Isaiah 48:18 O that you had listened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea: I. HERE ARE THE PRIVILEGES OF GOD'S PEOPLE, Peace like a river; righteousness like the waves of the sea. The very same blessings which are said in the New Testament to constitute the kingdom of God (Romans 14:17). 1. This blessed peace is of two kinds — peace with God, and peace within themselves. This peace is compared to a river. The comparison is very beautiful and significant. Look at a river. What are you struck with? (1) The stillness and the smoothness of its course, so striking as contrasted with the noise and the disturbance which are so often heard upon its banks. So still is the course of the real Christian when compared with the troublesome world through which he moves. (2) Look again at the deep river. What an idea does it give us of fulness and abundance! And what an emblem then, in this respect, of the abundance of the Christian's peace! "The Lord of peace Himself gives him peace always, by all means." "Always" — in prosperity and in adversity — in health and in sickness — in ease and in pain — in abundance and in want — in joy and in sorrow — in the midst of friends and in the midst of enemies — in life and in death. And "by all means" — for by how many instruments, through how many channels, does the Lord send peace into His people's hearts! By His Word — by His ordinances — by His providences — nay, by a thousand things which might seem, at first sight, more likely to mar their peace than to promote it. (3) Take another view of a deep river. How long has it been flowing? How long will it flow? And how long will the peace of the Lord's people last? "As long as the moon endureth" (Psalm 72:7). Yea, longer far (Isaiah 32:17; Isaiah 54:10). 2. "Righteousness." The people of God are clothed in the merits of their Saviour. Now, of this righteousness it may well be said that it is "like the waves of the sea." Behold the sea, and the idea it gives us is that of vastness and immensity — an almost boundless mass of waters. And what is the height, the length, the breadth, the depth of the righteousness of Christ! The waves of the sea are a fit emblem of power and might — who can withstand them? who can rebuke them? And who can lay anything to the charge of those whose righteousness is that of their Redeemer? II. WHY DO NOT THE BLESSINGS WE HAVE SPOKEN OF BELONG TO EVERYONE? It is impossible to enjoy God's peace in the midst of the world's sins. III. WHAT TENDERNESS THERE IS IN THE TEXT! what commiseration of the sad estate in which sinners have reduced themselves! (A. Roberts, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: |
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