Volume 1 — ISAIAH. (continued 18)

2. The other excellence of the Gospel of which I shall speak at this time lies in its manner.

(1.) It comes with authority. The Gospel does not pretend to be a speculative scheme or a theory of philosophy which will suit the nineteenth century, but will be exploded in the twentieth. No; it comes to men as a message from God, and he that speaks it aright does not speak it as a thinker uttering his own thoughts; but he utters what he has learned, and acts as God’s tongue, repeating what he finds in God’s Word by the power of God’s Spirit.

(2.) It was delivered with great simplicity. Isaiah came with it “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” It is the glory of the Gospel that is so plain. If it were so profound that we must take a degree at a university before we could comprehend it, what a miserable Gospel it would be for mocking the world with! But it is Divinely sublime in its simplicity, and hence the common people hear it gladly. As the verse seems to imply, it is fitted for those who are weaned from the breast; those who are little more than babes may yet drink in this unadulterated milk of the Word. Many a little child has comprehended the salvation of Jesus Christ sufficiently to rejoice in it. I bless God for a simple Gospel, for it suits me, and thousands of others whose minds cannot boast of greatness or genius. It equally suits men of intellect, and it is only quarrelled with by pretenders. A man who really has a capacious mind is usually childlike, and, like Sir Isaac Newton, is glad to sit at Jesus’ feet. Great minds love the simple Gospel of God, for they find rest in it from all the worry and the weariness of questions and of doubts.

(3.) It is taught us by degrees. It is not forced home upon men’s minds all at once, but it comes “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” God does not flash the everlasting daylight on weak eyes in one blaze of glory, but there is at first a dim dawn, and the soft incoming of a tender light for tender eyes, and so by degrees we see.

(4.) The Gospel is repeated. If we do see it at once, it comes again to us, for it is “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” From morning to morning, from Sunday to Sunday, book after book, by text after text, by spiritual impression after spiritual impression, the Divine gentleness makes us wise unto salvation.

(5.) It is brought home to us in ways suitable to our capacity. It is told to us, as it were, with stammering lips (see ver. 11), just as mothers teach their little children in a language all their own. In much of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, God condescends to lay aside His own speech and talk the language of men. He bows to us and tells us His mind in types and ordinances, which are a sort of child-language fitted to our capacity. If you do not understand the Word of God, it is not because He does not put it plainly, but because of the blindness of your heart and the besotted condition of your spirit. Take heed that you are not drunken with the wine of pride, but be willing to learn; for God Himself hath not darkened counsel by mysterious words, but He has put His mind before you as plainly as the sun in the heavens. “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.”

II. The objections which are taken to the Gospel.

1. They are most wanton. Men object to that which promises them rest! Above all the things in the world this is what our troubled spirits need. Oh, the intense folly of men, that when the Gospel sets rest before them they will not hear it, but turn upon their heel. There is no system of doctrine under heaven that can give quiet to the conscience of men, quiet that is worth having, except the Gospel; and there are thousands of us who bear witness that we live in the daily enjoyment of peace through believing in Jesus, and yet our honest report is not believed; nay, they will not hear the truth.

2. Objections against the Gospel are wilful, even as it is here said, “This is the refreshing, yet they would not hear.” When man say they cannot believe the Gospel, ask them whether they will patiently hear it in all its simplicity. No, they say, they do not want to hear it. The Gospel is so difficult to believe; so they say. Will they come and hear it preached in its fulness? Will they read the Gospels for themselves carefully? Oh, no; they cannot take the trouble. Just so. But a man who does not want to be convinced must not blame anybody if he remains in error, nor wonder that objections swarm in his mind.

3. Such objections are wicked, because they are rebellion against God and an insult to His truth and mercy. If this Gospel be of God, I am bound to receive it: I have no right to cavil at it, nor raise questions, philosophical or otherwise. It is mine just to say, “Does God say this and that? Then it is true, and I yield to it. Does the Lord thus set before me a way of salvation? I will run in it with delight.”

