Note 3 — ISAIAH. (continued 2)
Reading edition
God indeed tells us of Hell, but it is to persuade us to flee to heaven; and as a skilful painter fills the background of his picture with his darker colours, God introduces the smoke of torment, and the black thunderclouds of Sinai, to give brighter prominence to Jesus, the Cross of Calvary, and His love to the chief of sinners.
His voice of terror is like the scream of the mother-bird when the hawk is in the sky. She alarms her brood, that they may run and hide beneath her feathers; and as I believe that God hath left that mother dumb unless He had given her wings to cover them, I am sure that He, who is very “pitiful,” and has no pleasure in any creature’s pain, had never turned our eyes to the horrible gulf unless for the voice that cries, “Deliver from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.”
We had never heard of sin had there been no Saviour. We had never heard of hell had there been no heaven. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” And never had Bible light flashed before the eyes of the sleeping felon, to wake him from his happy dream, but that he might see the smiling form of Mercy, and hear her as she says, with finger pointing the way, “Behold I have set before thee an open door.”—Guthrie.