Zion will be redeemed with justice, her repentant ones with righteousness. Sermons
I. THE JUDGE. He is "Jehovah of hosts, the Strong One of Israel." He saith, "By the strength of my hand I have done it" (Isaiah 10:13). He has power to carry out his sentences. The holy fire of his indignation breaks forth like a volcanic flood. From one point of view evil men must be conceived as the enemies of God, and their punishment as his vengeance. If alone dwelt upon, such a representation becomes false, because it ignores the aspect of Divine love, which converts this holy vengeance into a remedial process. Human vengeance would extinguish the sinner and the sin in one act; Divine vengeance would save the sinner by extinguishing the sin. II. THE PURPOSE OF JUDGMENT. 1. It is separation. The dross and the lead are to be detached from the silver. Human nature is a mixture. There are two extremes to be avoided in thinking of it - one that it is all evil, the other that it is all pure. Pessimism enervates, and optimism hoodwinks us. The Bible always takes the middle view. Things are bad enough with us, but they might be worse. We are sunk low enough, but cannot sink out of sight of our spiritual end, nor beyond the redeeming power of God. The separation of the gross and base element from the spiritual in men involves a fiery process. This fire is always burning in the heart of mankind, sometimes breaking out into flame and fume of war or pestilence, to remind of its presence. God has in constant operation his purgatory for souls. It is this truth which only can reconcile us to the presence of suffering. As mere pain it seems intolerable; as the means to the removal of evil it is blessed. 2. It is restoration. The better on golden age is ever ready to begin; good judges and rulers will again be given to the city, and it will deserve the title of Righteous and Faithful once more. When we see clearly the abuses that exist, and the necessity of fiery suffering for the renewal of purity, we have grasped a hope that cannot fail. God is ever remaking and recasting life. Not a day passes but some rust gathers, some disintegration of solid structure takes place. It may appear in any and every day that society is becoming hopelessly choked in its vices; or that we ourselves are slipping down into moral ruin. Yet in a happier morning mood it seems that all is mending with ourselves and the world. God's holiness is the vital sap of human life, and when we die to hope of ourselves, we live anew in him. Conversion, if real, will take place, not once, but many times in a life. The heliotrope turns every morning by a fresh effort to the sun. The result of many such personal acts is seen now and again in times of religious revival, when the multitude turns as one man, saying, "Let us walk in the light of Jehovah!" III. THE PERDITION OF THE OBSTINATE. One will may defeat the remedial purposes of God. If man says, "I will be joined to my idols and my sins, "no fire, no earthquake has power to dislodge him. If we will not relax our hold on the evil object, we must share its fate. To fix our affections on objects unworthy of our choice is to bring on ourselves shame and self-contempt. The terebinth trees and the pleasant gardens, the seats of ancient idolatry, are typical of all scenes of spurious enjoyment. The voluptuary, the mammon-worshipper, the votary of ambition, create around them a world of objects, fascinating, but unreal. The terebinth shall wither; the garden, parched for want of water, shall lose all its charm. The man who seemed but now the very type of force, shall feel himself slack as tow, and his life-work the spark that sets it on fire. So both shall irretrievably be consumed. What are the "terebinth trees and pleasant gardens" of our idolatry? Each man's soul must answer. Any and every pleasure is good under right conditions; pernicious else. Everything that is naturally precious to the human heart should be precious to each one of us. In the soul lies the only test. In the way that objects react upon our finest feeling we know whether they are objects for our personal pursuit or no: idols that must degrade us to their level, or symbols and sacraments of God. It is in the life of imagination and association that we differ. Any scene supposed to be holy may become an idolatrous pleasure-garden to the ill-ordered fancy; and the soul that lives in God, seeking ever the true amidst the false, will ever convert the terebinth tree of ill repute into an altar of pure religion. The world is to us what our will permits it to seem. Wedded to the sensual, we must perish from the spiritual; united to the spiritual, the sensual becomes transformed and acquires new associations. - J. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment. I. WHAT ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND BY ZION. The word signifies a heap of stones — a monument — a sepulchre. This figuratively describes the literal Zion; and spiritually sets forth the visible and mystical Church. The true members of the Church of Christ are as lively stones, built up a spiritual house; and for their security God Himself has laid a foundation. ( Isaiah 28:16; 1 Peter 2:5.) Every stone of this sacred building is hewn out of nature's quarry, and when prepared by the transforming power of God the Holy Ghost is placed in that part of the spiritual edifice which it is appointed to occupy. And the building thus formed is, indeed, as the word Zion signifies, a monument — an everlasting monument of God's grace; whilst a mere professing, but not a confessing, protesting, and believing Church may very properly be compared to a sepulchre. Hence Zion of old contained a church within a church; those who were circumcised outwardly in the flesh, and those whose circumcision was that of the heart. According to the New Testament we understand by Zion the Church visible and the Church mystical. II. WHAT MAY BE CONSIDERED ZION'S TRANSGRESSION. If we look at Zion of old, we behold formality manifestly pervading the Church, and the most lofty and presumptuous hypocrisy characterising the outward worship of God. Now, turn your attention to the Church of God in her present state. Such an examination will bring to light many evils, which are serious hindrances to the spread of evangelical truth, and afford ground for sarcasm and opposition, to the enemies of the Church. 1. Pride. 2. Laodicean lukewarmness. 3. Abuse of doctrine and discipline. III. ZION'S VISITATIONS AND CHASTISEMENTS. The history of the Church, as well as of nations, affords the most impressive evidence of the truth of that often fulfilled declaration, "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Romans 11:19-22; Ezekiel 34:2-5, 9, 10; Revelation 2:15; Revelation 3:1-3, 14-20.) IV. ZION'S DELIVERANCE. In the exercise of justice, in the overthrow of the enemies of His Church and deliverance of His people, as well as by the faithful performance of His promises, God has engaged that Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts (or those that return of her) "with righteousness." () Jesus lived to die. It was a voluntary necessity. We are redeemed with "judgment." The Judge has pronounced the sentence over the sacrifice: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The converted soul is redeemed with "righteousness." "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood," etc. () People Ahaz, Amos, Amoz, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jotham, UzziahPlaces Gomorrah, Jerusalem, Sodom, ZionTopics Acts, Captivity, Converts, Forgiveness, Judgment, Justice, Ones, Penitent, Price, Redeemed, Repent, Repentant, Return, Righteousness, Upright, Zion, Zion'sOutline 1. Isaiah complains of Judah for her rebellion
5. He laments her judgments
10. He upbraids their whole service
16. He exhorts to repentance, with promises and threats
21. Bewailing their wickedness, he denounces God's judgments
25. He promises grace
28. And threatens destruction to the wicked
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 1:27 6740 returning to God Isaiah 1:26-27 5542 society, positive Isaiah 1:27-28 1315 God, as redeemer Library Useless Sacrifice
Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd. October 1871. Isaiah i. 11-17. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: . . . When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other SermonsThe Stupidity of Godlessness
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.'--ISAIAH i. 3. This is primarily an indictment against Israel, but it touches us all. 'Doth not know' i.e. has no familiar acquaintance with; 'doth not consider,' i.e. frivolously ignores, never meditates on. I. This is a common attitude of mind towards God. Blank indifference towards Him is far more frequent than conscious hostility. Take a hundred men at random as they hurry through …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Great Suit: Jehovah Versus Judah
'The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. I Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. 3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture What Sin Does to Men
'Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. 31. And the strong shall be as tow, and His work as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.'--ISAIAH i. 30-31. The original reference of these words is to the threatened retribution for national idolatry, of which 'oaks' and 'gardens' were both seats. The nation was, as it were, dried up and made inflammable; the idol was as the 'spark' or the occasion for destruction. But a wider application, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture 1St Day of Month. Pardoning Grace.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."--ISAIAH i. 18. Pardoning Grace. My soul! thy God summons thee to His audience chamber! Infinite purity seeks to reason with infinite vileness! Deity stoops to speak to dust! Dread not the meeting. It is the most gracious, as well as wondrous of all conferences. Jehovah himself breaks silence! He …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser Worship
ISAIAH i. 12, 13. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. This is a very awful text; one of those which terrify us--or at least ought to terrify us--and set us on asking ourselves seriously and honestly--'What do I believe after all? What manner of man am I after all? …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God "But we are all as an Unclean Thing, and all Our Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags,"
Isaiah lxiv 6, 7.--"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," &c. This people's condition agreeth well with ours, though the Lord's dealing be very different. The confessory part of this prayer belongeth to us now; and strange it is, that there is such odds of the Lord's dispensations, when there is no difference in our conditions; always we know not how soon the complaint may be ours also. This prayer was prayed long before the judgment and captivity came …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Time of Doubting and of Spiritual Darkness Constitutes
another season when it is very difficult to keep the heart. When the light and comfort of the divine presence is withdrawn; when the believer, from the prevalence of indwelling sin in one form or other, is ready to renounce his hopes, to infer desperate conclusions with respect to himself, to regard his former comforts as vain delusions, and his professions as hypocrisy; at such a time much diligence is necessary to keep the heart from despondency. The Christian's distress arises from his apprehension …
John Flavel—On Keeping the Heart What are Consequences of Backsliding in Heart.
The text says, that "the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." 1. He shall be filled with his own works. But these are dead works, they are not works of faith and love, which are acceptable to God, but are the filthy rags of his own righteousness. If they are performed as religious services, they are but loathsome hypocrisy, and an abomination to God; there is no heart in them. To such a person God says: "Who hath required this at your hand?" (Isaiah 1:12). "Ye are they which justify …
Charles G. Finney—The Backslider in Heart Works.
The extant works of St. Basil may be conveniently classified as follows: I. Dogmatic. (i) Adversus Eunomium. Pros Eunomion. (ii) De Spiritu Sancto. Peri tou Pneumatos. II. Exegetic. [302] (i) In Hexæmeron. Eis ten Exaemeron. (ii) Homiliæ on Pss. i., vii., xiv., xxviii., xxix., xxxii., xxxiii., xliv., xlv., xlviii., lix., lxi., cxiv. (iii) Commentary on Isaiah i.-xvi. III. Ascetic. (i) Tractatus prævii. (ii.) Prooemium de Judicio Dei and De Fide. (iii) Moralia. Ta …
Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works "His Chains Fell Off. " Acts xii. 7
IN ANSWER TO PRAYER:--Do you know any one tied and bound? Have you prayed for them without ceasing? Are you conscious of the enemy putting YOUR hands or feet in fetters? Are you unable to reach that purse which was at one time always within your grasp, so that now you do not give to the poor as you once did? Are your feet prevented from going on errands of mercy? Do the manacles keep you at home on Sundays, instead of walking muddy lanes to preach? If so, how do you like it? Do you not think …
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread The Greater Prophets.
1. We have already seen (Chap. 15, Nos. 11 and 12) that from Moses to Samuel the appearances of prophets were infrequent; that with Samuel and the prophetical school established by him there began a new era, in which the prophets were recognized as a distinct order of men in the Theocracy; and that the age of written prophecy did not begin till about the reign of Uzziah, some three centuries after Samuel. The Jewish division of the latter prophets--prophets in the more restricted sense of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible Synagogues in the City; and Schools.