4. These people raised objections that were the outgrowth of their pride. They objected to the simplicity of Isaiah’s preaching. They said, “Who is he? You should not go to hear him; he talks to us as if we were children. Besides, it is the same thing over and over again. You may go when you like, he is always harping on the same string.” Have you not heard folks say in these days concerning a true Gospel preacher, that he is always preaching about sovereign grace, or the blood of Christ, or crying out, “Believe, believe, and you shall be saved”? They sneer and say, “It is the old ditty over and over again.” The passage translated “precept upon precept, line upon line,” was uttered in ridicule, and sounded like a ding-dong rhyme with which they mocked Isaiah. The words were intended to caricature the preacher; though they do not suggest the idea when translated, they do suggest it readily enough in the Hebrew. There are people now living who, when the Gospel is plainly and simply preached, exclaim, “We want progressive thought; we want”—they do not quite know what they do want. Too many wish for a map to heaven so mysteriously drawn that they may be excused from following it. Multitudes prefer the Gospel shrouded in a mist; they love to see the wisdom of man shut out the wisdom of God. This was the style of objection current in Israel’s day, and it is fashionable still.

III. The Divine requital of these objectors.

1. The Lord threatens them with the loss of that which they despised. He has sent them a message of rest and they will not have it, and therefore in the 20th verse He warns them that they shall have no rest henceforth: “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” All those who wilfully reject the Gospel and take up with philosophies and speculations will be rewarded with inward discontent. Ask the preachers of that kind of doctrine whether they themselves have found an anchorage, and as a rule they will answer, “No, no; we are in pursuit of truth; we are hunting after it, but we have not reached it yet.” They are never likely to reach it, for they are on the wrong track. The Gospel was made to rest conscience, soul, heart will, memory, hope, fear, yes, the entire man; but when men laugh at all fixity of belief, how can they be rested? This is the condemnation of the unbeliever, that he shall never find a settlement, but, like the wandering Jew, shall roam for ever. Leave the Cross, and you have left the hinge of all things, and neglected the one sure corner-stone and fixed foundation, and henceforth you shall be as a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

2. They shall be punished by a gradual hardening of heart. They said that Isaiah’s message was “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little,” and justice answers them, “Even so it shall be to you a thing despised and ridiculed, so that you will go farther away from it; you will fall backward and be broken, and snared and taken” (ver. 13). A fall backward is the worst kind of fall. If a man falls forward, he may somewhat save himself and rise again; but if he falls backward, he falls with all his weight and is helpless. Those who stumble at Christ, the sure foundation-stone, shall be broken. When oppressors hope to retrieve their position, they find themselves snared by their habits, entangled in the net of the great fowler, and taken by the destroyer. This downward course is followed full often by those who begin cavilling at the simple Gospel; they cavil more and more, and become its open enemies to their eternal ruin.

3. This is to be followed by a growing inability to understand. “For with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people.” Since they would not hear plain speech, God will make simplicity itself to seem like stammering to them. Men that cannot endure simple language shall at last become unable to understand it. If men will not understand, they shall not understand. A man may shut his eyes so long that he cannot open them. In India many devotees have held up their arms so long that they can never take them down again. Beware lest an utter imbecility of heart come upon those of you who refuse the Gospel.

Lastly, this warning is given to those who object to the Gospel, that whatever refuge they choose for themselves shall utterly fail them. Thus saith the Lord, “Judgment will I also lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.” Down come the great hailstones dashing everything to shivers, the threatenings of God’s Word breaking to pieces all the false and flattering hopes of the ungodly. Then comes the active wrath of God like an overwhelming flood to sweep away everything on which the sinner stood, and he, in his obstinate unbelief, is carried away as with a flood into that utter destruction, that everlasting misery, which God has declared shall be the lot of all those who refuse the living Christ.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1593.

False Refuges.

xxviii. 18. Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.

