An Infallible Sign Of Revival
(No. 2922)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 12, 1876.
"The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Isaiah 2:11.
IN the eternal past the Lord alone was exalted. When He dwelt alone
before the earth was and when He commenced the mighty works of His
Creation–and the universe sprang into being at the fiat of His
unhindered will–He alone was exalted. He made multitudes of creatures.
Perhaps we have no idea how many of them there were and in what varied
forms intelligent beings were created, but the Lord alone was exalted.
Every angel adored Him–every creature knew its Lord. It was an ill day
when there broke out a rival spirit and when evil began to set up its
throne in opposition to the God of Good. The leader of the angels–the
light bearer–sought to erect a rival throne. "How are you fallen from
Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning." Then, by and by, in process of
time, upon this world God's Glory was dimmed. Here, too, another spoke
and was believed and God was doubted. Another claimed man's love and
gained it and God was disobeyed. No longer on earth was the Lord alone
exalted as He had been in the quiet glades of Eden when our first
parents worshipped none but God and counted it the very cream and
flower of their being that they might serve the Most High who had made
them what they were.
Now look where we may, in this poor, fallen world, the Lord alone is
not exalted. There are many lords and gods– spiritual wickedness and
principalities of evil–which set themselves up in opposition to the
great King of kings and Lord of lords. Yet as surely as Jehovah lives,
He will win the victory in this conflict! Ere the drama of the world's
history shall come to a close, it shall be known throughout the entire
universe that the Lord, He is God–and the Lord alone shall be exalted.
It is a part of the work of Grace–no, it is the main objective of the
work of Grace, and it is an objective, also, of the work of Providence
to promote this great end–that the Lord alone shall be exalted. For
your comfort and for your instruction, then, notice first the occasions
when my text has been true. I shall take the text out of its
connection, not, I hope, unduly, and show that on a large scale there
are several days in which the Lord alone has been exalted. And then we
will come back to a little quiet meditation and look into our own
experience to see whether there have not been days with us when the
Lord alone has been exalted.
I. Come then, first, and notice WHEN THE LORD ALONE HAS BEEN EXALTED ON
A LARGE SCALE.
The Lord alone has been exalted among men whenever He has been pleased
to reveal Himself in the plenitude of His power. The Revelations under
the Law of God were mainly Revelations girt with terror. Under the Old
Testament dispensation you find God coming out of His place to terribly
shake the earth. When He bows the Heavens and comes down, the mountains
flow at His Presence. The Lord alone was exalted in those days when He
vindicated His Justice and displayed His Power against His enemies.
Remember the flood when, after so many years of warning, the ark being
prepared for the salvation of the believing few, God was pleased to
draw up the floodgates of Heaven and to bid the cataracts of earth leap
upward instead of downward until over all the face of the world there
was nothing but one mighty all-devouring wave! When in majestic silence
the ark floated over the bosom of the world which had become the grave
of Jehovah' s creatures–then the Lord alone was exalted in that day!
And when men had multiplied again upon the face of the earth and His
people had gone down into Egypt, you know well the story, how proud
Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?" Then
Moses came and with many strokes of his mystic rod he afflicted the
fields of Zoan, he turned their waters into blood and slew their fish.
He
spoke and the flies came–and the frogs and the locusts without
number–yes, the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt, the chief of
all their strength, and in that night, when a cry went up from every
Egyptian household and the people of Israel were led forth like sheep
by the hands of Moses and Aaron, the Lord alone was exalted! Then the
nations knew that Jehovah worked His will among the sons of men!
Nor was that all. When in their desperation, the Egyptians pursued the
Israelites into the very depths of the sea, the Lord turned and looked
upon them and troubled the host of Pharaoh and took off their chariot
wheels so that they could not be driven–then the sea returned in the
fullness of its strength and the depths covered them until there was
not one of them left! Then Miriam' s song, "Sing you to the Lord, for
He has triumphed gloriously," was but an exposition of our text, "The
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Time would fail me to tell of
all His mighty works, nor is there any need for me to recapitulate the
records of the book of the wars of the Lord, "for the Lord is a man of
war: the Lord is His name"–and when He comes forth to battle, then the
Lord alone is exalted in that day!
