Purpose and Panics.
vii. 1, 2. And it came to pass, in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, &c.
In this brief record of events[1] that occurred so long ago, we may find suggestions of truths which it will be well for us to lay to heart to-day. I. Men often confidently form purposes when they find it impossible to fulfil (ver. 1). Rezin and Pekah no doubt were sure their project would be successful; they left no means untried to make it a success; they had many things to encourage them (2 Chron. xxviii. 5–7); success seemed certain, yet they failed! In verse 6 we have another statement of their purpose, and in verse 7 we are told the real reason why it failed: God determined that it should not stand. This is an illustration of much that takes place in our own day, in our own life. Purposes daringly conceived, and wisely and energetically prosecuted, come to nothing; and in such cases God is often the real hindrance. He hinders, not because He has any capricious delight in frustrating our plans, but because in them we intend only our own self-aggrandisement. It is with our purposes as with our prayers (Jas. iv. 3). If He hinders, no alliance formed with men can profit us; even Rezin will help in vain. In forming our plans, let us remember and acknowledge our dependence on the permission and help of God (Jas. iv. 13–15; Ps. cxxvii. 1). If plans should be formed for our hurt or overthrow, let us comfort ourselves by remembering that all men are under God’s control. The confederacy may be very powerful; most elaborate preparations may be made for the accomplishment of its purpose; but there can be no success unless the Lord will (Dan. iii. 16–18). II. Men often give way to unreasonable panics (ver. 2). Panics are very common, very painful, very dangerous and hurtful. Their cause: lack of faith in God. Without faith in the controlling providence of God, men are naturally as liable to alarm as is a wealthy man who on a foggy night has to make his way through a dangerous quarter of a strange city; he knows not whether those footsteps he hears behind him are those of a policeman or of a garotter! Firmness is the reward of faith—of intelligent confidence exercised by righteous men in a righteous God (Ps. iii. 6; lvi. 11; xci. 5; cxii. 7, 8, &c.). Deliverance from fear is one of the respects in which “godliness has the promise of the life that now is.” This blessing may be yours, if you will; yours in times of domestic, of commercial, of national alarm. You may be delivered, if you will, from the supreme fear—fear of death. Christ came into the world for the purpose of delivering you from it (Heb. ii. 14, 15). Yield yourself to be really His, and your end shall be peace (Ps. xxiii. 4; lxxiii. 26).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For a statement of these events, see following paper: [The Virgin’s Son.]
Isaiah’s Interview with Ahaz.
vii. 3–25. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, &c.
In this interview of Isaiah with Ahaz we have an instance—I. Of God’s efforts to turn men from ruinous courses. God is the great Lawgiver, and the Judge before whose bar all impenitent transgressors of His law will have to stand. Absolute inflexibility is necessarily His characteristic in both these capacities. But these are not the only capacities He seeks to sustain to us. It is His ambition to be the Saviour of men from sin and ruin. Consequently, He does not merely lay down His law and stand coldly by, to see whether men will keep it or not. He plies them with inducements to keep it. When He sees them bent on transgression, He endeavours to arrest them in their foolish and fatal purpose. Short of that destruction of the freedom of their will, which would be the destruction also of their responsibility and of their possibilities of virtue, He leaves nothing undone to turn them from the broad road that leads to death.[1] By adverse providences, by the strivings of His Holy Spirit, by awakening conscience to an active exercise of its functions, He works upon and in them to will and to do His good pleasure. No sinner has ever gone down to perdition unheeded, unpitied, without attempts to rescue him. Your own experience attests the truth of these statements: you know you had to fight your way through to those transgressions of which you are now ashamed. God’s “preventing grace” is a great fact of which we should take reverent heed, and for which we should give fervent thanks.[2] II. Of the manner in which sinners, by insincere pretences, resist God’s saving purposes. The stubbornness and insincerity of Ahaz are obvious.[3] But in neither of these is he singular. Sinners who are bent on their sins not seldom go on to the under pretexts of righteousness, with which they endeavour to deceive themselves and others. The greatest crime ever committed was done under a pretext of righteousness (Matt. xxvi. 65). So has it been with countless crimes since. Let us be on our guard against our own hearts (Jer. xvi. 9; Prov. xiv. 12) Let us not act upon any reason which we do not really believe will bear the scrutiny of God. III. Of the twofold result which always follows such resistance to the Divine purposes. 1. The sinner is, ere long, compelled to confess that the counsels he set aside were counsels of truth and wisdom. In less than three years, Ahaz had cause to acknowledge the soundness of the advice to which on this memorable day he refused to listen.[4] A typical case. 2. The obstinate sinner is left to the ruin from which he would not permit God to deliver him. There is no salvation by force. God acts upon our will, but He will not save us against our will. Neither shall those who refused to be saved from sin be saved from its consequences. If we choose evil, no act of omnipotence will render the choice harmless (chap. iii. 11). Ahaz chose the help of Assyria rather than the help of Jehovah, and with the help of that great and unscrupulous power he had to take its domination and destructiveness (2 Chron. xxviii. 16, 20). Again a typical case. The retributive justice of God is a fact of which it behoves us to be heedful.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Augustine, in his Confessions, makes thankful note of the manner in which in the years of his ungodliness, God had raised up obstacles in his path of sin. When sinful desires raged within him, he says, the means for gratifying them were absent; or when the desires and the means of gratifying them came together, some witness was present to deter him; and when the means were present, and no witnesses stood by to hinder him, the desire to transgress was wanting. He rightly judges that these were no mere accidents or coincidences.