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Isaiah Chapter
Forty-eight
Isaiah 48
Chapter Contents
The Jews reproved for their idolatry. (1-8) Yet
deliverance is promised them. (9-15) Solemn warnings of judgment upon those who
persisted in evil. (16-22)
Commentary on Isaiah 48:1-8
(Read Isaiah 48:1-8)
The Jews valued themselves on descent from Jacob, and
used the name of Jehovah as their God. They prided themselves respecting
Jerusalem and the temple, yet there was no holiness in their lives. If we are
not sincere in religion, we do but take the name of the Lord in vain. By
prophecy they were shown how God would deal with them, long before it came to
pass. God has said and done enough to prevent men's boasting of themselves,
which makes the sin and ruin of the proud worse; sooner or later every mouth
shall be stopped, and all become silent before Him. We are all born children of
disobedience. Where original sin is, actual sin will follow. Does not the
conscience of every man witness to the truth of Scripture? May the Lord prove
us, and render us doers of the word.
Commentary on Isaiah 48:9-15
(Read Isaiah 48:9-15)
We have nothing ourselves to plead with God, why he
should have mercy upon us. It is for his praise, to the honour of his mercy, to
spare. His bringing men into trouble was to do them good. It was to refine
them, but not as silver; not so thoroughly as men refine silver. If God should
take that course, they are all dross, and, as such, might justly be put away.
He takes them as refined in part only. Many have been brought home to God as
chosen vessels, and a good work of grace begun in them, in the furnace of
affliction. It is comfort to God's people, that God will secure his own honour,
therefore work deliverance for them. And if God delivers his people, he cannot be
at a loss for instruments to be employed. God has formed a plan, in which, for
his own sake, and the glory of his grace, he saves all that come to Him.
Commentary on Isaiah 48:16-22
(Read Isaiah 48:16-22)
The Holy Spirit qualifies for service; and those may
speak boldly, whom God and his Spirit send. This is to be applied to Christ. He
was sent, and he had the Spirit without measure. Whom God redeems, he teaches;
he teaches to profit by affliction, and then makes them partakers of his
holiness. Also, by his grace he leads them in the way of duty; and by his
providence he leads in the way of deliverance. God did not afflict them
willingly. If their sins had not turned them away, their peace should have been
always flowing and abundant. Spiritual enjoyments are ever joined with holiness
of life and regard to God's will. It will make the misery of the disobedient
the more painful, to think how happy they might have been. And here is assurance
given of salvation out of captivity. Those whom God designs to bring home to
himself, he will take care of, that they want not for their journey. This is
applicable to the grace laid up for us in Jesus Christ, from whom all good
flows to us, as the water to Israel out of the rock, for that Rock was Christ.
The spiritual blessings of redemption, and the rescue of the church from
antichristian tyranny, are here pointed to. But whatever changes take place,
the Lord warned impenitent sinners that no good would come to them; that inward
anguish and outward trouble, which spring from guilt and from the Divine wrath,
must be their portion for ever.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 48
Verse 1
[1] Hear
ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come
forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make
mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.
Called —
Who are Israelites in name, but not in truth.
Are come —
From the lineage of your progenitor, Judah, as waters flow from a fountain.
Swear —
Who profess the true religion; (one act of religion being put for all) and call
themselves by his name.
Verse 2
[2] For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the
God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.
Though —
They glory that they are citizens of Jerusalem, a city sanctified by God, to be
the place of his true worship, and gracious presence.
And stay —
Not by a true faith, but a vain confidence.
Verse 4
[4]
Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy
brow brass;
I knew —
Therefore I gave thee clearer demonstrations of my nature and providence,
because I knew thou wast an unbelieving nation.
Thy neck — Will
not bow down to receive my yoke.
Thy brow —
Thou wast impudent.
Verse 6
[6] Thou
hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new
things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.
See — As
thou hast heard all these things, from time to time, seriously consider them.
Declare — I
call you to witness: must you not be forced to acknowledge the truth of what I
say? Shewed - And I have now given thee new predictions of secret things, such
as 'till this time were wholly unknown to thee, concerning thy deliverance out
of Babylon by Cyrus.
Verse 7
[7] They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when
thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.
Created —
Revealed to thee by me; brought to light, as things are by creation.
Not —
Heb. not from thence, not from these ancient times when other things were
revealed to thee.
Or — Heb. and (or, or, as
this particle is frequently used) before this day. This day answers to now in
the first clause: and seems to be added as an exposition of it. Before this
time in which God hath revealed them to thee by my ministry.
I knew —
Either by thine own sagacity: or by the help of thine idols.
Verse 8
[8] Yea,
thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear
was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast
called a transgressor from the womb.
Yea —
The same thing is repeated, because this was so illustrious a proof of the
infinite power and providence of God.
Thine ear —
Thou didst not hear, I did not reveal these things unto thee: for so this
phrase of opening the ear is understood, 1 Samuel 9:15.
I knew — I knew
all these cautions were necessary to cure thine infidelity.
Called —
Justly, thou wast indeed such.
Verse 9
[9] For
my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for
thee, that I cut thee not off.
For my sake — I
will spare thee, and deliver thee out of captivity, not for thy sake, but
merely for my own sake, and for the vindication of my name, that I may be
praised for my power, faithfulness, and goodness.
Verse 10
[10]
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction.
Behold —
Although I will not cut thee off, yet I will put thee into the furnace.
Silver —
Which is kept in the furnace so long 'till all the dross be purged away, I will
not deal so rigorously with thee; for then I should wholly consume thee.
I will chuse —
God had in a manner rejected Israel, and therefore it was necessary he should
chuse and try this people a second time.
Verse 11
[11] For
mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be
polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.
It — This great work of
delivering my people out of Babylon.
Name — If
I should not deliver my people, my name would be profaned and blasphemed.
Glory — I
will not give any colour to idolaters, to ascribe the divine nature and
properties, to idols, as they would do if I did not rescue my people out of
their hands in spite of their idols.
Verse 12
[12]
Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also
am the last.
O Israel —
Whom I have called out of the world to be my peculiar people.
Verse 13
[13] Mine
hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned
the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
Stand up —
They are still continually in readiness to execute my commands.
Verse 14
[14] All
ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things?
The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall
be on the Chaldeans.
Which —
Which of the gods whom any of you serve.
Him —
Cyrus.
Verse 16
[16] Come
ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit,
hath sent me.
In secret — l
have openly revealed my mind to you.
The beginning —
Either from the first time that I began to prophecy until this time: or from
the beginning of my taking you to be my people, and of revealing my mind unto
you.
From the time —
From the time that I first spoke of it, I am or was there, to effect what I had
foretold.
The Lord —
God by his Spirit.
Me — The prophet Isaiah;
who was a type of Christ, and so this may have a respect to him also.
Verse 17
[17] Thus
saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God
which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou
shouldest go.
Teacheth —
Who from time to time have made known to thee, all necessary doctrines; which,
if observed by thee, would have been infinitely profitable to thee, both for
this life and that to come. So that it is not my fault, but thine own, if thou
dost not profit.
Leadeth —
Who acquainteth thee with thy duty in all the concerns of thy life; so that
thou canst not pretend ignorance.
Verse 18
[18] O
that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
As the waves —
Infinite and continual.
Verse 20
[20] Go
ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare
ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath
redeemed his servant Jacob.
Singing —
With joy and songs of praise.
Declare —
Publish God's wonderful works.
Verse 21
[21] And
they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to
flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed
out.
They thirsted not —
They shall not thirst. He speaks of things to come, as if they were already
past.
Verse 22
[22]
There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.
No peace —
God having foretold that peace which he would give to his servant Jacob, adds
an explication; and declares, that wicked men should not enjoy the benefit of
this mercy.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
48 Chapter 48
Verses 1-22
Verse 1-2
Hear ye this, O house of Jacob
God’s appeal to Israel
The lessons of God’s method of prophetic revelation which Israel
is to lay to heart.
(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
“The waters of Judah”
The people, by natural figure, are described as streams from the
fountain of Judah (Psalms 68:26). (J. A. Alexander.)
Hollow profession
Here is--
I. PRIVILEGE.
II. FORM.
III. PROFESSION.
IV. YET NO REAL
RELIGION. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
“Hear ye this”
I. How? Place
yourselves in a hearing posture, that the intense application of your minds may
be discovered in your attitude and gestures. Listen with diligence and candour.
II. WHAT?
1. To the reproofs I administer.
2. To the arguments I adduce.
3. To the duties I inculcate.
4. To the assurances I give you.
III. WHY ?
1. That your obdurate hearts may be mollified.
2. Your consciences convinced.
3. Your conversion from your evil ways effected. (R. Macculloch.)
A two fold charge against Israel
God chargeth them with hypocrisy in that which is good, and
obstinacy in that which is evil (Isaiah 48:1-8). (M. Henry.)
Religious profession
Observe--
I. HOW HIGH THEIR
PROFESSION OF RELIGION SOARED.
II. HOW LOW THEIR
PROFESSION OF RELIGION SANK FOR ALL THIS. (M. Henry.)
Verse 3
I have declared the former things from the beginning
The probability and use of inspired predictions
I.
It
is quite plain that ANY BEING THAT IS DISTINGUISHED ABOVE OTHERS MUST BE
EXALTED EITHER BY KNOWLEDGE OR BY POWER, OR BY BOTH. If, then, God is to make
Himself known to His creatures, it must be by some displays of this kind--by
power, doing those things which they cannot do; or by intellect, making known
those things which they cannot know. There is one advantage in these displays
of God by means of knowledge, telling things that we could not know
otherwise--that it addresses our judgment. Miracles seem to astound us; they
may be supposed to throw us out of our calm self-possession, and to bewilder us
by their wonders; but prophecies coolly address our judgment, without
disturbing our passions, and enable us to exercise our reason in reflection
upon these discoveries of the great superior Mind. Though we cannot tell
exactly what preference we are to give to one or the other, some minds being
most struck with the displays of power in miracles, others most with the
displays of knowledge in predictions, yet we can easily see that these may
concur and aid each other. Is it not probable that God will make Himself known
to man? But is it not equally probable that if He tells us about a futurity and
eternity, He will take some method of convincing us that what He thus tells us
is true and will surely come to pass?
II. THE USES OF
INSPIRED PREDICTIONS. These are various; many of them we have yet to discover.
1. A most important use of the inspired predictions of Scripture is,
that you should study the Book that contains them.
2. You should watch His providence, that you may see how it fulfils
His Word. He that eyes providences shall never want providences to eye.
3. You should learn from hence to admire and adore the omniscience
and faithfulness and truth of God.
4. Expect all that God has predicted both for time and eternity. (J.
Bennett, D. D.)
Verse 6
See all this
Things seen as a whole
The words “See all this,” have been rendered by one of the latest
commentators, “See it as a whole.
” This rendering reproduces the prophetic argument. Isaiah had recalled a
period of history which, taken as a whole, was a fulfilled word of Jehovah.
That completed epoch of history from the predictions of old to the events in
which it had issued was to the prophet proof of God’s control of human affairs.
Any completed historic cycle, taken as a whole, becomes to us significant of
God. The evidence of the Divine providence discovers itself when we view things
largely, when we see life as a whole.
1. Look at your life in the large relations of it, see it as a whole.
This is not the view of life which it is altogether easy for us to take. For we
touch life at single points; we receive life moment by moment; and our first
views of things are apt to be partial. We ought, in our moral maturity, to fit
our daily doings into some large conception of our whole reason for being here
in this world. We do not know how to live well, certainly we have not learned
to live richly if we have not gained something of the happy art of massing
things in nobler groupings; if we cannot hold the little things and daily
details of life under some broad, generous conception of our life; very much as
from some height we see the several parts of a landscape, not singly, but together,
as one wide sunny expanse.
2. That particular thing, for example, for which it may be necessary
for you to strive to-morrow in your business, or which it seems desirable to
secure for your enjoyment, needs to be sought for, not as though it were the one
thing only to be attained, but as a possible part of some greater good in which
your life is to find its satisfaction. A man to be successful in any calling
must have something of that power of concentration to which Sir Fowell Buxton
once attributed his success--“the power of being a whole man to one thing at a
time.” Nevertheless, that would be an unworthy success which should leave us
entirely confined to any single thing.
3. If we desire to possess our friendships well, we must learn this
art of seeing things not in their little, often vexatious details, but largely
and as wholes. You must take your friend largely for what he is in his entire
character, if you would keep your friend. The microscope has its uses; but it
was never made for the eye of friendship.
4. Another instance for the application of this text might be found
in our habits of regarding our homes. We are to possess the home, not as a good
for itself alone, but in its whole social setting, in its relation to the
neighbourhood, to the Church of humanity, to the kingdom of heaven, of which it
is part and portion.
5. I wish now to go up with this principle to some higher lines of
experience, and to observe how this entire earthly life of ours is itself life
but in part, and how, if we would live truly, we must learn to see all our
life, from the cradle to the grave, as itself but a part of some still larger,
better whole for us. If this earthly span of our days be all, what is a human
life at its best but as the rainbow which we have seen, one end of it resting
upon the depths of the waters, and the other end lost in the cloud, itself as
fleeting as the mist upon which for its moment of promise it becomes visible?
But here lies the difficulty and the doubt. We have no experience of what lies
beyond. Our hand can lay no measuring-rod upon futurity. We have only this
present. It is also true, and it is the more important part of the truth, that
we have this present only as an incomplete thing, we have this life only as a
segment; its present brief span is the are of some curve of larger sweep than
we can measure. What its future may be like, we do not know; but we know this
present as in itself incomplete and requiring some future completion. “If you
ask me, said Savonarola, as he was ready to be borne to the stake, what shall
be in general the issue of this struggle, I reply, Victory. If you ask me what
shall be the issue in the particular sense, I reply, Death.” It was the answer
of a seer. Seen in the particular, the issue of life may be death. Seen in the
general, seen as a whole, true life is not death, but victory. The Christian
faith brings to a man its Gospel of the One sinless Man, who knew whence He
came, and whither He went, and whose life was always to Him not an affair of
the moment only, but a truth of eternity. Jesus’ earthly life was indeed a
broken one. In one aspect of it no human life has been left so incomplete as
was that life which we can follow for a few brief years of it through these
gospels. The verse in the book of Acts, “All the things which Jesus began both
to do and to teach,” suggests the incompleteness, the utter brokenness of
Jesus’ earthly life. What work did He live to see completed? what doctrine to
finish? His hands did not complete His work of mercy; they were pierced before
they had wrought all their possible work of healing. His lips did not finish
His teachings; He had many things to say, and He died leaving much unsaid.
Into our Lord’s Gethsemane may there not have entered the pathos
of an unfinished life? Yet He said, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest
Me to do.” He could not have said that had He not looked always upon His life
here as part and daily portion of one Divine whole, His sacrifice as something
complete in God’s eternal purpose; had He not known that His life here, and
there, and always, is one life, continuous throughout, on earth and in heaven,
one will of the Father--each part of it, whether of humiliation or
transfiguration, of suffering or resurrection, partaking of the glory of the
perfect whole. (N. Smyth, D. D.)
Verse 8
Yea, thou heardest not
God’s foreknowledge of man’s sin
As in a looking-glass, let us see ourselves.
1. Let the unconverted man see his own picture. God has spoken quite
as pointedly to you as ever He did to the seed of Israel. He has called you by
providences of different kinds. As for the Bible, has it not often addressed
you with a voice most clear and simple, “Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?”
You have, some of you, been called by the admonitions of godly parents; you
were further invited to the path of holiness by loving friends in the Sabbath
school. Frequently the voice of God’s minister has bidden you to come to Jesus from
the pulpit; and conscience, a nearer pleader still, has echoed the voice of
God. And yet it may be said, “Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not,”
&c. Three times a “yea” is put in our text, as if to show God’s wonder at
man’s obstinacy, and the certainty that such was the state of the heart. It was
certainly so. You heard, but it went in at one ear and out at the other; you
heard and heard not.
2. More painful still is it to remember that in a certain degree the
same accusation may be laid at the door of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even those who have received grace to become the sons of God, have not such a
degree of spiritual sensibility as they should have. Having thus reminded you
of your sin, trusting we may be led to confess it with deep humility, I have
now an encouraging truth to tell to you--that all this folly and ignorance, and
obstinacy, and rebellion on our part, was foreknown by God, and notwithstanding
that foreknowledge, He yet has been pleased to deal with us in a way of mercy.
I. We shall
endeavour to address the truth to THE BELIEVER.
1. The latter part of our text mentions a mournful fact, “I knew that
thou wouldest deal,” &c. Thou art the beloved of heaven, redeemed by blood,
called by grace, preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, on thy way
to heaven, and yet “thou hast dealt very treacherously”; very treacherously
with God, thy best friend; with Jesus, whose thou art; with the Holy Spirit, by
whom alone thou canst be quickened unto life eternal. That word “treacherously”
is one which a man would not like to have applied to himself in the common
transactions of life; he would feel it to be very galling, and, if there were
truth in it, very degrading. How treacherous you and I have been to our own
vows and promises when we were first converted! Instead of a heavenly mind
there have been carnal cares, worldly vanities, and thoughts of evil. Instead
of service there has been disobedience; instead of fervency, lukewarmness;
instead of patience, petulance; instead of faith, confidence in an arm of
flesh. This is not all. It is not merely that we have failed in promises which
were made in a period of excitement, but we have been treacherous to
obligations which were altogether apart front voluntary vows on our part; we
have been treacherous to the most blessed relationships which mercy could have
instituted. Know ye not that ye are redeemed men and women, and therefore the
property of the Lord Jesus? Have you not found yourselves full often spending
your strength for self and for the world, and robbing Jesus of that which He
purchased at so dear a price? Remember that we are soldiers of Christ, soldiers
enlisted, sworn in for a life-long campaign. As soldiers, by cowardice,
disobedience and desertion, we have been treacherous to a very shameful degree.
You know what the military doom is of a treacherous soldier on earth! truly, if
we had been accused, and condemned by court-martial, and ordered to be shot
forthwith, we should have been dealt with most righteously. We have been armed,
and carried bows and have turned back in the day of battle. Worst of all is the
fact that we have been treacherous to our Lord in a relationship where fidelity
constitutes the very essence of bliss, I mean in the marriage bond which exists
between our soul and Christ. We are one with Him, by eternal union one, and yet
we treat Him ill! Never did He have a thought towards us that was unkind, never
one faithless wandering of His holy immutable mind; but as for us, we have
thought of a thousand lovers, and suffered our heart to be seduced by rivals,
which were no more to be compared with Christ than darkness is to be compared
with the blaze of noon.
2. We pass on to the Divine statement of the text, that all this was
known. “I knew.” As the Lord foreknew the fountain of sin, so He knew all the
streams which would gush from it. Wherein is the edification to the people of
God?
God has provided for us in Christ, for all the necessities that
can occur, for He has foreknown all these necessities.
II. I have to use
the text in its relation to UNCONVERTED PERSONS. You have discovered lately the
natural vileness of your heart. You have a deep regret for your long delay in
seeking mercy. You are willing to acknowledge that there have been special aggravations
in your case. Now, the Gospel says to you, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.” All these sins, delays, aggravations, and rebellions
of yours, were all foreknown to God; therefore, since He has sent the Gospel to
you, be not slow to accept it since it is not possible that your sins, whatever
they may be, can at all militate against the fact that if you believe and
receive the Gospel, you shall be saved. For, if God had not intended to save
men upon believing, then, since He foreknew these things, He would never have
planned the plan of salvation at all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A transgressor from the
womb
Native depravity
God here traces all the insincerity, stupidity, obstinacy,
ignorance, and unbelief of sinners to the native depravity of their hearts,
which led them to disregard His commands and to disbelieve His predictions. The
text in this connection naturally leads us to conclude that mankind begin to
sin as soon as they become capable of sinning.
I. WHAT WE ARE TO
UNDERSTAND BY SIN. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” The law requires true
love to God and man. The transgression of the law, therefore, must essentially
consist in something which is directly opposite to pure, holy love. And there
is nothing in nature more directly opposite to perfectly disinterested love,
than interested love, or selfishness. So that all sin consists in the free,
voluntary exercise of selfishness.
II. WHEN MANKIND
BECAME CAPABLE OF SINNING. If sin be a voluntary moral exercise, they are not capable
of sinning before they become moral agents. Perception, memory, and volition
appear to be the essential powers or properties which constitute a free agent.
Animals are free agents. They act freely and voluntarily in the view of
motives. But God has endowed man with a moral faculty to discern moral good and
evil. This we call conscience. Those who allow that a child four years old is a
moral agent and knows what is right and wrong, will generally allow that a
child two years old is a moral agent and knows what is right and what is wrong.
And where shall we stop? Why may we not suppose that a child one year old, or
half a year old, is a moral agent, and knows what is right and what is wrong in
some cases?
III. THEY DO SIN AS
SOON AS THEY BECOME CAPABLE OF SINNING. They certainly discover, as early as
possible, impatience, obstinacy, and revenge, which are sinful exercises in any
moral agent that can distinguish between right and wrong. The testimony of
observation on this subject is strengthened, at least, by the testimony of
experience. Every person in the world is conscious of sinning, and of sinning
as long ago as he can remember. And now, if we look into the Bible, we shall
there find conclusive and infallible evidence that mankind do actually sin as
soon as they become moral agents, and are capable of sinning. When we say a
serpent is naturally poisonous, we mean that it is poisonous as soon as its
nature renders it capable of having poison. So, when the inspired writers speak
of men’s sinning as soon as they be born, their expressions plainly imply that
they are sinners by nature, or begin to sin as soon as they are capable of
sinning. These representations of the sinfulness and guilt of childhood are
confirmed by God’s providential treatment of children. Death is a natural evil,
and was threatened to mankind as a punishment for sin.
IV. WHY THEY ALWAYS
HAVE SINFUL BEFORE THEY HAVE HOLY EXERCISES, “By one man’s disobedience many
were made sinners.” (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Human depravity
In conversation with Boswell, Dr. Johnson said, with respect to
original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; for, whatever is the cause of human
corruption, men are evidently and confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of
heaven and earth are insufficient to restrain them from crimes. (Boswell’s
“Life of Johnson. ”)
Verses 9-11
For My name’s sake will I defer Mine anger
God’s anger deferred
“For My name’s sake I draw out My wrath.
” Jehovah lengthens out His wrath, i.e delays its outbreak, thus shows
Himself long-suffering; He checks, restrains, damps it for the good of Israel,
that He may not by unchaining His wrath utterly destroy it; and that for the
sake of His name, His praise, which demands the carrying out of the plan of
salvation, which is the purpose of Israel’s existence. (F. Delitzch, D. D.)
Mercy’s master motive
I shall take the text to illustrate--
I. THE CONVERSION
OF THE SINNER.
1. In him there is no argument for mercy, no plea for grace.
2. God Himself finds the reason for His mercy. He finds it in
Himself. The Lord is a patient God, and determines to make His patience
glorious. God also would illustrate His sovereign and abundant mercy towards
sinners. God can display His power.