May we never live to see a pestilence sweep through this land! But
should such a visitation of God come upon us, then will our houses of
prayer be thronged and men will begin to cry unto the Most High! May we
never hear the noise of war in our streets! If such a calamity should
befall us and the Lord takes the sword of war out of the scabbard, men
will begin to learn righteousness! May He be pleased to have mercy upon
us and lead us by gentle means to glorify His name. Were He to come in
judgment, then would the spirit of atheism and of idolatry which now,
with brazen faces, dare confront the Gospel of Christ, betake
themselves to the darkness in which they were begotten! When the Lord
comes forth in terror then is He alone exalted!
Let us change the theme now and see, too, how wherever God comes forth
in His great mercy, His name alone is exalted. The day when the infant
Church of Christ gathered in an upper room and sat there, all its
members being of one heart and of one soul, and the Lord revealed His
Grace by the baptism of the Holy Spirit–when the sound of the rushing
mighty wind was heard, when the tongues of fire sat on the
disciples–when they began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance
and thousands were added to the Church, that was a day when the Lord
alone was exalted! Was there any whisper on that day of honor to be
given to Peter, or to John, or to James in the Church of God? Do you
think there was any trace of the spirit that could say, "I am of
Cephas," and, "I am of John'? Ah, no! The name of the Lord was very
precious to His people that day. They gave glory to the Lord both in
the Temple and in their own houses, eating their bread with gladness of
heart. Only let the Lord show Himself in great blessing, then He alone
is exalted! Behold, His enemies fly before Him because of His Divine
Grace!
Well, Brothers and Sisters, it will be even so, by-and-by, "in that
day" of which we were reading just now with so much delight–when "the
mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted on the top of the
mountains and all nations shall flow unto it." There is to come a day
when Christ shall be known and loved of every land! When the dwellers
in the wilderness shall bow before Him and His enemies shall lick the
dust. I am not going into any details or prophetic descriptions of the
millennium, but we do expect a day when the Gospel shall win its way
over this whole globe and the poor world, instead of being swathed in
mist and fog, shall come out of the cloud of her unbelief and out of
the darkness of her sin, and shine like her sister stars at the feet of
her great Creator! In that day the Lord alone shall be exalted! You
will hear no more of the name of Pope, or Patriarch, or a great
religious leader receiving the chief honor. No great name set in the
front of a section of the church shall be shouted in that day–the Lord
alone shall be exalted!
So again it will be when yet farther on in human history the end shall
come–when you and I and all born of woman shall stand before the dread
tribunal of the Last Great Day–then shall the Lord alone be exalted!
There shall be no pomp of kings before that Great White Throne. There
shall be no glare of riches there before the prince of the kings of the
earth. Honor and fame that were so feverishly sought and so highly
prized by the sons of men shall then melt away like the fat of rams.
Kings and their serfs, princes and their subjects shall stand together.
There shall be no idol gods in that day, nor shall men receive homage
of their fellows, but while the earth shall be reeling to its doom and
the Heavens themselves dissolving, the Lord alone shall be exalted!
Jehovah's great and glorious name shall fill all ears and His majesty
shall impress all hearts. May we be found in Christ in that great day!
The Lord grant it for His mercy's sake!
II. Now, in the second place, I am going to talk to you on humbler
topics, endeavoring to bring our subject down to our own experience and
to see WHEN THE LORD ALONE HAS BEEN EXALTED ON A SMALLER SCALE. When it
is written, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, we may
understand that what is true on a great scale is equally true
on a little scale in God' s Kingdom. He works according to rule, so
that if you split up some great crystal of His Providence into as small
fragments as you please, each fragments shall be found to be
crystallized in the same form. So, if in the grand events of history
God is to be exalted, you will also find that in the little world of
your own experience–in the history which is only recorded in your own
pocket-book–in the story of your own life–that God is also exalted!
Brothers and Sisters, many of you already know, and I pray that others
here who as yet do not know it may be brought to know it, that there
have been red-letter days in your life when the Lord alone has been
exalted!
One of the earliest of these blessed days was when you first had a
sense of sin. Ah, I had no thought how black I was until that day! I
had never dreamed how corrupt my heart was, how vile my nature, how
desperate my condition, how near the borders of Hell I stood till then.
