, we should have it first settled what we are to strive, and toil, and fight for. And as to this we are left in no difficulty. A plan is made for us, and our wisdom is to work it out. A number of young men were one day practising archery, when the arrows of one invariably stuck in the ground. Seeing this, one of his companions cried out, “Do aim higher.” That is what we have to do. We substitute our own low, faltering purposes for the high, glorious purpose of God (Rom. viii. 29; 1 Pet. ii. 21). So, also, in connection with our work, a high purpose should be our aim. We should not make up our minds to do as little as possible, neither should our only object be to do as much as possible. Our question should be, What is my Master’s will? Obedience is better than sacrifice. They who would work for their Lord with acceptance must wait on Him, and He will give “to each man his work.” Further, with our plan fixed, we must set our whole heart upon the working of it out. Here Israel teaches us. When her first effort failed, she tried again. The spirit of enthusiasm must inspire us. This is what makes labour rest, and turns the yoke into a crown.

II. They were inspired with hopefulness. Their bricks fell down, but their spirits fell not into the pit of despair. Their sycamores were cut down, but their ambition was not. They viewed the desolation not without sadness, but in the midst of it all “Nil Desperandum” was the song which they sang. And that is the spirit of the world to-day. So the Christian ought to be hopeful. You have fallen! Say, “I will rise again.” Your schemes have failed! Say, “I will try again.” You are afraid you have laboured in vain! Say, “In labours I will be more abundant.” You went into what you thought the paradise of God, but lo! it turned out to be a dreary wilderness. What then? Still hope in God. Seek on, O seeker, and thou shalt find. Knock on, louder and louder; the door will be opened.

Night must give way to day. Mystery after mystery will unfold itself. Light will appear to every man having eyes and using them. The children of this world hope; greater reason have they to hope who are children of God.

III. They show a spirit of industrious perseverance. Their hands responded to the impulse of their hearts. What they were ready to say they were ready to do. They were prepared by hard, persevering toil to make good their hope. These men of Israel were at this time without God, but they were not without common sense. They dreamed not that by mere wishing their ruined walls would rise again. If they wanted new temples and goodly cedars, they must build and plant them. The moral here is plan (Matt. vii. 21). Hoping will not do everything. It must be backed by earnest effort. The way to heaven is not reached by flying, but by toiling. I am a son of God; let me then subscribe myself “Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Beautiful city of God! we hope some day to reach thy gates of pearl and enter it, but till then—

“Many a sorrow, many a labour,
   Many a tear.”

To your hope add diligence. Watch and wait, but forget not to work.

IV. They improve matters. These tumble-down buildings were, after all, but brick; but now they would build, not with bricks, but with hewn stones. Around them had flourished sycamores, but now that these were cut down they would plant cedars. Such is the spirit of the world. To-day is to be an improvement upon yesterday. “Excelsior” is added to “Nil Desperandum.” Is not this the spirit which ought to animate us? There is no temper but may be improved. You never did a thing for Jesus, let it be ever so trifling, but you may do better next time you try. The text speaks to us of failure and ruin; and it shows us that out of these greater and better efforts arose. So should it be with us. Has your faith given way under the severe strain put upon it? Then for the future you must not only have faith, but stronger faith. In the pride and stoutness of their hearts Israel said, “In the future we will do better than we did before;” and we must say, not in the pride of our hearts, but in humble dependence upon God, strengthened with His might, “We count not ourselves to have attained, neither are we already perfect; but this one thing we do,” (Phil. iii. 13, 14).

Conclusion.—Looking at what Israel proposed to do, three words are suggested, which would be good motto words for us to adopt. They are strength, beauty, growth. 1. “We will build with stones.” They would now erect a strong building, one not easily to be overthrown. This should be our first concern. We are building not for time, but for eternity. What is to last must be strong. 2. They said, moreover, “We will build with hewn stones;” we shall go in for beauty as well as for strength. Some of us are strong, but we are lacking in beauty. We are robust characters, but we are also rough. There is a more excellent way. Perfection of character is reached only in so far as strength and beauty are blended together. 3. There must also be growth. Israel resolved to plant cedars, trees which should live and grow on for centuries. So we, rooted and grounded in faith, and love, and hope, should grow up in strength and beauty. So, on and on—changing bricks for hewn stones, and sycamores for cedars.—Adam Scott: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii. pp. 230–232.

 

The Diffusion of the Knowledge of God.

(For Whit-Sunday.)

xi. 9. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

It was promised that “the waters should no more become a flood to destroy all flesh;” and yet a flood there was to be, all-compassing, all-absorbing, in God’s good time and in His merciful foreknowledge when He spake the former world; but not to destroy all flesh, but to save it; and in the season the rain of grace descended (xlv. 8; Matt. vii. 29; Ps. xcviii. 8).

How different a fulfilment was this from that for which the apostles had been waiting! No doubt they imagined that such as Christ had been would be the Paraclete who was to come—One whose individuality and intelligence they could not doubt, and need not take on faith. When they were waiting for the Angelic Messenger, Prophet, and Lawgiver, One higher than all created strength and wisdom suddenly came down upon them; yet not as a Lord and Governor, but as an agency or power (Acts ii. 2–4).

Such was the coming of the Comforter, He who is infinitely personal, who is the One God, absolutely, fully, perfectly, simply; He it was who vouchsafed to descend upon the apostles, and that as if not a Person, but as an influence or quality, by His attribute of ubiquity diffusing Himself over their hearts, filling all the house, poured over the world, as wholly here as if He were not there, and hence vouchsafing to be compared to the inanimate and natural creation, to water and wind, which are of so subtle a nature, or so penetrating a virtue, and of so extended a range. And most exactly have these figures, which He condescended to apply to Himself, been fulfilled—

I. In the course of the dispensation of the Spirit. His operation has been calm, equable, gradual, far-spreading, overtaking, intimate, irresistible. What is so awfully silent, so mighty, so inevitable, so encompassing as a flood of water? Fire alarms from the first: we see it and we scent it; there is crashing and downfall, smoke and flame; it makes an inroad here and there; it is uncertain and wayward;—but a flood is the reverse of all this. It gives no tokens of its coming; it lets man sleep through the night, and they wake and find themselves hopelessly besieged; prompt, secret, successful, and equable, it preserves one level; it is everywhere; there is no refuge. And it makes its way to the foundations; towers and palaces rear themselves as usual; they have lost nothing of their perfection, and give no sign of danger, till at length suddenly they totter and fall. And here and there it is the same, as if by some secret understanding; for by one and the same agency the mighty movement gone on here and there and everywhere, and all things seem to act in concert with it, and to conspire together for their own ruin. And in the end they are utterly removed, and perish from off the face of the earth. Fire, which threatens more fiercely, leaves behind it relics and monuments of its agency; but water buries as well as destroys; it wipes off the memorial of its victims from the earth.

Such was the power of the Spirit in the beginning, when He vouchsafed to descend as an invisible wind, as an outpoured flood. Thus He changed the whole face of the world. For a while men went on as usual, and dreamed not what was coming: and when they were roused from their fast sleep, the work was done; it was too late for aught else but impotent anger and a hopeless struggle. The kingdom was taken away from them and given to another people. The ark of God moved upon the face of the waters. It was borne aloft by the power, greater than human, which had overspread the earth, and it triumphed, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

II. In every human heart to which He comes. By attending to the figure we shall understand (what concerns us most intimately) whether we are personally under His influence, or are deceiving ourselves. 1. Any spirit which professes to come to us alone and not to others, which makes no claim of having moved the body of the Church at all times and places, is not of God, but a private spirit of error (Ps. lxv. 10–12). 2. Vehemence, tumult, confusion, are no attributes of that benignant flood with which God has replenished the earth. That flood of grace is sedate, majestic, gentle in its operations. If at any time it seems to be violent, that violence is occasioned by some accident or imperfection of the earthen vessels into which it vouchsafed to pour itself, and is not token of the coming of Divine Power. Ecstasies and transports often proceed from false spirits, who are but imitating heavenly influences as best they may, and seducing souls to their ruin. 3. The Divine baptism wherewith God visits us penetrates through the whole soul and body. It leaves no part of us uncleansed, unsanctified. It claims the whole man for God. It is everywhere, in every faculty, every affection, every design, every work (2 Cor. x. 5). Thus—

III. The heart of every Christian ought to represent in miniature the whole Church. One Spirit makes the whole Church and every member of it to be His temple. As He gives peace to the multitude of nations, who are naturally in discord one with another, so does He give an orderly government to the soul, and set reason and conscience as sovereigns over the inferior parts of our nature. As He leavens each rank and pursuit of the community with the principles of the doctrine of Christ, so does that same Divine leaven spread through every thought of the mind, every member of the body, till the whole is sanctified. And let us be quite sure that these two operations of the Spirit depend upon each other. We cannot hope for peace at home while we are at war abroad. We cannot hope for unity of the faith if we are at our own private will make a faith for ourselves. Break unity in one point, and the fault runs through the whole body. The flood of God’s grace keeps its level, and if it is low in one place it is low in another.

Conclusion.—As we would forward that blessed time when the knowledge of the Lord will in its fulness cover the earth, as the waters cover their bed, let us look at home, and wait on God for the cleansing and purifying of ourselves. Till we look at home, no good shall we be able to perform for the Church at large; we shall but do mischief when we intend to do good, and to us will apply that proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.” And let us not doubt that if we do thus proceed we shall advance the cause of Christ in the world. Let us but raise the level of religion in our hearts, and it will rise in the world. And, meantime, we shall have our true reward, which is personal, consisting in no mere external privileges, however great, but in the “water of life,” of which we are allowed to take freely (Ps. xxxvi. 7–9; i. 3; Isa. xxxii. 18; Ps. xxiii. 2).—John Henry Newman: Subjects of the Day, pp. 126–136.

 

The Proud City Doomed.

xiii. 1. The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.

In 2 Kings xvii. we find an account of the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians (vers. 1–6). Then follows a long enumeration of the sins which had brought this Divine visitation upon the ten tribes, ending with the words, “So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day” (ver. 23). If the scourge was no longer in the hands of the king of Assyria, it would be transferred to other hands not less terrible.

