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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 48:1 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. ; Isaiah 44:1-28 ; Isaiah 45:1-25 ; Isaiah 46:1-13 ; Isaiah 47:1-15 ; Isaiah 48:1-22 CHAPTER IX FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION Isaiah 43:1-28 - Isaiah 48:1-22 WE have now surveyed the governing truths of Isaiah 40:1-31 ; Isaiah 41:1-29 ; Isaiah 42:1-25 ; Isaiah 43:1-28 ; Isaiah 44:1-28 ; Isaiah 45:1-25 ; Isaiah 46:1-13 ; Isaiah 47:1-15 ; Isaiah 48:1-22 : the One God, omnipotent and righteous; the One People, His servants and witnesses to the world; the nothingness of all other gods and idols before Him; the vanity and ignorance of their diviners, compared with His power, who, because He has a purpose working through all history, and is both faithful to it and almighty to bring it to pass, can inspire His prophets to declare beforehand the facts that shall be. He has brought His people into captivity for a set time, the end of which is now near. Cyrus the Persian, already upon the horizon, and threatening Babylon, is to be their deliverer. But whomever He raises up on Israel’s behalf, God is always Himself their foremost champion. Not only is His word upon them, but His heart is among them. He bears the brunt of their battle, and their deliverance, political and spiritual, is His own travail and agony. Whomever else He summons on the stage, He remains the true hero of the drama. Now, chapters 43-48 are simply the elaboration and more urgent offer of all these truths, under the sense of the rapid approach of Cyrus upon Babylon. They declare again God’s unity, omnipotence, and righteousness, they confirm His forgiveness of His people, they repeat the laughter at the idols, they give us nearer views of Cyrus, they answer the doubts that many orthodox Israelites felt about this Gentile Messiah; chapters 46 and 47 describe Babylon as if on the eve of her fall, and chapter 48, after Jehovah more urgently than ever presses upon reluctant Israel to show the results of her discipline in Babylon, closes with a call to leave the accursed city, as if the way were at last open. This call has been taken as the mark of a definite division of our prophecy. But too much must not be put upon it. It is indeed the first call to depart from Babylon; but it is not the last. And although chapter 49, and the chapters following, speak more of Zion’s Restoration and less of the Captivity, yet chapter 49 is closely connected with chapter 48, and we do not finally leave Babylon behind till Isaiah 52:12 . Nevertheless, in the meantime chapter 48 will form a convenient point on which to keep our eyes. Cyrus, when we last saw him, was upon the banks of the Halys, 546 B.C., startling Croesus and the Lydian Empire into extraordinary efforts, both of a religious and political kind, to avert his attack. He had just come from an unsuccessful attempt upon the northern frontier of Babylon, and at first it appeared as if he were to find no better fortune on the western border of Lydia. In spite of his superior numbers, the Lydian army kept the ground on which he met them in battle. But Croesus, thinking that the war was over for the season, fell back soon afterwards on Sardis, and Cyrus, following him up by forced marches, surprised him under the walls of the city, routed the famous Lydian cavalry by the novel terror of his camels, and after a siege of fourteen days sent a few soldiers to scale a side of the citadel too steep to be guarded by the defenders; and so Sardis, its king and its empire, lay at his feet. This Lydian campaign of Cyrus, which is related by Herodotus, is worth noting here for the light it throws on the character of the man, whom according to our prophecy, God chose to be His chief instrument in that generation. If his turning back from Babylonia, eight years before he was granted an easy entrance to her capital, shows how patiently Cyrus could wait upon fortune, his quick march upon Sardis is the brilliant evidence that when fortune showed the way, she found this Persian an obedient and punctual follower. The Lydian campaign forms as good an illustration as we shall find of these texts of our prophet: "He pursueth them, he passeth in safety; by a way he (almost) treads not with his feet. He cometh upon satraps as on mortar, and as the potter treadeth upon clay. { Isaiah 12:3 } I have holden his right hand to bring down before him nations, and the loins of kings will I loosen," (poor ungirt Croesus, for instance, relaxing so foolishly after his victory!) "to open before him doors, and gates shall not be shut" (so was Sardis unready for him), "I go before thee, and will level the ridges; doors of brass I will shiver, and bolts of iron cut in sunder. And I will give to thee treasures of darkness, hidden riches of secret places." { Isaiah 45:1-3 } Some have found in this an allusion to the immense hoards of Croesus, which fell to Cyrus with Sardis. With Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks, who held the coast of the Aegean, was bound to come into the Persian’s hands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a tong one. The Greeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a threat, but the Persian laughed at it and it came to nothing. Indeed, Sparta’s message was only a temptation to this irresistible warrior to carry his fortunate arms into Europe. His own presence, however, was required in the East, and his lieutenants found the thorough subjection of Asia Minor a task requiring several years. It cannot have well been concluded before 540, and while it was in progress we understand why Cyrus did not again attack Babylonia. Meantime, he was occupied with lesser tribes to the north of Media. Cyrus’ second campaign against Babylonia opened in 539. This time he avoided the northern wall from which he had been repulsed in 546. Attacking Babylonia from the east, he crossed the Tigris, beat the Babylonian king into Borsippa, laid siege to that fortress and marched on Babylon, which was held by the king’s son, Belshazzar, Bil-sarussur. All the world knows the supreme generalship by which Cyrus is said to have captured Babylon without assaulting the walls, from whose impregnable height their defenders showered ridicule upon him; how he made himself master of Nebuchadrezzar’s great bason at Sepharvaim, and turned the Euphrates into it; and how, before the Babylonians had time to notice the dwindling of the waters in their midst, his soldiers waded down the river bed, and by the river gates surprised the careless citizens upon a night of festival. But recent research makes it more probable that her inhabitants themselves surrendered Babylon to Cyrus. Now it was during the course of the events just sketched, but before their culmination in the fall of Babylon, that chapters 43-48 were composed. That, at least, is what they themselves suggest. In three passages, which deal with Cyrus or with Babylon, some of the verbs are in the past, some in the future. Those in the past tense describe the calling and full career of Cyrus or the beginning of preparations against Babylon. Those in the. future tense promise Babylon’s fall or Cyrus’ completion of the liberation of the Jews. Thus, in Isaiah 43:14 it is written: "For your sakes I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down as fugitives all of them, and the Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing." Surely these words announce that BabyIon’s fate was already on the way to her, but not yet arrived. Again, in the verses which deal with Cyrus himself, Isaiah 45:1-6 , which we have partly quoted, the Persian is already "grasped by his right hand by God, and called"; but his career is not over, for God promises to do various things for him. The third passage is Isaiah 45:13 of the same chapter, where Jehovah says, "I have stirred him up in righteousness, and" changing to the future tense, "all his ways will I level; he shall build My city, and My captivity shall he send away." What could be more precise than the tenor of all these passages? If people would only take our prophet at his word; if with all their belief in the inspiration of the text of Scripture, they would only pay attention to its grammar, which surely, on their own theory, is also thoroughly sacred, then there would be today no question about the date of Isaiah 40:1-31 ; Isaiah 41:1-29 ; Isaiah 42:1-25 ; Isaiah 43:1-28 ; Isaiah 44:1-28 ; Isaiah 45:1-25 ; Isaiah 46:1-13 ; Isaiah 47:1-15 ; Isaiah 48:1-22 . As plainly as grammar can enable it to do, this prophecy speaks of Cyrus’ campaign against Babylon as already begun, but of its completion as still future. Chapter 48, it is true, assumes events as still farther developed, but we will come to it afterwards. During Cyrus’ preparations, then, for invading Babylonia, and in prospect of her certain fall, chapters 43-48 repeat with greater detail and impetuosity the truths, which we have already gathered from chapters 40-42. 