There came at last that day in which the Light of God shone into my
soul and I saw the evil of my state, the danger of my condition and the
horrible rottenness of my whole nature even to the very core! Do you
remember such a day in your experience, beloved Brethren? I know you
do! Oh, what a withering day it was. Your flesh is grass and do you not
remember when the grass withered and when the flower thereof faded away
because the Spirit of the Lord was blowing upon it? Surely the people
are grass. Do you recollect when you perceived in your heart a new
rendering of that old passage, "And we all do fade as a leaf and our
iniquities like the wind have taken us away"? When you found your
righteousness to be only a fading leaf and the strength of your
passions to be like the wind that took you right away and carried
you–you knew not where? You seemed to be like a sear leaf blown away
in a tempest of sin!
Before that, you had thought yourself to be very fine–very few were
more respectable or honorable than you. If you had not many glittering
virtues, yet you felt you had no degrading vices! There was much about
you that others might imitate and if people did not respect you, you
felt very angry–you felt they ought to pay great deference to such a
one as you were. But you did not feel like this on that day–not on
that day! No. In that day you threw your idols to the moles and to the
bats. You wanted to forget that you ever thought you were righteous.
You felt ashamed of even your most precious golden idol–your
self-righteousness. You wanted to disown it and you were afraid
somebody should remind you that you ever worshipped it! It seemed such
a horrible thing that you should ever have talked about acceptance
before God by your good works. Good works? The very thought seemed a
sarcasm on God, an irony of the devil! Good works indeed! Your prayers,
your tears, your church attendance, your chapel attendance all seemed
like so much dung! You understood Paul's strong language that day–your
own righteousness was as offensive to you as his was to him. You put
all your old hopes away with abhorrence. Oh, I know what happened to
you–the Lord alone was exalted that day!
If anybody had preached a sermon that day about the dignity of human
nature, you would have been inclined, like Jenny Geddes, to throw a
stool at his head. If anybody had talked that day of the great things
man is capable of, and of virtue that still remains in him after the
slight mischief of the Fall, you would have felt indignant at such an
infamous lie, for God had stripped you bare of all your glory! In that
day you felt yourself to be cast in a ditch and your own clothes
abhorred you. But, oh, if anyone had preached of the splendor of the
great God that day, of the Infinite Majesty of His holiness and of His
justice, you would in silence have bowed your head and shed tears of
contrition which would have been the best form of adoration from your
penitent heart! If they had begun to preach the amazing mercy and the
love of God in Christ, your heart would have leaped to hear the very
sound of it, for there are no two things that ever so sweetly met
together as an empty sinner and a full Christ! When a soul sees itself,
it then has the eyes with which to see Jesus! He that can see his own
deformities, shall not be long before he sees the Lord's unspeakable
perfections! In that day of self-humbling, cutting away and casting
down, I know the Lord alone was exalted in your soul!
Well, then there came another day in your experience which is very
sweet to remember–the day when you saw Jesus hangingon the Cross–when
you put your trust in Him and knew that He had taken away your iniquity
and blotted out your sin. Oh, I remember that day–it was my best
marriage day and birthday, too–the day when I knew that sin was gone
and gone forever! How bright the Cross shone that day! How bright were
the eyes of Jesus and how fair His wounds! Ah, the Lord alone was
exalted that day! Had anybody preached to me of the power of sacraments
and the magic of priests, I would have had abhorred them in my inmost
soul and I would have spoken my horror of the thought of giving the
glory of the Lord to another! When the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses from all sin, where is he that daresask me to let him wash me
and to let him put away my sin for me? The blood, the blood of Jesus
has taken all our guilt away, once and forever–and woe be unto the man
that dares to stand up and put himself side by side with the
All-Cleansing Christ! That was how we felt. The Lord alone was exalted
in that day.
We feel just the same today. I am sure if people knew the power of the
blood of Christ they could never become slaves to the superstitions of
men. If they felt the force of being justified by faith in Jesus
Christ, they would be like Martin Luther when he sprang from his knees
on Pilate's staircase, never to go another step in the weary round of
man-made ordinances! What have we to do with these beggarly things when
Christ our Lord has set us free and saved us forever from the wrath to
come? A sight of Your Cross, O Jesus, makes the priests topple down
like Dagon before the ark–and the sacraments that once were trusted in
to be despised if placed side by side with You! You alone are exalted
in that day!
