The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: "Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?" Sermons
I. THE TESTING FIRES. These are future, but they are not altogether future. Perhaps we shall presently come to see that the passing testings are more serious than the future ones. Every life-work must be tried with fire; it is being tried with fire. Every day we are in the "everlasting burnings." Life is God's testing fire. This is illustrated by the influence national calamities have upon nations. Through baptisms of blood and devouring fires nations come forth purified. "Through much tribulation [God's testing for us] we must all enter the kingdom" II. THE EFFECT OF THE TESTING FIRES ON THE EVIL-MINDED. Symbolized is the panic of the godless folk in Jerusalem when Sennacherib drew nigh. At the sound of threatening they took alarm, and hurried to Egypt for help. Their vain self-confidences fell about them as soon as the test was applied. Can we face the judicial and punitive action of that Divine Providence which works even here? and how can we face the judicial and punitive action in the future? III. THE EFFECT OF THE TESTING FIRES ON THE GOOD-MINDED. They cannot escape from the common earthly conditions. The fires try every man's spirit and every man's work. There are some - should we not be among them? - on whom even the "second death" hath no power. - R.T.
The sinners in Zion are afraid. What a contradiction in terms! what a shock to the fancy! Zion! fair Zion, a dewdrop, a glittering star, a garden of beauty, a sweet flower, porcelain without a flaw, honey without wax — Zion! Then, "sinners in Zion" — sinners out of place; they spoil the situation; they are an evil blot in the fair landscape. Sinners in the wilderness, sinners in polluted cities, sinners in hell — there you have a kind of music that has an accord and consonance of its own; but sinners in Zion!(J. Parker, D. D.) II. THEIR PRESENT STATE. "Afraid," &c. If temporal judgments, like those which God wrought upon the Assyrian army, had such an effect upon the sinners in Zion, what will be the terror of transgressors in prospect, of the everlasting judgments of God? III. THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?" &c. (J. E. Starey.) ( C. H. Spurgeon.) The man that stole the livery of heaven to serve the devil in.(Robert Pollok.) Gates of Imagery. A large price was demanded for a picture as being the work of an old master. It was on a panel, and some one looking behind it saw that the panel was mahogany. The picture was at once seen to be a fraud, for mahogany was not known in Europe until long after the death of the artist who was said to have painted it. A man by craft and hypocrisy may make himself look beautiful to his fellowmen, and be honoured for saintliness of character, but God looks behind the goodly show and detects the imposture at a glance. Only what is real will bear His inspection.(Gates of Imagery.) Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? (with 1 John 4:16: "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God"): — These two passages, striking as is the contrast, refer to the same subject, and substantially preach the same truth. A hasty reader, who is more influenced by sound than by sense, is apt to suppose that the solemn expressions in my first text — "the devouring fire" and the "everlasting burnings" — mean hell. They mean God, as is quite obvious from the context. The man who is to "dwell in the devouring fire" is the good man; he that is able to abide the "everlasting burnings" is "the man that walks righteously and speaks uprightly," that "despises the gain of oppression, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil." So that, plainly, here the fire is the destructive side of that Divine nature which, in its flashing brightness of holiness, cannot but burn up and consume evil. And the question of my text is in effect equivalent to this question: "Who among us can abide peacefully, joyfully, fed and brightened, not consumed and annihilated, by that flashing brightness and purity?" The prophet's answer is the answer of common sense. Like draws to like. If the fire of God be the holiness of God in its lustrous brilliance, then a holy God must have holy companions. But that is not all. The fire of God is the fire of love as well as the fire of purity; a fire that blesses and quickens, as well as a fire that destroys and consumes. So the Apostle John comes with his answer, not contradicting the other one, but deepening it, expanding it, letting us see the foundations of it, and proclaiming that as a holy God must be surrounded by holy hearts, which will open themselves to the flame as flowers to the sunshine, so a loving God must be clustered about by loving hearts, who alone can enter into deep and true fellowship with Him. The two answers, then, are one at bottom; and when Isaiah asks, "Who shall dwell with the ever-lasting fire?" — the perpetual fire, burning and unconsumed, of that Divine righteousness — the deepest answer, which is no stern requirement but a merciful promise, is John's answer, "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God."(A. Maclaren, D. D.) I. THE WORLD'S QUESTION. Frequently in the Old Testament the emblem of fire is employed to express the Divine nature. In many places, though by no means in all, the prominent idea in the emblem is that of the purity of the Divine nature, which flashes and flames as against all which is evil and sinful. So we read in one grand passage in this very book, "the Light of Israel shall become a fire." And we read, too, in the description of the symbolical manifestation of the Divine nature which accompanied the giving of the law on Sinai, that "the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain," and yet into that blaze and brightness the Law-giver went and moved in it. There is in the Divine nature a side of antagonism and opposition to evil, which fights against it, and flames against it, and labours to consume it. But then, on the other side, the fire is also the fire of perfect love that quickens and