We have here -
I. THE REACH OF ALMIGHTY POWER. It extends:
1. Over all visible nature. (Ver. 24.) He makes "all things." The heavens and the earth are the work of his hand.
2. Over individual men. He can
(1) direct the indifferent, so that Cyrus performs his pleasure (ver. 28), although that king was living in spiritual ignorance (Isaiah 45:5);
(2) confound the rebellious, so that the impostor is discredited and ashamed (ver. 25);
(3) establish the faithful, so that his servant, however he may have been disregarded, is honoured in the eyes of men (ver. 26).
3. Over men in their collective capacity. Jehovah had fashioned Israel, making her all she had become, giving her strength to do all she had accomplished; it was he that "formed" her from the beginning, that shaped her life (ver. 24). And he would yet restore the cities of Judah; they should be populous and powerful again (ver. 26).
4. Over the most formidable diacritics. Things that seem impossible of achievement are found, under his power, to be effected. At the touch of his hand the waters of the great deep disappear; at the sound of his voice the river-beds are dry (ver. 27). "With God all things are possible." Mountains of difficulty are removed, and seas of impediment are swept away. Nothing is "too hard for the Lord."
II. ITS BENEFICENT RESULTS. It is a question of the greatest importance - What are the results of the power which is exercised by the strong.? The world has had some terrible illustrations of the miseries of malevolent force. Power seeking selfish gratification at the expense of righteousness and of human happiness is the most deplorable as it is the most damnable thing under the heavens. On the other hand, power put forth to elevate and bless is the most admirable and beneficent thing. God works toward two ends
(1) the exaltation of his own holy Name; and
(2) the redemption and restoration of mankind (ver. 23).
The two become one; for it is by bringing men back to himself and to his service that he redeems them from all that is ruinous, and that he raises them to all that is elevating and ennobling. Man finds his worst calamity in distance from his heavenly Father; he finds his highest good, his fullest blessedness, in the honour he pays, in the love he cherishes, in the obedience he renders, in the resemblance he reaches, to his Divine Saviour, his living Lord and Friend.
III. UNSPEAKABLE JOY THEREIN. "Sing, O ye heavens," etc. (ver. 23). Joy at its very fullest is uncontainable, inexpressible. He wrote well who said, "I were little happy could I say how much. There are times when we feel that we want every one and everything to be vocal with the gladness of our own soul. If the children did not shout, the very stones would have to speak the joy of that glad hour (Luke 19:40). When the great and gracious purposes of God are accomplished in the redemption of one human soul from sin and its restoration to the love and the likeness of God, there is occasion for more joy than human songs can celebrate; how much more so when a nation is redeemed! arid how much more yet will there be when the whole race is transformed, and when the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ! - C.
I am the Lord that maketh all things.
Our object is, not so much to discover from the creation the truth of the being and character of the Creator, as to see how the Christian belief in Him as Maker must influence us about the world He has made. Trust Him as the Fatherly God, who is indeed Maker of heaven and earth, and what will follow?
I. SUCH A TRUST WILL ENSURE YOUR RIGHT ATTITUDE WITH REGARD TO SCIENCE.
1. It will free you from all alarm as to the contradictions between science and the Scripture.
2. But our Christian belief should not only take away all dread of science, it should inspire its earnest pursuit. For it is the study of the work of God; a solution of His problems. The stars gleam with the glory of God, the flowers are fragrant with His sweetness; so that astronomy and botany, as well as all the sciences, have been well called "sections of theology."
II. SUCH A TRUST IN GOD AS THE MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH QUALIFIES YOU FOR RIGHT USE AND ENJOYMENT OF NATURE. He who believes in the Creator with all his heart will be altogether a different man in trade or travel, in manufacture of the earth's productions, search into her secrets, or enjoyment of her scenery, from the man who darkly doubts — not to say from the man who impiously denies. For such a belief excludes the Manichaean heresy, that matter is the creation of evil. It gives to man that vision and voice about nature that were vouchsafed to Peter when he was taught to call nothing "common or unclean." He who has the spirit of Jesus Christ, who is reconciled by Him and taught by Him about God, will cherish Christ's spirit about nature.
III. SUCH A TRUST IN GOD INSPIRES WITH HOPE ABOUT THE DESTINY OF CREATION. There is much that is saddening and bewildering in some of the aspects of creation. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain". In the midst of such reflections, a great hope glows in the heart that believes in God as "the maker of heaven and earth." For then He is not only seen as a Redeemer mercifully interposing to alleviate misfortune and to restore some from ruin; but He is known to be the utterly good God, whose goodness is "over all His works," over creation as much as over redemption. He is a "faithful Creator." He will care for His own; will bring it to the destiny for which He made it.
IV. SUCH A TRUST IN GOD IS COMPLETELY POSSIBLE THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Jesus has to do with nature, with us, and with God. He is "the Door" into nature. Connect all with Jesus, and we shall connect all with God.
