Isaiah 30:19
O people in Zion who dwell in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious when you cry for help; when He hears, He will answer you.
Sermons
Encouragement to Trust and PrayIsaiah 30:19
Encouragements for FaithD. Thomas, B. A.Isaiah 30:19
The Blessedness of ZionE. Johnson Isaiah 30:19-26
The People of God in Their ProsperityW. Clarkson Isaiah 30:19-26














Throughout the book the idea of temporal blends with that of spiritual weal. The images are drawn from the state of temporal happiness and prosperity. Yet Zion and Jerusalem may be regarded as symbolical of the Church in general.

I. JOY IN GOD. There will be "no more weeping." Tears are significant of the lot of humanity; and in the poetry of the Old Testament we hear, as Lord Bacon says, "as many hearse-like airs as carols," and the pencil of the Holy Ghost has labored more in depicting the sorrows of David than the felicities of Solomon. It is because the gospel meets the mood of tears in us that its assurances fall so sweetly on the heart. Burns the poet said, "After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favored by partial Heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness, and riches, and honors, and prudence, and wisdom; I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days, are sold to the minion of fortune." It is this way of thinking - it is these melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor miserable children of men. If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm, "what truth on earth so precious as the lie?" What is needed is "the expulsive power of a new affection in the sense of the nearness of God - the sense that he does hear and that he does answer out of the vastness and the void." And he will so answer, if he be sought for with "all the heart" (Jeremiah 29:12-14).

II. THE BLESSING OF TEACHERS. On the one hand, here is physical want - "bread of adversity, and water of affliction." On the other hand, a perpetual supply of spiritual food and spiritual consolation. The best of the people felt that it was the saddest thing that could be suffered - to have no more "signs" from God, to be destitute of the prophet, and of the man of superior insight (Psalm 74:9). The famine of "not hearing the Word of Jehovah" (Amos 8:11) is bitterer than hunger or thirst. The effect may be traced to a definite cause - the sin of the people or of the teachers themselves (Isaiah 43:27). The one might be unworthy to listen to, the other to deliver, the truth of God (Isaiah 43:27). There is no calling more glorious, none which leads to a more lustrous immortality (Daniel 12:3), than that of the religious teacher, none which is of greater service in the promotion of the kingdom of God. If so great be the blessing of the ministry of the truth, it flows from the goodness of God that, in the happy times to come, teachers shall never be absent from the people.

III. THE BLESSING OF INWARD ILLUMINATION. The "word behind them" may be the Bath-Kol, the daughter of the Voice, as the Jews say, or, according to a way of thinking more familiar to ourselves, the voice of conscience. "God is not a hidden God in the sense that his life is closed up within himself. His Word goes forth to the world, that it may come into being, and to the children of men that they may know it and find life in it (Psalm 33:6; cf. Deuteronomy 4:12; 1 Samuel 3:4; 1 Kings 19:11, sqq.). (On the Bath-Kol, see Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5; John 12:28.) The notion is that of invisible and unexpected agency. The admonitions of providence, of conscience, of the Holy Spirit, seem often to come behind us - to recall us from the path on which we were going, from the course that would be fraught with danger. When in danger of straying to this side or to that, the voice will call us back. In this respect the Divine voice is like the daemonion of Socrates, which was a restraining influence.

IV. PURITY AND PROSPERITY. A symptom of a return to true religion will be the casting away of the relics and reminders of idolatry - the defiling in the Name of the holy God of that which to heathen eyes was holy. Josiah's conduct was an example of this (2 Kings 23.). The expression of abhorrence for the symbol expresses at the same time abhorrence for the thing symbolized. The repentance of the individual, the reformation of the nation, must be signalized by the "rending of the idol," not merely from its high place, but from the heart itself. When the heart is brought into the fuller knowledge of God, it loves what he loves, and hates what he hates. The thought of what is "an abomination to Jehovah" (Deuteronomy 7:25) is reflected in an intense distaste in the soul.

