Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: "How dare you question Me about My sons, or instruct Me in the work of My hands? Sermons
I. THE MURMURER AGAINST PROVIDENCE. He is compared to a "potsherd among potsherds on the ground." "Woe unto him who, though made of earth, and with no intrinsic authority over others of his race, presumes to find fault with the Maker!" (cf. Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:1-6; Jeremiah 19:1, 10, 11; Romans 9:20-24). In the account of the Creation, the Almighty is conceived as making man out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). Shall the clay, then, quarrel with the plastic hand of the Potter? How can the distance between man and God be better expressed than by the tautology, "God is God, and man is man"? or that he is Maker, man the made? "Since matters stand thus between God and us, let us consider what bands we are in, and what an irresistible grip has hold of us; and let that teach us, even for our sakes, to be quiet under it. There is, indeed, but one way of encountering an infinite power; and that is by an extraordinary (if it were possible), an infinite patience" (South). Is it natural, again, for the child to complain of its parents that it has been brought deformed or weakly into the world? Nor is it becoming of men to catechize and call to account Jehovah. "Are ye children of God? Then is it well with you; and to murmur against me is as if ye should renounce your sonship." II. THE ABSURDITY OF MURMURING. To criticize the Creator is to assume a knowledge we have not got. We should be creators ourselves before we could say whether this or that part of the great world-work could have been otherwise executed. It is also to assume a knowledge of the clues of history, the springs of sudden events, which is not ours. And Jehovah reminds man again of his providential relation to Cyrus. His absolute unquestionable dominion and sovereignty over all things is the great argument for our submission to him. His dominion is founded on an inalienable title - Creation and Providence. It is reasonable that the first cause should be the Supreme Governor; and whatever has been made by God should also be commanded by him. He might have chosen whether he would have made the world or no; for he had no need of it to complete or add to his happiness, which was infinitely perfect within the compass of his own glorious being. Yet he was pleased, by the free motion of his will, to communicate and diffuse some little shadow of those perfections upon the creatures, and more especially upon his nearer resemblances, men and angels. A being essentially wise cannot do anything but wisely. Our ignorance of God's actions cannot make them or argue them to be unreasonable. He is more honored by our admiration than by our inquiries. Hence the necessity, the prudence, and the becomingness of submission, without murmuring to his allotments. - J. Thus saith the Lord... Ask Me. "Ask Me, but do not criticise Me." "Command Me" must mean "leave to My care." () "The Lord" — that is, God in His everlasting redemptive purpose; "the Holy One of Israel" — that is, the moral perfections of Israel's God, as contrasted with the abominations perpetrated under the sanction of heathen religions; "his Maker" — suggesting the purpose which from the clay gathered in Abraham's time from the highlands of Mesopotamia, was fashioning a fair vessel meet for His use. This threefold description of God introduces the august command which bade the people seek by prayer the fulfilment of the purpose on which the Divine heart was set. () () I. PRAYER IS A NECESSARY LINK IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THE DIVINE PROMISES. "Ask Me of things to come." Even to the Son, Jehovah says," "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen," &c. And to the chosen people, at the end of a paragraph beginning with "I will," and unfolding the work which He is prepared to do, not for their sakes, but for His own — He says, "For this, moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." Our Lord is unremitting in the stress He lays on prayer, and pledges Himself to do only whatsoever is asked in His name.1. Prayer is part of the system of co-operation between God and man which pervades nature and life. 2. Prayer, when genuine, indicates the presence of a disposition to which God can entrust His best gifts without injury to the recipient. To bless some men, apart from humility and submission, and weanedness of soul from creature aid, would only injure. And so, in His dear love, God withholds His choicest gifts until the heart is sore broken, and cries to Him. That cry is the blessed symptom of soul-health. 