Isaiah 5:19
to those who say, "Let Him hurry and hasten His work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come so that we may know it!"
Sermons
The Evil and the End of IntemperanceW. Clarkson Isaiah 5:11, 12, 22
Cords and Cart-RopesIsaiah 5:18-19
Disguises and DefiancesW. W. Battershall, D. D.Isaiah 5:18-19
Frivolity and ProfanityCanon H. Hensley Henson, B. D.Isaiah 5:18-19
God's WoesIsaiah 5:18-19
Insidious Nature of SinIsaiah 5:18-19
Moral SlaveryH. Melvill, B. D.Isaiah 5:18-19
Sin in its StrengthW. Clarkson Isaiah 5:18, 19
Spiritual Cart RopesR. Macculloch.Isaiah 5:18-19
Strength of HabitIsaiah 5:18-19
The Cord of SinR. W. Evans, B.D.Isaiah 5:18-19
The Growth of SinR. W. Evans, B. D.Isaiah 5:18-19
Four Grievous SinsR. Tuck Isaiah 5:18, 20, 21, 23
Analysis of SinE. Johnson Isaiah 5:18-24














I. THE VAIN AND WANTON MIND. A singular image is used. Men are described as drawing down upon themselves, as with stout and strong ropes, the burden of sin and guilt. Such is the effect of their mocking jests and speeches. Dramatically, the hearers of the prophet are represented as exclaiming defiantly, "Let his wrath hasten, let it speed, let us see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it I" Amos alludes to the same spirit of the time, of scoffing contempt of the signs and omens of a dread future. "Woe unto you that desire the day of Jehovah to what end is it for you? the day of Jehovah will be darkness, and not light" (Amos 5:18). Idly do they dream that thus they put far away the evil day which is close at hand (Amos 6:3). "The evil day shall not overtake nor prevent us!" they persist in saying (Amos 9:10). In idle and willful minds superstitions about words are deeply lodged. By insisting that a wished event must take place, they think to bring it about; by repeating of something dreaded, "It shall not happen," to avert it. But mere words have no magic in them. As the incoming tide had no respect for the commands of King Knut's followers, so neither can the tidal march of moral forces be stayed by defiance or incantations. But our words and wishes have a powerful reflex effect upon our own moods. And this denial in words of God's truth must in time quite harden the conscience and blind the inner eye for them. We may shake our fist at the growing thunder-cloud, but it will not disappear. We may try to quell a demand for reform by obstinate clamors of, "It shall not be!" but only the more surely will it proceed to accomplishment.

II. CONFUSION OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. This is a further step in the climax and progress of evil. It is indeed a serious reflection - how far we may succeed, by acts of depraved will, in shutting out the light that would stream in upon the mind, or in quenching the light within. Both are at once involved in the sin against intelligence. This is, indeed, the sin against the Holy Ghost - the sin that cannot be forgiven. How solemn are the words of the prophet elsewhere: "It was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged away from you till ye die" (Isaiah 22:14)! Another serious question is, how far words may influence thought, and the habit of saying false things disable the mind from seeing the true. South has some powerful sermons from this text, entitled "The fatal force and imposture of words." Though an absolute falsehood cannot live, adulterations of the truth may and do obtain a wide currency, just as adulterations of meat and drink in the half-dishonesties of trade. Every truth comes to us in a certain guise of falsehood; no form of language or other expression is adequate to clothe it. By insisting on the form as if it were the content, the outside as if it were identical with the inside, the part as if it were the whole, we commit ourselves to falsehood rather than to truth. The essence of social falsehoods seems to be in maxims which make the spiritual subordinate to the material. In times of physical comfort and prosperity this is always our danger. We mistake the means of living for the ends. We rest in pleasure, comfort, wealth, instead of making these the temporary standing ground of the spirit, whence it may proceed to higher levels and nobler ends.

