Biblical Illustrator I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower. Nothing definite is known of this man Habakkuk. In the text we see him preparing himself for his holy task — ascending his tower, that he may see; secluding himself, that he may hear; making his bosom bare, that he may feel the message of the Unseen.I. THE SECRET OF LIFE IS TO REALISE THE UNSEEN. To this man the world is full of an unseen, majestic presence. The very air he breathes throbs with the pulse of God, and the silence may be broken at any time by God's voice. So he spends life watching, listening, waiting. Is not every life noble and grand and true just in proportion as it realises this, as it seeks the Unseen? This is indeed the Gospel — that God is now reconciled to us, and that His presence broods over us in unutterable love. To realise this and enter into its blessedness is not only the secret of life, but it is the whole duty of man. II. WE OUGHT TO EXPECT MESSAGES FROM THE UNSEEN. To the prophet this great Unseen One is no dumb God. The truth is, that God seems to be always seeking some heart sufficiently at leisure from itself that lie may talk with it. He found such an one in Abraham and in Moses. In the days of Eli we read there was "no open vision." God was silent, for none could hear His voice; God was invisible, for earth-blinded eyes could not see Him. If we could but hear, He has much to say unto us — much about His purposes of grace toward ourselves, and about His purpose toward the world; much about the coming glory. In three ways — 1. By His Spirit through the Word. 2. By His Spirit through our conscience. 3. By His spirit through His Providence.We need these voices from the Unseen to guide and help us in the sorrows and perplexities of our lives. If it be a miracle for the Unseen to speak with men, then that is a miracle that happens almost every hour. III. HOW WE SHOULD DISPOSE OURSELVES TO RECEIVE GOD'S MESSAGES. 1. We should get up, up above the heads of the crowd, up above the crush and clamour of the worldly throng, to where there is clearer air and greater peace. It is not the new play we want, nor the most fashionable church, but the new vision of His face. Wherever we can get most of that is the place for us. 2. We are next to quicken our whole being into a listening and receptive attitude. 3. Quiet is needed also; for God most often speaks in a still, small voice. (J. C. Johnston, M. A.) Almost nothing is known about the personal history of the author of the prophecy contained in this book. He himself retires into the background, as one content to be forgotten if the Word of God uttered by him receives the attention it deserves. The self-abnegation of many of those whom God employed to do a great work among His ancient people teaches a lesson that is much needed. It implies a whole-hearted consecration to God's work and interests in the world that ought to be more aimed at than it sometimes is. It is a trial that comes to the prophet's faith, and how he met it, that are brought before us in the whole passage of which our text forms a part. What was the trial of his faith? In answer to his Cry to God to interpose to put a stop to abounding wickedness in the Covenant nation, the reply is given to him that terrible judgment was about to fall upon it, and from an unexpected quarter — from Babylon. The havoc that would be made by this fierce, proud, self-sufficient world-power is made in vision to pass distinctly and clearly before him. He sees its terrible army marching through the land — a garden of Eden before it and a wilderness behind it. The scene that thus fills his mind's eye, his patriotic spirit would not allow him to contemplate unmoved. He trembles for the safety of his people under this dark cloud of judgment. He seeks refuge from them in God, holding fast the conviction that a righteous God would not allow a wicked, proud nation like that of the Chaldeans to hold His people for ever in cruel bondage. "Art Thou of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst Thou not look upon iniquity? Wherefore lookest Thou, then, upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?" As he contemplates the Chaldean army, conscious of its own strength and making a god of it, ravaging the whole land, this conviction grew doubtful to him. It seemed sometimes to slip away from his grasp. This was the trial of his faith, and the greatness of it can only be measured by the sincerity of his religion and the strength of his patriotism. How does he meet this trial? The words of our text inform us. "I will stand upon my watch-tower, and set me upon the fortress, and will watch to see what He will say in me, and what I shall answer to my plea." He resolves to lay his doubts before God, and to wait upon Him — withdrawing his attention from all earthly things — for solution. In carrying out this resolution he compares himself to one who mounts the watch-tower — attached to ancient towns and fortresses — that he may scan the surrounding district to see if any one might be approaching, whether friend or foe. Like one on the watch-tower in the eager strained outlook for some messenger, would the prophet be in relation to the expected explanation from God. When he himself tells us that on this watch-tower he was watching to see what God would say in him — for this is the proper rendering of the words — waiting for an inward voice he could recognise as God's, the spiritual nature of the transaction is placed beyond all doubt. The revelation which came to his soul thus waiting, of which we have an account in the subsequent part of the chapter, solved his difficulties and strengthened his faith and hope. The assurance was given to him, as we learn from the 14th verse, that not only Canaan, but "the whole earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." I. THE MOUNTING OF THIS WATCHTOWER. This is an exercise to which we must be no strangers if we are to have God's light shining on our path, God's voice saying to us: "This is the way, walk ye in it," and God's hand laid upon us to strengthen us for every trial and conflict. 1. May we not regard it as laying before God the difficulties caused by his own dealings? There was a mystery in the events of Providence which the prophet felt that he could not penetrate. Was it possible that God's chosen people — to whom pertained the adoption and the glory and the covenants — would be overwhelmed in the disasters in which he saw them plunged? Would the ungodly might of Chaldea be allowed to crush them altogether, and all the hopes bound up in their life? To the eye of sense this seemed likely, but the prophet knew that behind all events and forces there was a personal God — Jehovah the Covenant God of Israel. He knew that they were but carrying out His will, and he would not believe, even though the appearances of things pointed to it — that that will was seeking the destruction of the Covenant nation. Sense was drawing him one way, his faith was drawing him another, and the questions born of this conflict which were agitating his mind he wisely resolves to lay before God. What are Job's wonderful speeches in his conversations with his friends, but a series of impassioned reasonings with God about His dealings with him? What, again, was Asaph's exercise under the triumphing of the wicked as recorded in a well-known Psalm, but a talking with God about HIS dealings? And do we not find the plaintive Jeremiah, when his soul was sore vexed with cruel opposition, saying, "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when I plead with Thee; yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" It is not a blind impersonal force that the believer sees behind the events that take place, compelling sullen submission to whatever happens? No! It is a loving Father to whom appeal may be made about the perplexing questions that may be aroused by His own dealings. Fatalism — in which things, are accepted simply because they cannot be changed — is not Christian resignation, and falls far short of the attitude in which the believing heart can find rest. Openness in our dealings with God is what He delights in, and what will lead us to the knowledge of that secret of His that is with them that fear Him. Faith will have its difficulties both with the wondrous revelation God has given to us in His Word, and with the unfolding of His purposes in the course of His Providence. The finest natures — those touched to finest issues — are very often those who feel these difficulties most keenly, and have to fight their way to the bright shining shore of certainty and rest by buffeting with many a storm. And the best way of dealing with all those difficulties is just to take them to the watch-tower and lay them before God. 2. But this dealing with God about questions that may perplex us implies the stilling of our souls before Him, that He may give us light and guidance. The prophet after pleading with God, expostulating with Him on the apparent contradiction between the Divine providence and the Divine promise, places himself before God and waits for His voice. That he may hear it all the better — may catch the slightest whisper of the Divine voice within him — he retires into himself, quiets his own spirit, and intently waits. The expressive language of the Psalmist. may be used to describe his "attitude," "My soul is silence unto God. And this exercise, need we say, is essential to the obtaining of any deep insight into God's will, to our receiving those discoveries of Himself as a God of grace and love, that will give us rest even under the most trying dispensations. It is by the Divine voice within us that the Divine voice without us in His written Word is clearly, distinctly understood, and is made to throw its blessed light upon Divine Providence. Without the inward revelation that comes to us by the teaching of God's Spirit, the outward revelation given in our Bibles will remain dark and unintelligible. If we do not withdraw now and again from the bustle and noise of the world, and commune with our own hearts, the Divine voice will be lost to us. It will remain unheard, as the bell striking the hour above some busy thoroughfare is often unheard by those in the throng. It is the calm lake which mirrors the sun most perfectly, and so it is the calm soul that will catch the most of the heavenly glory that shines upon the watch tower, and reflect it on the world around. But we must not think of this calmness or silence of the soul toward God as a mere passive attitude. "It requires the intensest energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon God. All our strength must be put into the task; and our soul will never be more intensely alive than when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God." Though it may involve an apparent contradiction, the silent soul will be one full of the spirit of prayer. The prophet had been pleading with God for light to guide him in dark days, and it is with a longing pleading soul that he mounts the watch-tower and waits for an answer. He has directed his prayer to God, and he looks up expecting an answer. There is really as much prayer in this silent submissive waiting for an answer to his cry as there was in the cry itself. The expectant look of the beggar after his request has been made has often more power to move the generous heart than the request itself. And the mounting of the watch-tower after prayer to maintain an outlook for the promised answer puts beyond all doubt that we have been sincere and earnest in the exercise, and will have power with God. The place on the watch-tower may have to be main. rained for a time before the answer comes, but it is sure to come in some form or another. 