Since then we have had some other very happy days. The life of a
Christian has many illuminated letters in it. Our roll is not written
within and without with lamentation. We have high days and holidays and
there are times of nearness to Christ which I hardly dare to describe
here. I could venture to talk of them to two or three choice friends
that know the secret of the Lord, but these things are not for all
ears. These are days when we realize the meaning of the Song of Songs
and bless God that ever the book of Canticles was written, otherwise
there would have been in the Bible no expression for our ardent love to
Christ. On such days we say with rapture, "Let Him kiss me with the
kisses of His mouth." "Your love is better than wine." "He brought me
to the banqueting house and His banner over me was love." "Stay me with
flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love." "His left hand
is under my head, and His right hand does embrace me." "I charge you, O
you daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field,
that you stir not up, nor awake my love, till He pleases." Read
Rutherford's letters if you know the secret beforehand–if not, they
will be an enigma to you, even as the Song of Solomon must always be.
This much we may say, when Christ draws us near to Him, "The Lord alone
is exalted in that day." When He wraps us in His crimson vest and shows
us all His name and says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love,
therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you. I have engraved you on
the palms of My hands," O Brothers and Sisters, "the Lord alone is
exalted in that day!" Then self has gone. We cry, "I am black but
comely" and the blackness strikes us as much as the comeliness that
Christ has put upon us. We sink into nothing at His feet. These
manifestation of His glorious love makes us cry like Job, "I have heard
of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You, therefore I
abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." The Lord alone is exalted
in that day!
Well, you know, Brothers and Sisters, that after some of those high
flights when we have been on the top of the Mount of Transfiguration,
we get exalted above measure and then we have to be humbled. It is a
wretched confession to make, but God' s people know how true it is. We
wander from the Lord and for a while He leaves us to ourselves when we
exalt ourselves. But when we return from our wandering, then the Lord
alone is exalted in that day. You know how, perhaps, there have been
weeks of estrangement between you and your Lord–He has been jealous of
your heart and you have been cold to Him–you have gone, perhaps, into
the world with too worldly a spirit and the sweetness of His Word has
departed from you and His voice is no longer heard in your soul. Then
you begin to cry, "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation and uphold
me with Your free Spirit." You know what it is to cry–
" What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still! But
now I find an aching void The world can never fill. Return, Oholy Dove!
Return, Sweet messengers of rest! I hate the sins that made You mourn
And drove You from my breast" Ah, when you get your prayer answered,
then the Lord alone is exalted in that day!
Do you know what it is to go creeping to the Mercy Seat where once you
used to go so boldly? To go there with many tears and with much shame
when you used to go with a radiant face–and yet to find your Jesus
waiting there? Do you know what it is to turn to the grand old Book
that once you used to read with sacred glee and look there for a
sinner' s promise such as might suit a broken heart? And do you not
recall how many times you found it come home with just the old power
till the bones which had been broken began to sing again, and your
heart once more was joyous in the Presence of your Lord? Ah, then I
know your own beauty has been turned to ashes and all your comeliness
has
disappeared, for when the Lord restores a soul, that soul also restores
the Lord to His proper place–and the Lord alone is exalted in that
day.
But at this rate my time will all be gone before I am half through my
story! Let me therefore hasten to say, dear Brothers and Sisters, that
the Lord is exalted when a Church begins to sigh and cry for the Lord's
Presence. I hope that the power of the Lord is not forsaking us in any
measure here, but it is my fret, my jealousy lest He should in any wise
depart from us–lest the spirit of prayer should go from us–lest love
to souls should leave us and there should not be abundant conversions
in the School and in the ministry and everywhere around our borders.
Should such a time of dearth ever come to us, it will be a grand thing
when we as a Church can get together and begin to groan and cry for the
Lord to return in power! When a church feels it mustget a blessing–I
hope we are feeling it now–in proportion as that desire grows into an
agony, the Lord alone will be exalted in that day! The preacher will
feel–indeed he does feel every day more and more–his own unworthiness
and inability for such a work. Every other worker will, in proportion
as the desire for God's Glory shall increase, feel himself to be less
and less and still less and less in his own esteem. Oh, when we once
come to wish for souls, nobody cares about being important, nobody
wishes to be in the front–everybody wants to be there if he can serve
God, but he does not want any place of honor, or court any badge of
distinction by which he shall be known! A church in agony for souls
wants only to see men converted–she does not care how or by whom the
work is done as long as the people are brought to Christ! Then is the
Lord alone exalted!
