Isaiah 47:15

REFLECTIONS

ONE of the most comprehensive improvements to be made at the close of this chapter, in the view of the very different termination set forth to the people of God, and to his enemies, may be summed up in the words of our Prophet: Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him!

Reader! take a short view of both. Behold, in the representation of Babylon, the delicacy, splendour, pomp, and pleasure in which she rioted for a while: but behold, again, in a moment, in one day, what ruin followed! Such, but in an infinitely greater degree, is the state of all the enemies of God and of his Christ. As Jesus told some in his days, so in every age the same are discoverable: Ye are of your father the devil, and the work of your father ye will do. For the wretched wages of carnal honour, how unweariedly do they drudge in his service, wear his livery, speak his language, and promote the interests of his kingdom! And what can the end be but Death? My soul: come not thou into their secret: unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!

Behold the people of God! How often harassed and oppressed by their foes! And when, by sin and rebellion, their Babylonish enemies bring them into subjection, how heavily do they sometimes groan, being burthened: who shall speak of their inward conflicts with sin and Satan, and an unbelieving heart? Who shall describe their outward fears? In all their pilgrimage state, what exercises do they experience from the many ups and downs through which they pass! Nevertheless, the Lord is still bringing them on, and bringing them through, and will at length make them more than conquerors, through his grace helping them. Reader! be it your portion and mine, to see that we are of this household of faith for then we shall go from strength to strength, amidst all the Babylonian conflicts of our warfare, till we come to appear before our God, our Jesus, in his Zion!