1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness, and personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured by His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative. To illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the chapters under consideration. "I, I Jehovah, and there is none beside Me a Saviour. I am God"-El. "Also from today on I am He. I will work, and who shall let it? I am Jehovah. I, I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions. I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God"-Elohim. "Is there a God," Eloah, "beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any. I Jehovah, Maker of all things. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside Me there is no God. I am Jehovah, and there is none else. Former of light and Creator of darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil, I am Jehovah, Maker of all these. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, God," Elohini, "beside Me, God-Righteous,’" El Ssaddiq, "and a Saviour: there is none except: Me. Face Me, and be saved all ends of the earth; for I am God," El, "and there is none else. Only in Jehovah-of Me shall they say-are righteousnesses and strength. I am God," El, "and there is none else; God," Elohim, "and there is none like Me. I am He; I am First, yea, I am Last. I, I have spoken. I have declared it." It is of advantage to gather together so many passages-and they might have been increased-from chapters 43-48. They let us see at a glance what a part the first personal pronoun plays in the Divine revelation. Beneath every religious truth is the unity of God. Behind every great movement is the personal initiative, and urgency of God. And revelation is, in its essence, not the mere publication of truths about God, but the personal presence and communication to men of God Himself. Three words are used for Deity- El, Eloah, Elohim -exhausting the Divine terminology. But besides these, there is a formula which puts the point even more sharply: "I am He." It was the habit of the Hebrew nation, and indeed of all Semitic peoples, who shared their reverent unwillingness to name the Deity, to speak of Him simply by the third personal pronoun. The Book of Job is full of instances of the habit, and it also appears in many proper names, as Eli-hu, "My God-is-He," Abi-hu, "My-Father-is-He." Renan adduces the practice as evidence that the Semites were "naturally monotheistic,"-as evidence for what was never the case! But if there was no original Semitic monotheism for this practice to prove, we may yet take the practice as evidence for the personality of the Hebrew God. The God of the prophets is not the it, which Mr. Matthew Arnold so strangely thought he had identified in their writings, and which, in philosophic language, that unsophisticated Orientals would never have understood, he so cumbrously named "a tendency not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Not anything like this is the God, who here urges His self-consciousness upon men. He says, "I am He,"-the unseen Power, who was too awful and too dark to be named, but about whom, when in their terror and ignorance His worshippers sought to describe Him, they assumed that He was a Person, and called Him, as they would have called one of themselves, by a personal pronoun. By the mouth of His prophet this vague and awful He declares Himself as I, I, I, - no mere tendency, but a living Heart and urgent Will, personal character and force of initiative, from which all tendencies move and take their direction and strength. "I am He." History is strewn with the errors of those who have sought from God something else than Himself. All the degradation, even of the highest religions, has sprung from this, that their votaries forgot that religion was a communion with God Himself, a life in the power of His character and will, and employed it as the mere communication either of material benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been the mistake of millions to see in revelation nothing but the telling of fortunes, the recovery of lost things, decision in quarrels, direction in war, or the bestowal of some personal favour. Such are like the person, of whom St. Luke tells us, who saw nothing in Christ but the recoverer of a bad debt: "Master, speak unto my brother that he divide the inheritance with me"; and their superstition is as far from true faith as the prodigal’s old heart, when he said, "Give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me," was from the other heart, when, in his poverty and woe, he cast himself utterly upon his Father: "I will arise and go to my Father." But no less a mistake do those make, who seek from God not Himself, but only intellectual information. The first Reformers did well, who brought the common soul to the personal grace of God; but many of their successors, in a controversy, whose dust obscured the sun and allowed them to see but the length of their own weapons, used Scripture chiefly as a store of proofs for separate doctrines of the faith, and forgot that God Himself was there at all. And though in these days we seek from the Bible many desirable things, such as history, philosophy, morals, formulas of assurance of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, maxims for conduct, yet all these will avail us little, until we have found behind them the living Character, the Will, the Grace, the Urgency, the Almighty Power, by trust in whom and communion with whom alone they are added unto us. Now the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign God, was the deity of a little tribe. "I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am God, I Jehovah am He." We cannot too much impress ourselves with the historical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and Egypt with their large empires, Lydia with all her wealth, and the Medes with all their force; which was already feeling the possibilities of the great Greek life, and had the Persians, the masters of the future, upon its threshold, -it was the god of none of these, but of the obscurest tribe of their bondsmen, who claimed the Divine Sovereignty for Himself; it was the pride of none of these, but the faith of the most despised and, at its heart, most mournful religion of the time, which offered an explanation of history, claimed the future, and was assured that the biggest forces of the world were working for its ends. "Thus saith Jehovah, King of Israel, and his Redeemer Jehovah of Hosts, I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God. Is there a God beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any." By itself this were a cheap claim, and might have been made by any idol among them, were it not for the additional proofs by which it is supported. We may summarise these additional proofs as threefold: Laughter, Gospel, and Control of History, -three marvels in the experience of exiles. People, mournfullest and most despised, their mouths were to be filled with the laughter of truth’s scorn upon the idols of their conquerors. Men, most tormented by conscience and filled with the sense of sin, they were to hear the gospel of forgiveness. Nation, against whom all fact seemed to be working, their God told them, alone of all nations of the world, that He controlled for their sake the facts of today and the issues of tomorrow. 