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Isaiah Chapter
Fifty-one
Isaiah 51
Chapter Contents
Exhortations to trust the Messiah. (1-3) The power of
God, and the weakness of man. (4-8) Christ defends his people. (9-16) Their
afflictions and deliverances. (17-23)
Commentary on Isaiah 51:1-3
(Read Isaiah 51:1-3)
It is good for those privileged by the new birth, to
consider that they were shapen in sin. This should cause low thoughts of
ourselves, and high thoughts of Divine grace. It is the greatest comfort to be
made serviceable to the glory of God. The more holiness men have, and the more
good they do, the more gladness they have. Let us seriously reflect upon our
guilt. To do so will tend to keep the heart humble, and the conscience awake
and tender. They make Christ more precious to the soul, and give strength to
our attempts and prayers for others.
Commentary on Isaiah 51:4-8
(Read Isaiah 51:4-8)
The gospel of Christ shall be preached and published. How
shall we escape if we neglect it? There is no salvation without righteousness.
The soul shall, as to this world, vanish like smoke, and the body be thrown by
like a worn-out garment. But those whose happiness is in Christ's righteousness
and salvation, will have the comfort of it when time and days shall be no more.
Clouds darken the sun, but do not stop its course. The believer will enjoy his
portion, while revilers of Christ are in darkness
Commentary on Isaiah 51:9-16
(Read Isaiah 51:9-16)
The people whom Christ has redeemed with his blood, as
well as by his power, will obtain joyful deliverance from every enemy. He that
designs such joy for us at last, will he not work such deliverance in the mean
time, as our cases require? In this world of changes, it is a short step from
joy to sorrow, but in that world, sorrow shall never come in view. They prayed
for the display of God's power; he answers them with consolations of his grace.
Did we dread to sin against God, we should not fear the frowns of men. Happy is
the man that fears God always. And Christ's church shall enjoy security by the
power and providence of the Almighty.
Commentary on Isaiah 51:17-23
(Read Isaiah 51:17-23)
God calls upon his people to mind the things that belong
to their everlasting peace. Jerusalem had provoked God, and was made to taste
the bitter fruits. Those who should have been her comforters, were their own
tormentors. They have no patience by which to keep possesion of their own
souls, nor any confidence in God's promise, by which to keep possession of its
comfort. Thou art drunken, not as formerly, with the intoxicating cup of
Babylon's idolatries, but with the cup of affliction. Know, then, the cause of
God's people may for a time seem as lost, but God will protect it, by
convincing the conscience, or confounding the projects, of those that strive
against it. The oppressors required souls to be subjected to them, that every
man should believe and worship as they would have them. But all they could gain
by violence was, that people were brought to outward hypocritical conformity,
for consciences cannot be forced.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 51
Verse 1
[1]
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look
unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are
digged.
Look —
Consider the state of Abraham and Sarah, from whom all of you sprang.
Verse 2
[2] Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called
him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
Him alone — To
follow me to an unknown land: him only of all his kindred.
Increased —
Into a vast multitude, when his condition was desperate in the eye of reason.
And therefore God can as easily raise his church when they are in the most
forlorn condition.
Verse 3
[3] For
the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will
make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy
and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Therefore —
For the sake of Abraham, and of that covenant which I made with him.
Garden —
Flourishing as the garden of Eden.
Verse 4
[4]
Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall
proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
My people — Ye
Jews, whom I chose to be my peculiar people.
A law — A
new law, even the doctrine of the gospel.
Judgment —
Judgment is here the same thing with law, the word of God, or the evangelical
doctrine, of which he saith that he will make it to rest, that is settle and
establish it.
The people —
People of all nations.
Verse 5
[5] My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall
judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they
trust.
My righteousness — My
salvation, the redemption of all my people, Jews and Gentiles, which is the
effect of his righteousness, his justice, faithfulness, or mercy.
Is gone —
Shall shortly go forth.
Judge —
Shall subdue the Gentiles to my authority, and rule them by my word and spirit.
Isles —
The remote countries shall expect this salvation from me, and from me only.
Verse 6
[6] Lift
up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens
shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and
they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for
ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
The heavens —
The heavens and earth shall pass away, in regard of their present state, and
properties, and use, as smoak is said to vanish, tho' the substance of it be
not destroyed.
Verse 7
[7]
Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my
law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
Know —
That love and practise it.
Verse 8
[8] For
the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like
wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation
to generation.
Like wool —
Like a woollen garment, which is sooner corrupted by moths or such creatures,
than linen.
Verse 9
[9]
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient
days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and
wounded the dragon?
Put on —
Put forth thy strength.
Rahab —
Egypt, from its pride or strength.
The dragon —
Pharaoh so called, Psalms 74:13.
Verse 11
[11]
Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto
Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness
and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Therefore —
This verse contains an answer to the prophet's prayer. I did these great
things, and I will do the like again.
Joy —
Like a crown of glory.
Verse 13
[13] And
forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid
the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of
the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the
fury of the oppressor?
Where is the fury — Is
it not all gone? He speaks of the thing as if it were already done, because it
should certainly and suddenly be done.
Verse 16
[16] And
I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine
hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and
say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
I have —
These words are spoken by God to his church and people, to whom he speaks both
in the foregoing and following verses. For God's word is frequently said to be
put into the mouths, not only of the prophets, but of the people also.
Covered —
Have protected thee by my almighty power, that I may bring thee to that perfect
and blessed estate which is reserved for the days of the Messiah, which in
scripture phrase is called a making of new heavens, and a new earth, chap. 65:17.
Verse 17
[17]
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD
the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and
wrung them out.
Awake —
Heb. Rouse up thyself: come out of that forlorn condition in which thou hast so
long been.
Stand up —
Upon thy feet, O thou who hast been thrown to the ground.
Drunk —
Who hast been sorely afflicted.
The cup —
Which strikes him that drinks it with deadly horror.
And wrung —
Drunk every drop of it.
Verse 18
[18]
There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth;
neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath
brought up.
None to guide —
When thou wast drunk with this cup, and not able to go.
Verse 19
[19]
These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation,
and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
These things —
Those which follow, which tho' expressed in four words, may fitly be reduced to
two things, the desolation or devastation of the land, and the destruction of
the people by famine and sword. So famine and sword are not named as new evils,
but only as the particular ways of bringing the destruction.
By whom — I
cannot find any man who is able to comfort and relieve thee.
Verse 20
[20] Thy
sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a
net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
Fainted —
They are so far from being able to comfort thee, that they themselves faint
away.
They lie —
Dead by famine or the sword.
As a bull —
Those of them who are not slain are struggling for life.
Verse 21
[21]
Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
Not with wine —
But with the cup of God's fury.
Verse 22
[22] Thus
saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people,
Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of
the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
That pleadeth —
Who, tho' he has fought against thee, is now reconciled to thee, and will
maintain thy cause against all thine adversaries.
Verse 23
[23] But
I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy
soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground,
and as the street, to them that went over.
Go over —
That we may trample upon thee.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
51 Chapter 51
Verses 1-8
Hearken to Me
The thrice “Hearken”
These paragraphs are exceedingly dramatic.
We become conscious that we are approaching a revelation of unparalleled
sublimity which shall be in Scripture what heart or brain or eye is in the
human body. And as we consider the thrice “Hearken” of this paragraph, and the
thrice “Awake” of the succeeding one, we realize that we are entering the
presence-chamber of the profoundest mysteries of love and redemption. The
people, notwithstanding the promises of deliverance from exile and the summons
to depart, seemed unable to believe that they were destined to become again a
great nation, or that Zion’s wastes would be repaired! Already the Servant of
Jehovah had sought to answer their anxious questionings, and reassure them by
announcing a love that would not let them go. And in these words He betakes
Himself to the same strain. He prefaces His words by the thrice-repeated
“Hearken,” addressed to those “that follow after righteousness” in the first
verse; and to “those that know righteousness” in the seventh. These are always
the stages in the development of character: they that follow presently possess.
I. THE LESSONS OF
RETROSPECT. It was for her encouragement that Israel was primarily directed to
this retrospect. Let us recount the steps of Abraham’s pruning, on which God
lays stress in saying, “When he was but one, I called him.”
1. He stood alone. First, Terah died, after having started with him
for the Land of Promise, emblem of those who in old age start on the pilgrimage
of faith and hope, not too much tied by the conservatism of nature, or the
traditions of the past. Then Lot dropped away, and went down to Sodom; and it
must have been difficult for the old man, as he saw the retreating forms of his
camp followers, to be wholly unmoved. Then Sarah’s scheme miscarried, and Hagar
was thrust from his tents with her child. Lastly, his Isaac was laid upon the
altar. By successive strokes the shadows grew deeper and darker; and he stood
alone, face to face with God and His purpose. But the fire that burned in his
heart rose higher, shone brighter, and has ignited myriads with its flame.
2. His faith was sorely tried.
3. His history is the type of God’s dealings with men. Not once nor
twice in the record of the Church the cause of truth has been entrusted to a
tiny handful of defenders, who have deemed it forlorn or lost. Sir Walter
Scott’s picture of the apparently empty glen suddenly teeming with armed men at
the sign of the chieftain has often had its counterpart in the great army which
has arisen from the life, or words, or witness, of a single man. Art thou a
cypher? but thou mayest have God in front of thee! Art thou but a narrow
strait? yet the whole ocean of Godhead is waiting to pour through thee! The
question is not what thou canst or canst not do, but what thou art willing for
God to do.
II. THE
IMPERISHABLENESS OF SPIRITUAL QUALITY. In the following verses there is a
marvellous contrast between the material and the unmaterial, the temporal and
the eternal. The gaze of the people is directed to the heavens above and the
earth beneath. Those heavens seem stable enough. Yet they shall vanish like a
puff of smoke borne down the wind. And as for the earth, it shall wax old. But
amid the general wreck, spiritual qualities will remain imperishably the same.
“My salvation shall be for ever, and My righteousness shall not be abolished.
1. This shall be for ever true of God. God will be the same in His
feelings and dealings towards us amid the crash of matter and the wreck of
worlds as He is to-day. The Jews took great comfort in the thought of God’s
unchangeableness.
2. This shall be for ever true of man. When we partake of God’s
righteousness and assimilate it, we acquire a permanence which defies time and
change. What a lesson is given in these words of the relative value of things!
III. THE IMPOTENCE
OF MAN. These exiled Jews hardly dared to hope that they would be able to break
away from their foes. To us, as to the exiles in Babylon, the Divine word
comes, “Fear ye not, neither be dismayed” (Isaiah 51:7). The paragraph closes with
an application of the word used by the great Servant of Himself. “The moth
shall eat them up,” we heard Him saying to Himself; “they shall all wax old as
a garment” (chap. 50:9). But now we are bidden to apply those same expressions
to ourselves (Isaiah 51:8). With these assurances
behind us, we may face a world in arms. Men may try to wear out the saints, but
they must fail. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)
A bright light in deep shades
The remembrance of God’s mercy in the past is helpful to us in
many ways. Isaiah was led by the Spirit of God to admonish the Israelites to
look back that they might be cheered and encouraged in a time of gloom and
sadness, and that they might be animated with fresh confidence in God’s power
to bring them up again from their sad condition, as they thought of all that He
had done for them in times past, when they were equally low, or when,
peradventure, they were even in a worse plight than they were at present. It is
a great thing for people to be encouraged.
I. WE SHALL
EXPOUND THE TEXT IN ITS APPLICATION TO ISRAEL LITERALLY. They are bidden to
look back to the origin of their nation, in order that they may be comforted.