4. But last of all here, this standing upon the watch-tower has been regarded by some as the prophet's continuance at his work notwithstanding the difficulties that encompassed it. Not unfrequently in the Old Testament is the prophet's office compared to that of a watchman. What the watchman in the tower did in the earthly sphere — keeping an outlook for the people and warning them of coming danger — the prophet was to do in the spiritual sphere. And so when the prophet here says: "I will stand upon my watch-tower," he is regarded as meaning, "I will not leave my post — the place in which God has put me, but will wait in the faithful discharge of every commanded duty for the solving of my doubts and the removal of my difficulties." Certainly in acting in such a way he took the very best plan of getting his way made clear. When we allow our perplexities, whatever they may be, to keep us back from work God is plainly laying to our hands, they will increase around us. Activity and steadfastness in duty will purge our spiritual atmosphere, while melancholy in active brooding will laden it with pestilential vapours. A higher attainment still is to have the soul stilled before God, and expectant even in the midst of our labour. II. WHAT IS ENJOYED IN THIS WATCH-TOWER. The prophet's experience was one so rich and blessed that a glimpse of it may well stir us up to follow his example: 1. He heard the Divine voice for which he listened. "Then Jehovah answered me and said." He became aware of a Divine presence within his soul, and conscious of a Divine voice speaking to his heart. His waiting and looking up met with a rich reward. Though this experience cannot now come in the same form to the trustful waiting soul, yet, in its inner essence, it may and does come. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit within believers as their tether is a blessed reality. They who submit themselves to His guidance will be led by Him into all truth, will not only gain a deep insight into God's will, but will see its bearing upon events in Providence. It was a very simple truth that was now divinely spoken to the prophet: "Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith." The man or the race of men that are lifted up with vain self-confidence shall experience no tranquillity, but they who abide firm in their allegiance to God and make Him their trust shall he maintained by His mighty gracious power. The simplest truths, that may in some of their aspects have long been familiar to us, are often used in the teaching of the Spirit to lift the soul above the mists that obscure its vision. It will be the declaration of truths thus divinely spoken to our hearts that will be accompanied with greatest power. 2. Again, let us notice that this experience brought him a new sense of the Divine presence with His people. The song with which the sad prophecy ends, recorded in the third chapter, expresses this sense of the Divine nearness to His people. The land that had witnessed such marked manifestations of His presence and power, the memory of which was fondly cherished by the pious, had not been forsaken by Him. What had been done when "God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran," would again be done for the overthrow of the proud oppressor, and for the deliverance of the humble fearers of His name. The eternal order lay behind the confusion caused by the wicked, and would in due time assert itself, for the God of this order was behind all. 3. So the prophet finds his labours for the land and people he loved sustained by a restful hope. Dark days may come in which the fig-tree shall not blossom, and there shall be no fruit in the vine, and the field shall yield no meat, but when their purifying work is accomplished brighter times shall dawn. His labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Neither will ours if done in the right spirit. (R. Morton.)
I. THE DUTY OF WATCHFULNESS. 1. This duty arises from various causes which affect us in our outward circumstances, as well as in our minds and hearts. They are our enemies or our friends; such as build up the character of man for good, and lift it heavenwards, or mar it and force it downwards to destruction. The ever-present, active, and all-pervading causes of good and evil, acting upon man's moral and spiritual nature, provide a powerful reason for this duty. For while a man is thus taught his dependence upon God for strength, and is shewn his own weakness in the battle of life, he is at the same time taught to use every precaution against his fees, to guard every avenue of his heart against their influence, and to be vigilant and watchful in all his daily undertakings. 2. But watchfulness as a moral duty may be considered as a recognition of God's laws and government. The man who waits, like Habakkuk, for the Almighty, will see the hand of God everywhere. He recognises God as the watchful Father, noting every tear and hearing every sigh that inspires the watchful heart with hope, and that sheds a bright ray of comfort through the gloom. II. FAITH FOUNDED UPON THE REVELATIONS OF GOD IS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST ALL MISTRUST AND DOUBT OF HIS POWER AND GOODNESS. 1. The answer which God gave to the prayers of Habakkuk was the authority by which he met every quibble of his opponents, and by which he confronted his enmity. 2. A true faith acts on the revelation of God in the life history of Christ, and on the soul's immortality. In the life of Christ, weighted with suffering the most intense, we find a solution to our own troubles, as well as their sanction. Then let us "stand upon our watch." (W. Horwood.)
There is no remedy, when such trials as those mentioned by the prophet in the first chapter meet us, except we learn to raise up our minds above the world. For if we contend with Satan, according to our own view of things, he will a hundred times overwhelm us, and we can never be able to resist him. Let us therefore know that here is shown to us the right way of fighting with him: when our minds are agitated with unbelief, when doubts respecting God's providence creep in, when things are so confused in this world as to involve us in darkness, so that no light appears, we must bid adieu to our own reason; for all our thoughts are nothing worth when we seek, according to our own reason, to form a judgment. Until then the faithful ascend to their tower, and stand in their citadel, of which the prophet here speaks, their temptations will drive them here and there, and sink them as it were in a bottomless gulf. But that we may more fully understand the meaning, we must know that there is here an implied contrast between the tower and the citadel, which the prophet mentions, and a station on earth. As long, then, as we judge according to our own perceptions we walk on the earth; and while we do so, many clouds arise, and Satan scatters ashes in our eyes, and wholly darkens our judgment, and thus it happens that we lie down altogether confounded. It is hence wholly necessary that we should tread our reason under foot, and come nigh to God Himself. We have said that the tower is the recess of the mind, but how can we ascend to it? Even by following the Word of the Lord. For we creep on the earth; nay, we find that our flesh ever draws us downward, — except when the truth from above becomes to us, as it were, wings, or a ladder, or a vehicle, we cannot rise up one foot, but, on the contrary, we shall seek refuges on the earth rather than ascend into heaven. But let the Word of God became our ladder, or our vehicle, or our wings, and, however difficult the ascent may be, we shall yet be able to fly upward, provided God's Word be allowed to have its own authority. We hence see how unsuitable is the view of those interpreters who think that the tower and the citadel is the Word of God; for it is by God's Word that we are raised up to this citadel, that is, to the safeguard of hope, where we may remain safe and secure while looking down from this eminence on those things which disturb us and darken all our senses as long as we lie on the earth. This is one thing. Then the repetition is not without its use; for the prophet says, "On my tower will I stand, on the citadel will I set myself." He does not repeat in other words the same thing because it is obscure, but in order to remind the faithful that, though they are inclined to sloth, they must yet strive to extricate themselves. And we soon find how slothful we become, except each of us stirs up himself. For when any perplexity takes hold on our minds we soon succumb to despair. This, then, is the reason why the prophet, after having spoken of the tower, again mentions the citadel. ( John Calvin.)
1. It is our safest way, in times of temptation and perplexity, not to lie down under discouragement, but to recollect ourselves, and fix our eyes on God, who only can clear our minds and quiet our spirits; therefore the prophet, after his deep plunge in temptation, sets himself to look to God, and get somewhat to answer upon his arguing, or reproof and expostulation, that so his mind may be settled. 2. It is by the Word that the Lord cleareth darkness, and would have His people answer their temptations and silence their reasonings. 3. Meditation, earnest prayer, withdrawing of our minds off from things visible, and elevating them towards God, are the means in the use whereof God revealeth Himself, and His mind from His Word, to His people in dark times. 4. Faithful ministers ought to acquit themselves like watchmen in a city or army, to be awake when others sleep, to be watching with God, and over the people, seeking after faithful instructions which they may communicate, seeking to be filled from heaven with light and life, that they may pour it out upon the people; and all this especially in hard times. 5. Albeit the Lord's people may have their own debates and faintings betwixt God and them, yet it is their part to smother these as much as they can, and to bring up a good report of God and His way to others. (George Hutcheson.)
