PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Isaiah and Jeremiah
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 230,785 words · 340 reading sections
O Thou That Bringest Good Tidings
And then, if I might venture to dwell for a moment or two further upon this class of consideration, I would say, Do not let us make too much of the enemy. There is no need why we should take them at their own appraisement. Men are always tempted to think that no generation ever had such a fight as their own generation.…
910 wordsSECTION 122O Thou That Bringest Good Tidings
And do not let us forget that the burning centre of all that brightness is the Cross, that ever-wondrous paradox; that the depth of humiliation is the height of glorifying; that Christ's Cross is the throne of the manifested divine power quite as much as it is the seat of the manifested divine love, and that when He is…
569 wordsSECTION 123'Have Ye Not? Hast Thou Not?'
'Have ye not known, have ye not heard? hath it not been told yon from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?... Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard?'--ISAIAH xl. 21 and 28. The recurrence of the same form of interrogation in these two verses is remarkable. In the first case the p…
712 wordsSECTION 124'Have Ye Not? Hast Thou Not?'
But the appeal to Creation is singularly interrupted by an appeal to History. The prophet drops from the serene expanse of the silent yet eloquent heavens to the stormy scenes of changing dynasties and revolutions of earth's kingdoms. How calm the one, how tumultuous the other! How the one witnesses to Him by its appar…
682 wordsSECTION 125Unfailing Stabs And Fainting Men
And not only does God outdo all His mightiest works in the work of restoring strength to the faint, but He crowns that restoration by making the restored weakling like Himself. 'He fainteth not, neither is weary.' They, too, 'shall ran and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.' In the long drawn out grind of mon…
845 wordsSECTION 126Unfailing Stabs And Fainting Men
But in our second text we drop from the illumination of the heavens to the shadowed plain of this low earth. It is as if a man, looking up into the violet sky, with all its shining orbs, should then turn to some reeking alley, with its tumult and its squalor. Just because man is greater than the stars, man 'fails,' whi…
670 wordsSECTION 127Unfailing Stabs And Fainting Men
'In old age, when others fade, _We_ fruit still forth shall bring' Is it not something to know it as a possibility that we may have that within us which has no tendency to decay, which neither perishes with the using nor is exhausted by exercise, which grows the more the longer we live, which has in it the pledge of …
697 wordsSECTION 128Unfailing Stabs And Fainting Men
Lastly, one word as to-- III. The way by which these contrasts can be reconciled, and this likeness secured. 'They that wait upon the Lord'--that is the whole secret. What does waiting on the Lord include? Let me put it in three brief exhortations. Keep near Him; keep still; expect. If I stray away from Him, I cannot…
329 wordsSECTION 129The Secret Of Immortal Youth
'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.'--ISAIAH xl. 30, 31. I remember a sunset at sea, where the bosom of…
706 wordsSECTION 130The Secret Of Immortal Youth
My text points to another fact, as certain as gravitation, that the faintness and weariness and decay of the bodily strength will be accompanied with a parallel change in your feelings. We are drawn onward by hopes, and when we get them fulfilled we find that they are disappointing. Custom, which weighs upon us 'heavy …
699 wordsSECTION 131The Secret Of Immortal Youth
Note, then, how to get at it. 'They that wait upon the Lord' is Old Testament dialect for what in New Testament phraseology is meant by 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.' For the notion expressed here by 'waiting' is that of expectant dependence, and the New Testament 'faith' is the very same in its attitude of expect…
782 wordsSECTION 132The Secret Of Immortal Youth
The oldest angels are the youngest. The longer men live in fellowship with Christ, the stronger do they grow. And though our lives, whether we are Christians or no, are necessarily subject to the common laws of mortality, we may carry all that is worth preserving of the earliest stages into the latest; and when grey ha…
731 wordsSECTION 133The Secret Of Immortal Youth
Strength to walk may be yours--that is to say, patient power for persistent pursuit of weary, monotonous duty. That is the hardest, and so it is named last. Many a man finds it easy, under the pressure of strong excitement, and for a moment or two, to keep up a swift pace, who finds it very difficult to keep steadily a…
721 wordsSECTION 134The Secret Of Immortal Youth
We have, then, here set before us three significant representations of the servant of the Lord, which may well commend Him to our confidence and our love. I shall not spend any time in answering the question: Of whom speaketh the prophet this? The answer is plain for us. He speaks of the personal Servant of the Lord, a…
739 wordsSECTION 135The Secret Of Immortal Youth
And the words may be looked at from yet another point of view. We may think of them as representing to us the merciful dealing of the Master with the spirits which are beaten and bruised, sore and wounded, by sorrows and calamities; to whom the Christ comes in all the tenderness of His gentleness, and lays a hand upon …