2. This will be consistent with external prosperity. Rain will come down upon the sown seed. As the withholding of the rain followed upon national iniquity as the greatest curse (Zechariah 14:17, 18), so the giving of the rain meant at once all physical blessing and all Divine favors (Zechariah 10:1, etc.). Bread - rich and abundant produce of the land - cattle teeming in the wide pastures; - it is the happy picture of a golden age. Bread and water - simple elements of living; yet what poetry hangs upon their supply! and what woe, what tragedy and horror, upon the want of them! - J.

He will be very gracious unto thee.
Observe the kind of prayer which is here said to move the Divine pity and win the Divine favour. It is designated a cry, i.e., it is a very fervent, earnest, importunate prayer. It is a prayer that comes out of the depths of the heart. It expresses a very deep sense of need. It utters a very longing desire after God. There is very good reason why our prayers should very often tale this form. Our sins are such that they should work in us a penitence that may fitly take expression in a cry. Our spiritual needs are so urgent that we may give utterance to them in a cry. The strife is, sometimes at least, so hot, and the battle seems so going against us, that it may very reasonably be expected from us that we should cry unto God for His help. And God is such a necessity to these natures of ours, and God as a possession is so sufficing, that our desire for Him may well be intense enough to require this language to give expression to our prayer.

I. There is encouragement for faith in prayer to be found in THE NATURE OF GOD HIMSELF, as we cannot help conceiving of it. Goodness enters into His very nature. We find it necessary to believe that. It is too dreadful to believe the contrary. If I apprehend Him as perfectly good He must be pitiful, He must be tender in His pity; and if so, He is surely likely to be very gracious when He hears the voice of our cry.

II. There is encouragement, too, in THE RELATIONS WHICH WE MUST CONCEIVE GOD AS SUSTAINING TO US. He is our Creator, and there is no reason at all in the suspicion that He who has made us is looking with indifferent eyes upon us or listening with indifference when the voice of our cry reaches His ear. He is our Father. He has communicated to us of His own nature, and so has become our Father as He is not the Father of other creatures that live on the face of this earth. But how does He fill up your idea of Father if, when you are in want, He does not heed? if, when you express your want of Him and of His help by a cry, He is not moved?

III. THE INSTINCT OF PRAYER which we have offers encouragement to us that He will be moved when we call. We are in pain; some One is near who can relieve us, and we instinctively cry for relief at His hands. Your child is in imminent peril, and there is a man near who can rescue him; you instinctively call for the help of that man. And so we feel great wants which God only can supply. We are in great peril, from which God only can deliver us. There is something which instinctively moves us to appeal to God, to cry to Him. If God has put that instinct in our nature, He mast have intended to gratify it. There is no instinct of human nature for the gratification of which God has not in some way provided.

IV. We have encouragement, too, in THE ANALOGY TO ALL HUMAN RESPONSE GIVEN TO GREAT NEED. It is not to children only that we give our compassion when they appeal to us in great distress; we are moved by the lower animals when in their great trouble they make an appeal to us. But you are not more pitiful than God. There is no love or pity in man that was not first in God.

V. We have the highest encouragement to this faith in God in THE REVELATION OF HIM IN THE SCRIPTURES. It is a positive command of His that we should call upon Him when we need Him, that we should cry unto Him when we are in distress. His command means His purpose to hear; His command involves a promise in it. What do we find given in the revelation? Explicit promises without number, and in every form — proofs and illustrations and examples without number of God's readiness to be very gracious unto those that cry unto Him. What do we see in the revelation of God in the Christian Scriptures? God showing what He is through a man. He went about in the form of a man. The sinning, and the needy, and the suffering came to Him, surrounded Him, tracked His steps, and cried to Him for His pithy and for His help. And was He not very gracious! When He was suffering, dying Himself, there came a cry from another who was in great distress, saying to Him, "Remember me"; and He was very gracious at the voice of that cry. But some are thinking that it is all true about the nature of God, but that they are guilty, and there are God's law, and God's government, and God's justice, in the way of His nature expressing itself in His pitifulness to them in answer to their cry. Whatever hindrance they put in the way has been taken away by Christ.

(D. Thomas, B. A.)

