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Isaiah Chapter
Thirty
Isaiah 30
Chapter Contents
The Jews reproved for seeking aid from Egypt. (1-7)
Judgements in consequence of their contempt of God's word. (8-18) God's mercies
to his church. (19-26) The ruin of the Assyrian army, and of all God's enemies.
(27-33)
Commentary on Isaiah 30:1-7
(Read Isaiah 30:1-7)
It was often the fault and folly of the Jews, that when
troubled by their neighbours on one side, they sought for succour from others,
instead of looking up to God. Nor can we avoid the dreadful consequences of
adding sin to sin, but by making the righteousness of Christ our refuge, and
seeking for the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Men have always been prone
to lean to their own understandings, but this will end in their shame and
misery. They would not trust in God. They took much pains to gain the
Egyptians. The riches so spent turned to a bad account. See what dangers men
run into who forsake God to follow their carnal confidences. The Creator is the
Rock of ages, the creature a broken reed; we cannot expect too little from man,
or too much from God. Our strength is to sit still, in humble dependence upon
God and his goodness, and quiet submission to his will.
Commentary on Isaiah 30:8-18
(Read Isaiah 30:8-18)
The Jews were the only professing people God then had in
the world, yet many among them were rebellious. They had the light, but they
loved darkness rather. The prophets checked them in their sinful pursuits, so
that they could not proceed without fear; this they took amiss. But faithful
ministers will not be driven from seeking to awaken sinners. God is the Holy
One of Israel, and so they shall find him. They did not like to hear of his
holy commandments and his hatred of sin; they desired that they might no more
be reminded of these things. But as they despised the word of God, their sins
undermined their safety. Their state would be dashed in pieces like a potter's
vessel. Let us return from our evil ways, and settle in the way of duty; that
is the way to be saved. Would we be strengthened, it must be in quietness and
in confidence, keeping peace in our own minds, and relying upon God. They think
themselves wiser than God; but the project by which they thought to save
themselves was their ruin. Only here and there one shall escape, as a warning
to others. If men will not repent, turn to God, and seek happiness in his
favour and service, their desires will but hasten their ruin. Those who make
God alone their confidence, will have comfort. God ever waits to be gracious to
all that come to him by faith in Christ, and happy are those who wait for him.
Commentary on Isaiah 30:19-26
(Read Isaiah 30:19-26)
God's people will soon arrive at the Zion above, and then
they will weep no more for ever. Even now they would have more comfort, as well
as holiness, if they were more constant in prayer. A famine of bread is not so
great a judgment as a famine of the word of God. There are right-hand and
left-hand errors; the tempter is busy courting us into by-paths. It is happy
if, by the counsels of a faithful minister or friend, or the checks of
conscience, and the strivings of God the Spirit, we are set right when
doubting, and prevented from going wrong. They shall be cured of their
idolatry. To all true penitents sin becomes very hateful. This is shown daily
in the conversion of souls, by the power of Divine grace, to the fear and love
of God. Abundant means of grace, with the influences of the Holy Spirit, would
be extended to places destitute of them. The effect of this should be comfort
and joy to the people of God. Light, that is, knowledge, shall increase. This
is the light which the gospel brought into the world, and which proclaims
healing to the broken-hearted.
Commentary on Isaiah 30:27-33
(Read Isaiah 30:27-33)
God curbs and restrains from doing mischief. With a word
he guides his people into the right way, but with a bridle he turns his enemies
upon their own ruin. Here, in threatening the ruin of Sennacherib's army, the
prophet points at the final and everlasting destruction of all impenitent
sinners. Tophet was a valley near Jerusalem, where fires were continually
burning to destroy things that were hurtful and offensive, and there the
idolatrous Jews caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch. This
denotes the certainty of the destruction, as an awful emblem of the place of
torment in the other world. No oppressor shall escape the Divine wrath. Let
sinners then flee to Christ, seeking to be reconciled to Him, that they may be
safe and happy, when destruction from the Almighty shall sweep away all the
workers of iniquity.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 30
Verse 1
[1] Woe
to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me;
and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to
sin:
The rebellious —
The Jews.
Take counsel —
That consult together.
Cover —
That seek protection.
But not —
Not such as by my spirit, speaking in my word, I have required them to do.
That they may add —
That unto all their sins, they may add distrust of my power and mercy, and put
confidence in an arm of flesh.
Verse 2
[2] That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to
strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of
Egypt!
Asked —
Either by the priests or prophets.
Verse 4
[4] For
his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes.
His princes —
The princes of Judah.
Hanes — An
eminent city of Egypt.
Verse 5
[5] They
were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor
profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
They —
Both the messengers, and they who sent them.
Verse 6
[6] The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and
anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying
serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and
their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit
them.
The burden —
The treasures, which were carried upon asses or camels, into Egypt, which lay
southward from Judea.
The land of trouble —
Egypt, so called prophetically.
From whence —
This may be understood properly, but withal, seems to design the craft and
cruelty of that people.
They —
The Jews.
Their riches — To
procure their assistance.
Bunches —
Upon the backs.
Verse 7
[7] For
the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried
concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.
To her — To
Jerusalem or Judah.
Sit still — It
is safer and better for them to sit quietly at home, seeking to me for help.
Verse 8
[8] Now
go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for
the time to come for ever and ever:
Write —
This warning.
Before — In
their presence.
Note it — So
this was to be written twice over, once in a table, to be hanged up in some
public place, that all present might read it; and again, in a book, that it
might be kept for the use of posterity.
The time to come — As
a witness for me and against them.
Verse 11
[11] Get
you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to
cease from before us.
Cause, … — Do
not trouble us with harsh messages from God.
Verse 12
[12]
Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and
trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
And trust — In
the wealth which you have gotten by oppression, and in your perverse course of
sending to Egypt for help.
Verse 13
[13]
Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out
in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
This iniquity — Of
trusting to Egypt, shall be like a wall which is high, but swelling forth in
some parts, which, upon the least accident, falls down suddenly.
Verse 14
[14] And
he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in
pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of
it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the
pit.
He — God.
Verse 15
[15] For
thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye
be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would
not.
In returning — To
God.
Quietness — In
sitting still, and quieting your minds.
Confidence —
Placed upon me, and my promises.
Verse 17
[17] One thousand
shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye
be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
'Till —
'Till you be destroyed, and but a few of you left.
Verse 18
[18] And
therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore
will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of
judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
Wait —
Patiently expect your repentance.
Exalted — He
will work gloriously.
Judgment — Or
mercy.
That wait — In
his way, with faith and patience.
Verse 19
[19] For
the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will
be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will
answer thee.
Shall dwell —
After a set time, they shall return to Jerusalem, and have a fixed abode. This
was in part accomplished upon their return from Babylon; but more fully in the
times of the gospel, when many of them were, and the whole body of them shall
be brought into Christ's church.
Verse 21
[21] And
thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in
it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
Shall hear —
Thou shalt hear the voice of God's word and spirit.
Behind thee — A
metaphor borrowed from shepherds, who use to follow their sheep, and recall
them when they go out of the way.
Verse 22
[22] Ye
shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament
of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth;
thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
Defile — To
shew your contempt of it.
Covering —
The leaves or plates wherewith their images were frequently covered.
Ornament — It
was a costly and glorious robe.
Verse 23
[23] Then
shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and
bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that
day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.
Bread —
Which shall be the fruit of thy own land and labour: and excellent for quality,
which is called, fat, Deuteronomy 32:14, and abundant for quantity.
Verse 24
[24] The
oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean
provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
Clean provender —
There should be such plenty of corn, that the very beasts, instead of straw,
should eat corn; and that not in the ear, or with the straw, but the pure
grain.
Verse 25
[25] And
there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and
streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
Hill —
Which is commonly dry and barren.
In the day —
When God shall destroy the enemies of his people.
The towers —
The mighty potentates, who fought against God's people.
Verse 26
[26]
Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light
of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the
LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their
wound.
Sevenfold — As
if the light of seven days were combined together in one.
Healeth —
When God shall effectually cure the wounds of his people, making Israel and
Judah to be one, and making Jew and Gentile to be one fold under one shepherd.
Verse 27
[27]
Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the
burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a
devouring fire:
Behold —
Here he gives them an earnest of those greater mercies in times to come, by
assuring them of the approaching destruction of the Assyrian forces.
The name —
The Lord himself.
From far —
From a remote place: even from heaven.
Heavy — He
will inflict heavy judgments upon them.
Indignation — He
hath pronounced a severe sentence against them, and will give command for the
execution of it.
Verse 28
[28] And
his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to
sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the
jaws of the people, causing them to err.
His breath —
God's anger.
A stream —
Coming from him as vehemently, as a mighty torrent of waters.
To sift — To
shake and scatter, as it were with a sieve.
The nations —
The Assyrian army, which was made up of several nations.
With —
Not with an ordinary sieve, which casteth away the chaff only, but with a
sieve, which should shake them so long and so vehemently, as to cast away altogether.
A bridle —
God will over-rule them by his powerful providence.
To err —
Whereas other bridles guide into the right way, this shall turn them out of the
way, by giving them up to their own foolish counsels, which shall bring them to
certain ruin.
Verse 29
[29] Ye
shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness
of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the LORD,
to the mighty One of Israel.
A song —
You shall have songs of praise.
The night — He
seems to have a particular respect to the solemnity of the passover, in which
they spent some considerable part of the night in rejoicing, and singing psalms
before the Lord.
As when —
Like the joy of one that is going up to the solemn feasts with musick.
Verse 30
[30] And
the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the
lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame
of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.
His voice —
His thunder, metaphorically taken for some terrible judgment.
The lightning —
Upon the Assyrian.
With —
With great wrath; which is signified by heaping so many words of the same
signification together.
Verse 32
[32] And
in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the LORD shall lay
upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he
fight with it.
The rod —
Heb. the founded rod, the judgment of God, called a founded rod, because it was
firmly established, by God's immutable purpose.
Him —
Upon the Assyrian.
With harps —
Their destruction shall be celebrated by God's people, with joy and musick, and
songs of praise.
Of shaking —
Or, shaking of the hand, of which kind of shaking this Hebrew word is
constantly used. God will fight against them, and destroy them by his own hand.
With it —
With the army of the Assyrians.
Verse 33
[33] For
Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it
deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD,
like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
Tophet —
This was a place near Jerusalem, in which the idolatrous Israelites used to
offer up their children to Moloch. It may be put, for any place of torment; and
particularly it is put for hell.
For the king —
For the king of Assyria.
Fire — He
alludes to the ancient custom, of burning sacrifices, and particularly of
burning children to Moloch.
The breath —
The immediate hand of God, or his word of anger.
Brimstone — He
seems to allude to that shower of fire and brimstone, Genesis 19:24.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
30 Chapter 30
Verses 1-33
Verses 1-3
Woe to the rebellious children
A foolish mission
In chapter 30 the negotiations with Egypt are represented as
having reached a further stage: an embassy, despatched for the purpose of
concluding a treaty, is already on its way to the court of the Pharaohs.
Isaiah takes the opportunity of reiterating his sense of the fruitlessness of
the mission, and derides the folly of those who expect from it any substantial
result. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
The only Counsellor
These words contain a most important lesson for all such as have
anything to do with managing the affairs of nations: and it would be well for
the world if its rulers would give heed to that lesson, and keep guard against
the sins on account of which the prophet here denounces woe against the rulers
of Judah. They entered into an alliance with Pharaoh, with the view of gaining
assistance from him which might enable them to cope with Sennacherib in the
field. This is just what a statesman, who plumed himself on his wisdom in these
days, would do. Yet it is for doing this very thing that the prophet Isaiah in
the text denounces woe against them. Their conduct therefore must have been
sinful. Let us try to discover in what their sin lay.
1. They were making use of human means to ward off the danger which
threatened them. Not that thins in itself is altogether wrong in God’s eyes. On
the contrary, we are so placed here on earth, in the midst of so many wants and
necessities, and so helpless by ourselves, that we are compelled to be forever
making use of human and earthly means. Only, we ought to make use of these
means with the conviction that they are merely instruments in the hands of Him
who can alone endow them with the power of being of use to us. This is what the
rulers of Judah forgot and entirely lost sight of. They trusted in Pharaoh. We
are all apt to take counsel of ourselves, of our own understandings, our own
wishes, our own convenience, our passions, our interest, our sloth, our purses,
our appetites. Or we take counsel of our friends, of our neighbours, of such
men as are esteemed to be quick and far-sighted, of every person, and of every
thing, except of God. His counsel is the last we seek. Therefore does the
prophet’s woe fall upon us also. And why is it that we are so loth to take
counsel of God? Our unwillingness can only proceed from an evil heart of
unbelief; from that unbelief which loses sight of the Ruler and Lawgiver of the
world, and which is prone to worship whatever dazzles the senses and flatters
our carnal nature.
2. But there was another feature in the conduct of the princes of
Judah which deepened their sin. They were not merely putting their trust in an
arm of flesh,--they who had been so strongly forbidden to trust in such
vanities, and who had the living God to trust in such vanities, and who had the
living God to trust in: but the arm they were trusting to was the arm of Egypt.
Egypt had from the first been the deadly enemy of the Israelites, and of their
God. Egypt was the source from which all manner of idolatrous abominations had
flowed in upon them: out of Egypt they had been called; and they were no longer
to hold any intercourse with it. Therefore the prophet goes on to cry, “Woe to
those who walk to go down into Egypt, to strengthen themselves in the strength
of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt:” and he declares that, because
they do so, “the strength of Pharaoh shall be their shame, and the trust in the
shadow of Egypt their confusion.” Nor will it be otherwise with us. If we are
guilty of their sin we shall not escape their woe. And alas! how often in
moments of fear, of distress,--when some danger starts up suddenly in our path,
when the enemy seems to be hard at hand, and just ready to overwhelm us,--do we
feel tempted to go down into Egypt, in the hope of strengtheningourselves with
the strength of Pharaoh, and of sheltering ourselves with the shadow of Egypt!
Satan at such moments is always close at our ear, whispering to us, that, if we
will but take counsel of him, and do as he bids us, he will help us out of our
difficulty. It should be borne in mind that, every time we sin we weaken our
souls, we cripple our good feelings, we blunt our conscience, we drive away the
Spirit of God from our hearts. Therefore, instead of our being better able to
meet the next temptation, the odds against us are increased. (J. C. Hare, M.
A.)
The Jews’ dependence on Egypt
The advantages which the Jews promised themselves from their
alliance with Egypt were these--
1. The Egyptians abounded in chariots and horses, which the Jews were
destitute of. For Palestine, being a country full of steep hills and narrow
difficult ways, was in many places impassable by horses, and therefore their
beasts of burden were camels, asses, and mules, which are not apt to start, but
tread sure in dangerous ways. These served them very commodiously in times of
peace. But when they were invaded by armies of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, who
had troops of horse, and multitudes of chariots, they wanted the like forces to
oppose them; and such the Egyptians could very well supply them with.
2. Besides, the Assyrians and Chaldeans were at that time the most
formidable Powers of the East, ambitious of universal monarchy, and threatening
to subdue Egypt as well as other rich kingdoms. On which account the Egyptians
were jealous of them, and therefore were most easily prevailed upon, and more
cheaply engaged to assist the Jews, or any other people in their wars against
them. (W. Reading, M. A.)