1. Would this scourge destroy the life of the Jewish nation? This was the awful question which presented itself to the minds of the prophets when they saw one and another limb of this nation lopped off, when they saw that a great numerical majority of the tribes would be carried away. Isaiah’s eyes were opened to see whence the permanence of the race was derived, how great critical moments in its life discovered Him who was everlastingly present with it. The child born in hours of trouble and rebuke had borne witness to him of the continuance of the regal family as well as of the people of God’s covenant, when the rage of their enemies as well as of their own faithlessness were threatening them with destruction. Nor was this all. In the miserable, heartless reign of Ahaz the vision had been presented to him of a “Rod coming out of the stem of Jesse, which should stand for an ensign of the people. To it should the Gentiles seek, and His rest should be glorious.” Consider the Rod out of Jesse, what it betokened (Isa. xi. 10–12). The immediate fruits which Isaiah saw coming out of this root might have appeared in the days of any patriotic and prosperous prince, and did actually appear in the latter days of Hezekiah. No doubt Hezekiah might become, and did actually become, “an ensign to the nations,” just as Solomon had been before him, one to whom they brought presents, whose alliance they sought, whose elevation out of a deep calamity was a proof that some mighty God was with him. But—

2. Though we need not seek in any more distant days than those of Hezekiah for a very satisfactory fulfilment of these predictions (and let it never be forgotten that what may seem to us, when we look back over 3000 years, an exaggerated description of deliverance and restoration, must have seemed inadequate and almost cold to those who experienced the blessing),—though Hezekiah was a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and though the Spirit of the Lord did rest upon him (xi. 2),—though the peacefulness and order of his last years might faithfully carry out the symbols of the wolf and the lamb lying down together, yet it was no less impossible for the prophet to think chiefly of Hezekiah when he was uttering these words than it would have been for him to fancy that he was the King whom he saw sitting on the throne, and his train filling the temple in the year that Uzziah died (chap. vi. 1–4). There was, however, this great blessing which came to Isaiah from his being able to connect the Divine King with an actual man—the belief that a man must embody and present the Godhead, that only in a man could its blessedness and glory appear, acquired a force and vividness from his hope of Hezekiah’s government and from his actual experience of it, which we may say, without rashness or profaneness, would have been otherwise wanting in him. In using that language, we are only affirming that any method but the one which we know the Divine Wisdom has adopted for conveying a truth to a man’s spirit must be an imperfect method. Hezekiah’s existence was necessary to the instruction of Isaiah, and through him of all generations to come. Perhaps Shalmaneser and Sennacherib were, in another way, scarcely less necessary.

Apparently the prophet passes in this chapter to an entirely new subject. The Assyrian seems to be forgotten. He opens with the burden of Babylon; he goes on to the burden of Damascus, &c. But Babel or Babylon represented to the prophets the attempt to establish a universal society, not upon the acknowledgment of the Divine care and protection, but upon the acknowledgment of a mere power in nature against which men must try to measure their own. The order and history of the Jewish nation were made, from age to age, silently to testify against it. “Babylon is the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency” (ver. 19); her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged (ver. 22). But these and similar words must refer to more than the destruction of a certain Chaldean city then or afterwards. How can we limit them to it when we find such words as those in vers. 11–13? Instead of being, as some suppose, an interpolated fragment, the burden of Babylon comes in to make all the visitations upon the other tribes of the earth intelligible. They are diverse but harmonious portions of the same Divine message to man—a message of terror, but also of deliverance and hope. In chap. xiv. we find how wonderfully these are combined.

But though most feel something of the grandeur of this poetry, and a few the truth of this prophecy, we do not enough consider upon what both are founded. The God-Man was the ground upon which the Jewish nation stood; here you have the contrast—the man-god; he would ascend up to heaven and exalt his throne above the stars of God. This is the natural ruler of a society which counts the gold of Ophir more precious than human beings. We have here the Babylonian power and the Jerusalem power, that parody of human and Divine greatness which is seen in an earthly tyrant, that perfect reconciliation of Divinity and humanity which is seen in the Redeemer. Consider both images well. Both are presented to us; we must admire and copy one of them; and whichever we take, we must resolutely discard the other. If we have ever mixed them together in our minds, a time is at hand that will separate them for ever. The Babylonian mark and image, your own evil nature, a corrupt society, the evil spirit, have been striving to stamp you ever since your childhood. Each hour you are tempted to think a man less precious than the gold of Ophir; the current maxima of the world take for granted that he is; you in a thousand ways are acting on those maxims. Oh, remember that in them, and in the habits which they beget, lies the certain presage of slavery for men and nations, the foretaste of decay and ruin, which no human contrivances can avert, which the gifts and blessings of God’s providence only accelerate. May God grant us power to cast Babylonian principles out of our hearts, that when they come before us we may despise them and laugh them to scorn, knowing that not against us but against the Holy One the enemy is exalting himself. In that day may we be able to sing the song which the prophet said should be sung in the land of Judah (xxvi. 1–4).—F. D. Maurice, M.A.: Prophets and Kings, pp. 272–290.

 

True National Greatness.

xix. 1–3, 14. The burden of Egypt, &c.

The prophecies of Isaiah take a wide range, embrace the fortunes of almost every nation, however remote, with whom the Israelites were brought into common relation, whether of policy or commerce—Moab, Damascus, Tyre, Babylon, Ethiopia, Egypt. The prophet records the political and social phenomena of his day, not with the eye of a mere statesman or diplomatist, but as reviewing the moral as well as the political aspects of things, the eternal governing laws as well as the fitful moods and changes of a nation’s life, the spiritual as well as the material forces of the world.

Israel, in their dread of the great Assyrian monarchy, often cast wistful eyes towards Egypt, where they hoped to find a sure and powerful ally. The Egyptians accepted their subsidies, but thought they consulted their own interests best by observing what has been called amongst ourselves a “masterly inactivity.” Their strength was to sit still. They had a large standing army; but as Rabshakeh showed, on a memorable occasion, that he knew (chap. xxxvi. 6) the nation, with all its outward semblance of prosperity, was being eaten up with a thousand moral and social cankers, which corrupted the very source of all national life. This chapter lays bare those wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

1. There was a day when Egypt had been famous for its wisdom. This wisdom had become a thing of the past (vers. 11, 12).

2. There was no unity of purpose, no coherence of action in the body politic. The true ideas of the family, of the municipality, of the nation, were lost. Every man was fighting against his brother (ver. 2). It is history eternally repeating itself; it is the lament of Thucydides over Greece; of Horace, Livy, and Tacitus over the corruption of guilty imperialism, and over the absence of the masculine, simple, republican virtues of ancient Rome.

3. With the decay of public virtue comes the decay of public spirit, and then soon follows the decay of national strength. Then comes what these old Hebrew seers called the “judgment;” God coming out of His place to visit the earth; anarchy, internal dissolution, collapse, conquest by the foreigner; the giving over of the nation into the hand of a cruel lord; the establishment of a military despotism.

It were easy to point these remarks elsewhere, but let us look at home. Many feel that during the last decade of years or more England has been parting with many of her old traditions. Some of those principles which were merely corrupt remnants of a social and political system which has passed away—feudalism—we have undoubtedly gained by losing. But there are others which we have lost, or are fast losing, to the great detriment of the commonwealth. The high sense of duty to the State overruling the sense of interest in the individual citizen; the true measure of a nation’s wealth and greatness, not by its revenue in pounds sterling, but by its revenue in the heavenly bodies, and honest hearts, and pure, healthy homes of the people; the noble, self-sacrificing spirit of devotion to the call of duty; the principle of right recognised as a higher principle than that of expediency; a temper of loyalty in the strict sense of the word, of willing obedience to the law and those who represent the law; strict commercial integrity, and not the tricks of trade which have been generated by an unwholesome competition—these are maxims of ancient wisdom which made England great, and the loss of which will make England small. Our greatness, whatever it has been, has not rested so much upon material forces, but, like Israel’s of old, upon moral. We can only hope that our position among the peoples will be maintained as long as we hold fast the principles by which it was won. These privileges are not things of chance, but the direct result of moral laws as immutable and irreversible as the laws which govern the physical world. God send us statesmen who will turn the nation’s mind away from delusive and partisan aims, and direct them seriously to efforts which may unite us all in one great crusade against evil; in which every soldier might certainly feel that he was fighting under the banner of Christ, in a righteous war, for objects which surely have a place in the redemption which Christ accomplished for the world.—Bishop Fraser: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii. pp. 177, 178.

 

A Momentous Inquiry.

xxi. 11. Watchman, what of the night?

Some calamity or sad moral condition is foreseen by the prophet. Moral evil is fitly compared to darkness. The term “night” is used to express error and sin. This was a time of darkness. The burden of Dumah was: “Watchman, what of the night?” What is the prospect? Are there any signs of coming day?

The world in its moral history had been for the most part in darkness. It commenced with a bright and sinless morning; but this was succeeded by a time of dark clouds and desolating storms. After the Deluge the world started anew from another head. The new world, however, differed but little from the old. Then God called Abraham, and made his seed His chosen people, through whom He might accomplish His beneficent designs. Outside of Judea there was not much to dispel the darkness. Greece furnished a Socrates and a Plato; but because of her vices and crimes Greece soon went down to ruin. The once magnificent empires Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome were alike involved in the moral night of error and sin. We may inquire, as the voice out of Seir did, “Watchman, what of the night?” What prospect is there for this sin-darkened world? And we may respond in the words of the prophet: “The morning cometh.” The morning cometh; but also the night—a night whose duration we may not be able to tell.

I. How will this inquiry apply to Isaiah’s time? It was indeed for the chosen people a time of darkness. But the day is about to break! The breathings of better things come like the morning air. “The morning cometh,” but also the night—the morning to the sad-hearted Jews, but the night to others—to the Idumeans, who had long cherished unfriendly feelings to the Jews, and appear to have rejoiced in their sorrow. The voice from Dumah was probably a sneering taunt, “Where is now your God in whom ye trusted?”

Isaiah had a grander vision and saw another morning. The long night of the olden dispensation still lingered, but the prophet saw the breaking day, and told of the advent of One who was to be the light and glory of the world (ix. 6, 7, lx. 2, 3, 20). The vision which Isaiah saw we also are permitted to see. To him it was the Saviour to come, to teach, to suffer, to scatter the darkness; to us it is the Saviour who has come, and taught, and suffered, and died, and rose again, and whose glorious light has not only gilded the mountain-tops, but is spreading over all the whole land. And there are signs which will not fail that his grandest visions will be realised.

II. How will this inquiry apply to our own times? 1. What mysteries has science unveiled! How great the historical and geographical research of our day! How successful our time has been in bringing unity out of the variety of the universe and harmony out of its apparent discord! 2. Ours has been a time of moral progress. Slavery has been abolished from our realm. A great work has been done for the arrest of intemperance. The cause of missions has grown into large proportions. 3. The religious progress of the world is remarkable. Religious liberty is rapidly spreading. There is encouraging advance in the social or loving element. In the Church the working element is growing. Never has the giving element assumed such proportions. Amid this varied growth there is a strong tendency towards Christian unity. The enemy is vigilant; it is yet the night of battle, of temptation, and of peril, but the morning surely cometh.

