Jehovah’s Valuation of His People

Jehovah's Valuation of His People

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 5, 1890,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Sa vior: I gave
Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you." Isaiah 43:3.

IN this chapter the Lord comforts His people. By His Divine foresight
He perceives that there are great and varied trials a little way ahead
and therefore He prepares them for the ordeal. They are to go through
rushing waters and flaming fires and He kindly bids them not to be
afraid. How often in God's Word do we read those tender, gracious
words, "Fear not"? Should not the trembling ones listen to the voice of
their God and obey it when He says to them, "Fear not"? It is not right
for you who fear God to fear anything else. Once brought to know the
Lord, what can harm you? Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty, what
danger need you dread? No, rather, be of good comfort and press forward
with peaceful confidence though floods and flames await you.

To encourage His people to rise superior to their fears, the gracious
God goes on to issue matchless promises– "When you pass through the
waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow you." Present good–"I will be with you." Absent danger–"they
shall not overflow you." God stays His people's hearts by His own
promises. In proportion to their faith those promises lift them up. If
you do not believe the promise, you shall not be established by it. But
if, with childlike confidence, you accept every Word of God as true,
then His Word shall be to you the joy of your heart and the delight of
your spirit–and you shall be a stranger to fear.

The Lord proceeds, after giving those promises, to set before them what
He Himself is and what He has done for them and what they are to Him.
He is speaking, of course, to Israel–and He says of Israel, His chosen
nation–"I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you." What
cause for fear now remains? All Believers are of the true Israel.
Abraham was the father of the faithful. The faithful, or the believing,
are, therefore, Abraham's seed according to the promise. The seed was
not after the flesh, else would the children of Ishmael have been the
heirs of the Covenant. But the true seed was born according to promise
and in the power of God, for Isaac was born when his parents were old,
by faith in the power of God.

Isaac was not the child of the flesh, but he was born according to
promise, so that we who are not born of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God, by His Spirit and according to the Divine promise, are
the true children of Abraham. We are the spiritual Israel. Though after
the flesh Abraham is ignorant of us and Sarah acknowledge us not, yet
we are the true seed of him who was the father of Believers. The
literal Israel was the type of those chosen and favored ones who by
faith are born-again according to promise. To these heirs according to
promise the Lord says, "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba
for you."

I am sure I shall not be straining the passage if I now apply it wholly
to the chosen of God. But if any of you feel staggered at my use of
that term, I would remind you that the chosen of God are made known by
their believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the sure evidence of
election. If, therefore, you are a believer in Christ, you are of the
true Israel. "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God." And being born of God, you are of the family of His love–you are
heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. If you are not believers
in Him, what can I preach to you that can comfort you? The unbelieving,
living and dying such, have no portion in the Covenant of Grace. If you
believe not, you must perish. The promise is given to obedient faith
only–"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believes not shall be damned."

If this day you become Believers, you have, in that faith, the token
and mark of the Divine choice and you assuredly belong to the Israel of
God! Every heavenly blessing which God promises to Israel belongs to
you who are in Christ Jesus and so are in union with the promised seed.

Coming to our text, I shall ask you, first, to listen to the Lord's
declaration of His own name– "I am Jehovah your God, the Holy One of
Israel, your Savior." When you have carefully listened to that solemn
name and learned something from it, then I will ask you to note the
Lord's estimate of His people. What does He think of them? What price
does He set upon them? "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba
for you." When we have wondered a while at this, we shall briefly
consider the outcome of this very wonderful statement of God's value of
His people. They are precious in His sight and He loves them and
therefore He will withhold no good thing from them.

I. First, I pray you, LISTEN TO THE LORD'S DECLARATION OF HIS OWN NAME.
May the Holy Spirit open our ears to hear to profit! He says, "I am
Jehovah your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." He gives His
name thus at large to distinguish Himself from the false gods. Other
things there were, which men called gods and these had names, though,
indeed, they had no being, but were the creatures of man's imagination
and fear. God, the living God, the Creator of the heavens and the
earth, sets forth His own name and title that there may be no mistake
as to who He is. "I am the LORD," He says, "and My Glory will I not
give to another, neither My praise to engraved images."