Abraham was the stock out of which the nation of Israel came. Moreover, the man
was well stricken in years. As for his wife, she also, it is said, was barren;
and yet from these two, who seemed the least likely of all flesh and blood, God
was pleased to create a people countless as the stars. Abraham was not a man in
a commanding position, with large armies at his feet, who could make a show in
the world. He was a dweller in tents, a Bedouin sheik, wandering through the
plains of Palestine, yet was he never injured; for God had sent forth a secret
mandate, which fell, though they knew it not, upon men’s hearts. Now, the
prophet turns to the Israelites, and says, “You say God can never restore us,
we have been thinned out by innumerable invasions, the sword of war hath slain
the tribes, Judah and Israel can never rise again. But are there not more left
of you than there were at first? There were but two, Abraham and Sarah, that
bare you, and yet God made you a people. Can He not make you a people again?”
etc. The thoughts which would be awakened in the heart of a Jew by these
reflections would be eminently consolatory. They ought to be consolatory to us
now with regard to the Jewish people. We are encouraged from the very origin of
Israel to hope that great things shall yet be done for her.
II. Our text may be
used in reference to the CONDITION OF THE CHURCH OF GOD IN THE WORLD.
1. I know many of the people of God who scarcely dare look for
brighter times, because they say the people of God are few. Was not the Church
very small at the first? It could all be contained in one upper room. Has it
not been very small many times since then? But did not the Lord strengthen
His Church in the apostolic times? And, in the dark ages, how very
speedily did the time of the singing of birds come! God had but to speak by His
servant Luther, and brave men came to His side, and right soon His Church
sprang up.
2. But, is it possible, you say, while the Church of God in these
days possesses so few men of influence? Did not inspiration say, “Not many
great men after the flesh, not many mighty have been called, but God hath
chosen the poor of this world”? Do ye suppose that God has changed His plans,
or that men s hearts have changed their bias?
3. But alas, saith one, I see grave cause for sorrow, for in these
days many have departed from the faith, and truth lies in the streets
bespattered. There have been eras and epochs in which gross heresies spread a
contagion through the entire Church.
4. Again, I hear the voice of lamentation, “It is not merely that
error spreads in the land, but the Church is lukewarm in these times.” The
Church has: been in a like listless state before, and out of that languid
condition God has roused her up and brought her forth.
5. There is a complaint made by some, and I fear there is some truth
in it, that we have not many valiant ministers now-a-days. But, for all that,
there have been periods in the Church s history when she lacked for men of
valour, and God has found them. Why should He not find them again?
III. OUR TEXT MAY BE
VIEWED AS INSTRUCTIVE TO OURSELVES. Our experience, varies. It sometimes
happens to men who are truly saved, that they fall from the, condition which
they occupied when they were in their first love. Your present condition is not
what your past one was, and yet the Lord visited you when in your lost estate.
There is the same God to-day as there was when first you sought Him.
IV. OUR TEXT MAY BE
FITTINGLY USED TO ENCOURAGE OUR HOPE FOR OTHERS. Do you say of some sinner, “I
am afraid his is a hopeless case”? look unto the rock whence you were hewn, and
to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Remember again, that that poor
sinner whose soul you are going to seek is where the best and brightest of the
saints were. And, recollect, that that sinner you are going to speak with is,
to-day, where those that are in heaven once were. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The benefit of reflection
It is the duty, and will be for the benefit of every true servant
of God, occasionally to reflect, with due seriousness, on his own original
state, on the rise and progress of religion in his own soul, and of the
experience which he has thus individually had of the Divine power, goodness and
mercy.
I. THE PERSONS
HERE ADDRESSED. Those who “follow after righteousness” and “seek the Lord.” How
exactly does this description accord to the true people of God under the
Christian Church?
II. THE EXHORTATION
ADDRESSED TO THEM. “Look unto the rock,” ete. The meaning is obvious, “Look
back unto yourselves. Consider what you once were; in what a depth of misery
you were originally sunk. Reflect on the natural hardness of your heart: on its
insensibiliyt to spiritual things; on its dreadful alienation from God. See
this state of things exemplified--
1. In your original conversion to God.
2. In your subsequent conduct towards God. Since the time in which
you first knew Him in truth, and gave yourself up to serve Him in the gospel of
His Son, what has been the state of your heart, of its affections, its tempers,
and its dispositions? Have all these been uniformly such as this surrender and
profession imply and require? Application: Whet lessons do these reflections
teach.
1. Humility and-self-abasement.
2. Patience, contentment and resignation.
3. The necessity of a continual dependence on Divine grace to work in
you both to will and to do.
4. Hope and encouragement.
But the subject admits also of another less exclusive application.
It furnishes one lesson of general importance: for it teaches ,as how holy and
practical in its tendency is true, evangelical religion. (E. Cooper.)
Seeking souls directed
All the invitations and exhortations of the Word of God for
spiritual blessings are accompanied with a description of character.
I. THE WORSHIPPERS
DESCRIBED.
1. These characters who follow after and seek after must be
spiritually alive. It would be strange to talk of a corpse in a churchyard
following after or seeking any favours at our hands. As strange would it be to
talk of a post in the street following after us, and pursuing us for the same
purpose.
2. There is a stirring in the living persons that begins to render
them somewhat conspicuous. Wherever there is this stirring inquiry, this
dissatisfaction with self, and a stirring to be right for eternity, there is
life Divine.
3. Then, there must be sincerity. “Then shall ye find Me, when ye
seek Me with your whole heart.”
4. We will go on to notice their eager following after righteousness.
It must be a righteousness that will justify. A righteousness that will
sanctify. A righteousness that will glorify. It is imperishable.
5. Follow on to the next description of character. “Ye that seek the
Lord.’ Mark a few characteristics of these seekers. They seek Him privately.
They seek Him in the place where His honour dwelleth. In His Word.
Perseveringly. Seeking souls are well known in heaven, earth and hell.
II. THE EXHORTATION
GIVEN. “Look unto the rock,” etc. (J. Irons.)
The Lord’s people
I. A DESCRIPTION
OF THE LORD’S PEOPLE. They “follow after righteousness.” If you ask what
righteousness is, I call upon you to behold Jesus! He is righteousness. The
Lord’s people “follow after righteousness. They therefore follow Him. Far
better for a man to strive to love Christ than to be trying to lay down certain
rules of morality. They “follow after righteousness.” Does not this imply that
they cannot find it in themselves? Some follow after righteousness in fear.
Others with many slips. The Lord’s people follow after righteousness with
humility. They follow after righteousness in love. Willingly. Perseveringly. I
saw a steamer on the canal drawing after it three large boats. The steamer
contained its own motive power, but had there been an engine and boiler in each
of those boats they also would have gone on to Liverpool urged on by inward
strength. Well, we follow after righteousness, not because Christ has placed
some band between Himself and us, but because He has Himself entered our
hearts. Christ is the living and moving power in our souls.
II. A KINDLY REMEMBRANCE.
The Lord speaks very kindly to those who seek but have not yet found Him. Many
are seeking the Lord without a light. Some may seek the Lord in unbelief. Some
in a wrong way.
Somebody else replies, “Ah, sir, I have no spiritual life, such as
I had once.” Well, who gave it to you in days gone by? The Lord. And will He
not restore it again?
III. A WORD OF
ENCOURAGEMENT.
1. Is your soul cast down? Well, remember what God has done for you.
Did He not hew you from the rock of the world?
2. If God has hewn us from the rock we ought to hope for all
humanity. (W. Birch.)
Look unto the rock whence
ye are hewn
Looking to beginnings
1. Look back to beginnings; look along the line from the beginning to
the sensations of to-day. A man should have his whole self before him in making
his forecast of the future. His whole self should be a Bible, chaptered and
versed, well numbered and properly displayed, having its Genesis, and running
straight on through prophecy and tragedy, and music and Gospel, into mysterious
Apocalypse. You have expurgated this life Bible, killed the promises and
Psalms, and have only failures left.
2. Take in all your life: if God has made so much of you, He can make
still more. The miracle is not in the great umbrageous tree; it is in that little
green blade that pierces the earth and looks like a thing that means to pray.
It is not the universe, but the molecule, that is a miracle to me. Looking back
at what we were, it is easy to believe and yearn to be more.
3. If God has made so much of you, he can make as much of others.
Therefore, do not contemn any man. God shows us in cathedrals what can be done
with all stones; He shows us in gardens what can be made of all waste places. I
do not read that there are two rocks out of which men are dug--one a very low
and disreputable rock, and the other a very high and grand piece of masonry. We
are all from the same rock and the same pit; we all have one Father, and we
have all suffered the catastrophe of a common apostasy. Have pity upon those
who are far behind.
4. Whence are ye hewn--digged; not whence ye hewed, digged
yourselves. Are you well educated? It is because others made the way plain and
smooth. Are you successful? It is the Lord thy God giveth thee power to get
wealth. How much you owe father, mother! As we rise, the account grows, and if
God do not forgive us we are lost. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Comparisons
Comparisons are odious; comparisons are highly profitable. They
are odious if prompted by malice or meanness. A genius who had risen to a seat
in the Commons was reminded by a shallow aristocrat in the lobby that he had
formerly been his servant. “Well,” retorted the man of talent, “and did I not
serve you well?” Such comparisons are hateful; but they may also prove
beneficial as promoting due humility and appreciative thankfulness. Take the
case of Paul, who, though an apostle of very exceptional ability, would remind
himself that he was the chief of sinners. As though he had said, “Now, Paul,
look unto the rock whence you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence you
were digged. (W. J. Acomb.)
Spiritual statuary
It is doubtless serviceable for each of us, however devoted and
pure, to be now and then presented with a photograph of our former selves. We
can thus see what we should have remained if grace had not refined us. We can
measure our growth and development. We can certainly better understand the
obligations arising from improved conditions.
I. THE RETROSPECT
THAT WAS RECOMMENDED to this godly remnant of Israel. In all ages have existed
those to whom God could thus appeal. Their characteristics are ever the
same--viz, the endeavour to live righteously and the instinctive craving for a
fuller knowledge of God. Such were here bidden to recall the period when their
great father, Abraham, had been separated from heathen surroundings, led, and
instructed by the Divine Spirit till worthy of the appellation, Friend of God.
The nation had been a stone cut out of the mountain without hands and fashioned
into something like beauty and grace. In regard to individual stones, it would
appear that the work of the Divine statuary is threefold--
1. Detachment from the common mass of material. A stone has no
ability to leap from its place. The quarryman must by pick and gunpowder and
hammer set the granite free. There is grace at the outset, either in national
or individual life. People need graciously saving. You have to be rescued,
separated from the power of death, lifted from the sphere of human passion. To
do this, various agencies are employed--some almost dynamic, others more
gentle.
2. Moulding by religious education and attrition of association.
Quarried stones need moulding, whether granite, limestone or freestone. Hammer
and chisel must be applied. So, when detached must expect to submit to peculiar
processes. Some stones necessitate great labour; others can easily be wrought
to any form. Heaps of stones about and in every one an angel!--only the angel
requires to be modelled out, chiselled out, filed out. We can’t see the angel;
God can. None can be a holy person without pain. Salvation is not the deed of a
moment, but is a gradual work, stage by stage, here a little and there a
little.
3. Vivification of spiritual faculties by the Holy Ghost. Many of you
have been extracted from the quarry and rough-hewn by Christian civilization;
but you require the grandest thing of all, the breath of spiritual life. Like
the child-delighting marionettes that are so skilfully moved by invisible
machinery, but which have no appreciation of the part they play, you may be
actuated by the forces of custom, or ambition, or fear, but remain dead to all
sensations of a purely spiritual nature.
