Good Reasons for a Good Resolution
(No. 2543)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1897.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
20, 1884.
"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful inn my
God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has
covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks
himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."
Isaiah 61:10.
Without any preface we will go straight to our text at once. In the
words of the Prophet, we have two things brought before us–first, a
resolution to be glad and, secondly, the reasons for being glad.
Whenever a man makes a resolution, it should be because he has a good
reason for doing so. And when he has a good reason for it, he ought to
adhere to his resolution and carry it out to the fullest possible
extent. I want you, dear Friends, because there are good reasons for
it, to resolve that you will be glad in the Lord. Perhaps you are of a
mournful spirit–it may be that you have peculiar trials just
now–possibly the very heaviness of the atmosphere makes you feel dull
and sad. Never mind those things which would drag your spirit down, at
least for tonight! Let us be glad and if we can make that gladness
overlap tomorrow and if the stream should be sufficiently strong to
flow right through the week to another Sabbath–and if the torrent
should be vigorous enough to run right to the end of the year–and if
the mighty flood should be broad enough to cover all the rest of our
lives, it will not be, even then, an unreasonable thing! I wish we
could, each one of us, with such a Divine inspiration as would enable
us to continue it throughout eternity, say, "I will greatly rejoice in
the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God." But if we cannot reach to
such a full attainment ofjoy all at once, let us at least take a good
mouthful of it even now–let us kneel down against the wellhead of
heavenly bliss and drink a deep draught of holy joy at this glad hour!
I. First, we are to think about A RESOLUTION TO BE GLAD.
I notice, first, that the Prophet's determination to be glad in the
Lord is made without any reserve whatever. ' 'I will greatly rejoice in
the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God." He says, "I will, "and
then he says, "my soul shall" He makes quite sure of it with his,
"will," and his, "shall." It is with him a firm, fixed, steadfast,
unquestioned resolve that his soul shall be full of delight in the
Lord! Come, dear Friends, and let us make the same resolve by the help
of God's Spirit! "I have a bad headache," says one, "but I will rejoice
in the Lord all the same for that." "I have but very little at home, I
am very poor," I think I hear another say, but I trust you, too, will
be able to add, "yet my soul shall be joyful in my God. If I cannot
rejoice in earthly good things, I will rejoice in the highest good,
even in God, who is Goodness itself." "I fear," says another friend,
"that I shall have trouble as soon as I return home. I am afraid I
shall hear some very bad news." Let this message of the Psalmist
comfort your spirit–"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart
is fixed, trusting in the Lord." Do not keep any portion of what your
hear so as to leave room for grief or fear, but, if you are a true
Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, surrender yourself completely to the
highest form of enjoyment and say, here and now, "I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God."
While the Prophet's resolution is wisely unreserved, notice how hearty
i t is. He says not merely, "I will rejoice in the Lord"–he is not
going to be content with a cup full ofjoy–he means to have a wellfull
of it, so he says, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord." The Lord is
such a great God that if we rejoice in Him at all, we ought greatly to
rejoice in Him. Little sources of blessing may well produce little joy,
but when we think of the great goodness of the great God to such great
sinners as we have been, each one of us who has been greatly pardoned
through the great Sacrifice of Jesus may well say, "I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord." Then the Prophet adds, "My soul shall be joyful
in my God." "My very soul, my truest and best self, shall be joyful in
my God. Not only my lips, or the jubilant Psalms which I shall sing,
but my very soulshall be joyful in my God. I will sing as much as I
can, but what I cannot sing, my soul shall feel. There shall be great
waves of expressed joy, but there shall be vast unstirred deeps of
heavenly calm within my innermost nature–'My soul shall be joyful in
my God.'"
We have sometimes seen people joyful just as far as the surface of
their face. They tried to look glad, but underneath the smiling
countenance there lurked a cruel grief. Have I not seen sparkling eyes
which could not help betraying the inward fires of sorrow that burned
in the heart's inmost depths? Have I not heard men sing when their
singing was almost a mockery, for had they expressed themselves as they
felt, they would have groaned rather than have sung? But, O my God,
there shall be with me no mere semblance of joy, no feigning praise, no
misrepresentation of the real feeling of my heart–"my soul shall be
joyful in my God."
