The Keeper of the Vineyard

The Keeper of the Vineyard

(No. 2391)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 16, 1894.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
5, 1863.

"I the LORD keep it. I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I
will keep it night and day." Isaiah 27:3.

MY discourse this evening can hardly be called a sermon. It will be
just a simple talk about a few experimental Truths of God, but I trust
that it will be useful to some of the Lord's people.

The text follows a terrible verse in which the Lord's enemies are
threatened with "His sore and great and strong sword." But even when
God has the most anger against His adversaries, He is still full of
love for His people. The Church of God is here compared to a vineyard.
The vine is a tender plant, needing continual care, and if the vineyard
is not well fenced and guarded, the enemies of the vine are sure to get
in and destroy it. The Church is called "a vineyard of red wine,"
because the red grape happened to be the best kind grown in Palestine
and, in like manner, God's Church is, to Him, the best of the best, the
excellent of the earth, in whom is all His delight! But what is true of
the whole Church is also true of every member–the same God who keeps
the vineyard also protects every vine, no, not only so, but His care
extends to every little branch, to every spreading leaf and to every
clinging tendril of that vine which He undertakes to keep night and
day. Well did Toplady sing–

"Upon my leaf, when parched with heat,

Refreshing de w shall drop.

The plant which Your right hand has set,

Shall never be rooted up.

Each moment watered by Your care,

And fenced with power Divine,

Fruit to eternal life shall bear

The feeblest branch of Thine." Our text mentions two much-needed
mercies and upon each of these I will speak briefly. We find in the
text, first, continual keeping. And then, secondly, continual watering.
In these gracious Words of the Lord, we have a promise that we shall be
kept from foes without and from foes within. God is both a wall and a
well to His people–a wall to guard them from their adversaries–and a
well to supply all their needs out of His ever living, over-flowing
fullness.

I. First, then, concerning the CONTINUAL KEEPING which the Lord
promises to His vineyard–"I, the Lord, keep it…lest any hurt it, I
will keep it night and day." I will talk of that keeping in an
experimental way, putting the subject before you in the form of
questions which may be applied either to the Church as a whole, or to
each individual Believer.

The first will be, "Do I need keeping? I trust I have been called by
God's Grace, that I have been washed in Jesus' blood and that I have
been made one of the Lord's children–do I need keeping?" Ah, if I know
anything of myself, I shall be compelled to answer that I do, for my
foes are innumerable and I, like the vine, am subject to all sorts of
perils and dangers! Brothers and Sisters there is the arch-enemy–how
he longs to lay the axe to the roots of God's vines! If we were in his
power, you and I would not have a grain of faith or a spark of love
left! He is desirous to have us, not only that he may sift us as wheat,
but that he may burn us as chaff! When we think of his malice and
cunning, we may well pray, "Deliver us not over unto the will of our
enemy." When God's people have met Satan in a hand-to-hand conflict,
they have always found it a stern and difficult struggle, for he is
ferocious, malicious and powerful–and he comes

against us, not only to worry us–but seeking whom he may devour! We
need keeping, then, if it were only because of that one adversary who
would make a speedy end of us if we were left in his grip even for an
hour!

Like the vine, too, we have not only to dread him who would cut us
down, but there is a wild boar of the woods that would gladly tear us
up by the roots! I mean that wild boar of unbelief that is constantly
prowling around us. How does it seek with its sharp tusks to tear our
vines and fig trees! You know, dear Friends, how unbelief takes away
your comforts, how it destroys your strength and how it mars your
usefulness. Perhaps some of you, at times, hardly know whether you are
the Lord's people or whether you are not His. Our friend, who addressed
us last ordinance Sabbath, said that God's people ought never to have
doubts and fears. I quite admit that they ought not to have them–but
that they really do have them is quite as certain! I like that good old
hymn of Dr. Watts and sing it as I find it–

"When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies

I bid farewell to every fear

And wipe my weeping eyes."

1 am afraid, dear Brothers and Sisters, you and I cannot travel the
same road if you are always confident and if you never have reason to
look back and cry because you have lost your evidences. This I
know–there are seasons with me when I do not doubt my Lord and Master,
but I do doubt my interest in Him–and I have to come to Him just as I
came at first, as an empty-handed sinner and accept His Grace as He
freely presents it. Yes, if the Lord did not keep us, the wild boar of
unbelief would soon tear us to pieces, and we would have no Grace left,
but would become useless forever!