The observer of grace should be studious to discern the workings of Divine providence, and to consider their purposes in the counsels of the Most High. We inquire into the importance of observing the various ways in which the Almighty is pleased to address us, and of determining how far we have hitherto regarded them, and turned them to our individual improvement. In reply to the complaints of His servant, the Almighty shows that mercy would not be long extended; that the Chaldeans would soon inflict summary vengeance on the Jews. To these declarations of the Divine displeasure the prophet rejoins by stating the conviction of his own safety, and of the protection which would be extended to the rest of God's people. He had hoped that God would have been satisfied with gentler corrections, and not have employed an idolatrous nation to punish His chosen people. But he resolves to wait patiently, in quietness and in confidence, for the answer of God, that he may know what statement he was to publish. Every Christian is as a man standing on the watch, as one who will have to give account; who watches to see what God will say to him. The will of God is declared both in His Word and in His works. The great end to be effected by watchfulness is, that we may know our actual state, and be ready at any time for aught that may befall us. It is that we may not be surprised, that we may not be taken at unawares. What do you propose to answer when you are called to appear before an all-seeing God? He has not only spoken to us in national judgments and mercies, He has said a word privately to each one of us as individual. (Richard Harvey, M. A.)
Homilist. Wherefore are we in this world? We are not here by choice, nor by chance. Man's moral mission —I. CONSISTS IN RECEIVING COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. This will appear — 1. From man's nature as a spiritual being. (1) (2) (3) 2. From man's condition as a fallen being. As a sinner, man has a deeper and a more special need than angels can have. Communications from God are of infinite moment to man. 3. From the purposes of Christ's mediation. Christ came to bring men to God. His Cross is the meeting-place between man and his Maker. 4. From the special manifestations of God for the purpose. These we have in the Bible. 5. From the general teaching of the Bible. In the Book men are called to audience with God. II. HOW ARE DIVINE COMMUNICATIONS TO BE RECEIVED I Two things are necessary — 1. That we resort to the right scene. The prophet to his "tower." 2. That we resort to the right scene in the right spirit. III. MAN'S MORAL MISSION CONSISTS IN IMPARTING COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. That we have to impart as well as to receive is evident — 1. From the tendency of Divine thoughts to express themselves. Ideas of a religious kind always struggle for utterance. 2. From the universal adaptation of Divine thoughts. 3. From the spiritual dependence of man upon man. 4. From the general teaching of the Bible. IV. MAN'S MORAL MISSION CONSISTS IN THE PRACTICAL REALISATION OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE ETERNAL MIND. In the Divine purpose there is a period fixed for the realisation of every Divine promise. However distant it may seem, our duty is to wait in earnest practical faith for it. Learn who it is that fulfils his moral missions in the world. The man who practically carries out God's revelation in the spirit and habits of his life. Notice — (1) (2) (3) (Homilist.)
II. THE OLD PULPIT'S COMPLAINTS AND BOASTINGS. 1. My complaints —(1) I complain because some very ungodly characters have taken the liberty of ascending my steps.(2) Because some look at me as a mere workshop to make a living in.(3) Because I have been compelled to serve as a stage to exhibit men, and not Christ.(4) Because I have been too long used as a place of refuge for blind bigotry and prejudice.(5) Because many who have stood on my floor did not do my work with all their might.(6) Because there is not more attention paid me. 2. My boastings —(1) In the multitude of my sons.(2) Of the fame of my sons.(3) In the greatness and glory of my themes.(4) In the extent of my influence in the world.(5) In the preservation of my life in spite of numerous and powerful enemies.(6) That I am the great favourite of heaven. (J. Roberts.)
1. Look at the circumstances in which the prophet tells us this com mission was delivered to him. 2. In verse 4 is a passage three times quoted by the apostle Paul, as applicable to the salvation of the Gospel — to the enjoyment of eternal life. 3. Peter (Acts 10:43) tells Cornelius that all the prophets preached the doctrine of salvation by faith through Christ. 4. The interpretation proposed seems to give greater unity and appropriateness to the prophet's subsequent declarations. The commission, then, which the prophet received from God was a commission to declare plainly and faithfully to men their guilt and danger as sinners against God, and to point them to that salvation in connection with which God has revealed Himself to them, that they may escape the calamities to which their iniquity has exposed them. It is plain, then, that in order to ascertain correctly the way of salvation we must go to the written records of God's will, and read. (W. Lindsay Alexander, D. D.)
(Morgan Dix.)
I. INQUIRE WHAT IS IMPLIED IN "WAITING." 1. A firm persuasion of the being and reality of what God has promised. Faith makes unseen things visible, and future things present; and as to things of a spiritual nature, it so demonstrates their excellency as to engage us to choose and give them the preference to all other things, while it excites strong desires after them. Faith therefore enters into the very essence of the duty here enjoined. 2. The deepest humility, joined with reverence and love. In order rightly to wait upon God we must have high apprehensions of Him and low apprehensions of ourselves. The waiting soul is sensible of its own dependence on the Divine all-sufficiency. 3. Fervent and continued desire. For these two are joined together in Isaiah 26:8. Waiting will cease when desire fails; but when everything else in a Christian seems to be gone, this remains. Waiting upon God is opposed to a stupid and lethargic frame of spirit. 4. Patience must be exercised in waiting. Not despairing patience. Not merely natural patience. A truly Christian patience, whereby we bear without murmuring the greatest afflictions, and are not totally discouraged by the longest delays. A patient spirit is neither timorous and distrustful on the one hand, nor rash and hasty on the other. For an apostolic similitude, see James 5:7, 8. We expect from God; we must not prescribe to Him. 5. Fixedness and stability, in opposition to a fluctuating and unstable temper of mind; constancy and resolution, in opposition to fickleness and levity. The prophet calls it "standing upon a watch-tower." 6. Diligence and constancy, in opposition to sloth and weariness. Waiting upon God does not imply indolence, but activity; not neglect of the means, but diligent use of them. Diligence without dependence is the greatest folly; and dependence without diligence is no better than presumption. II. THE REASONABLENESS OF THE EXHORTATION. Consider — 1. We are but servants; and what should servants do but wait? 2. What God has promised must be worth waiting for. Surely those put a great slight upon the promised blessings who will not earnestly seek and patiently wait for them. 3. God has long waited upon us. He has had great patience with us, and shall we not patiently wait for His mercy? 4. It is one end for which God bestows His grace upon us, that we might be able and willing to wait. It is this which calms the boisterous passions and stills the tumult of the soul. 5. God seldom performs His promises or answers our expectations till we are brought to this state of mind. When we are submissive in the want of blessings we are most likely to enjoy them; whereas fretfulness and discontent will provoke God to withhold them. When we contend with Him, He will contend with us; but when we resign ourselves up to His will, He will gratify us in our wishes. 6. The sweetness of blessings is generally proportioned to the time we have waited for them, and the longer they have tarried the more welcome they are when they come. Learn from hence that when grace has reached the heart there is still much for the Christian to do. Our present state is oftentimes a state of sore and pressing want, and always of imperfect enjoyment; and therefore we should wait, and our waiting should be accompanied with cheerfulness; and to secure this we should regard promises more than appearances. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
(Alex. Mrywwitz, A. M.)
1. To be still, and know that He is God. In all extremities we must fall back upon this, the sovereignty of God. 2. However dark be our path, we have no reason to doubt His love. 3. We can sometimes discern reasons why the Lord delays His coming. The expression, "the fulness of time," reveals to us much of the secret of God's delays. The waiting time is usually a time of growth. The suppliant sees things very differently at the close of his struggle from what he did at the outset; and the blessing so ardently sought becomes now a real blessing from his being thus prepared to receive it. 4. It will follow from this that when our prayers are offered up for blessings for others they too, at that time, may be unfitted to receive them. 5. As it is with human souls, who cannot, without a miracle, be in a moment transformed from childhood to maturity, there must be in all mental and spiritual processes, first, the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. So it is with the constitution of things. Sometimes before prayer can be answered many things must happen. (Evangelical Advocate.)