He also sets forth His name at large, for the comfort of His people. Is
it not written, "They that know Your name well put their trust in You"?
There is something in every name of God which may breed faith in our
souls. Whether we know Him as Jehovah, Elohim, Shaddai, or Lord, or by
whatever other name He has been pleased to manifest Himself, that title
becomes the ground of our confidence and is the means of fostering
faith in His people's minds, when they come to understand its meaning.
To a trembling people the Lord enlarges on His wonderful names. I think
He also does it to excite our wonder and our gratitude. He that loves
us so much is Jehovah–He that can create and destroy–He that is the
self-existent God! He, even He, has set His heart upon His people and
loves them and counts them precious in His sight! It is a marvelous
thing! The more one thinks of it, the more shall we be overwhelmed with
astonishment that He who is everything should love us who are less than
nothing!

It is the Holy One who has deigned to choose and to love unholy
men–and to look upon them in Divine Grace– and save them from their
sins. That you may bow low in loving gratitude, God lets you see who He
is. That you may see how great a stoop of condescension He has made
when He loves His unworthy people and takes them into union with
Himself, you are made to see how great and glorious is the Divine name.
Let us devoutly think of each of these names separately. First, the
Lord speaks of Himself as "Jehovah, your God." I need not tell you that
where you see LORD in capitals, it should be Jehovah. Jehovah–"the God
of the whole earth shall He be called." His kingdom rules over all–
there is universality.

But He calls Himself, "Your God"–there is specialty. The goodness of
God surrounds all the creatures He has made, but there is a love which
is peculiar to His own. To all the nations of the earth He was the one
only LORD and God, but yet He said of Israel, "You only have I known,
of all the families of the earth." Limit not the benevolence of God
but, at the same time, do not deny the specialty of His love to His
people. Wide is the circumference of mercy, but the chosen dwell in the
innermost center of His love. Thus, the one ever-glorious Jehovah,
while He is God unto the ends of the earth, is Israel's God in a sense
in which He is not the God of Assyria, or Persia, or Egypt, or
Ethiopia. He has made Himself over to His own chosen people, saying, "I
will be their God."

Jehovah, the glorious I AM, signifies self-existence. He borrows
nothing from others. Indeed, in a sense, there are no others apart from
Him since all live by His permit and power. He is as complete without
His creatures as with them. When there were no heavens, no earth, no
twinkling star nor flying seraph, He was as truly God and as complete
within Himself as He is now that He has made innumerable creatures.
Yet, though He is thus all-sufficient, self-sufficient and
self-existent, He still deigns to link Himself with our nothingness and
call Himself, "Jehovah, your God." The Self-existent gives His people
existence and they exist that He may bless them and magnify the glory
of His own existence in them! The Lord lives and we live in Him and by
Him. In Jesus we hear God saying to us, "Because I live, you shall
live, also." Oh, blessed union to God in Christ Jesus by which we are
supplied with every good from the self-existent fountain of life and
being!

Jehovah, again, is a name which means immutability. "I AM THAT I AM"
was His name to Moses. God always is in the present. To Him there is no
past or future–

"He fills His own eternal NOW, And sees our ages past."

This unchanging One here declares Himself to be the God of beings who
are but of yesterday and full of change. Yes, great Lord, You were my
God when first my pulse began to beat. You did care for me when I lay
upon my mother's lap. You have watched over me when, in youthful days,
I foolishly wandered. You have called me back and taught me to lay my
finger in the print of my Savior's wounds and say, "My Lord, and my
God." Yes, Jehovah has been our God–"The same yesterday, today and
forever." He never changes nor ceases as to His love to us. He cannot
love us more–He will not love us less. Without "variableness or shadow
of turning" is Jehovah in His relation to those whom He has called into
His favor.

Furthermore, Jehovah means Sovereignty. "Jehovah reigns, let the people
tremble." His is a name of lofty royalty, for, "Jehovah is a great God
and a great King above all gods." He exercises the absolute prerogative
and "does according to His will in the army of Heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth." He gives no account of His matters. As the
potter, He disposes of the clay at His own pleasure. Yet, stooping from
His boundless Sovereignty and freedom, our Lord binds Himself to His
own people by bonds of Covenant pledge and promise. He says, "I am
Jehovah, your God." He is our God, ready to hear our prayers, prompt to
help our needs, held by His own oath and promise to be the guardian and
helper of His people. I do not know how to admire enough these words of
title, so glorious and so gracious–so high above us and yet so near to
us–"JEHOVAH, your God!" Here is matter of thought and motive for love.