Then, you know, the vine is often subject to injury from various kinds
of insects. Almost all plants of any value are attacked, at times, by a
peculiar kind of fly which devours the leaves and prevents
fruit-bearing. And the vine is specially liable to attacks of this
sort. So is it with Christians–we have the fly ofpride. If the great
enemy never came to knock us down and unbelief never tried to root us
up, the very quietude of the atmosphere and the calmness of the soft
summertime would begin to breed that deadly fly which goes before
destruction! I think we have even more cause to fear the effects of
carnal security, self-confidence and pride than the assaults of Satan,
himself! I do not know how it is with you, my Brothers and Sisters, but
at times I feel so dead that I would almost welcome a temptation from
Satan, so that I might feel a little spiritual life stirring within me
in opposition to it!

There have been dark times in our experience which have caused us great
sorrow of heart and yet we have come to look back upon those sad
seasons almost with a sort of envy–and we have wished that we might
have them over, again, so that we might feel at least some pulsing,
some palpitations of the new life within us! Oh, that dreadful fly of
pride! John Bunyan tells us, in his Holy War, that it was Mr.
Carnal-Security who drove Emmanuel from the town of Mansoul. He would
have always stayed there and have given Mansoul high holiday, but that
Diabolonian, Mr. Carnal-Security, whose father was Mr. Self-Conceit,
and whose mother was Lady Fear-Nothing, filled the townspeople with
such high notions of their greatness that the blessed Prince went His
way in sorrow and anger!

Alas for us when we say, "My mountain stands firm, I shall never be
moved." For we are then in direst peril! That cankerworm of conceit,
that caterpillar of pride, that locust of carnal security would soon
destroy God's vineyard if it were not written, "I the Lord keep it. I
will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and
day." This promise assures us that the Lord will preserve us from the
assaults of pride as well as from the attacks of unbelief and from the
malice of the great adversary of our souls!

Then, dear Friends, beside the enemies I have mentioned, the vine is
subject to the attacks of the little foxes that Solomon speaks of in
the Canticles–"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the
vines." There are plenty of little foxes of all sorts about, nowadays.
I mean false doctrine and skeptical teaching. Some of these crafty
foxes come nibbling at us, trying to make us doubt the Inspiration of
Scripture. Some of them even dare to try to root up and destroy our
confidence in the Divinity of Christ! Others of these little foxes are
still more insidious–they seek to tempt us away from the outward means
of Grace and aim at making us forsake the assemblies of God's saints.
Men pour into our ears all sorts of heresies and lies till our souls
scarcely know the Truth of God from error and we are carried to and
fro, and have a hard battle to fight! Ah, if the Lord did not keep His
Church, she would soon become a prey to the graft of her adversaries!
But He does preserve His vineyard from the little foxes and from the
great foxes, too! His vines have tender grapes and the foxes would
devour them if they could, but, blessed be the Lord, they are unable to
do so! Our Lord preserves us and protects us from all the craft and
cunning of our adversaries!

Besides, dear Friends, when we have a few grapes that are beginning to
ripen, there are the birds that come and try to pick the fruit–those
dark-winged thoughts of worldliness and selfishness which come to us
all. We begin to say, "Well done!" to ourselves and then it is always
ill-done. The Prophet Habakkuk tells us of those who "sacrifice unto
their net, and burn incense unto their drag." And if we ascribe our
success to our own perseverance, our own zeal and so forth, we shall be
like the birds which steal the fruit that belongs to the master, or
like dishonest workmen who are set to till the garden and rob their
employer of the produce. Let us never try to get our Master's money, to
put it out to usury, and then, when the interest comes in, spend it on
ourselves! The temptation to selfishness–to live for this world
alone– or to seek to bring forth fruit merely for our own
aggrandizement, is so strong and comes so easily upon us, that if the
Lord did not keep us, we would, none of us, retain our Christianity for
a single hour–but would be wholly given up to worldliness, selfishness
and every other form of sin!

I ask again the question with which I began and I pray you, each one,
to ask it yourself–"Do I need keeping?" Oh, my Heart, never did the
tender vine so much need the gardener's care as you need to be kept by
your Lord! You are like an infant suffering from a thousand diseases
and unable to cure itself of any one of them! You are helplessly weak
and if your Father, God, should leave you, there is nothing for you but
to die in despair! Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us have a deep
consciousness of the dangers to which we are exposed–not that we may
live trembling lives–but that we may be weaned from all trust in self
and may be driven nearer to God and always seek to live under His
Divine protection!

