Light and right.
"I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." These words are prophecy and history also; for Christ has fulfilled these words.
I. DANKNESS ILLUMINED. There was:
1. Darkness over the face of God.
2. Darkness over the destiny of man.
But Christ has revealed the Divine fatherhood, and brought life and immortality to light.
II. WRONG RIGHTENED. Crooked or warped things have been twisted or "wrung"—from which our word "wrong" comes; and Christ Jesus has brought in an everlasting righteousness.
1. Man's way was wrong.
2. Man's ideal was wrong, it was self instead of God.
3. Man's heart was wrong.
And there are "crooked" things in experience, in addition to crooked tastes and tempers. And Christ makes the path of duty clear to us, and removes the mountains from our paths.—W.M.S.
Spiritual blindness.
"Who is blind, but my servant?" It is said, "None are so blind as those that won't see." Can any be so blind as those who have been illumined of the Spirit, and who have seen the beauties of holiness, and the deformities of sin, whilst yet they turn back to their old paths?
I. THE BLINDNESS OF INDIFFERENCE. The heart has lost its first love, and the King is not "beautiful" now. Like human love sometimes, which does not know how blessed it is in its estate of home, until it is aroused by accident, danger, or death to a sense of the value of the heart it has slighted. So at times even the Christian becomes indifferent. "I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."
II. THE BLINDNESS OF INATTENTION. (Isaiah 42:20.) "Seeing many things, but thou observest not."
1. Christians do not always see the value of their principles,
2. Nor do they mark the privileges and comforts which are the outcome of faith.
3. Nor do they observe the misery of the men of this world.
4. Nor do they see the slave's fetters beneath the false liberty of the sinner. Others are blind by nature and habit. But who so blind as the Lord's servants?—W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON