Isaiah 28:24-28 - Homiletics

The analogy of Divine to human methods of working.

Isaiah's comparison in this chapter rests wholly upon the assumption of an analogy between God's dealings and man's, when the latter are such as are consonant with reason. Reason, the highest gift of God to man, be assumes to be an adumbration of some quality in the Divine nature, which bears a real resemblance to it. "Reason cometh forth from the Lord of hosts." It is the voice of God speaking in the soul of man. Let man follow it, and his actions are divinely guided. God's mode of action in parallel matters may be gathered from his. The general principle is involved in the particular analogy here indicated. As in human husbandry, so in God's tendance of that Church, which is his "vineyard" and "fruitful field," there are three principal processes.

I. THE PREPARATION OF THE GROUND . Israel was prepared by the long course of Egyptian affliction, by the "ploughshares" and "harrows" of tyrannical overseers and taskmasters, which broke up and pulverized what would otherwise have been an ungenial and unpromising soil, very unapt to bear fruit. After this preparation had been made for four hundred and thirty years, there followed—

II. THE PUTTING IN OF THE SEED . God's revelation of himself and of his will at Sinai was the sowing of the seed of his Word in the soil of Israel's hearts. When he had sufficiently prepared the soil, he scattered the seed abundantly—seed of various kinds—which all fell in its "appointed place," and did its appointed work, "turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just," and differencing the Jews from their neighbors by a higher moral tone and a purer religion than prevailed elsewhere. Finally came—

III. THE GATHERING IS OF THE HARVEST . The seed is sown for the sake of the crop which it will produce. God is continually gathering in his crop by a process analogous to that which men pursue. He needs good grain for his garner, and to obtain this he must separate the grain from the husks and chaff with which it is accompanied. As men use various methods for this object, some gentler, some severer, so God, too, in the purifying of his grain, has many varieties of treatment. To each kind of grain he applies the treatment that is fittest. Some kinds are lightly beaten, as with slender rods; others more heavily, as with stout staves; some, on the other hand, are threshed, as it were, with spiked drags and rollers, to clear them of their encumbrances. No more force, however, is applied in any case than is necessary, nor is any force applied for a longer time than is needed. And even in the severest treatment there is gentleness. God has a care that the good grain shall never be "bruised."