2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But we have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these crushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were image worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men intellectually, -it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed, degrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater and him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and it not for the additional proofs by which it is a difference that is absolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore, although the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world with the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud faces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of the One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage. Its text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices that utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its tone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in impetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity of our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised. 1. Formers of an idol are all of them waste, And their darlings are utterly worthless! And their confessors - they! they see not and know not Enough to feel shame. Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast? ‘Tis to be utterly worthless. Lo! all that depend on’t are shamed, And the gravers are less than men: Let all of them gather and stand. They quake and are shamed in the lump. 2. Iron-graver-he takes a chisel, And works with hot coals, And with hammers he moulds; And has done it with the arm of his strength. - Anon hungers, and strength goes; Drinks no water, and wearies! 3. Wood-graver-he draws a line, Marks it with pencil, Makes it with planes, And with compasses marks it. So has made it the build of a man, To a grace that is human- To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars. 4. Or one takes an ilex or oak, And picks for himself from the trees of the wood One has planted a pine, and the rain makes it big, And ‘tis there for a man to burn. And one has taken of it, and been warmed; Yea, kindles and bakes bread, - Yea, works out a god, and has worshipped it! Has made it an idol, and bows down before it! Part of it burns he with fire, Upon part eats flesh, Roasts roast and is full; Yea, warms him and saith, "Aha, I am warm, have seen fire!" And the rest of it-to a god he has made-to his image! He bows to it, worships it, prays to it, And says, "Save me, for my god art thou!" 5. They know not and deem not! For He hath bedaubed, past seeing, their eyes Past thinking, their hearts. And none takes to heart, Neither has knowledge nor sense to say, "‘Part of it burned I in fire- Yea, have baked bread on its coals, Do roast flesh that I eat, - And the rest o’t, to a Disgust should I make it? The trunk of a tree should I worship?’" Herder of ashes, a duped heart has sent him astray, That he cannot deliver his soul. neither say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" Is not the prevailing note in these verses surprise at the mental condition of an idol-worshipper? "They see not and know not enough to feel shame. None takes it to heart, neither has knowledge nor sense to say, Part of it I have burned in fire and the rest, should I make it a god?" This intellectual confidence, breaking out into scorn, is the second great token of truth, which distinguishes the religion of this poor slave of a people. 3. The third token is its moral character. The intellectual truth of a religion would go for little, had the religion nothing to say to man’s moral sense-did it not concern itself with his sins, had it no redemption for his guilt. Now, the chapters before us are full of judgment and mercy. If they have scorn for the idols, they have doom for sin, and grace for the sinner. They are no mere political manifesto for the occasion, declaring how Israel shall be liberated from Babylon. They are a gospel for sinners in all time. By this they farther accredit themselves as a universal religion. God is omnipotent, yet He can do nothing for Israel till Israel put away their sins. Those sins, and not the people’s captivity, are the Deity’s chief concern. Sin has been at the bottom of their whole adversity. This is brought out with all the versatility of conscience itself. Israel and their God have been at variance; their sin has been, what conscience feels the most, a sin against love. "Yet not upon Me hast thou called, O Jacob; how hast thou been wearied with Me, O Israel I have not made thee to slave with offerings, nor weaned thee with incense but thou hast made Me to slave with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities". { Isaiah 43:22-24 } So God sets their sins, where men most see the blackness of their guilt, in the face of His love. And now He challenges conscience. "Put Me in remembrance; let us come to judgment together; indict, that thou mayest be justified" ( Isaiah 43:26 ). But it had been age long and original sin. "Thy father, the first had sinned; yea, thy representative men"-literally "interpreters, mediators-had transgressed against Me. Therefore did I profane consecrated princes, and gave Jacob to the ban, and Israel to reviling" ( Isaiah 43:27-28 ). The Exile itself was but an episode in a tragedy, which began far back with Israel’s history. And so chapter 48 repeats: "I knew that thou dost deal very treacherously, and Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee" ( Isaiah 48:8 ). And then there comes the sad note of what might have been. "O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as the river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea" ( Isaiah 48:18 ). As broad Euphrates thou shouldst have lavishly rolled, and flashed to the sun like a summer sea. But now, hear what is left. "There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked" ( Isaiah 48:22 ). Ah, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no; long-extinct volcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by the writings of the Exile. But they treat of man’s perennial trouble; and conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned letters and figures with words we feel like swords. And therefore, still, whether they be psalms or prophecies, they stand like some ancient minster in the modern world, -where, on each new soiled day, till time ends, the heavy heart of man may be helped to read itself, and lift up its guilt for mercy. They are the confessional of the world, but they are also its gospel, and the altar where forgiveness is sealed. "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; turn unto Me, for I have redeemed, thee. Israel shall be saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end." { Isaiah 43:25 ; Isaiah 44:21-22 ; Isaiah 45:17 } Now, when we remember who the God is, who thus speaks, -not merely One who flings the word of pardon from the sublime height of His holiness, but, as we saw, speaks it from the midst of all His own passion and struggle under His people’s sins, -then with what assurance does His word come home to the heart. What honour and obligation to righteousness does the pardon of such a God put upon our hearts. One understands why Ambrose sent Augustine, after his conversion, first to these prophecies. 4. The fourth token, which these chapters offer for the religion of Jehovah, is the claim they make for it to interpret and to control history. There are two verbs, which are frequently repeated throughout the chapters, and which are given together in Isaiah 43:12 : "I have published and I have saved." These are the two acts by which Jehovah proves His solitary divinity over against the idols. The "publishing," of course, is the same prediction, of which chapter 41 spoke. It is "publishing" in former times things happening now; it is "publishing" now things that are still to happen. "And who, like Me, calls out and publishes it, and sets it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and that shall come, let them publish. Tremble not, nor fear: did I not long ago cause thee to hear? and I published, and ye are My witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? nay, there is no Rock; I know none". { Isaiah 44:7-8 } The two go together, the doing of wonderful and saving acts for His people and the publishing of them before they come to pass. Israel’s past is full of such acts. Chapter 43, instances the delivery from Egypt ( Isaiah 43:16-17 ), but immediately proceeds ( Isaiah 43:18-19 ): "Remember ye not the former things"-here our old friend ri’shonoth occurs again, but this time means simply "previous events"-"neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; even now it springs forth. Shall ye not know it? Yea, I will set in the wilderness a way, in the desert rivers." And of this new event of the Return, and of others which will follow from it, like the building of Jerusalem, the chapters insist over and over again, that they are the work of Jehovah, who is therefore a Saviour God. But what better proof can be given, that these saving facts are indeed His own and part of His counsel, than that He foretold them by His messengers and prophets to Israel, -of which previous "publication" His people are the witnesses. "Who among the peoples can publish thus, and let us hear predictions?