Isaiah 1

Isaiah 1:1

ISAIAH—THE PROPHET, AND HIS Isa_1:1THE preacher is always attempting the impossible. His office lays upon him this necessity. Who could sound all the depths of the great inspired Word of God? Who can reach the heights of its God-given sentences? The tongues of men and of angels are, alike, inadequate to this task. And yet the preacher is compelled to attempt it over and over again. Think of the impossibility of discussing the Bible in a single discourse! And yet that has been tried.

The task set for this chapter, namely, to speak to you of “Isaiah—the Prophet, and his Prophecies”, is one entirely beyond the preacher’s ability, if by the subject we mean anything like a full presentation of the theme; and yet it must be attempted.For every Book in the Bible, Isaiah has a chapter. Sixty-six of them, and not a short one in the whole volume. It requires the earnest student some hours to read the words of this prophecy. How then can we hope to discuss his Name, Character and Ministry in forty minutes? It is impossible! And yet the attempt need not be useless.

No man can give himself to the consideration of so great a subject without receiving profit there from; and giving profit to those who attend upon his words.You will notice that I speak of Isaiah, the Prophet and his prophecies; not of two Isaiahs, and certainly not of twenty. Please do not imagine that I have never heard of those critics who have cut this man in twain, some of whom have sawn him asunder in at least twenty separate places.

I have heard of them, and have investigated their arguments; I have weighed them in the balance and, to me, they are wanting. I find but one Prophet in this matchless production, and I may be pardoned for presenting him and his message, since even the critics have given us no satisfactory account of that second man to whom they have assigned the last twenty-seven chapters, or of the other authors some claim for certain sections.Three words stand out in my mind as good points of departure in the discussion of Isaiah—The Man, His Ministry and His Message.THE MANBut for the ministry of Isaiah, the man might never have been known. His apology for appearing before the public rests in the fact that “a vision” was vouchsafed him of the Lord. He was not distinguished by those accidents of life that furnish the excellencies of so many names. His birth, breeding, blood and burial are all questions about which such doubtful traditions have gathered that the truth will probably never shine through. From his own pen we learn his father’s name, his wife’s character, the number and names of his children.

Beyond this, his family connections are in the fogs of uncertainty. But what of it?Sonship is not the pivotal point of success.

It matters little enough whether Amoz, his father, was a plain peasant, or, as the Rabbinical tradition has it, the brother of King Amaziah. The great question of life is not, Who is your father? but Who are you? As Joseph Parker, speaking of Moses, said, “Renown often has obscurity for a pedestal.” Orison Swett Marden, in his chapter on “Boys With No Chance”, mentions such an array of great names as to make one almost feel that uncrowned kings and queens are commonly the children of the poor, and, quite often, of the ignorant. He reviews for us the hardships of the youth of the sculptor Thorwaldsen; the penury in which the scholar Kitto spent his youth; the degradation of Creon’s estate as a Greek slave. He quotes Vice-President Henry Wilson’s words, “I was born in poverty; want sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a mother for bread when she has none to give”; and Horace Greeley’s defense of the ragged clothes which covered him as a child.

He tells how George W. Child began his career without promise; and how William Corbett commenced his with thirteen halfpence; and Thurlow Weed by studying while attending “sapbush”.

He names in this same catalogue of the unfavored, Theodore Parker, Elihu Burritt, Alva Edison, Daniel Manning, David Hill, and I know not how many more. But John Bright ought not to be forgotten, nor Michael Faraday left unmentioned. But why add to the list Cornelius Vanderbilt, Lord Eldon, Stephen Girard, Fred Douglas, and four hundred others? Why make fresh mention of Abraham Lincoln’s poor opportunities, yet prodigious accomplishments? Only to illustrate the truth suggested with reference to Isaiah, “sonship is not the pivotal point of success”.The great question in life is not, Whose son art thou, but rather, Who art thou? The trouble with most people in the world is not that they were born outside of palaces, but that they lack the moral and mental force that captures crowns and thrones; not that they come of common stock, but that they have remained common.

You have heard of that instance of repartee which is so seriously true of many others! Said the Duke of Modena, tauntingly to the Cardinal, “Remember, your father was the swineherd of the Duke’s father.” To which the Cardinal, unmoved, answered, “True, but if your father had been my father’s swineherd you would have been a swineherd still.” Among all of God’s creatures, that man is the greatest nonentity, whose only merit exists in the fact that he is the son of a favored sire.