3. Prayer is also in its essence, when inspired by faith, an openness towards God, a receptiveness, a faculty of apprehending with open hand what He would impart. Let us pray —(1) Unitedly. God would be inquired of by the "house" of Israel.(2) Sympathetically. A prayer offered in the presence of others should receive their endorsement.(3) Earnestly. The Divine gauge of the worth of prayer is its pressure on the heart of God.(4) In the name of Jesus. II. THE IMPERATIVE ACCENT IN FAITH. "Concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands, command ye Me." Our Lord spoke in this tone when He said, "Father, I will." Joshua used it when in the supreme moment of triumph he lifted up his spear towards the setting sun, and cried, "Sun, stand thou still!" Elijah used it when he shut the heavens for three years and six months, and again opened them. Luther used it when, kneeling by the dying Melanchthon, he forbade death to take his prey. It is a marvellous relationship into which God bids us enter. We are accustomed to obey Him. But with the single limitation that our biddings must concern His sons, and the work of His hands, and must be included in His word of promise, Jehovah says to us, His redeemed children in Jesus Christ, "Command ye Me!" The world is full of mighty forces which are labouring for our weal. How is it that these great natural forces — which are manifestations of the power of God — so absolutely obey man? Is it not because, since the days of Bacon, man has so diligently studied, and so absolutely obeyed, the conditions under which they work? "Obey the law of a force, and the force will obey you," is almost an axiom in physics. So God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him. All the resources of God dwell bodily in the risen and glorified Lord. Obey Him, and He pours such mighty energy into and through the spirit that men are amazed at the prodigality of its supply; resist or thwart Him, and He retires from the spirit, leaving it to struggle as best it may with its difficulties and trials. But after our greatest deeds of prayer and faith we shall ever lie low before God; as Elijah did, who, after calling fire from heaven, prostrated himself on the ground, with his face between his knees. () (vers. 11-15): —I. THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN CAPTIVITY ARE INVITED TO INQUIRE CONCERNING THE ISSUE OF THEIR TROUBLES (ver. 11). The Holy One of Israel, though He doth not allow them to strive with Him, yet encourageth them — 1. To consult His Word. "Ask Me of things to come." 2. To seek unto Him by prayer. "Command ye Me." II. THEY ARE ENCOURAGED TO DEPEND ON THE POWER OF GOD WHEN THEY WERE BROUGHT VERY LOW, AND WERE UTTERLY INCAPABLE OF HELPING THEMSELVES (ver. 12). III. THEY ARE PARTICULARLY TOLD WHAT GOD WOULD DO FOR THEM, THAT THEY MIGHT KNOW WHAT TO DEPEND UPON (vers. 13, 14). IV. THEY ARE TAUGHT TO TRUST GOD FURTHER THAN THEY CAN SEE HIM (ver. 15). () I am told that, in the olden times, on Christmas Day, it was the custom in country villages for the squire always to fill with good things whatever vessels the poor people brought up to the hall, that they might have a Christmas dinner. It was strange how big the basins grew year after year. Whenever the man came round with the crockery cart, every good housewife would look all over his stock to see if there was not a still larger basin. It was a rule that the squire's servants should always fill the bowl, whatever size it was, and thus the bowls grew bigger and bigger. God will fill your bowl, however large it is! Get as big a bowl as you can; and when you bring it, if ever there comes a whisper in your ear, "Now you have presumed upon God's benevolence, you have brought too big a bowl," smile at yourself, and say, "This is as nothing to His overflowing fulness." If I said, "O poor sea, poor sea, now thou wilt be drained dry, for they bring such big bowls to be filled with thy waters"; the sea, tossing its mighty billows far and wide, would laugh at my folly. Come, then, and bring your largest conceptions of God, and multiply them ten thousandfold, and believe in Him as this Book would make you believe in Him. Open thy mouth wide, and He will fill it. He bids you even to command Him. He says, "Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me." That is a wonderful expression; rise to the sublimity of faith, and be daring with your God.()
People Cyrus, Isaiah, JacobPlaces Cush, Egypt, JerusalemTopics Command, Commit, Former, Hands, Holy, Maker, Orders, Question, Says, Sons, Thus, YeaOutline 1. God calls Cyrus for his church's sake
5. By his omnipotence he challenges obedience
20. He convinces the idols of vanity by his saving power
Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 45:11 1205 God, titles of Isaiah 45:7-12 5273 creativity Isaiah 45:9-11 8401 challenges Isaiah 45:11-12 4281 stars
