{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8069/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8069","id":"gutenberg_8069","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8069","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Isaiah -- Commentaries","Bible. Jeremiah -- Commentaries","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity"],"text":"Produced by Charles Franks, Michelle Shephard and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE\n\n\nALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.\n\nISAIAH AND JEREMIAH\n\n\n\n\nEXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE\n\nALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.\n\nISAIAH\n\n_Chaps. I to XLVIII_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nTHE GREAT SUIT: JEHOVAH _versus_ JUDAH (Isaiah i. 1-9; 16-20)\n\nTHE STUPIDITY OF GODLESSNESS (Isaiah i. 3)\n\nWHAT SIN DOES TO MEN (Isaiah i. 30-31)\n\nTHE PERPETUAL PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE (Isaiah iv. 5)\n\nA PROPHET'S WOES (Isaiah v. 8-30)\n\nVISION AND SERVICE (Isaiah vi. 1-13)\n\nTHE EMPTY THRONE FILLED (Isaiah vi. 1)\n\nA SERAPH'S WINGS (Isaiah vi. 2)\n\nTHE MAKING OF A PROPHET (Isaiah vi. 5)\n\nSHILOAH AND EUPHRATES (Isaiah viii. 6, 7)\n\nTHE KINGDOM AND THE KING (Isaiah ix. 2-7)\n\nLIGHT OR FIRE? (Isaiah x. 17)\n\nTHE SUCKER FROM THE FELLED OAK (Isaiah xi. 1-10)\n\nTHE WELL-SPRING OF SALVATION (Isaiah xii. 3)\n\nTHE HARVEST OF A GODLESS LIFE (Isaiah xvii. 10, 11)\n\n'IN THIS MOUNTAIN' (Isaiah xxv. 6-8)\n\nTHE FEAST ON THE SACRIFICE (Isaiah xxv. 6)\n\nTHE VEIL OVER ALL NATIONS (Isaiah xxv. 7)\n\nTHE SONG OF TWO CITIES (Isaiah xxvi. 1-10)\n\nOUR STRONG CITY (Isaiah xxvi. 1-2)\n\nTHE INHABITANT OF THE ROCK (Isaiah xxvi. 3-4)\n\nTHE GRASP THAT BRINGS PEACE (Isaiah xxvii. 5)\n\nTHE JUDGMENT OF DRUNKARDS AND MOCKERS (Isaiah xxviii. 1-13)\n\nA CROWN OF PRIDE OR A CROWN OF GLORY (Isaiah xxviii 3-5)\n\nMAN'S CROWN AND GOD'S (Isaiah lxii 3)\n\nTHE FOUNDATION OF GOD (Isaiah xxviii. 16)\n\nGOD'S STRANGE WORK (Isaiah xxviii. 21)\n\nTHE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS OPERATIONS (Isaiah xxviii. 23-29)\n\n'QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE' (Isaiah xxx. 15)\n\nGOD'S WAITING AND MAN'S (Isaiah xxx. 18)\n\nTHREE PICTURES OF ONE REALITY (Isaiah xxxi. 5)\n\nTHE LORD'S FURNACE (Isaiah xxxi. 9)\n\nTHE HIDING-PLACE (Isaiah xxxii. 2)\n\nHOW TO DWELL IN THE FIRE OF GOD (Isaiah xxxiii. 14, 15; I John iv. 16)\n\nTHE FORTRESS OF THE FAITHFUL (Isaiah xxxiii. 16)\n\nTHE RIVERS OF GOD (Isaiah xxxiii. 21)\n\nJUDGE, LAWGIVER, KING (Isaiah xxxiii. 22)\n\nMIRACLES OF HEALING (Isaiah xxxv. 5-6)\n\nMIRAGE OR LAKE (Isaiah xxxv. 6-7)\n\nTHE KING'S HIGHWAY (Isaiah xxxv. 8-9)\n\nWHAT LIFE'S JOURNEY MAY BE (Isaiah xxxv. 9-10)\n\nTHE TRIUMPH OF FAITH (Isaiah xxxvii 14-21; 33-38)\n\nWHERE TO CARRY TROUBLES (Isaiah xxxvii. 14)\n\nGREAT VOICES FROM HEAVEN (Isaiah xl. 1-10)\n\nO THOU THAT BRINGEST GOOD TIDINGS (Isaiah xl. 9)\n\n'HAVE YE NOT? HAST THOU NOT' (Isaiah xl. 2; 28)\n\nUNFAILING STARS AND FAINTING MEN (Isaiah xl. 26; 29)\n\nTHE SECRET OF IMMORTAL YOUTH (Isaiah xl. 30, 31)\n\nCHRIST THE ARRESTER OF INCIPIENT EVIL AND THE NOURISHER OF INCIPIENT\nGOOD (Isaiah xlii. 3, 4)\n\nTHE BLIND MAN'S GUIDE (Isaiah xlii. 16)\n\nTHY NAME: MY NAME (Isaiah xliii, 1; 7)\n\nJACOB--ISRAEL--JESHURUN (Isaiah xliv. 1, 2)\n\nFEEDING ON ASHES (Isaiah xliv. 20)\n\nWRITING BLOTTED OUT AND MIST MELTED (Isaiah xliv. 22)\n\nHIDDEN AND REVEALED (Isaiah xlv. 15, 19)\n\nA RIGHTEOUSNESS NEAR AND A SWIFT SALVATION (Isaiah xlv. 12, 13)\n\nA RIVER OF PEACE AND WAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS (Isaiah xlviii. 18)\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREAT SUIT: JEHOVAH _VERSUS_ JUDAH\n\n'The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah\nand Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings\nof Judah. I Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath\nspoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have\nrebelled against Me. 3. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his\nmaster's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.\n4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,\nchildren that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have\nprovoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away\nbackward. 5. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more\nand more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6. From\nthe sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it;\nbut wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been\nclosed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. 7. Your\ncountry is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land,\nstrangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown\nby strangers. 8. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a\nvineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9.\nExcept the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we\nshould have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto\nGomorrah.... 16. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your\ndoings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17. Learn to do well;\nseek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for\nthe widow. 18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:\nthough your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though\nthey be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19. If ye be willing\nand obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. 20. But if ye refuse\nand rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the\nLord hath spoken it.'--ISAIAH 1,1-9; 16-20.\n\n\nThe first bars of the great overture to Isaiah's great oratorio are\nhere sounded. These first chapters give out the themes which run\nthrough all the rest of his prophecies. Like most introductions, they\nwere probably written last, when the prophet collected and arranged his\nlife's labours. The text deals with the three great thoughts, the\n_leit-motifs_ that are sounded over and over again in the prophet's\nmessage.\n\nFirst comes the great indictment (vs. 2-4). A true prophet's words are\nof universal application, even when they are most specially addressed\nto a particular audience. Just because this indictment was so true of\nJudah, is it true of all men, for it is not concerned with details\npeculiar to a long-past period and state of society, but with the broad\ngeneralities common to us all. As another great teacher in Old\nTestament times said, 'I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or\nthy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me.' Isaiah has\nnothing to say about ritual or ceremonial omissions, which to him were\nbut surface matters after all, but he sets in blazing light the\nfoundation facts of Judah's (and every man's) distorted relation to\nGod. And how lovingly, as well as sternly, God speaks through him! That\ndivine lament which heralds the searching indictment is not unworthy to\nbe the very words of the Almighty Lover of all men, sorrowing over His\nprodigal and fugitive sons. Nor is its deep truth less than its\ntenderness. For is not man's sin blackest when seen against the bright\nbackground of God's fatherly love? True, the fatherhood that Isaiah\nknew referred to God's relation to the nation rather than to the\nindividual, but the great truth which is perfectly revealed by the\nPerfect Son was in part shown to the prophet. The east was bright with\nthe unrisen sun, and the tinted clouds that hovered above the place of\nits rising seemed as if yearning to open and let him through. Man's\nneglect of God's benefits puts him below the animals that 'know' the\nhand that feeds and governs them. Some men think it a token of superior\n'culture' and advanced views to throw off allegiance to God. It is a\ntoken that they have less intelligence than their dog.\n\nThere is something very beautiful and pathetic in the fact that Judah\nis not directly addressed, but that verses 2-4 are a divine soliloquy.\nThey might rather be called a father's lament than an indictment. The\nforsaken father is, as it were, sadly brooding over his erring child's\nsins, which are his father's sorrows and his own miseries. In verse 4\nthe black catalogue of the prodigal's doings begins on the surface with\nwhat we call 'moral' delinquencies, and then digs deeper to disclose\nthe root of these in what we call 'religious' relations perverted. The\ntwo are inseparably united, for no man who is wrong with God can be\nright with duty or with men. Notice, too, how one word flashes into\nclearness the sad truth of universal experience--that 'iniquity,'\nhowever it may delude us into fancying that by it we throw off the\nburden of conscience and duty, piles heavier weights on our backs. The\ndoer of iniquity is 'laden with iniquity.' Notice, too, how the awful\nentail of evil from parents to children is adduced--shall we say as\naggravating, or as lessening, the guilt of each generation? Isaiah's\ncontemporaries are 'a seed of evil-doers,' spring from such, and in\ntheir turn are 'children that are corrupters.' The fatal bias becomes\nstronger as it passes down. Heredity is a fact, whether you call it\noriginal sin or not.\n\nBut the bitter fountain of all evil lies in distorted relations to God.\n'They have forsaken the Lord'; that is why they 'do corruptly.' They\nhave 'despised the Holy One of Israel'; that is why they are 'laden\nwith iniquity.' Alienated hearts separate from Him. To forsake Him is\nto despise Him. To go from Him is to go 'away backward.' Whatever may\nhave been our inheritance of evil, we each go further from Him. And\nthis fatherly lament over Judah is indeed a wail over every child of\nman. Does it not echo in the 'pearl of parables,' and may we not\nsuppose that it suggested that supreme revelation of man's misery and\nGod's love?\n\nAfter the indictment comes the sentence (vs. 5-8). Perhaps 'sentence'\nis not altogether accurate, for these verses do not so much decree a\nfuture as describe a present, and the deep tone of pitying wonder\nsounds through them as they tell of the bitter harvest sown by sin. The\npenetrating question, 'Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt\nmore and more?' brings out the solemn truth that all which men gain by\nrebellion against God is chastisement. The ox that 'kicks against the\npricks' only makes its own hocks bleed. We aim at some imagined good,\nand we get--blows. No rational answer to that stern 'Why?' is possible.\nEvery sin is an act of unreason, essentially an absurdity. The\nconsequences of Judah's sin are first darkly drawn under the metaphor\nof a man desperately wounded in some fight, and far away from\nphysicians or nurses, and then the metaphor is interpreted by the plain\nfacts of hostile invasion, flaming cities, devastated fields. It\ndestroys the coherence of the verses to take the gruesome picture of\nthe wounded man as a description of men's sins; it is plainly a\ndescription of the consequences of their sins. In accordance with the\nOld Testament point of view, Isaiah deals with national calamities as\nthe punishment of national sins. He does not touch on the far worse\nresults of individual sins on individual character. But while we are\nnot to ignore his doctrine that nations are individual entities, and\nthat 'righteousness exalteth a nation' in our days as well as in his,\nthe Christian form of his teaching is that men lay waste their own\nlives and wound their own souls by every sin. The fugitive son comes\ndown to be a swine-herd, and cannot get enough even of the swine's food\nto stay his hunger.\n\nThe note of pity sounds very clearly in the pathetic description of the\ndeserted 'daughter of Zion.' Jerusalem stands forlorn and defenceless,\nlike a frail booth in a vineyard, hastily run up with boughs, and open\nto fierce sunshine or howling winds. Once 'beautiful for situation, the\njoy of the whole earth,... the city of the great King'--and now!\n\nVerse 9 breaks the solemn flow of the divine Voice, but breaks it as it\ndesires to be broken. For in it hearts made soft and penitent by the\nVoice, breathe out lowly acknowledgment of widespread sin, and see\nGod's mercy in the continuance of 'a very small remnant' of still\nfaithful ones. There is a little island not yet submerged by the sea of\niniquity, and it is to Him, not to themselves, that the 'holy seed' owe\ntheir being kept from following the multitude to do evil. What a\nsmiting comparison for the national pride that is--'as Sodom,' 'like\nunto Gomorrah'!\n\nAfter the sentence comes pardon. Verses 16 and 17 properly belong to\nthe paragraph omitted from the text, and close the stern special word\nto the 'rulers' which, in its severe tone, contrasts so strongly with\nthe wounded love and grieved pity of the preceding verses. Moral\namendment is demanded of these high-placed sinners and false guides. It\nis John the Baptist's message in an earlier form, and it clears the way\nfor the evangelical message. Repentance and cleansing of life come\nfirst.\n\nBut these stern requirements, if taken alone, kindle despair. 'Wash\nyou, make you clean'--easy to say, plainly necessary, and as plainly\nhopelessly above my reach. If that is all that a prophet has to say to\nme, he may as well say nothing. For what is the use of saying 'Arise\nand walk' to the man who has been lame from his mother's womb? How can\na foul body be washed clean by filthy hands? Ancient or modern\npreachers of a self-wrought-out morality exhort to impossibilities, and\nunless they follow their preaching of an unattainable ideal as Isaiah\nfollowed his, they are doomed to waste their words. He cried, 'Make you\nclean,' but he immediately went on to point to One who could make\nclean, could turn scarlet into snowy white, crimson into the lustrous\npurity of the unstained fleeces of sheep in green pastures. The\nassurance of God's forgiveness which deals with guilt, and of God's\ncleansing which deals with inclination and habit, must be the\nfoundation of our cleansing ourselves from filthiness of flesh and\nspirit. The call to repentance needs the promise of pardon and divine\nhelp to purifying in order to become a gospel. And the call to\n'repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,' is\nwhat we all, who are 'laden with iniquity,' and have forsaken the Lord,\nneed, if ever we are to cease to do evil and learn to do well.\n\nAs with one thunder-clap the prophecy closes, pealing forth the eternal\nalternative set before every soul of man. Willing obedience to our\nFather God secures all good, the full satisfaction of our else hungry\nand ravenous desires. To refuse and rebel is to condemn ourselves to\ndestruction. And no man can avert that consequence, or break the\nnecessary connection between goodness and blessedness, 'for the mouth\nof the Lord hath spoken it,' and what He speaks stands fast for ever\nand ever.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STUPIDITY OF GODLESSNESS\n\n'The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel\ndoth not know, My people doth not consider.'--ISAIAH i. 3.\n\n\nThis is primarily an indictment against Israel, but it touches us all.\n'Doth not know' _i.e._ has no familiar acquaintance with; 'doth not\nconsider,' _i.e._ frivolously ignores, never meditates on.\n\nI. This is a common attitude of mind towards God.\n\nBlank indifference towards Him is far more frequent than conscious\nhostility. Take a hundred men at random as they hurry through the\nstreets, and how many of them would have to acknowledge that no thought\nof God had crossed their minds for days or months? So far as they are\nconcerned, either in regard to their thoughts or actions, He _is_ 'a\nsuperfluous hypothesis.' Most men are not conscious of rebellion\nagainst Him, and to charge them with it does not rouse conscience, but\nthey cannot but plead guilty to this indictment, 'God is not in all\ntheir thoughts.'\n\nII. This attitude is strange and unnatural.\n\nThat a man should be able to forget God, and live as if there were no\nsuch Being, is strange. It is one instance of that awful power of\nignoring the most important subjects, of which every life affords so\nmany and tragic instances. It seems as if we had above us an opium sky\nwhich rains down soporifics, go that we are fast asleep to all that it\nmost concerns us to wake to. But still stranger is it that, having that\npower of attending or not attending to subjects, we should so commonly\nexercise it on _this_ subject. For, as the ox that knows the hand that\nfeeds him, and the ass that makes for his 'master's crib' where he is\nsure of fodder and straw, might teach us, the stupidest brute has sense\nenough to recognise who is kind to him, or has authority over him, and\nwhere he can find what he needs. The godless man descends below the\nanimals' level. And to ignore Him is intensely stupid. But it is worse\nthan foolish, for\n\nIII. This attitude is voluntary and criminal.\n\nThough there is not conscious hostility in it, the root of it is a\nsub-conscious sense of discordance with God and of antagonism between\nHis will and the man's When we are quite sure that we love another, and\nthat hearts beat in accord and wills go out towards the same things, we\ndo not need to make efforts to think of that other, but our minds turn\ntowards him or her as to a home, whenever released from the\nholding-back force of necessary occupations. If we love God, and have\nour will set to do His will, our thoughts will fly to Him, 'as doves to\ntheir windows.'\n\nIt is fed by preoccupation of thought with other things. We have but a\ncertain limited amount of energy of thought or attention, and if we\nwaste it, as much as most of us do, on 'things seen and temporal,'\nthere is none left for the unseen realities and the God who is\n'eternal, invisible.' It is often reinforced by theoretical\nuncertainty, sometimes real, often largely unreal. But after all, the\ntrue basis of it is, what Paul gives as its cause, 'they did not _like_\nto retain God in their knowledge.'\n\nThe criminality of this indifference! It is heartlessly ungrateful.\nDogs lick the hand that feeds them; ox and ass in their dull way\nrecognise something almost like obligation arising from benefits and\ncare. No ingratitude is meaner and baser than that of which we are\nguilty, if we do not requite Him 'in whose hands our breath is, and\nwhose are all our ways,' by even one thankful heart-throb or one word\nshaped out of the breath that He gives.\n\nIV. This attitude is fatal.\n\nIt separates us from God, and separation from Him is the very\ndefinition of Death. A God of whom we never think is all the same to us\nas a God who does not exist. Strike God out of a life, and you strike\nthe sun out of the system, and wrap all in darkness and weltering\nchaos. 'This is life eternal, to know Thee'; but if 'Israel doth not\nknow,' Israel has slain itself.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT SIN DOES TO MEN\n\n'Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no\nwater. 31. And the strong shall be as tow, and His work as a spark; and\nthey shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.'--ISAIAH i.\n30-31.\n\n\nThe original reference of these words is to the threatened retribution\nfor national idolatry, of which 'oaks' and 'gardens' were both seats.\nThe nation was, as it were, dried up and made inflammable; the idol was\nas the 'spark' or the occasion for destruction. But a wider\napplication, which comes home to us all, is to the fatal results of\nsin. These need to be very plainly stated, because of the deceitfulness\nof sin, which goes on slaying men by thousands in silence.\n\n                     'That grim wolf with privy paw\n                      Daily devours apace.'\n\nI. Sin withers.\n\nWe see the picture of a blasted tree in the woods, while all around are\nin full leaf, with tiny leaves half developed and all brown at the\nedges. The prophet draws another picture, that of a garden not\nirrigated, and therefore, in the burning East, given over to barrenness.\n\nSin makes men fruitless and withered.\n\nIt involves separation from God, the source of all fruitfulness (Ps.\ni.).\n\nThink of how many pure desires and innocent susceptibilities die out of\na sinful soul. Think of how many capacities for good disappear. Think\nof how dry and seared the heart becomes. Think of how conscience is\nstifled.\n\nAll sin--any sin--does this.\n\nNot only gross, open transgressions, but any piece of godless living\nwill do it.\n\nWhatever a man does against his conscience--neglect of duty, habitual\nunveracity, idleness--in a word, his besetting sin withers him up.\n\nAnd all the while the evil thing that is drawing his life-blood is\ngrowing like a poisonous, blotched fungus in a wine-cask.\n\nII. Sin makes men inflammable.\n\n'As tow' or tinder.\n\nA subsidiary reference may be intended to the sinful man as easily\ncatching fire at temptation. But the main thought is that sin makes a\nman ready for destruction, 'whose end is to be burned.'\n\nThe materials for retribution are laid up in a man's nature by\nwrong-doing. The conspirators store the dynamite in a dark cellar.\nConscience and memory are charged with explosives.\n\nIf tendencies, habits, and desires become tyrannous by long indulgence\nand cannot be indulged, what a fierce fire would rage then!\n\nWe have only to suppose a man made to know what is the real moral\ncharacter of his actions, and to be unable to give them up, to have\nhell.\n\nAll this is confirmed by occasional glimpses which men get of\nthemselves. Our own characters are the true Medusa-head which turns a\nman into stone when he sees it.\n\nWhat, then, are we really doing by our sins? Piling together fuel for\nburning.\n\nIII. Sin burns up.\n\n'Work as a spark.' The evil deeds brought into contact with the doer\nwork destruction. That is, if, in a future life or at any time, a man\nis brought face to face with his acts, then retribution begins. We\nshake off the burden of our actions by want of remembrance. But that\npower of ignoring the past may be broken down at any time. Suppose it\nhappens that in another world it can no longer be exercised, what then?\n\nEvil deeds are the occasion of the divine retribution. They are 'a\nspark.' It is they who light the pyre, not God. The prophet here\nprotests in God's name against the notion that He is to be blamed for\npunishing. Men are their own self-tormentors. The sinful man immolates\nhimself. Like Isaac, he carries the wood and lays the pile for his own\nburning.\n\nChrist severs the connection between us and our evil. He restores\nbeauty and freshness to the blighted tree, planting it as 'by the river\nof water,' so that it 'bringeth forth its fruit in its season,' and its\n'leaf also doth not wither.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERPETUAL PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE\n\n'And the Lord will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and\nover her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a\nflaming fire by night.'--ISAIAH iv. 5.\n\n\nThe pillar of cloud and fire in the Exodus was one: there are to be as\nmany pillars as there are 'assemblies' in the new era. Is it straining\nthe language too much to find significance in that difference? Instead\nof the formal unity of the Old Covenant, there is a variety which yet\nis a more vital unity. Is there not a hint here of the same lesson that\nis taught by the change of the one golden lamp-stand into the seven,\nwhich are a better unity because Jesus Christ walks among them?\n\nThe heart of this promise, thus cast into the form of ancient\nexperiences, but with significant variations, is that of true communion\nwith God.\n\nThat communion makes those who have it glorious.\n\nThat communion supplies unfailing guidance.\n\nA man in close fellowship with God will have wonderful flashes of\nsagacity, even about small practical matters. The gleam of the pillar\nwill illumine conscience, and shine on many difficult, dark places. The\n'simplicity' of a saintly soul will often see deeper into puzzling\ncontingencies than the vulpine craftiness of the 'prudent.' The darker\nthe night, the brighter the guidance.\n\nThat communion gives a defence.\n\nThe pillar came between Egypt and Israel, and kept the foe off the\ntimid crowd of slaves. Whatever forms our enemies take, fellowship with\nGod will invest us with a defence as protean as our perils. The same\ncloud is represented in the context as being 'a pavilion for a shadow\nin the heat, and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from\nrain.'\n\n\n\n\nA PROPHET'S WOES\n\n'Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till\nthere be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the\nearth! 9. In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses\nshall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. 10. Yea,\nten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer\nshall yield an ephah. 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the\nmorning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night,\ntill wine inflame them! 12. And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and\npipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of\nthe Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands. 13. Therefore my\npeople are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and\ntheir honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with\nthirst. 14. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth\nwithout measure: and their glory and their multitude, and their pomp,\nand he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. 15. And the mean man\nshall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the\neyes of the lofty shall be humbled: 16. But the Lord of hosts shall be\nexalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in\nrighteousness. 17. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and\nthe waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. 18. Woe unto them\nthat draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart\nrope: 19. That say, Let Him make speed, and hasten His work, that we\nmay see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and\ncome, that we may know it! 20. Woe unto them that call evil good, and\ngood evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that\nput bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21. Woe unto them that are\nwise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22. Woe unto\nthem that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle\nstrong drink: 23. Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away\nthe righteousness of the righteous from him! 24. Therefore as the fire\ndevoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root\nshall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because\nthey have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word\nof the Holy One of Israel. 25. Therefore is the anger of the Lord\nkindled against His people, and He hath stretched forth His hand\nagainst them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and\ntheir carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this His\nanger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. 26. And\nHe will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto\nthem from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed\nswiftly: 17. None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall\nslumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed,\nnor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28. Whose arrows are sharp,\nand all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like\nflint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29. Their roaring shall be\nlike a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar,\nand lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall\ndeliver it. 30. And in that day they shall roar against them like the\nroaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and\nsorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.'--ISAIAH v.\n8-30.\n\n\nDrunkenness is, in this text, one of a ring of plague-spots on the body\npolitic of Judah. The prophet six times proclaims 'woe' as the\ninevitable end of these; such 'sickness' is 'unto death' unless\nrepentance and another course of conduct bring healing. But drunkenness\nappears twice in this grim catalogue, and the longest paragraph of\ndenunciation (vv, 11-17) is devoted to it. Its connection with the\nother vices attacked is loose, but it is worth noting that all these\nhave an inner kinship, and tend to appear together. They are 'all in a\nstring,' and where a community is cursed with one, the others will not\nbe far away. They are a knot of serpents intertwined. We touch but\nslightly on the other vices denounced by the prophet's burning words,\nbut we must premise the general observation that the same\nuncompromising plainness and boldness in speaking out as to social sins\nought to characterise Christian teachers to-day. The prophet's office\nis not extinct in the church.\n\nThe first plague-spot is the accumulation of wealth in few hands, and\nthe selfish withdrawal of its possessors from the life of the\ncommunity. In an agricultural society like that of Judah, that clotting\nof wealth took the shape of 'land-grabbing,' and of evicting the small\nproprietors. We see it in more virulent forms in our great commercial\ncentres, where the big men often become big by crushing out the little\nones, and denude themselves of responsibility to the community in\nproportion as they clothe themselves with wealth. Wherever wealth is\nthus congested, and its obligations ignored by selfish indulgence, the\nseeds are sown which will spring up one day in 'anarchism.' A man need\nnot be a prophet to have it whispered in his ear, as Isaiah had, that\nthe end of selfish capitalism is a convulsion in which 'many houses\nshall be desolate,' and many fields barren. England needs the warning\nas much as Isaiah's Judah did.\n\nSuch selfish wealth leads, among other curses, to indolence and\ndrunkenness, as the next woe shows. The people described make drinking\nthe business of their lives, beginning early and sitting late. They\nhave a varnish of art over their swinishness, and must have music as\nwell as wine. So, in many a drink-shop in England, a piano or a band\nadds to the attractions, and gives a false air of aestheticism to pure\nanimalism. Isaiah feels the incongruity that music should be so\nprostituted, and expresses it by adding to his list of musical\ninstruments 'and wine' as if he would underscore the degradation of the\ngreat art to be the cupbearer of sots. Such revellers are blind to the\nmanifest tokens of God's working, and the 'operation of His hands'\nexcites only the tipsy gaze which sees nothing. That is one of the\ncurses which dog the drunkard-that he takes no warning from the plain\nresults of his vice as seen in others. He knows that it means shattered\nhealth, ruined prospects, broken hearts, but nothing rouses him from\nhis fancy of impunity. High, serious thoughts of God and His government\nof the world and of each life are strange to him. His sin compels him\nto be godless, if he is not to go mad. But sometimes he wakes to a\nmoment's sight of realities, and then he is miserable till his next\nbout buys fatal forgetfulness.\n\nThe prophet forces the end of a drunken nation on the unwilling\nattention of the roisterers, in verses 13-17, which throb with\nvehemence of warning and gloomy eloquence. What can such a people come\nto but destruction? Knowledge must languish, hunger and thirst must\nfollow. Like some monster's gaping mouth, the pit yawns for them; and,\ndrawn as by irresistible attraction, the pomp and the wicked, senseless\njollity elide down into it. In the universal catastrophe, one thing\nalone stands upright, and is lifted higher, because all else has sunk\nso far,-the righteous judgment of the forgotten God. The grim picture\nis as true for individuals and their deaths as for a nation and its\ndecay. And modern nations cannot afford to have this ulcer of\ndrunkenness draining away their strength any more than Judah could. 'By\nthe soul only are the nations great and free,' and a people can be\nneither where the drink fiend has his way.\n\nThree woes follow which are closely connected. That pronounced on\ndaring evil-doers, who not only let sin draw them to itself, but go\nmore than halfway to meet it, needing no temptation, but drawing it to\nthem eagerly, and scoffing at the merciful warnings of fatal\nconsequences, comes first. Next is a woe on those who play fast and\nloose with plain morality, sophisticating conscience, and sapping the\nfoundations of law. Such juggling follows sensual indulgence such as\ndrunkenness, when it becomes habitual and audacious, as in the\npreceding woe. Loose or perverted codes of morality generally spring\nfrom bad living, seeking to shelter itself. Vicious principles are an\nafterthought to screen vicious practices. The last subject of the\ntriple woes is self-conceit and pretence to superior illumination. Such\nvery superior persons are emancipated from the rules which bind the\ncommon herd. They are so very clever that they have far outgrown the\ncreeping moralities, which may do for old women and children. Do we not\nknow the sort of people? Have we none of them surviving to-day?\n\nThen Isaiah comes back to his theme of drunkenness, but in a new\nconnection. It poisons the fountain of justice. There is a world of\nindignant contempt in the prophet's scathing picture of those who are\n'mighty' and 'men of strength,'-but how is their strength shown? They\ncan stand any quantity of wine, and can 'mix their drinks,' and yet\nlook sober! What a noble use to put a good constitution to! These\nvaliant topers are in authority as judges, and they sell their\njudgments to get money for their debauches. We do not see much of such\nscandals among us, but yet we have heard of leagues between\nliquor-sellers and municipal authorities, which certainly do _not_\n'make for righteousness.' When shall we learn and practise the lesson\nthat Isaiah was reading his countrymen,--that it is fatal to a nation\nwhen the private character of public men is regarded as of no account\nin political and civic life? The prophet had no doubt as to what must\nbe the end of a state of things in which the very courts of law were\nhoneycombed with corruption, and demoralised by the power of drink. His\ntremendous image of a fierce fire raging across a dry prairie, and\nburning the grass to its very roots, while the air is stifling with the\nthick 'dust' of the conflagration, proclaims the sure fate, sooner or\nlater, of every community and individual that 'rejects the law of the\nLord of Hosts, and despises the word of the Holy One of Israel.' Change\nthe name, and the tale is told of us; for it is 'righteousness that\nexalteth a nation,' and no single vice drags after it more infallibly\nsuch a multitude of attendant demons as the vice of drunkenness, which\nis a crying sin of England to-day.\n\n\n\n\nVISION AND SERVICE\n\n'In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a\nthrone, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 2. Above\nit stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered\nhis face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did\nfly. 3. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the\nLord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. 4. And the posts\nof the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was\nfilled with smoke. 5. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because\nI am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of\nunclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. 6.\nThen flew one of the seraphims onto me, having a live coal in his hand,\nwhich he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7. And he laid it\nupon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine\niniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8. Also I heard the voice\nof the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then\nsaid I, Here am I; send me. 9. And he said, Go, and tell this people,\nHear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive\nnot. 10. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy,\nand shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their\nears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11.\nThen said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be\nwasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be\nutterly desolate, 12. And the Lord have removed men far away, and there\nbe a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13. But yet in it shall\nbe a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a tell tree,\nand as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves:\nso the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.'--ISAIAH vi. 1-13.\n\n\nWE may deal with this text as falling into three parts: the vision, its\neffect on the prophet, and his commission.\n\nI. The Vision.--'In the year that King Uzziah died' is more than a date\nfor chronological accuracy. It tells not only when, but why, the vision\nwas given. The throne of David was empty.\n\nGod never empties places in our homes and hearts, or in the nation or\nthe Church, without being ready to fill them. He sometimes empties them\nthat He may fill them. Sorrow and loss are meant to prepare us for the\nvision of God, and their effect should be to purge the inward eye, that\nit may see Him. When the leaves drop from the forest trees we can see\nthe blue sky which their dense abundance hid. Well for us if the\npassing of all that can pass drives us to Him who cannot pass, if the\nunchanging God stands out more clear, more near, more dear, because of\nchange.\n\nAs to the substance of this vision, we need not discuss whether, if we\nhad been there, we should have seen anything. It was doubtless related\nto Isaiah's thoughts, for God does not send visions which have no point\nof contact in the recipient. However communicated, it was a divine\ncommunication, and a temporary unveiling of an eternal reality. The\nform was transient, but Isaiah then saw for a moment 'the things which\nare' and always are.\n\nThe essential point of the vision is the revelation of Jehovah as king\nof Judah. That relation guaranteed defence and demanded obedience. It\nwas a sure basis of hope, but also a stringent motive to loyalty, and\nit had its side of terror as well as of joyfulness. 'You only have I\nknown of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for\nall your iniquities.' The place of vision is the heavenly sanctuary of\nwhich the temple was a prophecy. Eminently significant and\ncharacteristic of the whole genius of the Old Testament is the absence\nof any description of the divine appearance. The prophet saw things\n'which it is not lawful for a man to utter,' and his silence is not\nonly reverent, but more eloquent than any attempt to put the Ineffable\ninto words. Even in this act of manifestation God was veiled, and\n'_there_ was the hiding of His power.' The train of His robe can be\nspoken of, but not the form which it concealed even in revealing it.\nNature is the robe of God. It hides while it discloses, and discloses\nwhile it hides.\n\nThe hovering seraphim were in the attitude of service. They are\nprobably represented as fiery forms, but are spoken of nowhere else in\nScripture. The significance of their attitude has been well given by\nJewish commentators, who say, 'with two he covered his face that he\nmight not see, and with two he covered his body that he might not be\nseen' and we may add, 'with two he stood ready for service, by flight\nwhithersoever the King would send.' Such awe-stricken reverence, such\nhumble hiding of self, such alacrity for swift obedience, such flaming\nardours of love and devotion, should be ours. Their song celebrated the\nholiness and the glory of Jehovah of hosts. We must ever remember that\nthe root-meaning of 'holiness' is separation, and that the popular\nmeaning of moral purity is secondary and derivative. What is\nrapturously sung in the threefold invocation of the seraphs is the\ninfinite exaltation of Jehovah above all creatural conditions,\nlimitations, and, we may add, conceptions. That separation, of course,\nincludes purity, as may be seen from the immediate effect of the vision\non the prophet, but the conception is much wider than that. Very\nbeautifully does the second line of the song re-knit the connection\nbetween Jehovah and this world, so far beneath Him, which the burst of\npraise of His holiness seems to sever. The high heaven is a bending\narch; its inaccessible heights ray down sunshine and drop down rain,\nand, as in the physical world, every plant grows by Heaven's gift, so\nin the world of humanity all wisdom, goodness, and joy are from the\nFather of lights. God's 'glory' is the flashing lustre of His\nmanifested holiness, which fills the earth as the train of the robe\nfilled the temple. The vibrations of that mighty hymn shook the\n'foundations of the threshold' (Rev. Ver.) with its thunderous\nharmonies. 'The house was filled with smoke' which, since it was an\neffect of the seraph's praise, is best explained as referring to the\nfragrant smoke of incense which, as we know, symbolised 'the prayers of\nsaints.'\n\nII. The effect of the vision on the prophet.--The vision kindled as\nwith a flash Isaiah's consciousness of sin. He expressed it in regard\nto his words rather than his works, partly because in one aspect speech\nis even more accurately than act a cast, as it were, of character, and\npartly because he could not but feel the difference between the mighty\nmusic that burst from these pure and burning lips and the words that\nflowed from and soiled his own. Not only the consciousness of sin, but\nthe dread of personal evil consequences from the vision of the holy\nGod, oppressed his heart. We see ourselves when we see God. Once flash\non a heart the thought of God's holiness, and, like an electric\nsearch-light, it discloses flaws which pass unnoticed in dimmer light.\nThe easy-going Christianity, which is the apology for religion with so\nmany of us, has no deep sense of sin, because it has no clear vision of\nGod. 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye\nseeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.'\n\nThe next stage in Isaiah's experience is that sin recognised and\nconfessed is burned away. Cleansing rather than forgiveness is here\nemphasised. The latter is, of course, included, but the main point is\nthe removal of impurity. It is mediated by one of the seraphim, who is\nthe messenger of God, which is just a symbolical way of saying that God\nmakes penitents 'partakers of His holiness,' and that nothing less than\na divine communication will make cleansing possible. It is effected by\na live coal. Fire is purifying, and the New Testament has taught us\nthat the true cleansing fire is that of the Holy Spirit. But that live\ncoal was taken from the altar. The atoning sacrifice has been offered\nthere, and our cleansing depends on the efficacy of that sacrifice\nbeing applied to us.\n\nThe third stage in the prophet's experience is the readiness for\nservice which springs up in his purged heart. God seeks for volunteers.\nThere are no pressed men in His army. The previous experiences made\nIsaiah quick to hear God's call, and willing to respond to it by\npersonal consecration. Take the motive-power of redemption from sin out\nof Christianity, and you break its mainspring, so that the clock will\nonly tick when it is shaken. It is the Christ who died for our sins to\nwhom men say, 'Command what Thou wilt, and I obey.'\n\nIII. The prophet's commission.--He was not sent on his work with any\nillusions as to its success, but, on the contrary, he had a clear\npremonition that its effect would be to deepen the spiritual deafness\nand blindness of the nation. We must remember that in Scripture the\ncertain effect of divine acts is uniformly regarded as a divine design.\nIsrael was so sunk in spiritual deadness that the issue of the\nprophet's work would only be to immerse the mass of 'this people'\nfarther in it. To some more susceptible souls his message would be a\ntrue divine voice, rousing them like a trumpet, and that effect was\nwhat God desired; but to the greater number it would deepen their\ntorpor and increase their condemnation. If men love darkness rather\nthan light, the coming of the light works only judgment.\n\nIsaiah recoils from the dreary prospect, and feels that this dreadful\nhardening cannot be God's ultimate purpose for the nation. So he humbly\nand wistfully asks how long it is to last. The answer is twofold, heavy\nwith a weight of apparently utter ruin in its first part, but\ndisclosing a faint, far-off gleam of hope on its second. Complete\ndestruction, and the casting of Israel out from the land, are to come.\nBut as, though a goodly tree is felled, a stump remains which has vital\nforce (or _substance_) in it, so, even in the utmost apparent\ndesperateness of Israel's state, there will be in it 'the holy seed,'\nthe 'remnant,' the true Israel, from which again the life shall spring,\nand stem and branches and waving foliage once more grow up.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EMPTY THRONE FILLED\n\n'In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a\nthrone, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.'--ISAIAH\nvi. 1.\n\n\nUzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of\nwhich he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in\nwar, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later\nyears of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a\ntime of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of\nfive-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were\ngathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder\nthat the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself\nwhat was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands,\nwhich, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he\ntook his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he\nbrooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. 'In the\nyear that King Uzziah died' is a great deal more than a date for\nchronological purposes. It tells us not only the _when_, but the _why_,\nof the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet\nsaw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the\nyoung Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and\nforebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new\nstrength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious\nthoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart,\nand the resolve 'Here am I; send me.' There are some lessons that seem\nto me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may\nbe gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of\ntime that is appended to it.\n\nNow, before I pass on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently\naudacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John\ngives us: 'These things said Esaias, when he had beheld _His_ glory and\nspake of _Him_.' Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King\nof Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the\nrevelation of an eternal reality, and 'the vision splendid' does not\n'fade but brightens, into the light of common day'; when instead of\nbeing flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and\nwalks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have\nseen the King in as true a reality, and in better fashion, than ever\nIsaiah did amid the sanctities of the Temple. And the eyes that have\nseen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of\nmen, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm,\nsilent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand\nout, and the veil is drawn aside?\n\nI. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow\nin preparing for the vision.\n\nIt was when 'King Uzziah died' that the prophet 'saw the Lord sitting\nupon the throne.' If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would\nnot have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our\nlosses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all\nour pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God. The\npossession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which\nour sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest\npurpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every\ngladness, of all love--the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But,\njust as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the\nsight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things\nwhich are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, God, we frost and\ndarken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us.\nAnd then a mighty and merciful hand shivers the painted glass into\nfragments, because it has been dimming 'the white radiance of\nEternity.' And though the casement may look gaunt, and the edges of the\nbroken glass may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the\ngifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that\nthey too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider\nprospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the\nblue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props\nare struck away we can lean our whole weight upon God. When Uzziah dies\nthe King becomes visible.\n\nIs that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us?\nWell for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession\nof the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the passing of all that\ncan pass is a means of revealing Him who 'is the same yesterday, and\nto-day, and for ever'! The message to us of all these our pains and\ngriefs is 'Come up hither.' In them all our Father is saying to us,\n'Seek ye My face.' Well for those who answer, 'Thy face, Lord, will I\nseek. Hide not Thy face far from me.'\n\nLet us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They\nabsorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us\nsometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of\nactivity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But\ntheir true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us\n'the things that are,' the realities of the throned God, the skirts\nthat fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the\naltar that purges.\n\nII. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given\nfor all losses.\n\nAs I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by\nthis vision was not only the general one, of God's sovereign rule, but\nthe special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the\norphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special\nshape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was\ndead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.\n\nSo there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the\nconsciousness of God's presence and work for us takes in each heart the\nprecise shape that its momentary necessities and circumstances require.\nThat infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will assume any\nform for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature\ncall. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think\nunderlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether\nthey be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or\ngravitation, the one same vision of the throned God, manifest in Jesus\nChrist, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there\nflashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together,\nthere as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in\nmotion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one God will\nbecome everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires.\nHe shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not\ndisdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is\npoured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to\neach man as each man desired. And the God, who comes to us all, comes\nto us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the\nmanifestation of His _kingly_ power, because the throne of Judah was\nvacated.\n\nSo when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation\nof the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, 'The same is my\nmother and sister and brother,' and His sweet love compensates for the\nlove that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws\nnear, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our\nanodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all,\nand each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each\nin Him.\n\nSo, dear friends, let us learn God's purpose in emptying hearts and\nchairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself.\nHe takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the\nsouth are to-day passing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may\nbring us out into the land where 'God Himself is sun and moon,' and\nwhere there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these\nlands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall\nsee the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all\nfrom whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old\nword is true: 'Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'\n\nLet me recall to you what I have already insisted on more than once,\nthat the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the\nIncarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us God. Jesus Christ is the King of\nGlory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then\nlosses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our\nhands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand\nthat is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will\nmore than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes\nbehold the King, if we are like John the Seer in his rocky Patmos, and\nsee the Christ in His glory and royalty, then He will lay His hands on\nus and say, 'Fear not! Weep not; I am the First and the Last,' and\nforebodings, and fears, and sense of loss will all be changed into\ntrustfulness and patient submission. 'Seeing Him, who is invisible,' we\nshall be able to endure and to toil, until the time when the vision of\nearth is perfected by the beholding of heaven. Blessed are they who\nwith purged eyes see, and with yielding hearts obey, the heavenly\nvision, and turn to the King and offer themselves for any service He\nmay require, saying, 'Here am I; send me.'\n\n\n\n\nA SERAPH'S WINGS\n\n'With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet,\nand with twain he did fly.'--ISAIAH vi. 2.\n\n\nThis is the only mention in Scripture of the seraphim. I do not need to\nenter upon the much-debated, and in some respects interesting, question\nas to whether these are to be taken as identical with the cherubim, or\nas to whether they are altogether imaginary and symbolical beings, nor\nas to whether they are identical with the angels, or part of their\nhierarchy. All that may be left on one side. I would only notice,\nbefore I deal with the specific words of my text, the significance of\nthe name. It means 'the flaming' or 'burning ones,' and so the\nattendants of the divine glory in the heavens, whether they be real or\nimaginary beings, are represented as flashing with splendour, as full\nof swift energy, like a flame of fire, as glowing with fervid love, as\nblazing with enthusiasm. That is the type of the highest creatural\nbeing, which stands closest to God. There is no ice in His presence,\nand the nearer we get to Him in truth, the more we shall glow and burn.\nCold religion is a contradiction in terms, though, alas, it is a\nreality in professors.\n\nAnd so with that explanation, and putting aside all these other\nquestions, let us gather up some, at least, of the lessons as to the\nessentials of worship, and try to grasp the prophecy of the heavenly\nstate, given us in these words.\n\n\nI. The Wings of Reverence.\n\nHe covered his face, or _they_ covered _their_ faces, lest they should\nsee. As a man brought suddenly into the sunlight, especially if out of\na darkened chamber, by an instinctive action shades his eyes with his\nhand, so these burning creatures, confronted with the still more fervid\nand fiery light of the divine nature, fold one pair of their great\nwhite pinions over their shining faces, even whilst they cry 'Holy!\nHoly! Holy! is the Lord God Almighty!'\n\nAnd does not that teach us the incapacity of the highest creature, with\nthe purest vision, to gaze undazzled into the shining light of God? I,\nfor my part, do not believe that any conceivable extension of creatural\nfaculties, or any conceivable hallowing of creatural natures, can make\nthe creature able to gaze upon God. I know that it is often said that\nthe joy of the future life for men is what the theologians call 'the\nbeatific vision,' in which there shall be direct sight of God, using\nthat word in its highest sense, as applied to the perceptions of the\nspirit, and not of the sense. But I do not think the Bible teaches us\nthat. It does teach us 'We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as\nHe is.' But who is the 'Him'? Jesus Christ. And, in my belief, Jesus\nChrist will, to all eternity, be the medium of manifesting God, and\nthere will remain, to all eternity, the incapacity which clogs\ncreatures in time--' No man hath seen God at any time, nor _can_ see\nHim.'\n\nBut my text, whilst it thus suggests solemn thoughts of a Light that\ncannot be looked at with undazzled eyes, does also suggest to us by\ncontrast the possibility of far feebler-sighted and more sinful\ncreatures than these symbolical seraphs coming into a Presence in which\nGod shall be manifest to them; and they will need no veil drawn by\nthemselves across their eyes. God has veiled Himself, that 'we, with\nunveiled faces, beholding His glory, may be changed into the same\nimage.' So the seraph, with his white wings folded before his eyes, may\nat once stand to us as a parallel and a contrast to what the Christian\nmay expect. We, _we_ can see Jesus, with no incapacity except such as\nmay be swept away by His grace and our will. And direct vision of the\nwhole Christ is the heaven of heaven, even as the partial vision of the\npartially perceived Christ is the sweetest sweetness of a life on earth.\n\nThere is no need for us to draw any screen between our happy eyes and\nthe Face in which we 'behold the glory as of the only Begotten of the\nFather.' All the tempering that the divine lustre needed has been done\nby Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christ's flesh, and therein\ndoes away the need for any veil that we can draw.\n\nBut, beyond that, there is another consideration that I should like to\nsuggest, as taught us by the use of this first pair of the six wings,\nand that is the absolute need for the lowliest reverence in our worship\nof God. It is strange, but true, I am afraid, that the Christian danger\nis to weaken the sense of the majesty and splendour and separation of\nGod from His creatures. And all that is good in the Christian\nrevelation may be so abused as that there shall come, what I am sure\ndoes in effect sometimes come, a terrible lack of due reverence in our\nso-called worship. What does that lofty chorus of 'Holy! Holy! Holy!'\nthat burst from those immortal lips mean but the declaration that God\nis high above, and separate from, all limitations and imperfections of\ncreatures? And we Christians, who hear it re-echoed in the very last\nBook of Scripture by the four-and-twenty elders who represent redeemed\nhumanity, have need to take heed that we do not lose our reverence in\nour confidence, and that we do not part with godly fear in our filial\nlove. If one looks at a congregation of professing Christians engaged\nin their worship, does not one feel and see that there is often a\ncarelessness and shallowness, a want of realisation of the majesty and\nsanctity and tremendousness of that Father to whom we draw near?\nBrethren, if a seraph hides his face, surely it becomes us to see to it\nthat, since we worship a God who is a consuming fire,' we serve Him\nwith far deeper 'reverence and godly fear' than ordinarily mark our\ndevotions.\n\n\nII. The Wings of Humility.\n\n'With twain he covered his feet.' The less comely and inferior parts of\nthat fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes\nthat see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraph's\nfeet from the eye of God, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of\nunworthiness that folded them across the feet, even though they, too,\nburned as a furnace. The nearer we get to God, the more we shall be\naware of our limitations and unworthiness, and it is because that\nvision of the Lord sitting on 'His throne, high and lifted up,' with\nthe thrilling sense of His glory filling the holy temple of the\nuniverse, does not burn before us that we can conceit ourselves to have\nanything worth pluming ourselves upon. Once lift the curtain, once let\nmy eye be flooded with the sight of God, and away goes all my\nself-conceit, and all my fancied superiority above others. One little\nmolehill is pretty nearly the same height as another, if you measure\nthem both against the top of the Himalayas, that lie in the background,\nwith their glittering peaks of snow. 'Star differeth from star in\nglory' in a winter's night, but when the great sun swims into the sky,\nthey all vanish together. If you and I saw God burning before us, as\nIsaiah saw Him, we should veil ourselves, and lose all that which so\noften veils Him from us--the fancy that we are anything when we are\nnothing. And the nearer we get to God, and the purer we are, the more\nshall we be keenly conscious of our imperfections and our sins. 'If I\nsay I am perfect,' said Job in his wise way, 'this also should prove me\nperverse.' Consciousness of sin is the continual accompaniment of\ngrowth in holiness. 'The heavens are not pure in His sight, and He\nchargeth His angels with folly.' Everything looks black beside that\nsovereign whiteness. Get God into your lives, and you will see that the\nfeet need to be washed, and you will cry, 'Lord! not my feet only, but\nmy hands and my head!'\n\n\nIII. Lastly-The Wings for Service.\n\n'With twain he did fly.' That is the emblem of joyous, buoyant,\nunhindered motion. It is strongly, sadly contrary to the toilsome\nlimitations of us heavy creatures who have no wings, but can at best\nrun on His service, and often find it hard to 'walk with patience in\nthe way that is set before us.' But--service with wings, or service\nwith lame feet, it matters not. Whosoever, beholding God, has found\nneed to hide his face from that Light even whilst he comes into the\nLight, and to veil his feet from the all-seeing Eye, will also feel\nimpulses to go forth in His service. For the perfection of worship is\nneither the consciousness of my own insufficiency, nor the humble\nrecognition of His glory, nor the great voice of praise that thrilled\nfrom those immortal lips, but it is the doing of His will in daily\nlife. Some people say the service of man is the service of God. Yes,\nwhen it is service of man, done for God's sake, it is so, and only\nthen. The old motto, 'Work is worship,' may preach a great truth or a\nmost dangerous error. But there is no possibility of error or danger in\nmaintaining this: that the climax and crown of all worship, whether for\nus footsore servants upon earth, or for these winged attendants on the\nthrone of the King in the heavens, is activity in obedience. And that\nis what is set before us here.\n\nNow, dear brethren, we, as Christians, have a far higher motive for\nservice than the seraphs had. We have been redeemed, and the spirit of\nthe old Psalm should animate all our obedience: 'O Lord, truly I am Thy\nservant.' Why? The next clause tells us: 'Thou hast loosed my bonds.'\nThe seraphs could not say that, and therefore our obedience, our\nactivity in doing the will of the Father in heaven, should be more\nbuoyant, more joyful, more swift, more unrestricted than even theirs.\n\nThe seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the\nthrone and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the Temple.\nMay we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes\nof worship which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we\nshould aim at harmonising even on earth? 'His servants serve Him and\nsee His face.' There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the\nperfection of that heavenly state in which no worship in service shall\ninterfere with the worship in contemplation. Mary, sitting at Christ's\nfeet, and Martha, busy in providing for His comfort, may be, to a large\nextent, united in us even here, and will be perfectly so hereafter,\nwhen the practical and the contemplative, the worship of noble\naspiration, of heart-filling gazing, and that of active service shall\nbe indissolubly blended.\n\nThe seraphs sang 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' but they, and all the hosts of\nheaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men\nare the chorus-leaders of the perfected and eternal worship of the\nheavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin\nthe song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that\nthe living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can\nbut say 'Amen!'\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAKING OF A PROPHET\n\n'Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean\nlips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine\neyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'--ISAIAH vi. 5.\n\n\nIn previous pages we have seen how Isaiah's vision of Jehovah throned\nin the Temple, 'high and lifted up,' derived significance from the time\nof its occurrence. It was 'in the year that' the earthly King 'died'\nthat the heavenly King was revealed. The passing of the transient\nprepared the way for the revelation of the Eternal, and the revelation\nof the Eternal more than compensated for the passing of the transient.\nBut strengthening and calming as these thoughts are, they by no means\nexhaust the purpose of the vision, nor do they describe all its effects\non the recipient. These were, first and immediately, the consciousness\nof unworthiness and sin, expressed in the words that I have taken for\nmy text. Then came the touch of the 'live coal from the altar,' laid on\nthe unclean lips by the seraph; and on that followed willing surrender\nfor a perilous service.\n\nThese three stages flowing from the vision of God, recognition of sin,\nexperience of purging, abandonment to obedience and service, must be\nrepeated in us all, if we are to live worthy lives. There may be much\nthat is beautiful and elevating and noble without these; but unless in\nsome measure we pass through the prophet's experience, we shall fail to\nreach the highest possibilities of beauty and of service that open\nbefore us. So I wish to consider, very simply, these three stages in my\nremarks now.\n\nI. If we see _God_ we shall see our _sin_.\n\nThere came on the prophet, as in a flash, the two convictions, one\nwhich he learned from the song of the seraphs, ringing in music through\nthe Temple, and one which rose up, like an answering note from the\nvoice of conscience within. They sang 'Holy! holy! holy! Lord God\nAlmighty.' And what was the response to that, in the prophet's\nheart?--'I am unclean.' Each major note has a corresponding minor, and\nthe triumphant doxology of the seraph wakes in the hearer's conscience\nthe lowly confession of personal unlikeness to the holiness of God. It\nwas not joy that sprang in Isaiah's heart when he saw the throned King,\nand heard the proclamation of His name. It was not reverence merely\nthat bowed his head in the dust, but it was the awakened consciousness,\n'Thou art holy; and now that I understand, in some measure, what Thy\nholiness means, I look on myself and I say, \"unclean! unclean!\"'\n\nThe prophet's confession assumes a form which may strike us as somewhat\nsingular. Why is it that he speaks of 'unclean lips,' rather than of an\nunclean heart? I suppose partly because, in a very deep sense, a man's\nwords are more accurately a cast, as it were, from a man's character\nthan even his actions, and partly because the immediate occasion of his\nconfession was the words of the seraphim, and he could not but contrast\nwhat came burning from their pure lips with what had trickled from, and\nsoiled, his own.\n\nBut, however expressed, the consciousness of personal unlikeness to the\nholiness of God is the first result, and the instantaneous result, of\nany real apprehension of that holiness, and of any true vision of Him.\nLike some search-light flung from a ship over the darkling waters,\nrevealing the dark doings of the enemy away out yonder in the night,\nthe thought of God and His holiness streaming in upon a man's soul, if\nit does so in any adequate measure, is sure to disclose the heaving\nwaters and the skulking foes that are busy in the dark.\n\nBut it was not only the consciousness of sinfulness and antagonism that\nwoke up instantaneously in response to that vision of the holy God. It\nwas likewise a shrinking apprehension of personal evil from contact of\nGod's light with Isaiah's darkness. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of\nthe Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.' What is to\nbecome, then, of the man that has neither the one nor the other? The\nexperience of all the world witnesses that whenever there comes, in\nreality, or in a man's conceptions or fancy, the contact of the\nsupernatural, as it is called, with the natural, there is a shrinking,\na sense of eerieness, an apprehension of vague possibilities of evil.\nThe sleeping snake that is coiled in every soul stirs and begins to\nheave in its bulk, and wake, when the thought of a holy God comes into\nthe heart. Now, I do not suppose that consciousness of sin is the whole\nexplanation of that universal human feeling, but I am very sure it is\nan element in it, and I suspect that if there were no sin, there would\nbe no shrinking.\n\nAt all events, be that as it may, these are the two thoughts that,\ninvoluntarily and spontaneously and immediately, sprang in this man's\nheart when his purged eyes saw the King on His throne. He did not leap\nup with gladness at the vision. Its consolatory and its strengthening\naspects were not the first that impinged upon his eye, or upon his\nconsciousness, but the first thing was an instinctive recoil, 'Woe is\nme; I am undone.' Now, brethren, I venture to think that one main\ndifference between shallow religion and real is to be found here, that\nthe dim, far-off vision, if we may venture to call it so, which serves\nthe most of us for a sight of God, leaves us quite complacent, and with\nvery slight and superficial conceptions of our own evil, and that if\nonce we saw, in so far as it is possible for humanity to-day to see,\nGod as He is, and heard in the depths of our hearts that 'Holy! holy!\nholy!' from the burning seraphim, the easy-going, self-satisfied\njudgment of ourselves which too many of us cherish would be utterly\nimpossible; and would disappear, shrivelled up utterly in the light of\nGod. 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,' said Job, 'but\nnow mine eye seeth Thee; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust\nand ashes.' A hearsay God and a self-complacent beholder--a God really\nseen, and a man down in the dust before Him! Has that vision ever\nblazed in on you? And if it has, has not the light shown you the\nseaminess of much in which a dimmer light detects no flaws or stains?\nThank God if, having seen Him, you see yourselves. If you have not\nfelt, 'I am unclean and undone,' depend upon it, your knowledge of God\nis faint and dim, and He is rather One heard of from the lips of others\nthan realised in your own experience.\n\nII. Again, note the second stage here, in the education of a soul for\nservice--the sin, recognised and repented, is burned away.\n\n'Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand,\nwhich he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it\nupon my mouth, and said, Lo! this hath touched thy lips; and thine\niniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.'\n\nNow, I would notice as to this stage of the process, first, that Isaiah\nsingularly passes beyond all the old ritual in which he had been\nbrought up, and recognises another kind of cleansing than that which it\nembodied. He had got beyond the ritual to what the ritual meant. We\nhave passed beyond the ritual, too, by another process; and, though I\nwould by no means read full, plain, articulate Christian thought into\nthe vision of Isaiah--which would be an anachronism, and unfaithful to\nthe gradual historical development of the idea and means of\nredemption--yet I cannot help pointing to the fact that, even although\nthis vision is located as seen in the Temple, there is not a single\nreference (except that passing allusion to the altar) to the ritual of\nthe Temple, but the cleansing comes in another fashion altogether.\n\nBut far more important than that thought is the human condition that is\nrequired ere this cleansing can be realised. 'I am a man of unclean\nlips.' 'I am undone!' It was because that conviction and confession\nsprang in the prophet's consciousness that the seraph winged his way\nwith the purifying fire in his hands. Which being translated is just\nthis: faith alone will not bring cleansing. There must go with it what\nwe call, in our Christian phraseology, repentance, which is but the\nrecognition of my own antagonism to the holiness of God, and the\nresolve to turn my back on my own past self. Now, it seems to me that a\ngreat deal of what is called, and in a sense is, Evangelical teaching,\nfails to represent the full counsel of God, in the matter of man's\nredemption, because it puts a one-sided emphasis on faith, and slurs\nover the accompanying idea of repentance. And I am here to say that a\ntrust in Jesus Christ, which is unaccompanied by a profound penitent\nconsciousness and abhorrence of one's own sins, and a resolve to turn\naway from them for the time to come, is not a faith which will bring\neither pardon or cleansing. We do not need to have less said about\ntrust; we need to have a great deal more said about repentance. You\nhave to learn what it is to say, 'I abhor myself'; you have to learn\nwhat it is to say, 'I will turn right round, and leave all that past\nbehind me; and go in the opposite direction'; or the faith which you\nsay you are exercising will neither save nor cleanse your souls nor\nyour lives.\n\nAgain, note that we have here set forth most strikingly the other great\ntruth that, side by side, and as closely synchronous as the flash and\nthe peal, as soon as the consciousness of sin and the aversion from it\nspring in a man's heart, the seraph's wings are set in motion. Remember\nthat beautiful old story in the historical books, of how the erring\nking, brought to sanity and repentance by Nathan's apologue, put all\nhis acknowledgments in these words, 'I have sinned against the Lord';\nand how the confession was not out of his lips, nor had died in its\nvibration in the atmosphere, before the prophet, with divine authority,\nreplied with equal brevity and completeness, and as if the two sayings\nwere parts of one sentence, '_And_ the Lord hath made to pass the\niniquity of thy sin.' That is all. Simultaneous are the two things. To\nconfess is to be forgiven, and the moment that the consciousness of sin\nrises in the heart, that moment does the heavenly messenger come to\nstill and soothe.\n\nStill further, notice how the cleansing comes as a divine gift. It is\npurifying, much more than pardon, that is set forth in the symbolical\nincident before us. The seraph is the divine messenger, and he brings a\ncoal from the altar, and lays that upon the prophet's lips, which is\nbut the symbolical way of saying that the man who is conscious of his\nown evil will find in himself a blessed despair of being his own\nhealer, and that he has to turn to the divine source, the vision of\nwhich has kindled the consciousness, to find there that which will take\naway the evil. The Lord is 'He that healeth us.'\n\nBut, further, the cleansing is by fire. By which, as I suppose, in the\npresent context, and at Isaiah's stage of religious knowledge and\nexperience, we are to understand that great thought that God burns away\nour sins, as you put a piece of foul clay into the fire, and the stain\nmelts from the surface like a dissipating cloud as the heat finds its\nway into the substance. 'He will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with\nfire'--a fire that quickens. A new impulse will be granted, which will\nbecome the life of the sinful man's life, and will emancipate him from\nthe power of his own darkness and evil.\n\nNow, let us remember that _we_ have the fulness of all that was\nshadowed to the prophet in this vision, and that the reality of every\none of these emblems is gathered together--if I may so say--not with\nconfusion, but with abundance and opulence in Jesus Christ Himself. Is\nHe not the seraph? Is He not Himself the burning coal? Is He not the\naltar from which it is taken? All that is needed to make the foulest\nclean is given in Christ's great work. Brethren, we shall never\nunderstand the deepest secret of Christ and of Christianity until we\nlearn and hold fast by the conviction that the central work of Jesus is\nto deal with man's sin; and that whatever else Christianity is, it is\nfirst and foremost God's way of redeeming the world, and making it\npossible for the unholy to dwell with His holy self.\n\nIII. Lastly, and only a word, the third stage here is--the purged\nspirit is ready for service.\n\nGod did not bid the prophet go on His mission till the prophet had\nvoluntarily accepted the mission. He said, 'Who will go for us?' He\nwants no pressed men in His army. He does not work with reluctant\nservants. There is, first, the yielding of the will, and then there is\nthe enduement with the privilege of service. The prophet, having passed\nthrough the preceding experiences, had thereby received a quick ear to\nhear God's calling for volunteers. And we shall not hear Him asking\n'Who will go?' unless we have, in our measure, passed through similar\nexperiences. It will be a test of having done so, of our having been\npurged from our evil, if, when other people think that it is only Eli\nspeaking, we know that it is the Lord that has called us, and say,\n'Here am I.'\n\nFor such experiences as I have been describing do influence the will,\nand mould the heart, and make it a delight to do God's commandments,\nand to execute His purpose, and to be the ministers of His great Word.\nSome of us are willing to say that we have learned God's holiness; that\nwe have seen and confessed our sins; that we have received pardon and\ncleansing. Have these experiences made you ready for any service? Have\nthey made your will flexible--made you dethrone yourself, and enthrone\nthe King whom the prophet saw? If they have, they are genuine; if they\nhave not, they are not. Submission of will; glorying in being the\ninstrument of the divine purpose; ears sharpened to catch His lowest\nwhisper; eyes that, like those of a dog fixed on his master, watch for\nthe faintest indication from his guiding eye--these are the infallible\ntests and signs of having had lips and heart touched with the live coal\nthat burns away our uncleanness.\n\nSo, friends, would that I could flash upon every conscience that\nvision! But you can do so for yourselves. Let me beseech you to bring\nyourselves honestly into that solemn light of the character of God, and\nto ask yourselves, 'How can two walk together except they be agreed?'\nDo not put away such thoughts with any shallow, easy-going talk about\nhow God is good and will not be hard upon a poor fellow that has tried\nto do his best. God is good; God is love. But divine goodness and love\ncannot find a way by which the unclean shall dwell with the clean. What\nthen? This then--Jesus Christ has come. We may be made clean if we\ntrust in Him, and forsake our sins. He will touch the heart and lips\nwith the fire of His own Spirit, and then it will be possible to dwell\nwith the everlasting burnings of that flaming fire which is a holy God.\nBlessed are they that have seen the vision; blessed they that have felt\nit disclosing their own sins; blessed they whose hearts have been\npurged. Blessed most of all they who, educated and trained through\nthese experiences, have taken this as the motto of their lives, 'Here\nam I; send me.'\n\n\n\n\nSHILOAH AND EUPHRATES\n\nForasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly\n... the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and\nmany.' ISAIAH viii. 6, 7.\n\n\nThe kingdom of Judah was threatened with a great danger in an alliance\nbetween Israel and Damascus. The cowardly King Ahaz, instead of\nlistening to Isaiah's strong assurances and relying on the help of God,\nmade what he thought a master-stroke of policy in invoking the help of\nthe formidable Assyrian power. That ambitious military monarchy was\neager to find an excuse for meddling in the politics of Syria, and\nnothing loath, marched an army down on the backs of the invaders, which\nvery soon compelled them to hasten to Judah in order to defend their\nown land. But, as is always the case, the help invoked was his ruin.\nLike all conquering powers, once having got its foot inside the door,\nAssyria soon followed bodily. First Damascus and Israel were ravaged\nand subdued, and then Judah. That kingdom only purchased the privilege\nof being devoured last. Like the Spaniards in Mexico, the Saxons in\nEngland, the English in a hundred Indian territories, the allies that\ncame to help remained to conquer, and Judah fell, as we all know.\n\nThis is the simple original application of these words. They are a\ndeclaration that in seeking for help from others Judah was forsaking\nGod, and that the helper would become ruler, and the ruler an\noppressive tyrant.\n\nThe waters of Shiloah that go softly stand as an emblem of the Davidic\nmonarchy as God meant it to be, and, since that monarchy was itself a\nprophecy, they therefore represent the kingdom of God or the Messianic\nKing. The 'waters strong and many' are those of the Euphrates, which\nswells and overflows and carries havoc, and are taken as the emblem of\nthe wasting sweep of the Assyrian king, whose capital stood on its\nbanks.\n\nBut while thus there is a plain piece of political history in the\nwords, they are also the statement of general principles which apply to\nevery individual soul and its relations to the kingdom, the gentle\nkingdom, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.\n\n\nI. The Gentle Kingdom.\n\nThat little brooklet slipping quietly along; what a striking image of\nthe Kingdom of Jesus Christ!\n\nIt suggests the character of the King, the 'meek and lowly in heart.'\nIt suggests the manner of His rule as wielded in gentleness and\nexercising no compulsion but that of love. It suggests the blessed\nresults of His reign under the image of the fertility, freshness, and\nbeauty which spring up wherever 'the river cometh.' That kingdom we are\nall summoned to enter.\n\n\nII. The Rejection of the Kingdom.\n\nStrange and awful fact that men do turn away from it and Him.\n\nIn what does rejection consist?\n\nIn not trusting in His power to help and deliver.\n\nIn seeking help from other sources. This rejection is often unconscious\non the part of men who are guilty of it.\n\n\nIII. The Allies who are preferred to the gentle King.\n\nThe crowd of worldly things.\n\nWhat is to be noticed is that at first the preference seems to answer\nand be all right.\n\n\nIV. The Allies becoming Tyrants.\n\nThe swift Euphrates in spate. That is what the rejecters have chosen\nfor themselves. Better to have lived by Shiloah than to have built\ntheir houses by the side of such a raging stream. Mark how this is a\ndivine retribution indeed, but a natural process too.\n\n(a) If Christ does not rule us, a mob of tyrants will.\n\nOur own passions. Our own evil habits. The fascinating sins around us.\n\n(b) They soon cease to seem helpers, and become tyrants.\n\nHow quickly the pleasure of sin disappears--like some bird that loses\nits gay plumage as it grows old.\n\nHow stern becomes the necessity to obey; how great the difficulty of\nbreaking off evil habits! So a man becomes the slave of his own lusts,\nof his indulged tastes, which rise above all restraints and carry away\nall before them, like the Euphrates in flood. Fertility is turned to\nbarrenness; a foul deposit of mud overlays the soil; houses on the sand\nare washed away; corpses float on the tawny wave. The soul that rejects\nChrist's gentle sway is harried and laid waste by a mob of base-born\ntyrants. We have to make our choice--either Christ or these; either a\nservice which is freedom, or an apparent freedom which is slavery;\neither a worship which exalts, or a worship which embrutes. 'If the Son\nmake you free, ye shall be free indeed.'\n\n'There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.' It\nis peaceful to pitch our tents beside its calm flow, whereon shall go\nno hostile fleets, and whence we shall but pass to the city above, in\nthe midst of the street whereof the 'river of water of life, clear as\ncrystal, proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE KINGDOM AND THE KING\n\n'The people that walked in darkness hare seen a great light: they that\ndwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light\nshined. 3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy:\nthey joy before Thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men\nrejoice when they divide the spoil. 4. For Thou hast broken the yoke of\nHis burden, and the staff of His shoulder, the rod of His oppressor, as\nin the day of Midian. 5. For every battle of the warrior is with\nconfused noise, and garments rolled in blood: but this shall be with\nburning and fuel of fire. 6. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son\nis given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name\nshall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting\nFather, The Prince of Peace. 7. Of the increase of His government and\npeace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His\nkingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with\njustice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts\nwill perform this.'--ISAIAH ix. 2-7.\n\n\nThe darker the cloud, the brighter is the rainbow. This prophecy has\nfor its historical background the calamitous reign of the weak and\nwicked Ahaz, during which the heart of the nation was bowed, like a\nforest before the blast, by the dread of foreign invasion and conquest.\nThe prophet predicts a day of gloom and anguish, and then, out of the\nmidst of his threatenings, bursts this glorious vision, sudden as\nsunrise. With consummate poetic art, the consequences of Messiah's rule\nare set forth before He Himself is brought into view.\n\nI. Image is heaped on image to tell the blessedness of that reign (vs.\n2-5). Each trait of the glowing description is appropriate to the\ncondition of Israel under Ahaz; but each has a meaning far beyond that\nlimited application. Isaiah may, or may not, have been aware of 'what'\nor 'what time' his words portrayed in their deepest, that is, their\ntrue meaning, but if we believe in supernatural prediction which,\nthough it may have found its point of attachment in the circumstances\nof the present, was none the less the voice of the Spirit of God, we\nshall not make, as is often done now, the prophet's construction of his\nwords the rule for their interpretation. What the prophecy was\ndiscerned to point to by its utterer or his contemporaries, is one\nthing; quite another is what God meant by it.\n\nFirst we have the picture of the nation groping in a darkness that\nmight be felt, the emblem of ignorance, sin, and sorrow, and inhabiting\na land over which, like a pall, death cast its shadow. On that dismal\ngloom shines all at once a 'great light,' the emblem of knowledge,\npurity, and joy. The daily mercy of the dawn has a gospel in it to a\nheart that believes in God; for it proclaims the divine will that all\nwho sit in darkness shall be enlightened, and that every night but\nprepares the way for the freshness and stir of a new morning. The great\nprophecy of these verses in its indefiniteness goes far beyond its\nimmediate occasion in the state of Judah under Ahaz. As surely as the\ndawn floods all lands, so surely shall all who walk in darkness see the\ngreat light; and wherever is a 'land of the shadow of death,' there\nshall the light shine. It is 'the light of the world.'\n\nVerse 3 gives another phase of blessing. Israel is conceived of as\ndwindled in number by deportation and war. But the process of\ndepopulation is arrested and reversed, and numerical increase, which is\nalways a prominent feature in Messianic predictions, is predicted. That\nincrease follows the dawning of the light, for men will flock to the\n'brightness of its rising.' _We_ know that the increase comes from the\nattractive power of the Cross, drawing men of many tongues to it; and\nwe have a right to bring the interpretation, which the world's history\ngives, into our understanding of the prophecy. That enlarged nation is\nto have abounding joy.\n\nUndoubtedly, the rendering 'To it thou hast increased the joy' is\ncorrect, as that of the Authorized Version (based upon the Hebrew text)\nis clearly one of several cases in which the partial similarity in\nspelling and identity in sound of the Hebrew words for 'not' and 'to\nit,' have led to a mistaken reading. The joy is described in words\nwhich dance and sing, like the gladness of which they tell. The mirth\nof the harvest-field, when labour is crowned with success, and the\nsterner joy of the victors as they part the booty, with which mingles\nthe consciousness of foes overcome and dangers averted, are blended in\nthis gladness. We have the joy of reaping a harvest of which we have\nnot sowed the seed. Christ has done that; we have but to enjoy the\nresults of His toil. We have to divide the spoil of a victory which we\nhave not won. He has bound the strong man, and we share the benefits of\nHis overcoming the world.\n\nThat last image of conquerors dividing the spoil leads naturally to the\npicture in verse 4 of emancipation from bondage, as the result of a\nvictory like Gideon's with his handful. Who the Gideon of this new\ntriumph is, the prophet will not yet say. The 'yoke of his burden' and\n'the rod of his oppressor' recall Egypt and the taskmasters.\n\nVerse 5 gives the reason for the deliverance of the slaves; namely, the\nutter destruction of the armour and weapons of their enemy. The Revised\nVersion is right in its rendering, though it may be doubtful whether\nits margin is not better than its text, since not only are 'boot' and\n'booted' as probable renderings of the doubtful words as 'armour' and\n'armed man,' but the picture of the warrior striding into battle with\nhis heavy boots is more graphic than the more generalised description\nin the Revised Version's text. In any case, the whole accoutrements of\nthe oppressor are heaped into a pile and set on fire; and, as they\nblaze up, the freed slaves exult in their liberty. The blood-drenched\ncloaks have been stripped from the corpses and tossed on the heap, and,\nsaturated as they are, they burn. So complete is the victory that even\nthe weapons of the conquered are destroyed. Our conquering King has\nbeen manifested, that He might annihilate the powers by which evil\nholds us bound. His victory is not by halves. 'He taketh from him all\nhis armour wherein he trusted.'\n\nII. Now we are ready to ask, And who is to do all this? The guarantee\nfor its accomplishment is the person of the conquering Messiah. The\nhopes of Israel did not, and those of the world do not, rest on\ntendencies, principles, laws of progress, advance of civilisation, or\nthe like abstractions or impersonalities, but on a living Person, in\nwhom all principles which make for righteousness and blessedness for\nindividuals and communities are incarnated, and whose vital action\nworks perpetually in mankind.\n\nIn this prophecy the prophet is plainly speaking greater things than he\nknew. We do not get to the meaning if we only ask ourselves what did he\nunderstand by his words, or what did his hearers gather from them? They\nand he would gather the certainty of the coming of Messiah with\nwondrous attributes of power and divine gifts, by whose reign light,\ngladness, liberty would belong to the oppressed nation. But the depth\nof the prophecy needed the history of the Incarnation for its\ndisclosure. If this is not a God-given prediction of the entrance into\nhuman form of the divine, it is something very like miraculous that,\nsomehow or other, words should have been spoken, without any such\nreference, which fit so closely to the supernatural fact of Christ's\nincarnation.\n\nThe many attempts to translate verse 6 so as to get rid of the\napplication of 'Mighty God,' 'Everlasting Father,' to Messiah, cannot\nhere be enumerated or adequately discussed. I must be content with\npointing out the significance of the august fourfold name of the victor\nKing. It seems best to take the two first titles as a compound name,\nand so to recognise four such compounds.\n\nThere is a certain connection between the first and second of these\nwhich respectively lay stress on wisdom of plan and victorious energy\nof accomplishment, while the third and fourth are also connected, in\nthat the former gathers into one great and tender name what Messiah is\nto His people, and the latter points to the character of His dominion\nthroughout the whole earth. 'A wonder of a counsellor,' as the words\nmay be rendered, not only suggests His giving wholesome direction to\nHis people, but, still more, the mystery of the wisdom which guides His\nplans. Truly, Jesus purposes wonders in the depth of His redeeming\ndesign. He intends to do great things, and to reach them by a road\nwhich none would have imagined. The counsel to save a world, and that\nby dying for it, is the miracle of miracles. 'Who hath been His\ncounsellor in that overwhelming wonder?' He needs no teacher; He is\nHimself the teacher of all truth. All may have His direction, and they\nwho follow it will not walk in darkness.\n\n'The mighty God.' Chapter x. 21 absolutely forbids taking this as\nanything lower than the divine name. The prophet conceives of Messiah\nas the earthly representative of divinity, as having God with and in\nHim as no other man has. We are not to force upon the prophet the full\nnew Testament doctrine of the oneness of the incarnate Word with the\nFather, which would be an anachronism. But we are not to fall into the\nopposite error, and refuse to see in these words, so startling from the\nlips of a rigid monotheist, a real prophecy of a divine Messiah, dimly\nas the utterer may have perceived the figure which he painted. Note,\ntoo, that the word 'mighty' implies victorious energy in battle. It is\noften applied to human heroes, and here carries warlike connotations,\nkindred with the previous picture of conflict and victory. Thus\nstrength as of God, and, in some profound way, strength which is\ndivine, will be the hand obeying the brain that counsels wonder, and\nall His plans shall be effected by it.\n\nBut these are not all His qualities. He is 'the Father of Eternity'--a\nname in which tender care and immortal life are marvellously blended.\nThis King will be in reality what, in old days, monarchs often called\nthemselves and seldom were,--the Father of His people, with all the\nattributes of that sacred name, such as guidance, love, providing for\nHis children's wants. Nor can Christians forget that Jesus is the\nsource of life to them, and that the name has thus a deeper meaning.\nFurther, He is possessed of eternity. If He is so closely related to\nGod as the former name implies, that predicate is not wonderful. Dying\nmen need and have an undying Christ. He is 'the same yesterday, and\nto-day, and for ever.'\n\nThe whole series of names culminates in 'the Prince of Peace,' which He\nis by virtue of the characteristics expressed in the foregoing names.\nThe name pierces to the heart of Christ's work. For the individual He\nbrings peace with God, peace in the else discordant inner nature, peace\namid storms of calamity--the peace of submission, of fellowship with\nGod, of self-control, of received forgiveness and sanctifying. For\nnations and civic communities He brings peace which will one day hush\nthe tumult of war, and burn chariots and all warlike implements in the\nfire. The vision tarries, because Christ's followers have not been true\nto their Master's mission, but it comes, though its march is slow. We\ncan hasten its arrival.\n\nVerses 7 and 8 declare the perpetuity of Messiah's kingdom, His Davidic\ndescent, and those characteristics of His reign, which guarantee its\nperpetuity. 'Judgment' which He exercises, and 'righteousness' which He\nboth exercises and bestows, are the pillars on which His throne stands;\nand these are eternal, and it never will totter nor sink, as earthly\nthrones must do. The very life-blood of prophecy, as of religion, is\nthe conviction that righteousness outlasts sin, and will survive 'the\nwreck of matter and the crash of worlds.'\n\nThe great guarantee for these glowing anticipations is that the 'zeal\nof the Lord of hosts' will accomplish them. _Zeal_, or rather\n_jealousy_, is love stirred to action by opposition. It tolerates no\nunfaithfulness in the object of its love, and flames up against all\nantagonism to the object. 'He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of\nMine eye.' So the subjects of that Messiah may be sure that a wall of\nfire is round about them, which to foes without is terror and\ndestruction, and to dwellers within its circuit glows with lambent\nlight, and rays out beneficent warmth.\n\n\n\n\nLIGHT OR FIRE?\n\n'And the Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a\nflame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one\nday.'--ISAIAH x. 17.\n\n\nWith grand poetry the prophet pictures the Assyrian power as a forest\nconsumed like thistles and briers by the fire of God. The text suggests\nsolemn truths about the divine Nature and its manifestations.\n\nI. The Essential Character of God.\n\nLight and Holiness are substantially parallel. Light symbolises purity,\nbut also knowledge and joy. Holiness is Separation from Creatures, but\nchiefly from their Evils.\n\nII. The Different Attitudes which Men assume to that Character.\n\n'Light of _Israel_': '_His_ Holy One.'\n\nGod becomes ours, and we have an interest in that radiant Personality\nif we choose to claim it by faith, love, and obedience. We are free to\naccept God as ours or to reject Him.\n\nIII. The Opposite Aspects which that Character accordingly assumes.\n\n(a) The self-same divine Character has two effects according to the\ncharacter of the beholder.\n\nTo those who respond to God's love it is--heaven. To those who are\nindifferent or alienated it may be pain, and will harm them if they see\nit and do not yield to it.\n\nGod's holiness is not retributive justice but moral perfectness, which\nto a good man will be joy, and to a bad man, intolerable.\n\nThe light which is gladsome to a healthy eye is agony to a diseased one.\n\n(b) All the manifestations and operations of that divine Character have\na twofold aspect. Christ is either a stone of stumbling or a sure\nfoundation. Men are either the better or the worse for Him. The Gospel\nis the savour of life unto life or of death unto death. The tremendous\n'either--or.' The Cross rejected harms the moral nature, hardens\nconscience, deepens condemnation.\n\nAll divine operations are necessarily on the side of God's lovers and\nagainst those who love Him not. They are contrary to Him, therefore He\nis so to them. 'With the froward Thou wilt show Thyself froward.'\n\nThe final Judgment will be either rapture or despair, like the coming\nof a bridegroom, or the fiery rain that burnt up Sodom.\n\nThe very dew of Heavenly Bliss would be corroding poison to a godless\nspirit.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUCKER FROM THE FELLED OAK\n\n'And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a\nBranch shall grow out of his roots: 2. And the Spirit of the Lord shall\nrest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of\ncounsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;\n3. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord:\nand he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove\nafter the hearing of his ears: 4. But with righteousness shall he judge\nthe poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he\nshall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of\nhis lips shall he slay the wicked. 5. And righteousness shall be the\ngirdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. 6. The\nwolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down\nwith the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;\nand a little child shall lead them. 7. And the cow and the bear shall\nfeed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat\nstraw like the ox. 8. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of\nthe asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's\nden. 9. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for\nthe earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters\ncover the sea. 10. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse,\nwhich shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles\nseek: and his rest shall be glorious.'--ISAIAH xi. 1-10.\n\n\nThe hopeless fall of Assyria is magnificently pictured in the close of\nchapter x., as the felling of the cedars of Lebanon by the axe swung by\nJehovah's own hand. A cedar once cut down puts out no new shoots; and\nso the Assyrian power, when it falls, will fall for ever. The metaphor\nis carried on with surpassing beauty in the first part of this\nprophecy, which contrasts the indestructible vitality of the Davidic\nmonarchy with the irremediable destruction fated for its formidable\nantagonist. The one is a cedar, the stump of which rots slowly, but\nnever recovers. The other is an oak, which, every woodman knows, will\nput out new growth from the 'stool.' But instead of a crowd of little\nsuckers, the prophet sees but one shoot, and that rising to more than\nthe original height and fruitfulness of the tree. The prophecy is\ndistinctly that of One Person, in whom the Davidic monarchy is\nconcentrated, and all its decadence more than recovered.\n\nIsaiah does not bring the rise of the Messiah into chronological\nconnection with the fall of Assyria; for he contemplates a period of\ndecay for the Israelitish monarchy, and it was the very burden of his\nmessage as to Assyria that it should pass away without harming that\nmonarchy. The contrast is not intended to suggest continuity in time.\nThe period of fulfilment is entirely undetermined.\n\nThe first point in the prophecy is the descent of the Messiah from the\nroyal stock. That is more than Isaiah's previous Messianic prophecies\nhad told. He is to come at a time when the fortunes of David's house\nwere at their worst. There is to be nothing left but the stump of the\ntree, and out of it is to come a 'shoot,' slender and insignificant,\nand in strange contrast with the girth of the truncated bole, stately\neven in its mutilation. We do not talk of a growth from the stump as\nbeing a 'branch'; and 'sprout' would better convey Isaiah's meaning.\nFrom the top of the stump, a shoot; from the roots half buried in the\nground, an outgrowth,--these two images mean but one person, a\ndescendant of David, coming at a time of humiliation and obscurity. But\nthis lowly shoot will 'bear fruit,' which presupposes its growth.\n\nThe King-Messiah thus brought on the scene is then described in regard\nto His character (v. 2), the nature of His rule (vs. 3-5), the\nuniversal harmony and peace which He will diffuse through nature (vs.\n6-9), and the gathering of all mankind under His dominion. There is\nmuch in the prophetic ideal of the Messiah which finds no place in this\nprophecy. The gentler aspects of His reign are not here, nor the deeper\ncharacteristics of His 'spirit,' nor the chiefest blessings in His\ngift. The suffering Messiah is not yet the theme of the prophet.\n\nThe main point as to the character of the Messiah which this prophecy\nsets forth is that, whatever He was to be, He was to be by reason of\nthe resting on Him of the Spirit of Jehovah. The directness, fulness,\nand continuousness of His inspiration are emphatically proclaimed in\nthat word 'shall rest,' which can scarcely fail to recall John's\nwitness, 'I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven;\nand it abode upon Him.' The humanity on which the Divine Spirit\nuninterruptedly abides, ungrieved and unrestrained, must be free from\nthe stains which so often drive that heavenly visitant from our\nbreasts. The white-breasted Dove of God cannot brood over foulness.\nThere has never been but one manhood capable of receiving and retaining\nthe whole fulness of the Spirit of God.\n\nThe gifts of that Spirit, which become qualities of the Messiah in whom\nHe dwells, are arranged (if we may use so cold a word) in three pairs;\nso that, if we include the introductory designation, we have a\nsevenfold characterisation of the Spirit, recalling the seven lamps\nbefore the throne and the seven eyes of the Lamb in the Apocalypse, and\nsymbolising by the number the completeness and sacredness of that\ninspiration. The resulting character of the Messiah is a fair picture\nof one who realises the very ideal of a strong and righteous ruler of\nmen. 'Wisdom and understanding' refer mainly to the clearness of\nintellectual and moral insight; 'counsel and might,' to the qualities\nwhich give sound practical direction and vigour to follow, and carry\nthrough, the decisions of practical wisdom; while 'the knowledge and\nfear of the Lord' define religion by its two parts of acquaintance with\nGod founded on love, and reverential awe which prompts to obedience.\nThe fulfilment, and far more than fulfilment, of this ideal is in\nJesus, in whom were 'hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' to\nwhom no circumstances of difficulty ever brought the shadow of\nperplexity, who always saw clearly before Him the path to tread, and\nhad always 'might' to tread it, however rough, who lived all His days\nin unbroken fellowship with the Father and in lowly obedience.\n\nThe prophet saw not all the wonders of perfect human character which\nthat indwelling Spirit would bring to realisation in Him; but what he\nsaw was indispensable to a perfect King, and was, at all events, an arc\nof the mighty circle of perfection, which has now been revealed in the\nlife of Jesus. The possibilities of humanity under the influence of the\nDivine Spirit are revealed here no less than the actuality of the\nMessiah's character. What Jesus is, He gives it to His subjects to\nbecome by the dwelling in them of the spirit of life which was in Him.\n\nThe rule of the King is accordant with His character. It is described\nin verses 3-5. The first characteristic named may be understood in\ndifferent ways. Accord-to some commentators, who deserve respectful\nconsideration, it means, 'He shall draw His breath in the fear of\nJehovah'; that is, that that fear has become, as it were, His very\nlife-breath. But the meaning of 'breathing' is doubtful; and the phrase\nseems rather to express, as the Revised Version puts it, 'His delight\nshall be in the fear of the Lord.' That might mean that those who fear\nJehovah shall be His delight, and this would free the expression from\nany shade of tautology, when compared with the previous clause, and\nwould afford a natural transition to the description of His rule. It\nmight, on the other hand, continue the description of His personal\ncharacter, and describe the inward cheerfulness of His obedience, like\n'I delight to do Thy will.' In any case, the 'fear of the Lord' is\nrepresented as a sweet-smelling fragrance; and, if we adopt the former\nexplanation, then it is almost a divine characteristic which is here\nattributed to the Messiah; for it is God to whom the fear of Him in\nmen's hearts is 'an odour of a sweet smell.'\n\nThen follow the features of His rule. His unerring judgment pierces\nthrough the seen and heard. That is the quality of a monarch after the\nantique pattern, when kings were judges. It does not appear that the\nprophet rose to the height of perceiving the divine nature of the\nMessiah; but we cannot but remember how far the reality transcends the\nprophecy, since He whose 'eyes are as a flame of fire' knows what is in\nman, and the earliest prayers of the Church were addressed to Jesus as\n'Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men.'\n\nThe relation of Messiah to two classes is next set forth. The oppressed\nand the meek shall have Him for their defender and avenger,--a striking\ncontrast to the oppressive monarchs whom Isaiah had seen. We remember\nwho said 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' 'Blessed are the meek.' The\nKing Himself has taught us to deepen the meaning of the words of the\nprophet, and to find in them the expression of the law of His kingdom\nby which its blessings belong to those who know their need and come\nwith humble hearts. But the same acts which are for the poor are\nagainst the oppressors. The emendation which reads 'tyrant' (_arits_)\nfor 'earth' (_erets_) brings the two clauses descriptive of the\npunitive acts into parallelism, and is probably to be preferred. The\nsame pillar was light to Israel and darkness to the Egyptians. Christ\nis the savour of life unto life and of death unto death. But what is\nHis instrument of destruction? 'The rod of His mouth' or 'the breath of\nHis lips.' And who is He whose bare word thus has power to kill and\nmake alive? Is not this a divine prerogative? and does it not belong in\nthe fullest sense to Him whose voice rebuked fevers, storms, and\ndemons, and pierced the dull, cold ear of death? Further,\nrighteousness, the absolute conformity of character and act to the\nstandard in the will of God, and faithfulness, the inflexible\nconstancy, which makes a character consistent with itself, and so\nreliable, are represented by a striking figure as being twined together\nto make the girdle, which holds the vestments in place, and girds up\nthe whole frame for effort. This righteous King 'shall not fail nor be\ndiscouraged.' He is to be reckoned on to the uttermost, or, as the New\nTestament puts it, He is 'the faithful and true witness.' This is the\nstrong Son of God, who gathered all His powers together to run with\npatience the race set before Him, and to whom all may turn with the\nconfidence that He is faithful 'as a Son over His own house,' and will\ninviolably keep the promise of His word and of His past acts.\n\nWe pass from the picture of the character and rule of the King over men\nto that fair vision of Paradise regained, which celebrates the\nuniversal restoration of peace between man and the animals. The picture\nis not to be taken as a mere allegory, as if 'lions' and 'wolves' and\n'snakes' meant bad men; but it falls into line with other hints in\nScripture, which trace the hostility between man and the lower\ncreatures to sin, and shadow a future when 'the beasts of the field\nshall be at peace with thee.' The psalm which sings of man's dominion\nover the creatures is to be one day fulfilled; and the Epistle to the\nHebrews teaches that it is already fulfilled in Christ, who will raise\nHis brethren, for whom He tasted death, to partake in His dominion. The\npresent order of things is transient; and if earth is to be, as some\nshadowy hints seem to suggest, the scene of the future glories of\nredeemed humanity, it may be the theatre of a fulfilment of such\nvisions as this. But we cannot dogmatise on a subject of which we know\nso little, nor be sure of the extent to which symbolism enters into\nthis sweet picture. Enough that there surely comes a time when the King\nof men and Lord of nature shall bring back peace between both, and\nrestore 'the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord.'\n\nVerse 10 begins an entirely new section, which describes the relations\nof Messiah's kingdom to the surrounding peoples. The picture preceding\nclosed with the vision of the earth filled with the knowledge of the\nLord, and this verse proclaims the universality of Messiah's kingdom.\nBy 'the root of Jesse' is meant, not the root from which Jesse sprang,\nbut, in accordance with verse 1, the sprout from the house of Jesse.\nJust as in that verse the sprout was prophesied of as growing up to be\nfruitbearing, so here the lowly sucker shoots to a height which makes\nit conspicuous from afar, and becomes, like some tall mast, a sign for\nthe nations. The contrast between the obscure beginning and the\nconspicuous destiny of Messiah is the point of the prophecy. 'I, if I\nbe lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.' Strange\nelevation for a king is a cross! But it is because He has died for men\nthat He has the right to reign over them, and that they 'shall seek' to\nHim. 'His resting-place shall be glorious.'\n\nThe seat of His dominion is also the seat of His repose. The beneficent\nactivity just described is wielded from a calm, central palace, and\ndoes not break the King's tranquillity. That is a paradox, except to\nthose who know that Jesus Christ, sitting in undisturbed rest at the\nright hand of God, thence works with and for His servants. His repose\nis full of active energy; His active energy is full of repose. And that\nplace of calm abode is 'glorious' or, more emphatically and literally,\n'glory. He shall dwell in the blaze of the uncreated glory of God,--a\nprediction which is only fulfilled in its true meaning by Christ's\nascension and session at the right hand of God, in the glory which He\nhad with the Father before the world was, and into which He has borne\nthat lowly manhood which He drew from the cut-down stem of Jesse.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WELL-SPRING OF SALVATION\n\n'Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.\nISAIAH xii. 3.\n\n\nThere are two events separated from each other by more than fifteen\nhundred years which have a bearing upon this prophecy: the one supplied\nthe occasion for its utterance, the other claimed to be its\ninterpretation and its fulfilment. The first of these is that scene\nfamiliar to us all, where the Israelites in the wilderness murmured for\nwant of water, and the law-giver, being at his wits' end what to do\nwith his troublesome charges, took his anxieties to God, and got for an\nanswer the command to take with him the elders of Israel and his\nmiracle-working rod, and to go to the rock, 'and the Lord shall stand\nupon the rock before thee and them, and the water shall flow forth.' It\nwas not the rock, nor the rod, nor Moses and the elders, but the\npresence of God that brought the refreshing draught. And that that\nincident was in Isaiah's mind when he wrote our text is very clear to\nanybody who will observe that it occurs in the middle of a song of\npraise, which corresponds to the Israelites' song at the Red Sea after\nthe destruction of Pharaoh, and is part of a great prophecy in which he\ndescribes God's future blessings and mercies under images constantly\ndrawn from the Egyptian bondage and the Exodus in the desert. Now, that\ninterpretation, or rather that application, of the words of my text,\nwas very familiar to the Jews long, long before the New Testament was\nthought about. For, as many of you will know, there came in the course\nof time a number of ceremonies to be added to a feast established by\nMoses himself--the Feast of Tabernacles. That was a feast in which the\nwhole body of the Israelitish people dwelt for a week in leafy booths,\nin order to remind them of the time when they were wanderers in the\nwilderness; and as is usually the case, the ritual of the celebration\ndeveloped a number of additional symbolical observances which were\ntacked on to it in the course of centuries. Amongst these there was\nthis very memorable one: that on each of the days of the Feast of\nTabernacles, at a given point in the ceremonial, the priests went from\nthe temple, winding down the rocky path on the temple mountain, to the\nPool of Siloam in the valley below, and there in their golden vases\nthey drew the cool sparkling water, which they bore up, and amidst the\nblare of trumpets and the clash of cymbals poured it on the altar,\nwhilst the people chanted the words of my text, 'With joy shall ye draw\nwater out of the wells of salvation.'\n\nThat ceremonial had been going on for eight hundred years from Isaiah's\ntime; and once more the period came round when it was to be performed;\nand on the seven days of the feast, punctually at the appointed time,\nthe procession wound down the rocky slopes, drew the water in the\ngolden vases, bore it up to the temple, and poured it upon the altar;\nand on the last great day of the feast, the same ceremonial went on up\nto a given point; and just as the last rites of the chant of our text\nwere dying on the ears, there was a little stir amidst the crowd, which\nparted to make way for him, and a youngish man, of mean appearance and\nrustic dress, stepped forward, and there, before all the gathered\nmultitudes and the priests standing with their empty urns, symbol of\nthe impotence of their system, 'on the last day, that great day of the\nfeast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me\nand drink.' Brethren, such a commentary, at such a time, from such a\ncommentator, may well absolve me from the necessity of enforcing the\nevangelistic bearing of the words of my text. And so, then, with that\nunderstanding of the deepest meaning of these words that we have to\nlook at, I ask you to take them in the simplest possible way, and to\nconsider three points: the Well of Salvation, the Act of Drawing the\nWater, the Gladness of those that draw. 'With _joy_ shall _ye_ draw\nwater out of the fountains of salvation.'\n\nNow, with regard to the first point, let me remind you to begin with,\nthat the idea of the word here is not that which we attach to a well,\nbut that which we attach to a spring. It does not describe the source\nof salvation as being a mere reservoir, still less as being a created\nor manufactured thing; but there lies in it the deep idea of a source\nfrom which the water wells up by its own inward energy. Then, when we\nhave got that explanation, and the deep, full, pregnant meaning of the\nword salvation as a thing past, a thing present, a thing future, a\nthing which negatively delivers a man from all sin and sorrow, and a\nthing which positively endows a man with beauty, happiness, and\nholiness--when we have got that, then the question next cries aloud for\nanswer--this well-spring of salvation, is--what? Who? And the first\nanswer and the last answer is GOD--GOD HIMSELF. It is no mere bit of\ndrapery of the prophet's imagery, this well-spring of salvation; it is\nsomething much more substantial, much deeper than that. You remember\nthe old psalm, 'With Thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall\nwe see light'; and what David and John after him called life, Isaiah\nand Paul after him calls salvation. And you remember too, no doubt, the\nindictment of another of the prophets, laying hold of the same metaphor\nin order to point to the folly and the suicide of all godless living:\n'My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the\nfountain of living waters, and they have hewn out for themselves broken\ncisterns.' They were manufactured articles, and because they were made\nthey could be cracked, but the fountain, because it rises by its own\ninherent energy, springing up into everlasting life, is all-sufficient.\nGod Himself is the well-spring of salvation.\n\nIf I had time to enlarge upon this idea, I might remind you how nobly\nand blessedly that principle is confirmed when we think of this great\nsalvation, past, present, and future, negative and positive,\nall-sufficient and complete, as having its origin in His deep nature,\nas having its process in His own finished work, and as being in its\nessence the communication of Himself. That last thing I should like to\nsay a word or two about. If there is a man or a woman that thinks of\nsalvation as if it were merely a shutting up of some material hell, or\nthe dodging round a corner so as to escape some external consequence of\ntransgression, let him and her hear this: the possession of God is\nsalvation, that and nothing else. To have Him within me, that is to be\nsaved; to have His life in His dear Son made the foundation of my life,\nto have my whole being penetrated and filled with God, that is the\nessence of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. And because it comes\nunmotived, uncaused, self-originated, springing up from the depths of\nHis own heart; because it is all effected by His own mighty work who\nhas trodden the winepress alone, and, single-handed, has wrought the\nsalvation of the race; and because its essence and heart is the\ncommunication of God Himself, and the bestowing upon us the\nparticipation in a divine nature, therefore the depth of the thought,\n_God Himself_ is the well-fountain of salvation.\n\nBut there is still another step to take. If these things which I have\nonly just been able to glance at in the most superficial, and perhaps,\ntherefore, confused manner, in any measure commend themselves to your\njudgments and your consciences, let me ask you to go with me one step\nfurther, and to figure to yourselves the significance and the\nstrangeness of that moment to which I have already referred, when a man\nstood up in the temple court, and, with distinct allusion to the whole\nof the multitude of Old Testament sayings, in which God and the\ncommunication of God's own energy were represented as being the\nfountain of salvation and the salvation from the fountain, and said,\n'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me.' Why, what a thing--let us\nput it into plain, vulgar English--what a thing for a man to say--'If\nany man thirst.' Who art Thou that dost thus plant Thyself opposite the\nrace, sure that Thou hast no needs like them, but, contrariwise, canst\nrefresh and satiate the thirsty lips of them all? Who art Thou that\ndost proclaim Thyself as sufficient for the fruition of the mind that\nyearns for truth and thirsts for certitude, of the parched heart that\nwearies and cracks for want of love, of the will that longs to be\nrightly and lovingly commanded? Oh, dear brethren, not only the Titanic\npresumption of proposing oneself as enough for a single soul, but the\ninconceivable madness of proposing oneself as enough for all the race\nin all generations to the end of time, except on one hypothesis, marks\nthis utterance of Him who has also said, 'I am meek and lowly of\nheart.' Strange lowliness! singular meekness! Who was He? Who is this\nthat steps into the place that only a God can fill, and says, 'I can do\nit all. If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink'?\n\nDear brethren, some of us can, thank God, answer that question as I\npray that every one of you may be able to answer it, 'Thou art the King\nof Glory, O Christ; Thou art the everlasting son of the Father. With\nThee is the fountain of life; Thou Thyself art the living water.'\n\nBut I think there is a still further step to be taken. It is not only\nthat our Lord Jesus Christ, in His nature, in His person, is the\ncommunicator of the divine life to man, just as--if you will let me\ntake such a metaphor--just as up in the hills sometimes you will find\nsome little tarn or loch all shut in; but having trickling from it a\nthread of limpid life, and, wherever it flows, the water of the loch\ngoes; only, the one is lake and the other is river, and the latter is\nthe medium of communication of the former to the thirsty pastures of\nthe wilderness. And not only so, but--if I might venture to build upon\na word of the context--there seems to be another consideration there.\nThe words which precede my text are a quotation from a song of the\nIsraelites in their former Exodus: 'The Lord Jehovah is my strength and\nmy song; He also is become my salvation.' Now, if our Bible has been\ncorrect--and I do not enter upon that question--in emphasising the\ndifference between _is_ and _is become_, mark where it takes us. It\ntakes us to this, that there was some single, definite, historical act\nwherein God _became_ in an eminent manner and in reality what He had\nalways been in purpose, intent, and idea. Then that to which my text\noriginally alludes, to which it looks back, is the great deliverance\nwrought by the banks of the Red Sea. It was because Pharaoh and his\nhosts were drowned in it that Miriam and her musical sisters, with\ntheir timbrel and dance, not only said, 'The Lord is my strength,' but\n'He _has become_ my strength'--there where the corpses are floating\nyet. What answers to that in the matter with which we are concerned?\nBrethren, it is not enough to say that God is the fountain of\nsalvation, it is not enough to say that the Incarnate Christ is the\nmedium of salvation. Will you take the other step with us, and say that\nthe Cross of Christ is the realisation of the divine intention of\nsalvation? Then He, who from everlasting was the strength and song of\nall the strong and the songful, _is become_ the salvation of all the\nlost, and the fountain is 'opened for sin and for uncleanness.' A\ndefinite, historical act, the manifestation of Jesus Christ, is the\nbringing to man of the salvation of God. So much, then, for that first\npoint to which I desired to ask your attention.\n\nAnd now let me say a word or two as to the second. I wish to speak\nabout this process of drawing from the fountain. That metaphor, without\nany further explanation, might very naturally suggest more idea of\nhuman effort than in reality belongs to it. Men have said: 'Yes; no\ndoubt God is the fountain of salvation; no doubt Christ is the river of\nsalvation; no doubt His death is the opening of the fountain for sin\nand for uncleanness; but how am I to bring myself into contact and\nconnection with it?' And there have been all sorts of answers. Every\nkind of pump has been resorted to. Go up to the Agricultural Hall and\nyou will see no end of contrivances for bringing water to the surface.\nThere are not so many there as men have found out for themselves to\nbring the water of salvation to their lips, and the effect has always\nbeen the same. There has been something wrong with the valves; the pump\nhas not worked properly; there has been something wrong with the crank;\nthe pipe has not gone down to the water; and there has been nothing but\na great jingling of empty buckets, and aching and wearied elbows, and\nwhat the woman said to Christ has been true all round, 'Sir, thou hast\nnothing to draw with, and the well is deep.' Ay! thank God, it _is_\ndeep; and if we let our Lord be His own interpreter, we have only to\nput together three sayings of His in order to come to the true meaning\nof this metaphor. My text says, 'With joy ye shall draw water'; and\nChrist, sitting at the well of Samaria--what a strange combination of\nthe weakness and the weariness of manhood and the strength and\nself-consciousness of Divinity was there!--wearied with His journey,\nsaid, 'If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to\nthee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him and He would\nhave given thee living water.' So, then, drawing is asking. That is\nstep number one.\n\nTake another word of the Master's that I have already quoted for other\npurposes, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' So,\nthen, drawing, or asking, or coming are all equivalent. That is step\nnumber two.\n\nAnd, then, take another word. 'He that cometh unto Me shall never\nhunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.' So, then,\ndrawing, asking, coming, all melt into the one simple word--believing.\nTrust in Him, and thou hast come, thou hast asked, thou hast drawn,\nthou dost possess.\n\nBut whilst I would lay the foundation thus broad, thus simple, do not\nforget, dear brethren, what I was saying about a definite historical\nact. You will hear people say, 'Oh, I trust in Christ!' What do you\ntrust in Christ? You will hear people say, 'Oh, I look to the goodness\nof God.' Be it so. God forbid I should say a word to prevent that; but\nwhat I would insist upon is that a mere vague regard to a vague Christ\nis not the faith that is equivalent to drawing from the fountain of\nsalvation. There must be a further object in a faith that saves. It\nmust lay hold of the definite historical act in which Christ has become\nthe salvation of the world.\n\nDo not take it upon my words, take it upon His own. He once said to His\nfellow-countrymen in His lifetime, 'I am the living bread'; and many of\nour modern teachers would go that length heartily. Was that where\nChrist stopped? By no means. Was His Gospel a gospel of incarnation\nonly? Certainly not. 'I am the living bread that came down from\nheaven.' Anything more? Yes; this more, 'and the bread which I will\ngive is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. He that\neateth Me he shall live by Me.' 'Well,' say some people, 'that means\nfollowing His example, accepting His teaching, being loyal to His\nPerson, absorbing His Spirit.' Yes, it means all that; but is that all\nit means? Take His own commentary: 'He that eateth My flesh and\ndrinketh My blood, hath eternal life.' Yes, brethren, a Christ\nincarnate, blessed be God! A Christ crucified, blessed be God! And not\nthe one but _both_ must be the basis of our faith and our hope.\n\nNow, will you let me say one thing about this matter of drawing the\nwater? It is an act of faith in a whole Jesus, and eminently in the\nmighty act and sacrifice of His Cross. But to go back again to the\ncontext: 'He also is become _my_ salvation. 'That is what I desire, God\nhelping me, to lay on the hearts of all my hearers--that a definite act\nof faith in Christ crucified is not enough unless it is a personal act,\nunless it is what our old Puritan forefathers used to call\n'appropriating faith.' Never mind about the somewhat dry and technical\nphraseology; the thing is what I insist upon--'_my_ salvation.' O\nbrother! what does it matter though all Niagara were roaring past your\ndoor; you might die of thirst all the same unless you put your own lips\nto it. Down on your knees like Gideon's men; it is safest there; that\nis the only attitude in which a man can drink of this fountain. Down on\nyour knees and put your lips to it--your very own lips--and drink for\nyour own soul's salvation. Christ died for the world. Yes; but the\nworld for which Christ died is made up of individuals who were in His\nheart. It is Paul's words that I would beseech you to make your own:\n'The Son of God, who loved _me_ and gave Himself for _me_.' Every one\nof you is entitled to say that, if you will. You remember that verse\nfilled with adoring contemplation that we sometimes sing, one word in\nwhich seems to me to be coloured by the too sombre doctrine of the\nepoch from which it came:--\n\n  'My soul looks back to see\n    The burden Thou didst bear,\n  When hanging on the accursed tree,\n    And _knows_ her guilt was there.'\n\n'He also is my strength and my song. He is become my salvation;\ntherefore, in joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'\n\nNow, I have left myself no time to do more than say one word about that\nlast point, the gladness of the water-drawers. It is a pretty picture\nin our text, full of the atmosphere and spirit of Eastern life: the\ncheery talk and the ringing laughter round the village well, where the\nshepherds with their flocks linger all day long, and the maidens from\ntheir tents come--a kind of rude Exchange in the antique world; and,\nsays our prophet, 'As the dwellers in the land at their village\nsprings, so ye, the weary travellers at \"the eye of the desert,\" will\ndraw with gladness.' So we have this joy.\n\nDear brethren, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for something better\nthan to make us glad, but it is meant to make us glad too, and he is\nbut a very poor Christian who has not found that it is the joy and\nrejoicing of his heart. We need not put too much emphasis and stress\nupon that side of the truth; but we need not either suppress it or\ndisregard it in our modern high-flown disinterestedness. There are joys\nworth calling so which only come from possessing this fountain of\nsalvation. How shall I enumerate them? The best way, I think, will be\nto quote passages.\n\nThere is the gladness of forgiven sin and a quieted conscience: 'Make\nme to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which Thou hast broken may\nrejoice.' There is the joy of a conscious possession of God: 'Blessed\nare the people that know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in\nthe light of Thy countenance. In Thy name shall they rejoice all the\nday.' There is the joy of fellowship and communion with Jesus Christ\nand His full presence: 'I will see you again; and your hearts shall\nrejoice, and your joy no man taketh away from you.' There is the joy of\nwilling obedience: 'I delight to do Thy will.' 'It is joy to the just\nto do judgment.' There is the joy of a bright hope of an inheritance\n'incorruptible,' 'wherein ye greatly rejoice,' and there is a joy\nwhich, like that Greek fire they talk about, burns brighter under\nwater, and glows as the darkness deepens--a joy which is independent of\ncircumstances, and can say, 'Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,\nneither shall fruit be in the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.'\n\nAnd all that, brother and friend, may be yours and mine; and then what\nthis same prophet says may also be true: 'The ransomed of the Lord\nshall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their\nheads'--that is for the pilgrimage; 'They shall obtain joy and\ngladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away'--that is for the\nhome. There is another prophecy in this same book of Isaiah: 'Ho, every\none that thirsteth, come ye to the waters'; that was the voice of the\nChrist in prophecy. There is a saying spoken in the temple courts: 'If\nany man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink'; that was the voice of\nthe Christ upon earth. There is a saying at the end of\nScripture--almost the last words that the Seer in Patmos heard:\n'Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely'; that was\nthe voice of the Christ from the throne. And the triple invitation\ncomes to every soul of man in the world, and to thee, and thee, and\nthee, my brother. Answer, answer as the Samaritan woman did: 'Sir, give\nme this water that I thirst not, neither come hither' any more to draw\nof the broken cisterns.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HARVEST OF A GODLESS LIFE\n\n'Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not\nbeen mindful of the Rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant\npleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: In the day shalt\nthou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy\nseed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief\nand of desperate sorrow.'--ISAIAH xvii. 10, 11.\n\n\nThe original application of these words is to Judah's alliance with\nDamascus, which Isaiah was dead against. He saw that it would only\nprecipitate the Assyrian invasion, as in fact it did. Judah had\nforsaken God, and because they had done so, they had gone to seek for\nthemselves delights--alliance with Damascus. The image of planting a\ngarden of pleasures, and 'vine slips of a stranger' refers to sensuous\nidolatry as well as to the entangling alliance. Then follows a\ncontemptuous description of the rapid growth of this alliance and of\nthe care with which Israel cultivated it. 'In a day thou makest thy\nplant to grow' (or fencest it), and next morning it was in blossom, so\nsedulously had they nursed and fostered it. Then comes the smiting\ncontrast of what it was all for--'A harvest heap in the day of sickness\nand incurable pain.'\n\nNow we may take this in a more general way as containing large truths\nwhich affect the life of every one of us.\n\nI. The Sin of a Godless Life.\n\n(a) Notice the Sin charged. It is merely negative--_forgettest_. There\nis no charge of positive hostility or of any overt act. This\nforgetfulness is most natural and easy to be fallen into. The constant\npressure of the world. It indicates alienation of heart from God.\n\nIt is most common among us, far more so than active infidelity, far\nmore so than gross sin, far more so than conscious hostility.\n\n(b) The implied Criminality of it. He is the 'Rock of thy strength' and\nthe 'God of thy salvation.' Rock is the grand Old Testament name of\nGod, expressing in a pregnant metaphor both what He is in Himself and\nwhat in relation to those who trust Him. It speaks of stability,\nelevation, massiveness, and of defence and security. The parallel title\nsets Him forth as the Giver of salvation; and both names set in clear\nlight the sinful ingratitude of forgetting God, and force home the\nquestion: 'Do ye thus requite the Lord, oh foolish people and unwise?'\n\n(c) The implied Absurdity of it. What a contrast between the safe\n'munitions of rocks' and the unsheltered security of these Damascene\ngardens! What fools to leave the heights and come down into the plain!\nThink of the contrast between the sufficiency of God and the emptiness\nof the substitutes. Forgetfulness of Him and preference of creatures\ncannot be put into language which does not convict it of absurdity.\n\nII. The Busy Effort and Apparent Success of a Godless Life.\n\n(a) If a man loses his hold on God and has not Him to stay himself on,\nhe is driven to painful efforts to make up the loss. God is needed by\nevery soul. If the soul is not satisfied in Him, then there are hungry\ndesires. This is the explanation of the feverish activity of much of\nour life.\n\n(b) Such work is far harder than the work of serving God. It takes a\ngreat deal of toil to make that garden grow. The world is a hard\ntaskmaster. God's service is easy. He sets us in Eden to till and dress\nit, but when we forget Him, the ground is cursed, and bears thorns and\nthistles, and sweat drips from our brows.\n\nMen take more pains to damn themselves than to save themselves. There\nis nothing more wearying than the pursuit of pleasure. 'Pleasant\nplants'--that is a hopeless kind of gardening. There is nothing more\ndegrading.\n\n'Ye lust and desire to have,'--what a contrast is in, Ask and have! We\nmight live even as the lilies or the ravens, or with only this\ndifference, that we laboured, but were as uncaring and as peaceful as\nthey.\n\nGod is _given_. The world has to be _bought_. Its terms are 'Nothing\nfor nothing.'\n\n(c) Such work has sometimes quick, present success.\n\n'In the day.' It is hard for men to labour towards far-off unseen good.\nWe like to have what will grow up in a night, like Jonah's gourd. So\nthese present satisfactions in a worldly life appeal to worldly,\nsensuous natures. And it is hard to set over against these a plant\nwhich grows slowly, and only bears fruit in the next world.\n\nIII. The End of it all.\n\n'A harvest heap in the day of grief.' This clearly points on to a\nsolemn ending--the day of judgment.\n\n(a) How poor the fruit will be that a God-forgetting man will take out\nof life! There is but _one heap_ from all the long struggle. He has\n'sowed much and brought home little.' What shall we take with us out of\nour busy years as their net result? A very small sack will be large\nenough to hold the harvest that many of us have reaped.\n\n(b) All this God-forgetting life of pleasure-seeking and idolatry is\nbringing on a terrible, inevitable consummation.\n\n'Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.'\n\nNo doubt there is often a harvest of grief and desperate sorrow\nspringing, even in this life, from forgetting God. For it is only they\nwho set their hopes on Him that are never disappointed, and only they\nwho have chosen Him for their portion who can always say, 'I have a\ngoodly heritage.' But the real harvest is not reaped till death has\nseparated the time of sowing from that of ingathering. The sower shall\nreap; i.e. every man shall inherit the consequences of his deeds. 'They\nthat have planted it shall eat it.'\n\n(c) That harvest home will be a day of sadness to some. These are\nterrible words--'grief and desperate sorrow,' or 'pain and incurable\nsickness.' We dare not dilate on this. But if we trust in Christ and\nsow to the Spirit, we shall then 'rejoice before God as with the joy of\nharvest,' and 'return with joy, bringing our sheaves with us.'\n\n\n\n\n'IN THIS MOUNTAIN'\n\n'In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast\nof fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of\nmarrow, of wines on the lees well refined. 7. And He will destroy in\nthis mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the\nveil that is spread over all nations. 8. He will swallow up death in\nvictory.'--ISAIAH xxv. 6-8.\n\n\nA poet's imagination and a prophet's clear vision of the goal to which\nGod will lead humanity are both at their highest in this great song of\nthe future, whose winged words make music even in a translation. No\ndoubt it starts from the comparatively small fact of the restoration of\nthe exiled nation to its own land. But it soars far beyond that. It\nsees all mankind associated with them in sharing their blessings. It is\nthe vision of God's ideal for humanity. That makes it the more\nremarkable that the prophet, with this wide outlook, should insist with\nsuch emphasis on the fact that it has a local centre. That phrase 'in\nthis mountain' is three times repeated in the hymn; two of the\ninstances occurring in the verses of my text have lying side by side\nwith them the expressions 'all people' and 'all nations,' as if to\nbring together the local origin, and the universal extent, of the\nblessings promised.\n\nThe sweet waters that are to pour through the world well up from a\nspring opened 'in this mountain.' The beams that are to lighten every\nland stream out from a light blazing there. The world's hopes for that\ngolden age which poets have sung, and towards which earnest social\nreformers have worked, and of the coming of which this prophet was\nsure, rest on a definite fact, done in a definite place, at a definite\ntime. Isaiah knew the place, but what was to be done, or when it was to\nbe done, he knew not. You and I ought to be wiser. History has taught\nus that Jesus Christ fulfils the visioned good that inspired the\nprophet's brilliant words. We might say, with allowable licence, that\n'this mountain,' in which the Lord does the great things that this song\nmagnifies, is not so much Zion as Calvary.\n\nBrethren, in these days, when so many voices are proclaiming so many\nshort cuts to the Millennium, this clear declaration of the source of\nthe world's hope is worth pondering. For us all, individually, this\nlocalisation of the origin of the universal good of mankind is an offer\nof blessings to us if we will go thither, where the provision for the\nworld's good is stored--'In this mountain'; therefore, to seek it\nanywhere else is to seek it in vain.\n\nNow, I wish, under the impression of that conviction, to put before you\njust these three thoughts: where the world's food comes from; where the\nunveiling which gives light to the world comes from; and where the life\nwhich destroys death for the world comes from--'In this mountain.'\n\nI. Where does the world's food come from?\n\nPhysiologists can tell, by studying the dentition--the system of the\nteeth--and the digestive apparatus of an animal, what it is meant to\nlive upon, whether vegetables or flesh, or a mingled diet of both. And\nyou can tell, if you will, by studying yourself, what, or whom, you are\nmeant to live upon. The poet said, 'We live by admiration, hope, and\nlove.' But he did not say on what these faculties, which truly nourish\nman's spirit, are to fix and fasten. He tells of the appetites; he does\nnot tell of their food. My text does: 'In this mountain shall the Lord\nmake unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the\nless well refined.' Friends, look at these hearts of yours with their\nyearnings, with their passionate desires, with their clamant needs.\nWill any human love--the purest, the sweetest, the most unselfish, the\nmost utter in its surrender--satisfy the heart-hunger of the poorest of\nus? No! Look at the capacities of grasping thought and truth in our\nspirits, which are ever seek, seek, seeking for absolutely certain\nfoundations on which we may build the whole structure of our beliefs.\nYou have to go deeper down than the sand of man's thinkings and\nteachings before you can reach what will bear without shifting the\nfoundations of a life's credence and confidence. Look at these\ntumultuous wills of ours that fancy they crave to be independent, and\nreally crave an absolute master whom it is blessedness to obey. You\nwill find none such beneath the stars. The very elements of our being,\nour heart, will, mind, desires, passions, longings, all with one voice\nproclaim that the only food for a man is God.\n\nJesus Christ brings the food that we need. Remember His own adaptation\nof this great vision of my text in more than one parable; such as the\nsupper that was provided, and to which all men were invited, and, 'with\none consent,' declined the invitation. Remember His own utterance,' I\nam the Bread of God which came down from heaven to give life to the\nworld.' Remembering such words, let me plead with you to listen to the\nvoice of warning as well as of invitation, which sounds from Cradle and\nCross and Throne. 'Why will ye spend your money for that which is not\nbread'--you know it is not--'and your labour for that which satisfieth\nnot?'--you know it does not. Turn to Him, 'eat, and your souls shall\nlive.' 'In this mountain is prepared a feast... for all nations.'\n\nNotice that although it does not appear on the surface, and to English\nreaders, this world's festival, in which every want is met, and every\nappetite satisfied, is a feast on a sacrifice. That touches the deepest\nneed, about which I shall have a word or two to say presently. But in\nthe meantime let me just press this upon you, that the Christ who died\non the Cross is to be lived on by us; and that it is His sacrifice that\nis to be the nourishment of our spirits.\n\nWould that the earnest men, who are trying to cure the world's evils\nand to still the world's wants, and are leaving Jesus Christ and His\nreligion out of their programme, would take thought and ask themselves\nwhether there is not something more in the hunger of humanity than\ntheir ovens can ever bake bread for! They are spinning ropes of sand,\nif they are trying to lift the world clear of its miseries and of its\nhunger, and are not presenting Jesus Christ. I hope I am no bigot; I\nknow that I sympathise earnestly with all these other schemes for\nhelping mankind, but this I am bound to say here--all of them put\ntogether will not reach the need of the case, unless they start from,\nand are subsidiary to, and develop out of, the presenting of the primal\nsupply for the universal want, Christ, who alone is able to still the\nhunger of men's hearts. Education will do much, but university degrees\nand the highest culture will not satisfy a hungry heart. Fitting\nenvironment, as it is fashionable to call it, will do a great deal, but\nnothing outside of a man will staunch his evils or still the hunger\nthat coils and grips in his heart. Competent wealth is a good-there 1s\nno need to say that in Manchester-but millionaires have been known to\nbe miserable. A heart at rest in the love of husband, wife, parent,\nchild, is a blessing earnestly to be sought and thankfully to be\ntreasured by us all; but there is more than that wanted. Put a man in\nthe most favourable circumstances; give him competent worldly means; do\nall that modern philosophers who leave religion out of the question are\ntrying to do; put in practice your most advanced Socialistic schemes,\nand you will still have a man with a hungry heart. He may not know what\nhe wants; very often he will entirely mistake what that is, but he will\nbe restless for want of an unknown good. Here is the only thing that\nwill still his heart: 'The bread which I give is My flesh, which I will\ngive for the life of the world.'\n\nBrother and sister, this is not a matter only for social reformers, and\nto be dealt with as bearing upon wide movements that influence\nmultitudes. It comes home to you and me. Some of you do not in the\nleast degree know what I am talking about when I speak of the hunger of\nmen's hearts; for you have lost your appetites, as children that eat\ntoo many sweets have no desire for their wholesome meals. You have lost\nyour appetite by feeding upon garbage, and you say you are quite\ncontent. Yes, at present; but deep down there lies in your hearts a\nneed which will awake and speak out some day; and you will find that\nthe husks which the swine did eat are scarcely wholesome nutriment for\na man. And there are some of you that turn away with disgust, and I am\nglad of it, from these low, gross, sensuous delights; and are trying to\nsatisfy yourselves with education, culture, refinement, art, science,\ndomestic love, wealth, gratified ambition, or the like. There are\ntribes of degraded Indians that in times of famine eat clay. There is a\nlittle nourishment in it, and it distends their stomachs, and gives\nthem the feeling of having had a meal. And that is like what some of\nyou do. Dear friends, will you listen to this?--'Why do ye spend your\nmoney for that which is not bread?' Will you listen to this?--'I am the\nBread of Life,' Will you listen to this?--'In this mountain will the\nLord make unto all people a feast of fat things.'\n\nII. Where does the unveiling that gives light to the world come from?\n\nMy text, as I have already remarked, emphatically repeats 'in this\nmountain' in its next clause. 'He will destroy in this mountain the\nface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread\nover all nations.'\n\nNow, of course, the pathetic picture that is implied here, of a dark\npall that lies over the whole world, suggests the idea of mourning, but\nstill more emphatically, I think, that of obscuration and gloom. The\nveil prevents vision and shuts out light, and that is the picture of\nhumanity as it presents itself before this prophet--a world of men\nentangled in the folds of a dark pall that lay over their heads, and\nswathed them round about, and prevented them from seeing; shut them up\nin darkness and entangled their feet, so that they stumbled in the\ngloom. It is a pathetic picture, but it does not go beyond the\nrealities of the case. For, with all our light on other matters, with\nall our freedom of action, with all our frequent forgetfulness of the\nfact that we are thus encompassed, it remains true that, apart from the\nemancipation and illumination that are effected by Jesus Christ, this\nis the picture of mankind as they are. And you are beneath that veil,\nand swathed, obstructively as regards light and liberty, by its heavy\nfolds, unless Christ has freed you.\n\nBut we must go a step further than that, I think; and although one does\nnot wish to force too much meaning on to a poetic metaphor, still I\ncannot help supposing that that universal pall, as I called it, which\nis cast over all nations, has a very definite and a very tragic\nmeaning. There is a universal fact of human experience which answers to\nthe figure, and that is sin. That is the black thing whose ebon folds\nhamper us, and darken us, and shut out the visions of God and\nblessedness, and all the glorious blue above us. The heavy, dark mist\nsettles down on the plains, though the sky above is undimmed by it, and\nthe sun is blazing in the zenith. Not one beam can penetrate through\nthe wet, chill obstruction, and men stumble about in the fog with lamps\nand torches, and all the while a hundred feet up it is brightness and\nday. Or, if at some points the obstruction is thinned and the sun does\ncome through, it is shorn of all its gracious beams and power to warm\nand cheer, and looks but like a copper-coloured, livid, angry ball. So\nthe 'veil that is spread over all nations, 'that awful fact of\nuniversal sinfulness, shuts out God--who is our light and our joy--from\nus, and no other lights or joys are more than twinkling tapers in the\nmist. Or it makes us see Him as men in a fog see the sun--shorn of His\ngraciousness, threatening, wrathful, unlovely.\n\nBrethren, the fact of universal sinfulness is the outstanding fact of\nhumanity. Jesus Christ deals with it by His death, which is God's\nsacrifice and the world's atonement. That Lamb of God has borne away\nthe world's sins, and my sins and thy sins are there. By the fact of\nHis death He has rent the veil from the top to the bottom, and the\nlight comes in, unhindered by the terrible solemn fact that all of us\nhave sinned and come short of the glory of God. By His life He\ncommunicates to each of us, if we will trust our poor sinful souls to\nHim, a new power of living which is triumphant over temptation, and\ngives the victory over sin if we will be true to Him. And so the last\nshreds of the veil, like the torn clouds of a spent thunderstorm, are\nparted into filmy rags and float away below the horizon, leaving the\nuntarnished heavens and the flaming sunshine; and 'we with unveiled\nfaces' can lift them up to be irradiated by the light. 'In this\nmountain will the Lord destroy the covering that is spread over all\nnations.'\n\nThe weak point of all these schemes and methods to which I have already\nreferred for helping humanity out of the slough, and making men\nhappier, is that they underestimate the fact of sin. If a man comes to\nthem and says, 'I have broken God's law. What am I to do? I have a\npower within me that impels me now to evil. How am I to get rid of it?'\nthey have no adequate answer. There is only one remedy that deals\nradically with the fact of human transgression; only one power that\nwill deliver each of us, if we will, from the penalty, the guilt, the\npower of sin; and that is the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and its\nresult, the inspiration of the spirit of life that was in Jesus Christ,\nbreathed into us from the Throne itself. Thus, and thus only, is the\nveil done away in Christ.\n\nIII. Lastly, where does the life that destroys death come from?\n\n'He will swallow up death in victory,' or, as probably the word more\ncorrectly means, 'He will swallow up death _for ever_.' None of the\nother panaceas for the world's evils that I have been speaking of even\nattempt to deal with that 'Shadow feared of Man' that sits at the end\nof all our paths. Jesus Christ has dealt with it. Like the warrior of\nJudah who went down into a pit and slew a lion, He has gone down into\nthe lair of the dreadful thing, and has come up leaving Death dead on\nthe threshold.\n\nBy His death Christ has so altered that grim fact, which awaits us all,\nthat to those who will trust their souls to Him it ceases to be death,\neven though the physical fact remains unaltered. For what is death? Is\nit simply the separation of soul from body, the cessation of corporeal\nexistence? Surely not. We have to add to that all the spiritual\ntremors, all the dreads of passing into the unknown, and leaving this\nfamiliar order of things, and all the other reluctances and\nhalf-conscious feelings which make the difference between the death of\na man and the death of a dog. And all these are swept clean away, if we\nbelieve that Jesus died, and died as our Redeemer and our Saviour. So,\nunconsciously and instinctively, the New Testament writers will seldom\ncondescend to call the physical fact by the ugly old name. It has\nchanged its character; it is 'a sleep' now; it is 'an exodus,' a 'going\nout' from the land of Egypt into a land of peace. It is a plucking up\nof the tent-pegs, according to another of the words which the writers\nemploy for death, in preparation for entering, when the 'tabernacle is\ndissolved,' into 'a house not made with hands,' a statelier edifice,\n'eternal in the heavens.' To die in Christ is not to die, but becomes a\nmere change of condition and of place, to be with Him, which is far\n'better.' So an Apostle who was coming within measurable distance of\nhis own martyrdom, even whilst the headsman's block was all but in his\nsight, said: 'He hath abolished death,' the physical fact remaining\nstill.\n\nBy His resurrection Jesus Christ has established immortality as a\ncertainty for men. I can understand a man, who has persuaded himself\nthat when he dies he is done with, dressing his limbs to die without\ndread if without hope. But that is a poor victory over death, which,\neven in the act of getting rid of the fear of it, invests it with\nsupreme and ultimate power over humanity. Surely, surely, to believe\nthat the grave is a blind alley, with no exit at the other end,--to\nbelieve that, however it may minister to a quiet departure, is no\nvictory over the grave. But to die believing, on the other hand, that\nit is only a short tunnel through which we pass, and come out into\nfairer lands on the other side of the mountains, is to conquer that\nlast foe even while it seems to conquer us.\n\nJesus Christ, who died that we might never die, lives that we may\nalways live. For His immortal life will give to each of us, if we join\nourselves to Him by simple faith and lowly obedience, an immortal life\nthat shall persist through, and be increased by, the article of bodily\ndeath. And when we pass into the higher realm of fulness of joy,\nthen--as Paul quotes the words of my text--'shall be brought to pass\nthe saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.'\n\nDear brethren, gather all these thoughts together. Do they not plead\nwith you to cast yourselves on Jesus Christ, and to turn to Him alone?\nHe will give you the food of your souls; if you will not sit at His\ntable you will starve. He will strip you of the covering that is cast\nover you, as over us all; if you will not let Him unwind its folds from\nyour limbs, then like the clothes of a drowning man, they will sink\nyou. He will give you immortal life, which laughs at death, and you\nwill be able to take up the great song, 'O Death, where is thy sting; O\ngrave, where is thy victory?... Thanks be to God which giveth us the\nvictory.' 'In this mountain' and in this mountain only, are the food,\nthe illumination, the life of the world. I beseech you, do not turn\naway from them, lest you stumble on the dark mountains, where are\nstarvation and gloom and death, but rather join that happy company of\npilgrims who sing as they march, 'Come! let us go up to the mountain of\nthe Lord. He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE FEAST ON THE SACRIFICE\n\nAnd in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a\nfeast.' ISAIAH xxv. 6.\n\n\nThere is here a reference to Sinai, where a feast followed the vision\nof God. It was the sign of covenant, harmony, and relationship, and was\nfurnished by a sacrifice.\n\nI. The General Ideas contained in this Image of a Feast.\n\nWe meet it all through Scripture; it culminates in Christ's parables\nand in the 'Marriage Supper of the Lamb.'\n\nIn the image are suggested:--\n\nFree familiarity of access, fellowship, and communion with Him.\n\nAbundant Supply of all wants and desires.\n\nFestal Joy.\n\nFamily Intercommunion.\n\nII. The Feast follows on Sacrifice. We find that usage of a feast\nfollowing a sacrifice existing in many races and religions. It seems to\nwitness to a widespread consciousness of sin as disturbing our\nrelations with God. These could be set right only by sacrifice, which\ntherefore must precede all joyful communion with Him.\n\nThe New Testament accepts that truth and clears it from the admixture\nof heathenism.\n\nGod provides the Sacrifice.