3. But it may be that a soul is saying, “Well, I can see that God can
thus find a motive for mercy in Himself, when there is none in the sinner, but
why is it that the Lord is chastening me as He is?” Possibly you are sickly in
body, have been brought low in estate, and are grievously depressed in mind.
God now, in our text, goes on to explain His dealings with you, that you may
not have one hard thought of Him. It is true He has been smiting you, but it
has been with a purpose and in measure. “I have refined thee, but not with
silver.” God has not brought upon you the severest troubles.
4. Notice the next thing: the Lord declares that the time of trial is
the chosen season for revealing His love to you. “I have chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction.” It often happens that the time in which God reveals His
choice and manifests His electing love to a soul is when that soul is almost
consumed with trouble.
5. But note, before I leave the sinner’s case, that lest the soul
should forget it, the Lord repeats again the point He began with, and unveils
the motives of His grace once more. What is the eleventh verse but the echo of
the ninth? If a soul should perish while trusting in the blood of Christ, the
glory of God would go over to Satan It would be proved that Satan had overcome
the truthfulness of God, or the power of God, or the mercy of God.
II. THE RECLAIMING
OF THE BACKSLIDER. God was speaking to His own people Israel in these
remarkable words. I see more reason for punishing you, for you have made a
profession and belied it (Isaiah 48:1). God having declared the
reason of His love to the backslider goes on to tell him, that the present
sufferings which he is now enduring as the result of his backslidings should be
mitigated. “I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have put thee into the
fire, but I have not blown the heat to such an extreme degree that thy sin
should be melted from thee: that would be a greater heat than any soul could
bear. I have refined thee, that was needful, but not as silver; that would have
been destructive to thee.” Thou sayest, “All Thy waves and billows have gone
over me.” Not so; you know not what all God s waves and billows might be, for
there is a depth infinitely lower than any you have ever seen. Then comes His
next word: “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction”; that is, as if He
said, “I will renew My election of you.” It was never revoked, but now it shall
be more manifestly declared. God has looked at you in prosperity and He has
seen you treacherously forgetting Him. Now, however, your affairs are at a low
ebb and you begin again to pray. Hear this for your comfort--when repentance
defiles the face before men it beautifies it before God. (C.
H.Spurgeon.)
Verse 10
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver
Refined, but not with silver
More severely, yet more exactly than silver (Stier)
Less strictly than silver (Cheyne)
It was a melting of a higher sort, the suffering which befell
Israel doing for it the work of a furnace (Hitzig, Delitzsch)
Possibly, not with the result of gaining silver (A.
B. Davidson)
Refined, but not with silver
The Lord refines His people, but He exercises great discrimination
as to the means by which He does so. A silver furnace is one of the very best
for the removal of dross, and would seem to be well adapted for refining the
most precious things, but it is not choice enough for the Lord’s purpose with
His people. It is prepared with extreme care, and has great separating power,
but the purging away of sin needs greater care and more cleansing energy than a
silver refinery can supply. The greatest delicacy of skill is exhibited by the
refiner, who watches over the process, and regulates the degree of heat and the
length of time in which the precious metal shall lie in the crucible: this,
then, might well serve as a figure of the best mode of sanctification, but
evidently the figure falls short in its delicacy. The process of silver
refining is, no doubt, one of the best arranged and most ably conducted of the
works of man; but when the Lord sits as a refiner, He executes His work with
greater wisdom and Diviner art. Silver refining is but rough work compared with
the Lord’s purification of His people, and therefore He says, “I have refined
thee, but not with silver.” The Lord hath a furnace of His own, and in this
special furnace He purifies His people by secret processes unknown to any but
Himself. No one would think of refining silver by the same rough means as they
smelt iron, so neither will the Lord purify His precious ones, who are far
above silver in value, by any but the choicest methods. More subtle and yet
more searching, more spiritual and yet more true, more gentle and yet more
effectual are the purifying processes of Heaven; there is no refiner like our
refiner, and no purity like that which the Spirit works in us. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
God’s refining furnace
The Lord has special dealings with each one of His saints, and
refines each one by a process peculiar to the individual, not heaping all His
precious metals into one furnace of silver, but refining each metal by itself.
“I have refined thee.” “I have chosen thee.” Not “you,” but “thee.”
I. Between God’s
election and the furnace there is this connection--that THE FURNACE WAS THE
FIRST TRYSTING-PLACE BETWEEN ELECTING LOVE AND OUR SOULS. Before one solitary
star had begun to peer through the darkness the Lord had given over His people
unto Christ to be His heritage, and their names were in His book; but the first
manifestation of His electing love to any one of us was--where? I venture to
say it was in the furnace. Abraham knew little of God’s love to him till the
voice said, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” I do not think that Isaac
knew much about God’s choice of him till he went up the mountain’s side, and
said to his father, “Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a
burnt offerings.” So was it with Jacob. Little did he understand the mystery of
electing love till he lay down one night with the stones for his pillow, the
hedges for his curtains, the skies for his canopy, and no attendant but his
God. Certainly, Israel as a nation did not understand God’s election till the
people were in Egypt; and then, when Goshen, the land of plenty, became a land
of brickmaking and sorrow and grief, and the iron bondage entered into their
souls, their cried unto God, and began to understand that secret word--“I have
called My son out of Egypt.” They knew then that God had put a difference
between Israel and Egypt. God finds His people in the place of trial, and there
He reveals Himself in His special character as their God. Did He not say to
Moses, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and
I have heard their cry?” When did you first know anything about God’s choice of
you? Was it not when you were in trouble--in many cases in temporal trouble? I
make no kind of exception to another rule, namely, that we first began to learn
electing love when we were in spiritual distress.
II. It is very
clear that THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION DOES NOT CHANGE THE ELECTION OF GOD. If He
chose us in it, then His choice stands good while we are in it and when we are
out of it. If the very first knowledge we had of His electing love found us at
the gates of despair, we can never be worse than we were then, nor can His love
see less to rest upon. Yet have I known a great many fears cross the mind of
God’s anxious people when the smoke of the furnace has brought tears into their
eyes. No amount of trouble, no degree of pain, no possibility of grief can
change the mind of God towards His people. The furnace may alter the believer’s
circumstances, but not his acceptance with God. The furnace very often alters
our friends. And the furnace changes us very wonderfully. Believe very firmly
in the fixity of the Divine choice.
III. THE FURNACE IS
THE VERY ENSIGN OF ELECTION. The escutcheon the coat of arms--of election is
the furnace. You know that it was so in the old covenant which God made with
Abraham. He gave him a type when the victim was divided. When a deep sleep fell
upon the patriarch there passed before him a smoking furnace and a burning
lamp, two signs that always mark the people of God. There is a lamp to light
them, but there is also a smoking furnace to try them. “No cross, no crown.” If
you think of our great Master’s dying will and testament, what is its prominent
codicil? “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” That the Lord refines us
shows His value of us.
IV. THE FURNACE IS
THE WORKSHOP OF ELECTING LOVE. God has chosen us unto holiness. There is no man
in this world chosen to go to heaven apart from being made fit to go there.
Electing love uses the furnace to consume our dross. The Lord uses the furnace
also to prepare the soul for a more complete fashioning. The metal must be
melted before it can be poured into the mould, and affliction is used by the
Holy Ghost to melt the heart and to fit it to receive the fashion and take the
shape of the sacred mould into which heavenly wisdom delivers it. Besides,
affliction has much to do in loosening a Christian from this world.
V. THE FURNACE IS
A GREAT SCHOOL WHEREIN WE LEARN ELECTION ITSELF.
1. In the furnace we learn the graciousness of election. When a child
of God in the time of trouble sees the corruption of his heart he begins to
say,
“How can the Lord ever love me? If He has loved me, His affection
must be traced to free sovereign grace.”
2. There, too, we learn the holiness of election, for while we lie
suffering, a voice says, “God will not spare thee, because there is still sin
in thee: He will cleanse thee from every false way.”
3. Then, too, we see what a loving thing election is, for never is
God so loving to His people consciously as when they are in the flames of
trouble.
4. It is at such times that God’s people know the power of electing
love.
5. And it is at such times that the sweetness of God’s electing love
comes home to the Christian heart, for he rejoices in his tribulation while he
is conscious of the love of God.
VI. BY THE FURNACE
SOME OF THE HIGHER ENDS OF A YET MORE SPECIAL ELECTION ARE OFTEN REVEALED, for
there is not only an election of grace, but there is an election from among the
elect to the highest position and to the noblest service. Jesus Christ had many
choice disciples, but it is written, “I have chosen you twelve.” Out of the
twelve there were three; and out of the three there was one, elect of the
elect--that loving, tender John, who leaned upon his Master’s bosom. The
furnace has much to do with this, as a rule, since it usually attends and
promotes the higher states of grace, and the wider ranges of usefulness.
1. With the preacher this truth is seen; affliction makes him
eminent. I do not think that the preacher will long feed God’s saints if he
does not read in that volume which Luther said was one of the three best books
in his library, namely, affliction. That book is printed in the black letter,
but it has some wonderful illuminations in it, and he who would teach the
people must often weep over its chapters. Men never bake bread so well as when
the oven is well heated, nor do we prepare sermons so well as when the fire
burns around us.
2. So is it with the Christian hero, he could never lead the host if he had not
been chastened of the Lord in secret places. Calvin, that mightiest master in
Israel, clear, upright, and profound, suffered daily under a list of diseases,
any one of which would have made a constant invalid of a less courageous man;
and, although always early in the morning at the cathedral delivering his
famous expositions which have enriched the Church of God, yet he always bore
about with him a body full of anguish. Nor could England find a Wycliffe, nor
Scotland a Knox, nor Switzerland a Zwingle, except it be where the refiner sits
at the furnace door. It must be so. No sword is fit for our Lord’s handling
till it has been full oft annealed. So it will be with us if we would rise. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
I have chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction
The use of the furnace
The twofold use of the furnace is--
I. TO PROVE OR
TEST METALS.
II. TO PURIFY THEM,
OR REFINE THEM BY SEPARATING THE DROSS FROM THE GENUINE. Discipline of every
kind, is God’s chosen furnace to test and purify His people. (Homiletic
Review.)
The furnace of affliction
A furnace is a fireplace or crucible for melting and refining gold
or other metals (Proverbs 17:3; Proverbs 27:21). Sometimes it is the
emblem of cruel bondage (Deuteronomy 4:20; Jeremiah 11:4). Also of judgments and
severe and grievous afflictions, by which God punishes the rebellious (Ezekiel 22:18-20). By the furnace of
affliction He also tries and proves His people. This furnace is--
I. AFFLICTIVE. It
is composed of many severe trials, which are designed by the great proprietor
and manager of this furnace, to purge and refine the souls of His people.
1. Sometimes they are tried by the scantiness of temporal things.
This may be induced by want of employment; it may be the result of sickness; it
may result from the injustice of man.
2. Frequently the saints are chastised with bodily afflictions.
3. Sometimes they suffer from bereavements.
4. They too have domestic trials of various kinds from ungodly
relatives, refractory and disobedient children, &c. Thousands of God’s
people have been in this furnace. Moses, David, &c. Even Jesus was a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief.
II. THIS FURNACE IS
DIVINELY APPOINTED. It is not the result of chance; afflictions arise not out
of the dust; they are not the works of our enemies merely. They imply the moral
government of God, and the wise and gracious arrangement of His providence.
Every event is either His appointment, or has His all-wise permission. Such
views of the subject have reconciled and supported the minds of the godly under
their various afflictions. What a blessing that all is arranged by infinite
Wisdom and Love!