Another question may occur to someone here–"Even if I have to face all
these dangers, can I not keep myself if I am very watchful and very
prayerful? May I not by my own power and vigilance keep off these
adversaries?" Ah, there is something wrong in the very question,
itself, for who is to keep me watchful? Who is to make me prayerful? If
my watchfulness and prayerfulness depended upon myself, I might
slumber, and so I would, very soon, be destroyed! Brethren, it is a
great mercy that the text puts it not that we must keep the vineyard
ourselves, but, "I, the Lord keep it." Watchfulness is our duty–it is
our privilege to abide much in earnest, wrestling prayer–but still, to
keep up the watchfulness and the prayerfulness, there must constantly
be the secret incoming of Divine Strength! Our watchfulness and
prayerfulness are proofs of God's gracious working! The real cause of
the vineyard of the Church and each individual vine being preserved
must always be found in this blessed assurance–"I, the Lord keep it. I
will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and
day."

What did you say–"Cannot I keep myself?" Alas, you are your own worst
enemy! Augustine was known to say, "Lord, save me from that evil man,
myself!" And you and I have good reason to pray the same prayer. We can
very soon destroy ourselves, but we can never save ourselves. I bless
the Lord that there is not even a semblance of truth in that verse in
Wesley's hymn book–

"A charge to keep I have A God to glorify! A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky."

It is the Lord who saves the souls of His people, and it is the Lord
who fits them for the sky! If they had to do it, themselves, not a
solitary soul among them would ever see His face with acceptance, or
stand with joy before His Throne! "I, the Lord keep it. I will water it
every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." It is
always so put and for us to entirely get rid of all idea of carnal
strength is both right and safe! It is well for us to feel that, in
ourselves, we are as weak as water and as insignificant as the insects
that die in a day–and that for all true strength we must look to God,
and to God alone! Rest assured that you and I are never so weak as when
we fancy that we are strong, and that we are never so strong as when we
are conscious of our greatest weakness! This is an enigma, but our
experience has often proved it to be true. Our supposed riches are
generally the marks of deep spiritual poverty, while conscious poverty
is an indication of the unsearchable riches which faith is enjoying.
Learn to live every day, dear Brothers and Sisters, in Jesus, as having
nothing, yet possessing all things!

This is how God would have you live, trusting Him for all the Grace you
continually need. When you wake in the morning, you are to look forward
to temptations and trials, but you are to cry to the Lord for
deliverance from them– and not to think of keeping yourselves during
the day, but to place yourselves, again, in the hands of God–to be
kept and preserved by Him who has said of the vineyard of His Church,
"I, the Lord keep it. I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I
will keep it night and day." Then, when the day is over, let this be
your evening song–

"Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood,

I lay me down to rest,

As in the embraces of my God,

Or on my Sa vior's breast."

I will mention only one other question and then we will leave this part
of the subject–"Do I enjoy this keeping??" This is a question that
must make you search your heart. Do you enjoy this keeping? Is it your
habit and mine, every day, to look to God to keep us? When we wake in
the morning, is this our first desire, "Lord, keep me this day beneath
the shadow of Your wings"? When we go out to business, or on our Lord's
service, are we conscious that we are still under the Lord's eyes and
protected by the Lord's power? When, at any time, we have slipped and
erred, do we bitterly repent that we could have acted so wrongly as to
wander away from the Good Shepherd? And at night, when we look back
upon the engagements of the day, are we in the habit of blessing God
for as His unseen mercies? Have we learned to bless Him for preserving
us from all the mysterious spiritual dangers by which we are
surrounded? Has it, in fact, become our practice to make this text
experimentally our own, "I, the Lord keep it. I will water it every
moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day"?

Beloved, do you not think that we often live all day long as if there
were no God? Do you not, sometimes, find yourselves going about the
world as if God and you were strangers to each other? Do you not, at
least now and then, venture upon the stormy sea of another day without
getting your Pilot on board? And do you not think that, at night, when
you come to the temporary haven of your chamber, you may often have
cause to say to the Lord, "Alas! Alas! My God, I have lived this day
and You have protected me, I doubt not, but still, I have not been
mindful of You, I have not looked up to You, I have not been hanging on
Your breast, I have not been nestling under Your wings as the chick
hides itself under the hen"? I would that, as Church members, you and
I, all of us, would learn the blessed lesson of this text, "I, the
Lord, keep it. I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will
keep it night and day. During My people's nights of adversity and
during their days of prosperity, in their nights of soul-sorrow and in
their days of hallowed rejoicing, in the nights when their spirit lies
slumbering, and in the days when the sunlight of My Countenance shines
upon them, and they go forth strong to labor and to do My will, I will
keep them under all circumstances. I will never leave them, I will
never, no never, forsake them."