II. THE PURPOSES OF
THE SUGGESTED RETROSPECTION. Judging from the context, the intention was--
1. To promote humility.
2. To stimulate hopefulness.
We instinctively argue, “If so much, why not more?” God has always
some better thing in store for us. Have we not a sure word of prophecy which
declares that Christ is able to present each one of us faultless before the
throne? (W. J. Acomb.)
Characters: unhewn and hewn
Shakespeare is given to present abstract ideas in concrete forms
to suit the ordinary obtuse Englishman. Thus we understand Caliban. This
low-type creature stands before us destitute of moral sense; his strongest motive
to action fear of punishment; he hates unreasonably the best of beings; he
luxuriates in grossest vice; his brain so feeble that he kneels to a drunkard.
Now the national poet has contrasted this brute-man with Prospero, the refined
courtier, the gentle father, the magnanimous Duke of Milan, thus exhibiting the
diverse effects of Christian culture and heathen neglect. In one you behold the
rough, angular, unhewn block; in the other the exquisitely moulded statue. To
assimilate them, what a complicated miracle would be requisite! This is the
mission of our Lord and Redeemer. (W. J. Acomb.)
Nature and grace
It is good for those that are privileged by a new birth to
consider what they were by their first birth; how they were conceived in
iniquity and shapen in sin. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. How hard
was that rock out of which we were hewn, unapt to receive impressions; and how
dirty the hole of the pit out of which we were digged! The consideration hereof
should fill us with low thoughts of ourselves, and high thoughts of Divine
grace. (M. Henry.)
A humble origin: John Bunyan
“I was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father’s house
being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all families in the
land. I never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up in my
father’s house in a very mean condition, among a company of poor countrymen.
Nevertheless, I bless God that by this door He brought me into the world to
partake of the grace and life that is by Christ in His Gospel.” This is the
account given of himself and his origin by a man whose writings have for two
centuries affected the spiritual opinions of the English race in every part of
the world more powerfully than any book or books, except the Bible. (J.
A. Froude.)
Verse 2-3
Look unto Abraham your father
Abraham, or the Christian’s rock
I.
THE
DEALINGS OF GOD WITH ABRAHAM.
1. God “called him alone.” How merciful this call! Our own call to
renounce this world, and to seek a better, even a heavenly country, is to be
traced, like Abraham’s, to the undeserved mercy of our heavenly Father.
2. The Lord “blessed” Abraham. And has He not “blessed” us? Has He
not given to us many of the blessings of this life? And, what is much more than
these, has He not redeemed us from sin and misery by Jesus Christ our Lord?
3. The Lord “increased” him. The worldly possessions of Abraham were
many. But Abraham was increased further in his posterity. But his spiritual
descendants are yet more numerous. So likewise is the faithful Christian, the
spiritual child of Abraham, “increased;” not indeed, it may be, in this world’s
riches and honours, but in spiritual wealth and dignity.
II. THE CHARACTER
AND CONDUCT OF ABRAHAM.
1. His faith. Let us look to Abraham as an example in this point of
view.
2. His obedience. Let no one whose works contradict his profession of
faith suppose himself to be a believer in God. (W.D. Johnston,
M.A.)
Sarah
That Sarah is mentioned chiefly for rhythmical effect may be
inferred from the writer s now confining what he says to Abraham alone. (J.A.
Alexander.)
Hearken and look; or, encouragement for believers
The second verse contains my actual text. It is the argument by
which faith is led to look for the blessings promised in the third verse. It is
habitual with some persons to spy out the dark side of every question or fact:
they fix their eyes upon the “waste places,” and they study them till they know
every ruin, and are familiar with the dragons and the owls. They sigh most
dolorously that the former times were better than these, and that we have
fallen upon most degenerate days. The habit of looking continually towards the
widernesses is injurious because it greatly discourages; and anything that
discourages an earnest worker is a serious, leakage for his strength. My text
has near to it three times, “Hearken to Me. You have listened long enough to
dreary suggestions from within, to gloomy prophecies from desponding friends,
to the taunts of foes, and to the horrible whisperings of Satan: now hearken to
Him who promises to make the wilderness like Eden, and the desert like the
garden of the Lord. O ye whose eyes are quick to discover evil, there are other
sights in the world besides waste places and deserts, and hence my text hath
near to it twice over the exhortation, “Look”--“Look unto the rock whence ye,
are hewn;” “Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you; for
there we may find comfort.
I. We shall first
look towards Abraham that we may see in him THE ORIGINAL OF GOD’S ANCIENT
PEOPLE.
1. The founder of God’s first people was called out of a heathen
family. Abraham, the founder of the great system in which God was pleased to
reveal Himself for so long a time, and to whose seed the oracles of God were
committed, was a dweller in Ur of the Chaldees, the city of the moon-god. We
cannot tell to what extent he was actually engrossed in the superstition of his
fathers, but it is certain that the family was years afterwards tainted with
idolatry; for in Jacob’s day the teraph was still venerated, and Rachel stole
her father’s images. Abraham, therefore, was called out from the place of his
birth, and from the household to which he belonged, that in a separated
condition, as a worshipper of the one God, he might keep the truth alive in the
world. Why, then, might not the Lord, if the cause of truth were this day
reduced to its utmost extremity, again raise up a Church out of one man? “Ah,”
you say, “but men are not called now, as Abraham was, by miraculous calls from
heaven.” Where ordinary means are so plentiful wisdom resorts not to signs and
wonders. The same Spirit who called Abraham by a supernatural voice can call
others by the word of truth. “Ah,” say you, “but Abraham was naturally a man of
noble mould.
Where do you find such a princely spirit as his?” I answer, Who
made him? He that made him can make another like him.
2. Look again, and observe that Abraham was but one man. If we should
ever be reduced, as we shall not be, to one man, yet by one man will God
preserve His Church, and work out His great purposes. Think of the power for
good or evil which may be enshrined in a single human life.
3. This one man was a lone man. He had no prestige of parentage, rank
or title. The fulfilment of his calling rested on his loneliness; for he must
get away from his kindred, and wander up and down with his flocks, even as the
Church of God now does, dwelling in a strange land, and feeding her flock
apart. “I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.” If in the town
or district where you live you seem to lose all your helpers; if they die one
by one, and it seems as if nobody would be left to you, still persevere, for it
is the lone man that God will bless.
4. He was a man who had to be stripped yet further. He must come away
from his kindred and his father’s house, and must dwell in Palestine till the
promised seed was born. But how long he waited for the expected heir! What a
feast there was that Isaac was born, filling the house with laughter. But he
must die! The grand old man is sure that even if he should actually slay his
son at God’s command the promise would somehow be kept. Look, then, to Abraham
your father, and say is he not the grandest human representative of the great
Father God Himself, who in the fulness of time spared not His own Son, but
freely delivered Him up for us all? If in all these trials Abraham was yet
blessed, and God s purposes were accomplished in him, can we not believe that
the same God can work by us also, despite our downcastings and humiliations!
Here is the sum and substance of this first head of my discourse: in looking to
the rock whence we are hewn, we have to see the Lord working the greatest
results from apparently inadequate causes. This teaches us to cease from
calculating means, possibilities and probabilities, for we have to deal with
God, with whom all things are possible.
II. THE MAIN
CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS CHOSEN MAN. The text says, “Look unto Abraham your
father, and unto Sarah that bare you,” and it must mean--consider him and see
what he was, that you may learn from him. His grand characteristic was his
faith. Abraham’s faith was such that it led him to obedience. The man of faith
is God’s man. Why? Because faith is the only faculty of our spirit which can
grasp God’s ideal. Faith, too, has a great power of reception, and therein lies
much of her adaptation to the Divine purpose. Then, again, faith always uses
the strength that God gives her. Faith, too, can wait the Lord s time and
place. God loveth faith and blesseth it, because it giveth Him all the glory.
III. OUR
RELATIONSHIP TO THAT ONE MAN. “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith,
the same are the children of Abraham.” Something, surely, is expected of the
children of such a man as Abraham. Because we are the seed of Abraham, the
apostle declares that the blessing of Abraham has come upon us also.” What is
it? It is a covenant favour that belongs to all who are the servants of God by
faith. Here is the substance of it: “Surely blessing, I will bless thee, and in
multiplying, I will multiply thee.” The blessing is attended with multiplying.
The blessing of the Church is the increase of the Church. The success of truth
is the battle of the Lord, and the increase of His Church is according to HIS
own promise; therefore in quietness we may possess our souls.
IV. OUR POSITION
BEFORE ABRAHAM’S GOD. “Look to Abraham, but only as to the rook from which the
Lord quarried His people:” your main thought must be Jehovah Himself. “I, I
called him alone, and blessed him.” Let us joyfully recollect that the Lord our
God has not changed, nay, not in one jot or tittle. “His arm is not shortened
that He cannot save,” etc. The covenant of God has not changed. Read the
covenant words, “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will
multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven,” etc. But there is this
also to be added, that this work which we desire the Lord to do is in some
respects even less than that which He has done with Abraham. What ask we? Not
that He should begin with one man to build up a nation, or create a Church? No,
but that Zion being builded, He should comfort her, and cause her waste places
to rejoice. What marvellous things hath God done on the face of the earth sines
Abraham’s days!--the stupendous marvel of incarnation; the wondrous work of
redemption, the highest, grandest, Divinest achievement of the Deity--all this
is done; what may we not expect after this? You know more of God than Abraham
could know. Trust Him, at least up to the level of the patriarch. How shall we
forge an excuse if we do not? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 3
For the Lord shall comfort Zion
Zion comforted
I.
THERE
IS A LOW ESTATE, OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSAL CHURCH, AND OF PARTICULAR BRANCHES
OF IT, AND LIKEWISE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS.
II. THERE ARE
GRACIOUS PROMISES OF REVIVAL, of restored fertility and productiveness.
III. THE MODE IT
WHICH THESE BLESSED EFFECTS MAY BE LOOKED AND SOUGHT FOR. When the eye of faith
is directed towards Christ, when we believe in Him as the Lord our
righteousness, when the prayer of faith ascends to heaven, when the ear
hearkens to the inspired Word, then we may expect that God will be gracious to
His inheritance, and refresh it when it is weary. We may not look for the
supplies of the Spirit of God unless we earnestly ask for them. (H. J.
Hastings, M.A.)
The depression, prosperity and delight of the Church
Taking these words as the prophet’s statement with regard to the
spiritual Church of God, under the appellation of Zion, we propose from these
words to call attention--
I. TO THE
DEPRESSION OF THE CHURCH.
1. This depression arises from the small number of those who belong
to the Church.
2. The depression consists also in the want of spiritual vigour on
the part of those who belong to the Church.
II. TO THE
PROSPERITY OF THE CHURCH. Observe--
1. The source to which the prosperity of the Church is assigned. “For
the Lord shall comfort Zion,” etc. Christianity is, emphatically, the
ministration of the Spirit.
2. The nature of the prosperity by which the Church will be
distinguished. What: is the precise import of this comforting of Zion, this
comforting of her waste places, making her wilderness like the garden of Eden,
and her desert like the garden of the Lord? Here you will observe, that a vast
augmentation of the numbers of the Church must plainly be regarded as included.
A great purification and refinement in the characters of those who do pertain
to the Church will signalize those future days.
3. The means to be adopted by the true friends of the Church in order
that the period of this predicted prosperity may arrive.
III. TO THE DELIGHT
OF THE CHURCH. “Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the
voice of melody.” This emotion may properly arise from contemplating--
1. The wonderful change which shall have been accomplished in the
condition of the Church itself.
