Isaiah 1:3

The ox knoweth his owner. .. but Israel doth not know

Isaiah’s message

What does Isaiah teach about God?

A prophet of his times had much to do in clearing the minds of the people from the confusion, or something worse, into which, as the history shows, the Jews were only too prone to fall. They were surrounded by idolatrous nations, and there was a danger that they might regard Jehovah as though He were like these gods of the nations. Even when they did not sink to this level they were prone to regard Him as their national God, not as the God of all the earth.

I. What the prophet sought to do was to communicate to them something of that view of the MAJESTY OF HIS GLORY AND THE BEAUTY OF HIS HOLINESS which had impressed itself so deeply on his own mind. He had seen God, and he would fain have them see Him also. And where can we search for more sublime conceptions of the spirituality, the holiness, the majesty of God than those which we find in this book?

II. But the teaching of the prophet includes another conception of God which we should be still less prepared to find in the Old Testament. If the lofty conceptions of the Divine spirituality surprise, still more are we impressed with the revelation of THE DIVINE TENDERNESS AND THOUGHT FOR MAN. This is the basis of all those urgent appeals addressed by Isaiah to his own generation. The first chapter strikes the keynote. Here is not a distant God so absorbed in the care of His vast empire that He has no remembrance of His poor children here, and so far removed that between Him and them there can be no sympathy. The prevailing note is that for which we are least prepared--that of Love. There is no dallying with the sin. The apostasy of the people is set forth in its darkest aspects, and the enormity of the rebellion only serves to make more conspicuous the glory of the grace which is proclaimed to these sinners. All their iniquity, their ingratitude, their pride of heart, their forgetfulness of God have not turned the heart of their God from them. Surely these are wondrous teachings to find in this old world record. Isaiah had them from God Himself. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

The inconsiderateness of mankind towards God

I. A SERIOUS FAULT, common, yea, universal. “Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.”

1. Men are most inconsiderate towards God. One would pardon them if they forgot many minor things, and neglected many inferior persons, but to be inconsiderate to their Creator, to their Preserver, to Him in whose hand their everlasting destiny is placed, this is a strange folly as well as a great sin. If it were only because He is so great, and therefore we are so dependent upon Him, one would have thought that a rational man would have acquainted himself with God and been at peace; but when we reflect that God is supremely good, kind, tender and gracious, as well as great, the marvel of man’s thoughtlessness is much increased.

2. Then, again, man is inconsiderate towards himself in reference to his best interests.

3. Thoughtless man is inconsiderate of the claims of justice and of gratitude, and this makes him appear base as well as foolish. The text says, “Israel doth not know.” Now, Israel is a name of nobility, it signifies a prince; and there are some here whose position in society, whose condition amongst their fellow men, should oblige them to the service of God. That motto is true, “noblesse oblige,”--nobility has its obligations; and where the Lord elevates a man into a position of wealth and influence, he ought to feel that he is under peculiar bonds to serve the Lord. I speak also to those who have been trained in the fear of God. To you more is given, and therefore of you more is required.

4. One sad point about this inconsiderateness is, that man lives without consideration upon a matter where nothing but consideration will avail.

5. This inconsideration, also, occurs upon a subject where, by the testimony of tens of thousands, consideration would be abundantly remunerative, and would yield the happiest results.

II. AGGRAVATIONS WHICH ATTEND IT, in many eases.

1. And first, remember that some of these careless persons have had their attention earnestly directed to the topics which still they neglect. Observe in this passage that these people had been summoned by God to consider. The heavens and the earth were called to bear witness that they had been nourished and brought up by the good Father, and in the fourth verse they are rebuked because they continue to be so unmindful of their God. Now, if a person should for a while forget an important thing, we should not be surprised, for the memory is not perfect; but when attention is called to it again and again, when consideration is requested kindly, tenderly, earnestly, and when because the warning is neglected, that attention is demanded with authority, and possibly with a degree of sharpness, one feels that a man who is still unmindful is altogether without excuse, and must be negligent of set purpose and with determined design.

2. The prophet then mentions the second aggravation, namely, that in addition to being called and admonished, these people had been chastened. They had been chastised, indeed, so often and so severely that the Lord wearied of it. He saw no use in smiting them any more. Their whole body was covered with bruises, they had been so sorely smitten. The nation as a nation had been so invaded and trodden down by its enemies that it was utterly desolate, and the Lord says, “Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more.” I may be addressing someone whose life of late has been a series of sorrows. Know you not that all these are sent to wean you from the world? Will you still cling to it! Must the Lord strike again and again, and again and again, before you will hear Him?

