Isaiah 43:4 Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you: therefore will I give men for you… ! — I. PRECIOUS IN GOD'S SIGHT IS MAN. This is a new view of life — not man's natural feeling. Precious as to the farmer land is which has the possibility of development with digging and draining, and so on, — precious as satisfying not the mere craving for usefulness, but the love of a great heart. II. WHEN ABLE TO RECOGNISE THIS PRECIOUSNESS IN GOD'S SIGHT WE BECOME HONOURABLE. Before we could recognise it we must be grafted into Christ by a true and living faith. This faith, then, makes us honourable. The honour of a Christian is in — 1. Righteous living. 2. Zeal for the Christian cause. The honour of Christ was to have "the heathen for His heritage." Entering into this, the honour of Christians is to win souls; and their "crown of joy" in seeing many turning from following idols to the living God. 3. Having a conscience void of offence towards God and man. III. THE SEAL OF GOD'S LOVE IS THE GREATEST COMFORT TO THE CHRISTIAN HEART. IV. "I WILL GIVE MEN FOR THEE," etc. Nation after nation went down into the darkness before the conquering sword of Israel. God's pity, great as it is, spared not! So we have seen men who have lived; and when that tender, all-forgiving time came — when death laid his icy fingers upon his prey, conscience would not allow us to settle with the thought that in the great future all was well with them. If we cannot enter into God's inscrutable purposes in this respect we may at least feel that these pass into the arms of death "for us," — i.e., in the sense of being warnings to us. (H. Rose Rae.) Parallel Verses KJV: Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. |
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