The Redeemer's Face Set Like a Flint
(No. 2738)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, AUGUST 4, 1901.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 28, 1880.
"For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced:
therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not
be ashamed." Isaiah 50:7.
THESE are, in prophecy, the words of the Messiah. This is the language
of Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Deliverer, whom God has sent into
the world to be the one and only Savior. We know that this is the case
because it is to Him, and to Him alone, that the verse preceding our
text must refer–"I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them
that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting."
This is the declaration of Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews–and
it is He who said of old in prophecy, and afterwards carried it out in
actual life, "I set My face like a flint." Luke seems to have had this
passage in his mind when he wrote the 51st verse of his 9th Chapter, in
which he says of our Lord that, "when the time was come that He should
be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." There
is the same meaning in the two passages, and one cannot help feeling
that the words recorded by Isaiah were brought by the Holy Spirit to
the memory of Luke when he penned that expression. The fact is that our
Master, even from eternity, resolved to save His people, and nothing
could keep Him from the accomplishment of His purpose. From eternity He
foresaw that they would fall from their first estate and He entered
into Covenant engagements to redeem them–and from the pledge He gave
of old, He never turned back.
Time rolled on and men fell, and afterwards multiplied upon the face of
the earth, but Christ's delights were still with the sons of men and
often did He, in one form or another, visit this earth to converse with
Abraham, or to wrestle with Jacob, or to speak with Joshua, or to walk
in the burning fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He
was always anticipating the time when He would actually assume human
nature and fulfill His Covenant engagements. At last, the appointed
hour arrived and then He did not disdain the virgin's womb, or the
Bethlehem manger, or the workshop of Nazareth where He became subject
to His reputed father. Even as a child, He said, "Know you not that I
must be about My Father's business?" The set purpose to redeem His
people was an all-consuming passion that always burned within His
soul–for what He said once to His disciples He always felt, "I have a
baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it is
accomplished!" He felt bound and hampered until He could get to His
chief work–He longed to be at it. With ardent desire He had desired to
eat that last of Passovers on the eve of Himself becoming the Lamb of
God's Passover, for He had set His face like a flint upon the
accomplishment of the task He had undertaken and He had resolved to go
through with it even to the end!
I may not be able to say much that is fresh upon this theme, but I hope
that I shall be helped by the Spirit to "stir up your pure minds by way
of remembrance." My great objective is to lead you to love Him who so
loved you that He set His face like a flint in His determination to
save you! O you redeemed ones, on whose behalf this strong resolve was
made– you who have been bought by the precious blood of this
steadfast, resolute Redeemer–come and think awhile of Him, that your
hearts may burn within you and that your faces may be set like flints
to live and die for Him who lived and died for you!
First, I am going to speak to you upon His steadfast resolve tested.
Secondly, upon His steadfast resolve sustained. And, thirdly, upon His
steadfast resolve imitated.
I. First, our Lord said, "Therefore have I set My face like a flint,"
and we are to think of HOW HIS STERN RESOLVE WAS TESTED.
Our Lord was tempted to turn aside from this purpose, first, by the
offers of the world. The populace wanted to take Him by force and make
Him a king. He was, at times, so popular among the multitude that the
Pharisees did not dare to seize Him, for they feared the people. When
He rode through the streets of Jerusalem in triumph, it appeared as if
all the inhabitants of the city were, for a while at least, upon His
side. They were, it is true, laboring under a great mistake. They
supposed that He was about to set up a temporal'sovereignty–and if He
would do that and drive away their Roman conquerors, they would gladly
follow Him. But when they perceived that He had no such designs, but
that His Kingdom was purely spiritual, and not of this world–that He
cared nothing for honor from men, but only sought to make them holy,
then they changed their note and cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
Yet many a man, possessed by a high resolve, has been turned aside from
his purpose by the bauble of earthly honor. He might have become great
in his Master's esteem, but he chose to receive a worldly title and to
wear a ribbon. He might have been a blessing to his fellow men, but he
was dazzled by the glitter of a coronet, so he left the path of
usefulness to pursue the road of earthly fame. There have been hundreds
and thousands of cases in which men's characters appeared to be opening
like a rose–but the worm of wealth was gnawing at the root and before
the rose could fully expand and flood the air with its perfume–it had
been destroyed.
