Isaiah 2:5

THE LIGHT OF THE LORD

Isaiah 2:5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

“The light of the Lord” streams upon us from His Word (Psalms 119:105). The knowledge of God and of His holy will which the Bible imparts to us is the meridian sun which casts his rays on the cold scenes of our earthly career.

I. The religion of the Bible illumines. Into how many errors did unaided human reason fall, when the nature of God and of His operations was the subject of its inquiries! [508] Did not the wisest grope in darkness? Did they not conceive absurdities, even when man and his fate were the subject of their inquiries? [511] How full, clear, and steady is the light which the Scriptures cast upon these and other great subjects of human thought!

[508] Men who seek God by reason and natural strength (though we do not deny common notions and general impressions of a sovereign power) are like mariners who voyaged before the invention of the compass, who were but coasters, and unwillingly left the sight of the land. Such are they who would arrive at God by this world, and contemplate Him only in His creatures and seeming demonstration. Certainly every creature shows God, as a glass; but glimmeringly and transitorily, by the frailty both of the receiver and beholder; ourselves have His image, as medals, permanently and preciously delivered. But by these meditations we get no further than to know what He doth, not what He is.—Donne, 1573–1631.

[511] Reason sees that man is ignorant, guilty, mortal, miserable, transported with vain passions, tormented with accusations of conscience, but it could not redress those evils. Corrupt nature is like an imperfect building that lies in rubbish: the imperfection is visible but not the way to finish it; for through ignorance of the first design every one follows his own fancy, whereas, when the Architect comes to finish His own project, it appears regular and beautiful. Thus the various directions of philosophers to recover fallen man out of his ruins, and to raise him to his first state, were vain. Some glimmerings they had that the happiness of a reasonable nature consisted in its union with God, but in order to this they propounded such means as were not only ineffectual, but opposite. Such is the pride and folly of carnal wisdom, that to bring God and man together, it advances man, but depresses God.—Bates, 1625–1699.

All the days of sinful nature are dark night, in which there is no right discerning of spiritual things: some light there is, of reason, to direct natural and civil actions, but no daylight. Till the sun rise it is night still, for all the stars, and the moon to help them.—Leighton, 1611–1684.

None but the true God can discover[make known] what the true worship of God is. As that glorious eye of heaven is not to be seen but by its own proper light,—a million of torches cannot show us the sun: so it is not all the natural reason in the world that can either discover what God is, or what worship He expects, without Divine and supernatural revelation from Himself.—Arrowsmith, 1602–1659.

II. The religion of the Bible warms. That God is great and all-powerful some philosophers imagined before the divine light of inspired truth shone forth; but the human heart remained cold, and felt in itself no point of contact and union with so exalted a Being. Until God said, “I am your Father,” we were as orphans in a strange land; but then at once the world became to us as a parent’s dwelling, and our heart began to warm with love towards God and man.

III. The religion of the Bible vivifies. It animates and restores the weary, the dying!

IV. The religion of the Bible blesses—now [514] and for ever (1 Timothy 4:8).—G. Salomon, Twelve Sermons, pp. 1–24.

[514] It is a peculiar advantage of piety, that it furnisheth employment fit for us, worthy of us, hugely grateful, and highly beneficial to us. Man is a very busy and active creature, which cannot live and do nothing, whose thoughts are in restless motion, whose desires are ever stretching at somewhat, who perpetually will be working either good or evil to himself: wherefore greatly profitable must that thing be which determineth him to act well, to spend his care and pain on that which is truly advantageous to him; and that is religion only. It alone fasteneth our thoughts, affections, and endeavours upon occupations worthy the dignity of our nature, suiting the excellence of our natural capacities and endowments, tending to the perfection and advancement of our reason, to the enriching and ennobling of our souls. Secluding that, we have nothing in the world to study, to affect, to pursue, not very mean and below us, not very base and unbecoming us, as men of reason and judgment. What have we to do but to eat and drink, like horses or like swine; but to sport and play, like children or apes; but to bicker and scuffle about trifles and impertinences, like idiots? What but to scrape or scramble for useless pelf, to hunt after empty shows and shadows of honour, or the vain fancies or dreams of men? What but to wallow or bask in sordid pleasures, the which soon degenerate into remorse and bitterness? To which sort of employments were a man confined, what a pitiful thing he would be, and how inconsiderable would be his life! Were a man designed only, like a fly, to buzz about here for a time, sucking in the air and licking the dew, then soon to vanish back into nothing, or to be transformed into worms, how sorry and despicable a thing were he! And such without religion we should be. But it supplieth us with business of a most worthy nature and lofty importance; it setteth us upon doing things great and noble as can be; it engageth us to free our minds from all fond conceits, and cleanse our hearts from all corrupt affections,—to conform the dispositions of our soul and the actions of our life to the eternal laws of righteousness and goodness: it putteth us upon the imitation of God, upon obtaining a friendship and maintaining a correspondence with the High and Holy One, upon filling our minds for conversation and society with the wisest and purest spirits above, upon providing for our immortal state, upon the acquist of joy and glory everlasting. It employeth us in the divinest actions—promoting virtue, performing beneficence, serving the public, and doing good to all: the being exercised in which things doth indeed render a man highly considerable, and his life excellently valuable.—Barrow, 1630–1677.