Isaiah had no kinship with that character. He was not bom great, nor yet did he have greatness thrust upon him; he attained it!As to Isaiah’s personal appearance we are also left largely to guess-work. The Book that bears his name furnishes some facts and some fancies that lead many to make a mental photograph of him, the main features of which must be supplied by the imagination. Doubtless his face was serious ! No man can read his words and question that his eyes flashed with fire. That he wore a haircloth dress is recorded.

Thereby he presented “a prophetic preaching by fact”. Before he opened his lips his external appearance proclaimed “Repent”, as clearly as the lips of John the Baptist said the same.In mental force and moral character he was almost a Moses in statesmanship, more than a Caleb for courage, an Elijah of reproof, a David in authorship, a Daniel for prophecy, and, as John the Baptist, a forerunner of Jesus.But one must restrain his imagination from further attempting to picture this man and turn rather to the more sure subject ofHIS Here the best picture of him is seen.

That is true of every good man, and especially true of the Prophets of God. Into his ministry he threw so much of himself; so much of physical vigor, mental fire, moral force; so much of courage, conduct, character; so much of spiritual perception and inspired power, that to follow his words is to feel acquainted with Isaiah—the Preacher, Statesman, Historian, Poet, Reformer, and Prophet; for he was all of these.He commenced that ministry at the call of God. Before he consented to accept the Prophet’s office, God had said to him, “You must.” God had sent a seraph to touch his lips with a live coal from off the altar, symbol of his mission as a minister of truth. In spite of that theological drift which strives more and more to set aside the doctrine of a Divine call, we are persuaded that Isaiah’s convictions, courage and splendid character were all influenced, in no mean measure, by the indelible memory of that high moment when he had a vision of God on His exalted throne, and heard Him say “Go”. He knew, then, what he never forgot, that his ministry was Divinely appointed; his mission was Divinely meted out to him.There may be men who can afford to enter the ministry without any such sense of Divine appointment. There are men who seem to approach it solely from a professional standpoint; but we doubt if such make true prophets.

They may be sober, moral, unselfish; yes, they may be even conscientious in their choice of this profession; and yet why should any man start on a mission to whom God has not spoken saying, “Go.”We believe with Pastor Stalker that enthusiasm for humanity is hardly strong enough for the rough uses of this world. There come hours of despair when men hardly seem worthy our devotion.

Those for whom we are sacrificing ourselves take all we do as a matter of course; pass us by unnoticed or turn and rend us. Why should we continue to press our gifts on such as do not desire them? Stalker is right in saying, “There is but one reason that is sufficient to keep one stable in such a course and that is found in the command of God.” If He has ordered it, one dares not draw back; the work is His, the souls are His, and, if He has committed them to one’s care and at the Judgment Seat will require them at his hands, he can do nothing less than lay life upon the altar of their interests and wait for God’s words of approval, and God’s enduement of power.As a minister of the Gospel, I bear witness to bigger blessing than I ever dreamed when I first entered this way. The people have been kind above my deserts; and God, gracious beyond my happiest dreams. This profession is dearer to me today than life, as dear as wife and babies. But for all that, I counsel every young man who has not a conscious call of God to such a mission to let the Gospel ministry alone, severely alone.

It is an office so stern, so serious, and so sublime that the man who remains in it must be supported in its continual discharge by the consciousness of a Divine call.I have said that this Divine call accounts, in some great measure, for the courage of this man’s ministry. Isaiah had no more marked characteristic than his courageousness.

Never once does he seem to flinch from duty, or fear the voice of a foe, crowned or uncrowned. Four different kings he was compelled to confront and expose their faults; but he never faltered. His own people walked in ways of wickedness and God gave him the words of reproof. It was a cross of crosses to plainly tell them of their sin; yet he never came short.Wendell Phillips tells us, “When I was a boy of fourteen years of age in the old church at the North end of Boston, I heard Lyman Beecher preach on the theme, “You Belong to God”. I went home after the service, threw myself on the floor and prayed, “O God, I belong to Thee. Take what is Thine.

