Isaiah 44:20 He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say… I. THE VAIN OBJECTS TO WHICH MAN DIRECTS HIS ENERGIES. "He feedeth on ashes." II. THE REASON OF THIS PERVERTED CHOICE. "A deceived heart hath turned him aside." Sin, in its very nature, has a tendency to harden the heart. When it first begins to make advances, there is resistance offered to it. Conscience speaks, expostulates, reproaches; but sin gets the mastery. Conscience becomes by degrees blunted; the heart at length gets callous, that it cannot feel; the eye is altogether darkened, that it cannot see; the ear heavy, that it cannot hear the instruction of wisdom. Thus the heart is in due time thoroughly deceived. It rejoices in evil, instead of in good; it has an exclusive appetite for the bitter instead of the sweet. But there is a diseased state of the heart where the fatal results do not appear so manifest to the eye of man. When the world is keenly loved and followed, when self is worshipped, when God is not supreme in the affection, the root must be looked for in the heart. The heart is deceived. How dangerous is this state of heart! How much does it need of watchfulness in the case of every one of us, so that we may not be ensnared by it. III. THE DANGER OF THIS STATE, AND THE DIFFICULTY OF ITS REMEDY. "He cannot deliver himself." When the heart has been once beguiled by the deceitfulness of sin, and its affections have been riveted and firmly fixed upon earthly things, it is not in man to deliver himself. God, indeed, has provided means whereby those who have banished themselves from Him may be brought home to His fold. In Him there resides power to cut asunder the chain, however firmly it may bind us down to the earth. IV. SOME PRACTICAL QUESTIONS FOR OUR EXAMINATION. "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (H. J. Hastings, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? |
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