Sanctified Sorrow
(No. 3435)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Oyou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! Behold, I will
Jay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with
sapphires. And I will make your windows of agates, and your gates of
carbuncles, and all your borders of pleasant stones." Isaiah 54:11,12.
Who can doubt that this promise belongs to the Gentile Church, since it
has been so richly fulfilled in her history? For many an age the light
did not shine upon heathen lands. One spot, alone, upon all the earth
received the genial beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Vast continents,
thickly populated, full of life, bustle and enterprise, lay spread out
as a moral waste, barren and neglected. But little Revelation of God
had found its way among the teeming multitudes of the population. To
them the dispensation of the Grace of God had not been proclaimed. The
mystery of Christ was not as yet made known unto the sons of men. The
Israelites had a monopoly of Covenant privileges. But now in these
latter days, how wondrously are the tables turned! The branches of the
wild olive have been grafted in "that the Gentiles should be fellow
heirs and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by
the Gospel." Thus the Lord has taken unto Himself a numerous seed once
ignored by Israel, "which in time past were not a people, but are now
the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained
mercy." Not after the lineage of the flesh, but according to the nobler
lineage of faith, the same are the children of Abraham–and with
faithful Abraham do they inherit the Covenant mercy of God. This day
the barren woman keeps house and is the joyful mother of many children.
The Gentile Church has her stones of sapphire–God is in the midst of
her to make her glad!
Not less fully persuaded am I that this promise belongs to the Jewish
Church. Among the natural descendants of the old Hebrew Patriarch, the
Lord has preserved to Himself a spiritual people. Glory be to His name,
He has not cast off His people whom He did foreknow! Even at this
present time there is a remnant according to the election of Grace. Of
the Jewish race there is a certain number of disciples who are
witnesses of the Truth of God, rejoicing in Christ Jesus and
worshipping Him as their Messiah! But the day as yet is dark for
Israel. Thick clouds encompass her. The veil is still upon the hearts
of her children. The converts gathered from her tribes are few in
number compared with those from different branches of the Gentiles.
Seems it not as though her cup of sorrow were not yet drained? God has
put the sons of Jacob for a while out of their place as a punishment
for their great sin in rejecting Him, whom their own Inspired Prophets
had foretold. But doubt not, Beloved, that their future is radiant with
hope!
The day will come, and that day may come speedily, when the glory shall
return to Zion and the excellence unto Ju-dah. The fullness of the
Gentiles, then, shall acknowledge the Lord when Jewish eyes shall
behold and recognize Him, Messiah, Prince of Peace. Well may we look
and long with eagerness for that happy era! If I rightly read the
Scriptures, the lost tribes are to be converted, first, and gathered
afterwards, while the people distinguished among us as Jews are to be
restored to their own land, and then convinced by seeing the Man whom
they pierced, enthroned with honor and majesty. Here the world's
history reaches a majestic climax! Once with their day of fearful
recompense came our day of grateful visitation. Yes, the Day-Spring
from on high has visited us! What next is unrolled in the scroll of
dispensations? If the casting away of them became the reconciling of
the world, what shall the receiving of them again be but life from the
dead? So let the people to whom this great promise was originally
spoken have all the good that was stored up for them in it!
May not, however, this rich consolation be applied to any Church that
is passing through a time of depression? All the promises of God are
like minted gold, of sterling value and intended for circulation. The
general principles of thepromises of God may be appropriated by those
to whom they are appropriate. Let any faithful Church of Jesus Christ
be passing through severe trial of persecution and declension, if there
is a true likeness to Christ in it, the tempest and storm will
eventually exhaust their fury and accomplish their end and afterwards a
time of establishing and building up shall follow. It is said of some
persons that they cannot fight losing battles. No such fatality need
haunt us. We ought always to stand our ground, for when we have been
worsted in the conflict, we have always before us the prospect that we
shall at length be conquerors because our defeats are permitted for our
discipline without peril to our destiny! "A troop shall overcome Gad,
but he shall overcome at the last." Where would be the honor of a
victory which was gained without a struggle? Is not the prize more
welcome when it has been competed for with toil and strain? Do we not
account any kind of success the sweeter for the toil expended and the
difficulties mastered in reaching it? Are we to expect honor without
labor? Take heart, then, you afflicted Church, and faint not in the day
of adversity, for God has set over against it the day of prosperity
when you shall be built up with all the riches and treasures of His
Grace and when your mouth shall be filled with laughter, and your
tongue with singing! And then shall you say, "The Lord has done great
things for us, whereof we are glad."