When the blessing comes–and it is a notable day when it comes–when
the Word of God is with power and men are stricken down and begin to
cry for mercy–when the inquirers are many and the converts are
multiplied and God blesses each Brother and each Sister with success in
soul-winning–oh, then at such times the Lord alone is exalted! I
believe that whenever God sends prosperity to the Church and any of the
members of the Church begin to ascribe the success to themselves, the
blessing is almost sure to go. God will not bless proud workers. If you
are going to have a part of the fish for yourself, you may cast the net
where you like, but you shall take nothing. But when you are fishing
for your Master, He will fill your net to the fullest!
I often think–and therein am I glad in days of sorrow–that when God
means to bless any of us, He generally lowers us into the very dust.
When we are willing to be nothing, then the Lord alone is exalted in
that day. If you that are cooks were about to serve a dinner, you would
not use a dish, I am sure, until first of all you had cleaned it. You
would first wipe it right out, then you would set it on the shelf–and
when you needed a goodly dish with which to serve up goodly meat, you
would reach down for the empty dish that you had well wiped, would you
not? Some of us do not get quite wiped out of our last success and so
we have no more. We still retain a flavor of our last
self-congratulation and so the Master will not use us. When He puts us
in hot water, makes us see our filth and then wipes us right out and
we, perhaps, are inclined to say, "Lord, I am now good-for-nothing," we
shall be more likely to be of some service to Him! Perhaps He will put
us on the shelf for a while. He can easily do that with some of us–a
little twinge of pain and sickness–and we are useless! We seem to say,
"Lord, what am I but an empty, cracked dish?" Ah, but then He comes and
takes us down and uses us–and that is worth waiting for! I always
expect a greater blessing when there is greater soul-humbling among us.
Would not you be glad to be humbled, dear Brother, if God would use you
more as a consequence? Today I saw, as I went home, some old crocks and
broken bricks and pieces of all sorts of earthenware put by the side of
the road because the road is going to be widened, and I thought to
myself, "If the Lord would only use me as an old broken crock to help
to make a roadway for Him to ride through London, so that He might be
glorified, I would be glad to be thus honored." Do you not feel so too?
Well, perhaps He will take you at your word one of these days! Brother,
if God humbles you in order to use you, you may not like it as much as
you think you will, but still, that is how we should demean ourselves.
We should be willing to be anything, or to be nothing, according to His
will.
When Christians feel they must somehow live to the glory of God, I know
there is a blessing coming–yes, that the blessing hascome, for then
the Lord alone is exalted! When the man of God says, "I must not live
any longer for saving money or simply to bring up my children
respectably, or to get a subsistence for myself," then the Lord is
exalted. And when Christians feel that they cannot live for a party or
for a section of the Church, but that they must live for God and
Christ, and for the pure Word of the Gospel and that everything else
must go overboard except that which is for the glory of God, then we
may be sure that the Lord has come among us and that He is working
mightily! Behold, these are
the signs! When He has insulted all pride, dimmed all human glory and
magnified Himself, then indeed we have times of refreshing from His
Presence and the Lord alone is exalted in that day!
Now I have almost done. But I want you to notice that there is a day
coming–it will come very soon to some of our venerable friends around
me. It will come very soon–perhaps quite soon to some of us in middle
life who are still in health–the day when we shall be called to go
upstairs because the Master has a message for us. When we read the
message, it will say, "The time has come for you to gather up your feet
in your bed and to meet your father's God." O Brothers and Sisters, the
Lord alone will be exalted in that day if we are, indeed, His people! I
fancy I see the dying minister when they bring his sermons up to him.