2. The connection between the prosperity of the Church and the
glorification of God.
3. The connection between the prosperity of the Church and the
happiness of mankind.
Conclusion:
1. Our first anxiety, of course, must be, that you may individually
belong to the Church of God yourselves.
2. What we next desire of you is, that you will labour in all the
appointed means and instrumentalities by which the prosperity of the Church of
God is to be secured. (J. Parsons.)
Zion comforted
A cheerful prospect
I. HEAVENLY
COMFORT PROMISED. This is a promise to God’s Church. The Church of
God--captured as it has been by Christ from the world, chosen to be the palace
where He dwells, builded together for a temple wherein He is worshipped--is
frequently called “Zion.”
1. The object of this comfort. “The Lord will comfort Zion.” Well He
may, for she is His chosen. “The Lord has chosen Zion.” He would have those
upon whom His choice is fixed be glad and happy.
2. The Lord Himself is the Comforter. There are sorrows for which
there is no solace within the reach of the creature; there is a ruin which it
would baffle any mortal to retrieve. Happy for us that the Omnipotent comes to
our aid.
3. How does the Lord propose to comfort Zion? If you read the verse
through you will find it is by making her fertile. The true way to comfort the
Church is to build her synagogues, restore the desolation of former times, to
sow her fields, plant her vineyards, make her soil fruitful, call out the
industry of her sons and daughters, and fill them with lively, ardent zeal.
4. The promise is given in words that contain an absolute pledge. He
“shall” and He “will” are terms that admit of no equivocation.
II. THE MOURNFUL
CASES FAVOURED. “He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the
garden of the Lord.”
1. Are there not to be found in the visible Church persons whose
character is here vividly depicted?
2. Ask ye now, what does the Lord say He will do for them? He says
that He will make the wilderness like Eden. You know what Eden was. It was the
garden of the earth in the days of primeval probity. So the Lord says that when
He visits His Church He will make these poor backsliders, these immature
Christians, these nominal professors, like Eden. Moreover, as if to strengthen
the volume of His grace and of our hope, He says that He will make her desert
like the garden of the Lord. He shall come to you and delight your heart and
soul with His converse.
III. CERTAIN
DESIRABLE RESULTS WHICH ARE PREDICTED. “Joy and gladness shall be found therein,
thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.” You notice the doubles. The parallelism
of Hebrew poetry, perhaps, necessitated them. Still I remember how John Bunyan
says that “all the flowers in God’s garden bloom double.” We are told of
“manifold mercies,” that is, mercies which are folded up one in another, so
that you may unwrap them and find a fresh mercy enclosed in every fold. Here we
have “joy and gladness, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.” The Lord
multiplies His grace. Oh, what a delightful thing must a visitation from God be
to His Church! Without God all she can do is to groan. Nay, she will not always
do that. She sometimes indulges a foolish conceit, and says: “I am rich and
increased in goods, and have need of nothing.” After that will soon be heard
the hooting of dragons and the cry of owls. Let God visit His Church, and there
is sure to be thanksgiving and the voice of melody. This is the mark of a
revived Church everywhere. New impetus is given to the service of song. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
The garden of the Lord
The garden of God
(for children):--Here and elsewhere Holy Scripture pictures a
gathering of the upright and holy as a garden, and Christly people, whether men
or children, as the trees and plants and flowers in such a garden. In His garden--
I. GOD WILL HAVE
NO WEEDS. This reminds us--
1. What a number of evils must be destroyed. Idleness, falsehood,
cowardice, disobedience, etc., are weeds that must be plucked up and
destroyed.
2. The ways by which evils are to be destroyed.
II. THERE IS A
GREAT VARIETY OF FLOWERS. Rich rose, stately tulip, “sweet lily of the valley,
etc.
a thousand varieties all helping us to understand the famous
preacher who said, Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to
put a soul into.” So there is great variety in the virtues; no monotony in
Christian character. There are virtues that, like lofty trees and brilliant
flowers, make heroes and martyrs. And there are others like flowers with tiny
petals and delicate tints. St. Francis of Sales said, “How carefully we should
cherish the little virtues which spring up at the foot of the Cross.” What are
they? some one asked him. “Humility, meekness, kindness, simplicity, candour,”
he replied.
III. HE HIMSELF HAS
JOY. Over true souls He rejoices. The prophet says, God rejoices “over them
with singing.” God seems to sing over those of whom He says, as of, David, “a
man after God s own heart;” as of Daniel, “O man greatly beloved;” as of the
Lord Jesus Christ, “My well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
IV. ALL THE BEAUTY
OF ALL THE FLOWERS IS TO BE TRACED TO HIS CARE.
1. He is the Owner.
2. He is the Sower.
3. He is the Gardener--Christ called God the Husbandman.
4. He is the Source of all life and beauty. For He is Sun, and Wind:
is as dew--and showers also. (U. R. Thomas, B.A.)
Verses 4-6
Hearken unto Me, My people
The absolute in human history
Time works mighty changes in human life.
Amidst the ceaseless whirl of mutation, is there nothing unchangeable? Is life
made up entirely of volatile contingencies? Has it no absolute elements? Oh,
for a rock in this ebbing sea, where we might stand secure as the wreck of
years floats by! This Scripture responds to our questions, and meets our
aspirations. The word “law” designates God’s revelation; “judgment” and
“righteousness” are interchangeable terms, expressing the one idea--rectitude.
The great truths, therefore, enfolded in this rich oriental garb, are that rectitude
and salvation are the elements of God’s revelation; and that these elements are
the absolute in human history.
I. THEY ARE FOR
ALL LANDS--world-wide in their aspect--“a light of the people.” Man is,
confessedly, a corrupt intelligence; and, in the nature of things, a knowledge
of his state is essential to his improvement. Will he ever seek a remedy or ask
for a refuge until he has felt the disease or descried the peril? Whence comes
this discovery? Nothing less than a special revelation of rectitude can meet
the case. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” Next comes the other
element--“salvation.” Each of these two elements of our religion is equally
necessary for man everywhere. The value, however, of each depends upon mutual
connection; each is useless by itself.
II. THESE BLESSINGS
ARE FOR ALL TIMES, AS WELL AS FOR ALL LANDS. “The heavens shall vanish away
like smoke,” etc. These words suggest three solemn considerations--
1. That man is related to two distinct systems of things, the one
involving the “heavens and the earth,” the other “righteousness and
salvation”--the one material, the other spiritual. This twofold relation is a
peculiarity of our history. The other tenants of the globe are related to the
material as we are. But with the spiritual they appear to have no connection.
2. That one of the systems to which man is related is transient, the
other is permanent.
3. That the permanent system should command man’s chief concern. Hear
the sum of this address:--Beware of practical materialism. (D.
Thomas, D.D.)
Righteousness and salvation
I. THE CHARACTER
OF THOSE SPECIALLY ADDRESSED. By comparing the first and the seventh with the
fourth verse of the chapter, we find four leading features of their character
set forth:
1. They are said to know righteousness.
2. To follow after righteousness.
3. To seek the Lord.
4. To have the law of God in their hearts.
II. THE ADDRESS
ITSELF. It constitutes a sublime prophetic description of those spiritual
blessings to be ripened by the advent of the Messiah. It foretells the setting
up of that kingdom which cometh not by outward observation, but which is
“righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”--the publication of “that
better covenant established on better promises.” Many topics of deep interest
are suggested by this prophetic setting forth of the blessings and triumphs of
the Gospel. The text fully asserts--
1. Their certainty.
2. Their perpetuity. (T. Page, M.A.)
An evangelical law
The “law” here meant (Isaiah 51:4) is that of Zion Isaiah 2:3), as distinguished from that
of Sinai--the Gospel of redemption. (F. Delitzsch, D.D.)
Verse 5
My righteousness is near
God’s righteousness and salvation
The Gospel of Christ shall be preached and published to the world.
“A law shall proceed from Me” (Isaiah 51:4), an evangelical law, the law
of Christ, the law of faith (Isaiah 2:3).
I. THIS SHALL
BRING WITH IT RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SALVATION, shall open a ready way to the
children of men how they may be justified and saved. It is called God s
righteousness and salvation--
1. Because of His contriving and bringing it about.
2. It is a righteousness that He will accept for us, and accept us
for.
3. And a righteousness which He will work in us.
4. It is the salvation of the Lord, for it ariseth from Him, and
terminates in Him. Observe, there is no salvation without righteousness, and
wherever there is the righteousness of God, there shall be His salvation.
II. THIS
RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SALVATION SHALL VERY SHORTLY APPEAR. It is near, it is gone
forth. It is near in time. It is near in place, not far to Romans 10:8).
III. THIS
EVANGELICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SALVATION SHALL NOT BE CONFINED TO THE JEWISH
NATION, BUT SHALL BE EXTENDED TO THE GENTILES. (M. Henry.)
God’s arm
God’s arm shall judge the people that are impenitent, and yet on
His arm shall others trust and be saved by it. (M. Henry.)
Verse 6
Lift up your eyes to the heavens.
The eternity of religion
From the thought of the universality of religion the prophet rises
to that of its eternity, which is here expressed by a contrast of surprising
boldness between the “things which are seen” and the “things which are not
seen.” (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)
The present and the future
I. We have to
speak to you of CREATED THINGS--the heavens above and the earth beneath--as
temporal either in themselves, or in regard to us who “must die in like
manner.” There may be much room for questioning whether there will be the
actual annihilation of matter; whether even this earth is to be so destroyed that
no vestige of it shall remain. We know that our bodies at least are not to be
annihilated; but that having gone through certain processes, they are to be
united to the soul, and remain in that re-union for ever. Without, however,
supposing the actual annihilation of matter, we may speak of the universe as
destined to be destroyed, seeing that the systems which are to succeed to the
present will be wholly different, and wear all the traces of a new creation.
Our text marks out a second way in which our connection with visible
things--the heavens and the earth--may be brought to a close--“they that dwell
therein shall die in like manner.”
II. A CONTRAST is
drawn between God--His salvation and His righteousness--and the heavens and the
earth. It seems the design of the passage to affix a general character to the
objects of faith as distinguished from the objects of sense--the character of
permanence and distinguished from that of decline. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Looking heavenward
Man hath a muscle more than ordinary to draw up his eyes
heavenward. (J. Trapp.)
The pershing and the stable
I. THE PERISHING
NATURE OF ALL WORLDLY OBJECTS, PURSUITS, AND COMFORTS.
II. THE STABILITY
OF THOSE WHICH THE GOSPEL PROPOSES. (W. Richardson.)
An eternal salvation
We must never expect any other way of salvation, any other
covenant of peace, or rule of righteousness, but what we have in the Gospel,
and what we have there shall continue to the end. (M. Henry.)
God’s everlasting salvation
There are brought before us in the text, three great varieties of
existence, viz those of man, the earth, and the starry heavens; and contrasted
with God’s salvation and righteousness.
I. GOD’S SALVATION
IS INDEPENDENT OF, AND WILL OUTLIVE, EVERYTHING HUMAN. “When they that dwell
therein shall die in like manner,” i.e., like the old earth itself. “My
salvation shall be for ever.” Not only is the power of God unto salvation
independent of its friends, but unconquerable by its foes.
II. THE GRASS
WITHERETH, THE FLOWER FADETH AND SO, TOO, WILL THE EARTH OUT OF WHICH THEY
SPRING. It “shall wax old like a garment.” To the same intent speaks science.