I ask this, that whatever I know to be wrong may have no power of temptation over me; whatever I know to be right may take no courage to do it.” In later life he declared that from the very hour of his prayer the evident wrong never tempted him; and in doing the known right he never knew a fear. Somehow Isaiah secured this same blessing from above.He did not ask sinners to settle the circle of his labors.

He paid no heed to the ever continuing cry of unregenerates that the preacher should keep to his little homilies on “Christian Love”, and let corporations, city fathers, sinful institutions, state officials, and crowned heads alone. He knew no namby-pamby ministry, circumscribed by a circle of platitudes, beyond which he must be careful not to go lest he invade the secular realm and lose his ministerial standing or sanctity. Before he finishes the first chapter of his Book he has lifted the veil from civic corruption.“How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.“Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:“Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them”.That is but an earnest of the civic cannonading to come. As one reads the whole Book of Isaiah, he finds the philipics of a Parkhurst, the cannonading of a Clinton Howard, the blasting of a John Roach Straton, tame beside the speeches with which this Prophet of God condemns.Nor did he stop his reform utterances with exposing civic corruption in such speech! He went from city fathers, state officials, crowned heads, to elders and princes, saying, “Ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of Hosts”.Nor did he interest himself in Judah only.

The Book that bears his name contains his prediction of destruction for the surrounding, yet sinful, nations. Babylon was to be swept with the besom of destruction; Palestine dissolved; Moab laid waste; Syria and Israel become a ruinous heap; Ethiopia be trodden under foot; Egypt confused and destroyed.He lifted up his voice against drunkenness.

Evidently Isaiah was a third party man, polling his vote, as well as preaching.If there were time I should like to show how he related sound theology to social and political reform.His first call was not to “reform” but to “repent”. He did not believe in a reformation which began on the outskirts of society and wrought toward its center. He believed in one which began with the regeneration of the individual and worked out toward the reformation of society. God’s spirit within the heart was His method of changing social conditions. He believed in the political revolution resulting from obedience to God’s Laws and not through the smooth statesmanship of some self-seeking, but sin-stained party.Isaiah was the sort of Prophet that our century needs. Salvation for the souls of men resulting in proper social conditions for their bodies—that is the call of the true reformer; and it is in accord with Isaiah’s opinions.

The man who is God’s agent for regeneration is the best reformer; and the spirit of this ancient Prophet, lives afresh in him.But I want the burden of this discussion to be about another thing, namely,HIS For sinners he had his scathing words. Ewald calls one of his chapters “The Great Arraignment”, and that term applies to all of the earlier chapters of the Book.

They are addressed to men who are committing crime, and they call it by no soft terms. In fact, to the very end of the Book Isaiah never forgets, never permits his auditors to forget, that “The wicked shall not be unpunished” (Proverbs 11:21). His closing sentences present the loyal subjects of God as going forth to look upon the carcasses of the men that transgressed against the Lord. Of them, he says, “Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh”.He would have agreed with the Apostle Paul in describing “sin” as “exceeding sinful”. He would have consented with that writer who says of this terrible thing which has blighted the world, “You cannot pronounce its name without the hiss of the serpent, or the hiss of the flame.”He did his best to be free of the blood of those who were perishing by it. For about sixty straight years the sound of his voice was silenced only while he slept; and all that time it was sounding the alarm in the ears of men who sinned against God.

It is a graphic picture we have of Jonah as he walks nineteen miles, clear across the great city of Nineveh, in a single day, crying at every step, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown”.But for sixty years Isaiah cries in the ears of the people their crimes and coming judgment. Our greatest need now is a ministry that will warn the wicked from his way; and, seeing the sword of judgment coming upon the land, will blow the trumpet in no uncertain sound.