III. THIS FURNACE IS
NOT VINDICTIVE, BUT GRACIOUS. Divine chastisement may be a kind of punishment
for sin committed. It supposes some fault, which it is intended to correct. But
when men are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, it does not appear to be for
sin. It may be for righteousness’ sake on the part of man, and for
unrighteousness’ sake on God’s part. God will suffer persecution and reproach
to befall us, when we are cold and indifferent in His cause. But such
punishment is not like that inflicted on the wicked.
IV. THIS FURNACE IS
DESIGNED FOR THE SPIRITUAL AND EVERLASTING BENEFIT OF THE CHURCH ONLY. Even as
a furnace is prepared for the refining of gold, so afflictions are appointed
for the saints who are compared to gold (Lamentations 4:2; Job 23:10). This intimates to us the high
value which the Divine Being places upon His people. They are His jewels, His
chosen, a peculiar people. &c., and it is His will that they should shine
in the world, and exhibit the glory and power of His grace.
V. THIS FURNACE IS
PROPORTIONATE. He will regulate its heat according to the circumstances of His
people who may be placed there. “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver,”
&c. As a refiner adopts this posture for minute inspection, and that he may
quicken the fire, or lower its temperature, as a view of the process may
intimate, so the Divine presence, inspection, and compassion may well comfort
the afflicted saint (1 Corinthians 10:13; Isaiah 43:2; Hebrews 4:15). There can be no caprice,
no unwise or intemperate anger in Him. Compassion is mixed with the severest
dispensations, and a wise distinction made between the different members of His
family. God often tries the faith and patience of such as have been long under
tuition, and are like the elder branches of His household, while He spares the
young and inexperienced.
VI. THE TENDENCY OF
THIS FURNACE IS BENEFICIAL. “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”
A more proper translation would have been, “I have tried thee,” &c. By
affliction of various kinds I have proved thy faith, hope, patience, and love.
The root of the matter is within thee. Matthew Henry gives this beautiful
exposition, “I have made thee a choice one by the good which the furnace has
done thee.” God has nevertheless chosen some in the furnace of affliction. He
has met them there, and by His Spirit has subdued them, and brought them to
repentance, faith, and consecration to Himself. The design of a position in
this furnace is to purify the Christian from sin, to wean from the world,
&c. Application--
1. Let the sublime design of this furnace induce patience and
submission.
2. Remember the time of trial is but short. “Weeping may endure,”
&c. Called the day of adversity; the hour of affliction; but for a moment.
3. What a furnace of infliction awaits the ungodly in the world to
come. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
God’s people in the furnace
1. All persons in the furnace of affliction are not chosen. It is a
great truth that every child of God is afflicted, but it is a lie that every
afflicted man is a child of God.
2. The second preliminary remark I would make is on the immutability
of God’s love to His people. Think not, when you are in trouble, that God has
cast you off.
I. IF YOU WANT
GOD’S PEOPLE YOU MUST GENERALLY LOOK FOR THEM IN THE FURNACE. Look at the world
in its primeval age, when Adam and Eve are expelled the garden. They have
begotten two sons, Cain and Abel: which of them is the child of God? Yonder one
who lies there smitten by the club, a lifeless corpse; he who has just now been
in the furnace of his brother’s enmity and persecution. A few hundred years
roll on, and where is the child of God? There is one man whose ears are
continually vexed with the conversation of the wicked and who walks with God,
even Enoch, and he is the child of God. Descend further still till you come to
the days of Noah. You will find the man who is laughed t, hooted as a fool,
building a ship upon dry land, standing in the furnace of slander and laughter:
that is the elect of God. Go on still through history; let the names of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob pass before you, and you may write upon all of them: “These
were God’s tried people.” Then go down to the time when Israel went into Egypt.
Do you ask me to find out God’s people? I take you not to the palaces of
Pharaoh, but to the brick-kilns of Egypt. As we follow on in the paths of
history, where were God’s family next? They were in the furnace of the
wilderness, suffering privation and pain. Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the
son of Jephunneh, against whom the people took up stones to stone them: these
were distinguished above their fellows as being elect out of the chosen nation.
Pass through Judges and come to the time of Saul, and where was God’s servant
then? He is in the furnace--wandering in the caves of Engedi, climbing the goat
tracks, hunted like the partridge by a remorseless foe. And after his days
where were the saints? Not in the halls of Jezebel, nor sitting at the table of
Ahab. They are hidden by fifties in the cave, and fed by bread and water. I
might tell you of the days of Maccabees, when God’s children were put to death
without number, by all manner of tortures till then unheard of. I might tell
you of the days of Christ, and point to the despised fishermen, to the laughed
at and persecuted apostles. I might go on through the days of popery, and point
to those who died upon the mountains or suffered in the plains. I suppose it
shall be so until the latest age.
II. THE REASON FOR
THIS.
1. It is the stamp of the covenant.
2. All precious things have to be tried. The diamond must be cut.
Gold, too, must be tried. It was one of the laws of God, “Everything that may
abide the fire, ye shall make go through the fire, and it shall be clean” Numbers 31:23). It is a law of nature, it
is a law of grace, that everything that can abide the fire--every-thing that is
precious--must be tried.
3. The Christian is said to be a sacrifice to God. Now every
sacrifice must be burned with fire.
4. Another reason why we must be put in the furnace is, because else
we should not be at all like Jesus Christ. If He walked through the flames,
must not we do the same?
III. WHAT ARE THE
BENEFITS OF THE FURNACE?
1. It purifies us.
2. It makes us more ready to be moulded. What could our manufacturers
do if they could not melt the metal they use? They could not make half the
various things we see around us, if they were not able to liquify the metal,
and afterwards mould it. There could be no good men in the world if it were not
for trouble. We could none of us be made useful if we could not be tried in the
fire.
3. Then the furnace is very useful to God’s people because they get
more light there than anywhere else. If you travel in the neighbourhood of
Birmingham, or in other manufacturing districts, you will be interested at
night by the glare of light which is cast by all those furnaces. It is labour’s
own honourable illumination. There is no place where we learn so much, and have
so much light cast upon Scripture, as we do in the furnace.
4. One more use of the furnace--and I give this for the benefit of
those who hate God’s people--is, that it is useful for bringing plagues on our
enemies. Do you not remember the passage in Exodus, where “the Lord said unto
Moses and unto Aaron, take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let
Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall
become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth
with blains upon man, and upon beast”? There is nothing that so plagues the
enemies of Israel, as “handfuls of ashes of the furnace” that we are able to
cast upon them. The devil is never more devoid of wisdom than when he meddles
with God’s people, and tries to run down God’s minister. “Run him down!” Sir,
you run him up! Persecution damages our enemies; it cannot hurt us.
IV. THE COMFORTS IN
THE FURNACE.
1. The comfort of the text itself--election. Let affliction come--God
has chosen me.
2. You have the Son of Man with you in the furnace. Conclusion--There
is another great furnace. “The pile thereof is of wood and much smoke, the
breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle it.” Would you be
saved? There is but one way. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” (C.
H.Spurgeon.)
God’s glory concerned in our holiness
(with Isaiah 48:11):--We have a right to be
made as pure as God can make us. This is our claim upon Him. He created us, and
we have a right to demand that He should make out of us the best He can, and
should do this refining work on the creatures He has called into being. It is
His duty to burn up our dross, and bring out our full beauty and worth. Love
demands that He should. (Mrs. H. W. Smith.)
Chosen in the furnace
In 1553 Sir Thomas Palmer was led from the Tower to be executed.
He leaped upon the scaffold, red with the blood of four companions previously
executed. “Good-morning to you all, good people,” he said, looking round him
with a smile; “ye come hither to see me die, and to see what nerve I have.
Marry, I will tell you: I have seen more in yonder terrible place (the Tower)
than ever I saw before throughout all the realms that ever I wandered in: for
there I have seen God. I have seen the world, and I have seen myself: and when
I beheld my life, I saw nothing but slime and clay, full of corruption: I saw
the world nothing else but vanity, and all the pleasure thereof nothing worth:
I saw God omnipotent, His power infinite, His mercy incomprehensible: and when
I saw this, I submitted myself to Him, beseeching of His mercy and pardon, and
I trust He hath forgiven me: for He called me once or twice before, but I would
not turn to Him, but even now, by this sharp kind of death, He hath called me unto
Him.” (H. O. Mackey.)
The furnace needed for perfection of character
“He would be a nice person,” wrote George Eliot in one of her
letters concerning one, who might have been many a modern prosperous man, “if
he had another soul added to the one he has by nature--the soul that comes by
sorrow and love.”
Verse 12
Hearken unto Me, O Jacob
God’s unchangeableness throughout eternity
“The eternity and immutability of God are in their own nature
inseparable, and are so generally united in the Holy Scriptures that the
passages which declare the one declare or imply the other also.
”
I. GOD IS ETERNAL.
1. Reason itself claims this attribute for God. Nor was it unknown even
to the heathens. Proclus, a follower of Plato, proved God to be eternal,
because He exists of Himself. Thales defined God to be a being without
beginning and end; before all things; and who was never born.
2. What reason teaches, the Scriptures assert. They represent God’s
eternity to be--
“From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God!” All that is
involved in that great name He always was, and always will be!
II. GOD IS
UNCHANGEABLE, eternally unchangeable.
1. Unchangeableness is an essential perfection of God.
2. All these declarations are in harmony with the teachings of
Scripture and the conclusions of reason.
(a) By the stability of His natural government.
(b) By His moral government, and the identity of the several
dispensations of grace.
III. PRACTICAL
LESSONS WHICH THIS GREAT SUBJECT TEACHES.
1. It assures us of the essential Divinity of the Christ. The
application to our Lord of the terms here used by God to describe Himself,
places His Deity beyond doubt (Revelation 1:8; Revelation 1:17; Revelation 22:13).
2. It assures us of the fulfilment of God s promises and the
accomplishment of His plans.
3. It affords “strong consolation” amid all the trying changes of
this mortal state.
4. It should stimulate us to seek stability of character (Hebrews 13:8-9).
5. It should alarm the impenitent. (A. Tucker.)
God s eternity a ground of confidence
Who can be too quick for Him that is the first, or prevent Him?
Who can be too hard for Him that is the last, and will keep the field against
all opposers, and will reign till they are all made His footstool? (M.
Henry.)
Verse 13
Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth
The Creator
I.
THE
FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH.
II. THE
OVER-ARCHING HEAVENS.
III. THE DIVINE
PURPOSE IN THESE GREAT WORKS.
1. The heavens have been God’s grand lesson-books for the instruction
and elevation of His children (Psalms 19:1-14.).
2. The earth has been the scene of revelations of His character which
we cannot believe to be surpassed by any vouchsafed to any other portion of His
universe; His judgments on sin; His manifestations of mercy; His tabernacling
amongst men in the person of His Son; the death on the Cross for the redemption
of lost humanity; the nobleness, sincerity, patience, unselfishness,
forgiveness of God manifested in the spiritual education of His children.
3. The long process of sin and redemption shall at length have a
glorious consummation. (W. Seward.)
Verse 14
And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me
The Holy Spirit
“And now the Lord God hath sent Me with His Spirit.
” The Spirit does not send, hut is sent. (Prof. A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
Note the tendency in chaps. 40-66, to treat the Divine Spirit as a
separate personality (Isaiah 40:13; Isaiah 63:10; Isaiah 36:11; Isaiah 36:14). (Prof. S. R. Driver, D.
D.)
Verse 17-18
Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer
The “I am’s” of God and of man
How beautiful and impressive are the “I am’s” of God; so different
from the proud and empty boastings clearly discernible in the “I am’s” of man.
