No one calls on Your name or strives to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Sermons I. THIS IS NOT AN ARBITRARY ACT. Some parents are by turn tender and severe; they indulge and they punish in hasty moods. Their frame of mind is not regulated by high principle, by a healthy estimate of things. It is otherwise with God. The earliest records tell us that to deal with the righteous as with the wicked is far from him. Yes, very far! We read in Isaiah that God had hidden his face from the house of Jacob, but it was because they had "sought out them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards." "Should not," says the prophet, "a people seek unto their God?" And again Isaiah says, "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you" This is the secret of the hiding. Sin is against the peace, purity, beauty, order of the universe, and it wrongs a man's own soul. Would it be right to smile, then? Mark, God does not hide his face because of old sins that have been repented of and forgiven. Remember that there is no human meanness in God's nature. He does not touch the heart with pain about old delinquencies. "Thy sins and thine iniquities will I remember no more." I am told that there are some people who do not pray for the forgiveness of sins, because they are Christians, and all has been forgiven them unto the end. What a perversion! Is not the very test of their being Christ's at all something more than present feeling; viz. that enduring unto the end they shall be saved? Then they find the Lord's Prayer a difficulty - "Forgive us our trespasses," and they suggest that that was only a provisionary prayer, until the dispensation of the Spirit came! Such methods would destroy the whole authority of Scripture. A man might hear me take a text and say, "That was said to apostles," implying it was only meant for them. No! we sin every day, and we need a fountain ever open for sin and uncleanness. We need as much the prayer for daily forgiveness as we do for daily bread. It is when sin is indulged in by us who profess to love him - when it becomes sweet, when it becomes habitual, when it has withdrawn us from the Divine fellowship - that God hides his face. II. THIS IS DETRIMENTAL TO ALL JOY. We are made to enjoy nature and men. We are constituted for every variety of joy. But as one nerve in agony can destroy all the rest of night, so a sin that separates us from God can darken all other joy. Even in the sweet summer-time, when holiday comes, we still need him. The golden-sanded bay, the landscape full of greens and greys, the iridescence of light through the clouds above the mountains, the scent of the pines, the delicate harmonies of colour in the fields, the mossy carpet of the woods, the russet roofs of cottages half hidden in the blossoms of summer, - all these, so restful and refreshing, lose their charm if the Saviour's smile be absent, if we cannot hear his voice amid the groves and hills, and at evening feel "we have walked with God to-day." It was true in the old dispensation, when the revelation was through patriarchs, and prophets, and symbols, and sacrifices; but it is intensely true now, that we have seen God in the face of Jesus Christ - that God's averted face is the soul's severest punishment. We have come very near to God. No human priesthood intervenes now. We have boldness of access by faith to the throne of God. No veil is over the holy of holies now. We draw near through the rent veil - that is to say, Christ's flesh. Consequently enjoyment deepens; consequently also the sorrow deepens when I sin. Why? Because the more clearly I have seen the face, the more I feel its averted glance. III. THIS IS THE MOST SPIRITUAL OF ALL TESTS. It has to do with the life within as well as the conduct without. There, where no eye of man reaches - there, in the galleries where no foot of man ever treads - are the sights and sounds which may drive away the Divine Guest. Long before sin incarnates itself in deeds, before it becomes actual and open, the evil is at work. The tree is rotten while the bark is sound. First make the tree good. Yes; and remember that decay always begins at central points outside the reach of man's observation. Yes, and outside the reach of our own observation sometimes. Hence the prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 1. Men like other tests. Their "opinions," their attendance at sacraments, their absolution by confessors, their consistency of conduct. 2. Men realize the power of this in times of anxiety and trial, Now that they are brought low in sickness; now that friends are separated from them who used to cheer and inspire them; now that they are very near to the valley of the shadow of death - nothing will do but reality then. The words of others, their good opinions of us, - all these stand for less than nothing then. May God's face shine in again upon our souls now! That is heaven - at least, it is the premonition of it. All our worst sorrows will flee like the weird shadows on the mountains before the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness. It is pleasant for others to smile on us - to walk in the light of human appreciation and love. Households feel this; Churches feel it. Sometimes noble and valiant men in great Reformation eras have to do without it. The light varies so, too; it is so uncertain at the best. But this shining of the face of God makes the heart restful and gladsome everywhere. We shall one day enjoy it to the full. No clouds of sin or doubt will intervene between us and God. So is it with the blessed dead. Many times the beautiful descriptions St. John gives of heaven in the Apocalypse are negative. "No curse," "no night," "no sorrow," "no more death." But once it is positive: "They shall see his face, and his Name shall be in their foreheads." - W.M.S.