Like the sinners spoken of in this chapter, most sinful men say in effect, “We have made a covenant with death,” &c. (ver. 15).

I. That he may escape the dreaded consequences of sin, the troubled sinner seeks a refuge. He flees—1. From the voice of reason. The presence of a reasoning power in man is incompatible with the practice of sin. This is seen in the fact that when sinners can be brought to think, they at once admit themselves to be wrong. The moment a man commences to think about sin, that moment he becomes aware that it will not bear thinking about. It is because a sinful life is an unthinking life that God’s invitations to sinners are invitations to reason (chap. i. 18; Ps. l. 22–23). 2. From an accusing conscience. The authority of conscience is supreme, and no man can sin without feeling its sting. To escape remorse, which is conscience at work, men seek a refuge. 3. From an offended God. Sin is offensive to God’s holiness; for being pure, He must hate impurity. Because sinners are conscious that they have rendered themselves obnoxious to God, they seek a refuge. 4. From a broken law. In obedience to law there is safety, right, and happiness; while in disregarding law there is nothing but disaster. And from the consequences of the broken law—the broken law of God written on the heart, proclaimed in Nature, revealed in the Bible—the sinner tries to hide. 5. From an endless future. This more than anything else terrifies sinners and drives them to seek shelter.

II. Sinners, blindly infatuated, seek a refuge in the wrong objects. They make a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. The terms “death” and “hell” stand for the whole class of false securities in which men seek shelter by making a covenant and agreement with them. 1. Unbelief is one of the most modern refuges of sin. When men can blot out of the universe the idea of God, quench the sense of moral responsibility, remove the belief in immortality, persuade themselves that there is no other world, that death is an eternal sleep, that heaven is only an air-castle, and hell a mere chimera, they may then indulge in evil to their hearts’ content. 2. Superstition is another. Not in open unbelief, but under the cover of a false religion others seek to shelter. Unable to shake off belief in God and in a spiritual world, they search for some system which will at once allow a profession of religion and a practice of wickedness. Nor are such systems wanting, nor are they without disciples. Romanism offers indulgences for gold and pardons for peace, and thus provides a refuge for the stronger in pocket than in brain. 3. Annihilation is another. According to some, such is the awfulness of the thought of extinction of being, that men revolt from it. Establish it that when sinners die they cease to live, and what better refuge for sin is possible, and what other is needed? Sinful men will soon say, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 4. Excess is another. When the previous ones have failed to give comfort, the sinner rushes madly into excess. The drunkard seeks in increased intemperance to drown the sorrow his indulgence has occasioned. 5. Indifference is the last. This is the only comfort some men can find in their career of evil. But indifference is impossible without a denial of human responsibility. Sad indeed must the condition of human nature be when brought to this.

III. The refuges so confidently trusted in are utterly insecure. 1. Because they are incompatible with the real need of man. Only that can be conducive to man’s safety which meets man’s need. No human need is met by infidelity, or by superstition, or by annihilation, or by indulgence, or by indifference. Any one of these, tested by this argument drawn from human necessities, will be found a refuge of lies. 2. Because they are at variance with human instincts. Instinctively men believe in a Divine existence, in moral accountability, and in immortality. 3. Because they contradict human experience. They have all been tried, and as often as they have been tried they have been found false. 4. Because they are opposed to the teaching of revelation, both natural and Biblical. Nature proclaims loudly against all sin-sought refuges. The teaching of Nature and the Bible is that man is incompetent to provide for his own security, and that God only, in the exercise of His Divine prerogative, can provide for sinners the security they need.

IV. By Divine appointment the refuges so madly sought shall be totally destroyed. “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.” 1. By consequence of their inherent character. They are “refuges of lies,” and necessarily all refuges built on lies must perish. 2. By necessity of strict justice. “Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet” (ver. 17). 3. By the exertion of Almighty power. “And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.”

Conclusion.—God has mercifully provided a true refuge. He only cuts off the false that He may exhibit the true. “Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone,” &c. (ver. 16).—William Brooks: Study and the Pulpit, New Series, vol. i. pp. 413–416.

