what do we see? Idolaters-millions of them. Polytheists still outnumber Monotheists. To this fact we must not be indifferent. For us, it is a call to duty. Knowing God, we must make Him known. It is for this purpose that He has mercifully revealed Himself to us (vers. 10-12). Shall we be silent concerning Him? Zeal for His glory forbids it. Compassion for our fellow-men forbids it. No greater benefit could we confer upon them. If we have no zeal for His glory, no compassion for our fellow-men, how dare we call ourselves God's people? how can we hope to dwell with Him in blessedness for ever when this short life is over?

Mission work is our duty. It would be our duty, if it were as hopeless an enterprise as was Isaiah's in his own day (ch. vi. 9, 10). But faithful witness-bearing for God has been in this century prolific of glorious results. Results of mission work in the South Seas, Madagascar, &c. So it will be. The task has the allurement of certain success. Let us address ourselves to it vigorously and with glad heart.

III. It is a declaration which we may make with even more confidence than did our fathers. The unity of God is being more and more clearly revealed

to us.

Science is the friend of religion. By it how wonderfully has our conception of the vastness of the universe been enlarged! How completely we have been convinced that it is in a universe we find ourselves, in an immense empire over which one Power rules. Marvellously varied are are its provinces, but in each and all the same laws are in operation. Behind all these laws there is one Will (H. E. I. 2222, 3174). Nothing can oppose or evade it with success. attempt is madness, and ends always in misery. Throughout all the revelations of science, God speaks to us precisely as He does in this chapter: "I, even I, am the Lord, ... and there is none that can deliver out of my hand I will work, and who will turn it back?"

:

The

Being so much more fully instructed

than our fathers were, we should also be more clearly, confidently, and fervently witnesses for God.

IV. It is a declaration which we should not only make to others, but should lay to heart ourselves. Wonderful and glorious is the revelation given us in our text.

1. On one side, it is an awful revelation. It is an assertion of absolute authority, under which we must live and act: "I am the LORD!" Science bears especially this testimony, that we are in an empire where law is universally and indiscriminately administered (H. E. I. 3171). In God's kingdom there is no border-land, such as the strip that divided England and Scotland before the days of the Stuarts, where men may do very much as they please, without fear of government penalties; no realm of lawlessness such as the Highlands of Scotland were in the days of the Stuarts. God's authority is maintained everywhere; there is not one physical law of His which can be violated or disregarded without mischief. The testimony of Science and of Scripture is one and the same: Sin and suffering are inseparably united. This is as true in the moral and spiritual realm as in the physical; one Lord rules over all! (Numb. xxxiii. 23; Prov. x. 29, xi. 21; Rom. ii. 6-9 ; H. E. I. 3188, 4603-4610.)

To this revelation of God let us give heed. Let it govern our conduct. So will temptation be stripped of all its allurements and seductions (H. E. I. 4673-4676, 4754-4757). So we shall travel life's journey safely.

2. To this revelation there is another side which is indeed a Gospel. Were there no other voice than that of Science to address us, we should shudder as we listened; we are surrounded by so many possibilities of transgression, we are so prone to fall into them, and their results are so disastrous! Conscience would then be only an alarming force; it would haunt us with its testimony that we have already sinned against the Ruler who administers justice so inflexibly, and punishes transgression so relentlessly.

But Scripture had another word to add; it reveals Him to us as the SAVIOUR: "I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no Saviour!"

1. He is a Saviour. By His very nature. "God is love"-practical love. He cannot behold His children in need, and sit idle; cannot listen unmoved to their cries for help (Ex. iii. 7, 8; H. E. I. 2303). In every time of trouble let us remember this, and be comforted and strengthened.

2. There is no other Saviour. Experience had been teaching this lesson to the captives in Babylon. When the power of Assyria and Babylon had begun to loom up before them and their fathers, and threatened to enslave and destroy them in their fear and unbelief, they had sought help from human powers, but had sought it worse than in vain (ch. xxx. 1-5, &c.)

