Isaiah 38:14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: my eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed… I. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF YOUR OPPRESSION? 1. Is it some burden of sadness that has fallen upon you — some loss, or cross, or disappointment, that has shown you the fleeting uncertainty of all earthly treasures? 2. Is it some persecution of the ungodly? 3. Or do you stand perplexed by the foiling of some well-laid plan; or the unsuccessful issue of your efforts to remove the prejudices and enlighten the ignorance and improve the hearts of men? 4. Or do temptations beset you, almost too strong for flesh and blood to bear? 5. Is it not merely at the deceitfulness of your heart, but at its "desperate wickedness" that your heart sinks within you? II. WILL YOU NOT GO ON TO SAY, "O LORD, UNDERTAKE FOR ME"? 1. How doth God undertake for us? Is it by removing from the sinner all temptation to sin? Is it by taking from the afflicted and mourner the immediate cause of his affliction, and restoring all things according to his shortsighted wish? No, it is by a far different process. He will suggest to his heart good resolutions, and holy impulses; and if he cherish these, the spirit of Jesus will afford him measures of special grace. And as to him that is bowed down with sorrow — it is not God's way to reverse His sentence, and at once remove the cause. But He gives us such faith in Him, that we believe that "the thoughts which He thinketh towards us, are thoughts of peace, and not of evil." And in proportion as faith makes herself heard, the voice of fretting dies away. 2. What ground of confidence we have that God will undertake for us. (1) Have we not His own most sure promise? (2) Have we not the experience of all the servants of the most High? (3) But besides and beyond the Word of God and the experience of the saints — both of which the Israelites shared of old — we have the knowledge of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of all the fruits and consequences which grow out of that blessed doctrine. (D. A. Beaufort, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me. |
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