\n\nIt is not brought by man. There is no need for our efforts--no\natonement to be found by us. The sacrifice is not meant to turn aside\nGod's wrath.\n\nCommunion is possible through Christ.\n\nIn Him God is revealed.\n\nObjective hindrances are taken away.\n\nSubjective ones are removed.\n\nDark fears--indifference--dislike of fellowship--Sin--these make\ncommunion with God impossible.\n\nAt Sinai the elders 'saw God, and did eat and drink' Here the end of\nthe preceding chapter shows the 'elders' gazing on the glory of\nJehovah's reign in Zion.\n\nIII. The Feast consists of a Sacrifice.\n\nChrist is the food of our souls, He and His work are meant to nourish\nour whole being. He is the object for all our nature.\n\nThe Sacrifice must be incorporated with us. It is not enough that it be\noffered, it must also be partaken of.\n\nNow the Sacrifice is eaten by faith, and by occupation with it of each\npart of our being, according to its own proper action. Through love,\nobedience, hope, desire, we may all feed on Jesus.\n\nThe Lord's Supper presents the same thoughts, under similar symbols, as\nIsaiah expressed in his prophecy.\n\nSymbolically we feast on the sacrifice when we eat the Bread which is\nthe Body broken for us. But the true eating of the true sacrifice is by\nfaith. _Crede et manducasti_--Believe, and thou hast eaten.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VEIL OVER ALL NATIONS\n\n'He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over\nall people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.'--ISAIAH xxv.\n7.\n\n\nThe previous chapter closes with a prediction of the reign of Jehovah\nin Mount Zion 'before His elders' in Glory. The allusion apparently is\nto the elders being summoned up to the Mount and seeing the Glory, 'as\nthe body of heaven in its clearness.' The veil in this verse is\nprobably a similar allusion to that which covered Moses' face. It will\nthen be an emblem of that which obscures for 'all nations the face of\nGod.' And what is that but sin?\n\nI. Sin veils God from men's sight.\n\nIt is not the necessary inadequacy of the finite mind to conceive of\nthe Infinite that most tragically hides God from us. That inadequacy is\ncompatible with true and sufficient knowledge of Him. Nor is it 'the\nveils of flesh and sense,' as we often hear it said, that hide Him. But\nit is our sinful moral nature that darkens His face and dulls our eyes.\n'Knowledge' of God, being knowledge of a Person, is not merely an\nintellectual process. It is much more truly acquaintance than\ncomprehension; and as such, requires, as all acquaintance does, some\nfoundation of sympathy and appreciation.\n\nEvery sin darkens the witness to God in ourselves, In a pure nature,\nconscience would perfectly reveal God; but we all know too sadly and\nintimately how it is gradually silenced, and fails to discriminate\nbetween what pleases and what displeases God. In a pure nature, the\nobedient Will would perfectly reveal God and the man's dependence on\nHim. We all know how sin weakens that.\n\nEvery sin diminishes our power of seeing Him in His external\nRevelation. Every sin ruffles the surface of the soul, which is a\nmirror reflecting the light that streams from Creation, from\nProvidence, from History. A mass of black rock flung into a still lake\nshatters the images of the girdling woods and the overarching sky.\n\nEvery sin bribes us to forget God. It becomes our interest, as we\nfancy, to shut Him out of our thoughts. Adam's impulse is to carry his\nguilty secret with him into hiding among the trees of the garden. We\ncannot shake off His presence, but we can--and when we have sinned, we\nhave but too good reason to exercise the power--we can dismiss the\nthought of Him. 'They did not _like_ to retain God in their knowledge.'\n\nIndividual sins may seem of small moment, but an opaque veil can be\nwoven out of very fine thread.\n\nII. To veil God from our sight is fatal.\n\nWe imagine that to forget Him leaves us undisturbed in following aims\ndisapproved by Him, and we spend effort to secure that false peace by\nfierce absorption in other pursuits, and impatient shaking off of all\nthat might wake our sleeping consciousness of Him.\n\nBut what unconscious self-murder that is, which we take such pains to\nachieve! To know God is life eternal; to lose Him from our sight is to\ncondemn all that is best in our nature, all that is most conducive to\nblessedness, tranquillity, and strenuousness in our lives, to languish\nand die. Every creature separated from God is cut off from the fountain\nof life, and loses the life it drew from the fountain, of whatever kind\nthat life is. And that in man which is most of kin with God languishes\nmost when so cut off. And when we have blocked Him out from our field\nof vision, all that remains for us to look at suffers degradation, and\nbecomes phantasmal, poor, unworthy to detain, and impotent to satisfy,\nour hungry vision.\n\nIII. The Veil is done away in Christ.\n\nHe shows us God, instead of our own false conceptions of Him, which are\nbut distorted refractions of His true likeness. Only within the limits\nof Christ's revelation is there knowledge of God, as distinguished from\nguesses, doubtful inferences, partial glimpses. Elsewhere, the greatest\ncertitude as to Him is a 'peradventure'; Jesus alone says 'Verily,\nverily.'\n\nJesus makes us able to see God.\n\nJesus makes us delight in seeing Him.\n\nAll dread of the 'steady whole of the Judge's face' is changed to the\nloving heart's joy in seeing its Beloved.\n\nIV. The Veil is wholly removed hereafter.\n\nThe prophecy from which the text is taken is obviously not yet\nfulfilled. It waits for the perfect condition of redeemed manhood in\nanother life. But even then, the chief reason why the Christian is\nwarranted in cherishing an unpresumptuous hope that he will know even\nas he is known is not that then he will have dropped the veil of flesh\nand sense, but that he will have dropped the thicker, more stifling\ncovering of sin, and, being perfectly like God, will be able perfectly\nto gaze on Him, and, perfectly gazing on Him, will grow ever more\nperfectly like Him.\n\nThe choice for each of us is whether the veil will thicken till it\ndarkens the Face altogether, and that is death; or whether it will thin\naway till the last filmy remnant is gone, and 'we shall be like Him,\nfor we shall see Him as He is.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONG OF TWO CITIES\n\n'In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a\nstrong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. 2. Open\nye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may\nenter in. 3. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed\non Thee; because he trusteth in Thee. A. Trust ye in the Lord for ever:\nfor in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength: 5. For He bringeth\ndown them that dwell on high; the lofty city, He layeth it low; He\nlayeth it low, even to the ground He bringeth it even to the dust. 6.\nThe foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps\nof the needy. 7. The way of the just is uprightness: Thou, most\nupright, dost weigh the path of the Just. 8. Yea, in the way of Thy\njudgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee; the desire of our soul is\nto Thy name, and to the remembrance of Thee. 9. With my soul have I\ndesired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek\nThee early: for when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of\nthe world will learn righteousness. 10. Let favour be shewed to the\nwicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness\nwill he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the\nLord.'--ISAIAH xxvi. 1-10.'\n\n\n'This song' is to be interpreted as a song, not with the cold-blooded\naccuracy proper to a scientific treatise. The logic of emotion is as\nsound as that of cool intellect, but it has its own laws and links of\nconnection. First, the song sets in sharp contrast the two cities,\ndescribing, in verses 1-4, the city of God, its strength defences,\nconditions of citizenship, and the peace which reigns within its walls;\nand in verses 5 and 6 the fall and utter ruin of the robber city, its\nantagonist Jerusalem, on its rocky peninsula, supplies the form of\nIsaiah's thought; but it is only a symbol of the true city of God, the\nstable, invisible, but most real, polity and order of things to which\nmen, even while wandering lonely and pilgrims, do come, if they will.\nIt is possible even here and now to have our citizenship in the\nheavens, and to feel that we belong to a great community beyond the sea\nof time, though our feet have never trodden its golden pavements, nor\nour eyes seen its happy glories.\n\nIn one aspect, it is ideal, but in truth it is more real than the\nintrusive and false things of this fleeting present, which call\nthemselves realities. 'The things which are' are the things above. The\nthings here are but shows and shadows.\n\nThe city's walls are salvation. There is no need to name the architect\nof these fortifications. One hand only can pile their strength. God\nappoints salvation in lieu of all visible defences. Whom He purposes to\nsave are saved. Whom He wills to keep safe are kept safe. They who can\nshelter behind that strong defence need no other. Weak, sense-governed\nhearts may crave something more palpable, but they do not really need\nit. A parapet on an Alpine road gives no real security, but only\nsatisfies imagination. The sky needs no pillars to hold it up.\n\nThen an unknown voice breaks in upon the song, calling on unnamed\nattendants to fling wide the gates. The city is conceived of as empty;\nits destined inhabitants must have certain qualifications. They must be\nrighteous, and must 'keep faithfulness' being true to the God who is\n'faithful and true' in all His relations. None but the righteous can\ndwell in conscious citizenship with the Unseen while here, and none but\nthe righteous can enter through the gates into the city. That\nrequirement is founded in the very nature of the case, and is as\nemphatically proclaimed by the gospel as by the prophet. But the gospel\ntells more articulately than he was enlightened to do, how\nrighteousness is to be won. The last vision of the Apocalypse, which is\nso like this song in its central idea, tells us of the fall of Babylon,\nof the descent to earth of the New Jerusalem, and leaves as its last\nmessage the great saying, 'Blessed are they that wash their robes that\nthey may ... enter in through the gate into the city.'\n\nOur song gives some hint of similar thoughts by passing from the\ndescription of the qualifications for entrance to the celebration of\nthe security which comes from trust. The safety which is realised\nwithin the walls of the strong city is akin to the 'perfect peace' in\nwhich he who trusts is kept; and the juxtaposition of the two\nrepresentations is equivalent to the teaching that trust, which is\nprecisely the same as the New Testament faith, is the condition of\nentrance. We know that faith makes righteous, because it opens the\nheart to receive God's gift of righteousness; but that effect of faith\nis implied rather than stated here, where security and peace are the\nmain ideas. As some fugitives from the storm of war sit in security\nbehind the battlements of a fortress, and scarcely hear the din of\nconflict in the open field below, the heart, which has taken refuge by\ntrust in God, is kept in peace so deep that it passes description, and\nthe singer is fain to give a notion of its completeness by calling it\n'peace, peace.' The mind which trusts is steadied thereby, as light\nthings lashed to a firm stay are kept steadfast, however the ship toss.\nThe only way to get and keep fixedness of temper and spirit amid change\nand earthquake is to hold on to God, and then we may be stable with\nstability derived from the foundations of His throne to which we cling.\n\nTherefore the song breaks into triumphant fervour of summons to all who\nhear it, to 'trust in Jab Jehovah for ever,' Such settled, perpetual\ntrust is the only attitude corresponding to His mighty name, and to the\nrealities found in His character. He is the 'Bock of Ages' the grand\nfigure which Moses learned beneath the cliffs of Sinai and wove into\nhis last song, and which tells us of the unchanging strength that makes\na sure hiding-place for all generations, and the ample space which will\nhold all the souls of men, and be for a shadow from the heat, a covert\nfrom the tempest, a shelter from the foe, and a home for the homeless,\nwith many a springing fountain in its clefts.\n\nThe great act of judgment which the song celebrates is now (vs. 5, 6)\nbrought into contrast with the blessed picture of the city, and by the\nintroductory 'for' is stated as the reason for eternal trust. The\nlanguage, as it were, leaps and dances in jubilation, heaping together\nbrief emotional and synonymous clauses. So low is the once proud city\nbrought, that the feet of the poor tread it down. These 'poor' and\n'needy' are the true Israel, the suffering saints, who had known how\ncruel the sway of the fallen robber city was; and now they march across\nits site; and its broken columns and ruined palaces strew the ground\nbelow their feet. 'The righteous nation' of the one picture are 'the\npoor and needy' of the other. No doubt the prophecy has had partial\naccomplishments more than once or twice, when the oppressed church has\ntriumphed, and some hoary iniquity been levelled at a blow, or toppled\nover by slow decay. But the complete accomplishment is yet future, and\nnot to be realised till that last act, when all antagonism shall be\nended, and the net result of the weary history of the world be found to\nbe just these two pictures of Isaiah's--the strong city of God with its\nhappy inhabitants, and the everlasting desolations of the fallen city\nof confusion.\n\nThe triumphant hurry of the song pauses for a moment to gaze upon the\ncrash, and in verse 7 gathers its lessons into a kind of proverbial\nsaying, which is perhaps best translated 'The path of the just is\nsmooth (or \"plain\"); Thou levellest smooth the path of the just.' To\nrender 'upright' instead of 'smooth' seems to make the statement almost\nan identical proposition, and is tame. What is meant is, that, in the\nlight of the end, the path which often seemed rough is vindicated. The\njudgment has showed that the righteous man's course had no unnecessary\ndifficulties. The goal explains the road. The good man's path is\nsmooth, not because of its own nature, but because God makes it so. We\nare to look for the clearing of our road, not to ourselves, nor to\ncircumstances, but to Him; and even when it is engineered through rocks\nand roughnesses, to believe that He will make the rough places plain,\nor give us shoes of iron and brass to encounter them. Trust that when\nthe journey is over the road will be explained, and that this\nreflection, which breaks the current of the swift song of the prophet,\nwill be the abiding, happy conviction of heaven.\n\nLastly, the song looks back and tells how the poor and needy, in whose\nname the prophet speaks, had filled the dreary past, while the tyranny\nof the fallen city lasted, with yearning for the judgment which has now\ncome at last. Verses 8 and 9 breathe the very spirit of patient longing\nand meek hope. There is a certain tone of triumph in that 'Yea,' as if\nthe singer would point to the great judgment now accomplished, as\nvindicating the long, weary hours of hope deferred. That for which 'the\npoor and needy' wait is the coming 'in the path of Thy judgments.' The\nattitude of expectance is as much the duty and support of Christians as\nof Israel. We have a greater future clearer before us than they had.\nThe world needs God's coming in judgment more than ever; and it says\nlittle for either the love to God or the benevolence towards man of\naverage Christians, that they should know so little of that yearning of\nsoul which breathes through so much of the Old Testament. For the glory\nof God and the good of men, we should have the desire of our souls\nturned to His manifestation of Himself in His righteous judgments. It\nwas no personal end which bred the prophet's yearning. True, the\n'night' round him was dreary enough, and sorrow lay black on his people\nand himself; but it was God's 'name' and 'memorial' that was uppermost\nin his desires. That is to say, the chief object of the devout soul's\nlongings should be the glory of God's revealed character. And the\ndeepest reason for wishing that He would flash forth from His\nhiding-place in judgments, is because such an apocalypse is the only\nway by which wilfully blind eyes can be made to see, and wilfully\nunrighteous hearts can be made to practise righteousness.\n\nIsaiah believed in the wholesome effect of terror. His confidence in\nthe power of judgments to teach the obstinate corresponds to the Old\nTestament point of view, and contains a truth for all points of view;\nbut it is not the whole truth. We know only too well that sorrows and\njudgments do not work infallibly, and that men 'being often reproved,\nharden their necks.' We know, too, more clearly than any prophet of old\ncould know, that the last arrow in God's quiver is not some unheard-of\nawfulness of judgment, but an unspeakable gift of love, and that if\nthat 'favour shown to the wicked' in the life and death of God's Son\ndoes not lead him to 'learn righteousness,' nothing else will.\n\nBut while this is true, the prophet's aspirations are founded on the\nfacts of human nature too, and judgments do sometimes startle those\nwhom kindness had failed to touch. It is an awful thought that human\nnature may so steel itself against the whole armoury of divine weapons\nas that favour and severity are equally blunted, and the heart remains\nunpierced by either. It is an awful thought that there may be induced\nsuch truculent obstinacy of love of evil that, even when in 'a land of\nuprightness,' a man shall choose evil, and forcibly shut his eyes, that\nhe may not see the majesty of the Lord, which he does not wish to see\nbecause it condemns his choice, and threatens to burn up him and his\nwork together. A blasted tree when all the woods are green, a fleece\ndry when all around is rejoicing in the dew, a window dark when the\nwhole city is illuminated, one black sheep amid the white flock, or\nanything else anomalous and alone in its evil, is less tragic than the\nsight, so common, of a man so sold to sin that the presence of good\nonly makes him angry and restless. It is possible to dwell amidst the\nfull light of Christian truth, and in a society moulded by its\nprecepts, and to be unblessed, unsoftened thereby. If not softened,\nthen hardened; and the wicked who in the land of uprightness deals\nwrongfully is all the worse for the light which he hated because it\nshowed him the sinfulness of the sin which he obstinately loved and\nwould keep.\n\n\n\n\nOUR STRONG CITY\n\n'In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a\nstrong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye\nthe gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter\nin.'--ISAIAH xxvi 1-2.\n\n\nWhat day is 'that day'? The answer carries us back a couple of\nchapters, to the great picture drawn by the prophet of a world-wide\njudgment, which is followed by a burst of song from the ransomed people\nof Jehovah, like Miriam's chant by the shores of the Red Sea. The 'city\nof confusion,' the centre of the power hostile to God and man, falls;\nand its fall is welcomed by a chorus of praises. The words of my text\nare the beginning of one of these songs. Whether or not there were any\nhistorical event which floated before the prophet's mind is wholly\nuncertain. If there were a smaller judgment upon some city of the\nenemy, it passes in his view into a world-wide judgment; and my text is\npurely ideal, imaginative, and apocalyptic. Its nearest ally is the\nsimilar vision of the Book of the Revelation, where, when Babylon sank\nwith a splash like a millstone in the stream, the ransomed people\nraised their praises.\n\nSo, then, whatever may have been the immediate horizon of the prophet,\nand though, there may have stood on it some historical event, the city\nwhich he sees falling is other than any material Babylon, and the\nstrong city in which he rejoices is other than the material Jerusalem,\nthough it may have suggested the metaphor of my text. The song fits our\nlips quite as closely as it did the lips from which it first sprang,\nthrilling with triumph: 'We have a strong city; salvation will God\nappoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous\nnation which keepeth the truth may enter in.'\n\nThere are three things, then, here: the city, its defences, its\ncitizens.\n\nI. The City.\n\nNow, no doubt the prophet was thinking of the literal Jerusalem; but\nthe city is ideal, as is shown by the bulwarks which defend, and by the\nqualifications which permit entrance. And so we must pass beyond the\nliteralities of Palestine, and, as I think, must not apply the symbol\nto any visible institution or organisation if we are to come to the\ndepth and greatness of the meaning of these words. No church which is\norganised amongst men can be the New Testament representation of this\nstrong city. And if the explanation is to be looked for in that\ndirection at all, it can only be the invisible aggregate of ransomed\nsouls which is regarded as being the Zion of the prophecy.\n\nBut perhaps even that is too definite and hard. And we are rather to\nthink of the unseen but existent order of things or polity to which men\nhere on earth may belong, and which will one day, after shocks and\nconvulsions that shatter all which is merely institutional and human,\nbe manifested still more gloriously.\n\nThe central thought that was moving in the prophet's mind is that of\nthe indestructible vitality of the true Israel, and the order which it\nrepresented, of which Jerusalem on its rock was but to him a symbol.\nAnd thus for us the lesson is that, apart altogether from the existing\nand visible order of things in which we dwell, there is a polity to\nwhich we may belong, for 'ye are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the\nliving God,' and that that order is indestructible. Convulsions come,\nevery Babylon falls, all human institutions change and pass. 'The\nkingdoms old' are 'cast into another mould.' But persistent through\nthem all, and at the last, high above them all, will stand the stable\npolity of Heaven, '_the_ city which hath _the_ foundations.'\n\n_There_ is a lesson for us, brethren, in times of fluctuation, of\nchange of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social,\neconomical, and political questions, threatening day by day to\nreorganise society. 'We have a strong city'; and whatever may come--and\nmuch destructive will come, and much that is venerable and antique,\nrooted in men's prejudices, and having survived through and oppressed\nthe centuries, will have to go; but God's polity, His form of human\nsociety of which the perfect ideal and antitype, so to speak, lies\nconcealed in the heavens, is everlasting. Therefore, whatsoever\nchanges, whatsoever ancient and venerable things come to be regarded as\nof no account, howsoever the nations, like clay in the hands of the\npotter, may have to assume new forms, as certainly they will, yet the\nfoundation of God standeth sure. And for Christian men in revolutionary\nepochs, whether these revolutions affect the forms in which truth is\ngrasped, or whether they affect the moulds into which society is run,\nthe only worthy temper is the calm, triumphant expectation that through\nall the dust, contradiction, and distraction, the fair city of God will\nbe brought nearer and made more manifest to man. Isaiah, or whoever was\nthe writer of these great words of my text, stayed his own and his\npeople's hearts in a time of confusion and distress, by the thought\nthat it was only Babylon that could fall, and that Jerusalem was the\npossessor of a charmed, immortal life.\n\nThis strong city, the order of human society which God has appointed,\nand which exists, though it be hidden in the heavens, will be\nmanifested one day when, like the fair vision of the goddess rising\nfrom amidst the ocean's foam, and shedding peace and beauty over the\ncharmed waves, there will emerge from all the wild confusion and\ntossing billows of the sea of the peoples the fair form of the 'Bride,\nthe Lamb's wife.' There shall be an apocalypse of the city, and whether\nthe old words which catch up the spirit of my text, and speak of that\nHoly City as 'descending from heaven' upon earth, at the close of the\nhistory of the world, are to be taken, as perhaps they are, as\nexpressive of the truth that a renewed earth is to be the dwelling of\nthe ransomed or no, this at least is clear, that the city shall be\nrevealed, and when Babylon is swept away, Zion shall stand.\n\nTo this city--existent, immortal, and waiting to be revealed--you and I\nmay belong to-day. 'We _have_ a strong city.' You may lay hold of life\neither by the side of it which is transient and trivial and\ncontemptible, or by the side of it which goes down through all the\nmutable and is rooted in eternity. As in some seaweed, far out in the\ndepths of the ocean, the tiny frond that floats upon the billow goes\ndown and down and down, by filaments that bind it to the basal rock, so\nthe most insignificant act of our fleeting days has a hold upon\neternity, and life in all its moments may be knit to the permanent. We\nmay unite our lives with the surface of time or with the centre of\neternity. Though we dwell in tabernacles, we may still be 'come to\nMount Zion,' and all life be awful, noble, solemn, religions, because\nit is all connected with the unseen city across the seas. It is for us\nto determine to which of these orders--the perishable, noisy and\nintrusive and persistent in its appeals, or the calm, silent, most\nreal, eternal order beyond the stars--our petty lives shall attach\nthemselves.\n\nII. Now note, secondly, the defences.\n\n'Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.' This 'evangelical\nprophet,' as he has been called, is distinguished, not only by the\nclearness of his anticipations of Jesus Christ and His work, but by the\nfulness and depth which he attaches to that word 'salvation.' He all\nbut anticipates the New Testament completeness and fulness of meaning,\nand lifts it from all merely material associations of earthly or\ntransitory deliverance, into the sphere in which we are accustomed to\nregard it as especially moving. By 'salvation' he means and we mean,\nnot only negative but positive blessings. Negatively it includes the\nremoval of every conceivable or endurable evil, 'all the ills that\nflesh is heir to,' whether they be evils of sin or evils of sorrow;\nand, positively, the investiture with every possible good that humanity\nis capable of, whether it be good of goodness, or good of happiness.\nThis is what the prophet tells us is the wall and bulwark of his\nideal-real city.\n\nMark the eloquent omission of the name of the builder of the wall.\n'God' is a supplement. Salvation 'will _He_ appoint for walls and\nbulwarks.' No need to say who it is that flings such a fortification\naround the city. There is only one hand that can trace the lines of\nsuch walls; only one hand that can pile their stones; only one that can\nlay them, as the walls of Jericho were laid, in the blood of His\nfirst-born Son. 'Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks.'\nThat is to say in a highly imaginative and picturesque form, that the\ndefense of the City is God Himself; and it is substantially a parallel\nwith other words which speak about Him as being 'a wall of fire round\nabout it and the glory in the midst of it.' The fact of salvation is\nthe wall and the bulwark. And the consciousness of the fact and the\nsense of possessing it, is for our poor hearts, one of our best\ndefenses against both the evil of sin and the evil of sorrow. For\nnothing so robs temptation of its power, so lightens the pressure of\ncalamities, and draws the poison from the fangs of sin and sorrow, as\nthe assurance that the loving purpose of God to save grasps and keeps\nus. They who shelter behind that wall, feel that between them and sin,\nand them and sorrow, there rises the inexpugnable defense of an\nAlmighty purpose and power to save, lie safe whatever betides. There is\nno need of other defenses. Zion\n\n                     'Needs no bulwarks,\n                      No towers along the steep.'\n\nGod Himself is the shield and none other is required.\n\nSo, brethren, let us walk by the faith that is always confident, though\nit depends on an unseen hand. It is a grand thing to be able to stand,\nas it were, in the open, a mark for all 'the slings and arrows of\noutrageous fortune' and yet to feel that around us there are walls most\nreal, though invisible, which permit no harm to come to us. Our feeble\nsense-bound souls much prefer a visible wall. We, like a handrail on\nthe stair. Though it does not at all guard the descent, it keeps our\nheads from getting dizzy. It is hard for us, as some travellers may\nhave to do, to walk with steady foot and unthrobbing heart along a\nnarrow ledge of rock with beetling precipice above us and black depths\nbeneath, and we would like a little bit of a wall of some sort, for\nimagination if not for reality, between us and the sheer descent. But\nit is blessed to learn that naked we are clothed, solitary we have a\nCompanion, and unarmed we have our defenceless heads covered with the\nshadow of the great wing, which, though sense sees it not, faith knows\nis there. A servant of God is never without a friend, and when most\nunsheltered\n\n                    'From marge to blue marge\n                     The whole sky grows his targe,\n                     With sun's self for visible boss,'\n\nbeneath which he lies safe.\n\n'Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks,' and if we realise,\nas we ought to do, His purpose to keep us safe, and His power to keep\nus safe, and the actual operation of His hand keeping us safe at every\nmoment, we shall not ask that these defences shall be supplemented by\nthe poor feeble earthworks that sense can throw up.\n\nIII. Lastly, note the citizens.\n\nOur text is part of a 'song,' and is not to be interpreted in the\ncold-blooded fashion that might suit prose. A voice, coming from whom\nwe know not, breaks in upon the first strain with a command, addressed\nto whom we know not--'Open ye the gates'--the city thus far being\nsupposed to be empty--'that the righteous nation which keepeth the\ntruth may enter in.' The central idea there is just this, 'Thy people\nshall be all righteous.' The one qualification for entrance into the\ncity is absolute purity.\n\nNow, brethren, that is true in regard to our present imperfect\ndenizenship within the city; and it is true in regard to men's passing\ninto it in its perfect and final form. As to the former, there is\nnothing that you Christian people need more to have dinned into you\nthan this, that your continuance in the state of a redeemed man, with\nall the security and blessing that attach thereto, depends upon your\ncontinuing to be righteous. Every sin, every flaw, every dropping\nbeneath our own standard in conscience of what we ought to be, has for\nits inevitable result that we are robbed for the time being of\nconsciousness of the walls of the city being about us and of our being\ncitizens thereof. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who\nshall stand in His holy place?' The New Testament, as emphatically as\nthe old psalm, answers,' He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.'\n'Let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous.'\nThere is no way by which Christian men here on earth can pass into and\nkeep within the city of the living God, except they possess personal\npurity, righteousness of life, and cleanness of heart.\n\nThey used to say that Venice glass was so made that any poison poured\ninto it shivered the vessel. Any drop of sin poured into your cup of\ncommunion with God, shatters the cup and spills the wine. Whosoever\nthinks himself a citizen of that great city, if he falls into\ntransgression, and soils the cleanness of his hands, and ruffles the\ncalm of his pure heart by self-willed sinfulness, will wake to find\nhimself not within the battlements, but lying wounded, robbed,\nsolitary, in the pitiless desert. My brother, it is 'the righteous\nnation' that 'enters in,' even here on earth.\n\nI do not need to remind you how, admittedly by us all, that is the case\nin regard to the final form of the city of our God, into which nothing\nshall enter 'that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or\nmaketh a lie.' Heaven can only be entered into hereafter by, as here\nand now it can only enter into, those who are pure of heart. All else\nthere would shrivel as foul things born In the darkness do in the\nlight, and be consumed in the fire. None but the pure can enter and see\nGod.\n\n'The nation which keepeth the truth'--that does not mean adherence to\nany revelation, or true creed, or the like. The word which is employed\nmeans, not truth of thought, but truth of character; and might,\nperhaps, be better represented by the more familiar word in such a\nconnection, 'faithfulness.' A man who is true to God, keeping up a\nfaithful relation to Him who is faithful to us, he, and only he, will\npass into, and abide in, the city.\n\nNow, brethren, so far our text carries us, but no further; unless,\nperhaps, there may be a hint of something yet deeper in the next clause\nof this song. If any one asks, How does the nation become righteous?\nthe answer may lie in the immediately following exhortation--'Trust ye\nin the Lord for ever.' But whether that be so or not, if we want an\nanswer to the questions, How can my stained feet be cleansed so as to\nbe fit to tread the crystal pavements? how can my foul garments be so\npurged as not to be a blot and an eyesore, beside the white, lustrous\nrobes that sweep along them and gather no defilement there? the only\nanswer that I know of is to be found by turning to the final visions of\nthe New Testament, where the spirit of this whole section of our\nprophet is reproduced. Again, Babylon falls amidst the songs of saints;\nand then, down upon all the dust and confusion of the crash of ruin,\nthe seer beholds the Lamb's wife, the new Jerusalem, descending from\nabove. To his happy eyes its glories are unveiled, its golden streets,\nits open gates, its walls of precious stones, its flashing river, its\npeaceful inhabitants, its light streaming from the throne of God and of\nthe Lamb. And when that vision passes, his last message to us is,\n'Blessed are they that wash their robes that they may enter through the\ngates into the city.' None but those who wash their garments, and make\nthem white in the blood of the Lamb, can, living, come unto the city of\nthe living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; or, dying, can pass through the\niron gate that opens to them of its own accord, and find themselves as\nday breaks in the street of the Jerusalem which is above.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INHABITANT OF THE ROCK\n\n'Thou wilt keep him In perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee:\nbecause he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the\nLord Jehovah is everlasting strength.'--ISAIAH xxvi. 3-4.\n\n\nThere is an obvious parallel between these verses and the two preceding\nones. The safety which was there set forth as the result of dwelling in\nthe strong city is here presented as the consequence of trust. The\nemblem of the fortified place passes into that of the Rock of Ages.\nThere is the further resemblance in form, that, just as in the two\npreceding verses we had the triumphant declaration of security followed\nby a summons to some unknown persons to 'open the gates,' so here we\nhave the triumphant declaration of perfect peace, followed by a summons\nto all to 'trust in the Lord for ever.' If we may suppose the\ninvocation of the preceding verses to be addressed to the watchers at\nthe gate of the strong city, it is perhaps not too fanciful to suppose\nthat the invitation in my text is the watcher's answer, pointing the\nway by which men may pass into the city.\n\nWhether that be so or no, at all events I take it as by no means\naccidental that, immediately upon the statement of the Old Testament\nlaw that righteousness alone admits to the presence of God, there\nfollows so clear and emphatic an anticipation of the great New\nTestament Gospel that faith is the condition of righteousness, and that\nimmediately after hearing that only 'the righteous nation which keepeth\nthe truth' can enter there, we hear the merciful call, 'Trust ye in the\nLord for ever.' So, then, I think we have in the words before us,\nthough not formally yet really, very large teaching as to the nature,\nthe object, the blessed effects, and the universal duty of that trust\nin the Lord which makes the very nexus between man and God, according\nto the teaching of the New Testament.\n\nI. First, then, I desire to notice in a sentence the insight into the\ntrue nature of trust or faith given by the word employed here.\n\nNow the literal meaning of the expression here rendered 'to trust' is\nto lean upon anything. As we say, trust is reliance. As a weak man\nmight stay his faltering, tottering steps upon some strong staff, or\nmight lean upon the outstretched arm of a friend, so we, conscious of\nour weakness, aware of our faltering feet, and realising the roughness\nof the road, and the smallness of our strength, may lay the whole\nweight of ourselves upon the loving strength of Jehovah.\n\nAnd that is the trust of the Old Testament, the faith of the New--the\nsimple act of reliance, going out of myself to find the basis of my\nbeing, forsaking myself to touch and rest upon the ground of my\nsecurity, passing from my own weakness and laying my trembling hand\ninto the strong hand of God, like some weak-handed youth on a coach-box\nwho turns to a stronger beside him and says: 'Take thou the reins, for\nI am feeble to direct or to restrain.' Trust is reliance, and reliance\nis always blessedness.\n\nII. Notice, secondly, the steadfast peacefulness of trust.\n\nNow there are difficulties about the rendering and precise significance\nof the first verse of my text with which I do not need to trouble you.\nThe Authorised Version, and still more perhaps the Revised Version,\ngive substantially, as I take it, the prophet's meaning; and the margin\nof the Revised Version is still more literal and accurate than the\ntext, 'A steadfast mind Thou keepest in perfect peace, because it\ntrusteth in Thee.' If this, then, be the true meaning of the words, you\nobserve that it is the steadfast mind, steadfast because it trusts,\nwhich God keeps In the deep peace that is expressed by the\nreduplication of the word.\n\nAnd if we break up that complex thought into its elements, it just\ncomes to this, first, that trust makes steadfastness. Most men's lives\nare blown about by winds of circumstance, directed by gusts of passion,\nshaped by accidents, and are fragmentary and jerky, like some ship at\nsea with nobody at the helm, heading here and there, as the force of\nthe wind or the flow of the current may carry them. If my life is to be\nsteadied, there must not only be a strong hand at the tiller, but some\noutward object which shall be for me the point of aim and the point of\nrest. No man can steady his life except by clinging to a holdfast\nwithout himself. Some of us look for that stay in the fluctuations and\nfleetingnesses of creatures; and some of us are wiser and saner, and\nlook for it in the steadfastness of the unchanging God. The men who do\nthe former are the sport of circumstances, and the slaves of their own\nnatures, and there is no consistency in noble aim and effort throughout\ntheir lives, corresponding to their circumstances, relations, and\nnature. Only they who stay themselves upon God, and get down through\nall the superficial shifting strata of drift and gravel, to the\nbase-rock, are steadfast and solid.\n\nMy brother, if you desire to govern yourself, you must let God govern\nyou. If you desire to be firm, you must draw your firmness from the\nunchangingness of that divine nature which you grasp. How can a willow\nbe stiffened into an iron pillar? Only--if I might use such a violent\nmetaphor--when it receives into its substance the iron particles that\nit draws from the soil in which it is rooted. How can a bit of\nthistledown be kept motionless amidst the tempest? Only by being glued\nto something that is fixed. What do men do with light things on deck\nwhen the ship is pitching? Lash them to a fixed point. Lash yourselves\nto God by simple trust, and then you will partake of His serene\nimmutability in such fashion as it is possible for the creature to\nparticipate in the attributes of the Creator.\n\nAnd then, still further, the steadfast mind--steadfast because it\ntrusts--is rewarded in that it is kept by God. It is no mere mistake in\nthe order of his thought which leads this prophet to allege that it is\nthe steadfast mind which God keeps. For, though it is true, on the one\nhand, that the real fixity and solidity of a human character come more\nsurely and fully through trust in God than by any other means, on the\nother hand it is true that, in order to receive the full blessed\neffects of trust into our characters and lives, we must persistently\nand doggedly keep on in the attitude of confidence. If a man holds out\nto God a tremulous hand with a shaking cup in it, which Le sometimes\npresents and sometimes twitches back, it is not to be expected that God\nwill pour the treasure of His grace into such a vessel, with the risk\nof most of it being spilt upon the ground. There must be a steadfast\nwaiting if there is to be a continual flow.\n\nIt is the mind that cleaves to God which God keeps. I suppose that\nthere was floating before Paul's thoughts some remembrance of this\ngreat passage of the evangelical prophet when he uttered his words,\nwhich ring so strikingly with so many echoes of them, when he said,\n'The peace of God which passeth understanding shall keep your hearts\nand minds in Christ Jesus.' It is the steadfast mind that is kept in\nperfect peace. If we 'keep ourselves,' by that divine help which is\nalways waiting to be given,' in the' faith and 'love of God,' He will\nkeep us in the hour of temptation, will keep us from falling, and will\ngarrison our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.\n\nAnd then, still further, this faithful, steadfast heart and mind, kept\nby God, is a mind filled with deepest peace. There is something very\nbeautiful in the prophet's abandoning the attempt to find any adjective\nof quality which adequately characterises the peace of which he has\nbeen speaking. He falls back upon the expedient which is the confession\nof the impotence of human speech worthily to portray its subject when\nhe simply says, 'Thou shalt keep in peace, peace ... because he\ntrusteth in Thee.' The reduplication expresses the depth, the\ncompleteness of the tranquillity which flows into the heart, Such\ncontinuity, wave after wave, or rather ripple after ripple, is possible\neven for us. For, dear brethren, the possession of this deep, unbroken\npeace does not depend on the absence of conflict, on distraction,\ntrouble, or sorrow, but on the presence of God. If we are in touch with\nHim, then our troubled days may be calm, and beneath all the surface\ntumult there may be a centre of rest. The garrison in some high\nhill-fortress looks down upon the open where the enemy's ranks are\ncrawling like insects across the grass, and scarcely hears the noise of\nthe tumult, and no arrow can reach the lofty hold. So, up in God we may\ndwell at rest whate'er betide. Strange that we should prefer to live\ndown amongst the unwalled villages, which every spoiler can harry and\nburn, when we might climb, and by the might and the magic of trust in\nthe Lord bring round about ourselves a wall of fire which shall consume\nthe poison out of the evil, even whilst it permits the sorrow to do its\nbeneficent work upon us!\n\nIII. Note again the worthiness of the divine Name to evoke, and the\npower of the divine character to reward, the trust.\n\nWe pass to the last words of _my_ text:--'In the Lord Jehovah is\neverlasting strength.'\n\nNow I suppose we all know that the words feebly rendered in the\nAuthorised Version 'everlasting strength' are literally 'the Rock of\nAges'; and that this verse is the source of that hallowed figure which,\nby one of the greatest of our English hymns, is made familiar and\nimmortal to all English-speaking people.\n\nBut there is another peculiarity about the words on which I dwell for a\nmoment, and that is, that here we have, for one of the only two times\nin which the expression occurs in Scripture, the great name of Jehovah\nreduplicated. 'In Jab Jehovah is the Rock of Ages.' In the former verse\nthe prophet had given up in despair the attempt to characterise the\npeace which God gave, and fallen back upon the expedient of naming it\ntwice over. In this verse, with similar eloquence of reticence, he\nabandons the attempt to describe or characterise that great Name, and\nin adoration, contents himself with twice taking it upon his lips, in\norder to _impress_ what he cannot _express_, the majesty and the\nsufficiency of that name.\n\nWhat, then, is the force of that name? We do not need, I suppose, to do\nmore than simply remind you that there are two great thoughts\ncommunicated by that self-revelation of God which lies in it.\n_Jehovah_, in its literal grammatical signification, puts emphasis upon\nthe absolute, underived, and therefore unlimited, unconditioned,\nunchangeable, eternal being of God. 'I AM THAT I AM.' Men and creatures\nare what they are made, are what they become, and some time or other\ncease to be what they were. But God is what He is, and is because He\nis. He is the Source, the Motive, the Law, the Sustenance of His own\nBeing; and changeless and eternal He is for ever. In that name is the\nRock of Ages.\n\nThat mighty name, by its place in the history of Revelation, conveys to\nus still further thoughts, for it is the name of the God who entered\ninto covenant with His ancient people, and remains bound by His\ncovenant to bless us. That Is to say, He hath not left us in darkness\nas to the methods and purpose of His dealings with us, or as to the\nattitude of His heart towards us. He has bound Himself by solemn words,\nand by deeds as revealing as words. So we can reckon on God. To use a\nvulgarism which is stripped of its vulgarity if employed reverently, as\nI would do it--we know where to have Him. He has given us the elements\nto calculate His orbit; and we are sure that the calculation will come\nright. So, because the name flashes upon men the thought of an absolute\nBeing, eternal, and all-sufficient, and self-modified, and changeless,\nand because it reveals to us the very inmost heart of the mystery, and\nmakes it possible for us to forecast the movements of this great Sun of\nour heavens, therefore in the name '_Jab Jehovah_ is the Bock of Ages.'\n\nThe metaphor needs no expansion. We understand that it conveys the idea\nof unchangeable defence. As the cliffs tower above the river that\nswirls at their base, and takes centuries to eat the faintest line upon\ntheir shining surface, so the changeless God rises above the stream of\ntime, of which the brief breakers are human lives, 'sparkling,\nbursting, borne away.' They who fasten themselves to that Rock are safe\nin its unchangeable strength, God the Unchangeable is the amulet\nagainst any change, that is not growth, in the lives of those who trust\nHim. Some of us may recall some great precipice rising above the\nfoliage, which stands to-day as it did when we were boys, unwasted in\nits silent strength, while generations of leaves have opened and\nwithered at its base, and we have passed from childhood to age. Thus,\nunaffected by the transiency that changes all beneath, God rises, the\nBock of Ages in whom we may trust. 'The conies are a feeble folk, but\nthey make their houses in the rocks.' So our weakness may house itself\nthere and be at rest.\n\nIV. Lastly, note the summons to trust.\n\nWe know not whose voice it is that is heard in the last words of my\ntext, but we know to whose ears it is addressed. It is to all. 'Trust\nye in the Lord for ever.'\n\nSurely, surely the blessed effects of trust, of which we have been\nspeaking, have a voice of merciful invitation summoning us to exercise\nit. The promise of peace appeals to the deepest, though often neglected\nand misunderstood, longings of the human heart. Inly we sigh for that\nrepose.' O dear brethren, if it is true that into our agitated and\nstruggling lives there may steal, and in them there may abide, this\npriceless blessing of a great tranquillity, surely nothing else should\nbe needed to woo us to accept the conditions and put forth the trust.\nIt is strange that we should turn away, as we are all tempted to do,\nfrom that rest in God, and try to find repose in what was only meant\nfor stimulus, and is altogether incapable of imparting rest. Storms\nlive in the lower regions of the atmosphere; get up higher and there is\npeace. Waves dash and break on the surface region of the ocean; get\ndown deeper, nearer the heart of things, and again there is peace.\n\nSurely the name of the Bock of Ages is an invitation to us to put our\ntrust in Him. If a man knew God as He is, he could not choose but trust\nHim. It is because we have blackened His face with our own doubts, and\ndarkened His character with the mists that rise from our own sinful\nhearts, that we have made that bright Sun in the heavens, which ought\nto fall upon our hearts with healing in its beams, into a lurid ball of\nfire that shines threatening through the dim obscurity of our misty\nhearts. But if we knew Him we should love Him, and if we would only\nlisten to His own self-revelation, we should find that He draws us to\nHimself by the manifestation of Himself, as the sun binds all the\nplanets to his mass and his flame by the eradiation of his own mystic\nenergies.\n\nThe summons is a summons to a faith corresponding to that upon which it\nis built. 'Trust ye in the Lora for ever, for in the Lord is the\nstrength that endures for ever.' Our continual faith is the only fit\nresponse to His unchanging faithfulness. Build rock upon rock.\n\nThe summons is a summons addressed to us all. 'Trust ye'--whoever ye\nare--'in the Lord for ever.' You and I, dear friends, hear the summons\nin a yet more beseeching and tender voice than was audible to the\nprophet, for our faith has a nobler object, and may have a mightier\noperation, seeing that its object is 'the Lamb of God that taketh away\nthe sin of the world'; and its operation, to bring to us peace with God\nthrough our Lord Jesus Christ. When from the Cross there comes to all\nour hearts the merciful invitation, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,\nand thou shalt be saved,' why should not we each answer,\n\n  'Rock of Ages, cleft for me,\n  Let me hide myself in Thee'?\n\n\n\n\nTHE GRASP THAT BRINGS PEACE\n\n'Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; yea,\nlet him make peace with Me.'--ISAIAH xxvii. 5.\n\n\nLyrical emotion makes the prophet's language obscure by reason of its\nswift transitions from one mood of feeling to another. But the main\ndrift here is discernible. God is guarding Israel, His vineyard, and\nbefore Him its foes are weak as 'thorns and briers,' whose end is to be\nburned. With daring anthropomorphism, the prophet puts into God's mouth\na longing for the enemies to measure their strength against His, a\nwarrior's eagerness for the fight. But at once this martial tone gives\nplace to the tender invitation of the text, and the infinite divine\nwillingness to be reconciled to the enemy speaks wooingly and offers\nconditions of peace. All this has universal application to our\nrelations to God.\n\nI. The Hostility.\n\nThat our relations with God are 'strained,' and that men are 'enemies\nof God,' is often repelled as exaggeration, if not as directly false.\nAnd, no doubt, the Scripture representation has often been so handled\nas to become caricature rather than portraiture. Scripture does not\ndeny the lingering presence in men of goodness, partial and defective,\nnor does it assert that conscious antagonism to God is active in\ngodless men. But it does assert that 'God is not in all their\nthoughts,' and that their wills are 'not subject to the law of God.'\nAnd in such a case as man's relations to God, indifference and\nforgetfulness cannot but rest upon divergence of will and contrast of\ncharacter. Why do men 'not like to retain God in their knowledge, 'but\nbecause they feel that the thought of Him would spoil the feast, like\nthe skeleton in the banqueting chamber? Beneath the apparent\nindifference lie opposition of will, meeting God's 'Thou shalt' with\nman's 'I will not'; opposition of moral nature, impurity shrinking from\nperfect purity; opposition of affection, the warmth of human love being\ndiverted to other objects than God.\n\nII. The entreating Love that is not turned aside by hostility.\n\nThe antagonism is wholly on man's part.\n\nTrue, man's opposition necessarily turns certain sides of the divine\ncharacter to present a hostile front to him. Not only God's physical\nattributes, if we may so call them, but the moral attributes which\nguide the energies of these, namely, His holiness and His\nrighteousness, and the acts of His sovereignty which flow from these,\nmust be in opposition to the man who has set himself in opposition to\nGod. 'The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.' If it were\nnot, He would not be God.\n\nBut still, God's love enfolds all men in its close and tender clasp. As\nthe context says, in close connection with the threat to burn the\nbriers and thorns, 'Fury is not in Me.' Man's hostility does not rouse\nGod's. He wars against the sin because He still loves the sinner. His\nlove 'must come with a rod,' but, at the same time, it comes 'with the\nspirit of meekness.' It gives its enemy all that it can; but it cannot\ngive all that it would.\n\nHe stoops to sue for our amity. It is the creditor who exhausts\nbeseechings on His debtor, so much does He wish to 'agree with His\nadversary quickly.' The tender pleading of the Apostle was but a faint\necho of the marvellous condescension of God, when he, 'in God's stead,\nbesought: 'Be ye reconciled to God.'\n\nIII. The grasp which ends alienation.\n\nThe word for 'strength' here means a stronghold or fortified place,\nwhich serves as an asylum or refuge. There may be some mingling of an\nallusion to the fugitive's taking hold of the horns of the altar, and\nso being safe from the vengeance of his pursuers. If we may take this\ndouble metaphor as implied in the text, it vividly illustrates the\nessence of the faith which brings us into peace with God. That faith is\nthe flight of the soul to God, and, in another aspect, it is the\nclinging of the soul to Him. How much more these two metaphors tell of\nthe real nature of faith than many a theological treatise! They speak\nof the urgency of the peril from which it seeks deliverance. A fugitive\nwith the hot breath of the avenger of blood panting behind him, and\nalmost feeling the spear-point in his back, would not let the grass\ngrow under his feet. They speak of the energetic clutch of faith, as\nthat of the man gripping the horns of the altar. They suggest that\nfaith is something much more vital than intellectual assent or\ncredence, namely, an act of the whole man realising his need and\ncasting himself on God.\n\nAnd they set in clear light what is the connection between faith and\nsalvation. It is not the hand that grasps the altar that secures\nsafety, but the altar itself. It is not the flight to the fortress, but\nthe massive walls themselves, which keeps those who hunt after the\nfugitive at bay. It is not my faith, but the God on whom my faith\nfastens, that brings peace to my conscience.\n\nIV. The peace that this grasp brings.\n\nIn Christ God has 'put away all His wrath, and turned Himself from the\nfierceness of His anger.' And He was in Christ, reconciling the world\nto Himself. It is a one-sided warfare that men wage with Him, and when\nwe abandon our opposition to Him, the war is ended. We might say that\nGod, clasped by faith and trusted in and loved, is the asylum from God\nopposed and feared. His moral nature must be against evil, but faith\nunites us to Jesus, and, by union with Him, we receive the germ of a\nnature which has no affinity with evil, and which God wholly delights\nin and loves. To those who live by the life, and growingly bear the\nimage of His Son, the divine Nature turns a face all bright and\nfavouring, and His moral and physical attributes are all enlisted on\ntheir side. The fortress looks grim to outsiders gazing up at its\nstrong walls and frowning battlements, but to dwellers within, these\ngive security, and in its inmost centre is a garden, with flowers and a\nspringing fountain, whither the noise of fighting never penetrates. We\nhave but to cease to be against Him, and to grasp the facts of His love\nas revealed in the Cross of Christ, the sacrifice who taketh away the\nsin of the world, and we are at peace with God. Being at peace with\nHim, the discords of our natures warring against themselves are attuned\ninto harmony, and we are at peace within. And when God and we are at\none, and we are at one with ourselves, then all things will be on our\nside, and will work together for good. To such a man the ancient\npromise will be fulfilled: 'Thou shalt be in league with the stones of\nthe field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE JUDGMENT OF DRUNKARDS AND MOCKERS\n\n'Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious\nbeauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of\nthem that are overcome with wine! 2. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and\nstrong one, which, as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, as a\nflood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with\nthe hand. 3. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be\ntrodden under feet: 4. And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of\nthe fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before\nthe summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet\nin his hand he eateth it up. 5. In that day shall the Lord of hosts be\nfor a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of\nHis people. 6. And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in\njudgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate. 7.\nBut they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out\nof the way: the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink,\nthey are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong\ndrink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 8. For all tables\nare full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. 9.\nWhom shall He teach knowledge? and whom shall He make to understand\ndoctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the\nbreasts. 10. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept;\nline upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 11.\nFor with stammering lips, and another tongue, will He speak to this\npeople. 12. To whom He said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause\nthe weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.\n13. But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept,\nprecept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little,\nand there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be\nbroken, and snared, and taken.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 1-13.\n\n\nThis prophecy probably falls in the first years of Hezekiah, when\nSamaria still stood, and the storm of war was gathering black in the\nnorth. The portion included in the text predicts the fall of Samaria\n(verses 1-6) and then turns to Judah, which is guilty of the same sins\nas the northern capital, and adds to them mockery of the prophet's\nmessage. Isaiah speaks with fiery indignation and sharp sarcasm. His\nwords are aflame with loathing of the moral corruption of both\nkingdoms, and he fastens on the one common vice of drunkenness--not as\nif it were the only sin, but because it shows in the grossest form the\nrottenness underlying the apparent beauty.\n\nI. The woe on Samaria (verses 1-6). Travellers are unanimous in their\nraptures over the fertility and beauty of the valley in which Samaria\nstood, perched on its sunny, fruitful hill, amid its vineyards. The\nsituation of the city naturally suggests the figure which regards it as\na sparkling coronet or flowery wreath, twined round the brows of the\nhill; and that poetical metaphor is the more natural, since revellers\nwere wont to twist garlands in their hair, when they reclined at their\norgies. The city is 'the crown of pride'--that is, the object of\nboasting and foolish confidence--and is also 'the fading flower of his\nsparkling ornament'; that is, the flower which is the ornament of\nEphraim, but is destined to fade.\n\nThe picture of the city passes into that of the drunken debauch, where\nthe chief men of Samaria sprawl, 'smitten down' by wine, and with the\ninnocent flowers on their hot temples drooping in the fumes of the\nfeast. But bright and sunny as the valley is, glittering in the light\nas the city sits on her hill, careless and confident as the revellers\nare, a black cloud lies on the horizon, and one of the terrible sudden\nstorms which such lands know comes driving up the valley. 'The Lord\nhath a mighty and strong one'--the conqueror from the north, who is\nGod's instrument, though he knows it not.\n\nThe swift, sudden, irresistible onslaught of the Assyrian is described,\nin harmony with the figure of the flowery coronal, as a tempest which\nbeats down the flowers and flings the sodden crown to the ground. The\nword rendered 'tempest' is graphic, meaning literally a 'downpour.'\nFirst comes hail, which batters the flowers to shreds; then the effect\nof the storm is described as 'destruction,' and then the hurrying words\nturn back to paint the downpour of rain, 'mighty' from its force in\nfalling, and 'overflowing' from its abundance, which soon sets all the\nfields swimming with flood water. What chance has a poor twist of\nflowers in such a storm? Its beauty will be marred, and all the petals\nbeaten off, and nothing remains but that it should be trampled into\nmud. The rush of the prophet's denunciation is swift and irresistible\nas the assault it describes, and it flashes from one metaphor to\nanother without pause. The fertility of the valley of Samaria shapes\nthe figures. As the picture of the flowery chaplet, so that which\nfollows of the early fig, is full of local colour. A fig in June is a\ndelicacy, which is sure to be plucked and eaten as soon as seen. Such a\ndainty, desirable morsel will Samaria be, as sweet and as little\nsatisfying to the all-devouring hunger of the Assyrian.\n\nBut storms sweep the air clear, and everything will not go down before\nthis one. The flower fadeth, but there is a chaplet of beauty which men\nmay wreathe round their heads, which shall bloom for ever. All sensuous\nenjoyment has its limits in time, as well as in nobleness and\nexquisiteness; but when it is all done with, the beauty and festal\nornament which truly crowns humanity shall smell sweet and blossom. The\nprophecy had regard simply to the issue of the historical disaster to\nwhich it pointed, and it meant that, after the storm of Assyrian\nconquest, there would still be, for the servants of God, the residue of\nthe people, both in Israel and in Judah, a fuller possession of the\nblessings which descend on the men who make God their portion. But the\nprinciple involved is for ever true. The sweeping away of the\nperishable does draw true hearts nearer to God.\n\nSo the two halves of this prophecy give us eternal truths as to the\ncertain destruction awaiting the joys of sense, and the permanence of\nthe beauty and strength which belong to those who take God for their\nportion.\n\nDrunkenness seems to have been a national sin in Israel; for Micah\nrebukes it as vehemently as Isaiah, and it is a clear bit of Christian\nduty in England to-day to 'set the trumpet to thy mouth and show the\npeople' this sin. But the lessons of the prophecy are wider than the\nspecific form of evil denounced. All setting of affection and seeking\nof satisfaction in that which, in all the pride of its beauty, is 'a\nfading flower,' is madness and sin. Into every life thus turned to the\nperishable will come the crash of the destroying storm, the mutterings\nof which might reach the ears of the feasters, if they were not drunk\nwith the fumes of their deceiving delights. Only one kind of life has\nits roots in that which abides, and is safe from tempest and change.\nAmaranthine flowers bloom only in heaven, and must be brought thence,\nif they are to garland earthly foreheads. If we take God for ours, then\nwhatever tempests may howl, and whatever fragile though fragrant joys\nmay be swept away, we shall find in Him all that the world 'fails to\ngive to its votaries. He is 'a crown of glory' and 'a diadem of\nbeauty.' Our humanity is never so fair as when it is made beautiful by\nthe possession of Him. All that sense vainly seeks in earth, faith\nfinds in God. Not only beauty, but 'a spirit of judgment,' in its\nnarrower sense and in its widest, is breathed into those to whom God is\n'the master light of all their seeing'; and, yet more, He is strength\nto all who have to fight. Thus the close union of trustful souls with\nGod, the actual inspiration of these, and the perfecting of their\nnature from communion with God, are taught us in the great words, which\ntell how beauty, justice, and strength are all given in the gift of\nJehovah Himself to His people.\n\nII. The prophet turns to Judah (vs. 7-13), and charges them with the\nsame disgusting debauchery. His language is vehement in its loathing,\nand describes the filthy orgies of those who should have been the\nguides of the people with almost painful realism. Note how the words\n'reel' and 'stagger' are repeated, and also the words 'wine' and\n'strong drink.' We see the priests' and prophets' unsteady gait, and\nthen they 'stumble' or fall. There they lie amid the filth, like hogs\nin a sty. It is very coarse language, but fine words are the Devil's\nveils for coarse sins; and it is needful sometimes to call spades\nspades, and not to be ashamed to tell men plainly how ugly are the\nvices which they are not ashamed to commit. No doubt some of the\ndrunken priests and false prophets in Jerusalem thought Isaiah\nextremely vulgar and indelicate, in talking about staggering teachers\nand tables swimming in 'vomit.' But he had to speak out. So deep was\nthe corruption that the officials were tipsy even when engaged in their\nofficial duties, the prophets reeled while they were seeing visions;\nthe judges could not sit upright even when pronouncing judgment.\n\nVerses 9 and 10 are generally taken as a sarcastic quotation of the\ndrunkards' scoffs at the prophet. They might be put in inverted commas.\nTheir meaning is, 'Does he take us grave and reverend seigniors,\npriests and prophets, to be babies just weaned, that he pesters us with\nthese monotonous petty preachings, fit only for the nursery, which he\ncalls his \"message\"?' In verse 10, the original for 'precept upon\nprecept,' etc., is a series of short words, which may be taken as\nreproducing the 'babbling tones of the drunken mockers.'\n\nThe loose livers of all generations talk in the same fashion about the\nstern morality which rebukes their vice. They call it weak,\ncommonplace, fit for children, and they pretend that they despise it.\nThey are much too enlightened for such antiquated teaching. Old women\nand children may take it in, but men of the world, who have seen life,\nand know what is what, are not to be fooled so. 'What will this babbler\nsay?' was asked by the wise men of Athens, who were but repeating the\nscoffs of the prophets and priests of Jerusalem, and the same jeers are\nbitter in the mouth of many a profligate man to-day. It is the fate of\nall strict morality to be accounted childish by the people whom it\ninconveniently condemns.\n\nIn verse 11 and onwards the prophet speaks. He catches up the mockers'\nwords, and retorts them. They have scoffed at his message as if it were\nstammering speech. They shall hear another kind of stammerers when the\nfierce invaders' harsh and unintelligible language commands them. The\nreason why these foreign voices would have authority, was the national\ndisregard of God's voice. 'Ye would not hear' Him when, by His prophet,\nHe spoke gracious invitations to rest, and to give the nation rest, in\nobedience and trust. Therefore they shall hear the battle-cry of the\nconqueror, and have to obey orders spoken in a barbarous tongue.\n\nOf course, the language meant is the Assyrian, which, though cognate\nwith Hebrew, is so unlike as to be unintelligible to the people. But is\nnot the threat the statement of a great truth always being fulfilled\ntowards the disobedient? If we will not listen to that loving Voice\nwhich calls us to rest, we shall be forced to listen to the harsh and\nstrident tones of conquering enemies who command us to slavish toil. If\nwe will not be guided by His eye and voice, we shall be governed by\nwhip and bridle. Our choice is either to hearken to the divine call,\nwhich is loving and gentle, and invites to deep repose springing from\nfaith, or to have to hear the voice of the taskmasters. The monotony of\ndespised moral and religious teaching shall give place to a more\nterrible monotony, even that of continuous judgments.\n\n'The mills of God grind slowly.' Bit by bit, with gradual steps, with\ndismal persistence, like the slow drops on the rock, the judgments of\nGod trickle out on the mocking heart. It takes a long time for a child\nto learn a pageful when he gets his lesson a sentence at a time. So\nslowly do His chastisements fall on men who have despised the\ncontinuous messages of His love. The word of the Lord, which was\nlaughed at when it clothed itself in a prophet's speech, will be heard\nin more formidable shape, when it is wrapped in the long-drawn-out\nmiseries of years of bondage. The warning is as needful for us as for\nthese drunken priests and scornful rulers. The principle embodied is\ntrue in this day as it was then, and we too have to choose between\nserving God in gladness, hearkening to the voice of His word, and so\nfinding rest to our souls, and serving the world, the flesh, and the\ndevil, and so experiencing the perpetual dropping of the fiery rain of\nHis judgments.\n\n\n\n\nA CROWN OP PRIDE OR A CROWN OF GLORY\n\n'The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under\nfeet; 4. And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat\nvalley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the\nsummer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in\nhis hand he eateth it up. 5. In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for\na crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his\npeople.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 3-5.\n\n\nThe reference is probably to Samaria as a chief city of Israel. The\nimage is suggested by the situation of Samaria, high on a hill-side,\ncrowning the valley, and by the rich vegetation and bright flowers\nwhich makes it even now one of the few lovely scenes in Palestine; and\nby the luxurious riot and sensual excess that were always\ncharacteristic of the northern kingdom.\n\nThe destruction of Samaria and of the kingdom, then, is here\nprophesied--the garland will fade, the hail will batter all its\ndrooping flowerets, and it shall be trodden under foot. Look at that\nwithered wreath that gleamed yesterday on some fair head, to-day flung\ninto the ashpit or kicked about the street. That is a modern rendering\nof the prophet's imagery. But the reference goes further than merely to\nthe city: the whole state of the nation is expressed by the symbol, as\ndoomed to quick decay, fading in itself, and further smitten down by\ndivine judgments.\n\nThere is a contrasted picture, that of 'the residue of the people' to\nwhom there is an amaranthine crown, a festal diadem glorious and\nbeautiful, which can never fade, even God Himself. To them who love Him\nHe is an ornament, and His presence is the consecration of the true\njoyful feast. They who are crowned by Him are crowned, not for idle\nrevelry, but for strenuous toil ('sit in judgment') and for brave\npurpose ('turn the battle to the gate,') and their coronation day is\never the day when earthly garlands are withered, whether it be the\ncrises and convulsions of nations and institutions, or times of\npersonal trial, or 'in the hour of death or in the day of judgment.'\n\nExpanding then these thoughts, we have--\n\nI. All godless joys are but fading chaplets.\n\nOf course the first application of such words is to purely sensuous\ndelights.\n\nMen who seek to make life a mere revel and banquet.\n\nNothing is so short-lived as gratification of appetite. It is not\nmerely that each act lasts but for a moment, but also that past\ngratifications leave no sort of solace to the appetite behind them;\nwhereas past acquirements or deeds of goodness are a perpetual joy as\nwell as the foundation of the present. There is something essentially\nisolated in each act of sensuous delight. No man can by so willing\nrecall the taste of eaten food, nor slake his thirst by remembrance of\nformer draughts, or cool himself by thinking of 'frosty Caucasus.' But\neach such gratification is done when it is done, and there is an end of\nits power to gratify.\n\nFurther, the power of enjoyment wanes, though the lust for it waxes.\nHence each act has less and less power of satisfying.\n\nOne sees _blase_ young men of twenty-five. It was a man of under\nthirty-five who wrote, 'Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither.' It\nwas a used-up _roue_ that was represented as saying, 'Vanity of\nvanities, all is vanity.' It was of sensuous 'pleasures' that poor\nBurns wrote,--\n\n                   'Like the snowfall in the river,\n                    A moment white,--then melts for ever.'\n\nWhen a people is given over to such excess, late or soon the fate of\nSamaria comes upon them. Think of the French Revolution or of the fall\nof Rome, and learn that the prophet was announcing a law for all\nnations, in his fiery denunciation, and one which holds good to-day as\never.\n\nBut we may generalise more widely. Every godless life is essentially\ntransitory; of course, all life is so in one view. But suppose two men,\nworking side by side at the same occupation, passing through the same\ncircumstances. So far as physical changes go, these men are the same.\nBoth lose much. Both leave behind much. Both cease to be interested in\nmuch that was dear to them. Both die at last, and leave it all. Is\nthere any difference? The transitoriness is the same, and the eternal\nconsequences are eternal alike in both; and yet there is a very solemn\nsense in which the one man's life has utterly perished, and the other's\nabides. Suppose a man, educated to be a first-rate man of business,\ndies. Which of his trained faculties will he have scope for in that new\norder of things? Or a student, or a lawyer, or a statesman?\n\nOh, it is not our natural mortality that makes these thoughts so awful;\nbut it is the thought that the man who is doing these things is\nimmortal. The head which wears the fading wreath will live for ever.\n'What will ye do in the end?'\n\nII. Godly life brings unfading joys.\n\nCommunion with God yields abiding joys. The law of change remains the\nsame. The law of death remains the same. But the motives which direct\nand impel the godly man are beyond the reach of change.\n\nThe habits which he contracts are for heaven as well as for earth. The\ntreasures which he amasses will always be his.\n\nHis life in its essence and his work are one in all worlds. What a\ngrand continuity, then, knits into one a godly life whether it is lived\non earth or in heaven!\n\nCommunion with God gives beauty and ornament to the whole character. It\nbrings the true refining and perfecting of the soul. No doubt many\nChristian men, as we see them, are but poor specimens of this effect of\ngodliness; still, it is an effect produced in proportion to the depth\nand continuity of their communion. We might dwell on the effect on\nWill, Affections, Understanding, produced by dwelling in God. It is\nsimple fact that the highest conceivable type of beauty is only reached\nthrough communion with God.\n\nCommunion with God gives power as well as gladness. The life of abiding\nwith God is also one of strenuous effort and real warfare. In the\ncontext it is promised that God will be for strength to them that turn\nthe battle to the gate.\n\nThe luxurious life of self-indulgence ends, as all selfish life must\ndo, in the vanishing of delights. The life of joy in God issues, as all\ntrue joy does, in power for work and in power for conflict.\n\n'God doth anoint thee with His odorous oil, to wrestle, not to reign.'\n\nIII. There will be a coronation day.\n\n'In that day,' the day when 'the crown of pride shall be trodden under\nfoot,' the people of God are crowned with the diadem of beauty which is\nGod Himself. That twofold work of that one day suggests--\n\nThe double aspect of trials and sorrows.\n\nThe double aspect of death.\n\nThe double aspect of final Judgment.\n\n'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the\nLord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.'\n\nTo be crowned or discrowned 'in that day' is the alternative set before\neach of us. Which of the two do we choose?\n\n\n\n\nMAN'S CROWN AND GOD'S\n\n'In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a\ndiadem of beauty.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 5.\n\n'Thou shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord.'--ISAIAH\nlxii 3.\n\n\nConnection of first prophecy--destruction of Samaria. Its situation,\ncrowning the hill with its walls and towers, its fertile 'fat valley,'\nthe flagrant immorality and drunkenness of its inhabitants, and its\nfinal ruin, are all presented in the highly imaginative picture of its\nfall as being like the trampling under foot of a garland on a\nreveller's head, the roses of which fade and droop amid the fumes of\nthe banqueting hall, and are then flung out on the highway. The\ncontrast presented is very striking and beautiful. When all that gross\nand tumultuous beauty has faded and died, then God Himself will be a\ncrown of beauty to His people.\n\nThe second text comes into remarkable line with this. The verbal\nresemblance is not quite so strong in the original. The words for\n_diadem_ and _crown_ are not the same; the word rendered _glory_ in the\nsecond text is rendered _beauty_ in the first, but the two texts are\nentirely one in meaning. The same metaphor, then, is used with\nreference to what God is to the Church and what the Church is to God.\nHe is its crown, it is His.\n\nI. The Possession of God is the Coronation of Man.\n\n(a) Crowns were worn by guests at feasts. They who possess God sit at a\ntable perpetually spread with all which the soul can wish or want.\nContrast the perishable delights of sense and godless life with the\ncalm and immortal joys of communion with God; 'a crown that fadeth not\naway' beside withered garlands.\n\n(b) Crowns were worn by kings. They who serve God are thereby invested\nwith rule over selves, over circumstances, over all externals. He alone\ngives completeness to self-control.\n\n(c) Crowns were worn by priests. The highest honour and dignity of\nman's nature is thereby reached. To have God is like a beam of sunshine\non a garden, which brings out the colours of all the flowers; contrast\nwith the same garden in the grey monotony of a cloudy twilight.\n\nII. The Coronation of Man in God is the Coronation of God in Man.\n\nThat includes the following thoughts.\n\nThe true glory of God is in the communication of Himself. What a\nwonderful light that throws on divine character! It is equivalent to\n'God is Love.'\n\nHe who is glorified by God glorifies God, as showing the most wonderful\nworking of His power in making such a man out of such material, by an\nalchemy that can convert base metal into fine gold; as showing the most\nwonderful condescension of His love in taking to His heart man, into\nwhose flesh the rotting leprosy of sin has eaten.\n\nSuch a man will glorify God by becoming a conscious herald of His\npraise. He who has God in his heart will magnify Him by lip and life.\nRedeemed men are 'secretaries of His praise' to men, and 'to\nprincipalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the\nChurch the manifold wisdom of God.'\n\nHe who thus glorifies God is held in God's hand.\n\n'None shall pluck them out of My Father's hand.'\n\nAll this will be perfected in heaven. Redeemed men lead the universal\nchorus that thunders forth 'glory to Him that sitteth on the throne.'\n\n'He shall come to be glorified in His saints.'\n\n'Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOUNDATION OF GOD\n\n'Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a\nfoundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure\nfoundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 16.\n\n\n'Therefore thus saith the Lord.' Then these great words are God's\nanswer to something. And that something is the scornful defiance by the\nrulers of Israel of the prophet's threatenings. By their deeds, whether\nby their words or no, they said that they had made friends of their\nenemies, and that so they were sure that, whatsoever came, they were\nsafe. To this contemptuous and false reliance God answers, not as we\nmight expect, first of all, by a repetition of the threatenings, but by\na majestic disclosure of the sure refuge which He has provided, set in\ncontrast to the flimsy and false ones, on which these men built their\ntruculent confidence; 'I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone.' And\nthen, after the exhibition of the great mercy which has been evoked by\nthe very blasphemy of the rulers, and not till then, does He reiterate\nthe threatenings of judgment, against which this foundation is laid,\nthat men may escape; God first declares the refuge, and then warns of\nthe tempest.\n\nWithout entering at all upon the question, which for all believing and\nsimple souls is settled by the New Testament, of the Messianic\napplication of the words before us, I take it for granted. There may no\ndoubt be an allusion here to the great solid blocks which travellers\ntell us may still be seen at the base of the encircling walls of the\nTemple hill. A stone so gigantic and so firm God has laid for man to\nbuild upon.\n\nI. Note, then, first, the foundation, which is Christ.\n\nThere are many aspects of the great thought on which I cannot touch\neven for a moment. For instance, let me remind you how, in a very deep\nsense, Jesus Christ is the foundation of the whole of the divine\ndealings with us; and how, in another aspect, historically, since the\nday on which He appeared on earth, He has more and more manifestly and\ncompletely been the foundation of the whole history of the world. But\npassing these aspects, let us rather fix upon those which are more\nimmediately in the prophet's mind.\n\nJesus Christ is the foundation laid for all men's security against\nevery tempest or assault. The context has portrayed the coming of a\ntremendous storm and inundation, in view of which this foundation is\nlaid. The building reared on it then is, therefore, to be a refuge and\nan asylum. Have not we all of us, like these scornful men in Jerusalem,\nbuilt our refuges on vain hopes, on creatural affections, on earthly\npossessions, on this, that, and the other false thing, all of which are\nto be swept away when the storm comes? And does there not come upon us\nall the blast of the ordinary calamities to which flesh is heir, and\nhave we not all more or less consciousness of our own evil and\nsinfulness; and does there not lie before every one of us at the end of\nlife that solemn last struggle, and beyond that, as we most of us\nbelieve, a judgment for all that we have done in the body? 'I lay in\nZion for a foundation a stone.' Build upon that, and neither the\ntempest of earthly calamities, changes, disappointments, sorrows,\nlosses, nor the scourge that is wielded because of our sins, nor the\nlast wild tempest that sweeps a man on the wings of its strong blast\nfrom out of life into the dark region, nor the solemn final retribution\nand judgment, shall ever touch us. And when the hail sweeps away the\nrefuge of lies, and the waters overflow the hiding-place, this\nfoundation stands sure--\n\n  And lo! from sin and grief and shame\n  I hide me, Jesus, in Thy name.\n\nBrethren, the one foundation on which building, we can build secure,\nand safe as well as secure, is that foundation which is laid in the\nincarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God. The\nfoundation of all our security is Jesus Christ.\n\nWe may look at the same thought under somewhat different aspects. He is\nthe foundation for all our thinking and opinions, for all our belief\nand our knowledge. 'In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and\nknowledge,' and whatsoever of solid fact men can grasp in their\nthinkings in regard to all the most important facts and truths with\nwhich they come into relation, is to be found in the life and death of\nJesus Christ, and in the truths which these reveal. He is the\nfoundation of all our knowledge of God, and of all our true knowledge\nof ourselves, of all our true knowledge of duty, and all our true\nknowledge of the relations between the present and the future, between\nman and God.\n\nAnd in His life, in the history of His death and resurrection, is the\nonly foundation for any real knowledge of the awful mysteries that lie\nbeyond the grave. He is the Alpha from whom all truth must be deduced,\nthe Omega to which it all leads up. Certitude is in Him. Apart from Him\nwe are but groping amid peradventures. If we _know_ anything about God\nit is due to Jesus Christ. If we _know_ anything about ourselves it is\ndue to Him. If we _know_ anything about what men ought to do, it is\nbecause He has done all human duty. And if, into the mist and darkness\nthat wraps the future, there has ever travelled one clear beam of\ninsight, it is because He has died and risen again. If we have Him, and\nponder upon the principles that are involved in, and flow from, the\nfacts of His life and death, then we know; and 'the truth as it is in\nJesus' is the truth indeed. To possess Him is to hold the key to all\nmysteries, and knowledge without Him is but knowledge of the husk, the\nkernel being all unreached. That Stone is the foundation on which the\nwhole stately fabric of man's knowledge of the highest things must ever\nbe reared.\n\nHe is the foundation of all restful love. A Czar of Russia, in the old\ndays, was mad enough to build a great palace upon the ice-blocks of the\nNeva. And when the spring came, and the foundations melted, the house,\nfull of delights and luxury, sank beneath the river. We build upon\nfrozen water, and when the thaw comes, what we build sinks and is lost\nto sight. Instead of love that twines round the creature and trails,\nbleeding and bruised, along the ground when the prop is taken away, let\nus turn our hearts to the warm, close, pure, perfect changeless love of\nthe undying Christ, and we shall build above the fear of change. The\ndove's nest in the pine-tree falls in ruin when the axe is laid to the\nroot. Let us build our nests in the clefts of the rock and no hand will\never reach them. Christ is the foundation on which we may build an\nimmortal love.\n\nHe is the foundation for all noble and pure living. He is the fixed\npattern to which it may be conformed. Otherwise man's notions of what\nis virtuous and good are much at the mercy of conventional variations\nof opinion. This class, that community, this generation, that school,\nall differ in their notions of what is true nobleness and goodness of\nlife. And we are left at the mercy of fluctuating standards unless we\ntake Christ in His recorded life as the one realised ideal of manhood,\nthe pattern of what we ought to be. We cannot find a fixed and\navailable model for conduct anywhere so useful, so complete, so capable\nof application to all varieties of human life and disposition as we\nfind in Him, who was not this man or that man, in whom the manly and\nthe feminine, the gentle and the strong, the public and the private\ngraces were equally developed. In Christ there is no limitation or\ntaint. In Christ there is nothing narrow or belonging to a school. This\nwater has no taste of any of the rocks through which it flowed. You\ncannot say of Jesus Christ that He is a Jew or a Gentile, that He is\nman or woman, that He is of the ancient age or the modern type, that He\nis cut after this pattern or that. All beauty and all grace are in Him,\nand every man finds there the example that he needs. So, as the perfect\npattern, He is the foundation for all noble character.\n\nAs the one sufficient motive for holy and beauteous living, He is the\nfoundation. 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' That is a new thing\nin the world's morality, and that one motive, and that motive alone,\nhas power, as the spring sunshine has, to draw beauty from out the\nlittle sheaths of green, and to tempt the radiance of the flowers to\nunfold their lustre. They that find the reason and the motive for\ngoodness and purity in Christ's love to them, and their answering love\nto Christ, will build a far fairer fabric of a life than any others,\nlet them toil at the building as they may. So, dear brethren, on this\nfoundation God has built His mercy to all generations, and on this\nfoundation you and I may build our safety, our love, our thinkings, our\nobedience, and rest secure.\n\nII. Note next the tried preciousness of the foundation.\n\nThe language of the text, 'a stone of proof,' as it reads in the\noriginal, probably means a stone which has been tested and stood the\ntrial. And because it is thus a tested stone, it therefore is a\nprecious stone. There are two kinds of testing--the testing from the\nassaults of enemies, and the testing by the building upon it of\nfriends. And both these methods of proof have been applied, and it has\nstood the test.\n\nThink of all the assaults that have been made from this side and the\nother against Christ and His gospel, and what has become of them all?\nTravellers tell us how they often see some wandering tribes of savage\nArabs trying to move the great stones, for instance, of Baalbec--those\nwonders of unfinished architecture. But what can a crowd of such\npeople, with all their crowbars and levers, do to the great stone\nbedded there, where it has been for centuries? They cannot stir it one\nhair's-breadth. And so, against Jesus Christ and His gospel there has\nstormed for eighteen hundred years an assaulting crowd, varying in its\nindividuals and in its methods of attack, but the same in its purpose,\nand the same in the fruitlessness of its effort. Century after century\nthey have said, as they are saying to-day, '_Now_ the final assault is\ngoing to be delivered; it can never stand _this_.' And when the smoke\nhas cleared away there may be a little blackening upon the edge, but\nthere is not a chip off its bulk, and it stands in its bed where it\ndid; and of all the grand preparations for a shattering explosion,\nnothing is left but a sulphurous smell, and a wreath of smoke, and both\nare floating away down into the distance. Generation after generation\nhas attacked the gospel; generation after generation has been foiled;\nand I do not need to be a prophet, or the son of a prophet, to be quite\nsure of this, that all who to-day are trying to destroy men's faith in\nthe Incarnate Son of God, who died for them and rose again, will meet\nthe same fate. I can see the ancient and discredited systems of\nunbelief, that have gone down into oblivion, rising from their seats,\nas the prophet in his great vision saw the kings of the earth, to greet\nthe last comer who had fought against God and failed, with 'Art thou\nalso become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?' The stone will\nstand, whosoever tries to blow it up with his dynamite, or to pound it\nwith his hammers.\n\nBut there is the other kind of testing. One proves the foundation by\nbuilding upon it. If the stone be soft, if it be slender, if it be\nimperfectly bedded, it will crumble, it will shift, it will sink. But\nthis stone has borne all the weight that the world has laid upon it,\nand borne it up. Did any man ever come to Jesus Christ with a sorrow\nthat He could not comfort, with a sin that He could not forgive, with a\nsoul that He could not save? And we may trust Him to the end. He is a\n'tried stone.' 'This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved\nhim out of all his troubles,' has been the experience of nineteen\ncenturies.\n\nSo, being tried, it is precious,--precious to God who laid it there at\na great and real cost to Himself--having given up 'His only begotten\nSon'; precious, inasmuch as building upon it is the one safety from the\nraging tempest and flood that would else engulf and destroy us.\n\nIII. Note, next, the process of building.\n\nThe metaphor seems to be abandoned in the last words of our text, but\nit is only apparently so. 'He that believeth shall not make haste.' So,\nthen, we build by believing. The act of building is simple faith in\nJesus Christ. We _come_ to Him, as the Apostle Peter has it in his\nquotation of this text--come to Him as unto a living stone, and the\ncoming and the building are both of them metaphors for the one simple\nthing, trust in the Lord. The bond that unites men on earth with Christ\nin Heaven, is the exercise of simple faith in Him. By it they come into\ncontact with Him, and receive from Him the security and the blessing\nthat He can bestow. Nothing else brings a man into living fellowship\nwith Him. When we trust in the Lord we, as it were, are bedded into\nHim; and resting upon Him with all our weight, then we are safe. That\nconfidence involves the abandonment of all the 'refuges of lies.' There\nmust be utter self-distrust and forsaking and turning away from every\ndependence upon anything else, if we are to trust ourselves to Jesus\nChrist. But the figure of a foundation which gives security and\nstability to the stones laid upon it, does not exhaust all the\nblessedness of this building upon Christ. For when we really rest upon\nHim, there comes from the foundation up through all the courses a vital\npower. Thus Peter puts it: 'To whom, coming as unto a living stone, ye\nalso as living stones are built up.' We might illustrate this by the\nsupposition of some fortress perched upon a rock, and in the heart of\nthe rock a clear fountain, which is guided by some pipe or other into\nthe innermost rooms of the citadel. Thus, builded upon Christ, 'our\ndefence shall be the munitions of rocks, and our waters shall be sure.'\nFrom Him, the foundation, there will rise into all the stones, built\nupon Him, the power of His own endless life, and they, too, become\nliving stones.\n\nIV. So note, lastly, the quiet confidence of the builders.\n\n'He that believeth shall not _make haste._' The word is somewhat\nobscure, and the LXX., which is followed by the New Testament, readers\nit, 'Shall not be confounded or put to shame.' But the rendering of our\ntext seems to be accurate enough. 'He shall not make haste.' Remember\nthe picture of the context--a suddenly descending storm, a swiftly\nrising and turbid flood, the lashing of the rain, the howling of the\nwind. The men in the clay-built hovels on the flat have to take to\nflight to some higher ground above the reach of the innundation, on\nsome sheltered rock out of the flashing of the rain and the force of\nthe tempest. He who is built upon the true foundation knows that his\nhouse is above the water-level, and he does not need to be in a hurry.\nHe can remain quietly there till the flood subsides, knowing that it\nwill not rise high enough to drown or even disturb him. When all the\nother buildings are gone, his stands. And he that thus dwells on high\nmay look out over the wild flood, washing and weltering to the horizon,\nand feel that he is safe. So shall he not have to make haste, but may\nwait calm and quiet, knowing that all is well.\n\nDear friends, there is only one refuge for any of us--only one from the\nlittle annoyances and from the great ones; from to-day's petty\ntroubles, and from the day of judgment; from the slight stings, if I\nmay so say, of little sorrows, cares, burdens, and from the poisoned\ndart of the great serpent. There is only one refuge for any of us, to\nbuild upon Jesus Christ, as we can do by simple faith.\n\nAnd oh! remember, He must either be the foundation on which we build,\nor the stone of stumbling against which we stumble, and which one day\nwill fall upon us and grind us to powder. Do you make your choice; and\nwhen God says, as He says to each of us: 'Behold! I lay in Zion a\nfoundation,' do you say, 'And, Lord, I build upon the foundation which\nThou hast laid.'\n\n\n\n\nGOD'S STRANGE WORK\n\n'That He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act,\nHis strange act.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 21.\n\n\nHow the great events of one generation fall dead to another! There is\nsomething very pathetic in the oblivion that swallows up\nworld-resounding deeds. Here the prophet selects two instances which to\nhim are solemn and singular examples of divine judgment, and we have\ndifficulty in finding out to what he refers. To him they seemed the\nmost luminous illustrations he could find of the principle which he is\nproclaiming, and to us all the light is burned out of them. They are\nthe darkest portion of the verse. Several different events have been\nsuggested. But most probably the historical references here are to\nDavid's slaughter of the Philistines (2 Sam. v., and I Chron. xiv.).\nThis is probable, but by no means certain. If so, the words are made\nstill more threatening by asserting that He will treat the Israelites\nas if they were Philistines. But the point on which we should\nconcentrate attention is this remarkable expression, according to which\njudgment is God's strange work. And that is made more emphatic by the\nuse of a word translated 'act,' which means service, and is almost\nalways used for work that is hard and heavy--a toil or a task.\n\nI. The work in which God delights.\n\nIt is here implied that the opposite kind of activity is congenial to\nHim. The text declares judgment to be an anomaly, out of His ordinary\ncourse of action and foreign to His nature.\n\nWe may pause for a moment on that great thought that God has a usual\ncourse of action, which is usual because it is the spontaneous\nexpression and true mirror of His character. What He thus does shows\nthat character to His creatures, who cannot see Him but in the glass of\nHis works, and have to infer His nature, as they best may, from His\nworks. The Bible begins with His nature and thence interprets His work.\n\nThe work in which God delights is the utterance of His love in blessing.\n\nThe very essence of love is self-manifestation.\n\nThe very being of God is love, and all being delights in its own\nself-manifestation, in its own activity.\n\nHow great the thought is that He is glad when we let Him satisfy His\nnature by making us glad!\n\nThe ordinary course of His government in the world is blessing.\n\nII. The Task in which He does not delight, or His Strange Work.\n\nThe consequences of sin are God's work. The miseries consequent on sin\nare self-inflicted, but they are also God's judgments on sin. We may\nsay that sin automatically works out its results, but its results\nfollow by the will of God on account of sin.\n\nThat work is a necessity arising from the nature of God. It is foreign\nto His heart but not to His nature. God is both 'the light of Israel'\nfor blessing, and 'a consuming fire.' The two opposite effects are\nequally the result of the contact of God and man. Light pains a\ndiseased eye and gladdens a sound one. The sun seen through a mist\nbecomes like a ball of red-hot iron. The whole revelation of God\nbecomes a pain to an unloving soul.\n\nBut God's very love compels Him to punish.\n\nSome modern notions of the love of God seem to strike out righteousness\nfrom His nature altogether, and substitute for it a mere good nature\nwhich is weakness, not love, and is cruelty, not kindness.\n\nThere is nothing in the facts of the world or in the teachings of the\ngospel which countenances the notion of a God whose fondness prevents\nHim from scourging.\n\nWhat do you call it when a father spares the rod and spoils the child?\n\nEven this world is a very serious place for a man who sets himself\nagainst its laws. Its punishments come down surely and not always\nslowly. There is nothing in it to encourage the idea of impunity.\n\nThat work is to Him an Unwelcome Necessity. Bold words. 'I have no\npleasure in the death of a sinner.' 'He doth not willingly inflict.'\nThe awful power of sin to divert the current of blessing. Christ's\ntears over Jerusalem. How unwelcome that work is to them is shown by\nthe slowness of His judgments, by multiplied warnings. 'Rising up\nearly,' He tells men that He will smite, in order that He may never\nneed to smite.\n\nThat work is a certainty. However reluctantly He smites, the blow\n_will_ fall.\n\nIII. The Strange Work of Redemption.\n\nThe mightiest miracle. The revelation of God's deepest nature. The\nwonder of the universe.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS OPERATIONS\n\n'Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. 24. Doth\nthe plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of\nhis ground! 25. When lie hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not\ncast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the\nprincipal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?\n26. For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.\n27. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument,\nneither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches\nare beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. 28. Bread corn\nis bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with\nthe wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. 29. This also\ncometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and\nexcellent in working.'--ISAIAH xxviii. 23-29.\n\n\nThe prophet has been foretelling a destruction which he calls God's\n_strange_ act. The Jews were incredulous, 'scornful men.' They did not\nbelieve him; and the main reason for their incredulity was that a\ndivine destruction of the nation was so opposite to the divine\nconservation of it as to amount to an impossibility. God had raised up\nand watched over the people. He had planted it in the mountain of His\ninheritance, and now was it going to be thrown down by the same hand\nwhich had built it up? Impossible.\n\nThe prophet's answer to that question is this parable of the\nhusbandman, who has to perform a great variety of operations. He\nploughs, but that is not all. He lays aside the plough when it has done\nits work, and takes up the seed-basket, and, in different ways, sows\ndifferent seeds, scattering some broadcast, and dropping others\ncarefully, grain by grain, into their place--'dibbling' it in, as we\nshould say. But seedtime too, passes, and then he cuts down what he had\nso carefully sown, and pulls up what he had so sedulously planted, and,\nin different ways, breaks and bruises the grain. Is he inconsistent\nbecause he ploughs in winter and reaps in harvest? Does his carrying\nthe seed-basket at one time make it impossible that he shall come with\nflail and threshing-oxen at another? Are not all the various operations\nco-operant to one end? Does not the end need them all? Is not one\npurpose going steadily forward through ploughing, sowing, reaping,\nthreshing? Is not that like the work of the great Husbandman, who\nchanges His methods and preserves His plan through them all, who has\nHis 'time to sow' and His 'time to reap,' and who orders the affairs of\nmen and kingdoms, for the one purpose that He may gather His wheat into\nHis garner, and purge from it its chaff?\n\nThis parable sets forth a philosophy of the divine operations very\nbeautiful and true, and none the less impressive for the simple garb in\nwhich it is clothed.\n\nI. All things come from one steady, divine purpose.\n\nWe may notice in passing how reverentially the prophet believes that\nagriculture is taught by God. He would have said the same of\ncotton-spinning or coal-mining. Think how striking a figure that is, of\nall the world as God's farm, where He practises His husbandry to grow\nthe crops which He desires.\n\nWhat a picture the parable gives of sedulous and patient labour for a\nfar-off result!\n\nIt insists on the thought of one steady divine purpose ever directing\nthe movements of the divine hand.\n\nThat is the negation of the godless theory that the affairs of men are\nmerely the work of men, or are merely the result of impersonal causes.\nThe world is not a jungle where any or every plant springs of itself,\nbut it is cultivated ground which has an Owner who looks after it.\n\nIt is the affirmation that God's action is regulated by a purpose which\nis intelligent, unchanging, all-embracing to us because revealed.\n\nII. That steady purpose is man's highest good.\n\nThe end of all the farmer's care is the ripening of the seed. God's\npurpose is our moral, intellectual, and spiritual perfecting.\n\nNeither His own 'glory' nor man's 'happiness,' which are taken by\ndifferent schools of thought to be the divine aim in creation and\nprovidence, is an object worthy of Him or adequate to explain the facts\nof every man's experience, unless both are regarded as needing man's\nperfecting, for their attainment. God's glory is to make men godlike.\nMan's happiness cannot be secured without His holiness.\n\nGod has larger and nobler designs for us than merely to make us happy.\n\n'This is the will of God concerning you, even your sanctification.'\n\nNothing short of that end would be worthy of God, or would explain His\nmethods.\n\nIII. That purpose needs great variety of processes.\n\nThis is true about nations and about individuals.\n\nDifferent stages of growth need different treatment.\n\nThe parable names three operations:--\n\nPloughing, which is preparation;\n\nSowing, or casting in germinating principles;\n\nThreshing, which is effected by tribulation, a word which means driving\na 'tribulum' or threshing-sedge over ears of grain.\n\nSo sorrow is indispensable for our perfecting.\n\nBy it earthly affections are winnowed away, and our dependence on God\nincreased. A certain refinement of spirit results, like the pallor on\nthe face of a chronic invalid, which has a delicate beauty unattainted\nby ruddy health. A capacity for sympathy, too, is often the result of\none's own trials. Rightly borne, they tend to bend or break the will,\nand they teach how great it is to suffer and be strong.\n\nBut sorrow is not enough; joy is indispensable too. The crop is\nthreshed in tribulation, but is grown mostly in sunshine. Calm,\nuneventful hours, continuous possession of blessings, have a ministry\nnot less than afflictions have. The corn in the furrow, waving in the\nwestern wind, and with golden sunlight among its golden stems, is\npreparing for the loaf no less than when bound in bundles and lying on\nthe threshing-floor, or cut and bruised by sharp teeth of dray or heavy\nhoofs of oxen, or blows of swinging flails.\n\nSo do not suppose that sorrow is the only instrument for perfecting\ncharacter, and see that you do not miss the sanctifying and ripening\neffect of your joyous hours.\n\nAgain, different types of character require different modes of\ntreatment. In the parable, 'the fitches' are sown in one fashion, and\n'the cummin' in another the 'wheat' and 'barley' in still another; and\nsimilar variety marks the methods of separating the grain from the\nhusk, one kind of crop being threshed another having a wheel turned\nupon it. Thus each of us gets the kind of joys and pains that will have\nmost effect on us. God knows where is the tenderest spot, and makes no\nmistakes in His dealing. He sends us 'afflictions sorted, sorrows of\nall sizes.'\n\nLet us see that we trust to His loving and wise adaptation of our\ntrials to our temperaments and needs. Let us see that we never let\nclouds obscure the clearness of our perception, or, failing perception,\nthe serenity of our trust, that all things work together, and all work\nfor our highest good--our being made like our Lord. We should less\noften complain of the mysteries of Providence if we had learned the\nmeaning of Isaiah's parable.\n\nIV. All the processes end in garnering the grain.\n\nThere is a barn or storehouse for the ripened and threshed crops. The\nfarmer's toil and careful processes would be absurd and unintelligible\nif, after them all, the crop, so sedulously ripened and cultivated and\ncleansed, was left to rot where it fell. And no less certainly does the\ndiscipline of this life cry aloud for heaven and a conscious personal\nfuture life, if it is not to be all set down as grim irony or utterly\nabsurd. There must be a heaven if we are not to be put to intellectual\nbewilderment.\n\nWhat was needed for growth here drops away there, as blossoms fall when\ntheir work is done. Sunshine and rain are no more necessary when the\nfields are cleared and the barn-yard is filled. Much in our nature, in\nour earthly condition, in God's varying processes, will drop away. When\nschool-time is done the rod is burned. But nothing will perish that can\ncontribute to our perfecting.\n\nSo let us ask Him to purge us with His fan in His hand now, lest we\nshould be found at last fruitless cumberers of the ground or chaff\nwhich is rootless, and fit only to be swept out of the threshing-floor.\n\n\n\n\n'QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE'\n\n'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence\nshall be your strength.'--ISAIAH xxx. 15.\n\n\nISRAEL always felt the difficulty of sustaining itself on the height of\ndependence on the unseen, spiritual power of God, and was ever\noscillating between alliances with the Northern and Southern powers,\nlinking itself with Assyria against Egypt, or with Egypt against\nAssyria. The effect was that whichever was victorious it suffered; it\nwas the battleground for both, it was the prize of each in turn. The\nprophet's warnings were political wisdom as truly as religious.\n\nHere Judah is exhorted to forsake the entangling dependence on Egypt,\nand to trust wholly to God. They had gone away from Him in their fears.\nThey must come back by their faith. To them the great lesson was trust\nin God. Through them to us the same lesson is read. The principle is\nfar wider than this one case. It is the one rule of life for us all.\n\nThe two clauses of the text convey substantially the same idea. They\nare in inverted parallelism. 'Returning and rest' correspond to\n'quietness and confidence,' so as that 'rest' answers to 'quietness'\nand 'returning' to 'confidence.' In the former clause we have the\naction towards God and then its consequence. In the latter we have the\nconsequence and then the action.\n\nI. The returning.\n\nMen depart from God by speculative thought or by anxious care, or by\nsin.\n\nTo 'return' is just to trust.\n\nThe parallel helps us here--'returning' is parallel with 'confidence.'\nThis confidence is to be exercised especially in relation to one's own\npath in life and the outward trials and difficulties which we meet, but\nits sphere extends far beyond these. It is a disposition of mind which\ncovers all things. The attitude of trust, the sense of dependence, the\nassurance of God's help and love are in all life the secrets of peace\nand power.\n\nAm I sinful? then trust. Am I bewildered and ignorant? then trust. Am I\nanxious and harassed? then trust.\n\nNote the thought, that we come back to God by simple confidence, not by\npreparing ourselves, not by our expiation, but only by trusting in Him.\n\nOf course the temptations to the opposite attitude are many and great.\n\nNote, too, that every want of confidence is a departure from God. We go\naway from Him not only by open sin, not only by denial of Him, but by\nforget-fulness, by want of faith.\n\nThe _ground_ of this confidence is laid in our knowledge of Him,\nespecially in our knowledge of Jesus Christ.\n\nThe _exercise_ of this confidence is treated as voluntary. Every man is\nresponsible for his faith.\n\nThe _elements_ of this confidence are, as regards ourselves, our sense\nof want in all its various aspects; and, as regards Him, our assurance\nof His love, of His nearness to help.\n\nII. Confiding nearness to God brings quiet rest.\n\n'Rest' and 'being quiet' are treated here partly as consequences of\nfaith, partly as duties which we are bound to strive to achieve.\n\n1. See how confidence in God stills and quiets the soul.\n\nThe very exercise of communion with Him brings peace and rest, inasmuch\nas all things are then possessed which we can desire. There is a still\nfruition which nothing can equal and nothing destroy.\n\nTrust in God brings rest from our own evil consciences.\n\nIt brings rest from our own plans and purposes.\n\nTrust gives insight into the meaning of all this else unintelligible\nworld.\n\nIt brings the calming and subduing of desires, which in their eagerness\ntorture, in their fruition trouble, and in their disappointment madden.\n\nIt brings the gathering in of ourselves from all the disturbing\ndiffusion of ourselves through earthly trifles.\n\n2. Notice what this rest is not.\n\nIt does not mean the absence of causes of disturbance.\n\nIt does not mean the abnegation of forethought.\n\nIt does not mean an indolent passiveness.\n\n3. Notice the duty of being thus quiet and resting.\n\nHow much we fail in this respect.\n\nWe have faith, but there seems some obstruction which stops it from\nflowing refreshingly through our lives.\n\nWe are bound to seek for its increased continuity and power in our\nhearts and lives.\n\nIII. Confidence and rest in God bring safety and strength.\n\nThat is true in the lowest sense of 'saved,' and not less true in the\nhighest. The condition of all our salvation from temporal as well as\nspiritual evils lies thus in the same thing--that we trust God.\n\nNo harm comes to us when we trust, because then God is with us, and\nworks for us, and cares for us. So all departments of life are bound\ntogether by the one law. Trust is the condition of being 'saved.'\n\nAnd not only so, but also trust is strength. God works _for_ us; yes,\nbut better than that, God works _in_ us and fits _us_ to work.\n\nWhat powers we might be in the world! Trust should make us strong. To\nhave confidence in God should bring us power to which all other power\nis as nothing. He who can feel that his foot is on the rock, how firm\nhe should stand!\n\nBest gives strength. The rest of faith doubles our forces. To be freed\nfrom anxious care makes a man much more likely to act vigorously and to\njudge wisely.\n\nStillness of soul, born of communion with God, makes us strong.\n\nStillness of soul, born of deliverance from our fears, makes us strong.\n\nHere then is a golden chain--or shall we rather say a live\nwire?--whereof one end is bound to the Throne and the other encircles\nour poor hearts. Trust, so shall we be at rest and safe. Being at rest\nand safe, we shall be strong. If we link ourselves with God by faith,\nGod will flash into us His mysterious energy, and His strength will be\nmade perfect in our weakness.\n\n\n\n\nGOD'S WAITING AND MAN'S\n\n'And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you,\nand therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for\nthe Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are they that wait for\nHim.'--ISAIAH xxx. 18.\n\n\nGod's waiting and man's--bold and beautiful, that He and we should be\nrepresented as sharing the same attitude.\n\nI. God's waiting,\n\n1. The first thought is--why should He wait--why does He not act at\nonce? Because something in us hinders. We cannot enter into spiritual\nblessings till we are made capable of them by faith. It would not be\nfor our good to receive some temporal blessings till sorrow has done\nits work on us. The great thought here is that God has a right time for\nhelp. He is 'a God of judgment,' _i.e._. discerns our moral condition\nand shapes His dealings thereby. He never gives the wrong medicine.\n\n2. His waiting is full of work to fit us to receive His grace. It is\nnot a mere passive standing by, till the fit conditions are seen in us;\nbut He 'is exalted' while He waits, _i.e._. lifted up in the\nmanifestation of His might, and by His energy in preparing us for the\ngifts that He has prepared for us. 'He that hath wrought us for the\nself-same thing is God.' He who prepares a place for us is preparing us\nfor the place. He who has grace which He is ready to give us here, is\nmaking us ready for His grace. The meaning of all God's work on us is\nto form a character fit to possess His highest gifts.\n\n3. His waiting is very patient. The divine husbandman 'waiteth for the\nprecious fruit of the earth, being patient over it.' How wonderful that\nin a very real sense He attends on our pleasure, as it were, and lets\nus determine His time to work.\n\n4. That waiting is full of divine desire to help. It is not the waiting\nof indifference, which says: 'If you will have it--well and good. If\nnot, it does not matter to Me.' But 'more than they that watch for the\nmorning,' God waits 'that He may be gracious unto you.'\n\nII. Man's waiting.\n\nOur attitude is to be in some real sense analogous to His.\n\nIts main elements are firm anticipation, patient expectation, steadfast\ndesire, self-discipline to fit us for the influx of God's grace.\n\nWe are not to prescribe 'times and seasons which the Father hath put in\nHis own power.' The clock of Eternity ticks more slowly than our\nshort-pendulumed timepieces. 'If the vision tarry, wait for it.' We may\nwell wait for God when we know that He waits for us, and that, for the\nmost part, when He sees that we are waiting, He knows that His time is\ncome.\n\nBut it is to be noted that the waiting desire to which He responds is\ndirected to something better and greater than any gifts from Him, even\nto Himself, for it is they who 'wait for _Him_,' not only for His\nbenefits apart from Himself, however precious these may be, who are\nblessed.\n\nThe blessedness of such waiting, how it calms the heart, brings into\nconstant touch with God, detaches from the fever and the fret which\nkill, opens our eyes to mark the meanings of our life's history, and\nmakes the divine gifts infinitely more precious when they do come.\n\nAfter all, the time of waiting is at the longest very short. And when\nthe perfect fruition is come, and we enter into the great spaces of\nEternity, it will seem as an handbreadth.\n\n  'Take it on trust a little while,\n  Thou soon shalt read the mystery right\n  In the full sunshine of His smile.'\n\n\n\n\nTHREE PICTURES OF ONE REALITY\n\n'As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending\nalso He will deliver it; and passing over He will preserve it'--ISAIAH\nxxxi. 5.\n\n\nThe immediate occasion of this very remarkable promise is, of course,\nthe peril in which Jerusalem was placed by Sennacherib's invasion; and\nthe fulfilment of the promise was the destruction of his army before\nits gates. But the promise here, like all God's promises, is eternal in\nsubstance, and applies to a community only because it applies to each\nmember of that community. Jerusalem was saved, and that meant that\nevery house in Jerusalem was saved, and every man in it the separate\nobject of the divine protection So that all the histories of Scripture,\nand all the histories of men in the world, are but transitory\nillustrations of perennial principles, and every atom of the\nconsolation and triumph of this verse comes to each of us, as truly as\nit did to the men that with tremulous heart began to take cheer, as\nthey listened to Isaiah. There is a wonderful saying in one of the\nother prophets which carries that lesson, where, bringing down the\nstory of Jacob's struggle with the angel of Peniel to the encouragement\nof the existing generation, he says,' He spake to _us_.' They were\nhundreds of years after the patriarch, and yet had fallen heirs to all\nthat God had ever said to him So, from that point of view, I am not\nspiritualising, or forcing the meaning of these words, when I bring\nthem direct into the lives of each one of ourselves.\n\nI. And, first, I would note the very striking and beautiful pictures\nthat are given in these verses.\n\nThere are three of them, on each of which I must touch briefly. 'As\nbirds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem.' The form of\nthe words in the original shows that it is the mother-bird that is\nthought about. And the picture rises at once of her fluttering over the\nnest, where the callow chickens are, unable to fly and to help\nthemselves. It is a kind of echo of the grand metaphor in the song that\nis attributed to Moses, which speaks of the eagle fluttering over her\nnest, and taking care of her young. Jerusalem was as a nest on which,\nfor long centuries, that infinite divine love had brooded. It was but a\npoor brood that had been hatched out, but yet 'as birds flying' He had\nwatched over the city. Can you not almost see the mother-bird, made\nbold by maternal love, swooping down upon the intruder that sought to\nrob the nest, and spreading her broad pinion over the callow fledglings\nthat lie below? That is what God does with us. As I said, it is a poor\nbrood that is hatched out. That does not matter; still the Love bends\ndown and helps. Nobody but a prophet could have ventured on such a\nmetaphor as that, and nobody but Jesus Christ would have ventured to\nmend it and say, 'As a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,'\nwhen there are hawks in the sky. So He, in all the past ages, was the\nOne that 'as birds flying ... defended' His people, and would have\ngathered them under His wings, only they would not.\n\nNow, beautiful as this metaphor is, as it stands, it seems to me, like\nsome brilliant piece of colouring, to derive additional beauty from its\nconnection with the background upon which it stands out. For just a\nverse before the prophet has given another emblem of what God is and\ndoes, and if you will carry with you all those thoughts of tenderness\nand maternal care and solicitude, and then connect them with that\nverse, I think the thought of His tenderness will start up into new\nbeauty. For here is what precedes the text: 'Like as a lion, and the\nyoung lion roaring on his prey when a multitude of shepherds is called\nforth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor bow\nhimself for the noise of them. So shall the Lord of hosts come down to\nfight for Mount Zion.' Look at these two pictures side by side, on the\none hand the lion, with his paw on his prey, and the angry growl that\nanswers when the shepherds vainly try to drag it away from him. That is\nGod. Ay! but that is only an aspect of God. 'As birds flying, so the\nLord will defend Jerusalem.' We have to take that into account too.\nThis generation is very fond of talking about God's love; does it\nbelieve in God's wrath? It is very fond of speaking about the\ngentleness of Jesus; has it pondered that tremendous phrase, 'the wrath\nof the Lamb'? The lion that growls, and the mother-bird that\nhovers--God is like them both. That is the first picture that is here.\n\nThe second one is not so obvious to English readers, but it is equally\nstriking, though I do not mean to dwell upon it. The word that is\ntranslated in our text twice, 'defend' and 'defending'--'So will the\nLord of hosts defend Jerusalem, and defending will deliver'--means,\nliterally, 'shielding.' Thus we have the same general idea as that in\nthe previous metaphor of the mother-bird hovering above the nest: God\nis like a shield held over us, and so flinging off front the broad and\nburnished surface of the Almighty buckler, all the darts that any foe\ncan launch against as. 'Our God is a Sun and Shield.' I need not\nenlarge on this familiar metaphor.\n\nBut the third picture I wish to point to in more detail: 'Passing over,\nHe will deliver.' Now, the word that is there rendered 'passing over,'\nis almost a technical word in the Old Testament, because it is that\nemployed in reference to the Passover. And so you see the swiftness of\ngenius with which the prophet changes his whole scene. We had the nest\nand the mother-bird, we had the battlefield and the shield; now we are\nswept away back to that night when the Destroying Angel stalked through\nthe land, and 'passed over' the doors on which the blood had been\nsprinkled. And thus this God, who in one aspect may be likened to the\nmother-bird hovering with her little breast full of tenderness, and\nmade brave by maternal love conquering natural timidity, and in another\naspect may be likened to the broad shield behind which a man stands\nsafe, may also be likened to that Destroying Angel that went through\nEgypt, and smote wherever there were not the tokens of the blood on the\nlintels, and 'passed over' wherever there were. Of course, the original\nfulfilment of this third picture is the historical case of the army of\nSennacherib; outside the walls, widespread desolation; inside the\nwalls, an untroubled night of peace. That night in Egypt is paralleled,\nin the old Jewish hymn that is still sung at the Passover, with the\nother night when Sennacherib's men were slain; and the parallel is\nbased on our text. So, then, here is another illustration of what I\nstarted with saying, that the past events of Scripture are transient\nexpressions of perennial principles and tendencies. For the Passover\nnight was not to be to the contemporaries of the prophet an event\nreceding ever further into the dim distance, but it was a present\nevent, and to be reproduced in that catastrophe when 'in the morning\nwhen they arose, they were all dead corpses.' And the event is being\nrepeated to-day, and will be for each of us, if we will.\n\nSo, then, there are these three pictures--the Nest and the Mother-bird,\nthe Battlefield and the Shield, Egypt and the Destroying Angel.\n\nII. We note the reality meant by these pictures.\n\nThey mean the absolute promise from God of protection for His people\nfrom _every_ evil. We are not to cut it down, not to say that it\napplies absolutely in regard to the spiritual world, but that it does\nnot apply in regard to temporal things. Yes, it does entirely, only you\nhave to rise to the height of God's conception of what is good and what\nis evil in regard to outward things, before you understand how\ncompletely, and without qualification or deduction, this promise is\nfulfilled to every man that puts his trust in Him. Of course, I do not\nneed to remind you, for your own lives will do so sufficiently, that\nthis hovering protector, this strong Shield, this Destroying Angel that\npasses by our houses if the blood is on the threshold, does not\nguarantee us any exemption from the common 'ills that flesh is heir\nto.' We all know that well enough. But what does it guarantee? That all\nthe poison shall be wiped off the arrow, that all the evil shall be\ntaken out of the evil, that it will change its character, that if we\nobserve the conditions, the sharpest sorrow will come to us with this\nwritten on it by the Father's hand, 'With My love to My child'; that\npain will be discipline, and discipline will be blessed. Ah! dear\nfriends! I am sure there are many of us that can set to our seals that\nGod is true in this matter, and that we have found that His rod does\nblossom, and that our sorest sorrows have been our greatest mercies,\ndrawing us nearer to Him; 'Defending He will deliver, and passing over\nHe will preserve.'\n\nIII. And now let me remind you of the way by which we can make the\nreality of these pictures ours.\n\nYou know that all the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament are\nconditional, and that there are many of them that were never fulfilled,\nand were spoken in order that they might not be fulfilled, if only the\npeople took warning. I wish folk would carry a little more consciously\nin their minds that principle in interpreting them all, and in asking\nabout their fulfilment. Not only in regard to these ancient events, but\nin regard to our individual experience, God's promises and threatenings\nare conditional.\n\nTake that first metaphor of the hovering mother-bird. Listen to this\nexpansion of it in one of the psalms: 'He shall cover thee with His\nfeathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.' The word for _trust_\nhere means to 'fly into a refuge.' Can you not see the picture? A\nlittle brood round the parent bird, frightened by some beast of prey,\nor hovering hawk in the sky, and fluttering under its wings, and all\nsafe and huddled together there close against the warm breast, and in\namongst the downy feathers. 'Under His wings shalt thou trust.' Put\nthou thy trust in God, and God is to thee the hovering bird, the broad\nshield, the Angel that 'passes over.'\n\nTake the other picture of the Passover night. Only by our individual\nfaith in Jesus Christ as our individual Saviour can we put the blood on\nour door-posts so that the Destroying Angel shall pass by. So, if we\nwould have the sweetness of such words as these fulfilled in our daily\nlives, however disturbed and troubled and sorrowful and solitary they\nmay be, the first condition is that under His wings shall we flee for\nrefuge, and we do so by trust in Him.\n\nBut having thus fled thither, we must continue there, if we would\ncontinue under His protection. Such continuance of safety because of\ncontinuous faith is possible only by continued communion. Remember our\nLord's expansion of the metaphor in His lament: 'How often would I have\ngathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under\nher wings, and ye would not.' We can resist the drawing. We can get\naway from the shelter of the wing. We can lift up our wills against\nHim. And what becomes of the chicken that does _not_ run to the\nmother's pinions when the hawk is hovering? That is what becomes of the\nman that stops outside the refuge in Christ, or that by failure of his\nfaith departs from that refuge. 'Ye would not; therefore your house is\nleft unto you desolate.' That house, in the Jerusalem which God\n'defends,' is _not_ defended.\n\nAnother condition of divine protection is obedience. We need not expect\nthat God will take care of us, and preserve us, when we did not ask His\nleave to get into the dangerous place that we find ourselves in. Many\nof us do the converse of what the Apostle condemns, we begin 'in the\nflesh,' and think we shall end 'in the Spirit'; which being translated\nis, we do not ask God's leave to do certain things, to enter into\ncertain engagements or arrangements with other people, and the like,\nand then we expect God to come and help us in or out of them. That is\nby no means an uncommon form of delusion. You remember what Jesus\nChrist said when the Devil tried to entice Him to do a thing of that\nsort, by quoting Scripture to Him--'He shall give His angels charge\nconcerning Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways. Cast Thyself down. Trust\nto the promise as a kind of parachute to keep Thee from falling bruised\non the stones of the Temple-court.' Christ's answer was: 'Thou shalt\nnot tempt the Lord thy God.' You will not get God's protection in ways\nof your own choosing.\n\nAnd so, brethren, 'all things work together for good to them that\nlove,' to them that trust, to them that keep close, to them that obey.\nAnd for such the old faithful promise will be faithful and new once\nmore, 'Because He hath set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver\nHim'--that will be the summing up of our lives; 'and I will set Him on\nhigh because He hath known My Name,' that will be the meaning of our\ndeaths.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LORD'S FURNACE\n\n'The Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in\nJerusalem.'--ISAIAH xxxi. 9.\n\n\nThis very remarkable characterisation of God stands here as a kind of\nseal, set upon the preceding prophecy. It is the reason why that will\ncertainly be fulfilled. And what precedes is mainly a promise of a\ndeliverance for Israel, which was to be a destruction for Israel's\nenemies. It is put in very graphic and remarkable metaphors: 'Like as a\nlion roareth on his prey when a multitude of shepherds is called forth\nagainst him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself\nfor the noise of them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight\nfor Mount Zion.' The enemies of Israel are picturesquely and poetically\nrepresented as a crowd of shepherds vainly trying to scare a lion by\ntheir shouts. He stands undaunted, with his strong paw on his prey, and\nthe boldest of them durst not venture to drag it from beneath his\nclaws. So, says Isaiah, with singularly daring imagery, God will put\nall His strength into keeping fast hold of Israel, and no one can pluck\nHis people from His hands.\n\nThen, with a sudden and striking change of metaphor, the prophet passes\nfrom a picture of the extreme of fierceness to one of the extreme of\ntenderness. 'As birds flying'--mother birds fluttering over their\nnests--'so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem,' hovering over it\nand going from side to side to defend with His broad pinions, 'passing\nover, He will preserve it.' These figures are next translated into the\nplain promise of utter discomfiture and destruction, panic and flight\nas the portion of the enemies of Israel, and the whole has this broad\nseal set to it, that He who promises is 'the Lord, whose fire is in\nZion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.'\n\nWe shall not understand these great words if we regard them as only a\nrevelation of destructive and terrible power. They are that indeed, but\nthey are far more than that. It is the very beauty and completeness of\nthis emblem that has a double aspect, and is no less rich in joy and\nblessing than pregnant with warning and terror. As Isaiah says in\nanother place, Jerusalem is 'Ariel,' which probably means 'the hearth\nof God.' His presence in the city is as a fire for the comfort and\ndefence of the happy inhabitants, and at the same time for the\ndestruction of all evil and enemies. Far more truly than He dwelt in\nthe city of David does God dwell in the Church, and His presence is its\nsecurity. What, then, of instruction and hope may we gather from this\nwonderful emblem?\n\nI. In the Church, God is present as a great reservoir of fervid love.\n\nEvery language has taken fire as the symbol of love and emotion. We\nspeak so naturally of warm love, fervent feeling, glowing earnestness,\nardent enthusiasm and the like, that we are scarcely aware of using\nfigurative language. We do not usually ascribe emotion to God, but\nsurely the deepest and most sacred of the senses in which it is true\nthat fire is His emblem, is that He is love. His fire is in Zion. He\ndwells in His Church, a storehouse of blazing love, heated seventy\ntimes seven hotter than any creatural love, and pouring out its ardours\nfor the quickening and gladdening of all who walk in the light of that\nfire, and thaw their coldness at its blaze.\n\nThen, if so, how comes it that so many Christian Churches are\nice-houses instead of furnaces? How comes it that they who profess to\nlive in the Zion where this fire flames are themselves so cold? If\nGod's blazing furnace is in Jerusalem, it should send the thermometer\nup in all the houses of the city. But what a strange contradiction it\nis for men to be in God's Church, the very focus and centre of His\nburning love, and themselves to be almost down below zero in their\ntemperature! The Christian Church ought to be all aflame in all its\nmembers, with the fire of love kindled and alight from God Himself.\nEvery community of Christian people ought to radiate warmth and light\nwhich it has absorbed from its present God. Our love ought to answer\nHis, and, being caught and kindled from that mighty fire, should throw\nback to its source some of the heat received, in fervours of reflected\nlove, and should pour the rest beneficently on all around. Love to God\nand love to man are regarded in Christian morals as beams of the same\nfire, only travelling in different directions. But what a miserable\ncontrast to such an ideal the reality in so many of our churches is! A\nfiery furnace with its doors hung with icicles is no greater a\ncontradiction and anomaly than a Christian Church or a single soul,\nwhich professes to have been touched by the infinite loving kindness of\nGod, and yet lives as cold and unmoved as we do. The 'Lord's fire is in\nZion.' Are there any tokens of that fire amongst us, in our own hearts\nand in our collective temperature as Christian Churches?\n\nThere is no religion worth calling so which has not warmth in it. We\nhear a great deal from people against whom I do not wish to say a word,\nabout the danger of an 'emotional Christianity.' Agreed, if by that\nthey mean a Christianity which has no foundation for its emotion in\nprinciple and intelligence; but not agreed if they mean to recommend a\nChristianity which professes to accept truths that might kindle a soul\nbeneath the ribs of death and make the dumb sing, and yet is never\nmoved one hair's-breadth from its quiet phlegmaticism. There is no\nreligion without emotion. Of course it must be intelligent emotion,\nbuilt upon the acceptance of divine truth, and regulated and guided by\nthat, and so consolidated into principle, and it must be emotion which\nworks for its living, and impels to Christian conduct. These two\nprovisoes being attended to, then we can safely say that warmth is the\ntest of life, and the readings of the thermometer, which measure the\nfervour, measure also the reality of our religion. A cold Christian is\na contradiction in terms. If the adjective is certainly applicable, I\nam afraid the applicability of the noun is extremely doubtful. If there\nis no fire, what is there? Cold is death.\n\nWe want no flimsy, transitory, noisy, ignorant, hysterical agitation.\nSmoke is not fire. If the temperature were higher, and the fire more\nwisely fed, there would not be any. But we do want a more obvious and\npowerful effect of their solemn, glorious, and heart-melting beliefs on\nthe affections and emotions of professing Christians, and that they may\nbe more mightily moved by love, to all heroisms and service and\nenthusiasms and to consecration which shall in some measure answer to\nthe glowing heart of that fire of God which flames in Zion.\n\nII. God's revelation of Himself, and presence in His Church, are an\ninstrument of cleansing.\n\nFire purifies. In our great cities now there are 'disinfecting ovens,'\nwhere infected articles are taken, and exposed to a high temperature\nwhich kills the germs of disease, so that tainted things come out sweet\nand clean. That is what God's furnace in Zion is meant to do for us.\nThe true way of purifying is by fire. To purify by water, as John the\nBaptist saw and said, is but a poor, cold way of getting outward\ncleanliness. Water cleanses the surface, and becomes dirty in the\nprocess. Fire cleanses within and throughout, and is not tainted\nthereby. You plunge some foul thing into the flame, and, as you look,\nthe specks and spots melt out of it. Raise the temperature, and you\nkill the poison germs. That is the way that God cleanses His people;\nnot by external application, but by getting up the heat. The fire of\nHis love, the fire of His spirit, is, as St. Bernard says, a blessed\nfire, which 'consumes indeed, but does not hurt; which sweetly burns\nand blessedly lays waste, and so puts forth the force and fire against\nour vices, as to display the operation of the anointing oil upon our\nsouls.' The Hebrew captives were flung into the fiery furnace. What did\nit burn? Only their bonds. They themselves lived and rejoiced in the\nintense heat. So, if we have any real possession of the divine flame,\nit will burn off our wrists the bands and chains of our old vices, and\nwe shall stand pure and clean, emancipated by the fire which will\nconsume only our sins, and be for our true selves as our native home,\nwhere we walk at liberty and expatiate in the genial warmth. That is\nthe blessed and effectual way of purifying, which slays only the death\nthat we carry about with us in our sin, and makes us the more truly\nliving for its death. Cleansing is only possible if we are immersed in\nthe Holy Ghost and in fire, as some piece of foul clay, plunged into\nthe furnace, has all the stains melted out of it. For all sinful souls\nseeking after cleansing, and finding that the 'damned spot' will not\n'out' for all their washing, it is surely good news and tidings of\ngreat joy that the Lord has His fire in Zion, and that its purifying\npower will burn out all their sin.\n\nIII. Further, there is suggested another thought: that God, in His\ngreat revelation of Himself, by which He dwells in His Church, is a\npower of transformation.\n\nFire turns all which it seizes into fire. 'Behold how much wood is\nkindled by how small a fire' (R.V.). The heap of green wood with the\nsap in it needs but a tiny light pushed into the middle, and soon it is\nall ablaze, transformed into ruddy brightness, and leaping heavenwards.\nHowever heavy, wet, and obstinate may be the fuel, the fire can change\nit into aspiring and brilliant flame.\n\nAnd so God, coming to us in His 'Spirit of burning,' turns us into His\nown likeness, and makes us possessors of some spark of Himself.\nTherefore it is a great promise, 'He shall baptize you in the Holy\nGhost, and in fire.' He shall plunge you into the life-giving furnace,\nand so 'make His ministers like a flame of fire,' like the Lord whom\nthey serve. The seraphim who stand round the throne are 'burning'\nspirits, and the purity which shines, the love which glows, the swift\nlife which flames in them, are all derived from that unkindled and\nall-animating Fire who is their and our God. The transformation of all\nthe dwellers in Zion into miniature likenesses of this fire is the very\nhighest hope that springs from the solemn and blessed truth that the\nLord has His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.\n\nIV. But, further, this figure teaches that the same divine fire may\nbecome destructive.\n\nThe emblem of fire suggests a double operation, and the very felicity\nof it as an emblem is that it has these two sides, and with equal\nnaturalness may stand for a power which quickens, and for one which\ndestroys. The difference in the effects springs not from differences in\nthe cause, but in the objects with which the fire plays. The same God\nis the fire of life, the fire of love, of purifying and transformation\nand glad energy to whosoever will put his trust in Him, and a fire of\ndestruction and anger unto whosoever resists Him. The alternative\nstands before every soul of man, to be quickened by fire or consumed by\nit. We may make the furnace of God our blessedness and the reservoir of\na far more joyful and noble life than ever we could have lived in our\ncoldness; or we may make it terror and destruction. There lie the two\npossibilities before every one of us. We cannot stand apart from Him;\nwe have relations with Him, whether we will or no; He is something to\nus. He is, and must be for all, a flaming fire. We can settle whether\nit shall be a fire which is life-giving unto life, or a fire which is\ndeath-giving unto death.\n\nHere are two buildings: the one the life of the man that lives apart\nfrom God, and therefore has built only with wood, hay, and stubble; the\nother the life of the man that lives with God and for Him, and so has\nbuilt with gold, silver, and precious stones. The day and the fire\ncome; and the fates of these two are opposite effects of the same\ncause. The licking tongues surround the wretched hut, built of\ncombustibles, and up go wood and hay and stubble, in a smoking flare,\nand disappear. The flames play round the gold and silver and precious\nstones, and every leap of their light is answered by some facet of the\ngems that flash in their brilliancy, and give back the radiance.\n\nYou can settle which of these two is to be your fate. 'The Lord's fire\nis in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.' To those who, by faith in\nthat dear Lord who came to cast fire on earth,' have opened their\nhearts, to the entrance of that searching, cleansing flame, and who\ntherefore burn with kindred and answering fervours, it is joy to know\nthat their 'God is a consuming fire,' for therein lies their hope of\ndaily purifying and ultimate assimilation. To those, on the other hand,\nwho have closed their hearts to the warmth of His redeeming love in\nChrist, and the quickening of His baptism by fire, what can the\nknowledge be but terror, what can contact with God in judgment be but\ndestruction? 'The day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the\nproud, and all that work wickedness, shall be as stubble, and the day\nthat cometh shall burn them up.' What will that day do for you?\n\n\n\n\nTHE HIDING-PLACE\n\n'And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from\nthe tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a\ngreat rock in a weary land.'--ISAIAH xxxii. 2.\n\n\nWe may well say, Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Here are distinctly\nattributed to one of ourselves, if we take the words in their\nsimplicity and fulness, functions and powers which universal experience\nhas taught us not to look for in humanity. And there have been a great\nmany attempts--as it seems to me, altogether futile and baseless\nones--to break the force of these words as a distinct prophecy of Jesus\nChrist. Surely the language is far too wide to have application to any\nreal or ideal Jewish monarch, except one whose kingdom is an\neverlasting kingdom? Surely the experience of a hundred centuries might\nteach men that there is _one_ man, and one alone, who is the refuge\nfrom all dangers, the fruition of all desires, the rest and refreshment\nin all toils.\n\nAnd I, for my part, have no hesitation in saying that the only\nreference of these words which gives full value to their wealth of\nblessing, is to regard them as a prophecy of _the_ man--Christ Jesus;\nhiding in whom we are safe, 'coming' to whom we 'never thirst,' guarded\nand blest by whom no weariness can befall us, and dwelling in whom this\nweary world shall be full of refreshment and peace!\n\nI do not need to point out the exquisite beauty of the imagery or the\npathos and peace that breathe in the majestic rhythm of the words.\nThere is something more than poetical beauty or rhetorical\namplification of a single thought in those three clauses. The\n'hiding-place' and 'covert' refer to one class of wants; the 'rivers of\nwater in a dry place' to yet another; and 'the shadow of a great rock\nin a weary land' to yet a third. And, though they are tinged and dyed\nin Eastern imagery, the realities of life in Western lands, and in all\nages, give them a deeper beauty than that of lovely imagery, and are\nthe true keys to understanding their meaning. We shall, perhaps, best\ngrasp the whole depth of that meaning according to the Messianic\nreference which we give to the text, if we consider the sad and solemn\nconception of man's life that underlies it; the enigmatical and\nobstinate hope which it holds out in the teeth of all experience--'A\n_man_ shall be a refuge'; and the solution of the riddle in the man\nChrist Jesus.\n\nI. First, there underlies this prophecy a very sad but a very true\nconception of human life.\n\nThe three classes of promises have correlative with them three phases\nof man's condition, three diverse aspects of his need and misery. The\n'covert' and the 'hiding-place' imply tempest, storm, and danger; the\n'river of water' implies drought and thirst; 'the shadow of a great\nrock' implies lassitude and languor, fatigue and weariness. The view of\nlife that arises from the combination of these three bears upon its\nfront the signature of truth in the very fact that it is a sad view.\n\nFor, I suppose, notwithstanding all that we may say concerning the\nbeauty and the blessedness scattered broadcast round about us;\nnotwithstanding that we believe, and hold as for our lives the happy\n'faith that all which we behold is full of blessing,' it needs but a\nvery short experience of this life, and but a superficial examination\nof our own histories and our own hearts, in order to come to the\nconclusion that the world is full of strange and terrible sadness, that\nevery life has dark tracts and long stretches of sombre tint, and that\nno representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light\nand flings no shadows on the canvas. There is no depth in a Chinese\npicture, because there is no shade. It is the wrinkles and marks of\ntear and wear that make the expression in a _man's_ portrait. 'Life's\nsternest painter \"is\" its best.' The gloomy thoughts which are charged\nagainst Scripture are the true thoughts about man and the world as man\nhas made it. Not, indeed, that life needs to be so, but that by reason\nof our own evil and departure from God there have come in as a\ndisturbing element the retributive consequences of our own godlessness,\nand these have made danger where else were safety, thirst where else\nwere rivers of water, and weariness and lassitude where else were\nstrength and bounding hope.\n\nSo then, look for a moment at these three points that come out of my\ntext, in order to lay the foundation for subsequent considerations.\n\nWe live a life defenceless and exposed to many a storm and tempest. I\nneed but remind you of the adverse circumstances--the wild winds that\ngo sweeping across the flat level, the biting blasts that come down\nfrom the snow-clad mountains of destiny that lie round the low plain\nupon which we live. I need but remind you of the dangers that are\nlodged for our spiritual life in the temptations to evil that are round\nus. I need but remind you of that creeping and clinging consciousness\nof being exposed to a divinely commissioned retribution and punishment,\nwhich perverts the Name that ought to be the basis of all our\nblessedness into a Name unwelcome and terrible, because threatening\njudgment. I need but remind you how men's sins have made it needful\nthat when the mighty God, even the Lord, appears before them, 'it shall\nbe very tempestuous round about him.' Men fear and ought to fear 'the\nblast of the breath of His nostrils,' which must burn up all that is\nevil. And I need but remind you of that last wild wind of Death that\nwhirls the sin-faded leaves into dark corners where they lie and rot.\n\nMy brother, you have not lived thus long without learning how\ndefenceless you are against the storm of adverse circumstances. You\nhave not lived thus long without learning that though, blessed be God!\nthere do come in all our lives long periods of halcyon rest, when\n'birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,' and the heavens above\nare clear as sapphire, and the sea around is transparent as opal--yet\nthe little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, may rise on the horizon,\nand may thicken and blacken and grow greater and nearer till all the\nsky is dark, and burst in lightning and rain and fierceness of wind,\ntill 'through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming,' and the\nwhite crests of the waves are like the mane of Death's pale horse\nleaping upon the broken ship. We have all learnt in how profound a\nsense, by reason of outward adverse circumstances and inward\ntemptations, by reason of the fears of a Justice which we know is\nthroned at the centre of the creation, by reason of a death which to us\nis a terror, and by reason of that universal fear of 'after death the\njudgment,' storm and tempest swoop upon our paths. God made the\nsunshine, and we have made it a storm. God made life blessed and full\nof safety and peace, and we have wrenched ourselves from Him and stand\ndefenceless amidst its dangers.\n\nThen, there is another aspect and conception of life which underlies\nthese words of my text. The image of the desert was before the\nprophet's rapt vision. He saw the sand whirled into mad dancing columns\nbefore the blast which swept across the unsheltered flat, with nothing,\nfor a day's march, to check its force. But the wilderness is not only\nshelterless, it is waterless too--a place in which wild and ravening\nthirst finds no refreshing draughts, and the tongue cleaves to the\nblackening gums.\n\n'Rivers of water in a dry place'; and what is the prose fact of that?\nThat you and I live in the midst of a world which has no correspondence\nwith, nor power of satisfying, our truest and deepest selves--that we\nbear about with us a whole set of longings and needs and weaknesses and\nstrengths and capacities, all of which, like the climbing tendrils of\nsome creeping plant, go feeling and putting out their green fingers to\nlay hold of some prop and stay--that man is so made that for his rest\nand blessedness he must have an external object round which his spirit\nmay cling, on which his desires may fasten and rest, by which his heart\nmay be blessed, which shall be authority for his will, peace for his\nfears, sprinkling and cleansing for his conscience, light for his\nunderstanding, shall be in complete correspondence with his inward\nnature--be water for his thirst, and bread for his hunger.\n\nAnd as thus, on the very nature which each of us carries, there is\nstamped the signature of dependence, and the necessity of finding an\nexternal object on which to rest; and as, further, men will not be\ntutored even by their own miseries or by the voice of their own wants,\nand ever confound their wishes with their wants and their whims with\ntheir needs, therefore it comes to pass that the appetite which was\nonly meant to direct us to God, and to be as a wholesome hunger in\norder to secure our partaking with relish and delight of the divine\nfood that is provided for it, becomes unsatisfied, a torture, and\nunslaked, a ravening madness; and men's needs become men's misery; and\nmen's hunger becomes men's famine; and men's thirst becomes men's\ndeath. We do dwell in a dry land where no water is.\n\nAll about us there are these creatures of God, bright and blessed and\nbeautiful, fit for their functions and meant to minister to our\ngladness. They are meant to be held in subordination. It is not meant\nthat we should find in them the food for our souls. Wealth and honour\nand wisdom and love and gratified ambition and successful purpose, and\nwhatsoever other good things a man may gather about him and achieve--he\nmay have them all, and yet in spite of them all there will be a great\naching, longing vacuity in his soul. His true and inmost being will be\ngroping through the darkness, like a plant growing in a cellar, for the\nlight which alone can tinge its pale petals and swell its shrivelling\nblossoms to ripeness and fruit.\n\nA dry place, as well as a dangerous place--have not you found it so? I\nbelieve that every soul of man has, if he will be honest with himself,\nand that there is not one among us who would not, if he were to look\ninto the deepest facts and real governing experience of his life,\nconfess--I thirst: 'my soul thirsteth.' And oh, brethren, why not go on\nwith the quotation, and make that which is else a pain, a condition of\nblessedness? Why not recognise the meaning of all this restless\ndisquiet, and say 'My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God'?\n\nAnd then there is the other idea also underlying these words, yet\nanother phase of this sad life of ours--not only danger and drought,\nbut also weariness and languor. The desert stretches before us again,\nwhere there is no shelter from the blast and no trickling stream amid\nthe yellowing sand; where the fierce ball above beats down cruelly, and\nits hot rays are flung up cruelly into our faces, and the glare blinds\nus, and the stifling heat wearies us, and work is a torture and motion\nis misery, and we long for nothing so much as to be quiet and to hide\nour heads in some shade.\n\nI was reading recently one of our last books of travel in the\nwilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling\nfor hours under a scorching sun, over the hot, white, marly flat,\nseeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter\nanywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the weary\ntravellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high,\nand flung themselves down and tried to hide, at least, their heads,\nfrom those 'sunbeams like swords,' even beneath its ragged shade. And\nmy text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with\nhaply a fern or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is\nrest, and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning\nsun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.\n\nOh! the weariness felt by us all, of plod, plod, plodding across the\nsand! That fatal monotony into which every man's life stiffens, as far\nas outward circumstances, outward joys and pleasures go! the depressing\ninfluence of custom which takes the edge off all gladness and adds a\nburden to every duty! the weariness of all that tugging up the hill, of\nall that collar-work which we have to do! Who is there that has not his\nmood, and that by no means the least worthy and man-like of his moods,\nwherein he feels not, perhaps, that all is vanity, but--'how infinitely\nwearisome it all is.'\n\nAnd so every race of man that ever has lived has managed out of two\nmiseries to make a kind of shadowy gladness; and, knowing the weariness\nof life and the blackness of death, has somewhat lightened the latter\nby throwing upon it the thought of the former, and has said, 'Well, at\nany rate, if the grave be narrow and dark, and if outside \"the warm\nprecincts of the cheerful day\" there be that ambiguous night, at least\nit is the place for sleep; and, if we cannot be sure of anything more,\nwe shall rest then, at any rate.' So the hope of 'long disquiet merged\nin rest' becomes almost bright, and man's weariness finds most pathetic\nexpression in his thinking of the grave as a bed where he can stretch\nhimself and be still. Life is hard, life is dry, life is dangerous.\n\nII. But another thought suggested by these words is--The Mysterious\nHope which shines through them.\n\nOne of ourselves shall deliver us from all this evil in life. '_A man_\nshall be a refuge, rivers of water, the shadow of a great rock.' Such\nan expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience and far\ntoo high-pitched ever to be fulfilled. It appears to demand in him who\nshould bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which\nmust in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and\nenduring as the succession of the ages.\n\nIt is worth while to realise to ourselves these two points which seem\nto make such words as these of our text a blank impossibility.\nExperience contradicts them, and common-sense demands for their\nfulfilment an apparently impossible human character.\n\nAll experience seems to teach--does it not?--that no human arm or heart\ncan be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need. And\nyet the men who have been disappointed and disenchanted a thousand\ntimes do still look among their fellows for what their fellows, too,\nare looking for, and none have ever found. Have _we_ found what we seek\namong men? Have we ever known amongst the dearest that we have clung\nto, one arm that was strong enough to keep us in all danger? Has there\never been a human love to which we can run with the security that\n_there_ is a strong tower where no evil can touch us? There have been\nmany delights in all our lives mediated and ministered to us by those\nthat we loved. They have taught us, and helped us, and strengthened us\nin a thousand ways. We have received from them draughts of wisdom, of\nlove, of joy, of guidance, of impulse, of comfort, which have been, as\nwater in the desert is, more precious than gold. Our fellow-travellers\nhave shared their store with us, 'letting down their pitchers upon\ntheir hand,' and giving us drink; but has the draught ever slaked the\nthirst? They carry but a pitcher, and a pitcher is not a fountain. Have\nthere been any in all the round of those that we have loved and\ntrusted, to whom we have trusted absolutely, without having been\ndisappointed? They, like us, are hemmed in by human limitations. They\neach bear a burdened and thirsty spirit, itself needing such supplies.\nAnd to the truest, happiest, most soul-sufficing companionship, there\ncomes at last that dread hour which ends all sweet commerce of giving\nand receiving, and makes the rest of life, for some of us, one\nmonotonous ashen-grey wilderness where no water is. These things make\nit impossible for us to find anywhere amongst men our refuge and our\nfruition.\n\nAnd yet how strange, how pathetic, is the fact that after all\ndisappointments, men still obstinately continue to look among their\nfellows for guidance and for light, for consolation, for defence, and\nfor strength! After a thousand failures they still hope. Does not the\nsearch at once confess that hitherto they have not found, else why be\nseeking still?--and that they yet believe they will yet find, else why\nnot cease the vain quest? And surely He who made us, made us not in\nvain, nor cursed us with immortal hopes which are only persistent lies.\nSurely there is some living Person who will vindicate these\nunquenchable hopes of humanity, and receive and requite our love and\ntrust, and satisfy our longings, and explain the riddle of our lives.\nIf there be not, nor ever has been, nor ever can be a man who shall\nsatisfy us with his love, and defend us with his power, and be our\nall-sufficient satisfaction and our rest in weariness, then much of\nman's noblest nature is a mistake, and many of his purest and\nprofoundest hopes are an illusion, a mockery, and a snare. The\nobstinate hope that, within the limits of humanity, we shall find what\nwe need is a mystery, except on one hypothesis, that it, too, belongs\nto 'the unconscious prophecies' that God has lodged in all men's hearts.\n\nNor need I remind you, I suppose, how such functions as those of which\nmy text speaks not only seem to be contradicted by all experience, but\nmanifestly and obviously to transcend the possibilities of human\nnature. _A man_ to defend me; and he himself--does _he_ need no\ndefence? A man to supply my wants; and is his spirit, then, other than\nmine, that it can become the all-sufficient fulness for my emptiness?\nHe that can do this for one spirit must be greater than the spirit for\nwhich he doeth it. He that can do it for the whole race of man, through\nall ages, in all circumstances, down to the end of time, in every\nlatitude, under every condition of civilisation--who must _he_ be who,\nfor the whole world, evermore and always, is their defence, their\ngladness, their shelter, and their rest?\n\nThe function requires a divine power, and the application of the power\nrequires a human hand. It is not enough that I should be pointed to a\nfar-off heaven, where there dwells an infinite loving God--I believe\nthat we need more than that. We need both of the truths: 'God is my\nrefuge and my strength,' and 'A man shall be a hiding-place from the\nwind, and a covert from the tempest.'\n\nIII. That brings me to the last point to be noticed, namely:--The\nsolution of the mystery in the person of Jesus Christ.\n\nThat which seemed impossible is real. The forebodings of humanity have\nnot fathomed the powers of Divine Love. There _is_ a man, our brother,\nbone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, who can be to single souls\nthe adequate object of their perfect trust, the abiding home of their\ndeepest love, the unfailing supply for their profoundest wants. There\n_is_ one man to whom it is wise and blessed to look as the exclusive\nsource of all our peace, the absolute ruler of all our lives. There\n_is_ a man in whom we find all that we have vainly sought in men. There\n_is_ a man, who can be to all ages and to the whole race their refuge,\ntheir satisfaction, their rest. 'It behoved Him to be made in all\npoints like unto His brethren,' that His succour might be ever near,\nand His sympathy sure. The man Christ Jesus who, being man, is God\nmanifest in the flesh, exercises in one and the same act the offices of\ndivine pity and human compassion, of divine and human guardianship, of\ndivine and human love.\n\n  'And so the Word had breath, and wrought\n  With human hands the creed of creeds\n  In loveliness of perfect deeds,\n  More strong than all poetic thought.'\n\nThe dreams of weary hearts that have longed for an impossible\nperfection are all below the reality. The fact surpasses all\nexpectation. It is more than all prophecies, it is more than all hopes,\nit is more than all praise. It is God's unspeakable gift. Well might an\nangel voice proclaim the mystery of love, 'Unto you is _born_ a\nSaviour, which is Christ the Lord.' The ancient promise of our text is\nhistory now. A man has been and is all these things for us.\n\nA refuge and a hiding-place from every storm--adverse circumstances\nsweep upon us, and His mighty hand is put down there as a buckler,\nbehind which we may hide and be safe. Temptations to evil storm upon\nus, but if we are enclosed within Him they never touch us. The fears of\nour own hearts swirl like a river in flood against the walls of our\nfortress home, and we can laugh at them, for it is founded upon a rock!\nThe day of judgment rises before us solemn and certain, and we can\nawait it without fear, and approach it with calm joy. I call upon no\nmountains and hills to cover me.\n\n'Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.'\n\n'Rivers of water in a dry place,'--hungry and thirsty, my soul fainted\nwithin me. I longed for light, and behold darkness. I longed for help,\nand there was none that could come close to my spirit to succour and to\ngive me drink in the desert. My conscience cried in all its wounds for\ncleansing and stanching, and no comforter nor any balm was there. My\nheart, weary of limited loves and mortal affections, howsoever sweet\nand precious, yearned and bled for one to rest upon all-sufficient and\neternal. I thirsted with a thirst that was more than desire, that was\npain, and was coming to be death, and I heard a voice which said, 'If\nany man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.'\n\n'The shadow of a great rock in a weary land,'--and my heart was weary\nby reason of the greatness of the way, and duties and tasks seemed\ntoils and burdens, and I was ready to say, 'Wherefore has Thou made me\nand all men in vain? Surely all this is vanity and vexation of spirit,'\nand I heard One that laid His hand upon me and said, 'Come unto Me, and\nI will give thee rest.' I come to Thee, O Christ, faint and perishing,\ndefenceless and needy, with many a sin and many a fear; to Thee I turn\nfor Thou hast died for me, and for me thou dost live. Be Thou my\nshelter and strong tower. Give me to drink of living water. Let me rest\nin Thee while in this weary land, and let Thy sweet love, my Brother\nand my Lord, be mine all on earth and the heaven of my heaven!\n\n\n\n\nHOW TO DWELL IN THE FIRE OF GOD\n\n'Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall\ndwell with everlasting burnings? 15. He that walketh righteously, and\nspeaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that\nshaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from\nhearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.'--ISAIAH\nxxxiii. 14, 15.\n\n'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God'--1 JOHN iv. 16.\n\n\nI have put these two verses together because, striking as is at first\nsight the contrast in their tone, they refer to the same subject, and\nthey substantially preach the same truth. A hasty reader, who is more\ninfluenced by sound than by sense, is apt to suppose that the solemn\nexpressions in my first text, 'the devouring fire' and' everlasting\nburnings,' mean _hell_. They mean _God_, as is quite obvious from the\ncontext. The man who is to 'dwell in the devouring fire' is the _good_\nman. He that is able to abide 'the everlasting burnings' is 'the man\nthat walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly,' that 'despiseth the\ngain of oppression, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that\nstoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from\nseeing evil.' The prophet has been calling all men, far and near, to\nbehold a great act of divine judgment in which God has been manifested\nin flaming glory, consuming evil; now he represents the 'sinners in\nZion,' the unworthy members of the nation, as seized with sudden\nterror, and anxiously asking this question, which in effect means: 'Who\namong us can abide peacefully, joyfully, fed and brightened, not\nconsumed and annihilated, by that flashing brightness and purity?' The\nprophet's answer is the answer of common-sense--like draws to like. A\nholy God must have holy companions.\n\nBut that is not all. The fire of God is the fire of love as well as the\nfire of purity; a fire that blesses and quickens, as well as a fire\nthat destroys and consumes. So the Apostle John comes with his answer,\nnot contradicting the other one, but deepening it, expanding it,\nletting us see the foundations of it, and proclaiming that as a holy\nGod must be surrounded by holy hearts, which will open themselves to\nthe flame as flowers to the sunshine, so a loving God must be clustered\nabout by loving hearts, who alone can enter into deep and true\nfriendship with Him.\n\nThe two answers, then, of these texts are one at bottom; and when\nIsaiah asks, 'Who shall dwell with the everlasting fire?'--the\nperpetual fire, burning and unconsumed, of that divine\nrighteousness--the deepest answer, which is no stern requirement but a\nmerciful promise, is John's answer, 'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth\nin God.'\n\nThe simplest way, I think, of bringing out the force of the words\nbefore us will be just to take these three points which I have already\nsuggested: the world's question, the partial answer of the prophet, the\ncomplete answer of the Apostle.\n\nI. The World's Question.\n\nI need only remind you how frequently in the Old Testament the emblem\nof fire is employed to express the divine nature. In many places,\nthough by no means in all, the prominent idea in the emblem is that of\nthe purity of the divine nature, which flashes and flames as against\nall which is evil and sinful. So we read in one grand passage in this\nbook of Isaiah, 'the Light of Israel shall become a fire'; as if the\nlambent beauty of the highest manifestation of God gathered itself\ntogether, intensified itself, was forced back upon itself, and from\nmerciful, illuminating light turned itself into destructive and\nconsuming fire. And we read, you may remember, too, in the description\nof the symbolical manifestation of the divine nature which accompanied\nthe giving of the Law on Sinai, that 'the glory of the Lord was like\ndevouring fire on the top of the mountain,' and yet into that blaze and\nbrightness the Lawgiver went, and lived and moved in it.\n\nThere is, then, in the divine nature a side of antagonism and\nopposition to evil, which flames against it, and labours to consume it.\nI would speak with all respect for the motives of many men in this day\nwho dread to entertain the idea of the divine wrath against evil, lest\nthey should in any manner trench upon the purity and perfectness of the\ndivine love. I respect and sympathise with the motive altogether; and I\nneither respect nor sympathise with the many ferocious pictures of that\nwhich is called the wrath of God against sin, which much so-called\northodox teaching has indulged in. But if you will only remove from\nthat word 'anger' the mere human associations which cleave to it, of\npassion on the one hand, and of a wish to hurt its object on the other,\nthen you cannot, I think, deny to the divine nature the possession of\nsuch passionless and unmalignant wrath, without striking a fatal blow\nat the perfect purity of God. A God that does not hate evil, that does\nnot flame out against it, using all the energies of His being to\ndestroy it, is a God to whose character there cleaves a fatal suspicion\nof indifference to good, of moral apathy. If I have not a God to trust\nin that hates evil because He loveth righteousness, then 'the pillared\nfirmament itself were rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble';\nnor were there any hope that this damnable thing that is killing and\nsucking the life-blood out of our spirits should ever be destroyed and\ncast aside. Oh! it is short-sighted wisdom, and it is cruel kindness,\nto tamper with the thought of the wrath of God, the 'everlasting\nburnings' of that eternally pure nature wherewith it wages war against\nall sin.\n\nBut then, let us remember that, on the other side, the fire which is\nthe destructive fire of perfect purity is also the fire that quickens\nand blesses. God is love, says John, and love is fire, too. We speak of\n'the flame of love,' of 'warm affections,' and the like. The symbol of\nfire does not mean destructive energy only. And these two are one.\nGod's wrath is a form of God's love; God hates because He loves.\n\nAnd the 'wrath' and the 'love' differ much more in the difference of\nthe eyes that look, than they do in themselves. Here are two bits of\nglass; one of them sifts out and shows all the fiery-red rays, the\nother all the yellow. It is the one same pure, white beam that passes\nthrough them both, but one is only capable of receiving the fiery-red\nbeams of the wrath, and the other is capable of receiving the golden\nlight of the love. Let us take heed lest, by destroying the wrath, we\nmaim the love; and let us take heed lest, by exaggerating the wrath, we\nempty the love of its sweetness and its preciousness; and let us accept\nthe teaching that these are one, and that the deepest of all the things\nthat the world can know about God lies in that double saying, which\ndoes not contradict its second half by its first, but completes its\nfirst by its second--God is Righteousness, God is Love.\n\nWell, then, that being so, the question rises to every mind of ordinary\nthoughtfulness: 'Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who\namong us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?' A God fighting against\nevil; can you and I hope to hold familiar fellowship with Him? A God\nfighting against evil; if He rises up to exercise His judging and His\npunishing energies, can we meet Him? 'Can thy heart endure and thy\nhands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee?' is the\nquestion that comes to each of us if we are reasonable people. I do not\ndwell upon it; but I ask you to take it, and answer it for yourselves.\n\nTo 'dwell with everlasting burnings' means two things. First, it means\nto hold familiar intercourse and communion with God. The question which\npresents itself to thoughtful minds is--What sort of man must I be if I\nam to dwell near God? The lowliest bush may be lit by the divine fire\nand not be consumed by it; and the poorest heart may be all aflame with\nan indwelling God, if only it yield itself to Him, and long for His\nlikeness. Electricity only flames into consuming fire when its swift\npassage is resisted. The question for us all is--How can I receive this\nholy fire into my bosom, and not be burned? Is any communion possible,\nand if it is, on what conditions? These are the questions which the\nheart of man is really asking, though it knows not the meaning of its\nown unrest.\n\n'To dwell with everlasting burnings' means, secondly, to bear the\naction of the fire--the judgment of the present and the judgment of the\nfuture. The question for each of us is--How can we face that judicial\nand punitive action of that Divine Providence which works even here,\nand how can we face the judicial and punitive action in the future?\n\nI suppose you all believe, or at least say that you believe, that there\nis such a future judgment. Have you ever asked yourselves the question,\nand rested not until you got a reasonable answer to it, on which, like\na man leaning on a pillar, you can lean the whole weight of your\nexpectations--How am I to come into the presence of that devouring\nfire? Have you any fireproof dress that will enable you to go into the\nfurnace like the Hebrew youths, and walk up and down in the midst of\nit, well and at liberty? Have you? 'Who shall dwell amidst the\neverlasting fires?'\n\nThat question has stirred sometimes, I know, in the consciences of\nevery man and woman that is listening to me. Some of you have tampered\nwith it and tried to throttle it, or laughed at it and shuffled it out\nof your mind by the engrossments of business, and tried to get rid of\nit in all sorts of ways: and here it has met you again to-day. Let us\nhave it settled, in the name of common-sense (to invoke nothing\nhigher), once for all, upon reasonable principles that will stand; and\ndo you see that you settle it to-day.\n\nII. And now, look next at the prophet's answer.\n\nIt is simple. He says that if a man is to hold fellowship with, or to\nface the judgment of, the pure and righteous God, the plainest dictate\nof reason and common-sense is that he himself must be pure and\nrighteous to match. The details into which hid answer to the question\nruns out are all very homely, prosaic, pedestrian kind of virtues,\nnothing at all out of the way, nothing that people would call splendid\nor heroic. Here they are:--'He that walks righteously,'--a short\ninjunction, easily spoken, but how hard!--'and speaketh uprightly, he\nthat despiseth the gain of oppression, that shaketh his hands from\nholding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, that\nshutteth his eyes from seeing evil.' Righteous action, righteous\nspeech, inward hatred of possessions gotten at my neighbour's cost, and\na vehement resistance to all the seductions of sense, shutting one's\nhands, stopping one's ears, fastening one's eyes up tight so that he\nmay not handle, nor hear, nor see the evil--there is the outline of a\ntrite, everyday sort of morality which is to mark the man who, as\nIsaiah says, can 'dwell amongst the everlasting fires.'\n\nNow, if at your leisure you will turn to Psalms xv. and xxiv., you will\nfind there two other versions of the same questions and the same\nanswer, both of which were obviously in our prophet's mind when he\nspoke. In the one you have the question put: 'Who shall abide in Thy\ntabernacle?' In the other you have the same question put: 'Who shall\nascend into the hill of the Lord?' And both these two psalms answer the\nquestion and sketch the outline (and it is only an outline) of a\nrighteous man, from the Old Testament point of view, substantially in\nthe same fashion that Isaiah does here.\n\nI do not need to remark upon the altogether unscientific and\nnon-exhaustive nature of the description of righteousness that is set\nforth here. There are a great many virtues, plain and obvious, that are\nleft out of the picture. But I ask you to notice one very special\ndefect, as it might seem. There is not the slightest reference to\nanything that we call religion. It is all purely pedestrian, worldly\nmorality; do righteous things; do not tell lies; do not cheat your\nneighbour; stop your ears if people say foul things in your hearing;\nshut your eyes if evil comes before you. These are the kind of duties\nenjoined, and these only. The answer of my text moves altogether on the\nsurface, dealing only with conduct, not with character, and dealing\nwith conduct only in reference to this world. There is not a word about\nthe inner nature, not a word about the inner relation of a man to God.\nIt is the minimum of possible qualifications for dwelling with God.\n\nWell, now, do you achieve that minimum? Suppose we waive for the moment\nall reference to God; suppose we waive for the moment all reference to\nmotive and inward nature; suppose we keep ourselves only on the outside\nof things, and ask what sort of _conduct_ a man must have that is able\nto walk with God? We have heard the answer.\n\nNow, then, is that _me_? Is this sketch here, admittedly imperfect, a\nmere black-and-white swift outline, not intended to be shaded or\ncoloured, or brought up to the round; is this mere outline of what a\ngood man ought to be, at all like me? Yes or no? I think we must all\nsay No to the question, and acknowledge our failure to attain to this\nhomely ideal of conduct. The requirement pared down to its lowest\npossible degree, and kept as superficial as ever you can keep it, is\nstill miles above me, and all I have to say when I listen to such words\nis, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.'\n\nMy dear friends, take this one thought away with you:--the requirements\nof the most moderate conscience are such as no man among us is able to\ncomply with. And what then? Am I to be shut up to despair? am I to say:\nThen nobody can dwell within that bright flame? Am I to say: Then when\nGod meets man, man must crumble away into nothing and disappear? Am I\nto say, for myself: Then, alas for me! when I stand at His judgment bar?\n\nIII. Let us take the Apostle's answer.\n\nGod is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.' Now, to\nbegin with, let us distinctly understand that the New Testament answer,\nrepresented by John's great words, entirely endorses Isaiah's; and that\nthe difference between the two is not that the Old Testament, as\nrepresented by psalmist and prophet, said, 'You must be righteous in\norder to dwell with God,' and that the New Testament says, 'You need\nnot be.' Not at all! John is just as vehement in saying that nothing\nbut purity can bind a man in thoroughly friendly and familiar\nconjunction with God as David or Isaiah was. He insists as much as\nanybody can insist upon this great principle, that if we are to dwell\nwith God we must be like God, and that we are like God when we are like\nHim in righteousness and love.\n\n'He that saith he hath fellowship with Him, and walketh in darkness, is\na liar!' That is John's short way of gathering it all up. Righteousness\nis as essential in the gospel scheme for all communion and fellowship\nwith God as ever it was declared to be by the most rigid of legalists;\nand if any of you have the notion that Christianity has any other terms\nto lay down than the old terms--that righteousness is essential to\ncommunion--you do not understand Christianity. If any of you are\nbuilding upon the notion that a man can come into loving and familiar\nfriendship with God as long as he loves and cleaves to any sin, you\nhave got hold of a delusion that will wreck your souls yet,--is,\nindeed, harming, wrecking them now, and will finally destroy them if\nyou do not got rid of it. Let us always remember that the declaration\nof my first text lies at the very foundation of the declaration of my\nsecond.\n\nWhat, then, is the difference between them? Why, for one thing it is\nthis--ISAIAH tells us that we must be righteous, John tells us how we\nmay be. The one says, 'There are the conditions,' the other says, 'Here\nare the means by which you can have the conditions.' Love is the\nproductive germ of all righteousness; it is the fulfilling of the law.\nGet that into your hearts, and all these relative and personal duties\nwill come. If the deepest, inmost life is right, all the surface of\nlife will come right. Conduct will follow character, character will\nfollow love.\n\nThe efforts of men to make themselves pure, and so to come into the\nposition of holding fellowship with God, are like the wise efforts of\nchildren in their gardens. They stick in their little bits of rootless\nflowers, and they water them; but, being rootless, the flowers are all\nwithered to-morrow and flung over the hedge the day after. But if we\nhave the love of God in our hearts, we have not rootless flowers, but\nthe seed which will spring up and bear fruit of holiness.\n\nBut that is not all. Isaiah says 'Righteousness,' John says 'Love,'\nwhich makes righteousness. And then he tells us how we may get love,\nhaving first told us how we may get righteousness: 'We love Him because\nHe first loved us.' It is just as impossible for a man to work himself\ninto loving God as it is for a man to work himself into righteous\nactions. There is no difference in the degree of impossibility in the\ntwo cases. But what we can do is, we can go and gaze at the thing that\nkindles the love; we can contemplate the Cross on which the great Lover\nof our souls died, and thereby we can come to love Him. John's answer\ngoes down to the depths, for his notion of love is the response of the\nbelieving soul to the love of God which was manifested on the Cross of\nCalvary. To have righteousness we must have love; to have love we must\nlook to the love that God has to us; to look rightly to the love that\nGod has to us we must have faith. Now you have gone down to the very\nbottom of the matter. Faith is the first step of the ladder, and the\nsecond step is love and the third step is righteousness.\n\nAnd so the New Testament, in its highest and most blessed declarations,\nrests itself firmly upon these rigid requirements of the old law. You\nand I, dear brethren, have but one way by which we can walk in the\nmidst of that fire, rejoicing and unconsumed, namely that we shall know\nand believe the love which God hath to us, love Him back again 'with\npure hearts fervently,' and in the might of that receptive faith and\nproductive love, become like Him in holiness, and ourselves be\n'baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Thus, fire-born and\nfiery, we shall dwell as in our native home, in God Himself.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FORTRESS OF THE FAITHFUL\n\n'He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of\nrocks; bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.'--ISAIAH\nxxxiii. 16.\n\n\nThis glowing promise becomes even more striking if we mark its\nconnection with the solemn question in the previous context. 'Who among\nus shall dwell with the devouring fire?' is the prophet's question;\n'who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?' That question\nreally means, Who is capable 'of communion with God'? The prophet\nsketches the outline of the character in the subsequent verses, and\nthen recurring to his metaphor of a habitation, and yet with a most\nlovely and significant modification, he says, 'he'--the man that he has\nbeen sketching--'shall dwell,' not 'with the everlasting burnings,' but\n'on high; his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks,' like\nsome little hill, fort, or city, perched upon a mountain, and having\nwithin it ample provision and an unfailing spring of water. 'His bread\nshall, be given him, his water shall be sure.' To dwell with 'the\ndevouring fire' is to 'dwell on high,' to be safe and satisfied. So\nthen, whilst the words before us have, of course, direct and immediate\nreference to the Assyrian invasion, and promise, in a literal sense,\nsecurity and exemption from its evils to the righteous in Israel, they\nwiden and deepen into a picturesque, but not less real, statement of\nwhat comes into the religious life, by communion with God. There are\nthree things: elevation, security, satisfaction.\n\n'He shall dwell on high.'\n\nIn the East, and in all unsettled countries, you will find that the\nsites of the cities are on the hilltops, for a very plain reason, and\nthat is the fact that underlies the prophet's representation. To hold\nfellowship with God, to live in union with Him, to have His thoughts\nfor my thoughts, and His love wrapping my heart, and His will enshrined\nin my will; to carry Him about with me into all the pettinesses of\ndaily life, and, amidst the whirlpool of duties and changing\ncircumstances, to sit in the centre, as it were the eye of the\nwhirlpool where there is a dead calm, _that_ lifts a man on high.\nCommunion with God secures elevation of spirit, raising us clean above\nthe flat that lies beneath. There are many ways by which men seek for\nlofty thoughts, and a general elevation above the carking cares and\nmultiplied minutenesses of this poor, mortal, transient life; but while\nbooks and great thoughts, and the converse of the wise, and art, and\nmusic, and all these other elevating influences have a real place and a\nblessed efficiency in ennobling life, there is not one of them, nor all\nof them put together, that will give to the human spirit that strange\nand beautiful elevation above the world and the flesh and the devil,\nwhich simple communion with God will give. I have seen many a poor man\nwho knew nothing about the lofty visions that shape and lift humanity,\nwho had no side of him responsive to aesthetics or art or music, who\nwas no thinker, no student, who never had spoken to anybody above the\nrank of a poor labouring man, and to whom all the wisdom of the nations\nwas a closed chamber, who yet in his life, ay! and on his face, bore\nmarks of a spirit elevated into a serene region where there was no\ntumult, and where nothing unclean or vicious could live. A few of the\nselect spirits of the race may painfully climb on high by thought and\neffort. Get God into your hearts, and it will be like filling the round\nof a silken balloon with light air; you will soar instead of climbing,\nand 'dwell on high.' When you are up there, the things below that look\nlargest will dwindle and 'show,' as Shakespeare has it, 'scarce so\ngross as beetles,' looked at from the height, and the noises will sink\nto a scarcely audible murmur, and you will be able to see the lie of\nthe country, and, as it says in the context, 'your eyes shall behold\nthe land that is very far off.' Yes! the hilltop is the place for wide\nviews, and for understanding the course of the serpentine river, and it\nis the place to discover how small are the mightiest things at the\nfoot, and how little a way towards the sun the noises of human praise\nor censure can ever travel. 'He shall dwell on high,' and he will see a\nlong way off, and understand the relative magnitude of things, and the\nstrife of tongues will have ceased for him.\n\nAnd more than that is implied in the promise. If we dwell on high, we\nshall come down with all the more force on what lies below. There is no\ngreater caricature and misconception of Christianity than that which\ntalks as if the spirit that lived in daily communion with God, high\nabove the world, was remote from the world. Why, how do they make\nelectricity nowadays? By the fall of water from a height, and the\nhigher the level from which it descends, the mightier the force which\nit generates in the descent. So nobody will tell on the world like the\nman who lives above it. The height from which a weight rushes down\nmeasures the force of its dint where it falls, and of the energy with\nwhich it comes. 'He shall dwell on high'; and only the man that stands\nabove the world is able to influence it.\n\nAgain, here is another blessing of the Christian life, put in a\npicturesque form: 'His defence shall be munitions of rocks.' That is a\npromise of security from assailants, which in its essence is true\nalways, though its truth may seem doubtful to the superficial estimate\nof sense. The experience of the South African war showed how\nimpregnable 'the munitions of rocks' were. The Boers lay safe behind\nthem, and our soldiers might fire lyddite at them all day and never\ntouch them. So, the man who lives in communion with God has between him\nand all evil the Rock of Ages, and he lies at the back of it, quiet and\nsafe, whatever foe may rage on the other side of it.\n\nNow, of course, the prophet meant to tell his countrymen that, in the\ntheocracy of which they were parts, righteousness and nothing else was\nthe national security, and if a man or a nation lived in communion with\nGod, it bore a charmed life. That is a great deal more true, in regard\nto externals, in the miraculous 'dispensation,' as it is called, of the\nOld Testament than it is now, and we are not to take over these\npromises in their gross literal form into the Christian era, as if they\nwere unconditional and absolutely to be fulfilled. But at the same\ntime, if you reflect how many of our troubles do come to us mainly\nbecause we break our communion with God, I think we shall see that this\nold word has still an application to our daily lives and outward\ncircumstances. Deduct from any man's life all the discomfort and\ntrouble and calamity which have come down upon him because he was not\nin touch with God, and there will not be very much left. Yet there will\nbe some, and the deepest and sorest of all our sorrows are not to be\ninterpreted as occasioned by defects in our dwelling in God. Then has\nmy text no application to them? Yes, because what still remains of\nearthly cares and sorrows and evils would, in communion with God,\nchange its character. The rind is the same; but all the interior\ncontents have been, as children will do with a fruit, scooped out, and\nanother kind of thing has been put inside, so that though the outward\nappearance is the same, what is at the heart of it is utterly\ndifferent. It is no longer some coarse, palate-biting, common\nvegetable, but a sweet confection, made by God's own hands, and put\ninto the gourd, which has been hollowed out and emptied of its evil.\nThat is, perhaps, a very violent figure, but take a plain case as\nillustration. Suppose two men, each of them going to his wife's\nfuneral. The two hearses pass inside the cemetery gates, one after the\nother. Outwardly the two afflictions are the same, but the one man\nsays, 'The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away'; the other man says,\n'They have taken away my gods, and what shall I do more?' _Are_ the two\nthings the same? 'He shall dwell on high, his place of defence shall be\nthe munitions of rocks,' and if we do hide ourselves in the cleft, then\nno evil shall befall us, nor any plague come nigh our dwelling.\n\nBut there is another truth contained in this great promise, viz., that\nin regard to all the real evils which beset men, and these are all\nsummed up in the one, the temptation to do wrong, their arrows will be\nblunted, and their force be broken, if we keep our minds in touch with\nGod through humble communion and lowly obedience. Dear brethren, the\nway by which we can conquer temptations around, and silence\ninclinations within which riotously seek to yield to the temptations\nis, I believe, far more by cultivating a consciousness of communion\nwith God, than by specific efforts directed to the overcoming of a\ngiven and particular temptation. Keep inside the fortress, and no\nbullet will come near you. Array yourselves in the most elaborate\nprecautions and step out from its shadow, and every bullet will strike\nand wound. Let me keep up my fellowship with God, and I may laugh at\ntemptation. Security depends on continual communion with God by faith,\nlove, aspiration, and obedience.\n\nNow, I need not say more than a word about the last element in these\npromises, the satisfaction of desires. 'His bread shall be given him,\nand his water shall be sure.' In ancient warfare sieges were usually\nblockades; and strong fortresses were reduced by famine much more\nfrequently than by assault. Mafeking and Ladysmith and Port Arthur were\nin most danger from that cause. The promise here assures us that we\nshall have all supplies in our abode, if God is our abode. Wherever he\nwho dwells in God goes, he carries with him his provisions, and he does\nnot need elaborate arrangements of pipes or reservoirs, because there\nis a fountain in the courtyard that the enemy cannot get at. They may\nstop the springs throughout the land, they may cut off all water\nsupplies, so that 'there shall be no fruit in the vine, and the labour\nof the olive shall fail,' but they cannot touch the fountain. 'His\nwater shall be sure,' and he can say, 'In the days of famine I shall be\nsatisfied.'\n\nGod is and gives all that we need for sustenance, for growth, for\nrefreshment, for satisfaction of our desires. Keep near Him, and you\nwill find in the heart of the devouring fire a shelter, and you will\nhave all that you want for life here. My text will be true about us, in\nthe measure in which we do thus dwell, and if we thus dwell here, and\nso dwell on high, with the munitions of rocks for our fortress, and\n'the bread of God that came down from heaven' for our food, and the\nwater of life for our refreshment, then, when there is no longer any\nneed of places for defence, the other saying will be true, 'They shall\nhunger no more, neither thirst any more, for the Lamb which is in the\nmidst of the throne shall feed them ... and shall lead them to living\nfountains of waters, and God, the Lord, shall wipe away all tears from\ntheir eyes.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIVERS OF GOD\n\n'But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers\nand streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall\ngallant ship pass thereby.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 21.\n\n\nOne great peculiarity of Jerusalem, which distinguishes it from almost\nall other historical cities, is that it has no river. Babylon was on\nthe Euphrates, Nineveh on the Tigris, Thebes on the Nile, Rome on the\nTiber; but Jerusalem had nothing but a fountain or two, and a well or\ntwo, and a little trickle and an intermittent stream. The water supply\nto-day is, and always has been, a great difficulty, and an insuperable\nbarrier to the city's ever having a great population.\n\nThat deficiency throws a great deal of beautiful light on more than one\npassage in the Old Testament. For instance, this same prophet contrasts\nthe living stream, the waters of Siloam, as an emblem of the gentle\nsway of the divine King of Israel, with 'the river, strong and mighty,'\nwhich was the symbol of Assyria; and a psalm that we all know well,\nsings, 'There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of\nGod,'--a triumphant exclamation which is robbed of half its force,\nunless we remember that the literal Jerusalem had no river at all. The\nvision of living waters flowing from the Temple which Ezekiel saw is a\nvariation of the same theme, and suggests that in the Messianic days\nthe deficiency shall be made good, and a mysterious stream shall spring\nup from behind, and flow out from beneath, the temple doors, and then\nwith rapid increase and depth and width, but with no tributaries coming\ninto it, shall run fertilising and life-giving everywhere, till it\npours itself into the noisome waters of the sullen sea of death and\nheals even them.\n\nThe same general representation is contained in the words before us.\nIsaiah's great vision is not, as I take it, of a future, but of what\nthe Jerusalem of his day might be to the Israelite if he would live by\nfaith. The mighty Lord, 'the glorious Lord,' shall Himself 'be a place\nof broad rivers and streams.'\n\nI. First, then, this remarkable promise suggests to me how in God there\nis the supply of all deficiencies.\n\nThe city was perched on its barren, hot rock, with scarcely a drop of\nwater, and its inhabitants must often have been tempted to wish that\nthere had been running down the sun-bleached bed of the Kedron a\nflashing stream, such as laved the rock-cut temples and tombs of\nThebes. Isaiah says, in effect, 'You cannot see it, but if you will\ntrust yourselves to God, there will be such a river.'\n\nIn like manner every defect in our circumstances, everything lacking in\nour lives--and we all have something which does not correspond with, or\nwhich falls beneath, our wishes and apparent needs--everything which\nseems to hamper us in some aspects, and to sadden us in others, may be\ncompensated and made up if we will hold fast by God; and although to\noutward sense we dwell 'in a dry and barren land where no water is,'\nthe eye of faith will see, flashing and flowing all around, the\nrejoicing waters of the divine presence, and they will mirror the sky,\nand the reflections will teach us that there is a heaven above us.\n\nIf there is in any life a gap, that is a prophecy that God will fill\nit. If there is anything in your circumstances in regard to which you\noften feel sadly, and are sometimes tempted to feel bitterly, how much\nstronger and more fully equipped you would be, if it were otherwise, be\nsure that in God there is that which can supply the want, and that the\nconsciousness of the want is a merciful summons to seek its supply from\nand in Him. If there is a breach in the encircling wall of your\ndefences, God has made it in order that He Himself, and not an enemy,\nmay enter your lives and hearts. 'In the year that King Uzziah died, I\nsaw the Lord sitting on a throne,' and it did not matter though that\nmortal king was dead, for the true King was thereby revealed as living\nfor ever, just as when the summer foliage, fluttering and green, drops\nfrom the tree, the sturdy stem and the strong branches are made the\nmore visible. Our felt deficiencies are doors by which God may come in.\nDo you sometimes feel as if you would be better if you had easier\nworldly circumstances? Is your health precarious and feeble? Have you\nto walk a solitary path through this world, and does your heart often\nache for companionship? You can have all your heart's desire fulfilled\nin deepest reality in God, in the same way that that riverless city had\nJehovah for 'a place of broad rivers and streams.'\n\nII. Take another side of the same thought. Here is a revelation of God\nand His sweet presence as our true defence.\n\nThe river that lay between some strong city and the advancing enemy was\nits strongest fortification when the bridge of boats was taken away.\nOne of the ancient cities to which I have referred is described by one\nof the prophets as being held as within the coils of a serpent, by\nwhich he means the various bendings and twistings of the Euphrates,\nwhich encompassed Babylon, and made it so hard to be conquered. The\nprimitive city of Paris owed its safety in the wild old times when it\nwas founded, to its being on an island. Venice has lived through many\ncenturies, because it is girded about by its lagoons. England is what\nit is, largely because of 'the streak of silver sea.' So God's city has\na broad moat all round it. The prophet goes on to explain the force of\nhis bold figure in regard to the safety promised by it, when he says:\n'Wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass\nthereby.' Not a keel of the enemy shall dare to cut its waters, nor\nbreak their surface with the wet plash of invading oars. And so, if we\nwill only knit ourselves with God by simple trust and continual\ncommunion, it is the plainest prose fact that nothing will harm us, and\nno foe will ever get near enough to us to shoot his arrows against us.\n\nThat is a truth for faith, and not for sense. Many a man, truly\ncompassed about by God, has to go through fiery trial and sorrow and\naffliction. But I venture to appeal to every heart that has known grief\nmost acutely, protractedly, and frequently, and has borne it in the\nfaith of God, and with submission to Him; and I know that they who are\nthe 'experts,' and who alone have the right to speak with authority on\nthe subject, will confirm the statement that I make, that sorrows\nrecognised as sent from God are the truest blessings of our lives. No\nreal evil befalls us, because, according to the old superstition that\nmoney bewitched was cleansed if it was handed across running water, our\nsorrows only reach us across the river that defends.\n\nIsaiah is full of symbols of various kinds for the impregnability of\nZion. Sometimes, as in my text, he falls back upon the thought of the\nbright waters of the moat on which no enemy can venture to sail.\nSometimes he draws his metaphor from the element opposed to water, and\nspeaks of a wall of fire round about us. But the simple reality that\nlies below all the poetry is, that trust in God brings His presence\naround me, and that makes it impossible that any evil should befall me,\nand certain that whatever does befall me is His messenger, His loving\nmessenger, for my good. If we believed that, and lived on the belief,\nthe whole world would be different.\n\nIII. Take, again, another aspect of this same thought, which suggests\nto us God's presence as our true refreshment and satisfaction.\n\nThe waterless city depended on cisterns, and they were often broken,\nand were always more or less foul, and sometimes the water fell very\nlow in them. Isaiah says to us: Even when you are living in external\ncircumstances like that:\n\n  'When all created streams are dry,\n  Thy fulness is the same.'\n\nThe fountain of living waters--if we may slightly vary the metaphor of\nmy text--never sinks one hair's-breadth in its crystal basin, however\nmany thirsty lips may be glued to its edge, and however large may be\ntheir draughts from it. This metaphor, turned to the purpose of\nsuggesting how in God every part of our nature finds its appropriate\nnourishment and refreshment which it does not find anywhere besides,\nhas become one of the commonplaces of the pulpit. Would it were the\ncommonplace of our lives! It is easy to talk about Him as being the\nfountain of living waters; it is easy to quote and to admire the words\nwhich the Master spoke to the Samaritan woman when He said, 'I would\nhave given thee living water,' and 'the water which I give will be a\nfountain springing up into everlasting life.' We repeat or learn such\nsayings, and then what do we do? We go away and try to slake our thirst\nat broken cisterns, and every draught which we take is like the salt\nwater from which a shipwrecked-boat's crew in its madness will\nsometimes not be able to refrain, each drop increasing the raging\nthirst and hastening the impending death.\n\nIf we believed that God was the broad river from which we could draw\nand draw, and drink and drink, for ever and ever, should we be clinging\nwith such desperate tenacity, as most of us exhibit, to earthly goods?\nShould we whimper with such childish regrets, as most of us nourish,\nwhen these goods are diminished or withdrawn? Should we live as we\nconstantly do, day in and day out, seldom applying ourselves to the one\nsource of strength and peace and refreshment, and trying, like fools,\nto find what apart from Him the world can never give? The rivers in\nnorthern Tartary all lose themselves in the sand. Not one of them has\nvolume or force enough to get to the sea. And the rivers from which we\ntry to drink are sand-choked long before our thirst is slaked. So, if\nwe are wise, we shall take Isaiah's hint, and go where the water flows\nabundantly, and flows for ever.\n\nIV. There is a last point that I would also suggest, namely, the\nmanifold variety in the results of God's presence.\n\nIt shapes itself into many forms, according to our different needs.\n'The glorious Lord shall be a place of broad rivers.' Yes; but notice\nthe next words--'and streams.' Now, the word which is there translated\n'streams' means little channels for irrigation and other purposes, by\nwhich the water of some great river is led off into the melon patches,\nand gardens, and plantations, and houses of the inhabitants. So we have\nnot only the picture of the broad river in its unity, but also that of\nthe thousand little rivulets in their multiplicity, and in their\ndirection to each man's plot of ground. It is the same idea that is in\nthe psalm which I have already quoted: 'There is a river, _the streams_\nwhereof make glad the city of our God.' You can divide the river up\ninto very tiny trickles, according to the moment's small wants. If you\nmake but a narrow channel, you will get but a shallow streamlet; and if\nyou make your channel broad and deep, you will get much of Him.\n\nIt is of no profit that we live on the river's bank if we let its\nwaters go rolling and flashing past our door, or our gardens, or our\nlips. Unless you have a sluice, by which you can take them off into\nyour own territory, and keep the shining blessing to be the source of\nfertility in your own garden, and of coolness and refreshment to your\nown thirst, your garden will be parched, and your lips will crack.\nThere is a 'broad river,' and there are also 'streams'; which, being\nbrought down to its simplest expression, just comes to this--that we\nmay and must make God our very own property. It is useless to say\n'_our_ God,' 'the God of Israel,' 'the God of the Church,' 'the Great\nCreator,' 'the Universal Father,' and so on, unless we say '_my_ God\nand _my_ Saviour,' '_my_ Refuge and _my_ Strength.' How much of the\nriver have you dipped up in your own vessel? How much of it have you\ntaken with which to water your own vineyard and refresh your own souls?\n\nThe time comes when Isaiah's prophecy shall be perfectly fulfilled,\naccording to the great words in the closing hook of Scripture, about\nthe river of the water of life proceeding out of the Throne of God and\nof the Lamb. But, till that time comes, we do not need to wander\nthirsty in a desert; but all round us we may hear the mighty waters\nrolling everywhere, and drink deep draughts of delight and supply for\nall our needs, from the very presence of God Himself.\n\n\n\n\nJUDGE, LAWGIVER, KING\n\n'For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our\nKing; He will save us.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 22.\n\n\nThere is reference here to the three forms of government in Israel: by\nMoses, by Judges, by Kings. In all, Israel was a Theocracy. Isaiah\nlooks beyond the human representative to the true divine Reality.\n\nI. A truth for us, in both its more specific and its more general forms.\n\n(a) Specific. Christ is all these three for us--Authority; His will\nlaw; Defender.\n\n(b) More general. Everything that human beings are to us, they are by\nderivation from Him--and He sums in Himself all forms of good and\nblessing. Every name among men for any kind of helper belongs to Him.\nAll tender, helpful relationships are but 'broken lights of Thee.'\n\nII. A lesson hard to learn and to remember.\n\nOne knows not whether it is harder for faith to look beyond the visible\nhelpers or delights to the Unseen Real One, or to look through tears,\nwhen these are gone, and to see Him clearly filling an otherwise empty\nfield of vision. When we have a palpable prop to lean on, it is\ndifficult to be clearly aware that, unless the palpable support were\nheld up by the Unseen, it could not be a prop, and to lean on it would\nbe like resting one's weight on a staff stuck in yielding mud. But it\nis no less difficult to tell our hearts that we have all that we ever\nhad, when what we had leaned on for many happy days and found to hold\nus up is stricken from beneath us. Present, the seen lawgiver, judge,\nor king stays the eyes that should travel past him to God Himself;\nremoved, his absence makes a great emptiness, in whose vacuity it is\ndifficult for faith to discern the real presence of Him who is all that\nthe departed seemed to be. The painted glass stays the eye; shattered,\nit lets in only the sight of a void and far-off sky.\n\nIsrael could not breathe freely in the rarefied air on the heights of a\ntheocracy, and demanded a visible king. It had its desire, and as a\nconsequence, 'leanness in its soul.' Christendom has found it as\ndifficult to do without visible embodiments of authority, law, defence,\nand hence many evils and corruptions in the institutions and practices\nof organised Christianity.\n\nIII. A conviction which makes strong and blessed.\n\nTo have dominant in our minds, and operative through our lives, the\nsettled conviction that God in Christ is for us judge, lawgiver, and\nking, and that the purpose of all these offices or relationships is\nthat 'He will save us' is the secret of tranquillity, the fountain of\ncourage, the talisman which makes life all different and us who live in\nit different. Fear cannot survive where that conviction rules and\nfortifies a heart. We shall not be slavish adherents of men if we are\naccustomed to take our orders from our Lawgiver. Earthly prizes or\ndignities will not dazzle eyes that have seen the King in His beauty.\nWe shall pay little heed to men's judgments if there flames ever before\nconscience the thought, 'He that judgeth me is the Lord.' 'He will save\nus'; who can destroy what His hand is stretched out to preserve? 'If\nGod is for us, who is against us? It is God that justifieth; who is He\nthat condemneth?'\n\n\n\n\nMIRACLES OF HEALING\n\n'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf\nshall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the\ntongue of the dumb sing.'--ISAIAH xxxv. 5,6.\n\n\n'Then'--when? The previous verse answers, 'Behold, your God will come,\nHe will come and save you.' And what or when is that 'coming'? A glance\nat the place which this grand hymn occupies in the series of Isaiah's\nprophecies answers that question. It stands at the close of the first\npart of these, and is the limit of the prophet's vision. He has been\nsetting forth the Lord's judgments upon all heathen, and His\ndeliverance of Israel from its oppressors; and the 'coming' is His\nmanifestation for that double purpose. Before its flashing brightness,\nbarrenness is changed into verdure, diseases that lame men's powers\nvanish, the dry and thirsty land gleams with the shining light of\nsudden streams. Across the wilderness stretches a broad path, raised\nhigh above the bewildering monotony of pathless sand, too plain to be\nmissed, too lofty for wild beasts' suppleness to spring upon it: along\nit troop with song and gladness the returning exiles, with hope in\ntheir hearts as they journey to Zion, where they find a joyful home\nundimmed by sorrow, and in which sighing and sorrow are heard and felt\nno more.\n\nNow this is poetry, no doubt; the golden light of imagination suffuses\nit all, but it is poetry with a solid meaning in it. It is not a mere\nplay of fancy exalting the 'coming of the Lord' by heaping together all\nimages that suggest the vanishing of evil and the coming of good. If\nthere is a basis of facts in it, what are they? What is the period of\nthat emphatic 'then' at the beginning of our text? The return of the\nJews from exile? Yes, certainly; but some greater event shines through\nthe words. Some future restoration of that undying race to their own\nland? Yes, possibly, again we answer, but that does not exhaust the\nprophecy. The great coming of God to save in the gift of His Son? Yes,\nthat in an eminent degree. The second coming of Christ? Yes, that too.\nAll the events in which God has come for men's deliverance are shadowed\nhere; for in them all, the same principles are at work, and in all,\nsimilar effects have followed. But mainly the mission and work of Jesus\nChrist is pointed at here--whether in its first stage of Incarnation\nand Passion, or in its second stage of Coming in glory, 'the second\ntime without sin, unto salvation.'\n\nAnd the bodily diseases here enumerated are symbols, just as Christ's\nmiracles were symbolical, just as every language has used the body as a\nparable of the soul, and has felt that there is such a harmony between\nthem that the outward and visible does correspond to and shadow the\ninward and spiritual.\n\nI think, then, that we may fairly take these four promises as bringing\nout very distinctly the main characteristics of the blessed effects of\nChrist's work in the world. The great subject of these words is the\npower of Christ in restoring to men the spiritual capacities which are\nall but destroyed. We have here three classes of bodily infirmities\nrepresented as cured at the date of that blessed 'Then.' Blindness and\ndeafness are defects in perception, and stand for incapacities\naffecting the powers of knowledge. Lameness affects powers of motion,\nand stands for incapacity of activity. Dumbness prevents speech, and\nstands for incapacity of utterance.\n\nI. Christ as the restorer of the powers of knowing.\n\nBodily diseases are taken to symbolise spiritual infirmities.\n\nMark the peculiarities of Scripture anthropology as brought out in this\nview of humanity:---\n\nIts gloomy views of man's actual condition.\n\nIts emphatic declaration that that condition is abnormal.\n\nIts confidence of effecting a cure.\n\nIts transcendentally glorious conception of what man may become.\n\nMen are blind and deaf; that is to say, their powers of perception are\ndestroyed by reason of disease. What a picture! The great spiritual\nrealities are all unseen, as Elisha's young servant was blind to the\nfiery chariots that girdled the prophet. Men are blind to the starry\ntruths that shine as silver in the firmament. They are deaf to the\nVoice which is gone out to the ends of the earth, and yet they have\neyes and ears, conscience, intuitions. They possess organs, but these\nare powerless.\n\nAnd while the blindness is primarily in regard to spiritual and\nreligious truths, it is not confined to these, but wherever spiritual\nblindness has fallen, the whole of a man's knowledge will suffer. There\nwill be blindness to the highest philosophy, to the true basis and\nmotive of morals, to true psychology, to the noblest poetry. All will\nbe of the earth, earthy. You cannot strike religion out of men's\nthoughts, as you might take a stone out of a wall and leave the wall\nstanding; you take out foundation and mortar, and make a ruinous heap.\n\nI know, of course, that there may be much mental activity without any\nperception of spiritual realities, but all knowledge which is not\npurely mathematical or physical suffers by the absence of such\nperception. All this blindness is caused by sin.\n\nChrist is the giver of spiritual sight. He restores the faculty by\ntaking away the hindrance to its exercise. Further, He gives sight\nbecause He gives light.\n\nBut turn to facts of experience, and consider the mental apathy of\nheathenism as contrasted with the energy of mind within the limits of\nChristendom. Greece, of course, is a brilliant exception, but even\nthere (1) what of the conceptions of God? (2) what of the effect of the\nwise on the mass of the nation? Think of the languid intellectual life\nof the East. Think of the energy of thought which has been working\nwithin the limits of Christianity. Think of Christian theology compared\nwith the mythologies of idolatry. And the contrast holds not only in\nthe religious field but all over the field of thought.\n\nThere is no such sure way of diffusing a culture which will refine and\nstrengthen all the powers of mind as to diffuse the knowledge of Jesus,\nand to make men love Him. In His light they will see light.\n\nTo know Him and to keep company with Him is 'a liberal education,' as\nis seen in many a lowly life, all uninfluenced by what is called\nlearning, but enriched with the finest flowers of 'culture,' and having\ngathered them all in Christ's garden.\n\nChrist is the true light; in Him do we see. Without Him, what is all\nother knowledge? He is central to all, like genial heat about the roots\nof a plant. There is other knowledge than that of sense; and for the\nhighest of all our knowledge we depend on Him who is the Word. In that\nregion we can neither observe nor experiment. In that region facts must\nbe brought by some other means than we can command, and we can but draw\nmore or less accurate deductions from them. Logic without revelation is\nlike a spinning-machine without any cotton, busy drawing out nothing.\nHere we have to listen. 'The entrance of Thy words giveth light.' Your\nGod shall come and save you; then, by that divine coming and saving,\n'the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall\nbe unstopped.'\n\nII. Christ as the Restorer of the Powers of Action.\n\nAgain turn to heathenism, see the apathetic indolence, the\nunprogressive torpor, 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of\nCathay.' Sin lames for service of God; it leaves the lower nature free\nto act, and that freedom paralyses all noble activity.\n\nChristianity brings the Energising of the Soul--\n\n(a) By its reference of everything to God--our powers and our\ncircumstances and our activities.\n\n(b) By its prominence given to Retribution. It speaks not merely of\n_vita brevis_--but of _vita brevis_ and an Eternity which grows out of\nit.\n\n(c) By its great motive for work--love.\n\n(d) By the freedom It brings from the weight that paralysed.\n\nIt takes away sin. Lifting that dreary load from our backs, it makes us\njoyful, strong, and agile.\n\nThe true view of Christianity is not, as some of its friends, and some\nof its foes, mistakenly concur in supposing, that it weakens interest\nin, and energy on, the Present, but that it heightens the power of\naction. A life plunged in that jar of oxygen will glow with redoubled\nbrilliance.\n\nIII. Christ as the Restorer of Powers of Utterance.\n\nThe silence that broods over the world. It is dumb for all holy,\nthankful words; with no voice to sing, no utterance of joyful praise.\n\nThink of the effect of Christianity on human speech, giving it new\nthemes, refining words and crowding them with new meanings. Translate\nthe Bible into any language, and that language is elevated and enriched.\n\nThink of the effect on human praise. That great treasure of Christian\npoetry.\n\nThink of the effect on human gladness. Christ fills the heart with such\nreasons for praise, and makes life one song of joy.\n\nThus Christ is the Healer.\n\nTo men seeking for knowledge, He offers a higher gift--healing. And as\nfor true knowledge and culture, in Christ, and in Christ alone, will\nyou find it.\n\nLet your culture be rooted in Him. Let your Religion influence all your\nnature.\n\nThe effects of Christianity are its best evidence. What else does the\nlike of that which it does? Let Jannes and Jambres 'do the same with\ntheir enchantments.' We may answer the question, 'Art Thou He that\nshould come?' as Christ did, 'The blind receive their sight, and the\nlame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear.'\n\nThe perfect Restoration will be in heaven. Then, indeed, when our souls\nare freed from mortal grossness, and the thin veils of sense are rent\nand we behold Him as He is, then when they rest not day nor night, but\nwith ever renewed strength run to His commandments, then when He has\nput into their lips a new song--'then shall the eyes of the blind be\nopened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped; then shall the lame man\nleap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.'\n\n\n\n\nMIRAGE OR LAKE\n\n'For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the\ndesert. And the glowing sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty\nground springs of water.' ISAIAH xxxv. 6, 7.\n\n\nWhat a picture is painted in these verses! The dreary wilderness\nstretches before us, monotonous, treeless, in some parts bearing a\nscanty vegetation which flourishes in early spring and dies before\nfierce summer heats, but for the most part utterly desolate, the sand\nblinding the eyes, the ground cracked and gaping as if athirst for the\nrain that will not fall; over it the tantalising mirage dancing in\nmockery, and amid the hot sand the yelp of the jackals. What does this\ndead land want? One thing alone--water. Could that be poured upon it,\nall would be changed; nothing else will do any good. And it comes.\nSuddenly it bursts from the sand, and streams bring life along the\ndesert. It gathers into placid lakes, with their whispering reeds and\nnodding rushes, and the thick cool grass round their margins. The foul\nbeasts that wandered through dry places seeking rest are drowned out.\nSo full of blessed change will be the coming of the Lord, of which all\nthis context speaks. Mark that this burst of waters is when 'the Lord\nshall come,' and that it is the reason for the restoration of lost\npowers in men, and especially for a chorus of praise from dumb lips.\nThis, then, is the central blessing. It is not merely a joyful\ntransformation, but it is the reason for a yet more joyful\ntransformation (chap. xliv. 3). Recall Christ's words to the Samaritan\nwoman and in the Temple on the great day of the Feast.\n\nThen this is pre-eminently a description of the work of Christ.\n\nI. Christ brings the Supernatural Communication of a New Life.\n\nWe may fairly regard this metaphor as setting forth the very deepest\ncharacteristic of the gospel. Consider man's need, as typified in the\nimage of the desert. Mark that the supply for that need must come from\nwithout; that coming from without, it must be lodged in the heart of\nthe race; that the supernatural communication of a new life and power\nis the very essence of the work of Christ; that such a communication is\nthe only thing adequate to produce these wondrous effects.\n\nII. This new life slakes men's thirst.\n\nThe pangs and tortures of the waterless wilderness. The thirst of human\nsouls; they long, whether they know it or not, for--\n\n   Truth for Understanding.\n   Love for Heart.\n   Basis and Guidance for Will and Effort.\n   Cleansing for Conscience.\n   Adequate objects for their powers.\n\nThey need that all these should be in One.\n\nThe gnawing pain of our thirst is not a myth; it is the secret of man's\nrestlessness. We are ever on the march, not only because change is the\nlaw of the world, nor only because effort and progress are the law for\ncivilised men, but because, like caravans in the desert, we have to\nsearch for water.\n\nIn Christ it is slaked; all is found there.\n\nIII. The Communication of this New Life turns Illusions into Realities.\n\n'The mirage shall become a pool.' Life without Christ is but a long\nillusion. 'Sin makes a mock of fools.' How seldom are hopes fulfilled,\nand how still less frequently are they, when fulfilled, as good as we\npainted them! The prismatic splendours of the rain bow, which gleam\nbefore us and which we toil to catch, are but grey rain-drops when\ncaught. Joys attract and, attained, have incompleteness and a tang of\nbitterness. The fish is never so heavy when landed on the sward as it\nfelt when struggling on our hook. 'All is vanity'--yes, if creatures\nand things temporal are pursued as our good. But nothing is vanity, if\nwe have the life in us which Jesus comes to give. His Gospel gives\nsolid, unmingled joys, sure promises which are greater when fulfilled\nthan when longed for, certain hopes whose most brilliant colours are\nduller than those of the realities. The half has not been told of the\n'things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'\n\nSure Promises.\n\nA certain Hope.\n\nIV. This New Life gives Fruitfulness. It stimulates all our nature. A\ngodless life is in a very tragic sense barren, and a wilderness. There\nis in it nothing really worth doing, nor anything that will last.\nChrist gives Power, Motive, Pattern, and makes a life of holy activity\npossible. The works done by men apart from Him are, if measured by the\nwhole relations and capacities of the doers, unfruitful works, however\nthey may seem laden with ruddy clusters. It is only lives into which\nthat river of God which is full of water flows that bring forth fruit,\nand whose fruit remains. The desert irrigated becomes a garden of the\nLord.\n\nNote, too, how this river drowns out wild beasts. The true way of\nconquering evil is to turn the river into it. Cultivate, and weeds die.\nThe expulsive power of a new affection is the most potent instrument\nfor perfecting character.\n\nWhat is the use of water if we do not drink? We may perish with thirst\neven on the river's bank. 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me and\ndrink.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE KING'S HIGHWAY\n\n'And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the\nway of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be\nfor those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No\nlion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it\nshall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.'--ISAIAH\nxxxv. 8, 9.\n\n\nWe can fancy what it is to be lost in a forest where a traveller may\nride round in a circle, thinking he is advancing, till he dies. But it\nis as easy to be lost in a wilderness, where there is nothing to see,\nas in a wood where one can see nothing. And there is something even\nmore ghastly in being lost below the broad heavens in the open face of\nday than 'in the close covert of innumerous boughs.' The monotonous\nswells of the sand-heaps, the weary expanse stretching right away to\nthe horizon, no land-marks but the bleaching bones of former victims,\nthe gigantic sameness, the useless light streaming down, and in the\ncentre one tiny, black speck toiling vainly, rushing madly hither and\nthither--a lost man--till he desperately flings himself down and lets\ndeath bury him, that is the one picture suggested by the text. The\nother is of that same wilderness, but across it a mighty king has flung\nup a broad, lofty embankment, a highway raised above the sands, cutting\nacross them so conspicuously that even an idiot could not help seeing\nit, so high above the land around that the lion's spring falls far\nbeneath it, and the supple tiger skulks baffled at its base. It is like\none of those roads which the terrible energy of conquering Rome carried\nstraight as an arrow from the milestone in the Forum over mountains,\nacross rivers and deserts, morasses and forests, to flash along them\nthe lightning of her legions, and over whose solid blocks we travel\nto-day in many a land.\n\nThe prophet has seen in his vision the blind and deaf cured, the\ncapacities of human nature destroyed by sin restored. He has told us\nthat this miraculous change has come from the opening of a spring of\nnew life in the midst of man's thirsty desert, and now he gets before\nus, in yet another image, another aspect of the glorious change which\nis to follow that coming of the Lord to save, which filled the farthest\nhorizon of his vision. The desert shall have a plain path on which\nthose diseased men who have been healed journey. Life shall no longer\nbe trackless, but God will, by His coming, prepare paths that we should\nwalk in them; and as He has given the lame man power to walk, so will\nhe also provide the way by which His happy pilgrims will journey to\ntheir home.\n\nI. The pathless wandering of godless lives.\n\nThe old, old comparison of life to a journey is very natural and very\npathetic. It expresses life's ceaseless change; every day carries us\ninto a new scene, every day the bends of the road shut out some happy\nvalley where we fain would have rested, every day brings new faces, new\nassociations, new difficulties, and even if the same recur, yet it is\nwith such changes that they are substantially new, and of each day's\nmarch it is true, even when life is most monotonous, that 'ye have not\npassed this way heretofore.' It expresses life's ceaseless effort and\nconstant plodding. To-day's march does not secure to-morrow's rest,\nbut, however footsore and weary, we have to move on, like some child\ndragged along by a careless nurse. It expresses the awful crumbling\naway of life beneath us. The road has an end, and each step takes us\nnearer to it. The numbers that face us on the milestones slowly and\nsurely decrease; we pass the last and on we go, tramp, tramp, and we\ncannot stop till we reach the narrow chamber, cold and dark, where, at\nany rate, we have got the long march over.\n\nBut to many men, the journey of life is one which has no definite\ndirection deliberately chosen, which has no all-inclusive aim, which\nhas no steady progress. There may be much running hither and thither,\nbut it is as aimless as the marchings of a fly upon a window, as busy\nand yet as uncertain as that of the ants who bustle about on an\nant-hill.\n\nNow that is the idea, which our text implies, of all the activity of a\ngodless life, that it is not a steady advance to a chosen goal, but a\nrushing up and down in a trackless desert, with many immense exertions\nall thrown away. Then, in contrast, it puts this great thought: that\nGod has come to us and made for us a path for our feet.\n\nII. The highway that God casts up.\n\nOf course that coming we take to be Christ's coming, and we have just\nto consider the manner in which His coming fulfils this great promise,\nand has made in the trackless wilderness a way for us to walk in.\n\n1. Christ gives us a Definite Aim for Life. I know, of course, that men\nmay have this apart from Him, definite enough in all conscience. But\nsuch aims are unworthy of men's whole capacities. Not one of them is\nfit to be made the exclusive, all-embracing purpose of a life, and,\ntaken together, they are so multifarious that in their diversity they\ncome to be equal to none. How many we have all had! Most of us are like\nmen who zig-zag about, chasing after butterflies! Nor are any such aims\ncertain to be reached during life, and they all are certain to be lost\nat death.\n\nGodless men are enticed on like some dumb creature lured to\nslaughter-house by a bunch of fodder--once inside, down comes the\npole-axe.\n\nBut Christ gives us a definite aim which is worthy of a man, which\nincludes all others; which binds this life and the next into one.\n\n2. Christ gives us distinct knowledge of whither we should go. It is\nnot enough to give general directions; we need to know what our next\nstep is to be. It is of no avail that we see the shining turrets far\noff on the hill, if all the valleys between are unknown and trackless.\nWell: we have Him to point us our course. He is the exemplar--the true\nideal of human nature. Hour by hour His pattern fits to our lives.\nTrue, we shall often be in perplexity, but that perplexity will clear\nitself by patient thought, by holding our wills in suspense till He\nspeaks, and by an honest wish to go right. There will no longer be\ndoubt as to what is our law, though there may be as to the application\nof it. We are not to be guided by men's maxims, nor by the standards\nand patterns round us, but by Him.\n\n3. Christ gives means by which we can reach the aim. He does so by\nsupplying a stimulus to our activity, in the motive of His love; by the\nremoval of the hindrances arising from sin, through His redeeming work;\nby the gifts of new life from His Spirit.\n\n'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he\nknoweth not how to go to the city.' But he that follows Jesus treads\nthe right way to the city of habitation.\n\n4. Christ goes with us. The obscure words, 'It shall be for those' are\nby some rendered, 'He shall be with them,' and we may take them so, as\nreferring to the presence with His happy pilgrims of the Lord Himself.\nPerhaps Isaiah may have been casting back a thought to the desert\nmarch, where the pillar led the host. But at all events we have the\nsame companion to 'talk with us by the way,' and make 'our hearts burn\nwithin us,' as had the two disconsolate pedestrians on the road to\nEmmaus. It is Jesus who goes before us, whether He leads us to green\npastures and waters of quietness or through valleys of the shadow of\ndeath, and we can be smitten by no evil, since He is with us.\n\nIII. The travellers upon God's highway.\n\nTwo conditions are laid down in the text. One is negative-the unclean\ncan find no footing there. It is 'the way of holiness,' not only\nbecause holiness is in some sense the goal to which it leads, but still\nmore, because only holy feet can tread it, holy at least in the\ntravellers' aspiration and inward consecration, though still needing to\nbe washed daily. One is positive--it is 'the simple' who shall not err\ntherein. They who distrust themselves and their own skill to find or\nforce a path through life's jungle, and trust themselves to higher\nguidance, are they whose feet will be kept in the way.\n\nNo lion or ravenous beast can spring or creep up thereon. Simple\nkeeping on Christ's highway elevates us above temptations and evils of\nall sorts, whether nightly prowlers or daylight foes.\n\nThis generation is boasting or complaining that old landmarks are\nblotted out, ancient paths broken, footmarks obliterated, stars hid,\nand mist shrouding the desert. But Christ still guides, and His promise\nstill holds good: 'He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness,\nbut shall have the light of life.' The alternative for each 'traveller\nbetween life and death' is to tread in His footsteps or to 'wander in\nthe wilderness in a solitary way, hungry and thirsty,' with fainting\nsoul. Let us make the ancient prayer ours: 'See if there be any wicked\nway in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'\n\n\n\n\nWHAT LIFE'S JOURNEY MAY BE\n\n'The redeemed shall walk there: And the ransomed of the Lord shall\nreturn, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their\nheads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall\nflee away.'--ISAIAH XXXV 9,10.\n\n\nWe have here the closing words of Isaiah's prophecy. It has been\nsteadily rising, and now it has reached the summit. Men restored to all\ntheir powers, a supernatural communication of a new life, a pathway for\nour journey--these have been the visions of the preceding verses, and\nnow the prophet sees the happy pilgrims flocking along the raised way,\nand hears some faint strains of their glad music, and he marks them,\nrank after rank, entering the city of their solemnities, and through\nthe gates can behold them invested with joy and gladness, while sorrow\nand sighing, like some night-loving birds shrinking from the blaze of\nthat better sun which lights the city, spread their black wings and\nflee away.\n\nThe noble rhythm of our English version rises here to a strain of\npathetic music, the very cadence of which stirs thoughts that lie too\ndeep for tears, and one shrinks from taking these lofty words of\nimmortal hope--which life's sorrows have interpreted, I trust, for many\nof us--as the text of a sermon. But I would fain try whether some of\ntheir gracious sweetness and power may not survive even our rude\nhandling of them.\n\nThe prophet here is not only speaking of the literal return of his\nbrethren from captivity. The place which this prophecy holds at the\nvery close of the book, the noble loftiness of the language, the entire\nabsence of any details or specific allusions which compel reference to\nthe Captivity, would be sufficient of themselves to make us suspect\nthat there was very much more here. The structure of prophecy is\nmisunderstood unless it be recognised that all the history of Israel\nwas itself a prediction, a great supernatural system of types and\nshadows, and that all the interventions of the divine hand are one in\nprinciple, and all foretell the great intervention of redeeming love,\nin the person of Jesus Christ. Nor need that be unlikely in the eyes of\nany who believe that Christ's coming is the centre of the world's\nhistory, and that there is in prophecy a supernatural element. We are\nnot reading our own fancies into Scripture; we are not using, in\nallowable freedom, words which had another meaning altogether, to adorn\nour own theology, but we are apprehending the innermost meaning of\nprophecy, when we see in it Christ and His salvation (1 Peter i. 10).\n\nWe have then here a picture of what Christ does for us weary journeyers\non life's road,\n\nI. Who are the travellers?\n\n'Redeemed,' 'ransomed of the Lord.' Israel had in its past history one\ngreat act, under the imagery of which all future deliverances were\nprophesied. The events of the Exodus were the great storehouse from\nwhich prophets drew the clothing of their brightest hopes; and that is\na lesson for us of how to use the history of God's past deliverances.\nThey believed that each transitory act was a revelation of an\nunchanging purpose and an unexhausted power, and that it would be\nrepeated over and over again. Experience supplied the material out of\nwhich Hope wove its fairest webs, but Faith drove the shuttle. Here the\nnames which describe the pilgrims come from the old story. They are\nslaves, purchased or otherwise set free from captivity by a divine act.\nThe epithets are transferred to the New Testament, and become the\nstanding designation for those who have been delivered by Christ.\n\nThat designation, 'ransomed of the Lord,' opens out into the great\nevangelical thoughts which are the very life-blood of vital\nChristianity.\n\nEmancipation from bondage is the first thing that we all need. 'He that\ncommitteth sin is the slave of sin.' An iron yoke presses on every neck.\n\nThe needed emancipation can only be obtained by a ransom price. The\nquestion of to whom the ransom is paid is not in the horizon of prophet\nor apostle or of Jesus Himself, in using this metaphor. What is\nstrongly in their minds is that a great surrender must be greatly made\nby the Emancipator.\n\nJesus conceived of Himself as giving 'His life a ransom for the many.'\n\nThe emancipation must be a divine act. It surpasses any created power.\n\nThere can be no happy pilgrims unless they are first set free.\n\nII. The end of the journey.\n\n'They shall come to Zion.' It is one great distinctive characteristic\nand blessedness of the Christian conception of the future that it takes\naway from it all the chilling sense of strangeness, arising from\nignorance and lack of experience, and invests it with the attraction of\nbeing the mother-city of us all. So the pilgrims are not travelling a\ndreary road into the common darkness, but are like colonists who visit\nEngland for the first time, and are full of happy anticipations of\n'going home,' though they have never seen its shores.\n\nThat conception of the future perfect state as a 'city' includes the\nideas of happy social life, of a settled polity, of stability and\nsecurity. The travellers who were often solitary on the march will all\nbe together there. The nomads, who had to leave their camping-place\neach morning and let the fire that cheered them in the night die down\ninto a little ring of grey ashes, will 'go no more out,' but yet make\nendless progress within the gates. The defenceless travellers, who were\nfain to make the best 'laager' they could, and keep vigilant watch for\nhuman and bestial enemies crouching beyond the ring of light from the\ncamp-fires, are safe at last, and they that swallowed them up shall be\nfar away.\n\nContrast the future outlook of the noblest minds in heathenism with the\ncalm certainty which the gospel has put within the reach of the\nsimplest! 'Blessed are your eyes, for they see.'\n\nIII. The joy of the road.\n\nThe pilgrims do not plod wearily in silence, but, like the tribes going\nup to the feasts, burst out often, as they journey, into song. They are\nlike Jehoshaphat's soldiers, who marched to the fight with the singers\nin the van chanting 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth\nfor ever.' The Christian life should be a joyful life, ever echoing\nwith the 'high praises of God.' However difficult the march, there is\ngood reason for song, and it helps to overcome the difficulties. 'A\nmerry heart goes all the day, a sad heart tires in a mile.' Why should\nthe ransomed pilgrims sing? For present blessings, for deliverance from\nthe burden of self and sin, for communion with God, for light shed on\nthe meaning of life, and for the sure anticipation of future bliss.\n\n'Everlasting joy on their heads.' Other joys are transitory. It is not\nonly 'we poets' who 'in our youth begin with gladness,' whereof 'cometh\nin the end despondency and madness'; but, in a measure, these are the\noutlines of the sequence in all godless lives. The world's festal\nwreathes wilt and wither in the hot fumes of the banqueting house, and\n'the crown of pride shall be trodden under foot.' But joy of Christ's\ngiving 'shall remain,' and even before we sit at the feast, we may have\nour brows wreathed with a garland 'that fadeth not away.'\n\nIV. The perfecting of joy at last.\n\n'They shall obtain joy and gladness': but had they not had it on their\nheads as they marched? Yes; but at last they have it in perfect measure\nand manner. The flame that burned but dimly in the heavy air of earth\nflashes up into new brightness in the purer atmosphere of the city.\n\nAnd one part of its perfecting is the removal of all its opposites.\nSorrow ends when sin and the discipline that sin needs have ended. 'The\ninhabitant shall not say: I am sick; the people that dwell therein\nshall be forgiven their iniquity.' Sighing ends when weariness, loss,\nphysical pain, and all the other ills that flesh is heir to have ceased\nto vex and weigh upon the spirit. Life purges the dross of imperfection\nfrom character. Death purges the alloy of sorrow and sighing from joy,\nand leaves the perfected spirit possessor of the pure gold of perfect\nand eternal gladness.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRIUMPH OF FAITH\n\n'And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and\nread it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the Lord, and spread it\nbefore the Lord. 15. And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying, 16. O\nLord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, Thou\nart the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou\nhast made heaven and earth. 17. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear;\nopen Thine eyes, O Lord, and see: and hear all the words of\nSennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God. 18. Of a\ntruth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and\ntheir countries, 19. And have cast their gods into the fire: for they\nwere no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore\nthey have destroyed them. 20. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us\nfrom his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou\nart the Lord, even Thou only. 21. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto\nHezekiah, saying. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas thou hast\nprayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria.... 33. Therefore thus\nsaith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into\nthis city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields,\nnor cast a bank against it. 34. By the way that he came, by the same\nshall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. 35.\nFor I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my\nservant David's sake. 36. Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and\nsmote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five\nthousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were\nall dead corpses. 37. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went\nand returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. 38. And it came to pass, as he was\nworshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and\nSharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the\nland of Armenia: and Esarhaddon his you reigned in his stead.'--ISAIAH\nxxxvii. 14-21, 33-38.\n\n\nIs trust in Jehovah folly or wisdom? That was the question raised by\nSennacherib's invasion. A glance at the preceding chapters will show\nhow the high military official, 'the rabshakeh,' or chief of the\nofficers, shaped all his insolent and yet skilful mixture of threats\nand promises so as to demonstrate the vanity of trust in Egypt or in\nJehovah, or in any but 'the great king.' Isaiah had been labouring to\nlift his countrymen to the height of reliance on Jehovah alone, and now\nthe crucial test of the truth of his contention had come. On the one\nhand were Sennacherib and his host, flushed with victory, and sure of\ncrushing this puny kinglet Hezekiah and his obstinate little city,\nperched on its rock. On the other was nothing but a prophet's word.\nWhere is the stronger force? And does political prudence dictate\nreliance on the Unseen or on the visible? The moment is the crisis of\nIsaiah's work, and this narrative has been placed, with true insight\ninto its importance, at the close of the first half of this book.\n\nTo grasp the significance of the text the preceding events have to be\nremembered. Hezekiah's kingdom had been overrun, and tribute exacted\nfrom him. The rabshakeh had been sent from the main body of the\nAssyrian army, which was down at Lachish in the Philistine low country\non the road to Egypt, in order to try to secure Jerusalem by promises\nand threats, since it was too important a post to leave in the rear, if\nEgypt was to be invaded. That attempt having failed, and the Egyptian\nforces being in motion, this new effort was made to induce Hezekiah to\nsurrender. A letter was sent, whether accompanied by any considerable\narmed force or no does not appear. At this point the narrative begins.\nIt may be best studied as an illustration of the trial of faith, its\nrefuge, its pleading, and its deliverance.\n\nI. Note the trial of faith. Rabshakeh had derided the obstinate\nconfidence in Jehovah, which kept these starving men on the walls\ngrimly silent in spite of his coaxing. The letter of Sennacherib harps\non the same string. It is written in a tone of assumed friendly\nremonstrance, and lays out with speciousness the apparent grounds for\ncalling trust in Jehovah absurdity. There are no threats in it. It is\nall an appeal to common sense and political prudence. It marshals\nundeniable facts. Experience has shown the irresistible power of\nAssyria. There have been plenty of other little nations which have\ntrusted in their local deities, and what has become of them? Barbarous\nnames are flourished in Hezekiah's face, and their wasted dominions are\npointed to as warnings against his committing a parallel folly. There\nis nothing in the letter which might not have been said by a friend,\nand nothing which was not said by the Jews who had lost their faith in\ntheir God. It was but the putting into plain words of what\n'common-sense' and faint faith had often whispered to Hezekiah. The\nvery absence of temper or demand in the letter gives it an aspect of\nthat 'sweet reasonableness' so dear to sense-bound souls.\n\n_Mutatis mutandis_, the letter may stand for a specimen of the\narguments which worldly prudence brings to shake faith, in all ages.\nWe, too, are assailed by much that sounds most forcible from the point\nof view of mere earthly calculation. Sennacherib does not lie in\nboasting of his victories. He and his shoals of soldiers are very real\nand potent. It does seem madness for one little kingdom to stand out,\nand all the more so because its king is cooped up in his city, as the\ncuneiform inscription proudly tells, 'like a bird in a cage,' and all\nthe rest of his land is in the conqueror's grip. They who look only at\nthe things seen cannot but think the men of faith mad. They who look at\nthe things unseen cannot but know that the men of sense are fools. The\nlatter elaborately prove that the former are impotent, but they have\nleft out one factor in their calculations, and that is God. One man and\nGod at his back are stronger than Sennacherib and all his mercenaries.\n\nII. Note the refuge of tempted faith. What was Hezekiah to do with the\ncrafty missive? It was hoped that he would listen to reason, and come\ndown from his perch. But he neither yielded nor took counsel with his\nservants, but, like a devout man, went into the house of the Lord, and\nspread the letter before the Lord. It would have gone hard with him if\nhe had not been to the house of the Lord many a time before. It is not\neasy to find our way thither for the first time, when our eyes are\nblinded by tears or our way darkened by calamities. But faith\ninstinctively turns to God when anything goes wrong, because it has\nbeen accustomed to turn to Him when all was right, according to the\nworld's estimate of right and wrong. Whither should the burdened heart\nbetake itself but to Him who daily bears our burdens? The impulse to\ntell God all troubles is as truly a mark of the faithful soul as the\nimpulse to tell everything to the beloved is the life-breath of love.\n\nThe act of spreading the letter before the Lord is an eloquent symbol,\nwhich some prosaic and learned commentators have been dull enough to\ncall gross, and to compare to Buddhist praying-mills! Its meaning is\nexpressed in the prayer which follows. It is faith's appeal to His\nknowledge. It is faith's casting of its burden on the Lord. Our faith\nis of little power to bless, unless it impels us to take God into\nconfidence in regard to everything which troubles us. If the letter is\nnot grave enough to be spread before _Him_, it is too small to annoy\n_us_. If we truly live in fellowship with God, we shall find ourselves\nin His house, with the cause of our trouble in our hands, before we\nhave time to think. Instinct acts more quickly than reason, and, if our\nfaith be vital, it will not need to be argued into speaking to God of\nall that weighs upon us.\n\nIII. Note the pleading of faith. Hezekiah's address to God is no mere\nformal recapitulation of divine names, but is the effort of faith to\ngrasp firmly the truths which the enemy denies, and on which it builds.\nSo considered, the accumulation of titles in verse 16 is very\ninstructive, and shows how a trustful soul puts forth the energy of its\nfaith in summoning to mind the great aspects of the divine name as\nbulwarks against suggested fears, and bases of supplication. Hezekiah\nappeals to 'the God of Hosts,' the Ruler of all the embattled forces of\nthe universe, as well as of the armies of angels. What is Sennacherib's\narray compared with these? He appeals to the 'God of Israel,' as\npleading the ancient relationship, which binds the unchangeable\nGuardian of the people to be still what He has been, and casts the\nresponsibility of Israel's preservation upon Him. He appeals to Him\n'who sits between the cherubim,' as thence defending and filling the\nthreatened city. He grasps the thought that Jehovah is 'God alone' with\na vividness which is partly due no doubt to Isaiah's teaching, but is\nalso the indignant recoil of faith from the assumption of the letter,\nthat Jehovah was but as the beaten deities of Gozan and the rest. Faith\nclings the more tenaciously to truths denied, as a dog will hold on to\nthe stick that one tries to pull from it.\n\nThus, having heartened himself and pled with God by all these names,\nHezekiah comes to his petition. It is but translating into words the\nsymbol of spreading the letter before God. He asks God to behold and to\nhear the defiant words. Prayer tells God what it knows that He knows\nalready, for it relieves the burdened heart to tell Him. It asks Him to\nsee and hear what it knows that He does see and hear. But the prayer is\nnot for mere observance followed by no divine act, but for taking\nknowledge as the precursor of the appropriate help. Of such seeing and\nhearing by God, believing prayer is the appointed condition. 'Your\nFather knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him'; but\nthat is not a reason for silence, but for supplication.\n\nHezekiah rightly regarded Sennacherib's words as meant to reproach the\nliving God, for the point of the letter was to dissuade from trust in\nHim, as no more powerful than the petty deities of already conquered\ncities. The prayer, therefore, pleads that God would take care of His\nown honour, and by delivering Jerusalem, show His sole sovereignty. It\nis a high and wonderful level for faith to reach, when it regards\npersonal deliverance mainly in its aspect as vindicating God and\nwarranting faith. We may too easily conclude that God's honour is\ninvolved in our deliverance, and it is well to be on our guard against\nthat.\n\nBut it is possible to die to self so fully as to feel that our cause is\nHis, because His is so entirely ours; and then we may come to that\nheroic faith which seeks even personal good more for God's sake than\nfor our own. It was noble that this man should have no word to say\nabout self but 'Save us, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know\nthat Thou art God alone.' Like him, we may each feel that our defence\nis more God's affair than ours, in proportion as we feel we are His\nrather than our own. That siege of Jerusalem was indeed as a duel\nbetween faith and unbelief on the one hand, and between Jehovah and the\ngods who were 'no gods' on the other. Sennacherib's letter was a\ndefiant challenge to Jehovah to do His best for this people, and when\nfaith repeated in prayer the insolence of unbelief only one result was\npossible. It came.\n\nIV. Note the deliverance of faith. Isaiah's grand prophecy tempts us to\nlinger over its many beauties and magnificent roll of triumphant scorn,\nbut it falls outside our purpose. As for the catastrophe, it should be\nnoted that its place and time are not definitely stated, and that\nprobably the notion that the Assyrian army was annihilated before\nJerusalem is a mistake. Sennacherib and his troops were at Libnah, on\ntheir way to meet the Egyptian forces. If there were any of them before\nJerusalem, they would at most be a small detachment, sufficient to\ninvest it. Probably the course of events was that, at some time not\nspecified, soon after the dismissal of the messengers who brought the\nletter, the awful destruction fell, and that, when the news of the\ndisaster reached the detachment at Jerusalem, as the psalm which throbs\nwith the echoes of the triumph says, 'They were troubled, and hasted\naway.'\n\nHow complete was the crushing blow the lame record of this campaign in\nthe inscriptions shows, in which the failure of the attempt to capture\nthe city is covered up by vapouring about tribute and the like. If it\nhad not failed, however, the success would certainly have been told, as\nall similar cases are told, with abundant boasting. The other fact is\nalso to be remembered, that Sennacherib tried no more conclusions with\nJerusalem and Jehovah, and though he lived for some twenty years\nafterwards, never again ventured on to the soil where that mighty God\nfought for His people.\n\nThe appended notice of Sennacherib's death has been added by some\nnarrator, since it probably occurred after Isaiah's martyrdom. 'All\nthey that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' Such a career as\nhis could not but give taste for violence and bloodshed, and dimmish\nregard for human life. Retribution comes slowly, for twenty years\nintervened between the catastrophe to the army and the murder of the\nking. Its penalties increase as its fall delays; for first came the\nblotting out of the army, and then, when that had no effect, at last\nthe sword in his own heart. 'He that being often reproved hardeneth his\nneck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.'\n\nBut the great lesson of that death is the same as that of the other\nking's deliverance. Hezekiah 'went unto the house of the Lord,' and\nfound Him a very present help in trouble. Sennacherib was slain in the\nhouse of his god. The two pictures of the worshippers and their fates\nare symbolic of the meaning of the whole story. Sennacherib had dared\nJehovah to try His strength against him and his deities. The challenge\nwas accepted, and that bloody corpse before the idol that could not\nhelp preaches a ghastly sermon on the text, 'They that make them are\nlike unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust\nthou in the Lord: He is their help and their shield.'\n\n\n\n\nWHERE TO CARRY TROUBLES\n\nAnd Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and\nread it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the Lord, and spread it\nbefore the Lord.'--ISAIAH xxxvii. 14.\n\n\nWhen Hezekiah heard the threatenings of Sennacherib's servants, he rent\nhis clothes and went into the house of the Lord, and sent to Isaiah\nentreating his prayers. When he received the menacing letter, his faith\nwas greater, having been heartened by Isaiah's assurances. So he then\nhimself appealed to Jehovah, spreading the letter before Him, and\nhimself prayed God to guard His own honour, and answer the challenge\nflung down by the insolent Assyrian. It is noble when faith increases\nas dangers increase.\n\nI. We have here an example of what to do with troubles and difficulties.\n\nWe are to lay them out before God, as we can do by praying about them.\nHezekiah's trouble was great. His kingdom could be crushed like an\neggshell by the grasp of Sennacherib's hand. But little troubles as\nwell as great ones are best dealt with by being 'spread before the\nLord.' Whatever is important enough to disturb me is important enough\nfor me to speak to God about it. Whether the poison inflaming our blood\nbe from a gnat's bite, or a cobra's sting, the best antidote is--pray\nabout it.\n\nHow much more real and fervid our prayers would be, if we habitually\nturned all our affairs into materials for petition! That is a very\nempty dispute as to whether we ought to pray for deliverance from\noutward sorrows. If we are living in touch with God, we cannot but take\nHim into our confidence, if we may so say, as to everything that\naffects us. And we should as soon think of hiding any matter from our\ndearest on earth as from our Friend in heaven. 'In _everything_, by\nprayer and supplication' is the commandment, and will be the instinct\nof the devout heart.\n\nNote Hezekiah's assurance that God cares about him.\n\nNote his clear perception that God is his only help.\n\nNote his identification of his own deliverance with God's honour. We\ncannot identify our welfare, or deliverance in small matters, with\nGod's fair fame, in such a fashion. But we ought to be quite sure that\nHe will not let us sink or perish, and will never desert us. And we can\nbe quite sure that, if we identify ourselves and our work with Him, He\nwill identify Himself with us and it. His treatment of His servants\nwill tell the world (and not one world only) what He is, how faithful,\nhow loving, how strong.\n\nII. We have here an example of how God answers His servants' prayers.\n\nIt was 'by terrible things in righteousness' that Hezekiah's answer\ncame. His prayer was at one end of the chain, and at the other was a\ncamp full of corpses. One poor man's cry can set in motion tremendous\npowers, as a low whisper can start an avalanche. That magnificent\ntheophany in Psalm xviii., with all its majesty and terror of flashing\nlightnings and a rocking earth, was brought about by nothing more than\n'In my distress I called upon the Lord,' and its purpose was nothing\nmore than to draw the suppliant out of many waters and deliver him from\nhis strong enemy.\n\nThat army swept off the earth may teach us how much God will do for a\npraying child of His. His people's deliverance is cheaply purchased at\nsuch a price. 'He reproved kings for their sake.'\n\nOne man with God beside him is stronger than all the world. As the\npsalmist learned in his hour of peril, 'Thou, Lord, makest me to dwell\nin safety, thou alone!'\n\n\n\n\nGREAT VOICES FROM HEAVEN\n\n'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2. Speak ye\ncomfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is\naccomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of\nthe Lord's hand double for all her sins. 3. The voice of him that\ncrieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight\nin the desert a highway for our God. 4. Every valley shall be exalted,\nand every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be\nmade straight, and the rough places plain: 5. And the glory of the Lord\nshall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth\nof the Lord hath spoken it. 6. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What\nshall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as\nthe flower of the field: 7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:\nbecause the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is\ngrass. 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our\nGod shall stand for ever. 9. 0 Zion, that bringest good tidings, get\nthee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good\ntidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid:\nsay unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 10. Behold, the Lord God\nwill come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him: behold, His\nreward is with Him, and His work before Him.'--ISAIAH xi. 1-10.\n\n\nHow majestically this second part of the Book of Isaiah opens with\nthese mysterious voices! Other prophecies are wont to begin with\nsymbolic visions, but here the ear takes the place of the eye; and\ninstead of forms and flashing lights, which need to be translated, the\nprophet hears words, the impressiveness of which is heightened by the\nabsence of any designation of the speakers. This much is clear, that\nthe first words are God's, addressed to the prophets. They are the\nkeynote of the whole. Israel is comforted in the assurance that her\ntrial is ended and her sin purged. Then there is silence, broken by a\nvoice to which no personality is attached, the herald and forerunner of\nthe coming King and God. When the echoes of it have died away, another\nis heard, commanding yet another unnamed to 'cry,' and, in response to\nthe latter's asking what is to be the burden of his message, bidding\nhim peal out the frailty of man and the eternal vigour of the word of\nthe Lord, which assures its own fulfilment.\n\nThen comes a longer pause. The way has been prepared, the coming God\nhas come; He has set up His throne in the restored Jerusalem, and His\nglory is seen upon her. So there rings out from unnamed lips the\nstirring command to the city, thus visited by the indwelling God, to\nproclaim the glad tidings with a voice, the strength of which shall\ncorrespond to their gladness and certainty. This rapid glance at the\nstructure of the whole naturally suggests the fourfold division to\nwhich we shall adhere.\n\nI. God speaks and bids His servants speak (vs. 1, 2), That is a\nwonderfully tender word with which the silence and sadness of exile are\nbroken. The inmost meaning of God's voice is ever comfort. What a world\nof yearning love there is, too, in the two little words 'my' and\n'your'! The exiles are still His; He who has hidden His face from them\nso long is still theirs. And what was true of them is true of us; for\nsin may separate us from God, but it does not separate Him from us, and\nHe still seeks to make us recognise the imperishable bond, which itself\nis the ground of both our comfort and of His will that we should be\ncomforted.\n\nAs the very first words go deep into the meaning of all God's voices,\nand unveil the permanence of His relation of love even to sinful and\npunished men, so the next disclose the tender manner of His approach to\nus, and prescribe the tone for all His true servants: 'Speak ye to the\nheart of Jerusalem,' with loving words, which may win her love; for is\nshe not the bride of Jehovah, fallen though she be? And is not humanity\nthe beloved of Jesus, in whom God's heart is unveiled that our hearts\nmay be won? How shall human voices be softened to tenderness worthy of\nthe message which they carry? Only by dwelling near enough to Him to\ncatch the echoes, and copy the modulations, of His voice, as some birds\nare taught sweeter notes than their own. The prophet's charge is laid\nupon all who would speak of Christ to men. Speak to the heart, not only\nto the head or to the conscience. God beseeches in the person of His\n'ambassadors.' The substance of the message may well find its way to\nthe heart; for it is the assurance that the long, hard service of the\nappointed term of exile is past, that the sin which brought it about is\nforgiven, and, more wonderful and gracious still, that God's mercy\nreckons that the ills which followed on faithlessness have more than\nexpiated it. We need not seek for any other explanation of these\nstartling words than the exuberance of the divine pity, which 'doth not\nwillingly afflict.'\n\nOf course, the captivity is in the foreground of the prophet's vision;\nbut the wider sense of the prophecy embraces the worse captivity of sin\nunder which we all groan, and the divine voice bids His prophets\nproclaim that Jehovah comes, to set us all free, to end the weary\nbondage, and to exact no more punishment for sins.\n\nII. The forerunner speaks. There is something very impressive in the\nabrupt bursting in of this second voice, all unnamed. It is the\nreverberation, as it were, of the former, giving the preparation on the\nside of man for the coming of Jehovah. Israel in bondage in Egypt had\nbeen delivered by Jehovah marching through the wilderness, a wilderness\nstretched between Babylon and Jerusalem; these supply the scenery, so\nto speak; but the scenery is symbolic, and the call is really one to\nprepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness of human sin, by raising\nup the cast-down by reason of transgressions or sorrows, to subdue\nlofty thoughts and self-sufficiency by humble self-abnegation, to make\nthe 'crooked things' or 'rugged things' straight or smooth, and the\nrough ground where heights were tumbled on heights a deep valley, by\nforsaking evil.\n\nThe moral preparation, not the physical, is meant. It was fitting that\nthe road for such a coming should be prepared. But the coming was not\nso contingent on the preparation that the 'glory of the Lord' would not\n'be revealed' unless men made a highway for Him. True, that the\nrevelation of His glory to the individual soul must be preceded by such\na preparation; but that raising of abjectness and levelling of\nloftiness needs some perception of Him ere it can be done by man.\nChrist must come to the heart before the heart can be prepared for His\ncoming. John the Baptist came crying in the wilderness, but his fiery\nmessage did little to cast up a highway for the footsteps of the King.\nJohn's immovable humility pierced to the very heart of the prophecy\nwhen he answered the question 'Who art thou?' with 'I am a voice. The\nvoice was unnamed; why, what does it matter who I am?'\n\nThe substance and the range of the coming manifestation are next\ndefined. It is to be the revelation of 'the glory of the Lord,' and to\nbe for all mankind, not for Israel only. That lowly life and that\nshameful death were a strange revelation of God's glory. If _they_\nrevealed it, then it cannot consist in power or any of the majestic\n'attributes,' but in love, pity, and long-suffering. Love is the\ndivinest thing in God. The guarantee for all lies simply here, that God\nhas spoken it. It is because the unnamed herald's ear has heard the\ndivine voice uttering the gracious assurances of verse 1, that _his_\nvoice is lifted up in the commands and assurances of verse 4. Absolute\nfaith in God's utterances, however they seem to transcend experience,\nis wisdom and duty.\n\nIII. Yet another voice, whether sounding from heaven or earth is as\nuncertain as is the person to whom it is addressed, authoritatively\ncommands a third to 'cry,' and, on being asked what is to be the burden\nof the call, answers. This new herald is to proclaim man's frailty and\nthe immortal vigour of God's word, which secures the fulfilment of His\npromises. Is it the questioning voice, or the commanding one, which\nsays, 'All flesh is grass,... the people is grass'? If the former, it\nis the utterance of hopelessness, all but refusing the commission. But,\ndramatic as that construction is, it seems better to regard the whole\nas the answer to the question, 'What shall I cry?' The repetition of\nthe theme of man's frailty is not unnatural, and gives emphasis to the\ncontrast of the unchangeable stability of God's word. An hour of the\ndeadly hot wind will scorch the pastures, and all the petals of the\nflowers among the herbage will fall. So everything lovely, bright, and\nvigorous in humanity wilts and dies. One thing alone remains fresh from\nage to age,--the uttered will of Jehovah. His breath kills and makes\nalive. It withers the creatural, and it speaks the undying word.\n\nThis message is to follow those others which tell of God's merciful\npromises, that trembling hearts may not falter when they see all\ncreated stays sharing the common lot, but may rest assured that God's\npromises are as good as God's facts, and so may hope when all things\nvisible would preach despair. It was given to hearten confidence in the\nprophecy of a future revelation of the glory of God. It remains with us\nto hearten confidence in a past revelation, which will stand unshaken,\nwhatever forces war against it. Its foes and its friends are alike\nshort-lived as the summer's grass. The defences of the one and the\nattacks of the other are being antiquated while being spoken; but the\nbare word of God, the record of the incarnate Word, who is the true\nrevelation of the glory of God, will stand for ever,--'And this is the\nWord which by the gospel is preached to you.'\n\nIV. The prophet seems to be the speaker in verses 9-11, or perhaps the\nsame anonymous voice which already commanded the previous message\nsummons Jerusalem to become the ambassadress of her God. The coming of\nthe Lord is conceived as having taken place, and He is enthroned in\nZion. The construction which takes Jerusalem or Zion (the double name\nso characteristic of the second part of Isaiah) to be the recipient of\nthe good tidings is much less natural than that which regards her as\ntheir bearer.\n\nThe word rendered 'tellest good tidings' is a feminine form, and falls\nin with the usual personification of a city as a woman. She, long laid\nin ruins, the Niobe of nations, the sad and desolate widow, is bid to\nbear to her daughter cities the glad tidings, that God is in her of a\ntruth. It is exactly the same thought as 'Cry out and shout, thou\ninhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of\nthee.' The prophecy refers to the Church. It sets forth her highest\noffice as being the proclamation of her indwelling King. The possession\nof Christ makes the Church the evangelist for the world; for it gives\nthe capacity and the impulse as well as the obligation to speak the\nglad tidings. Every Christian has this command binding on him by the\nfact of his having Christ.\n\nThe command sets forth the bold clearness which should mark the\nherald's call. Naturally, any one with a message to peal out to a crowd\nwould seek some vantage-ground, from which his words might fly the\nfarther. If we have a message to deliver, let us seek the best place\nfrom which to deliver it. 'Lift up thy voice with strength.' No whisper\nwill do. Bated breath is no fit vehicle for God's gospel. There are too\nmany of God's heralds who are always apologising for their message, and\nseeking to reconcile it with popular opinions. We are all apt to speak\ntruth less confidently because it is denied; but, while it is needful\nto speak with all gentleness and in meekness to them that oppose, it is\ncowardly, as well as impolitic, to let one tremor be heard in our tones\nthough a world should deny our message.\n\nThe command tells the substance of the Church's message. Its essence is\nthe proclamation of the manifested God. To gaze on Jesus is to behold\nGod. That God is made known in the twin glories of power and\ngentleness. He comes 'as a strong one.' His dominion rests on His own\npower, and on no human allies. His reign is retributive, and that not\nmerely as penally recompensing evil, but as rewarding the faith and\nhope of those who waited for Him.\n\nBut beyond the limits of our text, in verse 11, we have the necessary\ncompletion of the manifestation, in the lovely figure of the Shepherd\ncarrying the lambs in His arms, and gently leading the flock of\nreturning exiles. The strength of Jesus is His lowliness; and His\nmighty arm is used, not to wield an iron sceptre, but to gather us to\nHis bosom and guide us in His ways. The paradox of the gospel, which\npoints to a poor, weak man dying in the dark on a cross and says,\n'Behold the great Power of God!' is anticipated in this prophecy. The\ntriumphant paradox of the Apostle is shadowed here: 'We preach Christ\ncrucified, ... the power of God, and the wisdom of God.'\n\n\n\n\nO THOU THAT BRINGEST GOOD TIDINGS\n\n'O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high\nmountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice\nwith strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah,\nBehold your God!'--ISAIAH xl. 9.\n\n\nThere is something very grand in these august and mysterious voices\nwhich call one to another in the opening verses of this chapter. First,\nthe purged ear of the prophet hears the divine command to him and to\nhis brethren--Comfort Jerusalem with the message of the God who comes\nfor her deliverance. Then afar off another voice is heard, the herald\nand forerunner of the approaching Deity; and when thus the foundation\nhas been laid, yet another takes up the speech, and 'The voice said,\nCry,' and the anonymous recipient of the command asks with what message\nhe shall be entrusted, and the answer is the signature and pledge of\nthe divine fulfilment of the word thus spoken. And then there comes, as\nI take it, a pause of silence, within which the great Epiphany and\nmanifestation takes place, and the coming God comes, enters into the\nrebuilded city, and there shines in His beauty; and then breaks forth\nthe rapturous commandment of my text to the resuscitated city, to tell\nto all her daughters of Judah the glad tidings of a present God.\n\nI need not, I suppose, spend your time in vindicating the translation\nof our Bible as against one which has been made very familiar by being\nwedded to Handel's music, and has commended itself to many, according\nto which Zion is rather the recipient than the herald of the tidings,\n'O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with\nstrength,' and so on.\n\nAnd I suppose I need not either spend any time in vindicating the\ntransference of the text to the Gentile Church, beyond the simple\nremark that, whatever be the date of this second portion of Isaiah's\nprophecy, its standpoint is the time of the Captivity, when Jerusalem\nlay desolate, burned with fire, and all their pleasant things were laid\nwaste, so that the city here addressed is the new form of the ancient\nZion, which had risen from her ashes, and had a better tidings of glad\nsignificance to impart to all the nations. And so, dear brethren,\nlooking at the words from that point of view, I think that they may\nvery fairly yield to us two or three very old-fashioned and well-worn\nthoughts, which may yet be stimulating and encouraging to us. I take\nthem as simply as possible, just as they run here in this text, which\nbrings out very strikingly and beautifully, first, the function of the\nEvangelist Zion; secondly, the manner of her message; and lastly, its\ncontents.\n\nI. Look with me at the thoughts that cluster round the name, 'O Zion,\nthat bringest glad tidings.'\n\nIt is almost a definition of the Church; at any rate, it is a\ndescription of her by her most characteristic office and function, that\nwhich marks and separates her from all associations and societies of\nmen. This is her highest office; this is the reason of her being; this\nis her noblest dignity. All mystical powers have been claimed for her,\nmen have been bidden to submit their judgment and manhood to her\nauthority; but her true dignity is that she bears a gospel in her hand,\nand that grace is poured into her lips. Fond and sense-bound regrets\nhave been sighed forth that her miracle-working gifts have faded away;\nbut so long as her voice can quicken dead souls, and make the tongue of\nthe dumb to speak, her noblest energies remain unimpaired, and so we\nmay think of her as most exalted and dignified in that her Master\naddresses her, 'O Zion, that bringest good tidings.'\n\nNow, if I was right in my preliminary remark, to the effect that, prior\nto my text, we are to suppose the manifestation and approach of the\nDivine Deliverer, then I think it is quite clear that what constitutes\nZion the messenger of good tidings is the presence in her of the living\nGod. Translate that into New Testament language, and it just comes to\nthis: that what constitutes the Church the evangelist for the world is\nthe simple possession of Christ or of the Gospel. That thought branches\ninto some considerations on which we may touch.\n\nThe first of them is this: Whoever has Christ has the power to impart\nHim. All believers are preachers, or meant to be so, by virtue of the\npossession of that Divine Christ for your own. We Nonconformists are\nready enough to proclaim the universal priesthood of all believers when\nwe are opposing ecclesiastical assumption; are we as ready to take it\nfor the law of our own lives, and to say, 'Yes, priests by the\nimposition of a mightier hand, and ministers of Christ by the\npossession of Christ, and therefore bound and able to impart Him to all\naround'? He has given us His love, and He thereby has made us fit to\nimpart Him. Zion only needed to receive its God, in order thereby to\npossess the power to say unto all the cities of Judah, 'Behold your\nGod.' It does not take much genius, it does not take much culture, it\ndoes not need any prolonged training, for a man who has Christ to say,\n'Behold, I have Him.' The very first Christian sermon that was ever\npreached was a very short one, and a very effectual one, for it\nconverted the whole congregation, and it was this: 'We have found the\nMessiah.' That was all--the utterance of individual possession and\npersonal experience--and it 'brought him to Jesus.'\n\nTake another point. The possession of Christ for ourselves imposes upon\nus the obligation to impart Him. All property in this world is trust\nproperty, and everything that a man has that can help or bless the\nmoral or spiritual or intellectual condition of his fellows, he is\nthereby under solemn obligation to impart. There is an obligation\narising from the bands that knit us to one another, so that no man can\npossess his good alone without being untrue to what we call nowadays\nthe solidarity of humanity. You have, you say, the bread of life: very\nwell, what would you think of a man in a famine who, when women were\nboiling their children, and men were fighting with the swine on the\ndunghill for garbage, was content to eat his morsel alone, and leave\nothers to perish by starvation? You possess, you say, the healing for\nall the diseases of humanity: very well, what would you think of a man\nwho, in a pestilence, was contented with swallowing his own specific,\nand leaving others to die and to rot in the street? If you have the\nChrist, you have Him that you may impart Him. 'He that withholdeth\nbread, the people shall curse him'; of how much deeper malediction from\ndespairing lips will they be thought worthy who call themselves the\nfollowers of Him that gave His life to be the bread of the world, and\nyet withhold it from famishing souls?\n\nAnd it is an obligation that arises, too, from the very purposes of our\ncalling. What are Christian men and women saved for? For their own\nblessedness? Yes, and no. No creature in God's great universe but is\ngreat enough to be a worthy end of the divine action; the happiness of\nthe humblest and most insignificant moves His mighty hand. Ay, but no\ncreature in God's universe so great as that he is a worthy end of the\ndivine action, if he is going to keep all the divine gifts in himself.\nWe are all brought into the light that we may impart light.\n\n  'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do;\n  Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues\n  Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\n  As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\n  But to fine issues.'\n\nII. And now turn to the second thought which I desire to draw from\nthese words. We have here, in a very picturesque and vivid form, the\nsetting forth of the manner in which the Evangelist Zion is to proclaim\nher message.\n\nThe fair-featured herald is bidden to get up into the high\nmountain--perhaps a mere picturesque detail, perhaps some reference to\nthe local position of the city set upon a hill--like the priests on\nEbal and Gerizim, or Alpine shepherds, calling to each other across the\nvalleys, to secure some vantage-ground, and next, to let her voice roll\nout across the glen. No faltering whisper will do, but a voice that\ncompels audience, that can be heard above the tumult and afar off, and\nconfident and loud and clear, because courageous and without dread.\n'Lift up thy voice with strength.' Yes, but a timid heart will make a\ntremulous voice, and fear and doubt will whisper a message when courage\nwill ring it out. 'Be not afraid' is the foundation of the clearness\nand the loudness with which the word is to be uttered.\n\nThat thought opens itself out into these two others, on each of which I\nsay a word or two. Our message is to be given with a courage and a\nforce that are worthy of it; 'Be not afraid.' That is a lesson for this\nday, my brethren. There are plenty of causes of fear round about us if,\nlike poor Peter on the water, we look at the waves instead of at the\nMaster. There are the great forces of evil that are always arrayed\nagainst Christ. There is the thoroughgoing and formidable rejection of\nall that is dearest to us, which is creeping like poison through\ncultivated society at home; there is the manifest disproportion between\nour resources and the task that we have set ourselves to. 'They need\nnot depart; give ye them to eat,' said the Master. What! five thousand\npeople need not depart, and only this scanty provision of loaves and\nfishes! Yes; the Master's hand can multiply it. There is the\nconsciousness of our own weakness; there is the apparent slow progress\nof the Gospel in the world. All these things come surging in upon us\nwhen our spirits are low and our faith weak; and yet the message comes\nto us, 'Be not afraid.' I venture to break that injunction up into two\nor three exhortations, which I cast into the shape of exhortations, not\nfrom any assumption of superiority, but for the sake of point and force.\n\nFirst of all, I would say, let us cherish a firm, soul-absorbing\nconfidence in the power and truth of the message we have to carry. I do\nnot speak now of the intellectual discipline which may be required from\neach of us to meet the difficulties of this day--that is outside of my\npresent subject; but there is a moral discipline quite as important as\nthe intellectual. There cannot be any question, I suppose, to any one\nwho looks round about, and notices the tendencies of his own mind, but\nthat all we Christian people, in our various circles and organisations,\nare under a very great temptation to a very perceptible lowering of our\nkey in the presence of widespread doubt. We are tempted to fancy that a\ntruth is less certain because it is denied; that because a has attacked\nthis thing, and b's clever book has unsettled that thing, and c's\nresearches seem to cast a great deal of doubt upon that other thing,\ntherefore we are to surrender them all, and talk about them as if they\nwere doubtful problems or hypotheses rather than sure verities of our\nfaith. And there are some of us, I venture to say, who are in danger of\nanother temptation, and that is of getting a little ashamed and\nbecoming afraid to say 'Yes, I stand by that great truth, God in Christ\nreconciling the world to Himself,' for fear of being thought to\nbe--well, 'narrow' is the favourite word, 'old-fashioned,' or 'holders\nof a creed outworn,' 'in antagonism with the spirit of the age,' and so\non, and so on. Brethren, I am not the man, I hope, to preach an\nunreasonable attitude of antagonism; I am not the man to ask anybody to\nexaggerate his beliefs because somebody else denies them, but I do\nbelieve that among us all, and especially among young men, there is the\ntemptation just to be a little bit afraid, and not to let the voice\nring out with that clear certitude which becomes the messenger of the\nCross. Try by mental discipline to find intellectual standing-ground\nthat will be firm below your feet, and then remember that that is not\nall, but that moral discipline is wanted also that I may open my mouth\nboldly, as I ought to speak.'\n\nAnd then, if I might venture to dwell for a moment or two further upon\nthis class of consideration, I would say, Do not let us make too much\nof the enemy. There is no need why we should take them at their own\nappraisement. Men are always tempted to think that no generation ever\nhad such a fight as their own generation. They have said that ever\nsince there was a Christian Church. But the true, healthy way of\nlooking at the adversary--and by that I mean all the various forms of\ndifficulty which beset us in our evangelistic work, difficulties in the\nmission-field, difficulties in the state of things here round us--the\ntrue, healthy way of looking at them all, is to look at them as the\nbrave Apostle Paul did, when he said, 'I am going to stop at Ephesus\ntill Pentecost, for there is a great and effectual door opened to me.'\nAnd how did he know that? He tells us in the next clause, 'There are\nmany adversaries.' Where there are many adversaries, there is an\neffectual door, if you and I are bold and big enough to go in and\noccupy.\n\nAnd then I would venture to say, still further, let us remember the\nvictories of the past. Let us make personal experience of the\novercoming powers that are stored and hidden in Christ's Gospel. And,\nabove all, let us remember who fights with us. Jesus Christ and one man\nare always the majority. There is an old story, which you may remember,\nabout the Conqueror of Rome, who dashed his sword into the scales when\nthe ransom was being weighed; and Christ flings His sharp sword with\nthe two edges into the scales when we are weighing resources, and the\nother kicks the beam. There are enemies, plenty of them, all round\nabout. Yes, and the spreading forth of their wings fills the breadth of\nthe land. Be it so. But notwithstanding the irruption of the barbarous\nand cruel hosts, it is 'Thy land, O Emanuel!' And in His time He will\nsweep them before His presence, as the north wind drives the locusts\ninto the hindermost sea. I do not know if any of you remember an\nancient Christian legend, and I do not know whether it is a legend or a\ntruth--it does not matter, it will serve for our purpose all the same\neither way--how when the Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, once\ntaunted a humble Christian man with the question, 'What is the\ncarpenter's son doing now?' and the answer was, 'Hewing wood for the\nemperor's funeral pile,' and not very long after there came the fatal\nfield on which, according to ancient tradition, he died with the words\non his lips, 'Thou hast conquered, Galilean. As in Carlyle's grand\ntranslation of Luther's Hymn of the Reformation--\n\n  'Of our own strength we nothing can,\n  Full soon were we downridden;\n  But for us fights the proper Man,\n  Whom God Himself hath bidden.\n  Ask ye, who is the same?\n  Christ Jesus is His name,\n  The Lord Sabaoth's Son.\n  He and none other one\n  Shall conquer in this battle.'\n\n'Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid.'\n\nIII. I come to the last thought that emerges from these words, and that\nis the substance and contents of the Evangelist Zion's message: 'Say\nunto the cities of Judah, behold your God!'\n\nThey were to be pointed to a great historical act, in which God had\nmanifested and made Himself visible to men; and the words of my text\nare, not only an exclamation, but they are an entreaty, and the message\nwas to be given to these little daughter cities of Judah as\nrepresenting all of those for whom the deliverance had been\nwrought--all which things are paralleled in the message that is\ncommitted to our hand.\n\nFor, first of all, we all have given to us the charge of pointing men\nto the great historical fact wherein God is visible to men, and so\ncrying, 'Behold your God!' God cannot be revealed by word, God cannot\nbe revealed by thought. There is no way open to Him to make Himself\nknown to His creatures except the way by which men make themselves\nknown to one another; that is, by their deeds; and so, high above all\nspeculation, high above all abstraction, nearer to us than all thought\nstands the historical fact in which God shows Himself to the world, and\nthat is the person and work of Jesus Christ, 'the brightness of His\nglory and the express image of His person,' in whom the abysses of the\ndivine nature are opened, and through whom all the certitude of divine\nlight that human eyes can receive pours itself in genial and yet\nintensest radiance upon the world. How beautiful in that connection the\nverses following my text are I need only indicate in a word as I pass,\n'Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand,' and yet, 'behold, He\nshall feed His flock like a shepherd.' And so in Christ is the power of\nGod, for I take it that He is the arm of the Lord; and in Christ is the\ngentleness of God; and whilst men grope in the darkness, our business\nis to point to the living, dying Son, and to say, 'There you have the\ncomplete, the ultimate revelation of the unseen God.'\n\nAnd do not let us forget that the burning centre of all that brightness\nis the Cross, that ever-wondrous paradox; that the depth of humiliation\nis the height of glorifying; that Christ's Cross is the throne of the\nmanifested divine power quite as much as it is the seat of the\nmanifested divine love, and that when He is hanging there in His\nweakness and mortal agony, the words are yet true--strange,\nparadoxical, blessedly true--'He that hath seen Me hath seen the\nFather.' And when we say, pointing to His Cross and Him there, His brow\npaled with dying, and His soul faint with loss--when we say, 'Behold\nthe Lamb!' we are also and therein saying, 'Behold your God!'\n\nAnd therefore, with what of gentleness, with what of tenderness, with\nwhat of patient entreaty as well as strength and confidence, the word\nthat speaks of a strength manifested in weakness, and a God made\nvisible in Christ, should be spoken, it needs not here to enlarge\nupon--only take that one last thought that I suggested, that this\nmessage comes to all those for whom God has appeared, and for whom the\ndeliverance has been wrought. We each have the right, and we each have\nthe charge, to go to every man and say, 'Behold your God!' and the\nhearts of men will leap up to meet the message. For, though overlaid by\nsin, perverted often into its own opposite by fear, misinterpreted and\nmisunderstood by the very men that bear it, there yet lies deep in\nevery heart the aching thirst for the living God, and we have the word\nthat alone can meet that thirst. All around us men are saying--'In all\nthe fields of science and of nature, in human history and in the spirit\nof men, I find no God,' and are falling back into that dreary negation,\n'Behold, we know not anything!' And some of them, orphaned in their\nagony, are crying, though it be often in contemptuous tones that almost\nsound as if they meant the opposite, 'Oh, that I knew where I might\nfind Him!' We have a word that can meet that. For cultivated Europe it\nhas come to this--Christ or nothing; either He has shown us the Father,\nor there is no knowledge of Him possible. We do not need to dread the\nalternative; we can face it, and overcome it. And in far-off lands men\nare groping in twilight uncertainty, worshipping, with a nameless\nhorror at their hearts, gods capricious, gods cruel, gods\nterrible--tamely believing in gods far-off and mysterious, cowering\nbefore gods careless and heartless, degrading their manhood by\nimitating gods foul and bestial, and yet all the while dimly feeling,\n'Surely, surely there is somewhere a good and a fair Being, that has an\neye to see my sorrows, and a heart to pity them; an ear to hear my\nprayer, and a hand to stretch out.' We have a word that can meet that.\nLet that word ring out, brother, as far as your influence can reach.\nSet the trumpet to thy mouth, and say, 'Behold your God!' and be sure\nthat from the uttermost parts of the earth we shall hear the choral\nsongs of many voices answering, 'Lo! this is our God, we have waited\nfor Him, and He will save us! This is our God; we will be glad and\nrejoice in His salvation!'\n\n\n\n\n'HAVE YE NOT? HAST THOU NOT?'\n\n'Have ye not known, have ye not heard? hath it not been told yon from\nthe beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the\nearth?... Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard?'--ISAIAH xl. 21 and\n28.\n\n\nThe recurrence of the same form of interrogation in these two verses is\nremarkable. In the first case the plural is used, in the second the\nsingular, and we may reasonably conclude that as Israel is addressed in\nthe latter, the nations outside the sphere illumined by Revelation are\nappealed to in the former. The context of the two passages confirms\nthis reference, for the witness of Creation and History is summoned in\nthe former section, and that of God's inward dealings with trustful\nsouls is brought out in the latter.\n\nI. What Nature and History tell men about God.\n\nObserve that emphatic '_told you_'; then the witness here appealed to\nis truly a Revelation, though a silent one. 'There is no speech nor\nlanguage,' yet 'their line is gone out through all the earth, and their\nwords to the ends of the world.'\n\nThe general idea of the divine nature, as revealed 'from the beginning'\nand 'from the foundation of the earth,' is that of Majesty transcending\nall comparison.\n\nThe contrast is drawn between Him and men, in the magnificent image of\nHim as throned above 'the circle of the earth,' and so far above that\nall the busy tribes of men 'are as grasshoppers,' their restless\nactivity but aimless leaping, and 'the tumult of the peoples' only as a\nmeaningless chirping.\n\nGod's creative and sustaining power is further set forth by that great\nimage of His 'stretching out the heavens as a curtain, and spreading\nthem out as a tent to dwell in.' As easily as travellers set up their\ntents when the day's march is done, did He stretch the great expanse\nabove the low earth; and all its depths and spaces are, in comparison\nwith Him, thin, transient, and as easily rolled up and put aside as the\nstuff that makes a nomad's home for a night. Nor are the two implied\nthoughts that 'the heavens' are a veil screening Him from men even\nwhile they tell of Him to men, and that they are His lofty\ndwelling-place, to be left out of view.\n\nBut in verse 26 we have a more specific and grander exhibition of God's\nrelation to the Universe. The stars, in number numberless, are\nconceived of as a great army drilled and directed by Him. And that\nmetaphor, familiar to us as it is, and condensed into the divine title\nso frequent in this prophetic book, is pregnant with great truths.\n\nIt speaks of God as the Imperator, the Commander, exercising supreme\nauthority by 'the word of His power,' and of creation as obedient\nthereto. 'For ever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in the heavens.' The\nCommander needs but to speak, and so mystic is the power of His uttered\nwill, that effects on the material universe follow that altogether\nimmaterial energy.\n\nIt speaks of the harmony and order of the whole Creation. 'By number'\nand 'by name' He sways and ranks them. 'All things work together.' They\nare an ordered whole--a kosmos, not a chaos. Modern science is slowly\nestablishing by experiment the truth which is enshrined in that old\nname, 'the Lord of hosts,' that all things in the physical universe are\na unity.\n\nIt speaks of the perfectness of God's knowledge of each item in the\nmighty whole. 'He calleth them all by name.' Thereby are expressed\nauthority, ownership, particular knowledge of, and relation to, each\nindividual of the overwhelming aggregate. God knows all, because He\nknows each.\n\nIt speaks of the inexhaustible energy of His sustaining power, and the\nconsequent strength of His creatures. 'Preservation is a continued\ncreation.' The prophet saw much deeper than the mechanical view of the\ncreative act. To him God was, to use more modern language, 'immanent'\nas well as 'transcendent.' True, He 'sits above the circle of the\nearth,' but as truly He is working on His creatures, and it is by His\ncommunicated strength that they are strong. If any being--star, or\ninsect--were separated utterly from Him, it would crumble into\nnothingness.\n\nBut the appeal to Creation is singularly interrupted by an appeal to\nHistory. The prophet drops from the serene expanse of the silent yet\neloquent heavens to the stormy scenes of changing dynasties and\nrevolutions of earth's kingdoms. How calm the one, how tumultuous the\nother! How the one witnesses to Him by its apparently unchanging\ncontinuance! how the other witnesses by its swift mutations! In the\none, He is revealed as Preserver; in the other, the most clear\ndemonstration of His power is given in His destroying of rebel\nkingdoms. But in these acts by which ancient and firmly rooted\ndynasties are rooted up or withered as by the simoom, He reveals a side\nof His nature to which the calm heavens bore no witness. He is the\nmoral Governor of the world, 'The history of the world is the judgment\nof the world,' and when hoary iniquities are smitten to death, 'the\nHoly One' is revealed as the righteous Judge. And the conjoint witness\nof creation and of history attests that none can be 'likened' to Him.\n\nII. What Revelation tells Israel about God.\n\nIt is noteworthy that in the section of which our first text is the\ncentre, there is no mention of the divine Name, and even the well-known\ntitle, 'the Holy One of Israel,' is truncated, so as to leave out\nreference to the people of Revelation; whereas in this section He is\nnot only designated as God and Creator, but as Jehovah, the God who has\nmade a covenant with Israel, and made known His will and to some extent\nHis nature. The distinct climax in the divine Names itself implies a\nnobler relation to men, and a clearer revelation than was declared in\nthe former part of this prophecy. It is the fitting preparation for the\nloftier and infinitely more tender and touching aspect of the divine\nnature which shines with lambent, inviting lustre within the sphere of\nRevelation.\n\nThe distinctive glory of the long process of God's self-manifestation\nto Israel is that, while it emphasises all that nature and history\naffirm of Him, it sets Him forth as restoring the weak, as well as\nsustaining the strong. The sad contrast between the untroubled and\nunwearied strength of the calm heavens and the soon-exhausted strength\nof struggling and often beaten men strikes the poet prophet's sensitive\nsoul. He did not know, what modern astronomy teaches us, that change,\nconvulsions, ruin, are not confined to earth, but that stars as well as\nmen faint and fail, dwindle and die. The scriptural view of Nature is\nnot that of the scientist, but that of the poet and of the devout man.\nIt lies quite apart from the scientific attitude, and has as good a\nright to exist as it has. The contrast of heaven and earth is for the\nprophet the contrast of strength with weakness, of joyful harmony with\nmoral disorder, of punctual, entire obedience with rebellion and the\nclash of multitudes of anarchic self-willed men.\n\nBut there is a sadder contrast still--namely, that between God and the\nwretched weaklings that men have made of themselves. 'He fainteth not,\nneither is weary.' Strange anomaly that in His universe there should be\nthe faint and 'them that have no might'! The only explanation of such\nan exception to the order of Creation is that men have broken loose\nfrom Creation's dependence on God, and that therefore the inflow of\nsustaining strength has been checked. In other words, man's weakness\ncomes from man's sin.\n\nHence to restore strength to those whose power has been drained away by\nsin is God's divinest work. It is more to restore than to sustain. It\ntakes less energy to keep a weight stationary at a height than to roll\nit up again if it falls to the bottom. Since sin is the cause of our\nweakness, the first step to deliver from the weakness is to deliver\nfrom the sin. If we are ever to be restored, hearts, consciences,\naverted wills must be dealt with--and but One Hand can deal with these.\n\nAnd not only does God outdo all His mightiest works in the work of\nrestoring strength to the faint, but He crowns that restoration by\nmaking the restored weakling like Himself. 'He fainteth not, neither is\nweary.' They, too, 'shall ran and not be weary, they shall walk and not\nfaint.' In the long drawn out grind of monotonous marching along the\ncommon path of daily small duties and uneventful life, they shall not\nfaint; in the rare occasional spurts, occurring in every man's\nexperience, when extraordinary tax is laid on heart and limbs, they\nshall not be weary. And they will be able both to walk and to run,\nbecause they soar on wings as eagles. And they do all because they wait\non the Lord. Communion with Him buoys us above this low earth, and\nbears us up into the heavenly places, and, living there, we shall be\nfit for the slow hours of commonplace plodding and for the crowded\nmoments of great crises.\n\n\n\n\nUNFAILING STABS AND FAINTING MEN\n\n'...For that He is strong in power; not one faileth.... He giveth power\nto the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth\nstrength.'--ISAIAH xl. 26 and 29.\n\n\nThese two verses set forth two widely different operations of the\ndivine power as exercised in two sadly different fields, the starry\nheavens and this weary world. They are interlocked, as it were, by the\nrecurrence in the latter of the emphatic words of the former. The one\nverse says, 'He is strong in power'; the other, 'He giveth power.' In\nthe former verse, 'the greatness of His might' sustains the stars; in\nthe latter verse, a still diviner operation is set forth in that 'to\nthem that have no might He increaseth strength.' Thus there are three\ncontrasts suggested: that between unfailing stars, and men that faint;\nthat between the unwearied God and wearied men; and that between the\nsustaining power that is exercised in the heavens and the restoring\npower that is manifested on earth.\n\nThere is another interlocking between the latter of these two texts and\nits context, which is indicated by a similar recurrence of epithets. In\nmy second text we read of the 'faint,' and in the verse that follows\nit, again we find the expressions 'faint' and 'weary,' while in the\nverse before my text we read that 'the Lord fainteth not, neither is\nweary.' So again the contrast between Him and us is set forth, but, in\nthe verse that closes the chapter, we read how that contrast merges\ninto likeness, inasmuch as the unfainting and unwearied God makes even\nthe men that wait upon Him unwearied and unfainting. Here, then, we\nhave lessons that we may well ponder.\n\nNote, first--\n\nI. That sad contrast.\n\nThe prophet in the former of these verses seems to be expanding the\nthoughts that lie in the name, 'the Lord of hosts,' in so far as that\nname expresses the divine relation to the starry universe. The image\nthat underlies both it and the words of the text is that of a captain\nwho commands his soldiers, and they obey. Discipline and plan array\nthem in their ranks; they are not a mob, but an army. The voice that\nreads the roll-call summons one after another to his place, and,\npunctually obedient, there they stand, ready for any evolution that may\nbe prescribed. The plain prose of which is, that night by night above\nthe horizon rise the bright orbs, and roll on their path obedient to\nthe Sovereign will; 'because He is strong in might not one' is lacking.\nAstronomers have taught us, what the prophet did not know, that even in\nthe apparently serene spaces there are collisions and catastrophes, and\nthat stars may dwindle and dim, and finally go out. But while Scripture\ndeals with creation neither from the scientific nor from the aesthetic\npoint of view, it leaves room for both of these--for all that the\npoet's imagination can see or say, for all that the scientist's\ninvestigation can discover, it sees that beneath the beauty is the\nFountain of all loveliness, beneath and behind the 'number' of the\nnumberless stars works the infinite will of God. Surely an intelligible\ncreation must have an intelligent source. Surely a universe in which\nMind can apprehend order and number must have a Mind at the back of it.\nWordsworth has nobly said of Duty what we may more truly say of God:\n'Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens\nthrough Thee are fresh and strong.' 'For that He is great in might, not\none faileth.' Scripture bids us think of God, not as a creative energy\nthat set the universe in motion, and leaves it to roll or spin, but as\nof a Divine Presence--to use a word which can only be in a very\nmodified sense applied to that mysterious, intelligent\nEntity--operating in, and being the sustaining Cause of, all that is.\nThis Divine Presence stamps its signature on the unfailing strength of\nthese bright creatures above.\n\nBut in our second text we drop from the illumination of the heavens to\nthe shadowed plain of this low earth. It is as if a man, looking up\ninto the violet sky, with all its shining orbs, should then turn to\nsome reeking alley, with its tumult and its squalor. Just because man\nis greater than the stars, man 'fails,' whilst they shine on unwearied.\nFor what the prophet has in view as the clinging curse that cleaves to\nour greatness, is not merely the bodily fatigue which is necessarily\ninvolved in the very fact of bodily existence, since energy cannot be\nput forth without waste and weariness, but it is far more the weary\nheart, the heart that is weary of itself, the heart that is weary of\ntoil, the heart that is weary of the momentary crises that demand\neffort, and wearier still of the effortless monotony of our daily\nlives; the heart that all of us carry, and which to all of us sometimes\nwhispers, with a dark and gloomy voice which we cannot contradict,\n'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' I was going to say, happy are you\nif you do not know that weariness, but I check myself and say, tenfold\nmore miserable are you if you have never been sober and wise enough to\nhave felt the weariness and weight of all this unintelligible world,\nand of your own sorry selves.\n\nFor it is ever to be remembered that the faintness and the ebbing away\nof might, which is the truly tragic thing in humanity, does not depend\nupon physical constitution, but upon separation from the Source of all\nstrength, breaking the union between ourselves and God. If a star could\nshake off its dependence, and shut out the influx of the sustaining\npower that by continual creation preserves it, it would die into\ndarkness, or crumble into dust. It cannot, and we cannot, in so far as\nour physical being is concerned, but we can shake ourselves free from\nGod, in so far as the life of the spirit is concerned, and the godless\nspirit bears the Cain-curse of restlessness and weariness ever upon it.\nSo the contrast between the unfailing strengths that ever shine down\nupon us from the heavens, and the weariness of body and of mind\nafflicting the sleeping millions on whom they shine, is tragical\nindeed. But far more tragical is the contrast, of which the other is\nbut an indication because it is a consequence, the contrast between the\npunctual obedience with which these hosts, summoned by the great\nCommander, appear and take their places, and the self-will which turns\na man into a 'wandering star unto whom is reserved the blackness of\ndarkness for ever.' Above is peace and order, because above is the\nsupremacy of an uncontested will. Below is tumult and weariness,\nbecause when God says 'Thou shalt,' men respond, 'I will not.'\n\nSecondly, my text suggests to us--\n\nII. Another sad contrast, melting into a blessed likeness.\n\n'He fainteth not, neither is weary.' 'He giveth power to the faint.'\n'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall\nutterly fail,' but waiting on God the curse removes, and faintness and\nweariness cease, and the humble man becomes in some measure participant\nof, and conformed to, that life which knows no exhausting, operates\nunspent, burns with an undying flame, works and never wearies. We may\ntake to ourselves all the peace and strength that come from that\ntranscendent hope, whilst we are still subject, as of course we must\nbe, to the limitations imposed on spirits fettered, as well as housed,\nin body. Whilst toil leaves as its consequence fatigue, and as our days\nincrease our strength wanes; whilst physical weariness remains\nunaffected, there may pour into our spirits the influx of divine power,\nby which they will remain fresh and strong through advancing years and\nheavy tasks and stiff battles. Is it not something to believe it\npossible that\n\n                 'In old age, when others fade,\n                  _We_ fruit still forth shall bring'\n\nIs it not something to know it as a possibility that we may have that\nwithin us which has no tendency to decay, which neither perishes with\nthe using nor is exhausted by exercise, which grows the more the longer\nwe live, which has in it the pledge of immortality, because it has in\nit the impossibility of exhaustion? Thus to all of us who know how\nweary life sometimes is, thus to those of us who in the flush of our\nyouth are deceived into thinking that the vigorous limbs will always be\nvigorous, and the clear eyesight will always be keen, and to those of\nus who, in the long weary levels of middle life, where there are few\nchanges, are worn out by the eventless recurrence, day after day, of\nduties that have become burdensome, because they are so small, and to\nthose of us who are learning by experience how inevitably early\nstrength utterly fails; to us all surely it comes us a gospel, 'They\nthat wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall run and\nnot be weary, they shall walk and not faint.' It is true; and each of\nus may set to our seals, if we will, that the promise is faithful and\nsure.\n\nIs that not a higher exercise of power than to 'preserve the stars from\nwrong'? Is not the strength that restores mightier than the strength\nthat sustains? Is not the hand that, put beneath the falling body,\nstops its plunge, and lifts it whence it fell, displaying a greater\nmanifestation of strength, than the hand that held it unfailing at the\nheight? The mighty miracle of the calm, steadfast heavens, with no\nvacant spaces where yesterday a star blazed, is less than the miracle\nof that restoring energy which, coming to men separated from the\nFountain of power, re-establishes the connection between them, and out\nof the fainting creature makes one that is neither faint nor weary for\never. God is greater, in the miracle that He works upon you and me,\npoor strengthless souls, than when He rolls the stars along. Redemption\nis more than Creation, and to the hosts of 'the principalities and\npowers in heavenly places, is made known,' by the Church, 'of restored\nand redeemed souls, the manifold wisdom of God.'\n\nWhat are the consequences that the prophet traces to this restoring\npower? 'They shall mount up with wings as eagles.' Power to soar, to\nlift our heavy selves from earth, and to reach the heavenly places\nwhere we shall commune with God, that is the greatest of all gifts to\nstrengthened spirits. And it is the foundation of all the others, for\nit is only they who know how to soar that can creep, and it is only\nthey who have renewed their strength hour by hour, by communion with\nthe Source of all energy and might, who when they 'drop with quivering\nwings, composed and still,' down to the low earth, there live unwearied\nand unfainting.\n\n'They shall run and not be weary.' Crises come--moments when\ncircumstances demand from us more than ordinary energy and swifter rate\nof progress. We have often, in the course of our years, to make short\nspurts of unusual effort. 'They shall run and not be weary. They shall\nwalk.' The bulk of our lives is a slow jog-trot, and it is harder to\nkeep elasticity, buoyancy, freshness of spirit, in the eventless\nmill-horse round of our trivial lives than it is in the rarer bursts.\nExcitement helps us in the one; nothing but dogged principle, and close\ncommunion with God, 'mounting on wings as eagles,' will help us in the\nother. But we may have Him with us in all the arid and featureless\nlevels across which we have to plod, as well as in the height to which\nwe sometimes have to struggle upwards, or in the depths into which we\nhave sometimes to plunge. If we have the life of Christ within us, then\nneither the one nor the other will exhaust our energy or darken our\nspirits.\n\nLastly, one word as to--\n\nIII. The way by which these contrasts can be reconciled, and this\nlikeness secured.\n\n'They that wait upon the Lord'--that is the whole secret. What does\nwaiting on the Lord include? Let me put it in three brief exhortations.\nKeep near Him; keep still; expect. If I stray away from Him, I cannot\nexpect His power to come to me. If I fling myself about, in vain\nimpatience, struggling, resisting providences, shirking duties,\nperturbing my soul, I cannot expect that the peace which brings\nstrength, or the strength which brings peace, will come to me. It must\nbe a windless sea that mirrors the sunshine and the blue, and the\ntroubled heart has not God's strength in it. If I do not expect to get\nanything from Him, He will not give me anything; not because He will\nnot, but because He cannot. Take the old Psalmist's words, 'I have\nquieted myself as a weaned child,' and nestle on the great bosom, and\nits warmth, its fragrance, its serenity will be granted to you. Keep\nhold of God's hand in expectation, in submission, in close union, and\nthe contact will communicate something of His own power. 'In quietness\nand in confidence shall be your strength.' The bitter contrasts may all\nbe harmonised, and the miraculous assimilation of humanity to divinity\nmay, in growing measure according to our faith, be realised in us. And\nthough we must still bear the limitations of our present corporeal\ncondition, and though life's tasks must still oftentimes be felt by us\nas toils, and life's burdens as too burdensome for our feeble\nshoulders, yet we shall be held up. 'As thy day so shall thy strength\nbe,' and at last, when we mount up further than eagle's wings have ever\nsoared, and look down upon the stars that are 'rolled together as a\nscroll,' we shall through eternal ages 'run and not be weary' and 'walk\nand not faint.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECRET OF IMMORTAL YOUTH\n\n'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall\nutterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their\nstrength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and\nnot be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.'--ISAIAH xl. 30, 31.\n\n\nI remember a sunset at sea, where the bosom of each wavelet that\nfronted the west was aglow with fiery gold, and the back of each turned\neastward was cold green; so that, looking on the one hand all was\nglory, and on the other all was sober melancholy. So differently does\nlife look to you young people and to us older ones. Every man must buy\nhis own experience for himself, and no preaching nor talking will ever\nmake you see life as we see it. It is neither possible nor desirable\nthat you should; but it is both possible and most desirable that you\nshould open your eyes to plain, grave facts, which do not at all depend\non our way of looking at things, and that if they be ascertainable, as\nthey are, you should let them shape your lives.\n\nHere are a couple of facts in my text which I ask you to look steadily\nin the face, and to take account of them, because, if you do so now, it\nmay save you an immense deal of disappointment and sorrow in the days\nthat are to come. You have the priceless prerogative still in your\nhands of determining what that future is to be; but you will never use\nthat power rightly if you are guided by illusions, or if, unguided by\nanything but inclination, you let things drift, and do as you like.\n\nSo, then, my object is simply to deal with these two forecasts which my\ntext presents; the one a dreary certainty of weariness and decay, the\nother a blessed possibility of inexhaustible and incorruptible strength\nand youth, and on the contrast to build as earnest an appeal to you as\nI can make.