If, now, my text thus stands good to the Gentile Church, and to the
remnant of Israel, and if it may serve to cheer and encourage the
little Christian Churches, not only in our own land, but in all the
regions of the earth where Christ is preached, may it not in like
manner be applied to the experience of individual Believers? And may we
not find in it a rich draught of consolation for ourselves? Depend upon
it, Brothers and Sisters, our period of trial and suffering will come
to a close and it will be overruled in the gracious Providence of God
to the promotion of our best prosperity and our highest interests! We
may be afflicted and tossed with tempest, but for this very cause we
shall ultimately have our foundations laid in sapphire and our stones
with fair colors! I will endeavor to work out this one thought in
respect to three kinds of distress which are known to raise a tempest
in the Believer's soul.
The first is the great life storm in which we are turned from darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan to God. The second, the common
life storms in which divers afflictions befall us, and manifold
temptations try our faith. And the third is the last storm, which
brings with it the wreck of our frail boat after all its tossing on the
troubled sea of life, the death of the body–then no more fatigue, no
more distress–for we shall enter the haven of rest and enjoy an
endless peace! Now, with regard to–
I. THE DAWN OF OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. Is it not true that well near every
Christian is born of a storm? We are driven to Christ through stress of
weather. We look to Him because we have nowhere else to look for
shelter. We drift to Christ, all of us, as mariners that are hard on
rocks with all our righteousness wrecked, and all our other hopes gone
to the fore. That first storm with some of you may have lasted long.
For months or years it may have threatened your destruction. You
remember it, and you think of it, now that the tempest has spent
itself, that the sky is clear and you have come to rest calmly in Jesus
Christ. Do you think that you lost anything by that storm? Do you not
know that you gained much? You lost what it was good for you to lose!
You gained the very blessings which you were most in need of. Do I
speak to one who is at this hour in the very midst of such a trial? He
that sits in the heavens looks down upon you through this storm and
says to you, "O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted!
Behold, I will lay your stones with fair colors." You are afflicted
with a sense of sin, the direst and sharpest of all afflictions. The
arrows of adversity are blunt in comparison with those of guilt!
Afflictions, without sin to aggravate them, are as a knife without an
edge–they do not cut deep. But when there is sin to whet the blade,
then the knife cuts to the very bone. What are those sins which now
wring your hearts with anguish, but the very same sins that once
fascinated your hearts with delight? Feeling that God is angry with
you, every incident or act of Providence seems to you a token
ofjudgment. Terrors haunt you in every gust of wind that blows and you
seek in vain to extricate yourself from your present forlorn condition!
Hold on, Man, Woman, do not despair! Better to be stricken with pain
and suffer the smart pangs of a wounded conscience, than go on with
giddy step, frothy song and frivolous talk to enjoy the pleasures of
sin for a season, and then find out your mistake when it is too late
because you are swept away like the chaff from the threshing floor!
Your afflictions, if they lead you to God, will prove the healthiest
discipline and the happiest circumstances that ever happened to you! "O
you afflicted one," says God, "I will lay your stones with fair
colors," as if, in the bitterness of repentance, you did meet with the
blessedness of remission and the brightest sunbeams shone upon you just
when the darkest shadows crossed your path and the heaviest clouds
loomed over your head! Fly to your God, O Sinner! Hasten to Jesus! Look
to His atoning
Sacrifice! For such an afflicted conscience as yours, Jesus bled, He
came to bind up the broken in heart, and to proclaim liberty to
captives such as you are!
