The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself--with your own eyes you will see Him. Sermons
The bread of adversity, and the water of affliction. We can only think of God by the help of our associations with man. Therefore, in the revelation which he has given us in a book, God is spoken of as if he had the form of a man (anthropomorphism), and as if he had the feelings of a man (anthropopathism). We, indeed, know no other moral beings beside man, and probably our senses would allow of the apprehension of no other. We are not allowed to create material images representing God, but we are allowed to think of God through the figures of the human being. Answering to this is the truth that we can only know our soul through our body; we have to think of it as a kind of spiritual body. So it needs care, clothing, feed, etc., eves as the body. This is the line on which it can best be shown that adversity is Divine bread for the soul, which must be nourished by appropriate food. Working out this thought, two points may be more especially treated. I. BREAD IS THE STAPLE FOOD FOR THE BODY. It is in itself sufficient to sustain life; it contains all the necessary elements for the renewal of vitality. So is adversity the staple food for the soul; for it contains all the necessary elements for the renewal of character. Since we are sinners, wayward, and willful, the prosperities of life are but like luxuries; and adversity is our staple food, which nourishes humility, penitence, godly fear, and trust. The expression is used of King Manasseh, the willful, who, in prison, was fed with the bread and water of affliction, and thereby nourished unto penitence, forsaking of sin, and hearty return to the God of his fathers. If we pray, "Feed me with food convenient for me," we must clearly see that the answer may include "adversity and affliction." II. BREAD IS A GENERAL TERM EMBRACING ALL NECESSARY FOOD. And necessary food for the body includes some things that are unpleasant to the taste. Sometimes even medicine is bread - the very best of bread for us under the circumstances. And so our soul-conditions and our soul-culture may make necessary things that are very trying to feeling. "No affliction for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby." - R.T. Thine eyes shall see thy teachers. The siege shall surely come, with its sorely concrete privations, but the Lord will be there, equally distinct...Real, concrete sorrows, — these are they that make the heavenly Teacher real! It is linguistically possible, and more in harmony with the rest of the passage, to turn "teachers," as the E.V. has it, into the singular, and to render it by "revealer." The word is an active participle, "moreh," from the same verb as the noun "torah," which is constantly translated "law" in our version, but is, in the Prophets at least, more nearly equivalent to "instruction," or to our modern term "revelation" (ver. 9). Looking thus to the One Revealer, and hearkening to the One Voice, "the lying and rebellious children" shall at last be restored to that capacity for truth and obedience, the loss of which has been their ruin. () There are troubled hours in life, in which we long to see our teachers; to know what certain things mean; and to have it explained why some special trials have been put upon us, and to what end events, now inexplicable, are tending. Devout men and women suspect, or feel sure, already; they think that the hand of the Lord is in all thin They rest assured that what seems wrong now will be made right by and by: that all is for the best; and, more than this, they are persuaded that some time or other, perhaps as death approaches, perhaps in the shadowy and thoughtful place of departed spirits, perhaps at the last great day of God, they shall see their teachers, and comprehend it all. () I. A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE ADVANTAGES WHICH MEN DERIVE FROM THIS INSTITUTION. 1. Attend to the thousands who devote themselves to the service of the sanctuary, and whose characters are improved and ennobled by their previous studies. With what diligence and success, prompted by motives of piety and benevolence, do they search for the good way, that they may walk in it themselves, and teach and recommend it to others with advantage! Their gifts ripen and expand; their moral and religious excellences become distinguished. Giving themselves to the Word of God and to prayer, and, in subserviency to these, to inquiries after truth, to meditation, and to the perusal of useful human writings, their good resolutions strengthen; and their knowledge, wisdom, activity, and usefulness increase. 2. Public teachers often refine the taste, improve the genius, civilise the manners, and promote the literary pursuits of a nation. 3. Instructions from the pulpit greatly promote a virtuous behaviour. 