I. THE DIVINE PROCEEDINGS ARE SLOW. 1. The history of the earth illustrates this principle. Creation was the work of long eras. 2. There is something in the movement of the seasons tending to remind us of this great law. How silently and slowly winter retires before spring, and spring gives place to summer and autumn. To the Divine mind that orders it all there is a majesty in slowness. 3. The history of all life conveys the same lesson. Life, whether in plants or animals, is everywhere a growth; and all growth is silent, gradual, — so gradual as not to be perceived. The education of an individual is slow; the education of a people must be very slow. II. GUARD AGAINST IMPATIENCE IN JUDGING THE WAYS OF GOD, AND KNOW HOW TO WAIT. Religion, revealed religion, includes much in harmony with these facts of nature and providence. 1. Note the long interval which was to pass between the promise of a Saviour and His advent. 2. So, when the Saviour did come, the manner of His coming was not such as the thoughts of men would have anticipated. The kingdom of heaven was to come without observation. 3. It is not without mystery to many minds that the history of revealed religion since the advent should have been such as it has been. We might have anticipated that the doctrine of Christ would be retained in its purity, and that its subduing power would be everywhere felt. But on reflection we find analogy suggesting that this was by no means probable. 4. If we descend from the general life of the Church to the spiritual history of the individual believer, we may find much there to remind us that the experience of the Church at large, and the Christian taken separately, are regulated by the same intelligence. With regard to much of our Personal history, we are expected to wait for the revelations of God. (Robert Vaughan, D. D.)
I. THE NOBLEST CHARACTER. In the Bible men are divided into two great divisions, the righteous and the wicked. The righteous is a man who trusts God's Word, submits to God's will, and lives in conformity with God's righteous and holy law. He is a straight, or right, man — right in mind, in heart, and in life. The unjust man is s man with a crooked soul. In the Old Testament the word righteousness refers more to conduct than to the inward principle of spiritual life, and the righteous man is characterised by truthfulness, honesty, uprightness, tenderness, and unswerving fidelity to duty in relation to God and man. II. THE HIGHEST LIFE. Man's highest life is a life of trust in God. No man can live to himself in the highest sense of life, and if he tries to do so he will die in the very attempt. It is through the death of the lower self that the higher and true self can live. To enable men to do this was Christ's object in coming to the world to live and die for us. Through faith men die in His death and live in His life, and this is the only way in which fallen man, who is dead in trespasses and sins, can find his life. The greatest thing the blessed Saviour could give for man was life, and the greatest thing He can give to man is life. In giving life Christ gives to men all they stand in need of for time and eternity. There is more in life than correspondence of an organism with its environment. There is a vital, mysterious principle, which manifests itself through the correspondence of the organism with its environment, and reaches its perfection when that correspondence becomes perfect. The highest life is the spiritual, which, said Christ, consists in the knowledge of God and Himself. The spiritual man not only lives and moves and has his being in God and His Son, as the true environment of spiritual and eternal life, but God in His Son must live in him. What is it to live according to the sense of the word in the text? It consists of three things — 1. Participation of God's nature. Men live in God and unto God by becoming partakers of the Divine nature. 2. Perfect delight in God. We associate enjoyment with all conscious life. God has no way of giving joy but by giving life. 3. Usefulness for God. The crown of every life is its usefulness; its highest end is service. There is no true joy of life possible without life of service. The life which consists of the knowledge of God in His Son will be eternally progressive. III. THE CONDITION OF THE BLESSED LIFE OF THE RIGHTEOUS. "By his faith." Man's highest life is a life of living trust in a living God. Faith in God is the animating and sustaining principle of the life of the righteous. Only a person can be an object of trust, Faith cannot live but in the constant vision of its object. This living faith in God is given to man to enable him to do his work for God. The only faith worthy of the name is that which enables us to live the truest and highest life. (Z. Mather.)
I. THE JUST. Behold, his soul that is lifted up is not upright in him. Works which are supposed to merit, naturally puff up the mind with pride. The prophet says, that proud disposition which you think merits, because of your works, is not an upright disposition. Good works cannot avail to justification. You must believe, not works. Good works are evidences of faith. The just are such as God justifies by faith in His own beloved Son. For Christ's righteousness is to all, and upon all them that believe. II. THEY ARE ALIVE. Did they not live before? Yes, a natural life. They are quickened to a new and higher life. None are alive till born again of the Spirit. We must experience the "washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." III. HOW THE BELIEVER LIVES THIS SPIRITUAL LIFE. By his faith. The man who is justified by faith is made spiritually alive, and this life is maintained and supported by repeated acts of faith in the Son of God and Saviour of the world. Faith in Christ justifies, and by believing we receive righteousness and strength, and are made holy and acceptable to God. (R. Horsfall.)
( John Calvin.)
I. ORDINARILY, THE JUST MAN LIVES BY FAITH. 1. As it is the first act of that new spiritual life which the Holy Ghost produces in the soul. It is that coming to Christ which the Scriptures make anterior to every other gift or exercise of grace. 2. We live by faith, as it apprehends the plea by which the condemnation of death is set aside, or as it is a justifying instrument. We are said to live by that instrumentality which delivers us, and shields us from the operation of death. 3. We live by faith, as it unites the soul in mystical union with the Head, in whom there is all the fulness of life. 4. We live by faith, as it is in the range of its appropriation the highest and best condition of life. 5. We live by faith, as it is a principle essentially indicative of life, active, operative, and fruitful. II. HOW DOES SUCH FAITH SURVIVE IN CIRCUMSTANCES OF EXTRAORDINARY TRIAL? 1. Calamity, that which exceeds the bounds of ordinary affliction. Such as war, famine, pestilence, earthquake. 2. Reproach for the faithful maintenance of truth and holiness. 3. The return of infidelity — extraordinary in that no completeness of defeat can prevent its returning invasion. 4. Another trial is apostasy. Faith is first in order; every other grace in the soul implies the precedence of this faith; hope herself must give up the sure and steadfast anchor, before this inner and ultimate life of faith can be destroyed. (A. T. M'Gill, D. D.)
( John Calvin.)
1. When it exceeds the bounds of affliction, or when the dispensations of God's anger in it cannot be reduced to the head of affliction. 2. When judgments fall promiscuously upon all sorts of persons, and make no distinction. I. HOW WE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; WHAT FAITH WILL DO IN SUCH A SEASON. 1. Faith will give the soul a reverential fear of God in His judgments. 2. It will put the soul upon preparing and providing an ark for itself.(1) This ark is Jesus Christ.(2) There must be a door in this ark. To obtain an interest in Christ is the general work of faith in these days.(3) It will put us upon the search and examination of our own hearts, what accession we have made to the sins that have procured these judgments. The sins which do and have procured these judgments are — open and flagitious sins of the world. And the sins of Churches and professors. These latter include lukewarmness; contenting ourselves in outward order; want of love among ourselves; earthly-mindedness. II. HOW FAITH WILL CARRY IT UNDER OTHER PERPLEXITIES THAT MAY BE COMING ON US. 1. How we may live by faith under reproaches.(1) Faith will give us such an experience of the power, efficacy, sweetness and benefit of Gospel ordinances and Gospel worship, as shall cause us to despise all that the world can do in opposition to us.(2) It will bring the soul into such an experimental sense of the authority of Jesus Christ, as to make it despise all other things. Faith will work this double respect unto the authority of Jesus Christ — as He is the great Head and Lawgiver of the Church, and as He is Lord of lords and King of kings.(3) Faith will bring to mind, and make effectual upon our souls, the examples of them that have gone before us, in giving the same testimony that we do, and in the sufferings that they underwent upon that account.(4) Faith will receive in the supplies that Christ hath laid up for His people in such a season.(5) It is faith alone that can relieve us with respect unto the recompense of reward.(6) Faith will work by patience when difficulties shall be multiplied upon us. 2. How we may live by faith, under an apprehension of the great and woeful decays in Churches, in Church members, in professors of all sorts; and in the gradual withdrawing of the glory of God from us all on that account.(1) This is such a time of decay among us. A sense of it is impressed upon the minds of all the most judicious and diligent Christians, that do abound most in self-examination, or do take most notice of the ways of God. They recognise the open want of love among Church members; want of delight and diligence in the ordinances of Gospel worship; and our worldly-mindedness, conformity to the world, and security. A sense of this general decay ought to be an exercise and concern to our minds. God is dishonoured by this general decay. The world is offended and scandalised by it. The ruin of Churches is hastened by it.(2) What is the work of faith under this condition? It will remind the soul that, notwithstanding this, Christ hath built His Church upon a rock. that it shall not be utterly prevailed against. It will remind the soul that God hath yet the fulness and residue of the Spirit. Faith will cheer us by saying, "Are not all these things foretold thee?" And it will put every soul in whom it is upon an especial attendance unto those duties God calls him unto in such a season. Such as self-examination; great mourning, by reason of God's withdrawing Himself from us; watchfulness over ourselves, and over one another, that we be not overtaken by the means and causes of these decays; zeal for God and the honour of the Gospel, that it may not suffer by reason of our miscarriages. ( J. Owen, D. D.)