III. SELF-CONCEITED FOLLY. We never see the full effect of sin, of heart-untruth, until it works itself out in the imagination, filling the mind with a fatuous self-complacency in its own weakness and blindness. The man thinks himself "wise," "intelligent," who, to the piercing gaze of the prophet, is clearly a fool. He thinks himself' a hero, whose best exploit is to shine at a drinking-bout, and a mighty man because he can play his part at the wassail, says the prophet with keen irony. Meanwhile they are deep in bribery. They would rob the poor of his honesty, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from them. There are towns and villages where we may now see on a small scale all those evils which the prophet exposed in Jerusalem. Evil examples, old and bad custom have so long had their way that a true standard of living seems no longer to be visible. Yet the moral tone may be restored, if there be but one man who will live like the prophet, like a Christian, salting the community by a quiet and continuous witness for rectitude, for the truth of God, and the soul.

IV. THE END OF THE UNGODLY AND THE SINNER. In a powerful picture the end is depicted as the end to which all that is empty and worthless refuse must come. They are like stubble before the devouring tongue of fire, like blazing hay sinking down in light ashes, like a root struck with decay and rottenness, like flying powdery blossom. Evil is naught, and ends in naught. Those whose "honor has been rooted in dishonor" must perish with the perishing of their root. The decline of once great nations and cities historically proves the prophetic truth. A "name and a shade" is left of Assyria, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome. But one thing cannot perish: it is the "doctrine of Jehovah, the Word of the Holy One of Israel." And in some "remnant" that Word ever does live, to breed new life in other scenes and ages. The truth, while it slays the rebels, gives immortality to the faithful; "born again, not of corruptible, but of incorruptible seed." - J.

Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity.
Frivolity, he says, is the herald and handmaid of guilt. The cords are cords of vanity bound about us in mere thoughtlessness in the unguarded hours of recreation, in the giddy whirl of society, when talk is gay and free, and no man weighs his words; the cords of vanity bind us on subtly but surely to the calamitous burden of sin. I submit to you that the prophet in thus linking together frivolity and iniquity, commends himself to us as a close and just observer of human society. Profanity is the last term of a series; it is a stage we reach by the unmarked way of frivolous habit, and that unmarked way is the broad way of the general life. Society itself is unfavourable to thought and gravity and depth of character. It makes us of necessity superficial, light, shallow. At best it ministers to the gracious externals of a man's conduct, and too often it does this at the cost of his character; for the philosopher said truly that custom is the principal magistrate of a man's life; and if, by the ceaseless iteration of frivolous speech and action, we bind upon ourselves the chain of frivolous habit, be sure the mischief penetrates into the very citadel of character.

(Canon H. Hensley Henson, B. D.)

are better than the devil's welcomes. When we get a woe in this book of blessings it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from woe.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