-again ri’shonoth , "things ahead-let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, and let them hear and say, Truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah," to Israel. { Isaiah 43:9-10 } "I have published, and I have saved, and I have shewed, and there was no strange god among you; therefore"-because Jehovah was notoriously the only God who had to do with them during all this prediction and fulfilment of prediction" ye are witnesses for Me, saith Jehovah, that I am God" ( id . Isaiah 43:12 ). The meaning of all this is plain. Jehovah is God alone, because He is directly effective in history for the salvation of His people, and because He has published beforehand what He will do. The great instance of this, which the prophecy adduces, is the present movement towards the liberation of the people, of which movement Cyrus is the most conspicuous factor. Of this Isaiah 45:19 ff. says: "Not in a place of the land of in Secret have I spoken, darkness. I have not said to the seed of Jacob, In vanity seek ye Me. I Jehovah am a speaker of righteousness, a publisher of things that are straight. Be gathered and come in; draw together, ye survivors of the nations: they have no knowledge that carry about the log of their image, and are suppliants to a god that cannot save. Publish, and bring it here; nay, let them advise together; who made this to be heard,"-that is, "who published this, -of ancient time?" Who published this of old? I Jehovah, and there is none God beside Me: a God righteous,"-that is, consistent, true to His published word, -"and a Saviour, there is none beside Me." "Here we have joined together the same ideas as in Isaiah 43:12 ." There "I have declared and saved" is equivalent to "a God righteous and a Saviour" here. "Only in Jehovah are righteousnesses," that is, fidelity to His anciently published purposes; "and strength," that is, capacity to carry these purposes out in history. God is righteous because, according to another verse in the same prophecy, { Isaiah 44:26 } "He confirmeth the word of His servant, and the advice of His messengers He fulfilleth." Now the question has been asked, To what predictions does the prophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so evidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering this question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the prophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify that unfounded belief, to which so many think it necessary to cling, that Cyrus was actually named by a prophet of Jehovah years before he appeared. Had such a prediction existed, we can have no doubt that our prophet would now have appealed to it. No: he evidently refers only to those numerous and notorious predictions by Isaiah, and by Jeremiah, of the return of Israel from exile after a certain and fixed period. Those were now coming to pass. But from this new day Jehovah also predicts for the days to come, and He does this very particularly, Isaiah 44:26 , "Who is saying of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built; and of her waste places, I will raise them up. Who saith to the deep, Be dry, and thy rivers I will dry up. Who saith of Koresh, My Shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall fulfil: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the Temple shall be founded." Thus, backward and forward, yesterday, today and for ever, Jehovah’s hand is upon history. He controls it: it is the fulfilment of His ancient purpose. By predictions made long ago and fulfilled today, by the readiness to predict today what will happen tomorrow, He is surely God and God alone. Singular fact, that in that day of great empires, confident in their resources, and with the future so near their grasp, it should be the God of a little people, cut off from their history, servile and seemingly spent, who should take the big things of earth-Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba-and speak of them as counters to be given in exchange for His people; who should speak of such a people as the chief heirs of the future, the indispensable ministers of mankind. The claim has two Divine features. It is unique, and history has vindicated it. It is unique: no other religion, in that or in any other time, has so rationally explained past history or laid out the ages to come upon the lines of a purpose so definite, so rational, so beneficent-a purpose so worthy of the One God and Creator of all. And it has been vindicated: Israel returned to their own land, resumed the development of their calling, and, after the centuries came and went, fulfilled the promise that they should be the religious teachers of mankind. The long delay of this fulfilment surely but testifies the more to the Divine foresight of the promise; to the patience, which nature, as well as history, reveals to be, as much as omnipotence, a mark of Deity. These, then, are the four points, upon which the religion of Israel offers itself. First, it is the force of the character and grace of a personal God; second, it speaks with a high intellectual confidence, whereof its scorn is here the chief mark; third, it is intensely moral, making man’s sin its chief concern; and fourth, it claims the control of history, and history has justified the claim. CHAPTER XIII THE CALL TO GO FORTH Isaiah 48:1-22 On the substance of chapter 48, we have already encroached, and now it is necessary only to summarise its argument, and to give some attention to the call to go forth from Babylon, with which it concludes. Chapter 48 is addressed, as its first verse declares, to the exiles from Judah: "Hear this, Oh House of Jacob, that call yourselves by the name of Israel, and from the waters of Judah have come forth": that is, you so-called Israelites, who spring from Judah. But their worship of Jehovah is only nominal and unreal: "They who swear by the name of Jehovah, and celebrate the God of Israel, not in truth and not in righteousness; although by the Holy City they name themselves, and upon the God of Israel they lean-Jehovah of Hosts is His Name!" "The former things I published long ago; from My mouth they went forth, and I let them be heard-suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. Because I knew how hard thou wert, and a sinew of iron thy neck, and thy brow brass. And I published to thee long ago; before it came to pass I let thee hear it, lest thou shouldest say: Mine idol hath wrought them, and my Image and my Casting hath commanded them. Thou didst hear it: look at it whole," (now that it is fulfilled), "and you I should ye not publish it?" All the past lies as a unity, prediction and fulfilment together compl

Hear ye this, O house of Jacob. Isaiah 48:1-2 God's appeal to Israel A. B. Davidson, D.D. The lessons of God's method of prophetic revelation which Israel is to lay to heart. ( A. B. Davidson, D.D. ) "The waters of Judah" J. A. Alexander. The people, by natural figure, are described as streams from the fountain of Judah ( Psalm 68:26 ). ( J. A. Alexander. ) Hollow profession J. Lyth, D.D. Here is — I. PRIVILEGE. II. FORM. III. PROFRSSION. IV. YET NO REAL RELIGION. ( J. Lyth, D.D. ) "Hear ye this" R. Macculloch. I. How? Place yourselves in a hearing posture, that the intense application of your minds may be discovered in your attitude and gestures. Listen with diligence and candour. II. WHAT? 1. To the reproofs I administer. 2. To the arguments I adduce. 3. To the duties I inculcate. 4. To the assurances I give you. III. WHY ? 1. That your obdurate hearts may be mollified. 2. Your consciences convinced. 