Some Aspects of Ministerial Duty.

xxx. 7. Therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.

Jerusalem and Judah were threatened by Sennacherib with dangers and desolations. This people’s sin, for which they were reproved by Isaiah, was their trusting to the Egyptians; they were all in a hurry to obtain help from them, without seeking counsel of God and resting upon Him. Isaiah saw that the help of the Egyptians would be worthless to them, and therefore he counselled them to “sit still,” trusting in the power, providence, and promise of God, from whom too much cannot be expected.

I. Notice the prophet’s intermeddling in this important matter. He publishes God’s mind concerning it. It is the duty of ministers to meddle sometimes in public matters, whether in Church or State; they are to show Jacob their sins, and Israel their transgressions. This is a part of ministers’ work, to testify against sin in all. Christ was the light of the world; and they should be like their Master, testifying against all works of darkness. True, the world quarrels with the servants of God because they bear testimony against its sins; and on this account many ministers who have some light, put their light in prison: “They hold the truth in unrighteousness.” They do this by not bearing witness against public wrongs, and the sin and defection of statesmen. But it was a gracious expression of a graceless Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “What am I concerned with the souls or the sins of others? What am I concerned with the public evils of the day I live in?” True religion begins at home, but it does not end there; it will come without doors with us (H. E. I. 1184–1186).

II. Observe the manner of the prophet’s address to this people. “Therefore have I cried concerning this.” It is the duty of ministers to be earnest and zealous in reproving sin and reclaiming sinners. They are to be both seers and criers; and when they see any danger, they should cry, that the people may hear and flee out of harm’s way.

1. This is true in regard to public wrongs and national projects which are contrary to the Will of God (P. D. 2855).

2. They need to cry about matters of eternity, that people may secure something that death may not be able to take from them—such as these: saving knowledge, saving faith, pardon of sin, evangelical love of God in Christ, faithful labours for the honour and glory of God.—Ralph Erskine, A. M.: Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 252, 253.

Growing Light.

xxx. 26. Moreover, the light of the moon, &c.

These words, doubtless, look forward to the restoration of Israel. But there are spiritual truths implied in them, which are of present and immediate application. We have here different kinds of light; different degrees of the same light; and also the seasons which such increase of light is vouchsafed.

I. The light of the moon. It is a real light, but it is reflected light. It does not come to us direct from the sun, but is thrown first upon the moon, and from her it comes to us. Hence its peculiarities. It is a dim light; it does not warm and quicken; it does not make things grow and vegetate. It is a waning light; sometimes it is full, but it soon begins to decline, and for a season it is wholly withdrawn. It is a light which never makes day; even at its fullest, it is still night; men occasionally walk and work in it, but usually they rest and sleep.

Why do I notice these things, which are obvious to all on a moment’s reflection? Because I believe there is important Divine truth hidden under them. All Nature is a prefiguring or shadowing forth of grace and truth (H. E. I. 5, 6).

We have been describing the religious knowledge of not a few. It is moonlight; it does not come to them direct from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, the Source of all true light; it is hearsay; they have learned it from their fellow-men. It is not experimental, and hence its deficiencies. It is a vague, dim knowledge; they see nothing clearly, neither sin nor salvation, neither Christ nor themselves, neither law nor gospel, neither grace nor glory. It is a cold, heartless knowledge; it does not warm, quicken, stir their affections, influence their wills. It is a waning knowledge; sometimes they seem full of it—after a stirring sermon, or when they are in the company of frank, lively Christians—but a short time passes and it is all gone, as if it had never been. It never makes them children of the day, it never arouses them from the sleep of sin and worldliness, nor sends them forth to work for God and for eternity.