Society, for its self-preservation and well-being, provides that virtue should be in the ascendant, should sit on the throne, should hold the empire and make the laws of the world. There have been times when vice has ostentatiously unmasked itself in high places, and with a triumphant audacity has made itself the fashion and the social law. Such was the epoch of the decadence of the old Roman civilisation. Such were the times of the restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II. The moral collapse at the Restoration was the inevitable unbending of the bow after the rigours of the Puritan regime. England was tired of unmelodious psalm singing and endless homilies on the sin of eating Christmas pies and dancing around May poles. It welcomed with a strange alacrity and a strange forgetfulness the exiled prince, whose morals, none too good to begin with, had been debauched in foreign courts, and who brought back to the palace of his fathers nothing of royalty, except enchanting manners, graceful wit, and an insatiable thirst for pleasure. But the enthronement of vice was only for a day. Men on the morrow smote it on the face, and hurled it from the seat which gave it power and lustre. This is the history of fashionable and jewelled vice in every age. When those who inherit wealth and polite culture and the accumulated embellishments of life conspicuously trample on the laws of righteousness the insulted world calls them to account, and in self-defence consigns them to social outlawry. So plainly is Virtue the eldest born and the fairest of the daughters of God. If our Lord uttered woe on the heartless and pretentious morality of His day, the prophet uttered woe on the confessed and ostentatious immorality of his time. Isaiah's words, as well as Christ's, have a bearing on our modern life: "Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope." Men hate hypocrisy. A profitable virtue that is not real, or a formal virtue that is not large and loving, moves us to scorn or pity. But, strange to say, the hatred of hypocrisy is not always in the interests of virtue "I will not be a hypocrite," says one, and in his horror of hypocrisy he rushes into an open and shameless evil life. This is what the prophet means in his graphic picture, "Woe unto them that draw iniquity," etc. He depicts a class of men who have deliberately harnessed themselves to evil, as a horse or mule is harnessed, to a loaded waggon. There are forms of iniquity which are difficult and laborious. Those who get over any ground with them must pull them with a cart rope. It is grievous business, but some men choose it, and take more trouble to be bad than actually is necessary to be good. And they prosecute ostentatiously the business that they have chosen. They take no care to conceal the evil industry of their life. It is the instinct of sin to disguise itself. It usually skulks behind an assumed goodness. It takes to itself virtuous names. It puts on masks to hide itself, not only from the eyes of men, but also from the eyes of conscience. But the man who drags sin with a cart rope boasts only one virtue, and that is a real one: he is no hypocrite. He has thrown appearances to the winds. He drags his iniquity conspicuously on the highway, in the daylight. He does not care to conceal the coat of arms on the carriage, or the livery of the driver who holds the reins and snaps over him the whip. Perhaps no one ever fully commits himself to this sort of life until he has, or thinks that he has, arrived at the conclusion that all goodness in the world is a sham; that the virtue to which men sing praises is simply a convenient fiction, which they affect to believe, and pretend to possess; that, as there is no real righteousness on the earth, so there is no sovereign righteousness in the heavens; that God is simply a dumb force, without moral quality, and indifferent to the moral quality of His creatures. Hence the prophet makes such a one say, in presumptuous taunt and irony: "Let Him make speed," etc. Is this rude picture, culled from the page of the old Hebrew prophet, unsuited to these smooth times and this Christianised civilisation? Do none of you ever say: "I know it is wrong. It is an offence against God, against myself, against my neighbour. It is an unquestionable violation of what is pure and honest. I can See the harm that it works; but I do not disguise it. I do not pretend to be other than I am. I am at least frank. I do not affect a virtue which I do not possess"? Well, this is one alternative to hypocrisy. Did you ever think that there is another, — to recognise the evil in your nature and the sin in your life; to look at it with keen, brave eyes, illumined by the study of God's law to guard against it day by day and moment by moment; and resolutely to fight it, in its first impulses, in its fiercest assaults, by the help of God's grace? Is not this a possible alternative? It is not demanded of you that you be sinless; but you need not be the liveried slave of sin. It is not required of you that you be perfect; but you (c)an enlist and do battle on the side of right.

(W. W. Battershall, D. D.)

I. Explain the singular description. Here are persons harnessed to the waggon of sin — harnessed to it by many cords, all light as vanity and yet strong as cart ropes.

1. Let me give you a picture. Here is a man who, as a young man, heard the Gospel and grew up under the influence of it. He is an intelligent man, a Bible reader, and somewhat of a theologian. He attended a Bible class, was an apt pupil, and could explain much of Scripture, but he took to lightness and frothiness. He made an amusement of religion and a sport of serious things. He came under the bond of this religious trifling, but it was a cord of vanity small as a packthread. Years ago he began to be bound to his sin by this kind of trifling, and at the present moment I am not sure that he ever cares to go and hear the Gospel or to read the Word of God, for he has grown to despise that which he sported with. The wanton witling has degenerated into a malicious scoffer: his cord has become a cart rope. His life is all trifling now.

2. I have seen the same thing take another shape, and then it appeared as captious questioning. How can he believe in Christ when he requires Him, first of all, to be put through a catechism and to be made to answer cavils? Oh, take heed of tying up your soul with cart ropes of scepticism.

3. Some have a natural dislike to religious things and cannot be brought to attend to them. Let me qualify the statement. They are quite prepared to attend a place of worship and to hear sermons, and occasionally to read the Scriptures, and to give their money to help on some benevolent cause; but this is the point at which they draw the line — they do not want to think, to pray, to repent, to believe, or to make heart work of the matter. If you indulge in demurs and delays and prejudices in the first days of your conviction, the time may come when those little packthreads will be so intertwisted with each other that they will make a great cart rope, and you will become an opposer of everything that is good, determined to abide forever harnessed to the great Juggernaut car of your iniquities, and so to perish.

