Isaiah 19:23-24 - Homiletics

Unity in religion joins together the bitterest foes.

As, ultimately, the establishment of the kingdom of Christ among all the nations of the earth ( Isaiah 2:2 ) will produce a reign of universal peace, so that men will everywhere "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks" ( Isaiah 2:4 ), so, on a lesser scale, wherever true religion prevails, asperities are softened, old enmities die out and disappear, a friendly spirit springs up, and former adversaries are reconciled and become friends. Assyria, Egypt, Israel, long the bitterest foes, were drawn together by a common faith in the later days of Judaism and the earlier ones of Christianity—felt sympathy one with another, and lived in harmony. The Papacy was an attempt to bring all the Roman communion into a species of political unity, to abolish wars between its various members, and unite it against heathendom. This attempt had, however, only a partial success, owing to the admixture of bad with good motives in those who were at the head of the movement and had the direction of it. That war has not yet ceased among all Christian nations is a slur upon Christianity, and an indication that nations are still Christian in name rather than in spirit. The league of Assyria, Egypt, Israel, may well be held up to the modern Christian world as an example that should shame it into the adoption of "peace principles." If such foes, so fiercely hostile, so long estranged, could become close friends through the influence of a community of religion, why cannot the Christian nations of modern times attain to a similar unity?