Will religion wax old too? When the aged planet’s voice is low and indistinct,
will the truth of God also be less clear and defined? I trow not. The world, in
its youth and beauty, was but a great symbol. The symbol is gone; the truth
remains. The time may come when the resources of earth may be dried up; not so
the resources of Heaven. There may be no sunshine to cheer the earth; there
will be sunshine for the hearts of men;--no dew to refresh a thirsty earth;
there will be life-giving dew for the soul of man.
III. OVER THE WHOLE
EARTH BROODS THE MIGHTY LAW OF CHANGE. Everywhere there are births and
dissolutions. Almost everything yields to its power. From the tiny flower, to
the huge mountain; from the life of the insect that is born and dies in a day,
to the life of men, of nations, of the whole world. The dominion of the
changeable, however, is not confined to this world; it extends to all worlds.
And why should it remain any longer when a grander universe has begun? The work
of the old one is done. It came into being only to speak the great truths of
God. It has done so; let it pass. Its bright suns, the centres of life and
light, all spoke of one Eternal Sun from whom comes all life and all light. Let
the changing, decaying systems of the old universe now disappear; their
existence would be but a mockery beside the one everlasting system of
righteousness. Let all that must pass away now pass. The watchword is, “For
ever and ever,” for ever one system, one will, one obedience, one atmosphere of
love. (D. Johnson, M.A.)
The eternity of God’s salvation
This is evidently one of those predictions having special
reference to the introduction of the Gospel dispensation, with which this book
is so thickly studded. We may regard Isaiah 51:4; Isaiah 5:1-30 as forming a kind of
preface to Isaiah 51:6; and in that preface the clue
is given m four ruling words, viz law, judgment, righteousness, and salvation.
1. The Gospel is a law--not written upon tables of stone, but upon
the fleshly tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God; it is a law of
faith, and love, and obedience; it is the law by which God Will henceforth
govern men. As the prophet in another place says “The Lord is our judge, the Lord
is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” His law is in order to
His rule; and His rule is in order to the salvation of men.
2. The word “judgment” is here used in the sense of a body or code of
laws, such as form the basis of the constitution of a kingdom. It must point to
the body of Gospel truth which God is about to reveal to the world. The
doctrines, precepts, promises, which centre upon the person and work, which
together are bound up in the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, these form the basis, the foundation which God will “make settled” for
a light to the people.
3. “My righteousness is near.” It is about, to be signally
manifested, and in an unheard-of way, by the death of My only begotten Son.
Therein am I about to be seen, just, and yet the Justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus.
4. “My salvation is gone forth,” etc. The good news that men
are to be saved by the free grace of God, is already published, and it shall
awaken loving trust in Me wherever it is known. Then comes the climax upon this
preface; the eternal endurance which is the destiny of this saving rule of the
Almighty--“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,” etc. Three things here
present themselves for our consideration--
I. THE DESTINY OF
THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.
1. Let us think of their nature. They are an emanation from the mind
of God.
2. The design of the creation.
II. THE DESTINY OF
THE MORTAL RACE OF MAN. “They that dwell therein shall die in like manner.” Man
and the world date from the same origin, and are formed of the same material.
1. Let us consider the nature of the mortal race of man. It is simply
a part of the visible material creation.
2. Think again of the design of our mortal race. It is pre-eminently
to declare the glory of God. “I have created him for my glory, I have formed
him; yea, I have made him.” But this glory that excelleth God is to derive not
so much from our bodily nature, for this is but the kind of glory that all His
other works render to Him, an unconscious glory; as from our spiritual nature,
from renovated wills, from purified affections, from a redeemed and sanctified
nature.
3. We shall gain further light upon the purpose of God with regard to
our earthly race, if we glance at the analogy between the individual life and
that of the whole race. Each man among us is the miniature, the epitome of the
history of the world. He is the microcosm; you trace in yourself imperfections
of bodily and mental powers; you are conscious of the seeds of death within
you; all connected with your present condition speaks plainly the lesson that
you are in dissolving, uncertain, precarious, transitory condition. It is fitly
described in the emblems of Scripture, a tent, not a fixed habitation, a
lodging, not a final rest. Now, I say you may trace a close analogy to all this
in the history of the whole race. The world grows old; there are wrinkles on
its brow.
4. Then remember that this is the predicted destiny of our mortal
race. All living men and all their sensuous surroundings shall be utterly swept
away.
III. THE DESTINY OF
GOD’S SAVING RULE.--“My salvation,” etc. By the saving rule of God we
mean that rule which God has revealed in the Gospel, in conforming to which man
enjoy salvation; the rule which demands repentance, implicit faith in the
Mediator and obedience to the Holy Ghost. It is God s plan, or rule, or way of
salvation, and it is founded upon the immutable attribute of His righteousness.
1. Look at its nature. The Gospel is the hill and perfect exhibition
of the mind of God.
2. Look at its design. It is in order to the complete blessedness of
our immortal spirits in earth and heaven--here and hereafter, and for ever and
ever.
3. God s saving rule shall endure for ever and ever. Conclusion: The
rule of God must either save and bless, and eternally exalt you, or it must
crush and destroy you. (E. Johnson, B.A.)
The contrast
I. A CHANGING,
PASSING WORLD. “Lift up your eyes,” etc. God calls on us to interrupt
for a short season our busy occupations, and to meditate on things seen and
unseen, things temporal and things eternal.
1. The framework of creation is changing,--passing.
2. The riches, the comforts, the enjoyments of life are passing.
3. The cares, and anxieties, and sorrows of life are passing.
4. Life itself is passing.
II. AN UNCHANGING,
ETERNAL SALVATION.
1. The blessing itself is salvation.
2. It has God for its author.
3. Eternity is its duration.
4. Sinners are the partakers of this blessing.
Which has your heart--your hopes? The love of both cannot dwell in
the same breast, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him.” (F. Storr, M.A.)
Verse 7-8
Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness
Christians encouraged against the fear of man
I.
THE
PERSONS ADDRESSED.
1. Those who “know righteousness.”
2. They have the law of God in their heart.
II. THE ADDRESS
MADE TO THEM. “Hearken unto Me,” etc.
1. Let us remember who is the speaker of these words.
2. The address may be considered as containing an encouraging
exhortation enforced by powerful arguments.
3. Consider by what powerful arguments this exhortation is enforced:
They who now revile the people of God will quickly be brought to an end. If
their malice be not extinguished, yet the means of gratifying it will be no
more. They are mortals, and as such they must soon die.
4. On the other hand, “My righteousness (saith the Lord) shall be for
ever, and My salvation from generation to generation.” In vain do ungodly men
speak evil of His cause. It shall survive all their attacks; and shall
increase, when they who reviled, or opposed it, shall be silent in darkness. In
vain are His people reproached. They cannot be really injured by such attempts.
(E. Cooper.)
Man’s mortality
The matter is not great which they say of us who must be worm’s
meat shortly. (M. Henry.)
Futility of human opposition to the Gospel
Clouds darken the sun, but give no obstruction to its progress. (M.
Henry.)
Verse 9-10
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord
The awaking of Zion
(with Isaiah 52:1 (a)):--Both these verses are, I think, to be
regarded as spoken by one voice, that of the Servant of the Lord.
In the one, as Priest and Intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven
in His own holy hands--and in the other, as Messenger and Word of God, He
brings the answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative
lips--thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double office as
mediator between man and God. But even if we set aside that thought the
correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the same. In any case
they are intentionally parallel in form and connected in substance. The latter
is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion is responded to by the call of
God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord is followed by the awaking of the
Church. He puts on strength in clothing us with His might, which becomes ours.
I. We have here a
common principle underlying both the clauses, namely, THE OCCURRENCE IN THE
CHURCH’S HISTORY OF SUCCESSIVE PERIODS OF ENERGY AND OF LANGUOR. It is freely
admitted that such alternation is not the highest ideal of growth, either in
the individual or in the community. Our Lord’s own parables set forth a more
excellent way--the way of uninterrupted increase. So might our growth be, if the
mysterious life in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church
has not thus grown. Rather, at the best, its emblem is to be looked for, not in
corn but in the forest tree--the very rings in whose trunk tell of recurring
seasons when the sap has risen at the call of spring, and sunk again before the
frowns of winter. In our own hearts we have known such times. And we have seen
a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the Church of God. Where is the
joyful buoyancy and expansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world?
If, then, there be such recurring seasons of languor, they must either go on
deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a new outburst of
vigorous life. And it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has
grown. Its history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as
by friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment when it was
ceasing to advance and had begun to slide downwards.
II. THE TWOFOLD
EXPLANATION OF THESE VARIATIONS. That bold metaphor of God sleeping and waking
is often found in Scripture, and generally expresses the contrast between the
long years of patient forbearance, during which evil things and evil men go on
their rebellious road unchecked but by Love, and the dread moment when some
throne of iniquity is smitten to the dust. Such is the original application of
the expression here. But the contrast may fairly be widened beyond that
specific form of it, and taken to express any apparent variations in the
forth-putting of His power. We may, then, see here implied the cause of these
alternations on its Divine side, and then, in the corresponding verse addressed
to the Church, the cause on the human side.
1. As to the former. We have to distinguish between the power, and
what Paul calls “the might of the power.” The one is final, constant,
unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow that the other is. The rate of
operation, so to speak, and the amount of energy actually brought into play may
vary, though the force remains the same.
2. Our second text tells us that if God’s arm seems to slumber, and
really does so, it is because Zion sleeps. He works through us; and we have the
solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow through us.
III. THE BEGINNING
OF ALL AWAKING IS THE CHURCH’S EARNEST CRY TO GOD. It is with us as with
infants, the first sign of whose awaking is a cry. For every such stirring of
quickened religious life must needs have in it bitter penitence and pain at the
discovery flashed upon us of the wretched deadness of our past. Nor is Zion s
cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true awaking; it is also the
condition and indispensable precursor of all perfecting of recovery from
spiritual languor. Look at the passionate earnestness of it--and see to it that
our drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which it
founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient days, and
looking back, not for despair, but for joyful confidence on the generations of
old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by the example, to expect
great things of God.
IV. THE ANSWERING
CALL FROM GOD TO ZION. Our truest prayers are but the echo of God’s promises.
God’s best answers are the echo of our prayers. As in two mirrors set opposite
to each other, the same image is repeated over and over again, the reflection
of a reflection, so here, within the prayer, gleams an earlier promise, within
the answer is mirrored the prayer. And in that reverberation, and giving back
to us of our petition transformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal
of it as if we had misapprehended our true want. The very opposite
interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is heard and answered. God
awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then, as some warrior king, himself
roused from sleep and girded with flashing steel, bids the clarion sound
through the grey twilight to summon the prostrate ranks that lie round his
tent, so the sign of God’s awaking and the first act of His conquering might is
this trumpet call--“The night is far spent, the day is at hand”--“put off the
works of darkness,” the night gear that was fit for slumber--“and put on the
armour of light,” the mail of purity that gleams and glitters even in the dim
dawn. Nor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God s commands, carries in
its heart a promise. But the main point which I would insist on is the
practical discipline which this Divine summons requires from us.
1. The chief means of quickened life and strength is deepened
communion with Christ.
2. This summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on
condition of that communion, we have. So, let us confidently look for times of
blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own faithlessness has hindered the
arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him to come in His rejoicing strength, and,
drawing ever fresh power from constant communion with our dear Lord, use it to
its last drop for Him. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
The Church s cry and the Divine answer
(with Isaiah 52:1):--
I. THE CHURCH’S
CALL ON GOD. “Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord.”