4. I have known some men get harnessed to that ear in another way, and that is by deference to companions. There is no doubt that many people go to hell for the love of being respectable. It is not to be doubted that multitudes pawn their souls, and lose their God and heaven, merely for the sake of standing well in the estimation of a profligate. He that would be free forever must break the cords ere yet they harden into chains.

5. Some men are getting into bondage in another way; they are forming gradual habits of evil.

6. I fear that not a few are under the delusive notion that they are safe as they are. Carnal security is made up of cords of vanity.

II. THERE IS A WOE ABOUT REMAINING HARNESSED TO THE CART OF SIN, and that woe is expressed in our text.

1. It has been hard work already to tug at sin's load.

2. But, if you remain harnessed to this car of sin, the weight increases. You are like a horse that has to go a journey, and pick up parcels at every quarter of a mile: you are increasing the heavy luggage and baggage that you have to drag behind you.

3. Further, I want you to notice that as the load grows heavier, so the road becomes worse, the ruts are deeper, the hills are steeper, and the sloughs are more full of mire. An old man with his bones filled with the sin of his youth is a dreadful sight to look upon; he is a curse to others, and a burden to himself.

4. The day will come when the load will crush the horse.

5. I am sure that there is nobody here who desires to be eternally a sinner: let him then beware, for each hour of sin brings its hardness and its difficulty of change. When the moral brakes are taken off, and the engine is on the downgrade, and must run on at a perpetually quickening rate forever, then is the soul lost indeed.

III. Now I want to offer some ENCOURAGEMENT FOR BREAKING LOOSE.

1. There is hope for every harnessed slave of Satan. Jesus Christ has come into the world to rescue those who are bound with chains.

2. You are bound with the cords of sin, and in order that all this sin of yours might effectually be put away, the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Highest, was Himself bound.

3. There is in this world a mysterious Being whom thou knowest not, but whom some of us know, who is able to work thy liberty. Wherever there is a soul that would be free from sin this free Spirit waits to help him.

4. Our experience should be a great encouragement to you.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

Cart ropes are composed of several small cords firmly twisted together, which serve to connect the beasts of burden with the draught they pull after them. These represent a complication of means closely united, whereby a people here described continue to join them. selves to the most wearisome of all burdens. They consist of false reasonings, foolish pretexts, and corrupt maxims, by which obstinate transgressors become firmly united to their sins, and persist in dragging after them their iniquities. Of this sort the following are a few specimens: God is merciful, and His goodness will not suffer any of His creatures to be completely and everlastingly miserable. Others, as well as they, are transgressors. Repentance will be time enough upon a death bed or in old age. The greatest of sinners often pass unpunished. A future state of retribution is uncertain. Unite these, and such like cords, and, I suppose, you have the cart ropes whereby the persons mentioned draw after them much sin and iniquity. All these pretexts, however, are light as vanity.

(R. Macculloch.)

These words are at all times, and among every people, of especial interest, were it only on two accounts —(1) The easy thoughtlessness with which men begin their acquaintance with sin, and(2) The hardness of heart in which they are confirmed by its habits. These are represented under a very lively figure in the former of these two verses; and the desperate rebelliousness of spirit to which they are brought, so as to utter defiance against the judgment of the Almighty, is expressed to the life in the latter.

I. THE FIGURE under which the sinner is represented in the former of these verses is that of a rope-maker. He begins with a slight slender thread of flax or hemp, which he can break almost with as much ease as a spider's web; but the end of his work is a cart rope, thick and strong enough to bind the strongest man or beast upon earth. So a man begins and ends with sin. He begins with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity. The iniquity upon which he is tempted to enter seems to him a mere trifle at first, to which, if not good, he thinks that he gives a hard name to call it downright had; and if it even do smite his conscience with some evil signs of its real nature, which he can hardly mistake, he is vain enough, in the notion of his own strength, to think, that when he has gone into it he can as easily come out of it again. It is but as flax or tow (he says); it is but a cord of vanity and not of substance. He needs not to go on spinning and drawing it out (he thinks); but he will stop short as soon as he has gone as far as he wants, and that is not far. Alas! how many can fix the beginning of their ruin in this world, and imminent peril of the judgment of the next, on the day when they said in foolish security, and in face of a warning conscience, "It is but for this once!" Alas! they never said so again. It proved to them to be "now and forever."