I invite you, dear Christian Friends–and I pray the Holy Spirit, the
Comforter, to enable you–to be as full of holy joy as you can be, for
there is good reason for it and no harm can come of it! It is perfectly
safe to take the deepest possible draughts of spiritual joy–this is a
wine of which a man may drink to the fullest and he shall never be
intoxicated. You may be so enamored of earthly things as to perish
through that love, but if you are so enraptured with your Lord that you
find your whole delight in Him, you cannot possibly go to an excess in
that direction! I am sure some of you have tried to sing the bass notes
long enough–I want to get you to run up the scale till you reach the
very highest notes that can be sung on earth! You have sat down and
groaned together in uncomfortable misery quite long enough. Now rouse
yourselves from your sadness, shake off the dust of discontentment and
sorrow–and let us sing together unto God, our exceeding joy, in whom
there are fathomless depths of infinite delight!
So we have seen that this resolution to be glad is unreserved and very
hearty–all the more hearty because it is double. "I will greatly
rejoice," says the Prophet, and then he adds, "my soul shall be
joyful." You may say the same, dear Friend–"I will be glad, and then I
will be glad again. I will joy, and then I will rejoice. I will have a
duplicate of it! I will repeat my delights and heap them up, one upon
another, as though by this Pelion on Ossa I should climb to the very
heavens and sit down in the full joy of my God." Oh, what a blessing it
will be if many of you are helped to do this even now–and to continue
doing it!
Further, notice that this unreserved and hearty resolution is
altogether spiritual' 'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul
shall be joyful in my God." Joy in the creature must necessarily be
limited, for the creature is limited. Joy i n the creature may be
harmful, for the creature may beguile you and allure you away from the
Creator. Joy in yourself is a fiction–there can be no true
satisfaction in it! Joy even in the work of God in your soul may
sometimes be questionable, for you may not be sure that it is God's
work in which you are rejoicing. But when you can say, "I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God," you have a
subject for joy and an object of joy higher than I can ever describe! I
thought, last night, as I turned this text over, the best thing that
ever could have happened for me is that God is what He is. I could not
wish Him to be other than He is–not even when He frowns upon me.
Blessed be His name, He never frowns upon His children except in love!
He never smites them except in greater mercy than He could show by not
striking them. He is altogether the best conceivable God! Yes, He is
inconceivably, unutterably, boundlessly good–let His name be praised
and magnified forever! You may say to yourself, "I am a great many
things that I ought not to be, but I have my God. He is my Father and I
am His child, and though He made the heavens and the earth, yet He
loves me with an everlasting love and He has set the whole of His
heart's affection upon me! Even worthless me, He loves with all the
infinity of His Divine Nature!"
O Friends, the thought of God should bring to our souls incessant
pleasure! Think of any one Person of the blessed Trinity in
Unity–think of the Father and then see how you ought to rejoice that
He is your Father, and such a Father! Then think of the Son of God, our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His very name is honey in the mouth and
music in the ears, light in the life and Heaven upon earth! Then think
of the Holy Spirit, that Divine Person who deigns to take upon Himself
the office of Comforter, that we may not know a sorrow which shall not
be relieved, that we may not bear a burden out of which He will not
take all the heaviness and woe! Blessed Father, blessed Son and blessed
Holy Spirit, blessed be the Triune God forever and ever! "I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God." This
joy in the Lord is all spiritual and in that kind of rejoicing you can
never run to excess!
Let me drop into your mouth this piece of heavenly sweetmeat–"The
Father Himself loves you." Try to get the flavor of that precious Word,
"loves you." I have often said that if God is kind to you, it is a
great thing. If God thinks of you, that is a great thing. If God
blesses you, that is a great thing. But if He loves you–ah, that is an
almost unspeakable honor and joy! Yet it is true. You knew once what it
was to be loved by an affectionate mother. You know now what it is to
love your child. But God loves you in a more intense way, even, than
that, for all the loves of men and women are but the spray of the great
ocean of His everlasting love. "Oh, but," you say, "there are so many
for God to love." That is true, yet He loves you as much as if there
were no other person in the whole universe, as if you stood alone with
the eyes of Jehovah fixed upon you and the whole heart of Jehovah
wrapping you round about in its Divine folds of affection! "The father
Himself loves you." May the Holy Spirit teach you to draw the sweetness
of those words into your soul! "The father Himself loves you." Yes,
more, if He loves you now, He always did love you! He has loved you
with an everlasting love–loved you before yonder stars began to let
their light shine down among the sons of men! Before He had fixed the
universe upon the huge pillars of His almighty power, He loved you and
your names were engraved upon the palms of His hands, yes, upon His
heart! And He will love you when this great earth and sun and moon and
stars shall have passed away. As a moment's foam dissolves into the
wave that bears it and is lost forever, so shall the material creation
pass away–but God shall still love you even as He loves His
only-begotten Son, forever and forever.
