Man's Insignificance and God's Supremacy
J. Holdich, D. D. Isaiah 2:22 Cease you from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of ? Two things are indispensable to undisturbed tranquillity of mind, namely, humble and distrustful views of ourselves, and supreme and unfaltering reliance on God. So long as a man depends on his own wisdom, power, and goodness, he must be disquieted and unhappy. We can attain to substantial quiet only when we feel that our dependence is on a Being omnipotent, independent, and supreme, as well as abundant in truth and love (Isaiah 26:3). To produce in us this two-fold feeling is the constant aim of Holy Scripture. The grand scheme of redemption is founded on the principle here laid down. Man is sinful, ignorant, impotent to good, and of himself inclined only to evil, and that continually. God, in His infinite mercy, wisdom, and power, hath provided the only means by which he can be restored to holiness, to the favour of his God, and to life everlasting. But while there is in all religiously instructed people a readiness to concede to Christ the merit of salvation, there is too much disposition to rely upon ourselves and our own arrangements for success in temporal and physical things, and to claim the merit of it if we do succeed. There are various things that have a tendency to produce within us a feeling of self-dependence, and lead to the ignoring of the Divine power and efficiency. There is in us too often an idolatry of human agency and natural or artificial instrumentalities, and too often these occupy in our souls the place of God. In the order of nature causes produce their legitimate effects, so that if we can secure certain antecedents we feel confident of corresponding results. To use all wisdom and discretion in the use of means is a plain duty. But the difficulty with us is, that in our reliance on secondary agencies we too often leave God out of the account. We forget that He is above all means, that He can work without them, or He can frustrate all our means and all our best-concerted plans. There is nothing that men are more disposed to confide in than superiority of intellect. Yet God has given us reasons sufficient to abate our idolatry of human talent. For — 1. The largest capacity of man is really very small. Knowledge with all men is very limited, even in those that know the most. 2. Men of great capacity and uncommon attainments seldom, perhaps never, bear to be examined very closely. If one excel in one thing he is deficient in another. Sir Isaac Newton, great as he was in science and philosophy, failed in the common affairs of life. Laplace, whose extensive range of thought took in the whole mechanism of the planetary universe, did not at all justify the high opinion formed of him by Napoleon, when he, at the emperor's invitation, undertook the business of the statesman. 3. Men of the largest pretensions to mind have been and are still guilty of the puerile, the absurd, the degrading crime of idolatry. E.g., , , , modern Hindoos. 4. The comparatively few specimens of unsullied, religious character. 5. We see in the record which God has given of His dealings with our race, a series of illustrations of man's inefficiency and God's supremacy. He has seldom used the means to accomplish an end that man would have selected or supposed. Egypt saved from perishing by a seven years' famine by a young, falsely accused slave, wrongfully cast into prison. Naaman. Deliverance of Israel from the Midianites (Judges 7). Destruction of Spanish Armada, Waterloo, etc., Lessons — (1) Because means sometimes fail, that is no good reason why we should expect the end without them God ordinarily works by means. (2) We should not rely on the means as being effectual in and of themselves. (3) After having used all the agencies and all the discretion which wisdom and sagacity prescribe, we must still rely upon God for the issue. (4) Apply the same rule to spiritual things. We are to use all prescribed and prudential means; frequent the means of grace, etc. But these are only the means which bring us to God. (J. Holdich, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? WEB: Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?