But Christ, when He was taken by Satan to an exceedingly high mountain
and set upon a place where He could see all the kingdoms of the earth
in a moment of time–and was offered all of them if He would fall down
and worship the power of evil–was not to be turned aside from His
steadfastness! His zeal was too fervent, His purpose was too strong,
His compassion for His people was too intense for Him to yield to the
tempter! Had He not voluntarily left the thrones and royalties of
Heaven and stripped Himself of the glorious array which He had worn
within His Father's courts, to come down here to be a carpenter's son?
So who could bribe Him to turn from His purpose? No one, for He had set
His face like a flint to put off all thought of seeking earthly
honor–and to endure the utmost depths of shame–that He might redeem
His people from the wrath to come.
His steadfast purpose was tried, next, by the persuasions of His
friends. It is very dangerous, when you are possessed by a high
purpose, to go and consult with flesh and blood, for if you are worthy
of such an honor, there are few who can match you. Men who live for
God's Glory and the well-being of their fellow men, are like giants on
the mountaintops, while others are hidden away in the depths of the
valleys, hoarding up their gold, or living only for self. He who would
be a God's man, and such a Man as Christ was, must not consult with
flesh and blood, or ask his dearest friend's advice when he once knows
his Lord's will. Christ's kinsmen said that He was beside Himself and
they would have laid hold of Him and confined Him if they could. They
thought His zeal had carried Him beyond the bounds of reason–and when
He told His disciples about His approaching death upon the Cross,
"Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from You,
Lord: this shall not be unto You"–and all the disciples would have
persuaded Him to choose an easier path than that which led to Calvary
and the grave.
In the present day there are many men who might have been both good and
great if they had not been spoiled by their friends. They listened to
what they thought was meant to be uttered in love to them, but which
was really a siren song luring them away from their proper course on to
the rocks–and thus they lost the opportunity which they might have had
of serving God and man. But not so was it with Christ! He recognized
the hand of Satan in Peter's temptation, so He said to him, "Get you
behind Me, Satan: you are an offense unto Me: for you savor not the
things that are of God, but those that are of men." Thus our Savior
resisted all persuasions and, with His face set like a flint, went on
with His work even until the hour of His death.
A far worse trial, however, to Christ's steadfast resolve was furnished
by the unworthiness of those He came to help. "He came unto His
own"–and how did they treat Him?–"His own received Him not." He came
into the vineyard as God's heir, but what said the husbandmen who had
been put in charge of it? "This is the heir; come, let us kill Him and
the inheritance shall be ours." Look even at Christ's 12 Apostles when
He was about to die. Judas betrayed Him and Peter denied Him–but what
of the rest of the chosen twelve? "Then all the disciples forsook Him
and fled." Yet these were the men for whom He was going to die and He
might well have asked Himself, "Are they worth such a sacrifice?" There
were others of mankind for whom He had come to die–what were they
doing? If you had been in Jerusalem at that time,
you might have heard them in the streets crying, "Crucify Him! Crucify
Him!" Even when Pilate was convinced of His innocence and sought to
deliver Him from the demented mob, they cried, "His blood be on us, and
on our children"– little dreaming how terribly their imprecation would
be fulfilled at the destruction of their beautiful city and its guilty
inhabitants! These were the very people for whom Christ shed His
precious blood, for, in that crowd there were thousands who, a few
weeks afterwards, heard Peter preach on the day of Pentecost and
believed in that Christ whom they had, with wicked hands, crucified and
slain!
If you are about to do a man a kindness and you find that he is
ungrateful and unthankful–or that he is even worse than that–a
traitorous, treacherous villain, you stay your hand and ask yourself,
"Why should I make any sacrifice for him?" The Apostle Paul wrote to
the Romans, "scarcely for a righteous man will one die." But for
unrighteous men, for rebels, for those who ill-treat you–who among men
would ever think of dying? Yet our Lord Jesus Christ "died for the
ungodly." Let me tell you what always appears to me to be the most
amazing thing about Christ's death–it is that He died for me. And if
you are a Believer in Him, you can also say, "He loved me and gave
Himself for me." This is the crowning mercy of His death, that there is
nothing in us that could have merited such a Sacrifice! On the
contrary, there is everything in us which, if Jesus had been like other
men, would have forced Him to say, "I will not give My life for such
creatures as these." Yet He set His face like a flint to carry out His
purpose–whatever His elect might do, He still determined to plead
their cause and to support His plea even by the shedding of His own
blood.