If we had more prophets in the earth who preached “the sinfulness of sin”, we should have more saints leading lives of holiness.For the saints of God, this man had a message of love and hope. Into his darkest picture of impending destruction, he also painted the radiant remnant to be redeemed. From the very first, this vision of God’s elect was before him. He adumbrates in the last verse of the sixth chapter (Isaiah 6:13), and sets it more fully before us in the name of his second son. The very word’s meaning is “remnant shall return”. In his later writings that message grows upon his vision until we see in it the clear and distinct outline of Christ’s character, and Christ’s Kingdom, rising into the place of first importance. A man cannot read the latter chapters of Isaiah without learning whence the poet draws his thought: “On the mountain-top appearing Lo! the sacred herald stands,Welcome news to Zion bearing,Zion long in hostile bands.Mourning captives,God Himself will loose thy bands.”It was what Isaiah promised! He said, “The remnant that is escaped of the House of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward: For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall do this” (Isaiah 37:31-32).This includes the coming Messiah. The cleanest, most clear-cut description of the God-man ever given, until John the Baptist, fell from Isaiah’s lips. This Messiah was promised in Genesis at the Fall; visions of His rising glory were vouchsafed to Moses, to David, and to Solomon, They taught their generations about it. But the express image of His presence; the perfect outline of His character, the complete fulfilment of His office, inspiration reserved to Isaiah. Early in his ministry he voices that wonderful name Immanuel” (Isaiah 8:8).

From His name he went to the outline of His character, “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).Later he tells us all about His rule; and how He is coming to it through suffering—the suffering that shall save wicked men from their wickedness. What a marvelous exposition of the great doctrine of the atonement and substitution is his fifty-third chapter—“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?“For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a, dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.“He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.“Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.“He was taken from prison and judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken.And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.“He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.“Therefore will I divide Him a, portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death; and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53).It is little wonder that he follows that with the fifty-fourth chapter,“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;“For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.“Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more”.It is the Church of God comforted with His gracious promise in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah also in the chapter following invites all men to the vision of God’s gracious provisions, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price”.Yes, and it is Isaiah who has the first clear vision of the “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (Isaiah 66:22; Isaiah 55:12-13); and out of which transgressors shall have been cast forever more. He is the great millenarian—the man of God who saw the Golden Age and gospelized it (Isaiah 60; Isaiah 65). He was the Prophet who pictured the first appearance of Jesus, to be born of a virgin; and he, the Prophet also, who promises the Second Appearance of Jesus in power and glory. Driver, critical, as he was, and unreliable in so many of his ideas, was yet compelled to admit that the later chapters of Isaiah contain an outline of glorious things to come, and he says, “This portrait is essentially the creation of Isaiah, and even later Prophets did not contribute to it in essentially substantial features.”How much of Isaiah has already transpired! The nations he pictured as doomed, perished. The Son of David he said would come, was born according to his word.

The suffering One he represented as “brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth”, fulfilled the last letter of it. The Church he saw rising into prominence, her light “enlightening the Gentile”, has been the power of God for twenty centuries, preserving an otherwise putrid world.

The Gospel he affirmed as adequate to the opening of hard hearts, and breaking down heathen bars, is already proving the truthfulness of his prophecies. And today the march of God’s truth stimulates men in the perfect hope that Israel’s Christ is about to come again and call His own about Him and with the army of the redeemed bring in the Millennium. His faithful ones are now saying, “Hasten, Lord, the glorious time, When beneath Messiah’s sway,Every nation, every clime, Shall the Gospel call obey.Mightiest kings His power shall own, Heathen tribes His Name adore Satan and his host, overthrown, Bound in chains shall hurt no more.“Then shall wars and tumults cease Then be banished grief and pain;Righteousness and joy and peace, Undisturbed shall ever reign.Bless we then our gracious Lord; Ever praise His glorious Name;All His mighty acts record, All His wondrous love proclaim.”John Lord, speaking to the vision which Isaiah had of Christ triumphing over wicked men says, “In the temporal fall of a monstrous despotism; in the decline of wicked cities and empires; in the light which is penetrating all lands; in the shaking of Mohammedan thrones; in the opening of the most distant East; in the arbitration of national difficulties; in the terrible inventions which make nations fear to go to war; in the wonderful network of philanthropic enterprises; in the renewed interest in sacred literature; in the recognition of law and order as the first condition of civilized society; in that general love of truth which science has stimulated and rarely mocked, and which casts its searching eye into all creeds and all hypocrisies and all false philosophy, we share the exultant spirit of the Prophet, and in the language of one of our great poets we repeat the promised joy: “Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise.Exalt Thy towering head and lift Thine eyes!See a long race Thy spacious courts adorn,See future sons and daughters yet unborn!See barbarous nations at Thy gates attend,Walk in Thy light, and in Thy Temple bend!See Thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, And heaped with products of Sabaen springs!No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;But lost, dissolved in Thy superior rays,One tide of glory, one unclouded blazeO’erflow Thy courts; the Light Himself shall shineRevealed, and God’s eternal day be Thine!—The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decayRocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;But fixed His Word, His saving power remains; Thy realm forever lasts; Thy own Messiah reigns!”