ATHE WALK OF THE SOUL IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD

Isaiah 2:5. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

There are many lights shining upon the paths of men in this world. There are the lights of science and philosophy; they beam out from the human mind, and are kindled by eager research and investigation. These have been advancing in splendour and in value, age by age, and will, no doubt, continue to do so to the end of time. Men walk in these lights, and vainly imagine that they have found the sun of the soul. They seek no higher illumination. They are mistaken. The lights of science are of but little service to the moral nature; they cannot chase away its darkness, or open up to it a vision of destiny. The True Light cometh down from above, and is Divine in its origin. It is bright. It is beauteous. It is sufficient for the guidance of the soul. Wise men will walk in it. “O house of Jacob,” &c.

I. The walk of the soul. “Let us walk.”

1. The moral walk of the soul is a necessity. The soul of man is endowed with certain convictions and activities which render inaction an impossibility. It must walk either in one direction or another; either toward moral purity or moral evil; either to Christ or to Satan. The moral sensibilities with which it is gifted, the laws under which it is placed, the influences to which it is subject, and the prospects that are stretched out before the soul, render moral progress a necessity of being.

2. The moral walk of the soul is educational. Men gain knowledge in this world by travel. In this way they augment their mental stores. And the soul gains knowledge, strengthens its capabilities, and deepens its experience, by walking forth into the great moral universe in which it lives. Only the souls that have walked in the paths of truth and life know what things are, and they only are able to guide others.

3. The moral walk of the soul is healthful. Those who are inactive are always physically weak. The soul that never takes moral exercise, that never gets out into the broad acres of truth, and that never climbs the great mountains of God, will ever be sickly. If the soul is to be strong, equal to the duties of life, and to the demands of being, it must not indolently repose in its own quiet hiding-place. It must go forth to meet the Eternal.

4. The moral walk of the soul is often perilous. The traveller has often to walk through dark places, along difficult paths, and near the deep precipice. He is in a strange country. And so in the walk of the soul. It is in a land of which it knows but little. It has to pass through the dark mystery of truth, to traverse the windings of intricate problems, and to find its way, through perplexing circumstances, to the throne of God.

II. The light of the Lord. “In the light of the Lord.” The soul of man was not constituted to walk in darkness. It was created with keen moral vision; but, alas! its eye is dimmed by sin, and is but seldom open to the light of heaven.

1. This light is Divine in its origin. It does not come from the orb in the heavens. It comes from beyond the clouds—from the Sun of Righteousness, whose rays are never lost in night. It is not the light of the finite, but of the Infinite. It is perennial and pure. It is unparalleled in beauty. It is unique in lustre. It is life-giving in its influence. The soul can walk in no better radiance.

2. This light is clear in its revelation. But for the sun we should know nothing of this world. And but for the light of the Lord we should be entirely ignorant of the moral world, in which the soul lives and has its being. This light which shines from the Spirit of God, from the Bible, and from the enlightened conscience, reveals the existence of God, the spirituality of His nature, the purity of His character, and the devotion of which He is worthy. It reveals the soul to itself, and bends it in humility, but in joy, as it unfolds the forgiving mercy of the Cross. But for this light of the Lord we should be ignorant of the things of the moral universe. It illumines the soul in its walk to the great and unknown future.

3. This light is cheering in its influence. The light of the sun is cheering to man, and is ever welcome to him. So the light of the Lord is cheering to the pure soul; it enlivens its energies, and lends new beauty to its visions.

4. This light is abiding in its duration. The light of the Lord will never go down from the pure soul, but will only brighten through death into the perfect day.—By what light do we walk? “Come ye,” now, gladly, devoutly, “and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”—J. S. Exell.