Isaiah 50:2-6 Why, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?… These words could have been spoken only by the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus They place before our thoughts — I. His DIVINE POWER AND GLORY. Power is naturally calm. The power that sustains the universe is, in fact, most wonderful when, unseen, unfelt, with its Divine silence and infinite ease, it moves on in its ordinary course; but we are often most impressed by it when it strikes against obstructions, and startles the senses by its violence. Knowing our frame, and dealing with us as with children, our Teacher seeks to impress us with a sense of His Divine power, by bidding us think of Him as working by inexorable force certain awful changes and displacements in nature. "I dry up the sea," etc. II. HIS HUMAN LIFE AND EDUCATION. "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned," etc. Gradually, it seems, the Divine Spirit, like a mysterious voice, woke up within Him the consciousness of what He was, and of what He had come on earth to fulfil. Morning by morning, through all the days of His childhood, the voice was ever awakening Him to higher consciousness and more awful knowledge. III. THE MEDIATORIAL TEACHING FOR WHICH HE HAD BEEN THUS PREPARED. 1. It is personal. If His own personal teaching had not been in view, there would have been no need for all this personal preparation. "The Lord hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak." This is His own testimony to the great fact that He Himself personally teaches every soul that is saved. 2. It is suitable. Suitable to our weariness. (1) While we are yet in a state of unregeneracy. (2) When we are sinking under the burden of guilt. (3) When fainting under the burden of care. (4) When burdened under the intellectual mysteries of theology. (5) When under the burden of mortal infirmity. 3. The teaching of Christ is minutely direct and particular. When I read that He is ordained to speak "to him" that is weary, I understand that He does not speak in a general, impersonal, unrecognizing way to the forlorn crowd of sufferers, but to every man in particular, and to every man apart. (C. Stanford, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. |
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