Isaiah 1:18

THE PUCE OF REASON IN THE Isa_1:18“” is a word of popularity second only to “Evolution”. In fact, these two terms are regarded by many as Siamese twins —vitally connected. Many who employ the word rationalism seek to pit it against the Christian religion and to make it appear that it has nothing in common with it. It is true that usage may give to the word a meaning not found in the word itself, and to some extent, that has occurred with “rationalism”. As Charles Edward Jefferson, of New York City says: “It came into common use in the sixteenth century to designate the class of people who gave an exalted place to reason, and the word was seized upon by certain infidel philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who became known throughout the world as Rationalists. The word carries with it the implication that a man who accepts Christianity is an irrationalist; that is, he does not use his reason.

If a man reasons, he rejects Christianity; if he refuses to reason, he accepts it. The insinuation is unjust.

All Christians are rationalists, or ought to be, in the sense that they make a vigorous use of their mind. The Christian religion is a rational religion, and the evidences for it are rational. It addresses itself primarily to the reason.”Believing heartily with Dr. Jefferson in this, let me call your attention to the fact that this text is in line with his remarks. It containsA MENTAL .The people addressed by Isaiah have been attempting by sacrifices and ceremonies, oblations and incense to come into the Divine favor. In new moons and appointed feasts they had trusted, rather than the exercise of faith and the discharge of moral responsibilities.

And God loathed it all and declared Himself as having turned His eyes from them and stopped His ears to their prayers; and now He demanded of them cleanness, cessation from evil doing, learning to do well, the seeking of justice, the up-lifting of the oppressed, the judging of the fatherless, the pleading for the widow; and He knows full well that these things are not possible apart from reason, hence His invitation: “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18).This Christian religion consults man’s reason. The Scriptures saith that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

I suppose we would with one consent insist that of all the gifts few are so great as that of the human reason. Take it away and you reduce man to the level of the beast, and even below that. It is now admitted by critics and so-called Rationalists, and even by Atheists, that the mind of Jesus Christ is the matchless one of all millenniums. And Christianity is Christ’s thought, Christ’s reason, Christ’s rationalism, if you please. Goethe said: “The human mind, no matter how much it may advance in intellectual culture and in the extent and depth of the knowledge of nature, will never transcend the height, the moral culture of Christianity as it shines and glows in the person of Jesus Christ”The recovery of Christianity in Luther’s day from the rubbish of Romanism was another triumph of reason. Dr.

Jefferson has rather a fine passage in which he says: “Modem History began in the year 1521 when an Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther went to the Diet of Worms to give an account of himself to the Emperor of Germany. The appearance of Luther before the emperor is a picture that ought to be burned into the retina of the eyes of every youth of America.

It is April and the evening has come. The torches have been lighted, and they cast a flickering glare over the faces of the earnest men who have come together to hear this monk from Wittenberg. As Luther goes through the door, the greatest general of Germany taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘My poor monk, my poor monk, you are on the way to make such a stand as I have never made in my toughest battle.’ And what the general said was true. The emperor is there, the electors and the princes of Germany are there. In front of the king there is a table on which are piled books which this Augustinian monk has written. Luther is now thirty-eight years old. For over fifteen years he has been a monk. The fundamental principles of the Roman Catholic Church have been built into his mind.

But as a student he has learned that church councils can make mistakes. He has said so, and has said so openly. The question before the Diet of Worms is: Will this Augustinian monk recant? The emperor tells him haughtily that he is not there to question matters which have been settled in general councils long ago, and that what he wants is a plain answer without horns, whether he will retract what he has said contradicting the decisions of the Council of Constance. Luther rises to reply, and this is what he says: ‘Since your imperial Majesty requires a plain answer, I will give one without horns or hoofs. It is this, that I must be convinced either by the testimony of Scripture or by clear argument.

I cannot trust the pope or councils by themselves, for both have erred. I cannot and will not retract.’ An awful silence falls upon them all.