Now comes a second combination of titles–"The Holy One of Israel, your
Savior." It may not have struck you before, but what a New Testament
combination this is–"The Holy One, your Savior"! It reminds us of the
words– "Just, and the justifier of him that believes." Here we have
one so holy as to be separate from sinners and yet the Savior of
sinners! "Holy, Holy, Holy," is the ascription which is justly due to
Him and yet He passes by iniquity, transgression and sin. "The Holy One
of Israel, your Savior." It is a commingling of attributes which only
the Cross can explain. Herein is a world of comfort! God's holiness
appears to look dark and black upon a sinner, but when he believes in
Jesus this attribute of holiness smiles upon him!

Is God holy? Then He will never break His promise! If He declares men
to be justified through faith in Christ, then depend upon it, they are
justified! He will not run back from the compact of His Grace. Having
exacted at the hand of our great Surety that which vindicates His
justice, He makes that justice the guarantee that He will no more be
angry with His people. There is a substantial truth in those lines of
our hymn–

"Payment God cannot twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety's hand,
And then again at mine."

We can now appeal to the holiness of God and expect that having
accepted a Sacrifice on our behalf, He will graciously pass by our
sins. His holiness forbids that He should declare the death of His
Only-Begotten to be a failure by punishing those for whom Jesus was an
accepted Sacrifice.

The Lord has made to meet on His beloved Son the iniquity of us
all–how, then, shall it be laid at our door? "He His own self bore our
sins in His own body on the tree"–and to what end did He bear them if
we, also, shall endure their penalty? If by faith the substitution of
Christ is made ours–and God declares that it is so–then how shall we
be condemned who have accepted His Sacrifice? Am I not forgiven if I
have died in Christ and am raised in Him to newness of life? The very
holiness of God makes us rejoice, for it is enlisted on our side and
assures us of salvation! Delightful title! "The Holy One of Israel,
your Savior."

No doctrine has more often filled my mind with adoration than
this–that God is as holy in the pardon of sin as He is in the
punishment of it–that if He had sent the whole race of guilty men to
Hell, He would not have been more just than He is now in the pardon of
those who, by faith, are in Christ Jesus and who, in Him, were made to
die unto sin. "The Holy One of Israel, your Savior." The holiness of
Divine Grace makes salvation 10,000 times more precious than if it had
been an arbitrary act of the Divine Sovereignty. Had it been possible
for God to set aside the claims of His justice and simply to forgive
without making satisfaction to His Law, we should have felt our
standing to be questionable. Unjustly saved! Poor position for one who
has a conscience!

But instead of that, the Lord is supremely just and not even to be
gracious will He abdicate the judgment throne. His justice shines out
as clear and bright as the fair light of His mercy. When I behold the
Son of God at Calvary, what do I

see? Which is most conspicuous, at the Cross–Justice or Grace? Truly,
I see Grace in the gift of Jesus, but I see as plainly Justice that
made Jehovah bruise His Son and put Him to grief! It is a blessing to
feel that our salvation rests upon the Rock of Divine holiness, quite
as surely as upon the basis of Divine love. Treasure up those names,
"The Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Since "The Holy One of Israel"
is our Savior, we are confident that He will save us from all sin!

He has saved us from the penalty and the defilement of sin–He will
also save us from the disease of sin–that is to say, our tendency to
evil. "They shall call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people
from their sins." The Lord will save Believers from all inclination to
evil. We shall be saved not only from sins committed, but from
indwelling sin, from original sin, from the corrupt tendencies of our
nature. "The Holy One of Israel, your Savior," will save us until we
become holy as God is holy–or, as our Lord Jesus worded it–"Perfect,
even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." My Brothers and
Sisters, aspire to this salvation! Let this blessed name of God, "the
Holy One of Israel, your Savior," encourage you to believe that you
shall yet be without spot, or wrinkle, or any evil thing. Into Heaven
there shall in no way enter anything that defiles and you shall be pure
as God Himself–

"O glorious hour! O blest abode! I shall be near and like my God; And
flesh and sin no more control The sacred pleasures of my soul." I beg
you to reflect upon the fact that the glorious Lord–who here styles
Himself, "Jehovah, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior," the
Creator of all things and their Preserver–is come very near to you.

