Isaiah 26:8, 9 Yes, in the way of your judgments, O LORD, have we waited for you; the desire of our soul is to your name… The desire of our soul is to thy Name... with my soul have I desired thee. The primary reference here is to the hope of troubled hearts for Divine deliverance; but the words of the text are suggestive of the general truths - I. THAT MAN IS CONSTITUTED TO CRAVE AFTER GOD. We have many indications of this truth. We find it in the facts that: 1. The noblest spirits among cultivated peoples find their chief joy in communion with him. 2. The worthiest spirits among uncultivated peoples have been athirst for God. 3. Religious truth and Divine worship prove a powerful attraction to the vast majority of mankind. 4. Every human being is found to possess a capacity for religious knowledge and devotion. 5. Human life without God is found to be constantly unsatisfying and restless. II. THAT THIS GODWARD ASPIRATION, DULLED BY SIN, IS OFTEN AWAKENED BY AFFLICTION. "I desired thee in the night." Our interest in God, reduced by the various harmful and despoiling influences of a sinful society, sometimes so reduced as to be practically lost, is often awakened by affliction of some kind. It is not until the soul is brought down very low by sickness, by calamity, by bereavement, by treachery and disappointment, or by earthly failure and disenchantment, that it finds its deep and sore need of a heavenly Father, of an unfailing Friend, of a heavenly treasure. When thus injured and spoiled by sin, it is not until our souls are made to see their sinfulness in a fierce and awful light that we crave and cry out for an almighty and all-sufficient Savior; but then we do. III. THAT, REAWAKENED IN ADVERSITY, IT BECOMES A PERMANENT HABITUDE OF THE SOUL. "With my spirit... will I seek thee early." Whether or not we find this doctrine in the text, we find this truth in the will of God; and God expects to find this fact in human experience. It is bitterly disappointing to the good - and is it not a disappointment to the Good One? - when they who have been brought to the throne of grace by reflection are found, in after-days of comfort and sunshine, to leave the sanctuary unvisited, and to walk on their way, godless, prayerless, hopeless. Such men (1) defeat God's kind purposes; (2) add iniquity to their iniquity; (3) most seriously endanger their own future (see Isaiah 1:5). - C. Parallel Verses KJV: Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. |
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