And then the Augustinian monk continues: ‘I can do nothing else. Here I stand. So help me God. Amen.’ And as Luther passed out the door some Spaniards who were present hissed him. Spain was at that time the leading nation of the world, and God heard those hisses, and He laid His hand on Spain and led her slowly to the rear of the procession of European nations, and there He has held her for two hundred years. And God laid hold of Germany, at that time one of the most belated of all European nations, and told her to go up higher, and she today stands in the forefront of all the nations of the continent of Europe, because she followed Luther. ‘I must be convinced by clear argument.’ That was the position of Luther, and that is the true position of Protestantism whenever it is true to itself.”Christianity has conquered by reason.

The skeptic is not the only free thinker. Amidst the results of Christ’s ministry, the most important stand for proclaiming “liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1).

This text is not sufficiently interpreted when it is applied to the physical only. Christ has lifted more shackles from the intellects of men than from the ankles of men. Great as has been His influence upon muscular, greater yet upon mental liberty. As surely as His pierced hand has turned the gates of dark dungeons and set men’s bodies free, more surely still has His mental and spiritual precepts emancipated the human mind. The man, therefore, who boasts himself a “Free Thinker” insinuates that “Christianity” is a fettered thing, and fettering in its influence, and either forgets all history or never knew any.We are told that some scholars translated the beginning of John’s Gospel after this manner: “In the beginning was the Reason, and the Reason was with God, and the Reason was God.” Truly that is a good definition of Jesus. He was the “Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). “In Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The poet had occasion who wrote: “Hushed be the noise and strife of the schools Volume and pamphlet, sermon and speech,The lips of the wise and the prattle of fools; Let the Son of Man teach!“Who has the key to the Future but He? Who can unravel the knots of the skein?We have groaned and have travailed and sought to be free; We have travailed in vain.“Bewildered, dejected, and prone to despair, To Him as at first do we turn and beseech!Our ears are all open! Give heed to our prayer; O Son of Man, teach!”Christianity has also mastered the mightiest reasons. There is no question that Columbus thought, and yet, Columbus believed. It is hardly likely that any one would charge Livingstone with lack of thought, and yet Livingstone devoted his life to the cause of Christ. The world’s explorers and discoverers have been compelled to think and think clearly, and yet with few exceptions, they have been ardent Christians.

In the realm of science it is supposed the clearest thinking is done, yet let no man forget that Christianity conquered Galileo, Kelper and Farraday, not to mention the more modern thinkers, Sir Henry Drummond, Lord Kelvin, Sir Wm. Thompson, and others of kindred caliber.

The great statesmen of the world have never been chargeable with weakness of intellect and yet if you called the roll of English history, of German history, and of American history you would mention names, the majority of whom were followers of Jesus.He also would be indifferent to facts who denies that great ministers of the Cross, believers on Christ, were none other than men of highest mental caliber —Polycarp, Tertullian, Alexander, Huss, Wyclif, Knox, Tauler, Savonarola, Latimer, Calvin, the Wesleys, not to mention those matchless names of Robertson, Parker, Spurgeon, and others.There are few things that try one more than the mutterings of men whose youth and inexperience, or whose more mature years, coupled with mental shallowness, and intellectual non-equipment lead them to talk as if the reasoning man was, and necessarily, an irreligious one. How many there are now who say of the Virgin Birth, “It does not appeal to my reason;” of the Resurrection, “It does not appeal to my reason;” of the miracles recorded in the Old Testament and the New, “They do not appeal to my reason.” Winston Churchill makes Hodder to reject the Virgin Birth because “it is contrary to reason”. He needs to be reminded, in the language of a notable professor, that “the story is not contrary to his reason, nor is it contrary to the reason of ten thousand men who read it and believe it and feel it to be altogether reasonable. It is not correct then to say that the story is contrary to human reason. What you mean to say is that it is contrary to your reason. And what you are probably trying to say is that it is contrary to your opinion”.But, as this writer adds, “Opinion is one thing, and human reason is another.” And he illustrates: “I travel into Alaska and meet an Eskimo who has never heard of the X-rays, and I say to him: ‘I have seen every bone in that hand of mine.