And there is none that calleth upon Thy name. Homilist. 1. There is a confession of neglected privilege and duty. "There is none that calleth upon Thy name."2. There is a definition of true and saving religion. "That stirreth himself up to take hold of Thee." This latter is the most striking and important, for it shows what a man must do in order to approach God, the act requiring exertion and activity. Multitudes of so-called Christians live on without the semblance of devotion, while with many more this worship is a mere matter of form. I. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES? There are many things which operate to make a man neglect God. 1. Devotion to the world. No man can serve two masters, and he who loves the world cannot consistently love God. 2. Selfish indulgence. There are many who do not, strictly speaking, love the world, who nevertheless so pamper their bodies with temporal comforts that they sink down into a dreamy sloth. 3. Want of desire. Deadness of soul makes a man sluggish. If we keep out of the sunshine, we cannot feel its warmth. If men hide from God, they can neither desire nor love Him. II. WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES? A terrible roll-call of iniquity and sin. Evil rolls on like the waves of the troubled sea. Prayer-less souls are marching on to perdition; Satan triumphs over the ungodly world; God is dishonoured; angels weep. III. WHAT IS THE REMEDY? Such reflections ought — 1. To arouse us to new efforts in prayer. 2. To excite us to greater personal efforts. We can all do something. Many can do much. 3. To awaken us to indirect work. We can send others to preach and to labour. 4. To see that we ourselves are not among those who fail to take hold, and that our personal example is not hindering the progress of the truth. (Homilist.) I. PRAYER, PROPERLY SO CALLED, CONSISTS IN CERTAIN EXERCISES OF THE MIND. 1. Attention to our wants. Without this, prayer is vain babbling. Our wants arise from our sinful conduct — our unholy nature — powerful opposition — daily circumstances in our experience. Our state ought to be as diligently attended to as the most assiduous tradesman attends to his business — as the humane physician attends to the symptoms of disease in his patient. 2. Regard to God as the Being who alone can relieve us. 3. Strong and fervent desire. 4. Affiance in God. 5. Humble and patient expectation. II. HOWEVER FREQUENTLY OR FORCIBLY WE PRAY, IF OUR PRAYERS ARE SEPARATE AND DISTINCT FROM THESE EXERCISES, WE SHALL BE REGARDED BY GOD AS THOUGH WE NEVER PRAYED AT ALL — THAT IS, WE SHALL DERIVE NO BENEFIT FROM OUR SERVICES. 1. This will appear from the ancient Jews, who drew near to God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. 2. That prayer must be distinguished .hi right dispositions of the mind, is evident from the very design of prayer Consider its parts — Adoration; thanksgiving; confession: Intercession. The whole of this duty is designed to promote piety, by working certain holy dispositions in our hearts, by the help and blessing of God. Will not these remarks account for the barrenness of mere professors? Christians, stir up the gift of God that is within you. (J. Walker, . D. D.) (F. Delitzsch, D. D.) I. IT IMPLIES TO TAKE HOLD OF GOD IN THE EXERCISE OF SAVING FAITH. Expressions almost the same occur in this sense in two other parts of Isaiah (Isaiah 27:5; Isaiah 56:6). To take hold of God, to take hold of His strength, to take hold of His covenant, to join ourselves to Him, all imply the one act of a sinner taking hold of Christ, or of God in Christ in the exercise of saving faith. But this first and essential exercise of saving faith is not what is principally referred to in our text. There is, then —II. A further exercise implied in taking hold of God, one which true believers alone can engage in, and one in which they may be very deficient. This exercise is alluded to by the apostle Paul, in Philippians 3:12, where he Bays of himself, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. The Greek word translated "apprehend," corresponds, with the Hebrew word in our text translated "take hold of." Therefore, we Infer, that the second exercise implied in taking hold of God, is TO APPREHEND HIS MORAL IMAGE. Those who are engaged in this exercise are blessings to the world and to the Church, and are objects of complacency to God. III. The third great exercise implied in taking hold of God is WRESTLING, IMPORTUNATE, PLEADING PRAYER. It is not every kind even of acceptable prayer that deserves the name of taking hold of God. Five ways may be mentioned in which a soul, through pleading prayer, taketh hold of God. 1. By taking hold of or pleading His perfections. God call do nothing contrary to His perfections. All His actings are the immediate result of them. But it pleaseth Him that His saints should plead His perfections, and, as it were, take hold of them in holy, humble, fervent importunity. 