Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2686
“He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” Isaiah 44:20.
THE Prophet, no doubt, is here primarily referring to the heathen. He accounts for the fact of their gross stupidity in bowing down to worship blocks of wood and stone by asserting that their deceived hearts had turned them aside so that they never sought to know the Truth of God, nor asked the question whether their idol was not a delusion and a snare. The idolater practically never said, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” With the immediate connection of my text, however, I shall have, at this time, very little to do. I shall only attempt to draw from it a few lessons which, I trust, may be useful to some persons, if God, the blessed Spirit, shall be pleased to apply the Truth to their hearts.
There is but one true religion and there is only one way of receiving that religion. There are many false religions and there are many wrong ways of professing the true religion. There are a thousand paths that lead to Hell, but only one that leads to Heaven. In the many broad roads that lead to destruction, there is room for innumerable winding alleys, but the way that leads to Heaven is a strait and narrow one—there is no room for any divergence there. We must have the same religion and have it in the same way, or else we shall not arrive at that hoped-for end, towards which, by our profession, we pretend to be pressing.
Now, Beloved, there are many persons who are deceived in their religion. They are professing a wrong religion, or else they are holding the right religion in a wrong way. This shall be our first point, that there are many persons who are entirely deceived in their religion. We shall, secondly, notice that their religion is unsatisfactory to them. We may rest quite certain that any religion that is unsound and untrue is not satisfactory to the conscience—“He feeds on ashes.” But then we shall have to notice, in the next place, that although that is so, yet there are many who seem perfectly content with their false religion, although, to us, it is clear that they are not satisfied, but are feeding upon ashes, yet they say that they are satisfied with their own condition, the reason being that, as our text puts it, “a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” Having briefly run over those particulars, I shall then address myself to the representatives of the different classes of deceived persons, those who profess religion, but do not possess it, and shall endeavor with all the might that God, the Holy Spirit, shall give me, to arouse and awaken them, lest they perish in their strong delusion!
I. In the first place, then, THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE ENTIRELY DECEIVED IN THEIR RELIGION.
I need scarcely refer to the idolater who bows himself down before the idol that his own hands have fashioned. However sincere he may be, however devout in his worship, however punctual in the observance of his ceremonies, we are perfectly sure that he is a deceived man. And when we discover the stupidity of such a form of worship, we marvel that any man should be found so deficient in sense and wisdom as to continue to be deceived by such a travesty of religion.
And I need only, in passing, mention the Roman Catholic. He, too, has a false religion. To us it is perfectly clear that he is deceived while he strives, by his good works and by his sacraments, to reach a Heaven to which he cannot attain if he seeks it by the works of the Law and not by the righteousness of faith. We know that there is no admittance to Heaven
save by the blood and the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, relied upon by a Divinely-imparted faith. Let the Roman Catholic be as earnest and as devout as he may—let him strive with all his might and let him carry out his own convictions to the fullest, yet of this we are sure, beyond a doubt—he is a deceived man and his religion is a thing that is utterly worthless!
On the other hand, we have another class of persons living in our midst who pretend to have no religion at all, but who, in fact, have a superstition of their own—I mean the men who generally class themselves amongst Freethinkers, the people who will not believe the Bible and who cannot walk in the narrow way in which their grandmothers walked because it would imply a sort of slavery if they were to walk in the way of the Truth of God. They think they are bold and brave men, who glory in dashing away the fetters of right and doing wrong because of the freedom of it. They think it is a high prize and a great attainment, when they are able to despise everything which their fellows regard as being venerable and true. And, in fact, one of their greatest ambitions is to strive to reach such a height of impudence that they can laugh at everything that has the stamp of antiquity and truth upon it—and may just let their own wild thoughts fly as they will, without bit or bridle, guide or rein! Now these men, however true they may be to their convictions, we know, are deceived in their religion—for, after all, it is a religion—a religion of credulity and no one is so credulous as the man who professes not to believe anything! No man is so ready to suck in any delusion as the one who professes to abhor superstition. You will never find anyone so ready to be led astray as the man who says that he cannot be led astray. He who despises the miracles of our Lord and all that is recorded in the Word of God is the most gullible creature alive—and we know that however high his opinion of himself may be—he is a deceived man and feeds upon ashes!