We are never nearer to misleading others and deceiving ourselves, than when we
utter sentences beginning with “I am.” For, after all, what are we in ourselves
that is worth mentioning? When we yield to the constraint of the Bible and
conscience, and come to know something of our own hearts, we shall not dare to
speak aloud to those about us; but, like Job, our words will be for God, and
into His ears we shall whisper, “I am vile.” Or, if beneath the influence of
the blessed Spirit we come to realise that our nature is changed, then shall we
temper our assertion with humility, and, like Paul, say, “By the grace of God,
I am what I am.” Only on God’s lips has the declaration, “I am,” its full
meaning. This is God’s great name. (W. J. Mayers.)
God is what He is for His people
This grand self-assertion of God will increase in its beauty and
power for us when we remember that God is not some powerful monarch, isolating
Himself from those around Him, withholding succour from the distressed,
guidance from the perplexed, relief from the poor, and living only to gratify
Himself. What God is He is for His people--as the sun is light for the earth,
or the earth nourishment for the crops, or the crops food for the people. How
comforting and helpful is the recollection of what God is! In God’s “I am” the
sick man finds his medicine, the poor man his riches, the lonely man his
company, the sinner his salvation, the wanderer his hope, the wounded heart its
balm, the hungry soul its manna, the fearful one his cordial, the dying one his
life, and every glorified one his all. We must go out of ourselves to get real
blessing for ourselves; and to whom should we go but to Him, described as the
“Lord, the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel”? The heart must have a person to
love, to lean on, to live for. No doctrine, no idea, no creed can take the
place of the person. The language just quoted describes a character peculiar to
the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the true Lord, the Redeemer, the Holy One,
supreme in all creation, paramount in redemption, having the pre-eminence in
holiness. As Lord He rules, as Redeemer He saves, as Holy One He inspires and
guides. He claims to be our Lord and God, and in this high station deigns to
address us. Nor would we be slow to recognise His claims, but would have our
faith to be the echo of His love, while, with Thomas, each one of us says: “My
Lord and my God.” It is indeed Divine love which speaks to us in the text, and
makes known to us the good will and pleasure of the great “I Am.” (W.
J.Mayers.)
God, our Teacher and Leader
“Learn of Me” and “Follow Me” are two most impressive commands of Jesus
Christ.
I. THERE IS AN
IMPORTANT RELATION BETWEEN THESE TWO OFFICES OF OUR DIVINE MASTER. Not every
teacher is a leader, not every leader a true teacher. Theory and practice are
often divorced. Words and works are not always wedded. But in our Lord there is
perfection in both teaching and leading. Does Jesus teach us to “pray and not
to faint”? He also leads in this, for He prayed. Does Jesus teach us to glorify
God by our “good works”? He “went about doing good.” Does our Master teach us
to love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us? How grandly axe
we led by His dying prayer, “Father, forgive them.” Are we to “seek first the
kingdom of God,” according to His teaching? So, indeed, did He, for it was His
meat and drink to do His Father’s will. Would He have us patient under
suffering, calm amid reproach, submissive under affliction, and alway resigned?
So, indeed, was He. Let the Garden of Gethsemane bear witness.
Let Pilate’s hall testify. Let Calvary give answer. He truly
“teaches us to profit, and leads us by the way we should go.” These are the two
great forces which aid us in the formation of the Christian character and the
development of the Christian life. The teaching of our Master is sometimes out
of the book of affliction and sorrow. He teaches us our folly, and weakness,
and sin; and then leads us into His wisdom, and strength, and holiness. He
teaches us in the valley of the shadow that He may lead us to the golden height
of Divine light and love. He teaches us by the furnace that He may lead us to
the palace. He teaches us by the noon-day heat, and then leads us to the
sheltering rock. In multitudes of ways does our Lord teach His people, but ever
to the end that He may lead them in the way in which they should go. But for His
instructions we should be poor followers. If He beckoned to us in silence we
should hardly dare to take a step. But He is not silent, for as He goes before
us we can hear His voice. The thought of His instruction encourages us, while
His leadership emboldens us.
II. Let us now
spend a little while in THE CONTEMPLATION OF THOSE SWEET WORDS, “WHICH LEADETH
THEE.” Here, indeed, is found soul-comfort and strength, such as we all need
amid our feebleness and the bewilderment around. It will be well for us to read
these words in the light of Scripture thoughts and incidents. How they remind
us of God leading His people from the thraldom of Egypt. Only let faith’s eye
be clear, and the leading pillar will ever be discerned. In the Song of Moses
we have a beautiful figure to help us in understanding our Lord s leading.
There the mention of the eagle’s care for her young in fluttering over them as
they try to fly, and spreading her wings beneath them to give them confidence,
and bearing them on her wings when they are weary, is followed by the
declaration,--“So the Lord alone did lead them.” As we pass on we come to the
beautiful poem of the shepherd-king, and we hear his sweet voice singing, “He
leadeth me beside the still waters.” And then we find David’s son putting into
the lips of wisdom the words, “I lead in the way of righteousness.” Let us take
another example; now from the prophet Isaiah. There we find this precious
promise of our God’s: “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I
will lead them in paths that they have not known. Is not this what He has done
and still does for us? How strengthening, again, is the promise recorded by
this same prophet: I will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts
unto him; and how soothing the words written for us by Jeremiah: “With favours
will I lead them; I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a
straight way, wherein they shall not stumble.”
III. WHAT SPIRIT
SHALL WE MANIFEST IN VIEW OF THIS PRECIOUS TRUTH? Let us take our place by the
Psalmist, and with him in a spirit of humility, resignation, trustfulness, and
hope, put up these petitions: Psalms 5:8; Psalms 25:5; Psalms 27:11; Psalms 31:3; Psalms 61:2; Psalms 139:24; Psalms 143:10. Thus shall we on earth
have a true foretaste of the unspeakable rest and blessedness of that sinless
place where “the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall lead them,
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” (W. J. Mayers.)
Profitable teaching and right leading
I. GOD AS A
REDEEMER. The redemption spoken of by Isaiah was temporal in the first place.
But he ascends a much higher sphere than that circumscribed by any earthly
demand.
1. The captivity of evil; the Babylon of sin. The whole human race is
involved in misery as in guilt. The bondage of iniquity is the worst sort of
captivity that beings capable of a better life can possibly suffer.
2. The mercy of the Redeemer at work in the city of bondage.
II. GOD AS A
TEACHER. The Gospel is too generally only regarded and valued as a something
which adds to our enjoyment. Few Christians even understand the beneficence of
discipline.
1. Look at the Gospel as a teacher. The new birth opens the eyes to a
new world; it is followed by a new language. Here is the high school of heaven
in which the Spirit of God is the principal Teacher.
2. Learning is never easy. There is no royal road to this learning,
any more than to mere secular knowledge.
3. Yet all the teaching is profitable.
III. GOD AS A
LEADER.
1. The way God would have us go is not always according to our
inclination.
2. The knowledge that it is His way should be enough.
Life an education
1. Our life is an education; not a mere probation, or trial of what
we are to be and to do, but a training of our lives and characters into as great
likeness as is possible to the perfect life and character of God, revealed to
us in Christ. It is a great truth, helping us to see many things in their true
light; above all, helping us to understand the meaning of our life, and its
relation to the will of God. The human father is too often but a deceiving type
through which to try to understand the Divine Father. Still, even those who
have had least to thank their earthly parents for should be able to rise to the
idea, however imperfect, of a wise, righteous, unselfish fatherhood, and to
picture to themselves a man who should show these qualities in his relation to
his children. And thinking of such an one, could you think of him as content
that they should simply go their own way, seek their own pleasure, indulge
their own whims, let loose their own tempers and desires, and own no authority,
and recognise no purpose in life, and believe in no will higher, more
experienced, more just than their own? All that is truest and most useful in
the discipline and training which an earthly father, who knows his relation to
his family and is faithful to it, bestows on his children, is based on
something that is eternal in the heavens, that exists as the true rule of
fatherhood in the mind of God the Father. Is it not involved in the very idea
that God is our Father that there should be in His mind a design for each of
us? And is it not inseparable from such a design that there should be much in
it that is not naturally easy and pleasant? The pain has been inevitable
because the true end of life has been kept in view, above all temporary and
petty objects that lie in the way to that end. The end could not be reached by
one ignorant, untrained, undisciplined, unaccustomed to obey or to learn. In
the training for the higher life it is not all plain and smooth. Least of all
is it so at the beginning. This is the meaning of the “strait gate” and the
“narrow way” that “lead to life.” They are strait and narrow, because they lead
to life, because they lead us on to a definite purpose of God for us that is
not laid down at random, not shaped by chance, but is the result of love and
foresight, and must, like all things that are high and good, be worked out not
carelessly and easily, but with patience and thought and toil.
2. If we believe in this Divine purpose of our life, if we believe
that the object of it is to train us into more perfect union with our Father,
to educate us to fill our place as His children in His family, surely it will
be our wisdom to try to learn what it is and to fulfil it. How are we to do
this? Not through self-will; of that we may be sure.
3. There are two great errors into which those who are failing of
God’s plan may have fallen, or be falling. There is the error of being
self-confident, impatient of all authority, advice, control, even of such
control (a parent’s, for instance) as is one of God’s own ordinances, one of
the abiding bonds of human life, which cannot be broken without the family or
the society in which it is broken suffering loss, and at last dissolution. And
there is the error of yielding absolutely to some authority (other than a
natural authority) to which you submit your own reason and conscience, and for
which you resign your own responsibility. We should beware of either of these
errors. And lest we fall into them, we should use our reason and our conscience
diligently in striving to find out the will of God for us; and if ever it seems
hard to find, then there is the refuge of work and of prayer to resort to,
until the dawn of light and peace.
4. It is a great thing to trust God; to have faith in Him and in His
goodwill and loving purpose for us, really to believe that we are children in
His family, and scholars in His school Such faith is the root of strength,
hope, patience and courage in human life. (R. H. Story, D. D.)
The soul’s Guide
(for the New Year):--
1. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GUIDE. He is Jehovah--the Lord our
strength; the Cause of all existence, and the Fountain and Source of life. Thus
He is “mighty to save,” and able to conduct His servants through every danger,
and deliver them from every foe. He is thy Redeemer, loving thee with an
everlasting love. A companion to rescue thee from danger, to take a loving
interest in all thy cares and sorrows: One who has “chosen thee in the furnace
of affliction,” that He may make thee “all glorious within,” and imprint on
thee His own likeness. He is “the Holy One of Israel,” faithful and true, rich,
tender, and unfailing in His promises.
II. THE METHODS OF
GUIDANCE. “Teacheth thee to profit leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest
go.” The methods are various and sometimes peculiar, but always full of wisdom.
Nothing is ever wanting on the part of the Teacher: if it is necessary for the
pupil’s progress, he will have to submit to the discipline of restraint, and to
bear the yoke of adversity.
1. God leads us sometimes by unknown paths, by ways we cannot
understand. Joseph, Jacob, Daniel, Elijah. The ways of providence need careful
watching to see their fitness and beauty.
2. By gentleness. David could say, “Thy gentleness hath made me
great,”--the Divine condescension had stooped to his frailties and errors. “I
willguide thee with Mine eye.” Not with bit and bridle, nor with the “hook in
thy nose,” as Sennacherib.
3. This guidance is continual. The Guide never relaxes His vigilant
care. He will “never leave thee,”--“even unto death” He is by thy side. Thus
guided we are always safe, right, and happy.
III. THE RESULTS OF
ACCEPTING THIS GUIDANCE (verse 18). “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall
eat the good of the land.” God’s promises are always to character.
1. Peace--that quiet, restful condition of soul which is the heritage
of those from whom all painful emotions and all disturbing influences are
removed.
