Isaiah 9:17

LEADERSHIP [940]

[940] See outline: “BLIND LEADERS,” p. 92.

(An Ordination Sermon.)

Isaiah 9:15. The prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail, &c.

I. The world is so constituted that leaders of the people are at present a necessity. It is no disparagement of oak trees to say that few of them are sixty feet high; and it is no disparagement of our fellow-men to say that few of them are qualified to lead others. In both cases we have to do with an ordinance of God. We are all included in it. We all need, in some respect or other, to be led. This arises from the disparity between human needs and human powers. Our faculties and time are too limited to allow any man to dispense with guidance. Even the accomplished statesman needs to be guided in the matter of health by the physician; the skilled physician needs to be guided in building by an architect, and so on through all the grades of human life. Men need guidance in commerce, politics, literature, art, philosophy, and in religion. There is to be a time when in this last respect guidance will not be needed (Jeremiah 31:33), but that time is not yet. The people still need guidance in religion, because,

1. While in some of its aspects it is so simple that a child is capable of it, in others it is so profound that they need the most thoughtful instruction concerning it.

2. There are many false forms of religion seeking to win acceptance (Matthew 24:24; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1).

3. The natural tendency of the human heart inclines it to the acceptance of those forms of faith which are most unscriptural. This is the real secret of the power of Romanism. To-day, therefore, the people still need religious leaders, and leaders of the highest order. Even with the Bible in their hands, most men need guidance (Acts 9:30). Woe to them, if they take as their guides men who have not themselves been taught of the Holy Ghost!

II. Leadership involves for the leaders the highest honour or the deepest shame. Many aspire to lead: few think of the difficulties and responsibilities of leadership.

1. The man who leads his fellow-men well is entitled to the highest honour. He cannot do it without noble qualities of mind and heart. Those who are well led are, as a rule, not slow to acknowledge and reward the service that has been rendered them.

2. But leadership does not necessarily involve any honour at all. The post of prominence may only bring out into view the leader’s incompetency, mental and moral. “The fierce light that beats upon a throne,” and upon a pulpit, reveals every speck and flaw in its occupant. It is a perilous thing to exchange the pew for the pulpit.

3. Through leadership a man may reach the most utter degradation and shame. He may do this

(1.) through his incompetency. Admiral Byng might have lived and died a respectable English gentleman, if he had not been made an admiral. Many envied him when he was so gazetted: none envied him when he was shot. Many a “stickit minister” would have made a highly respectable and useful church-member.

(2.) Through his dishonesty. Many a leader, claiming to be the head of a community, has really been its “tail,” carried by it, not carrying it on in paths of truth and honesty. His aim has been, not the welfare of his followers, but his own aggrandisement and popularity; his concern has been, not to speak the truth, but to say what would be pleasant. This was the sin of many who claimed to be prophets in Israel (Isaiah 3:12; Isaiah 5:20; Jeremiah 5:31). It is a common sin to-day, both in the political and religious world. Let those who claim to be ministers of God shun it. Self-seeking, everywhere despicable, is in the pulpit most hateful and criminal (P. D. 2482). Let every preacher regard as warnings those base prophets of Israel; let him endeavour to realise that wonderful picture of a true leader drawn by Christ’s enemies (Matthew 22:16).

III. Leadership involves for the led salvation or destruction. It is not a trivial matter to be well or ill led. How true this is politically, commercially, legally; it is not less true religiously. That community shows little wisdom that chooses its leaders carelessly. That community is insane which demands that its prophets shall prophesy unto it only smooth things (Isaiah 30:10). The following of righteous leaders who are themselves led by the Spirit of God will result in temporal and eternal well-being; but trust in “religious” demagogues, whose aim is not to speak the truth, but to flatter those who listen to them, results inevitably in social and spiritual ruin. In self-defence, then, demand of your minister that he speak to you, not what is pleasant, but what is true; and count him not your enemy, but your best friend, when he utters what, just because it is the truth of God, shall smite and wound as if it were a sharp two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12).

TWO CONSTANT FEELINGS IN THE MIND OF GOD

Isaiah 9:17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows.

From one point of view, this is a terrible text! it shows us that a people may arrive at such a condition of desperate and incorrigible wickedness, that God may feel constrained, as the upholder of truth and righteousness in the world, to destroy them. But, on the other hand, how worthy of thought and thanksgiving is this revelation of God’s constant feelings towards two very opposite classes of persons—those who are most joyful, and those who are most sorrowful.

I. God’s feelings toward young men. He has “joy” in them, a fact of which young men seldom think. Doubtless He has joy in them, 1, because of what they are; and 2, because of what they may become. He has this joy in them as their Creator. The great Artist has a delight in all His works (Genesis 1:31; Proverbs 8:31). Young men are a realisation, more or less perfect, of a thought, an ideal in the Divine mind. Strength and comeliness of body, courage and vivacity of mind, modesty and generosity of heart, are the ideal characteristics of a young man, and precisely as they are actually found in any young man, God has “joy” in him, just as He has joy in the strength of the horse, the beauty of the swan, or the melody that is poured forth by the lark or the nightingale. We frequently see a young man who is obviously a glorious work of God; and had not sin so terribly cursed and marred our race, all young men would have been such as the British youths whose beauty called forth the old pleasant jest, “Not Angles but angels.”

All this is, of course, equally true of young women. For the Bible is in this respect to be interpreted like our English laws, concerning which it is decreed that the word “man” shall mean “woman” also in all cases in which nature herself does not forbid such an interpretation. A young woman is more than a pleasing mass of flesh and blood; she is a realisation of a thought of God, a work of the unseen Artist, to whom all that is beautiful in the universe owes its existence [943] Many a young woman is so beautiful that the human artist counts himself happy indeed if he can make on the canvas any fair transcript of her loveliness; and, what is better still, the beautiful body is but a casket in which a more beautiful body is enshrined.

