both for your iniquities and for those of your fathers," says the LORD. "Because they burned incense on the mountains and scorned Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their former deeds." Sermons
I. THE APPEARANCE OF SPIRITUAL DEATH. The Church is so degenerate, that the teaching of Divine truth is found to be ineffectual; the nation so corrupt, that the statesman and the magistrate and the teacher are powerless; the family so depraved, that it is a pest to the community; the child so wayward, that parental authority is no restraint. Then is entertained - II. THE POLICY OF ABANDONMENT. Those who are pure, reverent, loyal; they to whom iniquity is found to be hateful; men that are anxious to use their opportunities, so as to get some spiritual returns: - these say, or are inclined to say," Let us leave these souls so fast imbedded in sin whom we cannot extricate, and let us seek and save those who can be reached and rescued." Then comes - III. THE PLEA OF FAITH AND PITY. "Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it." "Let it alone this year" (Luke 13:6-9). That root that looks dead is not dead, and under careful nourishment it will revive. That soul that seems dead is not dead; there is a seed of life in it still; beneath all its folly, its waywardness, its vice, its guilt, there is a possibility of true repentance; there is a sensibility which will respond to patient, human love; there is a spiritual capacity which the truth of God, made mighty by the Spirit of God, will touch with renewing power, and from which unsuspected beauties and graces will arise. Within the ugliest and most worthless souls there may lie concealed germs of real nobility. Wait long, very long, before you abandon to destruction. Over them, and of them, the Divine voice may be whispering, "There is a blessing in them for the loving, patient, prayerful workman." - C.
Which may, Stand by thyself. For "I am holier read, probably, else I will make thee holy." The practices referred to were "mysteries," and the initiated would communicate his "holiness" to others by contact with them, and so unfit them for all the ordinary uses of life (cp. Ezekiel 44:19).(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)Ver. 5 alludes to those who claimed superior sanctity in virtue of certain rites into which they had been initiated. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.) I. THE SIN OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS GROWS UP AMONG RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. It is not always the sin of the outside world, for many outsiders do not pretend to any righteousness at all, and I fancy they think all the better of themselves for that. This is an idle plea which it needs not many words to expose. "I make no profession," says one. This is about as honour-able a confession as if a thief should, boast when caught at picking pockets, "I do not make any pretence to be honest,' or a liar when detected should turn round and cry, "I never professed to speak the truth." Among those who profess to be religious, self-righteousness very frequently comes in, because they have not truly received the religion of Jesus Christ; if they were true believers they would be humble and contrite, for self-righteousness and faith in Christ are diametrically opposed. Many who mingle with Christians, and are religious in a certain sense because they practise the forms of religion, are wont to put the form into the place of the spirit. These persons, too, even when they do not join the Christian Church, but only worship or seem to worship with Christians, are very apt to think that they must be better than other people because they do so. It is the danger of outwardly religious people, who are not savingly converted, to dream that they are somewhat advantaged by a mere attendance on the means of grace. Should an Egyptian rub his shoulders against an Israelite, would it turn him into an Israelite? Will living near a rich man make you rich? Do you forget that cry of our Lord, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin. Woe unto thee, Bethsaida? II. THIS IS A SIN WHICH FLOURISHES WHERE OTHER SINS ABOUND. We read of these people that they did evil before the eyes of God, and chose that wherein He delighted not. They blasphemed God, and polluted themselves with unhallowed rites, communing with demons and the powers of darkness, and pretending to speak with departed spirits; and yet for all that they said — "Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou." Self-righteousness is never more ridiculous than in persons whose conduct would not bear scrutiny for a moment. Self-righteous men, like foxes, have many tricks and schemes. They condemn in other people what they consider to be very excusable in themselves. These people will make a righteousness this way — they plead that if they do wrong yet there are some points in which they are splendid fellows. Some one thing in which the unconverted man may excel is put in to make up for his deficiencies in a hundred other ways. By hook or by crook a man will make out that he is not so bad as he seems to be; the inventiveness of self-esteem is prodigious. No heap of rubbish is too rotten for the accursed toadstool of proud self to grow upon. III. IT IS IN ITSELF A GREAT SIN. One is almost startled to find self-esteem placed after such a list of sins as this chapter records. To the Jew the eating of swine's flesh and broth of abominable things was a great pollution, but self-righteousness is classed with it; it is even placed with necromancy and witchcraft. Drunkenness and swearing