2. Righteousness--as the foundation on which character is built, and
the element of which it consists. “Righteousness . . . as the waves of the
sea--so wide in its influence as to cover all the interests of life; so deep as
to go down to the deepest places of the heart, and permeate the whole life with
its power and beauty. And the peace and righteousness united make life
fruitful--so that it abounds in goodness, and the soul at all times and in all
places is enabled to fulfil life’s highest duty. (J. Edwards.)
It might have been
These words would be sad from the lips of man, but coming from God
they are inexpressibly touching and solemn. They are the cry of a wounded
heart. They tell not of the wrath of justice, but of the sorrows of love This
may be regarded as implying--
I. GRIEF FOR LOST
HOPES. Once there was hope and fair promise. God’s beautiful ideal might be
realised. But that is all gone. God only knows what has been lost. He is, so to
speak, alone with His sorrow.
II. JUDGMENT FOR
NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES. God is speaking here in the character of “the
Redeemer--the Holy One of Israel.” He recalls what He had done, and what might
and ought to have been the happy results. But the precious opportunities had
been abused.
1. Gracious instruction. “I am the Lord which teacheth thee to
profit.”
2. Infallible guidance. “Which leadeth thee by the way that thou
shouldest go.”
3. Holy blessedness. Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy
righteousness as the waves of the sea.” But the time is past. The glorious vision
has faded away for ever. Neglected opportunities bring sure and terrible
retribution.
III. EXONERATION FOR
NEEDLESS RUIN. Reason, conscience, and the Holy Scriptures combine in
testifying that man’s ruin is not of chance or fate, far less of God, but exclusively
of himself. (W. Forsyth, M. A.)
I am the Lord thy God,
which teacheth thee to profit.--
The benefit of afflictions
I. AFFLICTIONS MAY
BE MADE PROFITABLE TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD.
1. They may be greatly instrumental in turning off their attention
from the world.
2. They may turn off their affections as well as their attention from
the captivating objects of the world.
3. They may be of much greater benefit to them by raising their
affections to God, the source of all good.
II. GOD IS ABLE TO
MAKE AFFLICTIONS PROFITABLE TO HIS CHILDREN.
1. He is able to bring Himself into the view of His afflicted
children.
2. He can place their affections as well as attention upon Himself.
III. THIS IS A
MATTER OF CONSOLATION TO THEM. Improvement--
1. Since God makes use of afflictions to keep His children near to
Him, it appears that they are extremely prone to forsake Him.
2. It appears from the manner in which God instructs and benefits His
afflicted children, that they may derive the greatest advantage from their
severest sufferings.
3. If God chastises His children for good, then those who are
suffered to live in uninterrupted prosperity have reason to fear that they do
not belong to the household of faith.
4. If God can make afflictions profitable to His children, then we
may justly conclude that He can make them profitable to others.
5. It appears that every person may know whether he belongs to His
family or not. Afflictions are peculiar trials of the heart, and give men the
best opportunity to determine what is in reality the supreme object of their
affections.
6. The afflicted ought to be of a teachable spirit under Divine
convictions. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
True profit
It is not only the commercial world which has to make its
calculations of profit and loss. All life is made up of profit and loss. If
there is not profit, there is loss; if there is not loss, there is profit.
1. I understand the text to mean, not that God teaches us in a
profitable way, but that He instructs us how to get the profit in all things;
that He gives that faculty, the power to take the good and refuse the evil.
2. Consider how God does “teach to profit.”
Verse 18
O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments
Hearkening to God’s commandments
1.
It
is the duty of all people to “hearken,” however and whenever God may see fit to
speak to them.
2. To hearken denotes a reverent and careful attention to God’s
message.
3. To hearken implies also that we consider God’s commandments as
binding upon us, and as pointing out certain particulars which we are required
to attend to. (J. N. Norton.)
Peace as a river
Peace may be compared to a river--
I. IN ITS ORIGIN
small, joyous, sparkling, vigorous, rapid.
II. IN ITS
PROGRESS--widening and deepening; receiving new tributaries on the right and
left, from the various means of grace, as they are supplied with the dew of
heaven and showers of blessings; sweeping away--as it rolls on in its
strength--the obstacles of unsanctified affections and unconquered lusts.
III. The beautiful
figure of the text conveys the idea also of OVERFLOWING ABUNDANCE. The ancient
heathen, in order to represent the universal power and beneficence of Jupiter,
used the symbol of a river flowing from his throne. The prophet Isaiah speaks
of the “perfect peace” enjoyed by God’s true children. The Psalmist describes
it as “great peace.” St. Paul refers to it as “the peace of God which passeth
all understanding.” We make mention of it in our daily prayers as “that peace
which the world cannot give.” It is not a scanty, fluctuating, failing stream,
but a full tide of peace, both wide and deep, and supplying to the utmost every
longing of the soul.
IV. The language
suggests the idea of PERPETUITY. It is not uniform, indeed, any more than the
course of the river. Now it is half hidden in a narrow channel, among
overhanging mountains and forests; and now spread over a wide bed conspicuous
in the plain. Again, it is seen contracting and deepening itself, and moving
onward with tenfold velocity and strength. Such, too, are the variations in the
Christian’s peace.
V. The promise of
“peace as a river” includes the idea of INCREASE. It shall grow stronger and
more pervading. As the mighty river may be traced back to an insignificant
spring, far up the mountain-side, so is it with the beginnings of peace in the
soul. (J. N. Norton.)
The great privation; or, the great salvation
From this verse we may learn that when God smites men on account
of sin, it gives Him no pleasure. John Knox said that he never chastised his
children without tears in his own eyes. Jeremiah, in the bitterest chapter of
his Lamentations, bears this graceful witness to our covenant God: “He doth not
afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” And surely if in the gentler
chastisement of His hands the Most High takes no pleasure, much less can He
find delight in that withering curse which destroys the finally impenitent. Nor
is this the only lesson which lies on the surface of the text. Observe, the
Lord addresses words of poignant regret over the prize the sinner has lost, as
well as the penalty he has incurred. What loss thinkest thou is that which God
bewails on thy account? “Peace like a river,” and “righteousness like the waves
of the sea.” There is a privation which you unconsciously suffer. You are a
stranger to peace. David Hume used to say that Christians were melancholy
people. But that was a happy retort, in which somebody observed--“David Hume’s
opinion is not worth much, for he never saw many Christians; and when he did
see any, there was enough to make them miserable in the sight of David Hume.”
The true Christian has a peace which is totally unknown to any other man.
I. The metaphor is
full of beauty, and not wanting in instructiveness either, by which PEACE IS
COMPARED TO A RIVER.
1. Peace like a river, for continuance.
2. For freshness. The water which runs down the Thames, say at
Maidenhead, never was there before. It is fresh water, fresh from the hills
to-day, and to-morrow it is the same, and the same the next day--ever fresh
supplies from the heart of old England, to keep her glorious river swelling and
abounding. Now the peace which a Christian has is always fresh, always
receiving fresh supplies.
3. A river increases in breadth, and its waters augment their volume.
Such is the Christian’s peace. Pure and perfect though it is at the first,
little temptations seem to mar it; oftentimes the troubles of this life
threaten to choke it. When the Christian is ten years older, and has meandered
a few more miles along the tortuous course of a gracious experience, his peace
will be like a broad river.
4. The peace of the Christian is like a river, because of its joyful
independence of man. We have heard the story of a simpleton who went to see the
reputed source of the Thames, and putting his hand over the little rivulet that
came trickling down the ditch, he stopped it, and said, “I wonder what they are
doing at London Bridge now that I have stopped the river.” But who knew the
difference? A whole Parliament could not make the Thames swell with waves, and
fifty Parliaments could not lessen the body of its waters. It were well, by the
way, if they could preserve its streams from the pollution of those foul and
putrid sewers constantly emptied into it. The rivers would be better without
the interference of men. Such is the Christian’s peace. I have watched this
river as it broke over the stones of adversity; and when the tide of earthly
comfort ran low, it hath seemed as if the flow of peace were clearer and more
transparent than ever. The devil cannot rob us of the peace which comes from
God, neither can the world take it away.
II. “THY
RIGHTEOUSNESS AS THE WAVES OF THE SEA.”
1. Notice how this metaphor surpasses the previous one in dignity, if
not in delicacy. We can all see a sort of comparison, and yet at the same time
a strong contrast, between the water of an inland river and the collection of
waters which make up the wide expanse of the sea. One for the most part is
tranquil, the other always heaving and surging to and fro. So I suppose, as the
words were originally addressed to the Jewish nation and referred to their
temporal welfare, the river would represent the beauty and happiness of their
own land, like the garden of Eden, watered by the river of God’s pleasure; and
the sea, with its waves rolling in majestically one after another in unbroken
succession, would set forth that progress which is the renown of righteousness.
Generation after generation would witness the rising tide of prosperity. Each
chapter of their chronicles would lift its crested plume and tell of mighty
acts and righteous deeds, till, like the roar of ocean, the righteousness of
Israel should proclaim the name of the Lord from the river even to the ends of
the earth. Oh! what did that rebellious seed of Jacob lose by forsaking the
Lord! This seems to me to be something like the meaning.
2. But I want to apply this metaphor of the waves of the sea, like
that of the flowing of the river, to the happiness of the believer. The man who
believes in Jesus Christ has the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. But
how is this righteousness like the waves of the sea?
The river an image of peace
I. The image sets
before us A PEACE WHICH IS THE EXPRESSION OF LIFE AND POWER.
II. The image is
expressive OF HEALTHFUL INFLUENCE.
III. OF PROGRESS AND
PERPETUITY.
IV. OF
PLEASANTNESS. (W. S. Davis.)
The Divine commandments sources of peace
I. THE CONDUCT
THESE MEN OUGHT TO HAVE PURSUED. “O that thou hadst hearkened,” &c. What
does this hearkening mean?
1. An understanding of God’s commandments
2. A remembering of God’s commandments.
3. A regarding of them as commands.
II. A BLESSED
RESULT OF THIS CONDUCT WHEN PURSUED.
1. It leads the soul to Christ, the great Prince of Peace.
2. It leads us to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
3. The commands gradually make us holy, and holiness leads to peace.
III. THE EXTENT OF
THIS BLESSED EFFECT. “As a river.” (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The lost ideal
I. THE LOST IDEAL--what
might have been.
II. THE DIVINE
LAMENTATION OVER THIS.
III. THE DIVINE
PROPOSAL FOR RESTORATION. What means this next word, “Go ye forth of Babylon”?
&c. (Isaiah 48:20). (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Obedience and its blessings
I. THE DUTY OF THE
CREATURE. To hearken to the Divine commandments. Filial obedience springing
from love to his Father in heaven ought to be the rule of his life.
II. BLESSINGS
RESULTING FROM PERFORMING THIS DUTY GLADLY AND WILLINGLY.
1. The peace of such is as a river. A river the source of verdure and
fertility. As the river beautifies the landscape, so does peace beautify the
soul. Its fostering influence is essential if the virtues and graces of the Spirit
are to develop within us.
2. “Thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” When the tide is
coming in the waves advance farther and farther over the strand. Those who
hearken to the Divine commandments make progress in righteousness. (H.
P.Wright, B. A.)