Can he glory in them? He says, "I bless God that He enabled me to
preach His Truth. 'Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is
this Grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ,' but I cannot glory in these." If you
shall bring up to him the number of his converts and shall tell him of
the churches that he built up and the places that he has evangelized, I
will tell you what he will say, "God forbid that I should glory save in
the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Take the best saint among us and put him on the borders of Emmanuel's
land and let him hear the bells of Heaven ring out the never-ending
Sabbath–listen whether he will talk about himself or about the little
Church to which he belongs as if it were the whole Church of God! Oh
no, no, no, a thousand times no! On the borders of Emmanuel's land all
the glory is to the Lord alone! Redeeming blood, electing love,
effectual calling, persevering Grace–all these will be sung about, but
there will be no songs about ourselves or anything else but God when we
come there! Mother, are you making an idol of that baby? You will not
be able to do that when you come near your departing hour. Christian
man, are you making an idol of anything you have in this world? It will
be utterly abolished then! Anything wherein you are trusting and
finding comfort will fail you then! The Lord alone will then be your
stay and your song! The Lord alone! If you feel the bottom as you wade
into the river, you will feel that it is good. But, by-and-by, you will
be where there is no bottom–the river will be a river to swim in and
then will you need to know that underneath you are the everlasting
arms! If you are sure of this, you will take that mighty plunge as when
a swimmer stretches out his hands to swim–and you will be in Heaven in
a moment!
And, Beloved, when we get into Glory, the Lord alone will be exalted
there! What a difference will come over us in the matter of those
little things wherein we glory now. Petty trifles sometimes lift us up
very high. Oh, how loftily we carry our heads sometimes, poor fools
that we are, because of this thing in which we are superior to some
fellow worm, or that thing in which we have not erred as some other man
has done! But oh, up there, up there, up there, all harps will be for
Jesus! All the vials shall be full of odors for Jesus! Harps and
tongues, voices and strings, all for the Three-One God! All for the
Lord alone! Free Grace begins to teach us here that God alone must be
exalted–and when we have learned that lesson, well then, Glory will
come in to cap the whole and make us feel that it were absurd even to
imagine that any person or anything could share the glory with the
Infinite Majesty of God!
There, now, I have done. Only I would ask you this. Is there one here
that will not give God all the glory? If so, dear Brother, you cannotbe
saved. Salvation may almost hinge upon this question–Are you willing
to be saved so that the Lord alone shall be exalted in your salvation?
Are you willing no more to trust in your good works, your prayers, your
tears, your feelings or anything else of your own, but to come and
trust in the finished work of Jesus and give yourself up absolutely and
entirely to be His? Are you willing to be His servant, His property
forever, that henceforth your only glory may be in His dear name, your
only boasting in His Cross? If so, He accepts you and He will save you!
But if you must have the glory, then you shall not have the salvation!
Where, then, will yourglory be? He that glories in himself shall
perish, but he that will glory only in the Lord shall live forever! God
bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH2.
1, 2. The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the
mountain of the LORD S house shall be established in the top of the
mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall
flow unto it What grand hopes are kindled in our bosoms by words like
these! The Church has always been as a city set on a hill that cannot
be hid, but still she has not been known in all parts of the world
and she has never been known with that universal eminence which
attaches to the things of this world–the things of pomp and show. But
the day shall come when she shall be the highest of the high! Her
mountain shall be established "on the tops of the mountains"–when she
shall be best known of all the known and shall become what she was
always meant to be–the metropolis of the whole world, the center to
which all kindreds shall flow! Not the Jews alone shall then possess
the oracles of God, but all nations shall flow unto it!
3. And many people shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the
mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will
teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion
shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. In
these happy days which have, in a measure, begun, but which in their
fullness have not yet dawned upon us, the Spirit of the Lord will work
in the hearts of multitudes of men a desire after God. They will be
willing to worship Him–they will say, "Let us go up to the mountain of
Jehovah." They will be anxious to learn what He would teach. This shall
be the reason why they go–"He will teach us of His ways." They shall
not only wish to learn, but be quick to practice–"and we will walk in
His paths." Sometimes we have to complain of the masses of mankind
forsaking the worship of God altogether. And too often those that come
together come with some inferior motive–not that they may be taught of
God. And even some that are, in a manner, taught, are slow to obey. The
Lord teaches them by His ministers but they do not walk in His paths.
Blessed days when all this shall be reversed and the multitudes shall
flock to the Church and to the Christ!
4. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people:
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war anymore. They shall not save their weapons for
future use, or believe in the theory that the best way to preserve
peace is to be prepared for war–but they shall beat their swords into
plowshares and turn their spears into pruning hooks. The spirit which
created war shall be conquered. "Why are there wars and fighting among
you? Come they not because of your lusts?" When lust and envy and
hatred shall be dethroned and the Spirit of Christ shall be dominant
over the world, then shall they learn war no more–
"O happy day!
O long-expected day begin.!'