734 wordsSECTION 136The Secret Of Immortal Youth
Whether, then, the dimly-burning wick be taken to symbolise the lingering remains of a better nature which still abides with all sinful men, yet capable of redemption, or whether it be taken to mean the low and imperfect and inconsistent and feeble Christianity of us professing Christians, the words of my text are equa…
763 wordsSECTION 137The Blind Man'S Guide
'What in me is dark Illumine; what is low, raise and support,' in the confidence that He will hear and answer. If you do that you will not do it in vain, but His gentle hand laid upon you will heal the bruises that sin has made. Out of your weakness, as of 'a reed shaken with the wind,' the Restorer will make a pilla…
616 wordsSECTION 138Thy Name: My Name
'I have called thee by thy name.'--ISAIAH xliii. 1. 'Every one that is called by My name.'--ISAIAH xliii. 7. Great stress is laid on names in Scripture. These two parallel and antithetic clauses bring out striking complementary relations between God and the collective Israel. But they are as applicable to each indivi…
252 wordsSECTION 139Jacob--Israel--Jeshurun
'Yet now hear, O Jacob My servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen.... Fear not, O Jacob, My servant; and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.--ISAIAH xliv. 1, 2. You observe that there are here three different names applied to the Jewish nation. Two of them, namely Jacob and Israel, were borne by their great ancestor, …
706 wordsSECTION 140Jacob--Israel--Jeshurun
Have you ever been beaten out of all your confidence, and ground down into the dust of self-disgust and self-abandonment? Have you ever felt, 'there is nothing in me or about me that I can cling to or rely upon'? Have you ever in the thickest of that darkness had, gleaming in upon your solitude, the vision of His face,…
650 wordsSECTION 141Jacob--Israel--Jeshurun
How do they print photographs? By taking sensitive paper, and laying it, in touch with the negative, in the sun. Lay your spirits on Christ, and keep them still, touching Him, in the light of God, and that will turn you into His likeness. That, and nothing else will do it. II. And now there is a second lesson from the…
794 wordsSECTION 142Jacob--Israel--Jeshurun
III. Then there is another lesson still which I draw from these words, viz. the merciful judgment which God makes of the character of them that love Him. Jeshurun means 'the righteous one.' How far beneath the ideal of the name these Jewish people fell we all know, and yet the name is applied to them. Although the rea…
656 wordsSECTION 143Feeding On Ashes
'Ye are the lights of the world.' His life passeth into all that love Him in the measure of their trust and love. We are one with Jesus if we rest upon Him; one in life, one in character, approximating by slow degrees, but surely, to His likeness; and blessed be His name! one in destiny. Then, my friend, if you will on…
687 wordsSECTION 144Feeding On Ashes
Dear brethren, the underlying truth is this--God is the only food of a man's soul. You pick up the skeleton of a bird upon a moor; and if you know anything about osteology--the science of bones--you will see, in the very make of its breast-bone and its wing-bones, the declaration that its destiny was to soar into the b…
960 wordsSECTION 145Feeding On Ashes
Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career, Embroidered lies, nothing between two dishes, These are the pleasures here.' 'He feedeth on ashes,' because he does not take God for the food of his soul. II. So, secondly, notice that a life which thus ignores God is tragically unaware of its own emptiness. 'A deceived he…
657 wordsSECTION 146Feeding On Ashes
One sometimes hears of cowardly, unmanly sailors, who in shipwreck push the women and children aside, and struggle to the boats. And there are in all of us groups of sturdy mendicants, so to speak, who elbow their way to the front, and will have their wants satisfied. What becomes of the gentler group that stand behind…
679 wordsSECTION 147Writing Blotted Out And Mist Melted
As of old He made the thousands sit down upon the grass, and they did all eat and were filled, so He stands before the world to-day and says, 'I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger.' And if you will only come to Him--that is to say, will trust yourselves altogether to the merits of His sacrifi…
738 wordsSECTION 148Writing Blotted Out And Mist Melted
And so what becomes of the hazy distinction between great sins and little ones? An overt act of rebellion is of the same gravity, whatsoever may be its form. The man that lifts his sword against the sovereign, and the man behind him that holds his horse, are equally criminal. And when once you let in the notion that in…
664 wordsSECTION 149Writing Blotted Out And Mist Melted
This metaphor will bear a little further expansion. Scripture tells us, and conscience tells us, what manner of manuscript it is that we are each so busy adding line upon line to. It is a ledger; it is an indictment. Our own handwriting puts down in the ledger our own debts, and we cannot deny our own handwriting when …
787 wordsSECTION 150Writing Blotted Out And Mist Melted
Not only by reason of dimming and darkening my thoughts of Him is my sin rightly compared to an obscuring cloud; but the comparison also holds good because, just as the blanket of a wet mist swathing the wintry fields prevents the sunshine from falling upon them in blessing, so the accumulated effect of my evil doings …
665 wordsSECTION 151Hidden And Revealed
Now, brother, my text speaks of this great blotting out as a past fact. It is so in the divine mind with regard to each of us, because Christ's great work has made reconciliation and atonement for all the sins of all the world. And on the fact that it is past is based the exhortation, 'Return unto Me, for I have redeem…
675 wordsSECTION 152Hidden And Revealed
I. After all revelation, God is hidden. There is revelation of His Name in all His works. His action must be all self-manifestation. But after all it is obscure and hidden. 1. Nature hides while it reveals. Nature's revelation is unobtrusive. God is concealed behind second causes. God is concealed behind regular m…
785 wordsSECTION 153Hidden And Revealed
2. That whatever obscurity there may be, there is none which hides the divine invitation or Him from those who obey it. 'I have never said ... seek ye Me in vain.' Much is obscure if speculative completeness is looked for, but the moral relations of God and man are not obscure. All which the heart needs is made known…
565 wordsSECTION 154A Righteousness Near And A Swift Salvation
'Hearken unto Me, ye stout-hearted, that are far from righteousness: I bring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My salvation shall not tarry.'--ISAIAH xlvi. 12,13. God has promised that He will dwell with him that is humble and of a contrite heart. Jesus has shed the oil of His benediction on the poor…
659 wordsSECTION 155A Righteousness Near And A Swift Salvation
It is mine if by faith I claim it as mine, and knit myself with Him who is righteousness and salvation for every man that they may be accessible to and possessed by any man. A man may be far from righteousness though it is near him and all around him. Like Gideon's fleece, he may be dry when all is wet, or like some r…
319 wordsSECTION 156A River Of Peace And Waves Of Righteousness
'Oh that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.'--ISAIAH xlviii. 18. I. The Wonderful Thought of God here. This is an exclamation of disappointment; of thwarted love. The good which He purposed has been missed by man's fault, and He …
553 wordsSECTION 157Contents.
ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D. Isaiah, Chaps. XLIX to End. Jeremiah. FEEDING IN THE WAYS (Isaiah xlix. 9) THE MOUNTAIN ROAD (Isaiah xlix. 11) THE WRITING ON GOD'S HANDS (Isaiah xlix. 16) THE SERVANT'S WORDS TO THE WEARY (Isaiah l. 4) THE SERVANT'S OBEDIENCE (Isaiah l. 5) THE SERVANT'S VOLUNTARY SUFFERINGS (…
266 wordsSECTION 158Feeding In The Ways
GOD'S LAWSUIT (Jer. ii. 9) STIFF-NECKED IDOLATERS AND PLIABLE CHRISTIANS (Jer. ii. 11) FOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS (Jer. ii. 13) FORSAKING JEHOVAH (Jer. ii. 19) A COLLOQUY BETWEEN A PENITENT AND GOD (Jer. iii. 21, 22) A QUESTION FOR THE BEGINNING (Jer. v. 31) POSSESSING AND POSSESSED (Jer. x. 16, R.V.) CALMS AND CRISE…
937 wordsSECTION 159Feeding In The Ways
The food which God gives us is not only to be taken by faith, but it has to be made ours more abundantly by work. Saint Augustine said in another connection, 'Believe, and thou hast eaten.' Yes, that is blessedly true, but it needs to be supplemented by 'they shall feed _in the ways_,' and their work will bring them no…
822 wordsSECTION 160Feeding In The Ways
May I turn these latter words of our text a somewhat different way, attaching to them a meaning which does not belong to them, but by way of accommodation? If Christian people want to have the bread of God abundantly, they must climb. It is to those who live on the heights that provision comes according to their need. …
423 wordsSECTION 161The Mountain Road
'And I will make all My mountains a way, and My highways shall be exalted.'--ISAIAH xlix. 11. This grand prophecy is far too wide to be exhausted by the return of the exiles. There gleamed through it the wider redemption and the true return of the real captives. The previous promises all find their fulfilment in the e…
519 wordsSECTION 162The Writing On God'S Hands
'Behold! I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me.'--ISAIAH xlix. 16. In the preceding context we have the infinitely tender and beautiful words: 'Zion hath said, The Lord hath forsaken me. Can a woman forget her sucking child? ... yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget t…
673 wordsSECTION 163The Writing On God'S Hands
That remembrance which each man may take for himself--and we are poor Christians if we do not live in its light--is infinitely tender. The echo of the music of the previous words still haunts the verse, and the remembrance promised in it is touched with more than a mother's love. 'I am poor and needy,' says the Psalmis…
846 wordsSECTION 164The Writing On God'S Hands
III. A last thought here is that the divine remembrance works all things, to realise a great ideal end, as yet unreached. 'Thy walls are continually before Me.' When this prophecy was uttered the Israelites were in captivity, and the city was a wilderness, 'the holy and beautiful House'--as this very book says--'where…
459 wordsSECTION 165The Servant'S Words To The Weary
'The Lord God hath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary; he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught.'--ISAIAH l. 4. In chapter xlix. 1-6, the beginning of the continuous section of which these verses are pa…