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People
Cyrus,
Isaiah,
JacobPlaces
Israel,
JerusalemTopics
Abroad, Alone, Body, Cause, Formed, Forth, Framer, Giving, Heavens, Limits, Maker, Makes, Maketh, Mother's, Myself, Redeemer, Says, Spread, Spreadeth, Spreading, Spreads, Stretched, Stretches, Stretcheth, Stretching, Thus, WombOutline
1. God comforts the church with his promises7. The vanity of idols9. And folly of idol makers21. He exhorts to praise God for his redemption and omnipotenceDictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 44:24 1215 God, feminine descriptions
1325 God, the Creator
4287 universe
5199 womb
Isaiah 44:21-28
6722 redemption, OT
Isaiah 44:22-24
1315 God, as redeemer
Isaiah 44:23-24
4203 earth, the
Isaiah 44:24-25
4185 sorcery and magic
5948 shrewdness
Isaiah 44:24-26
1424 predictions
5508 ruins
Isaiah 44:24-27
4819 dryness
Isaiah 44:24-28
6708 predestination
Library
Feeding on Ashes
'He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?'--ISAIAH xliv. 20. The prophet has been pouring fierce scorn on idolaters. They make, he says, the gods they worship. They take a tree and saw it up: one log serves for a fire to cook their food, and with compass and pencil and plane they carve the figure of a man, and then they bow down to it and say, 'Deliver me, for thou art my god!' He sums up the whole …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureWriting Blotted Out and Mist Melted
'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.'--ISAIAH xliv. 22. Isaiah has often and well been called the Evangelical Prophet. Many parts of this second half of his prophecies referring to the Messiah read like history rather than prediction. But it is not only from the clearness with which the great figure of the future king of Israel stands out on his page that he deserves that title. Other thoughts belonging to the very substance of the gospel appear in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
Jacob --Israel --Jeshurun
'Yet now hear, O Jacob My servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen.... Fear not, O Jacob, My servant; and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. --ISAIAH xliv. 1, 2. You observe that there are here three different names applied to the Jewish nation. Two of them, namely Jacob and Israel, were borne by their great ancestor, and by him transmitted to his descendants. The third was never borne by him, and is applied to the people only here and in the Book of Deuteronomy. The occurrence of all three here …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
Source of My Spirit's Deep Desire
"I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." -- Isaiah 44:8. Source of my spirit's deep desire For living joys that shall not perish, The patient hope Thy words inspire, Still let Thy tender mercy cherish. On Thee my humbled soul would wait, Her utmost weakness calmly learning, And see Thy grace its way create, Through thorns and briers which Thou art burning. Gladly my inmost heart would know The love that now it faintly traces, And see the streams from Zion flow …
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations
To the Afflicted, Tossed with Tempests and not Comforted. Isa 44:5-11
To the afflicted, tossed with tempests and not comforted. Isa 44:5-11 Pensive, doubting, fearful heart, Hear what CHRIST the Savior says; Every word should joy impart, Change thy mourning into praise: Yes, he speaks, and speaks to thee, May he help thee to believe! Then thou presently wilt see, Thou hast little cause to grieve. "Fear thou not, nor be ashamed, All thy sorrows soon shall end I who heav'n and earth have framed, Am thy husband and thy friend I the High and Holy One, Israel's GOD by …
John Newton—Olney Hymns
Fourteenth Day for the Church of the Future
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Church of the Future "That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."--PS. lxxviii. 8. "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring."--ISA. xliv. 3. Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think of the young men and young women and children of this age, and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in association and societies …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
The Nature of Justification
Justification in the active sense (iustificatio, {GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA}) is defined by the Tridentine Council as "a translation from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual
Catalogue of his Works.
There is no absolutely complete edition of Eusebius' extant works. The only one which can lay claim even to relative completeness is that of Migne: Eusebii Pamphili, Cæsareæ Palestinæ Episcopi, Opera omnia quæ extant, curis variorum, nempe: Henrici Valesii, Francisci Vigeri, Bernardi Montfauconii, Card. Angelo Maii edita; collegit et denuo recognovit J. P. Migne. Par. 1857. 6 vols. (tom. XIX.-XXIV. of Migne's Patrologia Græca). This edition omits the works which are …
Eusebius Pamphilius—Church History
Moses' Prayer to be Blotted Out of God's Book.
"And Moses returned unto the Lord and said. Oh! this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou--wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray they, out of thy book which than hast written." In the preceding discourse we endeavored to show that the idea of being willing to be damned for the glory of God is not found in the text--that the sentiment is erroneous and absurd--then adduced the constructions which have been put on the text by sundry expositors, …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects
Centenary Commemoration
OF THE RETURN OF BISHOP SEABURY. 1885 THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT, HELD HIS FIRST ORDINATION AT MIDDLETOWN, AUGUST 3, 1785. On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary
"But if Ye have Bitter Envying and Strife in Your Hearts, Glory Not," &C.