3. Your conversion from your evil ways effected. ( R. Macculloch. ) A two fold charge against Israel God chargeth them with hypocrisy in that which is good, and obstinacy in that which is evil (vers. 1-8). ( M. Henry . ) Religious profession Observe — I. HOW HIGH THEIR PROFESSION OF RELIGION SOARED. II. HOW LOW THEIR PROFESSION OF RELIGION SANK FOR ALL THIS. ( M. Henry . ) I have declared the former things from the beginning. Isaiah 48:3 The probability and use of inspired predictions J. Bennett, D.D. I. It is quite plain that ANY BEING THAT IS DISTINGUISHED ABOVE OTHERS MUST BE EXALTED EITHER BY KNOWLEDGE OR BY POWER, OR BY BOTH. If, then, God is to make Himself known to His creatures, it must be by some displays of this kind — by power, doing those things which they cannot do; or by intellect, making known those things which they cannot know. There is one advantage in these displays of God by means of knowledge, telling things that we could not know otherwise — that it addresses our judgment. Miracles seem to astound us; they may be supposed to throw us out of our calm self-possession, and to bewilder us by their wonders; but prophecies coolly address our judgment, without disturbing our passions, and enable us to exercise our reason in reflection upon these discoveries of the great superior Mind. Though we cannot tell exactly what preference we are to give to one or the other, some minds being most struck with the displays of power in miracles, others most with the displays of knowledge in predictions, yet we can easily see that these may concur and aid each other. Is it not probable that God will make Himself known to man? But is it not equally probable that if He tells us about a futurity and eternity, He will take some method of convincing us that what He thus tells us is true and will surely come to pass? II. THE USES OF INSPIRED PREDICTIONS. These are various; many of them we have yet to discover. 1. A most important use of the inspired predictions of Scripture is, that you should study the Book that contains them. 2. You should watch His providence, that you may see how it fulfils His Word. He that eyes providences shall never want providences to eye. 3. You should learn from hence to admire and adore the omniscience and faithfulness and truth of God. 4. Expect all that God has predicted both for time and eternity. ( J. Bennett, D.D. ) See all this. Isaiah 48:6 Things seen as a whole N. Smyth, D.D. The words "See all this," have been rendered by one of the latest commentators, "See it as a whole." This rendering reproduces the prophetic argument. Isaiah had recalled a period of history which, taken as a whole, was a fulfilled word of Jehovah. That completed epoch of history from the predictions of old to the events in which it had issued was to the prophet proof of God's control of human affairs. Any completed historic cycle, taken as a whole, becomes to us significant of God. The evidence of the Divine providence discovers itself when we view things largely, when we see life as a whole. 1. Look at your life in the large relations of it, see it as a whole. This is not the view of life which it is altogether easy for us to take. For we touch life at single points; we receive life moment by moment; and our first views of things are apt to be partial. We ought, in our moral maturity, to fit our daily doings into some large conception of our whole reason for being here in this world. We do not know how to live well, certainly we have not learned to live richly if we have not gained something of the happy art of massing things in nobler groupings; if we cannot hold the little things and daily details of life under some broad, generous conception of our life; very much as from some height we see the several parts of a landscape, not singly, but together, as one wide sunny expanse. 2. That particular thing, for example, for which it may be necessary for you to strive to-morrow in your business, or which it seems desirable to secure for your enjoyment, needs to be sought for, not as though it were the one thing only to be attained, but as a possible part of some greater good in which your life is to find its satisfaction. A man to be successful in any calling must have something of that power of concentration to which Sir Fowell Buxton once attributed his success — "the power of being a whole man to one thing at a time." Nevertheless, that would be an unworthy success which should leave us entirely confined to any single thing. 3. If we desire to possess our friendships well, we must learn this art of seeing things not in their little, often vexatious details, but largely and as wholes. You must take your friend largely for what he is in his entire character, if you would keep your friend. The microscope has its uses; but it was never made for the eye of friendship. 4. Another instance for the application of this text might be found in our habits of regarding our homes. We are to possess the home, not as a good for itself alone, but in its whole social setting, in its relation to the neighbourhood, to the Church of humanity, to the kingdom of heaven, of which it is part and portion. 5. I wish now to go up with this principle to some higher lines of experience, and to observe how this entire earthly life of ours is itself life but in part, and how, if we would live truly, we must learn to see all our life, from the cradle to the grave, as itself but a part of some still larger, better whole for us. If this earthly span of our days be all, what is a human life at its best but as the rainbow which we have seen, one end of it resting upon the depths of the waters, and the other end lost in the cloud, itself as fleeting as the mist upon which for its moment of promise it becomes visible? But here lies the difficulty and the doubt. We have no experience of what lies beyond. Our hand can lay no measuring-rod upon futurity. We have only this present. It is also true, and it is the more important part of the truth, that we have this present only as an incomplete thing, we have this life only as a segment; its present brief span is the are of some curve of larger sweep than we can measure. What its future may be like, we do not know; but we know this present as in itself incomplete and requiring some future completion. "If you ask me, said Savonarola, as he was ready to be borne to the stake, what shall be in general the issue of this struggle, I reply, Victory. If you ask me what shall be the issue in the particular sense, I reply, Death." It was the answer of a seer. Seen in the particular, the issue of life may be death. Seen in the general, seen as a whole, true life is not death, but victory. The Christian faith brings to a man its Gospel of the One sinless Man, who knew whence He came, and whither He went, and whose life was always to Him not an affair of the moment only, but a truth of eternity. Jesus' earthly life was indeed a broken one. In one aspect of it no human life has been left so incomplete as was that life which we can follow for a few brief years of it through these gospels. The verse in the book of Acts, "All the things which Jesus began both to do and to teach," suggests the incompleteness, the utter brokenness of Jesus' earthly life. What work did He live to see completed? what doctrine to finish? His hands did not complete His work of mercy; they were pierced before they had wrought all their possible work of healing. His lips did not finish His teachings; He had many things to say, and He died leaving much unsaid. Into our Lord's Gethsemane may there not have entered the pathos of an unfinished life? Yet He said, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." He could not have said that had He not looked always upon His life here as part and daily portion of one Divine whole, His sacrifice as something complete in God's eternal purpose; had He not known that His life here, and there, and always, is one life, continuous throughout, on earth and in heaven, one will of the Father — each part of it, whether of humiliation or transfiguration, of suffering or resurrection, partaking of the glory of the perfect whole. ( N. Smyth, D.D. ) Yea, thou heardest not. Isaiah 48:8 God's foreknowledge of man's sin As in a looking-glass, let us see ourselves. 1. Let the unconverted man see his own picture. God has spoken quite as pointedly to you as ever He did to the seed of Israel. He has called you by providences of different kinds. As for the Bible, has it not often addressed you with a voice most clear and simple, "Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?" You have, some of you, been called by the admonitions of godly parents; you were further invited to the path of holiness by loving friends in the Sabbath school. Frequently the voice of God's minister has bidden you to come to Jesus from the pulpit; and conscience, a nearer pleader still, has echoed the voice of God. And yet it may be said, "Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not," &c. Three times a "yea" is put in our text, as if to show God's wonder at man's obstinacy, and the certainty that such was the state of the heart. It was certainly so. You heard, but it went in at one ear and out at the other; you heard and heard not. 2. More painful still is it to remember that in a certain degree the same accusation may be laid at the door of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even those who have received grace to become the sons of God, have not such a degree of spiritual sensibility as they should have. Having thus reminded you of your sin, trusting we may be led to confess it with deep humility, I have now an encouraging truth to tell to you — that all this folly and ignorance, and obstinacy, and rebellion on our part, was foreknown by God, and notwithstanding that foreknowledge, He yet has been pleased to deal with us in a way of mercy. I. We shall endeabour to address the truth to THE BELIEVER. 