1. The figure used here is simple enough. The “arm” is a natural
symbol of power, for it is through it that we execute our purpose. If it is
benumbed, insensitive, and motionless, we say that it is asleep; but when it is
stretched out for action it is awake. And what the prophet pleads for is that
some display of Divine power might be granted, such as had once been seen in
Egypt, when “Rahab” (the fierce and boastful power of heathenism) had been
broken in pieces and “the dragon” (or rather the crocodile, the recognized
symbol of Egypt) had been sorely wounded. Now, the uses to which we put our arm
may, any of them, suggest the actions to which we would summon our God in
earnest prayer. The arm of the warrior bears the shield which protects his own
body and those of weak and wounded friends lying at his feet; and we want such
overshadowing protection against the fiery darts of the wicked. The arm is
naturally outstretched to point the way to one who is ignorant and bewildered,
and when we are perplexed as to doctrine or duty, we find it is not a vain
thing to pray: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord.” What is needed now, as of old, is
the realization and the manifestation of the presence of God in the Person of
Christ, His Son; so that now there may come about a true revival of religion, a
living, unshakable belief that God is amongst His people of a truth. If only He
reveals Himself in and through His Church, sin will be conquered and the world
redeemed.
2. The necessity for this prayer arises from the fact that the work
which lies before us as Christian Churches cannot be done by human power.
II. GOD’S CALL UPON
THE CHURCH. “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion,” etc.. God never
does for His people what they can do for themselves.
1. The Church is called upon to arouse from slumber--and whether it
is the result of despondency, or of indolence, sleep must be shaken off.
2. The Church is also to endue herself with strength, to resume
courage, and renew effort with a fresh sense of her responsibility.
3. But let us be thankful that there is room in God’s heart for
quieter service. They who fail to put on strength, can at least put on the.
“beautiful garments” of holiness; and although these should endue the most
active worker, they can transform into a saintly witness the solitary sufferer.
4. The Church is summoned here to consecrate herself anew to God. She
is represented as a female captive in degrading servitude, whose hour of
deliverance has come, and who is to shake herself free from the bands which
have held her, and rejoice in new found liberty. It is not only sin which holds
the Church in bondage, but sometimes formalism and ceremonialism, and we must
beware, lest, with our love for order, we become thereby crippled and hindered.
Let us be ready to make any change of mode or organization, to cast off any
prejudices, if they prevent successful whole-hearted service for our God, and
let us regard this as a time for renewed consecration to Him, to whom we owe
ourselves, our time, our all. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
The arm of the Lord invoked
I. EXPLAIN WHAT IT
IS TO WHICH THE INVOCATION IS ADDRESSED. “O arm of the Lord.”
II. THE OBJECTS
WHICH THIS INVOCATION INVOLVES. “Awake, awake,” etc. It is an earnest
application on the part of the prophet, that God would come forth as He had
done in former periods. We may refer to a number of great events, of which the
people of old could scarcely form an idea. We remember what God did in the
fulness of time when He sent His Son into the world to restore mankind. We
remember what He did on the hill of Calvary. We remember what He did when He
“raised Him up from the dead, and set Him on His own right hand, and gave Him
to be head over all things to the Church.” We remember what He did on the
Pentecostal day, when He sent down His Holy Spirit. After allusion has thus
been made to the former displays of the Divine power, there is an evident
contrast as to what was the state of things in the prophet’s day. There seemed
to be a suspension of this energy; the heritage of God was wasted, His truth
was insulted, His worship was slighted, His requirements were contemned. And
what is it we want? We want His power to accompany the preaching of the Word.
It must be remembered that there is no manifestation of the Divine power so
glorious as that which is seen in the extension of the Gospel, and its power on
the souls of men.
III. THE
ENCOURAGEMENTS WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THE INVOCATION SHALL BE FULFILLED.
1. Consider the care of God over the Church in past ages of the
world.
2. From the character of God as the hearer and answerer of prayer.
3. From the nature of the promises recorded in the sacred pages. (J.
Parsons.)
Prayer for national prosperity, and for the revival of religion,
inseparably connected
I. THE IMPORT OF
THIS PRAYER. “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord!” In general
such a petition as this suggests to us that our prayers for Divine
interposition and deliverance from public calamities should be supremely
directed to the glory of God. A just regard to the glory of God in our prayers
implies the two following things:
1. That we expect deliverance from God alone, desire that it may be
attended with such circumstances as His hand and power may be seen in it, and
are willing to acknowledge Him as the supreme and only Author of it.
2. We ought also to pray for a dispensation of His grace and mercy
that a revival of religion may accompany temporal relief.
II. THE
ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAYER. “Awake as in the ancient days, as in the generations
of old,” etc. The prophet animates his faith, and encourages his own
dependence, and that of others, upon the promises of God, by celebrating the
greatness of His power, as manifested in former memorable deliverances granted
to His chosen people. Consider the effect of such a view upon the mind, and its
influence in prayer.
1. It satisfies us of the power of God, and His ability to save.
2. The same view serves to ascertain us of the mercy of God, and His
readiness to help us in distress.
III. APPLY THE
TRUTHS on this subject to our own present situation as to public affairs. Let
us remember that we serve an unchangeable God. (J. Witherspoon, D.D.)
Christ the arm of God
Christ is here called the arm of the Lord. The arm of the Lord
means God in action. The grand purposes of redemption, conceived in eternity,
were dead thought, if lawful so to speak, in the mind of God, until they were
revealed in Christ, the executor of the thoughts of the Godhead. Christ was
ever called the Logos, the expression of Divinity. When the hand is spoken of
in the Bible, it means the exact working of God in nature, providence and
grace. The arm is that which sends the hand into action. “The outstretched arm”
is the far-reaching power of God. By the right hand or arm of God we are to
understand a more special and dazzling display of God’s power. In all instances
the hand or arm of God means Christ. The prophet appeals to the past, “Awake,
as in the ancient days,” etc. In the context he looks to the future and
catches glimpses of the glory of the Advent, and he cries, It is the arm of
God! The text is an invocation for Christ to come in the Advent. This arm of
God is the revelation--
I. OF GOD’S GLORY.
II. OF HIS SAVING
POWER. It is an arm that can reach everywhere. There is no height so high or
depth so deep as to be beyond its reach to save.
III. A UNIVERSAL
REVELATION OF GOD. It means the revealing of God in creation, in providence, in
redemption, in the family in the closet, in the soul, in death, at the
judgment, in eternity, where it will secure the eternal triumph of those whose
faith will then merge into sight. Conclusion:
1. What are your relations to this arm of God? Has it been to you
only an object of wonder as the bow in the clouds, or has it been an arm bared
to the shoulder, entwined about you, filled with a vitality which it imparted
to you as it defended and lifted you?
2. Have you thought what this arm hath wrought for you? How it
suffered itself to De shorn of its strength that you might be strong!
3. Have you not thought of the final triumph of that arm? (N. Schenck,
D.D.)
Thy strength! my strength
(with Isaiah 52:1):--
1. Everything seemed to have gone against the exile. Life had no
longer for him a programme, but only a retrospect; no longer a radiant hope,
but only a fading reminiscence; no longer an alluring vision, but only a
distinguished history. Here he lay in captivity; the songs of Zion had fled
from his lips, and his mouth was filled with wailing and complaint. “The Lord
hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.” “Where is He that brought us
up out of the sea with the Shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His Holy
Spirit within us?” And now and again the exile half-turned himself in angry,
hopeless cry, “Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou,, wouldst come
down!” And again he relapsed into the low and cheerlees moan: “My Lord hath
forgotten me.” And yet again he pierced the heaven with his searching
supplication: “Awake, awake, put on Thy strength, O arm of the Lord, as in the
ancient days, in the generations of old.
2. What will be the Lord’s reply to the cry of the exile? Here it is:
“Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion!” The Divine response is a sharp
retort. “It is not thy God who sleepeth! It is thou thyself who art wrapt about
in a sluggish and consuming indolence! Thou art crying out for more strength;
but what of the strength thou hast? Thy trumpet is silent, and thine armour is
rusting upon the walls! Thou art like a vagrant asking for help, when thou hast
a full purse hidden between the covers of an idle bed! Thou art pleading for
reinforcements, and thy soldiers are on the couch! Thy prayer is the
supplication of a man who is not doing his best! Clothe thyself in thy present
powers, consecrate thine all to the purpose of thy prayer, and stand forth in battle
array.” I need not say that there is nothing in the Lord s response which
disparages the ministry of prayer. It does, however, tend to put prayer in its
right place, and to give a true apprehension of its purpose and ministry.
Prayer is not a talisman, to be used as an easy substitute for our activity and
vigilance. Prayer is a ministry in which our own powers can be quickened into
more vigorous and healthy service. God has given us certain endowments. Certain
talents are part of our original equipment. We are possessed of powers of
judgment, of initiative, of sympathy; and the primary implication of all
successful prayer is that these powers are willingly placed upon the altar of
sacrifice. Any prayer is idle when these powers are indolent. We too frequently
pray to be carried like logs, and it is the Lord’s will that we should contend
like men! The principle is this--our “strength” must back our supplications. Is
the backing always present?
(3) There is the matter of social redemption. How often have we prayed
for the city: “Awake, awake, lint on strength, O arm of the Lord!” And still, I
think, there comes the Divine retort, “Put on thy strength, O Zion!” We abuse
the privilege of prayer when we make it a minister of personal evasion and
neglect. That is my message. There is no true prayer without a full
consecration. (J. H. Jowett, M.A.)
Verse 11
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
Great deliverances
The return of the light of morning after the darkness of the
night; of a fine summer after a cold and cheerless winter; of health and
strength after a season of sickness and pain, is refreshing and delightful, and
demands the gratitude of the heart.
The deliverance of a nation from temporal slavery or subjection has often
kindled a fire in the breast of the patriot, the painter, the poet and the
historian; but what are all earthly blessings when compared with those which
are spiritual and eternal? (New Irish Pulpit.)
The present and future joy of the redeemed of the Lord
There is the greatest harmony throughout the whole Bible, and its
glowing descriptions of future events have always some relation to the
spiritualizing effects of the Gospel of Christ.
1. Who can with such propriety be called the redeemed of the Lord, as
they whom He has delivered from the power as well as penalty of sin?
2. Who again can with such propriety be ca]led the redeemed of the
Lord, as they whom He ransoms from that all-conquering foe, who puts all things
under his feet?
3. But must the soul lie insensible with the body until this general
redemption? Must ages pass before the redeemed of the Lord enjoy a foretaste of
their redemption? No! “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”
4. But are there not some considerations, to be taken by us into
account on this subject? Is there not some blessing--a blessing beyond all
other blessings, which makes these a matter of everlasting joy to the redeemed
of the Lord? In bringing many sons to glory Jesus has been made perfect through
sufferings; He has made reconciliation for sin. (W. M. Harte.)
The joy of the ransomed
No New Testament utterance could be more beautiful than this
picturing of the return of the redeemed of the Lord to Zion.
1. It points, at the outset, to the grounds of their confidence and
joy. They are ransomed travellers: they have found the “righteousness” and the
“salvation” spoken of at the commencement of the chapter. They go, on their
pilgrim way exulting in Him whose arm “hath wounded the dragon”--the “Man of
God’s right hand,” who in His cross and passion hath“destroyed him that had the
power of death, that is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” They are more than conquerors
through Him that loved them.
2. They are further here truthfully represented, even in the course
of their journey through the wilderness, as filled “with peace and joy in
believing,” “abounding in hope.” The Christian is a joyful man. Though it be a
wilderness he treads, and though sorrow and mourning are also depicted as
tracking his footsteps, yet he has elements of tranquil happiness within him
which make the song, not the tear, the appropriate exponent of his thoughts and
emotions. It were strange, indeed, were it otherwise. At peace with God; sin
forgiven; the heart changed; the affections elevated; grace moulding,
sustaining, quickening, sanctifying; and, rising above all, the assured hope of
glory hereafter.
