Isaiah 54
RileyIsaiah 54:1-5
THE OF Isa_54:1-5.THIS text, and its context, is a strange combination of shadows and light. The one succeeds the other in rapid succession. Barronness vies with bearing; song with anguished cry; enlargement with pinching; lengthened cords and strengthened stakes with abbreviated and weak ones. Extension labors against contraction; just pride against fear and shame, and the whole change is wrought by the word of the Master, the Redeemer of Israel, the God of all the earth.It is interesting to know what happens when He appears; or, rather, should we say, when His Presence is discovered. Two disciples were on the way to Emmaus, their hearts were heavy, their hopes were well nigh dead; in fact, they rather believed that those hopes had been buried just a few days before. But suddenly a Stranger who sat with them, took up the bread and brake the same.
In the very act their eyes were opened, and the face of the Living Lord was revealed. And they rose in a new strength and with brightened spirits made their way to Jerusalem to bear their testimony to the other disciple, “The Lord is risen indeed”.It is when we sit at meat, in the study of the Word, that we see Jesus.
His feet are in Genesis; His head is in Revelation; His heart is in Isaiah 53; and while it is a wounded heart, and He Himself is a stricken One, the wounds prove to be fountains from which a stream of salvation flows.So certainly is this true that Isaiah 53, one of the sad strains of Old Testament teaching, suddenly breaks into a note of victory, and the wounded, dying Lord becomes a divider of portions with the great and a sharer of spoils with the strong. That is why this 54th chapter can open with a burst of praise.Owing to the limits of time we propose to present but five of its instructive verses, under the following suggestions: The Prophetic Prospect, The Plans for Expansion, and the Plentitude of Power.THE Here is anticipated an approaching revival. The text harks back to the promise of Isa 53:11-12 :“He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.“Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death: and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”.Because foreknowledge is always voicing itself, all is well. Otherwise God Himself would lose courage and consequent joy. He who knows the end from the beginning can sit under the deepest cloud and calmly wait for the sun to shine; or dwell in night itself, patiently abiding the coming day; for to man, who knows nature’s ways, the certainty of the coming morning, is nothing like so sure as is God’s knowledge of what that morning will bring. We fret our little souls because of spiritual dearth; we debate the question, “Will the Church survive?” we even feel great anxiety lest civilization perish from the earth and a final catastrophe overtake the favored.God is not subject to any such moments of despondency; the whole of the future is an open page for Him, or, rather, it is a blank page that He is Himself to fill up according to His own pleasure by the appointment of His sovereign will; and He knows, because He will be there to bring it about, that at the end of the day“It shall come to pass, that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.“And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we mil walk in His paths: for the Law shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Micah 4:1-2).Darkness can never disconcert the Father of lights. That is why the Prophet, moved by His Spirit, sits in the midst of darkness and writes confidently of the coming day.In this approaching revival there is occasion of song.“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 54:1).It is addressed to Israel in anticipation of her final flower and fruit in the Church; or, rather, in Christianity.John, in his apocalyptic vision, seems to have beheld the day when this anticipation of faith was finally changed to fact, when he presents the Heavenly choir of twenty-four elders, as singing a new song, saying to the Lamb,“Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;“And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth”.“And then the whole Heavenly choir was seen and John heard the angels join. “The number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;“Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.“And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.“And the four beasts said, Amen” (Revelation 5:9-14).Faith is anticipation: that is why it always can sing of the day while it yet sits in the dark. It was midnight, Paul and Silas were in prison, their hands manacled, their feet in stocks, the dank smell of the infamous cell was in their nostrils, and the blood trickled from their bleeding backs; but at midnight the prison rang with their songs of praise unto God.Strange procedure! you say? Yes, exceeding strange to the ways of unregenerate men; but natural enough; something even to be expected by believers, for it is in keeping with both their faith and their knowledge. And it is also an earnest of that coming harvest of joy of which John again wrote:“I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:“And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth”.Would you know the song, then turn to Revelation 15:3 :“They sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints”.While He lives His followers will know the impulse of praise.Yes, this text suggests even a further step:It sees in the approaching revival the reason for joy. “Break forth into singing, and cry aloud”. “Cry aloud” is the language. The thought is akin to that of the modern director of choirs when he says, “Shout it out!” There are times when ordinary sounds are not adequate. You recall the time when, after defeat upon defeat, at the direction of the elders of Israel, the Ark of the covenant of the Lord was again sent for and brought from Shiloh by the hands of Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli; and the text tells us:“When the Ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.“And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?