1. The latter part of our text mentions a mournful fact, "I knew that thou wouldest deal," &c. Thou art the beloved of heaven, redeemed by blood, called by grace, preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, on thy way to heaven, and yet "thou hast dealt very treacherously"; very treacherously with God, thy best friend; with Jesus, whose thou art; with the Holy Spirit, by whom alone thou canst be quickened unto life eternal. That word "treacherously" is one which a man would not like to have applied to himself in the common transactions of life; he would feel it to be very galling, and, if there were truth in it, very degrading. How treacherous you and I have been to our own vows and promises when we were first converted! Instead of a heavenly mind there have been carnal cares, worldly vanities, and thoughts of evil. Instead of service there has been disobedience; instead of fervency, lukewarmness; instead of patience, petulance; instead of faith, confidence in an arm of flesh. This is not all. It is not merely that we have failed in promises which were made in a period of excitement, but we have been treacherous to obligations which were altogether apart front voluntary vows on our part; we have been treacherous to the most blessed relationships which mercy could have instituted. Know ye not that ye are redeemed men and women, and therefore the property of the Lord Jesus? Have you not found yourselves full often spending your strength for self and for the world, and robbing Jesus of that which He purchased at so dear a price? Remember that we are soldiers of Christ, soldiers enlisted, sworn in for a life-long campaign. As soldiers, by cowardice, disobedience and desertion, we have been treacherous to a very shameful degree. You know what the military doom is of a treacherous soldier on earth! truly, if we had been accused, and condemned by court-martial, and ordered to be shot forthwith, we should have been dealt with most righteously. We have been armed, and carried bows. and have turned back in the day of battle. Worst of all is the fact that we have been treacherous to our Lord in a relationship where fidelity constitutes the very essence of bliss, I mean in the marriage bond which exists between our soul and Christ. We are one with Him, by eternal union one, and yet we treat Him ill! Never did He have a thought towards us that was unkind, never one faithless wandering of His holy immutable mind; but as for us, we have thought of a thousand lovers, and suffered our heart to be seduced by rivals, which were no more to be compared with Christ than darkness is to be compared with the blaze of noon. 2. We pass on to the Divine statement of the text, that all this was known. "I knew." As the Lord foreknew the fountain of sin, so He knew all the streams which would gush from it. Wherein is the edification to the people of God? (1) Adore the amazing grace of God. (2) Our security is clearly manifest. (3) This truth should tend very much to enhance our sense of the fulness which is treasured up in Christ Jesus. God has provided for us in Christ, for all the necessities that can occur, for He has foreknown all these necessities. II. I have to use the text in its relation to UNCONVERTED PERSONS. You have discovered lately the natural vileness of your heart. You have a deep regret for your long delay in seeking mercy. You are willing to acknowledge that there have been special aggravations in your case. Now, the Gospel says to you, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." All these sins, delays, aggravations, and rebellions of yours, were all foreknown to God; therefore, since He has sent the Gospel to you, be not slow to accept it. since it is not possible that your sins, whatever they may be, can at all militate against the fact that if you believe and receive the Gospel, you shall be saved. For, if God had not intended to save men upon believing, then, since He foreknew these things, He would never have planned the plan of salvation at all. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) A transgressor from the womb. Native depravity N. Emmons, D.D. God here traces all the insincerity, stupidity, obstinacy, ignorance, and unbelief of sinners to the native depravity of their hearts, which led them to disregard His commands and to disbelieve His predictions. The text in this connection naturally leads us to conclude that mankind begin to sin as soon as they become capable of sinning. I. WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY SIN. "Sin is the transgression of the law." The law requires true love to God and man. The transgression of the law, therefore, must essentially consist in something which is directly opposite to pure, holy love. And there is nothing in nature more directly opposite to perfectly disinterested love, than interested love, or selfishness. So that all sin consists in the free, voluntary exercise of selfishness. II. WHEN MANKIND BECAME CAPABLE OF SINNING. If sin be a voluntary moral exercise, they are not capable of sinning before they become moral agents. Perception, memory, and volition appear to be the essential powers or properties which constitute a free agent. Animals are free agents. They act freely and voluntarily in the view of motives. But God has endowed man with a moral faculty to discern moral good and evil. This we call conscience. Those who allow that a child four years old is a moral agent and knows what is right and wrong, will generally allow that a child two years old is a moral agent and knows what is right and what is wrong. And where shall we stop? Why may we not suppose that a child one year old, or half a year old, is a moral agent, and knows what is right and what is wrong in some cases? III. THEY DO SIN AS SOON AS THEY BECOME CAPABLE OF SINNING. They certainly discover, as early as possible, impatience, obstinacy, and revenge, which are sinful exercises in any moral agent that can distinguish between right and wrong. The testimony of observation on this subject is strengthened, at least, by the testimony of experience. Every person in the world is conscious of sinning, and of sinning as long ago as he can remember. And now, if we look into the Bible, we shall there find conclusive and infallible evidence that mankind do actually sin as soon as they become moral agents, and are capable of sinning. When we say a serpent is naturally poisonous, we mean that it is poisonous as soon as its nature renders it capable of having poison. So, when the inspired writers speak of men's sinning as soon as they be born, their expressions plainly imply that they are sinners by nature, or begin to sin as soon as they are capable of sinning. These representations of the sinfulness and guilt of childhood are confirmed by God's providential treatment of children. Death is a natural evil, and was threatened to mankind as a punishment for sin. IV. WHY THEY ALWAYS HAVE SINFUL BEFORE THEY HAVE HOLY EXERCISES, "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." ( N. Emmons, D.D. ) Human depravity Boswell's "Life of Johnson." In conversation with Boswell, Dr. Johnson said, with respect to original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; for, whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently and confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth are insufficient to restrain them from crimes. ( Boswell's "Life of Johnson." ) For My name's sake will I defer Mine anger. Isaiah 48:9-11 God's anger deferred F. Delitzch, D.D. "For My name's sake I draw out My wrath." Jehovah lengthens out His wrath, i.e. delays its outbreak, thus shows Himself long-suffering; He checks, restrains, damps it for the good of Israel, that He may not by unchaining His wrath utterly destroy it; and that for the sake of His name, His praise, which demands the carrying out of the plan of salvation, which is the purpose of Israel's existence. ( F. Delitzch, D.D. ) Mercy's master motive I shall take the text to illustrate — I. THE CONVERSION OF THE SINNER. 