II. The text informs us in the next verse that these men, who, beginning with drawing iniquity with cords of vanity, had ended with drawing sin, as it were, with a cart rope, WENT ON TO MOCK AT JUDGMENT TO COME. The thoughts of judgment to come re, of course, very unpleasant to him who knows that he shall have to suffer from it when it does come. His sin, therefore, hardens him into a disbelief of it.

(R. W. Evans, B.D.)

Sin grows as naturally and as fast as the fire, which lays a city in ruins, comes out of a single spark in some solitary obscure corner; as surely as the rains, which bury a whole country in a flood, begin with a few sprinkled drops, which were not worth talking about; as surely as the river, which must be crossed with ships, begins with a well which you might empty almost with the scoop of your hand; as certainly as the strong thick cart rope begins with a few weak flaxen or hempen threads.

(R. W. Evans, B. D.)

The surgeon of a regiment in India relates the following incident: "A soldier rushed into the tent, to inform me that one of his comrades was drowning in a pond close by, and nobody could attempt to save him in consequence of the dense weeds which covered the surface. On repairing to the spot, we found the poor fellow in his last struggle, manfully attempting to extricate himself from the meshes of rope-like grass that encircled his body; but, to all appearance, the more he laboured to escape, the more firmly they became coiled round his limbs. At last he sank, and the floating plants closed in, and left not a trace of the disaster. After some delay, a raft was made, and we put off to the spot, and sinking a pole some twelve feet, a native dived, holding on by the stake, and brought the body to the surface. I shall never forget the expression of the dead man's face — the clenched teeth, and fearful distortion of the countenance, while coils of long trailing weeds clung round his body and limbs, the muscles of which stood out stiff and rigid, whilst his hands grasped thick masses, showing how bravely he had struggled for life." This heart-rending picture is a terribly accurate representation era man with a conscience alarmed by remorse, struggling with his sinful habits, but finding them too strong for him. Divine grace can save the wretch from his unhappy condition, but if he be destitute of that, his remorseful agonies will but make him more hopelessly the slave of his passions. Laocoon, in vain endeavouring to tear off the serpents' coils from himself and children, aptly portrays the long-enslaved sinner contending with sin in his own strength.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

In the gardens of Hampton Court you will see many trees entirely vanquished and well-nigh strangled by huge coils of ivy, which are wound about them like the snakes around the unhappy Laocoon: there is no untwisting the folds, they are too giant-like, and fast fixed, and every hour the rootlets of the climber are sucking the life out of the unhappy tree. Yet there was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing; had it been denied then, the tree had never become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and the tall tree became the prey of the creeping, insinuating destroyer.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

James II on his death bed thus addressed his son, "There is no slavery like sin and no liberty like God's service."

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

People
Ephah, Isaiah
Places
Jerusalem, Mount Zion
Topics
Approach, Clear, Counsel, Design, Draw, Haste, Hasten, Holy, Hurry, Nigh, Pass, Plan, Purpose, Quickly, Saying, Speed, Sudden
Outline
1. Under the parable of a vineyard, God excuses his severe judgment
8. His judgments upon covetousness
11. Upon lasciviousness
13. Upon impiety
20. And upon injustice
26. The executioners of God's judgments

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 5:19

     8401   challenges
     8710   atheism
     8722   doubt, nature of

Isaiah 5:8-23

     9250   woe

Isaiah 5:18-19

     5917   plans

Isaiah 5:18-25

     4446   flowers

Library
A Prophet's Woes
'Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may he placed alone in the midst of the earth! 9. In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall he desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. 10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah. 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Holy Song from Happy Saints
"Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved."--Isaiah 5:1. IT was a prophet who wrote this, a prophet inspired of God. An ordinary believer might suffice to sing, but he counts it no stoop for a prophet, and no waste of his important time, to occupy himself with song. There is no engagement under heaven that is more exalting than praising God, and however great may be the work which is committed to the charge of any of us, we shall always do well if we pause awhile to spend a time in
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 61: 1915