I am always afraid, whenever I preach about the security of God's
people, lest you should grow carnally secure, that is to say, lest,
instead of realizing the preciousness of the doctrine and its practical
bearing, you should merely be satisfied with the outward shell of it. I
want you not only to know that God keeps you, but to feel the power of
that blessed Truth in your inmost soul–to enjoy it and to live upon
it. You know that it is one thing to look at honey and to be told that
it is sweet to the taste. But it is a very different thing to eat of it
and to prove its sweetness for yourself! Be it yours, like Jonathan, to
dip your rod into the honey of this text and to eat of it abundantly,
for so shall your eyes be enlightened and every day you shall be able
to say, "The Lord is my Keeper: the Lord is my Shade upon my right
hand: the Lord is my Helper; I will not fear what man or even the
devil, himself, may try to do to me."

II. Now, with greater brevity, let me talk to you upon the second part
of the subject, the Lord's CONTINUAL WATERING. He that keeps,
waters–"I the Lord keep it. I will water it every moment: lest any
hurt it, I will keep it night and day."

I was rather struck, the other day, by this remark of a somewhat
eminent horticulturist–"Depend upon it," he said, "that watering is a
very essential part of a gardener's business." It is especially so in
hot weather, for there is little doubt that if the flowers are to be
kept constantly in bloom, and if the beds are to look fresh and
beautiful, the watering pot must be in frequent use. In the summer, how
very soon the grass looks brown and how very speedily the flowers begin
to droop their heads and shrivel up their leaves, all for lack of
watering! Well, now, we have this gracious provision in the text to
meet the needs of the Lord's vines, the Keeper of the vineyard,
Himself, says, "I will water it every moment."

We will handle this part of the subject as we did the other portion, in
the form of questions, and the first enquiry shall be, "Do I need
watering within as well as keeping without??" The answer that must be
given is–Yes, that I do, for there is not a single Grace I have that
can live an hour without being Divinely watered! Have I not seen many a
professor come forward to join the Church full of faith of a certain
sort and full of zeal after a fashion? But, after a few months– and
there are some hypocrites who hold out even for years–they begin to
falter! They do not care for the House of God as much as they did. They
grow worldly and careless and, at last, they give up their profession
altogether! What is the

reason of their failure? Just this, they were not watered–they never
had the living sap to nourish their roots–they never sucked up the
Living Water of God's Grace and so, having no watering from the Most
High, their flowers all withered, drooped their heads and died. There
is no wonder at this result, for he who has only the strength that is
within himself will be like snow that melts and passes away! It is only
the man who derives His strength from God who will be like the sun that
shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day! There is no Grace I
have, then, which does not need watering from above!

Beside that, the soil in which I am planted is very dry. Ask any
Christian whether he ever gets any real good out of the world. Do you
not find it a very dry soil where you go to business? The other day you
said that you would change your employment–you would be a fool if you
did–it would only be a change of troubles! The God who gave you your
present set of trials knew that they were the best for you. If all the
crosses in the world could be laid in a heap and I were told to take my
pick of them, I would choose those that I have right now, for I know
what they are, and God fits my back to them! But I do not know what the
others are and I have no proof that I could bear them. You had better
not take my troubles, for they might crush you, while I can bear them
through the Divine Strength that is given to me. But if I had yours,
they might crush me, while you can patiently endure them through God's
Grace. This earth, however, is no very genial soil for a Christian's
growth. Worldlings may flourish in it, but if the Christian would have
Living Water, he must get it from some other place than this earth,
for, spiritually, it is a dry and thirsty land where there is no water!

