Isaiah 29:7-8 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her fortification… As the army of Sennacherib were dreaming, literally or figuratively, of a conquest which had no real existence, so are there multitudes of persons now dreaming that they are accomplishing the great object of their existence who are no more doing so than if they lay wrapped in the slumbers of the night. I propose to speak of them under three heads. All three are capable of being substituted, and often are substituted, for the real and proper business of life. I. PLEASURE. 1. How comes it to pass that people can live such lives, dreaming all the while that they are fulfilling the true purpose of their existence, or, at least, without any uneasy sense that they are criminally failing to do so? (1) One cause of it is that the thing in question is pleasure. "Nothing succeeds like success."(2) Another explanation is, that many of the pleasures for which men live make great demands on their exertions. Some kinds of play are harder than work. Men, therefore, feel it difficult to believe that what bears so near a resemblance to work is not work, and that very work which they were sent into the world to do. (3) A great many of the pleasures of life are enjoyed in association with others. And amidst the exhilaration of spirits, the brisk laughter, the friendly encounters, it is very difficult to believe that a life made up largely of such occupations is not the life we were intended to live. (4) Then, a great deal of the pleasure is intimately associated with fashion. (5) The alleged innocence of the pleasures indulged in contributes also to the deception. (6) Again, it is sometimes said that, however censurable a life of pleasure may be for those in advanced life, it is innocent and even suitable for the young. 2. But it may be said, What is there to show that such a life is only a dream-like substitute for our real life? (1) It leaves our best faculties unused. (2) A life of pleasure, moreover, is a selfish life. (3) A life of pleasure also exposes to temptation. (4) A life devoted to pleasure, too, unfits men for another world. II. WORK. By "work" is meant some secular occupation by which money, or its equivalent, is gained. The Bible praises work. Work keeps us from being dependent on others. It tends to the benefit of those dependent on us. And work is good as furnishing a man with the means of helping his neighbours, and of contributing to the support of the great movements in operation for lessening the suffering and the sin of the world. And work is good, as giving a man influence by means of the wealth it produces. It is also in favour of a life of diligent employment, that it keeps from much evil. And yet neither is work, any more than pleasure, the great end of man; and those who deem it so are indulging in a baseless dream. The moral value of work is to be measured by its motive and its influence. A life of excessive devotion to work is hostile to the higher life of a man. It leaves but little time for those exercises which are found so essential to a life of godliness. It indisposes for such employments. It shuts out the other world by the undue prominence it gives to this. It banishes God from the thoughts. It is a practical neglect of the soul. Others suffer also. Such a life makes us indifferent to the interests of others. III. RELIGION. And this time, you will perhaps say, they are likely to be right. On the contrary, there is more danger of their going wrong here than in either of the previous cases. And for this reason — that the sacred name of religion disposes men to think all is as it should be if they can persuade themselves that they are religious. Religion assumes a great variety of forms, and some of them not only worthless, but pernicious. 1. Can it be questioned that a great deal of the religion of England now is nothing more than amusement, and often amusement of the most childish nature? 2. If religion in other cases seems to go deeper, it is too often only another name for superstition, where chief importance is attached to the conventional sanctity of the persons who officiate, the garments they wear, the sacraments they administer, the postures they adopt, the seasons they observe. 3. Then there is the religion of sentiment, of which the chief object is to awaken certain emotions. 4. There is also a religion in which the intellect performs the principal function. 5. We might speak of that religion which is hereditary, where a man adopts a particular faith or worship because his ancestors did so before him. 6. We might speak of the religion of fashion, where the fashionable gathering forms the great attraction. 7. We might speak of the religious observances in which men engage to fill up time which they are forbidden by custom to employ in secular pursuits; or of the religion which is only occasional and spasmodic; or of that which consists in bustle and superficial activity. These religions all agree in being good for nothing. Some of them do harm. Religion is a life. Religion has two sides. On the one it turns toward God, on the other toward man. But all dreams must come to an end. There is a dread awaking in prospect. Think of the disappointment that will attend the awaking! Let us not be deceived by the apparent reality of the life we are leading. What can seem more real than a dream? yet what more unsubstantial? With the feeling of disappointment will be mingled one of contempt. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image." We experience a sort of resentment on finding that we have been so deceived by that which had no reality. Will there be nothing like this on awaking from a life wasted in trifling? (D. P. Pratten, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. |
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