3. It was an additional piece of guiltiness that these people were all the while that they would not consider, very zealous in an outward religion.

4. Yet further, there was an aggravation to Israel’s forgetfulness of God, because she was most earnestly and affectionately invited to turn to God by gracious promises. “Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” A man might say, “Why should I think of God? He is my enemy.” O man, you know better.

5. As a last aggravation, note that these very people had ability enough to consider other things, for we find that they considered how to get bribes, and were very shrewd in following after rewards; yet they did not know and did not consider their God. Oh, how quick are some men in the ways of evil, and yet, if you talk to them about religion they say it is mysterious, and beyond their power of apprehension. Those same persons will discuss with you the knottiest points of politics, or unravel the abstrusities of science, and yet they pretend they cannot understand the simplicities of revelation. “I am a poor man,” saith one, “and you cannot expect me to know much”; yet, if anybody were to meet that same “poor man” in the street and tell him he was a fool, he would be indignant at such an accusation, and would zealously prove that he was not inferior in common sense. “I cannot,” says one, “vex my brain about such things as these”; yet that very man wears his brain far more in pursuit of wealth or pleasure. If a man has an understanding, and can exercise it well upon minor matters, how shall we apologise for his neglect of his God?

III. THE SECRET CAUSES of human indifference to topics so important.

1. In the case of many thoughtless persons we must lay the blame to the sheer frivolity of their nature.

2. I have no doubt that in every ease, however, the bottom reason is opposition to God Himself.

3. Upon some minds the tendency to delay operates fearfully.

4. Some make an excuse for themselves for not considering eternity, because they are such eminently practical men. I only wish that those who profess to be practical were more truly so, for a practical man always takes more care of his body than of his coat, certainly; then should he not take more care of his soul than of the body, which is but the garment of it? A practical man will be sure to consider matters in due proportion; he will not give all his mind to a cricket match and neglect his business. And yet how often your practical man still more greatly errs; he devotes all his time to money making, and not a minute to the salvation of his soul and its preparation for eternity!

5. I have no doubt with a great many their reason for not thinking about soul matters, is prejudice. They are prejudiced because some Christian professor has not lived up to his profession, or they have heard something which is said to be the doctrine of the Gospel, which they cannot approve of.

6. In most cases men do not like to trouble themselves, and they have an uncomfortable suspicion that if they were to look too narrowly into their affairs they would find things far from healthy. They are like the bankrupt before the court the other day who did not keep books; he did not like his books, for his books did not like him. He was going to the bad, and he therefore tried to forget it. They say of the silly ostrich that when she hides her head in the sand and does not see her pursuers she thinks she is safe; that is the policy of many men.

IV. A few words of EXPOSTULATION. Is not your inconsiderateness very unjustifiable? Can you excuse it in any way? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Instinct compared with reason in its recognition of persons

Adam, previous to his fall, instinctively recognised the relations in which he stood to God, to his only existing fellow creature, and to the beasts of the field. He recognised God as his Creator and Preserver; Eve as partaker of the same nature and the same sympathies with himself,--as one therefore to whom he owed a debt of benevolence and support; the inferior animals as vassals put under his feet. But no sooner did he fall, than his natural acknowledgment of these several relations forsook him. The relations, indeed, themselves existed still; but he lost all sense (or nearly all sense) of the obligations grounded upon them. Of all the three ruptures which took place at the fall, the first was--not only far the most serious, but also--the most total and complete. We do not assert that the natural man has lost all sense of obligation to his fellow creatures and to the beasts of the field. We do not desire to derogate from this amiability, this considerateness, this benevolence;--let them pass for what they are worth. At the same time it should be remembered that such traits of character, however pleasing in themselves, rather aggravate than extenuate the fact of the man’s godlessness. What shall we say to man’s acknowledgment of his family and dependants, but that it gives point to the insult of withholding acknowledgment from God? Nor, although the brute creation revolted from man in the hour of his fall, and became intractable, was this breach of separation total and complete. “The ox knoweth his owner.” Even those animals whose instinct is less keen, whose very name has passed into a proverb of stupidity and stubbornness, do not fail to recognise the place in which, and the hand from which, they are in the habit of receiving their daily sustenance. “The ass knoweth his master’s crib.” (Dean Goulburn.)

