The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones
A drinking song
It has been conjectured that these words are a fragment of a drinking song actually sung in Ephraim.
(Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Israel’s presumption
In the first strophe Isaiah depicted the
Ephraimites’ proud superiority to danger, and their placid, assurance after defeat: “The bricks,” they say, “are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will put cedars in their place”: no sooner, in other words, has one scheme miscarried than they are prepared with a more magnificent one to take its place; no sooner is one dynasty overthrown than another rises in its stead. The proverb gives apt expression to the temper habitually displayed by the northern kingdom. (Prof. S. H. Driver, D. D.)
The sycamore
The commonest tree in the lowlands of Palestine, by the
Mediterranean Sea (1 Kings 10:27). (Prof. S. H. Driver, D. D.)
Beautiful words of varying import
There cannot be two opinions about the beauty of these words. What, then, will be your surprise, when you find that they express nothing more than a wicked thought on the part of
Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria? This circumstance gives us our first point. Noble mottoes may be written upon unworthy banners. Religious words may be pronounced by irreligious lips. We must always look at the surroundings of a circumstance in order to understand its full value. Every circumstance, like every globe, has an atmosphere of its own, hence the wisdom of looking at the context as well as at the text itself. How needful it is to inquire into the surroundings of anything that may charm us. If you have seen a man in church, his mouth opened in praise, his head inclined in prayer, surely you have a right to argue from that individual circumstance to the whole circle and bearing of his daily life. It is impossible that a man can have bowed his head in prayer, and then allow the devil to roam through the whole circle of his intellect, there to inspire evil thoughts. He cannot allow anything that is mean and unworthy to touch and debase the life that has been consecrated by prayer. You know how fallacious would be such reasoning! But the rule should be applied impartially, and therefore I hasten with the noblest interpretation which my judgment can approve to those who may have been caught in some moment of evil passion. Surely a man is not a bad man utterly because he has once been in high excitement. If the one little beauty does not redeem the whole sterile place, in the midst of which it was found, surely the one act of evil cannot spoil the whole paradise of the life, and blight a heart beautiful as a garden in summer. We may learn from these words that wickedness is not mitigated by the beauty of the language in which it is expressed. Is there anything lovelier in all the universe, possible to the inspired imagination, than poetry, painting, and music? Do they not carry with them all elements of beauty and all qualities of high and noble strength. Yet even they have been uncrowned, robbed of their nobleness, and bound down to do menial work in the devil’s service. Let me guard the young, therefore, along this line. They will come from certain places and will say, “the music was so beautiful!” No doubt of it. They will come again and say, “the whole scene was so lovely!” No one questions its loveliness. “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars,”--what language, what music could be more beautiful! And yet through this beautiful speech, Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria indicated their ambitious purpose to thwart the God of the universe! What would you say if I told you that this hand of mine was the hand of an assassin, but yet pleaded for it because of the jewel which flashed upon its fingers! Would you kiss a hand so decorated? Now, take the other view, and let us imagine beautiful words expressing a beautiful purpose. Then we shall have the wedlock which God loves. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Building with hewn stone
There are three classes of you who are building with bricks, and I will ask you if you had not better build with hewn stones.
1. Take those who make good vows limited by time. There are many such. A man, for example, has said to his father, “I promise I will go to church once a week, for twelve months.” It is very good so far as it goes, but it is building with bricks, not with hewn stones. A young man has said, Give me thin paper, and I will pledge myself to abstain from everything that can intoxicate for six months.” Very good. I do not pour contempt upon such a resolution; so far as it goes, it is good. But the very limitation of the vow is a source of weakness. Thus--for the first few days you are strong in your purpose, but gradually you begin to count the days that you have yet to serve. The last week comes, and the vow is like a pale figure gradually disappearing; the last day but one comes, where then is the vow? tomorrow you say you will be free. Free what to do? To become a slave again! Now I want you to change that brick wall of temporary resolution for the hewn stone of an eternal vow.
2. Then there is another class building with bricks instead of hewn stones, namely, those who are inspired by inadequate motives. Where the motive is insufficient, conduct must go down. We live in motive. When the motive force fails the machinery must of necessity stand still There is a man who says he will do a certain thing to obtain a reward. That man’s virtue is only suppressed vice. He who will do a good thing simply because he will earn a reward, will do a bad thing if you double the premium. The motive is insufficient, and the last state of that man will be worse than the first. Others will come to church to please an admirer. That is not church going. Would that I could speak in sufficiently forceful language to the young about this! Where the motive of church going is inadequate it will always be intermittent, and in the end it will expire. If you go to church because you love to be there, and would have Sunday doubled in its golden hours, then you will always be strong in your religious attachments, affections, and convictions. Then there are those who attempt to do right in order to escape a penalty. This is an insufficient motive. I know that fear plays a very important part in the constitution of the human mind, and in the direction of human conduct. But man can outlive fear. Man can become accustomed to the unexpected. There is but one true motive--a hearty love of God!