Please observe, also, that the Prophet's resolution related to
immediate' oy, though there is also a future meaning in his words. "I
will greatly rejoice in the Lord," expresses a present determination as
well as a resolve concerning the future. I hope greatly to rejoice in
God if I should live to be gray-headed, and to be bent double with
infirmities. But I will greatly rejoice in the Lord at this moment. It
is true that you or I may lie upon a bed of sickness, and draw near to
the gates of death, but I trust that, even then, we shall greatly
rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in our God. But our text really means
that, even now, we will be glad in Him. Come, dear Friends, let us,
each one, say, "I will now, at this very moment, greatly rejoice in the
Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. Away, you cares, be gone from
me, for He cares for me. Away all thoughts of sin, for Christ has cast
my sins behind His back into the depths of the sea. Away all fear of
the future, for my times are in His hands! Away all murmuring, all
complaining at the Providence of God–my soul cries, 'Your will be
done, O Lord! Not as I will, but as You will.'" When you reach that
point, you may well say, "now will I greatly rejoice in the Lord, my
soul shall be joyful in my God."
I think if I stopped now, and said nothing more, you might say to me,
"You have given us reasons enough to make us full of joy and to cause
each one of us gladly to cry, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my
soul shall be joyful in my God."
II. But now, in the second place, I am going to give you, from the
text, other good reasons for BEING GLAD.
The first is found in the Divine clothing here mentioned–"He has
clothed me with the garments of salvation." Did you ever behold your
soul naked to its shame in the sight of the all-seeing Jehovah? Did you
ever try to hide yourself from God because you were under a deep sense
of sin? And did you hear His penetrating voice calling you, as He
called Adam in the Garden, "Where are you? Where are you? Where are
you?" Did you stay away from Divine service and did you still hear in
your soul the Lord's question, "Where are you?" Did you try to bury
yourself in your business, so as to forget that urgent enquiry, and did
it still ring in your ears, "Where are you?" Did you rush off to some
place of amusement and try amid worldly companions to forget yourself
and your God? And did the voice still follow you, always calling,
"Where are you? Where are you?" And were you obliged, at last, to stand
shivering before the Lord, without a rag to cover you, your fig leaves
all withered with a glance of His eye of fire? And did He then cover
you with the garments of salvation? Oh, then you knew the meaning of my
text, when you were no longer ashamed, for you were covered with the
robe of Christ's righteousness! You were clothed with the garments of
salvation and you could say, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my
soul shall be joyful in my God."
Let every child of God here rejoice that he is clothed with the
garments of salvation! From head to foot you are arrayed in salvation.
"Oh!" says one, "I have been such a great sinner." Yes, but if you are
trusting in Christ, He has saved you. He has put away your sin–you
shall not be lost, for you are clothed with salvation. "But I am such a
poor feeble creature, liable to be attacked and tempted by Satan." Yet
God has so clothed you that no cold nor heat of temptation shall come
upon you to your harm. You are clothed from head to foot with the
garments that will save you–the garments of salvation–yes, you are
even now a saved man, woman, or child!
What a wondrous dress this is–the garments of salvation! A helmet of
salvation and the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace, and
all between the head and the feet–the entire person of the man–is
covered with salvation! Think of this, dear Friend. Wherever you go,
you have God's livery upon you. Some princes clothe their courtiers in
silk, but God has clothed you in salvation! Was there ever such another
dress as this? Now will you not sing? Why, when you are clad in such a
robe as this, if you do not sing, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
Surely you must praise the Lord. While clothed in that marvelous attire
which only the Sacred Trinity could have made for you–"garments of
salvation"–you must be joyful in your God! Come, my good Brother, join
the rejoicing band. Is that Mr. Ready-to-Halt over there? Do you
recollect what happened when Mr. Great-Heart cut off the head of Giant
Despair? When the conductor of the pilgrims came back to the road where
he had left Feeble-Mind and Ready-to-Halt to guard the women of the
company–as soon as these poor men saw that it was really the giant's
head, "they were very jocund and merry, and Ready-to-Halt would dance.