8341 separation Library Hidden and Revealed
'Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.... I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me in vain: I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.'--ISAIAH xlv, 15,19. The former of these verses expresses the thoughts of the prophet in contemplating the close of a great work of God's power which issues in the heathen's coming to Israel and acknowledging God. He adores the depth of the divine …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureSovereignty and Salvation
"Ere since by faith I saw the stream His flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die." I shall never forget that day, while memory holds its place; nor can I help repeating this text whenever I remember that hour when first I knew the Lord. How strangely gracious! How wonderfully and marvelously kind, that he who heard these words so little time ago for his own soul's profit, should now address you this morning as his hearers from the same text, in the full and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856 The Solar Eclipse
I shall note this morning, in addressing you, that since the Lord creates darkness as well as light; first of all, eclipses of every kind are part of God's way of governing the world; in the second place, we shall notice that since God creates the darkness as well as the light, we may conclude beyond a doubt that he has a design in the eclipse--in the darkness as well as the light; and then, thirdly, we shall notice that as all things that God has created, whether they be light or whether they be …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858 Ecce Homo
"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."--Is. xlv. 22. Mechthild of Hellfde, 1277. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 Wilt thou, sinner, be converted? Christ the Lord of glory see By His own denied, deserted, Bleeding, bound, and scourged for thee. Look again, O soul, behold Him On the cross uplifted high; See the precious life-blood flowing, See the tears that dim His eye. Love has pierced the heart that brake, Loveless sinner, for thy sake. Hearken till thy heart is broken To His …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) The Eve of the Restoration
'Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, 2. Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3. Who is there among you of all His people? his God …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Jehovah-Shammah: a Glorious Name for the New Year
THESE words may be used as a test as well as a text. They may serve for examination as well as consolation, and at the beginning of a year they may fulfill this useful double purpose. In any case they are full of marrow and fatness to those whose spiritual taste is purified. It is esteemed by the prophet to be the highest blessing that could come upon a city that its name should be, "JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, The Lord is there." Even Jerusalem, in its best estate, would have this for its crowning blessing: …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891 The Eternity and Unchangeableness of God.
Exod. iii. 14.--"I AM THAT I AM."--Psal. xc. 2.--"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."--Job xi. 7-9.--"Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." This is the chief point of saving knowledge, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Of Four Things which Bring Great Peace
"My Son, now will I teach thee the way of peace and of true liberty." 2. Do, O my Lord, as Thou sayest, for this is pleasing unto me to hear. 3. "Strive, My Son, to do another's will rather than thine own. Choose always to have less rather than more. Seek always after the lowest place, and to be subject to all. Wish always and pray that the will of God be fulfilled in thee. Behold, such a man as this entereth into the inheritance of peace and quietness." 4. O my Lord, this Thy short discourse …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ Covenanting According to the Purposes of God.
Since every revealed purpose of God, implying that obedience to his law will be given, is a demand of that obedience, the announcement of his Covenant, as in his sovereignty decreed, claims, not less effectively than an explicit law, the fulfilment of its duties. A representation of a system of things pre-determined in order that the obligations of the Covenant might be discharged; various exhibitions of the Covenant as ordained; and a description of the children of the Covenant as predestinated …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting A Plain Description of the Essence and Attributes of God, Out of the Holy Scripture, So Far as Every Christian must Competently Know, and Necessarily Believe, that Will be Saves.