Such is this moonlight knowledge. Still it would be something if it led those who have it to Christ, the true Light. The people of Sychar had the moonlight when the woman on whom the Sun had just arisen came and cast a portion of her light upon them. But they did not rest on this; they went out of the city and saw and heard for themselves, and so many believed and were saved. But this is what many fail to do in revival times. The Lord has visited His people, and refreshed and saved them; and others speak freely of the good they have received, sing gladly their new songs, and are for the time stirred and affected. But it is only moonlight; they have never come to Him who changes not; and so when the warmth and stir of the revival passes they fall back, and perhaps become worse than before. Not a few are still in the moonlight, and are satisfied with it. You hear about Christ, perhaps can talk about Him, but this is not salvation (H. E. I. 3148).

II. The light of the sun. This comes immediately from the sun, and hence its excellence. It is a clear, bright light, and so things afar off and near at hand are distinctly seen. It is a warm light; there is heat in it; it thaws and chases away the winter; it makes spring and summer; it causes all things to grow and vegetate. It is an awakening light; it makes day, and men arise and go to their work, and wild creatures and evil-doers retire. It is a constant light. The sun never waxes or wanes; he is ever the same. True, there are wintry days, dark, dreary days, but still the sun is there, shining through the clouds, and shining them away, and soon breaking forth again in his glory. Is this the character of your religious knowledge? [Work out the details of the comparison.]

III. Different degrees of light. “The light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Here there is only a change of degree. There is no new luminary; it is still the sun, but it is far more intense and continuous. We can conceive what would be the effect of this in the natural world. Things now invisible from their minuteness or indistinctly seen from their distance would then be clearly revealed, and fruits and flowers which cannot at present be reared in our climate would then be common and indigenous among us. There can be a sevenfold Divine light and Divine warmth. Christ has it to give. He will one day give it to all His people, and the weak shall be as David, and David as the angel of the Lord. Even now He grants it to those who seek Him with the whole heart. The patriarchs, prophets, apostles had it. Nor are these peculiar, exceptional cases. I believe there is more of it than we are aware of and probably there would be more if we did not straighten and hinder the Lord by our want of desire and expectation.

IV. The times when this blessing is vouchsafed. “In the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” This evidently looks forward to the time when the long alienation between Israel and their God will be healed. But is He the God of the Jews only? Nay, of the Gentiles also. There are two opposite errors into which men fall on the reading of these promises. Some see only the Jew in them; others do not see the Jew in them at all. But there is room for both in these green pastures. Even now there are fulfilments of this promise in its truest, highest sense. Even now the light of the moon becomes as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun as that of seven days. It is so, for instance, often at conversion; it is a passing from darkness into marvellous light. It is often so when the backslider returns. Look at David in the 51st Psalm, what light he has got! It is so often in times of sore affliction. Then the exceeding great and precious promises come out into view, as darkness shows us worlds of light we never saw by day (Ps. xciv. 12). It is so at death, when the soul leaves its cage and soars away into heavenly light and liberty. It will be so when the Lord comes on the resurrection morn. And once more, oh! the light there will be when the Lamb opens the books and makes every mystery plain! (H. E. I. 3127, 3128).—John Milne: Gatherings from a Ministry, pp. 114–122.

Nobility and Security.

xxxiii. 15, 16. He that walketh righteously, &c.

These were terrible times in Jerusalem. The Assyrian power was exceedingly formidable; it was as ferocious as it was strong. The Assyrian had come up into the land, yet God had given a promise to His people that they should be preserved (chap. xxxvii. 33, 34). Some in the city rested content with the promise of God, and went about their daily business feeling perfectly safe. But there were a few such. A great number were afraid they would be destroyed—they were sure of it. Who was to save them, or what power could stand in the way of Sennacherib? These were the sinners and hypocrites, and the time of trial developed them. They could not live, they said; the land was smoking, for the Assyrian had set everything on fire. Some who dwell among God’s people are sinners and not saints, hypocrites and not believers. When all goes well with the Church of God you cannot detect the difference. But when the time of trial comes, the hypocrites and sinners will be discovered by their own fear. Let us not be satisfied with being in Zion—in the Church; let us not rest till we are quite sure we are not sinners or hypocrites in it. If our religion is worth anything, it is worth most in the hour of trial; and if it does not stand us in good stead in the time of temptation and sorrow, what is the use of it?

