Isaiah 43:1

The Hebrew means to ransom by a price paid in lieu of the captives (compare Isa 43:3). Babylon was to be the ransom in this case, that is, was to be destroyed, in order that they might be delivered; so Christ became a curse, doomed to death, that we might be redeemed. called . . . by . . . name--not merely "called" in general, as in Isa 42:6;

WHEN two Christians met together who were sitting under a very lean and starving ministry, one of them comforted his fellow concerning the miserable discourse by saying, "Never mind, my Friend, there is not much in the sermon, but the text is a feast by itself." So, this morning, if my words should seem to be very poor and powerless, what fullness there is in these three texts! Here you have a dainty meal of three courses.

Beloved Friends, there are many lights in which we can see sin. And our perception of sin very much depends upon the light in which we look at it. Sin is very terrible by the blaze of Sinai, when the mountain of Law and terrors is altogether on a smoke. It is a dreadful thing to look at sin when God speaks in thunder and all the earth trembles before Him. It is an awful thing to see sin by the light of your dying day. More terrible, still, will it be to see it by the light of the Judgment Day. When Abraham rose up early in the morning and looked towards Sodom, it was a lurid light that met his gaze as he saw the guilty cities blazing and smoking up towards Heaven like a vast furnace. To see sin in that light is a solemn thing. But of all the lights that ever fall upon sin, that which makes it, "like itself appear," is that which falls upon it when it is set in the light of God's Countenance. To see sin by the light of God's Love, to read its awful character by the light of the Cross—beholding Christ bleeding and dying—is the way to see sin. Nothing makes us feel sin to be so vile and guilty a thing as when we realize that it was perpetrated against the God of Infinite Love. I am going to speak at this time mainly concerning God's own people. They are to be the direct object of my talk, and I want to set their sins in the light of God's Love to them. I mean, Beloved, your sins and my own. Let us set our sin in the light of God's eternal Love and if the sight should break us down, so much the better. If it should send us away humbled and ashamed, so much the better. And if it should make us praise eternal love beyond anything we have ever done before, so much the better. My one objective will be to set before you the contrast between God's action towards His people and His people's usual action towards Him.

Beloved Friends, there are many lights in which we can see sin. And our perception of sin very much depends upon the light in which we look at it. Sin is very terrible by the blaze of Sinai, when the mountain of Law and terrors is altogether on a smoke. It is a dreadful thing to look at sin when God speaks in thunder and all the earth trembles before Him. It is an awful thing to see sin by the light of your dying day.

WHEN two Christians met together who were sitting under a very lean and starving ministry, one of them comforted his fellow concerning the miserable discourse by saying, "Never mind, my Friend, there is not much in the sermon, but the text is a feast by itself." So, this morning, if my words should seem to be very poor and powerless, what fullness there is in these three texts! Here you have a dainty meal of three courses. You ought to be well nourished this morning, for I have set before you, in these passages of Scripture, quite as much as the largest capacity will be able to mark, learn and inwardly digest. Here is good pasture for the flock, wherein they may not only feed, but lie down! Did you say, "Too much text?" Possibly you might, on other occasions, reproach me with having too little of God's Word and too much of my own, but there can be no fault the other way—the more of the Word of the Lord the better! What is man's word compared with God's Word? It is as chaff to the wheat, at worst, and as mere gold-leaf to solid bullion at best! Indeed, my word is of no value at all, except as it is made up of the essence of the Divine Word. Far better than our best exposition is the Word itself—this is the pure light of the sun—ours is but a poor candle! Of the Scripture itself we cannot have too much. If you derive no other profit from this assembling of yourselves together but to have your earnest attention directed to this precious part of Holy Writ, if the Spirit of God is with you, your meditations will make this a profitable hour! Notice concerning these three texts that they are very much alike in this respect—they are each addressed to God's people under the names of Jacob and Israel.

I have called thee by thy name - “קראתי בשמך karathi beshimcha. So all the versions. But it seems from the seventh verse, and from the thing itself, that we should read קראתיך בשמי karathicha bishmi, ‘I have called thee by my name;’ for this form of speech often occurs - the other never. For Isa 45:24, concerning Cyrus, is another matter; but when God calls Jacob Israel, he calls him by the name of God. See Exo 31:2.” - Secker.