But all these things were comparatively small trials to the
great-hearted and resolute Christ, for He was still more severely
tested as to His steadfast resolve by the bitterness which He tasted at
His entrance upon His great work as our substitutionary Sacrifice. The
first drops of that awful tempest, which fell upon Him in the Garden of
Gethsemane, were hot and terrible. His soul was sorrowful, even unto
death, so He resorted to prayer. Yet He had little comfort even in that
holy exercise, so He rose from His knees and went to His disciples that
He might speak with them as men usually talk to their sympathizing
friends in their direst agony. But He found them asleep, so back He
went to His Father, and once again prayed, "If it is possible to
achieve the salvation of My people, and yet for Me not to drink this
cup, let it pass from Me." But when He found that it was notpossible
and that His thrice-repeated prayer received no response, He gave
Himself up to die without murmuring a word and bade His slumbering
disciples arise, for he who would betray Him was at hand.
If anything could have broken our Savior's resolution, it would have
been the agony and bloody sweat of Geth-semane, yet all that could not
turn Him from His purpose. Did you ever feel such exceeding sorrow or
were you ever so terribly depressed in spirit that you wished, a
thousand times over, that you had never been born, or that you could
die? Have you ever been subject to dire despair? Some of us have felt
as though a sword had been thrust into our bones, slaying all the life
of our joy. At such a time, resolves that have been wisely made are
often unwisely broken. The strongest man can scarcely stand up against
depression of spirit. Solomon truly said, "The spirit of a man will
sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?" Yet Christ
was so resolved to achieve the redemption of His people that, even when
reproach had broken His heart and He was full of heaviness, He still
set His face like a flint and determined that He would accomplish the
work that He had undertaken.
I hope I somewhat stir you up to think with gratitude of my blessed
Lord and of His great love to you, by thus reminding you of His
steadfastness of purpose. O you who love Him, help me by giving your
best thoughts to sacred meditation upon this wondrous Savior of ours!
This morning, [Sermon #1570, Volume 26–THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS] in
speaking upon the words, "When He was come near, He beheld the city,
and wept over it," I showed you that there was no flint in the heart of
Jesus. And I am now trying to show you what flint there was in His
face–how steadfastly this tender-hearted Man could move in the
direction which He had from eternity determined to take in order to
procure the salvation of His people!
After our Savior's trial in Gethsemane, His resolve was further tested
by the ease with which He could have relinquished the enterprise if He
had wished to do so. I have known some people keep to their course of
life merely because they could not get out of it. They had a certain
purpose in view, to which they had committed themselves in such a
manner that they could not withdraw from it. But our blessed Lord had
many opportunities when He might have abandoned His purpose. For
instance, when before Pilate, He had to deal with a man who might have
been conciliated by a single sentence. Yet, "as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." Pilate greatly marveled
that Jesus
answered him nothing–and if our Lord had spoken to him and fully
explained matters, he might have released Him. It is clear that Pilate
had no wish to let Him be put to death. In fact, he had a thorough
distaste to the dastardly deed and tried all he could to prevent it. If
Christ had wished to do so, He might easily enough have turned Pilate
against His accusers and induced him to call for the Roman soldiers to
disperse and even to slay the mob in the street! But He did not do so.
Even after Christ had been betrayed, there was not a moment in which He
might not, with a wish, have set Himself free and, with a word, have
chased away all His adversaries! But, all the while, His face was
steadfastly set upon His one great purpose of achieving the redemption
of His people–and He resolved that the great deed of love must be
done, cost what it might.