are sin in rags, but self-righteousness is sin in a respectable black coat. It is an aristocratic sin, and does not like to be put down with the common Tuck; and if we call it sin, yet many will plead that it is only so in a very refined sense. But God does not think so; He classes it with the very worst, and He does so because it is one of the worst. For a man to be self-righteous is in itself a sin of sins. For, first, it is blasphemy. God is holy. Here comes this base impostor and boasts, "And I am holy too. Is not that a ludicrous and contemptible form of blasphemy? It is profanity in its very essence. More, this self-righteousness is idolatry, for the man who counts himself to be righteous by his own works worships himself. Practically, the object of his adoration is his own dear, delectable, excellent self. Then, again, it is profanity, for it gives God the distinct lie. The Lord declares that no man is righteous. IV. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE FRUIT OF MAN'S OWN THOUGHTS. Look at ver. 2. Those who have high thoughts of themselves do not walk according to God's commandments, but according to their own notions. If any man thinketh himself to be righteous in himself, he has never derived that idea from God's law, and certainly not from the Gospel, for the Gospel knows no man after the flesh as righteous, but it regards all men as sinners, and comes to them with pardon; it treats men as lost and comes to save them. Self-righteous people are not much inclined to search the Scriptures, they do not read them with an understanding heart, so as to get the meaning; they rather make the Bible say their own meaning, and twist it to support their own pleasing dream. V. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS THIS VICE ABOUT IT, THAT IT ALWAYS LEADS TO DESPISING OTHERS. That is the pith of the text. VI. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS MOST ABOMINABLE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. What does He compare it to? He says, "It is a smoke in My nose, a fire that burneth all the day. At the bottom of the garden we gather together the dead leaves, and all the rubbish of the garden, and the heap is lighted, and it keeps on burning and smouldering all the day; and if you go and stand in the eye of the wind your eyes will smart, your nose will be offended, and you will feel that you cannot bear it. We do not wonder that He thus scorns and abhors proud selfrighteousness, for God is a God of truth, and truth cannot bear a lie, and selfrighteousness is a mass of lies. Moreover, self-righteousness is such a proud thing. God is always provoked with pride. Self-righteousness also denies the wisdom of God's plan, and is utterly opposed to it. God's present plan of working in the world goes upon the theory that we are guilty; being guilty, He provides a Saviour for us, and sends us a Gospel full of grace. VII. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS MOST EFFECTUALLY BARS A MAN FROM ALL HOPE OF SALVATION. We cannot be saved unless we become truly holy, but no man ever becomes truly holy who is content with a false holiness. Self-righteousness prevents repentance. You will never believe in Jesus Christ while you believe in yourself. What is the remedy for all this? God saith, "Behold Me"; that is to say, He bids thee cease from doting upon thine own fancied beauties and worshipping thine own foolish image. Look first to the holy God and tremble. Canst thou, of thyself, ever be like Him, pure, spotless, glorious? Look to Him and despair. Then comes the second, "Behold Me. See Jesus Christ on the cross dying, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. As thou seest Him dying thy self-righteousness will die. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) 1. In some instances, an assumption of superior holiness has been made upon the ground of belonging to a certain division or class of mankind; a class having its distinction in the circumstance of descent and nativity, or in some artificial constitution of society. Thus the ancient Jews, — in virtue merely of being Jews. Imagine the worst Jew comparing himself with Aristides, Phocion or Socrates. The Brahmins, in virtue of a pretended pre-eminently holy descent; an emanation from the head of their creating god. In popish countries, the numerous ecclesiastical class. Something of this even in protestant England. In these instances there has been an assumption of holiness independently of individual personal character. What an infamy to perverted human reason, that anything which might leave the individual evidently bad, in heart and life, could yet be taken as constituting him the reverse of bad, that is, holy! 2. In many periods and places men have reputed themselves "holy" on the ground of a punctilious observance of religious forms and ceremonies whether of Divine appointment or human invention. This took the place of the true religious sanctity among the Jews. It is a grand characteristic of paganism. It actually stands instead of religion and morality among the far greater part of the people under the dominion of the Romish Church. It is to be feared there are some among us who venture a delusive assumption on the ground of a regular attention to the external services of religion. But we have cause to know that all this may be, and yet no vital transforming prevalence of religion in the heart. 3. Another ground of such assumption is general rectitude of practical conduct, separate from the true religious principle of moral excellence. 