Isaiah 28:9-10 - Homiletics

The objections of unbelievers to such as preach the truth.

The argumentum ad hominem , to which Isaiah's adversaries had recourse, is one very generally employed by those who are indisposed to receive religious teaching. "Who are you," the teacher is asked, "that you should set yourself up to teach us? On what grounds do you suppose that you are so much wiser than we? We are not babes—not tied to our mothers' apron-strings, not mere children without experience of life. We think that probably we know quite as much on any religious subject as you. Why should you imagine that we do not?' It is difficult to meet this objection. By setting up to be a religious teacher a man does certainly claim to be wiser than his neighbors, and a prima facie objection of undue self-assertion most decidedly lies against him. He can only meet this objection by disclaiming all personal merit, and declaring himself a mere mouthpiece of One infinitely above him, whose doctrine he is commissioned to spread. The objectors will then have to question either the fact of his commission or the authority of the Person who gave it. Another line of argument, and a very common one , is to turn the doctrine itself into ridicule. Has the teacher nothing more to say than what has been heard so often?—nothing but little rules, petty precepts, minute directions for conduct, a touch here, a touch there, tiresome trivialities? Has he no new grand scheme to propound, no flesh way of salvation, no interesting "Church of the Future?" Surely it is idle to repeat, over and over again, the same stale maxims, the same well-worn rules! Who will listen to a harper who harps always on one string? Something new, something lively, something out of the common, is wanted, if the preacher is to secure attention; still more, if he is to affect conduct. Unfortunately, what is new is seldom true; and though, no doubt, novelty in treatment is to a certain extent desirable, since the "instructed scribe" should know how "to bring out of his treasure things old and new " ( Matthew 13:52 ), yet it is the old truths which alone have power, which alone can save; and these need to be perpetually impressed on men, "in season and out of season," dinned into their ears, forced on their attention, cut into their hearts by stroke after stroke, even at the risk of its wearying them.