Note the next word–"O you afflicted, tossed with tempest." Does this
describe the heaving and flurry of your agitated breast? Are you tossed
to and fro? Once you were at ease, becalmed aground, and you thought
yourself as safe as you were quiet. You had a hope of your own and you
said in your heart, "I shall never be moved." But that hope of yours
was no sure anchorage. It served you not in any place when the clouds
began to gather and the fierce winds began to blow. Then were you
tossed here and there. You have tried to find some stay, some anchor,
but alas, you have sought it in vain! You are like a ship which has
become the sport of the winds and waves and now your spirit sinks
within you. You reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and you
are at your wits' end. All your wisdom is swallowed up. You cannot lay
hold of a promise! You cannot take comfort from any Providence! You see
not your signs, and yet all this tossing and all this tumult, with the
peril in which it places you, are meant for your good! So, indeed, it
shall prove when you cry unto the Lord in your trouble and He brings
you out of your distresses, for notice the prophecy which is spoken by
the mouth of the Lord, and say if it should not inspire you with
confidence, "I will lay your foundations in sapphires." When you shall
have a foundation of God's laying, it will be, verily, a safe
foundation and, being of sapphire, this foundation is very precious!
There will be no more sorrow and sadness for you, then, but a sacred
satisfaction which it were beyond the power of any circumstance to mar!
No more shall the buffeting of rough billows and rude breakers toss you
to and fro, but throbs of deep joy, like waves of the mighty sea, shall
swell their ceaseless anthem in your ears! Oh, how you will bless the
Lord, then, that He ever drove you from your refuge of lies and drew
you to a sure foundation upon which you might build, and be built up
for eternity! You may be just now the sport of the tempest–high winds
may rage within your breast–stormy passions may convulse your soul!
Well do I remember when that same tempest howled through my spirit,
sweeping away every fond hope and every fine conceit I had cherished.
Before that I would gladly have contented myself with the world and the
little ambitions it held out to my view. Ah, I would, but I could not!
God's tempest howled through my soul and as for me, I was as a tiny
leaf in a strong breeze, or as a ball before the whirlwind! Are you
passing through such an ordeal? Yield not to the misery and madness of
despair–
"Though plunged in ills, and harassed, too, with care, ' Twere treason
to your soul did you despair! When pressed by dangers and beset by
foes, God will His timely succor interpose!"
When your present emergencies shall be gathered up into past
experience, you will look back upon them as a meet preparation for your
better destiny. Every vestige of your own righteousness must be taken
away in order that He may "lay your stones with fair colors, and build
up your windows with agate, and your gates with carbuncles." Are not
both in the promise–both the agitation and the salvation? The Lord has
promised both. Mark that word promised, how it is used by Paul. "Now He
has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but
also Heaven." Then observe the consequence. The removing of those
things that are shaken makes way for another thing, namely, that those
things which cannotbe shaken may remain! Therefore it is that we who
feel that everything earthly is drifting from under our feet are
favored to receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved! Ought not this to
reconcile our hearts to trial? Will it not make us rejoice in it, if we
have only faith to believe that it will certainly turn out for our
good?
The other part of the description–after being tossed with tempest–is
this, "not comforted." Is there nothing you can do to get out of this
strait? Is there no solace to relieve the stress of your trial? Ah,
poor Soul! No doubt you have been looking for light and, behold, there
was darkness! While you have been seeking after relief, your sorrows
have been aggravated. Did you go to the world and ask sympathy of your
neighbors or kinsfolk, the best comfort they could offer you would but
wound your feelings! Have you tried the merriments and gaieties of sin,
as though you would forget the arrows of the Almighty? Lo, then, how
visions ofjudgment to come should scare you!
Perhaps you feel you cannot be comforted on earth. Then you are in a
fair way to get deliverance, for you shall be comforted by the God of
Heaven! If your sore is such that no plaster of man could ever cure it,
glory be to God, for, blessed be His name, He delights to find those
cases which baffle all human skill! There shall be seen the power of
His Grace, and then will He send His Word and heal you! Your extremity
of anguish is a token for good–a token that God means to bless you! If
your soul refuses to be comforted by man–if you are brought to a
stand, in which you wait onlyfor God–then of you is it spoken, "I will
lay your stones with fair colors and your foundations with sapphires."
He will perform all things for you, and do on your behalf what you
cannot do for yourself!