Although no creature can define what God is, because he is incomprehensible (Psal. cxliii. 3) and dwelling in inaccessible light (1 Tim. vi. 16); yet it has pleased his majesty to reveal himself to us in his word, so far as our weak capacity can best conceive him. Thus: God is that one spiritual and infinitely perfect essence, whose being is of himself eternally (Deut. i. 4; iv. 35; xxxii. 39; vi. 4; Isa. xlv. 5-8; 1 Cor. viii. 4; Eph. iv. 5, 6; 1 Tim. ii. 5; John iv. 24; 2 Cor. iii. 17; 1 Kings …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety The Unity of God
Q-5: ARE THERE MORE GODS THAN ONE? A: There is but one only, the living and true God. That there is a God has been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' Deut 6:6. He is the only God.' Deut 4:49. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else.' A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Spiritual Hunger Shall be Satisfied
They shall be filled. Matthew 5:6 I proceed now to the second part of the text. A promise annexed. They shall be filled'. A Christian fighting with sin is not like one that beats the air' (1 Corinthians 9:26), and his hungering after righteousness is not like one that sucks in only air, Blessed are they that hunger, for they shall be filled.' Those that hunger after righteousness shall be filled. God never bids us seek him in vain' (Isaiah 45:19). Here is an honeycomb dropping into the mouths of …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12 Thy 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 individual member of the true Israel of God. I. What does God's calling a man by his name imply? 1. Intimate knowledge. Adam naming the creatures. Christ naming His disciples. 2. Loving friendship. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Extent of Messiah's Spiritual Kingdom
The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever! T he Kingdom of our Lord in the heart, and in the world, is frequently compared to a building or house, of which He Himself is both the Foundation and the Architect (Isaiah 28:16 and 54:11, 12) . A building advances by degrees (I Corinthians 3:9; Ephesians 2:20-22) , and while it is in an unfinished state, a stranger cannot, by viewing its present appearance, form an accurate judgment …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2 Its Nature
Justification, strictly speaking, consists in God's imputing to His elect the righteousness of Christ, that alone being the meritorious cause or formal ground on which He pronounces them righteous: the righteousness of Christ is that to which God has respect when He pardons and accepts the sinner. By the nature of justification we have reference to the constituent elements of the same, which are enjoyed by the believer. These are, the non-imputation of guilt or the remission of sins, and second, …
Arthur W. Pink—The Doctrine of Justification The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
This Chapter offers no more than a tentative and imperfect outline of the theology of St. Hilary; it is an essay, not a monograph. Little attempt will be made to estimate the value of his opinions from the point of view of modern thought; little will be said about his relation to earlier and contemporary thought, a subject on which he is habitually silent, and nothing about the after fate of his speculations. Yet the task, thus narrowed, is not without its difficulties. Much more attention, it is …
St. Hilary of Poitiers—The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers Gifts and Talents.
"And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him."--Judges iii. 10. We now consider the Holy Spirit's work in bestowing gifts, talents, and abilities upon artisans and professional men. Scripture declares that the special animation and qualification of persons for work assigned to them by God proceed from the Holy Spirit. The construction of the tabernacle required capable workmen, skilful carpenters, goldsmiths, and silversmiths, and masters in the arts of weaving and embroidering. Who will furnish Moses …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit Putting God to Work
"For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside thee who worketh for him that waiteth for him."--Isaiah 64:4. The assertion voiced in the title given this chapter is but another way of declaring that God has of His own motion placed Himself under the law of prayer, and has obligated Himself to answer the prayers of men. He has ordained prayer as a means whereby He will do things through men as they pray, which He would not otherwise do. Prayer …
Edward M. Bounds—The Weapon of Prayer Extent of Atonement.
VI. For whose benefit the atonement was intended. 1. God does all things for himself; that is, he consults his own glory and happiness, as the supreme and most influential reason for all his conduct. This is wise and right in him, because his own glory and happiness are infinitely the greatest good in and to the universe. He made the atonement to satisfy himself. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology Messiah's Innocence vindicated
He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. L et not plain Christians be stumbled because there are difficulties in the prophetical parts of the Scriptures, and because translators and expositors sometimes explain them with some difference, as to the sense. Whatever directly relates to our faith, practice, and comfort, may be plainly collected from innumerable …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1 Nature of Covenanting.
A covenant is a mutual voluntary compact between two parties on given terms or conditions. It may be made between superiors and inferiors, or between equals. The sentiment that a covenant can be made only between parties respectively independent of one another is inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture. Parties to covenants in a great variety of relative circumstances, are there introduced. There, covenant relations among men are represented as obtaining not merely between nation and nation, …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting Links Isaiah 45:11 NIV
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