[943] The world is God’s journal, wherein He writes His thoughts and traces His tastes. The world overflows with beauty. Beauty should no more be called trivial, since it is the thought of God.—Beecher.

Young men and women, think of this—God delights in you! What effects will a realisation of this thought have upon you?

1. It will check that vanity by which the strength of the young man and the beauty of the young woman are often so pitifully marred (1 Corinthians 4:7).

2. It will cause you to reverence yourselves. Those who think that no one cares for them, are apt not to care for themselves; but consciousness that we are observed leads us to circumspection and self-control. If the observation be friendly and approving, it is a stimulus to endeavour to merit it. Respect kindles self-respect. Remembering how God looks upon you, you will shrink from doing anything that will lessen His “joy” in you; you will not voluntarily permit faults or vices to mar the nobleness and beauty that call it forth, any more than the roses, if they had power of self-defence, would give a lodgment to those insects which blight the beauty that causes beholders to joy in them.

3. Kindly, loving feelings towards God will spring up in you. Friendliness and love tend to call forth friendship and love; just as the sunshine and rain that in early summer descend from the natural heavens cause flowers to spring forth from the earth.

Consider what joy God must have had in the young man Jesus of Nazareth, and why He had it, and resolve that the same causes for this Divine joy shall exist in you.

II. God’s feelings toward orphans and widows. “Mercy on their fatherless and widows.” A more familiar thought, but let us not therefore overlook its preciousness. How frequent and how emphatic are the declarations of God’s pity for orphans and widows (Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; Psalms 10:14; Psalms 10:18; Psalms 68:5; Psalms 82:3; Psalms 146:9; Jeremiah 49:11, &c.) Yea, we are taught that at least one-half of religion consists in being like God in this respect (James 1:27). God’s pity is practical; let those to whom it is promised trust in it confidently [946] And let God’s people make it their business—put themselves to pain and trouble—to be like Him in this respect: this is the way to secure His favour for themselves.

[946] There are no such promises to those who are free from sorrow and trial as are full and abundant to the afflicted. A good country physician in New England went to a neighbour’s house to tell a wife and mother of the sudden death of her absent husband. She was more than ordinarily frail and dependent. She had a large family. Her husband had acquired no property. The fresh blow was indeed terrible to her. When the first wild burst of sorrow was over, she looked up through her tears to her sympathising friend, and said in agony, “But, Doctor, what shall I do?” “My dear woman, I don’t know,” said the kind-hearted physician. “All I can say is, I only wish I had as many promises of God to take right home to myself as you have just now. The Bible is full of promises to those who are in your case.” And the stricken woman lived to realise the truth and preciousness of the richest of those promises.—Trumbull.

DIVINE ANGER

Isaiah 9:17. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.

I. Anger in God is a calm and just sense of displeasure against sin [949] II. Has its expression in the judgments executed upon men in this life. III. These under an administration of mercy are designed to be corrective. IV. Cannot in the case of failure satisfy the purposes of the Divine anger. V. Hence in all cases of impenitence God’s anger is not turned away, &c.—J. Lyth, D.D.: Homiletical Treasury. Part I. p. 15.

[949] The anger which God feels and displays is always anger against sin. It is never against sinners as offenders against Himself personally, but as violators of the eternal laws of righteousness and love. It is not possible for the most daring transgressor to injure God in the slightest degree, and therefore He can never feel anything approaching to that personal vindictiveness which we feel against those who have wronged us. There are some passages which at first sight convey a different impression, as when it is said, “Know therefore that the Lord thy God … repayeth them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them; He will not be slack to him that hateth Him; He will repay him to his face” (Deuteronomy 7:10); and again, “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance upon His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies” (Nahum 1:2). But terrible as such passages are, they admit of a ready explanation. In them God manifestly speaks as “the Judge of all the earth,” as the Representative and Administrator of righteousness. Some years ago, proclamations denouncing the severest penalties against Fenianism were issued in the name of our beloved Queen; but no one imagined that she cherished any personal hostility against those offenders against her authority. Every month it is her melancholy duty to sign documents that consign convicted murderers to the scaffold, but no one regards these death-warrants as any proof that she delights in the sufferings of those whose sentence she confirms. Nor will any thoughtful person interpret such passages as setting forth anything else than God’s resolve to be faithful to His duties as the supreme administrator of justice, notwithstanding that in being so He must perform many things that are revolting to His infinite tenderness and compassion. His expostulations with sinners to repent and turn from their transgressions are a sufficient confirmation of this interpretation (Ezekiel 18:31, &c.) His anger against sin and sinners is no passion of personal vindictiveness, but is the natural revulsion of purity from impurity, of honesty from fraud, of truthfulness for falsehood; the instinctive abhorrence of generosity for meanness, of benevolence for malice, of kindness for cruelty.

If God did not feel and manifest this anger against sin, it would be impossible to respect and love Him. If He could look down on the mean and dastardly things that are done every day, and yet remain cold and emotionless as an iceberg, as indifferent to the sufferings of His creatures as some Oriental despots have been to the miseries of their wretched subjects, our whole soul would rise up in righteous condemnation of Him.—R. A. B.

See outlines: GOD OPPRESSED, pp. 28–32; A TERRIBLE RESOLVE, pp. 61, 62; THE PURPOSE OF PUNISHMENT, pp. 63, 64.