4. Attend to the gentle, penetrating, beneficent effects of pastoral instruction, on the sorrowful, the disconsolate, the tempted, the doubting, the feeble-minded, the sick, and the dying. 5. Teachers are profitable as they spread and defend the doctrines of religion, and excite and cherish just sentiments of Divine things. 6. Pastoral instruction is a chief means which God hath appointed to rescue sinners from the ruins of their apostasy, and to interest them in His favour and friendship. II. But, must it not be acknowledged that CONGREGATIONS SOMETIMES DERIVE LITTLE OR NO BENEFIT FROM SERMONS, and that to their teachers much of the blame belongs? 1. Bad men regard the effect of what they preach with cold indifference, except in so far as worldly honour or interest is advanced by their seeming success; and efforts naturally are feeble and ineffectual, where desire is languid. 2. Sometimes a clergyman's behaviour is not visibly influenced by the doctrines and duties of religion. Men of small sagacity discern it, infer his craft and disingenuity, or conclude that they may imitate him without hazard. 3. The natural abilities, extent of knowledge, and persuasive talents, highly important in a teacher of religion, do not always accompany true piety. ()
People Assyrians, Egyptians, Isaiah, Mash, Pharaoh, Rahab, SaraphPlaces Egypt, Hanes, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Negeb, Rahab, Zion, ZoanTopics Adversity, Affliction, Although, Anymore, Behold, Bread, Corner, Directors, Gives, Grief, Hidden, Hide, Longer, Oppression, Privation, Remove, Removed, Scant, Sparing, Teacher, Teachers, Though, Trouble, Won't, YetOutline 1. The prophet threatens the people for their confidence in Egypt
8. And contempt of God's word
18. God's mercies toward his church
27. God's wrath and the people's joy, in the destruction of Assyria
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 30:20 4293 water Isaiah 30:19-21 8409 decision-making, and providence Isaiah 30:20-21 4020 life, of faith Library 'Quietness and Confidence'
'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.'--ISAIAH xxx. 15. ISRAEL always felt the difficulty of sustaining itself on the height of dependence on the unseen, spiritual power of God, and was ever oscillating between alliances with the Northern and Southern powers, linking itself with Assyria against Egypt, or with Egypt against Assyria. The effect was that whichever was victorious it suffered; it was the battleground for both, it was the prize of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureGod's Waiting and Man's
'And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are they that wait for Him.'--ISAIAH xxx. 18. God's waiting and man's--bold and beautiful, that He and we should be represented as sharing the same attitude. I. God's waiting, 1. The first thought is--why should He wait--why does He not act at once? Because something in us hinders. We cannot enter into spiritual blessings …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Voice Behind Thee
The word behind us which is spoken of in the text is mentioned as one among other covenant blessings. No "if" or "but" is joined to it. It is one of those gracious, unconditional promises upon which the salvation of the guilty depends. There are many comforts of the new life which depend upon our own action and behaviour, and these come to us with "ifs"; but those which are vital and essential are secured to the chosen of God without "but" or "peradventure." It shall be so: God declares it shall, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 28: 1882 My God Will Hear Me
"Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you. Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer thee."--ISA. xxx. 18, 19. "The Lord will hear when I call upon Him."--PS. iv. 3. "I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God!"--PS. xvii. 6. "I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me."--MIC. vii. 7. The power of prayer rests in the faith …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession With a Heart Full of Anxious Request,
"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." -- Isaiah 30:15. With a heart full of anxious request, Which my Father in heaven bestowed, I wandered alone, and distressed, In search of a quiet abode. Astray and distracted I cried, -- Lord, where would'st Thou have me to be? And the voice of the Lamb that had died Said, Come, my beloved, to ME. I went -- for He mightily wins Weary souls to His peaceful retreat -- And He gave me forgiveness of sins, …
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications...
But though prayer is properly confined to vows and supplications, yet so strong is the affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that both may be conveniently comprehended under one name. For the forms which Paul enumerates (1 Tim. 2:1) fall under the first member of this division. By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith "Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me," &C.