James iii. 14.--"But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not," &c. It is a common evil of those who hear the gospel, that they are not delivered up to the mould and frame of religion that is holden out in it, but rather bring religion into a mould of their own invention. It was the special commendation of the Romans, that they obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which they were delivered, (Rom. vi. 17) that they who were once servants, or slaves of sin, had now …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Impiety of Attributing a visible Form to God. --The Setting up of Idols a Defection from the True God.
1. God is opposed to idols, that all may know he is the only fit witness to himself. He expressly forbids any attempt to represent him by a bodily shape. 2. Reasons for this prohibition from Moses, Isaiah, and Paul. The complaint of a heathen. It should put the worshipers of idols to shame. 3. Consideration of an objection taken from various passages in Moses. The Cherubim and Seraphim show that images are not fit to represent divine mysteries. The Cherubim belonged to the tutelage of the Law. 4. …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Unity of God
Q-5: ARE THERE MORE GODS THAN ONE? A: There is but one only, the living and true God. That there is a God has been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' Deut 6:6. He is the only God.' Deut 4:49. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else.' A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
Hiram, the Inspired Artificer
BY REV. W. J. TOWNSEND, D.D. The Temple of Solomon was the crown of art in the old world. There were temples on a larger scale, and of more massive construction, but the enormous masses of masonry of the oldest nations were not comparable with the artistic grace, the luxurious adornments, and the harmonious proportions of this glorious House of God. David had laid up money and material for the great work, but he was not permitted to carry it out. He was a man of war, and blood-stained hands were …
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known
A Few Sighs from Hell;
or, The Groans of the Damned Soul: or, An Exposition of those Words in the Sixteenth of Luke, Concerning the Rich Man and the Beggar WHEREIN IS DISCOVERED THE LAMENTABLE STATE OF THE DAMNED; THEIR CRIES, THEIR DESIRES IN THEIR DISTRESSES, WITH THE DETERMINATION OF GOD UPON THEM. A GOOD WARNING WORD TO SINNERS, BOTH OLD AND YOUNG, TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION BETIMES, AND TO SEEK, BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, TO AVOID, LEST THEY COME INTO THE SAME PLACE OF TORMENT. Also, a Brief Discourse touching the …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3
In the Last, the Great Day of the Feast'
IT was the last, the great day of the Feast,' and Jesus was once more in the Temple. We can scarcely doubt that it was the concluding day of the Feast, and not, as most modern writers suppose, its Octave, which, in Rabbinic language, was regarded as a festival by itself.' [3987] [3988] But such solemn interest attaches to the Feast, and this occurrence on its last day, that we must try to realise the scene. We have here the only Old Testament type yet unfilfilled; the only Jewish festival which has …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
The Song of the Redeemed
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou ... hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ... T he extent, variety, and order of the creation, proclaim the glory of God. He is likewise, ^* Maximus in Minimis . The smallest of the works, that we are capable of examining, such for instance as the eye or the wing of a little insect, the creature of a day, are stamped with an inimitable impression of His wisdom and power. Thus in His written Word, there …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2
Of the Decrees of God.
Eph. i. 11.--"Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."--Job xxiii. 13. "He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth." Having spoken something before of God, in his nature and being and properties, we come, in the next place, to consider his glorious majesty, as he stands in some nearer relation to his creatures, the work of his hands. For we must conceive the first rise of all things in the world to be in this self-being, the first conception …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Third Stage of the Roman Trial. Pilate Reluctantly Sentences Him to Crucifixion.
(Friday. Toward Sunrise.) ^A Matt. XXVII. 15-30; ^B Mark XV. 6-19; ^C Luke XXIII. 13-25; ^D John XVIII. 39-XIX 16. ^a 15 Now at the feast [the passover and unleavened bread] the governor was wont { ^b used to} release unto them ^a the multitude one prisoner, whom they would. { ^b whom they asked of him.} [No one knows when or by whom this custom was introduced, but similar customs were not unknown elsewhere, both the Greeks and Romans being wont to bestow special honor upon certain occasions by releasing …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
The Water of Life;
OR, A DISCOURSE SHOWING THE RICHNESS AND GLORY OF THE GRACE AND SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL, AS SET FORTH IN SCRIPTURE BY THIS TERM, THE WATER OF LIFE. BY JOHN BUNYAN. 'And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'--Revelation 22:17 London: Printed for Nathanael Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, 1688. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Often, and in every age, the children of God have dared to doubt the sufficiency of divine grace; whether it was vast enough to reach their condition--to cleanse …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3
The Being of God
Q-III: WHAT DO THE SCRIPTURES PRINCIPALLY TEACH? A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. Q-IV: WHAT IS GOD? A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Here is, 1: Something implied. That there is a God. 2: Expressed. That he is a Spirit. 3: What kind of Spirit? I. Implied. That there is a God. The question, What is God? takes for granted that there …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity
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