Isaiah 5:8 Woe to them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place… The picture presented in this verse can be matched by the conduct of our English king, who destroyed the villages to make the New Forest; or by the makers of deer-forests in North Britain, who have driven away the natives. In Isaiah's time the wealthy men were buying up the houses and estates, and destroying the old village life of Palestine. "In the place of the small freeholders, there rose up a class of large proprietors, while the original holders sank into slavery, or tenants-at-will, paying exorbitant rents in kind or money, and liable at any moment to be evicted" (Dean Plump, re). Bishop Latimer, in the sixteenth century, makes a bold protest against the enclosure of commons. Grasping after property is almost always connected with a neglect of charitable duties and a willingness to sacrifice the good of others. Such accumulation of landed property was fundamentally opposed to the Mosaic regulations. Illustrate by the law of jubilee, which made all land in Palestine purchaseable only on lease (comp. Numbers 27:1-11; Numbers 33:54; 1 Kings 21:4; Leviticus 25:8-17). I. LIVING TO GET. There are three ways of looking at life; three things which we may supremely aim at in life. 1. We may live to get. South says, "The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world; to take in everything and part. with nothing." Austin defines covetousness as a dishonest and insatiable desire of gain." The Prophet Micah describes such persons," They covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." The tenth commandment wholly forbids our making any personal gain the end and aim of life. Show under what self-deceiving forms this covetous desire to get ensnares men nowadays. 2. We may live to be. That is, to culture ourselves, and win the worship of men for what we are, in talent, skill, and virtue. This is nobler; and this is, in measure, right and good; yet it has this exceeding moral peril, that it keeps us in the self-spheres. It may easily pass into the degrading thing - covetousness for fame. 3. We may live to serve. This is the Divine idea of life for us. This is the Christ-like pattern of life for us. This is the kind of life that suffering, sinning humanity asks for from us. They who can live to serve are, with Christ, after Christ, and in his strength, the world's saviors, and the God-glorifiers. II. GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON HIM WHO LIVES TO GET. Those judgments will come as natural agencies, as fixed results of ever-working law, and as circumstances for which men may think to find easy explanation; but they are none the less direct Divine judgments. Such judgments on the covetous take two forms. 1. Character is debased by the constant getting and grasping. This may be effectively illustrated in the case of the apostate Judas. No moral deterioration is so serious or so certain as that of the covetous man. Hardening against his fellow-men, he is hardening against God. Crushing out all considerateness and all charity, he loses men's love and God's smile, and is wretched indeed when he has got all, and is "placed alone in the midst of the land." If any poor creature of our humanity calls for our supremest pity, it is surely the man who tins lived to get, and made his immortal soul grovel among mere possessions. "Take heed, and beware of covetousness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth." 2. The calamities of life will prove utterly ruinous to the covetous. Because they will touch them at their tenderest point, destroying their gains. The picture presented in the verses is a most affecting one. By the insecurity of the land the fine mansions are uninhabited, and the fields are neglected. Travelers tells us of the humiliating sight of decayed mansions in the East. War and civil commotion, often the natural result of the masterful ruling of covetous men, make property valueless, and so the evil brings round its own judgment. The law works universally, sometimes quickly, at other times slowly, so that men presume on its delaying, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Apply by inquiring what is the end and aim of life to the hearers. Jacob would get, and he got years of homelessness, hard toil, and care. Achan would get, and he got an early and dreadful death. Gehazi would get, and he got the leprosy. Ananias and Sapphira would get, and they got a sudden destruction. Woe - earth cries for it, and heaven sends it - woe, sooner or later, for very one who liveth that he may get, and is utterly unworthy of him who, showing God to us, went about among his fellows as "One that serveth." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! |
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