True," says Mr. Bunyan, "he could not dance without one crutch in his
hand, but I promise you he footed it well" So, some of the timid,
feeble ones do manage to get extraordinary joy when their spirits are
revived by some special manifestation of the loving kindness of the
Lord!
Then, beside this Divine clothing, there is sacred covering. The
Prophet adds, "He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." That
is the great mantle that goes over all the rest of the garments. We are
first clothed with the garments of salvation and then there comes an
outer covering to envelop us in the robe of righteousness! When God
looks on a justified sinner, He sees nothing in Him but righteousness,
for He is covered with the robe of righteousness. That word, "cover,"
is one of the sacred words of the Hebrew language, as well as of our
own English tongue. It seems to go everywhere, into all languages. The
Atonement of Christ and the righteousness of Christ make up the great
and perfect covering of a sinner! "Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered." The Mercy Seat of old was a great
cover or coffer that went over the Ark of the Covenant. And God has
covered up His people in Christ, as we express it in the prayer we
sometimes sing–
"Him and then the sinner see. Look through Jesus' wounds on me."
When God looks at His people, He does not see them, first, but He sees
His Son. And then He looks through that heavenly medium and sees them
in His Son. Then is it, indeed, true that He has covered them with the
robe of righteousness. Therefore, poor sinful child of God, crying out
because of your sin, cease that moaning and groaning for a little
while! No, have done with it altogether, and let your soul be joyful in
the Lord! One of His names is, "The Lord Our Righteousness," and
Christ, "is made unto us righteousness." We are righteous in the
righteousness of Christ which is imputed unto us. In the 53rd of Isaiah
we read, "By His knowledge," that is, "by the knowledge of Him shall My
righteous Servant justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities." I
wish I knew how to speak of these glorious Truths of God as I feel them
in my own soul, but I cannot find words worthy of the wondrous theme! I
have this holy joy in my own heart and it makes my spirit burn with a
Divine delight! Oh, that I could communicate that delight to others,
even without any words. But God the Holy Spirit can make this joy flash
from heart to heart, till we all feel as if we could–
"Sit and sing ourselves away To everlasting bliss," clothed with the
garments of salvation and covered with the robe of righteousness!
You will have to look in the margin of your Bible to get the next
reason for being glad, which is, hallowed service. Our text says, "He
has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks
himself with ornaments." The marginal reading is, "as a bridegroom
decks himself as a priest." Our text must mean that because in the
sixth verse it is written, "you shall be named the priests of the
Lord." So, when God comes to clothe His people, He clothes them with
such robes that they are fit to execute their priestly office. I think
there is nothing that I detest more than the idea of priest-craft and I
hope that you do the same. Who is any poor mortal man that he should
interpose himself between a sinner and his Savior? Take care to go
straight away to Christ. But, in the true Scriptural sense, there is a
priesthood which belongs to all Christians and I want you to
understand, poor Believer, notwithstanding all your infirmities and
imperfections, that the Lord has so covered you with the righteousness
of Christ that you are clad in a priest's holy vestments! You have, all
over you, the pure white linen which is the righteousness of saints,
and you are wearing that royal miter which permits you to exercise the
priesthood, for He, "has made us kings and priests unto God." We are "a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar
people."
child of God, how glad you would be if you could really rejoice in all
this! Just think of it–at this moment you are a priest unto God on
behalf of the world! The dumb world cannot speak to God, but you are to
speak to Him in the place of the whole animate and inanimate creation!
You are a priest unto the Most High! The rest of mankind must be
farmers, and vine-dressers, and tend the flocks, and mind earthly
things, but you, as a Believer, have to do everything in the name of
the Lord Jesus and to make everything you have to do into a daily
sacrifice unto God! What a wonderful thing it is that you, who once
were only fit to associate with devils–you who were black as Hell,
itself, are now, through faith in Christ–made so clean and are so
gloriously arrayed that you may stand before the Lord and swing the
censer to and fro, and let the sweet perfume of your praises fill the
whole house and ascend acceptably unto God! You may stand here and
offer unto God the living sacrifice of your entire being, which shall
be holy, acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ, your Savior!