739 wordsSECTION 166The Servant'S Words To The Weary
II. The training and preparation of the Messiah for His mission. The Messiah is here represented as having the tongue of 'them that are taught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar--a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, b…
679 wordsSECTION 167The Servant'S Obedience
'I was not rebellious, neither turned away back'--ISAIAH l. 5. I. The secret of Christ's life, filial obedience. The fact is attested by Scripture. By His own words: 'My meat is to do the will of My Father'; 'For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness'; 'I came down from heaven not to do My own will.' By His…
415 wordsSECTION 168The Servant'S Voluntary Sufferings
'I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting.'--ISAIAH l. 6. Such words are not to be dealt with coldly. Unless they be grasped by the heart they are not grasped at all. We do not think of analysing in the presence of a great sorrow. There c…
770 wordsSECTION 169The Servant'S Voluntary Sufferings
III. His submission to suffering in obedience to the Father's Will. The context connects His opened ear and His not being rebellious with His giving His back to the smiters. That involves the idea that these indignities and insults were part of the divine counsel in reference to Him. That same combination of ideas is …
617 wordsSECTION 170The Servant'S Inflexible Resolve
'For the Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set My face like a flint.'--ISAIAH l. 7. What a striking contrast between the tone of these words and of the preceding! There all is gentleness, docility, still communion, submission, patient endurance. Here all is energy and determi…
792 wordsSECTION 171The Servant'S Inflexible Resolve
This inflexible resolve is associated in Him with characteristics not usually allied with it. The gentleness of Christ is so obvious in His character that little needs to be said to point it out. To the influence of His character more than to any other cause may be traced the change in the perspective, so to speak, of …
704 wordsSECTION 172The Servant'S Triumph
'He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me? let us stand together: who is Mine adversary? let him come near to Me. 9. Behold, the Lord God will help Me; who is he that shall condemn Me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.'--ISAIAH l. 8, 9. We have reached the final words …
690 wordsSECTION 173The Servant'S Triumph
Now, unless Christ was sinless, what do we say of these assertions? 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us'--are we to apply that canon to Him when He stands before us and asks, 'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' Surely it augurs small self-knowledge or a low moral standard if…
711 wordsSECTION 174The Servant'S Triumph
II. The Messiah's expectation of divine vindication and acquittal. Like many another man, Christ had to strengthen Himself against calumny and slander by turning to God, and finding comfort in the belief that there was One who would do Him right, and as throughout this context we have had the true humanity of our Lord…
678 wordsSECTION 175The Servant'S Triumph
We are 'justified' in His 'justification.' The real connection between us and Christ by faith, makes our justification to be involved in His, so that it is no mere accommodation but a profound perception of the real relation between Christ and us, when Paul, in Romans viii. 34, triumphantly claims the words of our tex…
668 wordsSECTION 176The Servant'S Triumph
I. Faith the light in the darkness of the world. II. Faith the light in the darkness of the soul. III. Faith the light in every stage of Christian progress. * * * * * I. Faith our light in the darkness of the world. The mystery and standing problem of the Old Testament is the coexistence of goodness and sorrow, and …
663 wordsSECTION 177The Servant'S Triumph
II. Faith, our light in the darkness of the soul. No doubt there may be such a thing as true fear of God in the soul along with spiritual darkness, faith without the joy of faith. Now this condition seems contradictory of the very nature of the Christian life. For religion is union with God who is light, and if we wal…
667 wordsSECTION 178The Servant'S Triumph
Trust, do not think about your sins. Trust, do not think so much about your joy. It is in the occupation of heart and mind with Jesus that joy and peace come. To make them our direct aim is the way not to attain them. Though now there seems a long wintry interval between seed time and harvest, yet 'in due season we s…
710 wordsSECTION 179Dying Fires
'Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that gird yourselves about with firebrands: walk ye in the flame of your fire, and among the brands that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.'--ISAIAH l. 11. The scene brought before us in these words is that of a company of belated travelle…
683 wordsSECTION 180Dying Fires
Men try to free themselves from the miseries of ignorance, sin, and sorrow. Think of the insufficiency of all such attempts, the feeble flicker which glimmers for an hour, and then fuel fails and it goes out. Then the travellers can journey no further, but 'lie down in sorrow,' and without a watchfire they become a pr…
438 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.