God’s prohibition of alliance with Egypt
The reasons why God prohibited His people to confederate with the
Egyptians, are these--
1. He had delivered their forefathers out of the land of Egypt with a
mighty hand, stretched out from Heaven, and unassisted by any human means. He
had manifested Himself to be far above all their gods, in that He triumphed
over them in the ten plagues, and drowned their king and army in the Red Sea.
Notwithstanding all which sufficient convictions, the Egyptians still persisted
in their gross idolatry; which might justly provoke God to forbid His people
any dealing with them.
2. Their applying to Egypt for aid against their enemies, was
derogatory to the honour of God, who having anciently demonstrated His ability
to save His people, and having promised still to vouchsafe them His protection
in proportion to their obedience, these idolaters might be apt to conclude that
His former power was now decayed, and that their gods had gained the ascendant
over Him, since they were called in to the protection of His people.
3. An Egyptian had proved fatal to Israel in their happiest state; I
mean the daughter of an Egyptian king, who was one of the wives of King
Solomon, and helped with other strange women to entice him to idolatry. The
immediate consequence of which, by the just judgment of God, was the division
of the twelve tribes into two kingdoms, who often waged unnatural wars one with
another.
4. God had, in general, forbidden His people to make confederacies
with any of the nations round about them, lest they should defile themselves
with their idolatrous principles and abominable practices; or lest they should
put their trust in man and make flesh their arm, and their heart depart from
the Lord. (W. Reading, M. A.)
“Cover with a covering”
Perhaps, “weave a web,” hatch a scheme. (A. B.Davidson, LL. D.)
R.V. marg gives two translations between which it is difficult to choose. The
latter is perhaps preferable, although the noun does not occur elsewhere in the
sense of “libation.” The allusion would be to drink offerings accompanying the
conclusion of a treaty. (J. Skinner, D. D.)
Adding sin to sin
The sin of forsaking God, and trusting in the arm of flesh, to
their sin of drunkenness (Isaiah 28:8), and their other sins. (W.
Day, M. A.)
Verse 7
Their strength is to sit still
A policy in an epigram
Sometimes a policy is summed up in an epigram, or in an easily
quotable sentence; and it can be used as a war cry or as an election cry; it
can be adapted to political uses of many sorts.
Thus it was said of the Bourbons that “they forgot nothing, and remembered
nothing.” It was said of an illustrious statesman in Europe that his policy was
“blood and iron.” In relation to many persons we are recommended to use
“masterly inactivity”--to be appearing capable of doing miracles, and yet to
take infinite care not to attempt the performance of one of them. This is precisely
the spirit of the text. The peoples to whom the words were addressed were
mocked, and the paraphrase which the spirit of the text would justify is
this:--They have great mouths, but say nothing; the hippopotamus cannot make
his voice heard; the ox mouth is closed: their energy is inaction; when they
are about to come forward to do wonders they shrink back and do nothing. It is
a taunt--an exclamation wholly ironical thrown in the face of a detested enemy,
or an absconding friend, or one who has great appearance of energy, and yet is
unable to move the tiniest of his fingers. (J. Parker, D. D.)
“Rahab, that sitteth still”
So full were Egyptian politics of bluster and big language, that
the Hebrews had a nickname for Egypt. They called her Rahab--“Stormy speech,”
“Blusterer,” “Braggart.” It was the term also for the crocodile, as being a
“monster,” so that there was a picturesqueness as well as moral aptness in the
name. Ay, says Isaiah, catching at the old name, and putting to it another
which describes Egyptian helplessness and inactivity, I call her “Rahab
sit-still,” “Braggart-that-sitteth-still,” “Stormy-speech stay-at-home.”
Blustering and inactivity, blustering and sitting still, that is her character.
“For Egypt helpeth in vain and to no purpose.” (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Strength and stillness
The context reveals two things.
I. STILLNESS OF
CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO GOD’S REDEMPTIVE PROVISION IS STRENGTH. The sacrifice
of Christ is all-sufficient.
II. STILLNESS OF
CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO YOUR FUTURE HISTORY IS STRENGTH. “Take no thought for
the morrow,” etc.
III. STILLNESS OF
CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO PRESENT PROVIDENTIAL TRIALS IS STRENGTH. The
Israelites, with piled mountains on each side of them, the sea rolling before
them, and Pharaoh and his host approaching them, were exhorted by their leader
to “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Peter slept between two
soldiers; and Paul said, “None of these things move me.” (Homilist.)
Strength in sitting still
I. SOME THINGS TO
WHICH THE SENTENCE OF THE TEXT WILL NOT APPLY.
1. It will not apply when we have to get our daily bread. We are to
be diligent in business, as well as fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
Neither do we say so when learning is to be acquired. This is to be sought by
application, and earned by incessant toil. Neither is our preaching by sitting
still. If any think to enter the ministry that they may sit still, and spend a
life of ease, they utterly mistake the office.
3. Nor when any temptation is to be resisted, or any evil overcome.
You are to resist the tempter. And you are to maintain that particular virtue,
which is in direct defiance of the particular temptation. If you are tempted,
there is another thing which you can do. You can flee. Safety is often in flight.
Joseph fled. “Flee youthful lusts.”
4. Nor does the text apply when duties of any kind are to be done.
Idleness is a base condition. Better dig a hole and fall it up again. Better
roll a stone up and down a hill, than pass your time in listlessness and
languor. There are duties belonging to every state of life. Let them be
attended to in promptitude and despatch.
5. Nor is the text applicable when good works are to be undertaken.
We have many instructions in Scripture on this subject. “Be not weary in well-doing,”
etc. “Be steadfast, unmovable,” etc. “These things,” says St. Paul, “I will
that ye affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God, may be careful
to maintain good works.”
6. We do not say it when the heavenly prize of eternal life is to be
contended for.
II. STATE THE
CONDITION OF THINGS TO WHICH THE AXIOM DOES APPLY.
1. It will apply to many important questions concerning the salvation
of the soul. It will apply to the expiation of guilt. So respecting
regeneration. “Ye must be born again.” There must be wrought an inward change.
It will be wrought of God. And the Spirit of God works when, how, and where He
pleases.
2. There are some matters belonging to our daily and nightly life, in
which the principle is likewise of great value and importance. For example, the
evening is come. The day’s labour is finished. It is time to cease. God says to
you, Lie down; go to sleep. And when you sleep, “Except the Lord keep the city,
the watchman waketh but in vain.” Be not afraid. God will keep both the city
and the watchman. Then, here is God’s own day. This is the day when God
emphatically says, “Sit still”; and in quietness and rest is your strength. Be
not afraid. Commerce will be uninjured, and none the worse for your being quiet
on this day. You will return to your occupations with augmented might and
vigour on the morrow.
3. Then, again, there are providential conjunctures, in which we can
do nothing, in which every effort and interference of ours is of no avail. And
now the end of all this is manifest. Man’s chief wisdom is--
Passive hours
I. The ATTITUDE
enjoined by the text. What is it to “sit still”?
1. It indicates a condition of silence. Times occur for silence
before men--when it is best to refrain from all vindications touching our
character and doings. There are seasons for silence before God--times when our
lips are neither opened in complaint nor importunity. “Rest in the Lord (be
silent to the Lord), and wait patiently for Him.”
2. A condition of resting is suggested. We must resign our opinions,
anxieties, merit, strength, and resources, looking simply into heaven.
3. It is also the attitude of waiting. “I bide my time,” is the motto
of one of our noble families, and he who can bide his time, or, to speak more
accurately, can bide God’s time, is perfect in the sublime art of sitting
still.
4. The text also sets forth a condition of expectation. Sir Thomas
Lawrence painted the portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and when the portrait
was half finished, the Duke was represented as holding a watch in his hand,
waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. When the great soldier understood what
the watch was intended to indicate, he observed, “That will never do. I was not
waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. Put a telescope in my hand, if you
please, but no watch.” The temper here enjoined is very different to stoicism,
involving no sacrifice of sensibility; it is distinct from fatalism, because it
recognises the good and righteous God freely acting in all the government of
the world; and it cannot be confounded with despair, for its inspiration is
faith and hope.
II. The SEVERAL
OCCASIONS when the admonition before us is specially applicable.
1. In the development of our religious life we may sometimes remember
the text with advantage. Spiritual life commences in the passive mood.
2. But “justified by faith” “we often forget we must “live by faith,”
and by pure and simple faith pass into the highest stages of spiritual life.
3. There are two sides to a complete Christian life--the contemplative
and enterprising, the hearkening and speaking, the receptive and communicative
and it is of prime importance that both sides receive full attention.
4. Distressed by the problems and tribulations of life we may justly
rest in the passive mood. Sometimes we are bitterly bereaved. In these days
when our eyes are full of heartbreak let us not go down into the Egypt of
carnal reason for light or help--only be still. God does not even expect us to
say big words in such crises--only to be still. Sometimes we are prostrated by
extreme physical suffering. Said a poor afflicted woman, “All that God requires
from me now is to lie here and cough.” Yes; simple suffering and quiet
confidence--that, and nothing more. Sometimes we are defamed. When our reputation
is unjustly eclipsed, are we to agitate and worry ourselves? Let us rather
exemplify the maxim of Lavater: “I can wait”; let there be no impatience, no
fretfulness, no bitterness. In the days of sorrowful surprise, of overwhelming
misfortune, of sore dilemma, let us not go down into Egypt for wisdom to
explain, or strength to bear, or consolation to soothe, but looking up to the
everlasting Love, a whole army of fiery cars and coursers shall shelter and
deliver us.
5. The counsel of the text is applicable to us when oppressed by
spiritual conflict and darkness. “Who is there among you that feareth the
Lord,” etc. Isaiah 50:10).
6. This monition is applicable to us also when we are discouraged in
our evangelistic enterprises. The Indian juggler is said to contrive to make a
flower grow from a seed to maturity before the eyes of the spectators in a few
moments; and thus we expect the truth we sow to spring forth speedily bearing its
rich crown of beauty and fruit. But alas! we wait, wait long, and sometimes
sink into a state very like despair. Then again, when the triumph of the truth
is delayed, workers are tempted to alloy it, with a view to its speedier
popularity; hoping that in its debased form it may secure an entrance denied to
pure doctrine. And yet once more, when the faith of Christ has not forthwith
run and been glorified, the Church has been tempted to form political,
artistic, and worldly alliances, which in the end only betray and mock.
Paradoxical as it may seem, it is a grand thing for workers to “sit still”;
having with both hands toiled for God, calmly and confidently to wait the issue
(James 5:7-8). The difficulty of rendering
obedience to this injunction is really great. There is a sitting still easy
enough and common enough, but to rest in God with an absolute faith is neither
easy nor common. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Over-solicitude injurious
Our solicitudes, intermeddlings, overdoings ruin us, or, at least,
bring us into many and sore distresses.
1. They do in regard to our character. When shall we understand we
are clay in the Potter’s hand, and our grand business the simple yielding of
ourselves to the fashioning of God’s sovereign Spirit? How often our
overweening care, our intrusive curiosity, our vanity and self-will have
spoiled God’s grand handiwork, and arrested the growing completeness of our
spirit!
2. And so in regard to our circumstances--our safety is in quietness.
In days of tempest the helm is safest in charge of the pilot; in moments of
alarm the reins are best in the driver’s skilful grasp; and if the man
overboard will only be still all the Waves of the sea shall not drown him. Oh!
when shall we learn the blessedness of resignation, the power of passivity, the
victory of faith? (W. L. Watkinson.)
The secret of spiritual power
I. REST IN ANOTHER
NECESSARILY IMPLIES THAT WE MUST LEARN TO REST IN OURSELVES. No man has a right
to say that he is living the Divine life, without faith, without patience,
without trust in God, without that spirit of waiting upon God, to which all the
Scriptures exhort and encourage us. The patient places himself in the hands of
a physician, but he will keep meddling with the physician’s prescriptions; he
will keep taking nostrums of his own. And the physician says very properly,
“Not so; this must not be. I can do nothing for you if it is so.” And men who
put their salvation into God’s hands, as Israel ought to have done, must stand
by that--stand by it always.
II. As arising from
this, WE ARE STRONG IN LIFE JUST AS WE LAY HOLD OF THIS PRINCIPLE and learn to
restrain ourselves. (W. Baxendale.)
The stillness of faith
(with Isaiah 30:15):--Does this expression
embody a universal principle--one applicable under all possible circumstances?
The least consideration will convince us that this cannot be the case.
1. You are naturally, it may be, somewhat apathetic. I fear we all
are so in religion--in the concerns of the soul. And this natural indolence is
sometimes greatly strengthened by a false theology, a one-sided, overstrained
evangeliser, which, by forever insisting on the one point of human inability,
has a tendency to lull men asleep. And thus it is that multitudes sit down with
folded hands, in an attitude of waiting, as they say, for I know not what
mysterious influence from on high to visit their souls. The error is a very
grievous one. Scripture bids us awake out of sleep, it bids us flee from the
coming wrath, it bids us turn from sin unto God, avoid temptation, resist
Satan, restrain our own evil tendencies; it bids us repent, and believe, and
pray, and use the means of grace.
2. There is another class, however, who are likely to fall into an
opposite error. They are not apathetic, their natural constitution of mind is
the very reverse of this. These are your active, bustling, restless people.
There is no quietness about them, no repose, no calmness. You read their
character in their very look. There is an uneasy air, a feverishness, a
fretfulness, characterising them and all their actions, which distinguish them
from others, and place them in a class by themselves. When the Gospel comes to
one of this class, saying, Cease from all efforts of your own for
acceptance;--“your strength is to sit still, to rest in God, to believe in
Jesus; inreturning and rest thou shalt be saved; in quietness and confidence
shall be your strength,”--is there no risk that there be a temporary recoil
from a system that thus comes so directly into collision with his individualism
of character? His first prompting is to something quite different. Let him have
his own way, then; it is humbling he needs. It is not necessary we should
follow him in his efforts; they are the same as the efforts of those who “go
about to establish their own righteousness.” We know what the result must be;
nor are we mistaken, for by and by we find him by the Cross--he has sunk down
there exhausted. Yet there are other occasions on which his natural
constitution--strong, because deeply rooted--will rise up, and place itself in
antagonism with the dealings of God; and chiefly, perhaps, in these two
ways--duty and suffering.
The strength of the Church in troublous times
I. NEGATIVELY.
1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is not in listening
to carnal counsel.
2. Nor in trusting in carnal confidences.
II. POSITIVELY.
1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is to sit still in
the way of seeking and obeying Divine direction.
2. To sit still in the way of exercising a humble dependence upon
Divine aid (Isaiah 30:15).
3. To sit still in the way of holding fast all her scriptural
attainments.
4. To return to the Lord in those respects in which she has departed
from Him.
5. To go forward in the performance of whatever work God is laying to
her hand. (James Patrick.)
Strength perfected in weakness
When we sit down, God stands up; when we are silent, He speaks;
when we have laid down our reeds, He Himself becomes our shield and salvation.
(W. L. Watkinson.)
Difficulty of spiritual passivity
Theatrical performers affirm that to play at statues, which, of
course, require perfect motionlessness, is the hardest trial of human nature;
and all who have sat for their photograph know something of this experience.
The difficulty of physical stillness may serve to represent the extreme
difficulty of spiritual passivity under the truth and discipline of God. (W.
L. Watkinson.)
The albatross a symbol of power
The albatross sailing over the sea with vast unstirring wings is a
symbol of power, not of weakness; and the soul which sustains its flight in the
empyrean without noise or flutter, does so in the fulness of power, in the
perfection of life. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Waiting may contribute to victory
The Duke at Waterloo ordered certain regiments to form and wait.
