Isaiah 3:9

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"The shew of their countenance doth witness against them." Isa 3:9

Whatever men live upon shows itself even in the body. Our food becomes in a sense ourselves. If this is true of food for the body it is also true of food for the mind. Men cannot read perniciously and look virtuously. The ideas in which the mind most delights will give figure and colour and meaning to the very face. He who thinks mean thoughts cannot have a noble expression of countenance. He may have largeness and dominance and force, but when the full meaning of the face is searched into it will be found to be mean, dishonourable, and representative of an ill-treated soul. If this is true of the body and of the intellect, it is pre-eminently true of the spiritual nature. An atheist must have a face as withered as his heart. In mere outline and structure it may not even be without handsomeness; but in all its higher and subtler suggestiveness it is the face of a man who is without God in the world. A man cannot be a drunkard without his drunkenness writing itself upon the face. If a man is a tyrant, the tyranny will express itself in his very eyes. Blessed be God, what is true on one side is true also on the other; so that beneficence of soul is represented by beauty of countenance. The beauty may not be formal or structural; it will be spiritual, subtle, but most evident to those who are most familiar with it. There is great comfort in the thought that everything we do has its outward representation. A neglected house shows itself in the very windows and doors. A neglected child has the word Neglect written broadly all over him. A neglected garden bears its own witness. It is even so with a neglected character. By an unwritten law men know it, and are ashamed of it; they either ignore it or they distrust it. All culture tells. In all labour there is profit; in all industry there is an outcome of strength of character, beauty of countenance, gentleness of tone. Thus we write our biography day by day. Thus we keep our memorandum-book in our very face. Thus we become witnesses either for ourselves or against ourselves. Do not let us dwell exclusively upon either one side of this truth or the other. The way of the Lord is equal. If neglect writes its own condemnation on the face, so culture writes in outward and evident signs its own approval and benediction. We are daily writing judgment either for or against ourselves.

"They have rewarded evil unto themselves." Isa 3:9

We have often seen that the man who is wicked is not an enemy of some distant or external law only, but is really his own enemy. The bad man cuts his own throat. The man who starves his soul must carry all the evidence, discomfort, and humiliation of such neglect in himself. If we refrain from prayer we shall hurt our own spirits. If we do not give ourselves up to the working of righteousness, another power will arise within us and triumph over our best nature, trampling it in the dust and gradually extinguishing the very image and likeness of God. A wonderful thing is this in the whole process of human education. A truly wonderful thing that the power of suicide runs through the whole economy of life. As a man can put out the eyes of his body, so he can put out the eyes of his soul. We do not injure God only by our unrighteousness, we injure ourselves. That is the very point of the text. What quality we may have lost, what dignity, what influence! Oh that we had hearkened unto the divine law! then had our peace flowed like a river and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. The meaning is that obedience would have rewarded itself in the very enlargement, refinement, and contentment of our own spirits. When a man denies God he denies himself. When a man does not go out into the larger fellowship of the Church that he may make common prayer with his fellows, his own prayers at home are stunted and stifled. Beware of self-deterioration. It lies on the way to suicide. We may not be conscious of having committed spiritual suicide, yet our souls may be lying murdered within us. Do thyself no harm. Take heed unto thyself. Nurture the soul by being good, by doing good, by heavenly exercise in all the ways of sympathy and benevolence.