Man in his relation to God

I. COMPARE THE RELATIONS SUBSISTING BETWEEN AN INFERIOR AND A SUPERIOR CREATURE WITH THOSE SUBSISTING BETWEEN A SUPERIOR AND THE CREATOR. And it will at once suggest itself that, though these relations may be susceptible of comparison, yet there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type out the higher. The distance, in point of faculties, between man and the inferior creatures, if great, is at least measurable. Man has the superiority over the brutes in respect of his reason,--but in respect of our mortal bodies, the subjects of infirmity and decay, we are both entirely on a par. Whereas the distance between finite man and the Infinite God is, of course, incalculable. This inadequacy of the comparison suggested in our text will become more evident, as we enter into a consideration of its details. The dumb creature recognises the master, whose property he is “The ox knoweth his owner.” What constitutes man’s right of ownership to the ox? Simply the fact that he has given in exchange for it an equivalent in the gold that perisheth. It was not he who created the ox. If he supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws. So much for man’s ownership of the ox. Turn we now to God’s ownership of man. What constitutes God’s right of ownership in us, His intelligent creatures?

1. The fact that we are the work of His hands. This constitutes a claim to our services, a property in all our faculties, whether bodily or mental, which no one creature can have in the faculties of another.

2. But creation is not the only ground on which God’s ownership of man rests. Of all things which we may be said to own, our property is most entire, in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. That claim, grounded originally upon the fact of creation, has been confirmed, and extended by the fact of redemption. “Ye are not your own,” says the apostle Paul; “for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Where, in the whole realm of nature, shall we seek a claim so overwhelmingly powerful as this, upon the unreserved devotion of our hearts,--of all that we are and all that we have?

3. But our text suggests to us another detail of the claims which our heavenly Owner has upon our allegiance. “The ass knoweth his master’s crib.” He knows the hand that feeds him and the manger at which he is fed. It asks no scintillation of intelligence, no high effort of an almost rational instinct, to recognise this claim. If man seems to ignore those claims of God which are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded in his behalf that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation and redemption are not cognisable by the senses. These stupendous facts are transacted and past, and as far as our animal life is concerned, we do not seem to derive any present benefit from them. But is not even this paltry justification entirely cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to his God for his daily maintenance, for the comfort and the continuance even of his animal life? Our every period of refreshment and repose, of ease and relaxation from toil, is from the unseen hand of our heavenly Owner. It is not, then, the brute creation in a savage state, whose relations towards man are here drawn into comparison with the relations of man towards God. The inspired writer has chosen, as best adapted to illustrate his argument, instances from the domestic animals, who are domiciliated with man, who share his daily toils, and live as his dependants in the immediate neighbourhood of his home. He mentions not the wild and untamed buffalo, which ranges in the distant prairie, but the patient ox and ass, accustomed from early youth to the restraints of the yoke, and familiarised by long habit with their master’s abode and ways of life. Neither, on the other hand, in drawing out the contrast, does he mention mankind generally; the charge of ingratitude is here brought against a specific portion of the human race. Israel doth not know--My people doth not consider.” It were, in some measure, excusable that the Gentiles should refuse acknowledgment to the living God. They possess no revelation of His will. If Israel entertain a secret distaste for the things of God, it is not that such things are strange to him,--jar with his old prejudices or grate upon his early associations. And that which enhances so peculiarly the guilt of Israel enhances yet more the guilt of that Gentile who, by the reception of the first sacrament of the Gospel, has become a fellow citizen with the saints and of the household of God. We might reasonably expect, then, that the baptized at least, whatever others may do, will yield to their Creator, Redeemer, Benefactor, and adopted Father some heartfelt tribute of acknowledgment.

II. A CONTRAST IS DRAWN BETWEEN THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT MADE BY DUMB ANIMALS OF THEIR RELATION TO THEIR OWNERS AND ISRAEL’S REFUSAL OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO HIS GOD.

1. And first of the dumb animal’s acknowledgment of his owner. “The ox knoweth his owner.” I understand the term “know” in the ordinary sense of recognising. The cattle recognise the voice of their owner. A word, either of menace or of caress, if addressed to them in the well-known accents of their lord, has an instantaneous effect. Not so the menaces or caresses of strangers. What a cutting proof upon the insensibility of God’s people!

2. “Israel doth not know” The professing members of God’s household, the Church, heed not the calls which He is daily addressing to them by the dealings of His providence without, and the pleadings of His Spirit within them.