Every Christian will, I think, join with me in confessing that the
dealings of the Lord with us have always baffled our own understanding,
until we have been brought to see the end of the Lord, as Job saw
it–that the Lord is full of pity and of tender mercy. Our heaviest
losses have thus enriched us with our choicest gains. The things which,
as they happened, caused us the most terror, have fallen out to the
furtherance of our best interests! And, in the same manner, I believe
the more you feel the burden of sin, the majesty of the Law of God and
the inflexible claims of Divine Justice, the sweeter, afterwards, will
be your apprehension of guilt removed by the blood of Christ, of the
Law fulfilled by His obedience and of Justice satisfied by His
Suretyship. Did you sink as low as Jonah sank, when he was in the
fish's belly, and cried by reason of his affliction unto the Lord,
when, as he testifies, "Out of the belly of Hell cried I, and You heard
my voice"? Then you might purge yourselves of all false confidence, as
Jonah did, saying, "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercy." Then, too, with the voice of thanksgiving, you would pay your
vow as Jonah did, when he said, "Salvation is of the Lord." Take heart
now, O you afflicted ones, tossed with tempest and not comforted! Pour
no fresh bitters into your cup by murmuring against God and repining at
His dispensations! Rather cry mightily and pray earnestly that the God
who has made your experience tally with the first verse of the text may
give you to realize the fullness of that recompense which is promised
in the next verse! And so shall your sighs be turned into songs. So
shall you sing with David, "You who has showed me great and sore
troubles shall quicken me again, and bring me up again from the depths
of the earth. You shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every
side." Happy day, dear Soul, when you are delivered from this first
storm! Yet there are–
II. OTHER STORMS OF LIFE WHICH THE CHILDREN OF GOD HAVE TO ENCOUNTER.
After we find Christ, we meet with many afflictions. We are "tossed
with tempest, and not comforted." It seems to me that the Prophet has
used a very remarkable metaphor. Suppose you have a home–a house
rendered dear to you by a great many pleasant associations. Into this
cheerful abode, one night, there comes a fire. You stand with tears in
your eyes and see it all ablaze, and you watch it as it goes, story by
story, room by room, till all your precious treasures are consumed. You
go away and sit down, and wring your hands in agony, for all is burnt
up–nothing remains. But with the first dawn of the morning an angel
appears to you and says, "Come with me to the place where your home
once was." You go and find that all the stones that made up your house
have been turned into jewels–and all the lime and cement have been
transmuted into bright lustrous colors, and the pavement and flagstones
have become sapphire! You go to the door, there are jewels–carbuncles!
You look out of the windows and instead of their being, as before,
common sashes and sills, you find agates all sparkling! You are looking
almost as if you had Aladdin's wonderful lamp, which transformed
everything. Well, now, I think that is just the thought of this verse.
Let us read it over again. "I will lay your stones with fair colors,
and lay your foundations with sapphires. And I will make your windows
of agate, and your gates of carbuncle, and all your borders of pleasant
stones." "Well," you say, "that is the fact, and no fancy or dream to
me, I have realized it. A fire kindled on me which raged in my soul
till it reduced to ashes all the goods I prided myself in. My hopes
were laid waste, and I was left desolate. My nights were sleepless and
every bone in my body was full of pain–this have I proved. Then, all
of a sudden, there has been worked in me a marvelous change! My soul
has had such joy–such blessing–such nearness to Christ–such delight
in His Word–such uplifting of a spiritual temple, far richer than all
the palaces of Oriental imagination, springing up from a furnace of
affliction as no common language would describe." Let us just turn over
these things, one by one, as they are painted to us by the tongue of
Inspiration.
You are tossed and not comforted. Bear it patiently, knowing that good
will come to you in a far better and richer shape. Observe how it
begins with edification. "I will lay your stones in fair colors." In
the time of trial we not only get the proof, but we get the profit of
experience–and these results are laid in fair colors. Do you think it
possible for me to relate to you all the salutary lessons that I have
acquired in affliction? The truth is learnt, thus, after quite a
different manner from anything taught in the Sunday school! You may
afterwards renounce all the credit you ever professed in the teaching,
which stands merely on the authority of the teacher, but when God's
affliction brands the Truth of God into your inmost soul, then you are
bulletproof against all heterodoxy and it is not possible that the
Doctrine in which you have been rooted and grounded can ever forsake
its hold upon you! It has found an entrance into your very soul–is not
that a grand means of steadfastness? Such strong-holding cement binds
the stones of which your spiritual temple is built,and by such personal
experience your character becomes shaped and fashioned according to the
Truths of the Gospel. Thus, as affliction is not sent without design,
one benefit you are to expect from it is that a fundamental, solid
groundwork shall be worked in you.