I. EXPLAIN THE TERMS OF THIS PROPOSITION, "The just shall live by faith." 1. Who is the just or righteous man? There are two sorts of righteousness, according to the law, and according to faith. By righteousness after the law understand that which man wishes to derive from his own personal ability. By righteousness of faith understand that which man derives from his own personal ability. To have faith, or to believe, is a vague expression. Faith is sometimes a disposition common to the righteous and the wicked; sometimes the distinguishing character of a Christian; sometimes it is put for the virtue of Abraham; sometimes it stands for the credence of devils. Faith is a disposition of mind that changeth its nature according to the various objects which are proposed to it. We are inquiring about saving faith, and have to inquire what is its object. It is Jesus Christ as dying and offering Himself to the justice of the Father. We must distinguish two sorts of desires to share the benefits of the death of Christ. A desire unconnected with all the acts which God is pleased to require of us; and a desire that animates us with a determination to participate these benefits. Jesus is proposed to the believer's mind and heart and conduct. There are two kinds or causes of justification. 1. The fundamental or meritorious cause. 2. The instrumental cause.That is the fundamental which acquires, merits, and lays the foundation of our justification and salvation. By the instrumental we mean those acts which it hath pleased God to prescribe to us, in order to our participation of this acquired salvation. If faith justifies us, it is as an instrument, that of itself can merit nothing, and which contributes to our justification only as it capacitates us for participating the benefits of the death of Christ. Justifying faith is a general principle of virtue and holiness. 1. Justifying faith is lively faith, a believer cannot live by a dead faith. 2. Justifying faith must assort with the genius of the covenant, to which it belongs. 3. Justifying faith must include all the virtues to which the Scriptures attribute justification and salvation. 4. Justifying faith must merit all the praises which are given to it in Scripture. 5. Justifying faith must enter into the spirit of the mystery of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ. II. OBJECTIONS MADE AGAINST THIS DOCTRINE. 1. IS it pretended that the design of excluding holiness from the essence of faith is to elevate the merit of the death of Christ? 2. Dost thou say, thy design is to humble man? What can be more proper to humble man than the system we have expounded? 3. Dost thou say, our system is contrary to experience? 4. Or that our justification and salvation flow from a decree made before the foundation of the world, and not from our embracing the Gospel in time? 5. Or dost thou still object, that, although our system is true in the main, yet it is always dangerous to publish it; because man has always an inclination to "sacrifice unto his own net," and by pressing the necessity of good works, occasion is insensibly given to the doctrine of merit? (J. Saurin.)
(Dean Vaughan, D. D.)
I. THE UPLIFTED SOUL, AND ITS PENALTY. What is it for a man to be lifted up? It is to be proud, haughty, to have a feeling of self-dependence and self-sufficiency. It is to forget God, and to assume that a man's life is in his own hands. There are many things that will produce an uplifted soul. Such as worldly success; intellectual culture; a man's unbelief. There is hardly a step between unbelief in God and a man having a vain, proud, self-satisfied, and uplifted soul. Such a soul is not upright. It is crooked, perverse, froward. That is the penalty. For what is the glory of man? It is to know God, and to live in fellowship with Him. The great glory of man is righteousness. How do those who are "lifted up" carry themselves in times of trouble? They are ground to pieces — broken up. What strength have they for the day of adversity? II. THE TRUE LIFE FOR MAN. It is a Divine message spoken to the just man. "Your duty is to live by faith." This faith is the antithesis of "lifted up." It is a spirit of trust in God, a devout belief in God, in the righteousness and the love of God: it is lowliness and humbleness of mind; it is a feeling of true dependence upon the great Father in heaven. All the holy and just men who ever lived a true and noble life, have done so because they have lived by their faith. How will this work? God becomes a reality to the soul that is full of trust and prayer. God draws near to us as we live in faith and spirituality to Him. We make great mistakes in the matter of realising God and the love of God. Try by argument, by subtle process of reasoning, by investigation, to find out God and to know Him, and you are baffled. It is by faith God becomes known. And a life of faith and devoutness gives strength for obedience. Faith brings us into union with the great Source of all life, and causes us to be equipped with power for obedience in righteousness. The path in which Christ walked, and we are called to walk — the path of self-sacrifice, purity, meekness, love to enemies, trust in God, moral courage — this path is one which severely strains and taxes all the powers of a man. Hindrances and temptations throng around you at every step. Christian victory is not so much a stern exercise of resolution as a devout consecration to God; not so much self-straining as self-surrender to God; a loving consent to the guidance and inspiration of the Divine Spirit. The hour of quiet, simple yielding up of self to God, with utter dependence on His moulding touch and strengthening grace, is always the hour of our fullest power for obedience. There is another element that enters into the life of faith — peace, serenity, joy. The outward circumstances of life are never without some kind of discord or pain. If we make ourselves dependent upon the perfect adjustment of outward things for peace, then never will peace be ours. Open the portals of the soul, with lowliness and childlike dependence before God, bow in hushed submission, and then into the soul, noiselessly, yet with living power, like the calm dawn of a summer day, peace will come. Live the life of faith, and you will find God everywhere, and your character will grow in righteousness, and your peace and joy shall flow and abound like the waters of a great sea. (Thomas Hammond.)
(Dean Farrar.)
(James Randall, M. A.)
1. We see the method which God has taken in revealing to us things to come. He has thought it sufficient to reveal to us the things themselves, without notifying the time when they shall be performed and manifested in the world. 2. We see the great sin of infidelity, and how much of the Divine displeasure we incur, when we disbelieve any Word of God, only because the completion of it falls not within the time which we had reckoned upon for the doing of it. 3. We hear the blessing which accompanies our sincere belief and dutiful observance of God's Word. "The just shall live by his faith." This is the only true life that men can live. (W. Reading, M. A.)
1. Man is justified, declared just before God, through this great principle of faith. 2. To his faith in God the just man owes the life of obedience and holiness which he lives before Him. 3. Faith represents God as the source of strength in present trial, and of comfort in all affliction. Such a belief is absolutely necessary, in order to stir up man to exertion and perseverance in his spiritual contest with evil. 4. Faith, assuring the mind of the Christian of the glory that awaits him in the future time prevents the discouragements that he meets with, and the denial to which he submits, from overcoming his patient perseverance in well-doing. (H. Constable, M. A.)
I. A good man is a HUMBLE man. This is implied. His soul is not "lifted up." Pride is not only no part of moral goodness, but is essentially inimical to it. A proud Christian is a solecism. Jonathan Edwards describes a Christian as being such a "little flower as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble in the ground, opening its bosom for the beams of the sun, rejoicing in a calm rapture, suffusing around sweet fragrance, and standing peacefully and lowly in the midst of other flowers." Pride is an obstruction to all progress and knowledge and virtue, and is abhorrent to the Holy One. "He resisteth the proud, but gives grace to the humble." II. A good man is a JUST man. The just shall live by his faith." To be good. is nothing more than to be just. 1. Just to self. Doing the right thing to one's own faculties and affections as the offsprings of God. 2. Just to others. Doing unto others what we would that they should do unto us. 3. Just to God. To be just to self, society, and God, this is religion: III. A good man is a CONFIDING man. He lives "by his faith." This passage is quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; it is also quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:38). (Homilist.).
(Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times.")
(Hugh M'Neile, M. A.)
(C. Kingsley.)