In the next verse He says, "Since you were precious in My sight you
have been honorable, and I have loved you." Mark, "I have loved you."
It is not enough that He thinks kindly and deals tenderly–He loves! He
loves! This is an exceeding marvel. You know, dear fathers, what it is
to love your children. You know, dear women, what it is to love your
husbands. These loves are faint shadows of the love of God to His
chosen! Sweet is the love which unites us to each other, but it is
wonderful that God Himself should say, "I have loved you." It makes my
heart beat quick to think that I am the object of Jehovah's love!

Remember, also, that this Holy Lord is working upon you still, that you
may reflect His Glory. He says in the seventh verse, "I have created
him for My glory, I have formed him; yes, I have made him." He has
begun our new creation. He is carrying it on and He is completing it.
There is a new character forming in Believers by God's own hand–a
character which will be the image of the Lord Jesus! We are the
handiwork of God, His higher creation, the product of His eternal
power. No, we are more–it is written, "Of His own will He begat us
with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His
creatures." We are begotten again unto a lively hope and the life will
never die, neither will the hope be frustrated, for the Lord has fixed
His strong resolves to perfect His work in us.

What does He say in the 13th verse? "There is none that can deliver out
of My hand: I will work, and who shall reverse it?" Jehovah is
fashioning us in the image of His Son and who shall hinder Him? Who
shall stand in God's way? If I am a Believer, despite depravities of
nature, temptations from the world and assaults from Satan, I must be,
I shall be perfectly transformed into the image of the Lord Jesus and
in me shall the promise of verse 21 be absolutely fulfilled– "This
people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise."

II. Secondly, LET US NOTE THE LORD'S ESTIMATE OF HIS PEOPLE. Whatever
we may think of the Israel of God, the Lord thinks more of it than
words can express. He says, "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and
Seba for you." Let us turn that over in our minds. When the Lord chose
a nation to be the depository of His sacred Oracles, He might have
selected Egypt if He had willed to do so. Egypt was in the known world
the oldest nation. It was hoary with antiquity. Egypt contained the
wisest and most civilized people of early times. Its very ruins are the
wonder of the ages. Its records show an extraordinary progress in
literature, architecture and the arts and sciences.

Egypt was also the most powerful of empires in the olden times. Before
the banners of Assyria, Babylon and Medo-Persia came to the front, the
dragon of Egypt was a mighty ensign. Yet the Lord did not choose the
sons of Ham, but passed by Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba. The Lord chose the
seed of Abraham and the family of Jacob–He multiplied them and
instructed them–and made them to be His own peculiar people. In this
sense He could say, "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba
for you." In the course of history the claims of various countries came
into collision with those of Israel. Especially Egypt proudly oppressed
Israel.

What did God do? Did He hesitate as to which of the two peoples should
be preserved? No. The Lord brought out Israel and turned His artillery
upon Egypt. That His people might be free, He hurled plagues upon
Pharaoh until at last He killed all the first-born of Egypt, the chief
of all their strength. In this way He gave Egypt for the ransom of His
people. He brought Israel forth and when the proud Egyptians pursued
them and overtook them by the Red Sea, the Lord destroyed the chariot
and the horse–the army and the power–and again gave Egypt as the
ransom of His elect nation. In the days of King Asa the Ethiopians came
up against Judah to the number of a million of men–but "they were
destroyed before the Lord and before His host"–thus was Ethiopia given
for Israel.

Nebuchadnezzar came up against the land and struck Egypt sorely, as it
was foretold by Ezekiel the Prophet. "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus:
every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no
wages, nor his army for Tyrus, for the service that he had served
against it: therefore thus says the Lord God; behold, I will give the
land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and he shall take
her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be
the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his
labor wherewith he served against it, because they worked for Me, says
the Lord

God."

Then was the crocodile broken by the river and its power was never
restored. Probably the full meaning of the text must be found in the
conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. It was written of
Cyrus, "I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all
his ways: he shall build My city, and he shall let go My captives, not
for price nor reward, says the Lord of hosts." Accordingly, Cyrus did
cause the people to return to their land and then the Lord promised him
Egypt as his reward. See Isaiah 45:14–"Thus says the Lord, the labor
of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of
stature, shall come over unto you, and they shall be yours: they shall
come after you; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall
down unto you, they shall make supplication unto you, saying, Surely
God is in you; and there is none else, those is no other God,"

Cambyses conquered Egypt and destroyed many of its cities, and never
since has there been a native prince sitting upon the throne of
Pharaoh. God gave to the king of Persia, Egypt and the neighboring
regions as the ransom price of His people. Thus the Lord did of old on
the behalf of His literal Israel. And what does this fact say to us? It
means this– God's chosen are immeasurably precious in His sight! He
chose them to be His people before all worlds out of mere love; and in
this ancient love He will abide world without end. Long before we were
born we were thought of by the Lord– our names were in His book and
our persons lay on His heart from before the foundations of the world.
"Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of His Son."

