Isaiah 14:1-3 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The reign of sin and the rest of God.

Taking the period of exile as a picture of the condition of the human soul when it is in a foreign land, under the sway of the enemy, apart and afar from its true heritage, and regarding the return and the "rest" ( Isaiah 14:3 ) in their own laud as a picture of the soul's condition when it has been brought back to God and has re-entered on his service, we have here some valuable suggestions.

I. OUR SPIRITUAL CONDITION UNDER THE REIGN OF SIN .

1. It is one in which we may look for sorrow , and sorrow unrelieved by those alleviations in which godliness finds its solace ( Isaiah 14:3 ). Sin and sorrow go hand-in-hand, or, if not thus conjoined, the latter follows surely and steadily on the steps of the former. The grosser transgressions bring the sterner miseries, but all departure from God and from rectitude leads down to trouble, to dissatisfaction, to sadness of spirit.

2. It is one in which anxiety is always appropriate . "Thy fear" ( Isaiah 14:3 ). For it is a condition in which the Divine Disposer of everything is unreconciled to us, is decidedly and seriously displeased with us, is warning us of an evil doom; in which we have no right to reckon on the continuance of his kindness for another hour, and in which the termination of our earthly course places us before a judgment-bar at which we are not prepared to stand.

3. It is one of spiritual bondage . "Thy hard bondage" ( Isaiah 14:3 ). How truly sin is a slavery we see when we regard it in its more flagrant forms. We see the drunkard, the opium-eater, the liar, so enslaved by their respective vices, that, try how they may to free themselves, they are held down as by an unseverable chain. The children of folly are its pitiable victims, held in a "hard bondage" from which they strive to escape , and often strive in vain. All sin, that of omission as well as commission, is enslaving. The withholding from God that which he claims leads the soul down into a confirmed habit of neglect, of indifference , of procrastination, which holds it fast in its evil toils.

4. It is one of exile . They who are living in sin are living in a country which, emphatically, is not" their own land" ( Isaiah 14:1 ). They were created to live with God, consciously near to him, rejoicing in him, engaged perpetually in his service; under the sway of sin, human souls are living afar off; in a foreign country, in a "strange land" ( Psalms 137:4 ).

II. THE REST WHICH GOD GIVES US HERE .

1. He sets his heart on us to deliver us. He "has mercy on us; he chooses us" ( Isaiah 14:1 ). He looks upon each one of us with distinguishing interest, affection, yearning. He "earnestly remembers" us, that he may save us.

2. He leads us back to himself . By different ways he leads us home, and "sets us in our own land." He so acts upon our souls, in his grace and in his providence, that we are led to penitence and faith, and thus find ourselves back in his favorer and his service.

3. The condition to which God restores us is one of spiritual rest .

4. The rest which we have from him is consistent with a large measure of holy usefulness . The children of Israel were to take back with them to their own land these "strangers," who were thenceforth to be their servants instead of their oppressors ( Isaiah 14:1 , Isaiah 14:2 ). So are the children of God, by patient, strenuous activity, to win their adversaries to the faith and love of Christ; to make them possessors of the privileges of the kingdom of God even with themselves, and to secure their active help in the conquests they have still to make.—C.