For many hours this order remained in force, and only late in the day were the
obedient warriors led to victory. We may be sure those hours of waiting were
the hardest hours in those soldiers’ lives. In that space of anxious suspense
the Duke was winning the battle for them, but they would much rather have been
doing something to the winning of it for themselves. So is it frequently with
us in the strife of life. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Verse 8
Note it in a book
Keeping a journal
(for children):--
I.
THE
JOURNAL YOU MAY KEEP. You may spend your pocket money in a book, pen and ink,
and set up a journal. If so--
1. Its nature.
2. Its use.
II. THE JOURNAL YOU
MUST KEEP.
1. For yourself. Your brain is a self-acting journal. In its cell
lies hidden, all unknown to you, a register of all your past deeds, words, and
thoughts. Sometimes the door of recollection flies open, and you see this
record of the past. The record is written in invisible ink, but the fire of
memory brings it out. And if sometimes now, how much more at the last!
2. And partly for others. Every day you also write something down in
the brain--journals of others, of parents, brothers and sisters, playfellows,
teachers. The words and deeds which they hear and see. Be careful to write down
for them good and pleasant things--things sweet and helpful.
III. THE JOURNAL GOD
KEEPS.
1. Instance in the text. Prophet to write that Jews were “lying
children--children that will not hear the Word of the Lord” (Isaiah 30:9), and to write it “that it
may be for the time to come, forever and ever” (Isaiah 30:8). A terrible entry in God’s
journal. May no such entry be written concerning us!
2. God’s journal complete. He makes no omissions. He puts all in,
good and bad. We make selections to our own advantage. We may deceive
ourselves--we may hide much from our friends, but not from Him. “Thou God seest
me”; and when at the judgment “God’s books are opened,” His will be a check
diary to supply all our omissions. Therefore, let us wisely number our days,
and see that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. (S. E.
Keeble.)
Verses 9-11
This is a rebellious people
Dislike to ministerial fidelity
The Jews have very many followers under the Christian
dispensation.
I. STATE THE
TRUTHS WHICH ARE USUALLY OBNOXIOUS TO SUCH PERSONS. There are many doctrines to
which every faithful preacher of God’s Word feels bound to give ample room in
his stated ministry, that are by no means welcome to many of his hearers; such,
for instance, as the spirituality and unbending strictness of the Divine law,
the deep depravity of human nature, the exceeding sinfulness of man’s conduct,
the universal necessity of regeneration, the inefficacy of works for
justification, and the indispensable obligation to a separation from the world.
The Scriptures, not only of the Old Testament, but of the New, abound with the
most appalling descriptions of the Divine displeasure against sin. It is a
striking fact, that He who was love incarnate--who was named Jesus, because He
was to be the Saviour of His people--delivered, during the course of His
personal ministry, more fearful descriptions of Divine justice and the
punishment of the wicked, than are to be found in any other part of the Word of
God. No man can fulfil his ministry, therefore, without frequently alluding to
the justice of God in the punishment of sin. But such a subject frequently calm
up all the enmity of the carnal mind.
II. THE CAUSES TO
WHICH WE MUST TRACE THIS DISLIKE OF MINISTERIAL FIDELITY, and this love of smooth
and delusive preaching.
1. In some cases it is occasioned by absolute unbelief. Multitudes
who admit in gross the authority of the Bible, deny it in detail.
2. The refinements of modern society and taste lead many to ask for
smooth things. There is no respect of persons with God; before Him the
distinctions of society have no place.
3. Wounded pride is with some the cause of a dislike of faithful
preaching. They hate the doctrine which disturbs their self-complacency, and
revile the man who attempts to sink them in their own esteem.
4. But in by far the greater number of instances, this dislike of the
truth, and this love of smooth things, is the result of painful forebodings of
future misery.
III. THE FOLLY, THE
SIN, AND THE DANGER OF A DESIRE TO SUPPRESS THE FAITHFUL VOICE OF TRUTH, and to
be flattered with the soothing language of deceit.
1. Its folly is apparent from the consideration that no concealment
of the situation of the sinner can alter his condition in the sight of God, or
change the relation in which he stands to eternity.
2. The sin of this disposition is equal to its folly. It is sinful
alike in its origin, its nature, and its consequences. Why does a person wish
to have a false representation of his state? For this one reason, that as he is
determined to go on in sin, he may be left to sin with less reluctance and
remorse. As it is sinful in its origin, it is manifestly so in its nature, for
it is the love of falsehood; a desire to confound the distinction between sin
and holiness. Nor is this all; in aiming to suppress the voice of warning and
the note of alarm, he acts the part of that infatuated and cruel wretch, who
would bribe the sentinel to be silent when the foe is about to rush, sword in
hand, into the camp; or would seduce the watchman to be quiet, when the fire
had broken out at midnight, and was raging through the city. For thus saith the
Lord, “O son of man, I have set thee a watchman over the house of Israel,” etc.
(Ezekiel 33:7-8).
3. The danger of such a disposition to the individual himself, is as
great as its sin and its folly. The man who is unwilling to hear of approaching
misery, is not likely to use any means by which it may be averted.
By way of APPLICATION I infer, how great are the importance,
responsibility, and difficulty which attach to the ministerial office, and how
anxious should those be who sustain it, to discharge its duties with
uncompromising fidelity.
1. The conversion of sinners should be the leading object of every
minister of Christ.
2. This must be sought by suitable means. The means for awakening the
unconverted are, of course, various. What might be called the alarming style of
preaching is most adapted to convert the impenitent.
3. Ministers are under a great temptation to preach smooth things,
and to shrink from what may emphatically be called the burden of the Lord. A
false charity leads them, in some instances, to be unwilling to disturb the
peace or distress the feelings of their hearers; or, perhaps, there are some in
their congregation who may feel an objection to what they contemptuously call
the harrowing style. But most of all are those in danger of compromising their
duty, who are appointed to minister to well educated and wealthy audiences.
4. A word of admonition is here needed for professing Christians. Are
there not many who are dissatisfied with everything but words of comfort and
statements of privilege? They object to everything of a searching and practical
tendency. (J. A. James.)
Church and world
I. A chief part of
the work of the pulpit is THE PLAIN AND FERVENT TEACHING OF DAILY LIFE
MORALITY. There is no Gospel without morality, and the morality of Christ, i.e.,
a morality whose inspiration is the Spirit of Christ, is a very large part of
the Gospel indeed. What of our Lord’s own teachings? Are they chiefly moral
teachings or theological? It is needless to answer the question. What do we
mean when we talk of being saved from sin? Just what the words say,--that sin
shall be taken away; that is, that men shall obey God’s law instead of the
devil’s; that is, that they shall live pure, virtuous, and moral lives.
II. And do not
MORALS OCCUPY A VERY FOREMOST PLACE IN THE WELFARE OF MANKIND. What is it makes
the world often so miserable? It is sin, that is, immorality; and if we can do
away with the sin and immorality, and bring in virtue and morality, then we
shall do much to diminish the miseries of our fellow men. And if it is
important that morals should be taught for the welfare and happiness of
mankind, who are to teach morals, if not the ministers of religion! It is for
us to educate the public conscience, until men feel each moral distinction as a
solemn fact, until the force of public opinion fall heavily upon him who
violates the moral law, until a fairer morality take its place among us.
III. But why have we
succeeded so ill? WHY IS THE GENERAL MORALITY SO LOW! It is because the people
have said, “Speak unto us smooth things,” and we have yielded to their words.
If you tell men the faults which are diseases in their characters, slowly but
surely bringing them down to the grave, they cannot bear it, but keep the
disease and dismiss the physician. Whether it hurts or not, the truth must be
said, if men are to be saved from the error of their ways. (W. Page-Roberts,
B. A.)
Speak unto us smooth
things
The smooth things by which men are apt to be deceived
I propose to instance a few of these smooth things which teachers
may address to the people who love to be deceived, or wherewith the people
themselves lay a flattering unction to their own souls.
I. The first of
these, which though not generally ranked among the smooth things, I hold to be
the universal deceit, and that in virtue of which we so MAGNIFY THE PRESENT
WORLD, give such an exaggerated importance to things present and things
sensible, regard time as if it had all the worth and endurance of eternity, and
look on eternity as a thing of remote and shadowy insignificance, the care and
consideration of which may be indefinitely postponed.
II. A MEAGRE AND
SUPERFICIAL IMAGINATION OF THEIR GUILT, AND PROPORTIONALLY TO THIS, A SLIGHT
APPREHENSION OF THEIR DANGER.
III. A man who feels
his disease so slight, will be satisfied with a very slight remedy; and
accordingly the remedy which men are satisfied with, is RESTING ON THE GENERAL
MERCY OF GOD. God is represented as a Being full of tenderness, thus making it
the whole character of the Godhead, and in this way lulling themselves into a
deceitful security--not thinking of one set of attributes, justice, truth, and
righteousness, but keeping these in the background, and bringing in the
foreground, God being of universal tenderness and benignity, and who will not
be severe on the follies of His poor erring creatures.
IV. A CERTAIN
ANTINOMIAN SECURITY which they connect with the doctrines of grace and
justification by faith. When we see people reposing on their orthodoxy, and
making use of it as a soporific to lull themselves, we should ply them with
questions founded on the true representation which the New Testament gives. Are
they running so as that they may obtain? Are they fighting so as that they may
gain a hard won victory? Are they striving so as that they may force an
entrance at the strait gate? (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
The craving for the entertaining
What did the speakers want? They wanted what is desired by every
age, namely, to be entertained. It is entertainment that is often frittering
away the noblest courage and finest faculty of the Church. There may be parts
of the service which are instructive, and they are tolerated that the
entertainment may be enjoyed: entertain us with ritual, with music, with
stories, with something that will give us intellectual excitement and even a
degree of intellectual delight: but do not prophesy, do not teach, do not
become rigorously moral: let the day of judgment alone; if we have to go to
hell let us go down a bank covered with velvet moss. The people make the
pulpit. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The demand for smooth things
What was the utility of the Hebrew prophet, and what were the
errors to which he was more particularly exposed?
I. It was THE DUTY
AND THE PRIVILEGE OF ISRAEL to keep alive monotheism in the world. It was no
less the duty of the prophetic school to preserve in the chosen nation itself
the spirituality of religion. Both agents were in the same relative position--a
hopeless minority. And both had but an imperfect success. Yet the nation and
the institution served each an important purpose. Monotheism languished, but
did not die. And though the prophets were not very successful in imbuing the
nation generally with their own spirituality, yet they kept the flame alive.
They served to show to the people the true ideal of spiritual, not ritualistic,
Judaism, and thus supplied a corrective to priest taught Judaism.
II. WHAT WAS THE
GREAT SOURCE OF ERROR IN THE PROPHET’S UTTERANCES? What was the great pressure
that pushed, or tended to push him aside from the path of duty? The text has
told us. “Prophesy not unto us right” things, speak unto us smooth things. The
desire of man--king or peasant--to hear from the prophet, or the courtier, or
the demagogue, not truth, but flattery,--it was that fatal longing which led
them to put a pressure on the prophet which often crushed the truth within him.
III. FLATTERY EXISTS
STILL. If nations have not prophets to flatter them, they have those whom they
trust as much. Far from attempting to correct their faults, the guides whom
they trust are constantly labouring to impress on them that they are the most
meritorious and the most ill-used nation in the world. Eyes blinded to present
faults; eyes sharpened to past wrongs,--there is no treatment which will more
completely and more rapidlydemoralise the nation which is subjected to it.
There will be no improvement where there is no consciousness of fault; and no
forgiveness where the mind is invited, almost compelled, to a constant brooding
over wrong. With the growth of such feelings no nation can thrive; and he who
encourages them is not the saviour but the destroyer of his country. (J.
H.Jellett.)
Cause the Holy One of
Israel to cease from before us
The Holy One of Israel repudiated
The meaning is not, of course, that the people disown Jehovah as
the national Deity, but that they repudiate Isaiah’s conception of Him as the
Holy One of Israel, and the teaching based on that conception. (Prof. J.
Skinner, D. D.)
Flattery
Smooth talk proves often sweet poison. Flattery is the very spring
and mother of all impiety. It unmans a man, it makes him call black white, and
white black; it makes a man change pearls for pebbles, and gold for counters;
it makes a man judge himself wise, when foolish; knowing, when he is ignorant;
holy, when he is profane; free, when he is a prisoner; rich, when he is poor;
high, when he is low; full, when he is empty; happy, when he is miserable. (J.
Bate.)
Truth sometimes unpopular
An animated debate took place whether Martinelli should continue
his “History of England” to the present day.
Goldsmith: “To be sure he should.” Johnson: “No, sir; he would
give great offence. He would have to tell of almost all the living great what
they do not wish told.” Goldsmith: “There are people who tell a hundred
political lies every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell
truth with safety.” “Johnson: Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells a
hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But besides, a man had rather
have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish to be
told.” Goldsmith: “For my part, I’d fen the truth, and shame the devil.”
Johnson: “Yes, sir; but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as
much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws.”
Goldsmith: “His claws can do you no harm when you have the shield of truth.” (Boswell’s
Johnson.)
Harmless preaching
Two Chinese jugglers have been making a public exhibition of their
skill. One of these is set up as a target, and the other shows his dexterity by
hurling knives which stick into the board at his comrade’s back, close to the
man’s body. These deadly weapons fix themselves between his arms and legs, and
between his fingers; they fly past his ears, and over his head and each side of
his neck. The art is not to hit him. Are there not to be found preachers who
are remarkably proficient in the same art in the mental and spiritual
departments? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Faithful preaching
Our preaching must not be general, but particular. “It is not
lawful for thee to have her to wife.” This was John Baptist’s style. We must
collar men. “Thou art the man--I mean you, sir.” We are not half enough
convinced of the evil of general preaching. The beef must have the salt of
truth, and the saltpetre of life, but it must be rubbed in by particular
application, and rubbed into every part by a comprehensive mind, and rubbed in
by clean hands. (R. Cecil.)
Verse 13
As a breach ready to fall.
-
A retributive crash
The best translation seems to be: “Therefore this guilt shall be
to you as a rent descending (literally, “falling”) (and) bulging out in a high
wall, whose crash comes,” etc. The slight beginnings of transgression, its
inevitable tendency to gravitate more and more from the moral perpendicular,
till a critical point is reached, then the suddenness of the final
catastrophe,--are vividly expressed by this magnificent simile. Psalms 62:3. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Nemesis
1. The people, on account of the eminence and grandeur to which they
were elevated, are compared to a high wall.
2. The sin whereby they despised the Word of the Lord, the
instructions of His servants, and even the name of the Holy One of Israel, and
sought assistance from Egypt, was to prove ruinous to them, as the swelling out
in a high wall. The breach, or bulge, which is supposed to have been in the
lower part of the wall, as often happens in old buildings, might signify the insolence
and pride whereby the posterity of Israel were puffed up in the confidence of
being aided by the Egyptians. (R. Macculloch.)
Nemesis
I. WHO IT IS THAT
GIVES JUDGMENT UPON THEM. “The Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 30:12). See Isaiah 30:11. Faithful ministers will not
be driven from using such expressions as are proper to awaken sinners, though
they be displeasing.
II. WHAT THE GROUND
OF THE JUDGEMENT IS. “Because ye despise,” etc., (Isaiah 30:12).
