Isaiah 29:11-12 And the vision of all is become to you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying… Here, we find the picture of the two great classes of excuses men make today, when duties are urged upon them. I. The first great answer of human nature to the call of duty — the first and readiest excuse which the easy-going, self-indulgent life has to offer — is this first excuse of the men of Jerusalem to the unpleasant vision of the future. It is as a book which is sealed, and he who is able to read it does not read it, simply because it is closed, or sealed. Here we have a definite excuse given, which looks plausible enough, but which only means, after all, the lack of will power, which so frequently lodges behind some prominent excuse. POWERLESSNESS OF WILL! Who does not make this excuse in life? II. The other great excuse which is so freely given is the LACK OF OPPORTUNITY. He who has the will has not the one requisite, the one condition of success, the longed for opportunity. The poor man with his tastes envies the rich their command over the forces of life. The struggling student by his midnight lamp, with his book borrowed from the library, sighs as he sees the elegantly bound but unopened volumes of those who have abundant opportunities but no appreciation of their hidden treasures, or will to read them. The invalid upon the bed of pain, whose life is a dream of impossible realities, cherishing noble yearnings for the strife, sees life passing by, padlocked and bound, with every aspiration chained and fettered by the hopeless impossibility of ever achieving anything. Practical lessons — 1. This very incompleteness of our nature shows us the soul's rightful demand for another life without these limiting human conditions. 2. Right in the midst of these voices of life, these excuses for our failure, from whatever source these excuses come, the religion of Jesus Christ appears as a new creation of power. 3. Just when we feel that our motive power is failing us, or that we are helpless in our surroundings, and are lacking an opportunity for the exercise of our suppressed faculties, the Spirit of God, who is the Comforter of the sanctified heart of man and the Inspirer of his better nature, appears with His Divine mission, and opens the way out of dead levels and land-locked vistas, into new and unforeseen stretches of existence. What a power there is in this thought of the soul's higher deliverance by the interposing hand of the Spirit of God, lifting us out of our poor everyday life! (W. W. Newton.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: |
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