III. How will this inquiry apply to ourselves personally? 1. There is a night of scepticism, or partial scepticism, in which some are involved. There are two classes of sceptics: some are sceptics because they want to be so; some are honest doubters, as Thomas the disciple was—constitutionally a doubter, but honest withal. And therefore he did not turn away from the light, and “My Lord and my God!” exclaimed the enlightened, convinced, and believing Thomas. To the earnest and sincere inquirer the response must be, “The morning cometh;” if thou art willing to be convinced, thou art not far from the kingdom of God. If thou shouldst reject Jesus, whither wilt thou go for a refuge and for a guide? 2. There is a night of worldliness. Many are living for selfish gratification and for this life only. For the worldly the morning waiteth. Behold, Christ stands at the door and knocks! His is the light and the life of men; with His entrance into the heart the morning cometh. 3. There is the night of penitential sorrow. When the morning cometh to the awakened sinner, the light is sometimes, as with Saul of Tarsus, a blinding, as well as revealing light. To him—the sorrowing, praying, believing penitent—the morning came. And so it ever is. 4. There is the night of suffering. There never comes an hour in this world when suffering is unknown. Count it all joy, if it must needs be that ye shall suffer. 5. There is the night of weariness and disappointment. The Christian worker, toil-worn, may sometimes inquire, “Watchman, what of the night?” He has wrongly hoped, it may be, at the same time to carry the seed-basket, to put in the sickle, and to bring his sheaves with him. Learn to labour faithfully and to wait. The Son of God is come!

Conclusion.—Fail not to remember that while the morning cometh for all who willingly hear and obey the Gospel, the night also cometh for the disobedient and unbelieving. Come, ye who wander in the darkness, while yet there is room, to Him who is the bright and morning star, the sun of righteousness, the light and life of the world, and for you there will come a morning which will be the beginning of a blissful, glorious, and never-ending day.—D. D. Currie: Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi. pp. 213–215.

 

The Blessings of the Gospel.

(Missionary Sermon.)

xxv. 6–8. And in this mountain, &c.

What the spirit of prophecy has here recorded is the testimony of Jesus and of His salvation, the subject presented to our view being the blessings of the Gospel of the Son of God. They are described in their general nature, in their unrivalled excellence, and in their universal extent.

I. The blessings of the Gospel are here described in their general nature, as including instruction for the ignorant, consolation for the sorrowful, and life for the dead. They thus correspond to the state of man without the Gospel, which is a state of darkness, misery, and death.

1. The natural state of fallen man is a state of moral darkness. A veil is upon him, by which those things which make for his peace and essentially affect his well-being are hidden from his eyes. It is a triple veil. (1.) There is the fold of native ignorance. The merely natural man is totally ignorant of God and eternity. He knows not whence he came or whither he is going. He is altogether “sensual, having not the Spirit,” and cannot know those things of the Spirit of God which are only spiritually discerned. Hence, ever since the Fall, darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness the people. (2.) There is the yet thicker fold of moral corruption. Sin has exactly the same tendency in each particular case as in the case of Adam. It darkens the understanding by its deceitfulness, as well as hardens the heart by its malignity. It tends to extinguish that candle of the Lord which shines in the conscience, and to render useless and unavailing those other means which God has provided for delivering us from the night of Nature. Those in whom it reigns choose the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (cf. Eph. vi. 17, 18). (3.) There is the fold of Satanic infatuation. “The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” He rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience; and his kingdom is the kingdom of delusion and darkness. He beguiled Eve through his subtilty; and he still labours to corrupt and darken the minds of men (2 Cor. iv. 4).

All this is true of all the unregenerate, however diversified may be their external condition and local circumstances. Hence multitudes even of nominal Christians are fit objects of our compassionate care and exertion. But the description of the text is still more applicable to the case of heathen nations not yet visited by the Gospel. They have not the light which nominal Christians do not allow to shine into them; in general, they have no effectual light. Over them is cast the veil not merely of ignorance and sin, but of superstition and false religion, than which nothing can be more fatally opposed to the entrance of light and the operation of Divine grace. Their very systems of religion are the means of perpetuating folly and vice, instead of reclaiming them to wisdom and righteousness. In many cases that “religion” sanctions and prescribes the most cruel of sacrifices and the most licentious of rites. In Christendom men may be superstitious and wicked, licentious and cruel, but it is because they neglect their religion. In heathen and Mohammedan countries, they are so because they attend to their religion. They breathe its genuine spirit and exemplify its proper tendency. All that is deemed sacred and authoritative in the name of religion unites with all the ignorance and depravity of fallen man, and with all the subtilty and power of the Prince of Darkness to produce and perpetuate a system of error and iniquity. False religion may pretend to be a sun which enlightens, but it is really a veil which darkens all who come under its power—a veil much more effectual to favour the ravages of sin, misery, and death than even any of the coverings previously mentioned.

2. Man is described in the text as the child not only of darkness and error, but also of misery and death. For ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of sin, in all its multiplied forms. And sin is invariably linked to misery! The wretchedness of men bears an exact correspondence to their ignorance and wickedness (Rom. iii. 16, 17).

If this statement be true of natural men in general, it is still more awfully verified in the condition of the heathen world in particular. Infidel travellers who have cheated the public from time to time by highly-coloured pictures of the happiness of pagans, ought not on such a point to be believed. It cannot be that in the dark places of the earth, the habitations of cruelty, no groans should be heard, no tears be seen. The fact is, that while heathenism leaves its votaries to the unmitigated operation of all these natural and moral causes of distress which are common to man in general, it opens many new sources of misery, inflicts many additional desolations, causes many forms of terror, suffering, and destruction, which are peculiar to itself. All men are born to tears, because born in sin; but the tears of pagans are often tears of blood. Every groan they heave is big with double wretchedness.

The Gospel, in its provision of blessings for the human race, adapts itself to that state of darkness, wretchedness, and mortality which I have faintly described.

1. It removes darkness. It reveals to us the existence, character, and will of God, our own origin, immortality, and accountableness, the way of salvation and the path of duty; and, used by the Holy Spirit as His great instrument, it changes the heart of those who receive it, and delivers them from the delusions and dominion of Satan. In these several ways does the Gospel become the instrument of illumination. By it, and in connection with it, God destroys the covering which is naturally on man’s faces, and the veil that is spread over their understandings and hearts. The consequence is, in instances innumerable, that “beholding as in a glass,” with unveiled face, “the glory of the Lord, that are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

The glorious diffusion of light and purity which results from Christianity is still more striking when it obtains access to heathen nations. In proportion to the deeper gloom of their former ignorance is the splendour of the new illumination, when the Sun of righteousness arises upon them with healing in His beams. On such occasions, it may be said with peculiar emphasis, “The entrance of Thy Word giveth light,”—a light which is able to penetrate and destroy even the thickest veil of false religion.

2. It wipes away tears. This is here declared to be a part of its design, and experience proves it to be one of its actual operations (Ps. lxxxix. 15, 16). It leads to repentance, and so to pardon, purity, and genuine peace. It comforts in sorrow. It cheers in death.

To the heathen it is peculiarly valuable and welcome. It opens to them, in common with others, the sources of spiritual enjoyment and the hopes of eternal bliss. And besides, it abolishes pagan cruelties and diffuses principles of humanity and kindness. Hence result the amelioration of their civil institutions, the increase of domestic happiness, and the improvement of social life (H. E. I. 1122–1133).

3. It swallows up death in victory. It delivers every believer from the fear of death (Heb. ii. 14, 15; H. E. I. 1109–1111, 1589, 1594). God will most gloriously swallow up death in victory when He shall actually recover from the territories of the grave, by His almighty power, those spoils which death has won.

In proportion to its progress in heathen countries, the Gospel will not merely extract the sting of death, but arrest and diminish its most awful ravages. The waste of human life in many pagan lands is incalculable. As true religion increases, even in Christian countries, wars, which it has already rendered less sanguinary, will be less frequent too (chap. ii. 4).

II. The unrivalled excellence of the blessings of the Gospel. “A feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” Variety! richness! abundance! (See outline The Gospel Feast, pp. 253–256.) Who does not recognise, in the unrivalled excellence of the blessings the Gospel conveys, the most powerful arguments for missionary exertion? Who can think of the Gospel feast, in contrast with the famine of the heathen, without wishing that they also might be bidden to the heavenly entertainment?

III. The universal extent of the blessings of Christianity. “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people a feast of fat things.” 1. They are adapted to all people. 2. They are sufficient for all people. 3. They were designed for all people. 4. The wide world shall, sooner or later, partake of them.

One result of this universal spread and triumph of Christianity is stated in the text: “The rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth.” 1. By the successful exertions of God’s people to evangelise the world, the reproach, which is at present too well-founded, of neglecting to care for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, shall become no longer just and applicable. 2. In consequence of the general spread and influence of Christianity, the reproach of Christ, the scandal of the Cross, shall cease; and the Church, formerly despised and laughed to scorn, shall be held in great honour and reputation (chap. lx. 13–16). 3. The particular reproach of spiritual barrenness—the reproach founded on the paucity of her converts, and the small number of her children—shall for ever cease. At present “Jacob is small,” and the flock of Jesus is, comparatively, a little flock. This fact has been converted by infidels into matter of attack upon Christianity itself. They have tauntingly urged the narrow extent of our religion as an argument against its Divinity. That argument admits, even now, of solid refutation. But in due season the fact itself shall be altered, and no shadow of plausibility shall be left for the reproach (chap. liv. 1–5).

Concluding observations.

1. The text should teach you your personal obligations and privileges in reference to the Gospel. The feast is spread out before you; to you are the blessings of it freely offered (chap. lv. 1–3).

2. The text teaches you the ground of missionary exertions. To partake of the feast ourselves is our first duty: but, while we “eat the fat and drink the sweet,” shall we not “send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared?” Can any duty be more obviously founded in reason and justice, humanity and piety, than that of sending the bread of life to our perishing fellow-creatures? The most hateful and inexcusable of all monopolies is the monopoly of Christian truths and consolations.

3. There are great encouragements to such labour. (1.) The certainty of Divine approbation. (2.) The certainty of consequent success (H. E. I. 1166–1168). But remember, if you would share in the triumphs of the Gospel, you must share in the labour and expense of their achievement.—Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 453–483.

 

Peaceful Keeping.

xxvi. 3, 4. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, &c.