Peace as a river
Not as the brook, as it gushes rapturously forth, breaking
musically on the stones, and flashing in the glee of its early life; not as a
streamlet hardly filling its wide bed, and scarcely affording water enough for
the fish to pass to its higher reaches: but like a river far down its course,
sweeping along with majestic current, deep and placid, able to bear navies on
its broad expanse, to collect and carry with it the refuse of towns upon its
banks without contamination, and approaching the sea with the sympathy begotten
of similarity in depth and volume and service to mankind. Oh, rivers that
minister perpetually to man--not swept by storm, not drained by drought, not
anxious about continuance, always mirroring the blue of the azure sky, or the
stars of night, and yet content to stay for every daisy that sends its tiny
root for nourishment--in your growth from less to more, your perennial fulness,
your beneficent ministry, your volume, your claim, ye were meant to preach to
man, with perpetual melody, of the infinite peace that was to rise, and grow,
and unfold with every stage of his experience! Such at least was God’s ideal
for Israel, and for all who swear by His name and make mention of Jehovah as
God. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Peace as a river
A perennial stream, such as the Euphrates (Amos 5:24). It is easy to understand the
impression made on the mind of a native of Palestine, accustomed to “deceitful
brooks” that run dry in the summer, by the sight of a great river, flowing on
for ever in undiminished volume.
The actual history of Israel had been like the wadis of
Judea, transient gleams of prosperity being interrupted by long intervals of
misfortune. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Dredging the river of peace
God promises a river of peace if we will dredge out the channel:
The water is His business--the water-course is ours. There are three important
words which we should consider carefully.
I. “PEACE.” If we
are to dredge the river we must get out of the way at once and for all time any
false conceptions about peace itself which we have been entertaining. Nothing
stops the inflow of Divine life more effectually than false notions. Peace is
an essentially Hebrew word, but it contains a cosmopolitan thought. The Jews
said “Peace” as a salutation in the market-places and upon the highways, but we
all want peace as a proof of our salvation and a mighty power of service. The
Greek salutation was “rejoice.” When Christ rose from the dead He used this
form: “Rejoice.” (R.V. “All hail!”) And well may we rejoice, since the bands of
death havebeen burst asunder. But Christ also said, Peace. “Peace I leave with
you, My peace I give unto you.” Hence we are authorised in our wish to appropriate
this thought in all its blessing. The Jew has always said, “Peace.” The whole
Orient has adopted His salutation in the universal “Shalom” of the present day.
His deeply religious nature was clearly set off from the volatile, rejoicing,
joy-loving nature of the Greek. What, then, is exactly meant by the word?
1. Peace versus Nirvana. There are some who think that peace
means a sort of Christian Nirvana, a state of abstraction, absorption in the
infinite, or self-surrender to nothingness in general and nothing in
particular. Peace is consistent and co-existent with the intensest activity. A
river may run through the busiest cities without losing its deep steadiness and
gentle murmur. Our Lord Jesus was called the “Prince of Peace,” and yet He was the
most practical of workers.
2. Peace versus mere activity. If people escape the error of
supposing that peace consists in mere contemplation, they are apt to suppose
that it may be found by running about in ceaseless activity. The blessed Master
by His Spirit imparts peace. It may not be secured by mere struggle, anxiety,
and activity.
3. Peace versus compromise. Compromise does not secure
permanent or genuine peace. Eli compromised for the sake of peace, and his sons
broke his heart. Never take a half-hearted course to avoid turmoil. Of two
pains you may choose the less, but never of two evils in the sense of sins.
II. “RIVER.” Among
the quieter objects of nature none is more suggestive of God’s power and
wisdom, of God’s loving presence in the world which He has made, than the river
which winds in and out among the hills, steals quietly through clattering
towns, kisses fields and pastures into fruitfulness and verdure, and smilingly
bares its breast to be scarred by the countless keels of the world’s commerce.
Hence the figure of the text gives us at once an idea of what peace is and what
it does. It is the inflow of the Divine life, bringing the Divine quietness,
patience and power, and resulting in spiritual beauty and fruitfulness. We have
hence but to apply our ideas of a river to peace to discover the practical
lessons we need to learn.
1. Heavenly supply. Every river has a source, and is dependent upon a
constant, renewed supply. This source and supply are always from above. Peace,
also, comes from above. Its source is in God. God’s resources are infinite, and
the supply shall not fail.
2. Useful overflow. Possibly when God made the promise we are
considering He had in mind the river Nile, whose regular overflow could be
depended upon to enrich Egypt, and bring food to the people. Or He may have
thought of the Jordan, which “overflowed all its banks in the time of harvest.”
Certain it is that the river of peace runs out of its banks, and is useful only
when it does. The overflowing heart of the Christian is the sympathetic heart.
3. Progressional expansion. A proper river grows broader and deeper
as it progresses toward the sea. Our peace shall grow broader and deeper as we
go on in the Christian life.
III. “HEARKEN.” This
is the most important word of all, when we consider that it contains the
condition of the promise God makes as to peace. All God’s promises are
conditional. If we fulfil our part of the contract He will not fail in His.
“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” The trouble with most of us is that
we do not “let” the Holy Spirit do in us and for us what He yearns to do. Some
Christians complain that God does not supply them with peace when their hearts
are so choked and their lives so clogged and cumbered that the river cannot flow
in. Let us pursue the thought a little to see how we may dredge the channel and
secure the blessing.
1. Blasting out deep-rooted rocks. This is the arduous part of the
engineer’s work when a river channel to be deepened. Some such work as this,
deep and heroic, needs to be done by us if we are to offer a free course to the
river of peace. Deep-rooted prejudices against the truth must be loosened and
cast out of our minds. Hidden loves and yearnings for the world must be
explored and destroyed. Pride is a great rock whose adamantine sides must be
pierced. Love of excitement is another. Other rocks in the river’s course are
mentioned in Colossians 3:8. God’s Word furnishes the
dynamite by which they may be uprooted.
2. Rip-rapping to prevent dissipation of power. There have been heavy
rains in the mountains, or the snows have suddenly melted and a mighty freshet
comes tearing down the stream. The soil composing the banks is loose and loamy,
and some protection must be afforded where the bends occur and the cities are
built. Then the men set to work, and great nets of boughs and branches of trees
are built, and these are made stable by rocks and bags of sand, and so the
“rip-rap” is formed and the waters are kept in their course. We are constantly
in danger of losing spiritual power through the broadening of our energies and
the dissipations of our forces. A proper overflow of blessing to others is
necessary; yet the river is not to run entirely out of its channel and waste
itself fruitlessly and even harmfully. The love of Christ is to “constrain”
us--keep us within limits. Let us not be afraid of being “narrow” in this
sense. A river is powerful only when properly narrow,--otherwise it becomes a
bog and a stench.
3. Guarding against the formation of sudden sand bars. Those who
dwell near sandy rivers or harbours formed by river mouths know what an amount
of careful piering and dredging is necessary to keep the channel clear. Let us
learn a lesson from the pains taken by the engineers. If we find a place in our
spiritual life where sudden bars are apt to form, disturbing or retarding the
flow of peace, let us at once protect the spot by special prayer. (W. J.
Harsha, D. D.)
Peace and righteousness sacrifices
I. HERE ARE THE
PRIVILEGES OF GOD’S PEOPLE, Peace like a river; righteousness like the waves of
the sea. The very same blessings which are said in the New Testament to
constitute the kingdom of God (Romans 14:17).
1. This blessed peace is of two kinds--peace with God, and peace
within themselves. This peace is compared to a river. The comparison is very
beautiful and significant. Look at a river. What are you struck with?
2. “Righteousness.” The people of God are clothed in the merits of
their Saviour. Now, of this righteousness it may well be said that it is “like
the waves of the sea.” Behold the sea, and the idea it gives us is that of
vastness and immensity--an almost boundless mass of waters. And what is the
height, the length, the breadth, the depth of the righteousness of Christ! The
waves of the sea are a fit emblem of power and might--who can withstand them?
who can rebuke them? And who can lay anything to the charge of those whose
righteousness is that of their Redeemer?
II. WHY DO NOT THE
BLESSINGS WE HAVE SPOKEN OF BELONG TO EVERYONE? It is impossible to enjoy God’s
peace in the midst of the world’s sins.
III. WHAT TENDERNESS
THERE IS IN THE TEXT! what commiseration of the sad estate in which sinners
have reduced themselves! (A. Roberts, M. A.)
The desire, plan, and regret of the Eternal
I. AN EARNEST
DESIRE OF THE ETERNAL.
1. He desires for man an abundance of peace. The word “peace” stands
for something more than freedom from national war or moral agitations. It
stands for happiness in its widest and deepest import. The happiness desired,
then, is not a little happiness, not a few drops, not even a copious shower
that soon passes away, but a “river.”
2. He desires for man an abundance of spiritual prosperity. “Thy
righteousness as the waves of the sea.” “Righteousness” must also be taken in a
general sense as standing for rectitude of soul and holiness of character.
Those waves, how majestic in aspect! how resistless in flow! how unconquerable
in energy! The Eternal does not wish us to have a little religion, but to
“comprehend with all saints what is the length,” &c.
II. AN UNALTERABLE
PLAN OF THE ETERNAL. The plan is that happiness should only come through
obedience. “O that thou hadst hearkened,” &c.
1. The constitution of the human soul shows this. The sum of all
God’s commandments has been reduced by Christ to love--supreme love to God.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart.” Now, the nature of the
soul shows that there can be no true and perfect happiness without this.
2. The order of society requires this. All are members of a social
system, and each has a mission to fulfil, not only in relation to himself, but
in relation to others. For society to act in harmony it is necessary that there
should be one will worked out by all. Where each follows his own will there
must be eternal collisions and anarchies.
3. The history of the world manifests this. Every chapter in the
world’s history shows that the disobedient have been miserable, whilst the
obedient have been happy.
4. The Word of God declares this.
III. AN
INEXPRESSIBLE REGRET OF THE ETERNAL. “O that thou hadst hearkened unto My
commandments.” Such Divine exclamations are not altogether unusual. Such
expressions of Divine feeling indicate two things--
1. The immense evils involved in disobedience. God alone knows the
evils connected with disobedience to the individual, society, the universe. And
seeing the dark and turbulent ocean of miseries springing from disobedience, He
seems to sigh over it. His heart seems to break into commiseration. Fools may
laugh at sin, but God is solemn over it.
2. That restoration to obedience is man’s deepest necessity. God does
three things to restore man to obedience.
What might have been
What is a commandment of God? We are too commonly inclined to
regard it merely as the expression of the wish of God. It is more than that. It
expresses a law of life. To disobey a commandment is not merely to go against
the will of God; it is to violate eternal law. Every commandment is the
expression of a fundamental law, which it is our welfare to observe, and our
destruction to ignore. A parent says to her child, “Thou shalt keep thy-self
clean.” There is a commandment. But why? Because it is thy parent’s wish? Yes,
but more than that. Because it expresses a law of life, the condition of
physical health. It is even so with all the commandments of God. The Ten
Commandments are just ten laws, proclaiming what are the conditions of a
healthy moral life.
1. Let us hear our text again. “O that thou hadst hearkened when I
made known to thee the laws of moral and spiritual health. I have instructed
thee what laws to observe in building a house; I have instructed thee what laws
to observe in building a life. O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments.”
“Hearkened.” The word is full of intentness; it is suggestive of quick
apprehension. It means to prick the ears, as some hare or rabbit pricks its
ears and listens at the slightest movement in the thicket, or at the sound of a
footfall in the distant field.
2. But they had not hearkened. They had not pricked their ears and
listened. They turned a sort of indolent and indifferent ear, and pursued their
own way. Now, what happens when a man will not hearken to God’s commandments,
when he shapes his life in utter indifference to the revealed law? Two things
happen, and they are as inevitable as death, for they are the forerunners of
death--spiritual restlessness and spiritual feebleness.
3. But now, see what might have happened. “O that thou hadst
hearkened to My commandments,” five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, or forty
years ago: instead of spiritual restlessness and spiritual weakness, “then had
thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.”
4. It would be a poor and melancholy business for a preacher to get
up and merely tell his people what might have been; it would be a funeral dirge
rather than a Gospel. If the Gospel of God has a tender and inspiring note for
anybody, it is for those souls which are burdened with a depressing sense of
what might have been. “What might have been” must be followed by “what may be,”
if souls are to be lifted out of bondage and darkness into liberty and light.