1. In him there is no argument for mercy, no plea for grace. 2. God Himself finds the reason for His mercy. He finds it in Himself. The Lord is a patient God, and determines to make His patience glorious. God also would illustrate His sovereign and abundant mercy towards sinners. God can display His power. 3. But it may be that a soul is saying, "Well, I can see that God can thus find a motive for mercy in Himself, when there is none in the sinner, but why is it that the Lord is chastening me as He is?" Possibly you are sickly in body, have been brought low in estate, and are grievously depressed in mind. God now, in our text, goes on to explain His dealings with you, that you may not have one hard thought of Him. It is true He has been smiting you, but it has been with a purpose and in measure. "I have refined thee, but not with silver." God has not brought upon you the severest troubles. 4. Notice the next thing: the Lord declares that the time of trial is the chosen season for revealing His love to you. "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." It often happens that the time in which God reveals His choice and manifests His electing love to a soul is when that soul is almost consumed with trouble. 5. But note, before I leave the sinner's case, that lest the soul should forget it, the Lord repeats again the point He began with, and unveils the motives of His grace once more. What is the eleventh verse but the echo of the ninth? If a soul should perish while trusting in the blood of Christ, the glory of God would go over to Satan It would be proved that Satan had overcome the truthfulness of God, or the power of God, or the mercy of God. II. THE RECLAIMING OF THE BACKSLIDER. God was speaking to His own people Israel in these remarkable words. I see more reason for punishing you, for you have made a profession and belied it (ver. 1). God having declared the reason of His love to the backslider goes on to tell him, that the present sufferings which he is now enduring as the result of his backslidings should be mitigated. "I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have put thee into the fire, but I have not blown the heat to such an extreme degree that thy sin should be melted from thee: that would be a greater heat than any soul could bear. I have refined thee, that was needful, but not as silver; that would have been destructive to thee." Thou sayest, "All Thy waves and billows have gone over me." Not so; you know not what all God s waves and billows might be, for there is a depth infinitely lower than any you have ever seen. Then comes His next word: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction"; that is, as if He said, "I will renew My election of you." It was never revoked, but now it shall be more manifestly declared. God has looked at you in prosperity and He has seen you treacherously forgetting Him. Now, however, your affairs are at a low ebb and you begin again to pray. Hear this for your comfort — when repentance defiles the face before men it beautifies it before God. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver. Isaiah 48:10 Refined, but not with Silver Stier, Cheyne, Hitzig, Delitzsch, A. B. Davidson More severely, yet more exactly than silver ( Stier )Less strictly than silver ( Cheyne )It was a melting of a higher sort, the suffering which befell Israel doing for it the work of a furnace ( Hitzig, Delitzsch )Possibly, not with the result of gaining silver ( A. B. Davidson ) Refined, but not with silver The Lord refines His people, but He exercises great discrimination as to the means by which He does so. A silver furnace is one of the very best for the removal of dross, and would seem to be well adapted for refining the most precious things, but it is not choice enough for the Lord's purpose with His people. It is prepared with extreme care, and has great separating power, but the purging away of sin needs greater care and more cleansing energy than a silver refinery can supply. The greatest delicacy of skill is exhibited by the refiner, who watches over the process, and regulates the degree of heat and the length of time in which the precious metal shall lie in the crucible: this, then, might well serve as a figure of the best mode of sanctification, but evidently the figure falls short in its delicacy. The process of silver refining is, no doubt, one of the best arranged and most ably conducted of the works of man; but when the Lord sits as a refiner, He executes His work with greater wisdom and Diviner art. Silver refining is but rough work compared with the Lord's purification of His people, and therefore He says, "I have refined thee, but not with silver." The Lord hath a furnace of His own, and in this special furnace He purifies His people by secret processes unknown to any but Himself. No one would think of refining silver by the same rough means as they smelt iron, so neither will the Lord purify His precious ones, who are far above silver in value, by any but the choicest methods. More subtle and yet more searching, more spiritual and yet more true, more gentle and yet more effectual are the purifying processes of Heaven; there is no refiner like our refiner, and no purity like that which the Spirit works in us. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) God's refining furnace The Lord has special dealings with each one of His saints, and refines each one by a process peculiar to the individual, not heaping all His precious metals into one furnace of silver, but refining each metal by itself. "I have refined thee." "I have chosen thee." Not "you," but "thee." I. Between God's election and the furnace there is this connection — that THE FURNACE WAS THE FIRST TRYSTING-PLACE BETWEEN ELECTING LOVE AND OUR SOULS. Before one solitary star had begun to peer through the darkness the Lord had given over His people unto Christ to be His heritage, and their names were in His book; but the first manifestation of His electing love to any one of us was — where? I venture to say it was in the furnace. Abraham knew little of God's love to him till the voice said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee." I do not think that Isaac knew much about God's choice of him till he went up the mountain's side, and said to his father, "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offerings." So was it with Jacob. Little did he understand the mystery of electing love till he lay down one night with the stones for his pillow, the hedges for his curtains, the skies for his canopy, and no attendant but his God. Certainly, Israel as a nation did not understand God's election till the people were in Egypt; and then, when Goshen, the land of plenty, became a land of brickmaking and sorrow and grief, and the iron bondage entered into their souls, their cried unto God, and began to understand that secret word — "I have called My son out of Egypt." They knew then that God had put a difference between Israel and Egypt. God finds His people in the place of trial, and there He reveals Himself in His special character as their God. Did He not say to Moses, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry?" When did you first know anything about God's choice of you? Was it not when you were in trouble — in many cases in temporal trouble? I make no kind of exception to another rule, namely, that we first began to learn electing love when we were in spiritual distress. II. It is very clear that THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION DOES NOT CHANGE THE ELECTION OF GOD. If He chose us in it, then His choice stands good while we are in it and when we are out of it. If the very first knowledge we had of His electing love found us at the gates of despair, we can never be worse than we were then, nor can His love see less to rest upon. Yet have I known a great many fears cross the mind of God's anxious people when the smoke of the furnace has brought tears into their eyes. No amount of trouble, no degree of pain, no possibility of grief can change the mind of God towards His people. The furnace may alter the believer's circumstances, but not his acceptance with God. The furnace very often alters our friends. And the furnace changes us very wonderfully. Believe very firmly in the fixity of the