Then, again, the atmosphere that is round about us does not naturally
yield us any water. The means of Grace, which are like clouds hovering
over our heads, are often nothing but clouds–they come and they
go–but we receive no rain from them. The other day we looked up and we
said that it would rain, directly, but lo, the one black cloud was soon
gone! So, you sometimes go up to the House of God and you say to
yourselves, "Our minister has often cheered and comforted us, perhaps
he will have a good word for us today." And when the text is announced
and the sermon is begun, you think, "Here is a cloud, there will be
some rain, presently," but, whether it is your fault or the minister's,
we will not say, often there is not a drop of moisture to refresh your
spirit! The reason is that the Lord will have you know that He, and He,
alone, must water you if you are to be effectually revived! He will
teach you that you need watering, that all your Graces constantly
require fresh supplies of Divine Grace, and that you must have them
directly and only from Him.

The beauty of the text seems to me to lie in the last two words–"I
will water it every moment." There is no plant except a plant of Grace
that needs to be watered every moment–but we do. I do not know to what
object I can compare a Christian better than to one of those gas lights
yonder. The Believer is not a candle, for a candle can burn of itself
when it is once lighted because it carries its own burning materials.
Neither is he a lamp that is supplied with a store of oil, except in a
certain sense, but he is just like one of these gas lights. Turn the
tap, cut off the connection with the gas meter, and out goes the light
at once! There must be a stream of gas continually flowing to keep up
the burning–and so is it with the Christian's spiritual life–it must
be perpetually streaming in from his Lord! He cannot live even a tithe
of a second unless life flows to him from God! Look at your hand. I
suspect that if, for a moment, you could altogether suspend the
circulation of your blood. If you could utterly cut off the life floods
so as to dissever your hand from the rest of your body, though it were
but for a second, yet vitality would be gone! And so, if the Christian
could be for one instant without union to Christ, without receiving
supplies of Divine Grace, he would at once expire!

I will not talk to you much longer, for we need to gather around the
Communion Table, but I will just put this one question–"Have we all
realized, as a matter of experience, that the Lord waters us every
moment?" Brothers and Sisters, I am very much afraid that there are but
few of us who have ever learned the full meaning of this gracious
promise. You can, perhaps, say, "The Lord waters me every Sabbath and
on Monday and Thursday nights." Possibly you can go even farther, and
say, "He waters me every morning, and every evening," but to be watered
every moment–to have continually such a conscious connection with
Christ as to be really receiving His Grace–you ask, "Is this
experience attainable? It may be possible for a minister, for he has
time to think of these things, but it is not possible for us working
people who have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows! Nor for us
business men who have to be all day long occupied with accounts."

Oh, but, Beloved, there are some of the Lord's people who have proved
that this blessing can be obtained and that it is possible to be in the
world and yet to be living near God, and every moment to be watered by
Him! Have you never heard of that poor servant girl who expounded the
meaning of the passage, "Pray without ceasing"? Some person could

not understand how anyone could pray without ceasing, but Mary said,
"Why, when I dress myself in the morning, my heart prays that I may be
robed in my Savior's righteousness. When I light the fire, I pray the
Holy Spirit to kindle a flame of sacred love in my heart. When I spread
the cloth for breakfast, I ask God to feed me with the Bread of Heaven
and whatever I do, all day long, I try to turn it into something that
will make me live near to my God!" Do you not see, dear Friends, that a
stirring life may yet be a spiritual life? There are some people, you
know, who, when they get hold of some hobby, can attend to business and
yet ride their hobby as well. It may be that they have taken to working
out some mathematical problem–if so, you will see them attending to
the shop, but all the while they are thinking about that problem–and
the first opportunity they get, they begin figuring away on a scrap of
paper, trying to work it out. Whatever takes place during the day, the
man is always thinking of that problem! And when he is on his way home,
as he is riding along, he is still thinking of that one thing because
his heart is full of it. Thus it may be with you, so that while you are
engaged in business and in the lawful affairs of your daily life, your
heart may still be always going out towards

God.

I was struck by a remark of a dear friend, the other day, who said that
Mr. So-and-So was so fond of everything Gothic that he had his chairs
Gothic, his bedstead Gothic and all the furniture of his house Gothic.
I think that a Christian should have everything full of Christ, so that
whether he eats, or drinks, or whatever he does, he does all to the
Glory of God! It was said of Ambrose that he used to eat, drink and
sleep eternal life–so may it be said of each of us! Why, sometimes,
when we have some dear one upon our hearts, we may go and attend to
fifty thousand things, but we do not forget that beloved object of our
affection! A mother may have to go on an errand and she may be
compelled to stay away a long while, but her sick child at home is on
her heart all the time! So I want that we should have Christ and have
the Holy Spirit, and have our Father who is in Heaven continually upon
our minds! And in that way shall we learn the meaning of this passage,
"I, the Lord keep it. I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I
will keep it night and day."