The Well-Beloved's vineyard.
AN ADDRESS TO A LITTLE COMPANY OF BELIEVERS, IN MR. SPURGEON'S OWN ROOM AT MENTONE."My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill."--Isaiah v. 1. THE WELL-BELOVED'S VINEYARD. WE recognize at once that Jesus is here. Who but He can be meant by "My Well-beloved"? Here is a word of possession and a word of affection,--He is mine, and my Well-beloved. He is loveliness itself, the most loving and lovable of beings; and we personally love Him with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength:
Charles Hadden Spurgeon—Till He Come

Of Confession and Self-Examination
Of Confession and Self-examination Self-examination should always precede Confession, and in the nature and manner of it should be conformable to the state of the soul: the business of those that are advanced to the degree of which we now treat, is to lay their whole souls open before God, who will not fail to enlighten them, and enable them to see the peculiar nature of their faults. This examination, however, should be peaceful and tranquil, and we should depend on God for the discovery and knowledge
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

God's Last Arrow
'Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them.'--Mark xii. 6. Reference to Isaiah v. There are differences in detail here which need not trouble us. Isaiah's parable is a review of the theocratic history of Israel, and clearly the messengers are the prophets; here Christ speaks of Himself and His own mission to Israel, and goes on to tell of His death as already accomplished. I. The Son who follows and surpasses the servants. (a) Our Lord here places Himself in
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Dishonest Tenants
'And He began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. 2. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. 3. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. 4. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me, for all the signs which I have showed among them?"--Numbers xiv. 11. Nothing, I suppose, is more surprising to us at first reading, than the history of God's chosen people; nay, on second and third reading, and on every reading, till we learn to view it as God views it. It seems strange, indeed, to most persons, that the Israelites should have acted as they did, age after age, in
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Knowledge that God Is, Combined with the Knowledge that He is to be Worshipped.
John iv. 24.--"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." There are two common notions engraven on the hearts of all men by nature,--that God is, and that he must be worshipped, and these two live and die together, they are clear, or blotted together. According as the apprehension of God is clear, and distinct, and more deeply engraven on the soul, so is this notion of man's duty of worshipping God clear and imprinted on the soul, and whenever the actions
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Barren Fig-Tree.
"There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except
William Arnot—The Parables of Our Lord

A Sermon on a Text not Found in the Bible.
MR. JUSTICE GROVES.--"Men go into the Public-house respectable, and come out felons." My text, as you see, my dear readers, is not taken from the Bible. It does not, however, contradict the Scriptures, but is in harmony with some, such as "WOE UNTO HIM THAT GIVETH HIS NEIGHBOUR DRINK." Habakkuk ii. 15; "WOE UNTO THEM THAT RISE UP EARLY IN THE MORNING, THAT THEY MAY FOLLOW STRONG DRINK."--Isaiah v. 11. "TAKE HEED TO YOURSELVES LEST AT ANY TIME YOUR HEARTS BE OVERCHARGED WITH SURFEITING AND
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread

Religion Pleasant to the Religious.
"O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."--Psalm xxxiv. 8. You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not be less happy though He had never created us; He would not be less happy though we were all blotted out again from creation. But He is the God of love; He brought us all into existence,
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

"For to be Carnally Minded is Death; but to be Spiritually Minded is Life and Peace. "
Rom. viii. 6.--"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." It is true, this time is short, and so short that scarce can similitudes or comparisons be had to shadow it out unto us. It is a dream, a moment, a vapour, a flood, a flower, and whatsoever can be more fading or perishing; and therefore it is not in itself very considerable, yet in another respect it is of all things the most precious, and worthy of the deepest attention and most serious consideration;
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

a survey of the third and closing discourse of the prophet
We shall now, in conclusion, give a survey of the third and closing discourse of the prophet. After an introduction in vi. 1, 2, where the mountains serve only to give greater solemnity to the scene (in the fundamental passages Deut. xxxii. 1, and in Is. 1, 2, "heaven and earth" are mentioned for the same purposes, inasmuch as they are the most venerable parts of creation; "contend with the mountains" by taking them in and applying to [Pg 522] them as hearers), the prophet reminds the people of
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Eleventh Day. The Holy one of Israel.
I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. I the Lord which make you holy, am holy.'--Lev. xi. 45, xxi. 8. 'I am the Lord Thy God, the Holy One of Israel, Thy Saviour. Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.'--Isa. xliii. 3, 14, 15. In the book of Exodus we found God making provision for the Holiness of His people. In the holy
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