And they understood that the Ark of the Lord was come into the camp.“And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp” (1 Samuel 4:5-7).The certainty of the Divine Presence is indeed the occasion of a shout on the part of saints; and equally the ground of fear on the part of sinners. It is my judgment that one reason why the Church is not a more happy, exultant and conquering body rests in the circumstance that it is not constantly conscious of the Divine Presence.
The one and most important proof of that consciousness is joy and rejoicing. Turn to Numbers 23:21 and read: “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them”. Isaiah, anticipating the day of manifestation on the part of the Divine One, says:“In that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His Name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His Name is exalted.“Sing unto the Lord; for He hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth.“Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee” (Isaiah 12:4-6).The Psalmist calls upon the people of God in these words:“O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.“For the Lord Most High is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth.“He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet.“He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.“God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.“Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.“For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding” (Psalms 47:1-7).It is quite often true that the choir director is compelled to coax and urge the members of his choir to sing, to plead with them to “shout it out”. What positive proof of failure to appreciate the Divine Presence! That makes singing spontaneous and the shout the natural expression of a joyful spirit.
Back in the Book of Joshua we have the great Captain’s command:“It shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him”.“But” continued the captain,“Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout. * *“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city” (Joshua 6:5; Joshua 6:10; Joshua 6:20).It is our candid conviction that more cities would capitulate, come into possession of our God, be occupied by His people, were the church adequately conscious of His presence and happily responsive to His appeal.It may seem a superficial observation, but we are fully convinced that it is a sound one, namely, that singing is in a large measure the expression of spiritual life. When one goes into a church and hears them sing he has an instant measure of their spiritual estate.
If it is draggy and dead there is no sense of the Divine Presence; if it is brilliant and living, one feels almost immediately, God is in this midst! That is doubtless the reason why singing and shouting are such recurrent sentiments of Old and New Testament teaching; they voice vision; they reach from prophecy to certain history; they enjoy victory by anticipation.Such a people are sympathetic with and ready forPLANS FOR Hence the Prophet’s words:“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen the cords, and strengthen thy stakes;“For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left hand; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited”.Isaiah should have been a pastor. In the best sense he was, only his parish was the entire land; and his people all Israel. In fact, that is necessarily so of every true pastor. In proportion as he partakes of his own Master’s spirit, he cannot be limited in sympathy or localized in endeavor. The whole cause is upon his heart; and the whole people are the subjects of his interest, the objects of his endeavor.It is interesting to mark the lines along which Isaiah’s thought here runs:He advises immediate enlargement.“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes”.That is the mark of the true minister; that voices the spirit of a genuine ministry.
That also is in line with both the plan and custom of God Himself. He begins things but makes them to grow.
From the acorn He develops an oak; from the tiny mustard seed He brings a tree large enough to lodge birds in its branches. He never makes one thing develop into another thing; but into everything He puts the spirit of self-development, potentialities of expansion. This also is His program for the Church. When salvation is presented as feast the invitation is to be carried to all classes; when it is presented as a building, men are to construct on until they have gone from foundation to finial. When it is presented as an army they are to march until conquest comes.The best way to grow the Church of God is to give it ever-increasing tasks and bring it to every enlarging undertakings. Only the growing thing is the truly living one.
That church that has less members today than it had ten years ago is in dying condition. As with the tree, so with a church when growth stops, decadence sets in.
The annual report, therefore, made to Associations and Conventions by bodies of baptized believers “We cannot report progress; but we trust we are holding our own,” is the presence of the coffin, the exhibition of a corpse. In a world like this where the overwhelming majority are still in sin and under Divine judgment, the commission of the Church is “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes”. To fail of that, to fall short of growth, is to fail Him; is to fail God. Aside from those accidents and incidents which merely affect temporarily the life and progress of the Church of God, its increase or decrease tells the story of its existence and announces to the world whether it is dead or alive.Isaiah inspires by the Divine promise.“Thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited” (Isaiah 54:3).The Old Testament then always knew the Divine intent. Isaiah was told from the first that God was no respecter of persons; a thousand times over he reminded her of His gracious intent toward the Gentiles and His expectation of expansion thereby. Critics of the Maker sometimes condemn Him for having elected the Jew, and the Jew only to grace, and declare that course of teaching to be a positive proof that God Himself is only a mental concept, created by the Jew for his personal and special use, and hence limited as the God of the Jews.But, unfortunately, for such criticisms, they are wide of the mark.
It was the Jewish Prophet who, under the leadership of the Spirit, declared the day of the Gentiles. It was the inspired prophecy, dripping from the Jewish pen, but indicted by the Holy Ghost, that anticipated the day when the Gentile also should be of the Divine heritage.
Peter, then, who was himself a Jew, was introducing no new thought when he said:“Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe.“And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us;“And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:7-9).On another occasion the same Apostle declared,“Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?“When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:17-18).While Jesus Himself declared, quoting the same from Esaias, “In His Name shall the Gentiles trust”.The Church, therefore, has from the day of its birth, held as its objective, born of the Christ’s commission, “the uttermost part of the earth”—“all nations”; for it, like its Lord, is “no respecter of persons”. To the indifferent it may be a discouraging challenge but to the living Church it is an inspiring one.But there is more here than an inspiring challenge, The Prophet further inspires by the Divine promise. “Thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited”. There are those who might charge God with failure to keep His Word; but history is His sufficient defense. At the time this promise was made, few Gentiles had even become proselytes of the gate. So far has He fulfilled His Word that Israel herself constitutes but an insignificant modicum of the household of faith. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light”. In the Jews’ Messiah do the Gentiles trust.
The promise of three thousand years ago is the perfected history of the present time. What an inspiration to observing students among true believers!
He, who gave the Christ “the heathen for (His) inheritance” has also promised “the uttermost parts of the earth for (His) possession”. The inspiration of Christian labors is in the Divine assurance that the day will break when “every knee should bow” to Christ. “Every tongue should confess” to His glory, and “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”.Charles Spurgeon, talking upon the Divine faithfulness, had occasion to say: “The promises of God are to the believer an inexhaustible mine of wealth. Happy is it for him if he knows how to search out their secret veins, and enrich himself with their hid treasures! They are an armory, containing all manner of offensive and defensive weapons. Blessed is he who has learned to enter into the sacred arsenal, to put on the breastplate and the helmet, and to lay his hand to the spear and to the sword! They are a surgery in which the believer will find all manner of restoratives and blessed elixirs; nor lacks there an ointment for every wound, a cordial for every faintness, a remedy for every disease.
Blessed is he who is well skilled in Heavenly pharmacy, and knoweth how to lay hold on the healing virtues of the promises of God! The promises are to the Christian a storehouse of food.
They are as the granaries which Joseph built in Egypt, or as the golden pot wherein the manna was preserved. Blessed is he who can take the five barley loaves and fishes of promise, and break them till his five thousand necessities shall all be supplied, and he is able to gather up basketsful of fragments!”He encouraged them by a glorious prospect.“Thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited”.No man can do his best work without the expectation of progress; and no institution can live a jubilant life without the assurance that it is marking the same. As in the affairs of the individual so in the experiences of the church, the moment one can view endeavors and see that beyond all dispute constant progress characterizing the same, inspirational further endeavor is the instant result. Once in a while I meet some member of this church who is either suffering from indigestion, or has given open ear to a chronic complainer, and he tells me that things are at a standstill, or that we are slipping backward. Well, let’s take an honest factual view and find out whether we are gaining progress or not. In the instance of the church, figures and facts are harmonious unless they be juggled with.When, nearly thirty-three years ago, we began this pastorate, we had a membership of 662, reduced to 595 by revision of the rolls one month later, and a budget of $14,762.19.
Five years later our membership had increased to 999 with an expenditure of $85,079.59. At the end of the second five-year period we had reached 1119 in membership notwithstanding the dismissal of 146 to form another church.
And the amount of money given in that period was $99,601.61. The end of the third five-year period saw a membership of 1435 and an increase of receipts to $157,484.28. At the end of the fourth five-year period the membership had increased to 2392, and the amount contributed in that time was $220,172.98. At the end of the fifth five-year period, approaching now the crest of endeavors in the church building program, our membership had increased to 2489, and the amount contributed to $441,086.70. The year 1926, the 6th period, the membership had increased to 2990 and the amount contributed in that period to $955,534.89.We have back of us three years of the seventh five-year period, in which time we have contributed to all causes $646,589.14. If we estimate on the basis of this past three years our membership at the end of two years more (or the seventh five-year period) should be above 3500, it now being 3304, and our contributions would equal $1,072,646.90.I give you this report that you may receive the enheartenment of the same.We are not familiar with any church that can make such a report; and yet, God forbid that we should be content with past accomplishments, or even with present standing, but grant us, rather, the expectation of this promise, to “break forth on the right hand and on the left”.
To “make the desolate cities to be inhabited”. In other words, to put living men where only dead ones are found.The longer one lives the less he is impressed by spiritual spurts.
It is not at all unusual to have some particular church, under some sensational preacher, blaze with a temporary glory. A picture show in place of a sermon, a dramatic scene instead of the deliverance of the Divine Word, a sensational subject, presented in a slightly salacious speech, the conversion of the sanctuary into a physical gymnasium; these things quite often bring popular patronage and excite a popular appeal; but they are not in line with the suggestion of this Scripture. Those who “break forth on the right hand and on the left; their seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited”.Such sentences look altogether in other directions; they look to the enlargement of the borders of Israel; they look to the making of new life to appear in desolate places. A church is not measured, in the judgment of God, by the clothes its members wear; nor yet, by the introduction of sufficient world-attractions to secure the crowd.To the Angel of the Church in Laodicea the Spirit said:“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth.“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:“I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Revelation 3:15-18).The conquering church is not the world-entangled one; but it is the soul-winning one. The church that brings the Gentiles to become believers, that breaks forth on the right hand and on the left; and in Spirit-guided endeavors, makes the spiritually desolate districts to be animated by living believers is God’s Church.But such expansion demands more than one’s own might and the text hints at the possible source of such strength. It points outTHE OF POWER“Thy Maker is thine Husband: the Lord of Hosts is His Name”.
In the Orient an unmarried estate was a shame and widowhood a reproach. Employing that fact as the figure, the Prophet says: “Thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
For thy Maker is thine Husband”.Marriage then, is an ever-present illustration of the relationship that the true Church sustains to her Lord; their life is as one; and His power is at her command. The joy of the Church then is in God’s strength; and the glory of her estate is in the circumstance that He calls her His own. As the greatest anxiety of a young woman is to become the wife of the noblest of men, so the Church should forever be sensible of the favor that has made her to be the bride of the Lord.His Name suggests His sufficiency “The Lord of Hosts is His Name”. Who shall stand against Him? What enemies need be feared if only we know that He is with us. Even the unbelieving Philistines held a higher conception of our infinite God than His followers sometimes voice, for when the Ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp —symbol of His presence—“all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.
And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, * * and * * were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. * * Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods? that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness”.When did any company of people ever go forth, God with them, to fail? It makes no difference how great a majority is against you if God be with you.
Jonathan and his armour-bearer were only two against a thousand, and yet their victory was sudden and complete. Christ in the Garden was One against the mob, but God in Him made His very presence to send them back to the ground.The Old Testament is replete with illustrations of this faith-increasing fact. Among the followers of David was Eleazar, the son of Dodo, a mighty man, who when the Philistines gathered together to battle, the men of Israel having gone away, arose and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword; and Jehovah wrought a great victory that day (2 Samuel 23:9-10).Certainly! It was not Eleazar by the strength that was in his own arm, but because God was back of him. The Psalmist cries unto Israel to sing unto the Lord a new song, and assigns the reason “For He hath done marvellous things! His right hand, and His holy arm, hath gotten Him the victory”.Few such captains and leaders, as David, ever lived; and yet, when under his hand the treasury of the Lord was bursting with gold with which to build the House of God, David did not presume that the honors belonged to him but praised the Lord before all the congregation and said, “Thine O Lord, is * * the power, and the glory, and the victory”.Paul, describing the last enemy that man shall ever have to face, inspires us with this sentence: “O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”.John, in his first Epistle (John 5:4) states the whole plan: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”.Our strength is in His infinite resources. To that the text clearly refers in the sentence: “The God of the whole earth shall He be called”. Such indeed He is. All the earth is His, the cattle upon a thousand hills, all the silver, all the gold, all beasts, all men. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof”.One could almost imagine the George Keith was contemplating this text when he wrote: “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!What more can He say than to you He hath said,To you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled?“Fear not; I am with thee; O be not dismayed!For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;For I will be with thee, thy trials to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”