Isaiah 43:10 You are my witnesses, said the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he… "Ye," men of Judah, people of Israel, "are My witnesses" — witnesses that I am, and witnesses of what I am. The nations round about you worship idols. All the world hath corrupted itself, and gone astray, and worships and serves the creatures more than the Creator. For more than a thousand years ye have been My witnesses. Such is the force and import of our text. But God has other witnesses likewise. "The invisible things of Him, even His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being revealed by the things which He hath made." We call on you, young Englishman and Englishwoman, for your own souls' sake, for your country's sake, and for the world's sake, to become witnesses for God. In order to which these three things are necessary — I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. If you would know Him you must study the Book in which He is revealed. II. STRONG FAITH IN GOD AND IN HIS CHRIST. Moses could not have witnessed for God as he did, nor could Paul, nor Peter, without such faith. The morals and practices and spirit of our age render a deep and abiding faith essential to a stable and successful witnessing for God. Now, such faith you cannot have by merely wishing to have it, or by sighing after it. It is born of light, and nursed in light. To be of the highest, truest, strongest order, it must be both of the intellect and of the heart. III. A WHOLE-HEARTED DECISION FOR GOD. "Be a whole man in everything,'" said Joseph John Gurney to his son, — "a whole man in the playground and a whole man in the schoolroom." We must be whole men in our witnessing for God, not two-minded but one-minded, the conscience not divided from the will, and the will not divided from the conscience; the lips not divided from the heart, nor the heart from the lips, nor the hands from either. Vacillation and halfheartedness will make our testimony of none effect. There need be no roughness or ruggedness of character in order to all this; Jesus was very gentle. The Christian, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, cannot be hid. (J. Kennedy, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. |
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