The delightfulness and value of peace to the nation, the Church, the family, the individual (P. D. 2664). Consider—

I. The promise. 1. It is universal in its range. It is made to any and every man who will trust in God. 2. It is sure. Men fail for various reasons to keep their promises, but every Divine promise is certain to be fulfilled (H. E. I. 4052, 4053). 3. The peace which is pledged and secured to all who will fulfil the condition of the text is perfect—so perfect that it can only be described by a repetition of the word, “peace, peace.” God never gives in driblets. His gifts are like Himself, perfect for their fulness, for their suitability, for their enduring qualities. God can keep His people in perfect peace when the devil accuses, when the world allures or threatens, when sickness tries, when adversity oppresses, even when the heart is sore tired, and when grim death would affright (H. E. I. 1253, 1893, 1894, 1911–1926; P. D. 2669, 2673).

II. The character described. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusted in Thee.” Trust unites. The mind will not be stayed upon God unless there be perfect confidence in His wisdom, power, and love. Trust and love go together. Love begets confidence, and confidence strengthens love. The whole nature must be stayed on God, and on God only. There must be no division in the heart’s affections: we cannot serve God and Mammon and be kept in perfect peace. There must be trust before there can be peace; God Himself cannot give perfect peace to the untrustful.

III. The exhortation. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever.” We trust in the Lord when, encouraged by His promises, we hold fast to Him. It is nothing deeper, nothing more difficult than that. Its very simplicity is its difficulty. As the limpet binds itself to the rock, and is not disturbed by the dashing billows, so let the soul by an ardent affection bind itself to the Rock of Ages. The word “ever” gives a wonderful expansiveness to our text. It points at once to God’s eternity and man’s immortality. He is a being capable of being trusted for ever, and for ever we shall be capable of trusting Him. Our trust is to be unlimited and unintermitted; it is to be exercised at all times, under all circumstances, through all ages.

IV. The stable foundation of the believer’s confidence. “For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” The peace must be perfect that rests upon, and rises out of, such a solid foundation. The mountains are “everlasting” only in figure, but the foundation on which we rest is everlasting in fact (Ps. xci. 1, 2).—W. Burrows, B.A.

The world needs the message contained in our text. Most faces that we see are careworn. They are so because behind them there are anxious hearts distressed by fears of various kinds—by fears concerning the body, by fears concerning the soul. The vast majority of men are destitute of true peace; for while in the world there are many ways—of pleasure, of sin, of disappointment, of misery, of death—there is no way of peace. The multitudes who throng past us are miserable because the way of peace they have not known.

I. Look at the person who is kept in peace. He is a person whose mind is stayed on God. A man’s self, sin, pleasure, false religion, vain hopes, are every one of them troubled waves in an ocean of disquietude, and no soul can stay itself on them, though many souls have sought to do so. Who, lying down in the very midst of the sea, can find there repose? As he lieth down upon the waves, they yield beneath him—the billows roll over him; he is sinking in the mighty deep. So with the sinner lying down in the midst of the sea and of the storm of this world apart from God. But he who lieth down upon God is as a man upon a rock, or as one in a mighty fortress; he is at peace—secure in fact and in feeling. But it is only as God is revealed to us in Christ that we may rest upon Him. Apart from Christ, He is to sinners “a consuming fire.” Only through Christ may we find the blessedness we so much need, but through Christ we may find it.

II. Look at the power which keeps the believer in peace. It is not the power of his own faith (H. E. I. 1970, 1975). It is not the power of his own effort, struggling to obtain confidence. It is the power of God: “Thou wilt keep him,” &c. The sinner obtains peace by yielding himself to God (Rom. vi. 13). The believer has peace while he leaves himself in God’s hands, quietly submissive, cheerfully willing that God should lead him and do with him whatever is pleasing in His sight (P. D. 2966–2968, 2970–2972). Then all God’s attributes—His omniscience, His omnipotence, His faithfulness, His tender mercy—minister to his peace (P. D. 3379).

III. Look at the peace in which such a person is kept. It is “perfect peace.” Peace in spite of all that conscience may say, of the temptations that assail us, of the troubles of life, of the certainty and mystery of death. With the peace of pardon, all this peace flows into the soul, increasing more and more. It is the peace of Christ, the same peace which filled and sustained Him (John xiv. 27). You remember that we are shown Him with His head on a pillow, His eyes closed, His mind in unconscious repose, asleep in the midst of the wild storm at night upon the Lake of Galilee, when the waves beat upon the trembling vessel, and the wind strove to raise the waves still higher, and engulph them all. He slept, secure and peaceful, amid the storm. So does the soul of the believer that stayeth itself upon God. Upon what lay that peaceful head of Jesus but upon the unseen arm and heart of God. Men said of Christ mockingly, “He trusted in God.” He did trust in God, as the most exalted believer, and far more than the most exalted believer; and in that simplicity of faith He was kept in peace, sleeping amidst the storm. So is it with the believer. O believer! is it so with you?—Henry Grattan Guinness: Sermon in The Christian World, 1860.

Here is the secret of life—peace, perfect peace—and the sure way of attaining it. Consider—

I. The character contemplated. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee.” His mind is fixed with such intensity that it cannot be diverted from the object on which it is set. This object is not himself (Prov. xxviii. 26), nor his riches (Prov. xxiii. 5), nor his fellow-men (Ch. ii. 22; Jer. xvii. 4, 5), but God, in whom he trusts unhesitatingly, exclusively, universally. He accepts all that the Scriptures reveal concerning God, and makes these revelations the foundation of his confidence and his prayers.

II. The promised blessing. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace.” See also Jer. xvii. 7. The idea suggested is that of habitual and continued blessedness. The elements of peace are begun in the soul, and they are brought to maturity in the whole course of the future life. The peace given is like a river (chap. lxvi. 12), both for abundance and permanence. That is, while, and only while, the mind is stayed upon God (chap. xlviii. 18). Then he is kept in peace, for God is its finisher as well as its author; and it is “perfect peace,” because it is peace of all kinds, in its highest degree, at all times, under all circumstances.

III. The reason for the bestowment of the blessing. “Because he trusteth in Thee.” Faith honours God (Rom. iv. 21), and therefore those who exercise it are honoured by Him (1 Sam. ii. 30; H. E. I. 4057, 4058).

IV. The duty enjoined. “Trust ye,” &c. While we are listening to expositions of this text, this duty seems to be easy; but in actual life our faith is tried and often fails, because we lose sight of the promises and perfections of God. Here there come to us disappointments, difficulties, temptations to distrust. But it is our duty to struggle with them all; and if we do so, it will be our blessedness to overcome them all (chap. xl. 27–31). “Trust ye in the Lord; trust ye in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.”—James Morgan, D.D.: The Home Pulpit, pp. 512–516.

There is sometimes a world of meaning in a single word: Country, home, peace! How it sometimes tells of booming cannon hushed into silence, of glittering swords sent back into their sheaths, of hundreds of homes relieved from distressing anxieties and fears, of thousands of lives respited at least for a time! How it sometimes tells of surging passions hushed into a calm, of vengeful purposes superseded, of the fires of enmity quenched, of despair giving place to hope and joy! Peace has its histories, many and pleasant; its triumphs, various and substantial; its heralds, Divine, angelic, human. Ministers have messages of peace to deliver to their congregations, and in our text we have one of them.

I. The condition expressed in the text. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee.” It is a mind resting on God as the God of grace reconciling sinners to Himself through the mediation of Christ, dispensing pardon, sanctity, salvation—a mind resting, after reconciliation, on His truthfulness, wisdom, almightiness, holiness—a mind resting on His rule and government over all the forces of nature and all the events of daily life, both national and individual.

II. The confidence expressed in the text. “Thou wilt keep,” &c. Thou wilt do it; not merely delegate and intrust this to any agency whatever. Thou wilt do it; there is no uncertainty or peradventure about it. “In perfect peace:” peace of all kinds, and in a superlative degree; peace flowing from reconciliation; peace in the midst of unexplained mysteries; peace in the midst of adverse providences; peace amid the uncertainties of the future.—John Corbin.

 

The Song to the Vineyard.

xxvii. 2, 3. In that day sing ye unto her, &c.

There are different opinions as to what is meant by “leviathan, that crooked serpent,” and “the dragon that is in the sea” (ver. 1), whether the same power is signified by different names, &c. (1.) On a point concerning which learned and able men cannot see eye to eye, it would be presumptuous for me to give an opinion. (2.) If we cannot feel certain as to the literal meaning, the spiritual is plain. (3.) Neither of the expositions affects the substance of the prophecy. A great deliverance is spoken of, to be accomplished by the destruction of the enemies of the Church, and the Lord gives a command to comfort His people. There is in our text a command and a promise.

I. The command.

1. “Sing ye unto her.” It is taken for granted that the spiritual condition of the Church is pleasing to God, but that the feeling of His people is in a low state. Sometimes the Lord directs His servant to reprimand them: “Show unto my people their transgressions.” A Church may need comfort while some of its members deserve correction. Possibly the faulty members are the cause of the discomfort to the Church, and render it desirable that she should be comforted. It is so in the family. We comfort the family when a member of it has transgressed. The fact that one member needs correction causes the others to need consolation. In some cases, it requires much wisdom to decide whether an encouragement or a reproof should be given. We have seen the rod used when a kind word would have been more suitable; and some are singing songs while it would be more appropriate to sound an alarm. There is need for rightly dividing the Word of truth. “A word in its season,” &c.

Possibly the accurate expositor will ask who is commanded to sing. Is it the prophets, or the priests, or the choir of the Temple? This is a poetical book, and sometimes it calls on the heavens, the mountains, and the trees of the field to sing. In this respect I would rather let the command of the text remain undecided, and say to everybody and everything, “Sing unto her!”

2. What should be sung to this vineyard? Remind her in this song that she is “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts.” The Old Testament is full of references to a vineyard, to vines, and to wine. The reason for this is, that the Bible is an Eastern book. A vineyard supposes—

Separation. Not the superiority of its soil to that of the surrounding country makes the vineyard, but its separation. It is not because the saints are by nature better than others that they are God’s vineyard, but because they are set apart by Him. The idea of separation as regards the Church is made conspicuous in every age. The saints, the disciples, constitute the flock and the vineyard of the Old Testament, the Church of the New. When I speak of a separated Church, of course I do not allude to any sect, but to the Church in general. There are hypocrites in the Churches, but none in the Church. It is in the world, but not of the world. The soul is in the body, but not of the body “Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (2 Cor. vi. 17). Ceremonials cannot plant the vine; there are necessarily ordinances, but circumcision could not make the Jews a godly people, and there were thousands of ungodly people partaking every year of the Passover. A change of heart, a change in the condition of the soul, constitutes the planting in the vineyard; not a ceremonial separation, but a change of mind; not the affixing of the stamp of a sect, but the impartation of the image of God (H. E. I. 1171–1183).