He ordained the chosen ones to be what they were, not in themselves.
They were not holy, but He ordained them that they should be holy. He
chose them that He might make them like His dear Son, that He might be
the firstborn among many brethren. These chosen men are the center of
God's plan and design. If I understand God's great project, it was on
this wise–He had formed matter into a thousand marvelous shapes and He
had then created vegetable life in infinite variety and beauty. To this
He had added animal life in its differing degrees of intelligence and
then He made angels, who are pure spirit. These several creations He
would link together, blending matter and mind, the animal and the
spiritual–therefore He resolved that He would make a being that should
be nearer to Him than the angels and yet should be akin to the rest of
the universe–down even to the mere materialism of which its body
should be composed.

His Son was in His thought! Immanuel, God-With-Man. He resolved that
the eternal Son should be Incarnate, should be the Adam of a chosen
race, "the firstborn among many brethren," and that these brethren
should be His Son's joy and crown and delight forever. The Word made
flesh was to be the model and pattern for a generation of beloved ones
who should be "a kind of first-fruits of His creatures." These favored
beings would be of earth and yet of Heaven– brothers to the worm and
yet partakers of the Divine Nature–lifted up into alliance with the
Godhead through Jesus Christ, their Representative, who is both God and
Man.

This wonderful conception I can but dimly set before you. Man was so
surely to be made in the imago of God that he should never again lose
that image. The chosen were to be placed beyond further danger of
falling because they would know sin and hate it intensely because of
their experience of it and salvation from it. By His gracious
redemption, the Lord purposed to produce beings that would be forever
loyal to their great King, not through force, but through their new
nature and the constraint of love to Him who redeemed them from evil.
Perhaps it would not have been possible, by

a mere fiat, to have created free agents who would be safe in the
surpassing elevation of sons of God. Before they could be able to stand
near to the Eternal Throne, related to the Eternal God, they must be
knit to Jesus by eternal bonds of love. They must be so bound by
grateful love that there shall be no possibility of their imitating
Satan in proud rebellion.

By the operations of His Grace, the Lord has prepared a creature who is
able humbly to enjoy the favor of Heaven and safely to occupy a rank to
which angels cannot aspire. A creature, however wisely made, might
become self-sufficient and disobedient–but a creature that has fallen,
that has been condemned–and then has been redeemed by God Himself
assuming its nature, redeemed by blood, lifted up by a supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit into newness of life and so made akin to
God–that creature, I say, is thus prepared to live near the Eternal
Throne and to bear the dignity of a child of God and a joint-heir with
Jesus Christ!

God's intent was to produce a race that should be honorable in His
sight and well-beloved of His soul. That being His eternal purpose, He
firmly fixed His soul upon the accomplishment of it. He would glorify
Himself in these people. "This people have I formed for Myself: they
shall show forth My praise." Did not the world show forth His praise?
Yes, in a measure the spacious earth and swelling flood proclaim the
wise and powerful God. But He meant to make men far clearer mirrors of
His Glory. In them He would be seen through all the ages! Their lives
should show forth His longsuffering, His Grace, His love, His wisdom,
His holiness and His whole Character. In redeeming them with His own
blood, He would set forth in them His Justice and His Grace.

These were to be repetitions of the image of the Only-Begotten in whom
God is well-pleased. God so loved His Son that He would see His
beauties reflected in others–He, the Son of God, should stand
surrounded with Brothers and Sisters who would rejoice to honor Him! It
was a God-like idea! God determined that in saving men He would show
forth all the Glory of His Nature. This design would be costly, even to
Jehovah Himself. To carry out this purpose, men, having fallen, must be
redeemed by blood. The Lord gave Ethiopia and Seba for His people, but
this was little. Would He give His only-begotten Son? The ever-blessed
Son of the Father was more precious than Egypt multiplied beyond all
count–and Ethiopia and Seba were as nothing to His value. Would the
Lord give His own Son? Yes, to carry out His Divine resolve of
magnifying Himself in the salvation of guilty men, He spared not His
own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all!

