SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION
Isaiah 17:7-8. At that day shall a man look, &c.
In the prophecies of terror to guilty nations there is always some provision of comfort for God’s faithful and penitent people. His prophets were commissioned to minister hope to His friends, while they foretold misery to His enemies. In the text Isaiah, predicting the overthrow of the ten tribes, furnishes consolation to the faithful remnant who had not yielded to the prevalent idolatry (Isaiah 17:6), and declares that the judgments he announced would result in the conversion of many who had been ensnared by it. We are thus led to consider the designs of God in the afflictions of His people.
I. To recall their wandering hearts to Himself. “At that day shall a man look to his Maker” (H. E. I., 56–59, 66–70). This is the result of sanctified affliction. Whenever it is seen, it shows that the processes of grace have been combined with the trials of providence, and that the health of the spirit has been restored by the Physician of souls. Otherwise affliction hardens, and the man goes back with greater eagerness to worldliness or iniquity, as the retreating wave presently rolls back upon the beach with greater velocity than before (H. E. I., 223–228). But not so if the healing influence has been sought and found. Then “a man will look to his Maker”—
1. With a suppliant eye, to find in Him sources of consolation and a rock of defence such as the world cannot furnish (Psalms 123:1-2; Jonah 2:1).
2. With a penitent eye (Luke 22:62; Zechariah 12:10).
3. With a confiding and believing eye (chap. Isaiah 8:17).
4. With a rejoicing eye (Romans 5:11; Habakkuk 3:18).
II. To raise their estimate of the holiness of the Divine character and the rectitude of the Divine dispensations. “Shall have respect unto the Holy One of Israel.” Sin begins with a diminished sense of God’s holiness, and conversion is marked by a renewed impression of it (Psalms 51:4).
III. To separate them from all sinful and idolatrous dependencies. “He shall not look,” &c. The sin of the ten tribes was idolatry (2 Kings 17:16), but here it is foretold that it shall be brought to an end. Those who had been guilty of this folly and this sin would not even look at the altars and the images they had fashioned with such care. So God aims by His afflictive providences to separate His people from everything in which they put an exaggerated and unworthy trust (H. E. I., 110, 111).
IV. To endear the mercy that mingles with the trials. This appears—
1. In the moderate degree in which God’s people are corrected, compared with the final and exterminating judgments which fall upon the wicked. Damascus was to be utterly destroyed (Isaiah 17:1), but a remnant was to be left to Israel (Isaiah 17:5; see also chap. Isaiah 27:7-9). God’s people always see that He has afflicted them less than they deserve (Lamentations 3:22) [1042]
2. In the alleviations of their trials (H. E. I., 117–121).
3. In the triumphant issue of the whole. They are delivered from the idolatry by which they were degraded (H. E. I., 116).—Samuel Thodey.
[1042] See Outline: GOD’S RELUCTANCE TO PUNISH, chap. Isaiah 1:9.