\n\nI. Now, then, look at the first fact here, that of the dreary certainty\nof weariness and decay.\n\nI do not need to spend much time in talking about that. It is one of\nthe commonplaces which are so familiar that they have lost all power of\nimpression, and can only be rescued from their trivial insignificance\nby being brought into immediate connection with our own experience. If,\ninstead of the toothless generality, 'the youths shall faint and be\nweary,' I could get you young people to say, '_I--I_ shall faint and be\nweary, and, as sure as I am living, I shall lose what makes to me the\nvery joy of life at this moment,' I should not have preached in vain.\n\nOf course the words of my text point to the plain fact that all created\nand physical life, by the very law of its being, in the act of living\ntends to death; and by the very operation of its strength tends to\nexhaustion. There are three stages in every creature's life--that of\ngrowth, that of equilibrium, that of decay. You are in the first. If\nyou live, it is as certain as fate that you will come to the second and\nthe third. _Your_ 'eyes will grow dim,' _your_ 'natural force' will be\n'abated,' _your_ body will become a burden, _your_ years that are full\nof buoyancy will be changed for years of heaviness and weariness,\nstrength will decay, 'and the young men'--that is _you_--'shall utterly\nfall.'\n\nAnd the text points also to another fact, that, long before your\nnatural life shall have begun to tend towards decay, hard work and\noccasional sorrows and responsibilities and burdens of all sorts will\nvery often make you wearied and ready to faint. In your early days you\ndream of life as a kind of enchanted garden, full of all manner of\ndelights; and you stand at the threshold with eager eyes and\noutstretched hands. Ah! dear young friend, long before you have\ntraversed the length of one of its walks, you will often have been sick\nand tired of the whole thing, and weary of what is laid upon you.\n\nMy text points to another fact, as certain as gravitation, that the\nfaintness and weariness and decay of the bodily strength will be\naccompanied with a parallel change in your feelings. We are drawn\nonward by hopes, and when we get them fulfilled we find that they are\ndisappointing. Custom, which weighs upon us 'heavy as frost, and deep\nalmost as life,' takes the edge off everything that is delightsome,\nthough it does not so completely take away the pain of things that are\nburdensome and painful. Men travel from a tinted morning into the sober\nlight of common day, and with failing faculties and shattered illusions\nand dissipated hopes, and powers bending under the long monotony of\nmiddle life, most of them live. Now all that is the veriest threadbare\nmorality, and I dare say while I have been speaking, some of you have\nbeen thinking that I am repeating platitudes that every old woman could\npreach. So I am. That is to say, I am trying to put into feeble words\nthe universal human experience. That is your experience, and what I\nwant to get you to think about now is that, as sure as you are living\nand rejoicing in your youth and strength, this is the fate that is\nawaiting you--'the youths shall faint and be weary, and shall utterly\nfall.'\n\nWell, then, one question: Do you not think that, if that is so, it\nwould be as well to face it? Do you not think that a wise man would\ntake account of all the elements in forecasting his life and would\nshape his conduct accordingly? If there be something certain to come,\nit is a very questionable piece of wisdom to make that the thing which\nwe are most unwilling to think about. I do not want to be a kill-joy; I\ndo not want to take anything out of the happy buoyancy of youth. I\nwould say, as even that cynical, bitter Ecclesiastes says, 'Rejoice, O\nyoung man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of\nthy youth.' By all means; only take all the facts into account, and if\nyou have joys which shrivel up at the touch of this thought, then the\nsooner you get rid of such joys the better. If your gladness depends\nupon your forcibly shutting your eyes to what is inevitably certain to\ncome about, do you not think that you are living in a fool's paradise\nthat you had better get out of as soon as possible? There is the fact.\nWill you be a wise and brave man and front it, and settle how you are\ngoing to deal with it, or will you let it hang there on your horizon, a\nthunder-cloud that you do not like to look at, and that you are all the\nmore unwilling to entertain the thought of, because you are so sure\nthat it will burst in storm? Lay this, then, to heart, though it is a\ndreary certainty, that weariness and decay are sure to be your fate.\n\nII. Now turn, in the next place, to the blessed opposite possibility of\ninexhaustible and immortal strength. 'They that wait upon the Lord\nshall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;\nthey shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.' The\nlife of nature tends inevitably downward, but there may be another life\nwithin the life of nature, which shall have the opposite motion, and\ntend as certainly upwards. 'The youths shall faint and be\nweary'--whether they be Christians or not, the law of decay and fatigue\nwill act upon them; but there may be that within each of us, if we\nwill, which shall resist that law, and have no proclivity whatsoever to\nextinction in its blaze, to death in its life, to weariness in its\neffort, and shall be replenished and not exhausted by expenditure.\n'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,' and, in all\nforms of motion possible to a creature they shall expatiate and never\ntire. So let us look on this blessed possibility a little more closely.\n\nNote, then, how to get at it. 'They that wait upon the Lord' is Old\nTestament dialect for what in New Testament phraseology is meant by\n'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.' For the notion expressed here by\n'waiting' is that of expectant dependence, and the New Testament\n'faith' is the very same in its attitude of expectant dependence, while\nthe object of the Old Testament 'waiting,' Jehovah, is identical with\nthe object of the New Testament faith, which fastens on God manifest in\nthe flesh, the Man Jesus Christ.\n\nTherefore, I am not diverting the language of my text from its true\nmeaning, but simply opening its depth, when I say that the condition of\nthe inflow of this unwearied and immortal life into our poor, fainting,\ndying humanity is simply the trust in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of our\nsouls. True, the revelation has advanced; the contents of that which we\ngrasp are more developed and articulate, blessed be God! True, we know\nmore about Jehovah, when we see Him in Jesus Christ, than Isaiah did.\nTrue, we have to trust in Him as dying on the Cross for our salvation\nand as the pattern and example in His humanity of all nobleness and\nbeauty of life for young or old, but the Christ is the 'same yesterday,\nand to-day, and for ever.' And the faith that knit the furthest back of\nthe saints of old to the Jehovah, whom they dimly knew, is in essence\nidentical with the faith that binds my poor sinful heart to the Christ\nthat died and that lives for my redemption and salvation. So, dear\nbrethren, here is the simple old message for each of you, young or old.\nNo matter where we stand on the course of life, there may come into our\nhearts a Divine Indweller, who laughs at weariness and knows nothing of\ndecay; and He will come if, as sinful men, we turn ourselves to that\ndear Lord, who fainted and was weary many a time in His humanity, and\nwho now lives, the 'strong Son of God, immortal love,' to make us\npartakers in His immortality and His strength. The way, then, by which\nwe get this divine gift is by faith in Jesus Christ, which is the\nexpansion, as it was the root, of trust in Jehovah.\n\nFurther, what is this strength that we thus get, if we will, by faith?\nIt is the true entrance into our souls of a divine life. God in His Son\nwill come to us, according to His own gracious and profound promise:\n'If any man open the door I will enter in.' He will come into our\nhearts and abide there. He will give to us a life derived from, and\ntherefore, kindred with, His own. And in that connection it is very\nstriking to notice how the prophet, in the context, reiterates these\ntwo words, _'fainteth_ not, neither is _weary._' He begins by speaking\nof 'God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth\nnot, neither is weary.' He passes on to speak of His gift of power to\nthe faint. He returns to the contrast between the Creator's\nincorruptible strength and the fleeting power of the strongest and\nyoungest. And then he crowns all with the thought that the same\ncharacteristics will mark them in whom the unwearied God dwells, as\nmark Him. We too, like Him, if we have Christ in our hearts by faith,\nwill share, in some fashion and degree, in His wondrous prerogative of\nunwearied strength.\n\nSo, brethren, here is the promise. God will give Himself to you, and in\nthe very heart of your decaying nature will plant the seed of an\nimmortal being which shall, like His own, shake off fatigue from the\nlimbs, and never tend to dissolution or an end. The life of nature dies\nby living; the life of grace, which may belong to us all, lives by\nliving, and lives evermore thereby. And so that life is continuous and\nprogressive, with no tendency to decay, nor term to its being. 'The\npath of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more,'\nuntil it riseth to the zenith of the noontide of the day. Each of you,\nlooking forward to the certain ebbing away of creatural power, to the\ncertain changes that will pass upon you, may say, 'I know that I shall\nhave to leave behind me my present youthful strength, my unworn\nfreshness, my buoyancy, my confidence, my wonder, my hope; but I shall\ncarry my Christ; and in Him I shall possess the secret of an immortal\nyouth.'\n\nThe oldest angels are the youngest. The longer men live in fellowship\nwith Christ, the stronger do they grow. And though our lives, whether\nwe are Christians or no, are necessarily subject to the common laws of\nmortality, we may carry all that is worth preserving of the earliest\nstages into the latest; and when grey hairs are upon us, and we are\nliving next door to our graves, we may still have the enthusiasm, the\nenergy, and above all, the boundless hopefulness that made the gladness\nand the spring of our long-buried youth. 'They shall still bring forth\nfruit in old age.' 'The youths shall faint and be weary, but they that\nwait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.'\n\nThere is one more point to touch, and then I have done, and that is the\nmanner in which this immortal strength is exercised. The latter clauses\nof my text give us, so to speak, three forms of motion. 'They shall\nmount up with wings as eagles.' Some good commentators find in this a\nparallel to the words in the 103rd Psalm, 'My youth is renewed like the\neagle's,' and propose to translate it in this fashion, 'They shall cast\ntheir plumage like the eagle.' But it seems much more in accordance\nwith the context and the language to adopt substantially the reading of\nour English version here, or to make the slight change, 'They shall\nlift up their wings as the eagle,' implying, of course, the steady\nupward flight towards the light of heaven.\n\nSo, then, there are three forms of unwearied strength lying ready for\nyou, young men and women, to take for your very own if you like:\nstrength to soar, strength to run, strength to walk.\n\nThere is strength to soar. Old men generally shed their wings, and can\nonly manage to crawl. They have done with romance. Enthusiasms are\ndead. Sometimes they cynically smile at their own past selves and their\ndreams. And it is a bad sign when an old man does that. But for the\nmost part they are content, unless they have got Christ in their\nhearts, to keep along the low levels, and their soaring days are done.\nBut if you and I have Jesus Christ for the life of our spirits, as\ncertainly as fire sends its shooting tongues upwards, so certainly\nshall we rise above the sorrows and sins and cares of this 'dim spot\nwhich men call earth,' and find an ampler field for buoyant motion high\nup in communion with God. Strength to soar means the gracious power of\nbringing all heaven into our grasp, and setting our affections on\nthings above. As the night falls, and joys become fewer and life\nsterner, and hopes become rarer and more doubtful, it is something to\nfeel that, however straitened may be the ground below, there is plenty\nof room above, and that, though we are strangers upon earth, we can\nlift our thoughts yonder. If there be darkness here, still we can\n'outsoar the shadow of our night,' and live close to the sun in\nfellowship with God. Dear brethren, life on earth were too wretched\nunless it were possible to 'mount up with wings as eagles.'\n\nAgain, you may have strength to run--that is to say, there is power\nwaiting for you for all the great crises of your lives which call for\nspecial, though it may be brief, exertion. Such crises will come to\neach of you, in sorrow, work, difficulty, hard conflicts. Moments will\nbe sprung upon you without warning, in which you will feel that years\nhang on the issue of an instant. Great tasks will be clashed down\nbefore you unexpectedly which will demand the gathering together of all\nyour power. And there is only one way to be ready for such times as\nthese, and that is to live waiting on the Lord, near Christ, with Him\nin your hearts, and then nothing will come that will be too hard for\nyou. However rough the road, and however severe the struggle, and\nhowever swift the pace, you will be able to keep it up. Though it may\nbe with panting lungs and a throbbing heart, and dim eyes and quivering\nmuscles, yet if you wait on the Lord you will run and not be weary. You\nwill be masters of the crises.\n\nStrength to walk may be yours--that is to say, patient power for\npersistent pursuit of weary, monotonous duty. That is the hardest, and\nso it is named last. Many a man finds it easy, under the pressure of\nstrong excitement, and for a moment or two, to keep up a swift pace,\nwho finds it very difficult to keep steadily at unexciting work. And\nyet there is nothing to be done except by doggedly plodding along the\ndusty road of trivial duties, unhelped by excitement and unwearied by\nmonotony. Only one thing will conquer the disgust at the wearisome\nround of mill-horse tasks which, sooner or later, seizes all godless\nmen, and that is to bring the great principles of the gospel to bear on\nthem, and to do them in the might and for the sake of the dear Lord.\n'They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk' along life's common\nway in cheerful godliness, 'and they shall not faint.'\n\nDear friends, life to us all is, and must be, full of sorrow and of\neffort. Constant work and frequent sorrows wear us all out, and bring\nus many a time to the verge of fainting. I beseech you to begin right,\nand not to add to the other occasions for weariness that of having to\nretrace, with remorseful heart and ashamed feet, the paths of evil on\nwhich you have run. Begin right, which is to say, begin with Christ and\ntake Him for inspiration, for pattern, for guide, for companion. 'Run\nwith patience the race set before you, looking unto Jesus the author of\nyour faith, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.'\n\nAnd if you have Him in your hearts, then, however your creatural power\nmay grow weary, yet because He is with you, 'your shoes shall be iron\nand brass, and as your days so shall your strength be,' and you may\nlift up in your turn the glad, triumphant acknowledgment: 'For this\ncause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, our inward man\nis renewed day by day.'\n\nGod bless you all and make that your experience!\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST THE ARRESTER OF INCIPIENT EVIL AND THE NOURISHER OF INCIPIENT\nGOOD\n\n'A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not\nquench.... He shall not fail nor be discouraged.'--ISAIAH xlii. 3, 4.\n\n\nThe two metaphors which we have in the former part of these words are\nnot altogether parallel. 'A bruised reed' has suffered an injury which,\nhowever, is neither complete nor irreparable. 'Smoking flax,' on the\nother hand--by which, of course, is meant flax used as a wick in an\nold-fashioned oil lamp--is partially lit. In the one a process has been\nbegun which, if continued, ends in destruction; in the other, a process\nhas been begun which, if continued, ends in a bright flame. So the one\nmetaphor may refer to the beginnings of evil which may still be\naverted, and the other the beginnings of incipient and incomplete good.\nIf we keep this distinction in mind, the words of our text gain\nwonderfully in comprehensiveness.\n\nThen again, it is to be noticed that in the last words of our text,\nwhich are separated from the former by a clause which we omit, we have\nan echo of these metaphors. The word translated 'fail' is the same as\nthat rendered in the previous verse 'smoking,' or 'dimly burning'; and\nthe word 'discouraged' is the same as that rendered in the previous\nverse 'bruised.' So then, this 'Servant of the Lord,' who is not to\nbreak the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, is fitted for His\nwork, because He Himself has no share in the evils which He would heal,\nand none in the weaknesses which He would strengthen. His perfect\nmanhood knows no flaws nor bruises; His complete goodness is capable of\nand needs no increase. Neither outward force nor inward weakness can\nhinder His power to heal and bless; therefore His work can never cease\ntill it has attained its ultimate purpose. 'He shall not fail nor be\ndiscouraged'; shall neither be broken by outward violence, nor shall\nthe flame of His fading energy burn faint until He hath 'set judgment\nin the earth,' and crowned His purposes with complete success.\n\nWe have, then, here set before us three significant representations of\nthe servant of the Lord, which may well commend Him to our confidence\nand our love. I shall not spend any time in answering the question: Of\nwhom speaketh the prophet this? The answer is plain for us. He speaks\nof the personal Servant of the Lord, and the personal Servant of the\nLord is Jesus Christ our Saviour. I ask you then to come with me while\nI deal, as simply as may be, with these three ideas that lie before us\nin this great prophecy.\n\nI. Consider then, first, the representation of the Servant of the Lord\nas the arrester of incipient ruin.\n\n'He shall not break the bruised reed.' Here is the picture--a slender\nbulrush, growing by the margin of some tarn or pond; its sides crushed\nand dented in by some outward power, a gust of wind, a sudden blow, the\nfoot of a passing animal. The head is hanging by a thread, but it is\nnot yet snapped or broken off from the stem.\n\nBut, blessed be God! there emerges from the metaphor not only the\nsolemn thought of the bruises by sin that all men bear, but the other\nblessed one, that there is no man so bruised as that he is broken; none\nso injured as that restoration is impossible, no depravity so total but\nthat it may be healed, none so far off but that he may be brought nigh.\nOn no man has sin fastened its venomous claws so deeply but that these\nmay be wrenched away. In none of us has the virus so gone through our\nveins but that it is capable of being expelled. The reeds are all\nbruised, the reeds are none of them broken. And so my text comes with\nits great triumphant hopefulness, and gathers into one mass as capable\nof restoration the most abject, the most worthless, the most ignorant,\nthe most sensuous, the most godless, the most Christ-hating of the\nrace. Jesus looks on all the tremendous bulk of a world's sins with the\nconfidence that He can move that mountain and cast it into the depths\nof the sea.\n\nThere is a man in Paris that says he has found a cure for that horrible\ndisease of hydrophobia, and who therefore regards the poor sufferers of\nwhom others despair as not beyond the reach of hope. Christ looks upon\na world of men smitten with madness, and in whose breasts awful poison\nis working, with the calm confidence that He carries in His hand an\nelixir, one drop of which inoculated into the veins of the furious\npatient will save him from death, and make him whole. 'The blood of\nJesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.' 'He will not break,' and that\nmeans He will restore, 'the bruised reed.' There are no hopeless\noutcasts. None of you are beyond the reach of a Saviour's love, a\nSaviour's blood, a Saviour's healing.\n\nBut then the words in my text may be taken in a somewhat narrower\nsense, applying more particularly to a class. In accordance with other\nmetaphors of Scripture, we may think of 'the bruised reed' as\nexpressive of the condition of men whose hearts have been crushed by\nthe consciousness of their sins. 'The broken and the contrite heart,'\nbruised and pulverised, as it were, by a sense of evil, may be typified\nfor us by this bruised reed. And then from the words of my text there\nemerges the great and blessed hope that such a heart, wholesomely\nremoved from its self-complacent fancy of soundness, shall certainly be\nhealed and bound up by His tender hand. Did you ever see a gardener\ndealing with some plant, a spray of which may have been wounded? How\ndelicately and tenderly the big, clumsy hand busies itself about the\ntiny spray, and by stays and bandages brings it into an erect position,\nand then gives it water and loving care. Just so does Jesus Christ deal\nwith the conscious and sensitive heart of a man who has begun to find\nout how bad he is, and has been driven away from all his foolish\nconfidence. Christ comes to such an one and restores him, and just\nbecause he is crushed deals with him gently, pouring in His\nconsolation. Wheresoever there is a touch of penitence, there is\npresent a restoring Christ.\n\nAnd the words may be looked at from yet another point of view. We may\nthink of them as representing to us the merciful dealing of the Master\nwith the spirits which are beaten and bruised, sore and wounded, by\nsorrows and calamities; to whom the Christ comes in all the tenderness\nof His gentleness, and lays a hand upon them--the only hand in all the\nuniverse that can touch a bleeding heart without hurting it.\n\nBrother and sister suffering from any sorrow, and bleeding from any\nwound, there is a balm and a physician. There is one hand that will\nnever be laid with blundering kindness or with harshness upon our sore\nhearts, but whose touch will be healing, and whose presence will be\npeace.\n\nThe Christ who knows our sins and sorrows will not break the bruised\nreed. The whole race of man may be represented in that parable that\ncame from His own lips, as fallen among thieves that have robbed him\nand wounded him and left him bruised, but, blessed be God! only 'half\ndead'; sorely wounded, indeed, but not so sorely but that he may be\nrestored. And there comes One with the wine and the oil, and pours them\ninto the wounds. 'The bruised reed shall He not break.'\n\nII. Now, in the next place, look at the completing thought that is\nhere, in the second clause, which represents Christ as the fosterer of\nincipient and imperfect good.\n\n'The dimly-burning wick He shall not quench.' A process, as I have\nsaid, is begun in the smoking flax, which only needs to be carried on\nto lead to a brilliant flame. That represents for us not the beginnings\nof a not irreparable evil, but the commencement of very dim and\nimperfect good. Now, then, who are represented by this 'smoking flax'?\nYou will not misunderstand me, nor think that I am contradicting what I\nhave already been saying, if I claim for this second metaphor as wide a\nuniversality as the former, and say that in all men, just because the\nprocess of evil and the wounds from it are not so deep and complete as\nthat restoration is impossible, therefore is there something in their\nnature which corresponds to this dim flame that needs to be fostered in\norder to blaze brightly abroad. There is no man out of hell but has in\nhim something that needs but to be brought to sovereign power in his\nlife in order to make him a light in the world. You have consciences at\nthe least; you have convictions, you know you have, which if you\nfollowed them out would make Christians of you straight away. You have\naspirations after good, desires, some of you, after purity and\nnobleness of living, which only need to be raised to the height and the\ndominance in your lives which they ought to possess, in order to\nrevolutionise your whole course. There is a spark in every man which,\nfanned and cared for, will change him from darkness into light. Fanned\nand cared for it needs to be, and fanned and cared for it can only be\nby a divine power coming down upon it from without. This second\nmetaphor of my text, as truly as the other, belongs to every soul of\nman upon the earth. He from whom all sparks and light have died out is\nnot a man but a devil. And for all of us the exhortation comes: 'Thou\nhast a voice within testifying to God and to duty'; listen to it and\ncare for it.\n\nThen again, dear brethren, in a narrower way, the words may be applied\nto a class. There are some of us who have in us a little spark, as we\nbelieve, of a divine life, the faint beginnings of a Christian\ncharacter. We call ourselves Christ's disciples. We are; but oh! how\ndimly the flax burns. They say that where there is smoke there is fire.\nThere is a great deal more smoke than fire in the most of Christian\npeople in this generation, and if it were not for such thoughts as this\nof my text about that dear Christ who will not lay a hasty hand upon\nsome little tremulous spark, and by one rash movement extinguish it for\never, there would be but small hope for a great many of us.\n\nWhether, then, the dimly-burning wick be taken to symbolise the\nlingering remains of a better nature which still abides with all sinful\nmen, yet capable of redemption, or whether it be taken to mean the low\nand imperfect and inconsistent and feeble Christianity of us professing\nChristians, the words of my text are equally blessed and equally true.\nChrist will neither despise, nor so bring down His hand upon it as to\nextinguish, the feeblest spark. Look at His life on earth, think how He\nbore with those blundering, foolish, selfish disciples of His; how\npatient the divine Teacher was with their slow learning of His meaning\nand catching of His character. Remember how, when a man came to Him\nwith a very imperfect goodness, the Evangelist tells us that Jesus,\nbeholding him, loved him. And take out of these blessed stories this\ngreat hope, that howsoever small men 'despise the day of small things,'\nthe Greatest does not; and howsoever men may say 'Such a little spark\ncan never be kindled into flame, the fire is out, you may as well let\nit alone,' He never says that, but by patient teaching and fostering\nand continual care and wise treatment will nourish and nurture it until\nit leaps into a blaze.\n\nHow do you make 'smoking flax' burn? You give it oil, you give it air,\nand you take away the charred portions. And Christ will give you, in\nyour feebleness, the oil of His Spirit, that you may burn brightly as\none of the candlesticks in His Temple; and He will let air in, and\nsometimes take away the charred portions by the wise discipline of\nsorrow and trial, in order that the smoking flax may become a shining\nlight. But by whatsoever means He may work, be sure of this, that He\nwill neither despise nor neglect the feeblest inclination of good after\nHim, but will nourish it to perfection and to beauty.\n\nThe reason why so many Christian men's Christian light is so fuliginous\nand dim is just that they keep away from Jesus Christ. 'Abide in Me and\nI in you.' 'As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide\nin the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.' How can the Temple\nlamps burn bright unless the Priest of the Temple tends them? Keep near\nHim that His hand may nourish your smoking dimness into a pure flame,\nleaping heavenward and illuminating your lives.\n\nIII. And now, lastly, we have here the representation of the servant of\nthe Lord's exemption from human evil and weakness, as the foundation of\nHis restoring and fostering work.\n\n'He shall not burn dimly nor be broken till He hath set judgment in the\nearth.' There are no bruises in this reed; that is to say, Christ's\nmanhood is free from all scars and wounds of evil or of sin. There is\nno dimness in this light, that is to say, Christ's character is\nperfect, His goodness needs no increase. There is no trace of effort in\nHis holiness, no growth manifest in His God-likeness, from the\nbeginning to the end. There is no outward violence that can be brought\nto bear upon Him that will stay Him in His purpose. There is no inward\nfailure of strength in Him that may lead us to fear that His work shall\nnot be completed. And because of these things, because of His perfect\nexemption from human infirmity, because in Him was no sin. He is\nmanifested to take away our sins. Because in Him there was goodness\nincapable of increase, being perfect from the beginning, therefore He\nis manifested to make us participants of His own unalterable and\ninfinite goodness and purity. Because no outward violence, no inward\nweakness, can ever stay His course, nor make Him abandon His purpose,\ntherefore His gospel looks upon the world with boundless hopefulness,\nwith calm triumph; will not hear of there being any outcast and\nirreclaimable classes; declares it to be a blasphemy against God and\nChrist to say that any men or any nations are incapable of receiving\nthe gospel and of being redeemed by it, and comes with supreme love and\na calm consciousness of infinite power to you, my brother, in your\ndeepest darkness, in your moods most removed from God and purity, and\ninsures you that it will heal you, and will raise all that in you is\nfeeble to its own strength. Every man may pray to that strong Christ\nwho fails not nor is discouraged--\n\n                    'What in me is dark\n                     Illumine; what is low, raise and support,'\n\nin the confidence that He will hear and answer. If you do that you will\nnot do it in vain, but His gentle hand laid upon you will heal the\nbruises that sin has made. Out of your weakness, as of 'a reed shaken\nwith the wind,' the Restorer will make a pillar of marble in the Temple\nof His God. And out of your smoking dimness and wavering light, a spark\nat the best, almost buried in the thick smoke that accompanies it, the\nfostering Christ will make a brightness which shall flame as the\nperfect light that 'shineth more and more unto the noontide of the day.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE BLIND MAN'S GUIDE\n\n'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them\nin paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before\nthem, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them,\nand not forsake them.'--ISAIAH xiii. 16.\n\n\nThe grand stormy verses before these words, with all their dread array\nof natural convulsions, have one object--the tender guidance promised\nin the text. So we have the combination of terror and love, the\nblending in the divine government of terrible judgments and most gentle\nguidance. The words apply, of course, primarily to the redemption of\nIsrael; but through them shines a picture of the greater redemption of\nhumanity.\n\n1. The blind travellers. They are blind, and their road is unknown to\nthem. It is a symbol of our condition and of our paths in life. Our\nlimited foresight cannot discern certainly even the next moment. It is\nalways the unexpected that happens. We cannot tell what lies behind the\nnext bend in the road, and there are so many bends; and behind one of\nthem, we cannot tell whether it may be the next, sits 'the Shadow\nfeared of man.' Life is like the course of the Congo, which makes so\nmighty a bend northward that, till it had been followed from source to\nmouth, no one could have supposed that it was to enter the ocean far\naway to the west. Not only God's mercies, but our paths, are 'new every\nmorning.' Experience, like conscience, sheds light mainly on what lies\nbehind, and scarcely 'doth attain to something of prophetic strain.'\n\n2. The Leader. How tenderly God makes Himself the leader of the blind\npilgrims! It does not matter about being blind, if we put our hands in\nHis. Then He will 'be to us instead of eyes.' Jesus took the blind man\nby the hand.\n\nSo here is the promise of guidance by Providence, Word, Spirit. And\nhere is the condition of receiving it, namely, our conscious blindness\nand realisation of the complexities of life, leading to putting\nourselves into His hands in docile faith.\n\n3. The gradual light. Darkness is made light. We receive the knowledge\nof each step, when it needs to be taken; the light shines only on the\nnext; we are like men in a fog, who are able only to see a yard ahead.\n\n4. The clearing away of hindrances. 'Crooked things straight.' A\ncareful guide lifts stones out of a blind man's way. How far is this\ntrue? There will be plenty of crooked things left crooked, but still so\nmany straightened as to make our road passable.\n\n5. The perpetual Presence. If God is with me, then all these blessings\nwill surely be mine. He will be with me if I keep myself with Him. It\nis His felt presence that gives me light on the road, and levels and\nstraightens out the crookedest and roughest path.\n\n\n\n\nTHY NAME: MY NAME\n\n'I have called thee by thy name.'--ISAIAH xliii. 1.\n\n'Every one that is called by My name.'--ISAIAH xliii. 7.\n\n\nGreat stress is laid on names in Scripture. These two parallel and\nantithetic clauses bring out striking complementary relations between\nGod and the collective Israel. But they are as applicable to each\nindividual member of the true Israel of God.\n\nI. What does God's calling a man by his name imply?\n\n1. Intimate knowledge.\n\nAdam naming the creatures.\n\nChrist naming His disciples.\n\n2. Loving friendship.\n\nMoses, 'I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight.'\n\n3. Designation and adaptation to work.\n\nBezaleel--Exodus xxxi. 2; Cyrus--ISAIAH xlv. 3; Servant of the\nLord--ISAIAH xlix. 1.\n\nII. What does God's calling a man by His name imply?\n\n1. God's possession of him. That possession by God involves God's\nprotection and man's safety. He does not hold His property slackly.\n'None shall pluck them out of My Father's hand.'\n\n2. Kindred. The man bears the family name. He is adopted into the\nhousehold. The sonship of the receiver of the new name is dimly\nshadowed.\n\n3. Likeness.\n\nThe Biblical meaning of 'name' is 'character manifested.'\n\nNomen and omen coincide.\n\nWe must bring into connection with the texts the prominence given in\nthe Apocalypse to analogous promises.\n\n'I will write on him the name of My God.' That means a fuller\ndisclosing of God's character, and a clear impress of that character on\nperfected men 'His name shall be in their foreheads.'\n\n\n\n\nJACOB--ISRAEL--JESHURUN\n\n'Yet now hear, O Jacob My servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen....\nFear not, O Jacob, My servant; and thou, Jeshurun, whom I have\nchosen.--ISAIAH xliv. 1, 2.\n\n\nYou observe that there are here three different names applied to the\nJewish nation. Two of them, namely Jacob and Israel, were borne by\ntheir great ancestor, and by him transmitted to his descendants. The\nthird was never borne by him, and is applied to the people only here\nand in the Book of Deuteronomy.\n\nThe occurrence of all three here is very remarkable, and the order in\nwhich they stand is not accidental. The prophet begins with the name\nthat belonged to the patriarch by birth; the name of nature, which\ncontained some indications of character. He passes on to the name which\ncommemorated the mysterious conflict where, as a prince, Jacob had\npower with God and prevailed. He ends with the name Jeshurun, of which\nthe meaning is 'the righteous one,' and which was bestowed upon the\npeople as a reminder of what they ought to be.\n\nNow, as I take it, the occurrence of these names here, and their\nsequence, may teach us some very important lessons; and it is simply to\nthese lessons, and not at all to the context, that I ask your attention.\n\nI. I take, then, these three names in their order as teaching us,\nfirst, the path of transformation.\n\nEvery 'Jacob' may become a 'righteous one,' if he will tread Jacob's\nroad. We start with that first name of nature which, according to\nEsau's bitter etymology of it, meant 'a supplanter'--not without some\nsuggestions of craft and treachery in it. It is descriptive of the\nnatural disposition of the patriarch, which was by no means attractive.\nCool, calculating, subtle, with a very keen eye to his own interests,\nand not at all scrupulous as to the means by which he secured them, he\nhad no generous impulses, and few unselfish affections. He told lies to\nhis poor old blind father, he cheated his brother, he met the\nshiftiness of Laban with equal shiftiness. It was 'diamond cut diamond'\nall through. He tried to make a bargain with God Himself at Bethel, and\nto lay down conditions on which he would bring Him the tenth of his\nsubstance. And all through his earlier career he does not look like the\nstuff of which heroes and saints are made.\n\nBut in the mid-path of his life there came that hour of deep dejection\nand helplessness, when, driven out of all dependence on self, and\nfeeling round in his agony for something to lay hold upon, there came\ninto his nightly solitude a vision of God. In conscious weakness, and\nin the confidence of self-despair, he wrestled with the mysterious\nVisitant in the only fashion in which He can be wrestled with. 'He wept\nand made supplication to Him,' as one of the prophets puts it, and so\nhe bore away the threefold gift--blessing from those mighty lips whose\nblessing is the communication, and not only the invocation, of mercy, a\ndeeper knowledge of that divine and mysterious Name, and for himself a\nnew name.\n\nThat new name implied a new direction given to his character.\n\nHitherto he had wrestled with men whom he would supplant, for his own\nadvantage, by craft and subtlety; henceforward he strove with God for\nhigher blessings, which, in striving, he won. All the rest of his life\nwas on a loftier plane. Old ambitions were dead within him, and though\nthe last of these names in our text was never actually borne by him, he\nbegan to deserve it, and grew steadily in nobleness and beauty of\ncharacter until the end, when he sang his swan-song and lay down to\ndie, with thanksgiving for the past and glowing prophecies for the\nfuture, pouring from his trembling lips.\n\nAnd now, brethren, that is the outline of the only way in which, from\nout of the evil and the sinfulness of our natural disposition, any of\nus can be raised to the loftiness and purity of a righteous life. There\nmust be a Peniel between the two halves of the character, if there is\nto be transformation.\n\nHave you ever been beaten out of all your confidence, and ground down\ninto the dust of self-disgust and self-abandonment? Have you ever felt,\n'there is nothing in me or about me that I can cling to or rely upon'?\nHave you ever in the thickest of that darkness had, gleaming in upon\nyour solitude, the vision of His face, whose face we see in Jesus\nChrist? Have you ever grasped Him who is infinitely willing to be held\nby the weakest hand, and who never 'makes as though He would go\nfurther,' except in order to induce us to say, with deeper earnestness\nof desire, 'Abide with us, for it is dark'? And have you ever, in\nfellowship with Him thus, found pouring into your enlightened mind a\ndeeper reading of the meaning of His character and a fuller conception\nof the mystery of His love? And have you ever--certainly you have if\nthese things have preceded it, certainly you have not if they have\nnot--have you ever thereby been borne up on to a higher level of feeling\nand life, and been aware of new impulses, hopes, joys, new directions\nand new capacities budding and blossoming in your spirit?\n\nBrethren! there is only one way by which, out of the mire and clay of\nearth, there can be formed a fair image of holiness, and that is, that\nJacob's experience, in deeper, more inward, more wonderful form, should\nbe repeated in each one of us; and that thus, penitent and yet hopeful,\nwe should behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and draw\nfrom Him our righteousness. That is the path of transformation. The\nroad passes through Peniel, and Jacob must become Israel before he is\nJeshurun. He must hold communion with God in Christ before he is\nclothed with righteousness.\n\nHow different that path is from the road which men are apt to take in\nworking out their own self-improvement! How many forms of religion, and\nhow many toiling souls put the cart before the horse, and in effect\njust reverse the process, and say practically--'first make yourselves\nrighteous, and then you will have communion with God'! That is an\nendless and a hopeless task. I have no doubt that some of you have\nspent--and I would not say wasted, but it has been almost so--years of\nlife, not without many an honest effort, in the task of\nself-improvement, and are very much where you were long ago. Why have\nyou failed? Because you have never been to Peniel. You have never seen\nthe face of God in Christ, You have not received from Him the blessing,\neven righteousness, from the God of your salvation.\n\nDear friends, give up treading that endless, weary path of vain effort;\nand learn--oh! learn--that the righteousness which makes a soul pure\nand beautiful must come as a gift from God, and is given only in Jesus\nChrist.\n\nThis sequence too, I think, may very fairly be used to teach us the\nlesson that there is no kind of character so debased but that it may\npartake of the purifying and ennobling influence. All the Jacobs may be\nturned into righteous ones, however crafty, however subtle, however\nselfish, however worldly they are. Christianity looks at no man and\nsays, 'That is too bad a case for me to deal with.' It will undertake\nany and every case, and whoever will take its medicines can be cured\n'of whatsoever disease he had.'\n\nTo all of us, no matter what our past may have been, this blessed\nmessage comes: 'There is hope for thee, if thou wilt use these means.'\nOnly remember, the road from the depths of evil to the heights of\npurity always lies through Peniel. You must have power with God and\ndraw a blessing from Him, and hold communion with Him, before you can\nbecome righteous.\n\nHow do they print photographs? By taking sensitive paper, and laying\nit, in touch with the negative, in the sun. Lay your spirits on Christ,\nand keep them still, touching Him, in the light of God, and that will\nturn you into His likeness. That, and nothing else will do it.\n\nII. And now there is a second lesson from the occurrence of these three\nnames, viz., here we may find expressed the law for the Christian life.\n\nThere are some religious people that seem to think that it is enough if\nonly they can say; 'Well! I have been to Jesus Christ and I have got my\npast sins forgiven; I have been on the mountain and have held communion\nwith God; I do know what it is to have fellowship with Him, in many an\nhour of devout communion.' and who are in much danger of treating the\nfurther stage of simple, practical righteousness as of secondary\nimportance. Now the order of these names here points the lesson that\nthe apex of the pyramid, the goal of the whole course,\nis--Righteousness. The object for which the whole majestic structure of\nRevelation has been builded up, is simply to make good men and women.\nGod does not tell us His Name merely in order that we may know His\nName, but in order that, knowing it, we may be smitten with the love of\nit, and so may come into the likeness of it. There is no religious\ntruth which is given men for the sake of clearing their understandings\nand enlightening their minds only. We get the truth to enlighten our\nminds and to clear our understandings in order that thereby, as becomes\nreasonable men with heads on our shoulders, we may let our principles\nguide our conduct. Conduct is the end of principle, and all Revelation\nis given to us in order that we may be pure and good men and women.\n\nFor the same end all God's mercy of forgiveness and deliverance from\nguilt and punishment in Jesus Christ is given to you, not merely in\norder that you may escape the penalties of your evil, but in order\nthat, being pardoned, you may in glad thankfulness be lifted up into an\nenthusiasm of service which will make you eager to serve Him and long\nto be like Him. He sets you free from guilt, from punishment, and His\nwrath, in order that by the golden cord of love you may be fastened to\nHim in thankful obedience. God's purpose in redemption is that 'we,\nbeing delivered out of the hand of our enemies should serve Him without\nfear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.'\n\nAnd in like manner, righteousness, by which, in the present connection,\nwe mean simply the doing of the things, and the being the character,\nwhich a conscience enlightened by the law of God dictates to us to be\nand to do--righteousness is the intention and the aim of all religious\nemotion and feeling. It is all very well to have the joy of fellowship\nwith God in our inmost soul, but there is a type of Christianity which\nis a great deal stronger on the side of devout emotion than on the side\nof transparent godliness; and although it becomes no man to say what\nJesus Christ could say to those whose religion is mainly emotional,\n'Hypocrites!' it is the part of every honest preacher to warn all that\nlisten to him that there does lie a danger, a very real danger, very\nclose to some of us, to substitute devout emotion for plain, practical\ngoodness, and to be a great deal nearer God in the words of our prayers\nthan we are in the current and set of our daily lives. Take, then,\nthese three names of my text as flashing into force and emphasis the\nexhortation that the crown of all religion is righteousness, and as\npreaching, in antique guise, the same lesson that the very Apostle of\naffectionate contemplation uttered with such earnestness:--'Little\nchildren! let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is\nrighteous, even as He is righteous.' An ounce of practical godliness is\nworth a pound of fine feeling and a ton of correct orthodoxy. Remember\nwhat the Master said, and take the lesson in the measure in which you\nneed it: 'Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not\nprophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in\nThy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them,\nI never knew you, depart from Me.' And the proof that I never knew you,\nnor you Me, is: 'Ye that work iniquity.'\n\nIII. Then there is another lesson still which I draw from these words,\nviz. the merciful judgment which God makes of the character of them\nthat love Him.\n\nJeshurun means 'the righteous one.' How far beneath the ideal of the\nname these Jewish people fell we all know, and yet the name is applied\nto them. Although the realisation of the ideal has been so imperfect,\nthe ideal is not destroyed. Although they have done so many sins, yet\nHe calls them by His name of 'righteous.' And so we Christian people\nfind that the New Testament calls us 'saints.' That name is not applied\nto some select and lofty specimens of Christianity, but to all\nChristians, however imperfect their present life and character may be.\nThen people sneer and say, 'Ah! a strange kind of saints these\nChristians are! Do you think that a man can condone practical\nimmorality by saying that he is trusting in Jesus Christ? The Church's\n\"saint\" seems to mean less than the world's \"man of honour.\"' God\nforbid that it should be fancied that Christian sainthood is more\ntolerant of evil than worldly morality, or has any fantastic standard\nof goodness which makes up for departures from the plain rule of right\nby prayers and raptures. But surely there may be a principle of action\ndeep down at the bottom of a heart, very feeble in its present exercise\nand manifestation, which yet is the true man, and is destined to\nconquer the whole nature which now wars against it. Here, for instance,\nis a tiny spark, and there is a huge pile of damp, green wood. Yes; and\nthe little spark will turn all the wood into flame, if you give it time\nand fair play. The leaven may be hid in an immensely greater mass of\nmeal, but it, and not the three measures of flour, is the active\nprinciple. And if there is in a man, overlaid by ever so many\nabsurdities, and contradictions, and inconsistencies, a little seed of\nfaith in Jesus Christ, there will be in him proportionately a little\nparticle of a divine life which is omnipotent, which is immortal, which\nwill conquer and transform all the rest into its own likeness; and He\nwho sees not as men see, beholds the inmost tendencies and desires of\nthe nature, as well as the facts of the life, and discerning the inmost\nand true self of His children, and knowing that it will conquer, calls\nus 'righteous ones,' even while the outward life has not yet been\nbrought into harmony with the new man, created in righteousness after\nGod's image.\n\nAll wrong-doing is inconsistent with Christianity, but, thank God, it\nis not for us to say that _any_ wrong-doing is incompatible with it;\nand therefore, for ourselves there is hope, and for our estimate of one\nanother there ought to be charity, and for all Christian people there\nis the lesson--live up to your name. _Noblesse oblige!_ Fulfil your\nideal. Be what God calls you, and 'press toward the mark for the prize.'\n\nIf one had time to deal with it, there is another lesson naturally\nsuggested by these names, but I only put it in a sentence and leave it;\nand that is the union between the founder of the nation and the nation.\nThe name of the patriarch passes to his descendants, the nation is\ncalled after him that begat it. In some sense it prolongs his life and\nspirit and character upon the earth. That is the old-world way of\nlooking at the solidarity of a nation. There is a New Testament fact\nwhich goes even deeper than that. The names which Christ bears are\ngiven to Christ's followers. Is He a King, is He a Priest? He 'makes us\nkings and priests.' Is He anointed the Messiah? God 'hath anointed us\nin Him.' Is He the Light of the World?\n\n'Ye are the lights of the world.' His life passeth into all that love\nHim in the measure of their trust and love. We are one with Jesus if we\nrest upon Him; one in life, one in character, approximating by slow\ndegrees, but surely, to His likeness; and blessed be His name! one in\ndestiny. Then, my friend, if you will only keep near that Lord, trust\nHim, live in the light of His face, go to Him in your weakness, in your\ndespair, in your self-abandonment; wrestle with Him, with the\nsupplication and the tears that He delights to receive, then you will\nbe knit to Him in a union so real and deep that all which is His shall\nbe yours, His life shall be the life of your spirit, His power the\nstrength of your life, His dominion the foundation of your dignity as a\nprince with God, His all-prevailing priesthood the security that your\nprayer shall have power, and the spotless robe of His righteousness the\nfine linen, clean and white, in which arrayed, you shall be found of\nHim, and in Him at last, in peace, 'not having your own righteousness,\nbut that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which\nis of God by faith.'\n\n\n\n\nFEEDING ON ASHES\n\n'He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he\ncannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right\nhand?'--ISAIAH xliv. 20.\n\n\nThe prophet has been pouring fierce scorn on idolaters. They make, he\nsays, the gods they worship. They take a tree and saw it up: one log\nserves for a fire to cook their food, and with compass and pencil and\nplane they carve the figure of a man, and then they bow down to it and\nsay, 'Deliver me, for thou art my god!' He sums up the whole in this\nsentence of my text, in which the tone changes from bitter irony to\nastonished pity. Now, if this were the time and the place, one would\nlike to expand and illustrate the deep thoughts in these words in\nreference to idolatry; thoughts which go dead in the teeth of a great\ndeal that is now supposed to be scientifically established, but which\nmay be none the more true for all that. He asserts that idolatry is\nempty, a feeding on ashes. He declares, in opposition to modern ideas,\nthat the low, gross forms of polytheism and idol-worship are a\ndeparture from a previous higher stage, whereas to-day we are told by a\nhundred voices that all religion begins at the bottom, and slowly\nstruggles up to the top. Isaiah says the very opposite. The pure form\nis the primitive; the secondary form is the gross, which is a\ncorruption. They tell us too, nowadays, that all religion pursues a\nprocess of evolution, and gradually clears itself of its more imperfect\nand carnal elements. Isaiah says, 'he cannot deliver his soul'; and no\nreligion ever worked itself up, unless under the impulse of a\nrevelation from without. That is Isaiah's philosophy of idolatry, and I\nexpect it will be accepted as the true one some day.\n\nBut my text has a wider bearing. It not only describes, in pathetic\nlanguage, the condition of the idolater, but it is true about all\nlives, which are really idolatrous in so far as they make anything else\nthan God their aim and their joy. Every word of this text applies to\nsuch lives--that is to say, to the lives of a good many people\nlistening to me now. And I would fain try to lay the truths here on\nsome hearts. Let me just take them as they lie in the words before me.\n\nI. A life that substantially ignores God is empty of all true\nsatisfaction.\n\n'He feedeth on ashes'! Very little imagination will realise the force\nof that picture. The gritty cinders will irritate the lips and tongue,\nwill dry up the moisture of the mouth, will interfere with the\nbreathing, and there will be no nourishment in a sackful of them.\n\nDear brethren, the underlying truth is this--God is the only food of a\nman's soul. You pick up the skeleton of a bird upon a moor; and if you\nknow anything about osteology--the science of bones--you will see, in\nthe very make of its breast-bone and its wing-bones, the declaration\nthat its destiny was to soar into the blue. You pick up the skeleton of\na fish lying on the beach, and you will see in its very form and\ncharacteristics that its destiny is to expatiate in the depths of the\nsea. And, written on you, as distinctly as flight on the bird, or\nswimming on the fish, is this, that you are meant, by your very make,\nto soar up into the heights of the glory of God, and to plunge deep\ninto the abysses of His infinite love and wisdom. Man is made for God.\n'Whose image and superscription hath it?' said Christ. The coin belongs\nto the king whose head and titles are displayed upon it; and on your\nheart, friend, though a usurper has tried to recoin the piece, and put\nhis own foul image on the top of the original one, is stamped deep that\nyou belong to the King of kings, to God Himself.\n\nFor what does our heart want? A perfect, changeless, all-powerful love.\nAnd what does our mind want? Reliable, guiding, inexhaustible, and yet\naccessible truth. And what does our will want? Commandments which have\nan authoritative ring in their very utterance, and which will serve for\ninfallible guides for our lives. And what do our weak, sinful natures\nwant? Something that shall free our consciences, and shall deliver us\nfrom the burden of our transgressions, and shall calm our fears, and\nshall quicken and warrant our lofty hopes. And what do men whose\ndestiny is to live for ever want but something that shall go with them\nthrough all changes of condition, and, like a light in the midst of the\ndarkest tunnel, shall burn in the passage between this and the other\nworld, and shall never be taken away from them? We want a Person to be\neverything to us. No accumulation of things will satisfy a man. And we\nwant all our treasures to be in one Person, and we need that that\nPerson shall live as long as we live, and as long as we need shall be\nsufficient to supply us. And all this is only the spelling in many\nletters of the one name--God. That is what we want, that, and nothing\nless.\n\nThen the next step that I suggest to you is, that where a man will take\nGod for the food of his spirit, and turn love and mind and will and\nconscience and practical life to Him, seeing Him in everything, and\nseeing all things in Him; saturating, as it were, the universe with the\nthought of God, and recreating his own spirit with communion of\nfriendship to Him; to that man lower goods do first disclose their real\nsweetness, their most poignant delight, and their most solid\nsatisfaction. To say of a world where God has set us, that it is all\n'vanity and vexation of spirit,' goes in flat contradiction to what He\nsaid when, creation finished, He looked upon His world, and proclaimed\nto the waiting seraphim around that 'it was very good.' There is a view\nof the world which calls itself pious, but is really an insult to God;\nand the irreligious pessimism that is fashionable nowadays, as if human\nlife were a great mistake, and everything were mean and poor and\ninsufficient, is contrary to the facts and to the consciousness of\nevery man. But if you make things first which were meant to be second,\nthen you make what was meant to be food 'ashes.' They are all good in\ntheir place. Wealth is good; wisdom is good; success is good; love is\ngood. And all these things may be enjoyed without God, and will each of\nthem yield their proportional satisfaction to the part of our nature to\nwhich they belong. But if you put them first you degrade them; a change\npasses over them at once. A long row of cyphers means nothing; put a\nsignificant digit in front of it, and it means millions. Take away the\ndigit, and it goes back to nothing again. The world, and all its fading\nsweets, if you put God in the forefront of it, and begin the series\nwith Him, is sweet, though it may be fleeting, and is meant to be felt\nby us as such. But if you take away Him, it is a row of cyphers\nsignifying nothing, and able to contribute nothing to the real, deepest\nnecessities of the human soul. And so the old question comes--'Why do\nye spend your money for that which is not bread?' It is bread, if only\nyou will remember first that God is the food of your souls. But if you\ntry to nourish yourselves on it alone, then, as I said, a sackful of\nsuch ashes will not stay your appetite. Oh! brethren, God has not so\nblundered in making the world that He has surrounded us with things\nthat are all lies, but He has so made it that whosoever flies in the\nface of the gracious commandment which is also an invitation, 'Seek ye\nfirst the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,' has not only no\nsecurity that the 'other things' shall 'be added unto him,' but has the\ncertainty that though they were added to him, in degree beyond his\ndreams and highest hopes, they would avail nothing to satisfy the\nhunger of his heart. As George Herbert puts it--\n\n  Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,\n  Embroidered lies, nothing between two dishes,\n  These are the pleasures here.'\n\n'He feedeth on ashes,' because he does not take God for the food of his\nsoul.\n\nII. So, secondly, notice that a life which thus ignores God is\ntragically unaware of its own emptiness.\n\n'A deceived heart hath turned him aside.' That explains how the man\ncomes to fancy that ashes are food. His whole nature is perverted, his\nvision distorted, his power of judgment marred. He is given over to\nhallucinations and illusions and dreams.\n\nThat explains, too, why men persist in this feeding on ashes after all\nexperience. There is no fact stranger or more tragical in our histories\nthan that we do not learn by a thousand failures that the world will\nnot avail to make us restful and blessed. You will see a dog chasing a\nsparrow,--it has chased hundreds before and never caught one. Yet, when\nthe bird rises from the ground, away it goes after it once more, with\neager yelp and rush, to renew the old experience. Ah! that is like what\na great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that\nthe dog has. You have been trying all your lives--and some of you have\ngrey hairs on your heads--to slake your thirst by dipping leaky buckets\ninto empty wells, and you are at it yet. As some one says, 'experience\nthrows a light on the wave behind us,' but it does very little to fling\na light on the sea before us. Experience confirms my text, for I\nventure to put it to the experience of every man--how many moments of\ncomplete satisfaction and rest can you summon up in your memory as\nhaving been yours in the past? 'He that loveth silver shall not be\nsatisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase.'\nAppetite always grows faster than supply. And so, though we have tried\nthem in vain so often, we turn again to the old discredited sources,\nand fancy we shall do better this time. Is it not strange? Is there any\nexplanation of it, other than that of my text? 'A deceived heart hath\nturned him aside.'\n\nAnd that deceived heart, stronger than experience, is also stronger\nthan conscience. Do you not know that you ought to be Christians? Do\nyou not know that it is both wrong and foolish of you to ignore God? Do\nyou not know that you will have to answer for it? Have you not had\nmoments of illumination when there has risen up before you the whole\nvanity of your past lives, and when you have felt 'I have played the\nfool, and erred exceedingly'? And yet, what has come of it all with\nsome of you? Why, what comes of it with the drunkard in the Book of\nProverbs, who, as soon as he has got over the bruises and the sickness\nof his last debauch, says, 'I will seek it yet again.' 'A deceived\nheart hath turned him aside.'\n\nAnd how is it that this hallucination that you have fed full and been\nsatisfied, when all the while your hunger has not been appeased, can\ncontinue to act on us? For the very plain reason that every one of us\nhas in himself a higher and a lower self, a set of desires for the\ngrosser, more earthly, and, using the word in its proper sense, worldly\nsort--that is to say, directed towards material things, and a higher\nset which look right up to God if they were allowed fair play. And of\nthese two sets--which really are one at bottom, if a man would only see\nit--the lower gets the upper hand, and suppresses the higher and the\nnobler. And so in many a man and woman the longing for God is crushed\nout by the grosser delights of sense.\n\nOne sometimes hears of cowardly, unmanly sailors, who in shipwreck push\nthe women and children aside, and struggle to the boats. And there are\nin all of us groups of sturdy mendicants, so to speak, who elbow their\nway to the front, and will have their wants satisfied. What becomes of\nthe gentler group that stand behind, unnoticed and silent? It is an\nawful thing when men and women do, as so many of us do, pervert the\ntastes that are meant to lead them to God, in order to stifle the\nconsciousness that they need a God at all. There are tribes of low\nsavages who are known as 'clay-eaters.' That is what a great many of us\nare; we feed upon the serpent's meat, the dust of the earth, and let\nall the higher heavenly food, which addresses itself first to loftier\ndesires, but also satisfies these lower ones, stand unnoticed, unsought\nfor, unpartaken of. Dear friends, do not be befooled by that\ntreacherous heart of yours, but let the deepest voices in your soul be\nheard. Understand, I beseech you, that their cry is for no created\nperson or thing, and that only God Himself can satisfy them.\n\nIII. And now, lastly, notice that a life thus ignoring God needs a\npower from without to set it free.\n\n'He cannot deliver his soul.' Can you? Do you think you can break the\nhabits of a lifetime? Do you think that, left to yourself, you would\never have any inclination to break them? Certainly, left to yourselves,\nyou will never have the power. These long indulged appetites of ours\ngrow with indulgence; and that which first was light as a cobweb, and\nsoft as a silken bracelet, becomes heavier and solider until it is an\niron fetter upon the limb, which no man can break. There is nothing\nmore awful in life than the influence of habit, so unthinkingly\nacquired, so inexorably certain, so limiting our possibilities and\nenclosing us in its grip.\n\nDear brethren, there is something more wanted than yourselves to break\nthis chain. You have tried, I have no doubt, in the course of your\nlives, more and more resolutely, to cure yourselves of some more or\nless unworthy habits. They may be but mere slight tricks of attitude or\nintonation, or movement. Has your success been such as to encourage you\nto think that you can revolutionise your lives, and dethrone the\ndespots that have ruled over you in the past? I leave the question to\nyourselves. To me it seems that the world of men is certain to go on\nignoring God, and seeking its delight only in the world of creatures,\nunless there comes in an outside power into the heart of the world and\nrevolutionises all things.\n\nIt is that power that I have to preach, the Christ who is the 'Bread of\nGod that came down from Heaven,' who can lift up any soul from the most\nobstinate and long-continued grovelling amongst the transitory things\nof this limited world, and the superficial delights of sense and a\ngratified bodily life; who can bring the forgiveness which is\nessential, the deliverance from the power of evil which is not less\nessential, and who can fill our hearts with Himself the food of the\nworld. He comes to each of us; He comes to you, with the old\nunanswerable question upon His lips, 'Why do you spend your money for\nthat which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth\nnot?' It is unanswerable, for you can give no reason sufficient for\nsuch madness. All that you could say, and you durst not say it to Him,\nis, 'a deceived heart hath turned me aside.' He comes with the old\ngracious word upon His lips, 'Take! eat! this is My body which is\nbroken for you.' He offers us Himself. He can stay all the hungers of\nall mankind. He can feed your heart with love, your mind with truth\nwhich is Himself, your will with His sweet commands.\n\nAs of old He made the thousands sit down upon the grass, and they did\nall eat and were filled, so He stands before the world to-day and says,\n'I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger.' And\nif you will only come to Him--that is to say, will trust yourselves\naltogether to the merits of His sacrifice, and the might of His\nindwelling Spirit--He will take away all the taste for the leeks and\nonions and garlic, and will give you the appetite for heavenly food. He\nwill spread for you a table in the wilderness, and what would else be\nashes will become sweet, wholesome, and nourishing. Nor will He cease\nthere, for in His own good time He will call us to the banqueting house\nabove, where He will make us to sit down to meat, and come forth\nHimself and serve us. Here, hunger often brings pain, and eating is\nfollowed by repletion. But there, appetite and satisfaction will\nproduce each other perpetually, and the blessed ones who then hunger\nwill not hunger so as to feel faintness or emptiness, nor be so filled\nas to cease to desire larger portions of the Bread of God. I beseech\nyou, cry, 'Lord, ever more give us this bread!'\n\n\n\n\nWRITING BLOTTED OUT AND MIST MELTED\n\n'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a\ncloud, thy sins.'--ISAIAH xliv. 22.\n\n\nIsaiah has often and well been called the Evangelical Prophet. Many\nparts of this second half of his prophecies referring to the Messiah\nread like history rather than prediction. But it is not only from the\nclearness with which the great figure of the future king of Israel\nstands out on his page that he deserves that title. Other thoughts\nbelonging to the very substance of the gospel appear in him with a\nvividness and a frequency which well warrants its application to him.\nHe speaks much of the characteristically Christian conceptions of sin,\nforgiveness, and redemption. The whole of the latter parts of this book\nare laden with that burden. They are gathered up in the extraordinarily\npregnant and blessed words of my text, in which metaphors are blended\nwith much disregard to oratorical propriety, in order to bring out the\nwhole fulness of the prophet's meaning. 'I have blotted out'--that\nsuggests a book. 'I have blotted out as a cloud'--that suggests the\nthinning away of morning mists. The prophet blends the two thoughts\ntogether, and on that great revelation of a forgiveness granted before\nit has been asked, and given, not only to one penitent soul wailing out\nlike the abased king of Israel in his deep contrition, 'according to\nthe multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,' but\npromised to a whole people, is rested the great invitation, 'Return\nunto Me, for I have redeemed thee.'\n\nLet me try and bring out, as simply and earnestly as I can, the great\nteaching that is condensed into these words.\n\nI. Observe here the penetrating glance into the very essential\ncharacteristics of all sin.\n\nThere are two words, as you see, employed in my text, 'transgressions'\nand 'sins.' They apply to the same kind of actions, but they look at\nthem from different angles and points of view. They are partially\nsynonymous, but they cover very various conceptions, and if we take\nnote of the original significations of the two words, we get two very\nimportant and often forgotten thoughts.\n\nFor that expression rendered in my text, and rendered correctly\nenough--transgressions--means at bottom, 'rebellion,' the rising up of a\ndisobedient will, not only against a law, but against a lawgiver. There\nwe have a deepening of that solemn fact of a man's wrongdoing, which\nbrings it into immediate connection with God, and marks its foulness by\nreason of that connection.\n\nAh! brethren, it makes all the difference to a man's notions of right\nand wrong, whether he stops on the surface or goes down to the depths;\nwhether he says to himself, 'The thing is a vice; it is wrong; it is\ncontrary to what I ought to be'; or whether he gets down to the darker,\ndeeper, and truer thought, and says, 'The damnable thing about every\nlittle evil that I do is this, that in it _I_--poor puny I--perk myself\nup against God, and say to Him, \"Thou wilt; wilt thou? _I_ shall not!\"'\nSin is rebellion.\n\nAnd so what becomes of the hazy distinction between great sins and\nlittle ones? An overt act of rebellion is of the same gravity,\nwhatsoever may be its form. The man that lifts his sword against the\nsovereign, and the man behind him that holds his horse, are equally\ncriminal. And when once you let in the notion that in all our actions\nwe have to do with a Person, to whom we are bound to be obedient, then\nthe distinction which sophisticates so many people's consciences, and\ndoes such infinite harm in so many lives, between great and small\ntransgressions, disappears altogether. Sin is rebellion.\n\nThen the other word of my text is equally profound and significant. For\nit, literally taken, means--as the words for 'sin' do in other\nlanguages besides the Hebrew--missing a mark. Every wrong thing that\nany man does is beside the mark, at which he, by virtue of his manhood,\nand his very make and nature, ought to aim. It is beside the mark in\nanother sense than that. As some one says, 'A rogue is a roundabout\nfool.' No man ever secures that, and only that, which he aims at by any\ndeparture from the straight path of imperative duty. For if he gets\nsome vulgar and transient titillation of appetite, or satisfaction of\ndesire, he gets along with it something that takes all the gilt off the\ngingerbread, and all the sweetness out of the satisfaction. So that it\nis always a blunder to be bad, and every arrow that is drawn by a\nsinful hand misses the target to which all our arrows should be\npointed, and misses even the poor mark that we think we are aiming at.\nTake these two thoughts with you--I will not dwell on them, but I\ndesire to lay them upon all your hearts--all evil is sin, and every sin\nis rebellion against God, and a blunder in regard to myself.\n\nII. And now I come to the second point of our text, and ask you to note\nthe permanent record which every sin leaves.\n\nI explained in the earlier part of my remarks that we have a case here\nof the thing that horrifies rhetoricians, but does not matter a bit to\na prophet, the blending or confusing of two metaphors. The first of\nthem--'I have blotted out'--suggests a piece of writing, a book, or\nmanuscript of some sort. And the plain English of what lies behind that\nmetaphor is this solemn thought, which I would might blaze before each\nof us, in all our lives, that God's calm and all-comprehensive\nknowledge and remembrance takes and keeps filed, and ready for\nreference, the whole story of our whole acts. There _is_ a book. It is\na violent metaphor, no doubt, but there is a solemn truth underlying it\nwhich we are too apt to forget. The world is groaning nowadays with\ntwo-volume memoirs of men that nobody wants to know anything more\nabout. But every man is ever writing his autobiography with invisible\nbut indelible ink. You have seen those old-fashioned 'manifold writers'\nin your places of business, and the construction of them is this: a\nflimsy sheet of tissue paper, a bit of black to be put in below it, and\nthen another sheet on the other side; and the pen that writes on the\nflimsy top surface makes an impression that is carried through the\nblack to the sheet below, and there is a duplicate which the writer\nkeeps. You and I, upon the flimsinesses of this fleeting--sometimes, we\nthink, futile--life, are penning what is neither flimsy nor futile,\nwhich goes through the opaque dark, and is reproduced and docketed\nyonder. That is what we are doing every day and every minute, writing,\nwriting, writing our own biography. And who is going to read it? Well,\nGod does read it now, and you will have to read it out one day, and how\nwill you like that?\n\nThis metaphor will bear a little further expansion. Scripture tells us,\nand conscience tells us, what manner of manuscript it is that we are\neach so busy adding line upon line to. It is a ledger; it is an\nindictment. Our own handwriting puts down in the ledger our own debts,\nand we cannot deny our own handwriting when we are confronted with it.\nIt is an indictment, and our own hand draws it, and we have to plead\n'guilty,' or 'not guilty,' to it. Which, being translated into plain\nfact, is this--that there goes with all our deeds some sense and\nreality of responsibility for them, and that all our rebellions against\nGod, and our blunders against self, be they great or small, carry with\nthem a sense of guilt and a reality of guilt whether we have the sense\nof it or not. God has a judgment at this moment about every man and\nwoman, based upon the facts of the unfinished biography which they are\nwriting.\n\nMystical and awful, yet blessed and elevating, is the thought that\nnothing--_nothing,_ ever dies; and that what was, is now, and always\nwill be.\n\nAmongst the specimens from the coal measures in a museum you will find\nslabs upon which the tiniest fronds of ferns that grew nobody knows how\nmany millenniums since are preserved for ever. Our lives, when the blow\nof the last hammer lays them open, will, in like manner, bear the\nimpress of the minutest filament of every deed that we have ever done.\n\nBut my metaphor will bear yet further expansion, for this\nautobiographical record which we are busy preparing, which is at once\nledger and indictment, is to be read out one day. There is a great\nscene in the last book of Scripture, the whole solemn significance of\nwhich, I suppose, we shall not understand till we have learned it by\nexperience, but the truth of which we have sufficient premonitions to\nassure us of, which declares that at a given time, on the confines of\nEternity, the Great White Throne is to be set, and the books are to be\nopened, and the dead are judged 'out of the books,' which, the seer\ngoes on to explain, is 'according to their works.' The story of Esther\ntells us how the sleepless monarch in the night-watches sent for the\nrecords of the kingdom and had them read to him. The King who never\nslumbers nor sleeps, in that dawning of heaven's eternal morning, will\nhave the books opened before Him, and my deeds will be read out. He and\nI will hear them, whether any else may hear or no. That is my second\nlesson.\n\nIII. The third is, that we have here suggested the darkening power of\nsin.\n\nThe prophet, as I said, mixes metaphors. 'I have blotted out as a cloud\nthy transgressions.' He uses two words for 'cloud' here; both of them\nmean substantially the same thing, and both suggest the same idea. When\ncloud fills the sky it darkens the earth, and shuts out the sunshine\nand the blue, it closes the petals of the little flowers, it hushes the\nsongs of the birds. Sin makes for the sinning man 'an under-roof of\ndoleful grey,' which shuts out all the glories above. Put that metaphor\ninto plain English, and it is just this, 'Your sins have separated\nbetween you and your God, and your iniquities have hid His face from\nyou that He will not hear.' It is impossible for a man that has his\nheart all stiffened by the rebellion of his will against God's, or all\nseething with unrestrained passions, or perturbed with worldly longings\nand desires, to enter into calm fellowship with God or to keep the\nthought of God clear before his mind. For we know Him, not by sense nor\nby reason, but by sympathy and by feeling. And whatsoever comes in to\ndisturb a man's purity, comes in to hinder his vision of God. 'Blessed\nare the pure in heart, for they'--and they only--'shall see God.'\nWhenever from the undrained swamps of my own passions and sensualities,\nor from the as malarious though loftier grounds of my own self-regard,\nbe I student or thinker, or moral man, there rise up these light mists,\nthey will fill the sky and hide the sun. On a winter's night you will\nsee the Pleiades, or other bright constellations, varying in brilliancy\nfrom moment to moment as some invisible cloud-wrack floats across the\nheavens. So, brother, every evil thing that we do rises up and gets\ndiffused through our atmosphere, and blots out from our vision the face\nof God Himself, the blessed Son.\n\nNot only by reason of dimming and darkening my thoughts of Him is my\nsin rightly compared to an obscuring cloud; but the comparison also\nholds good because, just as the blanket of a wet mist swathing the\nwintry fields prevents the sunshine from falling upon them in blessing,\nso the accumulated effect of my evil doings and evil designings and\nthinkings and willings comes between me and all spiritual blessings\nwhich God can bestow, so that the very light of light, the highest\nblessings that He yearns to give, and we faint for want of possessing,\nare impossible even to His love to communicate until the cloud is swept\naway. So my sin darkens my soul, and separates me from the light of\nlife.\n\nBut the metaphor carries with it, too, a suggestion of the limitations\nof the power of sin. For when the cloud is thickest and most obscuring\nit only hugs the earth, and rises but a little way Into the heavens;\nand far above it the blue is as blue, and the sunshine as bright, as if\nthere were no mist or fog in the lower regions. Therefore, let us\nremember that, while the cloud must veil us from the light, the light\nis above it, and 'every cloud that veileth love' may some day be\nthinned away by the love it veils.\n\nIV. That brings me to the last word of my text,--viz. the prophet's\nteaching as to the removal of the sin.\n\nWe have to carry both the metaphors together with us here. 'I have\nblotted out'--that is, as erasing from a book. 'I have blotted out as a\ncloud'--that is, the thinning away of the mist. The blurred and stained\npage can be cancelled. Chemicals will take the ink out. 'The blood of\nJesus Christ cleanseth from all sin'; and it, passed over all that foul\nrecord, makes it pure and clean. 'What I have written, I have written,'\nsaid Pilate in his obstinacy. 'What I have written, I have written,'\nwails many a man in the sense of the irrevocableness of his past.\nBrother! be not afraid. Christ can take away all that stained record,\nand give you back the page ready to receive holier words.\n\nThe cloud is thinned away. What thins the cloud? As I have said, the\nlight which the cloud obscures, shining on the upper surface of it,\ndissipates it layer by layer till it gets down at last to the\nlowermost, and then rends a gap in it, and sends the shaft of the\nsunbeam through on to the green earth. And that is only a highly\nimaginative way of saying that it is the love against which we\ntransgress that thins away the cloud of transgression, and at last, as\nthe placid moon, by simply shining silently on, will sweep the whole\nsky clear of its clouds, dissipates them all, and leaves the calm blue.\nGod forgives. The ledger account--if I may use so grossly commercial a\nfigure--is settled in full; the indictment is endorsed, 'acquitted.' He\nremembers the sins only to breathe into the child's heart the assurance\nof pardon, and no obstacle rises by reason of forgiven transgression\nbetween the sinning man and the reconciled God.\n\nNow, all this preaching of Isaiah's is enlarged and confirmed, and to\nsome extent the _rationale_ of it is set before us in the great Gospel\ntruth of forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Unless we know\nthat truth, we may well stand amazed and questioning as to whether a\nrighteous God, administering a rigorous universe, can ever pardon sin.\nAnd unless we know that by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, granted to our\nspirits, our whole nature may be remade and moulded, we might well be\ntempted to say, Ah! the Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the\nleopard his spots. But Jesus Christ can change more than skin, even the\nheart and spirit, the inmost depths of the nature.\n\nNow, brother, my text speaks of this great blotting out as a past fact.\nIt is so in the divine mind with regard to each of us, because Christ's\ngreat work has made reconciliation and atonement for all the sins of\nall the world. And on the fact that it is past is based the\nexhortation, 'Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.' God does not\nsay, 'Come back and I will forgive'; He does not say, 'Return and I\nwill blot out'; but He says, 'Return, for I _have_ blotted out.' Though\naccomplished, the forgiveness has to be appropriated by individual\nfaith. The sins of the world have been borne, and borne away, by the\nLamb of God, but your sins are not borne away unless your hand is laid\non this head.\n\nIf it is, then you do not need to say, 'What I have written is written,\nand it cannot be blotted out.' But as in the old days a monk would take\nsome manuscript upon which filthy stories about heathen gods and\nfoolish fables were written, and erase these to write the legends of\nsaints, or perhaps the words of the Gospels themselves; so on our\nhearts, which have been scribbled all over with obscenities and\nfollies, He will write His new best name of Love, and we may be\nepistles of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God.\n\n\n\n\nHIDDEN AND REVEALED\n\n'Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the\nSaviour.... I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth;\nI said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me in vain: I the Lord speak\nrighteousness, I declare things that are right.'--ISAIAH xlv, 15,19.\n\n\nThe former of these verses expresses the thoughts of the prophet in\ncontemplating the close of a great work of God's power which issues in\nthe heathen's coming to Israel and acknowledging God. He adores the\ndepth of the divine counsels which, by devious ways and after long\nages, have led to this bright result. And as he thinks of all the\nlong-stretching preparations, all the apparently hostile forces which\nhave been truly subsidiary, all the generations during which these\nEgyptian and Ethiopian tribes have been the enemies and oppressors of\nthat Israel whom they at last acknowledge for the dwelling-place of\nGod, and enemies of that Jehovah before whom they finally bow down, he\nfeels that he has no measuring-line to fathom the divine purposes, and\nbows his face to the ground in reverent contemplation with that word\nupon his lips: 'Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of\nIsrael, the Saviour.' It is a parallel to the apostolic words, 'O the\ndepths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How\nunsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.'\n\nBut such thoughts are but a half truth, and may very easily become in\nmen's minds a whole error, and therefore they are followed by a\nmarvellous section in which the Lord Himself speaks, and of which the\nwhole burden is--the clearness and fulness with which God makes Himself\nknown to men. True it is that there are depths inaccessible in the\ndivine nature. True it is that there are mysteries unrevealed in the\nmethod of the divine procedure, and especially in that of the relation\nof heathen tribes to His gospel and His love. True it is that there are\nmysteries opened in the very word of His grace. But notwithstanding all\nthis--it is also true that He makes Himself known to us all, that He\ndeclares righteousness, that He calls us to seek Him, and that He wills\nto be found and known by us.\n\nThe collocation of these two passages may be taken, then, as\nrepresenting the two phases of the Divine Manifestation, the obscurity\nwhich must ever be associated with all our finite knowledge of God, and\nthe clear sunlight in which blazes all that we need to know of Him.\n\nI. After all revelation, God is hidden.\n\nThere is revelation of His Name in all His works. His action must be\nall self-manifestation. But after all it is obscure and hidden.\n\n1. Nature hides while it reveals.\n\nNature's revelation is unobtrusive.\n\nGod is concealed behind second causes.\n\nGod is concealed behind regular modes of working (laws).\n\nNature's revelation is partial, disclosing only a fragment of the name.\n\nNature's revelation is ambiguous. Dark shadows of death and pain in the\nsensitive world, of ruin and convulsions, of shivered stars, seem to\ncontradict the faith that all is very good; so that it has been\npossible for men to drop their plummet in the deep and say, 'I find no\nGod,' and for others to fall into Manichaeism or some form or other of\ndualism.\n\n2. Providence hides while it reveals.\n\nThat is the sphere in which men are most familiar with the idea of\nmystery.\n\nThere is much of which we do not see the issue. The process is not\ncompleted, and so the end is not visible.\n\nEven when we believe that 'to Him' and 'for good' are 'all things,' we\ncannot tell how all will come circling round. We are like men looking\nonly at one small segment of an ellipse which is very eccentric.\n\nThere is much of which we do not see the consistency with the divine\ncharacter.\n\nWe are confronted with stumbling-blocks in the allotment of earthly\nconditions; in the long ages and many tribes which are without\nknowledge of God; in the sore sorrows, national and individual.\n\nWe can array a formidable host. But it is to be remembered that\nrevelation actually increases these. It is just because we know so much\nof God that we feel them so keenly. I suppose the mysteries of the\ndivine government trouble others outside the sphere of revelation but\nlittle. The darkness is made visible by the light.\n\n3. Even in 'grace' God is hidden while revealed.\n\nThe Infinite and Eternal cannot be grasped by man.\n\nThe conception of infinity and eternity is given us by revelation, but\nit is not comprehended so that its contents are fully known. The words\nare known, but their full meaning is not, and no revelation can make\nthem, known to finite intelligences.\n\nGod dwells in light inaccessible, which is darkness.\n\nRevelation opens abysses down which we cannot look. It raises and\nleaves unsettled as many questions as it solves.\n\nThe telescope resolves many nebulae, but only to bring more\nunresolvable ones into the field of vision.\n\nNow all this is but one side of the truth. There is a tendency in some\nminds to underrate what is plain because all is not plain. For some\nminds the obscure has a fascination, apart altogether from its nature,\njust because it is obscure. It is a noble emulation to press forward\nand 'still to be closing up what we know not with what we know.' But\nneither in science nor in religion shall we make progress if we do not\ntake heed of the opposing errors of thinking that all is seen, and of\nthinking that what we have is valueless because there are gaps in it.\nThe constellations are none the less bright nor immortal fires, though\nthere be waste places in heaven where nothing but opaque blackness is\nseen. In these days it is especially needful to insist both on the\nincompleteness of all our religious knowledge, and to say that--\n\nII. Notwithstanding all obscurity, God has amply revealed Himself.\n\nThough God hides Himself, still there comes from heaven the voice--'I\nhave not spoken in secret,' Now these words contain these thoughts--\n\n1. That whatever darkness there may be, there is none due to the manner\nof the revelation.\n\nGod has not spoken in secret, in a corner. There are no arbitrary\ndifficulties made or unnecessary darkness left in His revelation. _We_\nhave no right to say that He has left difficulties to test our faith.\n_He_ Himself has never said so. He deals with us in good faith, doing\nall that can be done to enlighten, regard being had to still loftier\nconsiderations, to the freedom of the human will, to the laws which He\nhas Himself imposed on our nature, and the purposes for which we are\nhere. It is very important to grasp this. We have been told as much as\n_can_ be told. Contrast with such a revelation the cave-muttered\noracles of heathenism and their paltering double sense. Be sure that\nwhen God speaks, He speaks clearly and to all, and that in Christianity\nthere is no esoteric teaching for a few initiated only, while the\nmultitude are put off with shows.\n\n2. That whatever obscurity there may be, there is none which hides the\ndivine invitation or Him from those who obey it.\n\n'I have never said ... seek ye Me in vain.' Much is obscure if\nspeculative completeness is looked for, but the moral relations of God\nand man are not obscure.\n\nAll which the heart needs is made known. His revelation is clearly His\nseeking us, and His revelation is His gracious call to us to seek Him.\nHe is ever found by those who seek. They have not to press through\nobscurities to find Him, but the desire to possess must precede\npossession in spiritual matters. He is no hidden God, lurking in\nobscurity and only to be found by painful search. They who 'seek' Him\nknow where to find Him, and seek because they know.\n\n3. That whatever may be obscure, the Revelation of righteousness is\nclear.\n\nWe have to face speculative difficulties in plenty, but the great fact\nremains that in Revelation steady light is focussed on the moral\nqualities of the divine Nature and especially on His righteousness.\n\nAnd the revelation of the divine righteousness reaches its greatest\nbrightness, as that of all the divine Nature does, in the Person and\nwork of Jesus. Very significantly the idea of God's righteousness is\nfully developed in the immediately subsequent context. There we find\nthat attribute linked in close and harmonious conjunction with what\nshallower thought is apt to regard as being in antagonism to it. He\ndeclares Himself to be 'a just (righteous) God and a Saviour.' So then,\nif we would rightly conceive of His righteousness, we must give it a\nwider extension than that of retributive justice or cold, inflexible\naloofness from sinners. It impels God to be man's saviour. And with\nsimilar enlarging of popular conceptions there follows: 'In the Lord is\nrighteousness and strength,' and therefore, 'In the Lord shall all the\nseed of Israel be justified (declared and made righteous) and shall\nglory'--then, the divine Righteousness is communicative.\n\nAll these thoughts, germinal in the prophet's words, are set in fullest\nlight, and certified by the most heart-moving facts, in the Person and\nwork of Jesus Christ. He 'declares at this time His righteousness, that\nHe might Himself be righteous and the maker righteous of them that have\nfaith in Jesus.' Whatever is dark, this is clear, that 'Jehovah our\nRighteousness' has come to us in His Son, in whom seeking Him we shall\nnever seek in vain, but 'be found in Him, not having a righteousness of\nour own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith\nin Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'\n\nIf the great purpose of revelation is to make us know that God loves\nus, and has given us His Son that in Him we may know Him and possess\nHis Righteousness, difficulties and obscurities in its form or in its\nsubstance take a very different aspect. What need we more than that\nknowledge and possession? Be not robbed of them.\n\nMany things are not written in the book of the divine Revelation,\nwhether it be that of Nature, of human history, or of our own spirits,\nor even of the Gospel, but these are written that we may believe that\nJesus is the Son of God, and believing, may have life in His name.\n\n\n\n\nA RIGHTEOUSNESS NEAR AND A SWIFT SALVATION\n\n'Hearken unto Me, ye stout-hearted, that are far from righteousness: I\nbring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My salvation\nshall not tarry.'--ISAIAH xlvi. 12,13.\n\n\nGod has promised that He will dwell with him that is humble and of a\ncontrite heart. Jesus has shed the oil of His benediction on the poor\nin spirit. It is the men who form the exact antithesis to these\ncharacters who are addressed here. The 'stout-hearted' are those who,\nbeing untouched in conscience and ignorant of their sin, are\nself-reliant and almost defiant before God. That temper is branded\nhere, though, of course, there is a sense in which a stout heart is a\npriceless possession, but that sort of stoutness of heart is best\nsecured by the contrite of heart. Those who are far from righteousness\nare those who are not only sinful in act, but do not desire to be\notherwise, having no approximation or drawing towards a nobler life, by\naspiration or effort.\n\nTo such men God speaks, as in the tone of a royal proclamation; and\nwhat should we expect to hear pealing from His lips? Words of rebuke,\nwarning, condemnation? No; His voice is gentle and wooing, and does not\nthreaten blows, but proffers blessings: 'I will bring near My\nrighteousness. It shall not be far off,' though the stout-hearted maybe\n'far from' it. Here we have a divine proclamation of a divine Love that\nwill not let us away from its presence; of a divine Work for us that is\nfinished without us; of an all-sufficient Gift to us.\n\nI. A divine proclamation of a divine Love that will not let us away\nfrom its presence.\n\nThere is a great contest between God and man: man seeking to withdraw\nfrom God, and God following in patient, persistent love.\n\n1. In general terms God keeps near us, however far away we go from Him.\n\nThink of our forgetfulness of Him and His continual thought of us.\nThink of our alienated hearts and His unchanging love.\n\nWe cannot turn away His care, we cannot exhaust His compassion, we\ncannot alienate His heart. All men everywhere are objects of these, as\nin every corner of the world the sky is overhead, and all lands have\nsunshine.\n\nWhat a picture of divine patience and placability that truth points for\nus! It shows the Father coming after His prodigal son, and so surpasses\neven the pearl of the parables.\n\n2. The special reference to Christ's work.\n\nThat work is the exhibition in manhood and to men of a perfect\nrighteousness.\n\nIt is the implanting in the corrupt world of a new beginning. It is the\nclothing us with Christ's righteousness, for which we are forgiven and\nin which we are sanctified.\n\nSo Christ's work is God's coming to bring near His righteousness, and\nnow 'it is nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart.'\n\nII. A divine proclamation of a divine Work which is finished without us.\n\nThe divine righteousness and its consequence are here represented as\nbeing brought near while men are still 'stout-hearted.' We must feel\nthe emphasis laid on '_I_ will bring near _My_ righteousness,' and the\nimpression of merciful speed given by 'My salvation shall not tarry.'\nThe whole suggests such thoughts as these:--\n\nThe divine love is not drawn out by anything in us, but pours out on\nus, even while we are far off and indifferent to it. His bringing near\nof righteousness, and setting His salvation to run very swiftly side by\nside with it, originates in Himself. It is the self-impelled and\nself-fed flow of a fountain, and we need no pump or machinery to draw\nit forth.\n\nThe divine work is accomplished without man's co-operation.\n\n'It is finished,' was Christ's dying cry. But what is\nfinished?--Bringing the righteousness near. What still remains to be\ndone?--Making it mine. And that is accomplished by faith.\n\nIt is mine if by faith I claim it as mine, and knit myself with Him who\nis righteousness and salvation for every man that they may be\naccessible to and possessed by any man.\n\nA man may be far from righteousness though it is near him and all\naround him. Like Gideon's fleece, he may be dry when all is wet, or\nlike some rock in a field, barren and sullen, while all around the corn\nis waving.\n\nIII. The proclamation of an all-sufficient Gift.\n\nRighteousness, salvation, glory, are here brought together in\nsignificant sequence. They are but several names for the same divine\ngift, looked at from different angles. A diamond flashes varying\nprismatic hues from its different facets.\n\nThat encyclopaedical gift, which in regard to man considered as sinful\nbrings pardon and a new nature 'in righteousness and holiness of\ntruth,' brings deliverance from peril and from every form of evil and\ndeath, to him considered as exposed to consequences of sin both\nphysical and moral, and a true though limited participation in the\ndivine glory, even now, with the hope of entering into the blaze of it\nhereafter, to him as considered as made in the divine image and having\nlost it.\n\nAnd all this wonderful triple hope, rapturous and impossible as it\nseems when we think of man as he is, and of each of ourselves as we\neach feel ourselves to be, is for us a sober certainty and a fact\nsufficiently accomplished, to give firm ground for our largest\nexpectations if we hold fast by Jesus who brings that all-sufficient\ngift of God within reach of each of us. The divine patience and love\nfollow us in all our wild wanderings, praying us 'with much entreaty\nthat we should receive the gift.' Jesus, who is God's righteousness and\nlove incarnate, beseeches us to take Him, and in Him righteousness,\nsalvation, and glory.\n\n\n\n\nA RIVER OF PEACE AND WAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS\n\n'Oh that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace\nbeen as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the\nsea.'--ISAIAH xlviii. 18.\n\n\nI. The Wonderful Thought of God here.\n\nThis is an exclamation of disappointment; of thwarted love. The good\nwhich He purposed has been missed by man's fault, and He regards the\nfaulty Israel with sorrow and pity as a would-be benefactor balked of a\nkind intention might do. O Jerusalem! 'how often would I have gathered\nthee.' 'If thou hadst known ... the things that belong unto thy peace!'\n\nII. Man's opposition to God's loving purpose for us.\n\nTo have hearkened to His commandments would have enabled Him to let His\nkindness have its way.\n\nIt is not only our act contrary to God's Law, but the source of that\nact in our antagonistic will, which fatally bars out the possibility of\nGod's intended good from us. It is 'not hearkening' which is the root\nof not doing.\n\nThat possibility of lifting up our puny wills against the\nall-sovereign, Infinite Will is the mystery of mysteries.\n\nThe fact that the mysterious possibility becomes an actuality in us is\nstill more mysterious. If we could solve those two mysteries, we should\nbe far on the way to solve all the mysteries of man's relation to God,\nand God's to man.\n\nA will absolutely submitted to Him is His great ideal of human nature.\nAnd that ideal we all can thwart, and alas, alas! we all do. It is the\ndeepest mystery; it is the blackest sin; it is the intensest folly.\n\nSin is negative as well as positive. Not to hearken is as bad as to act\nin dead opposition to.\n\nIII. The lost good.\n\nThe great purpose of the divine Commandment is to show us, for our own\nsakes, the path that leads to all blessedness.\n\nPeace and Righteousness, or, in more modern words, all well-being and\nall goodness, are the sure results of taking God's expressed Will as\nthe guide of life.\n\nThese two are inseparable. Indeed they are one and the same fact of\nhuman experience, looked at from two points of view.\n\nThe force of the metaphor in both clauses is substantially the same. It\nsuggests in both--Abundance--Continuity--Uninterrupted Succession. But\nregarded separately each has its own fair promise. 'As a\nriver'--flowing softly, not stagnant--that suggests the calm and gentle\nflow of a placid and untroubled stream refreshing and fertilising. 'As\nwaves of the sea,' these suggest greater force than 'river.' The image\nspeaks of a righteousness massive and having power and a resistless\nswing in it. It is the more striking because the waves of the sea are\nthe ordinary emblem of rebellious power. But here they stand as emblem\nof the strength of a submissive, not of a rebellious, will. In that\nobedience human nature rises to a higher type of strength than it ever\nattains while in opposition to the Source of all strength.\n\nContrast--'Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.'\n\nIV. The lost good regained.\n\nGod has yet a method to accomplish His loving desire. Even those who\nhave not hearkened may receive through Christ the good which they have\nsinned away. In Him is peace; in Him is Righteousness, which comes from\nfaith. 'Hear, and your soul shall live.'\n\n\n\n\nEXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE\n\n\nALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.\n\nISAIAH AND JEREMIAH\n\nIsaiah, Chaps. XLIX to End. Jeremiah.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nFEEDING IN THE WAYS (Isaiah xlix. 9)\n\nTHE MOUNTAIN ROAD (Isaiah xlix. 11)\n\nTHE WRITING ON GOD'S HANDS (Isaiah xlix. 16)\n\nTHE SERVANT'S WORDS TO THE WEARY (Isaiah l. 4)\n\nTHE SERVANT'S OBEDIENCE (Isaiah l. 5)\n\nTHE SERVANT'S VOLUNTARY SUFFERINGS (Isaiah l. 6)\n\nTHE SERVANT'S INFLEXIBLE RESOLVE (Isaiah l. 7)\n\nTHE SERVANT'S TRIUMPH (Isaiah l. 8, 9)\n\nA CALL TO FAITH (Isaiah l. 10)\n\nDYING FIRES (Isaiah l. 11)\n\nTHE AWAKENING OF ZION (Isaiah lii. 1)\n\nA PARADOX OF SELLING AND BUYING (Isaiah lii. 3)\n\nCLEAN CARRIERS (Isaiah lii. 11)\n\nMARCHING ORDERS (Isaiah lii. 11, 12)\n\nTHE ARM OF THE LORD (Isaiah liii. 1)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--I. (Isaiah liii. 2,3)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--II. (Isaiah liii. 4-6)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--III. (Isaiah liii. 7-9)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--IV. (Isaiah liii. 10)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--V. (Isaiah liii. 11)\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--VI. (Isaiah liii. 12)\n\nTHE PASSING AND THE PERMANENT (Isaiah liv. 10)\n\nTHE CALL TO THE THIRSTY (Isaiah lv. 1-13)\n\nTHE GREAT PROCLAMATION (Isaiah lv. 1)\n\nGOD'S WAYS AND MAN'S (Isaiah lv. 8, 9)\n\nCAN WE MAKE SURE OF TO-MORROW? (Isaiah lvi. 12)\n\nFLIMSY GARMENTS (Isaiah lix. 6; Rev. iii. 18)\n\nTHE SUNLIT CHURCH (Isaiah lx. 1-3)\n\nWALLS AND GATES (Isaiah lx. 18)\n\nTHE JOY-BRINGER (Isaiah lxi. 3)\n\nTHE HEAVENLY WORKERS AND THE EARTHLY WATCHERS (Isaiah lxii. 1, 6, 7)\n\nMIGHTY TO SAVE (Isaiah lxiii. 1)\n\nTHE WINEPRESS AND ITS TREADER (Isaiah lxiii. 2, 3)\n\nTHE SYMPATHY OF GOD (Isaiah lxiii. 9)\n\nHOW TO MEET GOD (Isaiah lxiv. 5)\n\n'THE GOD OF THE AMEN' (Isaiah lxv. 16)\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF JEREMIAH\n\nGOD'S LAWSUIT (Jer. ii. 9)\n\nSTIFF-NECKED IDOLATERS AND PLIABLE CHRISTIANS (Jer. ii. 11)\n\nFOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS (Jer. ii. 13)\n\nFORSAKING JEHOVAH (Jer. ii. 19)\n\nA COLLOQUY BETWEEN A PENITENT AND GOD (Jer. iii. 21, 22)\n\nA QUESTION FOR THE BEGINNING (Jer. v. 31)\n\nPOSSESSING AND POSSESSED (Jer. x. 16, R.V.)\n\nCALMS AND CRISES (Jer. xii. 5, R.V.)\n\nAN IMPOSSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE (Jer. xiii. 23; 2 Cor. v. 17; Rev. xxi.\n5)\n\nTRIUMPHANT PRAYER (Jer. xiv. 7-9)\n\nSIN'S WRITING AND ITS ERASURE (Jer. xvii, 1; 2 Cor. iii. 3; Col. ii. 14)\n\nTHE HEATH IN THE DESERT AND THE TREE BY THE RIVER (Jer. xvii. 6, 8)\n\nA SOUL GAZING ON GOD (Jer. xvii. 12)\n\nTWO LISTS OF NAMES (Jer. xvii. 13; Luke x. 20)\n\nYOKES OF WOOD AND OF IRON (Jer. xxviii. 13)\n\nWHAT THE STABLE CREATION TEACHES (Jer. xxxi. 36)\n\nWHAT THE IMMENSE CREATION TEACHES (Jer. xxxi. 37)\n\nA THREEFOLD DISEASE AND A TWOFOLD CURE (Jer. xxxiii. 8)\n\nTHE RECHABITES (Jer. xxxv. 16)\n\nJEREMIAH'S ROLL BURNED AND REPRODUCED (Jer. xxxvi. 32)\n\nZEDEKIAH (Jer. xxxvii. 1)\n\nTHE WORLD'S WAGES TO A PROPHET (Jer. xxxvii. 11-21)\n\nTHE LAST AGONY (Jer. xxxix. 1-10)\n\nEBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN (Jer. xxxix. 18)\n\nGOD'S PATIENT PLEADINGS (Jer. xliv. 4)\n\nTHE SWORD OF THE LORD (Jer. xlvii. 6, 7)\n\nTHE KINSMAN-REDEEMER (Jer. 1. 34)\n\n'As SODOM' (Jer. lii. 1-11)\n\n\n\n\nFEEDING IN THE WAYS\n\n'They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high\nplaces.' ISAIAH xlix. 9.\n\n\nThis is part of the prophet's glowing description of the return of the\nCaptives, under the figure of a flock fed by a strong shepherd. We have\noften seen, I suppose, a flock of sheep driven along a road, some of\nthem hastily trying to snatch a mouthful from the dusty grass by the\nwayside. Little can they get there; they have to wait until they reach\nsome green pasture in which they can be folded. This flock shall 'feed\nin the ways'; as they go they will find nourishment. That is not all;\nthe top of the mountains is not the place where grass grows. _There_\nare bare, savage cliffs, from which every particle of soil has been\nwashed by furious torrents, or the scanty vegetation has been burnt up\nby the fierce 'sunbeams like swords.' There the wild deer and the\nravens live, the sheep feed down in the valleys. But '_their_ pasture\nshall be in all high places.' The literal rendering is even more\nemphatic: 'Their pasture shall be in all _bare heights_,' where a\nsudden verdure springs to feed them according to their need. Whilst,\nthen, this prophecy is originally intended simply to suggest the\nabundant supplies that were to be provided for the band of exiles as\nthey came back from Babylon, there lie in it great and blessed\nprinciples which belong to the Christian pilgrimage, and the flock that\nfollows Christ.\n\nThey who follow Him, says my text, to begin with, shall find in the\ndusty paths of common life, and in all the smallnesses and distractions\nof daily duty, nourishment for their spirits. Do you remember what\nJesus said? 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to\nfinish His work.' We, too, may have the same meat to eat which the\nworld knows not of, and He will give that hidden manna to the combatant\nas well as 'to him that overcometh.' In the measure in which 'we follow\nthe Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' in that measure do we find--like the\nstores of provisions that Arctic explorers come upon, _cached_ for\nthem--food in the wilderness, and nourishment for our highest life in\nour common work. That is a great promise, and it is a great duty.\n\nIt is a promise the fulfilment of which is plainly guaranteed by the\nvery nature of the case. Religion is meant to direct conduct, and the\nsmallest affairs of life are to come under its imperial control, and\nthe only way by which a man can get any good out of his Christianity is\nby living it. It is when he sets to work on the principles of the\nGospel that the Gospel proves itself to be a reality in his blessed\nexperience. It is when he does the smallest duties from the great\nmotives that these great motives are strengthened by exercise, as every\nmotive is. If you wish to weaken the influence of any principle upon\nyou, do not work it out, and it will wither and die. If a man would\ngrasp the fulness of spiritual sustenance which lies in the Gospel of\nJesus Christ, let him go to work on the basis of the Gospel, and he\n'shall feed in the ways,' and common duties will minister strength to\nhim instead of taking strength from him. We can make the smallest daily\nincidents subserve our growth and our spiritual strength, because, if\nwe thus do them, they will bring to us attestations of the reality of\nthe faith by which we act on them. For convincing a man that a lifebuoy\nis reliable there is nothing like having had experience of its power to\nhold his head above the waves when he has been cast into them. _Live_\nyour Christianity, and it will attest itself. There will come, besides\nthat, the blessed memory of past times in which we trusted in the Lord\nand were lightened, we obeyed God and found His promises true, we\nrisked all for God and found that we had all more abundantly. It is\nonly an active Christian life that is a nourished and growing Christian\nlife.\n\nThe food which God gives us is not only to be taken by faith, but it\nhas to be made ours more abundantly by work. Saint Augustine said in\nanother connection, 'Believe, and thou hast eaten.' Yes, that is\nblessedly true, but it needs to be supplemented by 'they shall feed _in\nthe ways_,' and their work will bring them nourishment.\n\nBut this is a great duty as well as a great promise. How many of us\nChristian people have but little experience of getting nearer to God\nbecause of our daily occupations? To by far the larger number of us, in\nby far the greater space of time in our lives, our daily work is a\ndistraction, and tends to obscure the face of God to us and to shut us\nout from many of the storehouses of sustenance by which a quiet,\ncontemplative faith is refreshed. Therefore we need times of special\nprayer and remoteness from daily work; and there will be very little\nrealisation of the nourishing power of common duties unless there is\nfamiliar to us also the entrance into the 'secret place of the Most\nHigh,' where He feeds His children on the bread of life.\n\nWe must not neglect either of these two ways by which our souls are\nfed, and we must ever remember that the reason why so many Christian\npeople cannot set to their seal that this promise is true, lies mainly\nin this, that the ways on which they go are either not the ways that\nthe Shepherd has walked in before them, or that they are trodden in\nforgetfulness of Him and without looking to His guidance. The work that\nis to minister to the Christian life must be work conformed to the\nChristian ideal, and if we fling ourselves into our secular business,\nas it is called--if you go to your counting-houses and shops, and I go\nto my desk and books, and forget the Shepherd--then there is no grass\nby the wayside for such sheep. But if we subject our wills to Him, and\nif in all that we do we are trying to refer to Him and are working in\ndependence on Him, and for Him, then the poorest work, the meanest, the\nmost entirely secular, will be a source of Christian nourishment and\nblessing. We have to settle for ourselves whether we shall be\ndistracted, torn asunder by pressure of cares and responsibilities and\nactivities, or whether, far below the agitated surface which is ruffled\nby the winds, and borne along by the tidal wave, there will be a great\ncentral depth, still but not stagnant--whether we shall be fed, or\nstarved in our Christian life, by the pressure of our worldly tasks.\nThe choice is before us. 'They shall feed in the ways,' if the ways are\nChrist's ways, and He is at every step their Shepherd.\n\nFurther, my text suggests that for those who follow the Lamb there\nshall be greenness and pasture on the bare heights. Strip that part of\nour text of its metaphor, and it just comes to the blessed old thought,\nwhich I hope many of us have known to be a true one, that the times of\nsorrow are the times when a Christian may have the most of the presence\nand strength of God. 'In the days of famine they shall be satisfied,'\nand up among the most barren cliffs, where there is not a bite for any\nfour-footed creature, they shall find springing grass and watered\npastures. Our prophet puts the same thought, under a kindred though\nsomewhat different metaphor, in another place in this book, where he\nsays, 'I will open rivers in high places.' That is clean contrary to\nnature. The rivers do not run on the mountain-tops, but down in the low\nground. But for us, as the darkness thickens, the pillar may glow the\nbrighter; as the gloom increases, the glory may grow; the less of\nnutriment or refreshment earth affords, the more abundantly does God\nspread His stores before us, if we are wise enough to take them. It is\nan experience, I suppose, common to all devout men, that their times of\nmost rapid growth were their times of trouble. In nature winter stops\nall vegetable life. In grace the growing time is the winter. They tell\nus that up in the Arctic regions the reindeer will scratch away the\nsnow, and get at the succulent moss that lies beneath it. When that\nShepherd, Who Himself has known sorrows, leads us up into those barren\nregions of perpetual cold and snow, He teaches us, too, how to brush it\naway, and find what we need buried and kept safe and warm beneath the\nwhite shroud. It is the prerogative of the Christian soul not to be\nwithout trouble, but to turn the trouble into nourishment, and to feed\non the barest heights.\n\nMay I turn these latter words of our text a somewhat different way,\nattaching to them a meaning which does not belong to them, but by way\nof accommodation? If Christian people want to have the bread of God\nabundantly, they must climb. It is to those who live on the heights\nthat provision comes according to their need. If you would have your\nChristian life starved, go down into the fertile valleys. Remember\nAbraham and Lot, and the choice which each made. The one said: 'I want\ncattle and wealth, and I am going down to Sodom. Never mind about the\nvices of the inhabitants. There is money to be made there.' Abraham\nsaid: 'I am going to stay up here on the heights, the breezy, barren\nheights,' and God stayed beside him. If we go down we starve our souls.\nIf we desire them to be fat and flourishing, nourished with the hidden\nmanna, then we must go up. 'Their pasture shall be in all high places.'\n\nBefore I finish, let me remind you of the application of the words of\nmy text, which we owe to the New Testament. The context runs, as you\nwill remember, 'they shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the\nheat nor the sun smite them. For He that hath mercy on them shall lead\nthem, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.' And you\nremember the beautiful variation and deepening of this promise in that\ngreat saying which the Seer in the Apocalypse gives us, when he speaks\nof those 'who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' and are led 'by\nliving fountains of water,' where 'God shall wipe away all tears from\ntheir eyes.' So we are entitled to believe that on the loftiest\nheights, far above this valley of weeping, there shall be immortal\nfood, and that on the high places of the mountains of God there shall\nbe pasture that never withers. The prophet Ezekiel has a similar\nvariation of my text, and transfers it from the captives on their march\nhomewards, to the happy pilgrims who have reached home, when he says:\n'I will bring them unto their own land, and feed them upon the\nmountains of Israel'--when they have reached them at last after the\nweary march--' I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the\nmountains of Israel shall their fold be; there shall they lie in a good\nfold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of\nIsrael.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE MOUNTAIN ROAD\n\n'And I will make all My mountains a way, and My highways shall be\nexalted.'--ISAIAH xlix. 11.\n\n\nThis grand prophecy is far too wide to be exhausted by the return of\nthe exiles. There gleamed through it the wider redemption and the true\nreturn of the real captives. The previous promises all find their\nfulfilment in the experiences of the soul on its journey back to God.\nHere we have two characteristics of that journey.\n\nI. The Path through the mountains.\n\n'_My_ mountains.' That is the claim that all the world is His; and also\nthe revelation that He is the Lord of Providence. He makes our\ndifficult and steep places. Submission comes with that thought, and\neven 'for the strength of the hills we bless Thee.' There are mountains\nwhich are not His but ours, artificial difficulties of our own creating.\n\n1. Our way does lie over the mountains. There are difficulties. The\nChristian course is like a Roman road which never turned aside, but\nwent straight up and on. So much the better. A keener air blows,\nbracing and health-giving, up there. Mosquitoes and malaria keep to the\nlower levels.\n\n2. There is always a path over the mountains. Some way opens when we\nget close up, like a path through heather, which is not seen till\nreached. We walk by faith. We foolishly forebode and fancy that we\ncannot live if something happens, but there is no _cul de sac_ in our\npaths if God's mountain-way is our way, nor does the faint track ever\ndie out if our faith is keen-sighted and docile.\n\nII. The Pasture on the mountains--lit. 'bare heights.'\n\nPastures in the East are down in bottoms, not, like ours, upon the\nhills. But this flock finds supplies on the barren hill-tops.\n\nSustenance in Sorrow and Loss.\n\n1. Promise that whatever be our trials and losses we shall be taken\ncare of. Not, perhaps, as we should have liked, nor as abundantly fed\nas down in the valleys, but still not left to starve. No carcases\nstrewed on the bleakest bit of road as one sees dead camels by the side\nof the tracks in the desert.\n\n2. Promise of sustenance of a higher kind even in sorrow. The Alpine\nflora is specially beautiful, though minute. The blessings of\naffliction; the more intimate knowledge of His love, submission of\nwill. 'Out of the eater came forth meat.'\n\n'Passing through the valley of weeping they make it a well'; the tears\nshed in times of rightly borne sorrow are gathered into a reservoir\nfrom which refreshment, patience, trust and strength may be drawn in\nlater days.\n\nBut the perfect fulfilment of the promise lies beyond this life. 'On\nthe high mountains of Israel shall their fold be,' and they who have\nfound pasture on the barren heights of earthly sorrow shall 'summer\nhigh in bliss upon the hills of God,' and shall at once both lie 'for\never in a good fold,' and 'follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,' and\nfind fountains of living water bursting forth for ever on these fertile\nheights.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WRITING ON GOD'S HANDS\n\n'Behold! I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are\ncontinually before Me.'--ISAIAH xlix. 16.\n\n\nIn the preceding context we have the infinitely tender and beautiful\nwords: 'Zion hath said, The Lord hath forsaken me. Can a woman forget\nher sucking child? ... yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget\nthee.' There is more than a mother's love in the Father's heart. But\nwonderful in their revelation of God, and mighty to strengthen, calm,\nand comfort, as these transcendent words are, those of my text, which\nfollow them, do not fall beneath their loftiness. They are a singularly\nbold metaphor, drawn from the strange and half-savage custom, which\nlingers still among sailors and others, of having beloved names or\nother tokens of affection and remembrance indelibly inscribed on parts\nof the body. Sometimes worshippers had the marks of the god thus set on\ntheir flesh; here God writes on His hands the name of the city of His\nworshippers. And it is not its name only, but its very likeness that He\nstamps there, that He may ever look on it, as those who love bear with\nthem a picture of one dear face. The prophecy goes on: 'Thy walls are\ncontinually before Me,' but in the prophet's time the walls were in\nruins, and yet they are present to the divine mind.\n\nI. Now, the first thought suggested by these great words is that here\nwe have set forth for our strength and peace a divine remembrance,\ntender as--yea, more tender than--a mother's.\n\nWhen Israel came out of Egypt, the Passover was instituted as 'a\nmemorial unto all generations,' or, as the same idea is otherwise\nexpressed, 'it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand.' Here God\nrepresents Himself as doing for Israel what He had bid Israel do for\nHim. They were, as it were, to write the supreme act of deliverance in\nthe Exodus upon their hands, that it might never be forgotten. He\nwrites Zion on His hands for the same purpose.\n\nNow, of course, the text does not primarily refer to individuals, but\nto the community, whether Zion is understood, as the prophet understood\nthe name, to be ancient Israel, or as the Christian Church. But the\nrecognition of that fact should not be allowed to rob us of the\npreciousness of this text in its bearing on the individual. For God\nremembers the community, not as an abstraction or a generalised\nexpression, but as the aggregate of all the individuals composing it.\nWe lose sight of the particulars when we generalise. We cannot see the\ntrees for the wood. We think of 'the Church,' and do not think of the\nthousands of men and women who make it up. We cannot discern the\nseparate stars in the galaxy. But God's eye resolves what to us is a\nnebula, and to Him every single glittering point of light hangs rounded\nand separate in the heaven. Therefore this assurance of our text is to\nbe taken by every single soul that loves God, and trusts Him through\nJesus Christ, as belonging to it, as though there were not another\ncreature on earth but itself.\n\n  'The sun whose beams most glorious are,\n    Disdaineth no beholder.'\n\nIts light floods the world, yet seems to go straight into the eyeball\nof every man that looks at it. And such is the divine love and\nremembrance. There is no jostling nor confusion in the wide space of\nthe heart of God. They that go before shall not hinder them that come\nafter. The hungry crowd sat down in companies on the green grass, and\nthe first fifty, no doubt, were envied by the last of the hundred\nfifties that made up the five thousand, and wondered whether the five\nloaves and the two small fishes could go round, but the last fed full\nas did the first. The great promise of our text belongs to me and thee,\nand therefore belongs to us all.\n\nThat remembrance which each man may take for himself--and we are poor\nChristians if we do not live in its light--is infinitely tender. The\necho of the music of the previous words still haunts the verse, and the\nremembrance promised in it is touched with more than a mother's love.\n'I am poor and needy,' says the Psalmist, 'yet the Lord thinketh upon\nme.' He might have said, 'I am poor and needy, therefore the Lord\nthinketh upon me.' That remembrance is in full activity when things are\ndarkest with us. Israel said, 'My Lord hath forgotten me,' because at\nthe point of view taken in the second half of Isaiah, it was captive in\na far-off land. You and I sometimes are brought into circumstances in\nwhich we are ready to think 'God has, somehow or other, left me, has\nforgotten me.' Never! never! However mirk the night, however apparently\nsolitary the way, however mysterious and insoluble the difficulties of\nour position, let us fall back on this, that the captive Israel was\nremembered by God, and let us be sure that no circumstances of our\nlives are so dark or mysterious as to warrant the faintest shadow of\nsuspicion creeping over the brightness of our confidence in this great\npromise. His divine remembrance of each of His servants is certain.\n\nBut do not let us forget that it was a very sinful Zion that God thus\nremembered. It was because the nation had transgressed that they were\ncaptives, but their very captivity was a proof that they were not\nforgotten. The loving divine remembrance had to smite in order to prove\nthat it was active. Let us neither be puzzled by our sorrows nor made\nless confident when we think of our sins. For there is no sin that is\nstrong enough to chill the divine love, or to erase us from the divine\nremembrance. 'Captive Israel! captive because sinful, I have graven\n_thee_ on the palms of My hands.'\n\nII. A second thought here is that the divine remembrance guides the\ndivine action.\n\nThe palm of the hand is the seat of strength, the instrument of work;\nand so, if Zion's name is written there, that means not only\nremembrance, but remembrance which is at the helm, as it were, which is\nmoulding and directing all the work that is done by the hand that bears\nthe name inscribed upon it. The thought is identical with the one which\nis suggested by part of the High Priest's official dress, although\nthere the thought has a different application. He bore the names of the\ntwelve tribes graven upon his shoulder, the seat of power, and upon his\nbreastplate that lay above the heart, the home of love. God holds out\nthe mighty Hand which works all things, and says to His children:\n'Look, you are graven there'--at the very fountain-head, as it were, of\nthe divine activity. Which, being turned into plain English, is just\nthis, that for His Church as a whole, He does move amidst the affairs\nof nations. You remember the grand words of one of the Psalms,--'He\nreproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not Mine anointed, and do\nMy prophets no harm.' It is no fanatical reading of the history of\nearthly politics and kingdoms, if we recognise that one of the most\nprominent reasons for the divine activities in moulding the kingdoms,\nsetting up and casting down, is the advancement of the kingdom of\nheaven and the building of the City of God. 'I have graven thee on the\npalms of My hands'--and when the hands go to work, it is for the Zion\nwhose likeness they bear.\n\nBut the same truth applies to us individually. 'All things work\ntogether'; they would not do so, unless there was one dominant Will\nwhich turned the chaos into a cosmos. 'All things work,' that is very\nplain. The tremendous activities round us both in Nature and in history\nare clear to us all. But if all things and events are co-operant,\nworking into each other, and for one end, like the wheels of a\nwell-constructed engine, then there must be an Engineer, and they work\ntogether because He is directing them. Thus, because my name is graven\non the palms of the mighty Hand that doeth all things, therefore 'all\nthings work together for my good.' If we could but carry that quiet\nconviction into all the mysteries, as they sometimes seem to be, of our\ndaily lives, and interpret everything in the light of that great\nthought, how different all our days would be! How far above the petty\nanxieties and cares and troubles that gnaw away so much of our strength\nand joy; how serene, peaceful, lofty, submissive, would be our lives,\nand how in the darkest darkness there would be a great light, not only\nof hope for a distant future, but of confident assurance for the\npresent. 'I have graven thee on the palms of My hands '--do Thou, then,\nas Thou wilt with me.\n\nIII. A last thought here is that the divine remembrance works all\nthings, to realise a great ideal end, as yet unreached.\n\n'Thy walls are continually before Me.' When this prophecy was uttered\nthe Israelites were in captivity, and the city was a wilderness, 'the\nholy and beautiful House'--as this very book says--'where the fathers\npraised Thee was burned with fire,' the walls were broken down, rubbish\nand solitude were there. Yet on the palms of God's hands were inscribed\nthe walls which were nowhere else! They were 'before Him,' though\nJerusalem was a ruin. What does that mean? It means that that divine\nremembrance sees 'things that are not, as though they were.' In the\nmidst of the imperfect reality of the present condition of the Church\nas a whole, and of us, its actual components, it sees the ideal, the\nperfect vision of the perfect future, and 'all the wonder that shall\nbe.' Zion may be desolate, but 'before Him' stands what will one day\nstand on the earth before all men, 'the new Jerusalem, coming down from\nheaven,' having walls great and high, and its foundations garnished\nwith all manner of precious stones. 'Thy walls are before Me,' though\nthe ruins are there before men.\n\nSo, brethren, the most radiant optimism is the only fitting attitude\nfor Christian people in looking into the future, either of the Church\nas a whole, or of themselves as individual members of it. God's hand is\nworking for Zion and for me. It is guided by love that does not lose\nthe individual in the mass, nor ever forgets any of its children, and\nit works towards the attainment of unattained perfection. 'This Man'\ndoes not 'begin to build and' prove 'not able to finish.'\n\nSo let us be sure that, if only we keep ourselves in the love, and\ncontinue in the grace of God, He will not slack nor stay His hand on\nwhich Zion is graven, until it has 'perfected that which concerneth\nus,' and fulfilled to each of us that 'which He has spoken to us of.'\n\nI said at the beginning of these remarks that God did what He bids us\ndo. God bids us do what He does. His name should be on our hands; that\nis to say, memory of Him, love of Him, regard to Him, confidence in Him\nshould mould and guide all our activity, and the aim that we shall be\nbuilded up for a habitation of God through the Spirit should be the\nconscious aim of our lives, as it is the aim which He has in view in\nall His dealings with us. Our names on His hand; His name on our hands;\nso shall we be blessed.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SERVANT'S WORDS TO THE WEARY\n\n'The Lord God hath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I\nshould know how to sustain with words him that is weary; he wakeneth\nmorning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are\ntaught.'--ISAIAH l. 4.\n\n\nIn chapter xlix. 1-6, the beginning of the continuous section of which\nthese verses are part, a transition is made from Israel as collectively\nthe ideal servant of the Lord, to a personal Servant, whose office it\nis 'to bring Jacob again to Him.'  We see the ideal in the very act of\npassing to its highest form, and that in which it is finally fulfilled\nin history, namely, by the person Jesus. That Jesus was 'Thy Holy\nServant' was the earliest gospel preached by Peter and John before\npeople and rulers. It is not the most vital conception of our Lord's\nnature and work. The prophet does not here pierce to the core, as in\nhis fifty-third chapter with its vision of the Suffering Servant, but\nthis is prelude to that, and the office assigned here to the Servant\ncannot be fully discharged without that ascribed to Him there, as the\nprophet begins to discern almost immediately. The text gives us a\nstriking view of the purpose of Messiah's mission and of His training\nand preparation for it.\n\nI. The purpose of Christ's mission.\n\nThere is a remarkable contrast between the stately prelude to the\nsection of the prophecy in chapter xlix., and the ideal in this text.\nThere the Servant calls the isles and the distant peoples to listen,\nand declares that His mouth is 'like a sharp sword'; here all that is\nkeen and smiting in His word has softened into gentle whispers of\ncomfort to sustain the weary.\n\nA mission addressed to 'the weary' is addressed to every man, for who\nis not 'weighed upon with sore distress,' or loaded with the burden and\nthe weight of tasks beyond his power or distasteful to his\ninclinations, or monotonous to nausea, or prolonged to exhaustion, or\ntoiled at with little hope and less interest? Who is not weary of\nhimself and of his load? What but universal weariness does the\nuniversal secret desire for rest betray? We are all 'pilgrims weary of\ntime,' and some of us are weary of even prosperity, and some of us are\nworn out with work, and some of us buffeted to all but exhaustion by\nsorrow, and all of us long for rest, though many of us do not know\nwhere to look for it.\n\nJesus may have had this word in mind, when He called to Him all them\n'that labour and are heavy laden.' At all events, the prophet's ideal\nand the evangelists' story accurately correspond. Christ's words have\nother characteristics, but are eminently words that sustain the weary\nand comfort the down-hearted. Who can ever calculate the new strength\npoured by them into fainting hearts and languid hands, the all but dead\nhopes that they have reanimated, the sorrows they have comforted, the\nwounds they have stanched?\n\nWhat a lesson here as to the noblest use of high endowments! What a\ncontrast to the use that so many of those to whom God has given 'the\ntongue of them that are taught' make of their great gifts! Literature\nyields but few examples of great writers who have faithfully employed\ntheir powers for that purpose, which seems so humble and is so lofty,\nthe help of the weary, the comfort of the sad. Many pages in famous\nbooks would be cancelled if all that had been written without\nconsideration for these classes were obliterated, as it will be one day.\n\nBut Christ not only speaks by outward words, but has other ways of\nlodging sustenance and comfort in souls than by vocables audible to the\near or visible to the eye on the page. 'The words that I speak unto\nyou, they are spirit and they are life.' He spoke by His deeds on\nearth, and in one and the same set of facts, He 'began to do and to\nteach,' the doing being named first. He 'now speaketh from Heaven' by\nmany an inward whisper, by the communication of His own Spirit, on Whom\nthis very office of ministering sustenance and comfort is laid, and\nwhose very name of the Comforter means One who by his being with a man\nstrengthens him.\n\nII. The training and preparation of the Messiah for His mission.\n\nThe Messiah is here represented as having the tongue of 'them that are\ntaught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been\nwakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar--a thought of\nwhich an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary\nto admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the\nmanhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, 'As the\nFather taught Me, I speak these things.' With emphatic repetition, He\nwas continually making that assertion, as, for instance, 'I have not\nspoken of Myself, but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a\ncommandment what I should say, and what I should speak ... the things\ntherefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I\nspeak.'\n\nThe Gospels tell us of the prayers of Jesus, and of rare occasions in\nwhich a voice from heaven spoke to Him. But while these are palpable\ninstances of His communion with God, and precious tokens of His true\nbrotherhood with us in the indispensable characteristics of the life of\nfaith, they are but the salient points on which the light falls, and\nbehind them, all unknown by us, stretches an unbroken chain of like\nacts of fellowship. In that subordination as of a scholar to teacher,\nboth His divine and His human nature concurred, the former in filial\nsubmission, the latter in continual, truly human derivation and\nreception. The man Jesus was taught and, like the boy Jesus, 'increased\nin wisdom.'\n\nBut while He learned as truly as we learn from God, and exercised the\nsame communion with the Father, the same submission to Him, which other\nmen have to exercise, and called 'us brethren, saying, I will put my\ntrust in Him,' the difference in degree between His close fellowship\nwith God the Father, and our broken and always partial fellowship,\nbetween His completeness of reception of God's words and our imperfect\ncomprehension, between His perfect reproduction of the words He had\nheard and our faint, and often mistaken echo of them, is so immense as\nto amount to a difference in kind. His unity of will and being with the\nFather ensured that all His words were God's. 'Never man spake like\nthis man.' The man who speaks to us once for all God's words must be\nmore than man. Other men, the highest, give us fragments of that mighty\nvoice; Jesus speaks its whole message, and nothing but its message. Of\nthat perfect reproduction He is calmly conscious, and claims to give\nit, in words which are at once lowly and instinct with more than human\nauthority: 'All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known\nunto you.' Who besides Him dare make such a claim? Who besides Him\ncould make it without being met by incredulous scorn? His utterance of\nthe Father's words was unmarred by defect on the one hand, and by\nadditions on the other. It was like pure water which tastes of no soil.\nHis soul was like an open vessel plunged in a stream, filled by the\nflow and giving forth again its whole contents.\n\nThat divine communication to Jesus was no mere impartation of\nabstractions or 'truths,' still less of the poor words of man's speech,\nbut was the flowing into His spirit of the living Father by whom He\nlived. And it was unbroken. 'Morning by morning' it was going on. The\nline was continuous, whereas for the rest of us, at the best, it is a\nseries of points more or less contiguous, but with dark spaces between.\n'God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.'\n\nSo, then, let us hold fast by Him, the Son in whom God has spoken to\nus, and to all voices without and within that would woo us to listen,\nlet us answer with the only wise answer: 'To whom shall we go? Thou\nhast the words of eternal life.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SERVANT'S OBEDIENCE\n\n'I was not rebellious, neither turned away back'--ISAIAH l. 5.\n\n\nI. The secret of Christ's life, filial obedience.\n\nThe fact is attested by Scripture. By His own words: 'My meat is to do\nthe will of My Father'; 'For thus it becometh us to fulfil all\nrighteousness'; 'I came down from heaven not to do My own will.' By His\nservant's words: 'Obedient unto death'; 'Made under the law'; 'He\nlearned obedience by the things which He suffered.' It is involved in\nthe belief of His righteous manhood. It is essential to true manhood.\nThe highest ideal for humanity is conscious dependence on God, and the\nvery definition of righteousness is conscious conformity to the Will of\nGod. If Christ had done the noblest acts and yet had not always had\nthis sense of being a servant, He would not have been pure and holy.\n\nIt is not inconsistent with His true Divinity. We stand afar off, but\nwe can see this much.\n\nThe completeness of that obedience. It was continuous and it was entire.\n\nThe living heart of it: 'I delight to do Thy Will.' The Father's Will\nwas not a force without, but Christ's whole being was conformed to it,\nand it was shrined within His heart and had become His choice and\ndelight.\n\nThe expressions of His obedience were His perfect fulfilment of the\ndivine commands, and His perfect endurance of the divine appointments.\n\nThus God's Will was the keynote, to which Christ's will struck the full\nchord.\n\nII. The yet deeper mysteries which that perfect obedience discloses.\n\n1. A sinless human life must be more than human. The contrast with all\nwhich we have known--the impossibility of retaining belief in the\nperfect obedience of Jesus unless we have underlying it the belief in\nHis divinity. 'There is none good but one, that is God.'\n\n2. The sinless human life suffers not for itself but for us. The\ncombination of holiness and sorrow leads on to the mystery of\natonement. The sinlessness is indispensable to the doctrine of His\nsacrificial death.\n\nIII. The glorious gifts which flow from that perfect obedience.\n\n1. It gives us a living law to obey.\n\n2. It gives us a transforming power to receive.\n\n3. It gives us a perfect righteousness to trust to.\n\nThis perfect obedience may be ours. Being ours, our lives will be\nstrong, free, peaceful.\n\nThat obedience becomes ours by faith, which leads to love, and love to\nthe glad obedience of sons.\n\nTHE SERVANT'S VOLUNTARY SUFFERINGS\n\n'I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off\nthe hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting.'--ISAIAH l. 6.\n\nSuch words are not to be dealt with coldly. Unless they be grasped by\nthe heart they are not grasped at all. We do not think of analysing in\nthe presence of a great sorrow. There can be no greater dishonour to\nthe name of Christ than an unemotional consideration of His sufferings\nfor us. The hindrances to a due consideration of these are manifold;\nsome arising from intellectual, and some from moral, causes. Most men\nhave difficulty in vivifying any historical event so as to feel its\nreality. There is no nobler use of the historical imagination than to\ndirect it to that great life and death on which the salvation of the\nworld depends.\n\nThe prophet here has advanced from the first general conception of the\nServant of the Lord as recipient of divine commission, and submissive\nto the divine voice, to thoughts of the sufferings which He would meet\nwith on His path, and of how He bore them.\n\nI. The sufferings of the Servant.\n\nThe minute particularity is very noteworthy, scourging, plucking the\nbeard, shame, all sorts of taunts and buffets on the face, and the last\nindignity of spitting. Clearly, then, He is not only to suffer\npersecution, but is to be treated with insult and to endure that\nstrange blending, so often seen, of grim infernal laughter with grim\ninfernal fury, the hyena's laugh and its ferocity. Wherever it occurs,\nit implies not only fell hate and cruelty, but also contempt and a\nhorrible delight in triumphing over an enemy. It is found in all\ncorrupt periods, and especially in religious persecutions. Here it\nimplies the rejection of the Servant.\n\nThe prophecy was literally fulfilled, but not in all its traits. This\nmay give a hint as to the general interpretation of prophecy and may\nteach that external fulfilment only points to a deeper correspondence.\nThe most salient instance is in Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem riding\non an ass, which was but a finger-post to guide men's thoughts to His\nfulfilling the ideal of the Messianic King. And yet, the minute\ncorrespondences are worth noticing. What a strange, solemn glimpse they\ngive into that awful divine omniscience, and into the mystery of the\nplay of the vilest passions as being yet under control in their\nextremest rage!\n\nWe must note the remarkable prominence in the narratives of the\nPassion, of signs of contempt and mockery; Judas' kiss, the purple\nrobe, the crown of thorns, 'wagging their heads,' 'let be, let Elias\ncome,' etc.\n\nThink of the exquisite pain of this to Christ. That He was sinless and\nfull of love made it all the worse to bear. Not the physical pain, but\nthe consciousness that He was encompassed by such an atmosphere of\nevil, was the sharpest pang. We should think with reverent sympathy of\nHis perfect discernment of the sinful malignant hearts from which the\nsufferings came, of His pained and rejected love thrown back on itself,\nof His clear sight of what their heartless infliction of tortures would\nend in for the inflicters, of His true human feeling which shrank from\nbeing the object of contempt and execration.\n\nII. His patient submission.\n\n'I gave,'--purely voluntary. That word originally expressed the patient\nsubmission with which He endured at the moment, when the lash scored\nHis back, but it may be widened out to express Christ's perfect\nvoluntariness in all His passion. At any moment He could have abandoned\nHis work if His filial obedience and His love to men had let Him do so.\nHis would-be captors fell to the ground before one momentary flash of\nHis majesty, and they could have laid no hand on Him, if His will had\nnot consented to His capture. Fra Angelico has grasped the thought\nwhich the prophet here uttered, and which the evangelists emphasise,\nthat all His suffering was voluntary, and that His love to us\nrestrained His power, and led Him to the slaughter, silent as a sheep\nbefore her shearers. For he has pourtrayed the majestic figure seated\nin passive endurance, with eyes blindfolded but yet wide open behind\nthe bandage, all-seeing, wistful, sad, and patient, while around are\nfragments of rods, and smiting hands, and a cruel face blowing spittle\non the unshrinking cheeks. He seems to be saying: 'These things hast\nthou done, and I kept silence.' 'Thou couldest have no power at all\nagainst Me unless it were given thee.'\n\nIII. His submission to suffering in obedience to the Father's Will.\n\nThe context connects His opened ear and His not being rebellious with\nHis giving His back to the smiters. That involves the idea that these\nindignities and insults were part of the divine counsel in reference to\nHim. That same combination of ideas is strongly presented in the early\naddresses of Peter, recorded in the first chapters of Acts, of which\nthis is a specimen: 'Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel\nand foreknowledge of God, ye with wicked hands have crucified and\nslain.' The full significance of Christ's passion as that of the\natoning sacrifice was not yet clear to the apostle, any more than the\nServant's sufferings were to the prophet, but both prophet and apostle\nwere carried on by fuller experience and reflection on what they\nalready saw clearly, to discern the inwardness and depth of these. The\none soon came to see that 'by His stripes we are healed,' and the other\nfinally wrote: 'Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the\ntree.' And whoever deeply ponders the startling fact that 'it pleased\nthe Lord to bruise Him,' sinless and ever obedient as He was, will be\nborne, sooner or later, into the full sunlight of the blessed belief\nthat when Jesus suffered and died, 'He died for all.' His sufferings\nwere those of a martyr for truth, who is willing to die rather than\ncease to witness for it; but they were more. They were the sufferings\nof a lover of mankind who will face the extremest wrong that can be\ninflicted, rather than abandon His mission; but they were more. They\nwere not merely the penalty which He had to pay for faithfulness to His\nwork; they were themselves the crown and climax of His work. The Son of\nMan came, indeed, 'not to be ministered to but to minister,' but that,\ntaken alone, is but a maimed view of what He came for, and we must\nwhole-heartedly go on to say as He said, 'and to give His life a ransom\nfor many,' if we would know the whole truth as to the sufferings of\nJesus.\n\nAgain, since Christ suffers according to the will of God, it is clear\nthat all representations of the scope of His atoning death, which\nrepresent it as moving the will of the Father to love and pardon, are\ntravesties of the truth and turn cause into effect. God does not love,\nbecause Jesus died, but Jesus died because God loved.\n\nFurther, it is to be noted that His sufferings are the great means by\nwhich He sustains the weary. The word to which His ears were opened,\nmorning by morning, was the word to which He was docile when He gave\nHis back to the smiters. It is His passion, regarded as the sacrifice\nfor a world's sin, from which flow the most powerful stimulants to\nservice and tonics for weary souls, the tenderest comfortings for\nsorrow. He sustains and comforts by the example of His life, but far\nmore, and more sweetly, more mightily, by that which flows to us\nthrough His death. His sufferings are powerful to sustain, when thought\nof as our example, but they are a tenfold stronger source of patience\nand strength, when laid on our hearts as the price of our redemption.\nThe Cross is, in all senses of the expression, the tree of life.\n\nWonder, reverence, love, gratitude, should well forth from our hearts,\nwhen we think of these cruel sufferings, but the deepest fountains in\nthem will not be unsealed, unless we see in the suffering Servant the\natoning Son.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SERVANT'S INFLEXIBLE RESOLVE\n\n'For the Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded:\ntherefore have I set My face like a flint.'--ISAIAH l. 7.\n\n\nWhat a striking contrast between the tone of these words and of the\npreceding! There all is gentleness, docility, still communion,\nsubmission, patient endurance. Here all is energy and determination,\nresistance and martial vigour. It is like the contrast between a priest\nand a warrior. And that gentleness is the parent of this boldness. The\nsame Will which is all submission to God is all resistance in the face\nof hostile men. The utmost lowliness and the most resolved resistance\nto opposing forces are found in that prophetic image of the Servant of\nthe Lord--even as they are found in the highest degree and most\nperfectly in Jesus Christ.\n\nThe sequence in this context is worth noting. We had first Christ's\ncommunion with God and communications from the Father; then the perfect\nsubmission of His Will; then that submission expressed in His voluntary\nsufferings; and now we have His immovable steadfastness of resistance\nto the temptation, which lay in these sufferings, to depart from His\nattitude of submission, and to abandon His work.\n\nThe former verse led us up to the verge of the great mystery of His\nsacrificial death. This gives us a glimpse into the depths of His human\nlife, and shows Him to us as our example in all holy heroism.\n\nI. The need which Christ felt to exercise firm resistance.\n\nThe words of the text are found almost reproduced in Jeremiah i. and\nEzekiel iii. All prophets and servants of God have had thus to resist,\nand it would be superfluous to show how resistance to opposing\ninfluences is the condition of all noble life and of all true service.\n\nBut was it so with Him? The more accurate translation of the second\nclause of our text is to be noticed: 'Therefore I will not suffer\nMyself to be overcome by the shame.'\n\nThen the shame had in it some tendency to divert Him from His course.\nChrist's humanity felt natural human shrinking from pain and suffering.\nIt shrank from the contempt and mockery of those around Him, and did so\nwith especial sensitiveness because of His pure and sinless nature, His\nyearning sympathy, the atmosphere of love in which He dwelt, His clear\nsight of the sin, and His prevision of the consequent sorrow. If so,\nHis sufferings did appeal to His human nature and constituted a\ntemptation.\n\nAt the beginning the Tempter addressed himself to natural desires to\nprocure physical gratification (bread), and to the equally natural\ndesire to avoid suffering and pain, and to secure His kingdom by an\neasier method ('All these will I give Thee, if--').\n\nAnd the latter temptation attended Him all through His life, and was\nmost insistent at its close. The shadow of the cross stretched along\nHis path from its beginning. But it is to be remembered that he had not\nthe same need of _self_-control which we have, in that His Will was not\nreluctant, and that no rebellious desires had escaped from its control\nand needed to be reduced to submission. 'I was not rebellious.' 'The\nspirit is willing but the flesh is weak' was true in the fullest extent\nonly of Him. So the context gives us His perfect submission of will,\nand yet the need to harden His face toward externals from which,\ninstinctively and without breach of filial obedience, His sensitive\nnature recoiled. The reality of the temptation, the limits of its\nreach, His consciousness of it, and His immovable obedience and\nresistance, are all expressed in the deep and wonderful words, 'If it\nbe possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless not as I will, but\nas Thou wilt.'\n\nII. The perfect inflexible resolve.\n\n'Face like a flint' seems to be quoted in Luke ix. 51; 'Steadily set\nHis face.' The whole story of the Gospels gives the one impression of a\nlife steadfast in its great resolve. There are no traces of His ever\nfaltering in His purpose, none of His ever suffering Himself to be\ndiverted from it, no parentheses and no digressions. There are no\nblunders either. But what a contrast in this respect to all other\nlives! Mark's Gospel, which is eminently the gospel of the Servant, is\nfull of energy and of this inflexible resolve, which speak in such\nsayings as 'I must be about My Father's business'; 'I must work the\nworks of My Father while it is day.' That last journey, during which He\n'steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,' is but a type of the\nwhole. Christ's life was a continuous or rather a continually repeated\neffort.\n\nThis inflexible resolve is associated in Him with characteristics not\nusually allied with it. The gentleness of Christ is so obvious in His\ncharacter that little needs to be said to point it out. To the\ninfluence of His character more than to any other cause may be traced\nthe change in the perspective, so to speak, of Virtue, which\ncharacterises modern notions of perfection as contrasted with antique\nones. Contrast the Greek and Roman type with the mediaeval ascetic, or\nwith the philanthropic type of modern times. Carlyle's ideal is\nretrograde and an anachronism. Women and patient sufferers find example\nin Him. But we have in Jesus Christ, too, the highest example of all\nthe stronger and robuster virtues, the more distinctly heroic,\nmasculine; and that not merely passive firmness of endurance such as an\nAmerican Indian will show in torments, but active firmness which\npresses on to its goal, and, immovably resolute, will not be diverted\nby anything. In Him we see a resolved Will and a gentle loving Heart in\nperfect accord. That is a wonderful combination. We often find that\nsuch firmness is developed at the expense of indifference to other\npeople. It is like a war chariot, or artillery train, that goes\ncrashing across the field, though it be over shrieking men and broken\nbones, and the wheels splash in blood. Resolved firmness is often\naccompanied with self-absorption which makes it gloomy, and with narrow\nlimitations. Such men gather all their powers together to secure a\ncertain end, and do it by shutting the eyes of their mind to everything\nbut the one object, like the painter, who blocks up his studio window\nto get a top light, or as a mad bull lowers his head and blindly rushes\non.\n\nThere is none of all this in Christ's firmness. He was able at every\nmoment to give His whole sympathy to all who needed it, to take in all\nthat lay around Him, and His resolute concentration of Himself on His\nwork made Him none the less perfect in all which goes to make up\ncomplete manhood. Not only was Christ's firmness that of a fixed Will\nand a most loving Heart, like one of these 'rocking stones,' whose\nsolid mass can be set vibrating by a poising bird, but the fixed Will\ncame from the loving Heart. The very compassion and pity of His nature\nled to that resolved continuance in His path of redeeming love, though\nsuffering and mockery waited for Him at each turn.\n\nAnd so He is the Joshua, the Warrior-King, as well as the Priest. That\nFace, ever ready to kindle into pity, to melt into tenderness, to\nexpress every shade of tender feeling, was 'set as a flint.' That Eye,\never brimming with tears, was ever fixed on one goal. That Character is\nthe type of all strength and of all gentleness.\n\nIII. The basis of Christ's fixed resolve in filial confidence.\n\n'The Lord God will help Me.' So Christ lived by faith.\n\nThat faith led to this heroic resistance and immovable resolution.\n\nThat confidence of divine help was based upon consciousness of\nobedience.\n\nIt is most blessed for us to have Him as our example of faith and of\nbrave opposition to all the antagonistic forces around us. But we need\nmore than an example. He will but rebuke our wavering purposes of\nobedience, if He is no more than our pattern. Thank God, He is more,\neven our Fountain of Power, from Whom we can draw life akin to, because\nderived from, His own. In Him we can feel strength stealing into\nflaccid limbs, and gain 'the wrestling thews that throw the world.' If\nwe are 'in Christ' and on the path of duty, we too may be able to set\nour faces as a flint, and to say truthfully: 'None of these things move\nme, neither count I my life dear to myself, that I may finish my course\nwith joy.' And yet we may withal be gentle, and keep hearts 'open as\nday to melting charity,' and have leisure and sympathy to spare for\nevery sorrow of others, and a hand to help and 'sustain him that is\nweary.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SERVANT'S TRIUMPH\n\n'He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me? let us stand\ntogether: who is Mine adversary? let him come near to Me. 9. Behold,\nthe Lord God will help Me; who is he that shall condemn Me? lo, they\nall shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.'--ISAIAH l.\n8, 9.\n\n\nWe have reached the final words of this prophecy, and we hear in them a\ntone of lofty confidence and triumph. While the former ones sounded\nplaintive like soft flute music, this rings out clear like the note of\na trumpet summoning to battle. The Servant of the Lord seems here to be\neager for the conflict, not merely patient and enduring, not merely\nsetting His face like a flint, but confidently challenging His\nadversaries, and daring them to the strife.\n\nAs for the form of the words, the image underlying the whole is that of\na suit at law. It is noteworthy that since Isaiah xli. this metaphor\nhas run through the whole prophecy. The great controversy is God\n_versus_ Idols. God appears at the bar of men, pleads His cause, calls\nHis witnesses (xliii. 9). 'Let them' (_i.e._ idols) 'bring forth their\nwitnesses that they may be justified.'\n\nPossibly the form of the words here is owing to the dominance of that\nidea in the context, and implies nothing more than the general notion\nof opposition and victory. But it is at least worth remembering that in\nthe life of Christ we have many instances in which the prophetic images\nwere literally fulfilled even though their meaning was mainly\nsymbolical: as _e.g._ the riding on the ass, the birth in Bethlehem,\nthe silence before accusers, 'a bone of Him shall not be broken,' and\nin this very contest, 'shame and spitting.' So here there may be\nincluded a reference to that time when the hatred of opposition reached\nits highest point--in the sufferings and death of our Lord. And it is\nat least a remarkable coincidence that that highest point was reached\nin formal trials before the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, for\nthe purpose of convicting Him, and that these processes as legal\nprocedures broke down so signally.\n\nKeeping up the metaphor, we mark here--\n\nI. The Messiah's lofty challenge to His accusers. II. The Messiah's\nexpectation of divine vindication and acquittal. III. The Messiah's\nconfidence of ultimate triumph.\n\nI. Messiah's lofty challenge to His accusers.