II. The promise.

A large and comprehensive one. It includes—

1. Care. “I the Lord do keep it.” With regard to a vineyard, there is a special meaning in the word “keep.” The vine requires great care. There is much work for the knife. From the pruning of the vine by the vine-dresser, there is much valuable instruction to be gained. We learn that what appear to be grievous losses may secure great gains (H. E. I. 63, 104, 126). Oh, this pruning how painful it often is! But it is not done because the Owner of the vineyard delights in it; it proves His love. See Jochebed taking an ark of bulrushes, putting the child Moses in it, and then laying it amidst the perils of the Nile: not because she hated him! No; love was at the bottom of it all, though it appeared otherwise. It behoves the pulpit still to assure God’s people of His care for them.

2. Provision. “I will water it.” There was necessity for watering the vineyard constantly. This was done by means of trenches conveying the water to the roots of the plants. For this purpose rain-water was carefully stored in cisterns; dew was also of great service. The means of grace are somewhat like watercourses. We are dry enough and withered in appearance, but what would we be without the means of grace? What is the dew? The noiseless influences of the Holy Spirit. We will compare revivals to showers; they are not with us, like the watercourses, always. I do not know whether the natural vineyards must have water without intermission; but the vineyard of the Lord of hosts requires it “every moment,” and here is His promise to supply the need.

3. Safety. “Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” It shall be protected from the blighting frost, from thieves and spoilers, from “the boar out of the wood,” from “the little foxes that spoil the vines.” “I the Lord do keep it.” He will not only give His angels charge concerning it, though He will do that. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him.” That shall be done and more! “For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about her, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” All things are in the hand of God, and under His control they shall co-operate for her safety. It is not surprising that Moses, as he surveyed Israel from the top of Mount Nebo, should say, “Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help? The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” In dwelling near God there is safety. Israel was always flourishing when with God. The safety of God’s people means more than being kept together and saved from destruction: “Lest any hurt it!” How excellent are the promises of God!—Gweithiau Rhyddieithol, pp. 48–51, by the late William Ambrose of Portmadoc, translated from the Welsh by the Rev. T. Johns, of Llanelly.

 

The Storms of Life.

xxvii. 8. In measure when it shooteth forth, &c.

I. There is a special appropriateness in comparing the trials of life to storms. 1. Storms are the exceptions and not the normal or common condition of the atmosphere. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” True; but Christ in saying so does not assert that we shall have tribulation only. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Yes; but it is not said that there is nothing but trouble. “Through much tribulation,” &c. Yea, through many storms the mariner has to go through life; but there is fine weather also. 2. Storms come from God. See what is said about trouble (Job v. 6), “All my springs are in Thee,” the sweet and the bitter. 3. Storms come from different directions: the family, the Church, business, &c. 4. Storms are unpleasant to bear. The anxiety of the sailor’s wife. The traveller on the moor. 5. Storms leave their traces behind. The ravages of the sea. The effects of gales on edifices. So in life. The bereaved family. The capitalist reduced to want, &c. 6. But storms are beneficial (Heb. xii. 10, 11).

II. The storms of life are regulated and controlled by God. It is of Him that our text speaks. Who “debates in measure?” Who “stayeth His rough wind in the day of His east wind?” He who is almighty, all-wise, and good. His greatness, as shown in the firmament, hints that He is too great to observe human beings. But notice our Saviour’s teaching: while instructing us concerning His Father, He speaks not of His omnipotence, &c., but of His observation of small things (Matt. x. 29, 30). Put a green leaf or a drop of water under a microscope, and you will see myriads of living animalcules. God observes every one. “Casting all your care on Him, for He careth for you.” “He” and “you!”

III. The storms of life are proportioned to His people’s strength. “In measure.” (See outlines The Afflictions of God’s People and The Discipline of Sin, pp. 290, 291.) A Jew never exercised greater care and exactitude in weighing out his gold and diamonds than does God while meting out trials to His people. “Grace to help in time of need;” yea, and storms equal to our strength. We do not know how much our strength is. One man over-estimates his strength, another under-estimates it. “But He knoweth our frame.” “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (H. E. I. 179–188, 3675–3695).

In various ways He maintains the merciful proportion of the storm to the strength. 1. He does so sometimes by sending the lesser storms before the greater. Jacob at Bethel was unable to undergo the trials of Jacob at Mahanaim. By the time he reached the latter place, he had become a prince, an Israel. Carrying the least burden prepares a man for carrying the greatest (Hercules and the ox). 2. Sometimes by sending the heaviest first. The man may then be in the fulness of his vigour, or in spirit he may be so contumacious that some rough handling may be necessary to bring his pride into subjection. 3. By removing one trial before another comes. Poverty is taken away before ill-health sets in. “He stayeth His rough wind.” 4. By sending each one in its time. “It could not have come at a worse time.” Who says so? “If it had happened at another time, it would have been easier to bear.” That may be so, but would it have been as profitable? It was necessary for you to feel. Less suffering would not have sufficed for that end.

IV. The storms of life promote purposes of wisdom and love. 1. The Lord sometimes orders trials as chastisements. It is not always so; we are too apt to explain everything as chastisement. But God has promised to correct (Jer. xxx. 11), and it is the promise of a father, not the threatening of a judge. (1.) Sometimes one correction prevents many more. (2.) When the Lord sends trials in the way of correction, He graciously gives His children the reasons for thus dealing with them. “The iniquity which he knoweth” (1 Sam. iii. 13). What father would correct a child without explaining to him what it was for? And what correction would benefit the saints while ignorant of the object in view? Possibly the neighbours may not know, but he has himself a private account with God. Hence arises a consequent duty (H. E. I. 144). (3.) When God thus sends trials, they are corrections, and not merely punishments; manifestations not of vengeance, but of His love. A gardener uses the pruning-knife only for the good of the fruit-bearing trees in his garden. God’s corrections are designed only to take away the sin of His people (see ver. 9, and Zech. xiii. 9; H. E. I. 56–74).

2. The Lord sometimes orders trials as exhibitions of the graces of His people. The tempest which beat upon Job was not corrective, though he thought so while it lasted (Job x. 2, xiii. 24). The trial brought out into view his trust in God: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” The Lord’s purpose was to prove that Job was “a perfect and an upright man” (H. E. I. 91–98).

3. Storms are sometimes preventive. A fiery trial is approaching; the man is in danger, for he is too weak to withstand it; by a lesser trial he is withdrawn from it. Two ships are drawing near in a fog; they are making towards each other at a perfect angle. The top-mast of one is blown down; the men on deck bemoan the misfortune; but it was the means of slackening the pace of the vessel, and so prevented a collision. A man is sometimes laid on a bed of sickness to save his life—to save his soul!

4. Storms sometimes prepare men for nobler work. Moses, after being brought up in the lap of luxury, is watching the flock forty years in Midian. All the learning of Egypt is lost in a shepherd. Nay! Moses requires a double education, for he has a duplicate work to perform—appearing before Pharaoh in the palace, and leading Israel through the wilderness. E.g., what good can a preacher do, if he has no experience of his own? (Ps. li. 12, 13; 2 Cor. i. 3–6; H. E. I. 101–108, 2464, 2465).

Some one may say that he has no knowledge of storms from experience. Wait! Peradventure thou shalt know. Should they come, bow. Nothing breaks, if it bends.—Gweithiau Rhyddieithol, pp. 78–81, by the late William Ambrose of Portmadoc. Translated from the Welsh by the Rev. T. Johns of Llanelly.

 

The Great Trumpet.

xxvii. 13. And it shall come to pass in that day, &c.

This prophecy was literally fulfilled (Ezra i.); but it has a wider meaning, and this also it shall be fulfilled.

I. The greatness of the Gospel. “The great trumpet.” 1. It is designed for the world. When liberty was proclaimed for the slaves of the West Indies, the slaves of America remained in bondage. When the slaves of America were liberated, the bondmen in Cuba, Peru, &c., were not set free. But here is a blessing for the whole world. “Which shall be to all people, . . . a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke ii. 10, 32). One side of the earth can only enjoy the rays of the sun at the same time; but this “light” shall shed its rays on the whole world. 2. It is designed for the world in its most important interests. There are inventions and scientific discoveries—such as the steam-engine, &c.—which are valuable to the whole world. But they are valuable only in regard to the present life. But the Gospel meets the wants of the soul, and concerns the endless life beyond. 3. It is so great that all other things in the world are small in comparison with it; trade, learning, &c. 4. It is so great that it bestows greatness upon everything it touches. Upon oratory, although it is independent of excellency of speech. Upon any country in which it is proclaimed and accepted; e.g., Great Britain, America. Under its shelter liberty, learning, &c., flourish (H. E. I. 1124–1132).

II. The ministry of the Gospel. “The great trumpet shall be blown.” What is the good of a trumpet without some one to blow it? (Rom. x. 14).

1. Who is to blow it? Not angels (Heb. ii. 5). The law was given by the ministry of angels; by them the trumpet was blown on Mount Sinai (Acts vii. 53). But they recognise that the trumpet of the Gospel is to be blown by men (Acts v. 20, x. 31, 32). This treasure is in earthen vessels. Gideon’s Lamps. Men are better than angels for this purpose. This is proved by the fact that God ordered it so. But there are other minor satisfactory arguments, such as: (1.) The danger of glorifying the missionary above the mission. (2.) The angels’ disadvantages. They lack the necessary experience. Blessed lack, in all other respects! They have never been contaminated by sin, and hence know not how to speak to the heart of the sinner. By men the trumpet is now being blown, and will be blown to the end of time. The trumpeters are falling, ministers are dying, but the ministry is alive!

2. How is it to be blown? (1.) Clearly (1 Cor. xiv. 8). If the promises are proclaimed, care must be taken to show to whom they belong. So with the threatenings, &c. (2.) Vigorously. It must be done thoroughly, or not at all. (3.) Bravely (Eph. vi. 19). The question is not what will “take,” what is popular, what would please the masses, but “What saith the Lord?”

III. The objects of the ministry. “They which were ready to perish.” 1. Pagans are such (Rom. i.) “Them which sat in the region and shadow of death” (Matt. iv. 16). 2. Every unconverted sinner. They are all to be addressed as those who are “ready to perish.” The matter cannot be compromised because there are seat-holders, contributors, &c. Your kindness shall not prevent our blowing from the trumpet the tones you need to hear.

IV. The success of the Gospel. “And they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” 1. Whence shall they come? From the Pharisaical hiding-places, the quicksands of excuses, &c. They are bound in the chains of slavery; but “they shall come!” This is as certain as the deliverance from Babylon. Take us your harps and strike them! 2. How will they come? Weeping. Without delay. Confidently. 3. Whither and to whom will they come? (1.) To Christ; they cannot live without Him. (2.) To His house.

Applications.—1. Thousands have come; will you? 2. God has another trumpet.—Gweithiau Rhyddiethol (pp. 174–176), by the late Rev. W. Ambrose, Portmadoc. Translated from the Welsh by the Rev. T. Johns, Llanelly.

 

Rejecters of the Gospel Admonished.

xxviii. 12. To whom He said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

Isaiah was one of the most eloquent of preachers, yet he could not win the ears and hearts of those to whom he spoke. He spoke more of Jesus Christ than all the rest of the prophets, yet the message of love was treated as though it were an idle tale. His doctrine was clear as the daylight, yet men would not see it (chap. liii. 1). It was not the fault of the preacher that Israel rejected his warnings: all the fault lay with the disobedient and gainsaying nation. The people to whom he spoke so earnestly were drunken in a double sense:—

1. They were overcome with wine (vers. 7, 8). How is it likely that the truth shall enter an ear which has been rendered deaf by this degrading vice? How is the Word of God likely to operate upon a conscience that has been drenched and drowned by strong drink? Flee from this destroyer before your hands are made strong and you are hopelessly fettered by the habit.

2. They were also intoxicated with pride. Their country was fruitful, and its chief city, Samaria, stood on the hill-top, like a diadem of beauty crowning the land, and they delighted in it. Among them were many champions whose strength sufficed to turn the battle to the gate, therefore they hoped to resist every invader, and so their hearts were lifted up. Moreover, they said, “We are an intelligent people; we are men of cultured intellect, instructed scribes, and we do not need persons like Isaiah to weary us with the ding-dong of ‘precept upon precept, line upon line,’ as if we were mere children at school. Besides, we are good enough. Do we not worship our God under the form of the golden calves in Dan and Bethel? Do we not respect the sacrifice and the holy days?” So spoke the more religious of them, while the rest gloried in their shame. Being intoxicated with pride, it was not likely that they would hear the message of the prophet who made them turn from their evil ways. Pride is the devil’s drag-net, in which he taketh more fishes than in any other, except procrastination.

The two forms of drunkenness are equally destructive. Whether body or soul be intoxicated, mischief will surely come of it. Let us not get drunk with pride because we are not drunkards; for if we are so vain and foolish, we shall as certainly perish by pride as we should have done by drink.

I. The excellence of the Gospel as it is set forth in the passage before us. This Scripture does not allude to the Gospel primarily, but to the message which Isaiah had to deliver, which was in part the command of the law and in part the promise of grace: but the same rule holds good of all the words of the Lord; and indeed any excellence which was found in the prophet’s message is found yet more abundantly in the fuller testimony of the Gospel in Christ Jesus.

1. The excellence of that Gospel lies, first in its object. For

(1.) It is a revelation of rest. Christ’s ambassadors are sent to proclaim to you that which shall give you ease, peace, quiet, rest. It is true that we have to begin with certain truths that disturb and distress; but our object is to dig out the foundation into which may be laid the stones of restfulness. The object of the Gospel is not to make men anxious, but to calm their anxieties; not to fill them with endless controversy, but to lead them into all truth. The Gospel gives rest of conscience, by the complete forgiveness of sin through the atoning blood of Christ; rest of heart, by supplying an object for the affections worthy of their love; and rest of intellect, by teaching it certainties which can be accepted without question. Our message does not consist of things guessed at by wit, nor evolved out of men’s inner consciousness by study, not developed by argument through human reason; but it treats of revealed certainties, absolutely and infallibly true, upon which the understanding may rest itself as thoroughly as a building rests upon a foundation of rock. The Word of the Lord comes to give believing men rest about the present by telling them that God ordereth all things for their good; and as for the future, it brightens all coming time and eternity with promises. The man who will hear the Gospel message, and receive it into his soul, shall know the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, and shall keep his heart and mind by Jesus Christ.

(2.) It is the cause of rest. “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” The Gospel of our salvation is not only a command to rest, but it brings the gift of rest within itself. Let the Gospel be admitted into the heart, and it will create a profound calm, hushing all the tumult and strife of conscience, removing all apprehensions of Divine wrath, stilling all rebellion against the supreme Will, and so working in the spirit by the energy of the Holy Ghost a deep and blessed peace.

(3.) This rest is especially meant for the weary. “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” Oh, ye that are weary with the round of worldly pleasure, worn with ambition, fretted with disappointment, embittered by the faithlessness of those you trusted in, come and confide in Jesus and be at rest. Here is the rest, here is the refreshing. Jesus expressly puts it: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Despondent and despairing, condemned, and in your conscience cast out to the gates of hell, yet look to Jesus and rest shall be yours.

(4.) In addition to bringing us rest, the message of mercy points to a refreshing. “This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing.” If the rested one should grow weary again, the Good Shepherd will give him refreshing; if he wanders, the Lord will restore him; yea, He has begun His gracious work of renewing, and He will continue it by renewing the heart from day to day, blending the will with His own, and making the whole man more and more to rejoice in Him.

Now, note with peculiar joy that Isaiah did not come to these people to talk about rest in dubious terms, and say, “There is no doubt a rest to be found somewhere in that goodness of God of which it is reasonable to conjecture.” No; he puts his finger right down on the truth, and he says, “This is the rest, and this is the refreshing.” Even so we at this day, when we come to you with a message from God, come with definite teaching; we proclaim in the name of God that whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus hath everlasting life: this is the rest, and this is the refreshing.

Nor did he preach a rest of a selfish character. They say we teach men to get peace and rest for themselves, and make themselves comfortable, whatever becomes of others. They know better, and they forge these falsehoods because their heart is false. Are we not always bidding men look out from themselves, and love others even as Christ has loved them? We abhor the idea that personal safety is the consummation of a religious man’s desires, for we believe that the life of grace is the death of selfishness. This is one of the glories of the Gospel, that “this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.” Get rest yourself, and you will soon cause other weary minds to rest. That secret something which your own heart possesses shall enable you to communicate good cheer to many a weary heart, and hope to many a desponding mind.

2. The other excellence of the Gospel of which I shall speak at this time lies in its manner.

(1.) It comes with authority. The Gospel does not pretend to be a speculative scheme or a theory of philosophy which will suit the nineteenth century, but will be exploded in the twentieth. No; it comes to men as a message from God, and he that speaks it aright does not speak it as a thinker uttering his own thoughts; but he utters what he has learned, and acts as God’s tongue, repeating what he finds in God’s Word by the power of God’s Spirit.

(2.) It was delivered with great simplicity. Isaiah came with it “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” It is the glory of the Gospel that is so plain. If it were so profound that we must take a degree at a university before we could comprehend it, what a miserable Gospel it would be for mocking the world with! But it is Divinely sublime in its simplicity, and hence the common people hear it gladly. As the verse seems to imply, it is fitted for those who are weaned from the breast; those who are little more than babes may yet drink in this unadulterated milk of the Word. Many a little child has comprehended the salvation of Jesus Christ sufficiently to rejoice in it. I bless God for a simple Gospel, for it suits me, and thousands of others whose minds cannot boast of greatness or genius. It equally suits men of intellect, and it is only quarrelled with by pretenders. A man who really has a capacious mind is usually childlike, and, like Sir Isaac Newton, is glad to sit at Jesus’ feet. Great minds love the simple Gospel of God, for they find rest in it from all the worry and the weariness of questions and of doubts.

(3.) It is taught us by degrees. It is not forced home upon men’s minds all at once, but it comes “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” God does not flash the everlasting daylight on weak eyes in one blaze of glory, but there is at first a dim dawn, and the soft incoming of a tender light for tender eyes, and so by degrees we see.

(4.) The Gospel is repeated. If we do see it at once, it comes again to us, for it is “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” From morning to morning, from Sunday to Sunday, book after book, by text after text, by spiritual impression after spiritual impression, the Divine gentleness makes us wise unto salvation.

(5.) It is brought home to us in ways suitable to our capacity. It is told to us, as it were, with stammering lips (see ver. 11), just as mothers teach their little children in a language all their own. In much of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, God condescends to lay aside His own speech and talk the language of men. He bows to us and tells us His mind in types and ordinances, which are a sort of child-language fitted to our capacity. If you do not understand the Word of God, it is not because He does not put it plainly, but because of the blindness of your heart and the besotted condition of your spirit. Take heed that you are not drunken with the wine of pride, but be willing to learn; for God Himself hath not darkened counsel by mysterious words, but He has put His mind before you as plainly as the sun in the heavens. “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.”

II. The objections which are taken to the Gospel.

1. They are most wanton. Men object to that which promises them rest! Above all the things in the world this is what our troubled spirits need. Oh, the intense folly of men, that when the Gospel sets rest before them they will not hear it, but turn upon their heel. There is no system of doctrine under heaven that can give quiet to the conscience of men, quiet that is worth having, except the Gospel; and there are thousands of us who bear witness that we live in the daily enjoyment of peace through believing in Jesus, and yet our honest report is not believed; nay, they will not hear the truth.

2. Objections against the Gospel are wilful, even as it is here said, “This is the refreshing, yet they would not hear.” When man say they cannot believe the Gospel, ask them whether they will patiently hear it in all its simplicity. No, they say, they do not want to hear it. The Gospel is so difficult to believe; so they say. Will they come and hear it preached in its fulness? Will they read the Gospels for themselves carefully? Oh, no; they cannot take the trouble. Just so. But a man who does not want to be convinced must not blame anybody if he remains in error, nor wonder that objections swarm in his mind.

3. Such objections are wicked, because they are rebellion against God and an insult to His truth and mercy. If this Gospel be of God, I am bound to receive it: I have no right to cavil at it, nor raise questions, philosophical or otherwise. It is mine just to say, “Does God say this and that? Then it is true, and I yield to it. Does the Lord thus set before me a way of salvation? I will run in it with delight.”

4. These people raised objections that were the outgrowth of their pride. They objected to the simplicity of Isaiah’s preaching. They said, “Who is he? You should not go to hear him; he talks to us as if we were children. Besides, it is the same thing over and over again. You may go when you like, he is always harping on the same string.” Have you not heard folks say in these days concerning a true Gospel preacher, that he is always preaching about sovereign grace, or the blood of Christ, or crying out, “Believe, believe, and you shall be saved”? They sneer and say, “It is the old ditty over and over again.” The passage translated “precept upon precept, line upon line,” was uttered in ridicule, and sounded like a ding-dong rhyme with which they mocked Isaiah. The words were intended to caricature the preacher; though they do not suggest the idea when translated, they do suggest it readily enough in the Hebrew. There are people now living who, when the Gospel is plainly and simply preached, exclaim, “We want progressive thought; we want”—they do not quite know what they do want. Too many wish for a map to heaven so mysteriously drawn that they may be excused from following it. Multitudes prefer the Gospel shrouded in a mist; they love to see the wisdom of man shut out the wisdom of God. This was the style of objection current in Israel’s day, and it is fashionable still.

