Isaiah 57:17-19

For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth

The punishment of backsliders; but their encouragement when penitent

These words remind us of the language of the apostle to the Romans: “Where sin abounded grace did much more abound.

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I. THE ACCUSATORY PART.

1. The evil complained of--“The iniquity of his covetousness.” Then covetousness is iniquity. So the apostle considered it, or he would not have called it “idolatry.” All idolatry is not gross or corporeal. Much of it is refined and mental. It is lamentable to think that this evil so commonly prevails. You will find, by the sacred writers, that the Jews were always given to it. Is it not awful to see how this vice prevails in our country?

2. The reward of transgression. “For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him.” Sin is the same in whomsoever it is found. The evil is not lessened when it is found in the people of God; it is even increased. They stand in nearer relation to God than others. They sin under greater obligations to God than others. They sin against a renewed nature and an enlightened con science. Hence God is peculiarly angry, “because of the provoking of His sons and of His daughters. Hence He says, You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” “Sin never hurts the believer,” is an antinomian sentiment: but what saith the Scriptures? Turn back to the history of Moses and Aaron. Turn to the history of David, even when God assured him that his sin was pardoned. How wise, how merciful, are those hidings and those smitings He employs to bring His people to Himself.

3. The perverseness under this. “He went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” It is said of Ahaz that, in his affliction, he sinned yet more and more against the Lord. So Jeremiah says, “Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.” “Do afflictions produce no benefit?” Let us distinguish. There are many who have been afflicted, and yet have not been humbled by the dispensations of Providence, by which they have been exercised. But, you say, “Can this be, in any measure, the ease with real Christians? Will they require the rebukes of Divine Providence? Will they go on in the frowardness of their hearts?” Yes, for a while; and, sometimes, for a long while. There is Jonah--he was disobedient to the word of the Lord.

4. Here is God’s knowledge of all the ways and works of men. “I have seen his ways.” Therefore the speaker is authorized to say, “Be sure your sin will find you out. And now, after all that He has seen, what shall we certainly expect to hear next from Him? I have tried long enough, I have employed means long enough, I will now “avenge Me of My adversaries.” But no, “I have seen his ways”--and what ways!--“and will heal him,” etc.

II. THE PROMISSORY PART. Observe the extensiveness of the engagement. It takes in four things.

1. “I will heal him’, All sin is a disease, and it affects the soul much in the same way as affliction affects the body; depriving it of liberty, of enjoyment, of usefulness. It is the same with backsliding.

2. “I will lead him also.” Bishop Hall says, “Though God has a large family, not one of them can go alone.” Ann there is none so dull, but He can teach them.

3. “I will restore comforts unto him.”

4. “And I will restore comforts unto his mourners,”--for he had made others to mourn as well as himself. This is always the case. The wicked are not only corrupt, but they are “children who are corrupters.” But who are they of whom the Prophet here speaks? Not men of the world. They are not his mourners. They rather rejoice. They say, “Ah! so would we have it, instead of grieving over the falls of professors of religion and of the people of God. But “his mourners?” They are his ministers--they who only live when you “stand fast in the Lord.” They are the humble believers in Jesus, who are “sorrowful for the solemn assembly, and to whom the reproach of it is a burden.” (W. Jay.)

A cluster of promises

I. HERE ARE PROMISES, REACHING TO THE VERY ROOT OF ALL OUR SINFUL NEED, made to sinners as sinners, nay, to the very worst sinners.

1. The promise of healing “I will heal him.”

2. A promise of leading. The Hebrew is, I will conduct him safely to his own country.

3. “I will restore comforts to him.” It is not the singular word, it is not comfort, but “comforts;” all sorts of comforts, and this though I have seen his ways. This is just the language we have in Isaiah 54:8.

4. There is a fourth promise, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; a liberal promise! to those afar off--aye, far as the ends of the earth--from God, from light, and rest, and truth.

II. THE PERSONS TO WHOM THESE PROMISES ARE MADE. I said God makes promises to sinners, as sinners; will you observe the persons to whom these promises are made, as God describes them here? (Isaiah 54:17.) Covetousness is the root of all sin; covetousness sets up self instead of God in the heart, and everything that ariseth in practice contrary to God and His Word has its root in covetousness--selfism; but here is not merely covetousness, but the “iniquity of covetousness,” a state of mind that rests at nothing likely to gratify or minister to self, but will go through hell-fire to get at what it wants. Then, again (Isaiah 54:17), God smote, but the soul was no better; it is a terrible aggravation of a sinful state, when the correcting hand of God does not mend it; see what God says (Isaiah 1:5). Now, says God, “I have seen his ways,” obstinate, incorrigible, in sin, and “I will heal him. Such is the divinely gracious way in which peace is proclaimed to him that is afar off. (M. Rainsford.)

He went on frowardly

The deceitfulness of the heart, with respect to adversity

1. This sometimes appears by despising afflictions. Many attempt to outbrave calamity, as if they were stronger than God.

(1) Those may be said to despise His chastening, who account it a small matter, who from a principle of pride and presumption think it unworthy of them to seem affected with it, or refuse to turn to the hand that smiteth.

(2) Again, we despise affliction, if we consider not its origin, which is the corruption of our whole nature by sin.

(3) Adversity is also despised, when the subjects of it do not consider the more immediate cause of it, which is the anger of God because of sin, and confess with Moses, the man of God: “We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.”

(4) Further, affliction is despised, if we do not consider the design of it.

2. By repining under adversity.

3. By keeping death at a distance, if the affliction be of a bodily kind.

4. By forming empty resolutions of repentance and reformation, while under affliction.

5. By exciting men to make lies their refuge. The deceitful heart prompts them to trust in earthly means for deliverance from affliction.

6. By making them despise means. We have seen again and again how the deceitfulness of the heart works by contraries, in its opposition to God. If it prevail not with those under affliction to depend absolutely on means, it will strenuously urge the total neglect of them.

7. By seeking deliverance from the affliction itself, rather than the sanctified use of it.

8. By abusing adversity, as an occasion of hardening itself against God. (J. Jameson, M. A.)