The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 381

idle to talk about turning to God. Buch religion is a sentiment, not a salvation. Then there are "inequities" in relation to God. We have been: 1. Unjust to his government. 2. We have robbed him of ourselves. 3. We have aided the forces of rebellion. 4. We have, in one word, done iniquity. II. THE DISTANCE CREATED BY srn. The separation is moral. He is near tons- close, indeed, to us as the air we breathe. But we are at opposite poles of the moral universe. 1. Separated in nature. We are not renewed in his image. 2. Separated in purpose. Our will is set against his will. All separations are painful. We F.ee them in the family and in the nation. Wars and feuds abound on every side. So we are alienated from the life of God. Christ, and he alone, can break down the middle wall of partition, and through faith in him we may be reconciled by one Spirit unto the Father.-W. M. S. Ver. 16.-Salvation-not in man. "And be saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor." It seemed a dark hour for the world. Evidently a dead nation cannot arise of itself, any more than a dead man. It is a time of wonderment. Great men often arise for great occasions; but there is no man, that is, no mere man, equal to this occasion. But- I. "GoD IB ms OWN INTERPRETER." He makes plain his own mysteries alike in providence and in redemption. There is silence everywhere, that he himself may be heard. There is no other hand, that his own may be made bare before the nations. II. GoD IS THE WORLD'S ONLY SAVIOUR AND INTERCESSOR, In the Person of his Soo, he fulfils all the evangelic strains of Isaiah. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." 1. It is still wonderful. "Lo! I come to do thy will, 0 God!" "Behold the Lamb of God!" Angels cannot see into the depths of such a mystery as this. 2. It is true as wonderful. "His arm brought salvation." Look and see. Christianity can be tested as a history as well as a prophecy. When we see that dark degraded Roman world, with its lust and licence, its cruelties and pageantries, its very worship turned to aids to vice, and then read, " Such were some of you : but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified," we exclaim, "What hath God wrought?"- W. M. S. Ver. 19.-The successful standard. "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up e. standard against him." 'fhe standard is highly prized in war. On it are engraven the names of special victories and the fields of old renowned. It is the last disgrace to lose the standard, and in many a foray and fierce campaign men have fallen in heaps around the standard-bearer. Think- I. OF THE VIOTORIBS ENG RA VEN ON THE STANDARD OF TilE LORD. Of truth over error; righteousness over injustice; purity over lust; God over mammon. II. OF THE SPECIAL SEASONS IN WHICH INIQUITY COMES IN' LIKE A FLOOD. Times such as those of the profligate Stuarts, when the sabbath was desecrated and debasing plays were acted. Times when the pride of priestcraft and power drove out the faithful from the land. Times when the Bible itself was put under a ba.u, and the flood-gates of evil were left open. Nothing then withstood, and nothing will ever withstand, the tides of sin, but the Word of God. Utility, expediency, propriety,-these are but thin "withes" that the giant snaps; these are but gossamer gates through which the torrent roars. Nothing is 11trong but the Spirit of the Lord working in us and with us.- W. M. S. Vers. 1, 2.-The true and the false account of Divine inactivity. How comes it to pass that the people of the Lord are in such distress ? How do we account for the fact that the cause of Christ makes such slow progress or even shows symptoms of decline and failure? Where is the Lord God of Israel? Is the Spirit of God present in the midst of the Churches? I. THE APPARENTLY INEXHAUSTIBLE FOBOES AT OUR OOJIOlAND. For our resources we have: 1. The fulness of Divine pity. The ear of God is open to the ery of destitution, of pain, of sorrow, of spiritual yearning. His heart of tenderness is touched by the miseries and necessities of his children. 2. The almightiness of Divine power. The "right hand of the Lord" is on all the springs and forces of the universe; he can compel all  394 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [oH. ux.1-lll.