Still, if you can get a man to sigh for what might have been, you have laid the
foundation for what may be. A sigh for the past is a prayer for the future.
Hope may be born out of sorrow, as diamonds are born out of slime. What do we
need? Well, first of all we need to know that we have another chance, that we
can begin again. Don’t let anyone fall into that fatal snare of believing that
God has cast them off. God never hides His face. It is we who obscure it. Go
down into the West Riding of Yorkshire, and look at those tall mill chimneys as
they pour out dense volumes of coal black smoke, which hangs like a dark pall
between the inhabitants and God’s sky. What would you think if some poet,
living in one of these towns, were to begin to cry, “Hide not thy face from us,
O blue sky”? The blue sky is not hiding its face; it is your own black smoke
that obscures it. Can the obscuring cloud be removed? “I have blotted out as a
thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins.” (J. H.Jowett, M.
A.)
The outline of the ideal in every man’s life
If you have ever been at St. Andrews, and have looked at the ruins
of that great cathedral, you have seen not only the massive walls that are left
in a small part of it, but you have seen just the appearance above ground, the
whole shape of the cathedral--nothing more than that: you can just form an idea
of what it would be if it stood there in all its grandeur. Well, there is left
in every man something of this kind. Sin depraves, but it does not obliterate
the organic powers and the natural peculiarities and tendencies of the
individual. What I might have been--that is not a picture which has altogether
vanished in the air; there is some outline of it left, an outline in each man.
Of course, these differ very much among themselves, just as pictures differ in
a gallery or as human faces in a crowded street, all of which, perhaps, you
will find to have a general resemblance, but none of which are exactly alike.
The ideal of another person would not be mine, nor mine his. There are
diversities. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
God’s appeal to man
I. AN APPEAL OF
GOD TO MAN.
1. The appeal made by the Almighty to the Jew, and also to the
Gentile, is full of pathos and the most intense affection. It tells us how
unwilling God was and is that any man, or any body of men, should perish;
should pass away from His love and care and protection, and that if anyone did
so, it would be their own fault; and that such a consequence of disobedience
would be necessary for the upholding of the Divine laws.
2. The manner of the appeal, too, indicates that the Commandments of
God had not been properly regarded, and therefore there is a tone of sorrow and
regret. The case reminds us of Christ weeping over the doomed city of
Jerusalem. If we are neglecting our first and foremost duties with respect to
God, if we are so taken up with the world, its different callings; its
pleasures, its ambitions, its cares, and its disappointments, as to keep out of
view the imperative duty of seeking first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and of working out by self-denial and constant obedience to the
Almighty will our own personal salvation, then the words of our text, with all
their force of meaning, may be applied to ourselves.
3. But such an expression of grief with God is generally predictive
of judgment. It was so with the tearful words of the Redeemer.
II. THE RESULTS
WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN or those which follow obedience to the commandments of
God.
1. On the condition of hearkening to or obeying the Divine commands
there would follow a peace as full and deep and calm as to be like a river.
2. This latter comparison of righteousness is very striking. Like the
waves of the sea for constant activity, for breadth and depth, for a wide
circuit of influence, for sublimity, power, and greatness. And such is
Christian life and character when considered in their relative bearings on
ourselves and society at large. (W. D. Horwood.)
National peace and righteousness
The words are addressed to a nation; the images before us are
images of national life; the peace--that is, the outward prosperity of the
people--shall flow like a river; the righteousness of the united people shall
be like the prevailing unity, the accumulated power, the forceful, restless
energy of the sea waves. (W. S. Davis.)
Thy righteousness as the
waves of the sea
Righteousness
1. Religion being the supreme act of the soul, it is not strange that
its highest product should claim the grandest symbol in the vocabulary of God
for its utterance. Isaiah, whose mind was more ocean-like in grand unity and
rich variety of colour than any other prophet, saw so deeply into the nature of
righteousness that not the plain, or sky, or mountain, with which he was
familiar, offered him so complete a definition of its quality, or so full a
suggestion of its life in the soul, as the wonderful sea. Poets have always
sought the melodies of ocean to reinforce and complete their own especially
when the deeper and larger experiences and hopes of man are touched.
2. Innocence is not righteousness, though many a soul thinks because
it has not been stained by sin it is righteous. Innocence has no waves, no
perils, no tragedies, no gulf streams, nothing so stormy as a plunging breaker.
Innocence is a plain of white snow. The rosy hues of sunset do not glimmer down
into its deeps! No one is engulfed in its splendour; no one can sail upon its
bosom. It is passionless, without a yearning or a song. Righteousness is like a
sea, full of currents; it is restless and restful with living energies. It has
perils, and means storm and stress, as well as peace and beauty. It offers
opportunities to its sailor for heroisms and enterprises of soul. A mountain
can describe justice; it is its portrait, bard, unmovable, grand, crystalline.
But righteousness is mobile, just as grand, but full of movement.
3. Even Jesus sought the seaside because He felt most of all souls
how something above His soul influenced it as the moon influences the ocean.
All nation-builders, poets, great achievers of the intellectual and spiritual
wealth of the race know that not from within, or from beneath, but from above
the long, sweet influences work to lift the life to its sublime heights. Part
of the secret of a strong and blessed life lies in knowing the tides, in counting
upon them, and in relying on the fact that these influences from above will do
more for our exaltation and joy than any of our own efforts may do. At low
tide, with a fresh east wind, a white-capped wave seems to try to reach some
beautiful Place on the shore. It yearns and strains and fails. Let it wait till
the moon-drawn tide comes under it with soft, strong advances, and lo, the
walls of the land are washed to jasper, and the wave has mounted where it never
could have reached alone. Wait until God sends His tide and you will reach your
highest goal.
4. Righteousness has majestic unity and richest variety, like the
waves of the sea. Men would often make one type or aspect of righteousness the
judge of all others, and call it alone perfect. The sea is so much like man’s
soul because it is so much a changeful unit; so like man’s righteousness
because every man’s righteousness takes on all the hues of his personality. At
all moments of the day and night the sea is a palette of colours, yet one sea rolls
in all this marvel of changing tints. Righteousness is equally variant; it
takes on the sky’s hues above the soul, and the wonderful tints of the bottom
of the sea. The sea is a challenge to man’s sense of infinity. It whispers of
eternity. So does all genuine righteousness, for it is ageless, and seems to
rely on the life everlasting. Its whole mission is to fling us out on the
forever of God and the soul. So the sea shall be no more when we have learned
its lesson. (F. W. Gunsaulus, D. D.)
Righteousness as the waves of the sea
God would have a man’s righteousness to be like the waves of the
sea; that is, He would have him to be possessed of a goodness that cannot be
measured, and that can never end. For if we want the symbol of strength, of
variety, of voluminousness, abundance, and endlessness, we have it, not in the
grand mountains that are called everlasting, but in these ever-fluent
never-resting waves of the sea. The waves of the sea! why, they have made all
the strata of the world nearly; they have immersed every continent in turn
again and again and again; they have been lapping and chafing the shores of
this world through ten thousand ages, and roaring in answer to the winds all
over the lengths and breadths of the ocean, and yet now, to-day, they are as
fresh and young and buoyant as they have ever been before. Well, this is the
emblem which God takes to set forth the beauty and glory of man’s life. (A.
Raleigh, D. D.)
Righteousness as the waves of the sea
Walk along the coast-line when the tide has ebbed, mark the wastes
of sand, the muddy ooze, the black unsightly rocks. Not thus did God intend
that any of His children should be. It was never His will that their
righteousness should ebb, that there should be wastes and gaps and breaks in
their experience, that there should be the fatal lack of strength and purity
and virtue. The Divine ideal of the inner life is mid-ocean, where the waves
reach to the horizon on every side, and there are miles of seawater beneath. (F.
B. Meyer, B. A.)
Righteousness
1. Is not the first idea of the waves of the sea their
multitudinousness? Righteousness, then, like these waves of the sea, would mean
an unfailing movement, an active goodness, strong or gentle, reaching over the
boundless surface of life, breaking in pure foam and music on every beach. It
would mean a kind of limitless and incalculable force, too, not contracted like
waters in a pool or pond, but issuing out of vast depths and distances, and
swayed by cosmic impulses, so that there is no end, no pause, no exhaustion--a
sense of the infinite, a promise of eternity.
2. The second idea must be that of the beauty of the waves of the
sea. That is not a modern sentiment; it occurs in the earliest poetry of the
world. It was AEschylus that coined the exquisite phrase, “the countless
smile of the many-sounding sea,” and a poet like Isaiah must have felt that
poetry of the sea as you have done.
3. May we add a third suggestion, which would hardly occur, perhaps,
to those who knew only the tideless Mediterranean, namely, the beneficence of
the waves of the sea. They are for ever washing the land. Our righteousness is
intended to have a cleansing effect on the shores of earth.
Not like the troubled waters, which throw up mire and dirt--they
are intended to ring human life with a belt of ozone, to wash out into the
depths the corruptions of the earth, and to fling high upon the shore the sting
and the strength of the salt. To influence the world for good is a thought to
thrill you with hope and desire, to be good, to do good, to make good. (R.
F. Horton, D. D.)
Verse 20-21
Go ye forth of Babylon
Summoned to an exodus
There has never been an era in which God’s people have not been
face to face with a great principle of evil, embodied in a city, confederation,
or conspiracy of darkness.
Always the same spirit under differing forms. This great system is as strong
to-day as when the massive walls of Babylon enclosed their millions, and
proudly dominated the world. Some have identified it with the Church of Rome,
or the spirit of ecclesiastical assumption, but it is better to consider it as
that element which is ever working through human society, which is spoken of as
“the world.” We are therefore warranted in applying to present surroundings
every item in the description given of the olden foe of Israel, and of heeding
the summons to go forth.
I. SENT TO
BABYLON. God’s ideal for the chosen people is set forth under a beautiful
similitude (Isaiah 48:18). This ideal is within the
reach of everyone who will hearken to God’s commandments. But if we refuse, we
may have to pass, as Israel did, into the furnace of suffering in the Babylon
of the world.
II. LIFE IN
BABYLON. The mighty city was called the Lady of kingdoms. We must think of her
with massive walls, broad spaces, colossal bulls guarding the entrances to vast
temples with flights of stairs and terraces; with pyramids, towers, and
hanging-gardens; her wharves receiving the freights of the Indian Ocean; her
marts thronged with the merchants of the world; her streets teeming with
tributary populations. But right across her splendour ran the fatal bars of cruelty,
luxury, wickedness, and devil-worship. Amid such scenes the Jews spent the
weary years of their captivity. But through this awful discipline there was
slowly emerging a nobler, loftier ideal, which was fostered by the ancient
words that foretold their destiny. It was not possible that they should be long
holden by their captors. Were they not the elect people of God, destined to
bless the world? Yes, they might be in Babylon, like many another captive
people, but they had a great hope at their heart. And in the light of that
hope, under the searching fires of their anguish, they for ever abandoned their
love for idolatry. Some are now in their Babylon. They look back to a sunny
past, which might have continued had they not stepped out of the narrow path of
obedience. Let such still hope in God: they shall still praise Him; let them
repent of their sins and put them away; let them learn the deep lessons which
God’s Spirit is endeavouring to teach; let them dare to praise God for the
discipline of pain. Presently the clarion call of the exodus will ring out.
III. EXODUS FROM
BABYLON. The old order was changing and giving place to the new. From the ruins
of the mightiest city that, perhaps, the world has ever seen, the Jews are
bidden to go forth. The summons for an exodus rings out to the Church of the
living God. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》