blesses. And these two are one. God's wrath is a form of God's love; God hates because He loves. Well, that being so, the question rises to every mind of ordinary thoughtfulness: "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" A God fighting against evil; can you and I hope to hold familiar fellowship with Him? To "dwell with everlasting burnings" means two things — first, to hold familiar intercourse and communion with God. What sort of a man will do that? Can you? Is it likely that you should? The second of the things that it means is to face and bear the action of the fire, the judicial action, the judgment of the present and of the future.II. THE PROPHET'S ANSWER. He says if a man is to hold fellowship with, or to face the judgment of the pure and righteous God, the plainest dictate of reason and common sense is that he himself must be pure and righteous to match. And the details into which his answer to the question runs out are all very homely, prosaic, pedestrian kind of virtues, nothing at all out of the way, nothing that people would call splendid or heroic. If you will turn to the Psalm 15. and 24. you will find there two other variations of the same questions, and the same answer, both of which were obviously in our prophet's mind when he spoke. The requirements of the most moderate conscience are such as none of us is able to comply with. And what then? Am I to be shut up to despair? am I to say, then, nobody can dwell with that bright flame? III. THE APOSTLE'S ANSWER. "God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God." Now, to begin with, let us distinctly understand that the New Testament answer, represented by John's great words, entirely endorses Isaiah's; and the difference between the two is not that the Old Testament, as represented by Psalmist and Prophet, said: "You must be righteous in order to dwell with God, and that the New Testament says: You need not be!" Not at all! John is just as vehement in saying that nothing but purity can bind a man in thoroughly friendly and familiar conjunction with God as David or Isaiah was. What, then, is the difference between them? It is this, for one thing. Isaiah tells us we must be righteous; John tells us how we may be. And now you have got to the very bottom of the matter. That is the first step of the ladder — faith: the second step is love, and the third is righteousness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) If you will only remove from that word "anger" the mere human associations which cleave to it, of passion on the one hand, and of a wish to hurl its object on the other, then you cannot, I think, deny to the Divine nature the possession of that passionless and unmalignant wrath without striking a fatal blow at the perfect purity of God. A God that does not hate evil, that does not flame out against it, using all the energies of His being to destroy it, is a God to whose character there cleaves the fatal suspicion of indifference to good, of moral apathy. If I have not a God to trust in that hates evil because He loveth righteousness, then "the pillared firmament itself were rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble"; nor were there any hope that this damnable thing that is killing and sucking the life-blood out of our spirits should ever be destroyed and cast aside. It is short-sighted wisdom, and it is cruel kindness, to tamper with the thought of the wrath of God, the "everlasting burnings" of that eternally pure nature wherewith it wages war against all sin!(A. Maclaren, D. D.) To Isaiah, life was so penetrated by the active justice of God, that he described it as bathed in fire, as blown through with fire.(Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.) People Ariel, IsaiahPlaces Bashan, Carmel, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Sharon, ZionTopics Afraid, Age, Burning, Burnings, Consuming, Continual, Devouring, Dwell, Eternal, Everlasting, Fear, Fearfulness, Fire, Flames, Full, Godless, Grips, Haters, Hypocrites, Ones, Profane, Seized, Shaking, Sinners, Surprised, Terrified, Trembling, Ungodly, Wonder, ZionOutline 1. God's judgments against the enemies of the church13. The consternation of sinners, and privileges of the godly Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 33:14 4826 fire 8792 oppression, God's attitude Library April 2. "He Shall Dwell on High" (Isa. xxxiii. 16). "He shall dwell on high" (Isa. xxxiii. 16). It is easier for a consecrated Christian to live an out and out life for God than to live a mixed life. A soul redeemed and sanctified by Christ is too large for the shoals and sands of a selfish, worldly, sinful life. The great steamship, St. Paul, could sail in deep water without an effort, but she could make no progress in the shallow pool, or on the Long Branch sands; the smallest tugboat is worth a dozen of her there; but out in mid-ocean she could … Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth The Fortress of the Faithful The Rivers of God Judge, Lawgiver, King How to Dwell in the Fire of God The Border of his Sanctuary April 3 Evening Question of the Contemplative Life Necessity of Contemplating the Judgment-Seat of God, in Order to be Seriously Convinced of the Doctrine of Gratuitous Justification. A vision of the King. The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New. Seven Sanctified Thoughts and Mournful Sighs of a Sick Man Ready to Die. Three Things Briefly to be Regarded in Christ --viz. His Offices of Prophet, King, and Priest. The Angel of the Lord in the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua. The Blessed Privilege of Seeing God Explained A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon "And the Life. " How Christ is the Life. Isaiah Links Isaiah 33:14 NIVIsaiah 33:14 NLT Isaiah 33:14 ESV Isaiah 33:14 NASB Isaiah 33:14 KJV Isaiah 33:14 Bible Apps Isaiah 33:14 Parallel Isaiah 33:14 Biblia Paralela Isaiah 33:14 Chinese Bible Isaiah 33:14 French Bible Isaiah 33:14 German Bible Isaiah 33:14 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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