(1) They recognise not God in His warnings, whether those warnings be addressed to themselves as individuals, or to the nation of which they are members. Some of them have been stretched upon a sick bed, where death and judgment and eternity have come very nigh unto them.

(2) But, finally, can we allege in his behalf that he habitually acknowledges God in His mercies? God’s blessings of nature and providence are accepted by the great body of His professing people as a matter of course. “The ass knoweth his master’s crib”; but Israel, more senseless than the dumb creature, recognises not the hand which confers his blessings. “He doth not consider.” Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange insensibility. It is not that he lacks the faculty of apprehending God, but he will not be at the pains to exercise that faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the truths we have set forth, but that he does not lay to heart that knowledge, nor allow it its due weight. The want of impressibility proceeds from deliberate and wilful thoughtlessness. (Dean Goulburn.)

The distinction between knowledge and consideration

It would appear, from this verse, that the children of Israel neither knew nor considered--but still there is a distinction suggested by it between these two things. And in the Book of Malachi, we have a similar distinction, when the Lord says to the priests, “If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart.” It is, in fact, possible for a man to do one of these things, and not to do the other. He may know the truth, and yet he may not consider it. He may hear, and yet not lay it to heart. And thus it is that we may gather the difference which there is between knowledge and wisdom. The one is a speculative acquirement. The other is a practical faculty or habit. By the latter, we turn to its profitable use the former. Thus it is that there may be great folly along with great scholarship; and, on the other hand, may an unlettered mind be illustrious in wisdom. You have perhaps seen when there was great wealth, and yet, from the want of judicious management, great want of comfort in a family; and what stands in beautiful contrast with this, you may have witnessed the union of very humble means, with such consideration in the guidance of them, as to have yielded a respectable appearance, and a decent hospitality, and the sufficiency of a full provision. And so, with the treasures of intellect, the acquisitions of the mind, whereof one may be rich, being possessed of most ample materials in all knowledge, and yet have an ill-conditioned mind notwithstanding; and another destitute of all but the most elementary truths, may yet, by a wise application of them, have attained to the true light and harmony of the soul, and be in sound preparation both for the duties of time and for the delights of eternity. All have so learned to number their days as to know the extreme limit of human life upon earth; yet all have not so learned to number their days as to apply their hearts unto wisdom. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Knowledge and wisdom

I. This distinction between knowledge and wisdom is abundantly realised even on THE FIELD OF EARTHLY AND OF SENSIBLE EXPERIENCE. The man of dissipation may have his eyes open to the ruin of character and of fortune that awaits him, yet the tyranny of his evil desires constrains him to a perseverance in the ways of wretchedness. The man of indolence may foresee the coming bankruptcy that will ensue on the slovenly management of his affairs, yet there is a lethargy within that weighs him down to fatal inactivity. The man of headlong irritation may be able to discern the accumulating mischief that he raises against himself, and yet continue as before to be hurried away by the onward violence that seizes him. In all these instances there is no want of knowledge in possession. But there is a want of knowledge in use, or in application. The unhappy man has received the truth, but he does not give heed unto the truth.

II. But what we have affirmed, even of those events and consequences that take place along the journey of this world, is still more strikingly apparent of THAT GREAT EVENT WHICH MAKES ITS TERMINATION. There is not a human creature of most ordinary mind, and who hath overstepped the limits of infancy, that does not know of death, and with whom it does not rank among the most undoubted of the certainties that await him. And it is not only that of which he is most thoroughly assured, but it is that of which, in the course of observation and history, he is most constantly reminded. But how is it truly and experimentally? That death of which we all know so well, is scarcely ever in our thoughts. The momentary touch of grief and of seriousness, wherewith we are at times visited, speedily goeth into utter dissipation. It seems not to work the slightest abatement in the eagerness of man after this world’s interests. It needs no impetuous appetite to overbear the thought of death; for in the calm equanimity of many a sober and aged citizen, you will find him as profoundly asleep to the feeling of his own mortality as he is to any of the feelings or instigations of licentiousness. Death is the stepping stone between the two worlds; and so it somewhat combines the palpable of matter, with the shadowy and the evanescent of spirit. It is the gateway to a land of mystery and of silence, and seems to gather upon it some thing of the visionary character which the things of faith have to the eye of the senses. And so, amid all the varieties of temperament in our species, there is a universal heedlessness of death. It seems against the tendency of nature to think of it. The thing is known, but it is not considered. This might serve to convince us how unavailing is the mere knowledge, even of important truth, if not accompanied by the feeling, or the practical remembrance of it. The knowledge in this case only serves to aggravate our folly. Thus, the irreligion of the world is due not to the want of a satisfying demonstration on God’s part, for this might have excused us; but to the want of right consideration on ours, and this is inexcusable.