If He had not been so resolute as He was, He might have been turned
from His purpose by the taunts of those who scoffed at Him. Wicked men
have nailed Him to the accursed tree–do you see Him bleeding,
suffering, dying? He utters an agonizing cry, "Eloi, Eloi, lama
Sabachthani?" and the heartless spectators pun upon it. He cries to El,
the Strong One, and they mock Him by saying, "He calls for Elijah." The
chief priests, scribes and elders joined in the mockery and said, "He
saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let
Him now come down from the Cross and we will believe Him." He could
have come down if He had pleased, but His steadfast resolve held Him to
the Cross. He might have leaped down into the midst of the ribald
throng, like the destroying angel in Egypt, and have swept them all to
Hell in an instant! Yet there He hung in order that He might redeem men
from destruction–and all their taunts could not make Him move from His
purpose. There was one who hung there dying by His side, who said to
Him, "If You are Christ, save yourself and us," taunting Him even with
the guilty, miserable lips of a dying thief! And, often, taunts are all
the sharper when they come from mean, debased men–yet Jesus bore it
all without flinching. Though all the devils from Hell might gibe at
Him and men from all parts of the earth might gather to mock, and jeer,
and leer at Him, yet still His face was set like a flint to accomplish
the task which He had undertaken! It must be done! It shall be done! He
will certainly die for His people and nothing can turn Him aside from
that resolve!
But how shall I tell you of that last trying test to which He was
subjected by the full stress of the death-agony? After all, the griefs
of His body were but the body of His grief–but the sufferings of His
soul were the soul of His sufferings. And who can adequately describe
these? No mortal tongue ever can fully set them forth. Jehovah had
permitted Him to stand in the place of guilty men and, finding Him
there, where the actual sinners should have been, He smote Him! It was
necessary that there should be concentrated into those strokes all the
punishment that was due to the vast mass of guilt which was laid upon
the great Sin-Bearer and, therefore, Christ bore–I cannot put it
better than in Hart's words–
"Bore all Incarnate God could bear, With strength enough, but none to
spare."
That awful cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" was the
concentration of the very essence of misery and woe! Then it was that
the alabaster box was broken and the precious ointment was poured forth
to perfume the air all the way from earth to Heaven, for God Himself
smells a sweet savor of rest in the Sacrifice of His well-beloved and
only-begotten Son! Death could not keep Him back from the
accomplishment of His purpose to redeem His people! Well did Charles
Wesley sing–
"Stronger His love than death or Hell–
Its riches are unsearchable!
The first-born sons of light
Desire in vain its depths to see–
They cannot reach the mystery,
The length, and breadth, and height" Thus have I shown you how our
Lord's steadfast resolve was tested. II. Now, very briefly, notice HOW
HIS STEADFAST RESOLVE WAS SUSTAINED.
Remember that we are now speaking of Jesus, not as God, but as Man, or,
if you will, in the united Personality in which the two Natures find a
wondrous and mysterious union in the God-Man, Christ Jesus, the Friend
of sinful man.
According to our text and its connection, our Lord's steadfastness
resulted, first, from His Divine schooling. This is described in the
4th verse–"The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I
should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He
wakens morning by morning, He wakens My ears to hear as the learned."
Christ never played at covenanting with God, nor did He ever play at
saving men. He had given Himself up for us, even from
eternity, as a whole Burnt-Offering, and when He actually became our
Savior, He carried out His purpose to the full. This passage seems to
teach us that in His earthly life, His Father was always near Him,
awakening Him and teaching Him, morning by morning. As a Son, He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered and, as the Holy
Spirit rested upon Him without measure, His steadfast resolve remained
strong and invincible. And, dear Friend, if you mean to be resolved to
live as a Christian should, you must also be taught of God. You must go
to the Word of God to learn what God the Lord has spoken, or else you
will be ignorant and fickle–sometimes hot and sometimes cold–and
changeable as the wind. Christ's resolution was sustained by Divine
schooling and it must be the same with yours also.
Then, next, His steadfastness was sustained by His conscious innocence.
That is a grand challenge in the 8th verse– "He is near that justifies
Me; who will contend with Me?" Christ knew, all the while that He was
suffering for sin, that He had personally done no wrong. Even when His
Father forsook Him for a time, because He was occupying the place of
the guilty, He knew that He was free from all guilt of His own. There
is something wonderfully sustaining in the consciousness of innocence
under false accusations. I do not think that Job could have survived
his many trials if it had not been for the conviction that he was
innocent of the charges that his accusers brought against him. And if
God helps you to live a godly life, my dear Friend, there is nothing
like it to enable you to persevere under all difficulties.