Will you not be glad that it is so? Made a priest unto God, can you be
miserable? You must not! Do you not remember that the priests were
never to mar the corners of their beards? They were not to shave their
heads, or to adopt the common customs of men in mourning because they
were God's servants, and they must be glad and rejoice before Him.
Ordained to such a sacred office as the priesthood, put on your
ornaments, yes, put on your beautiful robe that is all of blue! Christ
gives to you a garment fringed with holy bells, which cause you,
wherever you go, to sound forth the sweet tinkling of holy joy, for He
makes even you to be like unto Himself for glory and for beauty, and to
stand before the Presence of God without fear, accepted in Himself.
What a good reason for joy there is in all this!
Now I must bring you back to the text, that you may see that there is a
joy here which is, perhaps, the sweetest of all, that is, the joy of
heavenly marriage–"as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments." "A
bridegroom!" Then it is true that I, a poor stranger and an alien, am
married to Christ! There is the mention of a bride and a bridegroom,
too, and it is all to impress upon us this idea, that every believing
soul is joined unto Christ in a true, real, mystical, conjugal union
which shall never be broken. "Quis separabit?" "Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ?" Jehovah hates putting away, so He will never
divorce a soul that is once married to Him. Now are we no longer our
own, but we belong to Christ, and our song, the sweetest that can be
sung this side of Heaven, is–
"I my Best-Beloved's am, And He is mine."
"My beloved is mine, and I am His; He feeds among the lilies." There is
no angel with whom Christ has entered into union as He has with you and
with me. "He took not on Him the nature of angels." He took not up
angels, but He has taken upon Him the nature of the seed of Abraham! He
came here as a Man, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. The Head
of all the redeemed is Christ. His name is named on us and, as surely
as Adam is our sire, so surely is Christ the second Adam, our Heavenly
Bridegroom! Glory be unto His holy name!
Oh, that this blessed marriage union were more fully understood by us
and that our expectancy bestirred us to wait with sacred impatience
till the time when He shall come to take us to Himself to be one with
Him, partakers of His Throne and of His crown, and of His Glory,
forever and forever! Come, my Brothers and Sisters, have I not given
you a grand reason for making as your own this good resolution of the
Prophet, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful
in my God"?
Last of all, to work out the whole text, we have, here, attractive
adornment–"as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a
bride adorns herself with her jewels." So that every Believer in Christ
is a person goodly to look upon–in the esteem of God, he is fair and
lovely. "He delights not in the strength of the horse: He takes not
pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in them that
fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy." Does it not surprise you
that God should ever have seen anything beautiful in you? My heart has
often melted when I have read those words of the Heavenly Bridegroom to
His spouse, "Turn away your eyes from Me, for they have overcome Me."
What? My eyes! Shall they ever overcome my blessed Bridegroom? Yes, and
He says to you, Believer, "You are all fair, My love; there is no spot
in you." So thoroughly has He washed and cleansed you, that He beholds
His own image reflected in your eyes and He takes infinite delight in
what He has made you, by His Grace! "He will rejoice over you with joy;
He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing."
1 want you, each one, to drink in this blessed Truth of God, if you
can. Not only that you are notthe object of hatred to God, but that you
are the object of His intense delight! Not only that you never cause
anger to spring up in His bosom, for His anger is turned away from you,
but that you even raise in His heart emotions of Divine affection! You
are thus able to hold the King in His inner chamber of communion and
say Him, "I will not let You go." O Beloved, if you did but realize
where you once were and where you now are–and where you shall be
forever and ever–you would be ready to leap for joy! Come, then, will
you not be glad in your Lord? What? Is some little petty trial to rob
God of His Glory? I have said to myself, sometimes, when I have been
sorely sick and have become fearfully depressed through pain, "If I get
over this illness, I will give God a sevenfold portion of thankful
service and praise." I have tried to pay up my arrears when I
recovered. I have thought, "I am afraid, while I was full of pain, I
was very dull, stupid, despondent and almost despairing. Now that I
have got rid of all that, I will let my dear Lord see whether I cannot
make up a little for lost time."
I want you, dear Friends, to do so from this very hour! Go home, sit
down and bless the Lord! Sometimes, even singing is not good enough to
present to our God, and music cannot convey all we want to say. Then
let–
"Expressive silence muse His praise." Sit still and mediate on all the
Lord's goodness to you and so keep out all sadness while you bless His
holy name! I like, sometimes, to be like those beautiful lilies that
send up a long straight stem and then throw out a lovely flower in
which white and gold are charmingly blended, just as if they would give
God all they could. They cannot say a word, but they stand quite still
and they seem to bless the Lord by standing still and looking so
beautiful! I like to sit down and feel as if He had made me to consider
the lilies and so to consider them that I would do just the same as
they do–just show myself to Him–as much as to say, "See, my Lord,
what You have done for me? I was a poor, lost, all-but-condemned
wretch, yet You have made me a prince of the blood royal! You have
lifted me from the dunghill and set me among Your saints! Glory, glory,
glory, glory be unto Your dear name forever and ever!"
While I have been talking about this choice theme, I have been grieving
over the many who know not by personal experience what it is to have
this great change worked within them. Dear Friends, let me tell you,
once and for all, that you cannot make yourselves fit for Heaven. You
cannot clothe yourselves with the garments of salvation. You cannot
renew your own nature. Somebody says, "But, Sir, you discourage people
by telling them that they cannot change themselves." That is the very
thing I want to do! "Oh, but, I want to set a man working!" says one.
Do you? I want to set him not working, that is to say, I want him to
have done with any idea that salvation is of himself! I want him to
drop that thought, altogether, and just to feel that if his salvation
is to Come out of himself, he has to get everything out of nothing, and
that is not only difficult, but impossible! He has to get life out of
his own death, to get cleanness out of the filthy ditch of his own
nature, out of which it can never come!
Discouragement of this sort is the very thing I always aim at in my
preaching! I am afraid that there are many people who are made to
believe that they are saved when they are not. My belief is that God
never healed a man till he was wounded and that he never made a man
alive till he was dead. It is God's way, first, to drag us down and
make us feel that we are nothing, can do nothing, and that we are shut
up to be saved by Grace–that Christ must save us from beginning to
end, or else we can never be saved at all! Oh, if I could but bring all
my hearers not only into a state of discouragement, but into a
condition of despair about themselves, thenI would know that they were
on the road to a simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ! Our extremity
is God's opportunity! Oh, how I long to get you all to that
extremity!–
"Tis perfect poverty, alone, That sets the soul at large! While we can
call one mite our own, We have no full discharge."
It is absolute helplessness and death that lays the sinner where Christ
can deal with him. When he is nothing, Christ shall be everything. Have
you never heard of the man who saw a person drowning and plunged into
the river after him and swam to him? The poor fellow tried to clutch
his rescuer, but the swimmer knew that–if he let the man get hold of
him, he could not bring him ashore, so he kept swimming round him. The
man went down and still his rescuer swam around him, but did not touch
him. He went down again because the swimmer could see that he was still
too strong and, when he was just going down the third time, then the
wise rescuer laid hold of him, for he was helpless and so could not
impede his deliverer!
That is what you have to be, dear Friends. When you cannot do anything,
then you cannot any longer hinder Christ! But, as long as you can do a
hand's turn, you will hamper my dear Lord and Master. Your business is
just to yield yourself right up into His hands to be saved by Him
alone. "Are there to be no good works?" asks someone. Oh, yes, plenty
of them, as soon as ever Christ has saved you! The frstthing the man
does when he has quit his own works and given himself up entirely to
Christ, is to cry, "Lord, what will You have me do? You have saved me,
now I will do all I can, not for my self-salvation, but to glorify You
and show men what Your Grace has done, and so express in some poor
feeble way the gratitude I feel for the free salvation which Your Grace
has given me."
Some of you will have to go down once or twice more before the Lord
Jesus Christ will give you eternal salvation. You are still too good.
You are still too big. You are too strong–you have such a very
respectable character that you are not content to come in at Christ's
back door, where He receives none but poor, guilty sinners! You are not
quite naked yet–there is a rag or two of your own righteousness about
you. You will have to be stripped and then you shall put on the robe of
Christ's righteousness! You have only a bone or two broken and you can
crawl about a little–you have yet to be ground to powder! When you
become nothing–when you have no good feelings, no good desires, or
anything you can bring to Christ–when you come to Christ, not with a
broken heart, but for a broken heart, then He will receive you! Then
you will be the kind of man that Christ came to save! Oh, that He would
bring you to that point very speedily, for His dear name's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH3.
Verse 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me. These are the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Prophet, looking forward to the time of His
coming into the world, put them into His mouth and, in due time, our
Savior read them and applied them to Himself in the synagogue at
Nazareth as He said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your
ears." "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me."
1. Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the
meek; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, God has sent Christ
to bind up the broken-hearted. Then will He not do it? Will He refuse,
my broken-hearted Brother or Sister, to bind you up? O deeply-troubled,
tempest-tossed spirit, will the Anointed One reject you and refuse to
fulfill His office upon you? Never! It is both His name and His office
to save, for He is called Jesus, the Savior. O broken-hearted one, look
to Him! Hear Him say, at this moment, "Jehovah has sent Me to bind up
the broken-hearted"
1. To proclaim liberty to the captives. Where are you, poor, wretched
bond-slaves of sin, lettered with the iron chains of despair? Christ
proclaims liberty even to you! Trust Him and you shall be–
"Freed from sin, and walk at large, Your Savor's blood your full
discharge." "Jehovah has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives."
1. And the opening of the prison to them that are bound. There is a
general discharge of prisoners. The time has come for it. Christ died
to make it possible–He lives to perfect the emancipation of all for
whom He died. He comes, by His Spirit, to give you the experience of
it–"the opening of the prison to them that are bound."
2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of
vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn. Oh, what precious
words are these! Christ comes, commissioned of the father, "to comfort
all that mourn."
3. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty
for ashes, the oil ofjoy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. This message is
spoken to all the Lord's people, but it has a special reference to the
Jews, God's ancient people. Happy times are coming for them in the
years that yet lie in the future, when they accept the Messiah whom
they have so long rejected.
4. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former
desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of
many generations. In the days to come, Judea shall again be inhabited
and the ruined cities shall be built up once more. God will bring back
His ancient people, converting them to the true faith and clothing them
with glory. As for ourselves, this verse is true in another sense. If
we believe in Jesus, that part of us which has been given up to waste
shall yet be turned to usefulness and to God's praise.
5, 6. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of
the men shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But you shall be
named the Priests of the Lord. This was true of God's ancient people,
but it is true of us, also. Let us cast away our earthly cares–let our
only care be to serve our God–for then strangers shall stand and feed
our flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be our plowmen and our
vinedressers, but we, "shall be named the Priests of the Lord."
6, Men shall call you the Ministers of our God: you shall eat the
riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves.
God's chosen people are His children. All the rest of mankind are only
His servants, and the servants must wait upon the children whether they
like it or not. Even of the angels in Heaven it is written, "Are they
not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall
be heirs of salvation?" All things are the servants of the man who is
the servant of God! He who is consecrated to God shall find all things
consecrated to him. When all that is yours, works for God, then all
things shall work together for good for you.
7, 8. For your shame you shall have double; and for confusion they
shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall
possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I the Lord
love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering. God cannot endure
that we should sacrifice to Him what we have gained by oppression and
wrong-doing. Some men seem to try to cut themselves in halves and then
say, "So much is to be secular, and so much is to be sacred." Do not
believe it! You are only one man, and what you are in secular things,
that you are altogether. You cannot say, "So much is to be religion,
and so much is to be business." If your religion is not your business,
and if your business does not melt into your religion, there is not
much that is good in you. We cannot say, "I shall do this because it is
religion, and I shall do that because it is business." No, no! The man
is one and there is nothing to a Christian that can be marked off as
secular–for all things are sacred to the man who truly serves God.
8, 9. And I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an
everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the
Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall
acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord has blessed. A
visible stamp of Divine blessing shall be upon Believers in Christ.
"They are the seed which the Lord has blessed," and all men shall
acknowledge that it is so.
10, 11. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soulshall bejoyfulin my
God; for He has clothedme with the garments of salvation, He has
covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks
himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth her bud, and as the garden causes the
things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause
righteousness andpraise to spring forth before all the nations.
So may it be right speedily, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.