III. WHAT THE
JUDGMENT IS THAT IS PASSED UPON THEM. The ruin they should bring upon themselves
should be--
1. A surprising ruin, coming suddenly.
2. An utter ruin, universal and irreparable (Isaiah 30:14). (M. Henry.)
Verse 14
He shall break it as the breaking of the potter’s vessel
A pottery mound
One of the most curious objects in Rome is a huge artificial mound
called Monte Testaccio.
It stands near the gate of St. Paul’s, between the Aventine Hill and the Tiber
. . . It is a conspicuous object, being nearly one-third of a mile in
circumference, and about a hundred and fifty feet high, commanding from its top
an extensive view of the most desolate and historical parts of the Eternal
City, and the Campagna a beyond. It is an easy task to climb it, for on
different sides there are well-worn tracks from the base to the summit. The
surface covered in a few places with a little sprinkling of soil, and a sparse
vegetation of grass and coarse weeds; but a close examination reveals the
remarkable fact that the mound is almost entirely composed of fragments of
broken earthenware. Specimens of ancient pottery of all kinds may be found
lying loosely on the surface of the heap, or by digging a little way into the
mass . . . Not one vessel was whole, nor could the broken pieces be united to
form even the least important part of any vessel. The mound, from the nature of
its materials, is evidently of very ancient origin, nothing having been added to
it since the early Christian ages; but it must have taken many centuries to
form it by slow accumulation. Various theories have been proposed regarding it;
but the most plausible conjecture is that which connects it with the
neighbouring emporium or custom house, where all the goods that were landed at
the ancient quay of Rome were stored up for a time. It was the practice in
those days to import not only wine and oil, and other fluids, but also corn and
solid articles of food and of domestic use into the imperial city in
earthenware jars for more convenient carriage. In the act of unloading, immense
quantities of these fragile vessels would be broken, and the fragments carried
away to this spot, where they would accumulate in course of time into the huge heap
which now astonishes every spectator. This explanation, however, is only a
partial one; for were it complete we should expect to find in the mound only
vessels of one kind, fitted for storage purposes. But it contains, as I have
said, fragments of the most varied assortment of vessels for household use and
for ornamental and even for sepulchral purposes . . . It became, in fact, the
general receptacle for the broken pottery of the whole city. That this was
carefully collected into this one spot, instead of being thrown out anywhere,
and that no other rubbish was allowed, except accidentally, to ruing o with it,
shows clearly that the heap was intended for some economical use. We have
indeed reason to believe that this broken earthenware, ground into smaller
fragments and pulverised, formed an ingredient in the famous Roman cement
employed in the construction of buildings whose hardness and durability were
proverbial. But it is not in Rome only that such ancient mounds of broken
pottery are found. Similar heaps of potsherds, not on quite so large a scale,
may be seen outside the walls of Alexandria and Cairo. The sites, indeed, of
many ancient towns, especially those built of crude, sun-dried bricks, are
often covered with great quantities of such fragments exposed to view and
collected together by the disintegrating action of the weather upon the ruins,
giving them the appearance of a deserted pottery rather than that of a town.
Parti-coloured heaps of broken pottery are common in the neighbourhood of old villages
and towns in Palestine. They are especially abundant in one or two places near
Jerusalem. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The shivering of the potter’s vessel
The passage is literally, “And its shivering שֶׁבֶר shever, from which
perhaps comes our ‘shiver’) shall be like the shivering of a potter’s vessel, a
shattering unsparingly; so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it
a potsherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of the pit.”
Bearing in mind the size and strength of many potters’ vessels in Palestine, it
is clear, that a mere dashing out of the hand upon the ground would fail to
effect a “shivering” anything like this. To what then do the prophets refer? We
think the matter admits of a very clear explanation. One of the most constant
features of the land is the well or “beer,” which, as no rain falls for many
months together, and springs and streams are rare, becomes an essential adjunct
to every house. In these large underground structures rainwater is collected
from surface drainage, and stored for use during the year. The “Moabite stone”
records an act, passed by Mesha, King of Moab, so far back as the days of
Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, directing every man to make a “beer,” or rain
cistern, in his house. But such testimony would not be needed to establish the
great age of these huge artificial cisterns. They abound everywhere, and many
of them, In fine preservation, mark the sites of very ancient cities, where no
other structure remains. There are no less than thirty of them, some of vast
size, built on piers, and arched like the crypt of a church, to be found within
the precincts of the temple area at Jerusalem. They are specially numerous in
the fine olive grove to the north of the city, where they are in such a ruinous
condition, apparently from extreme age, that they now form a series of
dangerous pitfalls. In addition to these wells is to be found a system of
immense artificial pools, or rain reservoirs, which are often referred to in
the Bible, and of which no less than seven may now be traced in and around
Jerusalem itself. To all these cisterns and reservoirs, whether cut in the
rock, or built of rough masonry, one thing is common. To render them perfectly
watertight, a peculiar cement has to be used. This cement is composed partly of
lime and partly of a large admixture of what is called in Arabic, “homrah.”
This “homrah” is nothing else than broken pottery of every description, ground
down generally into very small pieces, and sometimes into powder. It answers
excellently the purpose for which it is employed. Every year it grows harder;
until, in the case of those wells and pools where it is presumably many hundred
years old, it is as firm as the rock to which it adheres. This “homrah” is
consequently an article of daily commerce throughout the country. Its
preparation by the peasants still remains the same simple and striking sight
that must always have been familiar to the dwellers in every Judean town, but
especially to those who lived within the waterless precincts of Zion. (J.
Neil, B. A.)
Shivering the potter’s vessel
It may be seen now every autumn in the valley of the son of
Hinnom. Upon the upper terrace, on the side adjoining the city, several
“fellahin” (peasants), both men and women, sit on the ground in front of small
brown heaps. They have under their hands a huge stone or rather rough piece of
rock slightly rounded, about a foot in diameter, which they push backwards and
forwards over the mounds before them. These mounds consist of broken pottery,
which they have purchased in the city, or picked up from the heaps outside.
Here we may see the whole of this simple but very effective process of
shivering or crushing the “potter’s vessel.” (J. Neil, B. A.)
The potter’s vessel
It could hardly be expected that a custom so ancient and so
suggestive as this should have remained unutilised by the spiritual teachers of
Israel to point a moral. It lent itself so easily and naturally to the peculiar
didactic method of instruction which the Orientals affect, that it was early
taken advantage of for this purpose. Throughout the Bible there are numerous
direct and indirect allusions to it. In the second Psalm it is said of those
who oppose the Messianic kingdom of God that they shall be dashed in pieces
like a potter’s vessel; and Isaiah foretells that a similar fate should happen
to those who despised God’s Word and placed their confidence in Egypt. They
should be like one of those high mud walls--like the cob walls of Devonshire,
said to be derived from the East--which so often decline from the
perpendicular, and bulge out in different parts. (H. Maxmillan, D. D.)
Verse 15
In returning and rest shall ye be saved
The vanity of earthly help in time of trial, and the profit of
patient waiting
I.
THE
INSUFFICIENCY OF ALL HUMAN DEPENDENCE. The records of the Jewish nation, which
have come down to us, abundantly prove this truth.
1. These words were especially spoken to the Church of old time. We
must gather therefore great instruction herefrom, in respect to the community
of God’s people in all after time, and perhaps in our own days especially.
2. What is true in respect of the Church, considered as a community,
is equally true in respect of all its members, if we consider them in their
individual character. God teaches them separately, as He teaches the Church
collectively, that upon Him they are to depend, and not upon human help. And in
order that they may learn the lesson the more certainly, and that it may stay
with them the more abidingly, God oftentimes brings them down into
circumstances where human assistance can render them no avail.
II. THE NATURE AND
THE PROFIT OF PATIENT WAITING. In this way it is that God gives the instruction
which the hearts of His people want. He suffers them oftentimes to lean upon
other helps, and to cast their dependence upon other agencies, than His
appointed one. Then, when they have found that these have been but as a broken
reed to trust to, they come back again to Him--their faith confirmed--a
precious lesson learned in the time of their wandering, which henceforth they
shall find in the establishment of their souls. Faith has indeed oftentimes its
best exercise in the time of the heaviest trial It is made to bring forth its
richest and rarest fruits. (S. Robins, M. A.)
National salvation
Let us ponder the four words which the prophet here uses to
indicate in what direction their salvation lay, and upon what terms they might
be sure of the Divine interposition and abiding protection.
1. “Returning.” Instead of going to Egypt for help, and impoverishing
themselves by an alliance forbidden, senseless, and unprofitable, they might be
assured of God’s forgiveness and favour by returning in brokeness of spirit to
Him. The place of confession is the place of forgiveness.
2. “Rest.” The meaning is, or course, such a resting in God as would
prove the genuineness of their return to Him. Vain was their reliance on the
multitude of chariots and the strong body of cavalry to which they would point
as a valuable addition to the fighting strength of Judah (Isaiah 31:3).
3. “Quietness.” How the very word rebukes the haste, excitement, and
trepidation with which they had prepared for the siege of their city!
4. “Confidence.” (J. G. Mantle.)
In quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength
The strength obtained from quietness and confidence
I. THE STATE OF
MIND HERE NOTICED.
1. Consider “quietness” of mind. It means strength of purpose,
combined with calm collectedness of thought as well as of word and act.
2. Consider “confidence” as another feature of true Christian
character. Confidence is something more than a dead theory of belief; it is
faith in exercise. And is there not something very sublime and beautiful in
“confidence,” as we see it linking the heart of man to the Creator
and Redeemer of the world?
II. THE ADVANTAGES
TO BE DERIVED FROM THE STATE OF MIND DESCRIBED.
1. The promise expressed in the words, “shall be your strength,” is
very encouraging and full of meaning. It points to the Deity as the only source
of strength.
2. The strength here spoken of is Divine, granted to us through the
instrumentality of quietness and confidence
3. This strength, too, implies safety.
4. But the strength promised is conditional. (W. D. Horwood.)
The promise associated with quietness and confidence
I. THE FRAME OF
MIND which God encouraged His people to have under all these
circumstances--“quietness and confidence.”
1. Observe what the fault of Israel had been. God had said one thing,
and Israel thought another. God had told them that He would be their refuge.
2. Their warrant for their confidence was the Word of God. Here is
the distinction to be made between what is presumption, and what is faith.
3. Observe, next, the peculiar relation in which Israel stood to
Jehovah, which made their unbelief so reprehensible. The Lord seems to bring
this before their minds, as that which should cause the most stinging
conviction in their hearts. “Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel.”
II. THE PROMISE
THAT IS HERE ANNEXED. God says, “In quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength.” Take, for instance, Hezekiah’s history (2 Kings 18:1-37). Again, remember
the story of Israel’s deliverance, as recorded Exodus 14:1-31. I might refer you to
other passages, such as that beautiful narrative in Daniel 3:1-30, where we are told of three
believing men being cast into a burning fiery furnace. Look at their quietness
and confidence, which was their strength. There is a direct promise upon this
subject in Deuteronomy 32:1-52. “The Lord shall
judge” (avenge, or come to the help of) “His people, and repent Himself for His
servants, when He seeth that their power is gone” If you want a New Testament
promise to the same effect, you have it in that word which was spoken by our
Lord--“Come unto Me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.” Do you say then, are we not to use means? There may be as much
unbelief when men despise means, as there may be in their over-anxiety to use
means. (W. H. Krause, M. A.)
The duty of conservatives in a time of theological conflict
1. It is our duty to recognise the inevitable margin of difference
among those who substantially agree. It is only in the exact sciences that a
formula has absolutely the same value for all men and for the same man at all
times. But theology is not an exact science
2. It is the second duty of conservatives in a time of theological
conflict to recognise the margin of error in all human views of truth. If the
writers of the Bible were infallible, the readers of it are not. But have we
not, it may be asked, the promise of the Paraclete to lead us into all the
truth? Yes, and wonderfully has the promise been fulfilled. But here again two
things should be observed.
3. It is especially the duty of conservatives at the present moment
in the history of the Church to discriminate between those who are seeking
defend and those who are seeking to overthrow the fundamental principles of
Christianity. Criticism must be met by criticism, scholarship by scholarship.
4. We should beware of testing the views in regard to the Bible,
which are now more and more freely expressed, by what seem to be their
tendencies.
Quietness and confidence
“Quietness” is just collectedness, repose, equanimity, freedom
from excitement and boisterousness. “Confidence” is trust, reliance, upon God,
producing, if not implying, a calm and steadfast courage.
I. “Quietness and
confidence” are STRENGTH OF CHARACTER. They bespeak the existence of thought,
reflection, judgment; they evidence self-control; they mark a nature that is
not superficial; they show a superiority to influences which rouse the stormy
passions of other men, and leave them the victims of blind impulse; and all
this implies true strength of character.
II. “Quietness and
confidence” are STRENGTH FOR WORK AND ACHIEVEMENT. The quiet, steady, hopeful
man--other things being equal, and sometimes when they are very unequal--will
prove, far away, the best workman. For one thing, such a man will lose no time
in vain speculation, in daydreams about his work, in clearing away self-imposed
hindrances, the result of his own hurry or forgetfulness or preoccupation. Calm
and thoughtful, he will always settle to his employment at once, while another
man will have to give himself time to acquire the proper mood for it. “Confidence”
will also yield him resolution, and that will “make him proof against
interruption,” which often defers the results of men’s endeavours and chafes
their temper as well. Nearly all the men who have won renown in the sphere of
successful toil, whether secular or sacred, have been men of quiet energy,
rather than men of powerful impulses; of steadfast reliance upon a Power above
them, rather than of mere human enthusiasm. And in fact, such are the
discouragements and trials that wait upon all kinds of labour, whether for
ourselves or others--such the sameness, the dryness, the weariness, that only
quiet confidence will enable a man to persevere. It was this that kept Moses at
the head of the chosen tribes till they reached the borders of Canaan. It was
this that carried St. Paul through his almost superhuman toils and exertions.
It was this that sustained such men as Columbus and Newton, Washington and
Wellington, and a host of others, in carrying out enterprises, differing,
indeed, in their objects, but all encompassed with difficulties that would have
driven weaker men to despair at their outset. And, if we would do any real work
for God and our fellow men, we must seek more to possess the quietness and
confidence of me text, than those more shining qualities which gain popular
applause, but often leave no real impress upon a man’s age and sphere.
III. Quietness and
confidence are STRENGTH FOR ENDURANCE. Restlessness, impatience, distrust, do
but aggravate trials, and intensify suffering. Like the struggles of a prisoner
in his fetters--like the beating itself against the wires of the poor caged
bird, they only serve to augment pain, and to bring on the dejection and
weariness that follow fruitlessly expended energy. But to have a mind stayed on
God is to take the most certain method to lighten every burden, to diminish the
bitterness of every sorrow, to modify and transmute every curse into a
blessing, and to make even the path of tribulation pleasant and attractive.
IV. “Quietness and
confidence” are specially the STRENGTH OF SPIRITUAL ADVANCEMENT. All religious
progress depends, primarily and efficiently, upon the grace of God. But the
order of God’s working is such that this process may be very much helped or
hindered by ourselves. The growth of plants and flowers depends materially upon
the nature of the soil in which they are set, and upon their capacity for
receiving the influences of air and sunshine, dew and shower. And it is much
the same as to the growth of holy character; it is checked or advanced by our
prevailing moral dispositions. Now, “quietness and confidence” imply a state of
mind the most favourable to Divine operations. The subject may he viewed in
another light. In the endeavour to live a holy life, we are all conscious of
our exposure to hindrances, arising from our lapses and failures. We go on, it
may be, somewhat well for a time; but a temptation overtakes us, unwatchfulness
supervenes, and we fall, not into any great sin, but from the vantage ground
that we thought ourselves to have reached. Now, what will be the effect of this
upon a Christian person of excitable, impulsive, unsteady mind! Why, ceremony
he will be discouraged and dismayed. But it will not be thus with the Christian
who is marked by “quietness and confidence.” He will say, “Rejoice not over me,
O mine enemy; for though I fall, I shall rise again.” (C. M. Merry.)