But, Brothers and Sisters, you will not fail to notice that while the
Word of the Lord is addressed to the afflicted, the hand of the Lord is
engaged very particularly on their behalf. "I will lay your foundations
with sapphire." Times of public calamity try our foundation and so do
all times of private affliction. When the natural emotions are
violently excited, all the beliefs and sentiments, all the hopes and
aspirations to which men have clung in calmer days are put to the test.
And if they are not well and truly based, they can easily be shifted.
This, therefore, is one of the salutary effects of sanctified
affliction–in the process of such discipline we get to have the
foundation of our faith laid by a Divine hand. "I will lay your
foundations." The Lord draws near to us and works in us after His own
Sovereign good will, imparting to us the true faith and the ardent love
which are consonant with the Truth of God. Then we have foundations
hard as sapphire and as precious, as unbreakable, as Divine! We feel
that now we have received the Truth, not in the mere abstract, but in
its vital power, its moral influence and its spiritual beauty, as the
foundation of our souls and as a foundation of our hope which can never
be removed.
What a lovely change, too, is made in our outlook! "Your windows of
agate!" Before I was afflicted I looked through the lattices of carnal
sense. I was well contented, though the things of this life and the
objects near at hand bounded my view. But now I have been taught to
look upwards and to long for the life to come and the land that is far
off. Now my soul says, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I might
fly away and be at rest." And as I open the window towards the new
Jerusalem, I sing–
"Brief life is here our portion,
Sorrow and short-lived care.
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life is there."
It is wonderful how affliction cleans the windows of the soul! I find
the word, "windows," here might be much better translated "bulwarks,"
or, "defenses," as if to show the manner in which we are fortified
against temptation and enabled to resist the destructive force of those
strange changes and perilous waves that are common to this stormy life.
Have you learned, Beloved, to fly to the Rock for shelter? Have you
come to hide behind the dying Savior? Do you know the tune of David's
Psalm, "Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teaches my hands to war
and my fingers to fight, my goodness and my fortress; my high tower and
my deliverer, my shield, and He in whom I trust" Then your godly sorrow
has produced some happy results! Not in vain has your spirit been
overwhelmed within you! This is a lesson to be acquired in the school
of adversity whereby we are brought to rest in the Lord more abidingly
than we ever did before–and thus we prove that He has made our
fortifications of agate.
Still further it is said, "I will make your gates of carbuncle," as if
to intimate more close and intimate communion with God. We come nearer
to Christ, think more of Him, spend more time in meditation, get to
understand more of His work and His Person, set our hearts more fully
towards Him and the good things of His Grace after the tempest has
spent its fury and the clear shining has followed. Surely, if
affliction did nothing more for us, it would be a great gift! It takes
away the doors of iron and wood, and it gives us gates of carbuncle!
And we say–
"Come, then, oh, you sweet affliction, Thus to bring our Savior near."
Right sure I am that many of our tossing and buffeting have produced a
permanent benefit which has given tone to our character and shed a
hallowed light over our whole career! Find me a Christian whose
conversation is full of rich savor, whose judgment is tempered with
charity, one whose fervent zeal is blended with the meekness of wisdom,
and I will guarantee you, as a rule, he has seen much affliction! "They
that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters,
these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep."
Physicians often recommend a sea voyage to their patients. Do you think
it is merely for the fresh air they breathe? No, I can tell you there
is more than that in the prescription. It breaks the links that bind
one to everyday life. There is a solitude on that broad expanse of
waters which does not admit of the newspaper or the post office
breaking in upon the stillness of your reflections! Your country, your
office, your friends, your home are all at a distance. The
communications you are known to hold with them are broken.