"Conscience," when it is once defiled, "makes cowards of us all." But
if we have a conscience void of offense toward God and men, that is a
fountain of courage and the source of great strength. Well might our
Savior's face be set like a flint when He could say, "He is near that
justifies Me: who will contend with Me? Let us stand together: who is
My adversary? Let him come near to Me."
But, according to our text, the Lord Jesus Christ's resolve was
maintained by His unshaken confidence in the help of God. Read the
whole verse–"For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I will not be
disgraced: therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I
shall not be ashamed." How greatly the Father strengthened Christ in
lonely midnight hours, we cannot tell, for we have no records of the
fervent prayers to which the cold mountains could have borne witness.
He went wearied to the mountainside–not to sleep, but to cry to
God–and He came back with the drops of dew still clinging to His
locks, but He was strong to face the multitude, or to perform any task
that might be required of Him, for He had been with His Father in the
midnight hour and often the whole night through! It was God's own
Spirit that came upon Him, when He was weary and faint, and
strengthened Him for further service. His own testimony to His
disciples, concerning this secret sustenance, was, "I have meat to eat
that you know not of." The Father helped Him and the Spirit helped
Him–and that is how you also need to be helped. If the "strong Son of
God" put Himself into such a condition for our sakes, that He needed
such aid as this, how much more must you and I need it, our weakness
being so manifest and our fickleness so evident?
There was one thing more by which Christ's resolve was sustained. That
was, by the joy that was set before Him. You know the passage in which
Paul wrote to the Hebrews, "Who for the joy that was set before Him
endured the Cross, despising the shame." What was that joy but the joy
of saving immortal souls? The joy of vindicating the broken Law of God?
The joy of breaking down the power of evil in the world and setting up
a Kingdom of goodness and of love? The joy of bringing to men a remedy
for all their diseases, a cure-all for their miseries? The joy of
gathering unto Himself a multitude that no man can number, redeemed by
blood out of every nation and kindred and tongue, who should glorify
God, even the Father, forever and ever?
There have been mothers who have borne a thousand sorrows for the sake
of their children. There have been brave warriors who have endured
wounds and death, itself, for the sake of their country. But what shall
I say of this glorious One, whose joy it was to lift us up who were so
low, to cleanse us who were so foul, to find us who were lost and to
save us who, without His saving Grace, would have been all cast away
forever? There must have beamed, in the Savior's eyes, a light of
supreme benevolence as He said to Himself in His last agonies, "I am
dying, but I am, by My death, redeeming My people from destruction. I
am suffering more than tongue can tell, but, by means of My sufferings,
they shall be rescued from the wrath to come. The pouring out of My
blood is scattering seeds of bliss in the furrows of earth that once
were cursed by sin, and from them a seed shall arise to serve my Father
and to be unto Him a chosen generation, a peculiar people. Multitudes
of weary ones shall find rest by coming unto Me, and troubled spirits
shall be filled with joy as, by faith, they behold Me dead and risen
again." This was the joy that sustained our Savior under all He had to
endure.
III. My time is almost gone, so I will say just a little upon the last
part of my theme, which is, CHRIST'S STEADFAST RESOLVE IMITATED.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I speak especially to you. We serve a
Master who steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem in order that He
might accomplish the one great purpose for which He came to earth, and
from which He could not be turned. Therefore it behooves us to be
faithful to Him and to partake as far as we can of His spirit. Does He
not seem to accuse us, without saying a word, for His face was set like
a flint–while our faces are often made to blush with shame when we are
called upon to speak up for Him, or perhaps when we are ashamed to do
so? O you fickle Christians, hot in a revival service and lukewarm
afterwards, you who sing–
"Here, Lord, I give myself away"– and yet do nothing of the kind! O
you who say that you love the Lord with all your hearts and declare
that you are willing to die for Him, yet go into the world to put Him
to an open shame by your inconsistencies, look at your Lord and then
blush to such a crimson hue as no one can take out of your face again!
