Homiletic Review Isaiah 40:27-31 Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? I. THE WAY WHICH SEEMS HIDDEN. "My way is hid from the Lord" — what a common cry! Samuel Taylor Coleridge said he was sure the Bible was the Word of God because it found him at deeper depths than any other book. How surely and how deeply does this cry, "My way is hid from the Lord," "find" each of us in many a mood! 1. It is into the future that the prophet is looking. Plainly, by the vision-giving Spirit, he discerns the great catastrophe which is to afflict the Jewish nation. The Babylonian captivity is to drag them into exile. By the severe chastisement of the captivity the Jews are to be cured of an almost uncheckable tendency towards idolatry. A human waywardness needs sometimes a bitter medicine to compel it back to paths of loyalty to God. But the prophet not only foresees the captivity, but also the way in which the exiled Hebrews are enduring it. It is as though he heard them talking together there in distant Babylon. 2. But that the way seems hidden from the Lord is not anything peculiar to those ancient captives. How surely and how deeply does that ancient cry" find" every one of us. (1) Delayed answers to prayer sometimes make our way seem hidden from the Lord. (2) The strangeness of the way makes our way sometimes seem hidden from the Lord. (3) Our mistakes sometimes make our way seem hidden from the Lord. (4) Our moods sometimes make our way seem hidden from the Lord. (5) Our sins sometimes make our way seem hidden from the Lord. II. A GREAT AND ENDURING TRUTH ABOUT OUR WAY WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS TO US HIDDEN FROM THE LORD. This is that our way is not and cannot be hidden from Him. And there are reasons firm and towering as the mountain peaks for this. 1. Our way cannot be hidden from the Lord because He is everlasting — His purpose cannot fail. 2. Because He is powerful — "the Creator of the ends of the earth." 3. Because He is actively Lord "He fainteth not, neither is weary." 4. Because He is actively wise — "there is no searching of His understanding." 5. Because He is beneficent — "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." III. SEIZE THE PRECIOUS PROMISE FOR YOUR HELP, even though your way may seem hidden from the Lord. "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew," etc. God is coming to your help. Even while the captive Jews were crying, "My way is hidden," etc., God was preparing Cyrus to be their deliverer. (Homiletic Review.) Parallel Verses KJV: Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? |
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