III. Let us now pass onwards to THE INVISIBLES OF FAITH--to those things which do not, like death, stand upon the confines of the spiritual region, but are wholly within that region, and which man hath not seen by his eye, or heard by his ear--to the awful realities that will abide in deep and mysterious concealment from us, so long as we are in the body. This character of unseen and spiritual is not confined to things future. There are things present which are spiritual also. There is a present Deity, who dwelleth in light, it is true; but it is light inaccessible. And yet, even of this great Spirit we may be said, in one sense, to know, however little it is that we may consider Him. There are averments about God which we have long recognised and ranked among our admitted propositions, though we seldom recur to them in thought, and are never adequately impressed by them. We know, or think we know, that God is; and that all other existence is suspended upon His will; and that He is a God of inviolable sacredness, in whose presence evil cannot dwell. Now, as a proof how distinct this knowledge of God is from the consideration of Him, we will venture to say that even the first and simplest of all these propositions is, by many unthought of for days and weeks together. In the work that you prosecute, and the comforts that you enjoy, and even the obligations of which you acquit yourselves to relatives and to friends, is there any fear of God before your eyes?--and is not the fear of disgrace from men a far more powerful check upon your licentiousness, than the fear of damnation from Him who is the judge and the discerner of men? This emptiness of a man’s heart as to the recognition of God runs throughout the whole of his history. He is engrossed with what is visible and secondary and he thinks no farther. When he enjoys, it is without gratitude. When he enjoys, it is without the impulse of an obedient loyalty. When he admires, it is without carrying the sentiment upwardly unto heaven. Now, this is God’s controversy with man in the text. He there complains of our heedlessness. And this inconsideration of ours is matter of blame, just because it is a matter of wilfulness. Man has a voluntary control over his thoughts.

IV. But the distinction between those who only know and those who also consider, is never more strongly marked than in THE PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL. And fearful is the hazard lest knowledge and it alone should satisfy the possessor. The very quantity of debate and of argument that has been expended on theology, leads to a most hurtful misconceiving of this matter. The design of argument is to carry you onward to a set of accurate convictions. And yet, the whole amount of your acquisition may be a mere rational Christianity. There are no topics on which there has been so much of controversy, or that have given rise to so many an elaborate dissertation, as the person and offices of Christ. Yet, let it not be disguised that the knowledge of all these credenda is one thing, and the practical consideration of them is another. First, He is the Apostle of our profession, or we profess Him to be our Apostle. Let us bethink ourselves of all which this title implies. It means one who is sent. How it ought to move us with awe at the approach of such a messenger when we think of the glory and the sacredness of His former habitation! And what ought to fasten upon Him a still more intense regard, He comes with a message to our world--He comes straight from the Divinity Himself, and charged by Him with a special communication. By your daily indifference to the word that is written, you inherit all the guilt, and will come under the very reckoning of those, who, in the days of the Saviour, treated with neglect the word that was spoken. There is one topic which stands connected with the apostleship of Christ, and that stamps a most peculiar interest on the visit which He made to us from on high. He is God manifest in the flesh. In the character of a man hath He pictured forth to us the attributes of the Divinity. And we, by considering this Apostle, learn of God. But this leads us to another topic of consideration, the priesthood of Christ. The atonement that He made for sin has a foremost place in orthodoxy. But, a truth may be acquired, and then,--cast, as it were, into some hidden comer of the mind,--may lie forgotten, as in a dormitory. And therefore would we again bid you consider Him who is the High Priest of your profession we call upon you, ever and anon, to think of His sacrifice; and to ward off the legality of nature from your spirits, by a constant habit of recurrence, upon your part, to the atonement that He hath made, and to the everlasting righteousness that He hath brought in. Without this, the mind is ever lapsing anon into alienation and distrust. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Inconsiderateness

It is not a charge brought against the human family in general. The terms are special, “My people doth not consider.” If, then, the chiefs and leaders of society have fallen into inconsiderateness, what wonder that the nameless multitude should be giddy? The salt has lost its savour and the high city has concealed its beauty. It was not left for unbelievers and scoffers to bring the severest accusations against the Church; God Himself has marked her shortcomings and loudly charged her with sin! Never has He been the special pleader of His people; He never sought to make out a case for them in spite of facts or even appearances; with solemn fidelity and poignant grief He has shown the Church her corruptness and made her ashamed in the presence of her enemies. We shall dwell on the subject of Inconsiderateness as it bears upon the Church and upon men generally. There are two noticeable points common to both. Why do not men consider?