O miracle of miracles! Love beyond degree! But even then men could not
be saved unless the Holy Spirit, another blessed Person of the Divine
Three, should condescend to come and live in their bodies! It was great
for Jesus to come and live in human flesh for 30 years, but for the
Holy Spirit to abide in our human nature for thousands of years is an
equal marvel! Yes, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is true. This
further miracle of love has been perfected in us in whom the Spirit
abides. This is far more than giving Egypt for our ransom. God gives
Himself to save unworthy man! And now, Beloved, shall He not, with the
Lord Jesus, also give us all things? Is anything, now, too dear for God
to make a sacrifice of it? Is there anything in Heaven or earth, or
even within the sphere of imagination, that God would not give for the
accomplishment of purposes of Divine Grace to His people?

Believers, do you know how great you are? Do you know, O men and women
saved by Grace, what you are and where you are? If you did, I think you
would begin to shout, "Hallelujah!" and would never come to an end. You
are blood-redeemed and bought by your Lord with a price. You are the
jewels of Jesus' crown, the gems within His breastplate. You are molded
by His hands to be likenesses of Himself. You are set over the works of
God's hands and made princes of the royal blood of the universe. Do you
know what it means to be called sons of God? Behold, what manner of
love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the
children of God! You are joint heirs with Christ–do you comprehend
that? The Lord Jesus has made us kings and priests unto our God and we
shall reign forever and ever!

Oh, the splendors, the infinite splendors of the love of God to His
believing people! From now on everything shall be sacrificed for us.
God will give all that He has to save His beloved ones! He will make
the whole of Nature and Providence subservient to the complete
salvation of His chosen. Kings shall be born and buried. Empires shall
rise and fall. Republics and systems shall come and go–and all shall
be the scaffold for the building of the house of God which is His
Church! All events shall work for the good of the chosen! It is God's
grandest, highest purpose to gather together in one the whole company
of His redeemed in Christ Jesus their Lord and to make them like their
Head!

O Beloved, I know not how to preach! I want to sit and in silent wonder
offer to the Lord the praise of my heart. Glorify God, I pray you, for
He has glorified you!

III. And now we shall close with a brief meditation. LET US CONSIDER
THE OUTCOME OF THIS. If it is so, that the glorious God has really and
of a truth loved us, His people, and valued us at a mighty price, then
see how secure His people are! I will not say anything upon this topic,
but the Lord Himself shall speak. "Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I
have called you by your name, you are Mine. When you pass through the
waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned;
neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior: I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for you." He has given so much for us that He will
not, now, lose us! He values us too highly to let His enemy carry us
away! Beloved, see how secure they must be who are priceless in the
esteem of God!

Note, next, the honor which God puts upon them. It follows upon the
text, "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you. Since
you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable." God has put us
poor sinners among His honorable ones. I know one, who, in her
unconverted state, had fallen into sad sin and the remembrance of it
was painful. But the Lord removed the shame by laying home to her soul
these gracious words, "Since you were precious in My sight, you have
been honorable." Oh, yes, the woman, who was a sinner, who washed our
Savior's feet with tears and wiped them with her hair, was honorable to
her Lord! The thief on the cross, hanging though he was, was honorable
before Him who is the Fountain of honor! He was a peer of the realm and
went in with Jesus into the Palace, for his Lord said, "Today shall you
be with Me in Paradise." Our ascending Lord entered Paradise with this
thief as His attendant!

The Lord has a way of transforming dishonorable ones into honorable
ones. He lifts us from the dunghill and sets us among princes, even the
princes of His people. His own dear Word says to us, "Since you were
precious in My sight you have been honorable, and I have loved you;
therefore will I give men for you, and people for your life."

Again, from the high estimate which the Lord puts upon His people we
conclude the certainty of the Lord's gathering together all His people.
This is set forth from the fifth to the seventh verses, "I will bring
your seed from the east, and gather them from the west," and so forth.
This encourages me to preach with all my might, for the Lord has a
people whom He must and will gather to Himself! He bids the nations act
as His servants in this matter. "I will say to the north, Give up; and
to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters
from the ends of the earth."