4. The pride of self-estimation for holiness is apt to be betrayed by persons who have preserved a character substantially free from reproach, against those who have, in some known instance, fallen into great sin. It might have been a case in which they were encountered by sudden, or complicated, or very extraordinary temptation, such as all should pray earnestly to be saved from. The delinquent may have penitently deplored the transgression through many subsequent years. But it has been often enough seen that another person, who has been happy enough not to incur any such marked blemish on his character, will assume a tone of high superiority against him, though he may never have had the same strength of temptation to combat with; may never think of ascribing his exemption to any higher cause than his own good principles; and may be quite destitute of some valuable qualities the other possesses. The whole life of this self-applauder may have been little better than a series of negatives. His faulty, penitent brother may have done much good. 5. A man may have had his mind directed to a speculative knowledge of religious doctrine; and we will suppose that it is valuable knowledge that he has gained. All this ma be, and yet the man feel little or nothing of the sanctifying power of religious truth. Yet, so ready is the speculatist to take to himself all the dignity and excellence of his subject and his cause, that this man may take up a lofty pretension — if not strictly and formally to "holiness," yet to some meritorious relation to truth and religion; something which authorizes him in a high contempt, — not only of those who know nothing about religion, but also of those who feel its genuine influence and power, when they are feeble in the speculative intelligence of it. He accounts himself to be, as it were, in the confidence of religion, and that he must be invested with something of its venerable character, when he can so authentically declare its mind. 6. There is such a thing as a factitious zeal in the active service of religion; and that forms a ground of high pretension. Men in restless activity; hill of scheme, and expedient, and experiment, and ostentatious enterprise. But an attentive observer could easily descry that the cause of God was a very secondary concern with them, even at the best interpretation. Their grand object (whether they were conscious of it or not) was their own notoriety; and the cause of religion happened to be that which would most effectually serve this purpose. 7. There are a number of persons among professing Christians whose minds are almost ever dwelling on certain high points of doctrine, sought chiefly in the book of God's eternal decrees. And it is on these doctrines that they found, in some manner, an absolute assurance of their being in the Divine favour. God forbid that we should deny or doubt that there is a firm and rational assurance of salvation attainable in this life. But such persons as we are referring to betray that their assurance, which takes its stand on so lofty a position, independent of a faithful estimate of the heart and life, has an unsanctifying effect; it slackens and narrows the force and compass of the jurisdiction of conscience; and, especially, cherishes in them the spirit of our text. 8. We may name as one of the things made a ground of pretension and pride, the experience of elated, ardent, enthusiastic feelings, in some semblance of connection with religion, bat not really of its genuine inspiration. (John Foster.) People Gad, Isaiah, JacobPlaces Jerusalem, Sharon, Valley of AchorTopics Blasphemed, Bosom, Breast, Burned, Burning, Deeds, Defied, Doings, Evil, Fathers, Former, Full, Heights, Hills, Incense, Iniquities, Laps, Measure, Measured, Mountains, Offered, Outraged, Payment, Perfume, Perfumes, Punishment, Reproached, Reviled, Sacrifices, Saying, Says, Scorned, Sins, WageOutline 1. The calling of the Gentiles, 2. and the rejection of the Jews, for their incredulity, idolatry, and hypocrisy 8. A remnant shall be saved 11. Judgments on the wicked, and blessings on the godly 17. The blessed state of the new Jerusalem Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 65:7 5603 wages Library 'The God of the Amen''He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth.'--ISAIAH lxv. 16. The full beauty and significance of these remarkable words are only reached when we attend to the literal rendering of a part of them which is obscured in our version. As they stand in the original they have, in both cases, instead of the vague expression, 'The God of truth,' the singularly picturesque one, 'The God of the Amen.' I. Note … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture God Rejoicing in the New Creation Early Lessons in the Life of Faith Baptism of Kallihirua Why Has Only one Apocalypse Been Able to Keep Its Place in the New Testament? Why not Several --Or None at All? The Sun Rising Upon a Dark World Parable of the Pharisee and Publican. Book ix. Epistle i. To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari). Another Wonderful Record of 25. The Scriptures Election Confirmed by the Calling of God. The Reprobate Bring Upon Themselves the Righteous Destruction to which they are Doomed. Exposition of the Moral Law. Divine Support and Protection Question Lxxxiii of Prayer How Christ is Made Use of for Justification as a Way. Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy. Difficulties and Objections Jesus' Feet Anointed in the House of a Pharisee. In Judaea Meditations of the True Manner of Practising Piety on the Sabbath-Day. Meditations against Despair, or Doubting of God's Mercy. 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