If we truly follow such a Lord as Christ is, we also ought to be
flinty-faced for all holy purposes–and I ask you, dear Friends, to
pray to God the Holy Spirit to make you so.
To attain this end, if there is anything right in this world, be on the
side of it. No matter what it costs you, no matter whether you lose
friends or not, if it is right, stand up for it, for Jesus would have
done so. Policy would suggest that you might as well tack just a
little–do not go over to the wrong side, but be a neutral–take the
golden mean, which often is both "golden" and "mean" too! Do nothing of
the kind, I implore you! Oh, that we might have Grace to say, "Gold or
no gold, right is right and we are on that side even if death follows
for the right and the true."
Next, if you have a right purpose that glorifies God, carry it out. It
is difficult to do that, you say. Well, then, you must be all the more
determined in your resolve to do it! There is nothing in the world so
hard but something harder will cut it. So, if your own resolve becomes
harder than the difficulty you have to face, the thing can be done. It
ought to be so with us, for it was so with Christ. Are you resolved,
dear Friend, that being a Christian you will spread the Redeemer's
Kingdom? Then break that cowardly silence which has so long held you in
captivity–and speak for Christ! How can a dumb tongue glorify Him? How
can you expect to win others to Him if you never speak about Him? If
this is a cross to you, resolve that you will take it up and carry it
bravely for Christ. I pray that not one of the members of this church
may be barren and unfruitful!
Is there one of you who has never brought another soul to Christ? I am
afraid there are some such members among us, yet I am very happy to
testify that I have seen many of your faces in the sweetest possible
association–by that expression I mean that I have seen you bring a
friend to me and say, "Here is a soul that I have tried to comfort,
that I hope I have really led to Christ. And I have brought him to you
that he may confess his Savior and unite with the Lord's people in
church fellowship." There used to sit, in the left-hand gallery there,
an old man who had a small annuity, who had his time to himself. He
brought to me, one after the other, I can scarcely tell you how many
persons whom he had induced to come into this place and sit in his
seats. He took a whole pew in order that he might bring people into it,
and he would walk in Hyde Park, from day to day, till he met with a
likely gentleman who would accept the seat ticket and come here at the
next service. And there are many who are now members of this church who
gratefully remember old Mr. Hobson because they would never have been
likely to be here if he had not brought them where they could hear of
Christ and learn to trust Him.
When our friend died, I greatly missed him, for I scarcely knew another
who spent himself as he did. He had no powers of speech, but he bought
the printed sermons and gave them to people, saying that he heard that
sermon preached, and as he liked it, would they mind reading it? And
when he brought the converts to join the church, I tell you that there
never was any mother who showed her first-born child with such delight
as he had when he said to me, "When can you see another, Sir? I have
caught another, blessed be God!" Oh, if all of you with little ability
or with great talents would try to live as Mr. Hobson, for Christ's
sake, you would set your face like a flint in your holy resolve not to
go to Heaven alone, feeling that you must have others to share its
glories with you!
You barren Christian, I cannot bear to think of you remaining as you
are, never having brought one soul to the Savior! What will you feel in
Heaven when you get there? I have no doubt you will be happy, but there
will be nobody to come up to you and say, "Blessed be God that I see
you here, for you brought me to Jesus!" Oh, I am sorry for you,
Brother, Sister! You will get up in a corner, all alone, I am afraid–I
will try to come round your way, if I can, but I think that even in
Heaven, those who have worked most for Christ will like to get
together–and they will like to have around them a cluster of those of
whom they can say to God, "Here am I and the children whom You have
given me."
I must say just this closing word. There are some of you, working men,
who come here, and who begin to fear the Lord. But when you get into
the workshop, everybody jeers at you. Now, set your face like a flint
and resolve not to mind it. I pray God that in the midst of the chaff
and the foul language with which your ears will be assailed, you may be
able to stand fast for God, even as Christ Jesus stood fast for you.
The Lord bless you all, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH50.
This chapter might well have been written by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Himself, at the time when He was upon the earth.