Let each one of us labor mightily according as the Spirit works in us
to bring about a consummation so devoutly to be wished.
5. O house of Jacob, come you, and let us walk in the light of the
LORD. The Jew shall come. Long rejecting the Messiah, yet shall he,
with the Gentile, walk in the light of Jehovah. Now the theme changes.
We are led to see why it is that a happy state of things does not exist
at this moment, and did not exist in the land of Judah. Sin–sin is the
cause of the mischief–idolatry–the setting up of something in the
place of God!
6. Therefore You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because
they are filed with ways from the east, and are soothsayers like the
Philistines and they are pleased with the children of foreigners. The
nations then had their soothsayers and fortunetellers. The people of
God ought not to have so degraded themselves, but they did and,
therefore, they provoked Him–and they sought out foreigners and
entered into league with them, whereas the Lord had bidden them be a
people separate unto Himself. It always goes ill with those who profess
to be God's people when they forget their separated character and join
with the world.
7. 8. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any
end of their treasures. Their land is also full of horses neither is
there any end of their chariots: their land also is full of idols. How
these things generally go together! If a nation prospers and gets
wealthy, it is so apt to seek external worship of a gaudy kind for
itself. It must then have its ritualism and its idols, for if men have
their gold and have their chariots, the simple worship of the unseen
God seems to be beneath the dignity of their taste!
8. 9. They worship the work of their own hands that which their own
fingers have made: And the people bow down, and each man humbles
himself: therefore forgive them not. Mark the indignant spirit of the
Prophet, as if he had been an Elijah, or had the mind of a John Knox of
later days. It seemed as if he could not ask God to forgive such a
stupendous folly as the setting up of visible objects of worship, and
the turning away from the true invisible God. O idolatry, what an
accursed sin you are! And how rampant are you in this land at this day!
10-12. Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, for fear of the LORD
and for the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be
humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD
alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the LORD of Hosts
shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that
is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: Whatever God does or does
not do, there is one role of His procedure from which He never
deviates, namely, to cast down the proud and those who boast from their
high places. He condescends to the humble and He has a tender eye to
the contrite, but wherever man, the creature, dares to think himself
great, God will bare His arm to overthrow him, or puff at him–for a
puff will do it–and he shall pass away.
13-16. And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up,
and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains, and
upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and
upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish and upon all
pleasant pictures. No matter what it is that man sets up, however good
or great, if he dares to bring it into competition with God, God's hand
is against him and He will break it in pieces! Whenever God comes out
of His secret place, this is always the end of it. He came against
Babylon and against Nineveh. Yes, ask the traveler who has wonderingly
descended into those vast mounds, "Where are those mighty monarchies
now?" Where is the power of Sennacherib and where the might of
Nebuchadnezzar? They have gone. The dust is their sole monument. Turn,
in later days to the great power of Rome and as one walks through Rome,
that vast mausoleum of an empire–where one treads at every step upon
an empire's dust–what do you think but that God has broken the iron
kingdom and made what seemed to be an omnipotent power to pass away
from off the face of the earth? Woe unto all that is great and all that
is high and all that exalts itself above God! Whether a temporal power,
or a spiritual, it shall pass away like a dream of the night, or a
vision of the air, for the Lord IS–and all else is nothing.
17-20. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the
haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be
exalted in that day. And the idols He shall utterly abolish. And they
shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth,
for fear of the LORD, and for the glory ofHis Majesty, when He arises
to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of
silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each one for himself to
worship, to the moles and to the bats. The worshipper of idols shall be
ashamed of them. The precious metal shall not save them–the work of
art for which so many plead–"It is true the thing is defiling and
idolatrous," say some, "but look at the skill, the taste, the
handicraft, the precious metal!" When God makes bare His arm, they
shall fling even gold and silver to the moles and to the bats!
21, 22. To go into the clefts of the rock, and into the tops of the
raggedrocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory ofHis Majesty when
He arises to shake terribly the earth. Sever yourself from such a man,
whose breath is in his nostrils for of what account is he?" What a
rebuke this is to kingcraft and especially to priestcraft. "For of what
account is he?" You may lay what hands you will on him, you may gird
him with what robes you please and you may pour upon him your anointing
oil and your sacred chrisms–but what is he, after all, but a man whose
breath is in his nostrils? Sever yourself from such a man, "for of what
account is he?"