Rev. John Keble’s motto
In Poet’s Corner, at Westminster Abbey, there is a medallion
erected to the memory of John Keble, upon which is inscribed the prophetic
utterance which was the motto of his simple, beautiful, well-ordered life: “in
quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” (R. Hebbron.)
Faith and introspection
In quietness and confidence is our strength, but not in thinking
of quietness and confidence, or grieving that we have so little of either, but
in simply assuring ourselves of the ground that we have to believe that God is
our Friend now and ever, and that He can be nothing else, and that the
forgetfulness of this and nothing else has been our sin and our shame. (F.
D. Maurice to his mother.)
The triumph of simple trust
I am to be like General Gordon in Khartoum during the last weeks
of the long siege. He built himself a tower of observation, from the top of
which he could command the whole country round. At dawn he slept; by day he
looked to his defences, and administered justice, and cheered the spirit of his
people; every night he mounted to his tower, and there, as one of his
biographers says, “alone with his God, a universal sentinel, he kept watch over
the ramparts, and prayed for the help that never came.” He could not work out
the deliverance himself, but he had childlike confidence in God. And the Divine
help did come--the martyr’s crown, the everlasting rest, the good soldier’s welcome
from his Commander-in-chief. (A. Smellie, M. A.)
Settling down upon God
What can explain the confidence of Judson and many another noble
missionary, working steadily on for years without any sign of visible success,
but the settling down of the spirit upon God--an attitude which had, with them,
become a habit of life? (J. G. Mantle.)
Working with Divine resources
“I used to think I had to do it,” says one of the most successful
evangelists of the nineteenth century, “and the result was great physical strain
and exhaustion; but now I feel He has to do it through me: the responsibility
His; the message His; the strength His.” (J. G. Mantle.)
Verse 17
Till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain
Israel’s past, present, and future
I.
THE
PAST.
1. Sins of God’s people (Isaiah 30:1-2; Isaiah 30:9-12). Rejecting His Word;
trusting in arm of flesh.
2. Judgment on them (Isaiah 30:16-17).
3. Mercy to them in things spiritual and temporal (Isaiah 30:19-21; Isaiah 30:26; Isaiah 30:29; Isaiah 23:1-18; Isaiah 24:1-23). Deliverance from their
enemies (Isaiah 30:30-33). Especially destruction
of Sennacherib’s army (Isaiah 30:31).
4. Glory to God, who is “exalted”--in His judgments--in His mercies.
II. THE PRESENT.
1. The people now left as a “beacon.” upon the top of a mountain
(marg., “tree bereft of branches”). Condition bare, and seen of all. “And as an
ensign, on an hill.” Word for ensign same as “sign” in Numbers 26:10. The people “cannot be
hid.”
2. Now God waits for the set time, for the filling up of His people’s
sins Hosea 5:15); for the filling up of His
judgments; for the fulness of the Gentiles to be come in (Romans 11:25); for the showing mercy in
the end.
III. THE FUTURE. It
will be as the past, but greater.
1. Sin still continues in unbelief of Messiah, in pride, worldliness,
and self-righteousness.
2. Judgment on these sins up to the end.
3. Mercy when they “cry.” Deliverance from their enemies, as
prophesied Isaiah 66:13-16.
4. Glory to God, the “God of judgment,” the Father of mercies. He
shall be “exalted,” as prophesied in Isaiah 2:10-11; Isaiah 2:17-22.
5. “Beacon” and “ensign”--refer to again. Israel conspicuous now,
will be more so in the last days, as a landmark amidst waves of trouble and
strife. “Ensign,” the same word as rendered “pole” in Numbers 21:8-9. See again in Exodus 17:15, “Jehovah-Nissi.” See Isaiah 31:9; Isaiah 11:11-12; Isaiah 18:3; Isaiah 49:22; Isaiah 62:10. Israel the rallying centre
of the nations, in the midst of them the royal standard of the King, high on
“God’s hill, in the which it pleaseth Him to dwell” (Psalms 60:4; see Zechariah 8:2-3; Zechariah 8:22-23).
IV. THE BLESSING.
1. “To the Jew first.”
2. “And also to the Gentile.”
3. Note the correspondence between God’s waiting and His people’s
waiting. (Flavel Cook, B. A.)
Verse 18
And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you
The waiting hours of life
We are all familiar with the waiting hours of life, when the stream
hardly seems to move, or the air to stir; when the heart grows sick with
deferred hope.
There are hours on languid summer days when all nature seems to have become
stagnant--the aspen leaf does not quiver; the fish does not rise in the pool;
the hum of the bee becomes less frequent and more drowsy; and the shadow hardly
moves on the dial--and these hours in nature find their counterpart in the
monotony of life’scommon round, the commonplace routine of its daily task. Such
waiting times were wearily passing over the godly at Jerusalem while the
invader was drawing his coils ever nearer to the doomed city, and the
ambassadors were being cajoled in Egypt by false hopes; and ceaseless prayers
to God were apparently bringing no response. To such the prophet addressed
these words, encouraging them to believe that God was not unmindful of their
case, but was waiting that He might act more graciously towards them than He
could by answering them at once. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
God’s delays
He waits that He may be gracious; i.e., until there is such
a combination of circumstances, and such a refining of character, that He can
do ever so much better than if He had interposed in the first moments of our
agonised appeal.
I. HE DOES NOT
DELAY BECAUSE OF ANY CAPRICE. Heaven has no favourites, who are always served
first.
II. HE DOES NOT
DELAY BECAUSE OF ANY NEGLECT. A woman may forget her sucking child, but our
Saviour cannot forget us.
III. HE DOES NOT
DELAY BECAUSE HE DENIES. The remittance is not sent as asked; yet that does not
prove that it is not there in our name, but only that it is being kept at
interest, accumulating till it reach a higher figure, and be more of service,
because coming at a time of greater need. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Reasons for God’s delays
What results are served by this prolonged delay!
1. The energy of the flesh dies down. There is nothing which so tames
and subdues us as waiting. And there is no kinder thing that God can do for us
than to destroy the egotism, the self-assertiveness of our life, and to bring
its pride to the dust. Waiting with mountains on either side, the sea in front,
and the lee behind, is enough to empty the stoutest heart of its
self-confidence, and to make it cry out to the strong for aid.
2. We often cease to want the very things on which we had set our
hearts. Thus it has happened, as the years have passed, that we have seen
reason to admire and adore the wise love which withheld that on which we had
set our hearts with passionate intensity.
3. Our character also becomes riper by waiting. It is better for the
young man to accumulate his fortune slowly, because he learns to value his
money rightly, and to spend it well Better for the student to acquire knowledge
by degrees, because he gains habits of industry which are simply invaluable.
Better for the saint to grow to goodness by long and insensible progress, that
he may be able to sympathise with those who are beginning to take the upward
path.
4. Moreover, we secure larger results by waiting. If the Egyptian
farmer is too impatient, and sows his seeds before the Nile has reached its
full flood, they will not be carried to the furthest limit of his ground, and
his harvest will suffer. So often there is a result which may be gained by
patient waiting, which would defy us if we snatched at it. (F. B. Meyer, B.
A.)
God’s gracious purpose towards His people
I. THE GRACIOUS
PURPOSES OF GOD TOWARDS HIS PEOPLE. He “waits, that He may be gracious”; He is
“exalted, that He may have mercy.” The Jewish people are here supposed to be in
a state of suffering; and they are assured that when the design of these sore
judgments was fully answered, God would have mercy upon them. In what manner
the Lord will be gracious unto them, the prophet unfolds (chps. 19-21). To
these promises of spiritual blessings and permanent prosperity others are
added; and the passage closes with this munificent prediction,--“The light of
the moon shall be as the light of the sun,” etc. (Isaiah 30:26). This splendid prophecy
points to a period which is yet future, and to which the Church is still
looking forward.
II. THE CHARACTER
OF GOD IN REFERENCE TO THESE PURPOSE. In all our undertakings we have
encouragement from the character of God. The text speaks of Him as “a God of
judgment,”--a title which is calculated to awaken the most useful reflections.
He does as He pleases, and all He does is right. The word also implies
deliberation--prudence: the will of God is not an arbitrary determination, but
the will of deliberation. The word is opposed to haste and inconsideration. The
term is applicable to all God’s proceedings.
III. THE SPIRIT IN
WHICH WE SHOULD LOOK FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THIS PURPOSE. If the question be
now asked, What is the posture the Church, which has been gathered from among,
the Gentiles, should assume in reference to the rich provision made for the
Jews? the answer is, They should “wait for Him.”
1. In a spirit of patient expectation.
2. In the use of diligent exertions.
3. In the exercise of fervent prayer. (T. Thomason, M. A.)
Mercy acknowledged
God sets forth Britain amid the nominal Christian nations, as He
set forth Israel of old amid the heathen world, as a mighty field in which He
displays His dispensations and dealings towards nations in professed and
visible covenant with Himself. We are, therefore, not only warranted, but bound
to take the words addressed to the ancient people of God, and to apply them to
His people in modern times.
I. The spirit and
attitude which God is here represented as sustaining toward a guilty and
corrected, though not forsaken people, is ASPECT AND ATTITUDE OF LONG SUFFERING
AND PATIENT FORBEARANCE.
II. But there is
yet another feature in the attitude and aspect of God towards a land that He
waits to see repenting--for GOD IS A GOD OF JUDGMENT.
III. LET US APPLY
ALL THIS VIEW of the aspect of God towards nations to His recent dealings with
ourselves.
IV. Lot us not pass
lightly by what constitutes THE GREAT MORAL LESSON that springs from the view
of God we have been taking. “Blessed are they that wait for Him.” We are not to
become impatient under God’s hand; we are not, because His chastisement yet
remains, to forget His mercies. (H. Stowell, M. A.)
Strange, but true
Some have thought, “Oh, how I wait upon God.” It will be nearer
the truth if you think, “How marvellous it is that God should wait upon men!”
I. THE STRANGENESS
of this Bible truth.
1. It is quite contrary to our common experience, that favours should
be kept waiting out of doors. Favours do not generally wait for clients, but
clients have to wait for favours.
2. You will be struck with the strangeness of this statement if you
keenly watch the early experiences of an anxious soul. The man determines to be
a seeker after God, and you would suppose that immediately the soul turned to
God it would be flooded with light, whereas it very often happens that God
never seems so far away from a man as when, first of all, the man begins to
seek Him. Yet, all the while, God upon His throne waits to be gracious.
3. I doubt whether we Christian men are not a little to blame for the
strangeness of this beautiful text. Do we not often pray as if we were praying
into an unwilling ear? Do we not often cry as if we were crying to a hard
heart? We have failed fairly to represent in our prayers the great readiness of
our Father’s heart, and so we have in the matter of our Christian standing. How
few of us know well our standing in Christ Jesus, and have a life and death
confidence in it. And then in our relationship to others, where are the
abounding compassions of Christ? where the undying energy with which a man who
knows the heart of the great Father, will seek to reclaim His erring sons and
daughters, His children far away upon the wild?
II. THE BLESSED
CERTAINTY of this Bible truth.
1. We have first of all the testimony of Isaiah, a testimony given
with a boldness that indicates that behind this testimony there is, first of
all, a Divine inspiration; that behind it there is, in the second instance, a
God-given experience. Here is a man whose testimony ought to be received. Of
all the men of the Old Testament I believe there was not one who was more
sensitive to the nation’s sin than Isaiah. Not a man who was more sensitive to
the righteousness of God, who went down lower into himself, who rose higher
unto God, than Isaiah. For spiritual insight he stood upon a par at least with
his contemporaries. He was the salvation of Jehovah: that is his name. The man
ought to know.
2. His testimony, too, is abundantly and blessedly confirmed, not by
detached experiences or single events. If you judge about God you must have
something more than a single experience; you must take some experience that has
been rounded off and Divinely finished. We have such experiences in this book.
We may come down to more modem times and more recent experiences. Take the
poets of the past century, the men whose hymns we sing service after service.
They do not all belong to one Church or to one school of thought or theology,
but their testimony is uniform upon this great subject.
3. We have evidence that God waits to be gracious in this present
service. His Word is near to us this moment; the Gospel is here with its
pleadings and its overtures of mercy. (J. R. Wood.)
The waiting Lord
Notice two or three times in which God is compelled to wait that
He may be gracious unto us.
I. THE TIME OF
DISOBEDIENCE.
II. THE TIME OF
FALSE CONFIDENCE (Isaiah 30:7; Isaiah 30:15-18).
III. THE TIME OF
APATHY. (J. Brash.)
A waiting God and a waiting people
I. A WAITING GOD.
1. A wonderful reason for waiting. “Therefore”--mark the word! The
Lord Jehovah does as He wills both in heaven and earth, and His ways are past
finding out; but He never acts unreason ably; He does not tell us His reasons,
but He has them; for He acts “according to the counsel of His will.” God has
His “therefores,” and these are of the most forcible kind. Full often His
“therefores” are the very reverse of ours: that which is an argument with us
may be no argument with God, and that which is a reason with Him might seem to
be a reason in the opposite direction to us. For what is there in this chapter
that can be made into a “therefore”? Whence does He derive the argument?
Assuredly it is a reason based on His own grace, and not on the merit of man.
2. The singular patience of God in that waiting. What does it mean when
we are told that the Lord waiteth that He may have mercy upon us?
3. A most remarkable action which follows upon the waiting. After the
Lord had displayed His patience to His people, He resolved to go further, and
proceeded to a most notable matter which is thus described--“Therefore will He
be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you.” You and I would have turned the
text round the other way, and said, “Therefore will He have mercy upon you,
that He may be exalted”: that would be true, but it is not the truth here
taught. The picture represents the Lord as it were as sitting still, and
allowing His people through their sin to bring suffering upon themselves; but
now, after long patience, He arouses Himself to action. Methinks I hear Him
say, “They will not come to Me, they refuse all My messengers, they plunge
deeper and deeper into sin, now will I see what My grace can do”! It also bears
this meaning. When a man is about to deal a heavy stroke he lifts up himself to
give the blow: he exalts himself to bring down the scourge more heavily upon
the shoulder. Even so the Lord seems to say, “I will put forth all My might, I.
will exercise all My skill, I will display all My attributes up to their
greatest height, that I may have mercy upon these hardened, stiff-necked
sinners--I will be exalted that I may have mercy upon them.”
4. There is a final success to all this waiting (Isaiah 30:19-22). See what free grace can
do: it is no enemy to holiness, but the direct cause of it.
II. We have A
WAITING PEOPLE. “Blessed are all they that wait for Him”
1. God’s waiting people wait upon God only.
2. Expectantly.
3. What are they waiting for? For many things. Sometimes they wait
for the tokens of His grace. Sometimes for the fulfilment of His promises.
Every promise will be kept, but not today nor tomorrow. God’s word has its due
season, and His times are the best times. We may also have to wait for answers
to our prayers. Frequently we may have to wait for temporal blessings. There
may be somewhat in your character which cannot be perfected except by suffering
and labour and it is better that your character be perfected than your
substance increased. Wait cheerfully. If God sees fit to say “Wait,” do not be
angry with Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Lord is a God of
Judgment
“A God of judgment is the Lord”
“A God of judgment is the Lord” is an unfortunately ambiguous
translation. We must not take “judgment” here in our familiar sense of the word.
