Isaiah 48

He did not only open the Scriptures, but opened their understanding. He teaches to profit (Isaiah 48:17): I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit. Quest. How Christ teaches?

Does God command parents to instruct their children (Deuteronomy 4:10), and will not he instruct his? (Isaiah 48:17) I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit. (Psalm 71:17) O God, you have taught me from my youth.

The rod has this voice, Be doers of God's will. Affliction is called a furnace; (Isaiah 48:10) The furnace melts the metal, and then it is cast into a new mold. God's furnace is to melt us and mold us into obedience.

Thirdly, his mere name is support enough for faith and may be so, because it is for his name's sake and his Son's name's sake that he does all he does — and for nothing in us, but merely for what is in himself. So in Isaiah 48:9-10: 'For my name's sake...' So also in Ezekiel 36:…

But 3. and especially, if there be any inward work, as if there be any liberty, or motion of the affections in prayer, if there be at hearing the word, some convictions sharper at one time than at another, if there be any sort of repentance, ruing, and sadness for sin, etc. thes…

Which yet his grace in his own people suffers not to be invincible nor final: I do not say that our chastisements and afflictions do of themselves produce this profit and bring forth this fruit; for alas, we may from doleful experience have ere now arrived at a sad persuasion, t…

The saving knowledge of God under the Kingdom of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:9) fills the earth, as the Sea is covered with waters. A Sea of Faith, and an Earthful of the grace of saving light, and a Sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days (Isaiah 30:26) hold forth to us a large me…

(Isaiah 49:1): Listen, O Isles, to me. So he speaks to his redeemed (Isaiah 48:16): Come you near to me: and 6. There is nothing more fitting than that his oath stand, that the knee that will not bow to him shall break.

To bless and swear, is taken for the whole service of God. Swearing is one branch of this service, as we have seen in (Isaiah 19:18) and (Isaiah 48:1). For thereby we leave all judgment to God, and acknowledge him the true witness of whatever is done or spoken.

They ought to profess that all their hearts and souls are in these engagements to be the Lord's, and forever to serve him; 2 Chronicles 15:12-14. God's people's swearing to God, and swearing by his name, or to his name, as it might be rendered, (by which seems to be signified th…

Faith takes in all the motives that stir us up to diligence in using all means for preventing the defilements of sin — these reduce to two heads: a participation of the excellent promises of God at present, whose consideration brings a singular enforcement on believers to endeav…

Sanctified afflictions are cleansers, they pull down the pride, refine the earthliness, and purge out the vanity of the Spirit. So you read, Daniel 11:35 it purifies and makes their souls white: Hence it's compar'd to a furnace which separates the dross from the pure metal, Isai…

Isaiah 48:10. "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." Gracious words indeed! words worthy of a God! who has promised that he will not always chastise, that he will not keep his anger for ever; but, on the contrary, will take care in the midst of judgment to remember me…

It was to let him know that there was a furnace of affliction attending the covenant of grace and peace. And so he tells Sion that he chose her in the furnace of affliction, Isaiah 48:10. that is, in Aegyptian affliction, burning, flaming afflictions, fiery tryals, as Peter call…

This public Transaction of Covenanting, which God has appointed, ought to be or have an Existence before we publicly confirm and seal this Transaction. It was that by which the Israelites of old were introduced into the Communion of God's nominal or visible Church and holy City;…

And though the whole Nation of the Jews are often called God's People in those degenerate Times wherein the Prophets were sent to reprove them, yet at the same Time they are charged as falsely calling themselves of the holy City. Isaiah 48:2. And God often tells them, they are r…

Providences are so disposed as if he meant to do quite otherwise. So (Isaiah 48:7): They are created now, not from the beginning, lest you should say, I knew them. God speaks concerning the matter of Babylon and the ruin of that empire, which should be effected so strangely that…

Do men gather grapes of thorns? I knew that you would deal treacherously, for you were called a transgressor from the womb (Isaiah 48:8). And should not we, much more, be qualified by the same consideration?

1. It is eternal. Come you near unto me, hear you this, I have not (says he) spoken from the beginning in secret, from the time that it was, there am I, and now the Lord God and his spirit has sent me (Isaiah 48:16). He himself is yesterday, today, and forever, and so is his lov…

Peace: by holiness we have communion with God, wherein peace alone is to be enjoyed. The wicked are like a troubled sea that cannot rest, and there is no peace to them, says God, Isaiah 48:22. There is no peace, rest, or quietness in a distance, separation, or alienation from Go…

So (Ezekiel 36:22), Thus says the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake. So (Isaiah 48:9), For my name's sake will I defer my anger, and for my praise will I refrain for you; that I [illegible] (4.) The Duration, Forever; all exce…

Their troubles are many — from God's own hand, Satan's temptations, malice of the wicked world — therefore let your mercies come to me. 2. Our sins — so many provocations, transgressions from the womb (Isaiah 48:8). After grace received we have our failings; there remains much v…

The hot furnace is Christ's workhouse where he forms the most excellent vessels of honor and praise for his own use. Manasseh, Paul, and the Jailor in the Acts, were all chosen in the fire, as the Lord says (Isaiah 48:10): I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction, where Go…

God began with them in their afflictions, and the time of their sorrows was the time of loves. The hot furnace is Christ's workhouse, the most excellent vessels of honor and praise have been formed there (Isaiah 48:10): I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. Manasseh, P…

Take him from head to foot, from the crown of that to the sole of this, there's no whole (because not holy) part in him, but all filthy and full of putrefactions and sores. If we dissect and anatomize man, we shall find this but too true, for not to name every sin that cleaves t…

Hence sinners are so weary of time, and not only of business, but recreations; their changing so often, argues they have no satisfaction. Hence the Pythagoreans place the wicked on a rolling pin, as having no quiet or peace, but are like the raging sea, as the Prophet speaks (Is…

2. We may and ought to (not only choose suffering, and not sin, but) rejoice in suffering, and that with all joy, and (in the highest degree) glory in tribulation; but sin is matter of shame and grief, not of joy. Account it all joy — not simply joy, or a little joy, but all joy…

They will say then as Adrian did, Animula vagula, blandula, quo vadis? non ut soles dabis jocos! Oh my poor soul, you will laugh, and joke, and droll no more! 3 They must suffer the loss of all their peace: it is true, the wicked here have no real and solid peace, for there is n…

2. A man may profess Religion and live in a form of godliness in hypocrisy. (Isaiah 48:1) Hear you this, O House of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swore by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of I…

Some such as these were savingly brought home to God. Indeed, when corruption becomes like an old cankered sore of long continuance, and the sinner incorrigible under all the choicest means that have been used, yet then the Lord works the cure (Isaiah 57:18): I was angry with hi…

A father will teach his children; the child goes to his father, Father, teach me my lesson; so David goes to God (Psalm 143:10), teach me to do your will for you are my God. The Lord glories in this title (Isaiah 48:17). I am the Lord your God, which teaches you to profit.

This was the language of the will in innocency: I delight to do your will, O God (Psalm 40:8). But now it is distempered; it is like an iron sinew that refuses to yield and bend to God (Isaiah 48:4). You will not come to me that you may have life (John 5:40).

Cartwright says it is a metaphor from men who, being oppressed with a burden, transfer it off themselves upon one who is mightier and stronger: it is excellent when the heart rolls all its cares upon the Lord, and disburdens itself upon him. (8.) There is a word that notes to le…

So that this action of sending is appropriate to the Father, according to his promise, that he would send us a Savior, a great one to deliver us (Isaiah 19:20), and to the profession of our Savior. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that it was, there…

Of which mercy to make us assured, he says, that the rod with which he will correct the posterity of Solomon, shall be of men, and stripes of the children of men: by which clauses when he means moderation and leniency, he withal secretly declares, that they cannot but be confoun…

(Psalm 81:13) O that my people had listened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways! (Isaiah 48:18) O that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea. (Luke 12:47) And that servant who knew his…

Objection 4: But I have neither weeping one way or other, ordinary nor marred. Answer: Looking up to heaven, lifting up of the eyes, goes for prayer also in God's books (Psalm 5:3). My prayer will I direct to you, and I will look up (Isaiah 48:14). My eyes fail with looking upwa…

Looking at Christ with an eye of faith does heal mightily, it so melts the heart with the sense of its own feebleness, that it begins to change the hard and stony heart into mournful tears: as they were healed by looking at the brazen serpent (Numbers 21:8-9), so we by mourning…