Acts 28:26-27 Saying, Go to this people, and say, Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and not perceive:… The passage from which the apostle quotes is Isaiah 6, where the prophet received a special commission and was forewarned that he would address his message to a hardened, unbelieving people — the effect of the message on the people's minds is described as if it were the express design of the message. It would be easy to adduce other examples, in which the prophets are said to do that which they predict. The passage is quoted — 1. In Matthew 13:14, to illustrate the design of the parabolic mode of instruction which the Saviour adopted. By this application of the passage we learn that it not merely foretold the unbelief of the Jews, but its judicial consequence. Slighted privileges were to be diminished. Despised instructions were to be rendered more obscure (cf. Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10). 2. In John 12:37-41, where the Jews having, disregarded the miracles of Christ it is said, "Therefore they could not believe, because Esaias had said again, He hath blinded their eyes." It cannot mean that the prediction prevented their believing; but that it could not have been falsified by fact. Yet the additional idea of judicial abandonment seems to be conveyed. Not merely is the message, in just retribution, obscure; but the unbelieving mind is left to its perversity, which is equivalent to judicial hardening. 3. In Romans 11:7, 8. There the unbelieving Jews are said to be "blinded"; and God is said to have "given them the spirit of slumber." Here we discover, also, the sentiment of judicial abandonment issuing in hardened unbelief. The text — I. DESCRIBES THE CHARACTER OF SUCH AS ARE THE SUBJECTS OF JUDICIAL HARDNESS. Note — 1. The examples of this sad and guilty state Chat we may learn what are its characteristics. (1) Take — (a) The Israelites of the prophet's day. It was the lot of Isaiah to prophesy during the period of Israel's degeneracy. From the time of Solomon the worship of God had begun to be polluted by idolatry, which now had become prevalent. At this juncture Isaiah was raised up, but though his lips were touched with the living coal, his messages fell upon rebellious ears. Their hearts were hardened. The prophet retired, saying, "Who hath believed our report?" At length the threatened judgment came; idolatrous Judah was carried captive into Assyria. (b) Pass on to the times of Jesus. Kings and prophets desired to see His day, and died without the sight. How hallowed was His ministry! how privileged were His auditors! Who could hear Him, and not be convinced? Alas! even from Him the people turned away in hardened unbelief, and then they crucified Him. (c) Next came the apostles with their offer of a full salvation, but many believed not. Their prejudices were inveterate. (d) The spirit Of the ancient Jews has descended upon their descendants (2 Corinthians 3:14, 15; Romans 11:10). (2) After this examination of instances, we see the principal elements of judicial hardness. It is in one word — spiritual stupidity. While sufficiently perspicacious in regard to everything worldly, they were blind, and deaf, and insensible to Divine things. In characterising such a state of mind, I must point out — (a) Its perversity. Evidence might amount to demonstration; they would not believe. (b) Its prejudice. They scarcely deigned to examine, because they had already formed their conclusion. (c) Its wilfulness. Though the gleamings of conviction might glance on their minds they would not yield to it. (d) Its infatuation. That which had been long, repeatedly, and resolutely rejected seemed at last unworthy of a moment's investigation. (e) Its obstinate malignity. 2. Having, by an induction of Scripture instances, ascertained the elements of judicial hardness, we may now apply the test to living character. (1) Ignorance is one form of it. Not a few who attend an evangelical ministry find all its messages a parable. They are not obtuse in intellectual faculty, yet the gospel of Christ is to them an unintelligible mystery. You go to them determined that, at least, they shall not mistake your meaning, you speak to them as little children; but, after all, they know not whereof you affirm. (2) Error is another form. Scepticism is but a form of judicial hardness. The truth is distasteful; the mind, preoccupied with its own distaste, turns away from evidence, and eagerly seizes on difficulty and objection. (3) But the form which is most prevalent is the unbelief or insensibility of orthodoxy. Its subjects are persons who are not ignorant of the doctrines we preach, nor disposed to deny them. Yet they come and go at ease, whilst living without God in the world. Is not this a case of amazing stupidity? It is as if the dead should come forth from their graves, and clothe themselves anew in the habiliments of this world, and with eyes unclosed, and ears unstopped, should sit in this place, beholding and listening, yet uniting, with the recovery of sensation, a soulless insensibility to the purport of all which they should see and hear. II. EXHIBITS THE RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION INVOLVED IN THE CASE OF JUDICIAL HARDNESS. 1. This will appear, when you observe how mercy, slighted, becomes the means of developing depravity. Had no prophet arisen in Judah, we might have mourned the seduction of the idolatrous tribes, rather than have denounced their criminality. When judgment at length descended upon them, no plea was left them, for ample warning had been given, and had tended but to demonstrate their perversity (2 Chronicles 36:14-16). When Jesus was upon earth the unbelief of the Jews demonstrated the hardness of their hearts and became an aggravation of guilt (John 15:22-24). When apostles conveyed the gospel to their countrymen, and they rejected the message, those heralds of mercy shook off the very dust of their feet as a witness against them (Luke 10:12). In every age the faithful ministers of Christ have to say, "We are the savour of death unto death," etc. (2 Corinthians 2:15, 16). Thus does mercy itself become the occasion of demonstrating depravity. It is not, however, the cause of that aggravated depravity, although it becomes the means of developing it. "For judgment," said the Saviour, "I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind." Their blindness was not, however, the effect of the light; the light was but the occasion of demonstrating it. It is thus that Jesus Himself expounds His own words (John 9:39, 41). 2. When mercy has thus been slighted and insulted it may be withdrawn; the hardened hearer may be removed beyond the sound of the gospel; and he that trifled with impression may be debarred of the means of impression. God may say to His minister, "Thou shalt be dumb," etc. (Ezekiel 3:26). 3. But the more ordinary course of Divine retribution is to leave the hardened heart to its own hardness. Hence, as the hardening of our nature is the consequence of Divine withdrawment, God is Himself said to harden the heart. And God has but to abandon us to ourselves, and then the most fearful characteristics will be developed. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Genesis 6:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; Hebrews 10:29). The soul from which God has withdrawn is like the barren soil on which no rain descends, ever becoming more sterile; like the body from which life has passed, every day yielding more and more to corruption. 4. Under such a state the soul is becoming daily more meet for wrath. It is, in itself, the most fearful token of wrath ever to be experienced. It is death to the soul, the commencement of death eternal, even in this world. But the doom is not yet sealed. For the text — III. CONSTITUTES AN ALARM CALCULATED TO AWAKEN FROM THE SLUMBERS OF JUDICIAL HARDNESS. The whole dispensation of Divine government towards us is a dispensation of mercy. Even the severest denunciations of wrath are uttered in merciful warning, and the flames of the pit are made a beacon to arrest our attention and awaken our alarms. When the prophet was sent to the people of Israel, it was that he might arouse them. After Jesus had wept over Jerusalem as lost He charged His disciples to begin their ministry at Jerusalem. When Paul described the hardness and abandonment of the Jews he did so that he "might save some of them" (Romans 11:14). And in the case of our text he called back the unbelieving Jews to say this one word, with the hope that the faithful warning he gave them might haply be the means of awakening them. (J. Ely.) Parallel Verses KJV: Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: |
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