1. Man is introduced into a new life by this faith. Trusting in God's beloved Son, life is immediately given to him. He no sooner trusts, than all that is involved in everlasting life becomes his. This is God's free gift to him. 2. Man has support in time of trouble through faith. Hope is closely related to faith. If you would have a stronger hope, you must have a stronger faith. There is a work which faith performs that hope cannot accomplish. Hope has a limited sphere, faith has not. Faith has to do with all that God has said about Himself, and about His Son, and about His Spirit, and about the privileges of the redeemed, and about the destiny of the redeemed. Faith is the principle whose operations render God's descriptions of unseen things real to us, so that His words take the place of facts. One effect of the faith of a Christian is to bring us into an entirely different style of life from that in which those men live who walk by sight. It must be so. Note some of the points of difference between a believer and an unbeliever. One holds the world tight, the other holds it with a slack hand. One orders his life by the will of his fellow-men, the other by the will of God. Then ask yourselves whether you have what the Scriptures call "faith," the faith that saves. (Samuel Martin.)
I. DRUNKENNESS. This is one of the most loathsome, irrational, and Pernicious forms which it can assume. Drunkenness puts the man or the woman absolutely into the hands of Satan, to do whatsoever he wills. II. HAUGHTINESS. "Is a proud man." Babylon became inspired with a haughty insolence. She regarded herself as the queen of the world, and looked down with supercilious contempt upon all the other nations of the earth, even upon the Hebrew People, the heavenly chosen race. Nebuchadnezzar expresses, "the spirit of the kingdom" as well as his own, when he says, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" It is suggested that their love of wine had much to do in the. developing of this haughty spirit. We read, chapter 5th, that Belshazzar at his feast drank wine with the thousands of his lords, his princes, his wives, his concubines. III. RAPACITY. Two things are suggested concerning the rapacious form it assumed in Babylon. 1. It was restless. "Neither keepeth at home." Not content with its own grandeur, wealth, and luxuries, it goes from home in search of others; goes out into other countries to rifle and to rob. 2. It is insatiable. "Who enlargeth his desire as hell," — that is, as Sheol the grave, — "and is as death, and cannot be satisfied." (Homilist.)
1. The danger of a false start and a false aim in life. God has given us a complex nature, and He has given us the use of our reason and the other faculties, physical and mental, which He bestows upon men. And the great end of man is to glorify God. If a man uses his powers only to found a family or amass wealth, we earnestly warn that man. He has mistaken the great end of his being. 2. A form in which the lading of thick clay is found is greed of money. Covetousness in some one or other of its forms or specious disguises is one of the besetting idolatries of the day. This greed of money manifests itself in money-getting and in money-losing, and also in money-spending. Comparatively few recognise the principle of stewardship to God in the expenditure of their income. 3. Another form in which this heavy clay is sometimes found is anxiety. What our Lord and His apostles tell us to avoid is the carking, distracting care which turns a man's mind away from God, and keeps him continually on the rack, forgetting the loving Father who is willing to be the bearer of all his cares. 4. Another form of this clay among business men is sharp practice. Sharp practice is in our manufactories, upon the exchange, with lawyers, and not only among the little petty hucksters, but among tradesmen who make a much fairer show in our streets. 5. Another form is a worldly tone and spirit. To be a Christian, there is no necessity to leave your work and to lead the life of a recluse. Go into the world and make your money, but do not worship it. (Canon Miller, D. D.)
( John Calvin.)
(John Ruskin.)
1. Coveting the possessions of others. "Woe to him that coveteth an evil coveteousness to his house." "An evil covetousness"? There is a good covetousness. We are commanded to "covet earnestly the best gifts." But to hunger for those things which are not our own, but the property of others, and that for our own gratification and aggrandisement, is that which is prohibited in the Decalogue. 2. Trusting in false securities. So "that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil." The image is from an eagle (Job 29:37). The royal citadel is meant. The Chaldeans built high towers like the Babel founders, to be delivered from the power of evil. They sought protection, not in the Creator but in the creature, not in moral means but in material. Thus foolishly nations have always acted, and are still acting; they trust to armies and to navies, not to righteousness, truth, and God. A moral character built on justice, purity, and universal benevolence is the only right and safe defence of nations. 3. Sinning against the soul. "And hast sinned against thy soul," or against thyself. Indeed, all wrong is a sin against oneself — a sin against the laws of reason, conscience, and happiness. II. THE NATIONAL WOES here indicated. "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house," etc. What is the woe connected with these evils? It is contained in these words: "The stone shall cry out Of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." Their guilty conscience will endow the dead materials of their own dwelling with the tongue to denounce in thunder their deeds of rapacity and blood. Startling personification this! "Note," says Matthew Henry, "those that do wrong to their neighbour do a much greater wrong to their own souls. But if the sinner pleads Not guilty, and thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with so much art and contrivance that they cannot be proved upon him, let him know that if there be no other witnesses against him the stone shall cry out of the wall against him, and the beam out of the timber in the roof shall answer it, shall second it, shall witness it, that the money and materials wherewith he built the house were unjustly gotten (ver. 11). The stones and timber cry to heaven for vengeance, as the whole creation groans under the sin of man, and waits to be delivered from that bondage of corruption.(1) That mind gives to all the objects that once impressed it a mystic power of suggestion. Who has not felt this? Who does not feel it every day? The tree, the house, the street, the lane, the stream, the meadow, the mountain, that once touched our consciousness, seldom fail to start thoughts in us whenever we are brought into contact with them again. It seems as if the mind gave part of itself to all the objects that once impressed it. Hence, when we leave a place which in person we may never revisit we are still tied to it by an indissoluble bond. Nay, we carry it with us and reproduce it in memory.(2) That mind gives to those objects that impressed us when in the commission of any sin a terrible power to start remorseful memories. No intelligent personal witness is required to prove a sinner's guilt. All the scenes of his conscious life vocalise his guilt. (Homilist.)
( John Calvin.)
I. THE SIN. What was the iniquity for which the Chaldean monarch is here so solemnly denounced? Not the mere outer act of building a great city, but in the manner and motive of his doing it. "He had built his city in blood, and established it in iniquity." There was sin in the motive, for the monarch only built for his selfish aggrandisement. We perceive, then, glaring ungodliness in both manner and motive of this great work of Babylon. II. THE PUNISHMENT. The Bible does not teach that men are punished eternally for the sins committed in time. Man goes on sinning for ever, and therefore is punished for ever. By a law of a man's own mental constitution, memory and conscience are summoning from the past both ministry and material of a righteous retribution. This is retribution — a punishment really more dreadful than any material imagery whereby the Bible sets it forth — a retribution which becomes, of itself, eternal torment. We do not say that in this is all of retribution. (Charles Wadsworth, D. D.)
(Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)
II. THE CONDITION OF THE PERSON AGAINST WHOM THIS WOE OR CURSE IS DENOUNCED. He was such an one as had actually established a government and built a city with blood. As soon as Cain had murdered his brother he presently betook himself to the building of a city. Bloodiness has usually a connection with building, which represents the setting up of government. Nebuchadnezzar seems to be the person here spoken of. III. THE LATITUDE AND EXTENT OF THIS WOE OR CURSE, AND WHAT IS COMPREHENDED IN IT. It includes the miseries of both worlds, present and future. 1. It fastens a general hatred and detestation upon such men as persons. Cruelty alarms and calls up all the passions of human nature, and puts them into a posture of hostility and defiance. The tyrant is universally hated and scorned. 2. The torment of continual jealousy and suspicion. 3. The shortness and certain dissolution of the government that endeavours to establish itself with blood. 4. The sad and dismal end that usually attends such persons. IV. THE REASONS WHY A CURSE OR WOE IS SO PECULIARLY DENOUNCED AGAINST THIS SIN. 1. It makes the most direct breach upon human society. 2. Because of the malignity of those sins that go in conjunction with it. V. APPLY TO THE PRESENT OCCASION. All unjust bloodshed is twofold. Either public, and acted by or upon a community, as in a war. Or personal, in the assassination of any particular man. (R. South, D. D.)
2. The Bible proclaims it. 3. There are signs of the near approach of this glorious day. The first sign is the decay of idolatry; the second is the decline of popery. A third is the increase of knowledge. A fourth is the uprising of humanity. A fifth is the condition of Christianity. (Charles Garrett.)
( John Calvin.)
I. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THIS PROPHECY. The "glory of the Lord" has various meanings. A grand display of it was made when Moses and Aaron and the seventy elders were called up into the mount. Any particular visible display of God's presence was His glory. But the term has also reference to the Gospel. There was a glory attending the law, but this was much more glorious. It is more glorious than the law in its Author, His Person, and His work. The Gospel is peculiarly glorious above the law — 1. In its extent. If we look at former times we might perhaps think that God had selected a few — one family — as His peculiar treasure; but now we find this was only that the coming of the Messiah might be more clearly marked. 2. It re presents the Divine attributes more gloriously than the law. Majesty, justice, hatred of sin were shown. Here is the richest display both of grace and justice. Here God's glory is concentrated as in a focus. 3. It is more glorious as life and immortality are more clearly revealed "The knowledge," etc; This word has also various meanings. Sometimes it means "discrimination;" at others, "publication"; and when applied by a believer, it is full assurance. The knowledge in the text implies — (1) (2) 3. Performance. Believe and obey the Gospel. The sinner believes; the believer works. 4. This leads us to the universal tendency of this knowledge. Like leaven, it will work its way. II. WHAT IS SAID CONCERNING THIS GLORY. The margin of some Bibles reads, "the channels of the sea." 1. Clearness. These channels are very deep; so is Divine science — not superficial. 2. Experience. The waters do touch every surface of land; they wash every shore. The glory of God shall be felt by every people. 3. Universal. The channels are effectually covered; so shall the world be filled. III. REMARKS IN SUPPORT OF THE PROPHET'S DECLARATION. 1. God's covenant with Abraham. "All the families of the earth were to be blessed in him." 2. It was renewed to Isaac, Jacob, etc.; but especially to Jesus Christ. 3. It was the burden of all the prophecies. 4. See the commission of the apostles. 5. We may refer the accomplishment of this to the promised agency of the Holy Ghost. 6. We argue it from the effects which have been produced. Application — (1) (2) (J. Summerfield, A. M.)
II. That men often LOOK TO THE WORKS OF THEIR OWN HANDS FOR A BLESSING WHICH GOD ALONE CAN BESTOW. These old idolaters "said to the wood, Awake, to the dumb stone, Arise." Now, it is true that men do not say formal prayers to wealth, or fashion, or fame, or power, albeit to these they look with all their souls for happiness. Men who are looking for happiness to any of these objects are like the devotees of Baal, who cried from morning to evening for help, and no help came. III. That in all this MEN ENTAIL ON THEMSELVES THE WOES OF OUTRAGED REASON AND JUSTICE. "Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake, to the dumb stone, Arise." 1. It is the woe of outraged reason. What help could they expect of the "molten image, and a teacher of lies"? What answer could they expect from the dumb "idols " that they themselves had made? How irrational all this! Equally unreasonable it is for men to search for happiness in any of the works of their hands, and in any being or object independent of God. 2. It is the woe of insulted justice. What has God said? "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." All this devotion, therefore, to the works of our own hands, or to any other creature, is an infraction of man's cardinal obligation. (Homilist.)
(Archdeacon Cooper, M. A.)
(H. J. Hastings, M. A.)
II. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN HIS PRESENCE. God loves the tents of Jacob, He loves the dwellings of Israel, but He loves His own house above them all, as the place where He makes His honour to be known. Inferences — 1. See why it is that some of you have been attending God's house for years and are none the better for it. 2. Though a minister may leave his people, he does not take God away from his flock. (Thomas Mortimer, B. D.)
I. THE GRAND ELEMENT OF ITS CONSECRATION. Consecration implies — 1. That there are subordinate elements in the dedication, or the setting apart of it as the house of God. A Church is sanctified by the Word of God, prayer, and praise, independent of all other ceremonies. 2. During the dedication we are to look and wait for demonstrations of the Divine presence therein. The "cloud," at the consecration of Solomon's temple, "filled the house of the Lord." This was a visible and special token of the Divine Presence suited to the auspicious event. There were five permanent symbols of God's presence in the temple. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) 3. Consecration of a church to the service of God should be accompanied with firm resolution and vigilant watchfulness, lest any exercises of common or unclean character be tolerated therein. II. THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN HIS TEMPLE DEMANDS THE SPIRIT OF ADORATION, A spirit manifesting itself in "reverence and godly fear." Our sole object in coming into the temple should be to worship God. When we attend to our duty in the house of the Lord we may reasonably expect the blessing of God to rest upon us. III. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD IN HIS TEMPLE JUSTIFIES AND ENCOURAGES THE EXERCISE OF EXPECTATION. Sinners may expect the blessing of regeneration and conversion. Warrants of expectation are God's express promise, the atonement, and recorded instances of God's gracious dealings. IV. BY THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN HIS TEMPLE WE HAVE SWEET AND HOLY COMMUNION WITH HIM. This is the highest honour that can be conferred upon sinful men; it is an indispensable qualification for the enjoyment of His presence in heaven. (William Roberts, D. D.)
1. That all men are brothers. 2. That we come hither seekers for truth. We are to ask, not what do others believe, what is it politic to believe, what did former generations believe, — but what is truth? What is God's revelation of Himself to-day? (Walcott Fay.)
1. The Lord is in His holy temple, to receive the adoration of His people and hear their prayers. To worship God is the duty of every rational being. 2. The Lord is in His holy temple, that He may manifest Himself to His worshipping people in the way of gracious communication. In the performance of duty there is always a feeling in itself agreeable. 3. The Lord is in His holy temple, for the purpose of bringing back wandering sinners to Himself. This was the great purpose for which Jesus came from heaven to earth. Seeing that the Lord is in His holy temple, how unbecoming must everything like levity be in His presence! How utterly vain must hypocrisy be in the service of God! Let believers study to improve the privileges of the temple below, that by means of them they may be fitted for the more exalted service of the temple above. (Archibald Jack.)
I. ITS FOUNDATION. It is built upon the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. II. ITS MATERIALS. Countless myriads of saints. There is a beautiful variety, though at the same time a substantial sameness, in the precious stones of this grand superstructure. III. ITS SYMPATHY. The unity of the Church of Christ, when her members are knit together in love, perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment, and keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. What are the heavenly graces of the Spirit of Christ but the exercises of the mind in a state of moral order? IV. ITS DESIGN. "A habitation of God through the Spirit." V. ITS PURITY. The spiritual temple, the members of the invisible body of Christ are sanctified worshippers, reflecting in the transforming light of the Holy Spirit, the glory and power of the Divine perfections. (J. C. Edwards, M. A.)
1. Purity. There should be nothing unholy. 2. Sacredness. There should be nothing secular. 3. Perfectness. Nothing common so far as it is in the sphere of our power to exclude it. II. A REASON FOR ADORATION. 1. The object of going to god's house is to honour him. Hence we should (1) (2) (3) 2. To worship Him. 3. To carry out our profession in the sight of the world, and let others take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. III. A REASON FOR EXPECTATION. God is there — 1. To hear His people. 2. To bless His people. 3. To sanctify His people. The Bible is full of promises of this great truth and its reality. IV. A REASON FOR SATISFACTION How high an honour to meet with God! It is a preparation and a prelude to heaven. (Homilist.)
(Jacob Duche, M. A.)
1. God dwelling in the temple of the universe — inhabiting all space: omnipresent. 2. In the person of Jesus Christ, in whom dwelt "the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 3. In the congregation of His saints, wherever they meet together; but more especially in those buildings set apart for His public worship. 4. Every true believer is himself a temple of the living God; a holy temple, filled with "all the fulness of God." II. PRACTICAL LESSON. "Let all the earth keep silence before Him." It behoves us at all times to cherish such feelings of reverence and submission as become the sinner in the sight of his God, and worms of the dust before the Creator of heaven and earth. In all circumstances of life a ready acquiescence and unmurmuring spirit should mark the Christian's conduct. Attend especially to the disposition of heart and mind in which God should be approached in His holy ordinances. Here the King of kings invites rebellious subjects to meet Him; here He is present and ready to receive the humble suppliant, and to offer him a full and free pardon, and an incorruptible and heavenly inheritance, secured through the merits of His beloved Son. (J. L. F. Russell, M. A.)
( John Calvin.)
