Isaías 1:3

ADDITIONAL OUTLINESINSTINCT FOLLOWED—REASON DISREGARDED

Isaiah 1:3. The ox knoweth his owner, &c.

“We are wise.” So spake the Greek of old in the pride of his intellectual powers, and so speak many in our own day who have imbibed the spirit of the Greek. Reason is a wonderful faculty, and there have not been wanting, in any age of the world, those who have felt elated by their successful exercise of it. It can look before and after, deriving experience from the past and suggesting provision against the future. It can explore the hidden secrets of Nature and render the world of matter subservient to man; it can turn in upon itself and speculate upon its own processes; nay, it can teach us something of the existence and attributes of the Most High. Such being the triumphs of reason, it can hardly be matter of wonder that the wise men of this world plume themselves on the attainment of those triumphs.

The vainglorying of men, however, whatever form it may assume, is abomination in the sight of God. In the scheme of salvation which God has devised there is no room for boasting either of our moral or intellectual endowments: “It is excluded.” That scheme is essentially humbling in its character; it is so constructed as to shut out pride at every cranny where it could possibly insinuate itself; it is such as to stop every mouth and bring in all the world guilty before God. And not only guilty, but blind also. He will have all the world convicted in the court of Conscience of folly, no less than of sin. In order to bring His people to this conviction, he expostulates with them in many passages of His Word on the vainglorious boasts they were in the habit of uttering, shows their utter emptiness, and exhibits the inconsistency of man’s moral conduct with his pretensions to wisdom and enlightenment (cf. Jeremiah 8:7-8).

Our text implies two things—

1. That the relation subsisting between the brute creation and man is in some measure similar to that which subsists between man and God; and, 2. That the acknowledgment made by dumb animals of their relation to mankind strangely contrasts with the natural man’s refusal of acknowledgment to God.

I. We are to compare the relations subsisting between an inferior and a superior creature with those subsisting between a superior and the Creator. Note, though these relations may be susceptible of comparison, and may be used to lift up our minds to apprehension of the truth, there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type out the higher. The distance between man and the inferior creatures, if great, is measurable; whereas the distance between finite man and the Infinite God is incalculable.

The dumb creature recognises the master whose property it is: “The ox knoweth his owner.” What constitutes man’s right of ownership in the ox? Simply the fact that he bought it. He did not create it. If he supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws, nor by regulating the springs of its animal economy. That is the sum of his ownership. But what constitutes God’s right of ownership in us, His intelligent and rational creatures?

1. We are the work of His hands. Creation constitutes a property in all our faculties and a claim to our services which no creature hath or can have in another.

2. Our property is most entire, our claim of right most indisputable, in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. The flocks and herds in the possession of civilised European settlers in uncivilised countries are often swept away by a barbarous horde of native freebooters. Imagine, then, a case in which, it being impossible to bring the offenders to justice (by reason of their numbers and strength), the owners of the cattle should effect a ransom of their property by laying down a sum equivalent to its value. Is it not thenceforth theirs by a double claim—the claim of original ownership and the claim of subsequent ransom? Such is the claim which God has over us. That claim, grounded originally upon the fact of creation, has been confirmed, enlarged, extended a thousand fold by the fact of redemption (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-19).

3. Our text suggests another detail of the claims which our Heavenly Owner has upon our allegiance: “The ass knoweth his master’s crib.” He knows the manger at which he is fed and the hand that feeds him. Here is a palpable claim upon regard, although by no means so high as those previously advanced. It is a claim appreciable by the senses, capable of being understood and responded to by the mere animal nature. In palliation of man’s neglect of those claims of God which are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation and redemption are not cognisable by them. These stupendous facts are transacted and past. But even this paltry justification is entirely cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to God for his daily maintenance, for the comfort and the convenience even of his animal life [1276]

[1276] Of this fact a strongly figurative but very beautiful statement is contained in a passage of Hosea—a passage remarkably illustrative of that before us, inasmuch as there also the imagery is drawn from man’s dealings with the cattle. “I drew them,” says God, “with the cords of a man, with bonds of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.” “I was to them, as they that take off the yoke on their jaws.” The owner of the ox does not overtask his strength, does not cause him to toil in the furrow without intermission. At the approach of evening the faithful animal is driven homewards, and freed from the shackles of the galling and burdensome yoke. An image this of God’s dealing with His human children. Our every period of refreshment and repose, of ease and relaxation from toil, is from the unseen hand of our heavenly Owner. Those many fractions of comfort and happiness which lighten the load of life—those numerous (although momentary) glimpses of sunshine which relieve the plodding routine of our daily career—those flowers with which the path of the great majority is more or less strewed: the innocent sally of mirth, the smile of affection, the expression of sympathy, the cheering word of encouragement from those whose encouragement is justly valued—these, like all other mercies, are from God, and (though these be but a small part of what we have to be thankful for) are designed to draw us towards Him in bonds of gratitude and love.

“And I laid meat unto them.” By those who avail themeelves of their services, the cattle are supplied with provender. God not only called us into being, but maintains us in being. He it is who gives us our daily bread, and spreads our board with food convenient for us; for food, for health, for continuance of life our dependence upon Him is absolute. By means of these and similar mercies it is that God establishes a claim to the gratitude and devotedness even of those among His rational creatures who have most deeply buried themselves in the things of time and sense, and whose hearts seem to be stirred by no breath of spiritual aspiration, and troubled by no prospect of eternity.—Goulburn.

Observe, also, that it is not the brute creation in a savage state whose relations towards man are here drawn into comparison with the relations of man towards God. To illustrate his argument the inspired writer has chosen instances from the domestic animals, who share man’s daily toils, live as his dependants, and are familiarised by long habit with their master’s abode and ways of life. In drawing out the contrast, he does not mention mankind generally, but “Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” It were in some measure excusable that the heathens should refuse acknowledgment to the living God, whom they know not. But what shall we urge in extenuation of the indifference of “Israel,” who from his very infancy has been of the household of God, domesticated by the hearth of the Universal Parent, and furnished with every means of access to His presence?

II. A contrast is drawn between the acknowledgment made by dumb animals of their relation to their owners and Israel’s refusal of acknowledgment to his God.

The cattle “know” or recognise the voice of their owner; his call they heed, in his steps they follow; irrational creatures though they be, they are not insensible to their benefactor’s fond caress. What a cutting reproof of the insensibility of God’s people!

1. They recognise not God in His warnings, whether they be addressed to them as individuals or to the nation of which they are members. Afflictions arrest them not in their career of vanity and sin. Judgments stir them not out of their lethargy of indifference. They hear not, see not, God in them.2. They do not acknowledge God in His mercies. God’s blessings of Nature and Providence are accepted by them as a matter of course. If regarded at all, they are traced no higher than to secondary causes. The continual experience of them renders them not one whit more submissive to the yoke of God’s service. As to the higher blessings of forgiveness and grace, they feel no need of them, and evince no gratitude for them.Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange insensibility. It is not that “Israel” lacks the faculty of apprehending God, but he will not be at pains to exercise that faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the truths now set forth, but that he does not lay to heart that knowledge, nor allow it its due weight.—E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 153–181.