Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verses 1, 2. Listen, O isles, unto Me; and hearken, you people from far; the Lord has called Me from the womb; from the bowels of My mother has He made mention of My name. And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow ofHis hand has He hid Me, and made Me a polished shaft; in His quiver has He hid Me. Our Lord Jesus, that great Prophet of the Church, was in a special manner the Lord's in the matter of His birth. A wondrous holy mystery hangs about His birth at Bethlehem—He was, in that respect, the Lord's in a very remarkable sense. "He has made My mouth like a sharp sword." You know how our Lord's mouth, or the Word of His Gospel that issues from His mouth, is like a sharp sword—how it conquers—how it cuts its way—how, wherever it goes, it pierces "even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." "In the shadow of His hand has He hid Me." You know how the protecting hand of God always covered Christ and how His Gospel is always sheltered by the Providence of God.

3. And said unto Me, You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. I t is wonderful condescension on Christ's part to take the name of His Church so that He, Himself, is called, "Israel," in this passage. And there is another passage, equally remarkable, where the Church is allowed to take one of the names of Christ—"This is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness." Such an intermingling of interests, such a wonderful union is there between Christ and His Church, that these two are truly one!

4. Then I said, Ihave labored in vain, Ihave spent My strength for nothing, and in vain: yet surely My judgment is with the LORD, and My work with My God. Our Savior did, in His earthly ministry, to a large extent labor in vain. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet how few of them recognized Him as the good Shepherd. He told His disciples that after He returned to His Father, those who believed in Him should do even greater things than He had done. That promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost and since then it has been fulfilled over and over again in the history of the Christian Church.

5. And now, says the LORD that formed Me from the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, Though Israel is not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and My God shall be My strength. What though the Jews still reject the Messiah, their sin does not affect His honor. His Glory is still as great as ever it was in the esteem of the Most High!

6. And He said, It is a light thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give You for a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation unto the end of the earth. What a blessed passage this is for you and for me, Beloved! Strangers to the commonwealth of Israel were we, but, now, we who were afar off are made near by the blood of Jesus and so are made fellow-heirs with the seed of Abraham, partakers of the same Covenant blessing as the father of the faithful enjoys. In this let us exceedingly rejoice! And for this let us praise and magnify the name of the Lord.

7. Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors. What a true picture this is of the way in which the Jews still treat the promised Messiah! To this day they gnash their teeth at the very mention of the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And the bitterest words of blasphemy that are ever uttered by human lips come from the mouth of Israel against the Lord Jesus—"Him whom the nation abhors."

7. To a Servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose You. The Father has chosen Christ to be the precious cornerstone of the eternal Temple and He has also chosen all the living stones that are to be joined to Him forever.

8, 9. Thus says the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard You, and in a day of salvation have I helped You: and I will preserve You, and give You for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that You may say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. Dear Brothers and Sisters, what honor the Lord has put upon Christ! In proportion as He has been the despised of men and the abhorred of the Jewish nation, God has made Him to be His own delight, His Well-Beloved. He displays through Him the marvels of His saving power for His own Glory. I pray that it may be displayed in our midst just now, and in the way mentioned here—"I will preserve You, and give You for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that You may say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness. Show yourselves." Come, Beloved, after you receive such a message as this from God's mouth, what prison can hold you? What darkness can conceal you? The Word of Christ shall break your bonds asunder and change your darkness into the glory of noonday! May this gracious work be done for any of you who are prisoners!

10. They shall not hunger nor thirst. To the woman at the well, Christ said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." That is a parallel to this passage—"They shall not hunger nor thirst."

10. Neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for He that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them. Oh, the wondrous sweetness of these exceedingly great and precious promises! They are all concerning Christ, you see. Undoubtedly they are given with an eye to us, but yet much more with an eye to Him, that He may be glorified in the deliverance and guidance of His people, in the protection of them from danger, and in the abundant provision for the supply of all their needs. It would not be for Christ's honor to let you die of thirst, poor thirsty one! It would not glorify Him to lead you where there were no springs of water. Be sure, then, that God will always do that which will glorify His Son—and He will therefore deal well with you for His sake.

11, 12. AndI will make allMy mountains a way, andMy highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. From far-away China they must come to Christ! The result of His death is not left to chance. Some say that His death did something or other, which, somehow or other, will benefit somebody or other. But we never speak in that indefinite way. We know that Christ, by His death, did eternally redeem His people, and we are quite sure that He will have all those for whom He laid down the ransom price. He died with a clear intent, a definite purpose, and for the joy that was set before Him, He "endured the Cross, despising the shame." "He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." The Divine intent and purpose of the death of Christ cannot possibly be frustrated. He reigns from the Cross and He shall win and conquer world without end!

13. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted. How? Why, by the very coming of Christ, by His birth at Bethlehem, and all the blessings which come with the Incarnate God, His afflicted ones are consoled and all His people are Divinely comforted. Shall we not, then, rejoice in Christ, who is Himself so full ofjoy that He teaches the very heavens to sing and the mountains to break forth in praise?

14. But Zion said. Hear the lament of the poor Jewish Church, like a castaway left all alone—

14. The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. When we are glad In the Lord and are singing out our heart's joy, there is pretty sure to be someone or other who sorrowfully sighs, "The Lord has forsaken me." People say that there never was a feast so well furnished but that somebody went away unsatisfied—but God will not have it so at His festivals and, therefore, the rest of the chapter shows how the Lord comforted this poor Zion, whose lamentation and mourning He had heard. Notice how He begins.

15. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? "Can a woman"—the most tender parent of the two—"forget her child"—her own child, her feeble little child that still depends upon her for its nutriment and life—"her sucking child"?

15. Yes, they may forget. I t is just possible. There have been such monstrosities—"they may forget."

15. Yet will I not forget you—

"Yet, says the Lord, should Nature change, And mothers, monsters prove, Zion still dwells upon the heart Of everlasting love."

How that gracious assurance should comfort the little handful, the "remnant, weak and small," of God's people among the Jews! How it should also comfort any of God's servants who are under a cloud and who have lost, for a while, the enjoyment of His Presence!

16. Behold, Ihave engraved you upon the palms of My hands. Where they must be seen and where He can do nothing without touching His people while doing it. When a name is engraved on the hand with which a man works, that name goes into his work and leaves its impress on the work.

16, 17. Your walls are continually before Me. Your children shall make haste; your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of you. Jerusalem, the very Jerusalem that is in Palestine, shall be rebuilt! God will remember her walls and the Church of God in Israel shall yet rise from that sad low estate in which it has been these many centuries. And all God's cast-down ones shall be comforted and His churches that seem to be left to die, shall be raised up again, for our God is no changeling. His heart does not come and go towards the sons of men—

"Whom once He loves, He never leaves, But loves them to the end."

18. Lift up your eyes round about and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. What are all converted Gentiles doing, after all, but coming to the one Church? It is no longer a matter of Jew or Gentile, but all who believe are one in Christ Jesus. Let poor Zion rejoice that she herself is enriched by the conversion of these far-off sinners of the Gentiles!

18. As I live, says the LORD, you shall surely clothe yourself with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on you, as a bride does. Converts are the garments of the Church, her bridal array, her ornaments and her jewels. I wish that all churches thought so, but many of them think that gorgeous architecture, the garnishing of the material building in which they meet, the sound of sweet music and the smell of fragrant incense and choice flowers make up the dignity and glory of a church—but they do no such thing! Converts are the true glory of a church—"You shall surely clothe yourself with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on you, as a bride does."

19, 20. For your waste and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed you up shall be far away. The children which you shall have, after you have lost the others. The children of your childlessness—so it runs—the children of your widowhood. It was strange that she should have children then. It is not so among men, but it is so with the Church of God—"The children which you shall have, after you have lost the others."

20-23. Shall say again in your ears, The place is too small for me: give me a place that I may dwell. Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing Ihave lost my children, andam desolate, a captive, andremoving to and fro? And who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up My hand to the Gentiles, and set up My standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers: they shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet I have heard this passage quoted as a reason why there should be a State Church—that kings should nourish the Church—Henry VIII, for instance, and George IV. It was poor milk, I am sure, that they ever gave the Church of God. Yet I have no objection whatever to this text being carried out to the fullest—yes, to the very letter—only mind where the kings are to be put! What place does the verse say that they are to occupy? "They shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet." There is no headship of the Church, here—nothing of that sort! The kings are to be at the feet of the Church, and that is what the State ought to do—submit itself to God and obey His commands, and give full liberty to the preaching of the Gospel! This is all that the true Church of Christ asks, and all she can ever fairly take if she is loyal to her Lord.

23. And you shall know that I am the LORD. "Jehovah." "You shall understand the greatness of your God, His in-finiteness, His majesty, His all-sufficiency. 'You shall know that I am the I AM.'"

23. For they shall not be ashamed that wait for Me. Glory be to His holy name, none that wait for Him shall ever have cause to be ashamed! May we all be of that blessed number, for Christ's sake! Amen.