Matt. xi. 20.--"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," &c. Self love is generally esteemed infamous and contemptible among men. It is of a bad report every where, and indeed as it is taken commonly, there is good reason for it, that it should be hissed out of all societies, if reproaching and speaking evil of it would do it. But to speak the truth, the name is not so fit to express the thing, for that which men call self love, may rather be called self hatred. Nothing is more pernicious to a man's …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Girdle of the City. Nehemiah 3
The beginning of the circumference was from 'the sheep-gate.' That, we suppose, was seated on the south part, yet but little removed from that corner, which looks south-east. Within was the pool of Bethesda, famous for healings. Going forward, on the south part, was the tower Meah: and beyond that, "the tower of Hananeel": in the Chaldee paraphrast it is, 'The tower Piccus,' Zechariah 14:10; Piccus, Jeremiah 31:38.--I should suspect that to be, the Hippic tower, were not that placed on the north …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. )
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway. * The two principal …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8 How those are to be Admonished who have had Experience of the Sins of the Flesh, and those who have Not.
(Admonition 29.) Differently to be admonished are those who are conscious of sins of the flesh, and those who know them not. For those who have had experience of the sins of the flesh are to be admonished that, at any rate after shipwreck, they should fear the sea, and feel horror at their risk of perdition at least when it has become known to them; lest, having been mercifully preserved after evil deeds committed, by wickedly repeating the same they die. Whence to the soul that sins and never …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great Concerning Worship.
Concerning Worship. [780] All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times, nor persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; [781] yet as to the outward signification thereof, in prayers, praises, or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. The Evening Light
This chapter is an article written by the author many years after she had received light on the unity of the church. It will acquaint the reader with what is meant by the expression "evening light." "At evening time it shall be light." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (Zechariah 14:6,7). The expression …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby.
(Galilee.) ^A Matt. XI. 2-30; ^C Luke VII. 18-35. ^c 18 And the disciples of John told him of all these things. ^a 2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent by his disciples ^c 19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them unto the Lord [John had been cast into prison about December, a.d. 27, and it was now after the Passover, possibly in May or June, a.d. 28. Herod Antipas had cast John into prison because John had reproved him for taking his brother's wife. …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel The Eternity of God
The next attribute is, God is eternal.' Psa 90:0. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' The schoolmen distinguish between aevun et aeternum, to explain the notion of eternity. There is a threefold being. I. Such as had a beginning; and shall have an end; as all sensitive creatures, the beasts, fowls, fishes, which at death are destroyed and return to dust; their being ends with their life. 2. Such as had a beginning, but shall have no end, as angels and the souls of men, which are eternal …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity How Christ is Made Use of for Justification as a Way.
What Christ hath done to purchase, procure, and bring about our justification before God, is mentioned already, viz. That he stood in the room of sinners, engaging for them as their cautioner, undertaking, and at length paying down the ransom; becoming sin, or a sacrifice for sin, and a curse for them, and so laying down his life a ransom to satisfy divine justice; and this he hath made known in the gospel, calling sinners to an accepting of him as their only Mediator, and to a resting upon him for …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2 "They have Corrupted Themselves; their Spot is not the Spot of his Children; they are a Perverse and Crooked Generation. "
Deut. xxxii. 5.--"They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of his children; they are a perverse and crooked generation." We doubt this people would take well with such a description of themselves as Moses gives. It might seem strange to us, that God should have chosen such a people out of all the nations of the earth, and they to be so rebellious and perverse, if our own experience did not teach us how free his choice is, and how long-suffering he is, and constant in his choice. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Covenant of Works
Q-12: I proceed to the next question, WHAT SPECIAL ACT OF PROVIDENCE DID GOD EXERCISE TOWARDS MAN IN THE ESTATE WHEREIN HE WAS CREATED? A: When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge upon pain of death. For this, consult with Gen 2:16, 17: And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity A Description of Heart-Purity
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 The holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity' calls here for heart-purity, and to such as are adorned with this jewel, he promises a glorious and beatifical vision of himself: they shall see God'. Two things are to be explained the nature of purity; the subject of purity. 1 The nature of purity. Purity is a sacred refined thing. It stands diametrically opposed to whatsoever defiles. We must distinguish the various kinds …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12 Links Isaiah 30:20 NIV
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