Isaiah 38:11-19 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The great disclosure.

"If a man die, shall he live again?" asks the anxious, hopeful, human spirit. This composition of Hezekiah either indicates or suggests—

I. THE LIGHT WHICH THE HEBREW SAINTS POSSESSED . They believed that death did not terminate man's existence; that, after death, he dwelt in Sheol with the spirits of the departed, with "the inhabitants of the land of stillness;" in a region, deep, dark, shut up within impassable gates through which they that have entered may never more return ( Isaiah 38:10 ).

II. THE PAINFUL FEEBLENESS OF THEIR LIGHT . This abode of the dead was dismal in a high degree to their imagination; it was "the pit of corruption" ( Isaiah 38:17 ); it was the place where God was unapproachable ( Isaiah 38:11 ), where his praises were untold and unsung ( Isaiah 38:18 ), where the delights of human fellowship were unknown ( Isaiah 38:11 ), where the opportunities of gaining the highest wisdom were closed against the soul, where men "cannot hope for thy truth" ( Isaiah 38:18 ). Such life as there was in those sepulchral region, s would hardly be worth having, where privations like these prevailed.

III. THE GREAT DISCLOSURE BY JESUS CHRIST . He did not, indeed, for the first time announce that there was a life beyond death for men. But he did reveal such a life of blessedness and glory as gave a new meaning to immortality. As his disciples, we look for a life which will be characterized, not by the removal , but by the renewal and the immeasurable enlargement, of all the higher blessings of the present time. As exactly opposed to the privations here lamented, we look for:

1 . The near presence of God. ( Isaiah 38:11 .) To depart is to "be with Christ," is to "be with him that we may behold his glory," is to be at home in "the Father's house."

2 . A life of holiest , happiest worship. ( Isaiah 38:18 .) Where the praises of God will never tire the tongue. Heaven is, to our hope, the very home of praise: "The living, they that live indeed,"—they will praise God in accents to which our fainter and feebler life is unequal now.

3 . Communion with the perfected spirits of men. ( Isaiah 38:11 .) We hope to behold and to have ennobling fellowship with men at their very best, when they and we shall be purged of all that hinders or lowers our intercourse on earth.

4 . Access to Divine truth. ( Isaiah 38:18 .) "Then shall we know even as also we are known" ( 1 Corinthians 13:12 ); then shall we look "face to face" on many truths which here we have only dimly espied; then shall we grasp with firm, rejoicing hold what now we can but delicately touch, or are ineffectually pursuing.

5 . Life in its large and blessed fulness. ( Isaiah 38:19 .) It is they who dwell in the light of God of whom we rightly speak as "the living, the living;" it is they who "have life more abundantly." We conclude that: