Isaiah 61

Isaiah 61:1

THREE SIDES OF THE SAVIOUR’S WORKIsa_61:1IT is a difficult thing for the young man to preach at home. There is no other audience before which it is so profitless to stand as that brought from the neighborhood of one’s birth and breeding. Friends and relatives listen with such a personal interest that the point of speech is lost, in their deeper concern for your appearance and popular effect; while your enemies, if ye have any, and certainly your auditors of envy, are sealed against every shaft of truth your quiver may contain. Jesus taught in all the synagogues of Galilee before He ventured to Nazareth, and although His fame was far-reaching, and the people who had heard Him were at His feet in adoration, yet the small-souled neighbors who knew Him well imagined themselves too smart to be gulled by Joseph’s Son.Every speaker of power must be exceedingly sensitive to two things which control, in a measure, the results of his every address. In the first place he must know that he speaks the truth, and in the second, that his auditors are in some measure of sympathy with his words. The only man of whom I have ever read that continued an address after the audience had plugged up its ears and opened its mouth with hissing, was Henry Ward Beecher, when in London in 1863, he attempted to defend abolition.

From the howling mob, he turned and talked to the newspaper reporters, with not a whit less enthusiasm than he had discovered in his public address. But Beecher was helped to that triumph over prejudice by the consciousness that though London would not hear, the world would read, and his audience would be as sympathetic at last as it would be great.

Jesus had no press through which to speak and when those who needed most to hear Him met his words with spite, the great preacher sought new fields and a more congenial synagogue for sermonizing. But a man does not fail when he preaches God’s truth, even though some or all of his auditors are dead to the words. The text of this evening was Jesus’ text at Nazareth. The sermon that follows has lived and blessed millions who were wiser than the ignorant and vicious of Nazareth; and because He took it to His people as a passage worthy their understanding, I make bold to bring it to you tonight. It has at least three phases of the Christ-character and work in its words. In the first place it presents Him asThe Matchless Preacher.The question of how to be a great preacher is one of the most important, not merely of interest to him who must seek to solve it with his life, but of little less importance to them before whom he shall stand and talk of eternal things.

There is one answer about which all the truly converted would agree.The way to be a great preacher is to imitate Christ. In our Theological Seminary we had some men who were ardent admirers of Dr.

John A. Broadus, and their answer to this question, judging from their tones and affected style, was, “Be like Dr. Broadus”. But I have noticed that none of those ever amounted to much. Their model was greater than their attainments ever became, but yet too small to inspire every sermon preached. I want you to think, then, about Christ as a model for all preachers.The text tells us that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him. Every man who stands in the sacred desk without that qualification is not only a failure, but a veritable fraud. A plain man in speaking of the immoralities of the members of certain sects, who have churches in this city, said to me one day, “Dr.

Riley, it appears strange that men who call themselves Christians should be guilty of drunkenness, profanity and what not, and their churches seem undisturbed about it. But then I know their Pastors well and few of them give any evidence of conversion, and how can the blind lead the blind?” Even so!“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6); and if the preacher hasn’t that, he is none of Christ’s, and his work is the most fatal deception ever practiced upon men. The Preacher who came from God and brought God with Him said, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me” (Isaiah 61:1).He had a Divine appointment to preach. “The Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings” (Isaiah 61:1). I sometimes think that men are not insisting upon a call of God as a condition of successful ministry as they used to. For my part, I pity him who enters the profession without such an appointment from Highest Power. A certainty touching that subject is needed often to save the sinking heart from utter discouragement and cause it to hold steadily to its work whatever befall.

That was the Saviour’s support when men hated Him and hissed His truth. A preacher cannot succeed without the same.Christ had a definite object in preaching!

The Gospel to the poor, deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind. How infinitely above the object that controls some! Not a word in it about flattering some man who can pay considerable pew rent; not a hint about pleasing some irreligious man for the sake of his social influence; not a syllable about proving himself popular! But glad tidings, freedom, vision! Those were objects for which He came. When a minister’s motives are less lofty, his most ardent admirers are often busy with apologies for something he has said.

There is greater profit any day to stay at home and read the Word of the Lord than to go up to hear him who does not believe in that Word sufficiently to give it prominence in pulpit ministration. He cannot serve His Lord who does not preach this Word for the sake of heart-healing, soul-freedom and sight-giving.

Stalker has said, “Whenever a preacher strikes correctly a note of eternal truth, it is Christ that does it”. Whenever a preacher makes you feel that there is a world of realities above and behind the one you see and touch; whenever he lays hold of your mind, touches your heart, awakens your aspirations, rouses your conscience—that is Christ trying to grasp you, to reach you with His love, to save you. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).But our text makes evident the fact that Christ wasThe Miraculous Healer.“He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1).Christ was the Greatest of Physicians for the body. After reading the record of His cures, we affirm that the Medical fraternity can’t gainsay His work, even if He was an irregular. The withered hand, budding at His Word to perfect proportions and to long-lost strength; the sick mother of Peter’s wife escaping the clutch of fever by His help; the paralytic of thirty-eight years standing to his feet and bearing away his bed at His command; the insane Gadarene finding his better mind when He rebuked the demons that possessed him; the blind at Jericho getting sight at His touch; and the foul grave of four days’ occupancy by a corpse, casting forth live Lazarus at His call; all prove what was His power to heal. The civilized world was excited forty-five years ago over the claim of a cure of intemperance, and Keeley’s name became a household word. But the permanent cure of him whose character has felt the touch of God’s Son exceeded a thousand fold Keeley’s claim.

Multitudes have I met already who testified to the truth of my text in the language I heard from the lips of one. In speaking of the institution at Dwight, he said, “I hope it is true.

I know what it is to be afflicted by intemperance. I know also how powerless many a man is to rid himself of the overmastering passion. I was once a victim, but Jesus Christ healed me ten years ago, and from that hour I have been whole indeed.” Truly He was the matchless physician, and is today.But after all, His healing art never found its best expression until it bound up the broken heart. One is much impressed, in reading Victor Hugo’s great work, with the calmness and accuracy with which the Old Conventionist-Hermit described his conscious approach of death. You remember he said, “I am something of a physician; I know the steps by which death approaches; yesterday my feet were cold; today the cold has crept to my knees; now it has reached the waist; when it touches the heart, all will be over.” As I read those words, I thought, “Yes, life may be diseased at almost every part and yet survive, but the danger is full at hand when the heart is involved.” Equally so in things religious—that is where the death stroke comes. Break the heart by sin and none can save except the Physician of Souls.

But thanks be to Heaven, He can heal even so deep a hurt. In Tremont Temple, Boston, years ago I heard an eloquent appeal in behalf of Spanish Missions.

When the speaker had finished his address and was ready to conclude, he said, “When I am dead, open my breast, if you will, and in my heart you will discover Spain”. Recalling the incident on yesterday, I thought, “If after death or before it, my heart could be seen, I wish rather that on its exterior might be traced the healing touches of God’s Son who hath bound it up, and within might be found “holiness unto the Lord”. Oh, men if any of you have a wretched heart, call Him who can bind it up with the fullness of His own ineffable glory.But yet another side of His character is touched by our text.He is the Strong Deliverer.“He hath sent Me * * to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). It was supposed that this promise came to full fruition in the person and work of Cyrus. In Josephus, Cyrus is reported as claiming that this prophecy pointed to him and so he restored the Children of Israel from their bondage, encouraged them to build Jerusalem and resurrect the holy Temple. But, behold! a greater than Cyrus is come.

Cyrus could release from Babylon’s bondage. He could loose feet and hands; he could unbolt the doors of material prisons; and at his word freedom of life and limb came.

But what men needed was one who could break the bondage of iniquity, loose the powers of the soul, set ajar the gates of the penitentiaries of sin, and give everlasting liberty to the spirits of men. To that end Christ came. My friend, will you believe that He wants to set you free? When Libby Prison was an awful reality instead of a twenty-five cent museum, and men were wasting with disease and dying of hunger, a boat was reported approaching from City Point. In a little while it was noised abroad that a pardon had been brought for one and he was to be set at liberty. Nine hundred hearts started up in faint hope, for no one knew whom it might be.

At last an officer went in and shouted, “Capt. Henry Clay Trumbull is at liberty.” The Chaplain said his name never had sounded so sweet as it did that day.

But glory be to God, Jesus is not confining His proffers of release to one man.He came to set the captives at liberty, not one, but many. The only reason why any need stay in bondage is because he prefers that to the liberty wherewith Christ would make him free.But somebody says, “I don’t prefer it. I am longing for just such liberty, but here are my chains: chains of intemperance, chains of evil companionship, chains of sinful speech, chains everywhere. How can I get free?” You are not chained as poor John Newton was by sin, as John Bunyan was by profanity, as Jerry McAuley was by awful habits and vile companions, as Sam Small was by intemperance. They came to Jesus, chains and all, and He broke their bands, snapped the last fetter and set them free. He will give you the liberty of eternal life if you will let Him. Will you? or do you prefer still to limp about your cell of sin and rattle your chains of death?