Why, they may be up to their necks in the bogs of sin! But they are to
be brought home, for the Lord will not lose His sons and daughters!
Perhaps they have wandered far into grievous vices–but if they are
called by His name, every one of them must come. Yes, it is written,
"even every one." Our almighty Savior can draw a sinner back from the
shelving brink of Hell. While there is life there is hope! God will
bring back His redeemed in spite of whatever iniquity they may have
fallen. Victorious Grace shall set free the captives of sin! As to free
will, the Lord will make His people willing in the day of His power.

On the Cross, according to Psalm 22, our Lord said, "A seed shall serve
Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall
come." "Shall come"–shall make them come–and the Lord Jesus shall not
shed His blood in vain. The Lord gave Egypt for Israel's ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for her and He will not lose what He has purchased at
such a price. Whether the exile has been carried west, or east, or
north, or south, the Lord will devise means that he is not left to
perish in the far-off land. When I come to preach in this great house,
I say within my heart, "Lord, You have many people in this city. I will
look for them. This people You have bought for Yourself at an
exceedingly great price and I desire to find them for You."

A controversialist once said, "If I thought God had a chosen people, I
should not preach." That is the very reason why I do preach. What would
make him inactive is the mainspring of my earnestness! If the Lord had
not a people to be saved, I should have little to cheer me in my
ministry. Other sheep He has whom He must bring in and my hope is that
He will bring some of them in by me! Beloved, God has a people
everywhere and we are sent to draw them to Him with the powerful magnet
of the Cross. This finds them out amid the ashes, even as Jesus
said–"I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."
We preach Christ Crucified and, "to Him shall the gathering of the
people be." The Lord calls to Himself His own sheep and these follow
Him and are saved.

Here is another little bit for meditation. If God has determined to
glorify Himself by us and in us, let us be in one accord with Him.
Already I have quoted the 21st verse–"This people have I formed for
Myself; they shall show forth My praise." Beloved, let us labor to show
forth His praise, for He has formed us for that purpose! Oh, that we
could live wholly to His Glory! Not only let us speak sometimes to His
praise, but let us always be making known the exceeding

riches of His Divine Grace! Do you not feel, Beloved, that if God has
chosen you for such an end as this, your whole being cries, "I must and
will show forth His praise. My soul does magnify the Lord"?

If we knew how much God loved us, we should love Him much more in
return and we should give much more to His cause and to His poor than
we do. Just now I have need of large help in money for repairs at the
Tabernacle–and this need would not arise if we were all consecrated as
we ought to be. As it has arisen, we shall soon meet the need if we all
used our substance for the Lord. It is not my work any more than it is
yours, but I have the responsibility for it and I would be glad to be
helped. We are stewards and not owners–the least hint should set us
enquiring as to what is needed in our Master's house. We should not
need exhorting, much less to be begged of–we should always be crying
to the Lord, "Show me what You would have me to do."

He is Jehovah our God, the Holy One of Israel who has redeemed us at a
measureless price–the very least we can do is, by holy loving,
cheerful working, patient suffering and spontaneous giving–show what
we think of our Lord. Ah, if we live near to God, we shall not long for
the silly amusements which are beguiling the base-born professors of
this evil age. Think of a joint heir with Christ at the theater! The
very thought of consorting with the world is degradation! We are born
of a nobler birth and lifted to a higher level than to grovel in
childish, stupid play. If we are the sons of Jehovah, our joy, our
hope, our recreation, our object in life will all be among high and
eternal things! Our affections are set upon things above, not on things
on the earth.

Try to live up to your destiny, you heirs of God! May God the Holy
Spirit help you! What love we ought to bear to God! Does God give up
Egypt for us and shall we not give up the riches of Egypt for Him?
Shall we go down to Egypt for help when God has already given up Egypt
that He might help us? If we could have all the wealth of Ethiopia and
Seba, what would it be in comparison with our Lord? Therefore, let us
love Him supremely and count all things but loss for the excellency of
His knowledge.

Beloved, we must love Him–we do love Him. How can it be otherwise?
"The love of Christ constrains us." Madame Guyon wrote of "torrents."
Divine love, if truly felt, is a torrent sweeping all before it, like
that ancient river Kishon. Oh, for those torrents now! May God the Holy
Spirit bless these feeble words of mine to all His people and may many
long to be joined with His people by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord!
Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON– Isaiah 43.