Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1059
“The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.” Isaiah 1:3.
IT IS clear from this chapter that the Lord views the sin of mankind with intense regret. We are obliged to speak of Him after the manner of men and in doing so we are clearly authorized to say that He does not look upon human sin merely with the eye of a judge who condemns it, but with the eye of a friend who, while He censures the offender, deeply laments that there should be such faults to condemn. “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me,” is not merely an exclamation of surprise or an accusation of injured justice, but it contains a note of grief, as though the Most High represented Himself to us as mourning like an ill-treated parent and deploring that after having dealt so well with His offspring they had made Him so base a return.
God is grieved that man should sin. That thought should encourage everyone who is conscious of having offended God to come back to Him. If you lament your transgression, the Lord laments it, too. Here is a point of sympathy. He will not meet you upon rigid terms and say to you, “By your own choice you have sinned, and now what remains to you but to bear the penalty?” No, He will rejoice when you return, even as He has sorrowed that you departed from Him! Let that thought of love be the keynote of our discourse this morning. The point immediately in hand is the inconsiderateness of mankind towards God.
Israel in this case is not so much a type of Believers as a representative of sinners in general. The accusation will lie against all ungodly men—they do not know, they will not consider. The greatest difficulty in the world is to make men think! I mean think about spiritual things, think about their souls, think about their God. You can bring them to any other point but this. They will listen to holy words, but they will not lay them to heart. They will go through a round of ceremonial performances—but to worship in spirit the God who is a Spirit is far from them! Thoughtfully and carefully to consider their way is what they will never do until the Spirit of the living God comes upon them and teaches them true wisdom.
I shall this morning speak about this inconsiderateness of men, first, as a serious fault. And then as attended in many cases with most solemn aggravations. I shall next try, if I can, to find out the secret causes of this fault and then we shall close with mingled expostulation and invitation.
I. We have to speak of A SERIOUS FAULT, common, yes, universal. “Israel does not know, My people do not consider.” Men are most inconsiderate towards God. One would pardon them if they forgot many minor things and neglected many inferior persons—but to be inconsiderate to their Creator, to their Preserver, to Him in whose hands their everlasting destiny is placed—this is a strange folly as well as a great sin. Whoever a courtier may neglect he is sure to consider his king. Men, when they start their sons in business, will bid them mind the main chance and attend to the principal point—and especially take care that they stand well with such a man who has the power to help or to ruin them.
Men, as a general rule, are far too ready to seek the assistance of those who are in power, and this makes it the more strange that the all-powerful God who lifts up and casts down should be altogether forgotten, or where remembered should still be dishonored by mankind. If it were only because He is so great and therefore we are so dependent upon Him, one would have thought that a rational man would have acquainted himself with God and been at peace! But when we reflect that God is supremely good, kind, tender and gracious, as well as great, the marvel of man’s thoughtlessness is much increased.
Every good man desires to be on good terms with the good. Unusual goodness wins admiration and an invitation to associate with the eminently excellent is generally accepted with pleasure. Yet in the case of the thrice holy God whose name is Love, it is not so. All attractions are in the Character of God and yet man shuns his Maker. If God were a demon, man could hardly be more cold towards Him. Why is this? Why should I neglect One who is superlatively glorious, who has done me no evil, but has bestowed upon me boundless good? If I reflect upon the way in which He provides for me day after day. If I remember how He spares me, notwithstanding the provocations of my sin. If I consider how He still entreats me to be at peace with Him, I may well hear Him ask me the question, “For which of these good things do you neglect Me, and on account of which of these benefits do you forget Me?”
Strange freak of the madness of sin, that it should make a man forgetful of the everywhere-present God and unmindful of the Being whose bounties are constant and countless as the moments of the day! Oh, grief upon grief, Israel does not consider her God! Then, again, man is inconsiderate towards himself in reference to his best interests. Alas, that in a matter of the greatest possible importance, involving his all, man fails to use his thoughtful reason! Most men trifle with their past history. They do not sit down and look it in the face and mark, with repenting eyes, what sins they have committed.