3. The words, too, seem to tell of an ever-augmenting joy. As the
portals of glory draw nearer, the song,, deepens in melody and strength. They
come to. Zion “with singing;” then “everlasting joy is on their head. Then,
they obtain a new anointing of “gladness;” and finally “sorrow and
mourning”--these two companions of the wilderness-rise on their sombre, gloomy
wings, and speed away for ever! (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Journey and song
I. A REDEEMED
PEOPLE.
II. THE REDEEMED OF
THE LORD AS TRAVELLERS.
III. THE REDEEMED OF
THE LORD AS SINGERS. (J. M. Blackie, LL.B.)
I, even I, am He that
comforteth you
Divine comfort is strength
They prayed for the
operations of His power (Isaiah 51:9); He answers them with the consolations of His grace, which may
well be accepted as an equivalent.
(M. Henry.)
Our true Comforter
I. THE LORD
COMFORTS ALL WHO TRUST HIM, BY REVEALING HIS RELATIONSHIP. It is a delight to
know that if the Almighty be a king, He is seated on a throne of grace, to
which every man is at liberty to: come; but it is a much more comforting
consolation to know that the Lord does not wish to be known to us as our king;
it is His desire for us to approach Him as our Father. If you gather the record
of all the good and lovable fathers who have ever existed, and can imagine them
welded into one being, you will have some idea of our Heavenly Father.
II. THE LORD
COMFORTS US, BY HIS CONTINUAL PRESENCE. Have you thought what it means, in
prayer, when you close your eyes?
III. THE LORD
COMFORTS US, BY PROVING HIS EXTRAORDINARY LOVE. Perhaps you may have sinned
grievously, and, though you have repented, and are struggling bravely, the
unfeeling world may point its finger of scorn; but do not despair. Listen to
the voice of your Heavenly Father, “I, even I, am He that comforteth you I”
IV. THE LORD
COMFORTS US, BY SHOWING THAT HE GOVERNS ALL THINGS. Fear hath torment, and it
is the parent of all our cares and anxieties. (W. Birch.)
Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man?--
The comparative fear of
God and man
I. There are TWO
PARTIES here spoken of--man that shall die, “the son of man that shall be made
as grass;” and “the Lord our Maker, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid
the foundations of the earth.” It appears to be a main object of the
Scriptures, elsewhere as in the text, to set in the most vivid contrast with
each other the meanness, the emptiness, the nothingness of man; and the
all-sufficiency, the majesty, and the glory of God.
II. In the common
intercourse of the world, THE FORMER OF THESE PARTIES, RATHER THAN THE LATTER,
IS PRACTICALLY THE OBJECT OF
REVERENCE, RESPECT AND
FEAR. Indeed, the whole system of society seems founded on the principle that
human sanctions are above Divine.
III. THE MEANING OF
THAT EMPHATIC QUESTION WITH WHICH THESE WORDS COMMENCE, “WHO ART THOU?”
1. The inquiry seems to have been primarily addressed to those whose
prevailing fear of man was the result rather of weakness under trying
circumstances, than of carnal blindness and depravity of heart. It seems
intended for the encouragement of God’s people when threatened with dangers,
and particularly when harassed by the terrors which cruel enemies inspire.
2. But in another sense, and with far different emphasis, does it
apply to those who, in the genuine spirit of the world, and with the full
agreement of the will, pay that homage to man which the deliberately refuse to
God. Well may it be said to such, in a tone of mingled indignation and
surprise, “Who art thou?” (H. Woodward, M.A.)
Fear of man removed by
reflecting upon God
If, being children of God,
by faith in Jesus Christ, we duly reflected on our “high calling,” and wisely
valued our privileges, we should certainly neither stand so much in awe of one
another, nor be so guilty as we are of forgetfulness of the Almighty.
I. “WHO ART THOU?”
The question was put to Israel, with reference, not to what they were in
themselves--in dependence upon their own strength or holiness; for they were
weak and miserable offenders, suffering the punishment of their offences;
conquered, and carried into exile by heathen enemies; friendless and hopeless:
but it referred to Jehovah s choice of them as a peculiar people, to their
experience of the Divine protection, and their covenanted right in the Divine
promises. And, without reference to God, and His salvation, what can be the
answer of any human being to the question, “Who, or what art
thou?”--nothing, and less than nothing; a vapour, that is exhaled and is not;
an atom, that perishes and is forgotten; a sinful and miserable being, the
child of perdition, “at his best estate altogether vanity.” It is not so,
however, that God sees us. He beholds all things here below in His blessed Son.
Redemption enables every believer to return a lofty answer to the inquiry, “Who
art thou?”
II. If such be a
correct draught of the reply which the faithful Christian can make to
the question, “Who art thou?” THE UNFITNESS, THE IMPROPRIETY OF HIS YIELDING TO
THE FEAR OF MAN IS MANIFEST.
1. It saps the vital strength of the Christian character, in
undermining our faith. I cannot truly believe in God, as He has revealed
Himself, and yet stoop to this fear.
2. It leads men to vain ,and unworthy expedients--to trust in the
“arm of flesh” and in “refuges of lies.”
3. Carnal fear is the very worst form of that unreasonable care and
anxiety, against the encroachments of which our Lord cautions, us.
4. “But,” asks the prophet, “who art thou, that thou shouldest be
afraid? Art not thou--thou, the child of God--of so high a dignity, of a strain
and lineage so glorious, that thou oughtest not to be suspected of so degrading
a passion as ignoble fear?
III. ALWAYS
CONNECTED WITH FEAR OF MAN, IS FORGETFULNESS OF ALMIGHTY GOD. (R. Cattermole,
B.D.)
God more to be feared than
man
That of two evils the
greatest is most to be feared, is a self-evident principle, which, as soon as
it is proposed, commands our assent; that he who can inflict a greater evil
“IS” more to be dreaded than he who can inflict only a less, is an immediate
consequence of that self-evident principle; that the Lord our Maker, who hath
stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, is armed
with greater power, and can inflict greater and more durable evils than “man
who shall die, and the son of man who shall be made as grass,” is more forcibly
expressed than if it were in direct terms declared in the expostulation of the
text: that man therefore is not to be feared, and that God is; or that man is
not to be feared in comparison with God; not equally to be feared with Him; not
at all to be feared, when the fear of man would betray us to do things
inconsistent with the fear of God, and such as would argue us to have forgotten
“the Lord our Maker,” is a truth as clearly, plainly and fully demonstrable as
any proposition in mathematics.
I. It is certain
mater of fact, that IN THE CONDUCT OF OUR LIVES WE ARE MORE AWED BY THE FEAR OF
MAN THAN WE ARE BY THE FEAR OF GOD. This is proved from experience and
observation. As evident as it is, that men commit those sins in secret which
they dare not commit openly; that they take more care to appear religious than
really to be religious; that in a licentious age they are afraid to own
themselves to be under the influences of religion; that they commit greater
sins to hide less; that they choose rather obstinately to persist in an error,
than to own they were in the wrong; that they choose rather to break the laws
of God than to be out of fashion; that they are time-servers, and play fast and
loose with their principles, in order to secure or to promote their interest;
that they “make shipwreck of their faith” when storms arise, and fall away in
times of persecution; so evident is it, that in the conduct of their lives they
are more swayed by the fear of men than they are by the fear of God.
II. INQUIRE HOW
THIS COMES TO PASS.
1. As to the case of habitual, profligate, daring sinners, their
conduct in this matter is easily accounted for. By a constant, uninterrupted
course of sinning they have worn out all sense of religion, all notions of God,
all apprehensions of a future state, and a judgment to come.
2. Every disciple of Christ is not so great a proficient in the
doctrine of the Cross, as to reach up to that fulness of stature in Christ to
which St. Paul was arrived, when he could, without arrogance, declare his
undaunted courage and resolution of mind in that magnanimous, but sincere,
profession, which we find him making, “Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?” etc.
3. If persecution is proved to be so strong a temptation, and the
faith of the generality of Christians is so weak, it is no great matter of
surprise, that men should often yield to the violence of such pressing trials,
and should be overawed into sinful compliances, by the fear of those evils,
which, though they bear no proportion to the wrath of God, that shall be
revealed in the last day, are yet strong enough to betray the succours which
reason and religion offer.
4. But still what account can be given why men venture the loss of
their immortal souls, to avoid evils of a much less magnitude; such as are
shame, disrepute, the displeasure of superiors, the dislike of equals, or even
sometimes the disapprobation of inferiors? The best account I am able to give
of such extravagant and unjustifiable conduct is this: the sins to which men
are drawn by such slight temptations are not usually of that heinous kind, as
those are to which they are tempted by the terrors of greater evils; as the
temptation is mush weaker, me the aims to which they are tempted are much
lighter: though therefore they cannot plead the violence of the temptation, yet
they are apt to hope, that the sins into which they are so easily betrayed,
being not of the deepest die, will the sooner be blotted out.
III. SHOW THE
EXTREME FOLLY AND UNREASONABLENESS OF IT. By the order of nature our passions
ought to be under the government of reason; by the laws of God they ought to be
subject to the rules of religion. Our reason tells us, that the greatest evils
are most to be feared; our religion teaches us, that the evils to come are
exceedingly greater than any we can feel at present: both reason, therefore,
and religion agree to condemn the avoiding lesser evils, by running into
greater, which we always so, when out of fear to offend men we presume to sin
against God.
IV. GIVE SOME RULES
HOW WE MAY CONQUER THIS VICIOUS AND IMMODERATE FEAR OF MAN.
1. We fear men more than God, because the evils threatened by men are
apprehended to be nearer than those threatened by God. To weaken the force of
this motive to the fear of men, we should consider that this apprehension of
ours may be false; for though the sentence of God against evil works is not
always executed speedily, yet the judgments of God do sometimes seize upon the
sinner, even in the very act of sinning. But allowing them to be as yet far
removed, and to advance with the slowest pace, yet the disproportion which they
bear to the sorest evils men can inflict, is so great, that if we view them
together, the “treasures of wrath which are laid up against the day of wrath”
cannot appear light and inconsiderable, notwithstanding their present distance.
But to take away all danger of our being imposed upon by viewing them as far
remote, we ought in our thoughts to bring them nearer to us.
2. It will be further expedient for us to strengthen our good
resolutions by considering those supports which we may expect from God, if we
bravely bear up against those trials by which our virtue is, at any time,
assaulted. The same power of God which will be manifested in our punishment, if
we give way to the vicious fear of men, will exert itself in our assistance, that
we may effectually overcome it. Having, therefore, these threats and promises
of the Lord, let us act like men who are endued with reason, and like
Christians who are strong in faith. (Bp. Smalridge.)
Foolish and impious fears
I. THE ABSURDITY
OF THOSE FEARS. It is a disparagement to us to give way to them. In the
original the pronoun is feminine, “Who art thou, O woman;” unworthy the name of
a man, such a weak and womanish thing is it to give way to perplexing fears. It
is absurd--
1. To be in such a dread of a dying man.
2. To fear “continually every day” (Isaiah 51:13); to put ourselves upon a constant rack, so as never to be easy,
nor have any enjoyment of ourselves. Now and then a danger may be imminent and
threatening, and it may be prudence to fear it; but to be always in a toss, to
tremble at the shaking of every leaf, is to make ourselves all our lifetime
subject to bondage, and to bring upon ourselves that sore judgment which is
threatened Deuteronomy 28:66-67).
