The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 28

pre.yere mny be unexceptionnble, so far as time, place, demeanour, and even language are concerned, nnd yet they may be fruitless, because our mind is not attuned to the true spirit of devotion. We have hrrc five features which should always characterize our approach to God. I. A. DEEP SENSE OF TEE DIVINE PRESENOE. "That dwellest between the cherubim;" i.e. the God that has come down and hae taken up his abode in the midst of us-a God at hand and not afar off. Hezekiah spread the letter before the Lord (ver. 14), before the Preeent One. It is a point of the first importance that we should feel, in prayer, that God is with us in very deed and truth ; that we stand in his near presence; that th~ angels who inhabit the heavenly kingdom are not more truly, though they may be more consciously, before him than are we as we take hie Name on our lips and breathe our petitions into his ear. II. A. IlEVERENTIAL REMEMBRANCE OF BIB MAJESTY. "Thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingrloms of the earth," Our bolJness in prayer (Heb. iv. 16) must stop short of anything like irreverence. Our Lord himself was "heard in that he feared" (Heb. v. 7); much more doee it become us to think and to speak with holy awo when we address the Majesty of heaven ; we must ever have in mind that it is the one only God, the Lord of hosts, the Infinite and Eternal Oae, to whom we are addressing ourselves (see Gen. xviii. 23-32). III. FULL CONFIDENCE IN ms DIVINE POWER. "Thou hast made heaven and earth." To doubt God's power to interpose on our behalf, by whatever restraints we imagine that power to be limiled, must be painful to him, and must invalidate our prayer. To have a firm assurance that God is able to sustain, to supply, to deliver us; to feel that no obstacles of any kind can prevent his interposition on our behalf, if he only sees it to be wise and right to intervene, is to bo right-minded in devotion. IV. A. HOLY CONFIDENCE IN BIB DIVINE INTEREST IN us. Hezekiah addressed Jehovah as the "God of Israel" (ver. 16); i.e. the God who had a peculiar interest in Israel, "the chosen peovle," his own "inheritance," "a people near unto him" (Ps. cxlviii. 14). We place ourselves in accord with God's will concerning us, not when we presuppose that the most urgent entreaties have to be made to secure his interest in us and in our affairs, but rather when we assume the fact that we are the objects of his deep solicitude, that we are near to his heart, e.nd that be is disposed to do all that is needful for our present well-being and future blessedness. V. UNSELFISUNESS OF SPIRIT. Hezekiah pleaded with the Lord, not his own and his people's exlremities, but the dishonour which had been cast on the Name of J ebovah, and the need there was for that Name lo be glorified before the nations (vers. 17-20). We may plead with God our own necessities, both temporal and spiritual; but we are in the true mood, in tbo right spirit, when we rise above all sel6sh considerations. 1. We do well to pray for our suffering and necessitous friends. 2. We do better to pray for our lost and perishing race. 3. We do best to pray for the extension of our Saviour's kingdom and the cxaltatiou of his holy Name. The pmyer which the Lord taught his disciples may teach us the "order ol merit" in regard to our desires when we bow down e.t the throne of grace.--C. Vera. 21-29.-The intoxication of success, etc. The first thing of which this passage speaks, and of that it speaks very forcibly, is- I. THE INTOXICATION OF UNHOLY SUCCESS. The tone of this Assyrian monarch was one of insolent arrogance. His military achievements had implanted in his miud the notion that he had done much greater things than he had actually accomplished, and had exerted the idea that he could achieve other things which were wholly out of his power. He magnifies his victories and over-estimates his capacity (vers. 23-25). This is the common consequence of success-even of success which is not unholy, which is not obtained regardless of the power and will of God; it is sometimes the unhappy result of success in se.cred ministries; how much more so must it be, and is it fouud to be, the result in the case of those who" fenr not .God, nor rego.rd man"! Unholy suc- cess intoxicntes. It makes men imagine that they have doue far greater thiugs than they have achieved, and that they have become far greater people than they are. It often renrs its head so high that, as with Sennacherib, arrogance passes into blasphemy (ver, 23) or iuto presumptuous impiety. 1, Shrink from all sncccss that is not gaiocJ  30 TBE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH, [cu. xxxvn.1-88,