"R. Phinehas, in the name of R. Hoshaia, saith, There were four hundred and sixty synagogues in Jerusalem: every one of which had a house of the book, and a house of doctrine," "A house of the book for the Scripture," that is, where the Scripture might be read: "and a house of doctrine for traditions," that is, the Beth Midrash, where traditions might be taught. These things are recited elsewhere, and there the number ariseth to four hundred and eighty. "R. Phinehas, in the name of R. Hoshaia, saith, …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica The Massacre
Your hands are full of blood.--Isaiah i. 15. Foiled at every turn, Gaïnas began to feel that his star was no longer in the ascendant; that fortune had abandoned him; that in the game of ambition he had been finally defeated; that Nemesis was but awaiting her opportunity. Tormented more and more by indecision and disappointment, and seeing in their effects the anger of a besetting demon, he gave out that he was ill, and that he should resort to the Chapel of St. John the Baptist at the Hebdomon. …
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom Fresh Troubles
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and festering sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil.--Isaiah i. 5-6. We have already seen enough to show the intense and all but universal corruption which ruined the true work of the Church in Antioch, and still more in Constantinople. It is distressing to find the same moral apostasy, the same revolting unreality, …
Frederic William Farrar—Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom Self-Righteousness Insufficient.
1 "Where are the mourners, [1] (saith the Lord) "That wait and tremble at my word, "That walk in darkness all the day? "Come, make my name your trust and stay. 2 ["No works nor duties of your own "Can for the smallest sin atone; "The robes [2] that nature may provide "Will not your least pollutions hide. 3 "The softest couch that nature knows "Can give the conscience no repose: "Look to my righteousness, and live; "Comfort and peace are mine to give.] 4 "Ye sons of pride that kindle coals "With your …
Isaac Watts—Hymns and Spiritual Songs Confession and Prayer. December 13, 1776
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John Newton—Olney Hymns The Expositor's Bible.
Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol. FIRST SERIES, 1887-8. Colossians. By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. St. Mark. By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. Genesis. By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. 1 Samuel. By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. 2 Samuel. By the same Author. Hebrews. By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. SECOND SERIES, 1888-9. Galatians. By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. The Pastoral Epistles. By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. Isaiah I.-XXXIX. By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I. The Book of Revelation. …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews "The Dust of the Actual"
"This may be counted as our richest gain, to have learned afresh one's utter impotency so completely that the past axiom of service, 'I can no more convert a soul than create a star,' comes to be an awful revelation, so that God alone may be exalted in that day." Rev. Walter Searle, Africa. WE have just come back from a Pariah village. Now see it all with me. Such a curious little collection of huts, thrown down anywhere; such half-frightened, half-friendly faces; such a scurrying in of some …
Amy Wilson-Carmichael—Things as They Are If it is Objected, that the Necessity which Urges us to Pray is not Always...
If it is objected, that the necessity which urges us to pray is not always equal, I admit it, and this distinction is profitably taught us by James: " Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms" (James 5:13). Therefore, common sense itself dictates, that as we are too sluggish, we must be stimulated by God to pray earnestly whenever the occasion requires. This David calls a time when God "may be found" (a seasonable time); because, as he declares in several other …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith How those are to be Admonished who Abstain not from the Sins which they Bewail, and those Who, Abstaining from Them, Bewail them Not.
(Admonition 31.) Differently to be admonished are those who lament their transgressions, and yet forsake them not, and those who forsake them, and yet lament them not. For those who lament their transgressions and yet forsake them not are to be admonished to learn to consider anxiously that they cleanse themselves in vain by their weeping, if they wickedly defile themselves in their living, seeing that the end for which they wash themselves in tears is that, when clean, they may return to filth. …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great "And There is None that Calleth Upon Thy Name, that Stirreth up Himself to Take Hold on Thee,"
Isaiah lxiv. 7.--"And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold on thee," &c. They go on in the confession of their sins. Many a man hath soon done with that a general notion of sin is the highest advancement in repentance that many attain to. You may see here sin and judgment mixed in thorough other(315) in their complaint. They do not so fix their eyes upon their desolate estate of captivity, as to forget their provocations. Many a man would spend more affection, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Links Isaiah 1:27 NIV
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