Divine choice. III. THE FURNACE IS THE VERY ENSIGN OF ELECTION. The escutcheon — the coat of arms — of election is the furnace. You know that it was so in the old covenant which God made with Abraham. He gave him a type when the victim was divided. When a deep sleep fell upon the patriarch there passed before him a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, two signs that always mark the people of God. There is a lamp to light them, but there is also a smoking furnace to try them. "No cross, no crown." If you think of our great Master's dying will and testament, what is its prominent codicil? "In the world ye shall have tribulation." That the Lord refines us shows His value of us. IV. THE FURNACE IS THE WORKSHOP OF ELECTING LOVE. God has chosen us unto holiness. There is no man in this world chosen to go to heaven apart from being made fit to go there. Electing love uses the furnace to consume our dross. The Lord uses the furnace also to prepare the soul for a more complete fashioning. The metal must be melted before it can be poured into the mould, and affliction is used by the Holy Ghost to melt the heart and to fit it to receive the fashion and take the shape of the sacred mould into which heavenly wisdom delivers it. Besides, affliction has much to do in loosening a Christian from this world. V. THE FURMACE IS A GREAT SCHOOL WHEREIN WE LEARN ELECTION ITSELF. 1. In the furnace we learn the graciousness of election. When a child of God in the time of trouble sees the corruption of his heart he begins to say, "How can the Lord ever love me? If He has loved me, His affection must be traced to free sovereign grace." 2. There, too, we learn the holiness of election, for while we lie suffering, a voice says, "God will not spare thee, because there is still sin in thee: He will cleanse thee from every false way." 3. Then, too, we see what a loving thing election is, for never is God so loving to His people consciously as when they are in the flames of trouble. 4. It is at such times that God's people know the power of electing love. 5. And it is at such times that the sweetness of God's electing love comes home to the Christian heart, for he rejoices in his tribulation while he is conscious of the love of God. VI. BY THE FURNACE SOME OF THE HIGHER ENDS OF A YET MORE SPECIAL ELECTION ARE OFTEN REVEALED, for there is not only an election of grace, but there is an election from among the elect to the highest position and to the noblest service. Jesus Christ had many choice disciples, but it is written, "I have chosen you twelve." Out of the twelve there were three; and out of the three there was one, elect of the elect — that loving, tender John, who leaned upon his Master's bosom. The furnace has much to do with this, as a rule, since it usually attends and promotes the higher states of grace, and the wider ranges of usefulness. 1. With the preacher this truth is seen; affliction makes him eminent. I do not think that the preacher will long feed God's saints if he does not read in that volume which Luther said was one of the three best books in his library, namely, affliction. That book is printed in the black letter, but it has some wonderful illuminations in it, and he who would teach the people must often weep over its chapters. Men never bake bread so well as when the oven is well heated, nor do we prepare sermons so well as when the fire burns around us. 2. So is it with the Christian hero, he could never lead the host if he had not been chastened of the Lord in secret places. Calvin , that mightiest master in Israel, clear, upright, and profound, suffered daily under a list of diseases, any one of which would have made a constant invalid of a less courageous man; and, although always early in the morning at the cathedral delivering his famous expositions which have enriched the Church of God, yet he always bore about with him a body full of anguish. Nor could England find a Wycliffe, nor Scotland a Knox, nor Switzerland a Zwingle, except it be where the refiner sits at the furnace door. It must be so. No sword is fit for our Lord's handling till it has been full oft annealed. So it will be with us if we would rise. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. The use of the furnace Homiletic Review. The twofold use of the furnace is — I. TO PROVE OR TEST METALS. II. TO PURIFY THEM, OR REFINE THEM BY SEPARATING THE DROSS FROM THE GENUINE. Discipline of every kind, is God's chosen furnace to test and purify His people. ( Homiletic Review. ) The furnace of affliction Helps for the Pulpit. A furnace is a fireplace or crucible for melting and refining gold or other metals ( Proverbs 17:3 ; Proverbs 27:21 ). Sometimes it is the emblem of cruel bondage ( Deuteronomy 4:20 ; Jeremiah 11:4 ). Also of judgments and severe and grievous afflictions, by which God punishes the rebellious ( Ezekiel 22:18-20 ). By the furnace of affliction He also tries and proves His people. This furnace is — I. AFFLICTIVE. It is composed of many severe trials, which are designed by the great proprietor and manager of this furnace, to purge and refine the souls of His people. 1. Sometimes they are tried by the scantiness of temporal things. This may be induced by want of employment; it may be the result of sickness; it may result from the injustice of man. 2. Frequently the saints are chastised with bodily afflictions. 3. Sometimes they suffer from bereavements. 4. They too have domestic trials of various kinds from ungodly relatives, refractory and

48:1-8 The Jews valued themselves on descent from Jacob, and used the name of Jehovah as their God. They prided themselves respecting Jerusalem and the temple, yet there was no holiness in their lives. If we are not sincere in religion, we do but take the name of the Lord in vain. By prophecy they were shown how God would deal with them, long before it came to pass. God has said and done enough to prevent men's boasting of themselves, which makes the sin and ruin of the proud worse; sooner or later every mouth shall be stopped, and all become silent before Him. We are all born children of disobedience. Where original sin is, actual sin will follow. Does not the conscience of every man witness to the truth of Scripture? May the Lord prove us, and render us doers of the word. 48:9-15 We have nothing ourselves to plead with God, why he should have mercy upon us. It is for his praise, to the honour of his mercy, to spare. His bringing men into trouble was to do them good. It was to refine them, but not as silver; not so thoroughly as men refine silver. If God should take that course, they are all dross, and, as such, might justly be put away. He takes them as refined in part only. Many have been brought home to God as chosen vessels, and a good work of grace begun in them, in the furnace of affliction. It is comfort to God's people, that God will secure his own honour, therefore work deliverance for them. And if God delivers his people, he cannot be at a loss for instruments to be employed. God has formed a plan, in which, for his own sake, and the glory of his grace, he saves all that come to Him. 48:16-22 The Holy Spirit qualifies for service; and those may speak boldly, whom God and his Spirit send. This is to be applied to Christ. He was sent, and he had the Spirit without measure. Whom God redeems, he teaches; he teaches to profit by affliction, and then makes them partakers of his holiness. Also, by his grace he leads them in the way of duty; and by his providence he leads in the way of deliverance. God did not afflict them willingly. If their sins had not turned them away, their peace should have been always flowing and abundant. Spiritual enjoyments are ever joined with holiness of life and regard to God's will. It will make the misery of the disobedient the more painful, to think how happy they might have been. And here is assurance given of salvation out of captivity. Those whom God designs to bring home to himself, he will take care of, that they want not for their journey. This is applicable to the grace laid up for us in Jesus Christ, from whom all good flows to us, as the water to Israel out of the rock, for that Rock was Christ. The spiritual blessings of redemption, and the rescue of the church from antichristian tyranny, are here pointed to. But whatever changes take place, the Lord warned impenitent sinners that no good would come to them; that inward anguish and outward trouble, which spring from guilt and from the Divine wrath, must be their portion for ever.