1. Against low and vile people (vers. 23-26). Nor —

2. Against the avowedly irreligious. The people addressed performed a multitude of sacrifices (ver. 11), were punctilious in their attendance on the house of God (vers. 12-14), were full of apparent devotion (ver. 15). Nor —

3. Do they refer to the grosser forms of sin. These would, of course, come under the same condemnation. But spiritual sins, though more refined to our perception, are more fatal even than sensual sins. It is preeminently a spiritualism in root, however sensual in fruit, that is here arrived at. It is all summed up in the one evil, "forsaking the Lord" (ver. 28). Consider —

I. THE RADICAL CHARGE SIN WORKS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SINNER. Sin, the prophet says in effect, has a disintegrating, deteriorating, degrading influence upon the man's nature who yields to it. "Tow" is the coarse, broken part of flax or hemp — waste, refuse — It is used here in contrast to that which is strong — also as a pattern of what is inflammable.

1. Sin lowers the tone and tenor of our nature.

2. Sin, depraving and degrading the type and tenor of our nature, enfeebles our powers of resistance to the assaults of external evil. Sin is weakness as well as wickedness; weakness as the result of wickedness.

3. Sin imparts to us an increased susceptibility to evil — makes us more inflammable.

II. THE WAY IN WHICH THE SINNER AND HIS SIN COOPERATE FOR THEIR COMMON DESTRUCTION. Sin is ever multiplying itself between the sinner and his sinful deed. And the issue is irremediable ruin. "They shall both burn together, and none shall quench them." The moral is, that if we would keep out of hell, we must keep out of sin.

(W. Roberts, B. A.)

(Tools for Teachers.).

     4817   drought, spiritual

Isaiah 1:29-30

     4240   garden, natural

The 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
…
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