3. Then there is the third class to which I refer,--those who have not calculated the full force and weight of temptation. When you build a house, you build for the roughest day in the whole year. That should be the sovereign rule, in the building of the life house. The ship that left for the United States yesterday, probably took out three or fourfold the necessary provisions, according to the season of the year, and probably took out coal sufficient for a double journey. Why this excess? Why take more than is needed for the ten days’ voyage? Because of the unforeseen. If, therefore, in such things men make such arrangements, they condemn themselves--I do not hesitate to say the word--as fools, if they leave the spiritual life and the spiritual destiny without more than a transient consideration. Herein is the glory of Christianity, that it builds with hewn stones. Christ’s Gospel is full of soundness, life, and indestructible virility. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Wise lessons from wicked lips
Jesus said, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light,” meaning by the statement that they excel them in the shrewdness and tact with which they manage their business when that has taken an adverse turn. Men of the world do not readily submit to defeat and failure, but strive to convert defeat into victory, and failure into success. Of this the text affords illustration.
I. These children of this world PROCEED WITH A DEFINED PURPOSE, and in this are worthy of imitation. The bricks mentioned as having fallen down were not a heap of burned clay which had got piled up, no one could tell how. They had been built by human hands, and the builders had heads as well as hands. We are not told what sort of buildings they were which “Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria” had constructed, and which had “fallen down.” They may have been dwelling houses, or a temple, round which the sycamores would be planted for groves in which idolatrous Israel worshipped the gods of her own evil devising and choice, and for which she had forsaken the God of her fathers. But let this be as it may, now that the bricks had fallen, and the sycamores were out down, in making up their minds as to what should be done--being anxious to repair the ruin and desolation--they proceed with a defined purpose. The architect precedes the builder: the head leads the hand. So when they set to work they know what they are about. Now, the same principle should underlie the building up of all Christian character and work. Knowledge and zeal should ever be in partnership.
II. These children of the world WERE INSPIRED WITH HOPEFULNESS, and, therefore, are worthy of imitation. Their bricks fell down, but their spirits fell not into the pit of despair. Their sycamores were cut down, but their ambition was not. Is not that the spirit of the world today as then? In 1865 men said England and America shall be connected by the electric telegraph, and they went to work. But the cable snapped, and for the present the enterprise failed. Were the promoters daunted, and persuaded that their scheme was beyond the reach of possible things? No, not they. The next year saw them again at their work, and saw not only a new cable successfully laid, but the broken one, searched for in the great “wilderness of waters,” at length found, after which it was lost and found again several times over, until the 2 nd September, when it was at last secured, and the following telegram flashed along its wire. I have much pleasure in speaking to you through the 1865 cable.” So the Christian ought to be hopeful. You have fallen! Say, I will rise again. Your schemes have failed! Say, I will try again. You are afraid you have laboured in vain! Say, In labours I will be more abundant. You have stormed the citadel of indwelling passion and evil, and still you have to confess, “The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do.” Say again, By the grace of God I shall meet my spiritual foes. Have you with earnest soul entered the Holy of holies, desirous to know “the deep things of God,” and where you expected light, lo! great darkness; and where you sought for peace, and sunshine, and beauty, and harmony, lo! seeming contradiction, the howling waste, cloud, and storm? You searched for a way out of your intellectual doubts and difficulties, and behold mystery has added itself to mystery. Still hope thou in God.
III. These children of this world SHOW A SPIRIT OF INDUSTRIOUS PERSEVERANCE, and are therefore worthy of imitation. Their hands responded to the impulse of their hearts. They dreamed not that by mere wishing their ruined walls would rise again, or their gardens, laid waste, would blossom with the rose, and be made beautiful with the cedar. The moral here is plain. “Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord (so hoping to enter), shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father.” Hoping will not do everything. It must be backed by earnest effort.
IV. These children of the world IMPROVE MATTERS, and are, therefore, worthy of imitation. These tumble down buildings were, after all, but brick; but now they would build, not with bricks, but with hewn stones. Around them had flourished the sycamores, but now that these were cut down, they would plant no more sycamores. They would do better than that; they would plant cedars. In three different places (1Ki 10:27; 2 Chronicles 1:15; 2 Chronicles 9:27) the value of the sycamore as compared with the cedar is given as the value of stones compared to that of silver. Such is the spirit of the world. Is not this the spirit which ought to animate us Never to rest satisfied with present attainments in self-culture or success in our work. (A. Scott.)