Isaiah 48:18 O that you had listened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea: 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. (1) Let a man hearken to the commandments of physical health, and all the many organs of his body will work together in a smooth harmony, as though they were not many but one. But now let the man refuse to hearken to the commandments of health, what then? The harmony will be broken, the brotherhood will be changed into anarchy, one after another the organs will rise in mutiny, and the man's bodily life will become the abode of restlessness and pain. Defiance of physical law produces physical restlessness. It is even so with those spiritual organs which inhere in the soul. Let a man hearken to God's commandments, let him obey the laws of spiritual health, and all his spiritual organs will form a holy brotherhood; conscience, will, affection, emotion, reason, shall all work together in the harmony which we name peace. But let a man defy the laws of God, and the soul will become a scene of civil strife; conscience, will, reason, and desire will be pitted one against another, and the whole soul of man, like to a little kingdom, will suffer the nature of an insurrection. (2) Defiance of spiritual law also produces spiritual feebleness. Every time I disobey a commandment of God I weaken my moral resources. Is it not to this process of gradual impoverishment that we refer when we say of some man, "Poor fellow, he has got no will left "? 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." (1) Peace like a river! I don't think it is the figure we should have chosen as a symbol of peace. I rather think we should have taken some lonely mountain tam, some sheet of glassy water, hidden away in the bosom of the everlasting hills, as our symbol of peace. "Peace like a river." The mountain tam is a symbol of ease; the flowing river is the symbol of peace. The river, deep and full and progressive! The Apostle Paul declared that he had the peace which is the gift of Christ. Then it was peace like a river. Was it? Listen to the old man: — I am content," there is peace — full, deep, rich contentment. But listen again — "Not that I am already perfect, . . . I press toward the mark." Peace, but like a river! Fulness with progress! Contentment with aspiration! Life at rest, but moving on to the perfection of God! (2) But more than that, instead of thy present spiritual feebleness, thy righteousness would have been "like the waves of the sea." Take your stand upon the shore, and watch the waves roll in, like an army of white-crested warriors, shaking their snowy plumes, and riding forth to battle. Do you remember that Old Testament figure which describes the strength of the pure — "terrible as an army with banners"? I have sometimes been reminded of the figure as I have stood upon the beach, and watched the great waves rolling in and tossing up their snowy foam — "terrible as an army with banners." "Thy righteousness like the waves of the sea," a conquering and jubilant army Have you ever tried to stop a wave of the sea? It cannot be stopped. "Thy righteousness like the waves of the sea" — nothing shall check it. No threats shall hinder it. No bribe shall allure it aside. Temptations shall be only like those sand-castles which our little ones build along the shore, and thy righteousness shall sweep them away with joyful ease. 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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: |
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