And is it not so with Christ's disciples, when He compels them to get
into a ship and leaves them a while to be tossed with waves in the
midst of the sea? Do not they then feel a profound solitude which
changes the hue of all their thoughts? Mind you not what he said who
was the saddest of all the old Hebrew Prophets–Jeremiah in his
lamentations bears this witness–"It is good for a man that he bears
the yoke in his youth. He sits alone and keeps silence because He has
borne it upon him." There is no room to doubt it, Friends–sorrow is
favorable! God's brightest gems have had the most polishing on the
lapidary's wheels. The purest, cleanest wheat is that which has had the
most winnowing. We grow in Grace, doubtless, in our times of joy, but I
think it is slow work. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon
as well as precious fruits brought forth by the sun. Bright days would
wither us if there were no shady nights to temper our gaiety. We are
like the sycamore tree–unless we had trials, we would never come to
spiritual perfection. Well, we have cause to be thankful if, speaking
experimentally, we can say, "All the storms we have encountered up to
now have been blessed to us–all our tossing and tempests have
furthered our good speed, and all the convulsions that have shaken our
house have thus far contributed to its being built up with stones laid
in fair colors upon a foundation of sapphire. And now, lastly–
III. THE SAME HAPPY ISSUE OUT OF ALL OUR AFFLICTIONS WILL HAPPEN, IN A
GRANDER SENSE, WHEN THE LAST HURRICANE SHALL BLOW.
Then shall this frail tabernacle totter and fall! Then eyes, and ears,
and hands and feet shall fail us. Then back to mother Earth shall this
feeble flesh return. I know the earthly house of my tabernacle shall be
dissolved. I expect it. I look for it. The affliction may take the form
of grievous disease–the tossing to and fro on my couch may be
distracting–it may be that no medicine can relieve my pain or comfort
me. But oh, the glory that is to follow! This very body of ours– who
shall tell what it shall be like? We know that it shall be transformed
and made like unto the glorious body of Christ Jesus, our Lord! We may
patiently endure the cross, since we shall so soon receive the crown!
We may placidly go down to the grave, since we shall so triumphantly
come up from it! We may cheerfully take leave of our lodgings, here,
since we have a home in prospect where our kindred shall all be
gathered, and our Lord never absent! Brothers and Sisters, we are, as
it were, in a ship at sea today, tossed with tempest, but we are to be
in a palace before long! You observe how the figure changes, never
tossed again, never again put forth on a tempestuous sea. Like
buildings and mansions, we shall be fixed and permanent. In that land
of our inheritance is a mansion with its foundation of sapphire, with
its windows of agate, with its gates of carbuncle! What a sweet
surprise for the sons of poverty on earth! Those jewels, since jewels
are always connected with rank or royalty, are meant to betoken the
honors in the next world to those who are humble and faithful in their
sacred calling here. You shall have such palaces as Oriental
extravagance could never emulate! Does it belong to kings to dwell in
palaces? You shall be kings and priests unto God! A few more days of
languishing with your faint hopes and fretting fears, your throbbing
temples and feverish pulse before Christ bids you come! The Master
calls for you! You must obey the summons! And what next? Forever with
the Lord!
I think I hear you say, "Amen, so let it be." Do notice how three
times, here, it is repeated, "I will," "I will," "I will." God has said
it and He will do it! Believe and rejoice therein, therefore, for it is
no fiction, but a fact! Yet a little while and you shall leave your
cottage for a mansion, your toil shall be exchanged for rest, your
dishonor for glory, your pain for infinite pleasure! You shall find new
company and better in yonder world of the Light of God! Though you
close your eyes on fair prospects, below, fairer scenes await you
above. Be comforted! Notwithstanding any distress, the last tempest may
occasion you, depend upon it–"to die is gain." You shall lose nothing
that it were worth your while to keep. You shall gain all your
"capacious powers can wish, more than your imagination can paint."
Press forward, Beloved, and may the confidence of a joyous future make
you bold to brave the tempest and the storm! Peace be with you!
Alas, then, if you are not in Christ, if you are not a child of God,
this promise melts away before your eyes! You have no part or lot in
it. May God change your heart, renew your nature, lead you to receive
Christ and believe in Him–then will He give you to be His sons and
daughters and so shall your heritage be secure forever and ever! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 54:1-16.
Try and suck all the sweetness that you can out of this Chapter while
we read it. The personal application of a promise to the heart by the
Holy Spirit is that which is needed. The honey in Jonathan's woods
never enlightened his eyes untilhe dipped the point of his rod into it
and tasted it. Try and do the same. This Chapter is the woods wherein
every branch drips with virgin honey. Sip and taste. Be satisfied.