\n\nThe 'justifying' which He expects may refer either to personal\ncharacter or to official functional faithfulness. I think it refers to\nboth, and that we have here, expressed in prophetic outline, not only\nthe fact of Christ's sinlessness, but the fact of His consciousness of\nsinlessness.\n\nThe words are the strongest assertion of His absolute freedom from\nanything that an adversary could lay hold of on which to found a\ncharge, and not merely so, but they also dare to assert that the\nunerring and all-penetrating eye of the Judge of all will look into His\nheart, and find nothing there but the mirrored image of His own\nperfection. I do not need to dwell on the fact of Christ's sinlessness,\nthat He is perfect manhood without stain, without defect. I have had\noccasion to touch upon that truth in a former sermon on 'I was not\nrebellious.' Here we have to do not so much with sinlessness as with\nthe consciousness of sinlessness.\n\nNow note that consciousness on Christ's part.\n\nWe have to reckon with the fact of it as expressed in His own words: 'I\ndo always the things that please Him. Which of you convinceth Me of\nsin?' 'The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me.'\n\nIn Him there is the absence of all trace of sense of sin.\n\nNo prayer for forgiveness comes from His lips.\n\nNo penitence, no acknowledgment of even weakness is heard from Him.\nEven in His baptism, which for others was an acknowledgment of\nimpurity, He puts His submission to the rite, not on the ground of\nneeding to be washed from sin, but of 'fulfilling all righteousness.'\n\nNow, unless Christ was sinless, what do we say of these assertions? 'If\nwe say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not\nin us'--are we to apply that canon to Him when He stands before us and\nasks, 'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' Surely it augurs small\nself-knowledge or a low moral standard if, from the lips of a religious\nteacher, there never comes one word to indicate that he has felt the\nhold of evil on him. I make bold to say that if Christ were not\nsinless, the Apostle Paul stood far above Him, with his 'of whom I am\nchief.' What difference would there be between Him and the Pharisees\nwho called forth His bitterest words by this very absence in them of\nconsciousness of sin: 'If ye were blind ye would have no sin, but now\nye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth.'\n\nSingularly enough the world has accepted Him at His own estimate, and\nhas felt that these lofty assertions of absolute perfection were borne\nout by His life, and were consistent with the utmost lowliness of heart.\n\nAs to the adversary's failure, I need only recall the close of His\nlife, which is representative of the whole impression made on the world\nby Him. What a wonderful and singular concurrence of testimonies was\nborne to His pure and blameless life! After months of hatred and\nwatching, even the rulers' lynx-eyed jealousy found nothing, and they\nhad to fall back upon false witnesses. 'Hearest thou not how many\nthings they witness against Thee?' He stood with unmoved silence, and\nthe lies fell down dead at His feet. Had He answered, they would have\nbeen preserved and owed their immortality to the Gospels: He held His\npeace and they vanished. All attempts failed so signally that at the\nlast they were fain, in well-simulated holy abhorrence, to base His\ncondemnation on what He had said in their presence. 'How think ye, ye\nhave heard the blasphemy?' So all that the adversary, raking through a\nlife, could find, was that one word. That was His sin; in all else He\nwas pure. Remember Pilate's acquittal: 'I find no fault in Him,' and\nhis wife's warning, 'Have thou nothing to do with that just Person.'\nThink of Judas, 'I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent\nblood.' Listen to the penitent thief's low voice gasping out in his\npangs and almost collapse: 'This man hath done nothing amiss.' Listen\nto the Centurion telling the impression made even on his rough nature:\n'Truly this was a righteous Man.'\n\nThese are the answers to the Servant's challenge, wrung from the lips\nof His adversaries; and they but represent the universal judgment of\nhumanity.\n\nThere is one Man whose life has been without stain or spot, whose soul\nhas never been crossed by a breath of passion, nor dimmed by a speck of\nsin, whose will has ever been filled with happy obedience, whose\nconscience has been undulled by evil and untaught to speak in\ncondemnation, whose whole nature has been like some fair marble, pure\nin hue, perfect in form, and unstained to the very core. There is one\nMan who can front the most hostile scrutiny with the bold challenge,\n'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' and His very haters have to\nanswer, 'I find no fault in Him,' while those that love Him rejoice to\nproclaim Him 'holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.'\nThere is one Man who can front the most rigid Law of Duty and say, 'I\ncame not to destroy but to fulfil,' and the stony tables seem to glow\nwith tender light, as of rocky cliffs in morning sunshine, attesting\nthat He has indeed fulfilled all righteousness. There is one Man who\ncan stand before God without repentance or confession, and whose claim\n'I do always the things that please Him,' the awful voice from the\nopening heavens endorses, when it proclaims; 'This is My beloved Son in\nwhom I am well pleased.' The lowly Servant of God flings out His\nchallenge to the universe: 'Who will contend with Me?' and that gage\nhas lain in the lists for nineteen centuries unlifted.\n\nII. The Messiah's expectation of divine vindication and acquittal.\n\nLike many another man, Christ had to strengthen Himself against calumny\nand slander by turning to God, and finding comfort in the belief that\nthere was One who would do Him right, and as throughout this context we\nhave had the true humanity of our Lord in great prominence, it is worth\nwhile to dwell for a moment on that thought of His real sharing in the\npain of misconstruction and groundless charges, and of His too having\nto say, as we have so often to say, 'Well, there is one who knows. Men\nmay condemn but God will acquit.'\n\nBut there is something more than that here. The divine vindication and\nacquittal is not a mere hidden thought and judgment in the mind of God.\nIt is a declaring and showing to be innocent, and that not by word but\nby deed. That expectation seemed to be annihilated and made ludicrous\nby His death. But the 'justifying' of which our text speaks takes place\nin Christ's resurrection and ascension.\n\n'Manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit' (1 Timothy iii. 16).\n'Declared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the resurrection from\nthe dead' (Rom. i. 4).\n\nHis death seems the entire abandonment of this holy and sinless man. It\nseems to demonstrate His claims to be madness, His hope to be futile,\nHis promises to be wind. No wonder that the sorrowing apostles wailed,\n'We trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel.' The\ndeath of Christ, if it were but a martyr's death, and if we had to\nbelieve that that frame had crumbled into dust, and that heart ceased\nfor ever to beat, would not only destroy the worth of all that He\nspoke, but would be the saddest instance in all history of the\nirreversible sway that death wields over all mankind, and would deepen\nthe darkness and sadden the gloom of the grave. True, there were not\nwanting even in His dying hours mysterious indications, such as His\npromise to the penitent thief. But these only make the disappointment\nthe deeper, if there was nothing more after His death.\n\nSo Christ's justification is in His resurrection and ascension.\n\nIII. The Messiah's confidence of ultimate triumph.\n\nIn the last words of the text the adversaries are massed together. The\nconfidence that the Lord God will help and justify leads to the\nconviction that all opposition to Him is futile and leads to\ndestruction.\n\nWe see the historical fulfilment in the fate of the nation. 'His blood\nbe upon us and upon our children.'\n\nWe have a truth applying universally that antagonism to Him is\nself-destructive.\n\nTwo forms of destruction are here named. There is a slow decay going on\nin the opponents and their opposition, as a garment waxing old, and\nthere is a being fretted away by the imperceptible working of external\ncauses, as by gnawing moths.\n\nApplied to persons. To opposing systems.\n\nHow many antagonists the Gospel has had, and one after another has been\nantiquated, and their books are only known because fragments of them\nare preserved in Christian writings. Paganism is gone from Europe, and\nits idols are in our museums. Each generation has its own phase of\nopposition, which lasts for a little while. The mists round the sun\nmelt, the clouds piled in the north, surging up to bury it beneath\ntheir banks, are dissipated. The sea roars and smashes on the cliffs,\nbut it ebbs and calms. Some of us have seen more than one school of\nthought which came to the assault of Christianity, with colours flying\nand drums rattling, defeated utterly and forgotten, and so it will\nalways be. One may be sure that each enemy in turn will descend to the\noblivion that has already received so many, and can imagine these\nbeaten foes rising from their seats to welcome the newcomer with the\nsad greeting: 'Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like\nunto us?'\n\nWe are 'justified' in His 'justification.'\n\nThe real connection between us and Christ by faith, makes our\njustification to be involved in His, so that it is no mere\naccommodation but a profound perception of the real relation between\nChrist and us, when Paul, in Romans viii. 34, triumphantly claims the\nwords of our text for Christ's disciples, and rings out their challenge\non behalf of all believers: 'It is God that justifieth, who is he that\ncondemneth?'\n\nDo you trust in Christ? Then you too can dare to say: 'The Lord God\nwill help me; who is he that shall condemn me?'\n\n'Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his\nservant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in\nthe name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.'--ISAIAH l. 10.\n\nThe persons addressed in this call to faith are 'those who fear the\nLord,' and 'obey the voice of His Servant.' In that collocation is\nimplied that these two things are necessarily connected, so that\nobedience to Christ is the test of true religion, and the fear of the\nLord does not exist where the word of the Son is neglected or rejected.\n\nBut besides that most fruitful and instructive juxtaposition, other\nimportant thoughts come into view here. The fact that the call to faith\nis addressed to those who are regarded as already fearing God suggests\nthe need for renewed and constantly repeated acts of confidence, at\nevery stage of the Christian life, and opens up the whole subject of\nthe growth and progress of individual religion, as secured by the\ncontinuous exercise of faith. The call is addressed to all at every\nstage of advancement. Of course it is addressed also to those who are\ndisobedient and rebellious. But that wider aspect of the merciful\ninvitation does not come into view here.\n\nBut there is another clause in the description of the persons\naddressed, 'Who walketh in darkness and hath no light.' This is, no\ndoubt, primarily a reference to the great sorrow that filled, like a\ngloomy thundercloud, the horizon of Jewish prophets, small and\nuninteresting as it seems to us, namely, the captivity of Israel and\ntheir expulsion from their land. The faithful remnant are not to escape\ntheir share in the national calamity. But while it lasts, they are to\nwait patiently on the Lord, and not to cast away their confidence,\nthough all seems dark and dreary.\n\nThe exhortation thus regarded suggests the power and duty of faith even\nin times of disaster and sorrow. But another meaning has often been\nattached to these words, they have been lifted into another region, the\nspiritual, and have been supposed to refer to a state of feeling not\nunknown to devout hearts, in which the religious life is devoid of joy\nand peace. That is a phase of Christian experience, which meets any one\nwho knows much of the workings of men's hearts, and of his own, when\nfaith is exercised with but little of the light of faith, and the fear\nof the Lord is cherished with but scant joy in the Lord. Now if it be\nremembered that such an application of the words is not their original\npurpose, there can be no harm in using them so. Indeed we may say that,\nas the words are perfectly general, they include a reference to all\ndarkness of life or soul, however produced, whether it come from the\nnight of sorrow falling on us from without, or from mists and gloom\nrising like heavy vapours from our own hearts. So considered, the text\nsuggests the one remedy for all gloom and weakness in the spiritual\nlife.\n\nThus, then, we have three different sets of circumstances in which\nfaith is enforced as the source of true strength and our all-embracing\nduty. In outward sorrow and trial, trust; in inward darkness and\nsadness, trust; in every stage of Christian progress, trust. Or\n\nI. Faith the light in the darkness of the world. II. Faith the light in\nthe darkness of the soul. III. Faith the light in every stage of\nChristian progress.\n\n        *       *       *       *       *\n\nI. Faith our light in the darkness of the world.\n\nThe mystery and standing problem of the Old Testament is the\ncoexistence of goodness and sorrow, and the mystery still remains, and\never will remain, a fact. It is partially alleviated if we remember\nthat one main purpose of all our sorrows is to lead us to this\nconfidence.\n\n1. The call to faith is the true voice of all our sorrows.\n\nIt seems easy to trust when all is bright, but really it is just as\nhard, only we can more easily deceive ourselves, when physical\nwell-being makes us comfortable. We are less conscious of our own\nemptiness, we mask our poverty from ourselves, we do not seem to need\nGod so much. But sorrow reveals our need to us. Other props are struck\naway, and it is either collapse or Him. We learn the vanity, the\ntransiency, of all besides.\n\nSorrow reveals God, as the pillar of cloud glowed brighter when the\nevening fell. Sorrow is meant to awaken the powers that are apt to\nsleep in prosperity.\n\nSo the true voice of all our griefs is 'Come up hither.' They call us\nto trust, as nightfall calls us to light up our lamps. The snow keeps\nthe hidden seeds warm; shepherds burn heather on the hillside that\nyoung grass may spring.\n\n2. The call to faith echoes from the voice of the Servant.\n\nJesus in His darkness rested on God, and in all His sorrows was yet\nanointed with the oil of gladness. In every pang He has been before us.\nThe rack is sanctified because He has been stretched upon it.\n\n3. The substance of the call.\n\nIt is to _trust_, not to anything more. No attempts to stifle tears are\nrequired. There is no sin in sorrow. The emotions which we feel to God\nin bright days are not appropriate at such times. There are seasons in\nevery life when all that we can say is, 'Truly this is a grief, and I\nwill bear it.'\n\nWhat then _is_ required? Assurance of God's loving will sending sorrow.\nAssurance of God's strengthening presence in it, assurance of\ndeliverance from it. These, not more, are required; these are the\nelements of the faith here called for.\n\nSuch faith may co-exist with the keenest sense of loss. The true\nattitude in sorrow may be gathered from Christ's at the grave of\nLazarus, contrasted with the excessive mourning of the sisters, and the\nfeigned grief of the Jews.\n\nThere are times when the most that we can do is to trust even in the\ngreat darkness, 'Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.' Submissive\nsilence is sometimes the most eloquent confession of faith. 'I was\ndumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it.'\n\n4. The blessed results of such faith.\n\nIt is implied that we may find all that we need, and more, in God. Have\nwe to mourn friends? 'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord\nsitting on a throne.' Have we lost wealth? We have in Him a treasure\nthat moth or rust cannot touch. Are our hopes blasted? 'Happy is He ...\nwhose hope is in the Lord his God.' Is our health broken? 'I shall yet\npraise Him, who is the health of my countenance.' 'The Lord is able to\ngive thee much more than these.'\n\nHow can we face the troubles of life without Him? God calls us when in\ndarkness, and by the darkness, to trust in His name and stay ourselves\non Him. Happy are we if we answer 'Though the fig-tree shall not\nblossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ... yet I will rejoice in\nthe Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation.'\n\nII. Faith, our light in the darkness of the soul.\n\nNo doubt there may be such a thing as true fear of God in the soul\nalong with spiritual darkness, faith without the joy of faith. Now this\ncondition seems contradictory of the very nature of the Christian life.\nFor religion is union with God who is light, and if we walk in Him, we\nare in the light. How then can such experience be?\n\nWe must dismiss the notion of God's desertion of the trusting soul. He\nis always the same; He has 'never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me\nin vain.' But while putting aside that false explanation, we can see\nhow such darkness may be. If our religious life was in more vigorous\nexercise, more pure, perfect and continuous, there would be no\nseparation of faith and the joy of faith. But we have not such\nunruffled, perfect, uninterrupted faith, and hence there may be, and\noften is, faith without much joy of faith. I would not say that such\nexperience is always the fruit of sin. But certainly we are not to\nblame Him or to think of Him as breaking His promises, or departing\nfrom His nature. No principles, be they ever so firmly held, ever so\nundoubtingly received, ever so passionately embraced, exert their whole\npower equally at all moments in a life. There come times of languor\nwhen they seem to be mere words, dead commonplaces, as unlike their\nformer selves as sapless winter boughs to their summer pride of leafy\nbeauty. The same variation in our realising grasp affects the truths of\nthe Gospel. Sometimes they seem but words, with all the life and power\nsucked out of them, pale shadows of themselves, or like the dried bed\nof a wady with blazing, white stones, where flashing water used to\nleap, and all the flowerets withered, which once bent their meek little\nheads to drink. No facts are always equally capable of exciting their\ncorrespondent emotions. Those which most closely affect our personal\nlife, in which we find our deepest joys, are not always present in our\nminds, and when they are, do not always touch the springs of our\nfeelings. No possessions are always equally precious to us. The rich\nman is not always conscious with equal satisfaction of his wealth. If,\nthen, the way from the mind to the emotions is not always equally open,\nthere is a reason why there may be faith without light of joy. If the\nthoughts are not always equally concentrated on the things which\nproduce joy, _there_ is a reason why there may be the habit of fearing\nGod, though there be not the present vigorous exercise of faith, and\nconsequently but little light.\n\nAnother reason may lie in the disturbing and saddening influence of\nearthly cares and sorrows. There are all weathers in a year. And the\nhighest hope and nearest possible approach to joy is sometimes 'Unto\nthe upright there ariseth light in the darkness.' Our lives are\nsometimes like an Arctic winter in which for many days is no sun.\n\nAnother reason may be found in the very fact that we are apt to look\nimpatiently for peace and joy, and to be more exercised with these than\nwith that which produces them.\n\nAnother may be errors or mistakes about God and His Gospel.\n\nAnother may be absorption with our own sin instead of with Him. To all\nthese add temperament, education, habit, example, influence of body on\nthe mind, and of course also positive inconsistencies and a low tone of\nChristian life.\n\nIt is clear then that, if these be the causes of this state, the one\ncure for it is to exercise our faith more energetically.\n\nTrust, do not look back. We are tempted to cast away our confidence and\nto say: What profit shall I have if I pray unto Him? But it is on\nlooking onwards, not backwards, that safety lies.\n\nTrust, do not think about your sins.\n\nTrust, do not think so much about your joy.\n\nIt is in the occupation of heart and mind with Jesus that joy and peace\ncome. To make them our direct aim is the way not to attain them. Though\nnow there seems a long wintry interval between seed time and harvest,\nyet 'in due season we shall reap if we faint not.'\n\n'In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came unto them.'\n\nIII. Faith our guiding light in every stage of Christian progress.\n\nThose who already 'fear God' are in the text exhorted to trust.\n\nIn the most advanced Christian life there are temptations to abandon\nour confidence. We never on earth come to such a point as that, without\neffort, we are sure to continue in the way. True, habit is a wonderful\nally of goodness, and it is a great thing to have it on our side, but\nall our lives long, there will be hindrances without and within which\nneed effort and self-repression. On earth there is no time when it is\nsafe for us to go unarmed. The force of gravitation acts however high\nwe climb. Not till heaven is reached will 'love' be 'its own security,'\nand nature coincide with grace. And even in heaven faith 'abideth,' but\nthere it will be without effort.\n\n1. The most advanced Christian life needs a perpetual renewal and\nrepetition of past acts of faith.\n\nIt cannot live on a past any more than the body can subsist on last\nyear's food. The past is like the deep portions of coral reefs, a mere\nplatform for the living present which shines on the surface of the sea,\nand grows. We must gather manna daily.\n\nThe life is continued by the same means as that by which it was begun.\nThere is no new duty or method for the most advanced Christian; he has\nto do just what he has been doing for half a century. We cannot\ntranscend the creatural position, we are ever dependent. 'To hoar hairs\nwill I carry you.' The initial point is prolonged into a continuous\nline.\n\n2. The most advanced and mature faith is capable of increase, in regard\nto its knowledge of its object, and in intensity, constancy, power. At\nfirst it may be a tremulous trust, afterwards it should become an\nassured confidence. At first it may be but a dim recognition, as in a\nglass darkly, of the great love which has redeemed us at a great price;\nafterwards it should become the clear vision of the trusted Friend and\nlifelong companion of our souls, who is all in all to us. At first it\nmay be an interrupted hold, afterwards it should become such a grasp as\nthe roots of a tree have on the soil. At first it may be a feeble power\nruling over our rebel selves, like some king beleaguered in his\ncapital, who has no sway beyond its walls, afterwards it should become\na peaceful sovereign who guides and sways all the powers of the soul\nand outgoings of the life. At first it may be like a premature rose\nputting forth pale petals on an almost leafless bough, afterwards the\nwhole tree should be blossomed over with fragrant flowers, the homes of\nlight and sweetness. The highest faith may be heightened, and the\nspirits before the throne pray the prayer, 'Lord, increase our faith.'\n\nFor us all, then, the merciful voice of the servant of the Lord calls\nto His light. Our faith is our light in darkness, only as a window is\nthe light of a house, or the eye, of the body, because it admits and\ndiscerns that true light. He calls us each from the darkness. Do not\ntry to make fires for yourselves, ineffectual and transient, but look\nto Him, and you shall not walk in darkness, even amid the gloom of\nearth, but shall have light in your darkness, till the time come when,\nin a clearer heaven and a lighter air, 'Thy sun shall no more go down,\nneither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine\neverlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.'\n\n\n\n\nDYING FIRES\n\n'Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that gird yourselves about with\nfirebrands: walk ye in the flame of your fire, and among the brands\nthat ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie\ndown in sorrow.'--ISAIAH l. 11.\n\n\nThe scene brought before us in these words is that of a company of\nbelated travellers in some desert, lighting a little fire that glimmers\nineffectual in the darkness of the eerie waste. They huddle round its\ndying embers for a little warmth and company, and they hope it will\nscare wolf and jackal, but their fuel is all burned, and they have to\ngo to sleep without its solace and security. The prophet's imaginative\npicture is painted from life, and is a sad reality in the cases of all\nwho seek to warm themselves at any fire that they kindle for\nthemselves, apart from God.\n\nI. A sad, true picture of human life.\n\nIt does not cover, nor is presented by the prophet as covering, all the\nfacts of experience. Every man has his share of sunshine, but still it\nis true of all who are not living in dependence on and communion with\nGod, that they are but travellers in the dark.\n\nScripture uses the image of darkness as symbolic of three sad facts of\nour experience: ignorance, sin, sorrow. Are not all these the\ncharacteristics of godless lives?\n\nAs for ignorance--a godless man has no key to the awful problems that\nfront him. He knows not God, who is to him a dread, a name, a mystery.\nHe knows not himself, the depths of his nature, its possibilities for\ngood or evil, whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. He has no solution\nfor the riddle of the universe. It is to him a chaos, and darkness is\nupon the face of the deep.\n\nAs to sin, the darkness of ignorance is largely due to the darkness of\nsin. In every heart comes sometimes the consciousness that it is thus\ndarkened by sin. The sense of sin is with all men more or less--much\nperverted, often wrong in its judgments, feeble, easily silenced, but\nfor all that it is there--and it is great part of the cold obstruction\nthat shuts out the light. Sin weaves the pall that shrouds the world.\n\nAs for darkness of sorrow--we must beware that we do not exaggerate.\nGod makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and there is\ngladness in every life, much that arises from fulfilled desires, from\naccomplished purposes, from gratified affections. But when all this has\nbeen freely admitted, still sadness crouches somewhere in all hearts,\nand over every life the storm sometimes stoops.\n\nWe need nothing beyond our own experience and the slightest knowledge\nof other hearts to know how shallow and one-sided a view of life that\nis which sees only the joy and forgets the sorrow, which ignores the\nnight and thinks only of the day; which, looking out on nature, is\nblind to the pain and agony, the horror and the death, which are as\nreal parts of it as brightness and beauty, love and life. Every little\nvalley that lies in lovely loneliness has its scenes of desolation, and\ntempest has broken over the fairest scenes. Every river has drowned its\nman. Over every inch of blue sky the thunder cloud has rolled. Every\nsummer has its winter, every day its night, every life its death. All\nstars set, all moons wane. 'Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet\nbirds sang' come after every leafy June.\n\nSorrow is as deeply embedded in the necessity and constitution of\nthings as joy. 'God hath set one over against another, and hath made\nall things double.'\n\nII. The vain attempts at light.\n\nThere is bitter irony in the prophet's description of the poor\nflickering spot of light in the black waste and of its swift dying out.\nThe travellers without a watch-fire are defenceless from midnight\nprowlers. How full of solemn truth about godless lives the vivid\noutline picture is!\n\nMen try to free themselves from the miseries of ignorance, sin, and\nsorrow.\n\nThink of the insufficiency of all such attempts, the feeble flicker\nwhich glimmers for an hour, and then fuel fails and it goes out. Then\nthe travellers can journey no further, but 'lie down in sorrow,' and\nwithout a watchfire they become a prey to all the beasts of the field.\nIt is a little picture taken from the life.\n\nIt vividly paints how men _will_ try to free themselves from the\nmiseries of their condition, how insufficient all their attempts are,\nhow transient the relief, and how bitter and black the end.\n\nWe may apply these thoughts to--\n\n1. Men-made grounds of hope before God.\n\n2. Men-made attempts to read the mysteries.\n\nWe do not say this of all human learning, but of that which, apart from\nGod's revelation, deals with the subjects of that revelation.\n\n3. Men-made efforts at self-reformation.\n\n4. Men-made attempts at alleviating sorrow.\n\nScripture abounds in other metaphors for the same solemn spiritual\nfacts as are set before us in this picture of the dying watchfire and\nthe sad men watching its decline. Godless lives draw from broken\ncisterns out of which the water runs. They build with untempered\nmortar. They lean on broken reeds that wound the hand pressed on them.\nThey spend money for that which is not bread. But all these metaphors\nput together do not tell all the vanity, disappointments, and final\nfailure and ruin of such a life. That last glimpse given in the text of\nthe sorrowful sleeper stretched by the black ashes, with darkness round\nand hopeless heaviness within, points to an issue too awful to be dwelt\non by a preacher, and too awful not to be gravely considered by each of\nus for himself.\n\nIII. The light from God.\n\nWhat would the dead fire and the ring of ashes on the sand matter when\nmorning dawned? Jesus is our Sun. He rises, and the spectres of the\nnight melt into thin air, and 'joy cometh in the morning.' He floods\nour ignorance with knowledge of the Father whose name He declares, with\nknowledge of ourselves, of the world, of our destiny and our duty, our\nhopes and our home. He takes away the sin of the world. He gives the\noil of joy for mourning. For every human necessity He is enough. Follow\nHim and your life's pilgrimage shall not be a midnight one, but\naccomplished in sunshine. 'I am the light of the world; he that\nfolloweth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of\nlife.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE AWAKENING OF ZION\n\n'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the\nancient days, in the generations of old.'--ISAIAH li. 9.\n\n'Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion.'--ISAIAH lii. 1.\n\n\nBoth these verses are, I think, to be regarded as spoken by one voice,\nthat of the Servant of the Lord. His majestic figure, wrapped in a\nlight veil of obscurity, fills the eye in all these later prophecies of\nIsaiah. It is sometimes clothed with divine power, sometimes girded\nwith the towel of human weakness, sometimes appearing like the\ncollective Israel, sometimes plainly a single person.\n\nWe have no difficulty in solving the riddle of the prophecy by the\nlight of history. Our faith knows One who unites these diverse\ncharacteristics, being God and man, being the Saviour of the body,\nwhich is part of Himself and instinct with His life. If we may suppose\nthat He speaks in both verses of the text, then, in the one, as priest\nand intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven in His own\nholy hands--and in the other, as messenger and Word of God, He brings\nthe answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative\nlips--thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double\noffice as mediator between man and God. But even if we put aside that\nthought, the correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the\nsame. In any case they are intentionally parallel in form and connected\nin substance. The latter is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion\nis responded to by the call of God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord\nis followed by the awaking of the Church. He puts on strength in\nclothing us with His might, which becomes ours.\n\nThe mere juxtaposition of these verses suggests the point of view from\nwhich I wish to treat them on this occasion. I hope that the thoughts\nto which they lead may help to further that quickened earnestness and\nexpectancy of blessing, without which Christian work is a toil and a\nfailure.\n\nWe have here a common principle underlying both the clauses of our\ntext, to which I must first briefly ask attention, namely--\n\nI. The occurrence in the Church's history of successive periods of\nenergy and of languor.\n\nIt is freely admitted that such alternation is not the highest ideal of\ngrowth, either in the individual or in the community. Our Lord's own\nparables set forth a more excellent way--the way of uninterrupted\nincrease, whereof the type is the springing corn, which puts forth\n'first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,'\nand passes through all the stages from the tender green spikelets that\ngleam over the fields in the spring-tide to the yellow abundance of\nautumn, in one unbroken season of genial months. So would our growth be\nbest, healthiest, happiest. So _might_ our growth be, if the mysterious\nlife in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church\nhas not thus grown. Rather at the best, its emblem is to be looked for,\nnot in corn, but in the forest tree-the very rings in whose trunk tell\nof recurring seasons when the sap has risen at the call of spring, and\nsunk again before the frowns of winter. I have not to do now with the\ncauses of this. These will fall to be considered presently. Nor am I\nsaying that such a manner of growth is inevitable. I am only pointing\nout a fact, capable of easy verification and familiar to us all. Our\nyears have had summer and winter. The evening and the morning have\ncompleted all the days since the first.\n\nWe all know it only too well. In our own hearts we have known such\ntimes, when some cold clinging mist wrapped us round and hid all the\nheaven of God's love and the starry lights of His truth; when the\nvisible was the only real, and He seemed far away and shadowy; when\nthere was neither confidence in our belief, nor heat in our love, nor\nenthusiasm in our service; when the shackles of conventionalism bound\nour souls, and the fetters of the frost imprisoned all their springs.\nAnd we have seen a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the\nChurch of God, so that even the sensation of impotence was dead like\nall the rest, and the very tradition of spiritual power had faded away.\nI need not point to the signal historical examples of such times in the\npast. Remember England a hundred years ago--but what need to travel so\nfar? May I venture to draw my example from nearer home, and ask, have\nwe not been living in such an epoch? I beseech you, think whether the\npower which the Gospel preached by us wields on ourselves, on our\nchurches, on the world, is what Christ meant it and fitted to exercise.\nWhy, if we hold our own in respect to the material growth of our\npopulation, it is as much as we do. Where is the joyful buoyancy and\nexpansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world? It looks\nlike some stream that leaps from the hills, and at first hurries from\ncliff to cliff full of light and music, but flows slower and more\nsluggish as it advances, and at last almost stagnates in its flat\nmarshes. Here we are with all our machinery, our culture, money,\norganisations--and the net result of it all at the year's end is but a\npoor handful of ears. 'Ye sow much and bring home little.' Well may we\ntake up the wail of the old Psalm, 'We see not our signs. There is no\nmore any prophet; neither is there any among us that knoweth how\nlong--arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause.'\n\nIf, then, there are such recurring seasons of languor, they must either\ngo on deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a\nnew outburst of vigorous life. It would be better if we did not need\nthe latter. The uninterrupted growth would be best; but if that has not\nbeen attained, then the ending of winter by spring, and the suppling of\nthe dry branches, and the resumption of the arrested growth, is the\nnext best, and the only alternative to rotting away.\n\nAnd it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has grown.\nIts history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as\nby friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment\nwhen it was ceasing to advance and had begun to slide backwards. And in\nsuch a manner of progress, the Church's history has been in full\nanalogy with that of all other forms of human association and activity.\nIt is not in religion alone that there are 'revivals,' to use the word\nof which some people have such a dread. You see analogous phenomena in\nthe field of literature, arts, social and political life. In them all,\nthere come times of awakened interest in long-neglected principles.\nTruths which for many years had been left to burn unheeded, save by a\nfaithful few watchers of the beacon, flame up all at once as the\nguiding pillars of a nation's march, and a whole people strike their\ntents and follow where they lead. A mysterious quickening thrills\nthrough society. A contagion of enthusiasm spreads like fire, fusing\nall hearts in one. The air is electric with change. Some great advance\nis secured at a stride; and before and after that supreme effort are\nyears of comparative quiescence; those before being times of\npreparation, those after being times of fruition and exhaustion--but\nslow and languid compared with the joyous energy of that moment. One\nday may be as a thousand years in the history of a people, and a nation\nmay be born in a day.\n\nSo also is the history of the Church. And thank God it is so, for if it\nhad not been for the dawning of these times of refreshing, the steady\noperation of the Church's worldliness would have killed it long ago.\n\nSurely, dear brethren, we ought to desire such a merciful interruption\nof the sad continuity of our languor and decay. The surest sign of its\ncoming would be a widespread desire and expectation of its coming,\njoined with a penitent consciousness of our heavy and sinful slumber.\nFor we believe in a God who never sends mouths but He sends meat to\nfill them, and in whose merciful providence every desire is a prophecy\nof its own fruition. This attitude of quickened anticipation, diffusing\nitself silently through many hearts, is like the light air that springs\nup before sunrise, or like the solemn hush that holds all nature\nlistening before the voice of the Lord in the thunder.\n\nAnd another sign of its approach is the extremity of the need. 'If\nwinter come, can spring be far behind?' For He who is always with Zion\nstrikes in with His help when the want is at its sorest. His 'right\nearly' is often the latest moment before destruction. And though we are\nall apt to exaggerate the urgency of the hour and the severity of _our_\nconflict, it certainly does seem that, whether we regard the languor of\nthe Church or the strength of our adversaries, succour delayed a little\nlonger would be succour too late. 'The tumult of those that rise up\nagainst Thee increaseth continually. It is time for Thee to work.'\n\nThe juxtaposition of these passages suggests for us--\n\nII. The twofold explanation of these variations.\n\nThat bold metaphor of God's sleeping and waking is often found in\nScripture, and generally expresses the contrast between the long years\nof patient forbearance, during which evil things and evil men go on\ntheir rebellious road unchecked but by Love, and the dread moment when\nsome throne of iniquity, some Babylon cemented by blood, is smitten to\nthe dust. Such is the original application of the expression here. But\nthe contrast may fairly be widened beyond that specific form of it, and\ntaken to express any apparent variations in the forth-putting of His\npower. The prophet carefully avoids seeming to suggest that there are\nchanges in God Himself. It is not He but His arm, that is to say. His\nactive energy, that is invoked to awake. The captive Church prays that\nthe dormant might which could so easily shiver her prison-house would\nflame forth into action.\n\nWe may, then, see here implied the cause of these alternations, of\nwhich we have been speaking, on its divine side, and then, in the\ncorresponding verse addressed to the Church, the cause on the human\nside.\n\nAs to the former, it is true that God's arm sometimes slumbers, and is\nnot clothed with power. There are, as a fact, apparent variations in\nthe energy with which He works in the Church and in the world. And they\nare real variations, not merely apparent. But we have to distinguish\nbetween the power, and what Paul calls 'the might of the power.' The\none is final, constant, unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow\nthat the other is. The rate of operation, so to speak, and the amount\nof energy actually brought into play may vary, though the force remains\nthe same.\n\nIt is clear from experience that there are these variations; and the\nonly question with which we are concerned is, are they mere arbitrary\njets and spurts of a divine power, sometimes gushing out in full flood,\nsometimes trickling in painful drops, at the unknown will of the unseen\nhand which controls the flow? Is the 'law of the Spirit of life' at all\nrevealed to us; or are the reasons occult, if there be any reasons at\nall other than a mere will that it shall be so? Surely, whilst we never\ncan know all the depths of His counsels and all the solemn concourse of\nreasons which, to speak in man's language, determine the energy of His\nmanifested power, He has left us in no doubt that this is the\nweightiest part of the law which it follows--the might with which God\nworks on the world through His Church varies according to the Church's\nreceptiveness and faithfulness.\n\nOur second text tells us that if God's arm seems to slumber and really\ndoes so, it is because Zion sleeps. In itself that immortal energy\nknows no variableness. 'He fainteth not, neither is weary.' 'The Lord's\narm is not shortened that He cannot save.' 'He that keepeth Israel\nshall neither slumber nor sleep.' But He works through us; and we have\nthe solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow\nthrough us; of restraining and limiting the Holy One of Israel. It\navails nothing that the ocean stretches shoreless to the horizon; a jar\ncan hold only a jarful. The receiver's capacity determines the amount\nreceived, and the receiver's desire determines his capacity. The law\nhas ever been, 'according to your faith be it unto you.' God gives as\nmuch as we will, as much as we can hold, as much as we use, and far\nmore than we deserve. As long as we will bring our vessels the golden\noil will flow, and after the last is filled, there yet remains more\nthat we might have had, if we could have held it, and might have held\nif we would. 'Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in\nyourselves.'\n\nSo, dear brethren, if we have to lament times of torpor and small\nsuccess, let us be honest with ourselves, and recognise that all the\nblame lies with us. If God's arm seems to slumber, it is because we are\nasleep. His power is invariable, and the Gospel which is committed to\nour trust has lost none of its ancient power, whatsoever men may say.\nIf there be variations, they cannot be traced to the divine element in\nthe Church, which in itself is constant, but altogether to the human,\nwhich shifts and fluctuates, as we only too sadly know. The light in\nthe beacon-tower is steady, and the same; but the beam it throws across\nthe waters sometimes fades to a speck, and sometimes flames out clear\nand far across the heaving waves, according to the position of the\nglasses and shades around it. The sun pours out heat as profusely and\nas long at midwinter as on midsummer-day, and all the difference\nbetween the frost and darkness and glowing brightness and flowering\nlife, is simply owing to the earth's place in its orbit and the angle\nat which the unalterable rays fall upon it. The changes are in the\nterrestrial sphere; the heavenly is fixed for ever the same.\n\nMay I not venture to point an earnest and solemn appeal with these\ntruths? Has there not been poured over us the spirit of slumber? Does\nit not seem as if an opium sky had been raining soporifics on our\nheads? We have had but little experience of the might of God amongst us\nof late years, and we need not wonder at it. There is no occasion to\nlook far for the reason. We have only to regard the low ebb to which\nreligious life has been reduced amongst us to have it all and more than\nall accounted for. I fully admit that there has been plenty of\nactivity, perhaps more than the amount of real life warrants, not a\nlittle liberality, and many virtues. But how languid and torpid the\ntrue Christian life has been! how little enthusiasm! how little depth\nof communion with God! how little unworldly elevation of soul! how\nlittle glow of love! An improvement in social position and\ncircumstances, a freer blending with the national life, a full share of\ncivic and political honours, a higher culture in our pulpits, fine\nchapels, and applauding congregations--are but poor substitutes for\nwhat many of us have lost in racing after them. We have the departed\nprophets' mantle, the outward resemblance to the fathers who have gone,\nbut their fiery zeal has passed to heaven with them; and softer, weaker\nmen, we stand timidly on the river's brink, invoking the Lord God of\nElijah, and too often the flood that obeyed them has no ear for our\nfeebler voice.\n\nI speak to many who are in some sort representatives of the churches\nthroughout the land, and they can tell whether my words are on the\nwhole true or overstrained. We who labour in our great cities, what say\nwe? If one of the number may speak for the rest, we have to acknowledge\nthat commercial prosperity and business cares, the eagerness after\npleasure and the exigencies of political strife, diffused doubt and\nwidespread artistic and literary culture, are eating the very life out\nof thousands in our churches, and lowering their fervour till, like\nmolten iron cooling in the air, what was once all glowing with ruddy\nheat is crusted over with foul black scoriae ever encroaching on the\ntiny central warmth. You from rural churches, what say you? Have you\nnot to speak of deepening torpor settling down on quiet corners, of the\npassing away of grey heads which leave no successors, of growing\ndifficulties and lessened power to meet them, that make you sometimes\nall but despair?\n\nI am not flinging indiscriminate censures. I know that there are lights\nas well as shades in the picture. I am not flinging censures at all.\nBut I am giving voice to the confessions of many hearts, that our\nconsciousness of our blame may be deepened, and we may hasten back to\nthat dear Lord whom we have left to serve alone, as His first disciples\nleft Him once to agonise alone under the gnarled olives in Gethsemane,\nwhile they lay sleeping in the moonlight. Listen to His gentle rebuke,\nfull of pain and surprised love, 'What, could ye not watch with Me one\nhour?' Listen to His warning call, loving as the kiss with which a\nmother wakes her child, 'Arise, let us be going'--and let us shake the\nspirit of slumber from our limbs, and serve Him as those unsleeping\nspirits do, who rest not day nor night from vision and work and praise.\n\nIII. The beginning of all awaking is the Church's earnest cry to God.\n\nIt is with us as with infants, the first sign of whose awaking is a\ncry. The mother's quick ear hears it through all the household noises,\nand the poor little troubled life that woke to a scared consciousness\nof loneliness and darkness, is taken up into tender arms, and comforted\nand calmed. So, when we dimly perceive how torpid we have been, and\nstart to find that we have lost our Father's hand, the first instinct\nof that waking, which must needs be partly painful, is to call to Him,\nwhose ear hears our feeble cry amid the sound of praise like the voice\nof many waters, that billows round His throne, and whose folding arms\nkeep us 'as one whom his mother comforteth.' The beginning of all true\nawaking must needs be prayer.\n\nFor every such stirring of quickened religious life must needs have in\nit bitter penitence and pain at the discovery flashed upon us of the\nwretched deadness of our past--and, as we gaze like some wakened\nsleepwalker into the abyss where another step might have smashed us to\natoms, a shuddering terror seizes us that must cry, 'Hold Thou me up,\nand I shall be safe.' And every such stirring of quickened life will\nhave in it, too, desire for more of His grace, and confidence in His\nsure bestowal of it, which cannot but breathe itself in prayer.\n\nNor is Zion's cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true\nawaking: it is also the condition and indispensable precursor of all\nperfecting of recovery from spiritual languor.\n\nI have already pointed out the relation between the waking of God and\nthe waking of His Church, from which that necessarily follows. God's\npower flows into our weakness in the measure and on condition of our\ndesires. We are sometimes told that we err in praying for the\noutpouring of His Holy Spirit, because ever since Pentecost His Church\nhas had the gift. The objection alleges an unquestioned fact, but the\nconclusion drawn from it rests on an altogether false conception of the\nmanner of that abiding gift. The Spirit of God, and the power which\ncomes from Him, are not given as a purse of money might be put into a\nman's hand once and for all, but they are given in a continuous\nimpartation and communication and are received and retained moment by\nmoment, according to the energy of our desires and the faithfulness of\nour use. As well might we say, Why should I ask for natural life, I\nreceived it half a century ago? Yes, and at every moment of that\nhalf-century I have continued to live, not because of a past gift, but\nbecause at each moment God is breathing into my nostrils the breath of\nlife. So is it with the life which comes from His Spirit. It is\nmaintained by constant efflux from the fountain of Life, by constant\nimpartation of His quickening breath. And as He must continually\nimpart, so must we continually receive, else we perish. Therefore,\nbrethren, the first step towards awaking, and the condition of all true\nrevival in our own souls and in our churches, is this earnest cry,\n'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord.\n\nThank God for the outpouring of a long unwonted spirit of prayer in\nmany places. It is like the melting of the snows in the high Alps, at\nonce the sign of spring and the cause of filling the stony river beds\nwith flashing waters, that bring verdure and growth wherever they come.\nThe winter has been long and hard. We have all to confess that we have\nbeen restraining prayer before God. Our work has been done with but\nlittle sense of our need of His blessing, with but little ardour of\ndesire for His power. We have prayed lazily, scarcely believing that\nanswers would come; we have not watched for the reply, but have been\nlike some heartless marksman who draws his bow and does not care to\nlook whether his arrow strikes the target. These mechanical words,\nthese conventional petitions, these syllables winged by no real desire,\ninspired by no faith, these expressions of devotion, far too wide for\ntheir real contents, which rattle in them like a dried kernel in a nut,\nare these prayers? Is there any wonder that they have been dispersed in\nempty air, and that we have been put to shame before our enemies?\nBrethren in the ministry, do we need to be surprised at our fruitless\nwork, when we think of our prayerless studies and of our faithless\nprayers? Let _us_ remember that solemn word, 'The pastors have become\nbrutish, and have not sought the Lord, therefore they shall not\nprosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.' And let us all,\nbrethren, betake ourselves, with penitence and lowly consciousness of\nour sore need, to prayer, earnest and importunate, believing and\npersistent, like this heaven-piercing cry which captive Israel sent up\nfrom her weary bondage.\n\nLook at the passionate earnestness of it--expressed in the short, sharp\ncry, thrice repeated, as from one in mortal need; and see to it that\nour drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which\nit founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient\ndays, and looking back, not for despair but for joyful confidence, to\nthe generations of old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by\nthe example, to expect great things of God. The age of miracles is not\ngone. The mightiest manifestations of God's power in the spread of the\nGospel in the past remain as patterns for His future. We have not to\nlook back as from low-lying plains to the blue peaks on the horizon,\nacross which the Church's path once lay, and sigh over the changed\nconditions of the journey. The highest watermark that the river in\nflood has ever reached will be reached and overpassed again, though\nto-day the waters may seem to have hopelessly subsided. Greater\ntriumphs and deliverances shall crown the future than have signalised\nthe past. Let our faithful prayer base itself on the prophecies of\nhistory and on the unchangeableness of God.\n\nThink, brethren, of the prayers of Christ. Even He, whose spirit needed\nnot to be purged from stains or calmed from excitement, who was ever in\nHis Father's house whilst He was about His Father's business, blending\nin one, action and contemplation, had need to pray. The moments of His\nlife thus marked are very significant. When He began His ministry, the\nclose of the first day of toil and wonders saw Him, far from gratitude\nand from want, in a desert place in prayer. When He would send forth\nHis apostles, that great step in advance, in which lay the germ of so\nmuch, was preceded by solitary prayer. When the fickle crowd desired to\nmake Him the centre of political revolution, He passed from their hands\nand beat back that earliest attempt to secularise His work, by prayer.\nWhen the seventy brought the first tidings of mighty works done in His\nname, He showed us how to repel the dangers of success, in that He\nthanked the Lord of heaven and earth who had revealed these things to\nbabes. When He stood by the grave of Lazarus, the voice that waked the\ndead was preceded by the voice of prayer, as it ever must be. When He\nhad said all that He could say to His disciples, He crowned all with\nHis wonderful prayer for Himself, for them, and for us all. When the\nhorror of great darkness fell upon His soul, the growing agony is\nmarked by His more fervent prayer, so wondrously compact of shrinking\nfear and filial submission. When the cross was hid in the darkness of\neclipse, the only words from the gloom were words of prayer. When,\nGodlike, He dismissed His spirit, manlike He commended it to His\nFather, and sent the prayer from His dying lips before Him to herald\nHis coming into the unseen world. One instance remains, even more to\nour present purpose than all these--'It came to pass, that Jesus also\nbeing baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost\ndescended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.' Mighty mystery! In\nHim, too, the Son's desire is connected with the Father's gift, and the\nunmeasured possession of the Spirit was an answer to _His_ prayer.\n\nThen, brethren, let us lift our voices and our hearts. That which\nascends as prayer descends as blessing, like the vapour that is drawn\nup by the kiss of the sun to fall in freshening rain. 'Call upon Me,\nand I will answer thee, and show thee great and hidden things which\nthou knowest not.'\n\nIV. The answering call from God to Zion.\n\nOur truest prayers are but the echo of God's promises. God's best\nanswers are the echo of our prayers. As in two mirrors set opposite to\neach other, the same image is repeated over and over again, the\nreflection of a reflection, so here, within the prayer, gleams an\nearlier promise, within the answer is mirrored the prayer.\n\nAnd in that reverberation, and giving back to us our petition\ntransformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal of it as if\nwe had misapprehended our true want. It is not tantamount to, Do not\nask me to put on my strength, but array yourselves in your own. The\nvery opposite interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is\nheard and answered. God awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then,\nas some warrior king, himself roused from sleep and girded with\nflashing steel, bids the clarion sound through the grey twilight to\nsummon the prostrate ranks that lie round his tent, so the sign of\nGod's awaking and the first act of His conquering might is this trumpet\ncall--'The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us put off the\nworks of darkness,'--the night gear that was fit for slumber--'and put\non the armour of light,' the mail of purity that gleams and glitters\neven in the dim dawn. God's awaking is our awaking. He puts on strength\nby making us strong; for His arm works through us, clothing itself, as\nit were, with our arm of flesh, and perfecting itself even in our\nweakness.\n\nNor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God's commands, carries\nin its heart a promise. That earliest word of God's is the type of all\nHis latter behests: 'Let there be light,' and the mighty syllables were\ncreative and self-fulfilling. So ever, with Him, to enjoin and to\nbestow are one and the same, and His command is His conveyance of\npower. He rouses us by His summons, He clothes us with power in the\nvery act of bidding us put it on. So He answers the Church's cry by\nstimulating us to quickened zeal, and making us more conscious of, and\nconfident in, the strength which, in answer to our cry, He pours into\nour limbs.\n\nBut the main point which I would insist on in what remains of this\nsermon, is the practical discipline which this divine summons requires\nfrom us.\n\nAnd first, let us remember that the chief means of quickened life and\nstrength is deepened communion with Christ.\n\nAs we have been saying, our strength is ours by continual derivation\nfrom Him. It has no independent existence, any more than a sunbeam\ncould have, severed from the sun. It is ours only in the sense that it\nflows through us, as a river through the land which it enriches. It is\nHis whilst it is ours, it is ours when we know it to be His. Then,\nclearly, the first thing to do must be to keep the channels free by\nwhich it flows into our souls, and to maintain the connection with the\ngreat Fountainhead unimpaired. Put a dam across the stream, and the\neffect will be like the drying up of Jordan before Israel: 'the waters\nthat were above rose up upon an heap, and the waters that were beneath\nfailed and were cut off,' and the foul oozy bed was disclosed to the\nlight of day. It is only by constant contact with Christ that we have\nany strength to put on.\n\nThat communion with Him is no mere idle or passive attitude, but the\nactive employment of our whole nature with His truth, and with Him whom\nthe truth reveals. The understanding must be brought into contact with\nthe principles of His word, the heart must touch and beat against His\nheart, the will meekly lay its hand in His, the conscience draw at once\nits anodyne and its stimulus from His sacrifice, the passions know His\nfinger on the reins, and follow, led in the silken leash of love. Then,\nif I may so say, Elisha's miracle will be repeated in nobler form, and\nfrom Himself, the Life thus touching all our being, life will flow into\nour deadness. 'He put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his\neyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the\nchild, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.' So, dear brethren, all\nour practical duty is summed up in that one word, the measure of our\nobedience to which is the measure of all our strength-'Abide in Me, and\nI in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in\nthe vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.'\n\nAgain, this summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on\ncondition of that communion, we have.\n\nThere is no doubt a temptation, in all times like the present, to look\nfor some new and extraordinary forms of blessing, and to substitute\nsuch expectation for present work with our present strength. There is\nnothing new to look for. There is no need to wait for anything more\nthan we possess. Remember the homely old proverb, 'You never know what\nyou can do till you try,' and though we are conscious of much\nunfitness, and would sometimes gladly wait till our limbs are stronger,\nlet us brace ourselves for the work, assured that in it strength will\nbe given to us that equals our desire. There is a wonderful power in\nhonest work to develop latent energies and reveal a man to himself. I\nsuppose, in most cases, no one is half so much surprised at a great\nman's greatest deeds as he is himself. They say that there is dormant\nelectric energy enough in a few raindrops to make a thunderstorm, and\nthere is dormant spiritual force enough in the weakest of us to flash\ninto beneficent light, and peal notes of awaking into many a deaf ear.\nThe effort to serve your Lord will reveal to you strength that you know\nnot. And it will increase the strength which it brings into play, as\nthe used muscles grow like whipcord, and the practised fingers become\ndeft at their task, and every faculty employed is increased, and every\ngift wrapped in a napkin melts like ice folded in a cloth, according to\nthat solemn law, 'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that\nhath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.'\n\nThen be sure that to its last particle you are using the strength you\nhave, ere you complain of not having enough for your tasks. Take heed\nof the vagrant expectations that wait for they know not what, and the\napparent prayers that are really substitutes for possible service. 'Why\nliest thou on thy face? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go\nforward.'\n\nThe Church's resources are sufficient for the Church's work, if the\nresources are used. We are tempted to doubt it, by reason of our\nexperience of failure and our consciousness of weakness. We are more\nthan ever tempted to doubt it to-day, when so many wise men are telling\nus that our Christ is a phantom, our God a stream of tendency, our\nGospel a decaying error, our hope for the world a dream, and our work\nin the world done. We stand before our Master with doubtful hearts,\nand, as we look along the ranks sitting there on the green grass, and\nthen at the poor provisions which make all our store, we are sometimes\ntempted almost to think that He errs when He says with that strange\ncalmness of His, 'They need not depart, give ye them to eat.' But go\nout among the crowds and give confidently what you have, and you will\nfind that you have enough and to spare. If ever our stores seem\ninadequate, it is because they are reckoned up by sense, which takes\ncognizance of the visible, instead of by faith which beholds the real.\nCertainly five loaves and two small fishes are not enough, but are not\nfive loaves and two small fishes and a miracle-working hand behind\nthem, enough? It is poor calculation that leaves out Christ from the\nestimate of our forces. The weakest man and Jesus to back him are more\nthan all antagonism, more than sufficient for all duty. Be not seduced\ninto doubt of your power, or of your success, by others' sneers, or by\nyour own faint-heartedness. The confidence of ability is ability.\n'Screw your courage to the sticking place,' and you will _not_\nfail--and see to it that you use the resources you have, as good\nstewards of the manifold grace of God. 'Put on _thy_ strength, O Zion.'\n\nSo, dear brethren, to gather all up in a sentence, let us confidently\nlook for times of blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own\nfaithlessness has hindered the arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him\nto come in His rejoicing strength, and, drawing ever fresh power from\nconstant communion with our dear Lord, use it to its last drop for Him.\nThen, like the mortal leader of Israel, as he pondered doubtingly with\nsunken eyes on the hard task before his untrained host, we shall look\nup and be aware of the presence of the sworded angel, the immortal\nCaptain of the host of the Lord, standing ready to save, 'putting on\nrighteousness as a breastplate, an helmet of salvation on His head, and\nclad with zeal as a cloak.' From His lips, which give what they\ncommand, comes the call, 'Take unto you the whole armour of God, that\nye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to\nstand.' Hearkening to His voice, the city of the strong ones shall be\nmade an heap before our wondering ranks, and the land shall lie open to\nour conquering march.\n\nWheresoever _we_ lift up the cry, 'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm\nof the Lord,' there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning\nflash, the rousing summons, 'Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion;\nput on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!' Wheresoever it is obeyed\nthere will follow in due time the joyful chorus, as in this context,\n'Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare\nHis holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the\nearth have seen the salvation of our God.'\n\n\n\n\nA PARADOX OF SELLING AND BUYING\n\n'Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without\nmoney.'--ISAIAH iii. 3.\n\n\nTHE first reference of these words is of course to the Captivity. They\ncome in the midst of a grand prophecy of freedom, all full of leaping\ngladness and buoyant hope. The Seer speaks to the captives; they had\n'sold themselves for nought.' What had they gained by their departure\nfrom God?--bondage. What had they won in exchange for their\nfreedom?--only the hard service of Babylon. As Deuteronomy puts it:\n'Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness... by\nreason of the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve thine\nenemies...in want of all things.' A wise exchange! a good market they\nhad brought their goods to! In striking ironical parallel the prophet\ngoes on to say that so should they be redeemed. They had got nothing by\nbondage, they should give nothing for liberty. This text has its\nhighest application in regard to our captivity and our redemption.\n\nI. The reality of the captivity.\n\nThe true idea of bondage is that of coercion of will and conscience,\nthe dominance and tyranny of what has no right to rule. So men are\nreally in bondage when they think themselves most free. The only real\nslavery is that in which we are tied and bound by our own passions and\nlusts. 'He that committeth sin is the slave of sin.' He thinks himself\nmaster of himself and his actions, and boasts that he has broken away\nfrom the restraints of obedience, but really he has only exchanged\nmasters. What a Master to reject--and what a master to prefer!\n\nII. The voluntariness of the captivity.\n\n'Ye have sold _yourselves_,' and become authors of your own bondage. No\nsin is forced upon any man, and no one is to blame for it but himself.\nThe many excuses which people make to themselves are hollow. Now-a-days\nwe hear a great deal of heredity, how a man is what his ancestors have\nmade him, and of organisation, how a man is what his body makes him,\nand of environment, how a man is what his surroundings make him. There\nis much truth in all that, and men's guilt is much diminished by\ncircumstances, training, and temperament. The amount of responsibility\nis not for us to settle, in regard to others, or even in regard to\nourselves. But all that does not touch the fact that we ourselves have\nsold ourselves. No false brethren have sold us as they did Joseph.\n\nThe strong tendency of human nature is always to throw the blame on\nsome one else; God or the devil, the flesh or the world, it does not\nmatter which. But it remains true that every man sinning is 'drawn away\nof _his own_ lust and enticed.'\n\nAfter all, conscience witnesses to the truth, and by that mysterious\nsense of guilt and gnawing of remorse which is quite different from the\nsense of mistake, tears to tatters the sophistries. Nothing is more\ntruly my own than my sin.\n\nIII. The profitlessness of the captivity.\n\n'For nought'; that is a picturesque way of putting the truth that all\nsinful life fails to satisfy a man. The meaning of one of the Hebrew\nwords for sin is 'missing the mark.' It is a blunder as well as a\ncrime. It is trying to draw water from broken cisterns. It is 'as when\na hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth, but he awaketh and his soul\nis empty.' Sin buys men with fairy money, which looks like gold, but in\nthe morning is found to be but a handful of yellow and faded leaves.\n'Why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?' It cannot but\nbe so, for only God can satisfy a man, and only in doing His will are\nwe sure of sowing seed which will yield us bread enough and to spare,\nand nothing but bread. In all other harvests, tares mingle and they\nyield poisoned flour. We never get what we aim at when we do wrong, for\nwhat we aim at is not the mere physical or other satisfaction which the\ntemptation offers us, but rest of soul--and that we do _not_ get. And\nwe are sure to get something that we did not aim at or look for--a\nwounded conscience, a worsened nature, often hurts to health or\nreputation, and other consequent ills, that were carefully kept out of\nsight, while we were being seduced by the siren voice. The old story of\nthe traitress, who bargained to let the enemies into the city, if they\nwould give her 'what they wore on their left arms,' meaning bracelets,\nand was crushed to death under their shields heaped on her, is repeated\nin the experience of every man who listens to the 'juggling fiends, who\nkeep the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the hope.' The\ntruth of this is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Conscience and\nexperience answer the question, 'What fruit had ye then in those things\nwhereof ye are now ashamed?' Wasted lives answer; tyrannous evil habits\nanswer; diseased bodies, blighted reputations, bitter memories answer.\n\nIV. The unbought freedom.\n\n'Ye shall be redeemed without money.' You gained nothing by your\nbondage; you need give nothing for your emancipation. The original\nreference is, of course, to the great act of divine power which set\nthese literal captives free, not for price nor reward. As in the Exodus\nfrom Egypt, so in that from Babylon, no ransom was paid, but a nation\nof bondsmen was set at liberty without war or compensation. That was a\nstrange thing in history. The paradox of buying back without buying is\na symbol of the Christian redemption.\n\n(1) A price has been paid.\n\n'Ye were redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but\nwith the precious blood of Christ.' The New Testament idea of\nredemption, no doubt, has its roots in the Old Testament provisions for\nthe Goel or kinsman redeemer, who was to procure the freedom of a\nkinsman. But whatever figurative elements may enter into it, its core\nis the ethical truth that Christ's death is the means by which the\nbonds of sin are broken. There is much in the many-sided applications\nand powers of that Death which we do not know, but this is clear, that\nby it the power of sin is destroyed and the guilt of sin taken away.\n\n(2) That price has been paid for all.\n\nWe have therefore nothing to pay. A slave cannot redeem himself, for\nall that he has is his master's already. So, no efforts of ours can set\nourselves free from the 'cords of our sins.' Men try to bring something\nof their own. 'I do my best and God will have mercy.' We will bring our\nown penitence, efforts, good works, or rely on Church ordinances, or\nanything rather than sue _in forma pauperis_. How hard it is to get men\nto see that 'It is finished,' and to come and rest only on the mere\nmercy of God.\n\nHow do we ally ourselves with that completed work? By simple faith, of\nwhich an essential is the recognition that we have nothing and can do\nnothing.\n\nSuppose an Israelite in Babylon who did not choose to avail himself of\nthe offered freedom; he must die in bondage. So must we if we refuse to\nhave eternal life as the gift of God. The prophet's paradoxical\ninvitation, 'He that hath no money, come ye, buy...without money,' is\neasily solved. The price is to give up ourselves and forsake all\nself-willed striving after self-purchased freedom which is but subtler\nbondage. 'If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' If not,\nthen are ye slaves indeed, having 'sold yourselves for nought,' and\ndeclined to be 'redeemed without money.'\n\n\n\n\nCLEAN CARRIERS\n\n'Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.'--ISAIAH lii. 11.\n\n\nThe context points to a great deliverance. It is a good example of the\nprophetical habit of casting prophecies of the future into the mould of\nthe past. The features of the Exodus are repeated, but some of them are\nset aside. This deliverance, whatever it be, is to be after the pattern\nof that old story, but with very significant differences. Then, the\ndeparting Israelites had spoiled the Egyptians and come out, laden with\nsilver and gold which had been poured into their hands; now there is to\nbe no bringing out of anything which was tainted with the foulness of\nthe land of captivity. Then the priests had borne the sacred vessels\nfor sacrifice, now they are to exercise the same holy function, and for\nits discharge purity is demanded. Then, they had gone out in haste;\nnow, there is to be no precipitate flight, but calmly, as those who are\nguided by God for their leader, and shielded from all pursuit by God as\ntheir rearward, the men of this new Exodus are to take their march from\nthe new Egypt.\n\nNo doubt the nearest fulfilment is to be found in the Return from\nBabylon, and the narrative in Ezra may be taken as a remarkable\nparallel to the prophecy here. But the restriction to Babylon must seem\nimpossible to any reader who interprets aright the significance of the\ncontext, and observes that our text follows the grand words of verse\n10, and precedes the Messianic prophecy of verse 13 and of ch. liii. To\nsuch a reader the principle will not be doubtful according to which\nEgypt and Babylon are transparencies through which mightier forms\nshine, and a more wonderful and world-wide making bare of the arm of\nthe Lord is seen. Christ's great redemption is the highest\ninterpretation of these words; and the trumpet-call of our text is\naddressed to all who have become partakers of it.\n\nSo Paul quotes the text in 2 Cor. vi. 17, blending with it other words\nwhich are gathered from more than one passage of Scripture. We may then\ntake the whole as giving the laws of the new Exodus, and also as\nshadowing certain great peculiarities connected with it, by which it\nsurpasses all the former deliverances.\n\nI. The Pilgrims of this new Exodus.\n\nA true Christian is a pilgrim, not only because he, like all men, is\npassing through a life which is transient, but because he is\nconsciously detached from the Visible and Present, as a consequence of\nhis conscious attachment to the Unseen and Eternal. What is said in\nHebrews of Abraham is true of all inheritors of his faith: 'dwelling in\ntabernacles, for he looked for the city.'\n\nII. The priests.\n\nPriests and Levites bore the sacred vessels. All Christians are\npriests. The only true priesthood is Christ's, ours is derived from\nHim. In that universal priesthood of believers are included the\nprivileges and obligations of\n\na. Access to God--Communion.\n\nb. Offering spiritual sacrifices. Service and self-surrender.\n\nc. Mediation with men.\n\nProclamation. Intercession. Thus follows\n\nd. Bearing the holy vessels. A sacred deposit is entrusted to them--the\nhonour and name of God; the treasure of the Gospel.\n\nIII. The separation that becomes pilgrims.\n\n'Come out and be ye separate.' The very meaning of our Christian\nprofession is separation. There is ludicrous inconsistency in saying\nthat we are Christians and not being pilgrims. Of course, the\nseparation is not to be worked out by mere external asceticism or\nwithdrawal from the world. That has been so thoroughly preached and\npractised of late years that we much need the other side to be put.\nThere should be some plain difference between the life of Christians\nand that of men whose portion is in this life. They should differ in\nthe aspect under which all outward things are regarded.\n\nTo a Christian they are to be means to an end, and ever to be felt to\nbe evanescent. They should differ in the motive for action, which\nshould, for a Christian, ever be the love of God. They should differ in\nthat a Christian abstains from much which non-Christians feel free to\ndo, and often has to say, 'So did not I, because of the fear of the\nLord.' He who marches light marches quickly and marches far; to bring\nthe treasures of Egypt along with us, is apt to retard our steps.\n\nIV. The purity that becomes priests.\n\nThe Levites would cleanse themselves before taking up the holy vessels.\nAnd for us, clean hands and a pure heart are essential. There is no\ncommunion with God without these; a small speck of dust in the eye\nblinds us. There is no sacrificial service without them. No efficient\nwork among men can be done without them. One main cause of the weakness\nof our Christian testimony is the imperfection of character in the\nwitnesses, which is more powerful than all talk and often neutralises\nmuch effort. Keen eyes are watching us.\n\nThe consciousness of our own impurity should send us to Jesus, with the\nprayer and the confidence, 'Cleanse me and I shall be clean.' 'The\nblood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.' 'He hath loosed us from\nour sins and made us kings and priests to God.'\n\n\n\n\nMARCHING ORDERS\n\n'Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing;\ngo ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of\nthe Lord. 12. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for\nthe Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your\nreward.'--ISAIAH iii. 11, 12.\n\n\nThese ringing notes are parts of a highly poetic picture of that great\ndeliverance which inspired this prophet's most exalted strains. It is\ndescribed with constant allusion to the first Exodus, but also with\nsignificant differences. Now no doubt the actual historical return of\nthe Jews from the Babylonish captivity is the object that fills the\nforeground of this vision, but it by no means exhausts its\nsignificance. The restriction of the prophecy to that more immediate\nfulfilment may well seem impossible when we note that my text follows\nthe grand promise that 'all the ends of the earth shall see the\nsalvation of our God,' and immediately precedes the Messianic prophecy\nof the fifty-third chapter. Egypt was transparent, and through it shone\nBabylon; Babylon was transparent, and through it shone Christ's\nredemption. That was the real and highest fulfilment of the prophet's\nanticipations, and the trumpet-calls of my text are addressed to all\nwho have a share in it. We have, then, here, under highly metaphorical\nforms, the grand ideal of the Christian life; and I desire to note\nbriefly its various features.\n\nI. First, then, we have it set forth as a march of warrior priests.\n\nNote that phrase--'Ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.' The returning\nexiles as a whole are so addressed, but the significance of the\nexpression, and the precise metaphor which it is meant to convey, may\nbe questionable. The word rendered 'vessel' is a wide expression,\nmeaning any kind of equipment, and in other places of the Old Testament\nthe whole phrase rendered here, 'ye that bear the vessels,' is\ntranslated 'armour-bearers.' Such an image would be quite congruous\nwith the context here, in which warlike figures abound. And if so, the\npicture would be that of an army on the march, each man carrying some\nof the weapons of the great Captain and Leader. But perhaps the other\nexplanation is more likely, which regards 'the vessels of the Lord' as\nbeing an allusion to the sacrificial and other implements of worship,\nwhich, in the first Exodus, the Levites carried on the march. And if\nthat be the meaning, as seems more congruous with the command of purity\nwhich is deduced from the function of bearing the vessels, then the\nfigure here, of course, is that of a company of priests. I venture to\nthrow the two ideas together, and to say that we may here find an ideal\nof the Christian community as being a great company of warrior-priests\non the march, guarding a sacred deposit which has been committed to\ntheir charge.\n\nLook, then, at that combination in the true Christian character of the\ntwo apparently opposite ideas of warrior and priest. It suggests that\nall the life is to be conflict, and that all the conflict is to be\nworship; that everywhere, in the thick of the fight, we may still bear\nthe remembrance of the 'secret place of the most High.' It suggests,\ntoo, that the warfare is worship, that the offices of the priest and of\nthe warrior are one and the same thing, and both consist in their\nmediating between man and God, bringing God in His Gospel to men, and\nbringing men through their faith to God. The combination suggests,\nlikewise, how, in the true Christian character, there ought ever to be\nblended, in strange harmony, the virtues of the soldier and the\nqualities of the priest; compassion for the ignorant and them that are\nout of the way, with courage; meekness with strength; a quiet, placable\nheart hating strife, joined to a spirit that cheerily fronts every\ndanger and is eager for the conflict in which evil is the foe and God\nthe helper. The old Crusaders went to battle with the Cross on their\nhearts, and on their shoulders, and on the hilts of their swords; and\nwe, too, in all our warfare, have to remember that its weapons are not\ncarnal but spiritual, and that only then do we fight as the Captain of\nour salvation fought, when our arms are meekness and pity, and our\nwarfare is waged in gentleness and love.\n\nNote, further, that in this phrase we have the old, old metaphor of\nlife as a march, but so modified as to lose all its melancholy and\nweariness and to become an elevating hope. The idea which runs through\nall poetry, of life as a journey, suggests effort, monotonous change, a\nuniform law of variety and transiency, struggle and weariness, but the\nChristian thought of life, while preserving the idea of change,\nmodifies it into the blessed thought of progress. Life, if it is as\nChrist meant it to be, is a journey in the sense that it is a\ncontinuous effort, not unsuccessful, toward a clearly discerned goal,\nour eternal home. The Christian march is a march from slavery to\nfreedom, and from a foreign land to our native soil.\n\nAgain, this metaphor suggests that this company of marching priests\nhave in charge a sacred deposit. Paul speaks of the 'glorious Gospel\nwhich was committed to my trust.' 'That good thing which was committed\nunto thee by the Holy Ghost, keep.' The history of the return from\nBabylon in the Book of Ezra presents a remarkable parallel to the\nlanguage of my text, for there we are told how, in the preparation for\nthe march, the leader entrusted the sacred vessels of the temple, which\nthe liberality of the heathen king had returned to him, to a group of\nLevites and priests, weighing them at the beginning, and bidding them\nkeep them safe until they were weighed again in the courts of the\nLord's house in Jerusalem.\n\nAnd, in like manner, to us Christians is given the charge of God's\ngreat weapons of warfare, with which He contends with the wickedness of\nthe world--viz. that great message of salvation through, and in, the\nCross of Jesus Christ. And there are committed to us, further, to guard\nsedulously, and to keep bright and untarnished and undiminished in\nweight and worth, the precious treasures of the Christian life of\ncommunion with Him. And we may give another application to the figure\nand think of the solemn trust which is put into our hands, in the gift\nof our own selves, which we ourselves can either waste, and stain, and\nlose, or can guard and polish into vessels 'meet for the Master's use.'\n\nGathering, then, these ideas together, we take this as the ideal of the\nChristian community--a company of priests on the march, with a sacred\ndeposit committed to their trust. If we reflected more on such a\nconception of the Christian life, we should more earnestly hearken to,\nand more sedulously discharge, the commands that are built thereon. To\nthese commands I now turn.\n\nII. Note the separation that befits the marching company.\n\n'Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing,\ngo ye out of the midst of her.' In the historical fulfilment of my\ntext, separation from Babylon was the preliminary of the march. Our\ntask is not so simple; our separation from Babylon must be the constant\naccompaniment of our march. And day by day it has to be repeated, if we\nwould lift a foot in advance upon the road. There is still a Babylon.\nThe order in the midst of which we live is not organised on the\nfundamental laws of Christ's Kingdom. And wherever there are men who\nseek to order their lives as Christ would have them to be ordered, the\nfirst necessity for them is, 'Come out from amongst them, and be ye\nseparate, saith the Lord.' There is no need in this day to warn\nChristian people against an exaggerated interpretation of these\ncommandments. I almost wish there were more need. We have been told so\noften, in late years, of how Christian men ought to mingle with all the\naffairs of life, and count nothing that is human foreign to themselves,\nthat it seems to me there is vast need for a little emphasis being put\non the other side of the truth, and for separation being insisted upon.\nWherever there is a real grasp of Jesus Christ for a man's own personal\nSaviour, and a true submission to Him as the Pattern and Guide of life,\na broad line of demarcation between that man and the irreligious life\nround him will draw itself. If the heart have its tendrils twined round\nthe Cross, it will have detached them from the world around. Separation\nby reason of an entirely different conception of life, separation\nbecause the present does not look to you as it looks to the men who see\nonly it, separation because you and they have not only a different\nideal and theory of life, but are living from different motives and for\ndifferent ends and by different powers, will be the inevitable result\nof any real union with Jesus Christ. If I am joined to Him I am\nseparated from the world; and detachment from it is the simple and\nnecessary result of any real attachment to Him. There will always be a\ngulf in feeling, in purpose, in view, and therefore there will often\nhave to be separation outward things. 'So did not I because of the fear\nof the Lord' will have to be said over and over again by any real and\nhonest follower of the Master.\n\nThis separation will not only be the result of union with Jesus Christ,\nbut it is the condition of all progress in our union with Him. We must\nbe unmoored before we can advance. Many a caravan has broken down in\nAfrican exploration for no other reason than because it was too well\nprovided with equipments, and so collapsed of its own weight.\nTherefore, our prophet in the context says, 'Touch no unclean thing.'\n_There_ is one of the differences between the new Exodus and the old.\nWhen Israel came out of Egypt they spoiled the Egyptians, and came away\nladen with gold and jewels; but it is dangerous work bringing anything\naway from Babylon with us. Its treasure has to be left if we would\nmarch close behind our Lord and Master. We must touch 'no unclean\nthing,' because our hands are to be filled with the 'vessels of the\nLord.' I am preaching no impossible asceticism, no misanthropical\nwithdrawal from the duties of life, and the obligations that we owe to\nsociety. God's world is a good one; man's world is a bad one. It is\nman's world that we have to leave, but the lofties, sanctity requires\nno abstention from anything that God has ordained.\n\nNow, dear friends, I venture to think that this message is one that we\nall dreadfully need to-day. There are a great many Christians,\nso-called, in this generation, who seem to think that the main object\nthey should have in view is to obliterate the distinction between\nthemselves and the world of ungodly men, and in occupation and\namusements to be as like people that have no religion as they possibly\ncan manage. So they get credit for being 'liberal' Christians, and\npraise from quarters whose praise is censure, and whose approval ought\nto make a Christian man very uncomfortable. Better by far the narrowest\nPuritanism--I was going to say better by far monkish austerities--than\na Christianity which knows no self-denial, which is perfectly at home\nin an irreligious atmosphere, and which resents the exhortation to\nseparation, because it would fain keep the things that it is bidden to\ndrop. God's reiteration of the text through Paul to the Church in\nluxurious, corrupt, wealthy Corinth is a gospel for this day for\nEnglish Christians, 'Come out from among them, and I will receive you.'\n\nIII. Further, note the purity which becomes the bearers of the vessels\nof the Lord.\n\n'Be ye clean.' The priest's hands must be pure, which figure, being\ntranslated, is that transparent purity of conduct and character is\ndemanded from all Christian men who profess to bear God's sacred\ndeposit. You cannot carry it unless your hands are clean, for all the\ngifts that God gives us glide from our grasp if our hands be stained.\nMonkish legends tell of sacred pictures and vessels which, when an\nimpure touch was laid upon them, refused to be lifted from their place,\nand grew there, as rooted, in spite of all efforts to move them.\nWhoever seeks to hold the gifts of God in His Gospel in dirty hands\nwill fail miserably in the attempt; and all the joy and peace of\ncommunion, the assurance of God's love, and the calm hope of immortal\nlife will vanish as a soap bubble, grasped by a child, turns into a\ndrop of foul water on its palm, if we try to hold them in foul hands.\nBe clean, or you cannot bear the vessels of the Lord.\n\nAnd further, remember that no priestly service nor any successful\nwarfare for Jesus Christ is possible, except on the same condition. One\nsin, as well as one sinner, destroys much good, and a little\ninconsistency on the part of us professing Christians neutralises all\nthe efforts that we may ever try to put forth for Him. Logic requires\nthat God's vessels should be carried with clean hands. God requires it,\nmen require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness\nfor Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world\nprofessing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty\nfingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for\nthe message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness\nof its bearers. 'Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.'\n\nIV. Lastly, notice the leisurely confidence which should mark the march\nthat is guarded by God. 'Ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by\nflight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be\nyour reward.'\n\nThis is partly an analogy and partly a contrast with the story of the\nfirst Exodus. The unusual word translated 'with haste' is employed in\nthe Pentateuch to describe the hurry and bustle, not altogether due to\nthe urgency of the Egyptians, but partly also to the terror of Israel,\nwith which that first flight was conducted. And, says my text, in this\nnew coming out of bondage there shall be no need for tremor or\nperturbation, lending wings to any man's feet; but, with quiet\ndeliberation, like that with which Peter was brought out of his\ndungeon, because God knew that He could bring him out safely, the new\nExodus shall be carried on.\n\n'He that believeth shall not make haste.' Why should he? There is no\nneed for a Christian man ever to be flurried, or to lose his\nself-command, or ever to be in an undignified and unheroic hurry. His\nmarch should be unceasing, swift, but calm and equable, as the motions\nof the planets, unhasting and unresting.\n\nThere is a very good reason why we need not be in any haste due to\nalarm. For, as in the first Exodus, the guiding pillar led the march,\nand sometimes, when there were foes behind, as at the Red Sea, shifted\nits place to the rear, so 'the Lord will go before you, and the God of\nIsrael will be your rereward.' He besets us behind and before, going in\nfront to be our Guide, and in the rear for our protection, gathering up\nthe stragglers, so that there shall not be 'a hoof left behind,' and\nputting a wall of iron between us and the swarms of hovering enemies\nthat hang on our march. Thus encircled by God, we shall be safe. Christ\nfulfils what the prophet pledged God to do; for He goes before us, the\nPattern, the Captain of our salvation, the Forerunner, 'the Breaker is\ngone up before them '; and He comes behind us to guard us from evil;\nfor He is 'the _Alpha_ and _Omega_, the beginning and the ending, the\nAlmighty.'\n\nDear brethren, life for us all must be a weary pilgrimage. We cannot\nalter that. It is the lot of every son of man. But we have the power of\neither making it a dreary, solitary tramp over an undefended desert, to\nend in the great darkness, or else of making it a march in which the\ntwin sisters Joy and Peace shall lead us forth, and go out with us, and\nthe other pair of angel-forms, 'Goodness and Mercy,' shall follow us\nall the days of our lives. We may make it a journey with Jesus for\nGuide and Companion, to Jesus as our Home. 'The ransomed of the Lord\nshall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon\ntheir heads.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE ARM OF THE LORD\n\n'To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?'---ISAIAH liii 1.\n\n\nIn the second Isaiah there are numerous references to 'the arm of the\nLord.' It is a natural symbol of the active energy of Jehovah, and is\nanalogous to the other symbol of 'the Face of Jehovah,' which is also\nfound in this book, in so far as it emphasises the notion of power in\nmanifestation, though 'the Face' has a wider range and may be explained\nas equivalent to that part of the divine Nature which is turned to men.\nThe latter symbol will then be substantially parallel with 'the Name.'\nBut there are traces of a tendency to conceive of 'the arm of the Lord'\nas personified, for instance, where we read (ch. lxiii. 12) that\nJehovah 'caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses.'\nMoses was not the true leader, but was himself led and sustained by the\ndivine Power, dimly conceived as a person, ever by his side to sustain\nand direct. There seems to be a similar imperfect consciousness of\npersonification in the words of the text, especially when taken in\ntheir close connection with the immediately following prophecy of the\nsuffering servant. It would be doing violence to the gradual\ndevelopment of Revelation, like tearing asunder the just-opening petals\nof a rose, to read into this question of the sad prophet full-blown\nChristian truth, but it would be missing a clear anticipation of that\ntruth to fail to recognise the forecasting of it that _is_ here.\n\nI. We have here a prophetic forecast that the arm of the Lord is a\nperson.\n\nThe strict monotheism of the Old Testament does not preclude some very\nremarkable phenomena in its modes of conception and speech as to the\ndivine Nature. We hear of the 'angel of His face,' and again of 'the\nangel in whom is His Name.' We hear of 'the angel' to whom divine\nworship is addressed and who speaks, as we may say, in a divine dialect\nand does divine acts. We meet, too, with the personification of Wisdom\nin the Book of Proverbs, to which are ascribed characteristics and are\nattributed acts scarcely distinguishable from divine, and eminently\nassociated in the creative work. Our text points in the same direction\nas these representations. They all tend in the direction of preparing\nfor the full Christian truth of the personal 'Power of God.' What was\nshown by glimpses 'at sundry times and in divers manners,' with many\ngaps in the showing and much left all unshown, is perfectly revealed in\nthe Son. The New Testament, by its teaching as to 'the Eternal Word,'\nendorses, clears, and expands all these earlier dimmer adumbrations.\nThat Word is the agent of the divine energy, and the conception of\npower as being exercised by the Word is even loftier than that of it as\nput forth by 'the arm,' by as much as intelligent and intelligible\nutterance is more spiritual and higher than force of muscle. The\napostolic designation of Jesus as 'the power of God and the wisdom of\nGod' blends the two ideas of these two symbols. The conception of Jesus\nChrist as the arm of the Lord, when united with that of the Eternal\nWord, points to a threefold sphere and manner of His operations, as the\npersonal manifestation of the active power of God. In the beginning,\nthe arm of the Lord stretched out the heavens as a tent to dwell in,\nand without Him 'was not anything made that was made.' In His\nIncarnation, He carried into execution all God's purposes and fulfilled\nHis whole will. From His throne He wields divine power, and rules the\nuniverse. 'The help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself,'\nand He works in the midst of humanity that redeeming work which none\nbut He can effect.\n\nII. We have here a prophetic paradox that the mightiest revelation of\nthe arm of the Lord is in weakness.\n\nThe words of the text stand in closest connection with the great\npicture of the Suffering Servant which follows, and the pathetic figure\nportrayed there is the revealing of the arm of the Lord. The close\nbringing together of the ideas of majesty and power and of humiliation,\nsuffering, and weakness, would be a paradox to the first hearers of the\nprophecy. Its solution lies in the historical manifestation of Jesus.\nLooking on Him, we see that the growing up of that root out of a dry\nground was the revelation of the great power of God. In Jesus' lowly\nhumanity God's power is made perfect in man's weakness, in another and\nnot less true sense than that in which the apostle spoke. There we see\ndivine power in its noblest form, in its grandest operation, in its\nwidest sweep, in its loftiest purpose. That humble man, lowly and poor,\ndespised and rejected in life, hanging faint and pallid on the Roman\ncross, and dying in the dark, seems a strange manifestation of the\n'glory' of God, but the Cross is indeed His throne, and sublime as are\nthe other forms in which Omnipotence clothes itself, this is, to human\neyes and hearts, the highest of them all. In Jesus the arm of the Lord\nis revealed in its grandest operation. Creation and the continual\nsustaining of a universe are great, but redemption is greater. It is\ninfinitely more to say, 'He giveth power to the faint,' than to say,\n'For that He is strong in might, not one faileth,' and to\nprincipalities and powers in heavenly places who have gazed on the\ngrand operations of divine power for ages, new lessons of what it can\neffect are taught by the redemption of sinful men. The divine power\nthat is enshrined in Jesus' weakness is power in its widest sweep, for\nit is to every one that believeth, and in its loftiest purpose, for it\nis 'unto salvation.'\n\nIII. We have here a prophetic lament that the power revealed to all is\nunseen by many.\n\nThe text is a wail over darkened eyes, blind at noonday. The prophet's\nradiant anticipations of the Servant's exaltation, and of God's holy\narm being made bare in the eyes of all nations, are clouded over by the\nthought of the incredulity of the multitude to 'our report.' Jehovah\nhad indeed 'made bare His arm,' as a warrior throws back his loose\nrobe, when he would strike. But what was the use of that, if dull eyes\nwould not look? The 'report' had been loudly proclaimed, but what was\nthe use of that, if ears were obstinately stopped? Alas, alas! nothing\nthat God can do secures that men shall see what He shows, or listen to\nwhat He speaks. The mystery of mysteries is that men can, the tragedy\nof tragedies is that they will, make any possible revelation of none\neffect, so far as they are concerned.\n\nThe Arm is revealed, but only by those who have 'believed our report'\ndoes the prophet deem it to be actually beheld. Faith is the individual\ncondition on which the perfected revelation becomes a revelation to me.\nThe 'salvation of our God' is shown in splendour to 'all the ends of\nthe earth,' but only they who exercise faith in Jesus, who is the power\nof God, will see that far-shining light. If we are not of those who\n'believe the report,' we shall, notwithstanding that 'He hath made bare\nHis holy arm,' be of those who grope at noonday as in the dark.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT-I\n\n'For He grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a\ndry ground He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him, there\nis no beauty that we should desire Him. 3. He was despised, and\nrejected of men, a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as\none from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him\nnot.'--ISAIAH liii, 2, 3.\n\n\nTo hold fast the fulfilment of this prophecy of the Suffering Servant\nin Jesus it is not necessary to deny its reference to Israel. Just as\noffices, institutions, and persons in it were prophetic, and by their\nfailures to realise to the full their own _role_, no less than by their\npartial presentation of it, pointed onwards to Him, in whom their idea\nwould finally take form and substance, so this great picture of God's\nServant, which was but imperfectly reproduced even by the Israel within\nIsrael, stood on the prophet's page a fair though sad dream, with\nnothing corresponding to it in the region of reality and history, till\nHe came and lived and suffered.\n\nIf we venture to make it the theme of a short series of sermons, our\nobject is simply to endeavour to bring out clearly the features of the\nwonderful portrait. If they are fully apprehended, it seems to us that\nthe question of who is the original of the picture answers itself. We\nmust note that the whole is introduced by a 'For,' that is to say, that\nit is all explanatory of the unbelief and blindness to the revealed arm\nof the Lord, which the prophet has just been lamenting. This close\nconnection with the preceding words accounts for the striking way in\nwhich the description of the person of the Servant is here blended\nwith, or interrupted by, that of the manner in which he was treated.\n\nI. The Servant's lowly origin and growth.\n\n'He _grew_,'--not '_shall_ grow.' The whole is cast into the form of\nhistory, and to begin the description with a future tense is not only\nan error in grammar but gratuitously introduces an incongruity. The\nword rendered 'tender plant' means a sucker, and 'root' probably would\nmore properly be taken as a shoot from a root, the tree having been\nfelled, and nothing left but the stump. There is here, then, at the\noutset, an unmistakable reference to the prophecy in ch. xi. 1, which\nis Messianic prophecy, and therefore there is a presumption that this\ntoo has a Messianic reference. In the original passage the stump or\n'stock' is explained as being the humiliated house of David, and it is\nonly following the indications supplied by the fact of the second\nIsaiah's quotation of the first, if we take the implication in his\nwords to be the same. Royal descent, but from a royal house fallen on\nevil days, is the plain meaning here.\n\nAnd the eclipse of its glory is further brought out in that not only\ndoes the shoot spring from a tree, all whose leafy honours have long\nbeen lopped away, but which is 'in a dry ground.' Surely we do not\nforce a profounder meaning than is legitimate into this feature of the\npicture when we think of the Carpenter's Son 'of the house and lineage\nof David,' of the Son of God 'who was found in fashion as a man,' of\nHim who was born in a stable, and grew up in a tiny village hidden away\namong the hills of Galilee, who, as it were, stole into the world 'not\nwith observation,' and opened out, as He grew, the wondrous blossom of\na perfect humanity such as had never before been evolved from any root,\nnor grown on the most sedulously cultured plant. Is this part of the\nprophet's ideal realised in any of the other suggested realisations of\nit?\n\nBut there is still another point in regard to the origin and growth of\nthe lowly shoot from the felled stump--it is 'before Him.' Then the\nunnoticed growth is noticed by Jehovah, and, though cared for by no\nothers, is cared for, tended, and guarded, by Him.\n\nII. The Servant's unattractive form.\n\nNaturally a shoot springing in a dry ground would show but little\nbeauty of foliage or flower. It would be starved and colourless beside\nthe gaudy growths in fertile, well-watered gardens. But that\nunattractiveness is not absolute or real; it is only 'that _we_ should\ndesire Him.' We are but poor judges of true 'form or comeliness,' and\nwhat is lustrous with perfect beauty in God's eyes may be, and\ngenerally is, plain and dowdy in men's. Our tastes are debased.\nFlaunting vulgarities and self-assertive ugliness captivate vulgar\neyes, to which the serene beauties of mere goodness seem insipid.\nCockatoos charm savages to whom the iridescent neck of a dove has no\ncharms. Surely this part of the description fits Jesus as it does no\nother. The entire absence of outward show, or of all that pleases the\nspoiled tastes of sinful men, need not be dwelt on. No doubt the world\nhas slowly come to recognise in Him the moral ideal, a perfect man, but\nHe has been educating it for nineteen hundred years to get it up to\nthat point, and the educational process is very far from complete. The\nreal desire of most men is for something much more pungent and dashing\nthan Jesus' meek wisdom and stainless purity, which breed in them ennui\nrather than longing. 'Not this man but Barabbas,' was the approximate\nrealisation of the Jewish ideal then; not this man but--some type or\nother of a less oppressive perfection, and that calls for less effort\nto imitate it, is the world's real cry still. Pilate's scornfully\nwondering question: Art _Thou_--such a poor-looking creature--the King\nof the Jews? is very much of a piece with the world's question still:\nArt Thou the perfect instance of manhood? Art Thou the highest\nrevelation of God?\n\nIII. The Servant's reception by men.\n\nThe two preceding characteristics naturally result in this third. For\nlowliness of condition and lack of qualities appealing to men's false\nideals will certainly lead to being 'despised and rejected.' The latter\nexpression is probably better taken, as in the margin of the Rev. Ver.\nas 'forsaken.' But whichever meaning is adopted, what an Iliad of woes\nis condensed into these two words! 'The spurns that patient merit of\nthe unworthy takes,' the loneliness of one who, in all the crowd\ndescries none to trust--these are the wages that the world ever gives\nto its noblest, who live but to help it and be misunderstood by it, and\nas these are the wages of all who with self-devotion would serve God by\nserving the world for its good, they were paid in largest measure to\n'_the_ Servant of the Lord.' His claims were ridiculed, His words of\nwisdom thrown back on Himself; none were so poor but could afford to\ndespise Him as lower than they, His love was repulsed, surely He drank\nthe bitterest cup of contempt. All His life He walked in the solitude\nof uncomprehended aims, and at His hour of extremest need appealed in\nvain for a little solace of companionship, and was deserted by those\nwhom He trusted most. His was a lifelong martyrdom inflicted by men.\nHis was a lifelong solitude which was most utter at the last. And He\nbrought it all on Himself because He _would_ be God's Servant in being\nmen's Saviour.\n\nIV. The Servant's sorrow of heart.\n\nThe remarkable expression 'acquainted with grief' seems to carry an\nallusion to the previous clause, in which men are spoken of as\ndespising and rejecting the Servant. They left Him alone, and His only\ncompanion was 'grief'--a grim associate to walk at a man's side all his\ndays! It is to be noted that the word rendered 'grief' is literally\nsickness. That description of mental or spiritual sorrows under the\nimagery of bodily sicknesses is intensified in the subsequent terrible\npicture of Him as one from whom men hide their faces with disgust at\nHis hideous appearance, caused by disease. Possibly the meaning may\nrather be that He hides His face, as lepers had to do.\n\nNow probably the 'sorrows' touched on at this point are to be\ndistinguished from those which subsequently are spoken of in terms of\nsuch poignancy as laid on the Servant by God. Here the prophet is\nthinking rather of those which fell on Him by reason of men's rejection\nand desertion. We shall not rightly estimate the sorrowfulness of\nChrist's sorrows, unless we bring to our meditations on them the other\nthought of His joys. How great these were we can judge, when we\nremember that He told the disciples that by His joy remaining in them\ntheir joy would be full. As much joy then as human nature was capable\nof from perfect purity, filial obedience, trust, and unbroken communion\nwith God, so much was Jesus' permanent experience. The golden cup of\nHis pure nature was ever full to the brim with the richest wine of joy.\nAnd that constant experience of gladness in the Father and in Himself\nmade more painful the sorrows which He encountered, like a biting wind\nshrieking round Him, whenever He passed out from fellowship with God in\nthe stillness of His soul into the contemptuous and hostile world. His\nspirit carrying with it the still atmosphere of the Holy Place, would\nfeel more keenly than any other would have done the jarring tumult of\nthe crowds, and would know a sharper pain when met with greetings in\nwhich was no kindness. Jesus was sinless, His sympathy with all sorrow\nwas thereby rendered abnormally keen, and He made others' griefs His\nown with an identification born of a sympathy which the most\ncompassionate cannot attain. The greater the love, the greater the\nsorrow of the loving heart when its love is spurned. The intenser the\nyearning for companionship, the sharper the pang when it is repulsed.\nThe more one longs to bless, the more one suffers when his blessings\nare flung off. Jesus was the most sensitive, the most sympathetic, the\nmost loving soul that ever dwelt in flesh. He saw, as none other has\never seen, man's miseries. He experienced, as none else has ever\nexperienced, man's ingratitude, and, therefore, though God, even His\nGod, 'anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows,' He was\n'a Man of Sorrows,' and grief was His companion during all His life's\ncourse.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT-II\n\n'Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did\nesteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5. But He was\nwounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the\nchastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are\nhealed. 6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one\nto his own way; and the Lord hath laid (made to light) on Him the\niniquity of us all.'--ISAIAH liii. 4-6.\n\n\nThe note struck lightly in the close of the preceding paragraph becomes\ndominant here. One notes the accumulation of expressions for suffering,\ncrowded into these verses--griefs, sorrows, wounded, bruised, smitten,\nchastisement, stripes. One notes that the cause of all this multiform\ninfliction is given with like emphasis of reiteration--our griefs, our\nsorrows, and that these afflictions are invested with a still more\ntragic and mysterious aspect, by being traced to our transgressions,\nour iniquities. Finally, the deepest word of all is spoken when the\nwhole mystery of the servant's sufferings is referred to Jehovah's\nmaking the universal iniquity to lie, like a crushing burden, on Him.\n\nI. The Burdened Servant.\n\nIt is to be kept in view that the 'griefs' which the servant is here\ndescribed as bearing are literally 'sicknesses,' and that, similarly,\nthe 'sorrows' may be diseases. Matthew in his quotation of the verse\n(viii. 17) takes the words to refer to bodily ailments, and finds their\n'fulfilment' in Christ's miracles of healing. And that interpretation\nis part of the whole truth, for Hebrew thought drew no such sharp line\nof distinction between diseases of the body and those of the soul as we\nare accustomed to draw. All sickness was taken to be the consequence of\nsin, and the intimate connection between the two was, as it were, set\nforth for all forms of bodily disease by the elaborate treatment\nprescribed for leprosy, as pre-eminently fitted to stand as type of the\nwhole. But the fulfilment through the miracles is but a parable of the\ndeeper fulfilment in regard to the more virulent and deadly diseases of\nthe soul. Sin is the sickness, as it is also the grief, which most\nafflicts humanity. Of the two words expressing the Servant's taking\ntheir burden on His shoulders, the former implies not only the taking\nof it but the bearing of it away, and the latter emphasises the weight\nof the load.\n\nFollowing Matthew's lead, we may regard Christ's miracles of healing as\none form of His fulfilment of the prophecy, in which the principles\nthat shape all the forms are at work, and which, therefore, may stand\nas a kind of pictorial illustration of the way in which He bears and\nbears away the heavier burden of sin. And one point which comes out\nclearly is that, in these acts of healing, He felt the weight of the\naffliction that He took away. Even in that region, the condition of\nability to remove it, was identifying Himself with the sorrow. Did He\nnot 'sigh and look up' in silent appeal to heaven before He could say,\nEphphatha? Did He not groan in Himself before He sent the voice into\nthe tomb which the dead heard? His miracles were not easy, though He\nhad all power, for He felt all that the sufferers felt, by the\nidentifying power of the unparalleled sympathy of a pure nature. In\nthat region His pain on account of the sufferers stood in vital\nrelation with His power to end their sufferings. The load must gall His\nshoulders, ere He could bear it away from theirs.\n\nBut the same principles as apply to these deeds of mercy done on\ndiseases apply to all His deeds of deliverance from sorrow and from\nsin. In Him is set forth in highest fashion the condition of all\nbrotherly help and alleviation. Whoever would lighten a brother's load\nmust stoop his own shoulders to carry it. And whilst there is an\nelement in our Lord's sufferings, as the text passes on to say, which\nis not explained by the analogy with what is required from all human\nsuccourers and healers, the extent to which the lower experience of\nsuch corresponds with His unique work should always be made prominent\nin our devout meditations.\n\nII. The Servant's sufferings in their reason, their intensity, and\ntheir issue.\n\nThe same measure that was meted out to Job by his so-called friends was\nmeasured to the servant, and at the Impulse of the same heartless\ndoctrinal prepossession. He must have been had to suffer so much; that\nis the rough and ready verdict of the self-righteous. With crashing\nemphasis, that complacent explanation of the Servant's sufferings and\ntheir own prosperity is shivered to atoms, by the statement of the true\nreason for both the one and the other. You thought that He was\nafflicted because He was bad and you were spared because you were\ngood--no, He was afflicted because _you_ were bad, and you were spared\nbecause He was afflicted.\n\nThe reason for the Servant's sufferings was 'our transgressions.' More\nis suggested now than sympathetic identification with others' sorrows.\nThis is an actual bearing of the consequences of sins which He had not\ncommitted, and that not merely as an innocent man may be overwhelmed by\nthe flood of evil which has been let loose by others' sins to sweep\nover the earth. The blow that wounds Him is struck directly and solely\nat Him. He is not entangled in a widespread calamity, but is the only\nvictim. It is pre-supposed that all transgression leads to wounds and\nbruises; but the transgressions are done by us, and the wounds and\nbruises fall on Him. Can the idea of vicarious suffering be more\nplainly set forth?\n\nThe intensity of the Servant's sufferings is brought home to our hearts\nby the accumulation of epithets, to which reference has already been\nmade. He was 'wounded' as one who is pierced by a sharp sword;\n'bruised' as one who is stoned to death; beaten and with livid weales\non His flesh. A background of unnamed persecutors is dimly seen. The\ndescription moves altogether in the region of physical violence, and\nthat violence is more than symbol.\n\nIt is no mere coincidence that the story of the Passion reproduces so\nmany of the details of the prophecy, for, although the fulfilment of\nthe latter does not depend on such coincidences, they are not to be\npassed by as of no importance. Former generations made too much of the\nphysical sufferings of Jesus; is not this generation in danger of\nmaking too little of them?\n\nThe issue of the Servant's sufferings is presented in a startling\nparadox. His bruises and weales are the causes of our being healed. His\nchastisement brings our peace. Surely it is very hard work, and needs\nmuch forcing of words and much determination not to see what is set\nforth in as plain light as can be conceived, to strike the idea of\natonement out of this prophecy. It says as emphatically as words can\nsay, that we have by our sins deserved stripes, that the Servant bears\nthe stripes which we have deserved, and that therefore we do not bear\nthem.\n\nIII. The deepest ground of the Servant's sufferings.\n\nThe sad picture of humanity painted in that simile of a scattered flock\nlays stress on the universality of transgression, on its divisive\neffect, on the solitude of sin, and on its essential characteristic as\nbeing self-willed rejection of control. But the isolation caused by\ntransgression is blessedly counteracted by the concentration of the sin\nof all on the Servant. Men fighting for their own hand, and living at\ntheir own pleasure, are working to the disruption of all sweet bonds of\nfellowship. But God, in knitting together all the black burdens into\none, and loading the Servant with that tremendous weight, is preparing\nfor the establishment of a more blessed unity, in experience of the\nhealing brought about by His sufferings.\n\nCan one man's 'iniquity,' as distinguished from the consequences of\niniquity, be made to press upon any other? It is a familiar and not\nvery profound objection to the Christian Atonement that guilt cannot be\ntransferred. True, but in the first place, Christ's nature stands in\nvital relations to every man, of such intimacy that what is impossible\nbetween two of us is not impossible between Christ and any one of us;\nand, secondly, much in His life, and still more in His passion, is\nunintelligible unless the black mass of the world's sin was heaped upon\nHim, to His own consciousness. In that dread cry, wrung from Him as He\nhung there in the dark, the consciousnesses of possessing God and of\nhaving lost Him are blended inextricably and inexplicably. The only\napproach to an explanation of it is that then the world's sin was felt\nby Him, in all its terrible mass and blackness, coming between Him and\nGod, even as our own sins come, separating us from God. That grim\nburden not only came on Him, but was _laid_ on Him by God. The same\nidea is expressed by the prophet in that awful representation and by\nJesus in that as awful cry, 'Why hast Thou _forsaken_ Me?'\n\nThe prophet constructs no theory of Atonement. But no language could be\nchosen that would more plainly set forth the fact of Atonement. And it\nis to be observed that, so far as this prophecy is concerned, the\nServant's sole form of service is to suffer. He is not a teacher, an\nexample, or a benefactor, in any of the other ways in which men need\nhelp. His work is to bear our griefs and be bruised for our healing.\n\n'He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself and opened not His mouth; as\na lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her\nshearers is dumb; yea, He opened not His mouth. 8. By oppression and\njudgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them\nconsidered that He was cut off out of the land of the living? for the\ntransgression of my people was He stricken. 9. And they made His grave\nwith the wicked, and with the rich in His death; although He had done\nno violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth'--ISAIAH liii, 7-9. R.\nV.\n\nIn this section of the prophecy we pass from contemplating the\nsufferings inflicted on the Servant to the attitude of Himself and of\nHis contemporaries towards these, His patience and their blindness. To\nthese is added a remarkable reference to His burial, which strikes one\nat first sight as interrupting the continuity of the prophecy, but on\nfuller consideration assumes great significance.\n\nI. The unresisting endurance of the Servant.\n\nThe Revised Version's rendering of the first clause is preferable to\nthat of the Authorised Version. 'Afflicted' would be little better than\ntautology, but 'humbled Himself' strikes the keynote of the verse,\nwhich dwells not on the Servant's afflictions, but on His bearing under\nthem. Similarly, the pathetic imagery of the lamb led and the sheep\ndumb gives the same double representation, first of the indignities,\nand next of His demeanour in enduring them, as is conveyed in 'He was\noppressed, yet He humbled Himself.' Unremonstrating, unresisting\nendurance, then, is the point emphasised in the lovely metaphor.\n\nWe recall the fact that this emphatically reduplicated phrase 'opened\nnot His mouth' was verbally fulfilled in our Lord's silence before each\nof the three authorities to whom He was presented, before the Jewish\nrulers, before Pilate, and before Herod. Only when adjured by the\nliving God and when silence would have been tantamount to withdrawal of\nHis claims, did He speak before the Sanhedrin. Only when silence would\nhave been taken as disowning His Kingship, did He speak before Pilate.\nAnd Herod, who had no right to question Him, received no answer at all.\nJesus' lips were opened in witness but never in complaint or\nremonstrance. No doubt, the prophecy would have been as really\nfulfilled though there had been no such majestic silences, for its\nsubstance is patient endurance, not mere abstinence from speech. Still,\nas with other events in His life, the verbal correspondence with\nprophetic details may help, and be meant to help, to bring out more\nclearly, for purblind eyes, the true fulfilment. So we may meditate on\nthe wonder and the beauty of that picture which the evangelists draw,\nand which the world has recognised, with whatever differences as to its\ninterpretation, as the most perfect, pathetic, and majestic picture of\nmeek endurance that has ever been painted.\n\nBut we gather only the most superficial of its lessons, if that is all\nthat we find to say about it. For the main point for us to lay to heart\nis not merely the fact of that silent submission, but the motive which\nled to it. He opened not His mouth, because He willingly embraced the\nCross, and He willingly embraced the Cross because He loved the Father\nand would do His will, because He loved the world and would be its\nSaviour,\n\nThat touching imagery of the dumb lamb has manifold felicities and\nsignificances beyond serving to figure meekness. And we are not forcing\nunintended meanings into a mere piece of poetic imagination when we\nnote how remarkably the metaphor links on to that of strayed sheep in\nthe preceding verse, or when we venture to recall John Baptist's first\nproclamation of the Lamb of God, and Peter's quotation of this very\nprophecy, and the continual recurrence in the Apocalypse of the name of\nThe Lamb as _the_ title of honour of 'Him who sitteth on the throne.' A\nkind of nimbus or aureole shines round the humble figure as drawn by\nthe prophet.\n\nII. The misunderstood end of the Servant's life.\n\nThe difficult expressions of verse 8 are rendered in the Revised\nVersion with clearness and so as to yield a profound meaning. We may\nnote that here, for the first time, is spoken out that end to which all\nthe preceding description of sufferings has been leading up, and yet it\nis spoken with a kind of solemn reticence, very impressive. The Servant\nis 'taken away,' 'cut off,' 'stricken.' Not yet is the grim word\n'death' plainly uttered; that comes in the next verse, only after the\nServant's death is supposed to be past. The three words suggest, at all\nevents, though in half-veiled language, violence and suddenness in the\nServant's fate. Who were the agents who took Him, cut Him off and\nstruck Him, is left in impressive obscurity. But the fact that His\ndeath was a judicial murder is set in clear light. Whether we read 'By'\nor 'From--oppression and judgment He was taken away,' the forms of law\nare represented as wrested to bring about flagrant injustice. And, if\nit were my object now to defend the Messianic interpretation, one might\nask where any facts corresponding to this element in the picture are to\nbe found in regard to either the national Israel, or the Israel within\nthe nation.\n\nThat unjust death by illegal violence under the mask of law was,\nfurther, wholly misunderstood by 'His generation.' We need not do more\nthan remark in a sentence how that feature corresponds with the facts\nin regard to Jesus, and ask whether it does so on any other theory of\n'fulfilment.' Neither friends nor foes had even the faintest conception\nof what the death of Jesus was or was to effect. And it is worth while\nto dwell for a moment on this, because we are often told that there is\nno trace of the doctrine of an atoning sacrifice in the Gospels, and\nthe inference is drawn that it was an afterthought of the apostles, and\ntherefore to be set aside as an excrescence on Christianity according\nto Christ. The silence of Jesus on that subject is exaggerated; but\ncertainly no thought of His being the Sacrifice for the sins of the\nworld was in the minds of the sad watchers by the Cross, nor for many a\nday thereafter. Is it not worth noting that precisely such a blindness\nto the meaning of His death had been prophesied eight hundred years\nbefore?\n\nBut the reason why this feature is introduced seems mainly to be to\nunderscore the lesson, that those who exercised the violence which\nhurried the Servant from the land of the living were blind instruments\nof a higher power. And may we not also see in it a suggestion of the\ngreat solitude of sorrow in which the Servant was to die, even as He\nhad lived in it? Misapprehended and despised He lived, misapprehended\nHe died. Jesus was the loneliest man that ever breathed human breath.\nHe gave up His breath in a more awful solitude than ever isolated any\nother dying man. Utterly solitary, He died that none of us need ever\nface death alone.\n\nIII. The Servant's Grave.\n\nFollowing on the mystery of the uncomprehended death comes the enigma\nof the burial. The words are an enigma, but they seem meaningless on\nany hypothesis but the Messianic one. As they stand, they assert that\nunnamed persons gave Him a grave with the wicked, as they would do by\nputting Him to death under strained forms of law, and that then,\nsomehow, the criminal destined to be buried with other criminals in a\ndishonoured grave was laid in a tomb with the rich. It seems a\nsingularly minute trait to find place in such a prophecy. The remarks\nalready made as to similar minute correspondences in details of the\nprophecy with purely external facts in Christ's life need not be\nrepeated now. One does not see that it is a self-evident axiom needing\nonly to be enunciated in order to be accepted, that such minute\nprophecies are beneath the dignity of revelation. It might rather seem\nthat, as one element in prophecy, they are eminently valuable. The\nsmaller the detail, the more remarkable the prevision and the more\nstriking the fulfilment. For a keen-sighted man may forecast tendencies\nand go far to anticipate events on the large scale, but only God can\nforesee trifles. The difficulty in which this prediction of the\nServant's grave being 'with the rich' places those who reject the\nMessianic reference of the prophecy to our Lord may be measured by the\ndesperate attempts to evade it by suggesting other readings, or by\nmaking 'rich' to be synonymous with 'wicked.' The words as they stand\nhave a clear and worthy meaning on one interpretation, and we even\nventure to say, on one interpretation only, namely, that they refer to\nthe reverent laying of the body of the Lord in the new tomb belonging\nto 'a certain rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph.'\n\nIf in the latter clause of verse 9 we render 'Because' rather than\n'Although,' we get the thought that the burial was a sign that the\nServant, slain as a criminal, yet was not a criminal. The criminals\nwere either left unburied or disgraced by promiscuous interment in an\nunclean place. But that body reverently bedewed with tears, wrapped in\nfine linen clean and white, softly laid down by loving hands, watched\nby love stronger than death, lay in fitting repose as the corpse of a\nKing till He came forth as a Conqueror. So once more the dominant note\nis struck, and this part of the prophecy closes with the emphatic\nrepetition of the sinlessness of the Suffering Servant, which makes His\nsufferings a deep and bewildering mystery, unless they were endured\nbecause of 'our transgressions.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--IV\n\n'It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou\nshalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He\nshall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in\nHis hand.'--ISAIAH liii. 10.\n\n\nWe have seen a distinct progress of thought in the preceding verses.\nThere was first the outline of the sorrows and rejection of the\nServant; second, the profound explanation of these as being for us;\nthird, the sufferings, death and burial of the Servant.\n\nWe have followed Him to the grave. What more can there be to be said?\nWhether the Servant of the Lord be an individual or a collective or an\nideal, surely all fitness of metaphor, all reality of fact would\nrequire that His work should be represented as ending with His life,\nand that what might follow His burial should be the influence of His\nmemory, the continued operation of the principles He had set agoing and\nso on, but nothing more.\n\nNow observe that, however we may explain the fact, this is the fact to\nbe explained, that there is a whole section, this closing one, devoted\nto the celebration of His work after His death and burial, and, still\nmore remarkable, that the prophecy says nothing about His activity on\nthe world till _after_ death. In all the former portion there is not a\nsyllable about His doing anything, only about His suffering; and then\nwhen He is dead He begins to work. That is the subject of these last\nthree verses, and it would be proper to take them all for our\nconsideration now, but fur two reasons, one, because of their great\nfulness and importance, and one because, as you will observe, the two\nlatter verses are a direct address of God's concerning the Servant. The\nprophetic words, spoken as in his own person, end with verse 10, and,\ncatching up their representations, expanding, defining, glorifying\nthem, comes the solemn thunder of the voice of God. I now deal only\nwith the prophet's vision of the work of the Servant of the Lord.\n\nOne other preliminary remark is that the work of the Servant after\ndeath is described in these verses with constant and very emphatic\nreference to His previous sufferings. The closeness of connection\nbetween these two is thus thrown into great prominence.\n\nI. The mystery of God's treatment of the sinless Servant.\n\nThe first clause is to be read in immediate connection with the\npreceding verse. The Servant was of absolute sinlessness, and yet the\nDivine Hand crushed and bruised Him. Certainly, if we think of the\nvehemence of prophetic rebukes, and of the standing doctrine of the Old\nTestament that Israel was punished for its sin, we shall be slow to\nbelieve that this picture of the Sinless One, smitten for the sins of\nothers, can have reference to the nation in any of its parts, or to any\none man. However other poetry may lament over innocent sufferers, the\nOld Testament always takes the ground: 'Our iniquities, like the wind,\nhave carried us away.' But mark that here, however understood, the\nprophet paints a figure so sinless that God's bruising Him is an\noutstanding wonder and riddle, only to be solved by regarding these\nbruises as the stripes by which our sins were healed, and by noting\nthat 'the pleasure of the Lord' is carried on through Him, after and\nthrough His death. What conceivable application have such\nrepresentations except to Jesus? We note, then, here:--\n\n1. The solemn truth that His sufferings were divinely inflicted. That\nis a truth complementary to the other views in the prophecy, according\nto which these sufferings are variously regarded as either inflicted by\nmen ('By oppression and judgment He was taken away') or drawn on Him by\nHis own sacrificial act ('His soul shall make an offering for sin'). It\nwas the divine counsel that used men as its instruments, though they\nwere none the less guilty. The hands that 'crucified and slew' were no\nless 'the hands of lawless men,' because it was 'the determinate\ncounsel and foreknowledge of God' that 'delivered Him up.'\n\nBut a still deeper thought is in these words. For we can scarcely avoid\nseeing in them a glimpse into that dim region of eclipse and agony of\nsoul from which, as from a cave of darkness, issued that last cry:\n'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani?' The bruises inflicted by the God, who\nmade to meet on Him the iniquities of us all, were infinitely more\nsevere than the weales of the soldiers' rods, or the wounds of the\nnails that pierced His hands and feet.\n\n2. The staggering mystery of His sinlessness and sufferings.\n\nThe world has been full from of old of stories of goodness tortured and\nevil exalted, which have drawn tears and softened hearts, but which\nhave also bewildered men who would fain believe in a righteous Governor\nand loving Father. But none of these have cast so black a shadow of\nsuspicion on the government of the world by a good God as does the fate\nof Jesus, unless it is read in the light of this prophecy. Standing at\nthe cross, faith in God's goodness and providence can scarcely survive,\nunless it rises to be faith in the atoning sacrifice of Him who was\nwounded there for our transgressions.\n\nII. The Servant's work in His sufferings.\n\nThe margin of the Revised Version gives the best rendering--'His soul\nshall make an offering for sin.' The word employed for 'offering' means\na trespass offering, and carries us at once back to the sacrificial\nsystem. The trespass offering was distinguished from other offerings.\nThe central idea of it seems to have been to represent sin or guilt as\n_debt_, and the sacrifice as making compensation. We must keep in view\nthe variety of ideas embodied in His sacrifice, and how all correspond\nto realities in our wants and spiritual experience.\n\nNow there are three points here:--\n\na. The representation that Christ's death is a sacrifice. Clearly\nconnecting with whole Mosaic system--and that in the sense of a\ntrespass offering. Christ seems to quote this verse in John x. 15, when\nHe speaks of laying down His life, and when He declares that He came to\n'give His life a _ransom_ for many.' At any rate here is the great\nword, sacrifice, proclaimed for the first time in connection with\nMessiah. Here the prophet interprets the meaning of all the types and\nshadows of the law.\n\nThat sacrificial system bore witness to deep wants of men's souls, and\nprophesied of One in whom these were all met and satisfied.\n\nb. His voluntary surrender.\n\nHe is sacrifice, but He is Priest also. His soul makes the offering,\nand His soul is the offering and offers itself in concurrence with the\nDivine Will. It is difficult and necessary to keep that double aspect\nin view, and never to think of Jesus as an unwilling Victim, nor of God\nas angry and needing to be appeased by blood.\n\nc. The thought that the true meaning of His sufferings is only reached\nwhen we contemplate the effects that have flowed from them. The\npleasure of the Lord in bruising Him is a mystery until we see how\npleasure of the Lord prospers in the hand of the Crucified.\n\nIII. The work of the Servant after death.\n\nSurely this paradox, so baldly stated, is meant to be an enigma to\nstartle and to rouse curiosity. This dead Servant is to see of the\ntravail of His soul, and to prolong His days. All the interpretations\nof this chapter which refuse to see Jesus in it shiver on this rock.\nWhat a contrast there is between platitudes about the spirit of the\nnation rising transformed from its grave of captivity (which was only\nvery partially the case), and the historical fulfilment in Jesus\nChrist! Here, at any rate, hundreds of years before His Resurrection,\nis a word that seems to point to such a fact, and to me it appears that\nall fair interpretation is on the side of the Messianic reference.\n\nNote the singularity of special points.\n\na. Having died, the Servant sees His offspring.\n\nThe sacrifice of Christ is the great power which draws men to Him, and\nmoves to repentance, faith, love. His death was the communication of\nlife. Nowhere else in the world's history is the teacher's death the\nbeginning of His gathering of pupils, and not only has the dead Servant\nchildren, but He _sees_ them. That representation is expressive of the\nmutual intercourse, strange and deep, whereby we feel that He is truly\nwith us, 'Jesus Christ, whom having not seen we love.'\n\nb. Having died, the Servant prolongs His days.\n\nHe lives a continuous life, without an end, for ever. The best\ncommentary is the word which John heard, as he felt the hand of the\nChrist laid on his prostrate form: 'I became dead, and lo, I am alive\nfor evermore.'\n\nc. Having died, the Servant carries into effect the divine purposes.\n\n'Prosper' implies progressive advancement. Christ's Sacrifice carried\nout the divine pleasure, and by His Sacrifice the divine pleasure is\nfurther carried out.\n\nIf Christ is the means of carrying out the divine purpose, consider\nwhat this implies of divinity in His nature, of correspondence between\nHis will and the divine.\n\nBut Jesus not only carries into effect the divine purpose as a\nconsequence of a past act, but by His present energy this dead man is a\nliving power in the world today. Is He not?\n\nThe sole explanation of the vitality of Christianity, and the sole\nreason which makes its message a gospel to any soul, is Christ's death\nfor the world and present life in the world.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--V\n\n'He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by\nHis knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; and He shall\nbear their iniquities'--ISAIAH liii. 11.\n\n\nThese are all but the closing words of this great prophecy, and are the\nfitting crown of all that has gone before. We have been listening to\nthe voice of a member of the race to whom the Servant of the Lord\nbelonged, whether we limit that to the Jewish people or include in it\nall humanity. That voice has been confessing for the speaker and his\nbrethren their common misapprehensions of the Servant, their blindness\nto the meaning of His sufferings and the mystery of His death. It has\nbeen proclaiming the true significance of these as now he had learned\nthem, and has in verse 10 touched the mystery of the reward and triumph\nof the Servant.\n\nThat note of His glory and coronation is caught up in the two closing\nverses, which, in substance, are the continuation of the idea of verse\n10. But this identity of substance makes the variety of form the more\nemphatic. Observe the '_My_ Servant' of verse 11, and the '_I_ will\ndivide' of verse 12. These oblige us to take this as the voice of God.\nThe confession and belief of earth is hushed, that the recognition and\nthe reward of the Servant may be declared from heaven. An added\nsolemnity is thus given to the words, and the prophecy comes round\nagain to the keynote on which it started in chapter lii, 13, '_My_\nServant.' Notice, too, how the same characteristic is here as in verse\n10--that the recapitulation of the sufferings is almost equally\nprominent with the description of the reward. The two are so woven\ntogether that no power can part them. We may take these two verses as\nsetting forth mainly two things--the divine promise that the Servant\nshall give righteousness to many, and the divine promise that the\nServant shall conquer many for Himself.\n\nAs to the exposition, 'of' here is probably casual, not partitive, as\nthe Authorised Version has it; 'travail' is not to be understood in the\nsense of childbirth, but of toil and suffering; 'soul' is equivalent to\n_life_. This fruit of His soul's travail is further defined in the\nwords which follow. The great result which will be beheld by Him and\nwill fill and content His heart is that 'by His knowledge He shall\njustify many.' 'By _His_ knowledge' certainly means, by the knowledge\nof Him on the part of others. The phrase might be taken either\nobjectively or subjectively, but it seems to me that only the former\nyields an adequate sense. 'My righteous servant' is scarcely emphatic\nenough. The words in the original stand in an unusual order, which\nmight be represented by 'the righteous one, My servant,' and is\nintended to put emphasis on the Servant's righteousness, as well as to\nsuggest the connection between His righteousness and His 'justifying,'\nin virtue of His being righteous. 'Justify' is an unusual form, and\nmeans to procure for, or impart righteousness to. '_The_ many' has\nstress on the article, and is the antithesis not to _all_, but to\n_few_. We might render it 'the masses,' an indefinite expression, which\nif not declaring universality, approaches very near to it, as in Romans\nv. 19 and Matthew xxvi. 28. 'He shall bear,' a future referring to the\nServant in a state of exaltation, and pointing to His continuous work\nafter death. This bearing is the root of our righteousness.\n\nWe may put the thoughts here in a definite order.\n\nI. The great work which the Servant carries on.\n\nIt consists in giving or imparting righteousness. It seems to me that\nit is out of place to be too narrow here in interpreting so as to draw\ndistinctions between righteousness imparted and righteousness bestowed.\nWe should rather take the general idea of _making righteous_, making,\nin fact, like Himself. Note that this is the work which is Christ's\ncharacteristic one. All thoughts of His blessings to the world which\nomit that are imperfect.\n\nII. The preparation for that making of us righteous.\n\nThe roots of our being made righteous by the righteous Servant are\nfound in His bearing our sins. His sin-bearing work is basis of our\nrighteousness. Christ justifies men by giving to them His own\nrighteousness, and taking in turn their sins on Himself that He may\nexpiate them.\n\nNot only 'did He bear our sins in His own body on the tree,' but He\n_will_ bear them in His exaltation to the Throne, and only because He\ncontinuously and eternally does so are we justified on earth and shall\nwe be sanctified in heaven.\n\nIII. The condition on which He imparts righteousness.\n\n'His knowledge,' which is to be taken in the profound Biblical sense as\nincluding not only understanding but experience also.\n\nParallels are found in 'This is life eternal to know Thee' (John xvii.\n3), and in 'That I may know Him' (Phil. iii. 10). So this prophecy\ncomes very near to the New Testament proclamation of righteousness by\nfaith.\n\nIV. The grand sweep of the Servant's work.\n\n'The many' is indefinite, and its very indefiniteness approximates it\nto universality. A shadowy vision of a great multitude that no man can\nnumber stretches out, as to the horizon, before the prophet. How many\nthey are he knows not. He knows that they are numerous enough to\n'satisfy' the Servant for all His sufferings. He knows, too, that there\nis no limit to the happy crowd except that which is set by the\nnecessary condition of joining the bands of 'the justified'--namely,\n'the knowledge of Him.' They who receive the benefits which the Servant\nhas died and will live to bring cannot be few; they may be all. If any\nare shut out, they are self-excluded.\n\nV. The Servant's satisfaction.\n\nIt may be that the word employed means 'full,' rather than 'content,'\nbut the latter idea can scarcely be altogether absent from it. We have,\nthen, the great hope that the Servant, gazing on the results of His\nsufferings, will be content, content to have borne them, content with\nwhat they have effected.\n\n'The glory dies not and the grief is past.'\n\nAnd the 'grief' has had for fruit not only 'glory' gathering round the\nthorn-pierced head, but reflected glory shining on the brows of 'the\nmany,' whom He has justified and sanctified by their experience of Him\nand His power. The creative week ended with the 'rest' of the Creator,\nnot because His energy was tired and needed repose, but because He had\nfully carried out His purpose, and saw the perfected idea embodied in a\ncreation that was 'very good.' The redemptive work ends with the\nServant's satisfied contemplation of the many whom He has made like\nHimself, His better creation.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUFFERING SERVANT--VI\n\n'Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall\ndivide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul\nunto death: and was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the\nsins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.'--ISAIAH\nliii. 12.\n\n\nThe first clause of this verse is somewhat difficult. There are two\nways of understanding it. One is that adopted in A. V., according to\nwhich the suffering Servant is represented as equal to the greatest\nconquerors. He is to be as gloriously successful in His victory as they\nhave been in theirs. But there are two very strong objections to this\nrendering-first, that it takes 'the many' in the sense of _mighty_,\nthus obscuring the identity of the expression here and in the previous\nverse and in the end of this verse; and secondly, that it gives a very\nfeeble and frigid ending to the prophecy. It does not seem a worthy\nclose simply to say that the Servant is to be like a Cyrus or a\nNebuchadnezzar in His conquests.\n\nThe other rendering, though there are some difficulties, is to be\npreferred. According to it 'the many' and 'the strong' are themselves\nthe prey or spoil. The words might be read, 'I will apportion to Him\nthe many, and He shall apportion to Himself the strong ones.'\n\nThis retains the same meaning of 'many' for the same expression\nthroughout the context, and is a worthy ending to the prophecy. The\nforce of the clause is then to represent the suffering Servant as a\nconqueror, leading back from His conquests a long train of captives, a\nrich booty.\n\nNotice some points about this closing metaphor.\n\nMark its singular contrast to the tone of the rest of the prophecy.\nNote the lowliness, the suffering, the minor key of it all, and then,\nall at once, the leap up to rapture and triumph. The special form of\nthe metaphor strikes one as singular. Nothing in the preceding context\neven remotely suggests it. Even the previous clause about 'making the\nmany righteous' does not do much to prepare the way for it. Whatever be\nour explanation of the words, it must be one that does full justice to\nthis metaphor, and presents some conquering power or person, whose\nvictories are brilliant and real enough to be worthy to stand at the\nclose of such a prophecy. We must keep in mind, too, what has been\nremarked on the two previous verses, that this victorious campaign and\ngrowing conquest is achieved after the Servant is dead. That is a\nparadox. And note that the strength of language representing His\nactivity can scarcely be reconciled with the idea that it is only the\npost-mortem influence of His life which is meant.\n\nNote, too, the singular blending of God's power and the Servant's own\nactivity in the winning of this extended sovereignty. Side by side the\ntwo are put. The same verb is used in order to emphasise the intended\nparallel. 'I will divide,' 'He shall divide.' I will give Him--He shall\nconquer for Himself. Remember the intense vehemence with which the Old\nTestament guards the absolute supremacy of divine power, and how\nstrongly it always puts the thought that God is everything and man\nnothing. Look at the contrast of the tone when a human conqueror, whose\nconquests are the result of God's providence, is addressed (xlv. 1-3).\nThere is an entire suppression of his personality, not a word about his\nbravery, his military genius, or anything in him. It is all _I, I, I_.\nRemember how, in chapter x., one of the sins for which the Assyrian is\nto be destroyed is precisely that he thought of his victories as due to\nhis own strength and wisdom. So he is indignantly reminded that he is\nonly 'a staff in Mine hand,' the axe with which God hewed the nations,\nwhereas here the voice of God Himself speaks, and gives a strange place\nbeside Himself to the will and power of this Conqueror. This feature of\nthe prophecy should be accounted for in any satisfactory interpretation.\n\nNote, too, the wide sweep of the Servant's dominion, which carries us\nback to the beginning of this prophecy in chapter lii. 15, where we\nhear of the Servant as 'sprinkling' (or startling') many nations, and\nthe 'kings' is parallel with the 'strong' in this verse. No bounds are\nassigned to the Servant's conquests, which are, if not declared to be\nuniversal, at least indefinitely extended and striding on to world-wide\nempire.\n\nThese points are plainly here. I do not dilate upon them. But I ask\nwhether any of the interpretations of these words, except one, gives\nadequate force to them? Is there anything in the history of the\nrestored exiles which corresponds to this picture? Even if you admit\nthe violent hypothesis that there was a better part of the nation, so\ngood that the national sorrows had no chastisement for them, and the\nother violent hypothesis that the devoutest among the exiles suffered\nmost, and the other that the death and burial and resurrection of the\nServant only mean the reformation wrought on Israel by captivity. What\nis there in the history of Israel which can be pointed at as the\nconquest of the world? Was the nation that bore the yokes of a Ptolemy,\nan Antiochus, a Herod, a Caesar, the fulfiller of this dream of\nworld-conquest? There is only one thing which can be called the Jew\nconquering the world. It is that which, as I believe, is meant here,\nviz. Christ's conquest. Apart from that, I know of nothing which would\nnot be ludicrously disproportionate if it were alleged as fulfilment of\nthis glowing prophecy.\n\nThis prophetic picture is at least four hundred years before Christ, by\nthe admission of those who bring it lowest down, in their eagerness to\nget rid of prophecy. The life of Christ does correspond to it, in such\na way that, clause by clause, it reads as if it were quite as much a\nhistory of Jesus as a prophecy of the Servant. This certainly is an\nextraordinary coincidence if it be not a prophecy. And there is really\nno argument against the Messianic interpretation, except dogmatic\nprejudice--'there cannot be prophecy.'\n\nNo straining is needed in order to fit this great prophetic picture of\nthe world-Conqueror to Jesus. Even that, at first sight incongruous,\npicture of a victor leading long lines of captives, such as we see on\nAssyrian slabs and Egyptian paintings, is historically true of Him who\n'leads captivity captive,' and is, through the ages, winning ever fresh\nvictories, and leading His enemies, turned into lovers, in His\ntriumphal progress. He, and He only, really owns men. His slaves have\nmade real self-surrenders to Him. Other conquerors may imprison or load\nwith irons or deport to other lands, but they are only lords of bodies.\nJesus' chains are silken, and bind hearts that are proud of their\nbonds. He carries off His free prisoners 'from the power of darkness'\ninto His kingdom of light. His slaves rejoice to say, 'I am not my\nown,' and he only truly possesses himself who has given himself away to\nthe Conquering Christ. For all these centuries He has been conquering\nhearts, enthralling and thereby liberating wills, making Himself the\nlife of lives. There is nothing else the least like the bond between\nJesus and millions who never saw him. Who among all the leaders of\nthought or religious teachers has been able to impress his personality\non others and to dominate them in the fashion that Jesus has done and\nis doing to-day? How has He done this thing, which no other man has\nbeen able in the least to do? What is His charm, the secret of His\npower? The prophet has no doubt what it is, and unfolds it to us with a\nsignificant 'For.' We turn, then, to the prophetic explanation of that\nworldwide empire and note--\n\nII. The foundation of the Servant's dominion.\n\nThat explanation is given in four clauses which fall into two pairs.\nThey remarkably revert to the thought of the Servant's sufferings, but\nin how different a tone these are now spoken of, when they are no\nlonger regarded as the results of man's blind failure to see His\nbeauty, or as inflicted by the mysterious 'pleasure of Jehovah,' but as\nthe causes of His triumph! Echoes of both the two first clauses are\nheard from the lips of Jesus. As He passed beneath the tremulous shadow\nof the olives of Gethsemane, He appealed for the companionship of the\nthree, by an all but solitary revelation of His weakness and sorrow,\n'My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; abide ye here and\nwatch with Me.' And even more distinctly did He lay His hand on this\nprophecy when He ended all His words in the upper room with 'This which\nis written must be fulfilled in Me, And He was reckoned with\n\"transgressors.\"' May we not claim Jesus as endorsing the Messianic\ninterpretation of this prophecy? He gazed on the portrait painted ages\nbefore that night of sorrow, and saw in it His own likeness, and said,\nThat is meant for Me. Some of us feel that, _kenosis_ or no _kenosis_,\nHe is the best judge of who is the original of the prophet's portrait.\n\nThe two final clauses are separated from the preceding by the emphatic\nintroduction of the pronominal nominative, and cohere closely as\ngathering up for the last time all the description of the Servant, and\nas laying broad and firm the basis of His dominion, in the two great\nfacts which sum up His office and between them stretch over the past\nand the future. 'He bare the sin of many, and maketh intercession for\nthe transgressors.' The former of these two clauses brings up the\npathetic picture of the scapegoat who 'bore upon him all their\niniquities into a solitary land.' The Servant conquers hearts because\nHe bears upon Him the grim burden which a mightier hand than Aaron's\nhas made to meet on His head, and because He bears it away. The ancient\nceremony, and the prophet's transference of the words describing it to\nhis picture of the Servant who was to be King, floated before John the\nBaptist, when he pointed his brown, thin finger at Jesus and cried:\n'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' The\ngoat had borne the sins of one nation; the prophet had extended the\nServant's ministry indefinitely, so as to include unnumbered 'many';\nJohn spoke the universal word, 'the world.' So the circles widened.\n\nBut it is not enough to bear away sins. We need continuous help in the\npresent. Our daily struggles, our ever-felt weakness, all the ills that\nflesh is heir to, cry aloud for a mightier than we to be at our sides.\nSo on the Servant's bearing the sins of the many there follows a\ncontinuous act of priestly intercession, in which, not merely by\nprayer, but by meritorious and prevailing intervention, He makes His\nown the cause of the many whose sins He has borne.\n\nOn these two acts His dominion rests. Sacrifice and Intercession are\nthe foundations of His throne.\n\nThe empire of men's hearts falls to Him because of what He has done and\nis doing for them. He who is to possess us absolutely must give Himself\nto us utterly. The empire falls to Him who supplies men's deepest need.\nHe who can take away men's sins rules. He who can effectually undertake\nmen's cause will be their King.\n\nIf Jesus is or does anything less or else, He will not rule men for\never. If He is but a Teacher and a Guide, oblivion, which shrouds all,\nwill sooner or later wrap Him in its misty folds. That His name should\nso long have resisted its influence is due altogether to men having\nbelieved Him to be something else. He will exercise an everlasting\ndominion only if He have brought in an everlasting righteousness. He\nwill sit King for ever, if and only if He is a priest for ever. All\nother rule is transient.\n\nA remarkable characteristic of this entire prophecy is the frequent\nrepetition of expressions conveying the idea of sufferings borne for\nothers. In one form or another that thought occurs, as we reckon,\neleven times, and it is especially frequent in the last verses of the\nchapter. Why this perpetual harking back to that one aspect? It is to\nbe further noticed that throughout there is no hint of any other kind\nof work which this Servant had to do. He fulfils His service to God and\nman by being bruised for men's iniquities. He came not to be ministered\nunto but to minister, and the chief form of His ministry was that He\ngave His life a ransom for the many. He came not to preach a gospel,\nbut to die that there might be a gospel to preach. The Cross is the\ncentre of His work, and by it He becomes the Centre of the world.\n\nLook once more at the sorrowful, august figure that rose before the\nprophet's eye--with its strange blending of sinlessness and sorrow,\nGod's approval and God's chastisement, rejection and rule, death and\nlife, abject humiliation and absolute dominion. Listen to the last\nechoes of the prophet's voice as it dies on our ear--'He bore the sins\nof the many.' And then hearken how eight hundred years after another\nvoice takes up the echoes--but instead of pointing away down the\ncenturies, points to One at his side, and cries, 'Behold the Lamb of\nGod, which taketh away the sin of the world.' Look at that life, that\ndeath, that grave, that resurrection, that growing dominion, that\ninexhaustible intercession--and say, 'Of whom speaketh the prophet\nthis?'\n\nMay we all be able to answer with clear confidence, 'These things saith\nEsaias when he saw _His_ glory and spake of _Him_.' May we all take up\nthe ancient confession: 'Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried\nour sorrows.... He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised\nfor our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and\nwith His stripes we are healed.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE PASSING AND THE PERMANENT\n\n'For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My\nkindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My\npeace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.'--ISAIAH liv,\n10.--\n\n\nThere is something of music in the very sound of these words. The\nstately march of the grand English translation lends itself with\nwonderful beauty to the melody of Isaiah's words. But the thought that\nlies below them, sweeping as it does through the whole creation, and\nparting all things into the transient and eternal, the mortal and\nimmortal, is still greater than the music of the words. These are\nremoved; this abides. And the thing in God which abides is all-gentle\ntenderness, that strange love mightier than all the powers of Deity\nbeside, permanent with the permanence of His changeless heart. The\nmountains shall depart, the emblems of eternity shall crumble and\nchange and pass, and the hills be removed; but this immortal,\nimpalpable, and, in some men's minds, fantastic and unreal something,\n'My loving kindness and the covenant of My peace,' shall outlast them\nall. And this great promise is stamped with the sign manual of Heaven,\nbeing spoken by the Lord that hath mercy on thee.'\n\nSo then, dear friends, I think I shall most reverentially deal with\nthese words if I handle them in the simplest possible way, and think,\nfirst of all, of that great antithesis that is set before us here--what\npasses and what abides; and, secondly, draw two or three plain, homely\nlessons and applications from the thoughts thus suggested.\n\nI. First, then, we have to deal with the contrast between the\napparently enduring which passes, and that which truly abides.\n\n'The mountains depart, the hills remove, My loving-kindness shall not\ndepart, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed.' Let me then\nsay a word or two about that first thought--'the mountains shall\ndepart.' There they tower over the plains, looking down upon the flat\nvalley beneath as they did when the prophet spoke. The eternal\nbuttresses of the hills stand to the eyes of the fleeting generations\nas emblems of permanence, and yet winter storms and summer heats, and\nthe slow processes of decay which we call the gnawing of time, are ever\nworking upon them, and changing their forms, and at last they shall\npass. Modern science, whilst it has all but incalculably enlarged our\nconceptions of the duration of the material universe, emphasises, as\nfaith alone never could, the thought of the ultimate perishing of this\nmaterial world. For geology tells us that 'where rears the cliff there\nrolled the sea,' that through the cycles of the shifting history of the\nworld there have been elevations and depressions so that the ancient\nhills in many places are the newest of all things, and the world's form\nhas changed many and many a time since first it circled as a planet.\nAnd researches into the ultimate constitution of matter have taught us\nto think of solids and liquids and gases, as being an infinite\nmultitude of atoms all in rapid motion with inconceivable velocity, and\nhave shown us the very atoms in the act of breaking up. So that the old\nguess of the infancy of physical science which divined that 'all things\nare in a state of flux' is confirmed by its last utterances. Science\nprophesies too, and bids us expect that the earth shall one day become,\nlike some of the stars, a burnt out mass of uniform temperature,\nincapable of change or of sustaining life, and shall end by falling\ninto the diminished sun, and so the old word will be fulfilled that\n'the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up.' None\nshould be able to utter the words of my text, 'The mountains shall\ndepart and the hills be removed,' with such emphasis of certitude as\nthe present students of physical science.\n\nBut our text does not stop there. It brings into view the transiency of\nthe transient, in order to throw into greater relief and prominence the\nperpetuity of the abiding. If we had nothing abiding beyond this\nperishable material universe, it would indeed be misery to exist. Life\nwould be not only insignificant but wretched, and a ghastly irony, a\nmeaningless, aimless ripple on the surface of that silent, shoreless\nsea. The great 'But' of this text lifts the oppression from humanity\nwith which the one-sided truth of the passing of all the Visible loads\nit.\n\nAnd so turn for a moment to the other side of this great text. There\nstands out above all that is mortal, which, although it counts its\nexistence by millenniums, is but for an instant, visible to the eye of\nfaith, the Great Spirit who moves all the material universe, Himself\nunmoved, and lives undiminished by creation, and undiminished if\ncreation were swept out of existence. Let that which may pass, pass;\nlet that which can perish, perish; let the mountains crumble and the\nhills melt away; beyond the smoke and conflagration, and rising high\nabove destruction and chaos, stands the calm throne of God, with a\nloving Heart upon it, with a council of peace and purpose of mercy for\nyou and for me, the creatures of a day indeed, but who are to live when\nthe days shall cease to be. 'My kindness!' What a wonderful word that\nis, so far above all the cold delusion of so-called theism! 'My\nkindness!' the tender-heartedness of an infinite love, the abounding\nfavour of the Father of my spirit, His gentle goodness bending down to\nme, His tenderness round about me, eternal love that never can die; the\nthing that lasts in the universe is His kindness, which continues from\neverlasting to everlasting. What a revelation of God! Oh, dear friends,\nif only our hearts could open to the full acceptance of that thought,\nsorrow and care and anxiety, and every other form of trouble, would\nfade away and we should be at rest. The infinite, undying, imperishable\nlove of God is mine. Older than the mountains, deeper than their roots,\nwider than the heavens, and stronger than all my sin, is the love that\ngrasps me and keeps me and will not let me go, and lavishes its\ntenderness upon me, and beseeches me, and pleads with me, and woos me,\nand rebukes me, and corrects me when I need, and sent His Son to die\nfor me. 'My kindness shall not depart from thee.'\n\nBut even that great conception does not exhaust the encouragement which\nthe prophet has to give to souls weighed upon with the transiency of\nthe material. He speaks of 'the covenant of My peace.' We are to think\nof this great, tender, changeless love of God, which underlies all\nthings and towers above all things, which overlaps them all and fills\neternity, as being placed, so to speak, under the guarantee of a solemn\nobligation. God's covenant is a great thought of Scripture which we far\ntoo little apprehend in the depth and power of its meaning. His\ncovenant with you and me, poor creatures, is this, 'I promise that My\nlove shall never leave thee.' He makes Himself a constitutional\nmonarch, so to speak, giving us a plighted word to which we can appeal\nand go to Him and say, 'There, that is the charter given by Thyself,\ngiven irrevocably for ever, and I hold Thee to it. Fulfil it, O Thou\nGod of Truth.'\n\n'My covenant of peace.' Dear friends, the prophet spoke a deeper thing\nthan he knew when he uttered these words. Let me remind you of the\nlarge meaning which the New Testament puts into them. 'Now the God of\nPeace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great\nShepherd of the Sheep, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant,\nmake us perfect in every good work, to do His will.' God has bound\nHimself by His promise to give you and me the peace that belongs to His\nown nature, and that covenant is sealed to us in the blood of Jesus\nChrist upon the Cross, and so we sinful men, with all the burden of our\nevil upon us, with all our sins known to us, with all our manifest\nfailings and infirmities, can turn to Him and say, 'Thou hast pledged\nThyself to forgive and accept, and that covenant is made sure to me\nbecause Thy Son hath died, and I come and ask Thee to fulfil it.' And\nbe sure of this, that no poor creature upon earth, however lame his\nhand, who puts out that hand to grasp that peaceful covenant--that new\ncovenant in the blood of Christ--can plead in vain.\n\nMy brother, have you done that? Have you entered into this covenant of\npeace with God--peace in believing, peace by the blood of Christ, peace\nthat fills a new heart, peace that rules amidst all the perturbations\nand disappointments of life? Then you may be sure that that covenant\nwill stand for evermore, though the mountains depart and the hills be\nremoved.\n\nII. Now turn with me to a few practical lessons which we may gather\nfrom these great contrasts here, between the perishable mortal and the\nimmortal divine love.\n\nSurely the first plain one is a warning against fastening our love, our\nhope, or our trust on these transient things.\n\nWhat folly it is for a man to risk his peace and the strength and the\njoy of his life upon things that crumble and change, when all the while\nthere is lying before him open for his entrance, and wooing him to come\ninto the eternal home of his spirit, this covenant! Here are we, from\nday to day, plunged into these passing vanities, and always tempted to\nthink that they are the true abiding things, and it needs great\ndiscipline and watchfulness to live the better life. There is nothing\nthat will help us to do it like a firm grasp of the love of God in\nJesus Christ. Then we can hold these mortal joys with a loose hand,\nknowing that they are only for a little time, and feeling that they are\npassing whilst we look at them, and are changing like the scenery in\nthe sky on a summer's night, with its cliffs and hills in the clouds,\neven while we gaze. Where there was a mountain a moment ago up there,\nthere is now a depression, and the world and everything in it lasts\nvery little longer than these. It is only a film on the surface of the\ngreat sea of eternity--there is no reality about it. It is but a\ndream--a vision, slipping, slipping, slipping away, and you and I\nslipping along with it. How foolishly, how obstinately, we all cling to\nit, though even the very grasp of our hands tends to make it pass away,\nas the children coming in from the fields with their store of\nbuttercups and daisies in their hot hands, which by their very clutch\nhasten the withering. And that is just our position. We have them for a\nbrief moment, and they all perish in the using. Oh, brother, have you\nset your heart on that which is not, when all the while there, longing\nto bless and love us, stands the Eternal God, with His unchanging love\nand faithful covenant of His perpetual peace? Surely it were\nwiser--wiser, to put it on the lowest ground--to seek the things that\nare above, and, knowing as we do that the mountains shall depart and\nthe hills be removed, so make our portion the kindness which shall not\ndepart, and seek our share in the peace that shall not pass away.\n\nBut there is another lesson to be put in the same simple fashion.\nSurely we ought to use thoughts like these of my text in order to stay\nthe soul in seasons which come to every one sometimes, when we are made\npainfully conscious of the transiency of this Present. Meditative hours\ncome to us all--moments when perhaps some strain of music gives us back\nchildhood's days; when perhaps some perfume of a flower reminds us of\nlong-vanished gardens and hands that have crumbled into dust; when some\ntouch of a sunset sky, or some word of a book, or some providence of\nour lives, comes upon the heart and mind, reminding us how everything\nis passing. You have all had these thoughts. Some of us stifle\nthem--they are not pleasant to many of us; some of us brood over them\nunwholesomely, and that is not wise; but the best use of them is to\nbear us onward into the peaceful region where we clasp to our troubled\nhearts that which cannot go. If any of us are making experience to-day\nof earthly change, if any of us have hearts heavy with earthly losses,\nif any of us are bending under the weight of that awful law, that\neverything becomes part and parcel of that dreadful past, if any of us\nare looking at our empty hands and saying, 'They have taken away my god\nand what have I more?' let us listen to the better voice that says, 'My\nkindness shall not depart from thee, and so, whatever goes, thou canst\nnot be desolate if thou hast Me.'\n\nAnd then, still further, let me remind you that this same thought may\navail to give to us hopes of years as immortal as itself. We do not\nbelong to the mountains and hills that shall depart, or to the order of\nthings to which they belong. There is coming a very solemn day, I\nbelieve, not by any mere processes of natural decay as I take it, but\nby the action of God Himself, the Judge that 'day of the Lord that\nshall come as a thief in the night'--when the mountains shall depart,\nand the hills be removed, and the throne of judgment shall be set, and\nyou and I will be there. My brother, lay your hand on that covenant of\npeace which is made for us all in Christ Jesus the Lord, and then 'calm\nas the summer's ocean we shall be, and all the wreck of nature' cannot\ndisturb us, for we shall abide unshaken as the throne of God. The\nmountains may pass, the hills be removed, but herein is our love made\nperfect, that we may have boldness in the day of 'judgment,' for that\nkindness shall not depart from us, and God's gentle tenderness is\neternal as Himself. Then we shall not depart from it either, and we are\nimmortal as the tenderness that encloses us. God's endless love must\nhave undying creatures on whom to pour itself out, and if to-day I\npossess--as we all may possess in however feeble a measure--some sips\nand prelibations of that great flood of love that is in God, I can look\nunblanched right into the eyes of death and say, 'Thou hast no power at\nall over me, I am eternal because the God that loves me is so, and\nsince He hath loved me with an everlasting love, His loving-kindness\nshall not depart from me. Therefore, seeing that all these things shall\nbe dissolved, I know that I have a building of God, a house not made\nwith hands, eternal in the heavens, and because He lives I shall live\nalso.' The hope that is built upon the eternal love of God in Christ is\nthe true guarantee to me of immortal existence, and this hope is ours\nif, and only if, we come into the covenant--the covenant of peace. God\nsays, 'I will love thee, I will bless thee, I will keep thee, I will\npardon thee, I will save thee, I will glorify thee, and there is My\nbond on that Cross, the new covenant in His blood.' Close with the\ncovenant that God is ready to make with you, and then 'life and death,\nprincipalities and powers, things present and things to come, height\nand depth, and every other creature shall be impotent to separate you\nfrom the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'\n\n'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath\nno money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without\nmoney and without price. 2. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which\nis not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken\ndiligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul\ndelight itself in fatness. 3. Incline your ear, and come unto Me, hear,\nand your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with\nyou, even the sure mercies of David. 4. Behold, I have given him for a\nwitness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. 5. Behold,\nthou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew\nnot thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the\nHoly One of Israel; for He hath glorified thee. 6. Seek ye the Lord\nwhile He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: 7. Let the\nwicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let\nhim return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our\nGod, for He will abundantly pardon. 8. For My thoughts are not your\nthoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. 9. For as the\nheavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your\nways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. 10. For as the rain cometh\ndown, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth\nthe earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to\nthe sower, and bread to the eater: 11. So shall My word be that goeth\nforth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall\naccomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing\nwhereto I sent it. 12. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth\nwith peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you\ninto singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.\n13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the\nbrier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a\nname, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.'--ISAIAH lv.\n1-13.\n\nThe call to partake of the blessings of the Messianic salvation\nworthily follows the great prophecy of the suffering Servant. No doubt\nthe immediate application of this chapter is to the exiled nation, who\nin it are summoned from their vain attempts to find satisfaction in the\nmaterial prosperity realised in exile, and to make the only true\nblessedness their own by obedience to God's voice. But if ever the\nprophet spoke to the world he does so here. It is no unwarranted\nspiritualising of his invitation which hears in it the voice which\ninvites all mankind to share the blessings of the gospel feast.\n\nThe glorious words need little exposition. What we have to do is to see\nthat they do not fall on our ears in vain. They may be roughly divided\ninto two sections--the invitation to the feast, with the promises to\nthe obedient Israel (verses 1-5), and the summons to the necessary\npreparation for the feast, namely, repentance, with the reason for its\nnecessity, and the encouragements to it in the might of God's faithful\npromises (verses 6-13).\n\nI. Whose voice sounds so beseechingly and welcoming in this great call,\nwhich rings out to all thirsty souls? If we note the 'Me' and 'I' which\nfollow, we shall hear God Himself thus taking the office of summoner to\nHis own feast. By whatever media the gospel call reaches us, it is in\nreality God's own voice to our hearts, and that makes the\nresponsibility of hearing more tremendous, and the folly of refusing\nmore inexcusable.\n\nWho are invited? There are but two conditions expressed in verse 1, and\nthese are fulfilled in every soul. All are summoned who are thirsty and\npenniless. If we have in our souls desires that all the broken cisterns\nof earth can never slake-and we all have these-and if we have nothing\nby which we can procure what will still the gnawing hunger and burning\nthirst of our souls--and none of us has--then we are included in the\ncall. Universal as are the craving for blessedness and the\npowerlessness to satisfy it, are the adaptation and destination of the\ngospel.\n\nWhat is offered? Water, wine, milk--all the beverages of a simple\ncivilisation, differing in their operation, but all precious to a\nthirsty palate. Water revives, wine gladdens and inspirits, milk\nnourishes. All that any man needs or desires is to be found in Christ.\nWe shall not understand the nature of the feast unless we remember that\nHe Himself is the 'gift of God.' What these three draughts mean is best\nperceived when we listen to Him saying, in a plain quotation of this\ncall, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' Nothing\nshort of Himself can satisfy the thirst of one soul, much less of all\nthe thirsty. Like the flow from the magic fountain of the legend, Jesus\nbecomes to each what each most desires.\n\nHow does He become ours? The paradox of buying with what is not money\nis meant, by its very appearance of contradiction, to put in strongest\nfashion that the possession of Him depends on nothing in us but the\nsense of need and the willingness to accept. We buy Christ when we part\nwith self, which is all that we have, in order to win Him. We must be\nfull of conscious emptiness and desire, if we are to be filled with His\nfulness. Jesus interpreted the meaning of 'come to the waters' when He\nsaid, 'He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth\non Me shall never thirst.' Faith is coming, faith is drinking, faith is\nbuying.\n\nThe universal call, with is clear setting forth of blessing and\nconditions of possessing, is followed by a pleading remonstrance as to\nthe folly of lavishing effort and money on what is not bread. It is\nstrange that men will cheerfully take more pains to continue thirsty\nthan to accept the satisfaction which God provides. They toil and\ncontinue unsatisfied. Experience does not teach them, and all the while\nthe one real good is waiting to be theirs for nothing.\n\n  ''Tis heaven alone that is given away;\n  'Tis only God may be had for the asking.'\n\nChrist goes a-begging, and we spend our strength in vain toil to\nacquire what we turn away from when it is offered us in Him. When the\ngreat Father offers bread for nothing, we will not have it, but we are\nready to give any price for a stone. It is not the wickedness, but the\nfolly, of unbelief, which is the marvel.\n\nThe contrast between the heavy price at which men buy hunger, and the\neasy rate at which they may have full satisfaction, is further set\nforth by the call to 'incline the ear,' which is all that is needed in\norder that life and nourishment which delights the soul may be ours.\n'Hearken, and eat' is equivalent to 'Hearken, and ye shall eat.' The\nreal 'good' for man is only to be found in listening to and obeying the\ndivine voice, whether it sound in invitation, promise, or command. The\ntrue life of the soul lies in that listening receptiveness which takes\nfor one's own God's great gift of Christ, and yields glad obedience to\nHis every word.\n\nThe exiled Israel was promised an 'everlasting covenant' as the result\nof their acceptance of the invitation; and we know whose blood it is\nthat has sealed the new covenant, which abides as long as Christ's\nfulness and men's need shall last. That covenant, of which we seldom\nhear in Isaiah, but which fills a prominent place in Jeremiah and\nEzekiel, is further explained as being 'the sure mercies of David.'\nThis phrase and its context are difficult, but the general meaning is\nclear. The great promises of God's unfailing mercy, made to the\nhistorical founder of the royal house, shall be transferred and\ncontinued, with inviolable faithfulness, to those who drink of the gift\nof God.\n\nThis parallel between the great King and the whole mass of the true\nIsrael is further set forth in verses 4 and 5. Each begins with\n'Behold,' and the similar form indicates similarity in contents. The\nson of Jesse was in some degree God's witness to the heathen nations,\nas is expressed in several psalms; and, what he was imperfectly, the\nransomed Israel would be to the world. The office of the Christian\nChurch is to draw nations that it knew not, to follow in the blessed\npath, in which it has found satisfaction and the dawnings of a more\nthan natural glory transfiguring it. They who have themselves drunk of\nthe unfailing fountain in Christ are thereby fitted and called to cry\nto others, 'Come ye to the waters.' Experience of Christ's\npreciousness, and of the rest of soul which comes from partaking of His\nsalvation, impels and obliges to call others to share the bliss.\n\nII. The second part of the chapter begins with an urgent call to\nrepentance, based upon the difference between God's ways and man's, and\non the certainty that the divine promises will be fulfilled. The\nsummons in verses 6 and 7 is first couched in most general terms, which\nare then more closely defined. To 'seek the Lord' is to direct conduct\nand heart to obtain possession of God as one's own. Of that seeking,\nthe chief element is calling upon Him; since such is His desire to be\nfound of us that it only needs our asking in order to receive. As\nsurely as the mother hears her child's cry, so surely does He catch the\nfaintest voice addressed to Him. But, men being what they are, a change\nof ways and of their root in thoughts is indispensable. Seeking which\nis not accompanied by forsaking self and an evil past is no genuine\nseeking, and will end in no finding. But this forsaking is only one\nside of true repentance; the other is return to God, as is expressed in\nthe New Testament word for it, which implies a change of mind, purpose,\nand conduct. The faces which were turned earthward and averted from God\nare to be turned God-ward and diverted from earth. Whosoever thus seeks\nmay be confident of finding and of abundant pardon. The belief in God's\nloving forgivingness is the strongest motive to repentance, and the\nmost melting argument to listen to the call to seek Him. But there is\nanother motive of a more awful kind; namely, the consideration that the\nperiod of mercy is limited, and that a time may come, and that soon,\nwhen God no longer 'may be found' nor 'is near.'\n\nThe need for such a radical change in conduct and mind is further\nenforced, in verses 8 and 9, by the emphatic statement of present\ndiscord between the exiled Israel and God. Mark that the deepest seat\nof the discord is first dealt with, and then the manifestation of it in\nactive life. Mark also that the order of comparison is inverted in the\ntwo successive clauses in verse 8. God's thoughts have not entered into\nIsrael's mind and become theirs. The 'thinkings' not being regulated\naccording to God's truth, nor the desires and sentiments brought into\naccord with His will and mind, a contrariety of 'ways' must follow, and\nthe paths which men choose for themselves cannot run parallel with\nGod's, nor be pleasing to Him. Therefore the stringent urgency of the\ncall to forsake 'the crooked, wandering ways in which we live,' and to\ncome back to the path of righteousness which is traced by God for our\nfeet.\n\nBut divergence which necessitates repentance is not the only relation\nbetween our ways and God's. There is elevation, transcendency, like\nthat of the eternal heavens, high, boundless, the home of light, the\nstorehouse of beneficent influences which fertilise. If we think of the\ndreary, flat plains where the exiles were, and the magnificent sweep of\nthe sky over them, we shall feel the beauty of the figure. If 'My\nthoughts are not your thoughts' was all that was to be said, repentance\nwould be of little use, and there would be little to encourage to it;\nbut if God's thoughts of love and ways of blessing arch themselves\nabove our low lives as the sky bends, pitying and bestowing, above\nsqualor, barrenness, and darkness, then penitence is not in vain, and\nthe low earth may be visited with gifts from the highest heaven.\n\nThe certainty that such gifts will be bestowed is the last thought of\nthis magnificent summons. The prophet dilates on that assurance to the\nend of the chapter. He seems to catch fire, as it were, from the\nintroduction of that grand figure of the lofty heavens domed above the\nflat earth. In effect, what he says is: They are high and inaccessible,\nbut think what pours down from them, and how all fertility depends on\ntheir gifts of rain and snow, and how the moisture which they drop is\nturned into 'seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.' Thinking of\nthat continuous benefaction and miracle, we should see in it a symbol\nof the better gifts from the higher heavens. So does God's word come\ndown from His throne. So does it turn barrenness into nodding harvest.\nSo does it quicken undreamed of powers of fruitfulness in human nature\nand among the forces of the world. So does it supply nourishment for\nhungry souls, and germs which shall bear fruit in coming years. No\ncomplicated machinery nor the most careful culture can work what the\ngentle dropping rain effects. There is mightier force in it than in\nmany thunder-clouds. The gospel does with ease and in silence what\nnothing else can do. It makes barren souls fruitful in all good works,\nand in all happiness worthy of men. Therefore the summons to drink of\nthe springing fountain and to turn from evil ways and thoughts is\nrecommended by the assurance that God's word is faithful, and all His\npromises firm.\n\nThe final verses (verses 12, 13) give the glowing picture of the return\nfrom exile amid the jubilation of a transformed world, as the strongest\nmotive to the obedient hearkening to God's voice, to which the chapter\nhas summoned, and as the great instance of God's keeping His word.\n\nThe flight from Egypt was 'in haste' (Deut. xvi. 3); but this shall be\na triumphal exodus, without conflict or alarms. All nature shall\nparticipate in the joy. Mountains and hills shall raise the shrill note\nof rejoicing, and the trees wave their branches, as if clapping hands\nin delight. This is more than mere poetic rhetoric. A redeemed humanity\nimplies a glorified world. Nature has been involved in the consequences\nof sin, and will share in the results of redemption, and have some\nhumble reflected light from 'the liberty of the glory of the sons of\nGod.'\n\nThe fulfilment of this final promise is not yet. All earlier returns of\nthe exiled Israel from the Babylon of their bondage to God and the city\nof God, such as the historical one which the prophet foretold, and the\nspiritual one which is repeated age by age in the history of the\nChristian Church and of single penitent souls, point on to that last\ntriumphant day when 'the ransomed of the Lord shall return,' and the\nworld be transfigured to match the glory that they inherit. That fair\nworld without poison or offence, and the nations of the saved who\ninhabit its peaceful spaces, shall be, in the fullest stretch of the\nwords, 'to the Lord for a name, and for an everlasting sign that shall\nnot be cut off.' The redemption of man and his establishing amid the\nfelicities of a state correspondent to His God-given glory shall be to\nall eternity and to all possible creations the highest evidence of what\nGod is, and His token to all beings.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREAT PROCLAMATION\n\n'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath\nno money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without\nmoney and without price.'--ISAIAH lv.1.\n\n\nThe meaning of the word _preach_ is 'proclaim like a herald'; or, what\nis perhaps more familiar to most of us, like a town-crier; with a loud\nvoice, clearly and plainly delivering the message. Now, there are other\nnotions of a sermon than that; and there is other work which ministers\nhave to do, of an educational kind. But my business now is to preach.\nWe have ventured to ask others than the members of our own congregation\nto join us in this service; and I should be ashamed of myself, and have\ngood reason to be so, if I had asked you to come to hear me talk, or to\nentertain you with more or less eloquent and thoughtful discourses.\nThere is a time for everything; and what this is the time for is to\nring out like a bellman the message which I believe God has given me\nfor you. It cannot but suffer in passing through human lips; but I pray\nthat my poor words may not be all unworthy of its stringency, and of\nthe greatness of its blessing. My text is God's proclamation, and all\nthat the best of us can do is but to reiterate that, more feebly alas,\nbut still earnestly.\n\nSuppose there was an advertisement in to-morrow morning's papers that\nany one that liked to go to a certain place might get a fortune for\ngoing, what a _queue_ of waiting suppliants there would be at the door!\nHere is God's greatest gift going a-begging; and there are no doubt\nsome among you who listen to my text with only the thought, 'Oh, the\nold threadbare story is what we have been asked to come and hear!'\nBrethren, have you taken the offer? If not, it needs to be pressed upon\nyou once more. So my purpose in this sermon is a very simple one. I\nwish, as a brother to a brother, to put before you these three things:\nto whom this offer is made; what it consists of; and how it may be ours.\n\nI. To whom this offer is made.\n\nIt is to every one thirsty and penniless. That is a melancholy\ncombination, to be needing something infinitely, and to have not a\nfarthing to get it with. But that is the condition in which we all\nstand, in regard to the highest and best things. This invitation of my\ntext is as universal as if it had stopped with its third word. 'Ho,\nevery one' would have been no broader than is the offer as it stands.\nFor the characteristics named are those which belong, necessarily and\nuniversally, to human experience. If my text had said, 'Ho, every one\nthat breathes human breath,' it would not have more completely covered\nthe whole race, and enfolded thee and me, and all our brethren, in the\namplitude of its promise, than it does when it sets up as the sole\nqualifications thirst and penury--that we infinitely need, and that we\nare absolutely unable to acquire, the blessings that it offers.\n\n'Every one that thirsteth'--that means desire. Yes; but it means need\nalso. And what is every man but a great bundle of yearnings and\nnecessities? None of us carry within ourselves that which suffices for\nourselves. We are all dependent upon external things for being and for\nwellbeing.\n\nThere are thirsts which infallibly point to their true objects. If a\nman is hungry he knows that it is food that he wants. And just as the\nnecessities of the animal life are incapable of being misunderstood,\nand the objects which will satisfy them incapable of being confused or\nmistaken, so there are other nobler thirsts, which, in like manner,\nwork automatically, and point to the thing that they need. We have\nsocial instincts; we need love; we need friendship; we need somebody to\nlean upon; we thirst for some heart to rest our heads upon, for hands\nto clasp ours; and we know where the creatures and the objects are that\nwill satisfy these desires. And there are the higher thirsts of the\nspirit, that 'follows knowledge, like a sinking star, beyond the\nfurthest bounds of human thought'; and a man knows where and how to\ngratify the impulse that drives him to seek after the many forms of\nknowledge and wisdom.\n\nBut besides all these, besides sense, besides affection, besides\nemotions, besides the intellectual spur of which we are all more or\nless conscious, there come in a whole set of other thirsts that do not\nin themselves carry the intimation of the place where they can be\nslaked. And so you get men restless, as some of you are; always\ndissatisfied, as some of you are; feeling that there is something\nwanting, yet not knowing what, as some of you are. You remember the old\nstory in the _Arabian Nights_, of the man who had a grand palace, and\nlived in it quite contentedly, until some one told him that it needed a\nroc's egg hanging from the roof to make it complete, and he did not\nknow where to get that, and was miserable accordingly. We build our\nhouses, we fancy that we are satisfied; and then there comes the\nstinging thought that it is not all complete yet, and we go groping,\ngroping in the dark, to find out where the lacking thing is.\nShipwrecked sailors sometimes, in their desperation, drink salt water,\nand that makes them thirstier than ever, and brings on madness and\ndeath. Some publicans drug the vile liquors which they sell, so that\nthey increase thirst. We may make no mistake about how to satisfy the\ndesires of sense or of earthly affections; we may be quite certain that\n'money answereth all things,' and that it is good to get on in business\nin Manchester; or may have found a pure and enduring satisfaction in\nstudy and in books--yet we have thirsts that some of us know not where\nto satisfy; and so we have parched lips and swollen tongues, and raging\ndesire that earth can give nothing to fill.\n\nMy brother, do you know what it is that you want?\n\nIt is God. Nothing else, nothing less. 'My soul thirsteth for God, for\nthe living God.' The man that knows what it is of which he is in such\nsore need, is blessed. The man who only feels dimly that he needs\nsomething, and does not know that it is God whom he does need, is\ncondemned to wander in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, and\nwhere his heart gapes, parched and cracked like the soil upon which he\ntreads. Understand your thirst. Interpret your desires aright. Open\nyour eyes to your need; and be sure of this, that mountains of money\nand the clearest insight into intellectual problems, and fame, and\nlove, and wife, and children, and a happy home, and abundance of all\nthings that you can desire, will leave a central aching emptiness that\nnothing and no person but God can ever fill. Oh, that we all knew what\nthese yearnings of our hearts mean!\n\nAye! but there are _dormant_ thirsts too. It is no proof of superiority\nthat a savage has fewer wants than you and I have, for the want is the\nopen mouth into which supply comes. And it is no proof that you have\nnot, deep in your nature, desires which, unless they are satisfied,\nwill prevent your being blessed, that these desires are all unconscious\nto yourselves. The business of us preachers is, very largely, to get\nthe people who will listen to us, to recognise the fact that they do\nwant things which they do not wish; and that, for the perfection of\ntheir natures, the cherishing of noble longings and thirstings is\nneedful, and that to be without this sense of need is to be without one\nof the loftiest prerogatives of humanity.\n\nSome of you do not wish forgiveness. Many of you would much rather not\nhave holiness. You do not want to have God. The promises of the Gospel\ngo clean over your heads, and are as impotent to influence you as the\nwind whistling through a keyhole, because you have never been aware of\nthe wants to which these promises correspond, and do not understand\nwhat it is that you truly require.\n\nAnd yet there is no desire--that is to say, consciousness of\nnecessities--so dormant but that its being un-gratified makes a man\nrestless. You do not wish forgiveness, but you will never be happy till\nyou get it. You do not wish to be good and true and holy men, but you\nwill never be blessed till you are. You do not want to have God, some\nof you, but you will be restless till you find Him. You fancy you wish\nheaven when you are dead; you do not want it while you are living. But\nuntil your earthly life is like the life of Jesus Christ in heaven,\nthough in an inferior degree, whilst it is on earth, you will never be\nat rest. You are thirsty enough after these things to be ill at ease\nwithout them, when you bethink yourselves and pass out of the region of\nmere mechanical and habitual existence; but until you get these things\nthat you do not desire, be sure of this: that you will be tortured with\nvain unrest, and will find that the satisfactions which you do seek\nturn to ashes in your mouth. 'Bread of deceit,' says the Book, 'is\nsweet to a man.' The writer meant by that that there were people to\nwhom it was pleasant to tell profitable lies. But we might widen the\nmeaning, and say that all these lower satisfactions, apart from the\nloftier ones of forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation with God, the\nconscious possession of Him, a well-grounded hope of immortality, the\npower to live a noble life and to look forward to a glorious heaven,\nare 'bread of deceit,' which promises nourishment and does not give it,\nbut breaks the teeth that try to masticate it; 'it turneth to gravel.'\n\n'Ho, every one that thirsteth.' That designation includes us all. 'And\nhe that hath no money.' Who has any? Notice that the persons\nrepresented in our text as penniless are, in the next verse,\nremonstrated with for spending 'money.' So then the penniless man had\nsome pence away in some corner of his pocket which he could spend. He\nhad the money that would buy shams, 'that which is not bread' but a\nstone though it looks like a loaf, but he had no money for the true\nfood. Which being translated out of parable into fact, is simply this,\nthat our efforts may and do win for us the lower satisfactions which\nmeet our transitory and superficial necessities, but that no effort of\nours can secure for us the loftier blessings which slake the diviner\nthirsts of immortal souls. A man lands in a far country with English\nshillings in his pocket, but he finds that no coins go there but\nthalers, or francs, or dollars, or the like; and his money is only\ncurrent in his own land, and he must have it changed before he can make\nhis purchases. So though he has a pocketful of it he may as well be\npenniless.\n\nAnd, in like fashion, you and I, with all our strenuous efforts, which\nwe are bound to make, and which there is joy in making, after these\nlower good things that correspond to our efforts, find that we have no\ncoinage that will buy the good things of the kingdom of heaven, without\nwhich we faint and die. For them our efforts are useless. Can a man by\nhis penitence, by his tears, by his amendment, make it possible for the\nconsequences of his past to be obliterated, or all changed in their\ncharacter into fatherly chastisement? No! A thousand times, no! The\nsuperficial notions of Christianity, which are only too common amongst\nboth educated and uneducated, may say to a man, 'You need no divine\nintervention, if only you will get up from the dust, and do your best\nto keep up when you are up.' But those who realise more deeply what the\nsignificance of sin is, and what the eternal operation of its\nconsequences upon the soul is, and what the awful majesty of a divine\nrighteousness is, learn that the man who has sinned can, by nothing\nthat he can do, obliterate that awful fact, or reduce it to\ninsignificance, in regard to the divine relations to him. It is only\nGod who can do that. We have no money.\n\nSo we stand thirsty and penniless--a desperate condition! Ay! brother,\nit _is_ desperate, and it is the condition of every one of us. I wish I\ncould turn the generalities of my text into the individuality of a\npersonal address. I wish I could bring its wide-flowing beneficence to\na sharp point that might touch your conscience, heart, and will. I\ncannot do that; you must do it for yourself.\n\n'Ho, every one that thirsteth.' Will you pause for a moment, and say to\nyourself, 'That is I'? 'And he that hath no money'--that is I. 'Come ye\nto the waters'--that is I. The proclamation is for thine ear and for\nthy heart; and the gift is for thy hand and thy lips.\n\nII. In what this offer consists.\n\nThey tell an old story about the rejoicings at the coronation of some\ngreat king, when there was set up in the market-place a triple\nfountain, from each of whose three lips flowed a different kind of rare\nliquor which any man who chose to bring a pitcher might fill it with,\nat his choice. Notice my text, 'come ye to the _waters_' ... 'buy\n_wine_ and _milk_.' The great fountain is set up in the market-place of\nthe world, and every man may come; and whichever of this glorious triad\nof effluents he needs most, there his lip may glue itself and there it\nmay drink, be it 'water' that refreshes, or 'wine' that gladdens, or\n'milk' that nourishes. They are all contained in this one great gift\nthat flows out from the deep heart of God to the thirsty lips of\nparched humanity.\n\nAnd what is that gift? Well, we may say, salvation; or we may use many\nother words to define the nature of the gifts. I venture to take a\nshorter one, and say, it means Christ. He, and not merely some truth\nabout Him and His work; He Himself, in the fulness of His being, in the\nall-sufficiency of His love, in the reality of His presence, in the\npower of His sacrifice, in the daily derivation, into the heart that\nwaits upon Him, of His life and His spirit, He is the all-sufficient\nsupply of every thirst of every human soul. Do we want happiness?\nChrist gives us His joy, abiding and full, and not as the world gives.\nDo we want love? He gathers us to His heart, in which 'there is no\nvariableness, neither shadow cast by turning,' and binds us to Himself\nby bonds that death, the separator, vainly attempts to untie, and which\nno unworthiness, ingratitude or coldness of ours will ever be able to\nunloose. Do we want wisdom? He will dwell with us as our light. Do our\nhearts yearn for companionship? With Him we shall never be solitary. Do\nwe long for a bright hope which shall light up the dark future, and\nspread a rainbow span over the great gorge and gulf of death? Jesus\nChrist spans the void, and gives us unfailing and undeceiving hope. For\neverything that you and I need here or yonder, in heart, in will, in\npractical life, Jesus Christ Himself is the all-sufficient supply.\n\n'My life in death, my all in all.' What is offered in Him may be\ndescribed by all the glorious and blessed names which men have invented\nto designate the various aspects of the Good. These are the goodly\npearls that men seek, but there is one of great price which is worth\nthem all, and gathers into itself all their clouded and fragmentary\nsplendours. Christ is all, and the soul that has Him shall never thirst.\n\n  'Thou of life the fountain art,\n  Freely let me take of Thee.'\n\nIII. Lastly, how do we obtain the offered gifts?\n\nThe paradox of my text needs little explanation, 'Buy without money and\nwithout price.' The contradiction on the surface is but intended to\nmake emphatic this blessed truth, which I pray may reach your memories\nand hearts, that the only conditions are a sense of need, and a\nwillingness to take--nothing less and nothing more. We must recognise\nour penury and must abandon self, and put away all ideas of having a\nfinger in our own salvation, and be willing--which, strangely and sadly\nenough, many of us are not-to be under obligations to God's unhelped\nand undeserved love for all.\n\nCheap things are seldom valued. Ask a high price and people think that\nthe commodity is precious. A man goes into a fair, for a wager, and he\ncarries with him a try full of gold watches and offers to sell them for\na farthing apiece, and nobody will buy them. It does not, I hope,\ndegrade the subject, if I say Jesus Christ comes into the market-place\nof the world with His hands full of the gifts which His pierced hands\nhave bought, that He may give them away. He says, 'Will you take them?'\nAnd you, and you, and you, pass by on the other side, and go away to\nanother merchant, and buy dearly things that are not worth the having.\n\n'My father, my father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing,\nwouldst thou not have done it?' Would you not? Swing at the end of a\npole, with hooks in your back; measure all the way from Cape Comorin to\nthe Himalayas, lying down on your face and rising at each length; do a\nhundred things which heathens and Roman Catholics and unspiritual\nProtestants think to be the way to get salvation; deny yourselves\nthings that you would like to do; do things that you do not want to do;\ngive money that you would like to keep; avoid habits that are very\nsweet, go to church or chapel when you have no heart for worship; and\nso try to balance the account. If the prophet had bid thee do some\ngreat thing, thou wouldst have done it. How much rather when he says,\n'Wash, and be clean.' 'Nothing in my heart I bring.' You do _not_ bring\nanything. 'Simply to Thy Cross I cling.' Do you? Do you? Jesus Christ\ncatches up the 'comes' of my text, and He says, 'Come unto Me, all ye\nthat labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' 'If any man\nthirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' Brethren, I lay it on your\nhearts and consciences to answer Him--never mind about me--to answer\n_Him_: 'Sir, give me this water that I thirst not.'\n\n\n\n\nGOD'S WAYS AND MAN'S\n\n'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,\nsaith the Lord. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are\nMy ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your\nthoughts.'--ISAIAH lv. 8, 9.\n\n\nScripture gives us no revelations concerning God merely in order that\nwe may know about Him. These words are grand poetry and noble theology,\nbut they are meant practically and in fiery earnestness. The 'for' at\nthe beginning of each clause points us back to the previous statement,\nand both of the verses of our text are in different ways its\nfoundation. And what has preceded is this: 'Let the wicked forsake his\nway and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the\nLord, for He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will\nabundantly pardon.' That is why the prophet dilates upon the difference\nbetween the 'thoughts' and the 'ways' of God and of men.\n\nIf we look at these two verses a little more closely we shall perceive\nthat they by no means cover the same ground nor suggest the same idea\nas to the relationship between God's 'ways' and 'thoughts' and ours.\nThe former of them speaks of unlikeness and opposition, the latter of\nelevation and superiority; the former of them is the basis of an\nindictment and an exhortation, the latter is the basis of an\nencouragement and a promise. The former of them is the reason why 'the\nwicked' and 'unrighteous man' ought to and must 'turn' from 'his ways'\nand 'thoughts,' the latter of them is the reason why, 'turning,' he may\nbe sure that the Lord 'will abundantly pardon.'\n\nAnd so we have here two things to consider in reference to the relation\nbetween the divine purposes and acts and man's purposes and acts.\nFirst, the antagonism, and the indictment and exhortation that are\nbased upon that; second, the analogy but superiority, and the\nexhortation and hope that are built upon that. Let me deal, then, with\nthese separately.\n\nI. We have here an unlikeness declared, and upon that is rested an\nappeal.\n\nNotice the remarkable order and alternation of pronouns in the first\nverse. '_My_ thoughts are not _your_ thoughts,' saith the Lord. The\nthings that God thinks and purposes are not the things that man thinks\nand purposes, and therefore, because the thoughts are different, the\noutcomes of them in deeds are divergent. God's 'ways' are His acts, the\nmanner and course of His working considered as a path on which He\nmoves, and on which, in some sense, we can also journey. Our\n'ways'--our manner of life--are not parallel with His, as they should\nbe.\n\nBut that opposition is expressed with a remarkable variation. Observe\nthe change of pronouns in the two clauses. First, '_My_ thoughts are\nnot your thoughts'--you have not taken My truth into your minds, nor My\npurposes into your wills; you do riot think God's thoughts.\nTherefore--'_your_ ways (instead of 'My,' as we should have expected,\nto keep the regularity of the parallelism) are not My ways'--I\nrepudiate and abjure your conduct and condemn it utterly.\n\nNow, of course, in this charge of man's unlikeness to God, there is no\ncontradiction of, nor reference to, man's natural constitution, in\nwhich there are, at one and the same time, the likeness of the child\nwith the parent and the unlikeness between the creature and the\nCreator. If our thoughts were not in a measure like God's thoughts, we\nshould know nothing about Him. If our thoughts were not like God's\nthoughts, we should have no standard for life or thinking.\nRighteousness and beauty and truth and goodness are the same things in\nheaven and earth, and alike in God and man. We are made after His\nimage, poor creatures though we be; and though there must ever be a\ngulf of unlikeness, which we cannot bridge, between the thoughts of Him\nwhose knowledge has no growth nor uncertainty, whose wisdom is infinite\nand all whose nature is boundless light, and our knowledge, and must\never be a gulf between the workings and ways of Him who works without\neffort, and knows neither weariness nor limitation, and our work, so\noften foiled, so always toilsome, yet in all the unlikeness there is\n(and no man can denude himself of it) a likeness to the Father. For the\nimage in which God made man at the beginning is not an image that it is\nin the power of men to cast away, and in the worst of his corruptions\nand the widest of his departures he still bears upon him the signs of\nlikeness 'to Him that created him.' The coin is rusty, battered,\ndefaced; but still legible are the head and the writing. 'Whose image\nand superscription hath it?' Render unto God the things that are\ndeclared to be God's, because they bear His likeness and are stamped\nwith His signature.\n\nBut that very necessary and natural likeness between God and man makes\nmore solemnly sinful the voluntary unlikeness which we have brought\nupon ourselves. If there were no analogy, there could be no contrast.\nIf God and man were utterly unlike, then there would be no evil in our\nunlikeness and no need for our repentance.\n\nThe true state for each of us is that we should, as the great\nastronomer said he had done in regard to his own science, 'think God's\nthoughts after Him,' and have our minds filled with His truth and our\nwills all harmonised with His purposes, and that we should thus make\nour ways to run parallel with the ways of God. The blessedness, the\npeace, the true manhood of a man, are that his ways and thoughts should\nbe like God's. And so my text comes with its indictment--You who by\nnature were formed in His image, you to whom it is open to sympathise\nwith His designs, to harmonise your wills with His will, and to bring\nall the dark and crooked ways in which you walk into full parallelism\nwith His way--you have departed into darkness of unlikeness, and in\nthought and in ways are the opposites of God.\n\nMark how wonderfully, in the simple language of my text, deep truths\nabout this sin of ours are conveyed. Notice its growth and order. It\nbegins with a heart and mind that do not take in God's thoughts,\ntruths, purposes, desires, and then the alienated will and the darkened\nunderstanding and the conscience which has closed itself against His\nimperative voice issue afterwards in conduct which He cannot accept as\nin any way corresponding with His. First comes the thought unreceptive\nof God's thought, and then follow ways contrary to God's ways.\n\nNotice the profound truth here in regard to the essential and deepest\nevil of all our evil. '_Your_ thoughts'; '_your_\nways,'--self-dependence and self-confidence are the master-evils of\nhumanity. And every sin is at bottom the result of saying--'I will not\nconform myself to God, but I am going to please myself, and take my own\nway.' My own way is never God's way; my own way is always the devil's\nway. And the root of all sin lies in these two strong, simple words,\n'_Your_ thoughts not Mine; _your_ ways not Mine.'\n\nNotice, too, how there are suggested the misery and retribution of this\nunlikeness. 'If you will not make My thoughts your thoughts, I shall\nnot take your ways as My ways. I will leave you to them.' 'You will be\nfilled with the fruit of your own devices. I shall not incorporate your\nactions into My great scheme and purpose.' Men\n\n                     'Would not know His ways,\n                      And He has left them to their own.'\n\nSo here we have the solemn indictment brought by God's own voice\nagainst us all. The criminality of our unlikeness to Him rests upon our\noriginal likeness.\n\nThe unlikeness roots itself in thought, and blossoms in the poisonous\nflower of God-displeasing acts. It brings down upon our heads the\nsolemn retribution of separation from Him, and being filled with the\nfruit of our own devices. Such is the indictment brought against every\nsoul of man upon the earth, and there is built upon it the call to\nrepentance and change,' let the wicked forsake his _way_, and the\nunrighteous man his _thoughts_.' The question rises in many a heart,\n'How am I to forsake these paths on which my feet have so longed\nwalked?' And if I do, what about all the years behind me, full of wild\nwanderings and thoughts in all of which God was not?\n\nII. The second verse of our text meets that despairing question. It\nproclaims the elevation of God's ways and thoughts above ours, and\nthereon bases the assurance of pardon.\n\nThe relation is not only one of unlikeness and opposition, but it is\nalso one of analogy and superiority. The former clause began with\nthoughts which are the parents of ways, and, as befits the all-seeing\nJudge, laid bare first the hidden discord of man's heart and will, ere\nit pointed to the manifest antagonism of his doings. This clause begins\nwith God's ways, from which alone men can reach the knowledge of His\nthoughts. The first follows the order of God's knowledge of man; the\nsecond, that of man's knowledge of God.\n\nIt is a wonderful and beautiful turn which the prophet here gives to\nthe thought of the transcendent elevation of God. The heavens are the\nvery type of the unattainable; and to say that they are 'higher than\nthe earth' seems, at first sight, to be but to say, 'No man hath\nascended into the heavens,' and you sinful men must grovel here down\nupon your plain, whilst they are far above, out of your reach. But the\nheavens bend. They are an arch, and not a straight line. They touch the\nhorizon; and there come from them the sweet influences of sunshine and\nof rain, of dew and of blessing, which bring fertility. So they are not\nonly far and unattainable, but friendly and beneficent, and\ncommunicative of good. Like them, in true analogy but yet infinite\nsuperiority to the best and noblest in man, is the boundless mercy of\nour pardoning God:\n\n                'The glorious sky, embracing all,\n                   Is like its Maker's love,\n                 Wherewith encompassed, great and small\n                   In peace and order move.'\n\n'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than\nyour ways.' _The_ special 'thought' and 'way' which is meant here is\nGod's thought and way about sin. There are three points here on which I\nwould touch for a moment. First, God's way of dealing with sin is\nlifted up above all human example. There is such a thing as pardoning\nmercy amongst men. It is a faint analogy of, as it is an offshoot from,\nthe divine pardon, but all the forgivingness of the most placable and\nlong-suffering and gladly pardoning of men is but as earth to heaven\ncompared with the greatness of His. Our forgiveness has its\nlimitations. We sometimes cannot pardon as freely as we thought,\nbecause there blends with our indignation against evil a passionate\npersonal sense of wrong done to us which we cannot get rid of, and that\ndisturbs the freeness and the joyfulness of many a human pardon. But\nGod's pardon is undisturbed and hindered by any sense of personal\nresentment, though sin is an offense against Him, and in its freeness,\nits fulness, its frequency, and its sovereign power to melt away that\nwhich it forgives, it towers above the loftiest of earth's beauties of\nforgiveness, as the starry heavens do above the flat plain.\n\nGod's pardon is above all human example, even though, having once been\nreceived by us, it ought to become for us the pattern by which we shape\nand regulate our own lives. Nothing of which we have any experience in\nourselves or in others is more than as a drop to the ocean compared\nwith the absolute fulness and perfect freeness and unwearied frequency\nof His forgiveness. 'He will abundantly pardon.' He will multiply\npardon. 'With Him there is plenteous redemption.' We think we have\nstretched the elasticity of long suffering and forgiveness further than\nwe might have been reasonably expected to do if seven times we forgive\nthe erring brother, but God's measure of pardon is seventy times seven,\ntwo perfectnesses multiplied into themselves perfectly; for the measure\nof His forgiveness is boundless, and there is no searching of the\ndepths of His pardoning mercy. You cannot weary Him out, you cannot\nexhaust it. It is full at the end as at the beginning; and after all\nits gifts still it remains true, 'With Him is the multiplying of\nredemption.'\n\nAgain, God's way of dealing with sin surpasses all our thought. All\nreligion has been pressed with this problem, how to harmonise the\nperfect rectitude of the divine nature and the solemn claims of law\nwith forgiveness. All religions have borne witness to the fact that men\nare dimly aware of the discord and dissonance between themselves and\nthe divine thoughts and ways; and a thousand altars proclaim to us how\nthey have felt that something must be done in order that forgiveness\nmight be possible to an all-righteous and Sovereign Judge. The Jew knew\nthat God was a pardoning God, but to him that fact stood as needing\nmuch explanation and much light to be thrown upon its relations with\nthe solemn law under which he lived. We have Jesus Christ. The mystery\nof forgiveness is solved, in so far as it is capable of solution, in\nHim and in Him alone. His death somewhat explains how God is just and\nthe Justifier of him that believeth. High above man's thoughts this\ngreat central mystery of the Gospel rises, that with God there is\nforgiveness and with God there is perfect righteousness. The Cross as\nthe basis of pardon is the central mystery of revelation; and it is not\nto be expected that our theories shall be able to sound the depths of\nthat great act of the divine love. Perhaps our plummets do not go to\nthe bottom of the bottomless after all; but is it needful that we\nshould have gone to the rim of the heavens, and round about it on the\noutside, before we rejoice in the sunshine? Is it needful that we\nshould have traversed the abysses of the heavens, and passed from star\nto star and told their numbers, before we can say that they are bright,\nor before we can walk in their light? We do not need to understand the\n'how' in order to be sure of the fact that Christ's death is our\nforgiveness. Do not be in such a hurry as some people are nowadays, to\ndeclare that the doctrine of the Cross is contrary to man's\nconceptions. It _surpasses_ them, and the very fact that it surpasses\nought to stop us from pronouncing that it _contradicts_. 'As the\nheavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts higher than your\nthoughts.'\n\nLastly, we are taught here that God's way of dealing with sin is the\nvery highest point of His self-revelation. There are many glories of\nthe divine nature set forth in all His ways, but the loftiest of them\nall is this, that He can neutralise and destroy the fact of man's\ntransgressing, wiping it out by pardon; and in the very act of pardon\nreconstituting in purity, and with a heart for all holiness, the sinful\nmen whom He forgives. This is the shining apex of all that He has done,\nrising above creation and every other 'way' of His, as high as the\nloftiest heavens are above the earth.\n\nTherefore, have a care of all forms of Christianity which do not put\nGod's pardoning mercy in the foreground. They are maimed, and in them\nmist and cloud have covered with a roof of doleful grey the low-lying\nearth, and separated it from the highest heavens. The true glory of the\nrevelation of God gathers round that central Cross; and there, in that\nMan dying upon it in the dark--the sacrifice for a world's sin--is the\nloftiest, most heavenly revelation of the all-revealing God. Strike out\nthe Cross from Christianity, or weaken its aspect as a message of\nforgiveness and redemption, and you have quenched its brightest light,\nand dragged it down to be but a little higher, if any, than many\nanother scheme of other moralists, philosophers, poets, and religious\nteachers. The distinctive glory of Christianity is this--it tells us\nhow God sweeps away sin.\n\nAnd so my last thought is that, if we desire to see up on the highest\nheavens of God's character, we must go down into the depths of the\nconsciousness of our own sin, and learn first, how unlike our ways and\nthoughts are to God, ere we can understand how high above us, and yet\nbeneficently arching over us, are His ways and thoughts to us. We lie\nbeneath the heavens like some foul bog full of black ooze, rotten earth\nand putrid water, where there is nothing green or fair. But the promise\nof the bending heavens, with their sweet influences, declares the\npossibility of reclaiming even that waste, and making it rejoice and\nblossom as the rose. Spread yourselves out, dear friends, in lowly\nsubmission and penitent acknowledgment beneath the all-vivifying mercy\nof that shining heaven of God's pardon; and then the old promise will\nbe fulfilled in you: 'Truth shall spring out of the earth, and\nrighteousness shall look down from heaven; yea, the Lord shall give\nthat which is good, and our land'--barren and poisoned as it has\nbeen--responding to the skyey influences, 'shall yield her increase.'\n\n\n\n\nWE SURE OF TO-MORROW? A NEW YEAR'S SERMON\n\n'To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.'--ISAIAH lvi.\n12.\n\n\nThese words, as they stand, are the call of boon companions to new\nrevelry. They are part of the prophet's picture of a corrupt age when\nthe men of influence and position had thrown away their sense of duty,\nand had given themselves over, as aristocracies and plutocracies are\never tempted to do, to mere luxury and good living. They are summoning\none another to their coarse orgies. The roystering speaker says, 'Do\nnot be afraid to drink; the cellar will hold out. To-day's carouse will\nnot empty it; there will be enough for to-morrow.' He forgets\nto-morrow's headaches; he forgets that on some tomorrow the wine will\nbe finished; he forgets that the fingers of a hand may write the doom\nof the rioters on the very walls of the banqueting chamber.\n\nWhat have such words, the very motto of insolent presumption and\nshort-sighted animalism, to do with New Year's thoughts? Only this,\nthat base and foolish as they are on such lips, it is possible to lift\nthem from the mud, and take them as the utterance of a lofty and calm\nhope which will not be disappointed, and of a firm and lowly resolve\nwhich may ennoble life. Like a great many other sayings, they may fit\nthe mouth either of a sot or of a saint. All depends on what the things\nare which we are thinking about when we use them. There are things\nabout which it is absurd and worse than absurd to say this, and there\nare things about which it is the soberest truth to say it. So looking\nforward into the merciful darkness of another year, we may regard these\nwords as either the expressions of hopes which it is folly to cherish,\nor of hopes that it is reasonable to entertain.\n\nI. This expectation, if directed to any outward things, is an illusion\nand a dream.\n\nThese coarse revellers into whose lips our text is put only meant by it\nto brave the future and defy to-morrow in the riot of their\ndrunkenness. They show us the vulgarest, lowest form which the\nexpectation can take, a form which I need say nothing about now.\n\nBut I may just note in passing that to look forward principally as\nanticipating pleasure or enjoyment is a very poor and unworthy thing.\nWe weaken and lower every day, if we use our faculty of hope mainly to\npaint the future as a scene of delights and satisfactions. We spoil\nto-day by thinking how we can turn it to the account of pleasure. We\nspoil to-morrow before it comes, and hurt ourselves, if we are more\nengaged with fancying how it will minister to our joy, than how we can\nmake it minister to our duty. It is base and foolish to be forecasting\nour pleasures; the true temper is to be forecasting our work.\n\nBut, leaving that consideration, let us notice how useless such\nanticipation, and how mad such confidence, as that expressed in the\ntext is, if directed to anything short of God.\n\nWe are so constituted as that we grow into a persuasion that what has\nbeen will be, and yet we can give no sufficient reason to ourselves of\nwhy we expect it. 'The uniformity of the course of nature is the\ncorner-stone, not only of physical science, but, in a more homely form,\nof the wisdom which grows with experience, We all believe that the sun\nwill rise to-morrow because it rose to-day, and on all the yesterdays.\nBut there was a today which had no yesterday, and there will be a\nto-day which will have no to-morrow. The sun will rise for the last\ntime. The uniformity had a beginning and will have an end.\n\nSo, even as an axiom of thought, the anticipation that things will\ncontinue as they have been because they have been, seems to rest on an\ninsufficient basis. How much more so, as to our own little lives and\ntheir surroundings! There the only thing which we may be quite sure of\nabout to-morrow is that it will not be 'as this day.' Even for those of\nus who may have reached, for example, the level plateau of middle life,\nwhere our position and tasks are pretty well fixed, and we have little\nmore to expect than the monotonous repetition of the same duties\nrecurring at the same hour every day--even for such each day has its\nown distinctive character. Like a flock of sheep they seem all alike,\nbut each, on closer inspection, reveals a physiognomy of its own. There\nwill be so many small changes that even the same duties or enjoyments\nwill not be quite the same, and even if the outward things remained\nabsolutely unaltered, we who meet them are not the same. Little\nvariations in mood and tone, diminished zest here, weakened power\nthere, other thoughts breaking in, and over and above all the slow,\nsilent change wrought on us by growing years, make the perfect\nreproduction of any past impossible. So, however familiar may be the\nroad which we have to traverse, however uneventfully the same our days\nmay sometimes for long spaces in our lives seem to be, though to\nourselves often our day's work may appear as a mill-horse round, yet in\ndeepest truth, if we take into account the whole sum of the minute\nchanges in it and in us, it may be said of each step of our journey,\n'Ye have not passed this way heretofore.'\n\nBut, besides all this, we know that these breathing-times when 'we have\nno changes,' are but pauses in the storm, landing-places in the ascent,\nthe interspaces between the shocks. However hope may tempt us to dream\nthat the future is like the present, a deeper wisdom lies in all our\nsouls which says 'No.' Drunken bravery may front that darkness with\nsuch words as these of our text, but the least serious spirit, in its\nmost joyous moods, never quite succeeds in forgetting the solemn\nprobabilities, possibilities, and certainties which lodge in the\nunknown future. So to a wise man it is ever a sobering exercise to look\nforward, and we shall be nearest the truth if we take due account, as\nwe do today, of the undoubted fact that the only thing certain about\nto-morrow is that it will not be as this day.\n\nThere are the great changes which come to some one every day, which may\ncome to any of us any day, which will come to all of us some day. Some\nof us will die this year; on a day in our new diaries some of us will\nmake no entry, for we shall be gone. Some of us will be smitten down by\nillness; some of us will lose our dearest; some of us will lose\nfortune. Which of us it is to be, and where within these twelve months\nthe blow is to fall, are mercifully hidden. The only thing that we\ncertainly know is that these arrows will fly. The thing we do not know\nis whose heart they will pierce. This makes the gaze into the darkness\ngrave and solemn. There is ever something of dread in Hope's blue eyes.\n\nTrue, the ministry of change is blessed and helpful; true, the darkness\nwhich hides the future is merciful and needful, if the present is not\nto be marred. But helpful and merciful as they are, they invest the\nunknown to-morrow with a solemn power which it is good, though\nsobering, for us to feel, and they silence on every lip but that of\nriot and foolhardy debauchery the presumptuous words, 'To-morrow shall\nbe as this day, and much more abundant.'\n\nII. But yet there is a possibility of so using the words as to make\nthem the utterance of a sober certainty which will not be put to shame.\n\nSo long as our hope and anticipations creep along the low levels of\nearth, and are concerned with external and creatural good, their\nlanguage can never rise beyond, 'To-morrow _may_ be as this day.'\nOftenest they reach only to the height of the wistful wish, 'May it be\nas this day!' But there is no need for our being tortured with such\nslippery possibilities. We may send out our hope like Noah's dove, not\nto hover restlessly over a heaving ocean of change, but to light on\nfirm, solid certainty, and fold its wearied wings there. Forecasting is\never close by foreboding. Hope is interwoven with fear, the golden\nthreads of the weft crossing the dark ones of the warp, and the whole\ntexture gleaming bright or glooming black according to the angle at\nwhich it is seen. So is it always until we turn our hope away from\nearth to God, and fill the future with the light of His presence and\nthe certainty of His truth. Then the mists and doubts roll away; we get\nabove the region of 'perhaps' into that of 'surely'; the future is as\ncertain as the past, hope as assured of its facts as memory, prophecy\nas veracious as history.\n\nLooking forward, then, let us not occupy ourselves with visions which\nwe know may or may not come true. Let us not feed ourselves with\nillusions which may make the reality, when it comes to shatter them,\nyet harder to bear. But let us make God in Christ our hope, and pass\nfrom peradventures to certitudes; from 'To-morrow may be as this\nday--would that it might,' to 'It shall be, it shall be, for God is my\nexpectation and my hope.' We have an unchanging and an inexhaustible\nGod, and He is the true guarantee of the future for us. The more we\naccustom ourselves to think of Him as shaping all that is contingent\nand changeful in the nearest and in the remotest to-morrow, and as\nbeing Himself the immutable portion of our souls, the calmer will be\nour outlook into the darkness, and the more bright will be the clear\nlight of certainty which burns for us in it.\n\nTo-day's wealth may be to-morrow's poverty, to-day's health to-morrow's\nsickness, to-day's happy companionship of love to-morrow's aching\nsolitude of heart, but to-day's God will be to-morrow's God, to-day's\nChrist will be to-morrow's Christ. Other fountains may dry up in heat\nor freeze in winter, but this knows no change, 'in summer and winter it\nshall be.' Other fountains may sink low in their basins after much\ndrawing, but this is ever full, and after a thousand generations have\ndrawn from it, its stream is broad and deep as ever. Other springs may\nbe left behind on the march, and the wells and palm-trees of each Elim\non our road may be succeeded by a dry and thirsty land where no water\nis, but this spring follows us all through the wilderness, and makes\nmusic and spreads freshness ever by our path. We can forecast nothing\nbeside; we can be sure of this, that God will be with us in all the\ndays that lie before us. What may be round the next headland we know\nnot; but this we know, that the same sunshine will make a broadening\npath across the waters right to where we rock on the unknown sea, and\nthe same unmoving mighty star will burn for our guidance. So we may let\nthe waves and currents roll as they list--or rather as He wills, and be\nlittle concerned about the incidents or the companions of our voyage,\nsince He is with us. We can front the unknown to-morrow, even when we\nmost keenly feel how solemn and sad are the things it may bring.\n\n  'It can bring with it nothing\n     But He will bear us through.'\n\nIf only our hearts be fixed on God and we are feeding our minds and\nwills on Him, His truth and His will, then we may be quite certain\nthat, whatever goes, our truest riches will abide, and whoever leaves\nour little company of loved ones, our best Friend will not go away.\nTherefore, lifting our hopes beyond the low levels of earth, and making\nour anticipations of the future the reflection of the brightness of God\nthrown on that else blank curtain, we may turn into the worthy\nutterance of sober and saintly faith, the folly of the riotous\nsensualist when he said, 'To-morrow shall be as this day.'\n\nThe past is the mirror of the future for the Christian; we look back on\nall the great deeds of old by which God has redeemed and helped souls\nthat cried to Him, and we find in them the eternal laws of His working.\nThey are all true for to-day as they were at first; they remain true\nforever. The whole history of the past belongs to us, and avails for\nour present and for our future. 'As we have heard, so have we seen in\nthe city of our God.'\n\nTo-day's experience runs on the same lines as the stories of the 'years\nof old,' which are 'the years of the right hand of the Most High.'\nExperience is ever the parent of hope, and the latter can only build\nwith the bricks which the former gives. So the Christian has to lay\nhold on all that God's mercy has done in the ages that are gone by, and\nbecause He is a 'faithful Creator' to transmute history into prophecy,\nand triumph in that 'the God of Jacob is our refuge.'\n\nNor only does the record of what He has been to others come in to bring\nmaterial for our forecast of the future, but also the remembrance of\nwhat He has been to ourselves. Has He been with us in six troubles? We\nmay be sure He will not abandon us at the seventh. He is not in the way\nof beginning to build and leaving His work unfinished. Remember what He\nhas been to you, and rejoice that there has been one thing in your\nlives which, you may be sure, will always be there. Feed your certain\nhopes for to-morrow on thankful remembrances of many a yesterday.\n'Forget not the works of God,' that you may 'set your hopes on God.'\nLet our anticipations base themselves on memory, and utter themselves\nin the prayer, 'Thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake\nme, O God of my salvation.' Then the assurance that He whom we know to\nbe good and wise and strong will shape the future, and Himself be the\nFuture for us, will take all the fear out of that forward gaze, will\ncondense our light and unsubstantial hopes into solid realities, and\nset before us an endless line of days, in each of which we may gain\nmore of Him whose face has brightened the past and will brighten the\nfuture, till days shall end and time open into eternity.\n\nIII. Looked at in another aspect, these words may be taken as the vow\nof a firm and lowly resolve.\n\nThere is a future which we can but very slightly influence, and the\nless we look at that the better every way. But there is also a future\nwhich we can mould as we wish--the future of our own characters, the\nonly future which is really ours at all--and the more clearly we set it\nbefore ourselves and make up our minds as to whither we wish it to be\ntending, the better. In that region, it is eminently true that\n'to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.' The law of\ncontinuity shapes our moral and spiritual characters. What I am to-day,\nI shall increasingly be to-morrow. The awful power of habit solidifies\nactions into customs, and prolongs the reverberation of every note once\nsounded, along the vaulted roof of the chamber where we live. To-day is\nthe child of yesterday and the parent of to-morrow.\n\nThat solemn certainty of the continuance and increase of moral and\nspiritual characteristics works in both good and bad, but with a\ndifference. To secure its full blessing in the gradual development of\nthe germs of good, there must be constant effort and tenacious\nresolution. So many foes beset the springing of the good seed in our\nhearts--what with the flying flocks of light-winged fugitive thoughts\never ready to swoop down as soon as the sower's back is turned and\nsnatch it away, what with the hardness of the rock which the roots soon\nencounter, what with the thick-sown and quick-springing thorns--that if\nwe trust to the natural laws of growth and neglect careful husbandry,\nwe may sow much but we shall gather little. But to inherit the full\nconsequences of that same law working in the growth and development of\nthe evil in us, nothing is needed but carelessness.\n\nLeave it alone for a year or two and the 'fruitful field will be a\nforest,' a jungle of matted weeds, with a straggling blossom where\ncultivation had once been.\n\nBut if humbly we resolve and earnestly toil, looking for His help, we\nmay venture to hope that our characters will grow in goodness and in\nlikeness to our dear Lord, that we shall not cast away our confidence\nnor make shipwreck of our faith, that each new day shall find in us a\ndeeper love, a perfecter consecration, a more joyful service, and that\nso, in all the beauties of the Christian soul and in all the blessings\nof the Christian life, 'to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more\nabundant.' 'To him that hath shall be given.' 'The path of the just is\nas the shining light, that shineth more and more until the noontide of\nthe day.'\n\nSo we may look forward undismayed, and while we recognise the darkness\nthat wraps to-morrow in regard to all mundane affairs, may feed our\nfortitude and fasten our confidence on the double certainties that we\nshall have God and more of God for our treasure, that we shall have\nlikeness to Him and more of likeness in our characters. Fleeting\nmoments may come and go. The uncertain days may exercise their various\nministry of giving and taking away, but whether they plant or root up\nour earthly props, whether they build or destroy our earthly houses,\nthey will increase our riches in the heavens, and give us fuller\npossession of deeper draughts from the inexhaustible fountain of living\nwaters.\n\nHow dreadfully that same law of the continuity and development of\ncharacter works in some men there is no need now to dwell upon. By\nslow, imperceptible, certain degrees the evil gains upon them.\nYesterday's sin smooths the path for to-day's. The temptation once\nyielded to gains power. The crack in the embankment which lets a drop\nor two ooze through is soon a great hole which lets in a flood. It is\neasier to find a man who has never done a wrong thing than to find a\nman who has done it only once. Peter denied his Lord thrice, and each\ntime more easily than the previous time. So, before we know it, the\nthin gossamer threads of single actions are twisted into a rope of\nhabit, and we are 'tied with the cords of our sins.' Let no man say,\n'Just for once I may venture on evil; so far I will go and no farther.'\nNay, 'to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.'\n\nHow important, then, the smallest acts become when we think of them as\nthus influencing character! The microscopic creatures, thousands of\nwhich will go into a square inch, make the great white cliffs that\nbeetle over the wildest sea and front the storm. So, permanent and\nsolid character is built up out of trivial actions, and this is the\nsolemn aspect of our passing days, that they are making _us_.\n\nWe might well tremble before such a thought, which would be dreadful to\nthe best of us, if it were not for pardoning mercy and renewing grace.\nThe law of reaping what we have sown, or of continuing as we have\nbegun, may be modified as far as our sins and failures are concerned.\nThe entail may be cut off, and to-morrow need not inherit to-day's\nguilt, nor to-day's habits. The past may be all blotted out through the\nmercy of God in Christ. No debt need be carried forward to another page\nof the book of our lives, for Christ has given Himself for us, and He\nspeaks to us all--'Thy sins be forgiven thee.' No evil habit need\ncontinue its dominion over us, nor are we obliged to carry on the bad\ntradition of wrongdoing into a future day, for Christ lives, and 'if\nany man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away,\nall things are become new.'\n\nSo then, brethren, let us humbly take the confidence which these words\nmay be used to express, and as we stand on the threshold of a new year\nand wait for the curtain to be drawn, let us print deep on our hearts\nthe uncertainty of our hold of all things here, nor seek to build nor\nanchor on these, but lift our thoughts to Him, who will bless the\nfuture as He has blessed the past, and will even enlarge the gifts of\nHis love and the help of His right hand. Let us hope for ourselves not\nthe continuance or increase of outward good, but the growth of our\nsouls in all things lovely and of good report, the daily advance in the\nlove and likeness of our Lord.\n\nSo each day, each succeeding wave of the ocean of time shall cast up\ntreasures for us as it breaks at our feet. As we grow in years, we\nshall grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus\nChrist, until the day comes when we shall exchange earth for heaven.\nThat will be the sublimest application of this text, when, dying, we\ncan calmly be sure that though to-day be on this side and to-morrow on\nthe other bank of the black river, there will be no break in the\ncontinuity, but only an infinite growth in our life, and heaven's\nto-morrow shall be as earth's to-day, and much more abundant.\n\n\n\n\nFLIMSY GARMENTS\n\n'Their webs shall not become garments.'--ISAIAH lix. 6.\n\n'I counsel thee to buy of me ... white raiment, that thou mayest be\nclothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.'--REV. iii.\n18.\n\n\nThe force of these words of the prophet is very obvious. He has been\npouring out swift, indignant denunciation on the evil-doers in Israel;\nand, says he, 'they hatch cockatrice's eggs and spin spiders' webs,'\npointing, as I suppose, to the patient perseverance, worthy of a better\ncause, which bad men will exercise in working out their plans. Then\nwith a flash of bitter irony, led on by his imagination to say more\nthan he had meant, he adds this scathing parenthesis, as if he said,\n'Yes, they spin spiders' webs, elaborate toil and creeping contrivance,\nand what comes of it all! The flimsy foul thing is swept away by God's\nbesom sooner or later. A web indeed! but they will never make a garment\nout of it. It looks like cloth, but it is useless.' That is the old\nlesson that all sin is profitless and comes to nothing.\n\nI venture to connect with that strongly figurative declaration of the\nessential futility of godless living, our second text, in which Jesus\nuses a similar figure to express one aspect of His gifts to the\nbelieving soul. He is ready to clothe it, so that 'being clothed, it\nwill not be found naked.'\n\nI. Sin clothes no man even here.\n\nNotice in passing what a hint there is of the toil and trouble that men\nare so willing to take in a wrong course. Hatching and spinning both\nsuggest protracted, sedulous labour. And then the issue of it all\nis--_nothing_.\n\nTake the plainest illustrations of this truth first--the breach of\ncommon laws of morality, the indulgence, for instance, in dissipation.\nA man gets a certain coarse delight out of it, but what does he get\nbesides? A weakened body, a tyrannous craving, ruined prospects,\noftenest poverty and shame, the loss of self-respect and love; of moral\nexcellences, of tastes for what is better. He is not a beast, and he\ncannot live for pure animalism without injuring himself.\n\nThen take actual breaches of human laws. How seldom these 'pay,' even\nin the lowest sense. Thieves are always poor. The same experience of\nfutility dogs all coarse and palpable breaches of morality. It is\nalways true that 'He that breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.'\n\nThe reasons are not far to seek. This is, on the whole, God's world, a\nworld of retribution. Things are, on the whole, on the side of\ngoodness. God is in the world, and that is an element not to be left\nout in the calculation. Society is on the side of goodness to a large\nextent. The constitution of a man's own soul, which God made, works in\nthe same direction. Young men who are trembling on the verge of\nyouthful yieldings to passion, are tempted to fancy that they can sow\nsin and not reap suffering or harm. Would that they settled it in their\nthoughts that he who fires a fuse must expect an explosion!\n\nBut the same rule applies to every godless form of life. Take our\nManchester temptation, money or success in business. Take ambition.\nTake culture, literary fame. Take love and friendship. What do they all\ncome to, if godless? I do not point to the many failures, but suppose\nsuccess: would that make you a happy man? If you won what you wanted,\nwould it be enough? What 'garments' for your conscience, for your sense\nof sin, for your infinite longings would success in any godless course\nprovide? You would have what you wanted, and what would it bring with\nit? Cares and troubles and swift satiety, and not seldom incapacity to\nenjoy what you had won with so much toil. If you gained the prize, you\nwould find clinging to it something that you did not bargain for, and\nthat took most of the dazzle away from it.\n\nII. The rags are all stripped off some day.\n\nDeath is a becoming naked as to the body, and as to all the occupations\nthat terminate with bodily life. It necessarily involves the loss of\npossessions, the cessation of activities, the stripping off of\nself-deceptions, and exposure to the gaze of the Judge, without\ndefence. The godless soul will 'be found naked' and ashamed. All 'works\nof darkness,' laden with rich blossom or juicy fruit though they have\nseemed to be, will then be seen to be in tragic truth 'fruitless.' A\nlife's spinning and weaving, and not a rag to cover the toiler after\nall! Is that 'productive labour'?\n\nIII. Christ will clothe you.\n\n'White raiment.' Pure character. Covering before the Judge. Festal robe\nof Victory.\n\n'Buy'--how? By giving up self.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUNLIT CHURCH\n\n'Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is\nrisen upon thee. 2. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,\nand gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and\nHis glory shall be seen upon thee. 3. And the Gentiles shall come to\nthy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.'--ISAIAH lx. 1-3.\n\n\nThe personation of Israel as a woman runs through the whole of this\nsecond portion of Isaiah's prophecy. We see her thrown on the earth a\nmourning mother, a shackled captive. We hear her summoned once and\nagain to awake, to arise, to shake herself from the dust, to loose the\nbands of her neck. These summonses are prophecies of the impending\nMessianic deliverance. The same circle of truths, in a somewhat\ndifferent aspect, is presented in the verses before us. The prophet\nsees the earth wrapped in a funeral pall of darkness, and a beam of\nmore than natural light falling on one prostrate form. The old story is\nrepeated, Zion stands in the light, while Egypt cowers in gloom. The\nlight which shines upon her is 'the Glory of the Lord,' the ancient\nbrightness that dwelt between the cherubim within the veil in the\nsecret place of the Most High, and is now come out into the open world\nto envelop the desolate captive. Thus touched by the light she becomes\nlight, and in her turn is bidden to shine. There is a very remarkable\ncorrespondence reiterated in my text between the illuminating God and\nthe illuminated Zion. The word for shine is connected with the word for\nlight, and might fairly be rendered 'lighten,' or 'be light.' Twice the\nphrase 'thy light' is employed; once to mean the light which is thine\nbecause it shines on thee; once to mean the light which is thine\nbecause it shines from thee. The other word, three times repeated, for\n_rising_, is the technical word which expresses the sunrise, and it is\napplied both to the flashing glory that falls upon Zion and to the\nlight that gleams from her. Touched by the sun, she becomes a sun, and\nblazes in her heaven in a splendour that draws men's hearts. So, then,\nif that be the fair analysis of the words before us, they present to us\nsome thoughts bearing on the Missionary work of the Church, and I\ngather them all up in three--the fact, the ringing summons, and the\nconfident promise.\n\nI. Now, as to the fact.\n\nBeneath the poetry of my text there lie very definite conceptions of a\nvery solemn and grave character, and these conceptions are the\nfoundation of the ringing summons that follows, and which reposes upon\na double basis--viz. '_for_ thy light is come,' and '_for_ darkness\ncovers the earth.' There is a double element in the representation. We\nhave a darkened earth, and a sunlit and a sunlike church; and unless we\nhold these two convictions--both of them-in firm grasp, and that not\nmerely as convictions that influence our understanding, but as ever\npresent forces acting on our emotions, our consciences, our wills, we\nshall not do the work which God has set us to do in the world. I need\nnot dwell long on the former of these, or speak of that funeral pall\nthat wraps the whole earth. Only remember that it is no darkness that\ncame from His hand who forms the light and creates darkness, but is\nlike the smoke that lies over our great cities--the work of many an\nearth-born fire, whose half-consumed foulness hides the sun from us. If\nwe take the sulphureous and smoky pall that wraps the earth, and\nanalyse its contents, they are these: the darkness of ignorance, the\ndarkness of sorrow, the darkness of sin. Of ignorance; for throughout\nthe wide regions that lie beneath that covering spread over all nations\nis there any certitude about God, about man, about morals, about\nresponsibilities, about eternity? Peradventures, guesses, dreams,\nprecious fragments of truth, twisted in with the worst of lies, noble\naspirations side by side with bestial representations--these are the\nthings on which our brethren repose, or try to repose. We do not forget\nthat light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.\n\nWe do not forget, of course, that everywhere there are feelings after\nHim, and everywhere there are gleams and glimpses of a vanishing light,\nelse life were impossible; but oh, dear brethren, let us not forget\neither that the people sit in darkness of ignorance, which is the\nsaddest darkness that can afflict men.\n\nAnd it is a darkness of sorrow, for all the ills that flesh is heir to\npress, unalleviated and unsustained by any known helper in the heavens,\nupon millions of our fellows. They stand, as the great German poet\ndescribes himself as standing, in one of the most pathetic of his\nlyrics, before the marble image of the fair goddess, who has pity on\nher face and beauty raying from her limbs, but she has no arms. So\ntears fall undried. The light-hearted savage is a fiction. What a heavy\ngloom lies upon his past and his present, which darkens into an\nimpenetrable mist that wraps and hides the future!\n\nAnd the darkness is a darkness of sin as well as of sorrow and of\nignorance. On that point I need not dwell. We all believe that all have\n'sinned and come short of the glory of God,' and we all believe that\nidolatry, as we see it, and as it is wrought out, is an ally of\nimpurity and of sin. The process is this: men make gods in their own\nimage, and the gods make devils of the men. 'They that make them are\nlike unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them.' We need no\nother principle than that to account for the degradation of heathenism\nand for the obscenities and foul transgression within the very courts\nof the temple.\n\nNow, dear friends, that I may not dwell too long upon the A B C of our\nbelief, let me urge you in one sentence to be on your guard against\npresent-day tendencies which weaken the force of this solemn, tragical\nconviction as to the realities of heathendom. The new science of\ncomparative religion has done much for us. I am not saying one word\nagainst this pursuit, or the conclusions which are drawn from it. But I\npray you to remember that the underlying truths buried beneath the\nsystem that any men hold as their religion are one thing, and the\npractical working of that system, as we see it in daily life, is\naltogether another. The actual character of heathenism is not to be\nlearned from the sacred books of all nations and the precious gleams of\nwisdom and feeling after the Divine which we recognise in man. As a\nsimple matter of fact, all over the world the religion of heathen\nnations is a mass of obscenity, intertwined so closely with nobler\nthoughts that the two seem to be inseparable. Unalleviated sorrows,\nhideous foulnesses, a gross ignorance covering all the most important\nrealities for men--these are the facts with which we have to grapple.\nDo not let us forget them.\n\nAnd on the other side, remember the contrasted picture here of the\nsunlit and sunny church. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is the\nfulfilment of my text. 'We behold His glory, the glory as of the only\nbegotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' If you and I are\nChristians, we are bound to believe in Him as the exclusive source of\ncertainty. We hear from Him no peradventure, but His word is, 'Verily,\nverily, I say unto you,' and on that word we rest all our knowledge of\nGod, of duty, of man, and of the future. Instead of fears, doubt,\nperhapses, we have a living Christ and His rock-word. And in Him is all\njoy, and in Him is the cleansing from all sin. And this threefold\nradiance, into which the one pure light may be analysed, falls upon us.\nIt falls all over the world as well; but they into whose hearts it has\ncome, they whose faces are turned to it, they receive it in a sense in\nwhich the unreceptive and unresponsive darkness of the world does not.\nThe light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness will have none of\nit, and so it is darkness yet. The light shineth upon us, and if by His\nmercy we have opened our hearts to it, then, according to the profound\nteaching of this context, we are not only a sun-lighted but a sunlike\nChurch, and to us the commandment comes, 'Arise, shine, for thy light\nis come,' and has turned thy poor darkness into a sun too.\n\nIf we have the light we shall be light. That is but putting in a\npicturesque form the very central truth of Christianity. The last word\nof the gospel is transformation. We become like Him if we live near\nHim, and the end for which the Master became like unto us in His\nincarnation and passion was that we might become like to Him by the\nreception of His very own life unto our souls. Light makes many a\nsurface on which it falls flash, but in the optics of earth it is the\nrays which are not absorbed that are reflected; but in this loftier\nregion the illumination is not superficial but inward, and it is the\nlight which is swallowed up within us that then comes forth from us.\nChrist will dwell in our hearts, and we shall be like some poor little\ndiamond-shaped pane of glass in a cottage window which, when the sun\nsmites it, is visible over miles of the plain. If that sun falls upon\nus, its image will be mirrored in our hearts and flashing in our lives.\nThe clouds that lie over the sunset, though in themselves they be but\npoor, grey, and moist vapour, when smitten by its beneficent radiance,\nbecome not unworthy ministers and attendants upon its glory. So, my\nbrethren, it may be with us, for Christ comes to be our light, Because\nHe is in us and with us we are changed into His likeness, and the names\nthat are most appropriate to Him He shares with us. Is He the\n'Son'?--we are sons. Is He 'the Light of the world'? His own lips tell\nus, 'Ye are the light of the world.' Is He the Christ? The Psalm says:\n'Touch not my Christs, and do My prophets no harm.' Critics have\nquarrelled over these last chapters of the Book of Isaiah, as to whom\nthe servant of the Lord is; whether he is the personal or collective\nIsrael, whether he is Christ or His Church. Let us take the lesson that\nHe and we are so united that His office that made the union possible,\nwherein He was sacrificed on the Cross for us all--belongs by\nderivation to His servants, and that He, the Sun of Righteousness,\nmoves in the heavens circled by many another sun.\n\nSo, dear friends, these two convictions of these two facts, the dark\nearth, the sunlit, sunlike church, lie at the basis of all our\nmissionary work. If once we begin to doubt about them, if once we begin\nto think that men have got a good deal of light already, and can do\nvery well without much more, or if we at all are hesitant about our\npossession of the light, and the certitudes and the joys that are in\nit, then good-bye to our missionary zeal. We shall soon begin to ask\nthe question, 'To what purpose is this waste?'--though the lips that\nfirst asked it, by the bye, did not much recommend it--and shall\nconsider that money and resources and precious lives are too precious\nto be thrown away thus. But if we rightly appreciate the force of these\ntwin principles, then we shall be ready to listen to the ringing\nsummons.\n\nII. We have here, in the second place, based upon these two facts, the\nsummons to the Church. 'Shine, for thy light is come.' If we _have_\nlight, we _are_ light. If we are light, we shall shine; but the shining\nis not altogether spontaneous and effortless. Stars do not need to be\nbidden to shine nor candles either; but _we_ need the exhortation,\nbecause there are many things that dim the brilliance of our light and\ninterfere with its streaming forth. True, the property of light is to\nshine, but we can rob the inward light of its beams. The silent witness\nof a Christian life transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ is,\nperhaps, the best contribution that any of us can make to the spread of\nHis kingdom. It is with us as it is with the great lights in the\nheavens. 'There is no speech nor language; their voice is not heart,'\nyet, 'their line has gone through all the earth, and their words to the\nend of the world.' So we may quietly ray out the light in us and\nwitness the transforming power of our Master by the transparent purity\nof our lives. But the command suggests likewise effort, and that effort\nmust be in the direction of the specific vocal proclamation of His name.\n\nI take both these methods of fulfilling the command into my view, in\nthe further remarks that I make, and I put that which I have to say\nupon this into three sentences: if we are light, we shall be able to\nshine; if we are light, we are bound to shine; if we are light, we\nshall wish to shine. We shall be able to shine. And man can manifest\nwhat he is unless he is a coward. Any man can talk about the things\nthat are interesting to him if only they are interesting to him. Any\nman that has Jesus Christ can say so; and perhaps the utterance of the\nsimple personal conviction is the best method of proclaiming His name.\nAll other things are surplusage. They are good when they come, they may\nbe done without. Learning, eloquence, and the like of these, are the\nadornments of the lamp, but it does not matter whether the lamp be a\ngorgeous affair of gilt and crystal, or whether it be a poor piece of\nblock tin; the main question is: are there wick and oil in it? The\npitcher may be gold and silver, or costly china, or it may be a poor\npotsherd. Never mind. If there is water in it, it will be precious to a\nthirsty lip. And so, dear brethren, I press this upon you: every\nChristian man has the power, if he is a Christian, to proclaim his\nMaster, and if he has the Light he will be able to show it. I pause for\na moment to say that this suggests for us the condition of all faithful\nand effectual witness for Jesus Christ. Cultivate understanding and all\nother faculties as much as you like: but oh! you Christian ministers,\nas well as others in less official and public positions, remember this:\nthe fitness to impart is to possess, and that being taken for granted,\nthe main thing is secured. As long as the electric light is in contact\nwith the battery, so long does it burn. Electricians have been trying\nduring the past few years to make accumulators, things in which they\ncan store the influence and put it away in a corner and use it so that\nthe light need not be in connection with the battery; and they have not\nsucceeded--at least it is only a very partial success. You and I cannot\nstart accumulators. Let us remember that personal contact with Jesus is\npower, and only that personal contact is so. Arise, shine! but if thou\nhast gone out of the light, thou wilt shine no more.\n\nBut again, if we are light we are bound to shine. That is an obvious\nprinciple. The capacity to shine is the obligation to shine, for we are\nall knit together by such mystical cords in this strange brotherhood of\nhumanity that every one of us holds his possession as trust property\nfor the use and behoof of others, and in the present case that which we\nhave received, and the price at which we have received it, give an edge\nto the keenness of the obligation, and add a new grip to the stringency\nof the command. It is because Christ has given Himself thus to us that\nthe possession of Him binds us to the imitation of His example, and the\nimpartation of Him to all our brethren. The obligation lies at our\ndoors, and cannot be delegated or devolved.\n\nIf we have light, we shall wish to shine. What shall we say about the\nChristian people who never really had such a wish? God forbid that I\nshould say they have no light; but this I will say, it burns very\ndimly. Dear brethren, there is no better test of the depth and the\npurity of our personal attachment to, and possession of, our Master\nthan the impulse that will spring from them to communicate Him to\nothers. 'Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not.'\nThat should be the word of every one of us, and it will be so in the\nmeasure in which we ourselves have thoroughly laid hold of Jesus\nChrist. 'This is a day of good tidings, and we cannot hold our peace,'\nsaid the handful of lepers in the camp. 'If we are silent some mischief\nwill come to us.' 'Thy word, when I shut it up in my bones and said, I\nwill speak no more in Thy name, was like a fire, and was weary of\nforbearing and could not stay.' Brother, do you know anything of the\ndivine necessity to share your blessing with the men around you? Did\nyou ever feel what it was to carry a burden of the Lord that drove you\nto speech, and left you no rest until you had done what it impelled you\nto do? If not, I beseech you to ask yourselves whether you cannot get\nnearer to the sun than away out there on the very edge of its system,\nreceiving so few of its beams, and these so impotent that they can\nscarcely do more than melt the surface of the thick-ribbed ice that\nwarps your spirit. If we are light we shall be enabled, we shall be\nbound, we shall wish, to shine. Christian men and women, is this true\nof you?\n\nIII. Lastly, notice here the confident promise.\n\n'The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of\nthy rising.' If we have the light we shall be light; if we are light we\nshall shine, and if we shine we shall attract. Certainly men and women\nwith the light of Christ in them will draw others to them, just as many\nan eye that cannot look undazzled upon the sun can look upon it\nmirrored upon some polished surface. A painter will fling upon his\ncanvas a scene that you and I, with our purblind eyes, have looked at\nhundreds of times, and seen no beauty; but when we gaze on the picture,\nthen we know how fair it is. There is an attractive power in the light\nof Christ shining from the face of a man. Of course, we have to\nmoderate our expectations. We have to remember that whilst it is true\nthat some men will come to the light, it is also true that some men\n'love the darkness, and will not come to the light because their deeds\nare evil'; and we have to remember that we have no right to anticipate\nrapid results. 'An inheritance may be begotten hastily at the\nbeginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed,' said the wise\nman; and the history of the Christian Church in many of its missionary\noperations is a sad commentary upon the saying. We must remember that\nwe cannot estimate how long the preparation for a change, which will be\ndeveloped swiftly, may be. The sun on autumn mornings shines upon the\nfog; and the people below, because there is a fog, do not know that it\nis shining; but it is doing its work on the upper layer all the while,\nand at length eats its way through the fleecy obstruction, which then\nswiftly disappears. That must be a very, very long day of which the\nmorning twilight has been nineteen hundred years. Therefore, although\nthe vision tarries, we may fall back with unswerving confidence on\nthese words of my text--'The Gentiles shall come to the brightness of\nthy rising.'\n\nBut after all this has been said, are you satisfied with the rate of\nprogress, are you satisfied with the swiftness of the fulfilment of\nsuch hopes? Whose fault is it that the rate of progress is what it is?\nYours and mine and our predecessors'. There is such a thing as 'hasting\nthe day of the Lord,' and there is such a thing as protracting the time\nof waiting. Dear brethren, the secret of our slow growth at home and\nabroad lies in my text. Fulfil the conditions and you will get the\nresult; but if you are not shining by a light which is Christ's light,\nwho promised that _it_ would have attraction or draw men to it? A great\ndeal of the work of the Christian Church--but do not let us hide\nourselves in the generality of that word--a great deal of _our_ work is\nartificial light, brewed out of retorts, and smelling sulphureous; and\na great deal more of it is the phosphorescence that glimmers above\ndecay. If the Christian Church has ceased in any measure, or in any of\nits members, to be able to attract by the exhibition of its light, let\nthe Christian Church sit down and bethink itself of the sort of light\nit gives, and perhaps it will find a reason for its failure. It is\nChrist, the holy Christ, the loving Christ, the Christ in us making us\nwise and gentle, it is the Christ manifested by word and by work, who\nwill draw the nations to Him.\n\nSo, men and brethren, do you keep near your Master and live close by\nHis side till you are drenched and saturated with His glory, and all\nyour cold vapours turned into visible divinity and manifested Jesus.\nKeep near to Him. As long as a bit of scrap-iron touches a magnet, _it_\nis a magnet: as soon as the contact is broken it ceases to attract. If\nyou live in the full sunshine of Christ and have Him, not merely\nplaying upon the surface of your mind, but sinking deep down into it\nand transforming your whole being, then some men will, as they look at\nyou, be filled with strange longings, and will say: 'Come, let us walk\nin the light of the Lord.' So may you and I live, like the morning\nstar, which, from its serene altitudes, touched into radiance by the\nsun unseen from the darkened plains, prophesies its rising to a\nsleeping world, and is content to be lost in the lustre of that\nunsetting Light!\n\n\n\n\nWALLS AND GATES\n\n'Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise'--ISAIAH lx.\n18.\n\n\nThe prophet reaches the height of eloquence in his magnificent picture\nof the restored Jerusalem, 'the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy\nOne of Israel.' To him the city stands for the embodiment of the\nnation, and his vision of the future is moulded by his knowledge of the\npast. Israel and Jerusalem were to him the embodiments of the divine\nidea of God's dwelling with men, and of a society founded on the\npresence of God in its midst. We are not forcing meanings on his words\nwhich they will not bear, when we see in the society of men redeemed by\nChrist the perfect embodiment of his vision. Nor is the prophet of the\nNew Testament doing so when he casts his vision of the future which is\nto follow Resurrection and Judgment into a like form, and shows us the\nnew Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.\n\nThe end of the world's history is to be, not a garden but a city, a\nvisible community, bound together because God dwells in it, and yet not\nhaving lost the blessed characteristics of the Garden from which man\nset out on his long and devious march.\n\nThe Christian form of the prophet's vision is the Christian Society,\nand in that society, each individual member possesses his own portion\nof the common blessings, so that the great words of this text have a\npersonal as well as a general application. We shall best bring out\ntheir rich contents by simply taking them as they stand, and\nconsidering what is promised by the two eloquent metaphors, which liken\nsalvation to the walls and praise to the gates of the City of God.\n\nI. Salvation is to be the city's wall.\n\nAnother prophet foretold that the returning exiles would dwell in a\nJerusalem that had no walls, 'for I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a\nwall of fire round about'; and Isaiah sang, 'We have a strong city;\nsalvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.' There is no need\nfor material defences for the community or the individual whom God\ndefends. Would that the Church had lived up to the height of that great\nthought! Would that we each believed it true in regard to our own\nlives! There are three ways in which this promise may be viewed. We may\nthink of 'salvation' as meaning God's purpose to save. And then the\ncomfort and sense of security will be derived from the thought that\nwhat He intends He performs, and that nothing can traverse that purpose\nexcept our own rebellions self-will. They whom God designs to keep are\nkept; they whom God wills to save are saved, unless they oppose His\nwill, which opposition is in itself to be lost, and leads to ultimate\nand irreparable loss.\n\nWe may think of salvation as an actually begun work. Then the comfort\nand sense of security will be derived from that great work by which\nsalvation has begun to be ours. The work of Christ keeps us from all\ndanger, and no foes can make a breach in that wall, nor reach those who\nstand safe behind its strong towers.\n\nWe may think of salvation as a personal experience, and then the\ncomfort and sense of security will be derived from that blessed\nconsciousness of possessing in some measure at least the spirit, not of\nbondage, but of a son. The consciousness of having 'salvation' is our\nbest defence against spiritual foes and our best shield against\ntemporal calamities.\n\nIt is good for us to live by faith, to be thrown back on our unseen\nprotector, to feel with the psalmist, 'Thou, Lord, makest me to dwell\nin safety, though alone,' and to see the wall great and high that is\ndrawn round our defenceless tent pitched on the sands of the flat\ndesert.\n\nII. Praise is to be the city's gate.\n\nAs to the Church, this prophecy anticipates the Apostle's teaching that\nthe whole divine work of Redemption, from its fore-ordination before\nthe foundation of the world, to its application to each sinful soul, is\n'to the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory' or, as he\nelsewhere expands and enriches the expression, 'to the praise of the\nglory of His grace.'\n\nWe are 'secretaries of His praise.' A gate is that by which the safe\ninhabitants go out into the region beyond, and the outgoings of the\nactive life of every Christian should be such as to make manifest the\nblessings that he enjoys within the shelter of the city's walls. Only\nif our hidden life is blessed with a begun salvation will our outward\nlife be vocal with the music of praise. The gate will be praise if, and\nonly if, the wall is salvation.\n\nAnd praise is the gate by which we should go out into the world, even\nwhen the world into which we go is dark and the ways rough and hard. If\nwe have the warm glow of a realised salvation in our hearts, sorrows\nthat are but for a moment will not silence the voice of praise, though\nthey may cast it into a minor key. The praise that rises from a sad\nheart is yet more melodious in God's ear than that which carols when\nall things go well. The bird that sings in a darkened cage makes music\nto its owner. 'Songs in the night' have a singular pathos and thrill\nthe listeners. When we 'take the cup of salvation' and call on the name\nof the Lord, we shall offer to Him the sacrifices of thanksgiving,\nthough He may recall some of the precious gifts that He gave. For He\nnever takes away the wall of salvation which He has built around us,\nand as long as that wall stands, its gates will be praise. Submission,\nrecognition of His will, and even 'silence because Thou didst it,' are\npraise to His ear.\n\n\n\n\nTHE JOY-BRINGER\n\n'To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for\nashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the\nspirit of heaviness.'--ISAIAH lxi. 3.\n\n\nIn the little synagogue of Nazareth Jesus began His ministry by laying\nHis hand upon this great prophecy and saying, 'It is Mine! I have\nfulfilled it.' The prophet had been painting the ideal Messianic\nDeliverer, with special reference to the return from the Babylonian\ncaptivity. That was 'the liberty to the captives, and the opening of\nthe prison to them that are bound,' and about which he was thinking.\nBut no external deliverance of that sort could meet the needs, nor\nsatisfy the aspirations, of a soul that knows itself and its\ncircumstances. Isaiah, or the man who goes by his name, spoke greater\nthings than he knew. I am not going to enter upon questions of\ninterpretation; but I may say, that no conception of Jewish prophecy\ncan hold its ground which is not framed in the light of that great\nsaying in the synagogue of Nazareth. So, then, we have here the 'Man of\nSorrows,' as this very prophet calls Him in another place, presenting\nHimself as the Transformer of sorrow and the Bringer of joy, in regard\nto infinitely deeper griefs than those which sprang in the heart of the\nnation because of the historical captivity.\n\nThere is another beautiful thing in our text, which comes out more\ndistinctly if we follow the Revised Version, and read 'to give unto\nthem a _garland_ for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of\npraise for the spirit of heaviness.' There we have two contrasted\npictures suggested: one of a mourner with grey ashes strewed upon his\ndishevelled locks, and his spirit clothed in gloom like a black robe;\nand to him there comes One who, with gentle hand, smoothes the ashes\nout of his hair, trains a garland round his brow, anoints his head with\noil, and, stripping off the trappings of woe, casts about him a bright\nrobe fit for a guest at a festival. That is the miracle that Jesus\nChrist can do for every one, and is ready to do for us, if we will let\nHim. Let us look at this wonderful transformation, and at the way by\nwhich it is effected.\n\nThe first point I would make is that--\n\nI. Jesus Christ is the Joy-bringer to men because He is the Redeemer of\nmen.\n\nRemember that in the original application of my text to the deliverance\nfrom captivity, this gift of joy and change of sorrow into gladness was\nno independent and second bestowment, but was simply the issue of the\none that preceded it, viz., the gift of liberty to the captives, and\nthe opening of the prison to them that were bound. The gladness was a\ngladness that welled up in the heart of the captives set free, and\ncoming out from the gloom of the Babylonian dungeon into the sunshine\nof God's favour, with their faces set towards Zion 'with songs and\neverlasting joy upon their heads.'\n\nNow you have only to keep firm hold of this connection between these\ntwo thoughts to come to the crown and centre-point of this great\nprophecy, as far as it applies to us, and that is that it is Christ as\nthe Emancipator, Christ as the Deliverer, Christ as He who brings us\nout of the prison of bondage of the tyranny of sin, who is the great\nJoy-Giver. For there is no real, deep, fundamental and impregnable\ngladness possible to a man until his relations to God have been\nrectified, and until, with these rectified relations, with the\nconsciousness of forgiveness and the divine love nestling warm at his\nheart, he has turned himself away from his dread and his sin, and has\nrecognised in his Father God 'the gladness of his joy.'\n\nOf course, there are many of us who feel that life is sufficiently\ncomfortable and moderately happy, or at least quite tolerable, without\nany kind of reference to God at all. And in this day of growing\nmaterialism, and growing consequent indifference to the deepest needs\nof the spirit and the claims of religion, more and more men are\nfinding, or fancying that they find, that they can rub along somehow,\nand have a fair share of gladness and satisfaction, without any need\nfor a redeeming gospel and a forgiving Christ. But about all that kind\nof surface-joy the old words are true, 'even in laughter the heart is\nsorrowful,' and hosts of us are satisfied with joys which Jesus has no\npart in bringing, simply because our truest self has never once\nawakened. When it does-and perhaps it will do so with some of you, like\nthe sleeping giant that is fabled to lie beneath the volcano whose\nsunny slopes are smiling with flowers--then you will find out that no\none can bring real joy who does not take away guilt and sin.\n\nJesus Christ is the Joy-bringer, because Jesus Christ is the\nEmancipator. And true gladness is the gladness that springs from the\nconscious possession of liberty from the captivity which holds men\nslaves to evil and to their worst selves. Brethren, let us not fancy\nthat these surface-joys are the joys adequate to a human spirit. They\nare ignoble, and they are infinitely foolish, because a touch of an\nawakened conscience, a stirring of one's deeper self, can scatter them\nall to pieces. So then, that is my first thought.\n\nLet us suggest a second, that--\n\nII. Jesus Christ transforms sorrow because He transforms the mourner.\n\nIn my text, all that this Joy-bringer and Transmuter of grief into its\nopposite is represented as doing is on the man who feels the sorrow.\nAnd although, as I have said, the text, in its original position, is\nsimply a deduction from the previous great prophecy which did point to\na change of circumstances, and although Jesus does bring the 'joy of\nsalvation' by a great change in a man's relations, yet in regard to the\nordinary sorrows of life, He affects these not so much by an operation\nupon our circumstances as by an operation upon ourselves, and\ntransforms sorrow and brings gladness, because He transforms the man\nwho endures it. The landscape remains the same, the difference is in\nthe colour of the glass through which we look at it. Instead of having\nit presented through some black and smoked medium, we see it through\nwhat the painter calls a 'Claude Lorraine' glass, tinged golden, and\nwhich throws its own lovely light upon all that it shows us. It is\npossible--the eye that looks being purged and cleansed, so as to see\nmore clearly-that the facts remaining identical, their whole aspect and\nbearing may be altered, and that which was felt, and rightly felt, to\nbe painful and provocative of sadness and gloom, may change its\ncharacter and beget a solemn joy. It would be but a small thing to\ntransform the conditions; it is far better and higher to transform us.\nWe all need, and some of us, I have no doubt, do especially need, to\nremember that the Lord who brings this sudden transformation for us,\ndoes so by His operation within us, and, therefore, to that operation\nwe should willingly yield ourselves.\n\nHow does He do this? One answer to that question is--by giving to the\nman with ashes on his head and gloom wrapped about his spirit, sources\nof joy, if he will use them, altogether independent of external\ncircumstances.' Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, and there be no\nfruit in the vine ... yet will I rejoice in the Lord.' And every\nChristian man, especially when days are dark and clouds are gathering,\nhas it open to him, and is bound to use the possibility, to turn away\nhis mind from the external occasions of sadness, and fix it on the\nchangeless reason for deep and unchanging joy--the sweet presence, the\nstrong love, the sustaining hand, the infinite wisdom, of his Father\nGod.\n\nBrethren, \"the paradox of the Christian life\" is, 'as sorrowful, yet\nalways rejoicing.' Christ calls for no hypocritical insensibility to\n'the ills that flesh is heir to.' He has sanctioned by His example the\ntears that flow when death hurts loving hearts. He commanded the women\nof Jerusalem to 'weep for themselves and for their children.' He means\nthat we should feel the full bitterness and pain of sorrows which will\nnot be medicinal unless they are bitter, and will not be curative\nunless they cut deep. But He also means that whilst thus we suffer as\nmen, in the depths of our own hearts we should, at the same time, be\nturning away from the sufferings and their cause, and fixing our\nhearts, quiet even then amidst the distractions, upon God Himself. Ah!\nit is hard to do, and because we do not do it, the promise that He will\nturn the sorrow into joy often seems to be a vain word for us.\n\nIt is not ours to rejoice as the world does, nor is it ours to sorrow\nas those who have no hope, or as those who have no God with them. But\nthe two opposite emotions may, to a large extent, be harmonised and\nco-existent in a Christian heart, and, since they can be, they should\nbe. The Christian in sorrow should be as an island set in some stormy\nsea, with wild waves breaking against its black, rocky coast, and the\nwind howling around it, but in the centre of it there is a deep and\nshady dell 'that heareth not the loud winds when they call,' and where\nnot a leaf is moved by the tempest. In a like depth of calm and central\ntranquillity it is possible for us to live, even while the storm\nhurtles its loudest on the outermost coasts of our being; 'as\nsorrowful, yet always rejoicing,' because the Joy-bringer has opened\nfor us sources of gladness independent of externals.\n\nAnd then there is another way by which, for us, if we will use our\nprivileges, the sorrows of life may be transmuted, because we,\ncontemplating them, have come to a changed understanding of their\nmeaning. That is, after all, the secret charm to be commended to us at\nall times, but to be commended to us most when our hearts are heavy and\nthe days are dark around us. We shall never understand life if we class\nits diverse events simply under the two opposite categories of\ngood--evil; prosperity--adversity; gains--losses; fulfilled\nexpectations--disappointed hopes, Put them all together under one\nclass--discipline and education; means for growth; means for\nChristlikeness. When we have found out, what it takes a long while for\nus to learn, that the lancet and the bandage are for the same purpose,\nand that opposite weathers conspire to the same end, that of the\nharvest, the sting is out of the sorrow, the poison is wiped off the\narrow. We can have, if not a solemn joy, at least a patient\nacquiescence, in the diversities of operation, when we learn that the\nsame hand is working in all for the same end, and that all that\ncontributes to that end is good.\n\nHere we may suggest a third way by which a transformation wrought upon\nourselves transforms the aspect of our sorrows, and that is, that\npossessing independent sources of joy, and having come to learn the\neducational aspect of all adversity, we hereby are brought by Jesus\nChrist Himself to the position of submission. And that is the most\npotent talisman to transform mourning into praise. An accepted grief is\na conquered grief; a conquered grief will very soon be a comforted\ngrief; and a comforted grief is a joy. By all these means Jesus Christ,\nhere and now, is transmuting the lead and iron of our griefs into the\ngold of a not ignoble nor transient gladness.\n\nAnd may I say one last word? My text suggests not only these two points\nto which I have already referred--viz. that Jesus Christ is the\nJoy-bringer because He is the Emancipator, and that He transforms\nsorrow by transforming the mourner--but, lastly, that\n\nIII. Jesus gives joy after sorrow.\n\n'Nevertheless, afterward' is a great word of glowing encouragement for\nall sad hearts. 'Fools and children,' says the old proverb, 'should not\nsee half-done work '; at least, they should not judge it. When the\nploughshare goes deep into the brown, frosty ground, the work is only\nbegun. The earth may seem to be scarped and hurt, and, if one might\nsay, to bleed, but in six months' time 'you scarce can see' the soil\nfor waving corn. Yes; and sorrow, as some of us could witness, is the\nforecast of purest joy. I have no doubt that there are men and women\nhere who could say, 'I never knew the power of God, and the blessedness\nof Christ as a Saviour, until I was in deep affliction, and when\neverything else went dark, then in His light I saw light.' Do not some\nof you know the experience? and might we not all know it? and why do we\nnot know it?\n\nJesus Christ, even here and now, gives these blessed results of our\nsorrows, if they are taken to the right place, and borne in right\nfashion. For it is they 'that mourn in Zion' that He thus blesses.\nThere are some of us, I fear, whose only resource in trouble is to\nfling ourselves into some work, or some dissipation. There are people\nwho try to work away their griefs, as well as people who try feverishly\nto drink them away. And there are some of us whose only resource for\ndeliverance from our sorrows is that, after the wound has bled all it\ncan, it stops bleeding, and the grief simply dies by lapse of time and\nfor want of fuel. An affliction wasted is the worst of all waste. But\nif we carry our grief into the sanctuary, then, here and now, it will\nchange its aspect and become a solemn joy.\n\nI say nothing about the ultimate result where every sorrow rightly\nborne shall be represented in the future life by some stage in grace or\nglory, where every tear shall be crystallised, if I might say so, into\na flashing diamond, which flings off the reflection of the divine\nlight, where 'there shall be no sorrow nor sighing, nor any more pain,\nfor the former things are passed away.' When the lesson has been\nlearned, God burns the rod.\n\nBut, brethren, there is another sadder transformation. I have been\nspeaking about the transformation of sorrow into joy. There is also the\ntransformation of joy into sorrow. I spoke a little while ago about the\n'laughter' in which the heart is 'sorrowful,' and the writer from whom\nI quoted the words goes on to say, 'The end of that mirth is\nheaviness.' 'Thereof cometh in the end despondency and madness.' I saw,\non a hilltop, a black circle among the grass and heather. There had\nbeen a bonfire there on Coronation Night, and it had all died down, and\nthat was the end--a hideous ring of scorched barrenness amidst the\nverdure. Take care that your gladnesses do not die down like that, but\nthat they are pure, and being pure are undying. Union with Jesus Christ\nmakes sorrow light, and secures that it shall merge at last into 'joy\nunspeakable and full of joy.' I believe that separation from Christ\nmakes joy shallow, and makes it certain that at last, instead of a\ngarland, shall be ashes on the head, and that, instead of a festal\nrobe, the spirit shall be wrapped in a garment of heaviness.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEAVENLY WORKERS AND THE EARTHLY WATCHERS\n\n'For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I\nwill not rest ... I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,\nwhich shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention\nof the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest'--ISAIAH lxii. 1,\n6, 7.\n\n\nTwo remarks of an expository nature will prepare the way for the\nconsideration of these words. The first is that the speaker is the\npersonal Messiah. The second half of Isaiah's prophecies forms one\ngreat whole, which might be called The Book of the Servant of the Lord.\nOne majestic figure stands forth on its pages with ever-growing\nclearness of outline and form. The language in which He is described\nfluctuates at first between the collective Israel and the one Person\nwho is to be all that the nation had failed to attain. But even near\nthe beginning of the prophecy we read of 'My servant whom I uphold,'\nwhose voice is to be low and soft, and whose meek persistence is not to\nfail till He have 'set judgment in the earth.' And as we advance the\nreference to the nation becomes less and less possible, and the\nrecognition of the person more and more imperative. At first the music\nof the prophetic song seems to move uncertainly amid sweet sounds, from\nwhich the true theme by degrees emerges, and thenceforward recurs over\nand over again with deeper, louder harmonies clustering about it, till\nit swells into the grandeur of the choral close.\n\nIn the chapter before our text we read, 'The Spirit of the Lord God is\nupon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto\nthe meek.' Throughout the remainder of the prophecy, with the exception\nof one section which contains the prayer of the desolate Israel, this\nsame person continues to speak; and who he is was taught in the\nsynagogue of Nazareth. Whilst the preceding chapter, then, brings in\nChrist as proclaiming the great work of deliverance for which He is\nanointed of God, the following chapter presents Him as 'treading the\nwine-press alone,' which is a symbol of the future judgment by the\nglorified Saviour. Between these two prophecies of the earthly life and\nof the still future judicial energy, this chapter of our text lies,\nreferring, as I take it, to the period between these two--that is, to\nall the ages of the Church's development on earth. For these Christ\nhere promises His continual activity, and His continual bestowment of\ngrace to His servants who watch the walls of His Jerusalem.\n\nThe second point to be noticed is the remarkable parallelism in the\nexpressions selected as the text: 'I will not hold _My_ peace'; the\nwatchmen 'shall never hold _their peace_.' And His command to them is\nliterally, 'Ye that remind Jehovah--no _rest_ (or silence) to you, and\ngive not _rest_ to Him.'\n\nSo we have here Christ, the Church, and God all represented as\nunceasingly occupied in the one great work of establishing 'Zion' as\nthe centre of light, salvation, and righteousness for the whole world.\nThe consideration of these three perpetual activities may open for us\nsome great truths and stimulating lessons.\n\nI. First, then, The glorified Christ is constantly working for His\nChurch.\n\nWe are too apt to regard our Lord's real work as all lying in the past,\nand, from the very greatness of our estimate of what He has done, to\nforget the true importance of what He evermore does. 'Christ that died'\nis the central object of trust and contemplation for devout souls--and\nthat often to the partial hiding of Christ that is 'risen again, who is\neven at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.'\nBut Scripture sets forth the present glorious life of our ascended Lord\nunder two contrasted and harmonious aspects--as being rest, and as\nbeing continuous activity in the midst of rest. He was 'received up\ninto heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.' In that session on the\nthrone manifold and mighty truths are expressed. It proclaims the full\naccomplishment of all the purposes of His earthly ministry; it\nemphasises the triumphant completion of His redeeming work by His\ndeath; it proclaims the majesty of His nature, which returns to the\n'glory which He had with the Father before the world was'; it shows to\nthe world, as on some coronation day, its King on His throne, girded\nwith power and holding the far-reaching sceptre of the universe; it\nprophesies for men, in spite of all present sin and degradation, a\nshare in the dominion which manhood has in Christ attained, for though\nwe see not yet all things put under Him, we see Jesus crowned with\nglory and honour. It prophesies, too, His final victory over all that\nsets itself in unavailing antagonism to His love. It points us backward\nto an historical fact as the basis of all our hopes for ourselves and\nfor our fellows, giving us the assurance that the world's deliverance\nwill come from the slow operation of the forces already lodged in its\nhistory by Christ's finished work. It points us forwards to a future as\nthe goal of all these hopes, giving us that confidence of victory which\nHe has who, having kindled the fire on earth, henceforward sits at\nGod's right hand, waiting in the calm and sublime patience of conscious\nomnipotence and clear foreknowledge 'until His enemies become His\nfootstool.'\n\nBut whilst on the one side Christ rests as from a perfected work which\nneeds no addition nor repetition, on the other He 'rests not day nor\nnight.' And this aspect of His present state is as distinctly set forth\nin Scripture as that is. Indeed the words already quoted as embodying\nthe former phase contain the latter also. For is not 'the right hand of\nGod' the operative energy of the divine nature? And is not 'sitting at\nthe right hand of God' equivalent to possessing and wielding that\nunwearied, measureless power? Are there not blended together in this\npregnant phrase the ideas of profoundest calm and of intensest action,\nthat being expressed by the attitude, and this by the locality?\nTherefore does the evangelist who uses the expression expand it into\nwords which wonderfully close his gospel, with the same representation\nof Christ's swift and constant activity as he had been all along\npointing out as characterising His life on earth. 'They went forth,'\nsays he, 'and preached everywhere'--so far the contrast between the\nLord seated in the heavens and His wandering servants fighting on earth\nis sharp and almost harsh. But the next words tone it down, and weave\nthe two apparently discordant halves of the picture into a whole: 'the\nLord _working_ with them.' Yes! in all His rest He is full of work, in\nall their toils He shares, in all their journeys His presence goes\nbeside them. Whatever they do is His deed, and the help that is done\nupon the earth He doeth it all Himself.\n\nIs not this blessed conviction of Christ's continuous operation in and\nfor His Church that which underlies, as has often been pointed out, the\nlanguage of the introduction to the Acts of the Apostles, where mention\nis made of the former treatise that told 'all which Jesus began both to\ndo and teach'? The gospel records the beginning, the Book of the Acts\nthe continuance; it is one biography in two volumes. Being yet present\nwith them He spoke and acted. Being exalted He 'speaketh from heaven,'\nand from the throne carries on the endless series of His works of power\nand healing. The whole history is shaped by the same conviction.\nEverywhere 'the Lord' is the true actor, the source of all the life\nwhich is in the Church, the arranger of all the providences which\naffect its progress. The Lord adds to the Church daily. His name works\nmiracles. To the Lord believers are added. His angel, His Spirit, bring\nmessages to His servants. He appears to Paul, and speaks to Ananias.\nThe Gentiles turn to the Lord because the hand of the Lord is with the\npreachers. The Lord calls Paul to carry the gospel to Macedonia. The\nLord opens the heart of Lydia, and so throughout. Not 'the Acts of the\nApostles,' but 'the Acts of the Lord in and by His servants,' is the\naccurate title of this book. The vision which flashed angel radiance on\nthe face, and beamed with divine comfort into the heart, of Stephen,\nwas a momentary revelation of an abiding reality, and completes the\nrepresentation of the Saviour throned beside Almighty power. He beheld\nhis Lord, not seated, as if careless or resting, while His servant's\nneed was so sore, but as if risen with intent to help, and ready to\ndefend--'_standing_ on the right hand of God.'\n\nAnd when once again the heavens opened to the rapt eyes of John in\nPatmos, the Lord whom he beheld was not only revealed as glorified in\nthe lustre of the inaccessible light, but as actively sustaining and\nguiding the human reflectors of it. He 'holdeth the seven stars in His\nright hand,' and '_walketh_ in the midst of the seven golden\ncandlesticks.'\n\nNot otherwise does my text represent the present relation of Christ to\nHis Church. It speaks of a continuous forth-putting of power, which it\nis, perhaps, not over-fanciful to regard as dimly set forth here in a\ntwofold form--namely, work and word. At all events, that division\nstands out clearly on the pages of the New Testament, which ever holds\nforth the double truth of our Lord's constant action on, in, through,\nand for His Zion, and of our High Priest's constant intercession.\n\n'I will not rest.' Through all the ages His power is in exercise. He\ninspires in good men all their wisdom, and every grace of life and\ncharacter. He uses them as His weapons in the contest of His love with\nthe world's hatred; but the hand that forged, and tempered, and\nsharpened the blade is that which smites with it; and the axe must not\nboast itself against him that heweth. He, the Lord of lords, orders\nprovidences, and shapes the course of the world for that Church which\nis His witness: 'Yea, He reproved kings for their sake, saying, Touch\nnot Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm.' The ancient legend\nwhich told how, on many a well-fought field, the ranks of Rome\ndiscerned through the battle-dust the gleaming weapons and white steeds\nof the Great Twin Brethren far in front of the solid legions, is true\nin loftier sense in our Holy War. We may still see the vision which the\nleader of Israel saw of old, the man with the drawn sword in his hand,\nand hear the majestic word, 'As Captain of the Lord's host am I now\ncome.' The Word of God, with vesture dipped in blood, with eyes alit\nwith His flaming love, with the many crowns of unlimited sovereignty\nupon His head, rides at the head of the armies of heaven; 'and in\nrighteousness doth He judge and make war.' For the single soul\nstruggling with daily tasks and petty cares, His help is near and real,\nas for the widest work of the collective whole. He sends none of us\ntasks in which He has no share. The word of this Master is never 'Go,'\nbut 'Come.' He unites Himself with all our sorrows, with all our\nefforts. 'The Lord also working with them' is a description of all the\nlabours of Christian men, be they great or small.\n\nNor is this all. There still remains the wonderful truth of His\ncontinuous intercession for us. In its widest meaning that word\nexpresses the whole of the manifold ways by which Christ undertakes and\nmaintains our cause. But the narrower signification of prayer on our\nbehalf is applicable, and is in Scripture applied, to our Lord. As on\nearth, the climax of all His intercourse with His disciples was that\ndeep yet simple prayer which forms the Holy of Holies of John's Gospel,\nso in heaven His loftiest office for us is set forth under the figure\nof His intercession. Before the Throne stands the slain Lamb, and\ntherefore do the elders in the outer circle bring acceptable praises.\nWithin the veil stands the Priest, with the names of the tribes blazing\non the breastplate and on the shoulders of His robes, near the seat of\nlove, near the arm of power. And whatever difficulty may surround that\nidea of Christ's priestly intercession, this at all events is implied\nin it, that the mighty work which He accomplished on earth is ever\npresent to the divine mind as the ground of our acceptance and the\nchannel of our blessings; and this further, that the utterance of\nChrist's will is ever in harmony with the divine purpose. Therefore His\nprayer has in it a strange tone of majesty, and, if we may so say, of\ncommand, as of one who knows that He is ever heard: '_I will_ that they\nwhom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.'\n\nThe instinct of the Church has, from of old, laid hold of an event in\nHis earthly life to shadow forth this great truth, and has bid us see a\npledge and a symbol of it in that scene on the Lake of Galilee: the\ndisciples toiling in the sudden storm, the poor little barque tossing\non the waters tinged by the wan moon, the spray dashing over the\nwearied rowers. They seem alone, but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of\nthe hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and\nlifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope\nleast, He comes across the waves, making their surges His pavement, and\nusing all opposition as the means of His approach, and His presence\nbrings calmness, and immediately they are at the land.\n\nSo we have not only to look back to the Cross, but up to the Throne.\nFrom the Cross we hear a voice, 'It is finished.' From the Throne a\nvoice, 'For Zion's sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's\nsake I will not rest.'\n\nII. Secondly, Christ's servants on earth derive from Him a like\nperpetual activity for the same object.\n\nThe Lord, who in the former portion of these verses declares His own\npurpose of unwearied action for Zion, associates with Himself in the\nlatter portion the watchmen, whom He appoints and endows for functions\nin some measure resembling His own, and exercised with constancy\nderived from Him. 'I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,\nwhich shall never hold their peace day nor night.' On the promise\nfollows, as ever, a command (for all divine gifts involve the\nresponsibility of their use, and it is not His wont either to bestow\nwithout requiring, or to require before bestowing), 'Ye that remind\nJehovah, keep not silence.'\n\nThere is distinctly traceable before a reference to a two-fold form of\noccupation devolving on these Christ-sent servants. They are watchmen,\nand they are also God's remembrancers. In the one capacity as in the\nother, their voices are to be always heard. The former metaphor is\ncommon in the Old Testament, as a designation of the prophetic office,\nbut, in the accordance with the genius of the New Testament, as\nexpressed on Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out on the lowly as\nwell as on the high, on the young as on the old, and all prophesied, it\nmay be fairly extended to designated not to some selected few, but the\nwhole mass of Christian people. The watchman's office falls to be done\nby all who see the coming peril, and have a tongue to echo it forth.\nThe remembrancer's priestly office belongs to every member of Christ's\npriestly kingdom, the lowest and least of whom has the privilege of\nunrestrained entry into God's presence-chamber, and the power of\nblessing the world by faithful prayer. What should we think of a\ncitizen in a beleaguered city, who saw enemy mounting the very\nramparts, and gave no alarm because that was the sentry's business? In\nsuch extremity every man is a soldier, and women and children can at\nleast keep watch and raise shrill cries of warning. The gifts, then,\nhere promised, and the duties that flow from them, are not the\nprerogatives or the tasks of any class or order, but the heritage and\nthe burden of the Lord to every member of His Church.\n\nOur voices should ever be heard on earth. A solemn message is committed\nto us, by the very fact of our belief in Jesus Christ and His work.\nWith that faith come responsibilities of which no Christian can denude\nhimself. To warn the wicked man to turn from His wickedness; to blow\nthe trumpet when we see the sword coming; to catch ever gleaming on the\nhorizon, like the spears of an army through the dust of the march, the\noutriders and advance-guard of the coming of Him whose coming is life\nor death to all, and to lift up our voices with strength and say,\n'Behold your God'; to peal into the ears of men, sunken in earthliness\nand dreaming of safety, the cry which may startle and save; to ring out\nin glad tones to all who wearily ask, 'Watchman, what of the night?\nwill the night soon pass?' the answer which the slow dawning east has\nbreathed into our else stony lips, 'The morning cometh'; to proclaim\nChrist, who came once to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, who\ncomes ever, through the ages, to bless and uphold the righteousness\nwhich He loves and to destroy the iniquity which He hates, who will\ncome at the last to judge the world--this is the never-ending task of\nthe watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem. The New Testament calls it\n'preaching,' proclaiming as a herald does. And both metaphors carry one\ncommon lesson of the manner in which the work should be done. With\nclear loud voice, with earnestness and decision, with faithfulness and\nself-oblivion, forgetting himself in his message, must the herald sound\nout the will of his King, the largess of his Lord. And the watchman who\nstands on his watch-tower whole nights, and sees foemen creeping\nthrough the gloom, or fire bursting out among the straw-roofed cottages\nwithin the walls, shouts with all his might the short, sharp alarm,\nthat wakes the sleepers to whom slumber were death. Let us ponder the\npattern.\n\nOur voices should ever be heard in heaven. They who trust God remind\nHim of His promises by their very faith; it is a mute appeal to His\nfaithful love, which He cannot but answer. And, beyond that, their\nprayers come up for a memorial before God, and have as real an effect\nin furthering Christ's kingdom on earth as is exercised by their\nentreaties and proclamations to men.\n\nHow distinctly these words of our text define the region within which\nour prayers should ever move, and the limits which bound their\nefficacy! They _remind_ God. Then the truest prayer is that which bases\nitself on God's uttered will, and the desires which are born of our own\nfancies or heated enthusiasms have no power with Him. The prayer that\nprevails is a reflected promise. Our office in prayer is but to receive\non our hearts the bright rays of His word, and to flash them back from\nthe polished surface to the heaven from whence they came.\n\nThese two forms of action ought to be inseparable. Each, if genuine,\nwill drive us to the other, for who could fling himself into the\nwatchman's work, with all its solemn consequences, knowing how weak his\nvoice was, and how deaf the ears that should hear, unless he could\nbring God's might to his help? and who could honestly remind God of His\npromises and forget his own responsibilities? Prayerless work will soon\nslacken, and never bear fruit; idle prayer is worse than idle. You\ncannot part them if you would. How much of the busy occupation which is\ncalled 'Christian work' is detected to be spurious by this simple test!\nHow much so-called prayer is reduced by it to mere noise, no better\nthan the blaring trumpet or the hollow drum!\n\nThe power for both is derived from Christ. He sets the watchmen; He\ncommands the remembrancers. From Him flows the power, from His good\nSpirit comes the desire, to proclaim the message. That message is the\nstory of His life and death. But for what He does and is we should have\nnothing to say; but for His gift we should have no power to say it; but\nfor His influence we should have no will to say it. He commands and\nfits us to be intercessors, for His mighty work brings us near to God;\nHe opens for us access with confidence to God. He inspires our prayers.\nHe 'hath made us priests to God.'\n\nAnd, as the Christian power of discharging these twofold duties is\ndrawn from Christ, so our pattern is His manner of discharging them,\nand the condition of receiving the power is to abide in Him. He\nproposes Himself as our Example. He calls us to no labours which He has\nnot Himself shared, nor to any earnestness or continuance in prayer\nwhich He has not Himself shown forth. This Master works in front of His\nmen. The farmer that goes first among all the sowers, and heads the\nline of reapers in the yellowing harvest-field, may well have diligent\nservants. Our Master 'went forth, weeping, bearing precious seed,' and\nhas left it in our hands to sow in all furrows. Our Master is the Lord\nof the harvest, and has borne the heat of the day before His servants.\nLook at the amount of work, actual hard work, compressed into these\nthree short years of His ministry. Take the records of the words He\nspake on that last day of His public teaching, and see what unwearied\ntoil they represent. Ponder upon that life till you catch the spirit\nwhich breathed through it all, and, like Him, embrace gladly the\nwelcome necessity of labour for God, under the sense of a vocation\nconferred upon you, and of the short space within which your service\nmust be condensed. 'I must work the work of Him that sent me, while it\nis day: the night cometh, when no man can work.'\n\nChrist asks no romantic impossibilities from us, but He does ask a\ncontinuous, systematic discharge of the duties which depend on our\nrelation to the world, and on our relation to Him. Let it be our life's\nwork to show forth His praise; let the very atmosphere in which we move\nand have our being be prayer. Let two great currents set ever through\nour days, which two, like the great movements in the ocean of the air,\nare but the upper and under halves of the one movement--that beneath\nwith constant energy of desire rushing in from the cold poles to be\nwarmed and expanded at the tropics, where the all-moving sun pours his\ndirectest rays; that above charged with rich gifts from the Lord of\nlight, glowing with heat drawn from Him, and made diffusive by His\ntouch, spreading itself out beneficent and life-bringing into all\ncolder lands, swathing the world in soft, warm folds, and turning the\npolar ice into sweet waters.\n\nIn the tabernacle of Israel stood two great emblems of the functions of\nGod's people, which embodied these two sides of the Christian life. Day\nby day, there ascended from the altar of incense the sweet odour, which\nsymbolised the fragrance of prayer as it wreathes itself upwards to the\nheavens. Night by night, as darkness fell on the desert and the camp,\nthere shone through the gloom the hospitable light of the great golden\ncandlestick with its seven lamps, whose steady rays outburned the stars\nthat paled with the morning. Side by side they proclaimed to Israel its\ndestiny to be the light of the world, to be a kingdom of priests.\n\nThe offices and the honour have passed over to us, and we shall fall\nbeneath our obligations unless we let our light shine constantly before\nmen, and let our voice rise like a fountain night and day' before\nGod--even as He did who, when every man went to his own house, went\nalone to the Mount of Olives, and in the morning, when every man\nreturned to his daily task, went into the Temple and taught. By His\nexample, by His gifts, by the motive of His love, our resting, working\nLord says to each of us, 'Ye that remind God, keep not silence.' Let us\nanswer, 'For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's\nsake I will not rest.'\n\nIII. Finally, The constant activity of the servants of Christ will\nsecure the constant operation of God's power.\n\n'_Give_ Him no rest': let there be no cessation to Him. These are bold\nwords, which many people would not have been slow to rebuke if they had\nbeen anywhere else than in the Bible. Those who remind God are not to\nsuffer Him to be still. The prophet believes that they can regulate the\nflow of divine energy, can stir up the strength of the Lord.\n\nIt is easy to puzzle ourselves with insoluble questions about the\nco-operation of God's power and man's; but practically, is it not true\nthat God reaches His end, of the establishment of Zion, through the\nChurch? He has not barely willed that the world should be saved, nor\nbarely that it should be saved through Christ, nor barely that it\nshould be saved through the knowledge of Christ; but His will is that\nthe world shall be saved, by faith in the person and work of Christ,\nproclaimed as a gospel by men who believe it. And, as a matter of fact,\nis it not true that the energy with which God's power in the gospel\nmanifests itself depends on the zeal and activity and prayerfulness of\nthe Church? The great reservoir is always full--full to the brim;\nhowever much may be drawn from it, the water sinks not a hairsbreadth;\nbut the bore of the pipe and the power of the pumping-engine determine\nthe rate at which the stream flows from it. 'He could there do no\nmighty works because of their unbelief.' The obstruction of\nindifference dammed back the water of life. The city perishes for\nthirst if the long line of aqueduct that strides across the plain\ntowards the home of the mountain torrents be ruinous, broken down,\nchoked with rubbish.\n\nGod is always the same--equally near, equally strong, equally gracious.\nBut our possession of His grace, and the impartation of His grace\nthrough us to others, vary, because our faith, our earnestness, our\ndesires, vary. True, these no doubt are also His gifts and His working,\nand nothing that we say now touches in the least on the great truth\nthat God is the sole originator of all good in man; but while believing\nthat, as no less sure in itself than blessed in its message of\nconfidence and consolation to us, we also have to remember, 'If any man\nopen the door, I will come in to him.' We may have as much of God as we\nwant, as much as we can hold, far more than we deserve. And if ever the\nvictorious power of His Church seems to be almost paling to defeat, and\nHis servants to be working no deliverance upon the earth, the cause is\nnot to be found in Him who is 'without variableness,' nor in His gifts,\nwhich are 'without repentance,' but solely in us, who let go our hold\nof the Eternal Might. No ebb withdraws the waters of that great ocean;\nand if sometimes there be sand and ooze where once the flashing flood\nbrought life and motion, it is because careless warders have shut the\nsea-gates.\n\nAn awful responsibility lies on us. We can resist and refuse, or we can\nopen our hearts and draw into ourselves His strength. We can bring into\noperation those energies which act through faithful men faithfully\nproclaiming the faithful saying; or we can limit the Holy One of\nIsrael. 'Why could not we cast him out?' 'Because of your unbelief.'\n\nWith what grand confidence, then, may the weakest of us go to his task.\nWe have a right to feel that in all our labour God works with us; that,\nin all our words for Him, it is not we that speak, but the Spirit of\nour Father that speaks in us; that if humbly and prayerfully, with\nself-distrust and resolute effort to crucify our own intrusive\nindividuality, we wait for Him to enshrine Himself within us, strength\nwill come to us, drawn from the deep fountains of God, and we too shall\nbe able to say, 'Not I, but the grace of God in me.'\n\nHow this sublime confidence should tell on our characters, destroying\nall self-confidence, repressing all pride, calming all impatience,\nbrightening all despondency, and ever stirring us anew to deeds worthy\nof the 'exceeding greatness of the power which worketh in us'--I can\nonly suggest.\n\nOn all sides motives for strenuous toil press in upon us--chiefly those\ngreat examples which we have now been contemplating. But, besides\nthese, there are other forms of activity which may point the same\nlesson. Look at the energy _around_ us. We live in a busy time. Life\ngoes swiftly in all regions. Men seem to be burning away faster than\never before, in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Do we work as hard for\nGod as the world does for itself? Look at the energy _beneath_ us: how\nevil in every form is active; how lies and half-truths propagate\nthemselves quick as the blight on a rose-tree; how profligacy, and\ncrime, and all the devil's angels are busy on his errands. If _we_ are\nsitting drowsy by our camp-fires, the enemy is on the alert. You can\nhear the tramp of their legions and the rumble of their artillery\nthrough the night as they march to their posts on the field. It is no\ntime for God's sentinels to nod. If they sleep, the adversary does not,\nbut glides in the congenial darkness, sowing his baleful tares. Do we\nwork as hard for God as the emissaries of evil do for their master?\nLook at the energy _above_ us. On the throne of the universe is the\nimmortal Power who slumbereth not nor sleepeth. Before the altar of the\nheavens is the Priest of the world, the Lord of His Church, 'who ever\nliveth to make intercession for us.' Round Him stand perfected spirits,\nthe watchmen on the walls of the New Jerusalem, who 'rest not day and\nnight, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.' From His presence\ncome, filling the air with the rustle of their swift wings and the\nlight of their flame-faces, the ministering spirits who evermore 'do\nHis commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.' And we,\nChristian brethren, where are we in all this magnificent concurrence of\nactivity, for purposes which ought to be dear to our hearts as they are\nto the heart of God? Do we work for Him as He and all that are with Him\ndo? Is His will done by us on earth, as it is heaven?\n\nAlas! alas! have we not all been like those three apostles whose eyes\nwere heavy with sleep even while the Lord was wrestling with the\ntempter under the gnarled olives in the pale moonlight of Gethsemane?\nLet us arouse ourselves from our sloth. Let us lift up our cry to God:\n'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord, as in the ancient\ndays in the generations of old'; and the answer shall sound from the\nheavens to us as it did to the prophet, an echo of his prayer turned\ninto a command, 'Awake, awake, put on _thy_ strength, O Zion.'\n\n\n\n\nMIGHTY TO SAVE\n\n'Mighty to save.'--ISAIAH lxiii. 1.\n\n\nWe have here a singularly vivid and dramatic prophecy, thrown into the\nform of a dialogue between the prophet and a stranger whom he sees from\nafar striding along from the mountains of Edom, with elastic step, and\ndyed garments. The prophet does not recognise him, and asks who he is.\nThe Unknown answers, 'I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.'\nAnother question follows, seeking explanation of the splashed crimson\ngarments of the stranger, and its answer tells of a tremendous act of\nretributive destruction which he has recently launched at the nations\nhostile to 'My redeemed.'\n\nNow we note that this prophecy follows, both in the order of the book\nand in the evolution of events, on those in chapter lxi., which\nreferred to our Lord's work on earth, and in chapter lxii, which has\nfor part of its theme His intercession in heaven. And we are entitled\nto take the view that the place as well as the substance of this\nprophecy referred to the solemn act of final Judgment in which the\nreturning Lord will manifest Himself. Very significant is it that the\nprophet does not recognise in this Conqueror, with blood-bespattered\nrobes, the meek sufferer of chapter liii., or Him who in chapter lxi.\ncame to bind up the broken-hearted. And very instructive is it that the\ntitle in our text comes from the stranger's own lips, as relevant to\nthe tremendous act of judgment from which He is seen returning. The\ntitle might seem rather to look back to the former manifestation of Him\nas bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows. It does indeed, thank\nGod, look back to that never-to-be-forgotten miracle of mercy and\npower, but it also brings within the sweep of His saving might the\njudgment still to come.\n\nI. The mighty Saviour as made known in the past and present.\n\nWe think much of the meek and gentle side of Christ's character.\nPerhaps we do not think enough of the strength of it. We trace His\ngreat sacrifice to His love, and we can never sufficiently adore that\nincomparable manifestation of a love deeper than our plummets can\nfathom. But probably we do not sufficiently realise what gigantic\nstrength went to the completion of that sacrifice. We know the solemn\nimagining of a great artist who has painted a colossal Death\noverbearing the weak resistance of a puny Love; but here love is the\ngiant, and his sovereign command brings Death obedient to it, to do his\nwork. Yes, that weak man hanging on the Cross is therein revealed as\n'the power of God.' Strange clothing of weakness which yet cannot hide\nthe mighty limbs that wear it!\n\nAnd if we think of our Lord's life we see the same combination of\ngentleness and power. His very name rings with memories of the captain\nwhose one commanded duty was to 'be strong and of a good courage.'\n\nIn Him was all strength of manhood--inflexible, iron will, unchanging\npurpose, strength from consecration, strength from righteousness. In\nHim was the heroism of prophets and martyrs in supreme degree.\n\nIn Him was the strength of indwelling Divinity. He fought and conquered\nall man's enemies, routed sin, and triumphed over Death.\n\nIn the Cross we see divine power in operation in its noblest form, in\nits intensest energy, in its widest sweep, in its most magnificent\nresult. He is able to save, to save all, to save any.\n\nHe is mighty to save, and is able to save unto the uttermost, because\nHe lives for ever, and His power is eternal as Himself.\n\nII. The mighty Saviour as to be manifested in the future.\n\nClearly the imagery of the context describes a tremendous act of\njudgment. And as clearly the Apocalyptic Seer understood this prophecy\nas not only pointing to Christ, but as to be fulfilled in the final act\nof judgment. He quotes its words when he paints his magnificent vision\nof the Conqueror riding forth on his white horse, with garments\nsprinkled with blood and treading the 'winepress of the fierceness and\nwrath of Almighty God.' And the vision is interpreted unmistakably when\nwe read that, though this Conqueror had a name unknown to any but\nHimself, 'His name is called the Word of God.' So the unity of person\nin the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, full of grace and of this\nMighty One girt for battle, is taught.\n\nKeeping fast hold of this clue, the contrast between the\ncharacteristics of the historical Jesus and of the rider on the white\nhorse becomes solemn and full of warning. And the contrast between the\nerrand of the historical Jesus and that of the Conqueror bids us ponder\non the possibilities that may sleep in perfect love. We have to widen\nour conceptions, if we have thought of our Jesus only as love, and have\nthought of love as shallow, as most men do. We are sometimes told that\nthese two pictures, that of the Christ of the Gospels and that of the\nChrist of the Apocalypse, are incapable of being fused together in one\noriginal. But they can be stereoscoped, if we may say so. And they must\nbe, if we are ever to understand the greatness of His love or the\nterribleness of His judgments. 'The wrath of the Lamb' sounds an\nimpossibility, but if we ponder it, we shall find depths of\ngraciousness as well as of awe in it.\n\nLet us learn that the righteous Judge is logically and chronologically\nthe completion of the picture of the merciful Saviour. In this age\nthere is a tendency to treat sin with too much pity and too little\ncondemnation. And there is not a sufficiently firm grasp of the truth\nthat divine love must be in irreconcilable antagonism with human sin,\nand can do nothing but chastise and smite it.\n\nIII. The saving purpose of even that destructive might.\n\nThrough the whole Old Testament runs the longing that God would 'awake'\nto smite evil.\n\nThe tragedy of the drowned hosts in the Red Sea, and Miriam and her\nmaidens standing with their timbrels and shrill song of triumph on the\nbank, is a prophecy of what shall be. 'Ye shall have a song as in the\nnight a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart as when one goeth\nwith a pipe to come unto the mountain of the Lord.' And at the thought\nof that solemn act of judgment they who love the Judge, and have long\nknown Him, 'may lift up their heads' in the confidence that 'their\nredemption draweth nigh.' That is the last, and in some sense the\nmightiest, greatest act by which He shows Himself 'mighty to save His\nredeemed.'\n\nSo we may, like the prophet, see that swift form striding nearer and\nnearer, but, unlike the prophet, we need not to ask, 'Who is this that\ncometh?' for we have known Him from of old, and we remember the voice\nthat said, 'This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have\nseen Him go into heaven.' 'Herein is our love made perfect, that we may\nhave boldness before Him in the day of judgment.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE WINEPRESS AND ITS TREADER\n\n'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him\nthat treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress\nalone.'--ISAIAH lxiii. 2, 3.\n\n\nThe structure of these closing chapters is chronological, and this is\nthe final scene. What follows is epilogue. The reference of this\nmagnificent imagery to the sufferings of Jesus is a complete\nmisapprehension. These sufferings were dealt with once for all in\nchapter liii., and it is Messiah triumphant who has filled the\nprophet's vision since then.\n\nI. The treading of the winepress.\n\nThe nations are flung into the press, as ripe grapes. The picture is\nplainly a figure of some tremendous judgment in which the powers that\noppose the majestic march of the triumphant Messiah will be crushed and\ntrampled to ruin. They are trodden 'in Mine anger, and their life-blood\nis sprinkled on My garments.' It is He who crushes, not He who is\ncrushed. The winepress which He treads is the 'winepress of the wrath\nof Almighty God,' and His treading of it is His executing of God's\njudgments on those whose antagonism to Him and to His 'redeemed' has\nbrought them within their sweep. The prophetic imagination kindles and\ncasts its thought into that terrible picture, which some fastidious\npeople would think coarse, of a peasant standing up to his knees in a\nvat heaped with purple clusters, and fiercely trampling them down,\nwhile the red juice splashes upon his girt-up clothes.\n\nThe prophet does not date his vision. It has been realised many a time,\nand will be many a time still. Wherever opposition to Christ and His\nkingdom has reached ripeness, wherever antagonistic tendencies have\nborne fruit which has matured, the winepress is set up and the treading\nbegins. 'Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered\ntogether.' 'Immediately he putteth in the sickle because the harvest is\ndone.' The judgments tarry long, and Christ's servants, oppressed or\nhard pressed, get impatient, and cry 'How long, O Lord, dost Thou not\njudge? It is time for Thee to work.' But long patience precedes the\ndivine awaking, for it is not God's way nor Christ's to cut down even a\ncumbering tree, until the possibility of its bearing fruit is plainly\nended, and the last use that He makes of anything is to burn it. The\nrepeated settings up of Christ's winepress have all been one in\nprinciple, and they all point onwards to a final one. There have been\nmany 'days of the Lord,' and if men were wise and 'observed these\nthings,'--which most of them are not,--they would see that these lesser\n'days' made a 'final great and terrible day of the Lord' supremely\nprobable, and in perfect analogy with all that experience and history\nhave testified as to the method of the divine government.\n\nSurely it is strange that the groundless expectation of the unbroken\ncontinuance of the present order should be so strong that many should\nutterly ignore the truth taught by such teachers as these, and\nreiterated by science, which declares that the physical universe had a\nbeginning and will have an end, and confirmed by Jesus Himself. There\nwill come a to-morrow when the sun will _not_ rise. There will come a\nto-morrow which will be '_the_ day of the Lord,' of which all these\nearlier and partial epochs of judgment were but precursors and prophets.\n\nII. The Treader of the Winepress.\n\nThe context clearly shows that, in the prophet's view, the suffering\nMessiah in His exalted royalty is the agent of this, as of all divine\nacts. He is clothed with majesty, and it is 'in His hand,' or through\nHis agency, that all 'the pleasure of the Lord' is brought to pass. The\ncontrast with the figure in chap. liii. is ever to be kept in view. The\nlowliness, the weales and bruises, the form without comeliness are\ngone, and for these we see a conqueror, glorious in apparel and\nstriding onwards in conscious strength.\n\nBut the access of majesty does not imply the putting off of lowliness\nand meekness. There is much that is severe and terrible in the figure\nthat rises here before the prophet's vision, but both aspects equally\nbelong to the glorified Christ, and that duality in His character makes\neach element more impressive. His long-suffering mercy and more than\nhuman tenderness do not hamper His arm when it is bared to smite; His\njudicial severity does not dam up the flow of His mercy and tenderness.\nWhen He was on earth, He wept over Jerusalem, but His tears did not\nhinder His pronouncing woe on the city. His love leads Him to warn\nbefore He smites, but it does not contradict His threatenings, nor\naugur our impunity. Nay rather, love compels Him to smite. And, more\nterrible still, it is His very love that smites most severely hearts\nthat have rejected it and learn their folly and sin too late.\n\nIII. Why the winepress is trodden.\n\nThe context tells us. The triumphant figure, seen by the prophet\nstriding onwards from Edom, answers the question as to His identity\nwith, 'I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.' Then the\ntreading of the winepress, from which He is represented as coming, is\nregarded as an exemplification of both these characteristics. It is a\ngreat act of righteousness. It is a great act of salvation. Similarly,\nHe is represented as having been moved to that destructive judgment by\nthe 'vengeance' that burned in His heart, and by His seeing that there\nwere none to help His 'redeemed.'\n\nSo, then, the destructive act is a manifestation of Righteousness,\nwhich in such a connection means retributive justice. Awe-inspiring as\nit may be, the thunderstorm brings relief to a world sweltering in a\nstagnant atmosphere, and each blinding flash freshens the air. 'When\nthe wicked perish, there is shouting.' The destruction of some hoary\nevil that has long afflicted humanity and blocked the progress of the\nkingdom which is 'righteousness and peace and joy,' is a good. Christ's\n'terrible things' are all 'in righteousness,' and meant to set Him\nforth as 'the confidence of all the ends of the earth.' To clear His\ncharacter and government from all suspicion of moral indifference, to\ndemonstrate by facts which the blindest can see, that it is not all the\nsame to Him whether men are good or bad, to write in great letters\nwhich, like the capitals on a map, stretch across a whole land, 'The\nJudge of all the earth shall do right'--surely these are worthy ends to\nmove even the loving Christ to tread the winepress.\n\nFurther, His destructive judgments, however terrible, will always be\naccurately measured by righteousness. They are not outbursts of\nfeeling; they are in exact correspondence with the evils that bring\nthem down. The lava flows according to its own density and the lie of\nthe land which it covers. These judgments are deformed by no undue\nseverity; no base elements of temper, no errors as to the degree of\ncriminality mar them. They are calm and absolutely accurate judgments\nof Him who is not only just but Justice.\n\nBut the context further teaches us that the true point of view from\nwhich to regard Christ's treading of the winepress is to think of it as\nredemptive and contributory to the salvation of 'My redeemed.'\nTherefore there follows immediately on this picture of the conqueror\ntreading the peoples in His fury and pouring their life-blood on the\nearth, the song of the delivered. Up through the troubled air, heavy\nwith thunder-clouds, soars their praise, as a lark might rise and pour\nits strains above a volcano in eruption--'I will mention the loving\nkindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all\nthat the Lord hath bestowed on us and the great goodness toward the\nhouse of Israel which He hath bestowed on them, according to His\nmercies, and according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses.'\nPharaoh is drowned in the Red Sea; Miriam and her maidens on the bank\nclash their cymbals, and lift shrill voices in their triumphant hymn.\nBabylon sinks like a millstone in the great waters--'and I heard as it\nwere a great voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Hallelujah;\nsalvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and righteous\nare His judgments.' The innermost impulse of judgment is love.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SYMPATHY OF GOD\n\n'In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His\npresence saved them'--ISAIAH lxiii. 9.\n\n\nI. The wonderful glimpse opened here into the heart of God.\n\nIt is not necessary to touch upon the difference between the text and\nmargin of the Revised Version, or to enter on the reason for preferring\nthe former. And what a deep and wonderful thought that is, of divine\nsympathy with human sorrow! We feel that this transcends the prevalent\ntone of the Old Testament. It is made the more striking by reason of\nthe other sides of the divine nature which the Old Testament gives so\nstrongly; as, for instance, the unapproachable elevation and absolute\nsovereignty of God, and the retributive righteousness of God.\n\nAffliction is His chastisement, and is ever righteously inflicted. But\nhere is something more, tender and strange. Sympathy is a necessary\npart of love. There is no true affection which does not put itself in\nthe place and share the sorrows of its objects. And His sympathy is\nnone the less because He inflicts the sorrow. These afflictions wherein\nHe too was afflicted, were sent by Him. Like an earthly father who\nsuffers more than the child whom he chastises, the Heavenly Father\nfeels the strokes that He inflicts.\n\nThat sympathy is consistent with the blessedness of God. Even in the\npain of our human sympathy there is a kind of joy, and we may be sure\nthat in His nature there is nothing else.\n\nContrast with other thoughts about God.\n\nThe vague agnosticism of the present day, which knows only a dim\nSomething of which we can predicate nothing.\n\nThe God of the philosophers--whom we are bidden to think of as\npassionless and unemotional. No wave of feeling ever ripples that\ntideless sea. The attribute of infinitude or sovereign completeness is\ndwelt on with such emphasis as to obscure all the rest.\n\nThe gods of men's own creation are careless in their happiness, and\ncruel in their vengeance. But here is a God for all the weary and the\nsorrowful. What a thought for us in our own burdened days!\n\nII. The mystery of the divine salvation.\n\nOf course the salvation here spoken of is the deliverance from Egyptian\nbondage. This is a summary of the Exodus. But we must mark well that\nsignificant expression, 'the angel of His face' or 'presence.' We can\nonly attempt a partial and bald enumeration of some of the very\nremarkable references to that mysterious person, 'the angel of the Lord\n'or 'of the presence.' The dying Jacob ascribed his being 'redeemed\nfrom all evil' to 'the Angel,' and invoked his blessing on 'the lads.'\n'_The_ angel of the Lord' appeared to Moses out of the midst of the\nburning bush. On Sinai, Jehovah promised to send an 'angel' in whom was\nHis own name, before the people. The promise was renewed after Israel's\nsin and repentance, and was then given in the form, '_My_ presence\nshall go with thee.' Joshua saw a man with a drawn sword in his hand,\nwho declared himself to be the Captain of the Lord's host. 'The angel\nof the Lord' appeared to Manoah and his wife, withheld his name from\nthem because it was 'wonderful' or 'secret,' accepted their sacrifice,\nand went up to heaven in its flame. Wherefore Manoah said, 'We have\nseen God.' Long after these early visions, a psalmist knows himself\nsafe because 'the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that\nfear Him.' Hosea, looking back on the story of Jacob's wrestling at\nPeniel, says, first, that 'he had power with _God_, yea, he had power\nover the _angel_,' and then goes on to say that 'there He spake with\nus, even _Jehovah_.' And Malachi, on the last verge of Old Testament\nprophecy, goes furthest of all in seeming to run together the\nconceptions of Jehovah and the Angel of Jehovah, for he says, 'The Lord\nwhom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple; and the angel of the\ncovenant ... behold, _he_ cometh.' From this imperfect _resume_, we see\nthat there appears in the earliest as in the latest books of the Old\nTestament, a person distinguished from the hosts of angels, identified\nin a very remarkable manner with Jehovah, by alternation of names, in\nattributes and offices, and in receiving worship, and being the organ\nof His revelation. That special relation to the divine revelation is\nexpressed by both the representation that 'Jehovah's name is in him,'\nand by the designation in our text, 'the angel of His presence,' or\nliterally, 'of His face.' For 'name' and 'face' are in so far\nsynonymous that they mean the side of the divine nature which is turned\nto the world.\n\nFor the present I go no further than this. It is clear, then, that our\ntext is at all events remarkable, in that it ascribes to this 'angel of\nHis presence' the praise of Jehovah's saving work. The loving heart,\nafflicted in all their afflictions, sends forth the messenger of His\nface, and by Him is salvation wrought. The whole sum of the deliverance\nof Israel in the past is attributed to Him. Surely this must have been\nfelt by a devout Jew to conceal some great mystery.\n\nIII. The crowning revelation both of the heart of God and of His saving\npower.\n\n(a) Jesus Christ is the true 'angel of the face.'\n\nI do not need to enter on the question of whether in the Old Testament\nthe angel of the Covenant was indeed a pre-manifestation of the eternal\nSon. I am disposed to answer it in the affirmative. But be that as it\nmay, all that was spoken of the angel is true of Him. God's name is in\nHim, and that not in fragments or half-syllables but complete. The face\nof God looks lovingly on men in Him, so that Jesus could declare, 'He\nthat hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' His presence brings God's\npresence, and He can venture to say, '_We_ will come and make our abode\nwith Him.' He is the agent of the divine salvation.\n\nThe identity and the difference are here in their highest form.\n\n(b) The mystery of God's sharing our sorrows is explained in Him.\n\nWe may find a difficulty in the thought of a suffering and sympathising\nGod. But if we believe that 'My name is in Him,' then the sympathy and\ngentleness of Jesus is the compassion of God. This is a true\nrevelation. So tears at the grave sighs in healing, and all the sorrows\nwhich He bore are an unveiling of the heart of God.\n\nThat sharing our sorrows is the very heart of His work. We might almost\nsay that He became man in order to increase His power of sympathy, as a\nprince might temporarily become a pauper. But certainly He became man\nthat He might bear our burdens. 'Himself took our infirmities.'\n'Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He himself\nalso likewise took part of the same.'\n\nThe atoning death is the climax of Christ's being afflicted with our\nafflictions. His priestly sympathy flows out now and for ever to us all.\n\nSo complete is His unity with God, that He works the salvation which is\nGod's, and that God's name is in Him. So complete is His union with us,\nthat our sorrows touch Him and His life becomes ours. 'Ye have done it\nunto Me.' 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?'\n\nFor us in all our troubles there are no darker rooms than Christ has\nbeen in before us. We are like prisoners put in the same cell as some\ngreat martyr. He drank the cup, and we can put the rim to our lips at\nthe place that His lips have touched. But not only may we have our\nsufferings lightened by the thought that He has borne the same, and\nthat we know the 'fellowship of Christ's sufferings,' but we have the\nfurther alleviation of being sure that He makes our afflictions His by\nperfect sympathy, and, still more wonderful and blessed, that there is\nsuch unity of life and sensation between the Head and the members that\nour afflictions _are_ His, and are not merely made so.\n\n               'Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,\n                And thy Saviour is not by;\n                Think not thou canst shed a tear\n                And thy Saviour is not near.'\n\nDo not front the world alone. _In_ all our afflictions He is with us;\n_out_ of them all He saves.\n\n\n\n\nHOW TO MEET GOD\n\n'Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that\nremember Thee in Thy ways.'--ISAIAH lxiv. 5.\n\n\nThe prophet here shows us how there is a great staircase which we\nourselves build, which leads straight from earth to heaven, and how we\ncan secure that we shall meet with God and God with us. 'Isaiah' is\noften called the evangelical prophet. He is so, not only because of his\npredictions of the suffering Servant of Jehovah which are 'fulfilled'\nin Christ, but because his conceptions of the religious life tremble on\nthe very verge of the full-orbed teaching of the New Testament. In\nthese ancient words of my text, in very different phraseology indeed,\nwe see a strikingly accurate and full anticipation of the very central\nteaching of Paul and his brother apostles, as to the way by which God\nand man come into union with one another. 'Thou meetest him that\nrejoiceth'; that joy is to be manifested by 'working righteousness,'\nbut the joy which is the parent of righteousness is the child of\nsomething else--'those that remember Thee in Thy ways.' If we ponder\nthese words, and carefully mark their relation to each other, we may\ndiscern, as it were, a great staircase with three flights in it, and at\nthe top God's face.\n\nWe have to begin with the last clause of our text--'Thou meetest him\n... that remembers Thee in Thy ways.'\n\nThe first stage on the road which will bring any man into, and keep any\nman in, contact with God, and loving fellowship with Him, is the\ncontemplation of His character as it is made known to us by His acts.\nGod, like man, is known by His 'fruits.' You cannot get at a clear\nconception of God by speculation, or by thinking about Him or about\nwhat He is in Himself. Lay hold of the clue of His acts, and it leads\nyou straight into His heart. But the act of acts, in which the whole\nGodhead concurs, in which all its depths and preciousness are\nconcentrated, like wine in a golden cup, is the incarnation and life\nand death of Jesus Christ our Lord. There, and not in the thoughts of\nour own hearts nor the tremors of our own consciences, nor in the\nenigmatical witness of Providence--which is enigmatical until it is\ninterpreted in the light of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion--there\nwe see most clearly the 'ways' of God, the beaten, trodden path by\nwhich He is wont to come forth out of the thick darkness into which no\nspeculation can peer an inch, and walk amongst men. The cross of\nChrist, and, subordinately, His other dealings with us, as interpreted\nthereby, is the 'way of the Lord,' from everlasting to everlasting. And\nit is by a loving gaze upon that 'way' that we learn to know Him for\nwhat He is. It is there, and there only, that the thick darkness passes\ninto glorious light. It is at that point alone that the closed circle\nof the Infinite nature of Deity opens so as that a man can press into\nthe very centre of the glory, and feel himself at home in the blaze. It\nis 'those that remember Thee in Thy ways,' and especially in that way\nof righteousness and peace, the way of the cross--it is they who have\nbuilt the first flight of the solemn staircase that leads up from the\nlownesses and darknesses of earth into the loftinesses and lights of\nheaven.\n\nBut note that word 'Remember,' for it suggests the warning that such\ncontemplation of the ways of the Lord will not be realised by us\nwithout effort. We shall forget, assuredly, unless we earnestly try to\n'remember.' There are so many things within us to draw us away, the\nduties, and the joys, and the sorrows of life so insist upon having a\nplace in our hearts and thoughts, that assuredly, unless by resolute\neffort, frequently repeated, we clear a space in this crowded and\nchattering market-place, where we can stand and gaze on the white\nsummits far beyond the bustling crowd, we shall never see them, though\nthey are visible from every place. Unless you try to remember, you will\ncertainly forget.\n\nMany voices preach to-day many duties for Christians. Let me plead for\ntimes of quiet, for times of 'doing' nothing, for fruitful times of\ngrowth, for times when we turn all the rout and rabble of earthly\nthings, and even the solemn company of pressing duties, out of our\nhearts and thoughts, and shut up ourselves alone with God. Be sure you\nwill never build even the first step of the staircase unless you know\nwhat it is to go into the secret place of the Most High, and, alone\nwith God, to summon to 'the sessions of sweet, silent thought' His\nways, and especially Him who is 'the Way,' both of God to us, and of us\nto God.\n\nNow, the second flight of this great staircase is pointed out in the\nfirst clause of my text: 'Thou meetest him that rejoiceth.'\n\nThat meditative remembrance of the ways of God will be the parent of\nholy joy which will bring God near to our heart. Alas! it is too often\nthe very opposite of true that men's joys are such as to bring God to\nthem. The excitement, and often the impure elements, that mingle with\nwhat the world calls 'joy,' are such as to shut Him out from us. But\nthere is a gladness which comes from the contemplation of Him as He is,\nand as He is known by His 'ways' to be, which brings us very near to\nGod, and God very near to us. It is that joy which was spoken of in an\nearlier part of this context: 'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My\nsoul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the\ngarments of salvation.' Here, then, is the second stage--gladness,\ndeep, pure, based upon the contemplation of God's character as\nmanifested in His work. I do not think that the ordinary type of modern\nChristianity is half joyful enough. And I think that we have largely\nlost the very thought that gladness is a plain Christian _duty_, to be\nstriven after in the appropriate manner which my text suggests, and\ncertainly to be secured if we seek it in the right way. We all know how\noutward cares, and petty annoyances, and crushing sorrows, and daily\nanxieties, and the tear and wear of work, and our own restlessness and\nungovernableness, and the faults that still haunt our lives, and\nsometimes make us feel as if our Christianity was all a sham--how all\nthese things are at enmity with joy in God. But in face of them all, I\nwould echo the old grand words of the epistle of gladness written by\nthe apostle in prison, and within hail of his death: 'Rejoice in the\nLord alway, and again I say rejoice.' Recognise it as your duty to be\nglad, and if it is hard to be so, ask yourselves whether you are doing\nwhat will make you so, remembering 'Thee in Thy ways.' That is the\nsecond flight of the staircase.\n\nThe third stage is working righteousness because of such joy. 'Thou\nmeetest him that rejoiceth, and '--because he does--'worketh\nrighteousness.' Every master knows how much more work can be got out of\na servant who works with a cheery heart than out of one that is driven\nreluctantly to his task. You remember our Lord's parable where He\ntraces idleness to fear: 'I knew thee that thou wast an austere man,\ngathering where thou didst not strew, and I was afraid, and I went and\nhid thy talent.' No work was got out of that servant because there was\nno joy in him. The opposite state of mind--diligence in righteous work,\ninspired by gladness which in its turn is inspired by the remembrance\nof God's ways--is the mark of a true servant of God. The prophet's\nwords have the germ of the full New Testament doctrine that the first\nstep to all practical obedience and righteous living is the recognition\nof the great truth of Christ's death for us on the Cross; that the\nsecond step is the acceptance of that great work, and the gladness that\ncomes from the assurance of forgiveness and acceptance with God, and\nthat the issue of both these things, the preached gospel and the faith\nthat grasps it and the love by which the faith is followed, is\nobedience, instinct with willingness and buoyant with joyfulness, and\ntherefore tending to be perfect in degree and in kind. The work that is\nworth doing, the work which God regards as 'righteous,' comes, and\ncomes only, from the motives of 'remembering Thee in Thy ways,' and\nrejoicing because we do remember.\n\nAnd the gladness which is wholesome and blessed, and is 'joy in the\nLord,' will manifest itself by efflorescing into all holiness and all\nloftiness and largeness of obedience. You may try to frighten men into\nrighteousness, you will never succeed. You may try to coerce their\nwills, and your strongest bands will be broken as the iron chains were\nby the demoniac. But put upon them the silken leash of love, and you\nmay lead them where you will. You cannot grow grapes on an iceberg, and\nyou cannot get works of righteousness out of a man that has a dread of\nGod at the back of his heart, killing all its joy. But let the spring\nsunshine come, and then all the frost-bound earth opens and softens,\nand the tender green spikelets push themselves up through the brown\nsoil, and in due time come 'the blade, and the ear, and the full corn\nin the ear.' Isaiah anticipated Paul when he said, 'Thou meetest him\nthat rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.'\n\nLastly, we have the landing-place to which the stair leads. God comes\nto such a man. He meets him indeed at all the stages, for there is a\nblessed communion with God, that springs immediately from remembering\nHim in His ways, and a still more blessed one that springs from\nrejoicing in His felt friendship and Fatherhood, and a yet more blessed\none that comes from practical righteousness. For if there is anything\nthat breaks our communion with God, it is that there linger in our\nlives evils which make it impossible for God and us to come close\ntogether. The thinnest film of a non-conductor will stop the flow of\nthe strongest electric current, and an almost imperceptible film of\nself-will and evil, dropped between oneself and God, will make a\nbarrier impermeable except by that divine Spirit who worketh upon a\nman's heart and who may thin away the film through his repentance, and\nthen the Father and the prodigal embrace. 'Thou meetest him,' not only\n'that worketh righteousness,' but that hates his sin.\n\nOnly remember, if there is the practice of evil, there cannot be the\nsunshine of the Presence of God. But remember, too, that the commonest,\nhomeliest, smallest, most secular tasks may become the very highest\nsteps of the staircase that brings us into His Presence. If we go about\nour daily work, however wearisome and vulgar and commonplace it often\nseems to us, and make it a work of righteousness resting on the joy of\nsalvation, and that reposing on the contemplation of God as He is\nrevealed in Jesus Christ, our daily work may bring us as close to God\nas if we dwelt in the secret place of the Most High, and the market and\nthe shop may be a temple where we meet with Him.\n\nDear brethren, there are two kinds of meeting God: 'Thou meetest him\nthat rejoiceth and worketh righteousness,' and that is blessed, as when\nChrist met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. There is another\nkind of meeting with God. 'Who, making war, sitteth not down first, and\nconsulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh\nagainst him with twenty thousand?'\n\n\n\n\n'THE GOD OF THE AMEN'\n\n'He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of\ntruth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of\ntruth.'--ISAIAH lxv. 16.\n\n\nThe full beauty and significance of these remarkable words are only\nreached when we attend to the literal rendering of a part of them which\nis obscured in our version. As they stand in the original they have, in\nboth cases, instead of the vague expression, 'The God of truth,' the\nsingularly picturesque one, 'The God of the Amen.'\n\nI. Note the meaning of the name. Now, _Amen_ is an adjective, which\nmeans literally firm, true, reliable, or the like. And, as we know, its\nliturgical use is that, in the olden time, and to some extent in the\npresent time, it was the habit of the listening people to utter it at\nthe close of prayer or praise. But besides this use at the end of some\none else's statement, which the sayer of the 'Amen' confirms by its\nutterance, we also find it used at the beginning of a statement, by the\nspeaker, in order to confirm his own utterance by it.\n\nAnd these two uses of the expression reposing on its plain meaning, in\nthe first instance signifying, 'I tell you that it is so'; and in the\nsecond instance signifying, 'So may it be!' or, 'So we believe it is,'\nunderlie this grand title which God takes to Himself here, 'the God of\nthe Amen,' both His Amen and ours. So that the thought opens up very\nbeautifully and simply into these two, His truth and our faith.\n\nFirst, it emphasises the absolute truthfulness of every word that comes\nfrom His lips. There is implied in the title that He really _has_\nspoken, and declared to man something of His will, something of His\nnature, something of His purposes, something of our destiny. And now He\nputs, as it were, the broad seal upon the charter and says, 'Amen!\nVerily it is so, and My word of Revelation is no man's imagination, and\nMy word of command is the absolute unveiling of human duty and human\nperfectness, and My word of promise is that upon which a man may rest\nall his weight and be safe for ever.' God's word is 'Amen!' man's word\nis 'perhaps.' For in regard to the foundation truths of man's belief\nand experience and need, no human tongue can venture to utter its own\nasseverations with nothing behind them but itself, and expect men to\naccept them; but that is exactly what God does, and alone has the right\nto do. His word absolutely, and through and through, in every fibre of\nit, is reliable and true.\n\nNow do not forget that there was one who came to us and said, 'Amen!\nAmen! I say unto you.' Jesus Christ, in all His deep and wonderful\nutterances, arrogated to Himself the right which God here declares to\nbe exclusively His, and He said, 'I too have, and I too exercise, the\nright and the authority to lay My utterances down before you, and\nexpect you to take them because of nothing else than because I say\nthem.' God is the God of the Amen! The last book of Scripture, when it\ndraws back the curtain from the mysteries of the glorified session of\nJesus Christ at the right hand of God, makes Him say to us, 'These\nthings saith the Amen!' And if you want to know what that means, its\nexplanation follows in the next clause, 'the faithful and true witness.'\n\nBut then, on the other hand, necessarily involved in this title, though\ncapable of being separately considered, is not only the absolute\ntruthfulness of the divine word, but also the thorough-going reliance,\non our parts, which that word expects and demands. God's 'Amen,' and\n'Verily,' of confirmation, should ever cause the 'Amen' of acceptance\nand assent to leap from our lips. If He begins with that mighty word,\nso soon as the solemn voice has ceased its echo should rise from our\nhearts. The city that cares for the charter which its King has given it\nwill prepare a fitting, golden receptacle in which to treasure it. And\nthe men who believe that God in very deed has spoken laws that\nilluminate, and commandments that guide, and promises that calm and\nstrengthen and fulfil themselves, will surely prepare in their hearts\nan appropriate receptacle for those precious and infallible words.\nGod's truth has corresponding to it our trust. God's faithfulness\ndemands, and is only adequately met by, our faith. If He gives us the\nsure foundation to build upon, it will be a shame for us to bring wood,\nhay, stubble, and build these upon the Rock of Ages. The building\nshould correspond with its foundation, and the faith which grasps the\nsure word should have in it something of the unchangeableness and\ncertainty and absoluteness of that word which it grasps. If His\nrevelation of Himself is certain, you and I ought to be certain of His\nrevelation of Himself. Our certitude should correspond to its certainty.\n\nAh! my friend, what a miserable contrast there is between the firm,\nunshaken, solid security of the divine word upon which we say that we\ntrust, and the poor, feeble, broken trust which we build upon it. 'Let\nnot that man think that He shall receive anything of the Lord'; but let\nus expect, as well as 'ask, in faith, nothing wavering'; and let our\n'Amen!' ring out in answer to God's.\n\nThe Apostle Paul has a striking echo of the words of my text in the\nsecond Epistle to the Corinthians: 'All the promises of God in Him are\nyea! and through Him also is the Amen!' The assent, full, swift,\nfrank--the assent of the believing heart to the great word of God comes\nthrough the same channel, and reaches God by the same way, as God's\nword on which it builds comes to us. The 'God of the Amen,' in both\nsenses of the word, is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who\nis the seal as well as the substance of the divine promises, and whose\nvoice in us is the answer to, and the grasp of, the promises of which\nHe is the substance and soul.\n\nII. Now notice, next, how this God of the Amen is, by reason of that\nvery characteristic, the source of all blessing.\n\n'He who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of\nTruth.' That phrase of _blessing oneself in_, which is a frequent Old\nTestament expression, is roughly equivalent to invoking, and therefore\nreceiving, blessing from. You find it, for instance, in the\nseventy-second Psalm, in that grand burst which closes one of the books\nof the Psalter and hails the coming of the Messianic times, of which my\ntext also is a prediction. 'Men shall be blessed in Him,' or rather,\n'shall bless themselves in Him,' which is a declaration, that all\nneedful benediction shall come down upon humanity through the coming\nMessias, as well as that men shall recognise in that Messias the source\nof all their blessing and good. So the text declares that, in those\ndays that are yet to come, the whole earth shall be filled with men\nwhose eyes have been purged from ignorance and sin, and from the\nillusions of sense and the fascinations of folly, and who have learned\nthat only in the God of the Amen is the blessing of their life to be\nfound.\n\nOf course it is so. For only on Him can I lean all my weight and be\nsure that the stay will not give. All other bridges across the great\nabysses which we have to traverse or be lost in them, are like those\nsnow-cornices upon some Alp, which may break when the climber is on the\nvery middle of them, and let him down into blackness out of which he\nwill never struggle. There is only one path clear across the deepest\ngulf, which we poor pilgrims can tread with absolute safety that it\nwill never yield beneath our feet. My brother! there is one support\nthat is safe, and one stay upon which a man can lean his whole weight\nand be sure that the staff will never either break or pierce his palm,\nand that is the faithful God, in whose realm are no disappointments,\namongst whose trusters are no heart-broken and deceived men, but who\ngives bountifully, and over and above all that we are able to ask or\nthink. They who have made experience, as we have all made experience,\nof the insufficiency of earthly utterances, of the doubtfulness of the\nclearest words of men, of the possible incapacity of the most loving,\nto be what they pledge themselves to be, and of the certainty that even\nif they are so for a while they cannot be so always--have surely\nlearned one half, at least, of the lesson that life is meant to teach\nus; and it is our own fault if we have not bettered it with the better\nhalf, having uncoiled the tendrils of our hearts from the rotten props\nround which they have been too apt to twine themselves, and wreathed\nthem about the pillars of the eternal throne, which can never shake nor\nfail. 'He that blesseth himself in the earth shall bless\nhimself'--unless he is a fool--'in the God of the Amen!' and not in the\n_man_ of the 'peradventure.'\n\nIII. Lastly, note how the God of the Amen should be the pattern of His\nservants.\n\n'He that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth,' or,\n'of the Amen.' The prophet deduces from the name the solemn thought\nthat those who truly feel its significance will shape _their_ words\naccordingly, and act and speak so that they shall not fear to call His\npure eyes to witness that there are neither, hypocrisy, nor\ninsincerity, nor vacillation, nor the 'hidden things of dishonesty' nor\nany of the skulking meannesses of craft and self-seeking in them. 'I\nswear by the God of the Amen, and call Thy faithfulness to witness that\nI am trying to be like Thee,' that is what we ought to do if we call\nourselves Christians. If we have any hold at all of Him, and of His\nlove, and of the greatness and majesty of His faithfulness, we shall\ntry to make our poor little lives, in such measure as the dewdrops may\nbe like the sun, radiant like His, and of the same shape as His, for\nthe dewdrop and the sun are both of them spheres. That is exactly what\nthe apostle does, in that same chapter in 2 Cor., to which I already\nreferred. He takes these very thoughts of my text, and in their double\naspect too, and says, 'Just because God is faithful, do you Corinthians\nthink that, when I told you that I was coming to see you, I did not\nmean it?' He brings the greatest thought that He can find about God and\nGod's truth, down to the settlement of this very little matter, the\nvindication of Himself from the charge, on the one hand, of facile and\ninconsiderate vacillation, and, on the other hand, of insincerity. So,\nwe may say, the greatest thoughts should regulate the smallest acts.\nThough our maps be but a quarter of an inch to a hundred miles, let us\nsee that they are drawn to scale. Let us see that He is our Pattern;\nand that the truthfulness, the simplicity, and faithfulness, which we\nrest upon as the very foundation of our intellectual as well as our\nmoral and religious being, are, in our measure, copied in ourselves.\n'As God is faithful,' said Paul, 'our word to you was not yea! and\nnay!' And they who are trusting to the God of the Amen! will live in\nall simplicity and godly sincerity; their yea will be yea, and their\nnay, nay.\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF JEREMIAH\n\n\nGOD'S LAWSUIT\n\n\n'Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your\nchildren's children will I plead.'--JER. ii. 9.\n\nPoint out that 'plead' is a forensic term. There is a great lawsuit in\nwhich God is plaintiff and men defendants. The word is frequent in\nIsaiah.\n\nI. The reason for God's pleading.\n\nThe cause--'wherefore.' Our transgression does not make Him turn away\nfrom us. It does profoundly modify the whole relation between us. It\ndoes give an aspect of antagonism to His dealings.\n\nII. The manner.\n\nThe whole history of the world and of each individual. All outward\nprovidences. All the voice of Conscience. Christ. Spirit, who convinces\nthe world of Sin.\n\nIII. The purpose.\n\nWholly our being drawn from our evil. The purely reformatory character\nof all punishment here. The sole object to win us back to Himself. He\nconquers in this lawsuit when we come to love Him.\n\nIV. The patience.\n\nThat merciful pleading--'I will _yet_'--runs on through all sin, and is\nonly made more earnest by deepening hostility. After rejections still\nlingers. Extends over a thousand generations. Is exercised even where\nHe foresees failure.\n\n\n\n\nSTIFF-NECKED IDOLATERS AND PLIABLE CHRISTIANS\n\n'Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people\nhave changed their glory for that which doth not profit.'--JER. ii. 11.\n\n\nThe obstinacy of the adherents of idolatry is in striking contrast with\nIsrael's continual tendency to forsake Jehovah. It reads a scarcely\nless forcible lesson to many nominal and even to some real Christians.\n\nI. That contrast carries with it a disclosure of the respective origins\nof the two kinds of Religion.\n\nThe strangeness of the contrasted conduct is intensified when we take\ninto account the tremendous contrast between the two Objects of\nworship. Israel's God was Israel's 'Glory'; the idol-worshipper bowed\ndown before 'that which doth not profit,' and yet no experience of God\ncould bind His fickle worshippers to Him, and no experience of the\nimpotence of the idol could shake its votaries' devotion. They cried\nand were not heard. They toiled and had no results. They broke their\nteeth on 'that which is not bread,' and filled their mouths with gritty\nashes that mocked them with a semblance of nourishment and left them\nwith empty stomachs and excoriated gums, yet by some strange\nhallucination they clung to 'vanities,' while Israel was always\nhankering after opportunity to desert Jehovah. The stage of\ncivilisation partly accounts for the strange fascination of idolatry\nover the Israelites. But the deeper solution lies in the fact that the\none religion rises from the hearts of men, corresponds to their moral\ncondition, and is largely moulded by their lower nature; while the\nother is from above, corresponds, indeed, with the best and deepest\nlongings and needs of souls, but contravenes many of their most clamant\nwishes, and necessarily sets before them a standard high and difficult\nto reach. Men make their gods in their own image, and are conscious of\nno rebuke nor stimulus to loftier living when they gaze on them. The\nGod of Revelation bids men remake themselves in His image, and that\ncommand requires endless effort. The average man has to put a strain on\nhis intellect in order to rise to the apprehension of God, and a still\nmore unwelcome strain on his moral nature to rise to the imitation of\nGod. No wonder, then, if the dwellers on the low levels should cleave\nto them, and the pilgrims to the heights should often weary of their\ntoil and be distressed with the difficulty of breathing the thin air up\nthere, and should give up climbing and drop down to the flats once more.\n\nII. That contrast carries with it a rebuke.\n\nMany voices echo the prophet's contrast nowadays. Our travelling\ncountrymen, especially those of them who have no great love for earnest\nreligion, are in the habit of drawing disparaging contrasts between\nBuddhists, Brahmins, Mohammedans, any worshippers of other gods and\nChristians. One may not uncharitably suspect that a more earnest\nChristianity would not please these critics much better than does the\ntepid sort, and that the pictures they draw both of heathenism and of\nChristianity are coloured by their likes and dislikes. But it is well\nto learn from an enemy, and caricatures may often be useful in calling\nattention to features which would escape notice but for exaggeration.\nSo we may profit by even the ill-natured and distorted likenesses of\nourselves as contrasted with the adherents of other religions which so\nmany 'liberal-minded' writers of travels delight to supply.\n\nThink, then, of the rebuke which the obstinate adherence of idolaters\nto their idols gives to the slack hold which so many professing\nChristians have on their religion.\n\nThink of the way in which these lower religions pervade the whole life\nof their worshippers, and of how partial is the sway over a little\nterritory of life and conduct which Christianity has in many of its\nadherents. The absorption in worship shown by Mohammedans, who will\nspread their prayer carpets anywhere and perform their drill of prayers\nwithout embarrassment or distraction in the sight of a crowd, or the\nrapt 'devotion' of fakirs, are held up as a rebuke to us 'Christians'\nwho are ashamed to be caught praying. One may observe, in mitigation,\nthat the worship which is of the heart is naturally more sensitive to\nsurrounding distractions than that which is a matter of posturing and\nrepetition by rote. But there still remains substance enough in the\ncontrast to point a sharp arrow of rebuke.\n\nAnd there is no denying that in these 'heathen' religions, religion is\nintertwined with every act of life in a fashion which may well put to\nshame many of us. Remember how Paul had to deal at length with the duty\nof the Corinthians in view of the way in which every meal was a\nsacrifice to some god, and how the same permeation of life with\nreligion is found in all these 'false faiths.' The octopus has coiled\nits tentacles round the whole body of its victim. Bad and sad and mad\nas idolatry is, it reads a rebuke to many of us, who keep life and\nreligion quite apart, and lock up our Christianity in our pews with our\nprayer-books and hymnaries.\n\nThink of the material sacrifices made by idolaters, in costly\nofferings, in painful self-tortures, and in many other ways, and the\nniggardliness and self-indulgence of so many so-called Christians.\n\nIII. The contrast suggests the greatness of the power which can\novercome even such obstinate adherence to idols.\n\nThere is one, and only one, solvent for that rock-like obstinacy--the\nGospel. The other religions have seldom attempted to encroach on each\nother's territory, and where they have, their instrument of conversion\nhas generally been the sword. The Gospel has met and mastered them all.\nIt, and it only, has had power to draw men to itself out of every\nfaith. The ancient gods who bewitched Israel, the gods of Greece, the\ngods of our own ancestors, the gods of the islands of the South Seas,\nlie huddled together, in undistinguished heaps, like corpses on a\nbattlefield, and the deities of India and the East are wounded and\nslowly bleeding out their lives. 'Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, the\nidols are upon the beasts,' all packed up, as it were, and ready to be\ncarried off.\n\nThe rate of progress in dethroning them varies with the varying\nnational conditions. It is easier to cut a tunnel through chalk than\nthrough quartz.\n\nIV. That contrast carries with it a call for Christian effort to spread\nthe conquering Gospel.\n\n\nFOUNTAIN AND CISTERNS\n\n'They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them\nout cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water'--JER. ii. 13.\n\n\nThe proclivity of the Jews to idolatry is an outstanding fact all\nthrough their history. That persistent national tendency surely compels\nus to recognise a divine inspiration as the source of the prophetic\nteaching and of the lofty spiritual theology of the Old Testament,\nwhich were in sharpest unlikeness and opposition to the whole trend of\nthe people's thoughts.\n\nIt is this apostasy which is referred to here. The false gods made by\nmen are the broken cisterns. But the text embodies a general truth.\n\nI. The irksomeness of a godless life.\n\nThe contrast is between the springing fountain, there in the desert,\nwith the lush green herbage round about, where a man has only to stoop\nand drink, and the painful hewing of cisterns.\n\nThis emblem of the fountain beautifully suggests the great thought of\nGod's own loving will as the self-originated impulse by which He pours\nout all good. Apart from all our efforts, the precious gift is provided\nfor us. Our relation is only that of receivers.\n\nWe have the contrast with this in the laborious toils to which they\ncondemn themselves who seek for created sources of good. 'Hewn out\ncisterns'--think of a man who, with a fountain springing in his\ncourtyard, should leave it and go to dig in the arid desert, or to hew\nthe live rock in hopes to gain water. It was already springing and\nsparkling before him. The conduct of men, when they leave God and seek\nfor other delights, is like digging a canal alongside a navigable\nriver. They condemn themselves to a laborious and quite superfluous\ntask. The true way to get is to take.\n\nIllustrations in religion. Think of the toil and pains spent in\nidolatry and in corrupt forms of Christianity.\n\nIllustrations in common life. Your toils--aye, and even your\npleasures--how much of them is laboriously digging for the water which\nall the while is flowing at your side.\n\nII. The hopelessness of a godless life.\n\nThe contrast further is between living waters and broken cisterns. God\nis the fountain of living waters; in other words, in fellowship with\nGod there is full satisfaction for all the capacities and desires of\nthe soul; heart--conscience--will--understanding--hope and fear.\n\nThe contrast of the empty cisterns. What a deep thought that with all\ntheir work men only make 'cisterns,' _i.e._ they only provide\ncircumstances which _could hold_ delights, but cannot secure that water\nshould be in them! The men-made cisterns must be God-filled, if filled\nat all. The true joys from earthly things belong to him who has made\nGod his portion.\n\nFurther, they are 'broken cisterns,' and all have in them some flaw or\ncrack out of which the water runs. That is a vivid metaphor for the\nfragmentary satisfaction which all earthly good gives, leaving a deep\nyearning unstilled. And it is temporary as well as partial. 'He that\ndrinketh of this water shall thirst again'--nay, even as with those who\nindulge in intoxicating drinks, the appetite increases while the power\nof the draught to satisfy it diminishes. But the crack in the cistern\npoints further to the uncertain tenure of all earthly goods and the\ncertain leaving of them all.\n\nAll godless life is a grand mistake.\n\nIII. The crime of a godless life.\n\nIt is right to seek for happiness. It is sin to go away from God. You\nare thereby not merely flinging away your chances, but are\ntransgressing against your sacredest obligations. Our text is not only\na remonstrance on the grounds of prudence, showing God-neglecting men\nthat they are foolish, but it is an appeal to conscience, convincing\nthem that they are sinful. God loves us and cares for us. We are bound\nto Him by ties which do not depend on our own volition. And so there is\npunishment for the sin, and the evils experienced in a godless life are\npenal as well as natural.\n\nWe recall the New Testament modification of this metaphor, 'The water\nthat I shall give him shall be _in_ him a fountain of water.' Arabs in\ndesert round dried--up springs. Hagar. Shipwrecked sailors on a reef.\nChrist opens 'rivers in the wilderness and streams in the desert.'\n\n\n\n\nFORSAKING JEHOVAH\n\n'Know therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that\nthou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee,\nsaith the Lord God of hosts.'--JER. ii. 19.\n\n\nOf course the original reference is to national apostasy, which was\naggravated by the national covenant, and avenged by national disasters,\nwhich are interpreted and urged by the prophet as God's merciful\npleading with men. But the text is true in reference to individuals.\n\nI. The universal indictment.\n\nThis is not so much a charge of isolated overt acts, as of departure\nfrom God. That departure, itself a sin, is the fountain of all other\nsins. Every act which is morally wrong is religiously a departure from\nGod; it could not be done, unless heart and will had moved away from\ntheir allegiance to Him. So the solemn mystery of right and wrong\nbecomes yet more solemn, when our personal relation to the personal God\nis brought in.\n\nThen--consider what this forsaking is-at bottom aversion of will, or\nrather of the whole nature, from Him.\n\nHow strange and awful is that power which a creature possesses of\nclosing his heart against God, and setting up a quasi-independence!\n\nHow universal it is-appeal to each man's own consciousness.\n\nII. The special aggravation.\n\n'_Thy God_ '---the original reference is to Israel, whom God had taken\nfor His and to whom He had given Himself as theirs, by His choice from\nof old, by redemption from Egypt, by covenant, and by centuries of\nblessings. But the designation is true in regard to God and each of us.\nIt points to the personal relation which we each sustain to Him, and so\nis a pathetic appeal to affection and gratitude.\n\nIII. The bitter fruit.\n\n6 Evil' may express rather the moral character of forsaking God, while\n'bitter' expresses rather the consequences of it, which are sorrows.\n\nSo the prophet appeals to experience. As the Psalmist confidently\ninvites to 'taste and see that God is good,' so Jeremiah boldly bids\nthe apostates know and see that departing is bitter.\n\nIt is so, for it leaves the soul unsatisfied.\n\nIt leads to remorse.\n\nIt drags after it manifold bitter fruits. 'The wages of sin is death.'\n\nSin without consequent sorrow is an impossibility if there is a God.\n\nIV. The loving appeal.\n\nThe text is not denunciation, but tender, though indignant, pleading,\nin hope of winning back the wanderers. The prophet has just been\npointing to the sorrowful results which necessarily follow on the\nnation's apostasy, and tells Israel that its own wickedness shall\ncorrect it, and then, in the text, he beseeches them not to be blind to\nthe meaning of their miseries, but to let these teach them how sinful\nand how sorrowful their apostasy is. Men's sorrows are a mystery, but\nthat sinners should not have sorrows were a sadder mystery still. And\nGod pleads with us all not to lose the good of our experiences of the\nbitterness of sin by our levity or our blindness to their meaning. By\nHis providences, by His Spirit working on us, by the plain teachings\nand loving pleadings of His word, He is ever striving to open our eyes\nthat we may see Good and Evil, and recognise that all Good is bound up\nfor us with cleaving to God, and all Evil with departing from Him. When\nwe turn our backs on Him we are full front with the deformed figure of\nEvil; when we turn away from it, we are face to face with Him, and in\nHim, with all Good.\n\n\n\n\nA COLLOQUY BETWEEN A PENITENT AND GOD\n\n'A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of\nthe children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they\nhave forgotten the Lord their God. Return, ye backsliding children, and\nI will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art\nthe Lord our God.'---JER. iii. 21, 22.\n\n\nWe have here a brief dramatic dialogue. First is heard a voice from the\nbare heights, the sobs and cries of penitence, produced by the\nprophet's earnest remonstrance. The penitent soul is absorbed in the\nthought of its own evil. Its sin stands clear before it. Israel sees\nits sin in its two forms. 'They have perverted their way,' or have led\na wrong outward life of action, and the reason is that 'they have\nforgotten God,' or have been guilty of inward alienation and departure\nfrom Him. Here is the consciousness of sin in its essential character,\nand that produces godly sorrow. The distinction between mere remorse\nand repentance is here already, in the 'weeping and supplication.'\n\nI. So we have here a consciousness of sin in its true nature, as\nembracing both deeds and heart, as originating in departure from God,\nand manifested in perverted conduct.\n\nFurther, we have here sorrow. There may be consciousness of sin in its\ntrue nature without any sorrow of heart. It is fatal when a man looks\nupon his evil, gets a more or less clear sight of it, and is not sorry\nand penitent. It is conceivable that there should be perfect knowledge\nof sin and perfect insensibility in regard to it.\n\nA sinful man's true mood should be sorrow--not flinging the blame on\nothers, or on fate, or circumstances; not regarding his sin as\nmisfortune or as inevitable or as disease.\n\nConscience is meant to produce that consciousness and that sorrow: but\nconscience may be dulled or silenced. It cannot be anyhow induced to\ncall evil good, but it may be mistaken in what is evil. The gnomon is\ntrue, but a veil of cloud may be drawn over the sky.\n\nFurther, we have here supplication. These two former may both be\nexperienced, without this third. There may be consciousness of sin and\nsorrow which lead to no blessing. 'My bones waxed old through my\nroaring.' Sorrow after a godly sort may be hindered by false notions of\nGod's great love, or by false notions of what a man ought to do when he\nfinds he has gone wrong. It may be hindered by cleaving, subtle love of\nsin, or by self-trust. But where all these have been overcome there is\ntrue repentance.\n\nII. The loving divine answer.\n\nAnother ear than the prophet's has heard the plaint from the bare\nheights. Many a frenzied shriek had gone up from these shrines of\nidolatrous worship, and as with Baal's prophets, it had brought no\nanswer, nor had there been any that regarded. But this weeping reaches\nthe ear that is never closed. Contrast with verse 23: 'Truly in vain is\nthe help that is looked for from the hills, the shouting (of\nidol-worshippers) on the mountains.'\n\nThe instantaneousness of God's answer is very beautiful. It is like the\naction of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who saw his\nrepentant boy afar off and ran and kissed him.\n\nThere seems to be, in both the invitation to return and in the promise\nto hear the backslidings, a quotation from Hosea xiv. (1-4). We see\nhere how God meets the penitent with a love that recognises all his sin\nand yet is love. It is not rebuke or reproach that lies in that\ndesignation, 'backsliding children.' It is tenderest mercy that lets us\nsee that He knows exactly what we are, and yet promises His love and\nforgiveness. He loves us sinners with a love that beckons us back to\nHimself, with a love that promises healing. The truth which should be\ntaken into the mind and heart of the man conscious of sin is God's\nknowledge of it all already and yet His undiminished love, God's\nwelcome of him back, God's ready pardon. All this is true for the world\nin Christ, and is true for every individual soul.\n\nThe answer and the invitation here are immediate.\n\nThere is often a long period of painful struggle. It looks as if the\nanswer were not immediate. But that is because we do not listen to it.\n\nIII. The happy response of the returning soul.\n\nThat too is immediate. The soul believes God's promises. It recognises\nGod's claim. It returns to Him. We are attracted by His grace. The\nsunflower turns to the sun. The penitent is not driven only, but\ndrawn--God's own loving self-revelation in Christ is His true power.\n'I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.'\n\nThe consciousness of sin remains and is even deepened (subsequent\nverses), and yet is different. A light of hope is in it. The very sense\nof sin brings us to Him, to hide our faces on His heart like a child in\nits mother's lap.\n\nThis response of the soul may be instantaneous. If it is not immediate,\nit too probably will never be at all.\n\n\n\n\nA QUESTION FOR THE BEGINNING\n\n'What will ye do in the end?'--JER. v. 31.\n\n\nI find that I preached to the young from this text just thirty years\nsince--nearly a generation ago. How few of my then congregation are\nhere to-night! how changed they and I are! and how much nearer the\nclose we have drifted! How many of the young men and women of that\nevening have gone to meet the end, and how many of them have wrecked\ntheir lives because they would not face and answer this question!\n\nAh, dear young friends, if I could bring some of the living and some of\nthe dead, and set them to witness here instead of me, they would burn\nin on you, as my poor words never can do, the insanity of living\nwithout a satisfactory and sufficient reply to the question of my text,\n'What will ye do in the end?'\n\nIn its original application these words referred to a condition of\nreligious and moral corruption in which a whole nation was involved.\nThe men that should have spoken for God were 'prophesying lies.' The\npriests connived at profitable falsehoods because by these their rule\nwas confirmed. And the deluded populace, as is always the case,\npreferred smooth falsehoods to stern truths. So the prophet turns round\nindignantly, and asks what can be the end of such a welter and carnival\nof vice and immorality, and beseeches his contemporaries to mend their\nways by bethinking themselves of what their course led to.\n\nBut we may dismiss the immediate application of the words for the sake\nof looking at the general principle which underlies them. It is a very\nfamiliar and well-worn one. It is simply this, that a large part of the\nwise conduct of life depends on grave consideration of consequences. It\nis a sharp-pointed question, that pricks many a bubble, and brings much\nwisdom down into the category of folly. There would be less misery in\nthe world, and fewer fair young lives cast away upon grim rocks, if the\nquestion of my text were oftener asked and answered.\n\nI. I note, first, that here is a question which every wise man will ask\nhimself.\n\nI do not mean to say that the consideration of consequences is the\nhighest guide, nor that it is always a sufficient one; nor that it is,\nby any means, in every case, an easily applied one. For we can all\nconceive of circumstances in which it is the plainest duty to take a\ncertain course of action, knowing that, as far as this life is\nconcerned, it will bring down disaster and ruin. Do right! and face\n_any_ results therefrom. He who is always forecasting possible issues\nhas a very leaden rule of conduct, and will be so afraid of results\nthat he will not dare to move; and his creeping prudence will often\nturn out to be the truest imprudence.\n\nBut whilst all that is true, and many deductions must be made from the\nprinciple which I have laid down, that the consideration of\ncircumstances is a good guide in life, yet there are regions in which\nthe question comes home with direct and illuminating force. Let me just\nillustrate one or two of these.\n\nTake the lower application of the question to nearer ends in life. Now\nthis awful life that we live is so strangely concatenated of causes and\neffects, and each little deed drags after it such a train of eternal\nand ever-widening consequences, that a man must be an idiot if he never\nlooks an inch beyond his nose to see the bearing of his actions. I\nbelieve that, in the long-run, and in the general, condition is the\nresult of character and of conduct; and that, whatsoever deductions may\nbe necessary, yet, speaking generally, and for the most part, men are\nthe architects of their own condition, and that they make the houses\nthat they dwell in to fit the convolutions of the body that dwells\nwithin them. And, that being so, it being certain that 'whatsoever a\nman soweth, that shall he also reap,' and that no deed, be it ever so\nsmall, be it ever so evanescent, be it ever so entirely confined within\nour own inward nature, and never travelling out into visibility in what\nmen call actions--that every one of such produces an eternal, though it\nmay be an all but imperceptible effect, upon ourselves; oh, surely\nthere can be nothing more ridiculous than that a man should refrain\nfrom forecasting the issue of his conduct, and saying to himself? 'What\nam I to do in the end?'\n\nIf you would only do that in regard to hosts of things in your daily\nlife you _could_ not be the men and women that you are. If the lazy\nstudent would only bring clearly before his mind the examination-room,\nand the unanswerable paper, and the bitter mortification when the\npass-list comes out and his name is not there, he would not trifle and\ndawdle and seek all manner of diversions as he does, but he would bind\nhimself to his desk and his task. If the young man who begins to tamper\nwith purity, and in the midst of the temptations of a great city to\ngratify the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh, because he is\naway from the shelter of his father's house, and the rebuke of his\nmother's purity, could see, as the older of us have seen, men with\ntheir bones full of the iniquity of their youth, or drifted away from\nthe city to die, down in the country like a rat in a hole, do you think\nthe temptations of the streets and low places of amusement would not be\nstripped of their fascination? If the man beginning to drink were to\nsay to himself, 'What am I to do in the end?' when the craving becomes\nphysical, and volition is suspended, and anything is sacrificed in\norder to still the domineering devil within, do you think he would\nbegin? I do not believe that all sin comes from ignorance, but sure I\nam that if the sinful man saw what the end is he would, in nine cases\nout of ten, be held back. 'What will ye do in the end?' Use that\nquestion, dear friends, as the Ithuriel spear which will touch the\nsquatting tempter at your ear, and there will start up, in its own\nshape, the fiend.\n\nBut the main application that I would ask you to make of the words of\nmy text is in reference to the final end, the passing from life. Death,\nthe end, is likewise Death, the beginning. If it were an absolute end,\nas coarse infidelity pretends to believe it is, then, of course, such a\nquestion as my text would have no kind of relevance. 'What will ye do\nin the end?' 'Nothing! for I shall be nothing. I shall just go back to\nthe nonentity that I was. I do not need to trouble myself.' Ah, but\nJanus has two faces, one turned to the present and one to the future.\nHis temple has two gates, one which admits from this lower level, and\none, at the back, which launches us out on to the higher level. The end\nis a beginning, and the beginning is retribution. The end of sowing is\nthe beginning of harvest. The man finishes his work and commences to\nlive on his wages. The brewing is over, and the drinking of the brewst\ncommences.\n\nAnd so, brother, 'What will ye do in the end--which is not an end, but\nwhich is a beginning? 'Surely every wise man will take that question\ninto consideration. Surely, if it be true that we all of us are\nsilently drifting to that one little gateway through which we have to\npass one by one, and then find ourselves in a region all full of\nconsequences of the present, he has a good claim to be counted a prince\nof fools who 'jumps the life to come,' and, in all his calculations of\nconsequences, which he applies wisely and prudently to the trifles of\nthe present, forgets to ask himself, 'And, after all that is done, what\nshall I do then?' You remember the question in the old ballad:\n\n  \"'What good came of it at last?' ...\n  'Nay, that I cannot tell,' quoth he;\n  But 'twas a famous victory.'\"\n\nAy, but what came of it at the last? Oh brother, that one question,\npushed to its issues, condemns the wisdom of this world as folly, and\npulverises into nothingness millions of active lives and successful\nschemes. What then? What then? 'I have much goods laid up for many\nyears.' Well and good, what then? 'I will say to my soul, Take thine\nease, eat, drink, and be merry.' Yes, what then? 'This night thy soul\nshall be required of thee.' He never thought of that! And so his\nepitaph was 'Thou fool!'\n\nII. So, secondly, mark, here is a question which a great many of us\nnever think about.\n\nI do not mean, now, so much in reference to the nearer ends compassed\nin this life, though even in regard to them it is only too true; I mean\nrather in regard to that great and solemn issue to which we are all\ntending. But in regard of both, it seems to me one of the strangest\nthings in all the world that men should be content so commonly to be\nignorant of what they perfectly well know, and never to give attention\nto that of which, should they bethink themselves, they are absolutely\ncertain.\n\n'What will ye do in the end?' Why! half of us put away that question\nwith the thought in our minds, if not expressed, at least most\noperative, 'There is not going to be any end; and it is always going to\nbe just like what it is to-day.' Did you ever think that there is no\ngood ground for being sure that the sun will rise to-morrow; that it\nrose for the first time once; that there will come a day when it will\nrise for the last time? The uniformity of Nature may be a postulate,\nbut you cannot find any logical basis for it. Or, to come down from\nheights of that sort, have you ever laid to heart, brother, that the\nonly unchangeable thing in this world is change, and the only thing\ncertain, that there is no continuance of anything; and that, therefore,\nyou and I are bound, if we are wise, to look that fact in the face, and\nnot to allow ourselves to be befooled by the difficulty of imagining\nthat things will ever be different from what they are? Oh! many of\nus--I was going to say most of men, I do not know that it would be an\nexaggeration--are like the careless inhabitants of some of those sunny,\nvolcanic isles in the Eastern Ocean, where Nature is prodigally\nluxuriant and all things are fair, but every fifty years or so there\ncomes a roar and the island shakes, and half of it, perhaps, is\noverwhelmed, and the lava flows down and destroys gleaming houses and\nsmiling fields, and heaven is darkened with ashes, and then everything\ngoes on as before, and people live as if it was never going to happen\nagain, though every morning, when they go out, they see the cone\ntowering above their houses, and the thin column of smoke, pale against\nthe blue sky.\n\nIt is not altogether sinful or bad that we should live, to some extent,\nunder the illusion of a fixity and a perpetuity which has no real\nexistence, for it helps to concentrate effort and to consolidate habit,\nand to make life possible. But for men to live, as so many of us do,\nnever thinking of what is more certain than anything else about us,\nthat we shall slide out of this world, and find ourselves in another,\nis surely not the part of wisdom.\n\nAnother reason why so many of us shirk this question is the lamentable\nwant of the habit of living by principle and reflection. Most men never\nsee their life steadily, and see it whole. They live from hand to\nmouth, they are driven this way and that way; they adapt means to ends\nIn regard to business or the like, but in the formation of their\ncharacter, and in the moulding of their whole being, crowds of them\nlive a purely mechanical, instinctive, unreflective life. There is\nnothing more deplorable than the small extent to which reflection and\nvolition really shape the lives of the bulk of mankind. Most of us take\nour cue from our circumstances, letting them dominate us. They tell us\nthat in Nature there is such a thing as protective mimicry, as it is\ncalled-animals having the power--some of them to a much larger extent\nthan others--of changing their hues in order to match the gravel of the\nstream in which they swim or the leaves of the trees on which they\nfeed. That is like what a great many of us do. Put us into a place\nwhere certain forms of frivolity or vice are common, and we go in for\nthem. Take us away from these and we change our hue to something a\nlittle whiter. But all through we never know what it is to put forth a\ngood solid force of resistance and to say, 'No! I will not!' or, what\nis sometimes quite as hard to say, 'Yes! though,' as Luther said in his\nstrong way, 'there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on\nthe housetops, I will!' If people would live more by reflection and by\nthe power of a resisting will, this question of my text would come\noftener to them.\n\nAnd there is another cause that I must touch on for one moment, why so\nmany people neglect this question, and that is because they are\nuneasily conscious that they durst not face it. I know of no stranger\npower than that by which men can ignore unwelcome questions; and I know\nof nothing more tragical than the fact that they choose to exercise the\npower. What would you think of a man who never took stock because he\nknew that he was insolvent, and yet did not want to know it? And what\ndo you think of yourselves if, knowing that the thought of passing into\nthat solemn eternity is anything but a cheering one, and that you have\nto pass thither, you never turn your head to look at it? Ah, brother,\nif it be true that this question of my text is unpleasant to you to\nhear put, be sure that that is the strongest reason why you should put\nit.\n\nIII. Thirdly, here is a question especially directed to you young folk.\n\nIt is so because you are specially tempted to forget it. It may seem as\nif there were no people in the world that had less need to be appealed\nto, as I have been appealing to you, by motives drawn from the end of\nlife, than you who are only standing at its beginning. But it is not\nso. An old rabbi was once asked by his pupil when he should fulfil a\ncertain precept of the law, and the answer was, 'The day before you\ndie.' 'But,' said the disciple, 'I may die to-morrow.' 'Then,' said the\nmaster, 'do it to-day.' And so I say to you, do not make sure that the\nbeginning at which you stand is separated by a long tract of years from\nthe end to which you go. It may be, but it may not be. I know that\narguments pleading with men to be Christians, and drawn from the\nconsideration of a future life, are not fashionable nowadays, but I am\npersuaded that that preaching of the Gospel is seriously defective, and\nwill be lamentably ineffective, which ignores this altogether. And,\ntherefore, dear friends, I say to you that, although in all human\nprobability a stretch of years may lie between you and the end of life,\nthe question of my text is one specially adapted to you.\n\nAnd it is so because, with your buoyancy, with your necessarily limited\nexperience, with the small accumulation of results that you have\nalready in your possession, and with the tendencies of your age to live\nrather by impulse than by reflection, you are specially tempted to\nforget the solemn significance of this interrogation. And it is a\nquestion especially for you, because you have special advantages in the\nmatter of putting it. We older people are all fixed and fossils, as you\nare very fond of telling us. The iron has cooled and gone into rigid\nshapes with us. It is all fluent with you. You may become pretty nearly\nwhat you like. I do not mean in regard to circumstances: other\nconsiderations come in to determine these; but circumstances are\nsecond, character is first; and I do say, in regard to character, you\nyoung folk have all but infinite possibilities before you; and, I\nrepeat, may become almost anything that you set yourselves to be. You\nhave no long, weary trail of failures behind you, depressing and\nseeming to bring an entail of like failure with them for the future.\nYou have not yet acquired habits--those awful things that may be our\nworst foes or our best friends--you have not yet acquired habits that\nalmost smother the power of reform and change. You have, perhaps, years\nbefore you in which you may practise the lessons of wisdom and\nself-restraint which this question fairly fronted would bring. And so I\nlay it on your hearts, dear young friends. I have little hope of the\nold people. I do not despair of any, God forbid! but the fact remains\nthat the most of the men who have done anything for God and the world\nworth doing have been under the influence of Christian principle in\ntheir early days. And from fifteen to one or two and twenty is the\nperiod in which you get the set which, in all likelihood, you will\nretain through eternity. So, 'What will ye do in the end?' Answer the\nquestion whilst yet it is possible to answer it, with a stretch of\nyears before you in which you may work out the conclusions to which the\nanswer brings.\n\nIV. And that leads me to say, last of all, and but a word, that here is\na question which Jesus Christ alone enables a man to answer with calm\nconfidence.\n\nAs I have said, the end is a beginning; the passage from life is the\nentrance on a progressive and eternal state of retribution. And Jesus\nChrist tells us two other things. He tells us that that state has two\nparts; that in one there is union with Him, life, blessedness for ever;\nand that in the other there is darkness, separation from Him, death,\nand misery. These are the facts, as revealed by the incarnate Word of\nGod, on which answers to this question must be shaped.\n\n'What will ye do in the end?' If I am trusting to Him; if I have\nbrought my poor, weak nature and sinful soul to Him, and cast them upon\nHis merciful sacrifice and mighty intercession and life-giving Spirit,\nthen I can say: 'As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I\nshall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.' Ay, and what about\nthose who do not take Him for their Prince and their Saviour? 'What\nwill _ye_ do in the end?' When life's illusions are over, when all its\nbubbles are burst, when conscience awakes, and when you stand to give\nan account of yourself to God, 'What will ye do in the end' which is a\nbeginning? 'Can thy heart endure and thy hand be strong in the day that\nI shall deal with thee?' Oh brother, do not turn away from that Christ\nwho is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending! If you\nwill cleave to Him, then you may let the years and weeks slip away\nwithout regret; and whether the close be far off or near, death will be\nrobbed of all its terrors, and the future so filled with blessedness,\nthat of you the wise man's paradox will be true: 'Better is the end of\na thing than the beginning, and the day of death than the day of birth.'\n\n\n\n\nPOSSESSING AND POSSESSED\n\n'The portion of Jacob is not like them--for He is the former of all\nthings: and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance. The Lord of Hosts\nis His name.'--JER. x. 16, R.V.\n\n\nHere we have set forth a reciprocal possession. We possess God, He\npossesses us. We are His inheritance, He is our portion. I am His; He\nis mine.\n\nThis mutual ownership is the very living centre of all religion.\nWithout it there is no relation of any depth between God and us. How\nmuch profounder such a conception is than the shallow notions about\nreligion which so many men have! It is not a round of observance; not a\npainful effort at obedience, not a dim reverence for some vague\nsupernatural, not a far-off bowing before Omnipotence, not the mere\nacceptance of a creed, but a life in which God and the soul blend in\nthe intimacies of mutual possession.\n\nI. The mutual possession.\n\nGod is our portion.\n\nThat thought presupposes the possibility of our possessing God. It\npresupposes the fact that He has given Himself to us, and the answering\nfact that we have taken Him for ours.\n\nWe are God's inheritance.\n\nWe give ourselves to Him--we do so where we apprehend that He has given\nHimself to us; it is His giving love that moves men to yield themselves\nto God. He takes us for His. What a wonderful thought that He delights\nin possessing us! The all-sufficiency of our portion is guaranteed\nbecause He is 'the former of all things.' The safety of His inheritance\nis secured because 'the Lord of Hosts is His name.' And that name\naccentuates the wonder that He to whom all the ordered armies of the\nuniverse submit and belong should still take us for His inheritance.\n\nMark the contrast of this true possession with the false and merely\nexternal possessions of the world. Those outward things which a man has\nstand in no real relation with him. They fade and fleet away, or have\nto be left, and, even while they last, are not his in any real sense.\nOnly what has indissolubly entered into, and become one with, our very\nselves is truly ours.\n\nOur possession of God suggests a view of our blessedness and our\nobligation. It secures blessedness--for we have in Him an\nall-sufficient object and a treasure for all our nature. It imposes the\nobligation to let our whole nature feed upon, and be filled by, Him, to\nsee that the temple where He dwells is clean, and not to fling away our\ntreasure.\n\nHis possession of us suggests a corresponding view of our blessedness\nand our obligation.\n\nWe are His--as slaves are their owners' property. So we are bound to\nsubmission of will. To be owned by God is an honour. The slave's goods\nand chattels belong to the master.\n\nHis possession of us binds us to consecrate ourselves, and so to\nglorify Him in 'body and spirit which are His.'\n\nIt ensures our safety. How constantly this calming thought is dwelt on\nin Scripture--that they who belong to Him need fear nothing. 'Fear not,\nI have called thee by thy name, them art Mine.' God does not hold His\npossessions with so slack a grasp as to lose them or to suffer them to\nbe wrenched away. A psalmist rose to the hope of immortality by\nmeditating on what was involved in his being God's possession here and\nnow. He was sure that even Death's bony fingers could not keep their\nhold on him, and so he sang, 'Thou wilt not suffer Thine Holy One to\nsee corruption.' The seal on the foundation of God which guarantees its\nstanding sure is, 'The Lord knoweth them that are His.' 'They shall be\nMine in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure,' is His own\nassurance, on which resting, a trembling soul may 'have boldness in the\nday of judgment.'\n\nII. The human response by which God becomes ours and we His.\n\nThat response is first the act of faith, which is an act of both reason\nand will, and then the act of love and self-surrender which follows\nfaith, and then the continuous acts of communion and consecration.\n\nAll must commence with recognition of His free gift of Himself to us in\nChrist. We come empty-handed. That gift recognised and accepted moves\nus to give ourselves to Him. When we give ourselves to Him we find that\nwe possess Him.\n\nFurther, there must be continuous communion. This mutual possession\ndepends on our occupation of mind and heart with Him. We possess Him\nand are possessed by Him, when our wills are kept in harmony with, and\nsubmission to, Him, when our thoughts are occupied with Him and His\ntruth, when our affections rest in Him, when our desires go out to Him,\nwhen our hopes are centred in Him, when our practical life is devoted\nto Him.\n\nIII. The blessedness of this mutual possession.\n\nTo possess God is to have an all-sufficient object for all our nature.\nHe who has God for his very own has the fountain of life in himself,\nhas the spring of living water, as it were, in his own courtyard, and\nneeds not to go elsewhere to draw. He need fear no loss, for his wealth\nis so engrained in the very substance of his being that nothing can rob\nhim of it but himself, and that whilst he lasts it will last with,\nbecause in, him.\n\nHow marvellous that into the narrow room of one poor soul He should\ncome whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain! Solomon said, 'How much\nless this house which I have built,'--well may we say the same of our\nlittle hearts. But He can compress Himself into that small compass and\nexpand His abode by dwelling in it.\n\nNor is the blessedness of being possessed by Him less than the\nblessedness of possessing Him. For so long as we own ourselves we are\nburdens to ourselves, and we only own ourselves truly when we give\nourselves away utterly. Earthly love, with its blessed mysteries of\nmutual possession, teaches us that. But all its depth and joy are as\nnothing when set beside the liberty, the glad peace, the assured\npossession of our enriched selves, which are ours when we give\nourselves wholly to God, and so for the first time are truly lords of\nourselves, and find ourselves by losing ourselves in Him.\n\nNor need we fear to say that God, too, delights in that mutual\npossession, for the very essence of love is the desire to impart\nitself, and He is love supreme and perfect. Therefore is He glad when\nwe let Him give Himself to us, and moved by 'the mercies of God, yield\nourselves to Him a sacrifice of a sweet smell, acceptable to God.'\n\n\n\n\nCALMS AND CRISES\n\n'If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then\nhow canst thou contend with horses? and though in a land of peace thou\nart secure, yet how wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan?'--JER. xii. 5,\nR.V.\n\n\nThe prophet has been complaining of his persecutors. The divine answer\nis here, reproving his impatience, and giving him to understand that\nharder trials are in store for him.\n\nBoth clauses mean substantially the same thing, and are of a parabolic\nnature. The one adduces the metaphor of a race: 'Footmen have beaten\nyou, have they? Then how will you run with cavalry?' The other is more\nclear in the Revised Version rendering: 'Though in a land of peace you\nare secure, what will you do in Jordan when it swells?' The 'swelling\nof Jordan' is a figure for extreme danger.\n\nThe questions may be taken as referring to our own lives. Note how the\none refers more to strength for duties, the other to peace and safety\nin dangers. They both recognise that life has great alternations as to\nthe magnitude of its tasks and trials, and they call on experience to\nanswer the question whether we are ready for times of stress and peril.\n\nI. Think of what may come to us.\n\nWe all have had the experience of how in our lives there are long\nstretches of uneventful days, and then, generally without warning, some\ncrisis is sprung on us, which demands quite a different order of\nqualities to cope with it. Our typhoons generally come without any\nwarning from a falling barometer.\n\nWe may at any moment be confronted with some hard duty which will task\nour utmost energy.\n\nWe may at any moment be plunged in some great calamity to which the\nquiet course of our lives for years will be as the still flow of the\nriver between smiling lawns is to the dash and fierce currents of the\nrapids in a grim canyon.\n\nThe tasks that may come on us and the tasks that must come, the dangers\nthat may beset us and the dangers that must envelop us, the\npossibilities that lie hidden in the future, and the certainties that\nwe know to be shrouded there, should surely sometimes occupy a wise\nman's thoughts. It is but living in a fool's paradise to soothe\nourselves with the assurance which a moment's thought will shatter:\n'To-morrow shall be as this day.' We shall not always have the easy\ncompetition with footmen; there will some time come a call to strain\nour muscles to keep up with the gallop of cavalry. We shall have to\nstruggle to keep our feet in the swelling of Jordan, and must not\nexpect to have a continual leisurely life in 'a land of peace.'\n\nII. Think of what experience tells us as to our power to meet these\ncrises.\n\nThe footmen have wearied you. The small tasks have been more than your\npatience and strength could manage. No doubt great exigencies often\ncall forth great powers that were dormant in the humdrum of ordinary\nlife. But the man who knows himself best will be the most ready to\nshrink with distrust from the dread possibilities of duty.\n\nIf we think of the 'footmen' with whom we have contended as\nrepresenting the smaller faults that we have tried to overcome, does\nour success in conquering some small bad habit, some 'little sin,'\nencourage the hope that we could keep our footing when some great\ntemptation of a lifetime came down on us with a rush like the charge of\na battalion of horsemen? Or, if we cast our eyes forward to the\ncalamities that lie still 'on the knees of the gods' for us, do we feel\nready to meet the hours of desolating disaster, the 'hour of death and\nthe day of judgment'? Even in a land of peace we have all had alarms,\nperturbations, and defeats enough, and our security has been at the\nmercy of marauders so often that if we are wise, and take due heed of\nwhat experience has to say to us of our reserve of force, we shall not\nbe hopeful of keeping our footing in the whirling currents of a river\nin full flood.\n\nIII. Think of the power that will fit us for all crises.\n\nWith the power of Jesus in our spirits we shall never have to attempt a\nduty for which we are not strengthened, nor to front a danger from and\nin which He will not defend us. With His life in us we shall be ready\nfor the long hours of uneventful, unexciting duties, and for the short\nspurts that make exacting calls on us. We 'shall run and not be weary;\nwe shall walk and not faint.' If we live in Jesus we shall always be in\n'a land of peace,' and no 'plague shall come nigh our dwelling.' Even\nwhen the soles of our feet rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of\nJordan shall be cut off, and we shall pass over on dry ground into the\nland of peace, where they that would swallow us up shall be far away\nfor ever.\n\n\n\n\nAN IMPOSSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE\n\n'Can the Ethiopian change his skin?'--JER. xiii. 23. 'If any man be in\nChrist, he is a new creature.'--2 COR. v. 17. 'Behold, I make all\nthings new.'--REV. xxi. 5.\n\n\nPut these three texts together. The first is a despairing question to\nwhich experience gives only too sad and decisive a negative answer. It\nis the answer of many people who tell us that character must be\neternal, and of many a baffled man who says, 'It is of no use--I have\ntried and can do nothing.' The second text is the grand Christian\nanswer, full of confidence. It was spoken by one who had no superficial\nestimate of the evil, but who had known in himself the power of Christ\nto revolutionise a life, and make a man love all he had hated, and hate\nall he had loved, and fling away all he had treasured. The last text\npredicts the completion of the renovating process lying far ahead, but\nas certain as sunrise.\n\nI. The unchangeableness of character, especially of faults.\n\nWe note the picturesque rhetorical question here. They were\noccasionally accustomed to see the dark-skinned, Ethiopian, whether we\nsuppose that these were true negroes from Southern Egypt or dark Arabs,\nand now and then leopards came up from the thickets on the Jordan, or\nfrom the hills of the southern wilderness about the Dead Sea. The black\nhue of the man, the dark spots that starred the skin of the fierce\nbeast, are fitting emblems of the evil that dyes and speckles the soul.\nWhether it wraps the whole character in black, or whether it only spots\nit here and there with tawny yellow, it is ineradicable; and a man can\nno more change his character once formed than a negro can cast his\nskin, or a leopard whiten out the spots on his hide.\n\nNow we do not need to assert that a man has no power of\nself-improvement or reformation. The exhortations of the prophet to\nrepentance and to cleansing imply that he has. If he has not, then it\nis no blame to him that he does not mend. Experience shows that we have\na very considerable power of such a kind. It is a pity that some\nChristian teachers speak in exaggerated terms about the impossibility\nof such self-improvement.\n\nBut it is very difficult.\n\nNote the great antagonist as set forth here--Habit, that solemn and\nmystical power. We do not know all the ways in which it operates, but\none chief way is through physical cravings set up. It is strange how\nmuch easier a second time is than a first, especially in regard to evil\nacts. The hedge once broken down, it is very easy to get through it\nagain. If one drop of water has percolated through the dyke, there will\nbe a roaring torrent soon. There is all the difference between once and\nnever; there is small difference between once and twice. By habit we\ncome to do things mechanically and without effort, and we all like\nthat. One solitary footfall across the snow soon becomes a beaten way.\nAs in the banyan-tree, each branch becomes a root. All life is held\ntogether by cords of custom which enable us to reserve conscious effort\nand intelligence for greater moments. Habit tends to weigh upon us with\na pressure 'heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.' But also it is\nthe ally of good.\n\nThe change to good is further made difficult because liking too often\ngoes with evil, and good is only won by effort. It is a proof of man's\ncorruption that if left alone, evil in some form or other springs\nspontaneously, and that the opposite good is hard to win. Uncultivated\nsoil bears thistles and weeds. Anything can roll downhill. It is always\nthe least trouble to go on as we have been going.\n\nFurther, the change is made difficult because custom blinds judgment\nand conscience. People accustomed to a vitiated atmosphere are not\naware of its foulness.\n\nHow long it takes a nation, for instance, to awake to consciousness of\nsome national crime, even when the nation is 'Christian'! And how men\nget perfectly sophisticated as to their own sins, and have all manner\nof euphemisms for them!\n\nFurther, how hard it is to put energy into a will that has been\nenfeebled by long compliance. Like prisoners brought out of the\nBastille.\n\nSo if we put all these reasons together, no wonder that such\nreformation is rare.\n\nI do not dwell on the point that it must necessarily be confined within\nvery narrow limits. I appeal to experience. You have tried to cure some\ntrivial habit. You know what a task that has been--how often you\nthought that you had conquered, and then found that all had to be done\nover again. How much more is this the case in this greater work! Often\nthe efforts to break off evil habits have the same effect as the\nstruggles of cattle mired in a bog, who sink the deeper for plunging.\nThe sad cry of many a foiled wrestler with his own evil is, 'O wretched\nman that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' We do\nnot wish to exaggerate, but simply to put it that experience shows that\nfor men in general, custom and inclination and indolence and the lack\nof adequate motive weigh so heavily that a thorough abandonment of\nevil, much more a hearty practice of good, are not to be looked for\nwhen once a character has been formed. So you young people, take care.\nAnd all of us listen to---\n\nII. The great hope for individual renewal.\n\nThe second text sets forth a possibility of entire individual renewal,\nand does so by a strong metaphor.\n\n'If any man be in Christ he is a new creature,' or as the words might\nbe rendered, 'there is a new creation,' and not only is he renewed, but\nall things are become new. He is a new Adam in a new world.\n\nNow (a) let us beware of exaggeration about this matter. There are\noften things said about the effects of conversion which are very far in\nadvance of reality, and give a handle to caricature. The great law of\ncontinuity runs on through the change of conversion. Take a man who has\nbeen the slave of some sin. The evil will not cease to tempt, nor will\nthe effects of the past on character be annihilated. 'Whatsoever a man\nsoweth, that shall he also reap,' remains true. In many ways there will\nbe permanent consequences. There will remain the scars of old wounds;\nold sores will be ready to burst forth afresh. The great outlines of\ncharacter do remain.\n\n(b) What is the condition of renewal?\n\n'If any man be in Christ'--how distinctly that implies something more\nthan human in Paul's conception of Christ. It implies personal union\nwith Him, so that He is the very element or atmosphere in which we\nlive. And that union is brought about by faith in Him.\n\n(c) How does such a state of union with Christ make a man over again?\n\nIt gives a new aim and centre for our lives. Then we live not unto\nourselves; then everything is different and looks so, for the centre is\nshifted. That union introduces a constant reference to Him and\ncontemplation of His death for us, it leads to self-abnegation.\n\nIt puts all life under the influence of a new love. 'The love of Christ\nconstraineth.' As is a man's love, so is his life. The mightiest\ndevolution is to excite a new love, by which old loves and tastes are\nexpelled. 'A new affection' has 'expulsive power,' as the new sap\nrising in the springtime pushes off the lingering withered leaves. So\nunion with Him meets the difficulty arising from inclination still\nhankering after evil. It lifts life into a higher level where the\nnoxious creatures that were proper to the swamps cannot live. The new\nlove gives a new and mighty motive for obedience.\n\nThat union breaks the terrible chain that binds us to the past. 'All\ndied.' The past is broken as much as if we were dead. It is broken by\nthe great act of forgiveness. Sin holds men by making them feel as if\nwhat has been must be--an awful entail of evil. In Christ we die to\nformer self.\n\nThat union brings a new divine power to work in us. 'I live, yet not I,\nbut Christ liveth in me.'\n\nIt sets us in a new world which yet is the old. All things are changed\nif we are changed. They are the same old things, but seen in a new\nlight, used for new purposes, disclosing new relations and powers.\nEarth becomes a school and discipline for heaven. The world is\ndifferent to a blind man when cured, or to a deaf one,--there are new\nsights for the one, new sounds for the other.\n\nAll this is true in the measure in which we live in union with Christ.\n\nSo no man need despair, nor think, 'I cannot mend now.' You may have\ntried and been defeated a thousand times. But still victory is\npossible, not without effort and sore conflict, but still possible.\nThere is hope for all, and hope for ME.\n\nIII. The completion in a perfectly renewed creation.\n\nThe renovation here is only partial. Its very incompleteness is\nprophetic. If there be this new life in us, it obviously has not\nreached its fulness here, and it is obviously not manifested here for\nall that even here it is.\n\nIt is like some exotic that does not show its true beauty in our\ngreenhouses. The life of a Christian on earth is a prophecy by both its\ngreatness and its smallness, by both its glory and its shame, by both\nits brightness and its spots. It cannot be that there is always to be\nthis disproportion between aspiration and performance, between willing\nand doing. Here the most perfect career is like a half-lighted street,\nwith long gaps between the lamps.\n\nThe surroundings here are uncongenial to the new creatures. 'Foxes have\nholes'--all creatures are fitted for their environment; only man, and\neminently renewed man, wanders as a pilgrim, not in his home. The\npresent frame of things is for discipline. The schooling over, we burn\nthe rod. So we look for an external order in full correspondence with\nthe new nature.\n\nAnd Christ throned 'makes all things new.' How far the old is renewed\nwe cannot tell, and we need not ask. Enough that there shall be a\nuniverse in perfect harmony with the completely renewed nature, that we\nshall find a home where all things will serve and help and gladden and\nfurther us, where the outward will no more distract and clog the spirit.\n\nBrethren, let that mighty love constrain you; and look to Christ to\nrenew you. Whatever your old self may have been, you may bury it deep\nin His grave, and rise with Him to newness of life. Then you may walk\nin this old world, new creatures in Christ Jesus, looking for the\nblessed hope of entire renewal into the perfect likeness of Him, the\nperfect man, in a perfect world, where all old sorrows and sins have\npassed away and He has made all things new. Through eternity, new joys,\nnew knowledge, new progress, new likeness, new service will be\nours--and not one leaf shall ever wither in the amaranthine crown, nor\n'the cup of blessing' ever become empty or flat and stale. Eternity\nwill be but a continual renewal and a progressive increase of ever\nfresh and ever familiar treasures. The new and the old will be one.\n\nBegin with trusting to Him to help you to change a deeper blackness\nthan that of the Ethiopian's skin, and to erase firier spots than stain\nthe tawny leopard's hide, and He will make you a new man, and set you\nin His own time in a 'new heaven and earth, where dwelleth\nrighteousness.'\n\n\n\n\nTRIUMPHANT PRAYER\n\n'O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do Thou it for Thy\nname's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against\nThee. 8. O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble,\nwhy shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man\nthat turneth aside to tarry for a night? 9. Why shouldest Thou be as a\nman astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet Thou, O Lord, art\nin the midst of us, and we are called by Thy name; leave us not.'--JER.\nxiv. 7-9.\n\n\nMy purpose now carries me very far away from the immediate occasion of\nthese words; yet I cannot refrain from a passing reference to the\nwonderful pathos and picturesque power with which the long-forgotten\ncalamity that evoked them is portrayed in the context. A terrible\ndrought has fallen upon the land, and the prophet's picture of it is,\nif one might say so, like some of Dante's in its realism, in its\ntenderness, and in its terror. In the presence of a common calamity all\ndistinctions of class have vanished, and the nobles send their little\nones to the well, and they come back with empty vessels and drooping\nheads instead of with the gladness that used to be heard in the place\nof drawing of water. The ploughmen are standing among the cracked\nfurrows, gazing with despair on the brown chapped earth, and in the\nfield the very dumb creatures are sharing in the common sorrow, and the\nimperious law of self-preservation overpowers and crushes the maternal\ninstincts. 'Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it,\nbecause there was no grass.' And on every little hilltop where cooler\nair might be found, the once untamable wild asses are standing with\nopen nostrils panting for the breeze, their filmy eyes failing them,\ngazing for the rain that will not come. And then, from contemplating\nall that sorrow, the prophet turns to God with a wondrous burst of\nstrangely blended confidence and abasement, penitence and trust, and\nfuses together the acknowledgment of sin and reliance upon the\nestablished and perpetual relation between Israel and God, pleading\nwith Him about His judgments, presenting before Him the mysterious\ncontradiction that such a calamity should fall on those with whom God\ndwelt, and casting himself lowly before the throne, and pleading the\nancient name: 'Do Thou it! Leave us not.'\n\nIt is to the wonderful fulness and richness of this prayer that I ask\nyour attention in these few remarks. Expositors have differed as to\nwhether the drought that forms its basis was a literal one, or is the\nprophet's way of putting the sore calamities that had fallen on Israel.\nBe that as it may, I need not remind you how often in Scripture that\nmetaphor of the 'rain that cometh down from heaven and watereth the\nearth' is the symbol for God's divine gift of His Spirit, and how, on\nthe other hand, the picture of the 'dry and thirsty land where no water\nis' is the appropriate figure for the condition of the soul or of the\nChurch void of the divine presence. And I think I shall not mistake if\nI say that though we have much to make us thankful, yet you and I, dear\nbrethren, and all our Churches and congregations, are suffering under\nthis drought, and the merciful 'rain, wherewith Thou dost confirm Thine\ninheritance when it is weary' has not yet come as we would have it. May\nwe find in these words some gospel for the day that may help us to come\nto the temper of mind into which there shall descend the showers to\n'make soft the earth and bless the springing thereof!'\n\nGlancing over these clauses, then, and trying to put them into\nsomething like order for our purpose, there are four things that I\nwould have you note. The first is the mysterious contradiction between\nthe ideal Israel and the actual state of things; the second is the\nearnest inquiry as to the cause; the third the penitent confession of\nour sinfulness; and the last, the triumphant confidence of believing\nprayer.\n\nI. First of all, then, look at the illustration given to us by these\nwords of the mysterious contradiction between the ideal of Israel and\nthe actual condition of things.\n\nRecur, for the sake of illustration, to the historical event upon which\nour text is based. The old prophet had said, 'The Lord thy God giveth\nthee a good land, a land full of brooks and water, rivers and depths, a\nland wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not\nlack anything in it'; and the startling fact is, that these men saw\naround them a land full of misery for want of that very gift which had\nbeen promised. The ancient charter of Israel's existence was that God\nshould dwell in the midst of them, and what was it that they beheld?\n'As things are,' says the prophet, 'it looks as if that perennial\npresence which Thou hast promised had been changed into visits, short\nand far between. Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and\nas a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?'\n\nNow, I suppose there are two ideas intended to be conveyed--the brief,\ntransitory, interrupted visits, with long, dreary stretches of absence\nbetween them; and the indifference of the visitant, as a man who\npitches his tent in some little village to-night cares very little\nabout the people that he never saw before this afternoon's march, and\nwill never see after to-morrow morning. And not only is it so, but,\ninstead of the perpetual energy of this divine aid that had been\npromised to Israel, as things are now, it looks as if He was a mighty\nman astonied, a hero that cannot save--some warrior stricken by panic\nfear into a paralysis of all his strength--a Samson with his locks\nshorn. The ideal had been so great--perpetual gifts, perpetual\npresence, perpetual energy; the reality is chapped ground and parched\nplaces, occasional visitations, like vanishing gleams of sunshine in a\nwinter's day, and a paralysis, as it would appear, of all the ancient\nmight.\n\nDear Christian friends, am I exaggerating, or dealing only with one set\nof phenomena, and forgetting the counterpoising ones on the other side,\nwhen I say, Change the name, and the story is told about us? God be\nthanked we have much that shows us that He has not left us, but yet,\nwhen we think of what we are, and of what God has promised that we\nshould be, surely we must confess that there is the most sad, and, but\nfor one reason, the most mysterious contradiction between the divine\nideal and the actual facts of the case. Need we go further to learn\nwhat God meant His Church to be, than the last words that Jesus Christ\nsaid to us--'Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world'?\nNeed we go further than those metaphors which come from His lips as\nprecepts, and, like all His precepts, are a commandment upon the\nsurface, but a promise in the sweet kernel--'Ye are the salt of the\nearth,' 'ye are the light of the world'--or than the prophet's vision\nof an Israel which 'shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from\nthe Lord'? Is that the description of what you and I are? Have not we\nto say, 'We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have\nthe inhabitants of the world fallen'? 'Salt of the earth,' and we can\nhardly keep our own souls from going putrid with the corruption that is\nround about us. 'Light of the world,' and our poor candles burnt low\ndown into the socket, and sending up rather stench and smoke than\nanything like a clear flame. The words sound like irony rather than\npromises, like the very opposite of what we are rather than the ideals\ntowards which our lives strive. In our lips they are presumption, and\nin the lips of the world, as we only too well know, they are a not\nundeserved scoff, to be said with curved lip, 'The salt of the earth,'\nand 'the light of the world'!\n\nAnd look at what we are doing: scarcely holding our own numerically.\nHere and there a man comes and declares what God has done for his soul.\nBut what is the Church, what are the Christian men of England, with all\ntheir multifarious activities, performing? Are we leavening the\nnational mind? Are we breathing a higher godliness into trade, a more\nwholesome, simple style of living into society? And as for expansion,\nwhy, the Church at home does not keep up with the actual increase of\nthe population; and we are conquering heathendom as we might hope to\ndrain the ocean by taking out thimblefuls at a time. Is that what the\nLord meant us to do? Our Father with us; yes, but oh! as a 'mighty man,\nastonied,' as He might well be, 'that cannot save' for the old, old\nreason, 'He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.'\nNo wonder that on the other side men are saying--and it is not such a\nvery presumptuous thing to say, if you have regard only to the facts\nthat appear on the surface--men are saying, 'wait a little while, and\nall these organisations will come to nothing; these Christian churches,\nas they are called,' and everything that you and I regard as\ndistinctive of Christianity, 'will be gone and be forgotten.' We\nbelieve ourselves to be in possession of an eternal light; the world\nlooks at us and sees that it is like a flickering flame in a dying\nlamp. Dear brethren, if I think of the lowness of our own religious\ncharacters, the small extent to which we influence the society in which\nwe live, of the slow rate at which the Gospel progresses in our land, I\ncan only ask the question, and pray you to lay it to heart, which the\nold prophet asked long ago: 'O Thou that art named the house of Jacob,\nis the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings? Do not my\nwords do good to them that walk uprightly?' 'Why shouldest Thou be as a\nmighty man that cannot save?'\n\nII. Let me ask you to look at the second thought that I think may\nfairly be gathered from these words, namely, that this consciousness of\nour low and evil condition ought to lead to very earnest and serious\ninquiry as to its cause.\n\nThe prophet having acknowledged transgression yet asks a question, 'Why\nshouldest Thou leave us? Why have all these things come upon us?' And\nhe asks it not as ignorant of the answer, but in order that the answer\nmay be deepened in the consciences and perceptions of those that listen\nto him, and that they together may take the answer to the Throne of\nGod. There can be no doubt in a Christian mind as to the reason, and\nyet there is an absolute necessity that the familiar truth as to the\nreason should be driven home to our own consciences, and made part of\nour own spiritual experience, by our own honest reiteration of it and\nreflection upon it.\n\n'Why shouldest Thou leave us?' Now, I need not spend time by taking\ninto consideration answers that other people might give. I suppose that\nnone of us will say that the reason is in any variableness of that\nunalterable, uniform, ever present, ever full, divine gift of God's\nSpirit to His children. We do not believe in any arbitrary sovereignty\nthat withdraws that gift; we do not believe that that gift rises and\nfalls in its fulness and its abundance. We believe that the great\nreservoir is always full, and that, if ever our small tanks be empty,\nit is because there is something choking the pipe, not because there is\nanything less in the centre storehouse. We believe, if I may take\nanother illustration, that it is with the seasons and the rotation of\nday and night in the religious experience as it is with them in the\nnatural world. Summer and winter come and go, not because of any\nvariableness in the centre orb, but because of the variation in the\ninclination of the circling satellite; day and night come not by reason\nof any 'shadow cast by turning' from the sun that revolves not at\nall--but by reason of the side that is turned to his life-giving and\nquickening beams. We believe that all the clouds and mist that come\nbetween us and God are like the clouds and mist of the sky, not dropped\nupon us from the blue empyrean above, but sucked up from the undrained\nswamps and poisonous fens of the lower earth. That is to say, if there\nbe any change in the fulness of our possession of the divine Spirit,\nthe fault lies wholly within the region of the mutable and of the\nhuman, and not at all in the region of the perennial and divine.\n\nNor do we believe, I suppose, any of us, that we are to look for any\npart of the reason in failure of the adaptation of God's work and God's\nordinances to the great work which they have to do. Other people may\ntell us, if they like--it will not shake our confidence--that the fire\nthat was kindled at Pentecost has all died down to grey ashes, and that\nit is of no use trying to cower over the burnt-out embers any more in\norder to get heat out of them. They may, and do, tell us that the\n'rushing, mighty wind that filled the house' obeys the law of cycles as\nthe wind of the natural universe, and will calm into stillness after a\nwhile, and then set in and blow from the opposite quarter. They may\ntell us, and they do tell us, that the 'river of the water of life that\nflows from the Throne of God and of the Lamb' is lost in the sands of\ntime, like the streams in the great Mongolian plateau. We do not\nbelieve that. Everything stands exactly as it always has been in regard\nto the perennial possession of Christ's Spirit as the strength and\nresource of His Church; and the fault, dear friends, lies only here: 'O\nLord, our iniquities testify against us; our backslidings are many; we\nhave sinned against Thee.'\n\nOh, let me urge upon you, and upon myself, that the first thing which\nwe have to do is prayerfully and patiently and honestly to search after\nthis cause, and not look to superficial trifles such as possible\nvariations and improvements in order and machinery, and polity or\ncreed, or anything else, as the means of changing and bettering the\ncondition of things, but to recognise this as being the one sole cause\nthat hinders--the slackness of our own hold on Christ's hand, and the\nfeebleness and imperfection of our own spiritual life. Dear brethren,\nthere is no worse sign of the condition of churches than the calm\nindifference and complacency in the present condition of things which\nvisits very many of us; it is like a deadly malaria wherever it is to\nbe found, and there is no more certain precursor of a blessed change\nthan a widespread dissatisfaction with what we are, and an honest,\nearnest search after the cause. The sleeper that is restless, and\ntosses and turns, is near awakening; and the ice that cracks, and\ncrumbles, and groans, and heaves, is on the point of breaking up. When\nChristian men and women are aroused to this, the startled recognition\nof how far beneath the ideal--no, I should not say how far beneath, but\nrather how absolutely opposed to, the ideal--so much of our Christian\nlife and work is, and when further they push the inquiry for the cause,\nso as to find that it lies in their own sin, then we shall be near the\ntime, yea, the 'set time, to favour Zion.'\n\nIII. And so let me point you, in the next place--and but a word or two\non that matter--to the consideration that the consciousness of the evil\ncondition and knowledge of its cause leads on to lowly penitence and\nconfession.\n\nI dwell upon that for a moment for one reason mainly. I suppose that it\nis a very familiar observation with us all that when, by God's mercy,\nany of us individually, or as communities, are awakened to a sense of\nour own departure from what He would have us be, and the feebleness of\nall our Christian work, we are very apt to be led away upon the wrong\nscent altogether, and instead of seeking improvement and revivification\nin God's order, we set up an order of our own, which is a great deal\nmore pleasing to our own natural inclinations. For instance, to bring\nthe thing to a practical illustration, suppose I were, after these\nremarks of mine, as a kind of corollary from them, to ask for\nvolunteers for some new form of Christian work, I believe I should get\ntwenty for one that I should get if I simply said, 'Brethren, let us go\ntogether and confess our sins before God, and ask Him not to leave us.'\nWe are always tempted to originate some new kind of work, to\nmanufacture a revival, to begin by bringing together the outcasts into\nthe fold, instead of to begin by trying to deepen our own Christian\ncharacter, and purifying our own hearts, and getting more and more of\nthe life of God into our own spirits, and then to let the increase from\nwithout come as it may. The true law for us to follow is to begin with\nlowly abasement at His footstool, and when we have purged ourselves\nfrom faults and sins in the very act of confessing them, and of shaking\nthem from us, then when we are fit for growth, external growth, we\nshall get it. But the revival of the Church is not what people fancy it\nto be so often nowadays, the gathering in of the unconverted into its\nfold--that is the consequence of the revival. The revival comes by the\npath of recognition of sin, and confession of sin, and forsaking of\nsin, and waiting before Him for His blessing and His Spirit. Let me put\nall that I would say about this matter into the one remark, that the\nlaw of the whole process is the old one which was exemplified on the\nday of Pentecost. 'Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; gather the\npeople, assemble the elders; let the bridegroom go forth of his\nchamber, and the bride out of her closet; let the priests, the\nministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar. Yea, the\nLord will be zealous for His land, and will pity His people; and I will\npour out My Spirit upon all flesh.' Brethren, to our knees and to\nconfessions! Let us see to it that we are right in our own inmost\nhearts.\n\nIV. And so, finally, look at the wonderful way in which in this text of\nours the prophet fuses together into one indistinguishable and yet not\nconfused whole, confession, and pleading remonstrance and also the\nconfidence of triumphant prayer.\n\nI cannot touch upon the various points of that as I would gladly do;\nbut I must suggest one or two of them for your consideration. Look at\nthe substance of his petition: 'Do Thou it for Thy name's sake.' 'Leave\nus not.' That is all he asks. He does not prescribe what is to be done.\nHe does not ask for the taking away of the calamity, he simply asks for\nthe continual presence and the operation of the divine hand, sure that\nGod is in the midst of them, and working all things right. Let us shape\nour expectations in like fashion, not being careful to discover paths\nfor Him to run in; but contented if we can realise the sweetness and\nthe strength of His calming and purging presence, and willing to leave\nthe manner of His working in His own hand.\n\nThen, look at what the text suggests as pleas with God, and grounds of\nconfidence for ourselves. 'Do Thou it for Thy name's sake, the hope of\nIsrael, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble. Thou art in the midst\nof us, we are called by Thy name.' There are three grounds upon which\nwe may base our firm confidence. The one is the name--all the ancient\nmanifestations of Thy character, which have been from of old, and\nremain for our perpetual strength. 'As we have heard, so have we seen\nin the city of the Lord of Hosts.' 'That which is Thy memorial unto all\ngenerations pledges Thee to the constant reiteration and reproduction,\nhour by hour, according to our necessity, of all the might, and the\nmiracles, and the mercies of the past. Do Thou it for Thy name's sake.'\n\nAnd then Jeremiah turns to the throne of God with another plea--'the\nhope of Israel'--and thereby fills his mouth with the argument drawn\nfrom the fact that the confidence of the Church is fixed upon Him, and\nthat it cannot be that He will disappoint it. 'Because Thou hast given\nus Thy name, and because Thy name, by Thy grace, has become, through\nour faith, our hope, Thou art doubly bound--bound by what Thou art,\nbound by what we expect--to be with us, our strength and our\nconfidence.'\n\nAnd the final plea is the appeal to the perennial and essential\nrelationship of God to His Church. 'We are called by Thy name'--'we\nbelong to Thee. It were Thy concern and ours that Thy Gospel should\nspread in the world, and the honour of our Lord should be advanced.\nThou hast not surely lost Thy hold of Thine own, or Thy care for Thine\nown property.' The psalmist said, 'Thou wilt not suffer him that is\ndevoted to Thee to see corruption.' And what his faith felt to be\nimpossible in regard to the bodily life is still more unthinkable in\nregard to the spiritual. It cannot be that that which belongs to Him\nshould pass and perish. 'We are called by Thy name, and Thou, Lord, art\nin the midst of us'--not a Samson shorn of his locks; not a wayfaring\nman turning aside to delay for a night; but the abiding Presence which\nmakes the Church glad.\n\nDear brethren, calm and confident expectation should be our attitude,\nand lowly repentance should rise to triumphant believing hope, because\nGod is moving round about us in this day. Thanks be to His name, there\nis spread through us all an expectation of great things. That\nexpectation brings its own fulfilment, and is always God's way of\npreparing the path for His own large gifts, like the strange,\nindefinable attitude of expectation which we know filled the civilised\nworld before the birth of Jesus Christ--like the breath of the morning\nthat springs up before the sun rises, and says, 'The dawn; the dawn,'\nand dies away. The expectation is the precursor of the gift, and the\nprayer is the guarantee of the acceptance. Take an illustration. Those\ngreat lakes in Central Africa that are said to feed the Nile are filled\nwith melting snows weeks and weeks before the water rises away down in\nEgypt, and brings fertility across the desert that it makes to glisten\nwith greenness, and to rejoice and blossom as the rose. And so in\nsilence, high up upon the mountains of God, fed by communion with\nHimself, the expectation rises to a flood-tide ere it flows down\nthrough all the channels of Christian organisation and activity, and\nblesses the valleys below. It is not for us to hurry the work of God,\nnor spasmodically to manufacture revivals. It is not for us, under the\npretence of waiting for Him, to be cold and callous; but it is for us\nto question ourselves wherefore these things have come upon us, with\nlowly, penitent confession to turn to God, and ask Him to bless us. Oh,\nif we were to do this, we should not ask in vain! Let us take the\nprayer of our context, and say, 'We acknowledge, O Lord, our\nwickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against\nThee. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause\nrain? or can the heavens give showers? art not Thou He, O Lord, our\nGod?  Therefore we will wait upon Thee.'  Be sure that the old merciful\nanswer will come to us, 'I will pour rivers of water upon him that is\nthirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; and I will pour My Spirit upon\nthy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.'\n\n\n\n\nSIN'S WRITING AND ITS ERASURE\n\n'The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of\na diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the\nhorns of your altars.'--JER. xvii. 1.\n\n'Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by\nus, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in\ntables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.'-2 COR. iii. 3.\n\n'Blotting out the handwriting that was against us.'---COL .ii. 14.\n\n\nI have put these verses together because they all deal with\nsubstantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet's\nsolemn appeal.  It describes the sin of the nation as indelible.  It is\nwritten in two places.  First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the\npromise of the new covenant to be written on the heart.  The\n'red-leaved tablets of the heart' are like waxen tables on which an\niron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar.  So Judah's sin\nis, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say,\ntattooed on it.  It is also written on the stone horns of the altar,\nwith a diamond which can cut the rock (an illustration of ancient\nknowledge of the properties of the diamond).  That sounds a strange\nplace for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound\nmeaning, as we shall see presently.\n\nThen the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the\nsame metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the\nhearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away 'the\nhandwriting contrary to us.' The general thought drawn from all is that\nsin's writing on men's hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription\nsubstituted.\n\nI. The handwriting of sin.\n\nSin committed is indelibly written on the heart of the doer.\n\n'The heart,' of course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed\nseat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual\nlife, just as physically it is the centre of the natural. Thoughts and\naffections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are\n'the issues of life,' the whole outgoings of the being. It is the\nfountain and source of all the activity of the man, the central unity\nfrom which all comes. Taken in this wide sense it is really the whole\ninner self that is meant, or, as is said in one place, 'the hidden man\nof the heart.' And so the thought in this vigorous metaphor may be\notherwise put, that all sin makes indelible marks on the whole inward\nnature of the man who does it.\n\nNow to begin with, think for a moment of that truth that everything\nwhich we do reacts on us the doers.\n\nWe seldom think of this. Deeds are done, and we fancy that when done,\nthey are done _with_. They pass, as far as outward seeming goes, and\ntheir distinguishable consequences in the outward world, in the vast\nmajority of cases, soon apparently pass. All seems evanescent and\nirrecoverable as last year's snows, or the water that flowed over the\ncataract a century ago. But there is nothing more certain than that all\nwhich we do leaves indelible traces on ourselves. The mightiest effect\nof a man's actions is on his own inward life. The recoil of the gun is\nmore powerful than the blow from its shot. Our actions strike inwards\nand there produce their most important effects. The river runs\nceaselessly and its waters pass away, but they bring down soil, which\nis deposited and makes firm land, or perhaps they carry down grains of\ngold.\n\nThis is the true solemnity of life, that in all which we do we are\ncarrying on a double process, influencing others indeed, but\ninfluencing ourselves far more.\n\nConsider the illustrations of this law in regard to our sins.\n\nNow the last thing people think of when they hear sermons about 'sin'\nis that what is meant is the things that they are doing every day. I\ncan only ask you to try to remember, while I speak, that I mean those\nlittle acts of temper, or triflings with truth, or yieldings to passion\nor anger, or indulgence in sensuality, and above all, the living\nwithout God, to which we are all prone.\n\n(a) All wrong-doing makes indelible marks on character. It makes its\nown repetition easier. Habit strengthens inclination. Peter found\ndenying his Lord three times easier than doing it once. It weakens\nresistance. In going downhill the first step is the only one that needs\nan effort; gravity will do the rest.\n\nIt drags after it a tendency to other evil. All wrong things have so\nmuch in common that they lead on to one another. A man with only one\nvice is a rare phenomenon. Satan sends his apostles forth two by two.\nSins hunt in couples, or more usually in packs, like wolves, only now\nand then do they prey alone like lions. Small thieves open windows for\ngreater ones. It requires continually increasing draughts, like\nindulgence in stimulants. The palate demands cayenne tomorrow, if it\nhas had black pepper to-day.\n\nSo, whatever else we do by our acts, we are making our own characters,\neither steadily depraving or steadily improving them. There will come a\nslight slow change, almost unnoticed but most certain, as a dim film\nwill creep over the peach, robbing it of all its bloom, or some\nmicroscopic growth will steal across a clearly cut inscription, or a\nbreath of mist will dim a polished steel mirror.\n\n(b) All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the memory, that awful\nand mysterious power of recalling past things out of the oblivion in\nwhich they seem to lie. How solemn and miserable it is to defile it\nwith the pictures of things evil! Many a man in his later years has\ntried to 'turn over a new leaf,' and has never been able to get the\nfilth out of his memory, for it has been printed on the old page in\nsuch strong colours that it shines through. I beseech you all, and\nespecially you young people, to keep yourselves 'innocent of much\ntransgression,' and 'simple concerning evil'--to make your memories\nlike an illuminated missal with fair saints and calm angels bordering\nthe holy words, and not an _Illustrated_  Police News. Probably there\nis no real oblivion. Each act sinks in as if forgotten, gets overlaid\nwith a multitude of others, but it is there, and memory will one day\nbring it to us.\n\nAnd all sin pollutes the imagination. It is a miserable thing to have\none's mind full of ugly foul forms painted on the inner walls of our\nchamber of imagery, like the hideous figures in some heathen temple,\nwhere gods of lust and murder look out from every inch of space on the\nwalls.\n\n(c) All wrong-doing writes indelible records on the conscience. It does\nso partly by sophisticating it--the sensibility to right and wrong\nbeing weakened by every evil act, as a cold in the head takes away the\nsense of smell. It brings on colour-blindness to some extent. One does\nnot know how far one may go towards 'Evil! be thou my good'--or how far\ntowards incapacity of distinguishing evil. But at all events the\ntendency of each sin is in that direction. So conscience may become\nseared, though perhaps never so completely as that there are no\nintervals when it speaks. It may long lie dormant, as Vesuvius did,\ntill great trees grow on the floor of the crater, but all the while the\ncommunication with the central fires is open, and one day they will\nburst out.\n\nThe writing may be with invisible ink, but it will be legible one day.\nSo, then, all this solemn writing on the heart is done by ourselves.\nWhat are you writing? There is a presumption in it of a future\nretribution, when you will have to read your autobiography, with\nclearer light and power of judging yourselves. At any rate there is\nretribution now, which is described by many metaphors, such as sowing\nand reaping, drinking as we have brewed, and others--but this one of\nindelible writing is not the least striking.\n\nSin is graven deep on sinful men's worship.\n\nThe metaphor here is striking and not altogether clear. The question\nrises whether the altars are idolatrous altars, or Jehovah's. If the\nformer, the expression may mean simply that the Jews' idolatry, which\nwas their sin, was conspicuously displayed in these altars, and had, as\nit were, its most flagrant record in their sacrifices. The altar was\nthe centre point of all heathen and Old Testament worship, and altars\nbuilt by sinners were the most conspicuous evidences of their sins.\n\nSo the meaning would be that men's sin shapes and culminates in their\nreligion; and that is very true, and explains many of the profanations\nand abominations of heathenism, and much of the formal worship of\nso-called Christianity.\n\nFor instance, a popular religion which is a mere Deism, a kind of vague\nbelief in a providence, and in a future state where everybody is happy,\nis but the product of men's sin, striking out of Christianity all which\ntheir sin makes unwelcome in it. The justice of God, punishment,\nsinfulness of sin, high moral tone, are all gone. And the very horns of\ntheir altars are marked with the signs of the worshippers' sin.\n\nBut the 'altars' may be God's altars, and then another idea will come\nin. The horns of the altar were the places where the blood of the\nsacrifice was smeared, as token of its offering to God. They were then\na part of the ritual of propitiation. They had, no doubt, the same\nmeaning in the heathen ritual. And so regarded, the metaphor means that\na sense of the reality of sin shapes sacrificial religion.\n\nThere can be no doubt that a very real conviction of sin lies at the\nfoundation of much, if not all, of the system of sacrifices. And it is\na question well worth considering whether a conviction so widespread is\nnot valid, and whether we should not see in it the expression of a true\nhuman need which no mere culture, or the like, will supply.\n\nAt all events, altars stand as witnesses to the consciousness of sin.\nAnd the same thought may be applied to much of the popular religion of\nthis day. It may be ineffectual and shallow but it bears witness to a\nconsciousness of evil. So its existence may be used in order to urge\nprofounder realisation of evil on men. You come to worship, you join in\nconfessions, you say 'miserable sinners'--do you mean anything by it?\nIf all that be true, should it not produce a deeper impression on you?\n\nBut another way of regarding the metaphor is this. The horns of the\naltar were to be touched with the blood of propitiation. But look! the\nblood flows down, and after it has trickled away, there, deep carven on\nthe horns, still appears the sin, _i.e._ the sin is not expiated by the\nsinner's sacrifice. Jeremiah is then echoing Isaiah's word, 'Bring no\nmore vain oblations.' The picture gives very strikingly the\nhopelessness, so far as men are concerned, of any attempt to blot out\nthis record. It is like the rock-cut cartouches of Egypt on which time\nseems to have no effect. There they abide deep for ever. Nothing that\nwe can do can efface them. 'What I have written, I have written.'\nPen-knives and detergents that we can use are all in vain.\n\nII. Sin's writing may be erased, and another put in its place.\n\nThe work of Christ, made ours by faith, blots it out.\n\n(a) Its influence on conscience and the sense of guilt. The accusations\nof conscience are silenced. A red line is drawn across the indictment,\nor, as Colossians has it, it is 'nailed to the cross.' There is power\nin His death to set us free from the debt we owe.\n\n(b) Its influence on memory. Christ does not bring oblivion, but yet\ntakes away the remorse of remembrance. Faith in Christ makes memory no\nlonger a record which we blush to turn over, or upon which we gloat\nwith imaginative delight in guilty pleasures past, but a record of our\nshortcomings that humbles us with a penitence which is not pain, but\nserves as a beacon and warning for the time to come. He who has a clear\nbeam of memory on his backward track, and a bright light of hope on his\nforward one, will steer right.\n\n(c) Its influence on character.\n\nWe attain new hopes and tastes. 'We become epistles of Christ known and\nread of all men,' like palimpsests, Homer or Ovid written over with the\nNew Testament gospels or epistles.\n\nChrist's work is twofold, erasure and rewriting. For the one, 'I will\nblot out as a cloud their transgressions.' None but He can remove\nthese. For the other, 'I will put My law into their minds and will\nwrite it on their hearts.' He can impress all holy desires on, and can\nput His great love and His mighty spirit into, our hearts.\n\nSo give your hearts to Him. They are all scrawled over with hideous and\nwicked writing that has sunk deep into their substance. Graven as if on\nrock are your sins in your character. Your worship and sacrifices will\nnot remove them, but Jesus Christ can. He died that you might be\nforgiven, He lives that you may be purified. Trust yourself to Him, and\nlean all your sinfulness on His atonement and sanctifying power, and\nthe foul words and bad thoughts that have been scored so deep into your\nnature will be erased, and His own hand will trace on the page, poor\nand thin though it be, which has been whitened by His blood, the fair\nletters and shapes of His own likeness. Do not let your hearts be the\ndevil's copybooks for all evil things to scrawl their names there, as\nboys do on the walls, but spread them before Him, and ask Him to make\nthem clean and write upon them His new name, indicating that you now\nbelong to another, as a new owner writes his name on a book that he has\nbought.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEATH IN THE DESERT AND THE TREE BY THE RIVER\n\n'He shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good\ncometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt\nland and not inhabited...He shall be as a tree planted by the waters,\nand that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when\nheat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in\nthe year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.'--JER.\nxvii. 6, 8.\n\n\nThe prophet here puts before us two highly finished pictures. In the\none, the hot desert stretches on all sides. The fierce 'sunbeams like\nswords' slay every green thing. The salt particles in the soil glitter\nin the light. No living creature breaks the melancholy solitude. It is\na 'waste land where no one came, or hath come since the making of the\nworld.' Here and there a stunted, grey, prickly shrub struggles to\nlive, and just manages not to die. But it has no grace of leaf, nor\nprofitableness of fruit; and it only serves to make the desolation more\ndesolate.\n\nThe other carries us to some brimming river, where everything lives\nbecause water has come. The pictures are coloured by Eastern\nexperience. For in those lands more than beneath our humid skies and\nweaker sunshine, the presence or absence of running water makes the\ndifference between barrenness and fertility. Dipping their boughs in\nthe sparkling current, and driving their roots through the moist soil,\nthe bordering trees lift aloft their pride of foliage and bear fruits\nin their season.\n\nSo, says Jeremiah, the two pictures represent two sets of men; the one,\nhe who diverts from their true object his heart-capacities of love and\ntrust, and clings to creatures and to men, 'making flesh his arm and\ndeparting from the living God'; the other, he who leans the whole\nweight of his needs and cares and sins and sorrows upon God. We can\nmake choice of which shall be the object of our trust, and according as\nwe choose the one or the other, the experience of these vivid pictures\nwill be ours.\n\nLet me briefly, then, draw out the points of contrast in these two\ncompanion sketches.\n\nI. The one is in the desert, the other by the river.\n\nUnderneath the pictures there lies this thought, that the direction of\na man's trust determines the whole cast of his life, because it\ndetermines, as it were, the soil in which he grows. We can alter our\nhabitat. The plant is fixed; but 'I saw men as trees--yes! but as\n'trees walking.' We can walk, and can settle where we shall be rooted\nand whence we shall draw our inspiration, our confidence, our security.\nThe man that chooses-for it is a matter of choice--to trust in any\ncreature thereby wills, though he does not know it, that he shall dwell\nin a 'salt land and not inhabited.' The man that chooses to cast his\nwhole self into the arms of God, and in a paroxysm of self-distrust to\nrealise the divine helpfulness and presence, that man will soon know\nthat he is 'planted by the river.'\n\nNow, the poor, little dusty shrub in the desert, whose very leaves have\nbeen modified into prickles, is fit for the desert, and is as much at\nhome there as are the willows by the water-courses with their lush\nvegetation in their moist bed. But if a _man_ makes that fatal choice\nwhich so-many of us are making, of shutting out God from his confidence\nand his love, and squandering these upon earth and upon creatures, he\nis as fatally out of harmony with the place which he has chosen for\nhimself, and as much away from his natural soil, as a tropical plant\nwould be amongst the snows of Arctic glaciers, or a water-lily in the\nSahara.\n\nConsidering all that I am and need, what and where is my true home and\nthe soil in which I can grow securely, and fear no evil? Brethren,\nthere is only one answer to that question. The very make of a man's\nspirit points to God, and to God alone, as the natural place for him to\nroot and grow in. You, I, the poorest and humblest of men, will never\nbe right, never feel that we are in our native soil, and compassed with\nthe appropriate surroundings, until we have laid our hearts and our\nhands on the breast of God, and rested ourselves on Him. Not more\nsurely do gills and fins proclaim that the creature that has them is\nmeant to roam through the boundless ocean, nor the anatomy and wings of\nthe bird witness more plainly to its destination to soar in the open\nheavens than the make of your spirits testifies that God, and none less\nor lower, is your portion. We are built for God, and unless we\nrecognise and act upon that conviction, we are like the prickly shrub\nin the desert, whatever good may be around us; and if we do recognise\nand act upon it, whatever parched ground may seem to stretch on all\nsides, there will be soil moist enough for us to draw refreshment and\nvitality from it.\n\nIf that be so, brethren, what insanity the lives of multitudes of us\nare! As well might bees try to suck honey from a vase of wax flowers as\nwe to draw what we need from creatures, from ourselves, from visible\nand material things.\n\nWhat would you business men think of some one who went and sold out all\nhis stock of Government or other sound securities, and then flung the\nproceeds down a hole in South Africa, out of which no gold will ever\ncome? He would be about as wise as are the people who fancy that these\nhearts of theirs will ever be at home except they find a home in God.\n\nWhere else will you find love that will never fail, nor change, nor\ndie? Where else will you find an object for the intellect that will\nyield inexhaustible material of contemplation and delight? Where else\ninfallible direction for the will? Where else shall weakness find\nunfailing strength, or sorrow, adequate consolation, or hope, certain\nfulfilment, or fear, a safe hiding-place? Nowhere besides. Oh! then,\nbrethren, do, I beseech you, turn away your heart's confidence and love\nfrom earth and creatures; for until the roots of your life go down into\nGod, and you draw your life from Him, you are not in your right soil.\n\nII. The one can take in no real good; the other can fear no evil.\n\nOne verse of our text says, 'He shall not see when good cometh'; the\nother one, according to our Authorised Version, 'He shall not see when\nheat cometh.' But a very slight alteration of one word in the original\ngives a better reading, which is adopted in the Revised Version, where\nwe have, 'and shall not fear when heat cometh.' That alteration is\nobviously correct, because there follows immediately a parallel clause,\n'and shall not be careful'--or anxious--'in the year of drought.' In\nboth these clauses the metaphor of the tree is a little let go; and the\nman who is signified by it comes rather more to the front than in the\nremainder of the picture. But that is quite natural.\n\nSo look at these two simple thoughts for a moment. He whose trust is\nset upon creatures is thereby disabled from recognising what is his\nhighest good. His judgment is perverted. _There_ is the explanation of\nthe fact that men are contented with the partial and evanescent\nblessedness that may be drawn from human loves and companionship and\nmaterial things. It is because they have gone blind, and the false\ndirection of their confidence, has put out their eyes. And if any of my\nhearers are living careless about God, and all that comes from Him, and\nperfectly contented with that which they find in this visible, diurnal\nsphere, that is not because they have the good which they need, but\nbecause they do not know that good when they see it, and have lost the\npower of discerning what is really for their benefit and blessedness.\n\nThere is nothing sadder in this world than the conspiracy into which\nmen seem to have entered to ignore the highest good, and to profess\nthemselves contented with the lowest. I remember a rough parable of\nLuther's--the roughness of which may be pardoned for the force and\nvividness of it--which bears on this matter. He tells how a company of\nswine were offered all manner of dainty and refined foods, and how,\nwith a unanimous swinish grunt, they answered that they preferred the\nwarm, reeking 'grains' from the mash-tub. The illustration is coarse,\nbut it is not an unfair representation of the choice that some of us\nare making.\n\n'He cannot see when good cometh.' God comes, and I would rather have\nsome more money. God comes, and I prefer some woman's love. God comes,\nand I would rather have a prosperous business. God comes, and I prefer\nbeer. So I might go the whole round. The man that cannot see good when\nit is there before his face, because the false direction of his\nconfidence has blinded his eyes, cannot open his heart to it. It comes,\nbut it does not come in. It surrounds him, but it does not enter into\nhim. You are plunged, as it were, in a sea of possible felicity, which\nwill be yours if your heart's direction is towards God, and the\nsurrounding ocean of blessedness has as little power to fill your heart\nas the sea has to enter some hermetically sealed flask, dropped into\nthe middle of the Atlantic. 'He cannot see when good cometh.' Blind,\nblind, blind! are multitudes of us.\n\nTurn to the other side. 'He shall not fear when heat cometh,' which is\nevil in those Eastern lands, 'and shall not be careful in the year of\ndrought.' The tree, that sends its roots towards a river that never\nfails, does not suffer when all the land is parched. The man who has\ndriven his roots into God, and is drawing from that deep source what is\nneedful for his life and fertility, has no occasion to dread any evil,\nnor to gnaw his heart with anxiety as to what he is to do in parched\ndays. Troubles may come, but they do not go deeper than the surface. It\nmay be all cracked and caked and dry, 'a thirsty land where no water\nis,' and yet deep down there may be moisture and coolness.\n\nFaith, which is trust, and fear are opposite poles. If a man has the\none, he can scarcely have the other in vigorous operation. He that has\nhis trust set upon God does not need to dread anything except the\nweakening or the paralysing of that trust; for so long as it lasts it\nis a talisman which changes evil into good, the true philosopher's\nstone which transmutes the baser metals into gold; and, so long as it\nlasts, God's shield is round him and no evil can befall him.\n\nBrethren, if our trust is in God, it is unworthy of it and of us to\nfear, for all things are His, and there is no evil in evil as men call\nit, so long as it does not draw away our hearts from our Father and our\nHope. Therefore, he that fears let him trust; he that trusts let him\nnot be afraid. He that sets his heart and anchors his hopes of safety\non any except God, let him be afraid, for he is in a very stern world,\nand if he is not fearful he is a fool.\n\nSo the direction of our trust, if it is right, shuts all real evil out\nfrom us, and if it is wrong, shuts us out from all real good.\n\nIII. The one is bare, the other clothed with the beauty of foliage.\n\nThe word which is translated 'heat' has a close connection with, if it\ndoes not literally mean, 'naked' or 'bare.' Probably, as I have said,\nit designates some inconspicuously leaved desert shrub, the particular\nspecies not being ascertainable or a matter of any consequence. Leaves,\nin Scripture, have a recognised symbolical meaning. 'Nothing but\nleaves' in the story of the fig-tree meant only beautiful outward\nappearance, with no corresponding outcome of goodness of heart, in the\nshape of fruit. So I may venture here to draw a distinction between\nleafage and fruit, and say that the one points rather to a man's\ncharacter and conduct as lovely in appearance, and in the other as\nmorally good and profitable.\n\nThis is the lesson of these two clauses--misdirected confidence in\ncreatures strips a man of much beauty of character, and true faith in\nGod adorns a soul with a leafy vesture of loveliness. Now, I have no\ndoubt that there start up in your minds at once two objections to that\nstatement: first, that a great many godless men do present fair and\nattractive features of character; and secondly, that a great many\nChristian men do not. I admit both things frankly, and yet I say that,\nfor the highest good, the perfect crowning beauty of any human\ncharacter, this is needed, that it should cling to God. 'Whatsoever\nthings are lovely and of good report' lack their supreme excellence,\nthe diamond on the top of the royal crown, the glittering gold on the\nsummit of the campanile, unless there is in them a distinct reference\nto God.\n\nI believe that I am speaking to some who would not profess themselves\nto be religious men, and who yet are truly desirous of cultivating in\ntheir character the Fair and the Good. To them I would venture to\nsay--brethren, you will never be so completely, so refinedly, so truly,\ngraceful as you might be, unless the roots of your character 'are hid\nwith Christ in God.'\n\n                     'A servant with this clause\n                      Makes drudgery divine,'\n\nsaid good old George Herbert. And any act, however humble, on which the\nlight from God falls, will gleam with a lustre else unattainable, like\nsome piece of broken glass in the furrows of a ploughed field.\n\nSure I am that if we Christian people had a deeper faith, we should\nhave fairer lives. And I beseech you, my fellow-believers in Jesus\nChrist, not to supply the other side with arguments against\nChristianity, by showing that it is possible for a man to say and to\nsuppose that he sets his heart on God, and yet to bear but little\nleafage of beauty or grace of character. Goodness is beauty; beauty is\ngoodness. Both are to be secured by communion and union with Him who is\nfairer than the children of men. Dip your roots into the fountain of\nlife--it is the fountain of beauty as well as of life, and your lives\nwill be green.\n\nIV. Lastly, the one is sterile, the other fruitful.\n\nI admit, as before, that this statement often seems to be contradicted,\nboth by the good works of godless men, and by the bad works of godly\nones. But for all that, I would urge you to consider that the only\nworks of men worth calling 'fruit,' if regard is had to their\ncapacities, relations, and obligations, are those done as the outcome\nand consequence of hearts trusting in the Lord. The rest of the man's\nactivities may be busy and multiplied, and, from the point of view of a\ngodless morality, many may be fair and good; but if we think of him as\nbeing destined, as his chief end, 'to glorify God, and (so) to enjoy\nHim for ever,' what correspondence between such a creature and acts\nthat are done without reference to God can there ever be? They are not\nworth calling 'fruit.' At the most they are 'wild grapes,' and there\ncomes a time when they will be tested and the axe laid to the root of\nthe trees, and these imperfect deeds will shrivel up and disappear.\n\nTrust will certainly be fruitful. In so saying we are upon Christian\nground, which declares that the outcome of faith is conduct in\nconformity with the will of Him in whom we trust, and that the\nproductive principle of all good in man is confidence in God manifest\nto us in Jesus Christ.\n\nSo we have not to begin with work; we have to begin with character.\n'Make the tree good,' and its fruit will be good. Faith will give power\nto bring forth such fruit; and faith will set agoing the motive of love\nwhich will produce it. Thus, dear brethren, we come back to this--the\nprime thing about a man is the direction which his trust takes. Is it\nto God? Then the tree is good; and its fruit will be good too. If you\nwill trust yourselves to 'God manifest in the flesh,' to Jesus Christ\nand His work for you and in you, then you will be as if 'planted by the\nrivers of water,' you will be able to receive into yourselves, and will\nreceive, all good, and be masters of all evil, will exhibit graces of\ncharacter else impossible, and will bring forth 'fruit that shall\nremain.' Separated from Him we are nothing, and can bring forth nothing\nthat will stand the light of that last moment.\n\nBrother, turn your trust to that dear Lord, and then you will have your\n'fruit unto holiness, and the end shall be everlasting life,' when the\ntransplanting season comes, and they that have been 'planted in the\nhouse of the Lord' below shall 'flourish in the courts of our God'\nabove, and grow more green and fruitful, beside the 'river of the water\nof life that proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb.'\n\n\n\n\nA SOUL GAZING ON GOD\n\n'A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our\nsanctuary.'--JER. xvii. 12.\n\n\nI must begin by a word or two of explanation as to the language of this\npassage. The word 'is' is a supplement, and most probably it ought to\nbe omitted, and the verse treated as being, not a statement, but a\nseries of exclamations. The next verse runs thus, 'O Lord! the hope of\nIsrael, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed'; and the most natural\nand forcible understanding of the words of my text is reached by\nconnecting them with these following clauses: 'O Lord! the hope of\nIsrael,' and, regarding the whole as one long exclamation of adoring\ncontemplation, 'A glorious throne,' or '_Thou_ glorious throne, high\nfrom the beginning; the place of our sanctuary, O Lord! the hope of\nIsrael.'\n\nI. If we look at the words so, we have here, to begin with, a wonderful\nvision of what God is.\n\n'A glorious throne,' or, as the original has it, 'a throne of\nglory,'--which is not quite the same thing--' high from the beginning,\nthe place of our sanctuary.' There are three clauses. Now they all seem\nto me to have reference to the Temple in Jerusalem, which is taken, by\na very natural figure of speech, as a kind of suggestive description of\nHim who is worshipped there. There is the same kind of use of the name\nof a place to stand for the person who occupies or inhabits it, in many\nfamiliar phrases. For instance, 'The Sublime Porte' is properly the\nname of a lofty gateway which belonged to the palace in Constantinople,\nand so has come to mean the Turkish Government if Government it can be\ncalled. So we talk of the 'Papal See' having done this or that, and\nscarcely remember that a 'see' is a bishop's seat, or, again, the\ndecision of 'the Chair' is final in the House of Commons. Or, if you\nwill accept a purely municipal parallel, if any one were told that 'the\nTown Hall' had issued a certain order, he would know that our\nauthorities, the Mayor and Corporation, had decreed so and so. So, in\nprecisely the same way here, the prophet takes the outward facts of the\nTemple as symbolising great and blessed spiritual thoughts of the God\nthat filled the Temple with His own lustre.\n\n'A glorious throne'--that is grand, but that is not what Jeremiah\nmeans--'A throne of glory' is the true rendering. And to what does that\nrefer? Now, in the greater number of cases, you will find that in the\nOld Testament, where 'glory' is ascribed to God, the word has a very\ndistinct and specific meaning, viz. the light which was afterwards\ncalled the 'Shekinah,' and dwelt between the cherubim, and was the\nsymbol of the divine presence and the assurance that that presence\nwould be self-revealing and would manifest Himself to His people. So\nhere the throne on which glory rests is what we call the _mercy-seat_\nwithin the veil, where, above the propitiatory table on which once a\nyear the High Priest sprinkled the blood of sacrifice, and beneath\nwhich were shut up the tables of the covenant which constituted the\nbond between God and Israel, shone the Light in the midst of the\ndarkness of the enclosed inner shrine, the token of the divine\npresence. The throned glory, the glory that reigns and rules as King in\nIsrael, is the idea of the words before us. It is the same throne that\na later writer in the New Testament speaks of when he says, 'Let us\ncome boldly to the Throne of Grace.' For that light of a manifested\ndivine presence was no malign lustre that blinded or slew those who\ngazed upon it, but though no eye but that of the High Priest dared of\nold to look, yet he, the representative and, as it were, the\nconcentration of the collective Israel, could stand, unshrinking and\nunharmed, before that piercing light, because he bore in his hand the\nblood of sacrifice and sprinkled it on the mercy-seat. So was it of\nold, but now we all can draw near, through the rent veil, and wall\nrejoicingly in the light of the Lord. His glory is grace; His grace is\nglory.\n\nThis, then, is the first of Jeremiah's great thoughts of God, and it\nmeans--'The Lord God omnipotent reigneth,' there is none else but He,\nand His will runs authoritative and supreme into all corners of the\nuniverse. But it is 'glory' that is throned. That is equivalent to the\ndeclaration that our God has never spoken in secret, in the dark places\nof the earth, nor said to any seeking heart, 'Seek ye My face in vain.'\nFor the light which shone in that Holy Place as His symbol, had for its\nmessage to Israel the great thought that, as the sun pours out its\nlustre into all the corners of its system, so He, by the\nself-communication which is inherent in His very nature, manifests\nHimself to every gazing eye, and is a God who is Light, 'and in whom is\nno darkness at all.'\n\nBut reigning glory is also redeeming grace. For the light of the bright\ncloud, which is the glory of the Lord, shines still, with no thunder in\nits depths, nor tempests in its bosom, above the mercy-seat, where\nspreads the blood of sprinkling by which Israel's sins are all taken\naway. Well may the prophet lift up his heart in adoring wonder, and\ntranslate the outward symbol into this great word, 'The throne of\nglory; Jehovah, the hope of Israel.'\n\nThen the next clause is, I think, equally intelligible by the same\nprocess of interpretation--' High from the beginning.' It was a piece\nof the patriotic exaggeration of Israel's prophets and psalmists that\nthey made much of the little hill upon which the Temple was set. We\nread of the 'hill of the Lord's house' being 'exalted above the tops of\nthe mountains.' We read of it being a high hill, 'as the hill of\nBashan.' And though to the eye of sense it is a very modest elevation,\nto the eye of faith it was symbolical of much. Jeremiah felt it to be a\nmaterial type, both of the elevation and of the stable duration of the\nGod whom he would commend to Israel's and to all men's trust. 'High\nfrom the beginning,' separated from all creatural limitation and\nlowness, He whose name is the Most High, and on whose level no other\nbeing can stand, towers above the lowness of the loftiest creature, and\nfrom that inaccessible height He sends down His voice, like the trumpet\nfrom amidst the darkness of Sinai, proclaiming, 'I am God, and there is\nnone beside Me.' Yet while thus 'holy'--that is, separate from\ncreatures--He makes communion with Himself possible to us, and draws\nnear to us in Christ, that we in Christ may be made nigh to Him.\n\nAnd the loftiness involves, necessarily, timeless and changeless Being;\nso that we can turn to Him, and feel Him to be 'the same yesterday, and\nto-day, and for ever.' No words are needed, and no human words are\nanything but tawdry attempts to elaborate, which only result in\nweakening, these two great thoughts. 'High--from the beginning.'\n\nThe last of this series of symbols, even more plainly than the other\ntwo, refers originally to the Temple upon the hill of Zion; and\nsymbolically, to the God who filled the Temple. He is 'the place of our\nsanctuary.' That is as though the prophet would point, as the wonderful\nclimax of all, to the fact that He of whom the former things were true\nshould yet be accessible to our worship; that, if I might so say, our\nfeet could tread the courts of the great Temple; and we draw near to\nHim who is so far above the loftiest, and separate from all the\nmagnificences which Himself has made, and who yet is 'our sanctuary,'\nand accessible to our worship.\n\nAy! and more than that--'Lord! Thou hast been our _dwelling-place_ in\nall generations.' In old days the Temple was more than a place of\nworship. It was a place where a man coming had, according to ancient\ncustom, guest rights with God; and if he came into the Temple of the\nMost High as to an asylum, he dwelt there safe and secure from avengers\nor foes.\n\n'The place of our sanctuary,' then, declares that God Himself, like\nsome ancestral dwelling-place in which generation after generation of\nfathers and children have abode, whence they have been carried, and\nwhere their children still live, is to all generations their home and\ntheir fortress. The place of our sanctuary implies access to the\ninaccessibly High, communion with the infinitely Separate, security and\nabode in God Himself. He that dwelleth in God dwelleth in peace. These,\nthen, are the points of the prophet's vision of God.\n\nII. Note, further, the soul rapt in meditation and this vision of God.\n\nTo me, this long-drawn-out series of linked clauses without grammatical\nconnection, this succession of adoring exclamations of rapture, wonder,\nand praise, is very striking. It suggests the manner in which we should\nvivify all our thoughts of God, by turning them into material for\ndevout reverence; awe-struck, considering meditation. There is nothing\ntold us in the Bible about God simply in order that we may know it. It\nis all meant to be fuel to the fire of our divine affection; to kindle\nin us the sentiments of faith and love and rapturous adoration. It is\neasy to know the theology of the Old and the New Testaments, and a man\nmay rattle over the catalogue of the divine 'attributes,' as they are\ncalled, with perfect accuracy, and never be a hair the better for\nknowing all of them. So I urge, on you and on myself, the necessity of\nwarming our thoughts and kindling our conceptions of what God is until\nthey melt us into fluidity and adoration and love.\n\nI believe that there are few things which we Christian people more lack\nin this generation, and by the lack of which we suffer more, than the\ncomparative decay of the good old habit of frequent and patient\nmeditation on the things that we most surely believe. We are so busy in\nadding to our stock of knowledge, in following out to their latest\nconsequence the logical effects of our Christianity, and in defending\nit, or seeking to be familiar with the defences, against modern\nassaults, or in practical work on its behalf, that the last thing that\na great many of us do is to feed upon the truth which we know already.\nWe should be like ruminant animals who first crop the grass--which,\nbeing interpreted, means, get Scripture truth into our heads--and then\nchew the cud, which being interpreted is, then put these truths through\na second process by meditation on them, so that they may turn into\nnourishment and make flesh. 'He that eateth Me,' said Jesus Christ (and\nHe used there the word which is specially applied to rumination),\n'shall live by Me.' It does us no good to know that God is 'the Throne\nof Glory, high from the beginning, the place of our sanctuary,' unless\nwe turn theology into devotion by meditation upon it. 'Suffer the word\nof exhortation '--in busy, great communities like ours, where we are\nall driven so hard, there is need for some voices sometimes to be\nlifted up in pressing upon Christian people the duty of quiet\nrumination upon the truths that they have.\n\nIII. We may see in our text, further, the meditative soul going out to\ngrasp God thus revealed, as its portion and hope.\n\nAs I have already said, the text is best understood as part of a series\nof exclamations which extends into the following verse. If we take\naccount of the whole series, and regard the subsequent part of it as\nled up to, by the part which is our text, we get an important thought\nas to what should be the outcome of the truths concerning God, and of\nour meditative contemplation of them.\n\nMy relation to these truths is not exhausted even when I have meditated\nupon them, and they have touched me into a rapture of devotion. I can\nconceive that to have been done, and yet the next necessary step not to\nhave been taken. What is that step? The next verse tells us, when it\ngoes on to exclaim, 'O Lord! _the hope of Israel_.' I must cast myself\nupon Him by faith as my only hope, and turn away from all other\nconfidences which are vain and impotent. So we are back upon that\nfamiliar Christian ground, that the bond which knits a man to God, and\nby which all that God is becomes that man's personal property, and\navailable for the security and the shaping of his life, is the simple\nflinging of himself into God's arms, in sure and certain trust. Then,\nevery one of these characteristics of which I have been speaking will\ncontribute its own special part to the serenity, the security, the\ngodlikeness, the blessedness, the righteousness, the strength of the\nman who thus trusts.\n\nBut such confidence which makes all these things my own possessions,\nwhich makes Him 'a throne of glory,' to which I have access; which\nmakes Him a place in which I dwell by this exercise of personal faith;\nwhich makes Him my hope, has for its other side the turning away from\nall other grounds of confidence and security. The subsequent context\ntells us how wise it is thus to turn away, and what folly it is to make\nanything else our hope except that 'throne of glory.' 'They that depart\nfrom Me shall be written in the earth,' because 'they have forsaken the\nLord, the fountain of living waters.' If we say, 'O Lord! Thou art my\nhope,' we shall have the 'anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, which\nentereth within the veil,' and fixes on Him who is within it, the\nthroned Grace between the cherubim, our Brother and our Hope. So we may\ndwell in God, and from the secure height of our house look down\nserenely on impotent foes, and never know the bitterness of vain hopes,\nnor remove from the safe asylum of our home in God.\n\n\n\n\nTWO LISTS OF NAMES\n\n'They that depart from Me shall be written in the earth'--JER. xvii.\n13. 'Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.'--LUKE x. 20.\n\n\nA name written on earth implies that the bearer of the name belongs to\nearth, and it also secondarily suggests that the inscription lasts but\nfor a little while. Contrariwise, a name written in heaven implies that\nits bearer belongs to heaven, and that the inscription will abide.\n\nWe find running throughout Scripture the metaphor of books in which\nmen's names are written. Moses thought of a book which God has written,\nand in which his name was enrolled. A psalmist speaks of the 'book of\nthe living,' and Isaiah of those who are 'written among the living in\nJerusalem.' Ezekiel threatens the prophets who speak lies in Jehovah's\nname that they 'shall not be written in the writing of the house of\nIsrael.' The Apocalypse has many references to the book which is\ndesignated as 'the Lamb's book of life,' and which is opened at the\nfinal judgment along with the books in which each man's life-history is\nwritten, and only 'they who are written in the Lamb's book of life'\nenter into the city that comes down out of heaven.\n\nI. The principle on which the two lists are made up.\n\nIt is commonly supposed that the idea of unconditional predestination\nis implied in the writing of the names in the book of life. There is\nnothing in the figure itself to lead to that, and the text from\nJeremiah suggests, on the contrary, that the voluntary attitude of men\nto God determines their being or not being inscribed in the book of\nheaven, since it is 'they who depart from God' whose 'names are written\non earth.'\n\nThen, since in the New Testament the book of life is called 'the\nLamb's,' we are led to think of Christ as writing in it, and hence of\nour faith in Him as being the condition of enrolling our names.\n\nII. The significance of the lists.\n\nThey are lists of the living and of the dead.\n\nTrue life is in fellowship with God. The other is the register of the\nburials in a graveyard.\n\nThey are lists of the citizens of two cities.\n\nThe idea is that the one class have relations and affinities with the\ncelestial, are 'fellow-citizens with the saints,' and have heaven as\ntheir metropolis, their mother city. Therefore they are but as aliens\nhere, and should not wish to be naturalised. The other class are\ncitizens of the earthly, belonging to the present, with all their\nthoughts and desires bounded by this visible diurnal sphere.\n\nThey are lists of those who shall be forgotten, and their works\nannihilated, and of those who shall be remembered and their work\ncrowned.\n\nThe names written on earth are swiftly obliterated, like a child's\nscrawl on the sand which is washed away by the next tide, or covered up\nby the next storm that blows about the sand-hills. What a contrast is\nthat of the names written on the heavens, high up above all earthly\nmutations!\n\nIn one sense oblivion soon seizes on us all. In another none of us is\never forgotten by God, but good and bad alike live in His thought.\nStill this idea of a special remembrance has place, as suggesting that,\nhowever unnoticed or forgotten on earth, God's children live in the\ntrue 'Golden Book.' Their names are in the book of life. 'Of so much\nfame, in heaven expect the meed.' Ay, and as, too, suggesting how brief\nafter all is the honour that comes from men.\n\nAlso, there will be annihilation or perpetuation of their life's work.\nNothing lasts but the will of God. Men who live godless lives are\nengaged in true Sisyphean labour. They are running counter to the whole\nstream of things, and what can be left at the end but frustrated\nendeavours covered with a gloomy pall?\n\nIs your life to be wasted?\n\nThey are lists of those who are accepted in judgment, and of those who\nare not.\n\nRev. xx. 12, 15; xxi. 27.\n\nThe books of men's lives are to be opened, and also the book of life.\nWhat is written in the former can only bring condemnation. If our names\nare written in the latter, then He will 'confess our names before His\nFather and the holy angels.' And He will joyfully inscribe them there\nif we say to Him, like the man in _Pilgrim's Progress_, 'Set down my\nname.' He will write them not only there, but on the palms of His hands\nand the tablets of His heart.\n\n\n\n\nYOKES OF WOOD AND IRON\n\n'Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Thou hast broken\nthe yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron.'--JER.\nxxviii. 13.\n\n\nI suppose that I had better begin by a word of explanation as to the\noccasion of this saying. One king of Judah had already been carried off\nto Babylon, and the throne refilled by his brother, a puppet of the\nconquerors. This shadow of a king, with the bulk of the nation, was\neager for revolt. Jeremiah had almost single-handed to stem the tide of\nthe popular wish. He steadfastly preached submission, not so much to\nNebuchadnezzar as to God, who had sent the invaders as chastisement.\nThe lesson was a difficult one to learn, and the people hated the\nteacher. In the Jerusalem of Jeremiah's day, as in other places and at\nother times, a love of country which is not blind to its faults and\nprotests against a blatant militarism, was scoffed at as 'unpatriotic,'\n'playing into the hands of the enemy,' 'seeking peace at any price,'\nwhilst an insane eagerness to rush to arms without regard to resources\nor righteousness was called a 'spirited foreign policy.' So Jeremiah\nhad plenty of enemies.\n\nHe had adopted a strange way of enforcing his counsel, which would be\nridiculous to-day, but was natural and impressive then and there. He\nconstantly for months went about with an ox-yoke on his neck, as a\nsymbol of the submission which he advocated. One day, in the temple,\nbefore a public assembly, a certain Hananiah, a member of the opposite\nfaction, made a fierce attack on the prophet and his teaching, and\nuttered a counter-prophecy to the effect that, in two years, the\nforeign invasion would be at an end, and all would be as it used to be.\nOur prophet answered very quietly, saying in effect, 'I hope to God\nthat it may be true; the event will show.' And then Hananiah,\nencouraged by his meekness, proceeded to violence, tore the yoke off\nhis shoulders and snapped it in two, reiterating his prophecy. Then\nJeremiah went away home.\n\nSoon after, the voice which he knew to be God's, and not his own\nthoughts, spoke within him, and gave a much sharper answer. God\ndeclared, through Jeremiah, the plain truth that, for a tiny kingdom\nlike Judah to perk itself up in the face of a world-conquering power\nlike Babylon, could only bring down greater severity from the\nconqueror. And then he declared that Hananiah, for rebellion--not\nagainst Babylon, but against God, the true King of Israel--would be\ntaken from the earth. He died in a couple of months.\n\nMy text forms the first word of this divine message. I have nothing\nmore to do with its original application. It gives a picturesque\nsetting to a very impressive and solemn truth; very familiar, no doubt,\nbut none the less because of its familiarity needing to be dinned into\npeople's ears. It is that to throw off legitimate authority is to bind\non a worse tyranny. To some kind of yoke all of us must bend our necks,\nand if we slip them out we do not thereby become independent, but\nsimply bring upon ourselves a heavier pressure of a harder bondage. The\nremainder of my remarks will simply go to illustrate that principle in\ntwo or three cases of ascending importance. I begin at the bottom.\n\nI. We have the choice between the yoke of law and the iron yoke of\nlawlessness.\n\nWe all know that society could not be held together without some kind\nof restraints upon what is done, and some stimulus to do what is apt to\nbe neglected. Even a band of brigands, or a crew of pirates, must have\nsome code. I have read somewhere that the cells in a honeycomb are\ncircles squeezed by the pressure of the adjacent cells into the\nhexagonal shape which admits of contiguity. If they continued circles\nthere would be space and material lost, and no complete continuity. So,\nin like manner, you cannot keep five men together without some mutual\nlimitations which are shaped into a law. Now, as long as a man keeps\ninside it, he does not feel its pressure. A great many of us, for\ninstance, who are in the main law-abiding people, do not ever remember\nthat there is such a thing as restrictions upon our licence, or as\nobligations to perform certain duties; for we never think either of\ntaking the licence or of shirking the duties. The yoke that is accepted\nceases to press. Once let a man step outside, and what then? Why, then,\nhe is an outlaw; and the rough side of the law is turned to him, and\nall possible terrors, which people within the boundary have nothing to\ndo with, gather themselves together and frown down upon him. The sheep\nthat stops inside the pasture is never torn by the barbed wires of the\nfence. If you think of the life of a criminal, with all its tricks and\nevasions, taking 'every bush to be an officer,' as Shakespeare says; or\nas the first of the brood who was the type of them all said, 'Every man\nthat seeth me shall kill me': if you think of the sword that hangs over\nthe head of every law-breaker, and which he knows is hanging by a hair;\nif you think of men in counting-houses who have manipulated the books\nof the firm, and who durst not be away from their desks for a day lest\nall should come to light; and if you think of the punishment that\nfollows sooner or later, you will see that it is better to bear the\nlight yoke of the law than the heavy yoke of crime. Some men buy their\nruin very dearly.\n\nSo much for the individual. But there is another aspect of this same\nprinciple on which I venture to say a word, although it is only a word,\nin passing. I do not suppose that there are many of my hearers who are\nlikely to commit overt breaches of the law. But there are a great many\nof us who are apt to neglect the obligations of citizenship. In a\ncommunity like ours, laziness, fastidiousness, absorption in our own\noccupations, and a number of other more or less reputable reasons,\ntempt many to stand aloof from the plain imperative obligations of\nevery citizen in a free country. Every man who thus neglects to do his\npart for the common weal does his part in handing over the rule of the\ncommunity to the least worthy. You will find--as you see in some\ndemocratic countries to-day, where the cultivated classes, and the\nclasses with the sternest morality, have withdrawn in disgust from the\nturmoil--the mob having the upper hand, the least worthy scrambling\ninto high places, and the community suffering, and bearing a heavier\nyoke, by reason of the unwillingness of some to bear the yoke and do\nthe duty of a citizen. Vice lifts up its head, morality is scouted,\nself-interest is pursued unblushingly, and the whole tone of public\nopinion is lowered. Christian men and women, remember that you are\nmembers of a community, and you bear the yoke of responsibility\ntherefore; and if you do not discharge your obligation, then you will\nhave a heavier burden still to bear.\n\nI need not remind you, I suppose, of how this same thesis--that we have\nto choose between the yoke of law and the iron yoke of lawlessness--is\nillustrated in the story of almost all violent revolutions. They run\nthe same course. First a nation rises up against intolerable\noppression, then revolution devours its own children, and the scum\nrises to the top of the boiling pot. Then comes, in the language of the\npicturesque historian of the French Revolution, the type of them\nall--then comes at the end 'the whiff of grapeshot' and the despot.\nFirst the government of a mob, and then the tyranny of an emperor,\ncrush the people that shake off the yoke of reasonable law. That is my\nfirst point.\n\nII. Let me take a higher illustration;--we have to choose between the\nyoke of virtue and the iron yoke of vice.\n\nWe are under a far more spiritual and searching law than that written\nin any statute-book, or administered by any court. Every man carries\nwithin his own heart the court, the tribunal; the culprit and the\njudge. And here too, if law is not obeyed, the result is not liberty,\nbut the slavery of lawlessness.\n\nNo man can ponder his own nature and make without feeling that on every\nfibre of him is stamped a great law which he is bound to obey, and that\non every fibre of him is impressed the necessity of part of his nature\ncoercing, restraining, or spurring other parts of it. For, if we take\nstock of ourselves, what do we find? The broad basis of the pyramid, as\nit were, is laid in the faculties nearest the earth, the appetites\nwhich are inseparable from our corporeal being, and these know nothing\nabout right or wrong, but are utterly blind to such distinctions. Put a\nloaf before a hungry man, and his mouth waters, whether the loaf\nbelongs to himself or whether it is inside a baker's window.\n\nThen above these, as the next course of the pyramid, there are other\ndesires, sentiments, affections, and emotions, less grossly sensuous\nthan those of which I have been speaking, but still equally certain to\nbe excited by the presence of their appropriate object, without any\nconsideration of whether law is broken or kept in securing of it. Above\nthese, which are, so to speak, branded on their very foreheads with the\niron of slavery, stand certain faculties which are as clearly anointed\nto rule as the others are intended to serve. There is reason or\nintelligence, which is evidently meant to be eyes to these blind\ninstincts and emotions of desire, and there is what we call the power\nof will, that stands like an engine-driver with his hand upon the lever\nwhich will either stop the engine or accelerate its revolutions. It\nsays to passions and desires 'Go!' and they go; and, alas! it sometimes\nsays 'Halt!' and they will not halt. Then there is conscience, which\nbrings to light for every man something higher than himself. A great\nphilosopher once said that the two sublimest things in the universe\nwere the moral law and the starry heavens; and that law 'I ought' bends\nover us like the starry heavens with which he associated it. No man can\nescape from the pressure of duty, and on every man is laid, by his very\nmake, the twofold obligation, first to look upwards and catch the\nbehests of that solemn law, and then to turn his eyes and his strength\ninwards and coerce or spur, as the case may be, the powers of his\nnature, and rule the kingdom within himself.\n\nNow, as long as a man lets the ruling parts of his nature guide the\nlower faculties, he feels comparatively no pressure from the yoke. But,\nif he once allows beggars to ride on horseback whilst princes\nwalk--sense and appetite and desire, and more or less refined forms of\ninclination, to take the place which belongs only to conscience\ninterpreting duty--then he has exchanged the easy yoke for one that is\nheavy indeed.\n\nWhat does a man do when, instead of loyally accepting the conditions of\nhis nature, and bowing himself to serve the all-embracing and\nall-penetrating law of duty, he sets up inclination of any sort in its\nplace? What does he do? I will tell you. He unships the helm; he flings\ncompass and sextant overboard; he fires up the furnaces, and screws\ndown the safety-valve, and says, 'Go ahead!' And what will be the end\nof that, think you? Either an explosion or a crash upon a reef; and you\nmay take your choice of which is the better kind of death--to be blown\nup or to go down. Keep within the law of conscience, and let it govern\nall inclinations, and most of all the animal part of your nature; and\nyou will feel little pressure, and no pain, from the yoke. Shake it\noff, and there is fulfilled in the disobedient man the threatening of\nmy text, which rightly translated ought to be, 'Thou hast broken the\nyokes of wood, and thou _hast_ made instead of them yokes of iron.'\n\nFor do you think it will be easy to serve the base-born parts of your\nnature, when you set them on the throne and tell them to govern you?\nDid you never hear of such a thing as a man's vices getting such a hold\non him that, when his weakened will tried to shake them off, they\nlaughed in his face and said, 'Here we are still'? Did you never hear\nof that other solemn truth--and have you never experienced how true it\nis?--that no man can say, 'I will let my inclination have its fling\nthis once'? There are never 'this onces.' or very, very seldom. When\nyou are glissading down a snowy Alpine slope, you cannot stop when you\nlike, though you strike your alpenstock ever so deep into the powdery\nsnow. If you have started, away you must go. God be thanked! the\nillustration does not altogether apply, for a man can stop if he will\nrepent, but he cannot stop unless he does. Did you never hear that a\nteaspoonful of narcotic to-day will have to be a tablespoonful in a\nweek or two, to produce the same effect? Are there not plenty of men\nwho have said with all the force that a weakened will has left in it,\n'I will never touch a drop of drink again, as long as I live, God\nhelping me'?--and they have gone down the street, and they have turned\nin, not at the first or the second public-house, but at the fourth or\nthe fifth. Ah! brother, 'they promised them liberty, but they are the\nservants of corruption.' Fix this in your minds. 'He that committeth\nsin is the slave of sin,' of the sin that he commits. Do not put off\nthe easy yoke of obedience to conscience and duty, or you will find\nthat there is an iron one, with many a sharp point in its unpolished\nsurface rubbing into your skin and wounding your shoulders. 'It's wiser\nto be good than bad. It's safer to be meek than fierce.' 'Thou hast\nbroken the yokes of wood'; it is not difficult to do that; 'thou hast\nmade instead of them yokes of iron.' That is my second point.\n\nIII. Lastly, we have the choice between the yoke of Christ and the iron\nyoke of godlessness.\n\nYou may think that to be a very harsh saying, and much too vehement an\nantithesis. Let me vindicate it according to my own belief in a\nsentence or two. It seems to me that for civilised and cultivated\nEurope at this day, the choice lies between accepting Jesus Christ as\nthe _Revealer_ of God, or wandering away out into the wastes of\nuncertainty, or as they call it nowadays, agnosticism and doubt. I\nbelieve myself, and I venture to state it here--though there is not\ntime to do more than state it--that no form of what is now called\nTheism, which does not accept the historic revelation of God in Jesus\nChrist as the 'master-light of all our seeing,' will ever be able to\nsustain itself permanently in the face of present currents of opinion.\nIf you do not take Christ for your Teacher, you are handed over either\nto the uncertainty of your own doubts, or to pinning your faith to some\nman and enrolling yourself as a disciple who is prepared to swallow\ndown whole whatsoever the rabbi may say, and so giving to him what you\nwill not give to Jesus; or else you will sink back into utter indolence\nand carelessness about the whole matter; or else you will go and put\nyour belief and your soul into the hands of a priest, and shut your\neyes and open your mouth and take whatever tradition may choose to send\nyou. The one refuge from all these, as I believe, is to go to Him and\nlearn of Him, and so take His yoke upon your shoulders.\n\nBut, let me say further, it is better to obey Christ's _commandments_\nthan to set ourselves against them. For if we will take His will for\nour law, and meekly assume the yoke of loyal and loving obedience to\nHim, the door into an earthly paradise is thrown open to us. His yoke\nis easy, not because its prescriptions and provisions lower the\nstandard of righteousness and morality, but because love becomes the\nmotive; and it is always blessed to do that which the Beloved desires.\nWhen 'I will' and 'I ought' cover exactly the same ground, then there\nis no kind of pressure from the yoke. Christ's yoke is easy because,\ntoo, He gives the power to obey His commandments. His burden is such a\nburden (as I think one of the old fathers puts it) as sails are to a\nship or wings to a bird. They add to the weight, but they carry that\nwhich carries them. So Christ's yoke bears the man that bears it. It is\neasy, too, because 'in,' and not only after or for, 'keeping of it\nthere is great reward'; seeing that He commands nothing which is not\ncongruous with the highest good, and bringing along with it the purest\nblessing. Instead of that yoke, what has the world to offer, or what do\nwe get to dominate us, if we cast off Christ? Self, the old anarch\nself, and that is misery. To be self-ruled is to be self-destroyed.\n\nThere is no need that I should remind you of how it is better to accept\nChrist's _providences_ than to kick against them. Sorrow to which we\nsubmit loses all its bitterness and much of its sadness. Kicking\nagainst the affliction makes its sharp point penetrate our limbs. The\nbird that will dash itself against the wires of its cage beats itself\nall bloody and torn. Let us take the providence and it ceases to be\nhard.\n\nOne last word;--we all carry an iron yoke upon our shoulders. For, hard\nas it is for us preachers to get our friends that listen to us to\nbelieve and realise it, 'We all have sinned and come short of the glory\nof God.' That yoke is on us all. And I, for my part, believe that no\nman by his own efforts can cast it off, but that the attempt to do so\noften brings greater strength to the sins that we seek to cast out,\njust as the more you mow the grass, the thicker and the stronger it\ngrows. So I come with the great message which Jesus Christ Himself\nstruck as the keynote and prelude of His whole ministry, when in the\nsynagogue He said, 'The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me ... to preach\ndeliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that\nare bound.' He, and He only, will break every yoke and let the\noppressed go free. And then He addresses us, after He has done that,\nwith the immortal words, the sweetness of whose sound, sweet as it is,\nis less than the sweetness of their sense: 'Take My yoke upon you ...\nand ye shall find rest to your souls.' Oh, brother! will you not\nanswer, 'O Lord! truly I am Thy servant. Thou hast loosed my bonds, and\nthereby bound me for ever to wear Thy yoke'; as the slave clings to his\nransomer, and delights to serve him all the days of his life?\n\n\n\n\nWHAT THE STABLE CREATION TEACHES\n\n'If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the\nseed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for\never.'--JER. xxxi. 36.\n\n\nThis is the seal of the new covenant, which is to be made in days\nfuture to the prophet and his contemporaries, with the house of Israel\nand of Judah. That new covenant is referred to in Hebrews as the\nfundamental law of Christ's kingdom. Therefore we have the right to\ntake to ourselves the promises which it contains, and to think of 'the\nhouse of Israel' and 'the seed of Jacob' as including us, 'though\nAbraham be ignorant of us.'\n\nThe covenant and its pledge are equally grand. The very idea of a\ncovenant as applied to God is wonderful. It is meant to teach us that,\nfrom all the infinite modes of action possible to Him, He has chosen\nOne; that He has, as it were, marked out a path for Himself, and\nconfined the freedom of His will and the manifold omnipotences of His\npower to prescribed limits, that He has determined the course of His\nfuture action. It is meant to teach us, too, the other grand thought\nthat He has declared to us what that course is, not leaving us to learn\nit piecemeal by slow building up of conclusions about His mind from His\nactions as they come forth, but inversely telling us His mind and\npurpose in articulate and authentic words by which we are to interpret\neach successive work of His. He makes known His purposes. 'Before they\nspring forth I tell you of them.'\n\nIt is meant to teach us, too, that He regards Himself as bound by the\ndeclaration which He has made, so that we may rest secure on this\nstrong foundation of His faithfulness and His truth, and for all doubts\nand fears find the sufficient cure in His own declaration: 'My covenant\nwill I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips.' No\nwonder that the dying king found the strength of his failing heart in\nthe thought, 'He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in\nall things and sure.'\n\nThe weighty promises of this solemn bond of God's cover the whole\nground of our spiritual necessities--forgiveness of sins, true,\npersonal, direct acquaintance with God, an intercommunion of mutual\npossession between Him who is ours and us who are His, and an inward\nsanctification by which His precepts shall coincide with our desires.\nThese are the blessings which He binds Himself to bestow.\n\nAnd of this transcendent pact, the seal and guarantee is worthy. God\ndescends to ratify a bond with man. By it He binds Himself to give all\npossible good for the soul. And to confirm it heaven and earth are\ncalled in. He points us to all that is august, stable, immense,\ninscrutable in the works of His hands, and bids us see there His pledge\nthat He will be a faithful, covenant-keeping God. Sun, moon and stars,\nheaven, earth and sea--'ye are My witnesses,' saith the Lord.\n\nGod's unchangeable love is the true lesson from the stable regularity\nof the universe. The tone in which Scripture speaks of external nature\nin all its parts is very remarkable, altogether peculiar. It does not\ntake the aesthetic or the scientific, but the purely religious point of\nview.\n\nI. The facts. All nature is directly the effect of God's will and\npower. 'He giveth,' 'He divideth' (v. 35).\n\nThe physical universe presents a spectacle of stable regularity.\n\nThis regularity is the consequence of sovereign, divine will. These\nordinances are not laws of _nature_, but of God.\n\nII. The use commonly made of the facts.\n\nOrdinary unthinking worldliness sees nothing noticeable in them because\nthey come uniformly. Earthquakes startle, but the firmness of the solid\nearth attracts no observation. God is thought to speak in the\nextraordinary, but most men do not hear His voice in the normal.\n\nScientific godlessness formularises this tendency into a system, and\nproclaims that laws are everything and God a mere algebraical _x_.\n\nIII. The lesson which they are meant to teach.\n\nGod's works are a revelation of God.\n\nThere is nothing in effect which is not in cause, and the stability of\nthese ordinances carries our thoughts back to an unchanging Ordainer.\n\nThey witness to His constancy of purpose or will. His acts do not come\nfrom caprice, nor are done as experiments, but are the stable\nexpression of uniform and unchanging will.\n\nThey witness to His unfailing energy of power, which 'operates unspent'\nand is to-day as fresh as at creation's birth.\n\nThey witness to a single end pursued through all changes, and by all\nvarieties of means. Darkness and light, sun rising and setting, storm\nand sunshine, summer and winter, all serve one end. As a horizontal\nthrust may give rise to opposite circular motions which all issue in\nworking out an onward progress, so the various dealings of Providence\nwith us are all adapted to 'work together,' and that 'for good.'\n\nThey witness that life, joy, beauty, flow from obedience.\n\nThus, then, these ordinances in their stability are witnesses. But they\nare inferior witnesses. The noblest revelation of the divine\nfaithfulness and unchangeable purpose of good is in Jesus. And these\nwitnesses will one day pass. Even now they have their changes, slow and\nunmarked by a short-lived man. Stars burn out, there have been violent\nconvulsions, shocks and shatterings in the heavens, and a time comes,\nas even physical science predicts, when 'the heavens shall vanish away\nlike smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment,' but that to\nwhich they witnessed shall endure, 'My salvation shall be for ever, and\nMy righteousness shall not be abolished.' The created lights grow dim\nand die out, but in 'the Father of lights' is 'no variableness, neither\nshadow that is cast by turning.'\n\nHence we see what our confidence should be. It should stand firm and\nchangeless as the Covenant, and we should move in our orbits as the\nstars and hearken to the voice of His word as do they. Let us see to it\nthat we have faith to match His faithfulness, and that our confidence\nshall be firmer than the mountains, more stable than the stars.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT THE IMMENSE CREATION TEACHES\n\n'If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth\nsearched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for\nall that they have done, saith the Lord.'--JER. xxxi. 37.\n\nIn the former sermon we considered the previous verse as presenting the\nstability of creation as a guarantee of the firmness of God's gracious\ncovenant. Now we have to consider these grand closing words which bring\nbefore us another aspect of the universe as a guarantee for another\nside of God's gracious character. The immensity of creation is a symbol\nof the inexhaustibleness of the forgiving love of God.\n\nI. A word or two as to the fact here used as a symbol of the divine\nlong-suffering.\n\nThe prophet had very likely no idea at all beyond the ordinary one that\npresents itself to the senses--a boundless vault above an endless plain\non which we stand, deep, sunless foundations, the Titanic substructions\non which all rests, going down who knows where, resting on who knows\nwhat. We may smile at the rude conception, but it will be well for us\nif we can get as vivid an impression of the fact as He had.\n\nWe thankfully avail ourselves of modern science to tell us something\nabout the dimensions of this awful universe of ours. We learn to know\nthat there are millions of miles between these neighbour orbs, that\nlight which has been travelling for thousands of years may not yet have\nfallen on some portion of the mighty whole, that the planetary masses\nof our system are but tiny specks in the whole, that every fresh stride\nwhich astronomical observation takes but opens up new nebulae to be\nresolved, where suns and constellations and systems are dwarfed by\ndistance into hazy brightness which hardly deserves the name of light.\nWe know all this, and can find all about the distances in any book. So\nmuch for space. Then the geologist comes to bewilder us still more,\nwith extension in time.\n\nBut while all this may serve to give definiteness to the impression,\nafter all, perhaps, it is the eye alone, as it gazes, that really feels\nthe impression. Astronomy is really a very prosaic science.\n\nII. The effects which this immensity often produces on men.\n\nVery commonly in old days it led to actual idolatry, bowing down before\nthese calm, unreachable brightnesses. In our days it too often leads to\nforgetting God altogether, and not seldom to disbelief that man can be\nof any account in such a universe. We are told that the notions of a\ncovenant, a redemption, or that God cares about us are presumptuous. We\nall know the talk of men who are so modestly conscious of their own\ninsignificance that they rebuke God for saying that He loves us, and\nChristians for believing Him.\n\nIII. The true lesson.\n\nThe immensity of the material universe is for us a symbol of the\ninfinity of God's long-suffering love.\n\nThe creation proceeds from a greater Creator. That gigantic and\noverwhelming magnitude, that hoary and immemorial age, that complicated\nand innumerable multitude of details, what less can they show than ONE\nEternal and Infinite?\n\nThe immense suggests the infinite.\n\nGranted that you cannot from the immense creation rise logically to the\nInfinite Creator, still the facts that the soul conceives that there is\nan infinite God, and is conscious of the spontaneous evoking of that\nthought by the contemplation of the immeasurable, are strong reasons\nfor believing that it is a legitimate process of thought which hears\nthe name of God thundered from the far-off depths of the silent\nheavens. The heavens cannot be measured, no plummet can reach to the\ndeep foundations of the earth. We are surrounded by a universe which to\nour apprehensions is boundless. How much more so from expansions of our\nconceptions of celestial magnitudes since Jeremiah's days, and what is\nto be the lesson from that? That we are insignificant atoms in this\nmighty whole? that God is far away from us? that the material stretches\nso far that perhaps there is nothing beyond?\n\nThe thought of faith is that the material immensity teaches me my God's\ninfinity, and especially His inexhaustible patience with us sinners. It\nteaches us the unfathomed depths of His gracious heart, and the abysses\nof His mysterious providence, and the unbounded sweep of His\nlong-suffering forgiveness. His forgiving forbearance reaches further\nthan the limits of the heavens. Not till these can be measured will it\nbe exhausted, and the seed of Israel cast off for what they have done.\n\nHe, the Infinite Father, above all creation, mightier than it, is our\ntrue home, and living in Him we have an abode which can never be\n'dissolved,' and above us stretch far-shining glories, unapproached\nmasses of brightness, nebulae of blessedness, spaces where the eye\nfails and the imagination faints. All is ours, our eternal possession,\nthe inexhaustible source of our joy. Astronomers tell of light which\nhas been travelling for millenniums and has not yet reached this globe;\nbut what is that to the flashing glories which through eternity shall\npour on us from Him? So, then, our confidence should be firm and\ninexhaustible.\n\nGod has written wondrous lessons in His creation. But they are\nhieroglyphs, of which the key is lost, till we hear Christ and learn of\nHim. God has set His glories in the heavens and the earth is full of\nHis mercy, but these are lesser gifts than that which contains them all\nand transcends them all, even His Son by whom He made the worlds,\nand--mightier still--by whom He redeemed man. God has written His mercy\nin the heavens and His faithfulness in the clouds, but His mercy and\nHis faithfulness are more commended to us in Him who was before all\nthings, and of whom it is written: 'As a vesture shalt Thou fold them\nup, but Thou art the same and Thy years shall not fail.' God has\nconfirmed the covenant of His love to us by the faithful witnesses in\nthe heavens, but the love shall abide when they have perished. The\nheavens bend above us all, and over the head of every man the zenith\nstands. Every spot of this low earth is smiled upon by that serene\napocalypse of the loving will of God. No lane is so narrow and foul in\nthe great city, no spot is so bare and lonely in the waste desert, but\nthat thither the sunlight comes, and there some patch of blue above\nbeckons the downcast eye to look up. The day opens its broad bosom\nbathed in light, and shows the sun in the heavens, the Lord of light,\nto preach to us of the true light. The night opens deeper abysses and\nfills them with stars, to preach to us how fathomless and immense His\nloving kindnesses and tender mercy are. They are witnesses to thee,\ndear friend, whatsoever thy heart, whatsoever thy sins, whatsoever thy\nmemories. No iniquity can shut out God's forgiving love. You cannot\nbuild out the heavens. He will not be sent away; you cannot measure,\nyou cannot conceive, you cannot exhaust, His pardoning love. No storms\ndisturb that serene sky. It is always there, blazing down upon us\nunclouded with all its orbs. Trust Christ; and then as years roll on,\nyou will find that infinite love growing ever greater to your loving\neyes, and through eternity will move onwards in the happy atmosphere\nand boundless heaven of the inexhaustible, deep heart and changeless\nlove of God.\n\n\n\n\nA THREEFOLD DISEASE AND A TWOFOLD CURE.\n\n'I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned\nagainst Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have\nsinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me.'--JER. xxxiii. 8.\n\n\nJeremiah was a prisoner in the palace of the last King of Judah. The\nlong, national tragedy had reached almost the last scene of the last\nact. The besiegers were drawing their net closer round the doomed city.\nThe prophet had never faltered in predicting its fall, but he had as\nuniformly pointed to a period behind the impending ruin, when all\nshould be peace and joy. His song was modulated from a saddened minor\nto triumphant jubilation. In the beginning of this chapter he has\ndeclared that the final struggles of the besieged will only end in\nfilling the land with their corpses, and then, from that lowest depth,\nhe soars in a burst of lyrical prophecy conceived in the highest poetic\nstyle. The exiles shall return, the city shall be rebuilt, its desolate\nstreets shall ring with hymns of praise and the voices of the\nbridegroom and the bride. The land shall be peopled with peaceful\nhusbandmen, and white with flocks. There shall be again a King upon the\nthrone; sacrifices shall again be offered. 'In those days, and at that\ntime, will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto\nDavid.... In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell\nsafely; and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord\nour righteousness.' That fair vision of the future begins with the\noffer of healing and cure, and with the exuberant promise of my text.\nThe first thing to be dealt with was Judah's sin; and that being taken\naway, all good and blessing would start into being, as flowerets will\nspring when the baleful shadow of some poisonous tree is removed. Now,\nmy text at first reading seems to expend a great many unnecessary words\nin saying the same thing over and over again, but the accumulation of\nsynonyms not only emphasises the completeness of the promise, but also\npresents different aspects of that promise. And it is to these that I\ncrave your attention in this sermon. The great words of my text are as\ntrue a gospel for us--and as much needed by us, God knows!--as they\nwere for Jeremiah's contemporaries; and we can understand them better\nthan either he or they did, because the days that were to come then\nhave come now, and the King who was to reign in righteousness is\nreigning to-day, and His Name is Christ. My object now is, as simply as\nI can, to draw your attention to the two points in this text: a\nthreefold view of our sad condition, and a twofold bright hope.\n\nNow for the first of these. There is here--\n\nI. A threefold view of the sad condition of humanity.\n\nObserve the recurrence of the same idea in our text in different words:\n'Their iniquity whereby they have sinned against Me.' ... 'Their\niniquity whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed\nagainst Me.' You see there are three expressions which roughly may be\ntaken as referring to the same ugly fact, but yet not meaning quite the\nsame--'iniquity, or iniquities, sin, transgression.' These three all\nspeak of the same sad element in your experience and mine, but they\nspeak it from somewhat different points of view, and I wish to try to\nbring out that difference for you.\n\nSuppose that three men were to describe a snake. One of them fixes his\nattention on its slimy coils, and describes its sinuous gliding\nmovements. Another of them is fascinated by its wicked beauty, and\ntalks about its livid markings and its glittering eye. The third thinks\nonly of the swift-darting fangs, and of the poison-glands. They all\nthree describe the snake, but they describe it from different points of\nview; and so it is here. 'Iniquity,' 'sin,' 'transgression' are\nsynonyms to some extent, but they do not cover the same ground. They\nlook at the serpent from different points of view.\n\nFirst, a sinful life is a twisted or warped life. The word rendered\n'iniquity,' in the Old Testament, in all probability literally means\nsomething that is not straight, but is bent, or, as I said, twisted or\nwarped. That is a metaphor that runs through a great many languages. I\nsuppose 'right' expresses a corresponding image, and means that which\nis straight and direct; and I suppose that 'wrong' has something to do\nwith 'wrung'--that which has been forcibly diverted from a right line.\nWe all know the conventional colloquialism about a man being\n'straight,' and such-and-such a thing being 'on the straight.' All sin\nis a twisting of the man from his proper course. Now there underlies\nthat metaphor the notion that there is a certain line to which we are\nto conform. The schoolmaster draws a firm, straight line in the child's\ncopybook; and then the little unaccustomed hand takes up on the second\nline its attempt, and makes tremulous, wavering pot-hooks and hangers.\nThere is a copyhead for us, and our writing is, alas! all uneven and\nirregular, as well as blurred and blotted. There is a law, and you know\nit. You carry in yourself--I was going to say, the standard measure,\nand you can see whether when you put your life by the side of that, the\ntwo coincide. It is not for me to say; I know about my own, and you may\nknow about yours, if you will be honest. The warped life belongs to us\nall.\n\nThe metaphor may suggest another illustration. A Czar of Russia was\nonce asked what should be the course of the railway from St. Petersburg\nto Moscow, and he took up a ruler and drew a straight line upon the\nchart, and said, 'There; that is the course.' There is a straight road\nmarked out for us all, going, like the old Roman roads, irrespective of\nphysical difficulties in the contour of the country, climbing right\nover Alps if necessary, and plunging down into the deepest valleys,\nnever deflecting one hairsbreadth, but going straight to its aim. And\nwe--what are we? what are 'our crooked, wandering ways in which we\nlive,' by the side of that straight path? This very prophet has a\nwonderful illustration, in which he compares the lives of men who have\ndeparted from God to the racing about in the wilderness of a wild\ndromedary, 'entangling her ways,' as he says, crossing and recrossing,\nand getting into a maze of perplexity. Ah, my friend, is that not\nsomething like your life? Here is a straight road, and there are the\ndevious footpaths that we have made, with many a detour, many a bend,\nmany a coming back instead of going forward. 'The labour of the foolish\nwearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the\ncity.' All sin is deflection from the straight road, and we are all\nguilty of that.\n\nLet me urge you to consult the standard that you carry within\nyourselves. If you never have done it before, do it now; or, better,\nwhen you are alone by yourselves. It is easy to imagine that a line is\nstraight. But did you ever see the point of a needle under a\nmicroscope? However finely it is polished, and apparently tapering\nregularly, the scrutinising investigation of the microscope shows that\nit is all rough and irregular. What would a builder do if he had not a\nT-square and a level? His wall would be ever so far out, whilst he\nthought it perfectly perpendicular. And remember that a line at a very\nacute angle of deflection only needs to be carried out far enough to\ndiverge so widely from the other line that you could put the whole\nsolar system in between the two. The smallest departure from the line\nof right will end, unless it is checked, away out in the regions of\ndarkness beyond. That is the lesson of the first of the words here.\n\nThe second of them, rendered in our version 'sin,' if I may recur to my\nformer illustration, looks at the snake from a different point of view,\nand it declares that all sin misses the aim. The meaning of the word in\nthe original is simply 'that which misses its mark.' And the meaning of\nthe prevalent word in the New Testament for 'sin' means, in accordance\nwith the ethical wisdom of the Greek, the same thing. Now, there are\ntwo ways in which that thought may be looked at. Every wrong thing that\nwe do misses the aim, if you consider what a man's aim ought to be. We\nhave grown a great deal wiser than the Puritans nowadays, and people\nmake cheap reputations for advanced thought by depreciating their\ntheology. We have not got beyond the first answer of the Shorter\nCatechism, 'Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for\never.' That is the only aim which corresponds to our constitution, to\nour circumstances. A palaeontologist will pick up part of a skeleton\nembedded in the rocks, and from the study of a bone or two will tell\nyou whether that creature was meant to swim, or to fly, or to walk;\nwhether its element was sea, or sky, or land. Our destination for God\nis as plainly stamped on heart, mind, will, practical powers, as is the\ndestination of such a creature deducible from its skeleton. 'Whose\nimage and superscription hath it?' God's, stamped deep upon us all. And\nso, brother, whatever you win, unless you win God, you have missed the\naim. Anything short of knowing Him and loving Him, serving Him, being\nfilled and inspired by Him, is contrary to the destiny stamped upon us\nall. And if you have won God, then, whatever other human prizes you may\nhave missed, you have made the best of life. Unless He is yours, and\nyou are His, you have made a miss, and if I might venture to add, a\nmess, of yourself and of your life.\n\nThen there is another side to this. The solemn teaching of this word is\nnot confined to that thought, but also opens out into this other, that\nall godlessness, all the low, sinful lives that so many of us live,\nmiss the shabby aim which they set before themselves. I do not believe\nthat any men or women ever got as much good, even of the lowest kind,\nout of a wrong thing as they expected to get when they ventured on it.\nIf they did, they got something else along with it that took all the\ngilt off the gingerbread. Take the lowest kind of gross evil--sins of\nlust or of drunkenness. Well, no doubt the physical satisfaction\ndesired is secured. Yes; and what about what comes after, in addition,\nthat was not aimed at? The drunkard gets his pleasurable oblivion, his\ndesired excitement. What about the corrugated liver, the palsied hand,\nthe watery eye, the wrecked life, the broken hearts at home, and all\nthe other accompaniments? There is an old Greek legend about a certain\nmessenger that came to earth with a box, in which were all manner of\npleasant gifts, and down at the bottom was a speckled pest that, when\nthe box was emptied, crawled out into the sunshine and infected the\nland. That Pandora's box is like 'the good things' that sin brings to\nmen. You gain, perhaps, your advantage, and you get something that\nspoils it all. Is not that your experience? I do not deny that you may\nsatisfy your lower desires by a godless life. I know only too well how\nhard it is to get people to have higher tastes, and how all we\nministers of religion are spending our efforts in order to win people\nto love something better than the world can give them. I also know\nthat, if I could get to the very deepest recess of your hearts, you\nwould admit that pleasures or advantages that are complete, that is to\nsay, that satisfy you all round, and that are lasting, and that can\nfront conscience and God who is at the back of conscience, are not to\nbe won on the paths of sin and godlessness.\n\nThere is an old story that speaks of a knight and his company who were\ntravelling through a desert, and suddenly beheld a castle into which\nthey were invited and hospitably welcomed. A feast was spread before\nthem, and each man ate and drank his fill. But as soon as they left the\nenchanted halls, they were as hungry as before they sat at the magic\ntable. That is the kind of food that all our wrongdoing provides for\nus. 'He feedeth on ashes,' and hungers after he has fed. So, dear\nfriends, learn this ancient wisdom, which is as true today as it ever\nwas; and be sure, of this, that there is only one course in this world\nwhich will give a man true, lasting satisfaction; that there is only\none life, the life of obedience to and love of God, about which, at the\nend, there will not need to be said, 'This their way is their folly.'\n\nAnd now, further, there is yet another word here, carrying with it\nimportant lessons. The expression which is translated in our text\n'transgressed,' literally means 'rebelled.' And the lesson of it is,\nthat all sin is, however little we think it, a rebellion against God.\nThat introduces a yet graver thought than either of the former have\nbrought us face to face with. Behind the law is the Lawgiver. When we\ndo wrong, we not only blunder, we not only go aside from the right\nline, but also we lift up ourselves against our Sovereign King, and we\nsay, 'Who is the Lord that we should serve Him? Our tongues are our\nown. Who is Lord over us? Let us break His bands asunder, and cast away\nHis cords from us.' There are crimes against law; there are faults\nagainst one another. Sins are against God; and, dear friends, though\nyou do not realise it, this is plain truth, that the essence, the\ncommon characteristic, of all the acts which, as we have seen, are\ntwisted and foolish, is that in them we are setting up another than the\nLord our God to be our ruler. We are enthroning ourselves in His place.\nDo you not feel that that is true, and that in some small thing in\nwhich you go wrong, the essence of it is that you are seeking to please\nyourself, no matter what duty--which is only a heathen name for\nGod--says to you?\n\nDoes not that thought make all these apparently trivial and\ninsignificant deeds terribly important? Treason is treason, no matter\nwhat the act by which it is expressed. It may be a little thing to haul\ndown a union-jack from a flagstaff, or to tear off a barn-door a\nproclamation with the royal arms at the top of it, but it may be\nrebellion. And if it is, it is as bad as to turn out a hundred thousand\nmen in the field, with arms in their hands. There are small faults,\nthere are trivial crimes; there are no small sins. An ounce of arsenic\nis arsenic, just as much as a ton; and it is a poison just as surely.\n\nNow I have enlarged perhaps unduly on this earlier part of my subject,\nand can but briefly turn to the second division which I suggested,\nviz.:--\n\nII. The twofold bright hope which shines through this darkness.\n\n'I will cleanse ... I will pardon.'\n\nIf sin combines in itself all these characteristics that I have touched\nupon, then clearly there is guilt, and clearly there are stains; and\nthe gracious promise of this text deals with both the one and the other.\n\n'I will pardon.' What is pardon? Do not limit it to the analogy of a\ncriminal court. When the law of the land pardons, or rather when the\nadministrator of the law pardons, that simply means that the penalty is\nsuspended. But is that forgiveness? Certainly it is only a part of it,\neven if it is a part. What do you fathers and mothers do when you\nforgive your child? You may use the rod or you may not, that is a\nquestion of what is best for the child. Forgiveness does not lie in\nletting him off the punishment; but forgiveness lies in the flowing to\nthe child, uninterrupted, of the love of the parent heart, and that is\nGod's forgiveness. Penalties, some of them, remain--thank God for it!\n'Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of\ntheir inventions,' and the chastisement was part of the sign of the\nforgiveness. The great penalty of all, which is separation from God, is\ntaken away; but the essence of that pardon, which it is my blessed work\nto proclaim to all men, is, that in spite of the prodigal's rags and\nthe stench of the sty, the Father's love is round about him. It is\nround about you, brother.\n\nDo you need pardon? Do you not? What does conscience say? What does the\nsense of remorse that sometimes blesses you, though it tortures, say?\nThere are tendencies in this generation, as always, but very strong at\npresent, to ignore the fact that all sin must necessarily lead to\ntremendous consequences of misery. It does so in this world, more or\nless. A man goes into another world as he left this one, and you and I\nbelieve that 'after death is the judgment.' Do you not require pardon?\nAnd how are you to get it? 'Himself bore our sins in His own body on\nthe tree.' Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died that the loving\nforgiveness of God might find its way to every heart, and might take\nall men to its bosom, whilst yet the righteousness of God remained\nuntarnished. I know not any gospel that goes deep enough to touch the\nreal sore place in human nature, except the gospel that says to you and\nme and all of us, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of\nthe world.'\n\nBut forgiveness is not enough, for the worst results of past sin are\nthe habits of sin which it leaves within us; so that we all need\ncleansing. Can we cleanse ourselves? Let experience answer. Did you\never try to cure yourself of some little trick of gesture, or manner,\nor speech? And did you not find out then how strong the trivial habit\nwas? You never know the force of a current till you try to row against\nit. 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin?' No; but God can change it for\nhim. So, again, we say that Jesus Christ who died for 'the remission of\nsins that are past,' lives that He may give to each of us His own\nblessed life and power, and so draw us from our evil, and invest us in\nHis good. Dear brother, I beseech you to look in the face the fact of\nyour rebellion, of your missing your aim, of your perverted life, and\nto ask yourself the question, 'Can I deal either with the guilt of the\npast, or with the imperative tendency to repeated sin in the future?'\nYou may have your leprous flesh made 'like the flesh of a little\nchild.' You may have your stained robe washed and made lustrous 'white\nin the blood of the Lamb.' Pardon and cleansing are our two deepest\nneeds. There is one hand from which we can receive them both, and one\nonly. There is one condition on which we shall receive them, which is\nthat we trust in Him, 'Who was crucified for our offences, and lives to\nhallow us into His own likeness.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE RECHABITES\n\n'The sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment\nof their father, which he commanded them; but this people have not\nhearkened unto Me.'--JER. xxxv. 16.\n\n\nThe Rechabites had lived a nomad life, dwelling in tents, not\npractising agriculture, abstaining from intoxicants. They were therein\nobeying the command of their ancestor, Jonadab. They had been driven by\nthe Babylonian invasion to take refuge in Jerusalem, and, no doubt,\nwere a nine days' wonder there, with their strange ways. Jeremiah\nseized on their loyalty to their dead ancestor's command as an\nobject-lesson, by which he put a still sharper edge on his rebukes. The\nRechabites gave their ancestral law an obedience which shamed Judah's\ndisobedience to Jehovah. God asks from us only what we are willing to\ngive to one another, and God is often refused what men have but to ask\nand it is given. The virtues which we exercise to each other rebuke us,\nbecause we so often refuse to exercise them towards God.\n\nI. Men's love to men condemns their lovelessness towards God.\n\nThese Rechabites witnessed to the power of loyal love to their\nancestor. Think of the wealth of love which we have all poured out on\nhusbands, wives, parents, children, and of the few drops that we have\ndiverted to flow towards God. What a full flood fills the one channel;\nwhat a shrunken stream the other!\n\nThink of the infinitely stronger reasons for loving God than for loving\nour dearest.\n\nII. Men's faith in men condemns their distrust of God.\n\nHowever you define faith, you find it abundantly exercised by us on the\nlow plane of earthly relations. Is it belief in testimony? You men of\nbusiness regulate your course by reports of markets on the other side\nof the world, and in a hundred ways extend your credence to common\nreport, with but little, and often with no examination of the evidence.\n'If we believe the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.' And\nhow do we treat it? We are ready to accept and to act on men's\ntestimony; we are slow to believe God's, and still slower to act on it,\nand to let it mould our lives.\n\nIs faith the realising of the unseen? We exercise it in reference to\nthe earthly unseen; we are slow to do so in reference to the heavenly\nthings which are invisible.\n\nIs faith the act of trust? Life is impossible without it. Not only is\ncommerce a great system of credit, but no relations of life could last\nfor a day without mutual confidence. We depend on one another, like a\nrow of slightly built houses that help to hold each other up. These\nearthly exercises of trust should make it easier for us to rise to\ntrusting God as much as we do each other. They ought to reveal to us\nthe heavenly things. For indeed our human trust in one another should\nbe a sample and shadow of our wise trust in the adequate Object of\ntrust.\n\nIII. Men's obedience to human authority condemns their rebellion\nagainst God.\n\nJonadab's commandment evoked implicit obedience from his descendants\nfor generations. Side by side in man's strange nature, with his\nself-will and love of independence, lies an equally strong tendency to\nobey and follow any masterful voice that speaks loudly and with an\nassumption of authority. The opinions of a clique, the dogmas of a\nsect, the habits of a set, the sayings of a favourite author, the\nfashions of our class--all these rule men with a sway far more absolute\nthan is exercised on them by the known will of God. The same man is a\nslave to usurped authority and a rebel against rightful and divine\ndominion.\n\nWhether we consider the law of God in its claims or its contents, or\nits ultimate object, it is worthy of entire obedience. And what does it\nreceive?\n\nGod asks from us only what we willingly give to men. Even the qualities\nand acts, such as love, trust, obedience, which as exercised towards\nmen give dignity and beauty and strength, rise up in judgment to\ncondemn us. There is a sense in which Augustine's often-denounced\nsaying that they are 'splendid vices' is true, for they are turned in\nthe wrong direction, and very often their being directed so completely\ntowards men and women is the reason why they are not directed towards\nGod, who alone deserves and alone can satisfy and reward them. Then\nthey become sins and condemn us.\n\n\n\n\nJEREMIAH'S ROLL BURNED AND REPRODUCED\n\n'Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch ... who wrote\ntherein ... all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had\nburned in the fire, and there were added besides unto them many like\nwords.'--JER. xxxvi. 32.\n\n\nThis story brings us into the presence of the long death agony of the\nJewish monarchy. The wretched Jehoiakim, the last king but two who\nreigned in Jerusalem, was put on the throne by the King of Egypt, as\nhis tributary, and used by him as a buffer to bear the brunt of the\nBabylonian invasion. He seems to have had all the vices of Eastern\nsovereigns. He was covetous, cruel, tyrannous, lawless, heartless,\nsenseless. He was lavishing money on a grand palace, built with cedar\nand painted in vermilion, when the nation was in its death-throes. He\nhad neither valour nor goodness, and so little did he understand the\nforces at work in his times that he held by the rotten support of Egypt\nagainst the grim power of Babylon, and of course, when the former was\ndriven like chaff before the assault of the latter, he shared the fate\nof his principal, and Judaea was overrun by Babylon, Jerusalem\ncaptured, and the poor creature on the throne bound in chains to be\ncarried to Babylon, but, as would appear, discovered by Nebuchadnezzar\nto be pliable enough to make it safe to leave him behind, as his\nvassal. His capture took place but a few months after the incident with\nwhich I am dealing now. It would appear probable that the confusion and\nalarm of the Babylonian assault on Egypt had led to a solemn fast in\nJerusalem, at which the nation assembled. Jeremiah, who had been\nprophesying for some thirty years, and had already been in peril of his\nlife from the godless tyrant on the throne, was led to collect, in one\nbook, his scattered prophecies and read them in the ears of the people\ngathered for the fast. That reading had no effect at all on the people.\nThe roll was then read to the princes, and in them roused fear and\ninterested curiosity, and kindly desire for the safety of Jeremiah and\nBaruch, his amanuensis. It was next read to the king, and he cut the\nroll leaf by leaf and threw it on the brasier, not afraid, nor\npenitent, but enraged and eager to capture Jeremiah and Baruch. The\nburnt roll was reproduced by God's command, 'and there were added\nbesides ... many like words.'\n\nI. The love of God necessarily prophesying evil.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the prophets of the Old Testament were all\nprophets of evil. They were watchmen seeing the sword and giving\nwarning. No one ever spoke more plainly of the penalties of sin than\ndid Christ. The authoritative revelation of the consequences of\nwrongdoing is an integral part of the gospel.\n\nIt is not the highest form of appeal. It would be higher to say, 'Do\nright because it is right; love Christ because Christ is lovely.' The\npurpose of such an appeal is to prepare us for the true gospel. But the\nappeal to a reasonable self-love, by warnings of the death which is the\nwages of sin, is perfectly legitimate. Dehortations from sin on the\nground of its consequences is part of God's message.\n\nFurther, the warning comes from love. Punishment must needs follow on\nsin. Even His love must compel God to punish, and to warn before He\ndoes. Surely that is kind. His punishments are made known beforehand\nthat we may be sure that caprice and anger have no part in inflicting\nthem, but that they are the settled order of an inviolable law, and\nconstitutional procedure of a just kind. Whether is it better to live\nunder a despot who smites as he will, or under a constitutional king\nwhose code is made public.\n\nSurely it is needful to have clearly set forth the consequences of sin,\nin view of the sophistries buzzing round us all and nestling in our own\nhearts, of the deceitfulness of sin, of siren voices whispering, 'Ye\nshall not surely die.'\n\nGod's prophecies of evil are all conditional. They are sent on purpose\nthat they may not be fulfilled.\n\nII. The loving warnings disregarded and disliked. Jehoiakim's behaviour\nis very human and like what we all do. We see the same thing repeated\nin all similar crises. Cassandra. Jewish prophets. Christ. English\nCommonwealth. French Revolution. Blindness to all signs and hostility\nto the men that warn.\n\nWe see it in the attitude to the gospel revelation. The Scripture\ndoctrine of punishment always rouses antagonism, and in this day\nrevolts men. There is much in present tendencies to weaken the idea of\nfuture retribution. Modern philanthropy makes it hard sometimes to\nadminister even human laws. The feeling is good, but this exaggeration\nof it bad. It is a reaction to some extent against an unchristian way\nof preaching Christian truth, but even admitting that, it still remains\ntrue that an integral part of the Christian revelation is the\nrevelation of death as the wages of sin.\n\nWe see the same recoil of feeling operating in individual cases. How\nmany of you are quite indifferent to the preaching of a judgment to\ncome, or only conscious of a movement of dislike! But how foolish this\nis! If a man builds a house on a volcano, is it not kind to tell him\nthat the lava is creeping over the side? Is it not kind to wake, even\nviolently, a traveller who has fallen asleep on the snow, before\ndrowsiness stiffens into death?\n\nIII. The impotent rejection and attempted destruction of the message.\n\nThe roll is destroyed, but it is renewed. You do not alter facts by\nneglecting them, nor abrogate a divine decree by disbelieving it. The\nawful law goes on its course. It is not pre-eminent seamanship to put\nthe look-out man in irons because he sings out, 'Breakers ahead.' The\ncrew do not abolish the reef _so_, but they end their last chance of\navoiding it, and presently the shock comes, and the cruel coral tears\nthrough the hull.\n\nIV. The neglected message made harder and heavier.\n\nEvery rejection makes a man more obdurate. Every rejection increases\ncriminality, and therefore increases punishment. Every rejection brings\nthe punishment nearer.\n\nThe increased severity of the message comes from love.\n\nOh, think of the infinite 'treasures of darkness' which God has in\nreserve, and let the words of warning lead you to Jesus, that you may\nonly hear and never experience the judgments of which they warn. Give\nChrist the roll of judgment and He will destroy it, nailing it to His\ncross, and instead of it will give you a book full of blessing.\n\n\n\n\nZEDEKIAH\n\n'Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king ... whom Nebuchadnezzar\nking of Babylon made king'--JER. xxxvii. 1.\n\n\nZedekiah was a small man on a great stage, a weakling set to face\ncircumstances that would have taxed the strongest. He was a youth at\nhis accession to the throne of a distracted kingdom, and if he had had\nany political insight he would have seen that his only chance was to\nadhere firmly to Babylon, and to repress the foolish aristocracy who\nhankered after alliance with the rival power of Egypt. He was mad\nenough to form an alliance with the latter, which was constructive\nrebellion against the former, and was strongly reprobated by Jeremiah.\nSwift vengeance followed; the country was ravaged, Zedekiah in his\nfright implored Jeremiah's prayers and made faint efforts to follow his\ncounsels. The pressure of invasion was lifted, and immediately he\nforgot his terrors and forsook the prophet. The Babylonian army was\nback next year, and the final investment of Jerusalem began. The siege\nlasted sixteen months, and during it, Zedekiah miserably vacillated\nbetween listening to the prophet's counsels of surrender and the\ntruculent nobles' advice to resist to the last gasp. The miseries of\nthe siege live for ever in the Book of Lamentations. Mothers boiled\ntheir children, nobles hunted on dunghills for food. Their delicate\ncomplexions were burned black, and famine turned them into living\nskeletons. Then, on a long summer day in July came the end. The king\ntried to skulk out by a covered way between the walls, his few\nattendants deserted him in his flight, he was caught at last down by\nthe fords of the Jordan, carried prisoner to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah\naway up in the north beyond Baalbec, and there saw his sons slain\nbefore his eyes, and, as soon as he had seen that last sight, was\nblinded, fettered, and carried off to Babylon, where he died. His\ncareer teaches us lessons which I may now seek to bring out.\n\nI. A weak character is sure to become a wicked one.\n\nMoral weakness and inability to resist strong pressure was the keynote\nof Zedekiah's character. There were good things in him; he had kindly\nimpulses, as was shown in his emancipation of the slaves at a crisis of\nJerusalem's fate. Left to himself, he would at least have treated\nJeremiah kindly, and did rescue him from lingering death in the foul\ndungeon to which the ruffian nobility had consigned him, and he\nprovided for his being at least saved from dying of starvation during\nthe siege. He listened to him secretly, and would have accepted his\ncounsel if he had dared. But he yielded to the stronger wills of the\nnobles, though he sometimes bitterly resented their domination, and\ncomplained that 'the king is not he that can do anything against you.'\n\nLike most weak men, he found that temptations to do wrong abounded more\nthan visible inducements to do right, and he was afraid to do right,\nand fancied that he was compelled by the force of circumstances to do\nwrong. So he drifted and drifted, and at last was smashed to fragments\non the rocks, as all men are who do not keep a strong hand on the helm\nand a steady eye on the compass. The winds are good servants but bad\nmasters. If we do not coerce circumstances to carry us on the course\nwhich conscience has pricked out on the chart, they will wreck us.\n\nII. A man may have a good deal of religion and yet not enough to mould\nhis life.\n\nZedekiah listened to the prophet by fits and starts. He was eager to\nhave the benefit of the prophet's prayers. He liberated the slaves in\nJerusalem. He came secretly to Jeremiah more than once to know if there\nwere any message from God for him. Yet he had not faith enough nor\nsubmission enough to let the known will of God rule his conduct,\nwhatever the nobles might say.\n\nAre there not many of us who have a belief in God and a general\nacquiescence in Christ's precepts, who order our lives now and then by\nthese, and yet have not come up to the point of full and final\nsurrender? Alas, alas, for the multitudes who are 'not far from the\nkingdom,' but who never come near enough to be actually _in_ it! To be\nnot far from _is_ to be out of, and to be out of is to be, like\nZedekiah, blinded and captived and dead in prison at last.\n\nIII. God's love is wonderfully patient.\n\nJeremiah was to Zedekiah the incarnation of God's unwearied pleadings.\nDuring his whole reign, the prophet's voice sounded in his ears,\nthrough all the clamours and cries of factions, and mingled at last\nwith the shouts of the besiegers and the groans of the wounded, like\nthe sustained note of some great organ, persisting through a babel of\ndiscordant noises. It was met with indifference, and it sounded on. It\nprovoked angry antagonism and still it spoke. Violence was used to\nstifle it in vain. And it was not only Jeremiah's courageous\npertinacity that spoke through that persistent voice, but God's\nunwearied love, which being rejected is not driven away, being\nneglected becomes more beseeching, 'is not easily provoked 'to cease\nits efforts, but 'beareth all' despite, and hopeth for softened hearts\ntill the last moment before doom falls.\n\nThat patient love pleads with each of us as persistently as Jeremiah\ndid with Zedekiah.\n\nIV. The long-delayed judgment falls at last.\n\nWith infinite reluctance the divine love had to do what God Himself has\ncalled 'His strange work.' Divine Justice travels slowly, but arrives\nat last. Her foot is 'leaden' both in regard to its tardiness and its\nweight. There is no ground in the long postponement of retribution for\nthe fond dream that it will never come, though men lull themselves to\nsleep with that lie. 'Because sentence against an evil work is not\nexecuted speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is thoroughly\nset in them to do evil.' But the sentence will be executed. The\npleading love, which has for many returning autumns spared the barren\ntree and sought to make it fit to bear fruit, does not prevent the\nowner saying at last to his servant with the axe in his hand, 'Now!\nthou shalt cut it down.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD'S WAGES TO A PROPHET\n\n'And it came to pass, that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up\nfrom Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's arm, 12. Then Jeremiah went forth\nout of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself\nthence in the midst of the people. 13. And when he was in the gate of\nBenjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the\nson of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he took Jeremiah the\nprophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans. 14. Then said\nJeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he\nhearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the\nprinces. 15. Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote\nhim, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for\nthey had made that the prison. 16. When Jeremiah was entered into the\ndungeon, and into the cabins, and Jeremiah had remained there many\ndays; 17. Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took him out: and the king\nasked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the\nLord? And Jeremiah said, There is: for, said he, thou shalt be\ndelivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. 18. Moreover, Jeremiah\nsaid unto king Zedekiah, What have I offended against thee, or against\nthy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison?\n19. Where are now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The\nking of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land? 20.\nTherefore hear now, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my\nsupplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou cause me\nnot to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.\n21. Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah\ninto the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a\npiece of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the\ncity were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the\nprison.'--JER. xxxvii. 11-21.\n\n\nSOME sixteen years had passed since Jehoiakim had burned the roll,\nduring all of which the slow gathering of the storm, which was to break\nover the devoted city, had been going on, and Jeremiah had been vainly\ncalling on the people to return to Jehovah. The last agony was now not\nfar off. But there came a momentary pause in the siege, produced by the\nnecessity of an advance against a relieving army from Egypt, which\ncreated fallacious hopes in the doomed city. It was only a pause. Back\ncame the investing force, and again the terrible, lingering process of\nstarving into surrender was resumed. Our text begins with the raising\nof the siege, and extends to some point after its resumption. It needs\nlittle elucidation, so clearly is the story told, and so natural are\nthe incidents; but perhaps we shall best gather its instruction if we\nlook at the three sets of actors separately, and note the hostile\nauthorities, the patient prophet and prisoner, and the feeble king. The\nplay of these strongly contrasted characters is full of vividness and\ninstruction.\n\nI. We have that rough 'captain of the ward,' who laid hands on the\nprophet at the gate on the north side of the city, leading to the road\nto the territory of Benjamin. No doubt there was a considerable exodus\nfrom Jerusalem when the Assyrian lines were deserted, and common\nprudence would have facilitated it, as reducing the number of mouths to\nbe fed, in case the siege were renewed; but malice is not prudent, and,\ninstead of letting the hated Jeremiah slip quietly away home to\nAnathoth, and so getting rid of his prophecies and him, Irijah ('the\nLord is a beholder') arrested him on a charge of meditating desertion\nto the enemy. It was a colourable accusation, for Jeremiah's constant\nexhortation had been to 'go out to the Chaldeans,' and so secure life\nand mild treatment. But it was clearly false, for the Chaldeans were\nfor the moment gone, and the time was the very worst that could have\nbeen chosen for a contemplated flight to their camp.\n\nThe real reason for the prophet's wish to leave the city was only too\nsimple. It was to see if he could get 'a portion'--some of his\nproperty, or perhaps rather some little store of food--to take back to\nthe famine-scourged city, which, he knew, would soon be again at\nstarvation-point. There appears to have been a little company of\nfellow-villagers with him, for 'in the midst of the people' (v. 12) is\nto be construed with 'to go into the land of Benjamin.' The others seem\nto have been let pass, and only Jeremiah detained, which makes the\ncharge more evidently a trumped-up excuse for laying hands on him.\nJeremiah calls it in plain words what it was--'a lie'--and protests his\ninnocence of any such design. But the officious Irijah knew too well\nhow much of a feather in his cap his getting hold of the prophet would\nbe, to heed his denials, and dragged him off to the princes.\n\nSixteen years ago 'the princes' round Jehoiakim had been the prophet's\nfriends; but either a new generation had come with a new king, or else\nthe tempers of the men had changed with the growing misery. Their\nbehaviour was more lawless than the soldiers' had been. They did not\neven pretend to examine the prisoner, but blazed up at once in anger.\nThey had him in their power now, and did their worst, lawlessly\nscourging him first, and then thrusting him into 'the house of the\npit'--some dark, underground hole, below the house of an official,\nwhere there were a number of 'cells'--filthy and stifling, no doubt;\nand there they left him. What for?\n\nThe charge of intended desertion was a mere excuse for wreaking their\nmalice on him. They hated Jeremiah because he had steadily opposed the\npopular determination to fight, and had foretold disaster. Add to this\nthat he had held up a high standard of religion and morality to a\ncorrupt and idolatrous people, and his 'unpopularity' is sufficiently\nexplained.\n\nWould that the same causes did not produce the same effects now!\nIndividuals still think an honest rebuke of their faults an insult, and\na plain statement of their danger a sign of ill-feeling. Try to warn a\ndrunkard or a profligate by telling him of the disease and misery which\nwill dog his sins, or by setting plainly before him God's law of purity\nand sobriety, and you will find that the prophet's function still\nbrings with it, in many cases, the prophet's doom. But still more truly\nis this the case with masses, whether nations or cities. A spurious\npatriotism resents as unpatriotic the far truer love of country which\nsets a trumpet to its mouth to tell the people their sins. In all\ndemocratic communities, whether republican or regal in their form of\ngovernment, a crying evil is flattery of the masses, exalting their\nvirtues and foretelling their prosperity, while hiding their faults and\nslurring over the requirements of morality and religion, which are the\nfoundations of prosperity. What did England do with her prophets? What\ndid America do with hers? What wages do they get to-day? The men who\ndare to tell their countrymen their faults, and to preach temperance,\npeace, civic purity, personal morality, are laid hold of by the Irijahs\nwho preside over the newspapers, and are pilloried as deserters and\nhalf traitors at heart.\n\nII. We see the patient, unmoved prophet. One flash of honest\nindignation repels the charge of deserting, and then he is silent. 'As\na sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.' It is\nuseless to plead before lawless violence. A silent martyr eloquently\ncondemns an unjust judge. So, without opposition or apparent\nremonstrance, Jeremiah is cast into the foul den where he lies for\n'many days,' patiently bearing his fate, and speaking his complaint to\nGod only. How long his imprisonment lasted does not appear; but the\ncontext implies that during it the siege was resumed, and that there\nwas difficulty in procuring bread. Then the king sent for him secretly.\n\nZedekiah's temper at the time will be considered presently. Here we\nhave to do with Jeremiah's answer to his question. In it we may note,\nas equally prominent and beautifully blended, respect, submission,\nconsciousness of peril and impending death, and unshaken boldness. He\nknew that his life was at the disposal of the capricious, feeble\nZedekiah. He bows before him as his subject, and brings his\n'supplication'; but not one jot of his message will he abate, nor\nsmooth down its terribleness an atom. He repeats as unfalteringly as\never the assurance that the king of Babylon will take the city. He\nasserts his own innocence as regards king and courtiers and people; and\nhe asks the scornful question what has become of all the smooth-tongued\nprophets of prosperity, as if he were bidding the king look over the\ncity wall and see the tokens of their lies and of Jeremiah's truth in\nthe investing lines of the all but victorious enemy.\n\nSuch a combination of perfect meekness and perfect courage, unstained\nloyalty to his king, and supreme obedience to his God, was only\npossible to a man who lived in very close communion with Jehovah, and\nhad learned thereby to fear none less, because he feared Him so well,\nand to reverence all else whom He had set in places of reverence. True\ncourage, of the pattern which befits God's servants, is ever gentle.\nBluster is the sign of weakness. A Christian hero--and no man will be a\nChristian as he ought to be, who has not something of the hero in\nhim--should win by meekness. Does not the King of all such ride\nprosperously 'because of truth and meekness,' and must not the armies\nwhich follow Him do the same? Faithful witnessing to men of their sins\nneed not be rude, harsh, or self-asserting. But we must live much in\nfellowship with the Lord of all the meek and the pattern of all patient\nsufferers and faithful witnesses, if we are ever to be like Him, or\neven like His pale shadow as seen in this meek prophet. The fountains\nof strength and of patience spring side by side at the foot of the\ncross.\n\nIII. We have the weak Zedekiah, with his pitiable vacillation. He had\nbeen Nebuchadnezzar's nominee, and had served him for some years, and\nthen rebelled. His whole career indicates a feeble nature, taking the\nimpression of anything which was strongly laid on it. He was a king of\nputty, when the times demanded one of iron. He was cowed by the\n'princes.' Sometimes he was afraid to disobey Jeremiah, and then afraid\nto let his masters know that he was so. Thus he sends for the prophet\nstealthily, and his first question opens a depth of conflict in his\nsoul. He did believe that the prophet spoke the word of Jehovah, and\nyet he could not muster up courage to follow his convictions and go\nagainst the princes and the mob. He wanted another 'word' from Jehovah,\nby which he meant a word of another sort than the former. He could not\nbring his mind to obey the word which he had, and so he weakly hoped\nthat perhaps God's word might be changed into one that he would be\nwilling to obey. Many men are, like him, asking, 'Is there any word\nfrom the Lord?' and meaning, 'Is there any change in the condition of\nreceiving His favour?'\n\nHe had interest enough in the prophet to interfere for his comfort, and\nto have him put into better quarters in the palace and provided with a\n'circle' (a round loaf) of bread out of Baker Street, as long as there\nwas any in the city--not a very long time. But why did he do so much,\nand not do more? He knew that Jeremiah was innocent, and that his word\nwas God's; and what he should have done was to have shaken off his\nmasterful 'servants,' followed his conscience, and obeyed God. Why did\nhe not? Because he was a coward, infirm of purpose, and therefore\n'unstable as water.'\n\nHe is another of the tragic examples, with which all life as well as\nscripture is studded, of how much evil is possible to a weak character.\nIn this world, where there are so many temptations to be bad, no man\nwill be good who cannot strongly say 'No.' The virtue of strength of\nwill may be but like the rough fence round young trees to keep cattle\nfrom browsing on them and east winds from blighting them. But the fence\nis needed, if the trees are to grow. 'To be weak is to be miserable,'\nand sinful too, generally. 'Whom resist' must be the motto for all\nnoble, God-like, and God-pleasing life.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST AGONY\n\n'In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came\nNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and\nthey besieged it. 2. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the\nfourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up. 3.\nAnd all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the\nmiddle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarse-chim, Rab-saris,\nNergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the\nking of Babylon. 4. And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of\nJudah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth\nout of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate\nbetwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain. 5. But the\nChaldeans' army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains\nof Jericho; and when they had taken him, they brought him up to\nNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where\nhe gave judgment upon him. 6. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of\nZedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all\nthe nobles of Judah. 7. Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound\nhim with chains, to carry him to Babylon. 8. And the Chaldeans burned\nthe king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake\ndown the walls of Jerusalem. 9. Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the\nguard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that\nremained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with\nthe rest of the people that remained. 10. But Nebuzar-adan the captain\nof the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the\nland of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same\ntime.'--JER. xxxix. 1-10.\n\n\nTwo characteristics of this account of the fall of Jerusalem are\nstriking,--its minute particularity, giving step by step the details of\nthe tragedy, and its entire suppression of emotion. The passionless\nrecord tells the tale without a tear or a sob. For these we must go to\nthe Book of Lamentations. This is the history of God's judgment, and\nhere emotion would be misplaced. But there is a world of repressed\nfeeling in the long-drawn narrative, as well as in the fact that three\nversions of the story are given here (chap, lii., 2 Kings xxv.). Sorrow\ncurbed by submission, and steadily gazing on God's judicial act, is the\ntemper of the narrative. It should be the temper of all sufferers. 'I\nwas dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.' But we may\nnote the three stages in the final agony which this section\ndistinguishes.\n\nI. There is the entrance of the enemy. Jerusalem fell not by assault,\nbut by famine. The siege lasted eighteen months, and ended when 'all\nthe bread in the city was spent.' The pitiful pictures in Lamentations\nfill in the details of misery, telling how high-born women picked\ngarbage from dung-heaps, and mothers made a ghastly meal of their\ninfants, while the nobles were wasted to skeletons, and the little\nchildren piteously cried for bread. At length a breach was made in the\nnorthern wall (as Josephus tells us, 'at midnight'), and through it, on\nthe ninth day of the fourth month (corresponding to July), swarmed the\nconquerors, unresisted. The commanders of the Babylonians planted\nthemselves at 'the middle gate,' probably a gate in the wall between\nthe upper and lower city, so securing for them the control of both.\n\nHow many of these fierce soldiers are named in verse 3? At first sight\nthere seem to be six, but that number must be reduced by at least two,\nfor Rab-saris and Rab-mag are official titles, and designate the\noffices (chief eunuch and chief magician) of the two persons whose\nnames they respectively follow. Possibly Samgar-Nebo is also to be\ndeducted, for it has been suggested that, as that name stands, it is\nanomalous, and it has been proposed to render its first element,\n_Samgar_, as meaning _cup-bearer_, and being the official title\nattached to the name preceding it; while its second part, _Nebo_, is\nregarded as the first element in a new name obtained by reading\n_shashban_ instead of Sarsechim, and attaching that reading to Nebo.\nThis change would bring verse 3 into accord with verse 13, for in both\nplaces we should then have Nebo-shashban designated as chief of the\neunuchs. However the number of the commanders is settled, and whatever\ntheir names, the point which the historian emphasises is their presence\nthere. Had it come to this, that men whose very names were invocations\nof false gods ('Nergal protect the king,' 'Nebo delivers me' if we read\n'Nebo-shashban,' or 'Be gracious, Nebo,' if Samgar-nebo) should sit\nclose by the temple, and have their talons fixed in the Holy City?\n\nThese intruders were all unconscious of the meaning of their victory,\nand the tragedy of their presence there. They thought that they were\nNebuchadnezzar's servants, and had captured for him, at last, an\nobstinate little city, which had given more trouble than it was worth.\nIts conquest was but a drop in the bucket of his victories. How little\nthey knew that they were serving that Jehovah whom they thought that\nNebo had conquered in their persons! How little they knew that they\nwere the instruments of the most solemn act of judgment in the world's\nhistory till then!\n\nThe causes which led to the fall of Jerusalem could be reasonably set\nforth as purely political without a single reference to Israel's sins\nor God's judgment; but none the less was its capture the divine\npunishment of its departure from Him, and none the less were\nNergal-sharezer and his fellows God's tools, the axes with which He\nhewed down the barren tree. So does He work still, in national and\nindividual history. You may, in a fashion, account for both without\nbringing Him in at all; but your philosophy of either will be partial,\nunless you recognise that 'the history of the world is the judgment of\nthe world.' It was the same hand which set these harsh conquerors at\nthe middle gate of Jerusalem that sent the German armies to encamp in\nthe Place de la Concorde in Paris; and in neither case does the\nrecognition of God in the crash of a falling throne absolve the victors\nfrom the responsibility of their deeds.\n\nII. We have the flight and fate of Zedekiah and his evil advisers (vs.\n4-7). His weakness of character shows itself to the end. Why was there\nno resistance? It would have better beseemed him to have died on his\npalace threshold than to have skulked away in the dark between the\nshelter of the 'two walls.' But he was a poor weakling, and the curse\nof God sat heavy on his soul, though he had tried to put it away.\nConscience made a coward of him; for he, at all events, knew who had\nset the strangers by the middle gate. Men who harden heart and\nconscience against threatened judgments are very apt to collapse, when\nthe threats are fulfilled. The frost breaks up with a rapid thaw.\n\nEzekiel (Ezek. xii. 12) prophesied the very details of the flight. It\nwas to be 'in the dark,' the king himself was to 'carry' some of his\nvaluables, they were to 'dig through' the earthen ramparts; and all\nappears to have been literally fulfilled. The flight was taken in the\nopposite direction from the entrance of the besiegers; two walls, which\nprobably ran down the valley between Zion and the temple mount,\nafforded cover to the fugitives as far as to the south city wall, and\nthere some postern let them out to the king's garden. That is a tragic\ntouch. It was no time then to gather flowers. The forlorn and\nfrightened company seems to have scattered when once outside the city;\nfor there is a marked contrast in verse 4 between 'they fled' and 'he\nwent.' In the description of his flight Zedekiah is still called, as in\nverses 1 and 2, the king; but after his capture he is only 'Zedekiah.'\n\nDown the rocky valley of the Kedron he hurried, and had a long enough\nstart of his pursuers to get to Jericho. Another hour would have seen\nhim safe across Jordan, but the prospect of escape was only dangled\nbefore his eyes to make capture more bitter. Probably he was too much\nabsorbed with his misery and fear to feel any additional humiliation\nfrom the mighty memories of the scene of his capture; but how solemnly\nfitting it was that the place which had seen Israel's first triumph,\nwhen 'by faith the walls of Jericho fell down,' should witness the\nlowest shame of the king who had cast away his kingdom by unbelief! The\nconquering dead might have gathered in shadowy shapes to reproach the\nweakling and sluggard who had sinned away the heritage which they had\nwon. The scene of the capture underscores the lesson of the capture\nitself; namely, the victorious power of faith, and the defeat and shame\nwhich, in the long-run, are the fruits of an 'evil heart of unbelief,\ndeparting from the living God.'\n\nThat would be a sad march through all the length of the fair land that\nhad slipped from his slack fingers, up to far-off Riblah, in the great\nvalley between the Lebanon and the anti-Lebanon. Observe how, in verses\n5 and 6, the king of Babylon has his royal title, and Zedekiah has not.\nThe crown has fallen from his head, and there is no more a king in\nJudah. He who had been king now stands chained before the cruel\nconqueror. Well might the victor think that Nebo had overcome Jehovah,\nbut better did the vanquished know that Jehovah had kept his word.\n\nCruelty and expediency dictated the savage massacre and mutilation\nwhich followed. The death of Zedekiah's sons, and of the nobles who had\nscoffed at Jeremiah's warnings, and the blinding of Zedekiah, were all\nmeasures of precaution as well as of savagery. They diminished the\ndanger of revolt; and a blind, childless prisoner, without counsellors\nor friends, was harmless. But to make the sight of his slaughtered sons\nthe poor wretch's last sight, was a refinement of gratuitous delight in\ntorturing. Thus singularly was Ezekiel's enigma solved and harmonised\nwith its apparent contradictions in Jeremiah's prophecies: 'Yet shall\nhe not see it, though he shall die there' (Ezek. xii. 13).\n\nZedekiah is one more instance of the evil which may come from a weak\ncharacter, and of the evil which may fall on it. He had good impulses,\nbut he could not hold his own against the bad men round him, and so he\nstumbled on, not without misgivings, which only needed to be attended\nto with resolute determination, in order to have reversed his conduct\nand fate. Feeble hands can pull down venerable structures built in\nhappier times. It takes a David and a Solomon to rear a temple, but a\nZedekiah can overthrow it.\n\nIII. We have the completion of the conquest (vs. 8-10). The first care\nof the victors was, of course, to secure themselves, and fires and\ncrowbars were the readiest way to that end. But the wail in the last\nchapter of Lamentations hints at the usual atrocities of the sack of a\ncity, when brutal lust and as brutal ferocity are let loose. Chapter\nlii. shows that the final step in our narrative was separated from the\ncapture of the city by a month, which was, no doubt, a month of\nnameless agonies, horrors, and shame. Then the last drop was added to\nthe bitter cup, in the deportation of the bulk of the inhabitants,\naccording to the politic custom of these old military monarchies. What\nrending of ties, what weariness and years of long-drawn-out yearning,\nthat meant, can easily be imagined. The residue left behind to keep the\ncountry from relapsing into waste land was too weak to be dangerous,\nand too cowed to dare anything. One knows not who had the sadder lot,\nthe exiles, or the handful of peasants left to till the fields that had\nonce been their own, and to lament their brethren gone captives to the\nfar-off land.\n\nSurely the fall of Jerusalem, though all the agony is calmed ages ago,\nstill remains as a solemn beacon-warning that the wages of sin is\ndeath, both for nations and individuals; that the threatenings of God's\nWord are not idle, but will be accomplished to the utmost tittle; and\nthat His patience stretches from generation to generation, and His\njudgments tarry because He is not willing that any should perish, but\nthat for all the long-suffering there comes a time when even divine\nlove sees that it is needful to say 'Now!? and the bolt falls. The\nsolemn word addressed to Israel has application as real to all\nChristian churches and individual souls: 'You only have I known of all\nthe inhabitants of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your\niniquities.'\n\n\n\n\nEBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN\n\n'For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword,\nbut thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy\ntrust in Me, saith the Lord.'--JER. xxxix. 18.\n\n\nEbedmelech is a singular anticipation of that other Ethiopian eunuch\nwhom Philip met on the desert road to Gaza. It is prophetic that on the\neve of the fall of the nation, a heathen man should be entering into\nunion with God. It is a picture in little of the rejection of Israel\nand the ingathering of the Gentiles.\n\nI. The identity in all ages of the bond that unites men to God.\n\nIt is a common notion that faith is peculiar to the New Testament. But\nthe Old Testament 'trust' is identical with the New Testament 'faith,'\nand it is a great pity that the variation in translation has obscured\nthat identity. The fact of the prominence given to law in the Old\nTestament does not affect this. For every effort to keep the law must\nhave led to consciousness of imperfection, and that consciousness must\nhave driven to the exercise of penitent trust. The difference of\ndegrees of revelation does not affect it, for faith is the same,\nhowever various the contents of the creed.\n\nNote further the personal object of Faith--'in ME.' The object of Faith\nis not a proposition but a Person. That Person is the same in the Old\nTestament and in the New. The Jehovah of the one is the God in Christ\nof the other. Consequently faith must be more than intellectual assent,\nit must be voluntary and emotional, the act of the whole man, 'the\nsynthesis of the reason and the will.'\n\nII. The contrast of a formal and real union with God.\n\nThe king, prophets, priests, the whole nation, had an outward\nconnection with Him, but it meant nothing. And this foreigner, a slave,\nperhaps not even a proselyte, a eunuch, had what the children of the\ncovenant had not, a true union with God through Faith.\n\nJudaism was not an exclusive system, but was intended to bring in the\nnations to share in its blessings. Outward descent gave outward place\nwithin the covenant, but the distinction of real and formal place there\nwas established from the beginning. What else than this is the meaning\nof all the threatenings of Deuteronomy? What else did Isaiah mean when\nhe called the rulers in Jerusalem 'Rulers of Sodom'? Here the fates of\nEbedmelech and of Zedekiah illustrate both sides of the truth. The\ndanger of trusting in outward possession and of thinking that God's\nmercy is our property besets all Churches. Organisations of\nChristianity are necessary, but it is impossible to tell the harm that\nformal connection with them has done. There is only one bond that\nunites men to God--personal trust in Him as 'in Christ reconciling the\nworld to Himself.'\n\nIII. The possibility of exercising uniting faith even in most\nunfavourable circumstances.\n\nThis Ebedmelech had everything against him. The contemptuous exclusion\nof him from any share in the covenant might well have discouraged him.\nThe poorest Jew treated him as a heathen dog, who had no right even to\ncrumbs from the table spread for the children only. He was plunged into\na sea of godlessness, and saw examples enough of utter carelessness as\nto Jehovah in His professed servants to drive him away from a religion\nwhich had so little hold on its professed adherents. The times were\ngloomy, and the Jehovah whom Judah professed to worship seemed to have\nsmall power to help His worshippers. It would have been no wonder if\nthe conduct of the people of Jerusalem had caused the name of Jehovah\nto be blasphemed by this Gentile, nor if he had revolted from a\nreligion that was alleged to be the special property of one race, and\nthat such a race! But he listened to the cry of his own heart, and to\nthe words of God's prophet, and his faith pierced through all\nobstacles--like the roots of some tree feeling for the water. He found\nthe vitalising fountain that he sought, and His name stands to all ages\nas a witness that no seeking heart, that longs for God, is ever balked\nin its search, and that a faith, very imperfect as to its knowledge,\nmay be so strong as to its substance that it unites him who exercises\nit with God, while the possessors of ecclesiastical privileges and of\nuntarnished and full-orbed orthodox knowledge have no fellowship with\nHim.\n\nIV. The safety given by such uniting faith.\n\nTo Ebedmelech, escape from death by the besiegers' swords was promised.\nTo us a more blessed safety and exemption from a worse destruction are\nassured. 'The life which is life indeed' may be ours, and shall\nassuredly be ours, if our trust knits us to Him who is the Life, and\nwho has said 'He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'\n\n\n\n\nGOD'S PATIENT PLEADINGS\n\n'I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending\nthem, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.'--JER.\nxliv. 4.\n\n\nThe long death-agony of the Jewish kingdom has come to an end. The\nfrivolous levity, which fed itself on illusions and would not be\nsobered by facts, has been finally crushed out of the wretched people.\nThe dreary succession of incompetent kings--now a puppet set up by\nEgypt, now another puppet set up by Babylon, has ended with the weak\nZedekiah. The throne of David is empty, and the long line of kings,\nwhich numbered many a strong, wise, holy man, has dwindled into a\ncouple of captives, one of them blind and both of them paupers on an\nidolatrous monarch's bounty. The country is desolate, the bulk of the\npeople exiles, and the poor handful, who had been left by the\nconqueror, flitting like ghosts, or clinging, like domestic animals, to\ntheir burnt homes and wasted plains, have been quarrelling and fighting\namong themselves, murdering the Jewish ruler whom Babylon had left\nthem, and then in abject terror have fled _en masse_ across the border\ninto Egypt, where they are living wretched lives. What a history that\npeople had gone through since they had lived on the same soil before!\nFrom Moses to Zedekiah, what a story! From Goshen till now it had been\none long tragedy which seems to have at last reached its fifth act.\nNine hundred years have passed, and this is the issue of them all!\n\nThe circumstances might well stir the heart of the prophet, whose\ndoleful task it had been to foretell the coming of the storm, who had\nhad to strip off Judah's delusions and to proclaim its certain fall,\nand who in doing so had carried his life in his hand for forty years,\nand had never met with recognition or belief.\n\nJeremiah had been carried off by the fugitives to Egypt, and there he\nmade a final effort to win them back to God. He passed before them the\noutline of the whole history of the nation, treating it as having\naccomplished one stadium--and what does he find? In all these days\nsince Goshen there has been one monotonous story of vain divine\npleadings and human indifference, God beseeching and Israel turning\naway--and now at last the crash, long foretold, never credited, which\nhad been drawing nearer through all the centuries, has come, and Israel\nis scattered among the people.\n\nSuch are the thoughts and emotions that speak in the exquisitely tender\nwords of our text. It suggests--\n\nI. God's antagonism to sin.\n\nII. The great purpose of all His pleadings.\n\nIII. God's tender and unwearied efforts.\n\nIV. The obstinate resistance to His tender pleadings.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI. God's antagonism to sin.\n\nIt is the one thing in the universe to which He is opposed. Sin is\nessentially antagonism to God. People shrink from the thought of God's\nhatred of sin, because of--\n\nAn underestimate of its gravity. Contrast the human views of its\nenormity, as shown by men's playing with it, calling it by half-jocose\nnames and the like, with God's thought of its heinousness.\n\nA false dread of seeming to attribute human emotions to God. But there\nis in God what corresponds to our human feelings, something analogous\nto the attitude of a pure human mind recoiling from evil.\n\nThe divine love must necessarily be pure, and the mightier its energy\nof forth-going, the mightier its energy of recoil. God's 'hate' is Love\ninverted and reverted on itself. A divine love which had in it no\nnecessity of hating evil would be profoundly immoral, and would be\ncalled devilish more fitly than divine.\n\nII. The great purpose of the divine pleadings.\n\nTo wean from sin is the main end of prophecy. It is the main end of all\nrevelation. God must chiefly desire to make His creatures like Himself.\nSin makes a special revelation necessary. Sin determines the form of it.\n\nIII. God's tender and unwearied efforts.\n\n'Rising early' is a strong metaphor to express persistent effort. The\nmore obstinate is our indifference, the more urgent are His calls. He\nraises His voice as our deafness grows. Mark, too, the tenderness of\nthe entreaty in this text, 'Oh, do not this abominable thing that I\nhate!' His hatred of it is adduced as a reason which should touch any\nheart that loves Him. He beseeches as if He, too, were saying, 'Though\nI might be bold to enjoin thee' that which is fitting, 'yet for love's\nsake I rather beseech thee.' The manifestation of His disapproval and\nthe appeal to our love by the disclosure of His own are the most\npowerful, winning and compelling dehortations from sin. Not by\nbrandishing the whip, not by a stern law written on tables of stone,\nbut by unveiling His heart, does God win us from our sins.\n\nIV. The obstinate resistance to God's tender pleadings.\n\nThe tragedy of the nation is summed up in one word, 'They hearkened\nnot.'\n\nThat power of neglecting God's voice and opposing God's will is the\nmystery of our nature. How strange it is that a human will should be\nable to lift itself in opposition to the Sovereign Will! But stranger\nand more mysterious and tragic still is it that we should choose to\nexercise that power and find pleasure, and fancy that we shall ever\nfind advantage, in refusing to listen to His entreaties and choosing to\nflout His uttered will.\n\nSuch opposition was Israel's ruin. It will be ours if we persist in it.\n'If God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE SWORD OF THE LORD\n\n'O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put\nup thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. 7. How can it be\nquiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge?'--JER. xlvii. 6, 7.\n\n\nThe prophet is here in the full tide of his prophecies against the\nnations round about. This paragraph is entirely occupied with\nthreatenings. Bearing the cup of woes, he turns to one after another of\nthe ancestral enemies of Israel, Egypt and Philistia on the south and\nwest, Moab on the south and east, then northwards to Ammon, south to\nEdom, north to Damascus, Kedar, Hagor, Elam, and finally to the great\nfoe--Babylon. In the hour of Israel's lowest fortunes and the foe's\nproudest exultation these predictions are poured out. Jeremiah stands\nas if wielding the sword of which our text speaks, and whirls and\npoints the flashing terror of its sharpened edge against the ring of\nfoes. It turns every way, like the weapon of the angelic guard before\nthe lost paradise, and wherever it turns a kingdom falls.\n\nIn the midst of his stern denunciations he checks himself to utter this\nplaintive cry of pity and longing. A tender gleam of compassion breaks\nthrough the heart of the thunder-cloud. It is very beautiful to note\nthat the point at which the irrepressible welling up of sweet waters\nbreaks the current of his prophecy is the prediction against Israel's\nbitterest, because nearest, foe, 'these uncircumcised Philistines.' He\nbeholds the sea of wrath drowning the great Philistine plain, its rich\nharvests trampled under foot by 'stamping of hoofs of his strong ones,'\nand that desolation wrings from his heart the words of our text. I take\nthem to be spoken by the prophet. That, of course, is doubtful. It may\nbe that they are meant to give in a vivid dramatic form the effect of\nthe judgments on the sufferers. They recognise these as 'the sword of\nthe Lord.' Their only thought is an impatient longing that the\njudgments would cease,--no confession of sin, no humbling of them\nselves, but only--'remove Thy hand from us.'\n\nAnd the answer is either the prophet's or the divine voice; spoken in\nthe one case to himself, in the other to the Philistines; but in either\nsetting forth the impossibility that the sweeping sword should rest,\nsince it is the instrument in God's hand, executing His charge and\nfulfilling His appointment.\n\nI. The shrinking from the unsheathed sword of the Lord.\n\nWe may deal with the words as representing very various states of mind.\n\nThey may express the impatience of sufferers. Afflictions are too often\nwasted. Whatever the purpose of chastisement, the true lesson of it is\nso seldom learned, even in regard to the lowest wisdom it is adapted to\nteach. In an epidemic, how few people learn to take precautions, such\nas cleanliness or attention to diet! In hard times commercially, how\nslow most are to learn the warning against luxury, over-trading, haste\nto be rich! And in regard to higher lessons, men have a dim sense\nsometimes that the blow comes from God, but, like Balaam, go on their\nway in spite of the angel with the sword. It does not soften, nor\nrestrain, nor drive to God. The main result is, impatient longing for\nits removal.\n\nThe text may express the rooted dislike to the thought and the fact of\npunishment as an element in divine government. This is a common phase\nof feeling always, and especially so now. There is a present tendency,\ngood in many aspects, but excessive, to soften away the thought of\npunishment; or to suppose that God's punishments must have the same\npurposes as men's. We cannot punish by way of retribution, for no\nbalance of ours is fine enough to weigh motives or to determine\ncriminality. Our punishments can only be deterrent or reformatory, but\nthis is by reason of our weakness. He has other objects in view.\n\nCurrent ideas of the love of God distort it by pitting it against His\nretributive righteousness. Current ideas of sin diminish its gravity by\ntracing it to heredity or environment, or viewing it as a necessary\nstage in progress. The sense of God's judicial action is paralysed and\nall but dead in multitudes.\n\nAll these things taken together set up a strong current of opinion\nagainst any teaching of punitive energy in God.\n\nThe text may express the pitying reluctance of the prophet.\n\nJeremiah is remarkable for the weight with which 'the burden of the\nLord' pressed upon him. The true prophet feels the pang of the woes\nwhich he is charged to announce more than his hearers do.\n\nUnfair charges are made against gospel preachers, as if they delighted\nin the thought of the retribution which they have to proclaim.\n\nII. The solemn necessity for the unsheathing of the sword.\n\nThe judgments must go on. In the text the all-sufficient reason given\nis that God has willed it so. But we must take into account all that\nlies in that name of 'Lord' before we understand the message, which\nbrought patience to the heart of the prophet. If a Jewish prophet\nbelieved anything, he believed that the will of the Lord was absolutely\ngood. Jeremiah's reason for the flashing sword is no mere beating down\nhuman instincts, by alleging a will which is sovereign, and there an\nend. We have to take into account the whole character of Him who has\nwilled it, and then we can discern it to be inevitable that God should\npunish evil.\n\nHis character makes it inevitable. God's righteousness cannot but hate\nsin and fight against it. To leave it unpunished stains His glory.\n\nGod's love cannot but draw and wield the sword. It is unsheathed in the\ninterests of all that is 'lovely and of good report.' If God is God at\nall, and not an almighty devil, He must hate sin. The love and the\nrighteousness, which in deepest analysis are one, must needs issue in\npunishment. There would be a blight over the universe if they did not.\n\nThe very order of the universe makes it inevitable. All things, as\ncoming from Him, must work for His lovers and against His enemies, as\n'the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.'\n\nThe constitution of men makes it inevitable. Sin brings its own\npunishment, in gnawing conscience, defiled memories, incapacity for\ngood, and many other penalties.\n\nIt is to be remembered that the text originally referred to retribution\non nations for national sins, and that what Jeremiah regarded as the\nstrokes of the Lord might be otherwise regarded as political\ncatastrophes. Let us not overlook that application of the principles of\nthe text. Scripture regards the so-called 'natural consequences' of a\nnation's sins as God's judgments on them. The Christian view of the\ngovernment of the world looks on all human affairs as moved by God,\nthough done by men. It takes full account of the responsibility of men\nthe doers, but above all, recognises 'the rod and Him who hath\nappointed it.' We see exemplified over and over again in the world's\nhistory the tragic truth that the accumulated consequences of a\nnation's sins fall on the heads of a single generation. Slowly, drop by\ndrop, the cup is filled. Slowly, moment by moment, the hand moves round\nthe dial, and then come the crash and boom of the hammer on the\ndeep-toned bell. Good men should pray not, 'Put up thyself into thy\nscabbard,' but, 'Gird Thy sword on Thy thigh, O thou most mighty... on\nbehalf of truth and meekness and righteousness.'\n\nIII. The sheathing of the sword.\n\nThe passionate appeal in the text, which else is vain, has in large\nmeasure its satisfaction in the work of Christ.\n\nGod does not delight in punishment. He has provided a way. Christ bears\nthe consequence of man's sin, the sense of alienation, the pains and\nsorrows, the death. He does not bear them for Himself. His bearing them\naccomplishes the ends at which punishment aims, in expressing the\ndivine hatred of sin and in subduing the heart. Trusting in Him, the\nsword does not fall on us. In some measure indeed it still does. But it\nis no longer a sword to smite, but a lancet to inflict a healing wound.\nAnd the worst punishment does not fall on us. God's sword was sheathed\nin Christ's breast. So trust in Him, then shall you have 'boldness in\nthe day of judgment.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE KINSMAN-REDEEMER\n\n'Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is His name: He shall\nthoroughly plead their cause.'--JER. l. 34.\n\n\nAmong the remarkable provisions of the Mosaic law there were some very\npeculiar ones affecting the next-of-kin. The nearest living blood\nrelation to a man had certain obligations and offices to discharge,\nunder certain contingencies, in respect of which he received a special\nname; which is sometimes translated in the Old Testament 'Redeemer,'\nand sometimes 'Avenger' of blood. What the etymological signification\nof the word may be is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. It is taken by some\nauthorities to come from a word meaning 'to set free.' But a\nconsideration of the offices which the law prescribed for the 'Goel' is\nof more value for understanding the peculiar force of the metaphor in\nsuch a text as this, than any examination of the original meaning of\nthe word. Jehovah is represented as having taken upon Himself the\nfunctions of the next-of-kin, and is the Kinsman-Redeemer of His\npeople. The same thought recurs frequently in the Old Testament,\nespecially in the second half of the prophecies of Isaiah, and it were\nmuch to be desired that the Revised Version had adopted some means of\nshowing an English reader the instances, since the expression suggests\na very interesting and pathetic view of God's relation to His people.\n\nI. Let me state briefly the qualifications and offices of the\nkinsman-redeemer, _'the Goel.'_\n\nThe qualifications may be all summed up in one--that he must be the\nnearest blood relation of the person whose Goel he was. He might be\nbrother, or less nearly related, but this was essential, that of all\nliving men, he was the most closely connected. That qualification has\nto be kept well in mind when thinking of the transference of the office\nto God in His relation to Israel, and through Israel to us.\n\nSuch being his qualification, what were his duties? Mainly three. The\nfirst was connected with property, and is thus stated in the words of\nthe law, 'If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his\npossession, then shall his _kinsman_ that is next unto him come, and\nshall redeem that which his brother hath sold' (Lev. xxv. 25, R. V.).\nThe Mosaic law was very jealous of large estates. The prophet\npronounced a curse upon those who joined 'land to land, and field to\nfield... that they may be alone in the midst of the earth.' One great\npurpose steadily kept in view in all the Mosaic land-laws was the\nprevention of the alienation of the land from its original holders, and\nof its accumulation in a few hands. The idea underlying the law was\nthat of the tribal or family ownership--or rather occupancy, for God\nwas the owner and Israel but a tenant--and not individual possession.\nThat thought carries us back to a social state long since passed away,\nbut of which traces are still left even among ourselves. It was carried\nout thoroughly in the law of Moses, however imperfectly in actual\npractice. The singular institution of the year of Jubilee operated,\namong other effects, to check the acquisition of large estates. It\nprovided that land which had been alienated was to revert to its\noriginal occupants, and so, in substance, prohibited purchase and\npermitted only the lease of land for a maximum term of fifty years. We\ndo not know how far its enactments were a dead letter, but their spirit\nand intention were obviously to secure the land of the tribe to the\ntribe for ever, to keep the territory of each distinct, to discourage\nthe creation of a landowning class, with its consequent landless class,\nto prevent the extremes of poverty and wealth, and to perpetuate a\ndiffused, and nearly uniform, modest wellbeing amongst a pastoral and\nagricultural community, and to keep all in mind that the land was 'not\nto be sold for ever, for it is Mine,' saith the Lord.\n\nThe obligation on the next-of-kin to buy back alienated property was\nquite as much imposed on him for the sake of the family as of the\nindividual.\n\nThe second of his duties was to buy back a member of his family fallen\ninto slavery. 'If a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and\nthy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the\nstranger... after that he is sold, he may be redeemed; one of his\nbrethren may redeem him.' The price was to vary according to the time\nwhich had to elapse before the year of Jubilee, when all slaves were\nnecessarily set free. So Hebrew slavery was entirely unlike the thing\ncalled by the same name in other countries, and by virtue of this power\nof purchase at any time, which was vested in the nearest relative,\ntaken along with the compulsory manumission of all 'slaves' every\nfiftieth year, came to be substantially a voluntary engagement for a\nfixed time, which might be ended even before that time had expired, if\ncompensation for the unexpired term was made to the master.\n\nIt is to be observed that this provision applied only to the case of a\nHebrew who had sold himself. No other person could sell a man into\nslavery. And it applied only to the case of a Hebrew who had sold\nhimself to a foreigner. No Jew was allowed to hold a Jew as a slave.\n'If thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself unto thee,\nthou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as an hired servant,\nand as a sojourner, he shall be with thee.' (Lev. xxv. 39, R. V.).\n\nThe last of the offices of the kinsman-redeemer was that of avenging\nthe blood of a murdered relative. If a man were stricken to death, it\nbecame a solemn obligation to exact life for life, and the blood-feud\nincumbent on all the family was especially binding on the next-of-kin.\nThe obligation shocks a modern mind, accustomed to relegate all\npunishment to the action of law which no criminal thinks of resisting.\nBut customs and laws are unfairly estimated when the state of things\nwhich they regulated is forgotten or confused with that of today. The\nlaw of blood-feud among the Hebrews was all in the direction of\nrestricting the wild justice of revenge, and of entrusting it to\ncertain chosen persons out of the kindred of the murdered man. The\nsavage vendetta was too deeply engrained in the national habits to be\ndone away with altogether. All that was for the time possible was to\ncheck and systematise it, and this was done by the institution in\nquestion, which did not so much put the sword into the hand of the\nnext-of-kin as strike it out of the hand of all the rest of the clan.\n\nThese, then, were the main parts of the duty of the Goel, the\nkinsman-redeemer--buying back the alienated land, purchasing the\nfreedom of the man who had voluntarily sold himself as a slave, and\navenging the slaying of a kinsman.\n\nII. Notice the grand mysterious transference of this office to Jehovah.\n\nThis singular institution was gradually discerned to be charged with\nlofty meaning and to be capable of being turned into a dim shadowing of\nsomething greater than itself. You will find that God begins to be\nspoken of in the later portions of Scripture as the Kinsman-Redeemer. I\nreckon eighteen instances, of which thirteen are in the second half of\nIsaiah. The reference is, no doubt, mainly to the great deliverance\nfrom captivity in Egypt and Babylon, but the thought sweeps a much\nwider circle and goes much deeper down than these historical facts.\nThere was in it some dim feeling that though God was separated from\nthem by all the distance between finitude and infinitude, yet they were\nnearer to Him than to any one else; that the nearest living relation\nwhom these poor persecuted Jews had was the Lord of Hosts, beneath\nwhose wings they might come to trust. Therefore does the prophet kindle\ninto rapture and triumphant confidence as he thinks that the Lord of\nHosts, mighty, unspeakable, high above our thoughts, our words, or our\npraise, is Israel's Kinsman, and, therefore, their Redeemer. How\nprofound a consciousness that man was made in the image of God, and\nthat, in spite of all the gulf between finite and infinite, and the yet\ndeeper gulf between sinful man and righteous God, He was closer to a\npoor struggling soul than even the dearest were, must have been at all\nevents dawning on the prophet who dared to think of the Holy One in the\nHeavens as Israel's Kinsman. No doubt, he was dwelling mostly on\nhistorical outward deliverances wrought for the nation, and his idea of\nIsrael's kinship to God applied to the people, not to individuals, and\nmeant chiefly that the nation had been chosen for God's. But still the\nthought must have been felt to be great and wonderful, and some faint\napprehension of the yet deeper sense in which it is true that God is\nthe next-of-kin to every soul and ready to be its Redeemer, would no\ndoubt begin to be felt.\n\nThe deepening of the idea from a reference to external and national\ndeliverances, and the large, dim hopes which clustered round it, may be\nillustrated by one or two significant instances. Take, for example,\nthat mysterious and very beautiful utterance in the Book of Job, where\nthe man, in the very depth of his despair, and just because there is\nnot a human being that has any drop of pity for him, turns from earth,\nand striking confidence out of his very despair, like fire from flint,\nsees there his Kinsman-Redeemer. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.' Men\nmay mock him, friends may turn against him, the wife of his bosom may\ntempt him, comforters may pour vitriol instead of oil into his wounds,\nyet he, sitting on his dunghill there, poverty-stricken and desolate,\nknows that God is of kin to him, and will do the kinsman's part by him.\nThe very metaphor implies that the divine intervention which he expects\nis to take place after his death. It was a dead man whose blood the\nGoel avenged. Thus the view which sees in the subsequent words a hope,\nhowever dim and undefined, of an experience of a divine manifestation\non his behalf beyond the grave is the only one which gives its full\nforce to the central idea of the passage, as well as to the obscure\nindividual expressions. Most strikingly, then, he goes on to say,\ncarrying out the allusion, 'and that he shall stand at the last upon\nthe dust.' Little did it boot the murdered man, lying there stark, with\nthe knife in his bosom, that the murderer should be slain by the swift\njustice of his kinsman-avenger, but Job felt that, in some mysterious\nway, God would appear for him, after he had been laid in the dust, and\nthat he would somehow share in the gladness of His manifestation--for\nhe believes that 'without his flesh' he will see God, 'whom I shall see\nfor myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.' Large and\nmysterious hopes are gathering round the metaphor, which flash some\nlight into the darkness of the grave, and give to the troubled soul the\nassurance that when life with all its troubles is past, and flesh has\nseen corruption, the inmost personal being of every man who commits his\ncause to God will behold Him coming forth his Kinsman-Redeemer.\n\nAnother illustration of the hopes which gathered round this image is\nfound in the great psalm which prophesies of the true King of Peace, in\nlanguage too wide for any poetical licence to warrant if intended only\nto describe a Jewish king (Ps. lxxii. 14). The universal dominion of\nthis great King is described in terms which, though they may be partly\nreferred to the Jewish monarchy at its greatest expansion, sweep far\nbeyond its bounds in exulting anticipation that 'all kings shall fall\ndown before Him, all nations shall serve Him.' The reason for this\nworld-wide dominion is not military power, as was the case with the\nwarrior kings of old, who bound nations together for a little while in\nan artificial unity with iron chains, but His dominion is universal,\n'_for_ He shall deliver the needy when he crieth,...He shall _redeem_\ntheir souls from oppression and violence, and precious shall their\nblood be in His sight.' Two of the functions of the Kinsman-Redeemer\nare here united. He buys back slaves from their tyrannous masters, and\nHe avenges their shed blood. And because His Kingdom is a kingdom of\ngentle pity and loving help, because He is of the same blood with His\nsubjects, and brings liberty to the captives, therefore it is universal\nand everlasting. For the strongest thing in all the world is love, and\nHe who can staunch men's wounds, and will hear their cries and help\nthem, will rule them with authority which conquerors cannot wield.\n\nThis universal King, the kinsman and the sovereign of all the needy, is\nnot God. A human figure is rising before the prophet-psalmist's eye,\nwhose meekness as well as His majesty, and whose kingdom as well as His\nredeeming power, seem to pass beyond human limits. Divine offices seem\nto be devolved on a man's shoulders. Dim hopes are springing which\npoint onwards. So that great psalm leads us a step further.\n\nIII. See the perfect fulfilment of this divine office by the man Christ\nJesus.\n\nJob's anticipation and the psalmist's rapturous vision are fulfilled in\nthe Incarnate Word, in whom God comes near to us all and makes Himself\nkindred to our flesh, that He may discharge all those blessed offices,\nof redeeming from slavery, of recovering our alienated inheritance, and\nof guarding our lives, which demand at once divine power and human\nnearness. Christ is our Kinsman. True, the divine nature and the human\nare nearly allied, so that even apart from the Incarnation, men may\nfeel that none is so truly and closely akin to them as their Father in\nHeaven is. But how much more blessed than even that kinship is the\nconsanguinity of Christ, who is doubly of kin to each soul of man, both\nbecause in His true manhood He is bone of our bone and flesh of our\nflesh, and because in His divinity He is nearer to us than the closest\nhuman kindred can ever be. By both He comes so near to us that we may\nclasp Him by our faith, and rest upon Him, and have Him for our nearest\nfriend, our brother. He is nearer to each of us than our dearest is. He\nloves us with the love of kindred, and can fill our hearts and wills,\nand help our weakness in better, more inward ways than all sympathy and\nlove of human hearts can do. Between the atoms of the densest of\nmaterial bodies there is an interspace of air, as is shown by the fact\nthat everything is compressible if you can find the force sufficient to\ncompress it. That is to say, in the material universe no particle\ntouches another. And so in the spiritual region, there is an awful film\nof separation between each of us and all others, however closely we may\nbe united. We each live on our own little island in the deep, 'with\nechoing straits between us thrown.' We have a solemn consciousness of\npersonality, of responsibility unshared by any, of a separate destiny\nparting us from our dearest. Arms may be twined, but they must be\nunlinked some day, and each in turn must face the awful solitude of\ndeath, as each has really faced that scarcely less awful solitude of\nlife, alone. But 'he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,' and our\nkinsman, Christ, will come so near to us, that we shall be in Him and\nHe in us, one spirit and one life. He is your nearest relation, nearer\nthan husband, wife, parent, brother, sister, or friend. He is nearer to\nyou than your very selves. He is your better self. That is His\nqualification for His office.\n\nBecause He is man's kinsman, He buys back His enslaved brethren. The\nbondage from which 'one of His brethren' might 'redeem' the Israelite\nwas a voluntary bondage into which he had sold himself. And such is our\nslavery. None can rob us of our freedom but ourselves. The world and\nthe flesh and the devil cannot put their chains on us unless our own\nwills hold out our hands for the manacles.\n\nAnd, alas! it is often an unsuspected slavery. 'How sayest thou, ye\nshall be made free. We were never in bondage to any man,' boasted the\nangry disputants with Christ. And if they had lifted up their eyes they\nmight have seen from the Temple courts in which they stood, the citadel\nfull of Roman soldiers, and perhaps the golden eagles gleaming in the\nsunshine on the loftiest battlements. Yet with that strange power of\nignoring disagreeable facts they dared to assert their freedom. 'Never\nin bondage to any man!'--what about Egypt, and Assyria, and Babylon?\nHad there never been an Antiochus? Was Rome a reality? Did it lay no\nyoke on them? Was it all a dream?\n\nSome of us are just as foolish, and try as desperately to annihilate\nfacts by ignoring them, and to make ourselves free by passionately\ndenying that we are slaves. But 'he that committeth sin is the slave of\nsin.' That sounds a paradox. I am master of my own actions, you may\nsay, and never freer than when I break the bonds of right and duty and\nchoose to do what is contrary to them, for no reason on earth but\nbecause I choose. That is liberty, emancipation from the burdensome\nrestraints which your narrow preaching about law and conscience would\nimpose. Yes, you are masters of your actions, and your sinful actions\nvery soon become masters of you. Do we not know that that is true? You\nfall into, or walk into a habit, and then it gets the mastery of you,\nand you cannot get rid of it. Whosoever sets his foot upon that\nslippery inclined plane of wrongdoing, after he has gone a little way,\ngravitation is too much for him and away he goes down the hill.\n'Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.' Did you ever try to\nkill a bad habit, a vice? Did you find it easy work? Was it not your\nmaster? You thought that a chain no stronger than a spider's web was\nround your wrist till you tried to break it; and then you found it a\nchain of adamant. Many men who boast themselves free are 'tied and\nbound with the cords of their sins.'\n\nDreaming of freedom, you have sold yourself, and that 'for nought.' Is\nthat not true, tragically true?\n\nWhat have you made out of sin? Is the game worth the candle? Will it\ncontinue to be so? Ye shall be redeemed without money, for Jesus Christ\nlaid down His life for you and me, that by His death we might receive\nforgiveness and deliverance from the power of sin. And so your Kinsman,\nnearer to you than all else, has bought you back. Do not refuse the\noffered emancipation, but 'if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.'\nBe not like the spiritless slaves, for whose servile choice the law\nprovided, who had rather remain bond than go out free. Surely when\nChrist calls you to liberty, you will not turn from Him to the\ntyrannous masters whom you have served, and, like the Hebrew slave, let\nthem fasten you to their door-posts with their awl through your ear. Do\nyou hug your chains and prefer your bondage?\n\nYour Kinsman-Redeemer brings back your squandered inheritance, which is\nGod. God is the only possession that makes a man rich. He alone is\nworth calling 'my portion.' It is only when we have God in our hearts,\nGod in our heads, God in our souls, God in our life--it is only when we\nlove Him, and think about Him, and obey Him, and bring our characters\ninto harmony with Him, and so possess Him--it is only then that we\nbecome truly rich. No other possession corresponds to our capacities so\nas to fill up all our needs and satisfy all our being. No other\npossession passes into our very substance and becomes inseparable from\nourselves. So the mystical fervour of the psalmist's devotion spoke a\nsimple prose truth when he exclaimed, 'The Lord is the portion of mine\ninheritance and of my cup.'\n\nWe have squandered our inheritance. We have sinned away fellowship with\nGod. We have flung away our true wealth, 'wasted our substance in\nriotous living.' And here is our Elder Brother, our nearest relative,\nwho has always been with the Father; but who, instead of grudging the\nprodigals their fatted calf and their hearty welcome when they come\nback, has Himself, by the sacrifice of Himself, won for them the\ninheritance, its earnest in the possession of God's spirit here and its\ncompletion in the broad fields of 'the inheritance of the saints in\nlight,' the entire fruition and possession of the divine in the life to\ncome. 'If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with\nChrist.'\n\nYour Kinsman-Redeemer will keep your lives under His care, and be ready\nto plead your cause. 'He that touches you, touches the apple of Mine\neye.' 'He reproved kings for their sake, saying, Touch not Mine\nanointed.' Not in vain does the cry go up to Him, 'Avenge, O Lord, Thy\nslaughtered saints,'--and if no apparent retribution has followed, and\nif often His servant's blood seems to have been shed in vain, still we\nknow that it has often been the seed of the Church, and that He who\nputs our tears into His bottle will not count our blood less precious\nin His sight. So we may rest confident that our Kinsman-Redeemer will\ncharge Himself with pleading our cause and intervening in our behalf,\nthat He will compass us about with His protection, and that we are knit\nso close to Him that our woes and foes are His, and that we cannot die\nas long as He lives.\n\nSo, dear brethren, be sure of this, that if only you will take Christ\nfor your Saviour and brother, your Helper and Friend, if only you will\nrest yourself upon that complete sacrifice which He has made for the\nsins of the world, He will give you liberty, and restore your lost\ninheritance, and your blood shall be precious in His sight, and He will\nkeep His hand around you and preserve you; and finally will bring you\ninto His home and yours. 'In Him we have redemption through His blood,'\nand He comes to every one of you now, even through my poor lips, with\nHis ancient word of merciful invitation: 'Behold! I have blotted out as\na cloud thy sins and as a thick cloud thy transgressions. Turn unto Me,\nfor I have redeemed thee.'\n\n\n\n\n'AS SODOM'\n\n'Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he\nreigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal\nthe daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2. And he did that which was evil\nin the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3.\nFor through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and\nJudah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah\nrebelled against the king of Babylon. 4. And it came to pass, in the\nninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the\nmonth, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army,\nagainst Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it\nround about. 5. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king\nZedekiah. 6. And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month,\nthe famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the\npeople of the land. 7. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of\nwar fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the\ngate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the\nChaldeans were by the city round about) and they went by the way of the\nplain. 8. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and\novertook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was\nscattered from him. 9. Then they took the king, and carried him up unto\nthe king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave\njudgment upon him. 10. And the king of Babylon slew the sons of\nZedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in\nRiblah. 11. Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of\nBabylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in\nprison till the day of his death.'--JER. lii. 1-11.\n\n\nThis account of the fall of Jerusalem is all but identical with that in\n2 Kings xxv. It was probably taken thence by some editor of Jeremiah's\nprophecies, perhaps Baruch, who felt the appropriateness of appending\nto these the verification of them in that long-foretold and disbelieved\njudgment.\n\nThe absence of every expression of emotion is most striking. In one\nsentence the wrath of God is pointed to as the cause of all; and, for\nthe rest, the tragic facts which wrung the writer's heart are told in\nbrief, passionless sentences, which sound liker the voice of the\nrecording angel than that of a man who had lived through the misery\nwhich he recounts. The Book of Lamentations weeps and sobs with the\ngrief of the devout Jew; but the historian smothers feeling while he\ntells of God's righteous judgment.\n\nZedekiah owed his throne to 'the king of Babylon,' and, at first, was\nhis obedient vassal, himself going to Babylon (Jer. li. 59) and\nswearing allegiance (Ezek. xvii. 13). But rebellion soon followed, and\nthe perjured young king once more pursued the fatal, fascinating policy\nof alliance with Egypt. There could be but one end to that madness,\nand, of course, the Chaldean forces soon appeared to chastise this\npresumptuous little monarch, who dared to defy the master of the world.\nOur narrative curtails its account of Zedekiah's reign, bringing into\nstrong relief only the two facts of his following Jehoiakim's evil\nways, and his rebellion against Babylon. But behind the rash, ignorant\nyoung man, it sees God working, and traces all the insane bravado by\nwhich he was ruining his kingdom and himself to God's 'wrath,' not\nthereby diminishing Zedekiah's responsibility for his own acts, but\ndeclaring that his being 'given over to a reprobate mind' was the\nrighteous divine punishment for past sin.\n\nAn eighteen months' agony is condensed into three verses (Jer. lii.\n4-6), in which the minute care to specify dates pathetically reveals\nthe depth of the impression which the first appearance of the besieging\narmy made, and the deeper wound caused by the city's fall. The memory\nof these days has not faded yet, for both are still kept as fasts by\nthe synagogue. We look with the narrator's eye at the deliberate\nmassing of the immense besieging force drawing its coils round the\ndoomed city, like a net round a deer, and mark with him the piling of\nthe mounds, and the erection on them of siege-towers. We hear of no\nactive siege operations till the final assault. Famine was\nNebuchadnezzar's best general. 'Sitting down they watched' _her_\n'there,' and grimly waited till hunger became unbearable. We can fill\nup much of the outline in this narrative from the rest of Jeremiah,\nwhich gives us a vivid and wretched picture of imbecility, divided\ncounsels, and mad hatred of God's messenger, blind refusal to see\nfacts, and self-confidence which no disaster could abate. And, all the\nwhile, the monstrous serpent was slowly tightening its folds round the\nstruggling, helpless rabbit. We have to imagine all the misery.\n\nThe narrative hurries on to its close. What widespread and\nlong-drawn-out privation that one sentence covers: 'The famine was sore\nin the city, so that there was no bread for the people'! Lamentations\nis full of the cries of famished children and mothers who eat the fruit\nof their own bodies. At last, on the memorable black day, the ninth of\nthe fourth month (say July), 'a breach was made,' and the Chaldean\nforces poured in through it. Jeremiah xxxix. 3 tells the names of the\nBabylonian officers who 'sat in the middle gate' of the Temple,\npolluting it with their presence. There seems to have been no\nresistance from the enfeebled, famished people; but apparently some of\nthe priests were slain in the sanctuary, perhaps in the act of\ndefending it from the entrance of the enemy. The Chaldeans would enter\nfrom the north, and, while they were establishing themselves in the\nTemple, Zedekiah 'and all the men of war' fled, stealing out of the\ncity by a covered way between two walls, on the south side, and leaving\nthe city to the conqueror, without striking a blow. They had talked\nlarge when danger was not near; but braggarts are cowards, and they\nthought now of nothing but their own worthless lives. Then, as always,\nthe men who feared God feared nothing else, and the men who scoffed at\nthe day of retribution, when it was far off, were unmanned with terror\nwhen it dawned.\n\nThe investment had not been complete on the southern side, and the\nfugitives got away across Kedron and on to the road to Jericho, their\npurpose, no doubt, being to put the Jordan between them and the enemy.\nOne can picture that stampede down the rocky way, the anxious looks\ncast backwards, the confusion, the weariness, the despair when the rush\nof the pursuers overtook the famine-weakened mob. In sight of Jericho,\nwhich had witnessed the first onset of the irresistible desert-hardened\nhost under Joshua, the last king of Israel, deserted by his army, was\n'taken in their pits,' as hunters take a wild beast. The march to\nRiblah, in the far north, would be full of indignities arid of physical\nsuffering. The soldiers of that 'bitter and hasty' nation would not\nspare him one insult or act of cruelty, and he had a tormentor within\nworse than they. 'Why did I not listen to the prophet? What a fool I\nhave been! If I had only my time to come over again, how differently I\nwould do!' The miserable self-reproaches, which shoot their arrows into\nour hearts when it is too late, would torture Zedekiah, as they will\nsooner or later do to all who did not listen to God's message while\nthere was yet time. The sinful, mad past kept him company on one hand;\nand, on the other, there attended him a dark, if doubtful, future. He\nknew that he was at the disposal of a fierce conqueror, whom he had\ndeeply incensed, and who had little mercy. 'What will become of me when\nI am face to face with Nebuchadnezzar? Would that I had kept subject to\nhim!' A past gone to ruin, a present honey-combed with gnawing remorse\nand dread, a future threatening, problematical, but sure to be\npenal--these were what this foolish young king had won by showing his\nspirit and despising Jeremiah's warnings, It is always a mistake to fly\nin the face of God's commands. All sin is folly, and every evildoer\nmight say with poor Robert Burns:\n\n  'I backward cast my e'e\n    On prospects drear!\n  An' forward, tho' I canna see,\n    I guess an' fear.'\n\nNebuchadnezzar was in Riblah, away up in the north, waiting the issue\nof the campaign. Zedekiah was nothing to him but one of the many\nrebellious vassals of whom he had to make an example lest rebellion\nshould spread, and who was especially guilty because he was\nNebuchadnezzar's own nominee, and had sworn allegiance. Policy and his\nown natural disposition reinforced by custom dictated his barbarous\npunishment meted to the unfortunate kinglet of the petty kingdom that\nhad dared to perk itself up against his might. How little he knew that\nhe was the executioner of God's decrees! How little the fact that he\nwas so, diminished his responsibility for his cruelty! The savage\npractice of blinding captive kings, so as to make them harmless and\nsave all trouble with them, was very common. Zedekiah was carried to\nBabylon, and thus was fulfilled Ezekiel's enigmatical prophecy, 'I will\nbring him to Babylon,... yet shall he not see it, though he shall die\nthere' (Ezek. xii. 13).\n\nThe fall of Jerusalem should teach us that a nation is a moral whole,\ncapable of doing evil and of receiving retribution, and not a mere\naggregation of individuals. It should teach us that transgression does\nstill, though not so directly or certainly as in the case of Israel,\nsap the strength of kingdoms; and that to-day, as truly as of old,\n'righteousness exalteth a nation.' It should accustom us to look on\nhistory as not only the result of visible forces, but as having behind\nit, and reaching its end through the visible forces, the unseen hand of\nGod. For Christians, the vision of the Apocalypse contains the ultimate\nword on 'the philosophy of history.' It is 'the Lamb before the\nThrone,' who opens the roll with the seven seals, and lets the powers\nof whom it speaks loose for their march through the world. It should\nteach us God's long-suffering patience and loving efforts to escape the\nnecessity of smiting, and also God's rigid justice, which will not\nshrink from smiting when all these efforts have failed.","title":"Expositions of Holy Scripture: Isaiah and Jeremiah","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":230445}