2. By pleading His relations to His people as Father, Creator, Preserver and Redeemer. 3. By pleading His promises, declarations and engagements. 4. By pleading His past dealings. Thou hast begun a good work in my soul; carry it on. Thou hast delivered Thy Church and people of old; do it now. Thou hast shamed and confounded Thine enemies, when their pride and their might were at the highest; shame and confound them now. Thou hast planted a vine in our land; look down from heaven; revive and quicken this Thy vine. 5. By acquiescing in the sovereignty, and looking to the unsearchable mercies of God. Conclusion: How lofty an exercise of soul it is to take hold of God. How marvellous the thought, a worm of the dust to influence the thoughts and operations of the Almighty God! It is a work too mighty for the feeble powers of man. No creature ever did or could accomplish it, except so far as strengthened by the Spirit. (W. Mackenzie.) Ills of Faith. I. WE HAVE A STRIKING DEFINITION OF TRUE PRAYER. It is a taking hold of God, in no material sense, but by a spiritual apprehension so real and vivid that we seem to touch the Angel of the Covenant and say, with realizing perception of His Presence: "We will not let Thee go, except Thou bless us.' This definition greatly helps us —1. When, for instance, men insist that prayer is only acceptable as it arises from special fanes, we can reply that the hand of faith may feel after, find, and grasp the hand of God in the press of the busy street, the woodland glade, and the sequestered chamber. Since God is everywhere we may take hold of Him anywhere. 2. Again, when men tell us that prayers must be uttered in words of solemn grandeur and rhythm, we may remind them that prayer is a taking hold of God, and that it may exist in its intensest, truest form when not a word is uttered. 3. When, again, men suggest that priestly intervention is necessary to present our supplications, let us find refuge in this definition; for surely God will as much allow Himself to be grasped by the ungloved hand of the labourer, as by the dimpled hand of the little child. We need none to instruct us how to take hold; and each can best take hold for his own preservation. The intervention of a third person is indeed a source of weakness when it comes between us and the gracious Hand which reaches down to draw us out of many and deep waters. II. THE GRIEVOUS COMPLAINT. "There is none that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee." Why this fatal lethargy? 1. In the case of some, it no doubt arises from the stupefying effect of worldliness and self-indulgence. If the unwary traveller sits down to rest in the forest or the cave, where gases lie heavily on the ground, they may so invade his sense and benumb his mind that he will be presently unable to arouse himself to further exertion. This is the state of the opium-eater and the drunkard, of all who, like Tennyson's Lotus-eaters, come under the fatal spell of the narcotic. And is there not a mephitic poison issuing always from worldly amusements and society? 2. In the case of others, lethargy in prayer arises from a mistaken idea of the privilege of the child of God. They say that God is so wise and good, that it is a mistake and a sin to seek to impose our will on Him; that it is enough to take what He sends, and to bear what He imposes, without attempting to interfere by the urging of our desires. But there is nothing of this in the teachings of our Saviour. He perpetually says, Ask, seek, knock. He evidently would have us regard prayer as a means of obtaining blessings which otherwise we would altogether miss. 3. Others yield to this lethargy because they have intellectual difficulties in respect to prayer. They point to the majestic reign of law, the unbroken chain of cause and effect, the unalterable plan of the Divine procedure. How can God rule the realm (and prayer is one of these) may be used to cancel and overcome those of the lower. Besides, is it not enough that Jesus prayed, and so unmistakably taught His disciples to do the same? 4. Yet others, again, do not stir themselves up to pray, because they say that they have prayed so long in vain. Prayer, they say, is so irregular and uncertain. There is no counting on it. Why, then, they argue, should they waste time and energy on that which is as likely to disappoint as to help them This latter difficulty is possibly the most common of all, and does more than any other to relax men's energy in prayer. It in of the utmost importance, therefore, to insist that prayer has a law as constant and unchangeable as gravitation, and if we do not succeed, it is because we are ourselves to blame. Nay, more, if we seldom obtain answers to our prayers, we must examine carefully into the cause; because, almost certainly, there is some flaw or fault in our own character, by reason of which our prayers are as missives lost in the post, or ships that have gone down at sea. III. THE LAMENT OVER THIS LETHARGY IN PRAYER. 