BLIND LEADERS
Isaiah 3:12. O my people, they which lead thee [550] cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
[550] The marginal reading, “they which call thee happy” (Malachi 3:12; Malachi 3:15), represents vividly the method adopted by the false prophets; who, instead of warning the people against the dangers of prosperity, were ever felicitating them upon it, saying, “Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” But the textual rendering appears to be the preferable one.—Kay.
This is at once a lament and a condemnation—a lament over the misfortunes of those who are misguided, a condemnation of their folly and wickedness in permitting themselves to be led astray.
I. Men need to be led.
1. This is our need as individuals. Every day we need an answer to the questions, What ought I to do? Which way should I go In the journey of life, we continually come to crossings at which we are conscious of our need of guidance.
2. Guidance is still more necessary for men collectively. What shall be the belief of a community? What its action? Like the apostolic band (John 21:2-3), communities remain idle, undecided, until the born leader says, “I go a-fishing,” and instantly they say to him, “We also go with thee.” Men are naturally gregarious; like a flock of sheep they crowd and inconvenience each other, not knowing which way to turn, until one bolder than the rest breaks away from the flock, and then instantly the flock begins to follow him.
II. As a rule men are misled. Boldness and wisdom do not always go together. Not seldom the courage which prompts men to become the leaders of others, and which goes so far to command the assent of others, is a compound of self-conceit and ignorance. Men are always prone to trust in the self-confident: they will believe the boastful quack rather than the diffident philosopher. Hence in all ages men have been caused to err—the blind have been led by the blind. How true this is to-day in political matters, in social, in commercial, in religious! [Give instances.] On every hand, in all these realms of thought and action, there are those who can only rightly be described as leaders who cause the people to err. Yea, all men carry within them two leaders, in whom they are disposed implicitly to trust, but by whom in the majority of instances they are misled—reason and conscience. How absolute is the confidence placed in these guides, and how seldom it is justified!
III. To be misled is one of the most terrible of evils.
1. It involves the loss of all the good to which right leadership would have conducted men.
2. It involves disappointment, shame, sorrow, and often irretrievable ruin.
3. It plunges men into painful perplexities, so that even when they have begun to suspect that the path they are pursuing is erroneous, they know not how to discover the true one; it seems to them to be “destroyed;” they search for it in vain. They are like travellers who, in the darkness following Will-of-the-Wisp, have strayed from the highway into a morass: to stand still is impossible, and yet to step in any direction, may plunge them into worse perils (Matthew 15:14). How criminal is the conduct of those who betray their fellow-men into misery such as this!
In view of these facts,
1. We should not entrust ourselves to the first guide who offers himself to us. Let us examine the credentials of those who ask us to trust ourselves to their care (Matthew 24:24; 1 John 4:1-3; Isaiah 8:20).
2. In weighing the claims of men to be our leaders, we should have regard supremely to their moral qualifications. Their intellectual competency is, of course, not to be disregarded, but moral character is infinitely more important. Not all good men are fitted to be leaders; but no bad man can safely be followed by others. He is continually apt to be guided by policy, rather than principle, and policy leads to perdition [553] Policy is at the best but guess-work—steering by the current: the man who is governed by principle steers by the stars, and neither can be long misled, nor will he wilfully mislead others. Practical Application.—Never vote for any candidate for a public office, however clever he may be, if his integrity is doubtful.
3. Every man needs guidance more close and intimate than any of his fellow-men can afford him: he needs to be led even in choosing his leaders. Whither shall he look for this guidance? To his reason, his conscience? These guides themselves need instruction [556] in the absence of it, they have led millions to perdition. We need supernatural and sure guidance, and we have it
(1) in God’s Word, and
(2) in God’s Spirit (Proverbs 3:5-6). The man who follows these guides will be led always in the paths of righteousness and peace.
[553] Men know where they are going when they follow a principle; because principles are rays of light. If you trace a ray of light in all its reflections, you will find that it runs back to the central sun; and every great line of honesty, every great line of honour, runs back towards the centre of God. And the man that follows these things knows that he is steering right Godward. But the man that follows policies, and worldly maxims, does not know where he is steering, except that in general he is steering toward the devil.—Beecher.
[556] Reason is God’s candle in man. But, as a candle must first be lighted, ere it will enlighten, so reason must be illuminated by Divine grace, ere it can savingly discern spiritual things.—Toplady, 1740–1778.
Conscience, as an expression of the law or will and mind of God, is not now to be implicitly depended on. It is not infallible. What was true to its office in Eden, has been deranged and shattered by the fall; and now lies, as I have seen a sun-dial in the neglected garden of an old, desolate ruin, thrown down from its pedestal, prostrate on the ground, and covered by tall, rank weeds. So far from being since that fatal event an infallible directory of duty, conscience has often lent its sanction to the grossest errors, and prompted to the greatest crimes. Did not Saul of Tarsus, for instance, hale men and women to prison; compel them to blaspheme; and imbrue his hands in saintly blood, while conscience approved the deed—he judging the while that he did God service? What wild and profane imaginations has it accepted as the oracles of God? and as if fiends had taken possession of a God-deserted shrine, have not the foulest crimes, as well as the most shocking cruelties, been perpetrated in its name? Read the Book of Martyrs, read the sufferings of our forefathers; and, under the cowl of a shaven monk, or the trappings of a haughty Churchman, you shall see conscience persecuting the saints of God, and dragging even tender women and children to the bloody scaffold or the burning stake. With eyes swimming in tears, or flashing fire, we close the painful record, to apply to Conscience the words addressed to Liberty by the French heroine, when, passing its statue, she rose in the cart that bore her to the guillotine, and throwing up her arms, exclaimed, “O Liberty, what crimes have been done in thy name!” And what crimes in thine, O Conscience! deeds from which even humanity shrinks; against which religion lifts her loudest protest; and which furnish the best explanation of these awful words, “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
So far as doctrines and duties are concerned, not conscience, but the revealed Word of God, is our one, only sure and safe directory.—Guthrie.