I know the size and shape and exact location of every bone just as clearly as I should know this if the flesh were scraped away.’ And he looks at me with surprise and says, ‘That is contrary to reason.’ What the? man is trying to say is that it is contrary to his opinion. Or I should travel into the South Seas and meet a man there who had never so much as heard of ice, and I say, ‘My southern friend, I walked across a lake one day in February and never even got my feet wet.’ And he throws up his hands in amazement and says, ‘That is contrary to reason.’ What he is trying to say is that it is contrary to his experience.”Christianity is the life and work of Jesus and the record of it is in the New Testament while the prophecy of it is in the Old, and that Book has marched through the centuries conquering and to conquer.

Even its enemies have been compelled to confess its superiority; and if not with bended knee, at least with bowed heads, pay it the tribute of their intellects.ITS IS FROM THE MASTER.“Come How, and let us reason together, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18).The source of the challenge is suggestive. It is not the challenge of one man to another, or of one mortal mind to another; it is the Creator’s challenge for the creature; it is a proposed conference of reason between the Infinite and the finite. We have no doubt that this fact will make many afraid. I have noted in the years of my ministry that those men who talk most about thinking, do the least amount of it. David said, “I thought on my ways”, and then he records the result, “And turned my feet unto Thy Testimonies; I made haste, and delayed not to keep Thy Commandments” (Psalms 119:59-60).It is very easy for the man who does not think on his ways to turn away from God’s Testimonies and to refuse altogether to keep God’s Commandments. The special reason for a protracted meeting is that it compels men to think.

I doubt if there is a man here tonight unconverted who has attended an evangelistic meeting for six successive nights and remained unconvicted or unconverted. In truth, I am interested to know whether there is a man here tonight who has listened to the preaching of the Gospel for six successive Sunday nights.and yet who has rejected Jesus.

Successive thinking results in conviction; yea, in conversion; but spasmodic thinking is not thinking at all. This is the devil’s delight. God invited men to think, the devil delights in thoughtlessness; God calls men to faith, the devil to frivolity; God calls men to reason, the devil specializes in insanity.The challenge is to reason with Him. “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18).There are quite a few people in this country who want to take all their theological opinions from Germany; they have heard that there are a good many Germans who are skeptical and critical and who call themselves “rational” and they have concluded that German thinkers are great men.All right, then, I bring to your attention a quotation from one of them, and one of the greatest of them, Bettex: “When I hear that a more than ordinary mind has demonstrated that there is no freedom of will, no hope of a future life, no God, I am fully assured, in advance, that he has done none of these.” I must remind him that “the natural mind receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The Bible, then, does not yield up its last secret to unregenerate human reason. This great German relates that one day a coppersmith was hammering near the open window, and the noted professor asked, almost timidly, “ ‘Do you notice any difference between this noise and the most beautiful music? I am not able to do so.’ He was thoroughly versed in the theory of sound and sound waves, but he was utterly unable to appreciate the higher realm of melody; Bach and Handel, Mozart and Beethoven passed by him without leaving trace or effect.”So the music of Heaven goes unappreciated by the man whose ears are dull; and the whole host of angels from the other world would have no effect upon him whose eyes were closed.

David knew why he prayed: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law” (Psalms 119:18). There is many a man whose eyes are closed to the things of God’s Law; and as a rule he is a man thoughtless, at least, concerning those mysteries.One of the greatest things that Christ ever did for His disciples was when He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.

There are some men who are blind and who know it, and who, like the poor fellows at the wayside, are crying to the passing Christ for help, and their blindness is taken away; and there are some men who are blind who say that they see, and their sin remaineth (John 9:41).But every man may answer the challenge of God, may reason with Him and set his face toward the light and turn his eyes toward Heaven. His feet may be found in the path of the just that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, for,This challenge is to reason about moral and spiritual things.“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” (Isaiah 1:18).There are a good many men who want to invite God to a conference along matters personal, matters political, matters commercial, and it is not unusual for them to ask His aid in all these respects; but He invites them rather to reason about things moral and spiritual, the things of the soul. When, as Christ manifested in the flesh, He had the ears of men, He reminded them that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15). He told them not to lay up treasure on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and neglect Heavenly treasure (Matthew 6:19-20); not to be forever concerned about things temporal, and indifferent to things eternal. The instruction of Jesus was in line with the context here: “Hear the Word of the Lord * * give ear unto the Law of our God” (Isaiah 1:10). He knew that what men needed was light upon the path that they might walk in moral rectitude and live in sacred communion.

