Friday, September 2, 2022

Digging Deep into Isaiah 5:18--Cords & Cart Ropes

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, 
and sin with cart ropes;
Isaiah 5:18
 
I. "THE text begins with “Woe;” but when we get a woe in this book of blessings it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from woe. God’s woes are better than the devil’s welcomes
 
II.....Who are eagerly set upon sin, and violent in their sinful pursuits, who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, who take as much pains to sin as the cattle do that draw a team.
 
III. WITH A CART-ROPE_ - "As a long cable" it of sin added to sin, and one sin drawing on another, till the whole comes to an enormous length and magnitude; compared to the work of a rope-maker still increasing and lengthening his rope, with the continued addition of new materials.
By a long progression in iniquity, and a continued accumulation of sin, men arrive at length to the highest degree of wickedness; bidding open defiance to God, and scoffing at his threatened judgments, as it is finely expressed in the next verse. 
When the young man turns to paths of unchastity or of dishonesty, what grief he makes for himself: what woe, what misery! His bodily disease, his mental anguish we have no heart to describe. Ah! yes, The way of transgressors is hard. Alas, poor slaves! They make a noise as they try to drown their feelings; but as the crackling of thorns under a pot such is the mirth of the wicked— hasty, noisy, momentary; gone, and nothing but ashes left.  
They are by long custom and confirmed habits so hardened in sin that they cannot get clear of it. Those that sin through infirmity are drawn away by sin; those that sin presumptuously draw iniquity to them, in spite of the oppositions of Providence and the checks of conscience. Some by sin understand the punishment of sin: they pull God's judgments upon their own heads as it were, with cart-ropes."
Matthew Henry/Charles Spurgeon/Adam Clarke