Verses 1-3. Sing, O barren, you that did not bear; break forth into
singing, and cry aloud, you that did not travail with child; for more
are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,
says the LORD. Enlarge the place ofyour tent, andlet them stretch forth
the curtains ofyour habitations: spare not, lengthen your cords,
andstreng-then your stakes; For you shall break forth on the right hand
and on the left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the
desolate cities to be inhabited. You see they are called upon to praise
God before the mercy comes. "Sing, O Barren," while yet barren! Sing, O
desolate one, while yet desolate! And you who are narrowed and confined
for space, thank God that He is about to enlarge you! Begin, already,
to stretch your cords and strengthen your stakes. We ought to act upon
faith and sing upon faith. The songs which are made at the sight of
mercy are very sweet, but the songs that are sung before the mercy
comesare those which are most acceptable to God! We may say of the
sonnets of faith, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have
believed."
4. Fear not; for you shall not be ashamed: neither be you confounded,
for you shall not be put to shame: for you shall forget the shame
ofyour youth and shall not remember the reproach ofyour widowhood any
more. The dark past, the dreary past shall be so obliterated with
abounding mercy that they shall forget it. Your memory of it shall not
be painful. It shall only be as a foil behind the bright diamond of
mighty mercy, if you remember it at all.
5. For your Maker is your Husband—Bound to you by the dearest,
closest and most enduring ties 5-7. The LORD ofHosts is His name;
andyour Redeemer, the Holy One ofIsrael; The God ofthe whole earth
shallbe called. "For the LORD has called you as a woman forsaken and
grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth when you were refused, says your
God. For a small moment Not, "a moment," but "for a small moment."
7, 8. Have I forsaken you: but with great mercies will I gather you. In
a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment: but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you; says the LORD your
Redeemer This belongs to the whole Church of God. I know we might refer
it all to the Church in general, but I invite you tonight to remember
that what belongs to the Church as a body belongs to every member of
that mystical body. Therefore, feast here. Be not afraid. Take these
words as spoken to you–even to you–by God the Holy Spirit!
9-10. For this is as the waters ofNoah unto Me: for as Ihave sworn that
the waters ofNoah shouldno more go over the earth; so have Isworn that
I wouldnot be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall
depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from
you, neither shall the Covenant of My peace be removed, says the LORD
that has mercy on you. What more can He say than to you He has said?
What surer pledges can He give? Oh, rest, rest, rest, sweetly rest on
this sure Word of Covenant love! Then let the mountains move. He told
you they would. Then let the hills of your comfort sink. He told you
they would. But even then, when the earth, itself, does reel, and the
very pillars of the universe are snapped, He stands, still the same! "I
have sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you."
11. O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I
will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with
sapphires. Built with jewels.
12. And I will make your windows of agates, and your gates of
carbuncles and all your borders of pleasant stones. They must be rare
sights if the windows are so rare. If the windows are of agate, what
are the sights that are seen through them? And if the very gates and
doors are carbuncles what must there be in the house of love within? If
the very borders and the outside fringes of the royal domains of Heaven
are of precious stones, what must it be to be there? Remember that the
best thing in this world is trodden under feet in the world to come,
for we are told that the streets are paved with gold. Men hunt after it
here and tread on it there, for they have nothing better, there, than
this world can possibly afford them.
13. And all your children shall be taught ofthe LORD. It must be a
greater privilege than windows of agates and gates of carbuncle, to see
our children–to see all the children of God–taught by His own Spirit!
13. And great shall be the peace ofyour children. That is the most
precious pearl of all, with its soft radiance, precious to the soul.
14, 15. In righteousness shall you be established: you shall be far
from oppression; for you shall not fear: and from terror, for it shall
not come near you. Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not
by Me. Enemies will come, but God will not be with them.
15, 16. Whoever shall gather together against you shall fall for your
sake. Behold, I have created the smith that blows the coals in the
fire. For he cannot blow any more than God lets him. He is God's
creature. The Maker of the weapons of war is still in the hands of God.
16, And that brings forth an instrument for his work: and I have
created the spoiler to destroy. When he does his worst, he is only
doing what I meant he should do. The Divine decree of God still, with
its mighty circle, does encompass the worst deed of man, and overrules
it all for the good of His Church.