No man has ever lived whose reason was great enough to guide him if he treated these Heavenly counsels with indifference. No man has ever lived who could keep his feet from pitfalls apart from the Law of the Lord, the revelation of His Word.

There is a good story of William Robertson, the great preacher, and David Hume, the great skeptic. It was at the very time when the struggle between so-called reason on the one side and revelation on the other, was at its height. Hume was the recognized leader in rational philosophy and Robertson was a foe to be feared by every skeptic. And yet these men, antagonistic in their controversy, were personal friends and when Robertson had a great gathering of literary people at his house Hume came with them; and with that free method which belonged to the eighteenth century, they made the subject of this controversy the point of the evening’s conversation. Hume urged his views with his fine intellectual subtlety. When at last he was ready to go home, his host followed him to the door, candle in hand.

But Hume said: “Pray, do not disturb yourself; I find the light of nature all sufficient.” Robertson returned to the house, and just then the moon was obscured by a cloud and Hume made a mis-step and went face downward. When Robertson had assured himself that his friend was not hurt, he said: “Hume, do not be so foolish as to break your neck when a candle is at hand”.Finally,THE SOUL’S MORAL Sare involved. “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” (Isaiah 1:18)Sin is that which condemns the soul. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).

And since it is true that “they are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalms 14:3), death has fallen upon all men “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).People sometimes talk about the world’s open sore. Sin has made it, and sin will keep it forever in festering form. The pledge of the world’s death is in its power. Hell itself is in the word, and Satan is the author of one and the occasion of the other. The problem of God, and the problem of all good men, is that of salvation from sin. Since Adam’s experience in the Garden of Eden, God has never withdrawn His hand from the work of redemption, nor will He until in a regenerate world, He has His rule.But there are some things that God cannot do.

He cannot save a man who refuses salvation; He cannot convince a man who will not sit in a conference of reason; He cannot give light to the man who shuts his eyes, or hearing to the man who stops his ears. Arrested attention is God’s first step in redemption.

No wonder then that this same Prophet often indulges in the exclamation, “Ho!” No wonder the cry rings through the Word—“Come!”There are a multitude of so-called “Rationalists” of the earth who ought to be compelled to think long enough to cry, as Excell sings: “God calling yet! shall I not hear? Earth’s pleasures shall I still hold dear?Shall life’s swift passing years all fly, And still my soul in slumber lie?“God calling yet! shall I not rise? Can I His loving voice despise?And basely His kind care repay? He calls me still; can I delay?“God calling yet? and shall He knock, And I my heart the closer lock?He still is waiting to receive, And shall I dare His Spirit grieve?“God calling yet! I cannot stay, My heart I yield without delay!Vain world, farewell, from thee I part; The voice of God has reached my heart.”If it were possible for those of us who have heard His call and heeded it, who have sat down to be reasoned with by Him until the fullness of His love broke over us like a flood, to make known to our fellows the sweetness of the saved life, the world would see a universal Pentecost, and millions would make glad surrender and come into the greatest experience of all experiences, namely, the absolution from sin and into the peace that follows pardon, into the joy of regeneration.I was glancing over a book of clippings last evening and found statements from Henry Crocker and Campbell Morgan, both of which profoundly impressed me. Crocker tells the story of Wm.

Scott Dixon, the widely known negro, who for many years kept a lunch room at the railroad station of Bristol, R. I.

He was popular with the traveling public and everywhere known as a Christian and a gentleman. “Scotty” as they called him, had been brought up in slavery, and yet he was so good a servant as to become practically his own master.He was a sort of foreman in a boiler shop. Through the hearing of the Word, he came under conviction of sin, and the terrible hammering of the shop almost drove him crazy. One day he slipped away from his duties to some secret place of prayer. He remained on his knees until his sins were pardoned and later bore witness to the fact that when he returned to that same boiler shop, the hammers were in harmony and never in his life had he heard such sweet music as rang out from their multiplied strokes. The harmony was in him. The peace that had come to his heart produced music in his soul, and from that moment with shining face and eloquent speech he persuaded others to accept the peace that passeth all knowledge.