I. THE PRESENCE OF GOD. He has Himself declared His omnipresence. He condescended to dwell in the tabernacle and the temple. In the newer dispensation there were manifest declarations that God is among His worshippers of a truth. It is no relic of a bygone superstition to assert that God is in the midst of us. At the present day, with altered circumstances externally, are we to suppose the reality is changed? Because the temple gave way to the riverside or the catacombs, and they in turn to the Basilica and the Church, are we to think that God has failed His people or broken His covenant? Are we to imagine that God does not now draw near to hear the prayer addressed to Him, or that, while He is present everywhere else, He excludes Himself from those sanctuaries where His people specially desire His presence? We are here for a festival of parochial choirs. But in whose honour is that festival? Our own or God's? II. THE WORK OF MUSIC. Regard it as an influence. Which of us is altogether insensible to it? And as a means of expression. The influence of music must lead on to something further. If we feel it in any degree, we are bound to make it our own, and employ it till we realise something of the worth of music as a means of expression. When Mendelssohn, as a boy, had seen anything very beautiful, if he was asked to describe it, he would say, "Oh, I can't speak it, I will play it to you," and would then sit down and draw out of the instrument tones that expressed the deep impression which the beautiful had made on him. We are not all so. Still we all have some such power in some degree. III. WHAT HAS THIS TO DO WITH SILENCE? A great deal. For all great works great preparation is needed. For the true preparation of the music of the sanctuary, silence is necessary. The music we have been speaking of is the music of worship, and the music of hearts. Silence is the attitude of listening and attention. What is necessary in God's house is silent reverence. And it is the condition of real work, — of most work with the hand, of all real work with the head. The silence of preparation is like a dam across a stream. In the silence of thought, in the silence of humility, in the silence of reverence, in the silence of deep feelings, in the silence of earnest determination, we prepare an offering of prayer and praise, which wells forth, not from the noisy utterance of our lips, without influence and without expression, but a strong deep flood from the heart itself, which flows, and will flow on and on for ever, which has God for its object, our own deepest interest for its subject, our whole life for its channel, and eternity for its end. (G. C. Harris.)
I. THE ATTITUDE OF GOD TOWARDS THE EARTH IN THE GREAT CRISIS OF ITS HISTORY. Some think by Jehovah's temple the prophet means the Church; others the universe; others heaven; others the temple at Jerusalem. We understand our text to speak of heaven as the temple of the Lord. 1. The fact that the Lord is in His temple speaks to us of the hiding of His purposes. To us, in this lower world, God's face is often veiled. Our vision is not keen enough to pierce the mysteries of that temple into which He withdraws Himself. 2. Indicates the interest which He takes in human affairs. Though the Lord is hidden, He is not unobservant. It is our consolation to know that our Heavenly Father, though unseen, is all-seeing and all-pervading. And if God care for the most insignificant individual, must He not care much more when the fate of nations hangs in the balance 3. Intimates His infinite repose in spite of all external changes. No disquiet can be felt by the Almighty. 4. He is ready to interfere effectively at the proper moment. As a rule, He conceals His designs, until the time comes for action. II. THE FITTING ATTITUDE OF MAN TOWARDS GOD IN EVENTFUL TIMES. "Let all the earth keep silence before Him." There should be — 1. The silence of humiliation. 2. The silence of adoration. 3. The silence of submission. 4. The silence of expectation. 5. The silence of quiet resolution — the resolution to follow implicitly the guidance of providence, and, at whatever cost, to do our duty to our country, the world, and to God.
(Francis Jacox.)
I. THE SILENCE OF WORSHIP, OF AWE AND REVERENCE. "The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him." When we come up to the house of prayer, to meet Christ upon the mercy-seat, — to hear His voice speaking to us in the read and spoken word, — to receive Him into our very souls in the Sacrament of His broken body and shed blood, we are bound to observe the silence of awe and reverence. Except when we open our lips to join in prayer or praise to God, our attitude within these hallowed walls should be that of silence, of those who are impressed with the sanctity of the place, and who know and feel that the Almighty God is indeed in their midst. Yes; and it would be well, could we put more of this holy silence into all our religious acts. Our religion shares too much in the faults of the age in which we live. It is too public, too outspoken, conducted too much as a business; and so the inner and contemplative element is too much lost sight of. "Commune with thine own heart, and in thy chamber, and be still"; this is the direction of the Psalmist, and it is a direction to which we shall do well to give heed in this busy, noisy, bustling generation. Do not suppose that it is only the clergy, or persons of retired life, or those who have given themselves up to the attainment of a higher sanctity, who must court the silence of prayer and meditation. It is even yet more necessary for you whose lives are spent amid the busy competition of trade, or professional enterprise, or manual labour, — whose thoughts from early morning till late night are almost uninterruptedly engrossed with the cares and riches and business of this life, — it is absolutely necessary for you if, while living in the world, you would live with God and for God, that you make a point each day of withdrawing yourselves, if it be but for a quarter of an hour, from the outer world, and retiring into yourselves, to meditate on your own spiritual state, and on God's great love and goodness towards you. Devotion is possible even in the busiest life. Never plead worldly business as an excuse for irreligion, or for deficient fervour in religion. On the contrary, worldly business will be a great help to your religion if only you recollect that, in order to make it such, you must ever cultivate — educate that inner life of the soul which naturally aspires after God. And how will you cultivate and educate it? You can only do it by diligent seeking, and faithful use each day of a period of silence, — silence for prayer, for penitence, for communion with the Unseen and the Eternal. II. THE SILENCE OF PREPARATION. Every great achievement, whether in the moral or the intellectual world, has been in a sense like Solomon's temple, — it has risen noiselessly, silently, without sound of axe or hammer. Therefore is that great primary act in religion — the conviction of sin — invariably preceded by deep and solemn silence, while the sinner stands before God self-accused and self-condemned. Therefore, also, is silence ever present at all the more solemn passages of our life. Sorrow — real, genuine sorrow — is ever silent. A cry! — a tear! — what relief would these be, — but they must not intrude into the sacred ground of sorrow, — the sorrow of the just-bereaved widow or orphan. And so, too, sympathy with sorrow is ever silent. Idle words, or still idler tears, — these are for false comforters, like those that troubled the patriarch Job: the true sympathy is the sympathy of a look, — of the presence of silence, not of uttered consolation. III. But I must name that last silence, — a silence that we must all experience, and for which, by silence, we must prepare now — THE SILENCE OF DEATH. What exactly the silence of death is, none but the dying can know. When that silence comes upon us, and come upon us it must, with a certainty to which no other future certainty bears the slightest resemblance, may it find us experienced in silence. May we have sought it, may we have profited by it, may we have practised it, while it was still ours to choose or to refuse. May we have known what it was, day by day, to be many times alone with that God who must then be alone with us, to judge or else to save. (C. H. Collier, M. A.)
1. To get rid of evil voices that speak within us. Passion, selfishness, self-assertion, lust, fear, are voices that cry within the souls of most men more than they know. Their cries mingle with the other noises of life, and so escape notice. But when the soul is hushed for worship it can distinguish any such voice, will feel its wrongness, and be at pains to silence it. There are many thoughts we dare not allow when we realise ourselves in God's holy temple. The silence which discovers and banishes these is a means of moral victory. 2. To let the "still small voices" be heard within. Often busy people feel that there are many things in their mind and heart which they can only half express, even to themselves. Wordsworth describes these in his Ode on Immortality. The reason why these are so inexpressible is often our want of silence rather than our spiritual incapacity. There are some scientific instruments so fine that to do their work they must be set at night in a quiet country-house far from traffic. The mind and heart and conscience are such instruments. All that is best in us of thought and feeling exceeds speech. When we try to speak out all that we want to say, we know how true it is that "language is a means of concealing thought." But in reverent silence, thought and love and the sense of right and wrong, in finer shades than language can match, may be drawn out, and the soul attain a richer and fuller being in this temple of God than elsewhere. 3. To know God. For there is more to be had than the quickening of human nature to its fullest life. There is a Presence in the world; one whose thought we share, whose love we feel, and whose voice speaks in conscience. That which the finest spirits prize most in silence and loneliness is the real companionship they reveal. We Know ourselves alone, yet not alone, for the Father is with us. The holy temple is the place of revelation and communion for its silent worshippers. (John Kelman, M. A.). |
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