Isaiah 42:23-25

THE SUBJECTION OF THE JEWS AN ADMONITION TO THE WORLD

Isaiah 42:23. Who among you will give ear to this? &c.

I. The desolation brought upon the Jews. Terrible. Sent upon them by God. Defeated after their rejection of the Messiah. It continues to this day.

II. The justice of the sentence that is gone forth against them.

III. Their insensibility under these judgments. They do not see the sentence which, in evil hour, their own ancestors pronounced against them: “His blood be on us and on our children!”—and on them it hath been. This is the awful curse under which they are now drooping and groaning (H. E. I., 143).

IV. An appeal arising out of this awful dispensation as applicable to ourselves. The whole history of the Jews is intended to be an admonition to us. Sharing in their sins, we shall certainly share in their chastisements.—R. C. Dillon, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 72–103.

DEADENED BY SIN

Isaiah 42:25. And it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.

One of the most evil results of sin is, that it hardens and deadens the soul. When persisted in it goes beyond the stage of arousing anxiety and alarm; it stupefies and benumbs, so that a man gets “past feeling.” What a pitiable object does he become who is so under the influence of poison that he is no longer himself! Fire burns him, yet so insensible is he, that where a healthy man would be active in self-defence, he lays it not to heart (H. E. I., 4535, 4540). We take the meaning of the text to be, that the corrupt part of Israel had become so depraved by their sins that they were not to be roused even though they witnessed the judgments of God inflicting upon the nation the just penalties of their rebellions: “they laid it not to heart.” It matters not whether we regard the judgment as a special interposition of God or as a natural result of sin, the doctrine is frequently illustrated in human experience. All sin carries with it a fire that burns the sinner; yet we see instances in which the sinner has been previously so hardened that he lays it not to heart, and the fire goes on burning him. E.g.,—

1. The fire of Covetousness takes hold upon some men. The just desire to secure a fitting recompense for honest effort is here distorted into a consuming fire of avarice. How seriously it deadens all the higher faculties of their nature. Selfishness is the centre of their life, and there they live in the midst of one raging desire, the desire for possessions, to the exclusion of God and divine things. Ponder this picture of insensibility as drawn by Christ’s own hand (Luke 12:15).

2. The fire of Lust does deadly damage upon others. Here the lurid flames of unholy passion obtain the mastery where God’s temple should be (1 Corinthians 6:19). The powers of body and mind sink down in debasement under the tyranny of this ruinous vice.

3. The fire of Intemperance has a destructive hold upon tens of thousands. And how insensible its victims become! Draw the too well known and familiar picture of a drunkard’s life, and a drunkard’s home. Health, property, reputation, comfort, all drop away: wife and family are debased; yet, whilst poverty and ruin are creeping over the scene, he can look upon it all with astonishing indifference. The fire burns him and his, yet he lays it not to heart.

These instances suggest many others. How fearfully true it is that men can live in such flames as these, and not lay it to heart.
They remain insensible—

1. To all Warning.

2. To most Impressive Examples in the fate of others.

3. To most Agonising Convictions which now and then haunt even themselves.

CONCLUSION.—Where fire is concerned, prompt, earnest, and wise attention is the duty of the moment. If there be some feeling left, begin with that, and lay hold of recovering help.—William Manning.