Their rock will pass away for fear, and their princes will panic at the sight of the battle standard," declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, whose furnace is in Jerusalem. Sermons
I. THE VANQUISHED FLEEING FROM THE VICTORIOUS. The annals of human history, which have hitherto been principally the record of human strife, are only too full of heart-rending illustrations (see, among others, Erckmann-Chatrian's 'Waterloo'). II. CRIME FLEEING FROM THE FEET OF JUSTICE. Both fact and fiction will supply abundant illustrations of the intolerable wretchedness of those who, pursued by the officers of law, are dogged by apprehension and alarm at every step they take. "Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep: there were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear." III. WRONG FLEEING FROM REVENGE. See the vivid picture of Carker fleeing from Dombey (Dickens): "Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawing at his heart, a constant apprehension of being overtaken: the same intolerable awe and dread that had come upon him in the night returned unweakened in the day... rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with thinking... pressing on ... change upon change... long roads and dread of night... and still the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet, and no rest." IV. GUILT FLEEING FROM THE FACE OF GOD. Guilt fleeing: 1. Weakly and vainly. Long before Jonah, in the hour of self-reproach that followed his act of disobedience, "fled from the presence of the Lord," men had tried to put a distance between their sin and its rightful Judge. And long since then have they tried to escape his eye and his hand. Saddest of all vain endeavors is the thrice-guilty deed of the suicide, who acts as if, by entering another world, he could flee from the face of the Omnipresent One. 2. But there is a sense in which guilt flies away from the face of God really and most blessedly. When God's conditions of penitence and faith have been fulfilled, then is our guilt "purged away," our transgressions are "removed from us as far as the east is from the west," our sins are "hidden from his face," they are "cast into the depths of the sea" (Psalm 65:3; Psalm 103:12; Psalm 51:9; Micah 7:19). Moreover, we look forward to the time when there shall be a glorious fulfillment of the Divine promises, and we shall have - V. EVIL DISAPPEARING FROM THE FACE OF MAN; when "sorrow and sighing shall flee away," when "death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire," when "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying... for the former things are passed away" (Isaiah 35:10; Revelation 20:14; Revelation 21:4). - C.
The Lord, whose fire is in Zion. This very remarkable designation of God stands ere as a kind of seal set upon the preceding prophecy. It is the reason why that shall certainly be fulfilled. And what precedes is mainly a promise of a deliverance for Israel, which was to be a destruction for Israel's enemies. We shall not understand these great words if we regard them as only a revelation of destructive and terrible power. It is the very beauty and completeness of this emblem that it has a double aspect and is to less rich in joy and blessing than pregnant with warning and terror.I. IN THE CHURCH GOD IS PRESENT AS A GREAT RESERVOIR OF FERVID LOVE. Every language has taken fire as the symbol of love and emotion. He dwells in His Church, a storehouse of blazing love, heated seventy times seven hotter than any creatural love, and pouring out its ardours for the quickening and gladdening of all who walk in the light of that fire and thaw their coldness at its blaze. Then, how comes it that so many Christian Churches are ice-houses instead of furnaces? If God's blazing furnace is in Jerusalem, it should send the thermometer up in all the houses of the city. But what a strange contradiction it is for men to be in God's Church, the very focus and centre of His burning love, and themselves to be almost down below zero in their temperature! A fiery furnace with its doors hung with icicles is no greater a contradiction and anomaly than a Christian Church or a single soul which professes to have been touched by the infinite lovingkindness of God, and yet lives as cold and unmoved as we do. There is no religion worth calling so which has not warmth in it. We hear a great deal about the danger of an "emotional Christianity." Agreed, if by that they mean a Christianity which has no foundation for its emotion in principle and intelligence; but not agreed, if they mean to recommend a Christianity which professes to accept truths that might kindle a soul beneath the ribs of death and make the dumb sing, and yet is never moved one hair's-breadth from its quiet phlegmaticism. If there is no fire, what is there? Cold is death. We want no flimsy, transitory, noisy, ignorant, hysterical agitation. Smoke is not fire. If the temperature were higher, and the fire more wisely fed, there would not be any. But we do want a more obvious and powerful effect of our solemn, glorious, and heart-melting beliefs on the