Now, as I close my discourse, I fear that there are some of you who are
not saved–and to you I have to put a personal question–"Why should
not this night be the time of your salvation?" Why did you come into
the Tabernacle tonight? Some of you have been inconvenienced, for you
have had to stand all through the service. I hope you have not come
here for nothing. I trust that the Lord meant to bless you when He
induced you to come up those steps and between those pillars. Remember
that the righteous God must punish sin, but that His Son, Jesus Christ,
was punished in the place of all those who will believe on Him! To
believe on Him is to trust Him. Have you done that? Then, though your
sins were as scarlet, they are now whiter than snow! If you have
trusted Jesus, your iniquities, which were like a black cloud, have all
been rolled away and you are so completely saved that there is, now, no
condemnation to you, for you are in Christ Jesus! God bring you to
trust in Christ, for believing in Him, you are saved!

May we, who are about to gather around the Communion Table, have our
Master's special Presence and blessing! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Isaiah 64.

Verse 1. Oh that You would rend the heavens. God's ancient people were
in great trouble and the Prophet saw no way out of their perplexity.
But God can make a way of escape where there is not one, He can rend
even Heaven, itself, if need be, in order to deliver His saints.
Therefore, the Prophet, or the people, pray, "Oh that You would rend
the heavens"–

1. That You would come down. "Come down, Yourself, great God, in all
the majesty of Your Glory! Burst through the firmament and appear in
Divine splendor!"

1. That the mountains might bow down at Your Presence. The eternal
hills are made to melt at the touch of God's feet. Mountains are the
things that are last to move, but God moves them when He once comes
near! How often we forget Omnipotence! That is a factor we are too apt
to leave out of our calculations and yet, my Brothers and Sisters,
Omnipotence is at the back of all our feebleness when that feebleness
is with the truth and the right, and is engaged in the service of God!
If the Lord's Presence is manifested, even the mountains will flow
down, as we read in Micah's prophecy, "For, behold, the Lord comes
forth out of His place and will come down, and tread upon the high
places of the earth. And the

mountains shall be molten under Him and the valleys shall be cleft, as
wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep
place."

2, 3. As when the melting fire burns, the fire causes the waters to
boil, to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may
tremble at Your Presence! When You did terrible things which we looked
not for, You came down, the mountains flowed down at Your Presence.
Where God is, everything begins to melt. He touches the mountains and
makes them boil over with lava, like volcanoes in action! At His touch
the very sea begins to boil with the fervent heat of Divine Power.
Then, when these wonderful results are perceived, even God's enemies
are compelled to say, "This is the finger of God," and they tremble at
His Presence. We never know, Brothers and Sisters, what great things
God will do, as we do not know all that He can do, but we do believe
that all things are possible to the Omnipotent Jehovah! When He brings
His reserve forces into the field, the battle is a short one. "When You
did terrible things which we looked not for, You came down, the
mountains flowed down at Your Presence." It was so when Sennacherib, in
Isaiah's day, besieged the city of Jerusalem. There was, apparently, no
way of escape from the stupendous hordes of the mighty monarch, but the
Angel of the Lord killed a 185,000 of them in one night and utterly
overthrew them! God has but to appear in His terrible power and His
adversaries tremble at His Presence, or are destroyed in an instant!

4. For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor
perceived by the ear, neither has the eye seen, O God, beside You, what
He has prepared for him that waits for Him. The unexpected is always
happening! God interposes in a way which we never thought of. Even if
we have been listening for His footstep, we have not heard the sound of
it–if we have been watching for His coming, we have not seen His
approach. God alone knows all that He will do–

"He in the thickest darkness dwells," but out of that darkness He
brings forth purposes of light and brightness to completely amaze His
servants. "Ah," says one, "but is He not long in doing it?" No, no, it
is our impatience that makes us think so, but the Lord never really
delays.

5. You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness. God comes to
meet us before we get to Him and then there is a blessed meeting. "You
meet him that rejoices and works righteousness." If you do right, God
will meet you. But He will meet you much sooner if you can rejoice at
the same time, for there is no service for God that is so acceptable to
Him as the service that is done with delight! "You meet him that
rejoices and works righteousness." When we are glad to serve God. When
we take a delight in suffering for His name's sake, then God will come
and meet us for certain. We need not think that, under such
circumstances, He will let us stand alone–"You meet him that rejoices
and works righteousness."

