The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 77

course of life "whose eyes are full of adultery," or whose cheeks aro stained with intoxi- cation, or whose features are drawn together with cruelty; those who, instead of" bearing in their body the marks of the Lord Jesus," carry with them the signs of Satan's service? It is a fact which may well make the guilty wince and hesitate before they continue, that, by the operarion of God's righteous laws, the sin which at the beginning they would fain hide in the depths of their own soul, will at length be written on the tablet of the body, and " the show of their countenance will witness against them." II. THAT BIN, IN ITS LATER STAGES, SCORNS TO BII SCREENED FROM VIEW, "They declare their sin, ... they hide it not" (ver. 9). In the fuither stages of iniquity there is no attempt, for there is no desire, to hide the wrong thing from view. Shame gradually declines until it passes away, and in its place there g,ows up a horrible pride in sin. Men come to gloat over that from which they ought to shrink with utmost sense of humiliation; they" glory in their shame" (Phil. iii. 19). This is eminently true of acts of rapacHy and fraud; it also applies to sins of direct ungodliness and of eelf- indulgence. III. THAT BIN IS ALWAYS WORKING TOWARDS RUIN. "Woe unto their soul; they have rewarded evil unto themselves" (ver. 9). "Woe unto the wicked," etc. (ver. 11). Sin sometimes prospers long; the" sinner may do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely we know . . . that it shall not be well with the wicked" (Eccles. viii. 12, 13). Nor is it well when the end comes (see Ps. lxxiii. 1-20). 1. Sin tends to temporal ill-being, to penury, to sickness, to early death. 2. Sin tends to isolation, to the withdrawal of confidence and affection on the part of the good and worthy, to • dishonour, and even degradation. 3. Sin must inevitably lead to spiritual deterioration and, if it be persisted in, to spiritual death. "The wages of sin is death." 4. Sin finally conducts to condemnation and exile from the home of God. .Alas ! for the soul that is impenitent, that seeks not Divine mercy, that does not return on its way to the living God and to his righteousness. There is a world of meaning in that one small word which constitutes here such a significant sentence-"ill." IV. THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS MAY BEST SECURE IN HOPE. (Ver. 10.) It may seem ill to the righteous; " weeping may endure for a night." He may find himself inclined to sigh," All these things are against me" (Gen. xlii. 36). But" unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." 'l.'he converse of all that applies to the ungodly is true of the godly. Righteousness (1) tends to prosperity here; (2) begets trust and love; (3) results in moral excellency-the good man finds that honesty, purity, truthfulness, sobriety, kindness, etc., issue in spiritual increase, in a harvest of inward good, and thus he "eats the fruit of his doings;" (4) conducts at last to the heavenly land. where he who does the will of God" is recompensed at the resurrection of the just."-C. Vers. 12-15.-Penalty, natural and supernatural. We learn- I. THAT THE NATURAL RESULT OF FOLLY IS TO BE GOVERNED BY THOSE WHO RAVE NO RIGHT TO RULE. 1. The nation suffers this penalty. As with Judah now (ver. 12), so with each and every country ill its turn and in its way. U=anliness, frivolity, wickedness among the people, will be reflected in the sovereign power. A nation that lives supremely for material enrichment, or for military conquest, or for pleasurable excitement, must expect to see upon the throne-in the government-men who will represent their evil genius, who will pamper their evil tastes, who will" cause them to err" more wildly, and "destroy them in the way of thy paths." Action and reaction are here as everywhere; the folly of the people expresses itself in the weakness and perversity of the ruler, and these qualities on his part tell in their timo and measure upon them. 2. The Church endures the same evil. Unspirituality, discord, unbelief, laxity in the Christian community, will certainly issue in a degenerate ecclesiastical authority, and the ruler, using or abusing his opportuuity, will lead astray and destroy. 3. The individual finds the rnme natural law operating on him ar,d on his life. By his folly he allows passions instead of principles, impulses instead of convictions, men instead of God, to be his rulers, his " oppressors ; " and these cause him to err; they pervert the way of his paths. II. THAT THEY WHO Alli!: GUILTY OF MISRULE AND PERVERSITY MUST LOOK FOR THE BIGHTE0UB VISITATION OF Goo. (Vers. 13-15.) "The Lord standeth up to plead," "to  62 'l'HE llOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [orr. m. 1-20.