I. THIS ASSURANCE IS PARTICULARLY SUITABLE TO CERTAIN CHARACTERS.

1. This is applicable and comfortable to all afflicted people.

2. To those who are troubled on account of sin.

3. To backsliders filled with their own ways, who are alarmed and distressed at their grievous departures from their God.

4. To all believers in Christ who are at all exercised in heart.

II. THE ASSURANCE HERE GIVEN IS VERY FIRMLY BASED. The words of our text are no old wives' fable, they are not such a pretty tale as mothers sometimes tell their children, a story made to please them, but not actually true. What is the ground of this assurance?

1. The plain promise of God.

2. The gracious nature of God.

3. The prevalence of prayer. "He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."

4. Personal testimony as to the result of faith in God and supplication to

III. THE ASSURANCE OF THE TEXT BEING SO WELL CONFIRMED SHOULD BE PRACTICALLY ACCEPTED AT ONCE.

1. Let us renounce all earthborn confidences.

2. Refuse despair.

3. Try the power of prayer and childlike confidence in God.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

People
Assyrians, Egyptians, Isaiah, Mash, Pharaoh, Rahab, Saraph
Places
Egypt, Hanes, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Negeb, Rahab, Zion, Zoan
Topics
Answereth, Certainly, Cry, Dwell, Dwellest, Ear, Ended, Gracious, Heareth, Hears, Inhabitant, Jerusalem, Longer, Mercy, O, Pitieth, Pitying, Surely, Voice, Weep, Weeping, Yea, Zion
Outline
1. The prophet threatens the people for their confidence in Egypt
8. And contempt of God's word
18. God's mercies toward his church
27. God's wrath and the people's joy, in the destruction of Assyria

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 30:19

     5198   weeping
     8224   dependence

Isaiah 30:18-19

     8264   gentleness

Isaiah 30:19-21

     8409   decision-making, and providence
     8412   decisions

Library
'Quietness and Confidence'
'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.'--ISAIAH xxx. 15. ISRAEL always felt the difficulty of sustaining itself on the height of dependence on the unseen, spiritual power of God, and was ever oscillating between alliances with the Northern and Southern powers, linking itself with Assyria against Egypt, or with Egypt against Assyria. The effect was that whichever was victorious it suffered; it was the battleground for both, it was the prize of
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

God's Waiting and Man's
'And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are they that wait for Him.'--ISAIAH xxx. 18. God's waiting and man's--bold and beautiful, that He and we should be represented as sharing the same attitude. I. God's waiting, 1. The first thought is--why should He wait--why does He not act at once? Because something in us hinders. We cannot enter into spiritual blessings
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Voice Behind Thee
The word behind us which is spoken of in the text is mentioned as one among other covenant blessings. No "if" or "but" is joined to it. It is one of those gracious, unconditional promises upon which the salvation of the guilty depends. There are many comforts of the new life which depend upon our own action and behaviour, and these come to us with "ifs"; but those which are vital and essential are secured to the chosen of God without "but" or "peradventure." It shall be so: God declares it shall,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 28: 1882

My God Will Hear Me
"Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you. Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer thee."--ISA. xxx. 18, 19. "The Lord will hear when I call upon Him."--PS. iv. 3. "I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God!"--PS. xvii. 6. "I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me."--MIC. vii. 7. The power of prayer rests in the faith
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

With a Heart Full of Anxious Request,
"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." -- Isaiah 30:15. With a heart full of anxious request, Which my Father in heaven bestowed, I wandered alone, and distressed, In search of a quiet abode. Astray and distracted I cried, -- Lord, where would'st Thou have me to be? And the voice of the Lamb that had died Said, Come, my beloved, to ME. I went -- for He mightily wins Weary souls to His peaceful retreat -- And He gave me forgiveness of sins,
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations

But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications...
But though prayer is properly confined to vows and supplications, yet so strong is the affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that both may be conveniently comprehended under one name. For the forms which Paul enumerates (1 Tim. 2:1) fall under the first member of this division. By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith

"Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me," &C.
Matt. xi. 20.--"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," &c. Self love is generally esteemed infamous and contemptible among men. It is of a bad report every where, and indeed as it is taken commonly, there is good reason for it, that it should be hissed out of all societies, if reproaching and speaking evil of it would do it. But to speak the truth, the name is not so fit to express the thing, for that which men call self love, may rather be called self hatred. Nothing is more pernicious to a man's
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Girdle of the City. Nehemiah 3
The beginning of the circumference was from 'the sheep-gate.' That, we suppose, was seated on the south part, yet but little removed from that corner, which looks south-east. Within was the pool of Bethesda, famous for healings. Going forward, on the south part, was the tower Meah: and beyond that, "the tower of Hananeel": in the Chaldee paraphrast it is, 'The tower Piccus,' Zechariah 14:10; Piccus, Jeremiah 31:38.--I should suspect that to be, the Hippic tower, were not that placed on the north
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. )
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway. * The two principal
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8

How those are to be Admonished who have had Experience of the Sins of the Flesh, and those who have Not.
(Admonition 29.) Differently to be admonished are those who are conscious of sins of the flesh, and those who know them not. For those who have had experience of the sins of the flesh are to be admonished that, at any rate after shipwreck, they should fear the sea, and feel horror at their risk of perdition at least when it has become known to them; lest, having been mercifully preserved after evil deeds committed, by wickedly repeating the same they die. Whence to the soul that sins and never
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Concerning Worship.
Concerning Worship. [780] All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times, nor persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; [781] yet as to the outward signification thereof, in prayers, praises, or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

The Evening Light
This chapter is an article written by the author many years after she had received light on the unity of the church. It will acquaint the reader with what is meant by the expression "evening light." "At evening time it shall be light." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (Zechariah 14:6,7). The expression
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby.
(Galilee.) ^A Matt. XI. 2-30; ^C Luke VII. 18-35. ^c 18 And the disciples of John told him of all these things. ^a 2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent by his disciples ^c 19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them unto the Lord [John had been cast into prison about December, a.d. 27, and it was now after the Passover, possibly in May or June, a.d. 28. Herod Antipas had cast John into prison because John had reproved him for taking his brother's wife.
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Eternity of God
The next attribute is, God is eternal.' Psa 90:0. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' The schoolmen distinguish between aevun et aeternum, to explain the notion of eternity. There is a threefold being. I. Such as had a beginning; and shall have an end; as all sensitive creatures, the beasts, fowls, fishes, which at death are destroyed and return to dust; their being ends with their life. 2. Such as had a beginning, but shall have no end, as angels and the souls of men, which are eternal
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

How Christ is Made Use of for Justification as a Way.
What Christ hath done to purchase, procure, and bring about our justification before God, is mentioned already, viz. That he stood in the room of sinners, engaging for them as their cautioner, undertaking, and at length paying down the ransom; becoming sin, or a sacrifice for sin, and a curse for them, and so laying down his life a ransom to satisfy divine justice; and this he hath made known in the gospel, calling sinners to an accepting of him as their only Mediator, and to a resting upon him for
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect.
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

"They have Corrupted Themselves; their Spot is not the Spot of his Children; they are a Perverse and Crooked Generation. "
Deut. xxxii. 5.--"They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of his children; they are a perverse and crooked generation." We doubt this people would take well with such a description of themselves as Moses gives. It might seem strange to us, that God should have chosen such a people out of all the nations of the earth, and they to be so rebellious and perverse, if our own experience did not teach us how free his choice is, and how long-suffering he is, and constant in his choice.
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Covenant of Works
Q-12: I proceed to the next question, WHAT SPECIAL ACT OF PROVIDENCE DID GOD EXERCISE TOWARDS MAN IN THE ESTATE WHEREIN HE WAS CREATED? A: When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge upon pain of death. For this, consult with Gen 2:16, 17: And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

A Description of Heart-Purity
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 The holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity' calls here for heart-purity, and to such as are adorned with this jewel, he promises a glorious and beatifical vision of himself: they shall see God'. Two things are to be explained the nature of purity; the subject of purity. 1 The nature of purity. Purity is a sacred refined thing. It stands diametrically opposed to whatsoever defiles. We must distinguish the various kinds
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

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