Verse 1. Thus says the LORD, Where is the bill ofyour mother's
divorcement, whom Ihaveput away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom
I have sold you? There were some who said God had put away, like a
divorced woman, His ancient people, that He had sold His children into
slavery. But He says, "It is not so. Where is the bill of divorcement?
To whom have I sold you?"
1. Behold, for your iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your
transgressions is your mother put away. That is to say, the nation,
which was their mother, had lost the favor of God–not because of His
fickleness, but because their sins had cried aloud for justice and for
judgment. It could not be that God should be in friendly relationship
with such a people, so hypocritical, so false, so every way rebellious
against Him!
2. Why, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to
answer?Christ came to this world at a time when there practically
seemed to be none left on the earth who were good for anything. The
Pharisees, who were, outwardly, the most religious of men, were proud
formalists and base hypocrites–and the whole nation had gone astray
from God, so that Christ might well ask, "When I came, why was there no
man? When I called, why was there none to answer?"
2. Is My hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? Or have Inopower
to deliver? Behold, at Myrebuke Idry up the sea, I make the rivers a
wilderness–their fish stink because there is no water and die for
thirst. Here the Lord reminds them of what He did at the Red Sea. This
same Christ, who came here and found none to answer to His call, is the
true God who was the Redeemer of Israel. He led the tribes through the
Red Sea, drying it up by the word of His mouth, that there might be a
way for His ransomed to pass through! Yet, when this great Redeemer
came to earth, as far as most of the men were concerned, there were
none to welcome Him. Even though He came in love and tenderness, there
were none to answer to Him.
3, 4. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their
covering. The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I
should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He
wakens Me morning by morning, He wakens My ears to hear as the learned.
Notice the wonderful contrast between the third verse and the fourth.
It is the same, "I," who says, "I clothe the heavens with blackness,"
who becomes a scholar in God's school and bows His ears to listen to
the teachings of the Father! "Though He were a Son, yet learned He
obedience." He was so great that He counted it not a prize to be
grasped to be equal with God, dividing the sea, and covering the
heavens with blackness, yet He condescended to take upon Himself the
form of a Servant, and as a Servant He received His instructions from
the great Lord of All.
5, 6. The Lord GOD has opened My ears, and I was not rebellious,
neither turned back I gave My back to the smit-ers, and My cheeks to
them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and
spitting. That same Divine One was, in due time, veiled in human flesh
and, then, He who covered the heavens with blackness, gave His back to
the smit-ers and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair! Oh,
wondrous condescension of our glorious Lord! I want you again to notice
the contrast in this chapter–let me read two verses, one after
another. "I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth
their covering." "I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them
that plucked off the hair: I
hid not My face from shame and spitting." I think anything I might say
would only detract from the marvelous force of contrast which these
words reveal between the Godhead and the Humanity of Christ!
7, 8. For the Lord GOD will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced:
therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not
be ashamed. He is near that justifies Me; who will contend with Me? Let
us stand together: who is My adversary? Let him come near to Me. Christ
is innocent and, therefore, He defies all His accusers. Christ has
suffered the penalty of the sin which He bore on our behalf, but He has
so completely put it away that, notwithstanding our guilt, He defies
all our accusers, and there rings through earth and Heaven this bold
challenge, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died,
yes, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,
who also makes intercession for us."
9. Behold, the Lord GOD will help Me; who is he that shall condemn Me?
Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
The enemies of Christ shall all pass away. They shall be utterly
destroyed. Now comes a blessed lesson for us. As Christ persevered in
His great work even to the end, so let us do the same.
10. Who is among you that fears the LORD, that obeys the voice of His
Servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? Let him trust in the
name of the LORD, and rely upon his God. Let not the darkness keep you
back any more than it did your Master–still go on, and rely upon your
God.
11. Behold, all you that kindle a fire. Listen to this, you who live
without God, yet think yourselves happy! You who have no hope of the
great hereafter, yet are content with the present! "Behold, all you
that kindle a fire"–
11. That compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of
your fire and in the sparks that you have kindled. "Be happy while you
may! Have 'a short life and a merry one' if that is your choice."
11. This shall you have of My hand. When your walking is done, see what
will be the end of it– 11. You shall lie down in sorrow.