III. The Divine requital of these objectors.

1. The Lord threatens them with the loss of that which they despised. He has sent them a message of rest and they will not have it, and therefore in the 20th verse He warns them that they shall have no rest henceforth: “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” All those who wilfully reject the Gospel and take up with philosophies and speculations will be rewarded with inward discontent. Ask the preachers of that kind of doctrine whether they themselves have found an anchorage, and as a rule they will answer, “No, no; we are in pursuit of truth; we are hunting after it, but we have not reached it yet.” They are never likely to reach it, for they are on the wrong track. The Gospel was made to rest conscience, soul, heart will, memory, hope, fear, yes, the entire man; but when men laugh at all fixity of belief, how can they be rested? This is the condemnation of the unbeliever, that he shall never find a settlement, but, like the wandering Jew, shall roam for ever. Leave the Cross, and you have left the hinge of all things, and neglected the one sure corner-stone and fixed foundation, and henceforth you shall be as a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

2. They shall be punished by a gradual hardening of heart. They said that Isaiah’s message was “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little,” and justice answers them, “Even so it shall be to you a thing despised and ridiculed, so that you will go farther away from it; you will fall backward and be broken, and snared and taken” (ver. 13). A fall backward is the worst kind of fall. If a man falls forward, he may somewhat save himself and rise again; but if he falls backward, he falls with all his weight and is helpless. Those who stumble at Christ, the sure foundation-stone, shall be broken. When oppressors hope to retrieve their position, they find themselves snared by their habits, entangled in the net of the great fowler, and taken by the destroyer. This downward course is followed full often by those who begin cavilling at the simple Gospel; they cavil more and more, and become its open enemies to their eternal ruin.

3. This is to be followed by a growing inability to understand. “For with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people.” Since they would not hear plain speech, God will make simplicity itself to seem like stammering to them. Men that cannot endure simple language shall at last become unable to understand it. If men will not understand, they shall not understand. A man may shut his eyes so long that he cannot open them. In India many devotees have held up their arms so long that they can never take them down again. Beware lest an utter imbecility of heart come upon those of you who refuse the Gospel.

Lastly, this warning is given to those who object to the Gospel, that whatever refuge they choose for themselves shall utterly fail them. Thus saith the Lord, “Judgment will I also lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.” Down come the great hailstones dashing everything to shivers, the threatenings of God’s Word breaking to pieces all the false and flattering hopes of the ungodly. Then comes the active wrath of God like an overwhelming flood to sweep away everything on which the sinner stood, and he, in his obstinate unbelief, is carried away as with a flood into that utter destruction, that everlasting misery, which God has declared shall be the lot of all those who refuse the living Christ.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1593.

 

False Refuges.

xxviii. 18. Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.

Like the sinners spoken of in this chapter, most sinful men say in effect, “We have made a covenant with death,” &c. (ver. 15).

I. That he may escape the dreaded consequences of sin, the troubled sinner seeks a refuge. He flees—1. From the voice of reason. The presence of a reasoning power in man is incompatible with the practice of sin. This is seen in the fact that when sinners can be brought to think, they at once admit themselves to be wrong. The moment a man commences to think about sin, that moment he becomes aware that it will not bear thinking about. It is because a sinful life is an unthinking life that God’s invitations to sinners are invitations to reason (chap. i. 18; Ps. l. 22–23). 2. From an accusing conscience. The authority of conscience is supreme, and no man can sin without feeling its sting. To escape remorse, which is conscience at work, men seek a refuge. 3. From an offended God. Sin is offensive to God’s holiness; for being pure, He must hate impurity. Because sinners are conscious that they have rendered themselves obnoxious to God, they seek a refuge. 4. From a broken law. In obedience to law there is safety, right, and happiness; while in disregarding law there is nothing but disaster. And from the consequences of the broken law—the broken law of God written on the heart, proclaimed in Nature, revealed in the Bible—the sinner tries to hide. 5. From an endless future. This more than anything else terrifies sinners and drives them to seek shelter.

II. Sinners, blindly infatuated, seek a refuge in the wrong objects. They make a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. The terms “death” and “hell” stand for the whole class of false securities in which men seek shelter by making a covenant and agreement with them. 1. Unbelief is one of the most modern refuges of sin. When men can blot out of the universe the idea of God, quench the sense of moral responsibility, remove the belief in immortality, persuade themselves that there is no other world, that death is an eternal sleep, that heaven is only an air-castle, and hell a mere chimera, they may then indulge in evil to their hearts’ content. 2. Superstition is another. Not in open unbelief, but under the cover of a false religion others seek to shelter. Unable to shake off belief in God and in a spiritual world, they search for some system which will at once allow a profession of religion and a practice of wickedness. Nor are such systems wanting, nor are they without disciples. Romanism offers indulgences for gold and pardons for peace, and thus provides a refuge for the stronger in pocket than in brain. 3. Annihilation is another. According to some, such is the awfulness of the thought of extinction of being, that men revolt from it. Establish it that when sinners die they cease to live, and what better refuge for sin is possible, and what other is needed? Sinful men will soon say, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 4. Excess is another. When the previous ones have failed to give comfort, the sinner rushes madly into excess. The drunkard seeks in increased intemperance to drown the sorrow his indulgence has occasioned. 5. Indifference is the last. This is the only comfort some men can find in their career of evil. But indifference is impossible without a denial of human responsibility. Sad indeed must the condition of human nature be when brought to this.

III. The refuges so confidently trusted in are utterly insecure. 1. Because they are incompatible with the real need of man. Only that can be conducive to man’s safety which meets man’s need. No human need is met by infidelity, or by superstition, or by annihilation, or by indulgence, or by indifference. Any one of these, tested by this argument drawn from human necessities, will be found a refuge of lies. 2. Because they are at variance with human instincts. Instinctively men believe in a Divine existence, in moral accountability, and in immortality. 3. Because they contradict human experience. They have all been tried, and as often as they have been tried they have been found false. 4. Because they are opposed to the teaching of revelation, both natural and Biblical. Nature proclaims loudly against all sin-sought refuges. The teaching of Nature and the Bible is that man is incompetent to provide for his own security, and that God only, in the exercise of His Divine prerogative, can provide for sinners the security they need.

IV. By Divine appointment the refuges so madly sought shall be totally destroyed. “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.” 1. By consequence of their inherent character. They are “refuges of lies,” and necessarily all refuges built on lies must perish. 2. By necessity of strict justice. “Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet” (ver. 17). 3. By the exertion of Almighty power. “And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.”

Conclusion.—God has mercifully provided a true refuge. He only cuts off the false that He may exhibit the true. “Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone,” &c. (ver. 16).—William Brooks: Study and the Pulpit, New Series, vol. i. pp. 413–416.

 

Some Aspects of Ministerial Duty.

xxx. 7. Therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.

Jerusalem and Judah were threatened by Sennacherib with dangers and desolations. This people’s sin, for which they were reproved by Isaiah, was their trusting to the Egyptians; they were all in a hurry to obtain help from them, without seeking counsel of God and resting upon Him. Isaiah saw that the help of the Egyptians would be worthless to them, and therefore he counselled them to “sit still,” trusting in the power, providence, and promise of God, from whom too much cannot be expected.

I. Notice the prophet’s intermeddling in this important matter. He publishes God’s mind concerning it. It is the duty of ministers to meddle sometimes in public matters, whether in Church or State; they are to show Jacob their sins, and Israel their transgressions. This is a part of ministers’ work, to testify against sin in all. Christ was the light of the world; and they should be like their Master, testifying against all works of darkness. True, the world quarrels with the servants of God because they bear testimony against its sins; and on this account many ministers who have some light, put their light in prison: “They hold the truth in unrighteousness.” They do this by not bearing witness against public wrongs, and the sin and defection of statesmen. But it was a gracious expression of a graceless Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “What am I concerned with the souls or the sins of others? What am I concerned with the public evils of the day I live in?” True religion begins at home, but it does not end there; it will come without doors with us (H. E. I. 1184–1186).

II. Observe the manner of the prophet’s address to this people. “Therefore have I cried concerning this.” It is the duty of ministers to be earnest and zealous in reproving sin and reclaiming sinners. They are to be both seers and criers; and when they see any danger, they should cry, that the people may hear and flee out of harm’s way.

1. This is true in regard to public wrongs and national projects which are contrary to the Will of God (P. D. 2855).

2. They need to cry about matters of eternity, that people may secure something that death may not be able to take from them—such as these: saving knowledge, saving faith, pardon of sin, evangelical love of God in Christ, faithful labours for the honour and glory of God.—Ralph Erskine, A. M.: Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 252, 253.

 

Growing Light.

xxx. 26. Moreover, the light of the moon, &c.

These words, doubtless, look forward to the restoration of Israel. But there are spiritual truths implied in them, which are of present and immediate application. We have here different kinds of light; different degrees of the same light; and also the seasons which such increase of light is vouchsafed.

I. The light of the moon. It is a real light, but it is reflected light. It does not come to us direct from the sun, but is thrown first upon the moon, and from her it comes to us. Hence its peculiarities. It is a dim light; it does not warm and quicken; it does not make things grow and vegetate. It is a waning light; sometimes it is full, but it soon begins to decline, and for a season it is wholly withdrawn. It is a light which never makes day; even at its fullest, it is still night; men occasionally walk and work in it, but usually they rest and sleep.

Why do I notice these things, which are obvious to all on a moment’s reflection? Because I believe there is important Divine truth hidden under them. All Nature is a prefiguring or shadowing forth of grace and truth (H. E. I. 5, 6).

We have been describing the religious knowledge of not a few. It is moonlight; it does not come to them direct from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, the Source of all true light; it is hearsay; they have learned it from their fellow-men. It is not experimental, and hence its deficiencies. It is a vague, dim knowledge; they see nothing clearly, neither sin nor salvation, neither Christ nor themselves, neither law nor gospel, neither grace nor glory. It is a cold, heartless knowledge; it does not warm, quicken, stir their affections, influence their wills. It is a waning knowledge; sometimes they seem full of it—after a stirring sermon, or when they are in the company of frank, lively Christians—but a short time passes and it is all gone, as if it had never been. It never makes them children of the day, it never arouses them from the sleep of sin and worldliness, nor sends them forth to work for God and for eternity.