1. It is very dangerous. The first step in spiritual declension is almost invariably in the closet. The whole stress of Satanic temptation is to induce us to relax our prayerfulness; and perhaps there is no time when we need to pray more than when this fatal disinclination begins to creep over us. 2. It is very sinful. Is it not wrong to reject the advances of our God, and refuse to comply with His commands to pray? This surely is a dishonour, a slight, a crime. 3. It is very strange. It must be the wonder of the angels, as they look on our tired and perplexed faces, amid our complicated cares, that we are so slack in our approaches to the strongest, wisest, gentlest Being in the universe, and are so reluctant to stir ourselves up to take hold of God. (Ills of Faith.) I. CERTAIN TRUTHS WHICH THIS LAMENTATION IMPLIES.1. That God was ready to receive them graciously. 2. That man is prone to be slow of heart to seek unto God. 3. That man may oppose that slowness of heart — may stir himself up to take hold on God. Such was the view of Joshua when he said, "Incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel" (Joshua 24:23). This truth was regarded by the Lord Himself when He proclaimed, "Incline your ear," etc. (Isaiah 55:8). With a view to this, man may stir up — (1) (2) (3) (4) II. THE LAMENTATION ITSELF. Of it we may emphatically say (Ezekiel 19:14), This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." Why? 1. On account of present loss. They "forsake their own mercies," wrong their own selves as to present good. 2. On account of the uncertainty of life on earth. 3. On account of the force of habit (Jeremiah 13:23). Through the force of habit conscience may become so seared and the heart so hardened that the likelihood may rapidly lessen of the deteriorated mind ever stilting itself up to take hold on God. Let not the peculiarly encouraging character of the kind call be overlooked — "Let him take hold of My strength." (J. Elliot.) (J. P. Gladstone.) I. The first form of taking hold, that which is intended in the text, is that in which THE AWAKENED SINNER TAKES HOLD UPON GOD. II. We very greatly need to have among us many THOROUGH BELIEVERS WHO TAKE HOLD UPON GOD BY FIDELITY TO HIM. I have seen applied to Calvin the motto, "He took fast hold." If ever a man did take fast hold on invisible things, it was that famous reformer. What he grasped he held with force of clear conviction, intelligent apprehension, and devout reverence. Such a man opens his Bible and resolves to find out what God's will is, and be judges for himself, for he knows that he will have to render a personal account. Such a man sets himself to extend the kingdom of Christ, impelled by inward zeal. Having obtained a solid fulcrum of assured knowledge, he now begins to use his lever and work upon others. He knows that he cannot be placed where God is not, and therefore he feels that his best Friend is always near. He is a man that calleth upon God, not merely in prayer, but by confessing His name, and owning His cause; and he stirs up himself to take hold upon God in the doing of all these things. III. We take a step further in advance when we mention a third form of this taking hold of God: We need a development in the form of THE WRESTLING PLEADER. The expression is borrowed from Jacob at the brook of Jabbok. A man who can take hold of God in prayer will be of the utmost value to the Church. IV. The fourth point is THE TAKING HOLD OF GOD BY THE STRENGTHENED BELIEVER: the man who has got beyond doubts and fears, and grasped the eternal verities. No question now as to whether there is a God or no: he knows Him, speaks with Him, walks with Him, He is quite sure about God's keeping His promises, he dares not doubt that, for he has had too many proofs already of the faithfulness of God for him to distrust Him. Now, see how steadily that man moves about: trial does not bow him down, he expected it, and he expects to be delivered out of it. If you rush in upon him with the most terrible information it does not distress him, for "he is not afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) (J. A. Alexander.) 1255 face of God 6746 sanctification, means and results 6023 sin, universality "Seek First the Kingdom of God," &C. Putting God to Work 1872 the Need of a Home Further West --Burning of the Marchmont Home --Home Restored by Canadian Gifts --Miss Macpherson and Miss Reavell Arrive in Canada The Lack of Prayer Twelfth Day for the Spirit to Convince the World of Sin "Wash You, Make You Clean, Put Away the Evil of Your Doings from Before Mine Eyes; Cease to do Evil," The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgment: God Seeks Intercessors Cii. Bartimæus and his Companion Healed. The Life of Mr. Hugh Binning. The Disciple, -- Master, if Thou Wouldst Make a Special Manifestation of Thyself to The... Question Lxxxiii of Prayer Meditations on the Hindrances which Keep Back a Sinner from the Practice of Piety. "But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God," &C. "But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness," &C. A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification, by Faith in Jesus Christ; Justification Isaiah |
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