Isaiah 6:13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them… I. WHAT ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE RELIGIOUS OF A NATION? 1. Those who, as to the doctrine of Christianity, "hold the Head." 2. Those who, as to the practice of Christianity, "fear God and work righteousness." II. HOW, AND IN WHAT RESPECTS, THEY MAY BE SAID TO BE ITS STRENGTH. "The holy seed" is here called "the substance," or "stock," of a people; so that in what respects the strength of a tree is in its stock, in those, or several of them, the strength of a people is in the religion of them. 1. The stock of a tree is the most firm and durable part of it. 2. The stock is that which propagates its kind. Cut off all the boughs, and yet the stem will shoot forth again, send out new leaves and fruit and seed, from which other trees will come. So here the righteous propagate their righteousness, communicate to others, beget children to God. 3. The stock of the tree is that for the sake of which the tree is dressed and watered and looked after. Men take care of the tree so long as there is life in the stock; they not only do not grub it up, but prune it, and bestow upon it what cost and labour is fit for it. III. ON WHAT ACCOUNT THE RELIGIOUS OF A NATION MAY BE SAID TO BE ITS STRENGTH, or what influence they have on the welfare and security of a people. 1. As they are God's favourites. 2. As they improve their interest with God for a people. 3. As they are a means many times to stop the current of wickedness, which is ready to overflow a land with judgments, and to bring swift destruction on it. 4. As they not only check the progress of sin, but propagate goodness to others, as well as promote it in themselves. This they do by their counsels, admonitions, example. 5. Sometimes the religious of a nation may have an influence upon its public welfare, by doing some eminent service, wherewith God is much pleased, and to which He hath a special respect. "Phinehas stood up, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed" (Psalm 106:30). 6. God may sometimes spare a people for the sake of His children among them, that they may be useful and helpful to them in His work. This end God had in sparing the Gibeonites; He intended they should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for His sanctuary, and so assistant to the priests and Levites in their service (Joshua 9:27). So, Isaiah 62:5, 7. God can make even Moab "hide His outcasts" (Isaiah 16:3, 4); "the earth help the woman" (Revelation 12:16); Ahab favour a good Obadiah, that he may hide the Lord's prophets (1 Kings 18:3, 4); a heathen Cyrus "let go His captives and build His city" (Isaiah 14:13); a Darius, an Artaxerxes, an Ahasuerus, countenance and prefer a Daniel, a Nehemiah, a Mordecai, public instruments of good to His people. Sometimes God may so twist and combine the interest of worldly men with the interest of His children, that they cannot promote their own, without helping on the others'. IV. APPLICATION. 1. If the religious of a nation are the strength and defence of it, then the same may be said of the religious of the world, — they are the substance of it, the support, the strength of it. The world itself is preserved chiefly for the sake of the godly in it, "the holy seed." 2. The religious of a nation are not its enemies. 3. The sinners of a nation are really the weakness of it. 4. It is the interest of any people where God hath a seed of righteous ones to favour them and make much of them. 5. It is folly in any people to persecute them that are truly religious. For by this means they lose — (1) the benefit of the saints' prayers; (2) the help of the saints. (J. Collins, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. |
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