Isaiah 28:22 Now therefore be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption… Enough is recorded in the chapter before us to justify this serious admonition. I. A SOLEMN WARNING. "Be ye not mockers." 1. Are there no mockers in our religious assemblies Let us pursue the inquiry. God has given us His Word; but how is that Word regarded? (1) The Word of God denounces threatenings. But if no rousing effect is produced, can it be that the awful sentence is believed? Faith invariably produces an effect corresponding with the nature of the truth it receives: a consolatory truth yields comfort, an alarming truth creates dread: if then by the threatenings of the Bible, you are not excited to "flee from the wrath to come," and "warned to escape the damnation of hell," how is it accounted for? Are ye not "mockers"? (2) This Word is also enriched with promises. How are these promises regarded? When the message of grace is disregarded; when its joyful tidings are heard with unconcern; when no need of the Saviour is felt, no desire of His salvation indulged; what does it prove? Are ye not "mockers"! (3) The Bible contains, likewise, a variety of precepts. But if unfeeling selfishness be the temper we cherish; if fraud and extortion be the practices we allow; if "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" he the element we love, are we not mockers? (4) In this Holy Book sin is severely censured. But are there not persons to be found who make light of this malignant, destructive evil? 2. Who can utter the egregious folly of this? Fools mock, while God frowns. They mock at that which cast angels down from Heaven, which excluded Adam from paradise, and which spread disorder through all the works of creation. They mock at that which is the spring of all the miseries of man — at that which is their own disease and disgrace — at that which procures their own death, which kindles the flames of hell. As many as are guilty of this deepest folly mock at all the sorrows and suffering of the compassionate Redeemer. Can you wonder at this earnest expostulation, this solemn and faithful warning? II. A POWERFUL ARGUMENT to enforce the warning. It is founded on the danger which evidently attends the indulgence of this evil, and is well adapted to interest and affect the mind. "Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong." It implies that mockers are in "bands," already in a state of bondage. And what is this bondage? They are "tied and bound with the chain of their sins." Now the danger is, perpetuating this bondage; so securing the cords, and riveting the fetters, as that destruction becomes inevitable. In tracing the fatal progress of this danger, observe — 1. The sin against which you are warned weakens every virtuous restraint. 2. The sin of mocking strengthens vicious propensities. This naturally results from the relaxing of restraints: as the one declines, the ether gains ground. 3. This sin gives great advantage to your worst enemies. Among these are improper companions. Every compliance you grant only emboldens their demands and facilitates their conquest. But there is a worse enemy than these: "the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience." Resist him, and he will flee from you; but invite his attacks, by parleying with temptation, and you inevitably fall — "your bands are made strong." 4. It exposes to peculiar marks of the displeasure of God. 5. It terminates in remediless ruin. III. We attempt an IMPROVEMENT of the subject, by recommending the opposite of what is reproved in the text. (T. Kidd.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. |
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