1. Not for want of opportunity. There are the great heavens which David considered; there are the lilies which Jesus Christ charged men to consider; there are the signs of the times, full of significance; a thousand objects, indeed, daily challenge our thoughtfulness.

2. Not for want of reproof or encouragement. Failures, disappointments, blunders, beyond numbering, have shown us the mischief of inconsiderateness. On the other hand, consideration has always rewarded us with the quietness of a good conscience; yet again and again we cease to be thoughtful. Let us look upon inconsiderateness--

I. IN ITS REASONS.

1. Inconsiderateness saves intellectual trouble. Men do not like to think deeply. They prefer to skim the surface, and instead of working steadily for results, they choose to snatch at anything which may serve them for the passing moment. A decline of thoughtfulness is also a decline of moral strength! The Church thinks but little. Nearly all its propositions have been accepted on trust. Observe! Jesus Christ always challenged the thought of those who beard Him. He never discouraged honest and devout inquiry. He never said a word in praise of ignorance. No authority of His can be quoted for intellectual indolence. Christianity vivifies the intellect.

2. Inconsiderateness mitigates moral compunction. It does this by concealing a man from himself. Men, in many instances, dare not consider themselves. One look at their own hearts would affright them! We may think well of ourselves simply because we do not know ourselves. Pain comes with self-knowledge; but if pain drive men to the Healer, it will be to them as the angel of God.

3. Inconsiderateness escapes social obligation. There is ignorance to be taught; but we don’t go into the question! There is misery to be alleviated; but we think nothing about it! There is a man dying in the road; but we pass by on the other side! (Proverbs 24:12.)

II. IT ITS RESULTS.

1. Practical atheism. God is acknowledged with the lips, but He hath no place in the heart. Things are viewed from the outside, and secondary causes are looked upon as primary and original.

2. Spiritual feebleness. Without consideration no man can be strong. He has no abiding convictions. There is nothing about him or within him which he is unprepared to cast off under pressure.

3. Needless alarm. The man who has spent no time in quiet thinking mistakes the bearing of unusual circumstances. A shadow frightens him. He has no grasp of history. Having eyes, he sees not.

4. Self-deprivation. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Fatal inconsideration

I shall treat of the charge here brought against the ancient Jews in a double view--

I. AS IT MORE ESPECIALLY CONCERNS IMPENITENT SINNERS. It is the proper character of all the impenitent, that they do not and will not consider. This is the ground of their guilt, and the fatal cause of their ruin. Consideration is the same as attentively applying the mind to things, according to their respective nature and importance, in order to our having the clearer apprehension of them, and knowing how we ought to act in relation to them. And, forasmuch as the things of religion are of the highest nature, and the utmost conceivable importance, our considering these things must imply our looking into them, and pondering them with the greatest care, and seriousness, and impartiality; and this with a view of our being able to form a truer and more distinct judgment concerning them, and concerning the manner in which they ought to influence our actions; to the end we may be effectually led and determined to act as we ought, and as the nature and importance of the things should persuade us to do. We must attend carefully, examine impartially, think and reflect seriously, that we may judge, and resolve, and act rightly. I shall--1. Instance some particulars in which it is manifest the persons I am now speaking of do not consider.

(1) They do not consider what their own reason and the Holy Scripture would instruct them in concerning God, His being and providence, His attributes and works. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts” (Psalms 10:4).

(2) They do not consider the end for which they were made, and what is their true interest and highest happiness. This is a most important question, of absolute necessity to regulate human life; for as our end is, such will the course of our actions be in pursuance of it.

(3) They do not consider the infinite obligations they are under to that God whose commands they disobey. This is the particular ground and instance of the allegation against the people of Judah.

(4) They do not consider the vast importance of salvation and what the indispensable terms of it are.

(5) The same persons do not consider the nature and tendency of their present course of life. They do not reflect upon their actions and weigh and ponder their steps. They have not the caution of common travellers, to think whether they are right or wrong.