The Harbinger
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD , make straight in the desert a high-way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. T he general style of the prophecies is poetical. The inimitable simplicity which characterizes every
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Letter Xlviii to Magister Walter De Chaumont.
To Magister [75] Walter de Chaumont. He exhorts him to flee from the world, advising him to prefer the cause and the interests of his soul to those of parents. MY DEAR WALTER, I often grieve my heart about you whenever the most pleasant remembrance of you comes back to me, seeing how you consume in vain occupations the flower of your youth, the sharpness of your intellect, the store of your learning and skill, and also, what is more excellent in a Christian than all of these gifts, the pure and innocent
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

In Reply to the Questions as to his Authority, Jesus Gives the Third Great Group of Parables.
(in the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, a.d. 30.) Subdivision C. Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. ^A Matt. XXI. 33-46; ^B Mark XII. 1-12; ^C Luke XX. 9-19. ^b 1 And he began to speak unto them ^c the people [not the rulers] ^b in parables. { ^c this parable:} ^a 33 Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder [this party represents God], who planted a vineyard [this represents the Hebrew nationality], and set a hedge about it, and digged a ^b pit for the ^a winepress in it
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Third Day in Pasion-Week - the Last Series of Parables: to the Pharisees and to the People - on the Way to Jerusalem: the Parable
(ST. Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; St. Matt. xxi. 28-32; St. Mark xii. 1-12; St. Luke xx. 9-19; St. Matt. xxii. 1-14.) ALTHOUGH it may not be possible to mark their exact succession, it will be convenient here to group together the last series of Parables. Most, if not all of them, were spoken on that third day in Passion week: the first four to a more general audience; the last three (to be treated in another chapter) to the disciples, when, on the evening of that third day, on the Mount of Olives, [5286]
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Of Orders.
Of this sacrament the Church of Christ knows nothing; it was invented by the church of the Pope. It not only has no promise of grace, anywhere declared, but not a word is said about it in the whole of the New Testament. Now it is ridiculous to set up as a sacrament of God that which can nowhere be proved to have been instituted by God. Not that I consider that a rite practised for so many ages is to be condemned; but I would not have human inventions established in sacred things, nor should it be
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah
"And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall come forth unto Me (one) [Pg 480] to be Ruler in Israel; and His goings forth are the times of old, the days of eternity." The close connection of this verse with what immediately precedes (Caspari is wrong in considering iv. 9-14 as an episode) is evident, not only from the [Hebrew: v] copulative, and from the analogy of the near relation of the announcement of salvation to the prophecy of disaster
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

An Analysis of Augustin's Writings against the Donatists.
The object of this chapter is to present a rudimentary outline and summary of all that Augustin penned or spoke against those traditional North African Christians whom he was pleased to regard as schismatics. It will be arranged, so far as may be, in chronological order, following the dates suggested by the Benedictine edition. The necessary brevity precludes anything but a very meagre treatment of so considerable a theme. The writer takes no responsibility for the ecclesiological tenets of the
St. Augustine—writings in connection with the donatist controversy.

The Gateway into the Kingdom.
"Except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) There is no portion of the Word of God, perhaps, with which we are more familiar than this passage. I suppose if I were to ask those in any audience if they believed that Jesus Christ taught the doctrine of the New Birth, nine tenths of them would say: "Yes, I believe He did." Now if the words of this text are true they embody one of the most solemn questions that can come before us. We can afford to be deceived about
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Links
Isaiah 5:19 NIV
Isaiah 5:19 NLT
Isaiah 5:19 ESV
Isaiah 5:19 NASB
Isaiah 5:19 KJV

Isaiah 5:19 Bible Apps
Isaiah 5:19 Parallel
Isaiah 5:19 Biblia Paralela
Isaiah 5:19 Chinese Bible
Isaiah 5:19 French Bible
Isaiah 5:19 German Bible

Isaiah 5:19 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Isaiah 5:18
Top of Page
Top of Page