Isaiah 51:17-23 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

Spiritual stupefaction.

The passage presents one of the most pitiable of all possible spectacles—a nation reduced to utter helplessness and prostration, lying like one that is brought down by intoxication to a motionless stupidity. We learn from this picture, and from the opening summons and concluding promise—

I. THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT AS WELL AS THE HUMAN BODY IS SUBJECT TO STUPEFACTION . It is a striking and suggestive fact that the very thing which at first excites will ultimately stupefy. This is notoriously the case with intoxicants; these first stimulate, then dull and deaden the system. It is also true, though in a less degree, of those things which are called narcotics: both opium and tobacco at first awaken and enlarge faculty; but this condition soon passes away, and is succeeded by one of depression, inactivity, and (in the case of the more noxious drug) stupor and insensibility. So is it with things which act hurtfully upon the soul. At first they excite, then they blunt and deaden. This applies to:

1 . Continuous enjoyment of any kind.

2 . Excessive responsibilities, demanding exertion beyond the power to maintain them.

3 . Heavy and repeated trials. It was from this last that Israel was suffering. The nation had been required to drink of the cup of Divine retribution, and, owing to her persistency in evil, had been compelled to drain that cup. Beside the two evils specified ( Isaiah 51:19 ), desolation or famine and the violence of the enemy, was the sense of her utter friendlessness ( Isaiah 51:18 ); and in addition to this was her abject humiliation ( Isaiah 51:23 ). These calamities would account for her pitiable despondency, her attitude of despair. The sore and accumulated trials which sometimes befall individual men may not justify, but they explain, the complete brokenness and despondency of their spirit. They give themselves up as those abandoned to an evil course and a fatal doom; they are in a state of spiritual stupefaction.

II. THAT THE STRONGEST AND SHARPEST SUMMONS TO AROUSE IS THE FRIENDLIEST VOICE WE CAN THEN HEAR . "Awake, awake, stand up." These are the words of the God of Israel. And from whomsoever or from whatsoever shall come the summons to arouse ourselves from a guilty and perilous spiritual torpor, however harsh be the tone, however startling be the terms of the awakening, that voice is of the friendliest, and may be taken to be none other than the voice of God.

III. THAT FOR THE NATION OR THE SPIRIT THAT HEARKENS AND ARISES THERE MAY BE COMPLETE RECOVERY . ( Isaiah 51:22 , Isaiah 51:23 .) Jehovah would turn humiliation into triumph for his people, arrogance into disaster for her enemies. As complete a reversal, though of an entirely different kind, will God grant to those who arouse themselves from spiritual torpor and walk in his ways: for them shall be peace instead of insensibility: holy usefulness instead of disgraceful helplessness; sacred joy instead of a miserable despair.—C.