5. Those that remember You in Your ways. If you remember God, He will
certainly remember you! The fact that you are thinking of Him is proof
positive that the Lord has thoughts of love towards you!

5. Behold, You are angry; for we have sinned: in those is continuance,
and we shall be saved. God's wrath has no continuance in it towards His
own people. He soon makes it to pass away from them. His anger may
endure for a night, but His mercy comes in the morning. His own Word
is, "For a small moment 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." The Lord has a rod in His hand, but the
scourging of His own children does not last long. It is a rod, mark
you, not an axe that brings death. But His mercy, His goodness, the
purposes of His Grace are perpetual–"In those is continuance, and we
shall be saved." Now comes a very mournful passage. You have read some
of the lamentations of Jeremiah. Here is one of the lamentations of
Isaiah. He lived to see his country in a very sad condition. Perhaps
this was the state of affairs when Sennacherib invaded the land.

6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as
filthy rags. If this is true of our righteousnesses, what must our sins
be? If even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, where shall we find
a metaphor to describe our sins?

6. And we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind,
have taken us away. This does not allude to our mortality, but to our
sin–"We all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have
taken us away." We are not like the green leaf on the tree–we may seem
to be so for a moment, but very soon our righteousness fades like a
withered leaf and, in consequence, our iniquities, like the wind which
bears the withered leaves from the bough, carry us away. This is what
we all are by nature. This is what the people were in Isaiah's day–the
whole nation seemed to be unholy–its outwardly righteous men were not
really righteous, its ministers were not truthful, its magistrates were
not honest and even the professors of purity were, at heart, immoral!

7. And there is none that calls upon Your name, that stirs up himself
to take hold of You. We have not come quite to that condition, yet.
There are still some who stir themselves up to take hold upon God and
who call upon His name. We are not left in so sad a state as the
favored nation was in in Isaiah's days. It is a terrible thing when
intercession fails! Perhaps the dark day that will mark the world's
final doom will be a day unwhitened by prayer. Certainly, while prayer
remains, the world is blessed, but when prayer shall cease, when that
Divine disinfectant is taken away from this poor leper house, then the
pestilence of sin will rage and destroy most terribly! It was so in the
Prophet's day–"There is none that calls upon Your name, that stirs up
himself to take hold of You."

7, 8. For You have hid Your face from us, and have consumed us, because
of our iniquities. But now, O LORD, You are our Father. The Prophet,
himself, begins to plead with God. Jehovah was known as the God of the
children of Abraham. He was not recognized as the God of the Assyrian,
Sennacherib worshipped Nisroch as his God–"But now, O Jehovah, You are
our Father."

8, 9. We are the clay, and You our potter; and we all are the work of
Your hands. Do not be furious, O LORD, neither remember iniquity
forever! Behold, see, we beseech You, we are all Your people. Isaiah
could plead that, in a certain way, they were nominally the people of
God. But if we can plead this truly and spiritually on the behalf of
any man. If we can plead it for ourselves, what a mighty plea it is!
"Lord, You have made us. You have new-made us and You can keep us. We
are the clay and You are our potter; we belong to You. Oh, break not
the vessels that You have made! Cast not away the people You have
chosen. Be merciful to us, O God, for we are Your people!" Then the
Prophet gives a pitiful description of the condition unto which the
land of Judah was reduced.

10, 11. Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our
fathers praised You, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant
things are laid waste. Their houses and God's House went together to
destruction. When their houses were burnt, God's House did not escape.
This is the most bitter part of the trial to a genuine Believer–when
his own estate is impoverished, he can bear it, but when the Kingdom of
God suffers damage–this cuts him to the quick! God's House is our
house, the Prophet thus speaks of it–"Our holy and our beautiful
house, where our fathers praised You, is burned up with fire: and all
our pleasant things are laid waste."

12. Will you refrain Yourself for these things, O LORD? "Can You stand
still and see all this?" This is the kind of pleading for the people of
God to use when sin abounds. When the Truth of God is trampled like
mire in the street, we may come before the Lord and say, "Will You
refrain Yourself for these things, O Jehovah?"

12. Will You hold Your peace and afflict us very severely? May God
teach us how to plead for His people and make us great intercessors on
behalf of His Church and His cause in these evil days! Amen.