3. To fear beyond what there is cause for. Thou art afraid of “the
fury of the oppressor.” It is true there is an oppressor, and he is furious. He
designs, it may be, when he has an opportunity, to do thee mischief, and it
will be thy wisdom, therefore, to stand upon thy guard; but thou art afraid of
him “as if he were ready to destroy,” as if he were just now going to cut thy
throat and there were no possibility of preventing, it. A. timorous spirit is
thus apt to make the worst of everything, and sometimes God is pleased
presently to show us the folly of it. “Where is the fury of the oppressor?” It
is gone in an instant, and the danger is over ere thou art aware. His heart is
turned, or his hands are tied.
II. THE IMPIETY OF
THOSE FEARS. Thou “forgettest the Lord, thy Maker,” etc. Our inordinate
fearing of man is an implicit forgetting of God. (M. Henry.)
Verse 13
And forgettest the Lord thy Maker
God the Creator
What is it to create the heavens and the earth?
Who has seen the process of creation? I see a man shape a piece of iron or of
wood into a useful instrument, and the process seems simple enough. But here I
see the hand that works and the material on which it works. But that is not
creation--creation out of nothing. I see no hand shaping the trees and hills; I
never see something rising out of nothing. I can watch the growth of a flower,
as I can the building of a house. And I know that in the former case, as in the
latter, there is some force in activity. But force is not God. Behind that
force God is still hidden, and the mysterious question remains, Who is He! More
mysterious still when I have to reflect that millions of flowers an the world
over are being formed, and that a similar force is in operation through all the
worlds of boundless space. And everywhere behind this force God is. God is my
Maker too. I eat and drink, I live and grow, and feel the energy of life. And
that, too, is God. So near to me--so immeasurably distant; and yet nowhere
visible. How, then, shall I think of Him, and answer to my heart the question,
Who is God? (S. Edger, B.A.)
Verse 16
And I have put My words in thy mouth
The seed-corn of a new world
The words in their mouth are the seed-corn of a new world in the
midst of the old.
(F. Delitzsch, D.D.)
Commissioned, endowed, preserved
Like the first creation, the new is a gradual process, advancing
from age to age.
I. IN THIS WORK
GOD EMPLOYS HIS SERVANTS. When it is said, “That I may plant,” etc., it
is obvious that it is through Israel the work is to be 1 Corinthians 3:9).
II. FOR THIS WORK
GOD ARMS HIS SERVANTS. “I have put My words in thy mouth.”
III. FOR THIS WORK
AND IN IT GOD PRESERVES HIS SERVANTS. “I have covered thee,” etc. (W.
Guthrie, M.A.)
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem
Brighter time for exiled Israel:
Jerusalem is pictured as a woman, prostrate through misfortune,
lying helplessly as though drunken, on the roadside, her sons unable to guide
or assist her: but she is to stand up; the past is now solemnly reversed.
; and the cup of “reeling” which she has drunk is to be given to them that
afflicted her (Isaiah 51:17-23). (Prof. S.
R. Driver, D. D.)
A call to abandon despair
It is a call to awake, not so much out of the sleep of sin (though
that also is necessary, in order to their being ready for deliverance), as out
of the stupor of despair. (M. Henry.)
The cup of trembling.
The cup of trembling
Such a cup is sooner or later placed in all our hands. Some may
ask us, indeed, if Christianity is not a religion of joy? Yes! But it is not a
religion of hilarity. The Christian life is the reproduction of the Master’s
image in the world! And as He was the Man of Sorrows, so beneath all there will
be tribulation in our hearts, even when we share the legacy of the Master’s
joy! The cup must be taken. The red wine is poured out by the good hand, and
the child with bowed knee and bruised heart says, “Even so, Father, for so it
seemeth good in Thy sight.” Good in the sight which sees the end from the
beginning, which culminates in the ultimate issues of glory and reward.
I. THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE PRESENT LIFE CREATES A SPIRIT OF TREMBLING. We are in a
world of instability and uncertainty. Tremendous possibilities are involved in
our daily lives. Health is so soon undermined. Disaster so suddenly comes. This
life needs indeed a Brother and a Saviour. There must be with the Christian an
element of sobriety in all human joys.
II. THE
ALL-SURROUNDING PRESENCE OF TEMPTATION CREATES A SPIRIT OF TREMBLING. Vain
self-confidence is contemptible.
III. THE LAW OF
DEPENDENCE ON OTHERS CREATES A SPIRIT OF TREMBLING.
1. Illness comes, and we are dependent on the wisdom of the physician
and the watchfulness of the nurse; great risk comes, and we are dependent on
the command of the captain and the sobriety of the crew; or we need the safety
of the wisest jurisprudence, and we are dependent on the carefulness of the
lawyer and the skill of the counsel.
2. Or we have to take care of others. Wives and children who may
presently be alone in the world--alone where there is such eager competition
and self-concern, such neglect of the weakest and the neediest; and we must
leave our simple savings to directors or to others who may mismanage our
affairs, or to trustees who may be false to their trust. And who shall say that
this is not to many anxious parents a “cup of trembling”!
3. Then we are citizens--men who have vast interest in all that
appertains to the life and honour of the fatherland; and all these,
representatively, we have to leave in the hands of men, who may through pride
or ambition risk the nation s highest weal.
4. Then we are living souls, dependent on the great law of moral
influence around us to a much greater extent than we think. And we cannot
altogether escape from the contagion of the fashion of this present world.
IV. THE NEAR
APPROACH OF THE GREAT ACCOUNT CREATES A SPIRIT OF TREMBLING. Have you ever
thought how nearness affects you? Disease in a near city--in your city--m your
street--next door to your house!
Have you ever thought how even the judgment of earth, as it comes
nearer and nearer, affects the indifference of the criminal? But I am supposing
that we are Christians. We have an account to render of life’s stewardship.
Into each of our hands God has placed the cup of personality, responsibility
and accountability; and now, after a long time, “the Lord of those servants
cometh and reckoneth with them.” This is no mere figure of speech.
V. THE SEASON OF
SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE WILL CREATES A SPIRIT OF TREMBLING. We can in no sense
ever feel this as Christ our Lord and Master did. But though in this He stands
alone, His whole earthly history was a spectacle of submission. Every man must
bear his own burden, must drink his own cup. But Christ’s comfort is ours! With
trembling heart we seek the quiet pavilion of our Father. Better anything than
a God-emptied life. Christ our Brother and Saviour alone can succour us in
hours of submission. (W. M. Statham.)
Thus saith thy Lord
God our Advocate
How can God be both judge and advocate?
Maybe Isaiah would have said, “I see it not clearly myself yet.” But the riddle
is all explained when you bear in mind the distinction of the persons in the
Godhead. He pleads His people’s cause for them by the Son, and in them by the
Holy Ghost. This wonderful title, “God that pleadeth the cause of His people,”
has been already vindicated in the history of Israel. But what is it God
pleads? We may go very much astray unless we emphasize that word “cause.” It is
not, He pleadeth the whims of His people. Everything that I may want or like
God is not going to provide. That word “cause” means the strife, the battle,
the controversy. The Church of God is just the expression of a great conflict
that has been going on for ages. I want to show you how Jesus has pleaded the
cause of His people, and He has done it in different courts.
I. He pleaded the
cause of His people first in the COURT OF JUDGMENT that was situated at Golgotha.
As to proving men innocent, that is impossible; they are guilty and condemned
and yet Christ steps forward and says, “I will plead their cause.” And He stood
in my place and yours, and pleaded our cause: but pleading our cause took Him
to the Cross and into the tomb.
II. Having pleaded
my cause in the court of judgment, He now pleads my cause IN THE COURT OF LAW
AND JUSTICE. It is not enough for a soul to be free from sin; that is the
negative side. How can any man enter heaven apart from righteousness? I will
suppose for a moment that this difficulty is raised in court. Yes, the past sin
is atoned for; but where is the man’s righteousness? I say, “Oh, my Lord, Thou
who didst plead for me just now, plead again!” and I hear Him say, “I lived the
life of perfect righteousness, I obeyed the law in every jot and tittle, I had
Thy word hidden in My heart.” And the answer comes, “The plea is perfect:
sinner, thou art not only forgiven, thou art justified; thy God hath pleaded
thy cause.”
III. Jesus now pleads
my cause IN HEAVEN ITSELF. If I am a saint, I am sure to pray, but being an
earthly saint I am sure to pray very badly; being a believer, I am sure to
sing, but having an earthly nature I am sure there are many low grovelling
notes. How are my prayers to enter heaven? how are my prayers to be accepted?
He who pleaded my cause on Golgotha, and He who pleaded my cause in the court
of law, He now as High Priest pleads my cause before the golden altar.
IV. And Jesus has
not yet concluded His pleading work. Personally I am looking for a day that is
yet to dawn when JESUS WILL PERFECTLY PLEAD ON BEHALF OF HIS PEOPLE THAT THEY
MAY RECEIVE ALL THE RIGHTS OF REDEMPTION.
V. I have only
dealt thus far with the Father and the Son, but it is the whole Trinity that
pleads the cause of His people, and therefore our final point is this, that
whilst Jesus has pleaded for me at Golgotha and does plead for me yonder in the
court of Heaven, THE HOLY GHOST IS PLEADING MY CAUSE WITHIN. (A. G.
Brown.)
The Advocate on high
How majestic are these appellations; and if we mark the variation
of the appearance of the word “Lord,” it opens to our view at once a fund of
information and comfort which would be lost if that were overlooked. The first
time the word is used, thy “Lord,” the translators have given it to us in small
letters, simply signifying a sovereign ruler and governor. The second time they
have given it in capital letters, which method they adopted to distinguish the
word “Jehovah” from the word “Adonai,” or Lord. When the word “Jehovah”
presents itself to our view, we are at once filled with a consciousness of the
presence of a self-existent Being, giving being to all, deriving being from
none, with all worlds at His command, and all creatures under His sway. And
then to have the sovereign governor, the self-existent Deity, presented to our
view in His covenant character as “thy God,” is peculiarly sweet. There is a
sevenfold preciousness in this introduction which Jehovah gives of Himself to
the notice of His people, and that, too, under circumstances particularly
affecting; because what the Lord was about to say to them was just called for
by the exigencies in which they were placed.
I. THE
APPELLATIONS that are employed. “Thy Lord;” “THE LORD” “thy God.”
II. OUR CLAIM TO AN
INTEREST IN THEM, as warranted by Scripture. I will refer to the infinite
perfections of the Deity to be claimed by the poor worm of the earth. What, I
allowed to claim Omniscience, Omnipotence to watch over me, Omnipresence to be
my company, Immutability to be my security, eternity the open prospect for me!
What, I view all the perfections and attributes of the Deity, such as His
justice, His holiness, His truth, His mercy, His faithfulness, everlastingly
pledged for my salvation? This is something solid. What is requisite to prove
the claim? You will find substantial proof nowhere but in spiritual life
imparted to the soul.
III. THE TRANSACTION
REFERRED TO. “That pleadeth the cause of His people.”
1. Let us first glance at the Divine, the sacred office assumed, as
stated the text, “If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous.” That glorious Advocate is wise, faithful, condescending,
affectionate.
2. The extraordinary nature of the cause of God’s people.
3. The legal process. The only great mark of the legal process is for
God’s holiness to be vindicated. Then the process must be by exacting or by
surety; and it must be by His life of obedience and His death of ignominy. If
the legal process be pleading with the guilty, ruined sinner, there are two or
three things I shall name.
──《The Biblical Illustrator》