affections and emotions of professing Christians, and that they may be more mightily moved by love to heroisms of service and enthusiasms of consecration which shall in some measure answer to the glowing heat of that fire of God which flames in Zion. II. GOD'S REVELATION OF HIMSELF, AND PRESENCE IN HIS CHURCH, ARE AN INSTRUMENT OF CLEANSING. Fire purifies. In our great cities now there are "disinfecting ovens," where infected articles are taken, and exposed to a high temperature which kills the germs of disease, so that tainted things come out sweet and clean. That is what God's furnace in Zion is meant to do for us. The true way of purifying is by fire. To purify by water, as John the Baptist saw and said, is but a poor cold way of getting outward cleanliness. Water cleanses the surface, and becomes dirty in the process. Fire cleanses within and throughout, and is not tainted thereby. The Hebrew captives were flung into the fiery furnace; what did it burn? Only their bonds. They themselves lived, and rejoiced, in the intense heat. So, if we have any real possession of that Divine flame, it will burn off our wrists the bands and chains of our old vices, and we shall stand pure and clear, emancipated by the fire which will burn up only our sins, and be for our true selves as our native home, where we walk at liberty and expatiate in the genial warmth. III. GOD, IN HIS GREAT REVELATION OF HIMSELF BY WHICH HE DWELLS IN HIS CHURCH, IS A POWER OF TRANSFORMATION. Fire turns all which it seizes into fire. And so God, coming to us in His "Spirit of burning," turns us into His own likeness, and makes us possessors of some spark of Himself. IV. This figure teaches that THE SAME DIVINE FIRE MAY BECOME DESTRUCTIVE. The emblem of fire suggests a double operation, and the very felicity of it as an emblem is that it has these two sides, and with equal naturalness may stand for a power which quickens and for one which destroys. The difference in the effects springs not from differences in the cause, but in the objects on which the fire plays. We may make the furnace of God our blessedness and the reservoir of a far more joyful and noble life than ever we could have lived in our coldness; or we may make it terror and destruction. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) II. THE ORDEAL THROUGH WHICH THE CHURCH OF GOD MUST PASS. "His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem." The saints of the living God may expect, and whether they expect or no, they are sure to meet a succession of trials, both in a temporal and a spiritual sense. I would take another view of the subject: if there were no "fire in Zion," and no "furnace in Jerusalem," there would be no sacrifice, no burnt-offering, no clouds of incense; and therefore God says, it shall ever be burning. In this sense, it is the emblem of life Divine, the Holy Spirit's work. I would name three things which God is doing with the "furnace." (1) (2) (3) III. THE TENDENCY AND THE TERMINATION OF THIS PROCESS. The tendency is the exercising of all the graces in personal religion; the termination is to demonstrate Divine love and faithfulness in the deliverance and ultimate glorification of His saints. (J. Irons.). People Egyptians, Isaiah, Israelites, JeremiahPlaces Egypt, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, ZionTopics Affirmation, Affrighted, Afraid, Altar, Banner, Battle, Chiefs, Commanders, Declares, Desert, Dismayed, Ensign, Fall, Fear, Fire, Flag, Flight, Furnace, Hold, Jerusalem, Nothing, Officers, Panic, Pass, Passeth, Princes, Reason, Rock, Says, Sight, Standard, Strong, Terrified, Terror, ZionOutline 1. The prophet shows the folly and danger of trusting Egypt, and forsaking God6. He exhorts to conversion 8. He shows the fall of Assyria Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 31:9 5223 banner Library Three Pictures of one Reality'As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it'--ISAIAH xxxi. 5. The immediate occasion of this very remarkable promise is, of course, the peril in which Jerusalem was placed by Sennacherib's invasion; and the fulfilment of the promise was the destruction of his army before its gates. But the promise here, like all God's promises, is eternal in substance, and applies to a community only because it applies to each … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Lord's Furnace What God Is Of Conversion Of Perfect Conversion, which is an Effect of this Method of Prayer --Two of Its Aids, the Attraction of God, and the Central Inclination of The That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party. But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications... Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men. Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. ) Exposition of Chap. Iii. (ii. 28-32. ) The Upbringing of Jewish Children Isaiah Links Isaiah 31:9 NIVIsaiah 31:9 NLT Isaiah 31:9 ESV Isaiah 31:9 NASB Isaiah 31:9 KJV Isaiah 31:9 Bible Apps Isaiah 31:9 Parallel Isaiah 31:9 Biblia Paralela Isaiah 31:9 Chinese Bible Isaiah 31:9 French Bible Isaiah 31:9 German Bible Isaiah 31:9 Commentaries Bible Hub |