Is not this a lesson we need to learn! In the time of temporal trouble or of spiritual conflict, how apt we are to look elsewhere than to God! But we look in vain. In neither kind of necessity can we do anything for ourselves (John xv. 5; H. E. I. 2358). Nor can our friends help, further than God pleases (Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4). Nor even in sacred things, apart from God, is there help for us (H. E. I. 3438-3442). In every time of need, let us trust in God only (Ps. lxii. 5; H. E. I. 172–176.) 3. We need no other Saviour, for He

is an all-sufficient Saviour. This was the lesson the poor captives in Babylon needed. Not easy for them to learn it. Their case appeared hopeless. Think how the power of Babylon must have seemed to them (they were far weaker in comparison with it than is Poland now in comparison with Russia); how impossible that they should ever be set free from it! What they needed to be taught was, that in comparison with God, Babylon was nothing, and less than nothing; that when JEHOVAH was pleased to set them free nothing could withstand Him (verses 5, 6, 13-17). How completely and gloriously these promises were fulfilled, we know.

We also need to learn this lesson. Sometimes our distress is so great, that we are ready to believe that there can be no deliverance from it. But this despair and distrust in God is foolishness (Jer. xxxii. 17). The wiles of the devil are so subtle, his assaults so overwhelming, that we are disposed to cease from the conflict as a hopeless But again our fear is foolishness (2 Cor. xii. 9; Eph. vi. 10; Rom. viii. 37 H. E. I. 3363-2376.)

one.

In God our Saviour let us rejoice with great joy, and let us hasten to make Him known to our fellow-men, whose needs are as great, whose conflicts are as severe, and whose perils are as terrible as our own.

xliii. 12. Ye are my witnesses, Catch a view of the picture with which these words are connected, and then let us look at the sentiment in relation to ourselves. God is supposed to be observing the conduct of man in relation to Himself. He sees that almost everywhere He is virtually excluded from His own world, His place usurped by idols. He seems to say, "Shall this state of things be allowed to continue? Am I never to have my due? I will bring this matter to a test. I will assemble the whole world, and will call upon the nations who

saith the Lord, that I am God. worship idols to produce their evidence of the deity of these things they worship, and I will call upon my own people to stand forth and give their testimony for Me. I have given you proofs of the reality of my existence; ye are therefore my witnesses. I will confront all idolaters with you, and you shall testify that I am God (verses 8-13).

I. THE CHURCH, whose internal blessedness is in God, and whose experienced blessedness is from Him, is under obligation to stand forth to the

world as giving a perpetual testimony for God. (H. E. I. 3903-3907.) 1. She is able to do this. Having been from the beginning the repository of the sacred documents, she can testify (1) that He gave prophecies which have been fulfilled in her history (verse 12); and (2) that He has wrought miracles on her behalf (verse 12). 2. She does this (1) By the very fact of the assembly of her members for worship, she testifies to the world her confidence that "He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (2) By her ordinances-preaching and the sacraments-she bears perpetual testimony with respect to the nature of religion, the condition of man, the claims of God, the principles on which God and man are to be harmonised and reconciled to each other.

II. THE INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN may be viewed in the same light. 1. The Christian may sometimes be called to give testimony for God in word, to a friend, or to an enemy (1 Pet. iii. 15). 2. Special calls may be made upon him to be a witness to God's faithfulness to His promises, and to the fact that He is the hearer and answerer of prayer (Ps. xviii. 6, xxxiv. 6, lxvi. 16). 3. Whether he will or no, by his habitual conduct he bears a testimony to the world as to his real belief concerning God.

It

ought deeply to impress our conscience that thus we are constantly giving either faithful or unfaithful testimony concerning Him.

III. In view of these facts, let us recognise and remember-1. The honour God has put upon us in thus committing His character into our hands. 2. That thus we are brought into a wonderful resemblance to our Lord Himself. He is termed "the true and faithful Witness." While He lived on earth He gave such a representation of the character of God. that He could say, "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father;" and it should be our ambition, by a close imitation of Him, also to show forth the glory of God, "full of grace and

truth." 3. The obstacles, temptations, and dangers by which we are surrounded, that we may be on our guard against them. 4. The guilt of that professing Christian who by his inconsistencies gives a false witness for God, so that men looking at it can see nothing at all of the Divine character. How often have men of the world been hardened by regarding the false testimony which inconsistent Christians give (H. E. I. 1163, 1164, 4177). 5. The sinfulness of those divisions by which the power of the Church's testimony on behalf of God is broken (H. E. I. 1225, 2450). 6. The greatness of the reward of faithful witnesses for God (Matt. x. 32).