It is not a sudden deed of doom, but a long process of law. It means manner,
method, design, order, system, the ideas, in short, which we sum up under the
word “law.” Just as we say of a man, “He is a man of judgment,” and mean
thereby not that by office he is a doomster, but that by character he is a man
of discernment and prudence; so simply does Isaiah say here that “Jehovah is a
God of judgment,” and mean thereby not that He is One whose habit is sudden and
awful deeds of penalty or salvation, but, on the contrary, that, having laid
down His lines according to righteousness and established His laws in wisdom,
He remains in HIS dealings with men consistent with these. (Prof. G. A.
Smith, D. D.)
The Lord is a God of judgment
The Lord is a God of judgment in the several important senses in
which the word is used in Scripture.
1. His understanding is infinite; so that He is intimately acquainted
with all the characters, the actions and circumstances of mankind.
2. The decisions which He forms, concerning their condition and
conduct, are perfectly equitable and just.
3. All the punishments which He inflicts and the deliverances which
He works, are conducted with the highest wisdom and prudence, executed at the
fittest season, in the most proper measure and for the best purposes. When He
corrects them for their faults, He does it not in anger but in judgment, with
affection and moderation; not in His hot displeasure, with unrelenting
severity, but with kindness and forbearance. They may therefore be assured
that, at the very time wherein He knows His own glory and their real benefit
will be most effectually promoted, He will interpose in their behalf and send
them deliverance. (R. Macculloch.)
The God of judgment
What are all our histories but God manifesting Himself, that He
hath shaken and tumbled down and trampled upon everything that He hath not
planted! (Oliver Cromwell.)
Blessed are all they that
wait for Him
Waiting for God
1. In steadfast faith.
2. In living hope.
3. In patient humility.
4. In active preparation. (Homiletic Review.)
The spiritual waiter and his blessing
I. DESCRIBE THE
REAL WAITING CHARACTER AND ENDEAVOUR TO SHOW WHAT IS REAL WAITING.
1. The real waiter is a person who does not possess something he
wants. A real waiter is a real beggar.
2. But; then, the real waiting man must not only be poor but needy
3. When a man is thus brought into experimental poverty, and
experimental need, he will also be led into experimental helplessness; he is
delivered from looking to his prayers, his Bible reading, his alms doing; he is
brought to feel he needs another refuge, he is brought to feel these waters
cannot cleanse away his pollution, that these webs cannot become garments, that
these are works with which he cannot cover himself.
But what is true waiting?
1. Not working,
2. Nor sleeping.
3. Nor stealing. There are many who do not trust in works, but like a
thief take the blessings into their hands the Lord has never put there. How
many presume all is well without having had the atonement applied, or even
without ever having been truly Drought to feel the need of reconciliation to
God by the blood of Jesus.
4. Neither is it despairing.
II. WHERE DOES THE
TRUE WAITER WAIT? He goes to the means, saying, “Oh, let not the oppressed
return ashamed; let the poor and needy praise Thy name.” Mercy’s door is the
place at which he waits.
III. What DOES HE
WAIT FOR? “Blessed are all they that wait for Him.”
IV. THE BLESSEDNESS
OF TRUE WAITERS. (S. Sears.)
I. THE NATURE OF
RIGHT WAITING UPON GOD.
Waiting for God
1. There must be continual waiting. “Turn thou to thy God: keep mercy
and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.” Thou art the God of my
salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day.” Not that we are always to be engaged
in formal acts of devotion. Waiting upon God is not wholly comprehended in
praying to Him. By inward meditation, by heartfelt desires, by continual
supplications as suggested to us in the Church, or as carried on in the closet,
or the family, we must never fail to wait upon God for those blessings
generally, which He has promised; or particularly, which we know that we
individually require. We must be constant expectants; unawed by the suggestions
of Satan, the coldness and apathy of our own hearts, or the low and unchristian
standard of those around us.
2. There must be importunate waiting. We are not to suppose that
“waiting” implies a sitting still in listless supineness, as if no exertion
were to be made. The waiting upon God which will prove successful, is a waiting
that will take no denial. It springs from a heartfelt sense of the necessities
of the soul; and it calls into exercise all the energies of the whole man.
3. There must be patient waiting (Psalms 40:1; Psalms 37:7).
4. There must be waiting on the name of Jehovah. David has a
remarkable expression: “I will wait on Thy name; for it is good before Thy
saints.” The name of God imports His attributes and perfections. A calm,
serious contemplation of the Divine character is an important part of waiting
upon God.
5. The soul must wait upon God. Many mistake here. They satisfy
themselves with the external homage of the body, without the inward bending of
the soul.
6. There must be waiting only upon God.
7. We must wait God’s own time and way.
II. THE BLESSEDNESS
OF THUS WAITING UPON HIM.
1. “The Lord is good to them that wait for Him: to the soul that
seeketh Him.”
2. He is good beyond conception.
3. The blessedness of waiting upon God appears likewise in the
increase of spiritual strength.
4. They who thus wait shall at length take up the language of holy
triumph. “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him,” etc.
Application--
1. Our subject condemns many amongst you.
2. Let the faithful learn their duty. (Carus Wilson.)
Waiting should be expectant
We must not cower in the dark closet, but climb to our watchtower
and scan the horizon. We must look out for God’s carrier pigeons; lest they
come to the cote with messages under their wings which we may miss. We must go
down to the quay; or God’s heavily freighted ships may touch there, and go away
again without discharging their cargoes. We must imitate the shipwrecked sailor,
who keeps the fire lit by night, and is incessantly on the outlook for passing
ships; else a search expedition may come near his poor islet and miss him.
Those who wait thus cannot be ashamed. It is impossible that God should
disappoint the hope which He has instilled and nourished in the heart of His
child. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Verse 19
He will be very gracious unto thee
Encouragements for faith
Observe the kind of prayer which is here said to move the Divine
pity and win the Divine favour.
It is designated a cry, i.e., it is a very fervent, earnest, importunate
prayer. It is a prayer that comes out of the depths of the heart. It expresses
a very deep sense of need. It utters a very longing desire after God. There is
very good reason why our prayers should very often tale this form. Our sins are
such that they should work in us a penitence that may fitly take expression in
a cry. Our spiritual needs are so urgent that we may give utterance to them in
a cry. The strife is, sometimes at least, so hot, and the battle seems so going
against us, that it may very reasonably be expected from us that we should cry
unto God for His help. And God is such a necessity to these natures of ours,
and God as a possession is so sufficing, that our desire for Him may well be
intense enough to require this language to give expression to our prayer.
I. There is
encouragement for faith in prayer to be found in THE NATURE OF GOD HIMSELF, as
we cannot help conceiving of it. Goodness enters into His very nature. We find
it necessary to believe that. It is too dreadful to believe the contrary. If I
apprehend Him as perfectly good He must be pitiful, He must be tender in His
pity; and if so, He is surely likely to be very gracious when He hears the
voice of our cry.
II. There is
encouragement, too, in THE RELATIONS WHICH WE MUST CONCEIVE GOD AS SUSTAINING
TO US. He is our Creator, and there is no reason at all in the suspicion that
He who has made us is looking with indifferent eyes upon us or listening with
indifference when the voice of our cry reaches His ear. He is our Father. He
has communicated to us of His own nature, and so has become our Father as He is
not the Father of other creatures that live on the face of this earth. But how
does He fill up your idea of Father if, when you are in want, He does not heed?
if, when you express your want of Him and of His help by a cry, He is not
moved?
III. THE INSTINCT OF
PRAYER which we have offers encouragement to us that He will be moved when we
call. We are in pain; some One is near who can relieve us, and we instinctively
cry for relief at His hands. Your child is in imminent peril, and there is a
man near who can rescue him; you instinctively call for the help of that man.
And so we feel great wants which God only can supply. We are in great peril,
from which God only can deliver us. There is something which instinctively
moves us to appeal to God, to cry to Him. If God has put that instinct in our
nature, He mast have intended to gratify it. There is no instinct of human
nature for the gratification of which God has not in some way provided.
IV. We have
encouragement, too, in THE ANALOGY TO ALL HUMAN RESPONSE GIVEN TO GREAT NEED.
It is not to children only that we give our compassion when they appeal to us
in great distress; we are moved by the lower animals when in their great
trouble they make an appeal to us. But you are not more pitiful than God. There
is no love or pity in man that was not first in God.
V. We have the
highest encouragement to this faith in God in THE REVELATION OF HIM IN THE
SCRIPTURES. It is a positive command of His that we should call upon Him when
we need Him, that we should cry unto Him when we are in distress. His command
means His purpose to hear; His command involves a promise in it. What do we
find given in the revelation? Explicit promises without number, and in every
form--proofs and illustrations and examples without number of God’s readiness
to be very gracious unto those that cry unto Him. What do we see in the
revelation of God in the Christian Scriptures? God showing what He is through a
man. He went about in the form of a man. The sinning, and the needy, and the
suffering came to Him, surrounded Him, tracked His steps, and cried to Him for
His pithy and for His help. And was He not very gracious! When He was
suffering, dying Himself, there came a cry from another who was in great
distress, saying to Him, “Remember me”; and He was very gracious at the voice of
that cry. But some are thinking that it is all true about the nature of God,
but that they are guilty, and there are God’s law, and God’s government, and
God’s justice, in the way of His nature expressing itself in His pitifulness to
them in answer to their cry. Whatever hindrance they put in the way has been
taken away by Christ. (D. Thomas, B. A.)
Encouragement to trust and pray
I. THIS ASSURANCE
IS PARTICULARLY SUITABLE TO CERTAIN CHARACTERS.
1. This is applicable and comfortable to all afflicted people.
2. To those who are troubled on account of sin.
3. To backsliders filled with their own ways, who are alarmed and
distressed at their grievous departures from their God.
4. To all believers in Christ who are at all exercised in heart.
II. THE ASSURANCE
HERE GIVEN IS VERY FIRMLY BASED. The words of our text are no old wives’ fable,
they are not such a pretty tale as mothers sometimes tell their children, a
story made to please them, but not actually true. What is the ground of this
assurance?
1. The plain promise of God.
2. The gracious nature of God.
3. The prevalence of prayer. “He will be very gracious unto thee at
the voice of thy cry.”
4. Personal testimony as to the result of faith in God and
supplication to
III. THE ASSURANCE
OF THE TEXT BEING SO WELL CONFIRMED SHOULD BE PRACTICALLY ACCEPTED AT ONCE.
1. Let us renounce all earthborn confidences.
2. Refuse despair.
3. Try the power of prayer and childlike confidence in God. (C.
H.Spurgeon.)
Verse 20
Thine eyes shall see thy teachers
Trouble making the heavenly Teacher real
The siege shall surely come, with its sorely concrete privations,
but the Lord will be there, equally distinct . . . Real, concrete sorrows,--these
are they that make the heavenly Teacher real! It is linguistically possible,
and more in harmony with the rest of the passage, to turn “teachers,” as the
E.. has it, into the singular, and to render it by “revealer.” The word is an
active participle, “moreh,” from the same verb as the noun “torah,” which is
constantly translated “law” in our version, but is, in the Prophets at least,
more nearly equivalent to “instruction,” or to our modern term “revelation” (Isaiah 30:9). Looking thus to the One
Revealer, and hearkening to the One Voice, “the lying and rebellious children”
shall at last be restored to that capacity for truth and obedience, the loss of
which has been their ruin. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Unseen teachers
There are troubled hours in life, in which we long to see our
teachers; to know what certain things mean; and to have it explained why some
special trials have been put upon us, and to what end events, now inexplicable,
are tending. Devout men and women suspect, or feel sure, already; they think
that the hand of the Lord is in all thin They rest assured that what seems
wrong now will be made right by and by: that all is for the best; and, more
than this, they are persuaded that some time or other, perhaps as death
approaches, perhaps in the shadowy and thoughtful place of departed spirits,
perhaps at the last great day of God, they shall see their teachers, and
comprehend it all. (Morgan Dix.)
The blessing of Christian teachers
Though the Gospel first began to be preached by the Lord, yet, as
it was expedient that He should go away, He has instituted, and in every age
preserved an order of men, for guiding others in the way of faith, of holiness,
and of peace.
I. A BRIEF SURVEY
OF THE ADVANTAGES WHICH MEN DERIVE FROM THIS INSTITUTION.
1. Attend to the thousands who devote themselves to the service of
the sanctuary, and whose characters are improved and ennobled by their previous
studies. With what diligence and success, prompted by motives of piety and
benevolence, do they search for the good way, that they may walk in it
themselves, and teach and recommend it to others with advantage! Their gifts
ripen and expand; their moral and religious excellences become distinguished.
Giving themselves to the Word of God and to prayer, and, in subserviency to
these, to inquiries after truth, to meditation, and to the perusal of useful
human writings, their good resolutions strengthen; and their knowledge, wisdom,
activity, and usefulness increase.
2. Public teachers often refine the taste, improve the genius,
civilise the manners, and promote the literary pursuits of a nation.
3. Instructions from the pulpit greatly promote a virtuous behaviour.
4. Attend to the gentle, penetrating, beneficent effects of pastoral
instruction, on the sorrowful, the disconsolate, the tempted, the doubting, the
feeble-minded, the sick, and the dying.
5. Teachers are profitable as they spread and defend the doctrines of
religion, and excite and cherish just sentiments of Divine things.
6. Pastoral instruction is a chief means which God hath appointed to
rescue sinners from the ruins of their apostasy, and to interest them in His
favour and friendship.
II. But, must it
not be acknowledged that CONGREGATIONS SOMETIMES DERIVE LITTLE OR NO BENEFIT
FROM SERMONS, and that to their teachers much of the blame belongs?
1. Bad men regard the effect of what they preach with cold
indifference, except in so far as worldly honour or interest is advanced by
their seeming success; and efforts naturally are feeble and ineffectual, where
desire is languid.
2. Sometimes a clergyman’s behaviour is not visibly influenced by the
doctrines and duties of religion. Men of small sagacity discern it, infer his
craft and disingenuity, or conclude that they may imitate him without hazard.
3. The natural abilities, extent of knowledge, and persuasive
talents, highly important in a teacher of religion, do not always accompany
true piety. (J. Erskine, D. D.)
Verse 21
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee
The Bath kol
The voice is evidently that of a faithful guide and monitor;
according to the Rabbins the Bath kol or mysterious echo which conducts
and warns the righteous.
(J. A. Alexander.)
A voice behind thee
The direction of the voice “from behind” is commonly explained by
saying that the image is borrowed from the practice of shepherds going behind
their flocks, or nurses behind children, to observe their motions. A much more
natural solution is the one proposed by Henderson, to wit, that their guides
were to be before them, but that when they declined from the right way their
backs would be turned to them, consequently the warning voice would be heard
behind them. (J. A. Alexander.)
The way of life and the ways of death
This world is full of ways, as it is of men; and one way only is
right. One only is the straight way of God’s commandments, that leadeth to
eternal life. The rest are the ways of men, that lead to destruction; and the
most deceitful of them all are those which branch off from this one, going,
some of them more, some of them less in its direction, and then by a sudden
turn forsaking it. So that amid the multitude of ways many travellers through
life never find the right one at all. And too many, after they have been
graciously set upon it, forsake it for the many byways of sin. But the promises
of God are found on His one way only; there alone their light guides amid
darkness, on that alone will men meet their Saviour. (R. W. Evans, B. D.)
Care needed in going through the world
We should never forget our true position in this mortal life. We
have to pick our way in it. The best known road in the world may be missed by
such want of proper attention. (R. W.Evans, B. D.)
Good company in the right road
What words do we hear behind us? what company is following us? If
it be not good company, can we be on the right road? If a person going (as he
thought) towards London, heard persons behind him talking as if they were going
towards Manchester, would he not be alarmed, suspecting that he had missed his
way? How then can he be on the right road to Heaven, who hears the company that
treads on his steps, talk of very different places, of very different ends of
their journey? (R. W. Evans, B. D.)
The guiding word
I. THE SINNER’S
ATTITUDE BEFORE GOD IS UNSEEMLY AND DANGEROUS. “A word behind thee.” A man who
hears a word behind him has his back to the speaker. He is, for some reason,
not in a friendly attitude.
1. The fact is implied, in the context, that the sinner has not only
his back turned to God, but is actually going away from Him. And that the going
away is not an inadvertency or oversight, but the result of a set purpose.
2. That he is self-willed, stubborn, and persistent in his efforts;
he continues his course of separation, in spite of the constant overtures and
entreaties of love.
II. GOD’S WARNINGS
AND OVERTURES ARE SIMPLE AND EASILY UNDERSTOOD. “A word behind thee.” Not a
confusing, rapidly uttered discourse--not a cold philosophical, or logical
treatise; not a metaphysical disquisition, couched in scientific
phrase--bewildering and vague, but, “a word.” Not a mysterious echo from the
hilltops, or an unknown voice speaking from afar, but, “a word behind thee.”
“Thine ears shall hear.” God is not unreason able in His demands. When He
calls, man possesses the God-given capacity to hear and obey.
III. A KNOWLEDGE OF
HIS DUTY IS NOT OPTIONAL WITH THE SINNER. “Thine ears shall hear.” A man’s
knowledge of his duty is not conditioned by his conduct, as are the blessings
of religion. God never gives any man up until he becomes so wedded to his sins
that he indignantly spurns all efforts for his salvation, both human and Divine.
IV. GOD’S WARNINGS
AND INSTRUCTIONS ARE ADEQUATE AND AMPLE, THEREFORE THE SINNER IS WITHOUT
EXCUSE. “This is the way, walk ye in it.” In His teachings, Jesus Christ always
presents duties as well as doctrines,--practice as well as principles.
1. Here we have doctrine. “This is the way.” Not one of a number of
ways, or an improvement on the old. No; it has neither duplicate nor
substitute.
2. We have also the practical. “Walk ye in it.”
V. THE LIFE OF THE
SINNER IS NOT NECESSARILY FIXED AND MONOTONOUS. “When ye turn to the right
hand, or to the left” The tremendous prerogative of free agency leaves it with
every man to formulate and determine his own activities.
1. Notice the broad sphere open to the sinner, and from which he is
to select the pathway of his activities.
2. Notice the grandest possibility within reach of the sinner. Right
about face. This grand movement at once brings to an end both his conduct and
character as a sinner. (Thomas Kelly.)
The guiding word
Man is a traveller. He has lost his way. He needs a guide, both to
bring him back to, and keep him in, the right path to the end of the journey.
Where is that guide to be found? It is referred to in the text. “A word behind
thee.” The following remarks are suggested concerning this guiding word.
I. It comes to man
from WITHOUT. There are inner guides placed there by our Maker in our
constitution. Reason. Conscience. But both these have failed us. They
themselves are lost in the haze of depravity. Hence the need of a guide from
without; such a guide as “the word.” It comes from God to man--
1. Through nature.
2. Through Christ.
II. It comes to man
in EXPLICITNESS. “This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right
hand, and when ye turn to the left.” There is no indefiniteness here, no
vagueness, and no uncertainty; no suggesting a choice between different ways.
The word reveals the right and only way, and that way is Christ. “I am the
way”--“Follow Me.”
III. It comes to man
from MYSTERY. “Behind thee.” Thou dost not see the speaker. The voice breaks
out from the dark past. It comes from “behind.” Behind all that is seen and
heard, behind all the phenomena of nature, behind the universe, from God
Himself, the Mysterious One.
IV. It comes to
man, BUT HE MUST LISTEN. “Thou shalt hear.” This hearing is the want. Men’s
spiritual ears are deaf. The guiding word is everywhere.
“There is no speech nor language where His voice is not heard.”
Open thine ear: listen and thou shalt catch the guiding directions. (Homilist.)
Diving guidance and admonition
The text may be applied to the abundant means of grace, and the
plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit, under the Gospel dispensation--to the
privileges which we enjoy, and the assistance promised to us.
I. THE WAY,
referred to in the text, may be applied--
1. To God’s method of saving sinful men, through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It was said of the apostles, “These men are the servants of the
Most High God, who show unto us the way of salvation.” We must walk in it,
actually choosing Him to be our Redeemer and Advocate, committing ourselves
entirely to Him, and earnestly seeking the continual supplies of His Spirit,
that we may be saved from sin.
2. The text may be applied to the way in which the sanctification of
the believer is, through Divine grace, effected. We are not only to receive
Christ Jesus the Lord, but also to walk in Him; and to prove that we live in
the Spirit, by walking in the Spirit. It is by daily prayer, and the daily
improvement of Scripture, of Divine ordinances, and providential occurrences,
and a steadfast adherence to the will of God, that we must expect to grow in
grace, and go from strength to strength.
3. It may be applied to that particular course of service to which
each Christian is called, by the circumstances in which he b placed, the
talents committed to him, or the relations he bears to others. Knowing that the
way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps--how liable he is to mistake the path of duty on various occasions, he
will pray, “Teach me Thy way, O God” (Psalms 27:11; Psalms 119:33-37).
II. THE PROMISE
meets all the cases which have been mentioned.
1. It is a promise of the direction which God will afford to all who
really seek it.
2. It is a promise of Divine grace to incline us to walk in God’s
way. “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,” etc.
3. It is a promise that He will quicken us in the path of duty.
4. It is a promise that the Lord will preserve His people, and enable
them to endure unto the end. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
The teachings of the past
I. THE VALUE OF
EVERY EXPERIENCE THAT BEFALLS US.
II. THE SOLE ROAD
TO BLESSEDNESS, TO PEACE, TO JOY, TO TRUE PROSPERITY OF LIFE, IS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
III. GOD’S GUIDANCE
OF THE FAITHFUL SOUL. (H. Varley, B. A.)
The word behind thee
I. THE MONITOR in
these words. “Thine ears shall hear a word,” etc.
II. THE ADMONITION
ITSELF. “This is the way,” etc.
III. THE OCCASION.
“When ye turn to the right hand,” etc. (T. Horton.)
The Divine monitor
It is a promise--
1. Of ministerial opportunities.
2. Of the continuance of spiritual suggestions. (T. Horton.)
The voice behind
1. It is a pursuing and overtaking word; a word that follows us and
comes at our heels.
2. A revoking and recalling word. A word of restraint.
3. An impulsive and provoking word. A word that puts thee forward,
that furthers thee and promotes thee in thy way. (T. Horton.)
The admonition
“This is the way, walk ye in it.”
1. A word of correction and reformation in case of miscarriage. It is
very fitly said to those who wander and are out of the way, to bring them again
into it.
2. A word of direction and instruction in case of ignorance.
3. A word of strengthening and confirmation in case of unsettledness.
It is very suitably said to those who are doubtful and wavering and uncertain
in themselves whether they be right in the way or no, to encourage them to
persevere and go on in those good ways which they have made entrance upon. (T.
Horton.)
Turning to the right hand or to the left
The expression plainly intimates that there are dangerous bypaths
on both hands, into which the people of God are apt to turn aside.
I. ON THE RIGHT
HAND, there are erroneous principles and practices which are mistaken for that
truth and holiness whereof they are really destitute. Such are--
1. Professed confidence in God’s pardoning mercy, disjoined from the
acknowledged necessity of His sanctifying grace.
2. High pretensions to faith which are not verified by solicitude to
maintain good works.
3. Flaming profession of piety toward God, unaccompanied with the
exercises of justice, mercy, and charity toward men.
4. Great pretended zeal against public vices, attended with
indifference as to secret personal transgressions.
5. Loud approbation of discourses that expose infidelity, hypocrisy,
and iniquity, whilst these sins are indulged in heart and life.
II. ON THE LEFT
HAND there are also pernicious principles and dangerous practices into which
men are prone to deviate. Such are--
1. The confession that holiness is indispensably requisite to the
enjoyment of God, whilst the necessity of atonement for sin is denied or
overlooked.
2. Strenuous assertions of the importance of good works, separate
from a proper regard to faith, the active principle from which they proceed.
3. High respect for the duties of justice, mercy, and charity, joined
with criminal indifference and neglect of the exercises of piety and devotion.
4. Partiality to their own favourite sins and unaffectedness with the
transgressions of other people, whereby God is offended, His law transgressed,
and His truth dishonoured. (R. Macculloch.)
Virtue
Virtue lies in the middle, between two extremes, which are equally
to be avoided. (R. Macculloch.)
The voice behind thee
I. THE POSITION OF
THE WANDERER to whom this special blessing comes. How does God find men when He
declares that they shall hear a word behind them?
1. With their backs turned to Him. The wanderer seeks not God, but
God seeks him. Man turns from the God of love, but the love of God turns not
away from him.
2. They were going further and further away from Him. Of course, when
you have once turned your back upon the right, the further you travel the more
wrong you become.
3. They were pursuing their course in spite of warning. Read the
twentieth verse: “Thine eyes shall see thy teachers”: there they stood, good
men, right in the way, entreating their hearers to cease from provoking their
God and destroying their own souls.
4. They had many ways in which to wander. Sometimes they roamed to
the right hand, at other times they wandered to the left, but they never turned
face about. Some men have right-hand sins, respectable iniquities which
challenge little censure from their fellows. Others have left-hand sins; they
plunge into the sins of the flesh; no vice is too black for them.
II. THE CALL OF
MERCY.
1. It is a call that is altogether undesired, and comes unsought to
the man who has gone astray.
2. “A word behind thee”: it is the voice of an unseen Caller whose
existence has been almost forgotten. It is not the teachers that speak in this
powerful way. The teachers you have seen with your eyes, and they have done you
no good; but some One calls whom you never saw, and never will see, till He
sits on the throne of judgment at the last great day; but still He utters a
word which cannot be kept out of your ears. It will come to you mysteriously at
all sorts of hours crying, “Return, return, return.”
3. This voice pursues and overtakes the sinner.
4. That voice when it comes to sinners is generally most opportune,
for they are to hear this voice behind them when they turn to the right hand or
to the left.
5. It is absolutely necessary that the potent word should be spoken,
and should be heard. For the man had seen his teachers, but they had not
wrought him any good.
III. WHAT WAS THE
WORD OF THAT CALL? It is stated at full length. “This is the way, walk ye in
it.”
1. It contains within itself specific instruction. “This is the way.”
There is a kind of preaching which has nothing specific, definite, and positive
in it: it is a bit of cloud land, and you may make what you like out of it.
2. This definite instruction may also be said to be a special
correction. It as good as says the opposite path is not the way.
3. It is also a word of sure confirmation. “This is the way.”
4. This is followed up by a word of personal direction. Do not merely
hear about it, but “walk ye in it.”
5. This takes the form of encouraging permission. “This is the way.”
Do not sit looking at it: “walk ye in it.” “But I am so big a sinner.” “Christ
is the way; walk ye in it.” There is room enough for big sinners in Jesus. “But
I have been so long coming.” Never mind: this is the way, “walk ye in it.” “But
I am afraid my feet are so polluted that I shall stare the way.” “This is the
way, walk ye in it.”
IV. THE SUCCESS OF
THE WORD. “Thine ears shall hear.” God not only gives us something to hear, but
He gives us ears to hear with. This is effectual grace.
1. This means that the message of Divine love shall come to the man’s
mind so as to create uneasiness in it.
2. After awhile there gets to be a desire in his heart.
3. As that voice continues to sound, it pulls him up and leads to
resolve. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
This is the way, walk ye
in it
The right way
The right way is possessed of every qualification and advantage
that you can possibly desire.
1. It is a highway, open to persons of every description.
2. It is the way of holiness, wherein the unclean shall not walk.
3. It is a patent way, wherein the wayfaring man, though a fool,
shall not err.
4. It is a safe way, wherein you shall be protected from the hostile
attacks of your enemies.
5. It is a pleasant way, wherein you shall enjoy sacred peace.
6. It is an infallible way to arrive at fulness of joys, and rivers
of pleasures for evermore. (R. Macculloch.)
Verse 23
Then shall He give the rain of thy seed
The effusion of the Holy Spirit
These words are, in their literal sense, a promise of a bountiful
supply from God of the showers of dew and rain, by which the earth would be
made abundantly fruitful.
The promise is given with reference to the casting away of their idols by the
Jewish people. But the words are capable of a larger interpretation. The whole
chapter looks to blessings greater than any that can be counted by the numbers
of time. The plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit of God, which is so often
spoken of under the emblem of “rain” and “dew,” is hereby intended. As the rain
and dew could elicit no fertility without preparation of the ground, and industrious
tilling upon the part of man,--as the concurrence of both these conditions is
requisite in order to secure a produce,--so is it true likewise with regard to
spiritual husbandry. There must be on the part of man the use of means, as well
as the bestowing of His gifts on the part of God. But it may be asked, How is
God’s grace to be obtained? Have any means or channels been appointed for its
supply?
1. Prayer is one appointed channel.
2. So is hearing the Word of God.
3. The sacraments. (H. J. Hastings, M. A.)
Verse 26
The Light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun
Faith’s astronomy
It is worthy of closest observation that the Bible standpoint is
as distinct from the astrologer’s position as it is from that of the modern
observer.
It differs equally from each in this respect, that God’s believing children are
ever taught to regard these mightiest natural powers as our servants, and not
as our sovereigns. Instead of their regulating our destiny, it is our destiny
which regulates their continuance and perpetuity. So in this passage we have an
example of faith’s astronomy.
I. We have here A
VISION OF INTENSE GLORY. We are told that even now the moonlight in the lands
with which Isaiah was familiar is far more brilliant than that with which we
are favoured. It is the strength of those moonbeams that gives significance to
the promise, “The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night.” And
yet the prophet, with all his acquaintance with brighter heavens than ours,
ventures upon the conception of still further splendour both by night and by
day. It is evident that he is not looking at these things from a bare mundane
standpoint. But he is in an ecstasy over the blessed intents of love which God
has or His people, and he finds all the ordinary accounts of well-being too
scant and meagre to portray the good which is in store; and so, in a bold
flight of descriptive eloquence, he tells of sevenfold suns and of sun-like
moons diffusing through renovated skies all the myriad benefits of their beams
with unfailing profusion. We observe that this forecast of increased glory is
the reverse of that which natural calculation would give. The natural theory
that finds favour is that the sun once shone more potently than now he does,
and that in the future his ray will become still feebler, until night and death
settle down upon the entire solar system. While science, then, tells us of
exhausting power and expiring energy, it is the province of revelation and of
faith which accepts it to speak of superior founts of being, those original
sources from which the sun itself and all on which it shines first derived
their existence. We observe, again, that human calculation, if it did foresee
such an augmentation of sunlight, would be ready to account it disastrous
rather than welcome. A seven-fold sun would only emit one flash, and anon this
globe would be drawn into its flaming vortex, and the brightness would be but
that of conflagration and ruin. Again, then, we have to hall another wisdom
besides that of men, which contemplates exaltation where sense only detects
degradation, and which effects felicity where carnal reason would only
anticipate evil. For “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man.”
There was as much disposition in Isaiah’s day as there is in ours to think that
the world and the sun are wearing out and growing old, and also to think that
an intense blaze would be obnoxious rather than welcome. But Isaiah was moved
by the Holy Ghost to tell us of a light that should be at once of surpassing
effulgence, and yet of sweet and benign influence; a light that should shine,
not upon a trembling and alarmed race, but upon those whose breach had been
bound up and whose wound had been healed. A vision this, then, of fuller light,
of fairer sight, and of people with capacities of beholding and revelling in
these sun-like moons and seven-fold suns. Intellectually this promise is
accomplished in our days by our discoveries in the structure of the heavens.
The moon is for us a grander object than the sun was to the beholders of
ancient days, and the sun now strikes our minds as sevenfold, yea, as we speak
now, a thousand fold, more magnificent than they thought him then. But the
benefit of these discoveries to our spirits was all vouchsafed to Isaiah when
the Holy Ghost moved him to contemplate in believing rapture the great
resources of God and the beneficence with which He would unlock those resources
for the enrichment of men upon whom He would shine with other light than that
of suns and moons in the day when the Lord shall bind up the breach of His
people. The seven-fold sun is the visage of God Himself; the moon equalling the
sun is the glory of the Lamb illuminating the Holy City.
II. This glory is
set forth as TARRYING FOR A CERTAIN DAY. Our temptation is to think that our
circumstances make our characters. But there is more of truth in the contrary
thought, that our characters make our circumstances. The land of Palestine has
become barren, but this did not produce the degeneracy of her people, but the
people degenerated first and the land subsequently. God “turneth a fruitful
land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” So
material things may lend their aid to spiritual results, but really it is the
spiritual that regulates the material. The first great change must happen in
us, then we shall be qualified to behold and to enjoy the splendour that God
will disclose without us. “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the
sun” on a certain day at a date which is determined, not by the chronology of
suns and moons, but by that of quickened spirits and broken hearts in the day
that the Lord shall bind up the breach of His people.
III. Notice, ON WHAT
IT IS THIS VISION OF GLORY IS THUS SUSPENDED. There is “joy amongst the angels
of God over one sinner that repenteth,” and it is no exaggeration to say that
the events that transpire within human hearts are of more account in God’s eyes
than the vastest convulsions of nature. And the wonder is that sin has not
altered that. The story of Joshua’s command over the heavenly orbs is not too
severe a demand upon my faith when once I have a firm grasp of the truth that
the sun has a personal Maker and Maser. But that when we have erred and
offended, when the constancy and regularity which the heavenly masses show is
found wanting in us, and we become like shooting stars, wandering on a devious
way without settled orbit or consistency of course, that God should still track
us with His pity, that He should still reserve Lines of gracious attraction for
us, and that even for such offenders as we He should submit an entire universe
to reconstruction--is not this the most incredible thing of all? Two practical
interpretations may be assigned to this imagery.
The seven-fold light of the sun
There is a glory above the brightness, of the midday sun; it is
the more excellent glory of the “Sun of Righteousness.” There is a beauty
softer and more tender than the pale splendour of the queen of night; it is
that of the Church, walking in the beauty and light of her Lord. Taking it all
in all, the Church, even now, is the glory of humanity, and the light of the
world. And better days are in store for her, when the clouds and shadows shall
flee away, and a more glorious illumination shall break forth upon her and from
her. This promise, in common with many other texts of Isaiah, shines out like a
sun from an angry and troubled sky. But the gathering clouds only add to the
intensity of the splendour. God’s richest love ever shines on the blackest
clouds of sorrow and sin. We have here--
I. THE CHURCH’S
UNHAPPY CONDITION. “The breach of His people, and the stroke of their wound,”
may represent more than internal division or disunion; but it may well stand
for that, as being among the most grievous of the Church’s wounds, and the
invariable outcome and index of other maladies.
1. As a cause of pain. All the Christians of most Christlike spirit
have mourned over these divisions, and have had great searchings of heart
because of them.
2. There is also the disfigurement of a wound, in the marring of a
most perfect and glorious creation by these internal divisions.
3. There is also fatal weakness for work and service from these
wounds.
II. GOD’S GRACIOUS
VISITATION OF HIS CHURCH. “The Lord shall bind up the breach of His people, and
heal the stroke of their wound.” We know that the wounds of the body are
healed, not by external applications, but by the vigour of the vital forces
within itself pouring out their overflowing life, bringing the parts together,
and making them whole; and the Church’s wounds are to be healed by the Lord’s
infusion of a larger measure of spiritual and Divine life; of more piety, more
power, more zeal, more affection.
III. THE BLESSED
CONSEQUENCES OF THE HEALING OF THESE WOUNDS. “The light of the moon shall be as
the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven fold, as the light of
seven days.”
1. These images denote an immense increase of the Church’s light, or
future glory, as the consequence of the healing of the Church’s wounds. Where
there is more love there will be more light.
2. The healing of the breach would bring an immense increase of light
to the Church within her actual boundaries. This light of the various portions
of the Church when brought together, will be more intense--will shine with a
mightier fulness, than when separated.
3. The healing of the Church’s wounds would bring increase of light
beyond the boundaries of the Church. The Church is destined to be the light of
the world. “Seven fold!” There are days that have a seven-fold fulness of light
in comparison of other days, when the summer sunshine has a splendour, and a
glory, and a fulness, that are equal to the light of many cloudy and dark days.
And what is it that makes the difference? It is the intervening atmosphere that
is different; it is the thick and murky air that intercepts and weakens his
light. Only let the Church be in a right condition, and the revealed Christ
will shine forth in gladness, and the revelation will discover itself in all
its fulness. There is no glory of the Church that is not made up of individual
excellence, and the only way to promote its splendour and glory is to elevate
individually the Christian spirit. (J. Riddell.)
The transfiguring power of righteousness
As men grow in godliness and righteousness so will the glory of
all things be revealed and heightened. Just as men realise the grace of God
will human nature itself be uplifted and all things be transfigured with it.
I. The text finds
an illustration in the direction of NATURE. How wonderfully science has
enlarged our conception of the magnitude of the universe; it is always pushing
back the sky. How wonderfully, too, has science raised our conception of the
orbs which fill the infinite abyss! To us also the sea has become mysterious
and magnificent as an inverted sky. And the earth itself has become a veritable
wonderland. The microscope, the spectroscope, the telescope, have discovered unexpected
treasures. But someone asks, What have godliness and righteousness to do with
that science which is ever more fully interpreting the world? I reply,
Godliness and righteousness make science possible. Godliness creates that
infinite curiosity of soul which is the life of science, and righteousness
secures that condition of things which makes the prosecution of science
possible. Galileo was a Christian, and it was whilst he was worshipping in the
Cathedral of Pisa that the swinging of the lamp set him thinking aright about
the sublime forces and laws of the universe. Which historical fact is a
parable, for again and again has science lit her torch at the lamp of the
temple. Faith and righteousness make science possible. And the more pure in
heart men become the more vividly do they see and appreciate the beauty and
grandeur of the world.
II. The text will
be illustrated in THE PERFECTING OF HUMANITY. As the Spirit of God frees us
from unbelief, fear, passion, and puts us into fellowship with our Heavenly
Father, so does our nature unfold all its wonderful faculties. Just as men
become spiritual and righteous so do they gloriously realise themselves.
1. The fact is that our bodily organs are growing, they are ever
becoming enlarged in range and heightened in ability. Our senses are becoming
sevenfold. What a wonderful ear the telephone has given us! What a penetrating
quality the telegraph has imparted to our voice! What a splendid eye the
telescope, the microscope, and camera have given us! What marvellously manifold
and facile hands we have acquired in the scientific and mechanical apparatus of
our times. All this is equivalent to the enlargement of the bodily organs
themselves.
2. A higher moral and spiritual life will realise most gloriously our
intellectual faculties. Ruskin assures us that none of the great masters had
faults of character but those faults told in their work, mysteriously staining
and darkening the prismatic splendours of their masterpieces.
3. Man’s highest moral possibilities are being attained in Jesus
Christ.
III. The text finds
fulfilment in THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY. By the action of the Spirit of God
society is being purified and uplifted; instead of being a mere convention for
selfish ends it is becoming a brotherhood, its spirit the spirit of kindness,
its law the law of love. And how wonderfully will this change, silently, deeply
working, ennoble and glorify everything. Nothing glorifies like unselfishness.
How a noble, unselfish spirit will exalt government! And ennoble commerce! And
all industrialism! And so everything else will be uplifted and beautified as
you get more of the spirit of love into it. All culture, all pleasure, all
domesticity, all friendship. I heard a brother say in a love feast that when he
walked home after his conversion he thought that all the sign boards in the
street had been freshly painted. Yes, indeed, love will paint everything
fleshly, both the commonplace and grand; paint them with the hues of heaven,
gild them with untarnished gold. Today we have to apologise for government
whenever we mention it; we have to confess the vulgarity of trade and
industrialism; we have sorrowfully to acknowledge how much there is in social
life that justifies cynicism and satire; we have to blush for pleasure; there
is little poetry and greatness in these things, but it shall not be always so.
Poor sentiments are yielding; nobler thoughts are prevailing; and the prophecy
in our text is being fulfilled every day. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The Christian should cherish large expectations concerning the
Church and the race
God has done wonderful things, but He will do greater yet. A
brother in York told me that one day he noticed an American eagerly scanning
one of their ancient buildings. Said the visitor: “I am looking at your grand
cathedral.” “Our cathedral,” said the citizen; “Stranger, come with me,” and
taking the pilgrim a little distance, he pointed him to the magnificent pile,
and said, “That is our cathedral, sir.” We are always being tempted to pause at
some miserable shanty or other as if it were the final shrine of God. We look
at our nation as if it were about the embodiment of ultimate civilisation. We
look at our Church as if it were the perfected Church of God. But the Spirit is
ever showing us beyond all the poor present an idea home, Church, nation, an
ideal full of righteousness. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Verse 29
Ye shall have a song
Communion memories
These Jewish wayfarers returned to their several homes to resume
their usual occupations.
So it is with us. After the most sacred festal and sacramental seasons, the
world’s business and cares necessarily reassert their claims. But, would these
old Jewish worshippers in casting off their holiday attire, cast off also their
holiday and festive spirit? In the midst of the coarse contacts of daily
existence, would the recollections of the Jerusalem festival no longer linger
in their memories? Nay, rather, would not these songs of Sion still haunt their
ears and hang upon their lips?--would not the shepherd be heard chanting them
in the midst of his fleecy charge by green pastures and still waters?--would
not the fisherman warble them in his night watch on the lake? and the sailor as
he bounded over the great sea, and the dim mountains of his fatherland were
receding from view?--would not the cottager, as he reached his home among the
hills of Kedesh or on the spurs of Hermon, evening after evening, in returning
from his toil, gather his little ones by his knee, and rehearse to them the
joyful remembrances of the holy season? Be it ours, while we leave the New
Testament feast, and engage in our daily avocations, to carry the hallowed
memories of it along with us. (J. R.Macduff, D. D.)
The song of God’s redeemed
I. A GLORIOUS
ANTICIPATION. This is represented under two figures.
1. A holy service. “The night when a holy solemnity is kept.”
II. A SUITABLE
STATE OF MIND. “Ye shall have a song and gladness of heart.”
1. Ye shall have a song. There are two things, revolved “in” this.
2. Ye shall have gladness of heart. It will be caused by--
III. A PRESENT
ENCOURAGEMENT. This future promise may be now realised by faith. And what a
different aspect will this give to the present life! We may not sing the full
chorus of the songs of Heaven, but we can hear the echo. We cannot see our
Lord, but we can feel His arms and hear His voice.
IV. A DESIRABLE
CONDITION. The text affords a most urgent stimulus to our present life. It
speaks of a song which the people of God will be enabled to sing with
confidence when their Lord’s judgments are abroad. Let us endeavour to realise
the confidence, the peace, the happiness of that future time. (Homilist.)
For Tophet is ordained of old
The annihilation of the Assyrian power
The annihilation of the Assyrian power is graphically set forth as
one great funeral obsequy, such as were well known among Eastern nations.
The Divine command prepares the Tophet or pyre; and in its flames all the glory
of Assyria shall consume away. What had been prepared by human wisdom for the
idolatrous worship of Moloch, shall now by Divine decree be used for Assyria’s
destruction: her king shall be the great victim. (Buchanan Blake, B. D.)
The destruction of Assyria in Tophet
The description is, of course, figurative; and the details, as is
often the case in prophecy, are not to be understood literally; they merely
constitute the drapery in which the prophet clothes his idea. No such scene as
is here described was ever actually enacted; Sennacherib, in point of fact,
perished twenty years after his invasion of Judah, in his own land being
assassinated by his own sons Isaiah 37:38). (Prof. S. R. Driver, D.
D.)
The wicked man warned
I. The first
doctrine that we have is--that THERE IS A HELL.
1. Justice requires it. If a man sins, doth not justice require that
he should be punished?
2. But more than this, doth not Divine benevolence require it? Would
it be benevolent in any man to propose to take away our police, to pull down
our gaols, to abolish our penal settlements, and to stop forever all
imprisonment and punishments for sin? It might appear to be liberal and
charitable, but the fate of the rest of the community would be so direful that
verily we might say, “Build up the gaols once more! Let it be seen that sin
cannot go unpunished here, and that the ruler beareth not the sword in vain!”
3. We ask, If there were no hell for the wicked, where are they to be
put to? The answer is, “Why, let them all go to Heaven.” But have you never
heard me expose the absurdity of the idea of a wicked man being carried to
Heaven as he is?
4. O sinner! why need I argue that “Tophet is ordained of old”? Is
there not something within thyself which tells thee that there is such a place?
5. How is it that so many people in the world are always laughing at
the idea of hell? I will tell you. The worse men are, the less they like hell.
Scorning is sweet to the mouth, but it is bitter afterwards.
II. THE SIZE OF
THIS PLACE. It is “deep and large.” We do delight in the thought that Heaven is
great and large; that there will be more saved than there will be lost. But
this is a sad thought to us--that hell is “deep and large.” Persons say that
“if the heathen lives up to his light and knowledge, will he not be saved by
the blood of Christ?” The heathen does not live up to his light and knowledge,
and, therefore, it is an assumption that is not correct. Tophet is deep and
large. There is room for you great sinners, room for you rich sinners, room for
you proud, stiff-necked sinners, room for the whole mass of sinners, for though
you should join in hand, yet shall not the wicked go unpunished.
III. THE FUEL OF IT.
“The pile thereof is fire and much wood.” The wicked are their own woodmen;
they find their own fuel for their own flame.
IV. THE FLAME OF
IT. “The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.” What
kind of breath will that be?
1. It will be His condemning breath. God on high will breathe out
sentences of condemnation against the wicked perpetually.
2. His reproving breath. For He will be always saying, “Son,
remember, remember such s time you heard a sermon; such a time you sinned; such
a time your conscience smote you; such a time in your life you attended Sabbath
school; such a time you cursed Me to My face; such a time you blasphemed My
day; such a time you spoke ill of My servants; such a time you did this; such a
time you did that.”
3. The eternal life of God Himself shall kindle the flame breath of
God shall keep the flame burning. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》