Isaiah 53:2

Isaiah 53:2

"Religion is a weariness." Such is the judgment commonly passed, often avowed, concerning the greatest of blessings which Almighty God has bestowed upon us. And when God gave the blessing, He at the same time foretold that such would be the judgment of the world upon it, even as manifested in the gracious person of Him whom He sent to give it to us. Not that this prediction excuses our deadness to it; this dislike of the religion given by God Himself this distaste for its very name must obviously be an insult to the Giver. Consider human life in some of its stages and conditions, in order to impress upon you the fact of this contrariety between ourselves and our Maker.

I. "Religion is a weariness." So feel even children before they can well express their meaning. Consider their amusements, their enjoyments, what they hope, what they desire, what they scheme, and what they dream about themselves in time future, when they grow up; and say what place religion holds in their hearts. Watch the reluctance with which they turn to religious duties, to saying their prayers or reading the Bible, and then judge.

II. Take next the case of young persons when they first enter into life. Is not religion associated in their minds with gloom, melancholy, and weariness? When men find their pleasure and satisfaction lie in society which proscribes religion, and when they deliberately and habitually prefer those amusements which have necessarily nothing to do with religion, such persons cannot view religion as God views it.

III. Passing to the more active occupations of life, we find that here too religion is confessedly felt to be wearisome; it is out of place. The transactions of worldly business find a way directly to the heart; they rouse, they influence. The name of religion, on the other hand, is weak and unimportant; it contains no spell to kindle the feelings of man, to make the heart beat with anxiety, and to produce activity and perseverance.

IV. The natural contrariety between man and his Maker is still more strikingly shown by the confessions of men of the world who have given some thought to the subject, and viewed society with somewhat of a philosophical spirit. Such men treat the demands of religion with disrespect and negligence, on the ground of their being unnatural.

V. That religion is in itself a weariness is seen even in the conduct of the better sort of persons who really, on the whole, are under the influence of its spirit. So dull and uninviting is calm and practical religion, that religious persons are ever exposed to the temptation of looking out for excitements of one sort or other, to make it pleasurable to them.

VI. "He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." It is not His loss that we love Him not; it is our loss. He is all-blessed, whatever becomes of us. He is not less blessed because we are far from Him. Woe unto us, if in the day in which He comes from heaven, we see nothing desirable or gracious in His wounds; but instead, have made for ourselves an ideal blessedness, different from that which will be manifested to us in Him.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. v., p. 9 (see also J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vii., p. 13).

References: Isaiah 53:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xviii., No. 1075; R. Milman, The Love of the Atonement,pp. 34, 46, 59, 66, 83, 91, 102.Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 53:3. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 277.