(6) They do not consider the uncertainty of life.

(7) Or, the certainty of a world to come.

2. Set before you the deplorable consequences of this neglect of serious consideration.

(1) Men do not consider, and therefore do not know.

(2) Men do not consider, and therefore are without all awakening apprehensions of the guilt and misery of a vicious course of life.

(3) Persons engaged in a vicious course do not consider, and are therefore little solicitous to make their peace with God, and to secure an interest in the Saviour, and the salvation proposed to them in the Gospel.

(4) They do not consider, and therefore resign themselves to the conduct of appetite and lust and passion.

(5) Men do not consider, and for that reason it is the temptations to sin are so invincible.

(6) Men will not consider, and therefore support themselves with false and dangerous props, such as these: God is merciful; Christ died for sinners; and it will be time to repent hereafter.

Application--

(1) How inexcusable must all those appear who perish in their sins! They perish because they will not consider.

(2) Here you see, in case you have any purposes of leading a holy life, where you must begin. You must sit down and consider. “I thought on my ways,” etc. (Psalms 119:59).

(3) Let me therefore exhort you to practise a duty so necessary and of such infinite advantage.

II. AS IN A LESSER DEGREE IT TOO FREQUENTLY AFFECTS PERSONS OF SINCERE PIETY. All that consideration which is necessary to the essence of virtue and piety, they practise; but not always that which is requisite to a state of greater perfection. There are several things which too plainly prove their want of consideration.

1. The errors and failings of which they are too often guilty. I do not mean those which are so incident to human nature in the present state, that it is next to impossible to preserve ourselves entirely free from them; but those which, with due care and circumspection, we might easily enough avoid.

2. Sloth and inactivity in a virtuous and religious course of life is another argument of a defective consideration, even in good men. Akin to this is--

3. That indevotion in the exercises of religious worship, which Christians are too apt to slide into, and which too visibly argues their disuse of that consideration which would be of admirable service to fan the sacred fire, when it began to grow dull and languid. “While I was musing,” saith the Psalmist, “the fire burned.”

4. The love of the world, which has too much the ascendant over some pious minds, and their being so greatly moved, if not unhinged, by the shocks and changes of it, must often be ascribed to the same cause.

5. A misplaced and misconducted zeal; a zeal for opinions and practices we know not why, and this zeal under so little government, as to occasion bitter strife and animosity among Christians, and raise such disturbances in the Church of God, as hinder its flourishing state; this likewise shews that men do not consider.

6. It is many times because they do not consider that they who are religious do not enjoy their religion. (H. Grove, M. A.)

Reasons for consideration

1. Consideration is the proper character of reasonable beings: this faculty is the main distinction of the man from the beast; and the exercise of it, of the wise man from the fool

2. We show that we can consider in the things of this life; and why not then in the things of religion?

3. Do your part, and God will not with hold His grace, by which you shall be enabled to do all required of you.

4. By time and use this exercise, however ungrateful at first, will become more easy and pleasant.

5. Consideration is further recommended by its most blessed effects. As, to mention only two of a more general nature: the first, our being converted from the error of our ways; the other, our constant perseverance in the practice of holiness.

6. Were there nothing else but this one motive to engage you to consider, this one should be irresistible, that it is absolutely necessary: it cannot be dispensed with; the consequence of neglecting it is fatal, and never to be retrieved. (H. Grove, M. A.)

Man shamed by the lower animals

A fine pass man is come to when he is shamed even in knowledge and understanding by these silly animals; and is not only sent to school to them (Proverbs 6:6), but set in a form below them (Jeremiah 8:7); “taught more than the beasts of the earth”Job 35:11), and yet knowing less. (M. Henry.)

Inconsideration

Inconsideration of what we do know is as great an enemy to us in religion as ignorance of what we should know. (M. Henry.)

God’s grief became His children do not know Him

An ancestor of mine was once imprisoned for righteousness’ sake, and among the tenderest traditions which have been handed down to me is this, that when that strong man entered gaol not a nerve quivered, and not a look of sorrow was seen upon his countenance. Again, when he was released and met his friends, he bore up heroically; the joy of deliverance did not break him down: but when he entered his home, and when the little child on the mother’s knee, that a month or so before had known its father, did not know him, but turned away from him, the strong man wept as a child. He burst into tears and sobs. The grief of God here is that His own children did not know Him. (David Davies.)