Such is this moonlight knowledge. Still it would be something if it led those who have it to Christ, the true Light. The people of Sychar had the moonlight when the woman on whom the Sun had just arisen came and cast a portion of her light upon them. But they did not rest on this; they went out of the city and saw and heard for themselves, and so many believed and were saved. But this is what many fail to do in revival times. The Lord has visited His people, and refreshed and saved them; and others speak freely of the good they have received, sing gladly their new songs, and are for the time stirred and affected. But it is only moonlight; they have never come to Him who changes not; and so when the warmth and stir of the revival passes they fall back, and perhaps become worse than before. Not a few are still in the moonlight, and are satisfied with it. You hear about Christ, perhaps can talk about Him, but this is not salvation (H. E. I. 3148).

II. The light of the sun. This comes immediately from the sun, and hence its excellence. It is a clear, bright light, and so things afar off and near at hand are distinctly seen. It is a warm light; there is heat in it; it thaws and chases away the winter; it makes spring and summer; it causes all things to grow and vegetate. It is an awakening light; it makes day, and men arise and go to their work, and wild creatures and evil-doers retire. It is a constant light. The sun never waxes or wanes; he is ever the same. True, there are wintry days, dark, dreary days, but still the sun is there, shining through the clouds, and shining them away, and soon breaking forth again in his glory. Is this the character of your religious knowledge? [Work out the details of the comparison.]

III. Different degrees of light. “The light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Here there is only a change of degree. There is no new luminary; it is still the sun, but it is far more intense and continuous. We can conceive what would be the effect of this in the natural world. Things now invisible from their minuteness or indistinctly seen from their distance would then be clearly revealed, and fruits and flowers which cannot at present be reared in our climate would then be common and indigenous among us. There can be a sevenfold Divine light and Divine warmth. Christ has it to give. He will one day give it to all His people, and the weak shall be as David, and David as the angel of the Lord. Even now He grants it to those who seek Him with the whole heart. The patriarchs, prophets, apostles had it. Nor are these peculiar, exceptional cases. I believe there is more of it than we are aware of and probably there would be more if we did not straighten and hinder the Lord by our want of desire and expectation.

IV. The times when this blessing is vouchsafed. “In the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” This evidently looks forward to the time when the long alienation between Israel and their God will be healed. But is He the God of the Jews only? Nay, of the Gentiles also. There are two opposite errors into which men fall on the reading of these promises. Some see only the Jew in them; others do not see the Jew in them at all. But there is room for both in these green pastures. Even now there are fulfilments of this promise in its truest, highest sense. Even now the light of the moon becomes as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun as that of seven days. It is so, for instance, often at conversion; it is a passing from darkness into marvellous light. It is often so when the backslider returns. Look at David in the 51st Psalm, what light he has got! It is so often in times of sore affliction. Then the exceeding great and precious promises come out into view, as darkness shows us worlds of light we never saw by day (Ps. xciv. 12). It is so at death, when the soul leaves its cage and soars away into heavenly light and liberty. It will be so when the Lord comes on the resurrection morn. And once more, oh! the light there will be when the Lamb opens the books and makes every mystery plain! (H. E. I. 3127, 3128).—John Milne: Gatherings from a Ministry, pp. 114–122.

 

Nobility and Security.

xxxiii. 15, 16. He that walketh righteously, &c.

These were terrible times in Jerusalem. The Assyrian power was exceedingly formidable; it was as ferocious as it was strong. The Assyrian had come up into the land, yet God had given a promise to His people that they should be preserved (chap. xxxvii. 33, 34). Some in the city rested content with the promise of God, and went about their daily business feeling perfectly safe. But there were a few such. A great number were afraid they would be destroyed—they were sure of it. Who was to save them, or what power could stand in the way of Sennacherib? These were the sinners and hypocrites, and the time of trial developed them. They could not live, they said; the land was smoking, for the Assyrian had set everything on fire. Some who dwell among God’s people are sinners and not saints, hypocrites and not believers. When all goes well with the Church of God you cannot detect the difference. But when the time of trial comes, the hypocrites and sinners will be discovered by their own fear. Let us not be satisfied with being in Zion—in the Church; let us not rest till we are quite sure we are not sinners or hypocrites in it. If our religion is worth anything, it is worth most in the hour of trial; and if it does not stand us in good stead in the time of temptation and sorrow, what is the use of it?

I. The character of God’s people. They are partly described in the words of our text, but I am obliged to go a little farther afield for one part of their character. Those who in the time of danger will be kept and comforted are a people who have a humble, patient, present faith in God. I am sure there are such, for they are described—they describe themselves—in the second verse of the chapter before us. They are a humble people, who dare not trust themselves, but trust in God. They are a praying people, who make their appeal to God under a sense of need. Their appeal is to His free grace. They are a waiting people. If at once they have not comfort and joy, they tarry and are perfectly content to abide His time, for it is sure to be best. That have a present faith in God, for “Be Thou their arm every morning” is their prayer. They did not trust in God years ago and get saved, and think they can live without faith, but they believe “the just shall live by faith.” They look for everything to their God: “Thou art our salvation in the time of trouble.”

Our text gives a description of these people by their various features. It describes how they walk: “He that walketh righteously.” Faith has an elevating, ennobling effect upon our entire manhood. The promise belongs only to the people who come under the description; see to it that you do not take the comfort, if you do not come under the character! Study the description of the daily walk and conversation of this blessed man who is to dwell on high.

The first feature which is described is his tongue. “He speaketh uprightly.” If you drew a portrait of a man, you could not paint his tongue; but if you give a description of a man’s character, you cannot omit his speech. A man that lies, talks obscenely, &c., is no child of God. The grace of God very speedily sweetens a man’s tongue. A doctor says, “Put out your tongue,” and he judges the symptoms of health or disease thereby; and surely there is no better test of character than the condition of the tongue.

Next, the heart. “He that despiseth the gain of oppression.” Not only does he not oppress any man, nor wish to gain anything by extortion, or by any act of unrighteousness, but he looks upon it as contemptible and despises it. He likes gain if it comes cleanly to him, and it is as welcome to him as to another, but he will not have a thing he cannot pray over.

Next comes the ear. “That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood.” Men of war and those who delight in war will tell to one another what they did in battle and whom they slew; and in those old times there were tales of bloodshed that would have made our ears to tingle, but the good men in Jerusalem would not hear them; they could not endure it. It is not the hearing of blood alone we must avoid, but the hearing of anything tainted. The genuine Christian feels he has mischief enough in his own heart without adding to it.

Again, “He shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.” He cannot help seeing it as he goes his pilgrimage through life, but as far as possible he tries to avoid it. He does not go and find an evening’s amusement gazing upon it. It were better to be blind, deaf, and dumb than to see, and hear, and speak in some places. The true believer is a man who has himself well in hand. He has a bit in the mouths of all the horses that draw the chariot of life, and he holds them in, and will not let his eye, ear, tongue, foot, or hand carry him away. He will have nothing to do with evil: “He shaketh his hand from holding of bribes.”

II. The security of such a man. Notice it first, as it is pictorially described: “He shall dwell on high.” The Assyrians were attacking the country, and in times of invasion men always went to the highest parts of the country to escape from the enemy. Well, this man shall have a quiet resting-place on the heights, so high up that his enemies cannot get at him. They may plunder all round, but cannot plunder him. The sentinel on the crags of inaccessible rock shall, standing out in the sunlight gleaming calmly and brightly, bid defiance to every foe. He shall dwell on the heights, out of reach of the arrows. “His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks;” not one rock, but rocks; mass upon mass of mountain shall stand between him and the foe, and there shall he dwell in perfect security. “Oh,” but says one, “they will starve him out. There will be nothing for the people to eat, and they will open the doors and say, ‘Come in! only give us bread.’ ” “Bread shall be given him,” and as he could not be driven out, so he shall not be starved out, for the bread of Heaven shall be given him, if it come from nowhere else. “But even,” says one, “if there may be bread brought into the city, they will run short of water, and must eventually capitulate through thirst.” No, says the promise, “his water shall be sure.” There shall be springs that never can be dried up within the castle itself, and they shall drink and drink as much as they will, and yet the supplies shall never be exhausted. “Now,” says one, “this is poetry.” Just so: it is a poetical description, but it is all founded on facts.

Look at the positive facts in the actual experience of the child of God. First, it is a matter of fact that the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and lives as a Christian should live, lives on high. His mind is elevated above the common cares, trials, and sorrows of life (H. E. I. 1080–1084, 4162, 4163). Many of you know how secure and immutable your defence is, for you have God’s promise, “I will never leave nor forsake thee.” “No good thing will I withhold from him that walketh uprightly.” What munitions of rocks can be compared with these things in which it is impossible for God to lie? You are dwelling where you must be safe; for, first, you were chosen before the foundation of the world, and God will not lose His chosen, nor shall His decree be frustrated. Next, you have been bought with the precious blood of the Son of God Himself, and He will never lose what He has so dearly bought. You have also been quickened by the Holy Ghost and made to live unto God, and that life cannot die. You have been taken into the family of God and made His child, and your name shall never be taken out of the family register. You are joined unto Christ in one spirit; you are a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; and shall Christ be dismembered, the Son of God be rent in twain? I feel I stand where all the devils of hell cannot reach me, where the angels of God might envy me, and where I can say, “Who shall separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” and challenge earth and hell and heaven alike—if so it please them—to assail me, for who can harm me, if my confidence be in the living God?

The poetic utterance, “Thy bread shall be given thee,” is also literally true. You have sometimes had very little, but have always had enough. When God multiplied the meal and the oil of the widow of Zarephath, I do believe that every day Elijah lived with her she had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. We are not told it filled up at once. Just so, you may often have to reach the bottom of the barrel, and the oil may seem to come a drop at a time: this is about as much as you want, and if you get as much as you can eat at one meal, it is all the fresher, and does not breed worms like the manna in the wilderness. It is the heavenly bread we have sometimes to be anxious about; but if ministers do not feed you, God will Himself.

As for the living waters, they shall always flow both in summer and winter. They shall be within thee a well of living water springing up into eternal life. But words cannot tell the privileges of the man who dwells with God. He need not wish to change places with the Archangels.

Friend, if you are not a Christian, do not profess to be one; do not hope by mere empty profession to win the blessedness of God’s people. Confess your sins, and seek the righteousness of God. Fain would I drop into your mouths that prayer, “O Lord, be gracious unto us.”

As for you that are really striving to do that which is right and true, at the same time trusting alone in Jesus for your salvation, I would say to you, What a happy people we ought to be! We ought every one of us to have a shining face (H. E. I. 756–762, 3037–3039). I do not know where the Queen is just now, but if I were a dove and could fly in the air, I would soon find her, for I should see the royal flag flying on the flag-staff. Wherever the monarch is, there will the streamer be found flying. Is the King with you to-day? If so, keep the flag flying. Let the banner fly to the breeze, and let the world know that there are no people so happy, none so much to be envied, as believers in Jesus Christ.—C. H. Spurgeon.