IV. Consider the character, the duty, and the doom of those who render this testimony of the Church. necessary. 1. Your character isopposers of God, deniers of God; refusing His claims and His rights, expelling Him from the very earth He has made. 2. Your duty is inmediately to receive the testimony of the Church, and be led by it to an earnest inquiry into the claims of God upon you, and to a penitent, believing acceptance of the salvation He offers you. 3. If you will not do this, your doom will be that God will triumph over you; He will glorify Himself, His power, and His justice in your eternal destruction from His presence (2 Thess. i. 7-10; Ps. ii. 10-12).-Thomas Binney.

Before a great assembly-all the nations of the earth-the question to be decided is, which out of a host of rival gods is the living and true God! The mode of test is a crucial one, viz., which out of these gods has foretold the future? Plain prophecies are asked for-distinct predictions which could not be ascribed to human sagacity The gods of the heathen fail; and Jehovah summons His people Israel to attest that the fortunes of their nation had been foretold and had fallen out as predicted (Gen. xv. 12-16, 18-21).

Christian believers may be regarded

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as taking the place of ancient Israel; and in the widest sense they may be appealed to as God's witnesses in the great controversy going on between God and the world. Let us note

I. Some of the questions upon which Christians are called to give evidence in favour of their God.

1. One of the first is this: Is there distinct interposition of God on behalf of man, in answer to believing prayer? The world is ready-too ready-to ridicule the idea. "Providence is a blind Fate, impartial alike in its severities and its bounties." Now, albeit there is the same event to the righteous and to the wicked, the former are ready to testify that in the same events there are distinct differences in God's dealings.

But the precise question is, whether or no God answers believing prayer. How many witnesses might be called to answer, Yes!

2. What are the ultimate results of affliction? The Christian holds that the woes of unbelievers are very different from the chastening sorrows of believers. He believes that he gains by his losses; he is ready to prove it from his own experience.

3. Is the believer's life a joyful one? What happy people other people must be, if Christians are melancholy! With all their trials they can rejoice in the Lord, and again and again rejoice.

4. The moral tendencies of evangelical Christianity are sometimes called in question. It is thought that the doctrine of free grace tends to make men think lightly of sin. "If God forgives sin so easily, men will sin more and more." But the world abounds with proofs to the contrary! Men hate sin most at the foot of the cross; they love holiness most when they feel that God has blotted out their sins like a cloud.

5. The Christian religion is sometimes said to be antiquated: "it has had its day." Now is the time for true believers to vindicate the manliness and force of their faith. They are "God's witnesses;" can Christianity no longer nourish heroes ? Let us teach the

world that we retain the old power among us.

6. It is our daily business to witness for God as to whether or no faith in the blood of Jesus Christ really can give calm and peace to the mind. Our hallowed peace must be the proof of that.

7. We shall be called one day to prove whether Christ can help a man to die well or not. A continuous faithful witness will make that last testimony indubitable.

II. Some suggestions as to the mode of witnessing. You must witness, if you be a Christian. You are subpona: You will suffer for it if you do not. 1. As a witness, you are required to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Speak the truth, but let your life be true, as well as your words. 2. Direct evidence is always the best. Second-hand Christianity is one of the worst things in the world. 3. A witness must take care not to damage his own case. Some Christian professors give very telling testimony the other way; but we are God's witnesses! Let our testimony be clear for Him. 4. Every witness must expect to be cross-examined. "He that is first in his own cause," says Solomon, "seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcbeth him." Therefore, watch!

III. There is another witness beside you. "Ye are my witnesses, and my Servant whom I have chosen" (Phil. ii. 7, 8). Witnesses for God are not solitary (Dan. iii. 25; Rev. i. 5). "I am the Truth," said Christ; in Him was no sin (John xiv. 30); His witness-bearing was perfect; He witnessed to Divine justice; read Christ's witness to God's love (1 John iv. 10); He could say "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."

CONCLUSION.-1. Christians, make your lives clear! Be as the pellucid brook-not as the muddy creek. You need not tell men that you love them: make them feel it. 2. Our witness to those to whom this subject does not apply is, Except ye seek God in Christ, ye must perish; but if ye seek