I. The character of God’s people. They are partly described in the words of our text, but I am obliged to go a little farther afield for one part of their character. Those who in the time of danger will be kept and comforted are a people who have a humble, patient, present faith in God. I am sure there are such, for they are described—they describe themselves—in the second verse of the chapter before us. They are a humble people, who dare not trust themselves, but trust in God. They are a praying people, who make their appeal to God under a sense of need. Their appeal is to His free grace. They are a waiting people. If at once they have not comfort and joy, they tarry and are perfectly content to abide His time, for it is sure to be best. That have a present faith in God, for “Be Thou their arm every morning” is their prayer. They did not trust in God years ago and get saved, and think they can live without faith, but they believe “the just shall live by faith.” They look for everything to their God: “Thou art our salvation in the time of trouble.”

Our text gives a description of these people by their various features. It describes how they walk: “He that walketh righteously.” Faith has an elevating, ennobling effect upon our entire manhood. The promise belongs only to the people who come under the description; see to it that you do not take the comfort, if you do not come under the character! Study the description of the daily walk and conversation of this blessed man who is to dwell on high.

The first feature which is described is his tongue. “He speaketh uprightly.” If you drew a portrait of a man, you could not paint his tongue; but if you give a description of a man’s character, you cannot omit his speech. A man that lies, talks obscenely, &c., is no child of God. The grace of God very speedily sweetens a man’s tongue. A doctor says, “Put out your tongue,” and he judges the symptoms of health or disease thereby; and surely there is no better test of character than the condition of the tongue.

Next, the heart. “He that despiseth the gain of oppression.” Not only does he not oppress any man, nor wish to gain anything by extortion, or by any act of unrighteousness, but he looks upon it as contemptible and despises it. He likes gain if it comes cleanly to him, and it is as welcome to him as to another, but he will not have a thing he cannot pray over.

Next comes the ear. “That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood.” Men of war and those who delight in war will tell to one another what they did in battle and whom they slew; and in those old times there were tales of bloodshed that would have made our ears to tingle, but the good men in Jerusalem would not hear them; they could not endure it. It is not the hearing of blood alone we must avoid, but the hearing of anything tainted. The genuine Christian feels he has mischief enough in his own heart without adding to it.

Again, “He shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.” He cannot help seeing it as he goes his pilgrimage through life, but as far as possible he tries to avoid it. He does not go and find an evening’s amusement gazing upon it. It were better to be blind, deaf, and dumb than to see, and hear, and speak in some places. The true believer is a man who has himself well in hand. He has a bit in the mouths of all the horses that draw the chariot of life, and he holds them in, and will not let his eye, ear, tongue, foot, or hand carry him away. He will have nothing to do with evil: “He shaketh his hand from holding of bribes.”

II. The security of such a man. Notice it first, as it is pictorially described: “He shall dwell on high.” The Assyrians were attacking the country, and in times of invasion men always went to the highest parts of the country to escape from the enemy. Well, this man shall have a quiet resting-place on the heights, so high up that his enemies cannot get at him. They may plunder all round, but cannot plunder him. The sentinel on the crags of inaccessible rock shall, standing out in the sunlight gleaming calmly and brightly, bid defiance to every foe. He shall dwell on the heights, out of reach of the arrows. “His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks;” not one rock, but rocks; mass upon mass of mountain shall stand between him and the foe, and there shall he dwell in perfect security. “Oh,” but says one, “they will starve him out. There will be nothing for the people to eat, and they will open the doors and say, ‘Come in! only give us bread.’ ” “Bread shall be given him,” and as he could not be driven out, so he shall not be starved out, for the bread of Heaven shall be given him, if it come from nowhere else. “But even,” says one, “if there may be bread brought into the city, they will run short of water, and must eventually capitulate through thirst.” No, says the promise, “his water shall be sure.” There shall be springs that never can be dried up within the castle itself, and they shall drink and drink as much as they will, and yet the supplies shall never be exhausted. “Now,” says one, “this is poetry.” Just so: it is a poetical description, but it is all founded on facts.

Look at the positive facts in the actual experience of the child of God. First, it is a matter of fact that the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and lives as a Christian should live, lives on high. His mind is elevated above the common cares, trials, and sorrows of life (H. E. I. 1080–1084, 4162, 4163). Many of you know how secure and immutable your defence is, for you have God’s promise, “I will never leave nor forsake thee.” “No good thing will I withhold from him that walketh uprightly.” What munitions of rocks can be compared with these things in which it is impossible for God to lie? You are dwelling where you must be safe; for, first, you were chosen before the foundation of the world, and God will not lose His chosen, nor shall His decree be frustrated. Next, you have been bought with the precious blood of the Son of God Himself, and He will never lose what He has so dearly bought. You have also been quickened by the Holy Ghost and made to live unto God, and that life cannot die. You have been taken into the family of God and made His child, and your name shall never be taken out of the family register. You are joined unto Christ in one spirit; you are a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; and shall Christ be dismembered, the Son of God be rent in twain? I feel I stand where all the devils of hell cannot reach me, where the angels of God might envy me, and where I can say, “Who shall separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” and challenge earth and hell and heaven alike—if so it please them—to assail me, for who can harm me, if my confidence be in the living God?

The poetic utterance, “Thy bread shall be given thee,” is also literally true. You have sometimes had very little, but have always had enough. When God multiplied the meal and the oil of the widow of Zarephath, I do believe that every day Elijah lived with her she had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. We are not told it filled up at once. Just so, you may often have to reach the bottom of the barrel, and the oil may seem to come a drop at a time: this is about as much as you want, and if you get as much as you can eat at one meal, it is all the fresher, and does not breed worms like the manna in the wilderness. It is the heavenly bread we have sometimes to be anxious about; but if ministers do not feed you, God will Himself.

As for the living waters, they shall always flow both in summer and winter. They shall be within thee a well of living water springing up into eternal life. But words cannot tell the privileges of the man who dwells with God. He need not wish to change places with the Archangels.

Friend, if you are not a Christian, do not profess to be one; do not hope by mere empty profession to win the blessedness of God’s people. Confess your sins, and seek the righteousness of God. Fain would I drop into your mouths that prayer, “O Lord, be gracious unto us.”

As for you that are really striving to do that which is right and true, at the same time trusting alone in Jesus for your salvation, I would say to you, What a happy people we ought to be! We ought every one of us to have a shining face (H. E. I. 756–762, 3037–3039). I do not know where the Queen is just now, but if I were a dove and could fly in the air, I would soon find her, for I should see the royal flag flying on the flag-staff. Wherever the monarch is, there will the streamer be found flying. Is the King with you to-day? If so, keep the flag flying. Let the banner fly to the breeze, and let the world know that there are no people so happy, none so much to be envied, as believers in Jesus Christ.—C. H. Spurgeon.

Spreading the Letter Before the Lord.

xxxvii. 14. And Hezekiah received the letter, &c.

The letter was an insolent cartel of defiance from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, full as much of blasphemous defiance against God as of insolence to God’s servant. It represents the conflict between Assyria and Judah as being a struggle between the gods of one nation and the God of the other. The point of it is: “Don’t let the God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hands of Assyria. Thou hast seen what Assyria has done to all lands, and is thy God any better than theirs?” So the king of Judah, very simple and child-like, picks up the piece of blasphemy and goes up to the temple and spreads it out before God. A very naïve piece of unconscious symbolism! The meaning of it comes out in the prayer that follows: “Open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see,” &c. It is for Thee to act. That is the essential meaning of Hezekiah’s action.

I. It was an appeal to God’s knowledge. For his comfort it was necessary to make this appeal. That which influences and agitates us, we need in some way to spread before the Lord. When some great anxiety strikes its talons deep into our hearts, we need to have the truth made clear to ourselves. The Eyes up yonder see all about it. A plain old piece of commonplace, but, oh! there is a deep, unutterable consolation when a man realises this. “Thy Father which is in secret, seeth in secret.”

II. It was an appeal to God’s honour. His prayer was this in effect: “Hear all the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to reproach the living God. I say nothing about myself, but it is Thine honour that is threatened. If this insolent braggart does the thing which he threatens, then it will be said, ‘Forasmuch as this Jehovah was not able to save His people, therefore He let them perish;’ those who worship other gods will say, ‘Jehovah is a name without meaning’—Thy name, which is above every name!” If a man has not got something like that in his prayers, they are poor prayers. With all humility, yet with all self-confidence, ask Him, not so much to deliver you, as to be true to His character and His promises, to be self-consistent with all that He has been; and let us feel, as we have a right to feel, that if any human soul, that ever in the faintest, poorest, humblest manner put out a trembling hand of confidence towards His great hand to grasp it, was suffered to go down and perish, there is a blight and blot on the fair fame of God before the whole creation which nothing can obliterate. But the feeblest cry shall be answered, the feeblest faith rewarded! Let us grasp the thought that not only for our own poor selves—though, blessed be God, He does take our happiness for a worthy object—but because His honour and fair fame are so inextricably wound with our well-being, He must answer the cries of His people (Ezek. xxxvi. 22–24).

III. Let us take out of the account, not only what we ought to do when we go to God in prayer, but the kind of things we ought to take to Him. Every difficulty, danger, trial, temptation, or blasphemy by which His name is polluted, should be at once spread out before the Lord. But most of all the common things of everyday life! The small boy, whom one of our writers tells of, who used to pray that he might have strength given to him to learn his Latin declension, had a better understanding of prayer than the men of the world can understand (H. E. I. 3756, 3757).

IV. Another lesson: If you have not been in the habit of going to the House of God at other times, it will be a hard job to find your way there when your eyes are blinded with tears, and your hearts heavy with anxiety. Hezekiah had cultivated a habit of trusting God and referring everything to Him; so he went straight into the Temple as by instinct, where he could have found his way in the dark, and spread this letter before the Lord as a matter of course. It is a poor thing when a man’s religion is like a waterproof coat, that is only good to wear when it rains, and has to be taken off when the weather improves a little! If you want to get the blessedness of fellowship with God and help from Him in the dark days, learn the road to the Temple in sunshine and gladness, and do not wait for the bellow of the pitiless storm and darkness upon the path, before you go up to the Temple of God (H. E. I. 3877–3879).

V. What do we get by this habit of spreading out everything before God?

1. Valuable counsel. I do not know anything that has such a power of clearing a man’s way, scattering mists, removing misconceptions, letting us see the true nature of some dazzling specious temptations, as the habit of turning to prayer. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the thing that perplexes us is that the steadiness of the hand that holds the microscope is affected by the beating of the heart and the passionate desires and wishes, and so there is nothing defined and clear; it is all a haze. Firmness of hand, clearness of vision, come in prayer to the man who is accustomed to take the harassing “letter,” and spread it out before the Lord (H. E. I. 3741–3743).

2. A very accurate and easily applied test. I do not wonder that as many of us do not like to pray about our plans and about our anxieties; it is either because the plans have no God in them, or the anxieties have no faith. Anything we cannot pray about, we had better not touch. And anxiety that is not substantial enough to bear lifting and laying before God, ought never to trouble us. Test your lives, your thoughts, your affairs, your purposes by this. Will they stand carriage to the Temple? If not, the sooner you get rid of them the better. And then, “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests by made known unto God; and,” in spite of all the blatant Sennacheribs who have poured out their insolent blasphemies, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.”—Alexander Maclaren, in Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, pp. 81–85.