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Isaiah Chapter
Twelve
Isaiah 12
Chapter Contents
This is a hymn of praise suited to the times of the
Messiah.
The song of praise in this chapter is suitable for the
return of the outcasts of Israel from their long captivity, but it is
especially suitable to the case of a sinner, when he first finds peace and joy
in believing; to that of a believer, when his peace is renewed after
corrections for backslidings; and to that of the whole company of the redeemed,
when they meet before the throne of God in heaven. The promise is sure, and the
blessings contained in it are very rich; and the benefits enjoyed through Jesus
Christ, call for the most enlarged thanksgivings. By Jesus Christ, the Root of
Jesse, the Divine anger against mankind was turned away, for he is our Peace.
Those to whom God is reconciled, he comforts. They are taught to triumph in God
and their interest in him. I will trust him to prepare me for his salvation,
and preserve me to it. I will trust him with all my concerns, not doubting but
he will make all to work for good. Faith in God is a sovereign remedy against
tormenting fears. Many Christians have God for their strength, who have him not
for their song; they walk in darkness: but those who have God for their
strength ought to make him their song; that is, give him the glory of it, and
take to themselves the comfort of it. This salvation is from the love of God
the Father, it comes to us through God the Son, it is applied by the
new-creating power of God the Spirit. When this is seen by faith, the trembling
sinner learns to hope in God, and is delivered from fear. The purifying and
sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost often are denoted under the emblem of
springing water. This work flows through the mediation of Christ, and is
conveyed to our souls by means of God's ordinances. Blessed be God, we have
wells of salvation opened on every side, and may draw from them the waters of
life and consolation. In the second part of this gospel song, verses 4-6, believers encourage one another to
praise God, and seek to draw others to join them in it. No difference of
opinions about the times and seasons, and other such matters, ought to divide
the hearts of Christians. Let it be our care that we may be placed amongst
those to whom he will say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom
prepared for you from the beginning of the world.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 12
Verse 1
[1] And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise
thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou
comfortedst me.
In that day — When this great work of the
reduction of Israel, and conversion of the Gentiles is fulfilled.
Verse 2
[2] Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be
afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my
salvation.
God — My salvation hath not been brought to pass by man, but
by the almighty power of God.
Verse 3
[3] Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells
of salvation.
With joy — Your thirsty souls shall be filled with Divine graces
and comforts, which you may draw from God, in the use of gospel-ordinances.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
12 Chapter 12
Verses 1-6
Verses 1-3
And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise Thee.
Praise for redemption
As the Israel that was redeemed from Egypt raised songs of praise
on the other side of the Red Sea, so likewise does the Israel of the second
redemption when brought not less miraculously over the Red Sea and Euphrates. (F.
Delitzsch.)
A song in the night
It is time we had a hymn in this prophecy of Isaiah, for the
reading has been like a succession of thunderstorms and earthquakes. (J.
Parker, D. D.)
Did Isaiah write this song?
Some say Isaiah did not write this song. It is of no consequence
to us who wrote it: here it is, and it is in the right place, and it expresses
the right thought, and there is probably more evidence for the authorship of
Isaiah than for the authorship of any other man. Some have said it is not like
his style: but what is his style? What is the style of the sky? Is it for two
days alike? Who could write the history of the sky simply as it appears to the
vision of man? The accounts would seem to contradict one another, for the sky
passes through panoramic changes innumerable, infinite, and all beautiful where
they are not grand. So with the style of this great statesman Isaiah. He
handles things with the infinite ease of conscious power; he is as strong in
his music as he is in his prophecy. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Praise for redemption by the individual and by the Church
In that day--
I. EVERY
PARTICULAR BELIEVER shall sing a song of praise for his own interest in that
salvation (Isaiah 12:1-3). “Thou shalt say, O Lord,
I will praise Thee.” Thanksgiving work shall be closet work.
II. MANY IN
CONCERT. shall join in praising God for the common benefit arising from this
salvation (Isaiah 12:4-6). “Ye shall say, Praise the
Lord.” Thanksgiving work shall be congregation work. (M. Henry.)
A new song for new hearts
The text is many sided. We shall find out the very soul of the
passage if we consider it as an illustration of what occurs to every one of
God’s people when he is brought out of darkness into God’s marvellous light.
I. THE PRELUDE of
this song. Here are certain preliminaries to the music. “In that day thou shalt
say.” Here we have the tuning of the harps, the notes of the music follow after
in the succeeding sentences.
1. There is a time for that joyous song which is here recorded. The
term, “that day,” is sometimes used for a day of terror, and often for a period
of blessing. The common term to both is this, they were days of the
manifestation of Divine power. “That day,” a day of terrible confusion to God’s
enemies; “that day,” a day of great comfort to God’s friends. Now, the day in
which a man rejoices in Christ, is the day in which God’s power is revealed on
his behalf in his heart and conscience.
2. A word indicates the singer. “Thou.” It is a singular pronoun, and
points out one individual. One by one we receive eternal life and peace. You
fancy that it is all right with you because you live in a Christian nation; it
is woe unto you, if having outward privileges, they involve you in
responsibilities, but bring you no saving grace. Perhaps you fancy that your
family religion may somewhat help you, but it is not so; there is no birthright
godliness: “Ye must be born again.” Still, I know ye fancy that if ye mingle in
godly congregations, and sing as they sing, and pray as they pray, it shall go
well with you, but it is not so; the wicket gate of eternal life admits but one
at a time. This word, “thou,” is spoken to those who have been by sorrow
brought into the last degree of despair.
3. The next thing to be noted in the preliminaries is the Teacher. It
is God alone who can so positively declare, “thou Shalt say.” If any man
presumes to say, “God has turned His anger away from me,” without a warrant
from the Most High, that man lies to his own confusion; but when it is written.
“Thou shalt say,” it is as though God had said, “I will matte it true, so that
you shall be fully justified in the declaration.”
4. Here is another preliminary of the song, namely, the tone of it.
“Thou shalt say.” The song is to be an open one, avowed, vocally uttered, heard
of men, and published abroad. It is not to be a silent feeling, a kind of soft
music whose sweetness is spent within the spirit.
II. IN THE SONG
ITSELF, I would call to your notice--
1. The fact that all of it is concerning the Lord. It is all
addressed to Him. “O Lord, I will praise Thee: though Thou wast angry, Thine
anger is turned away.” When a soul escapes from the bondage of sin, and becomes
consciously pardoned, it resembles the apostles on the Mount Tabor--it sees no
man, save Jesus only. God will be all in all when iniquity is pardoned.
2. The next thing in this song is, that it includes repentant
memories. “Though Thou wast angry with me.” There was a time when God was to
our consciousness angry with us. In the Hebrew the wording of our text is
slightly different from what we get in the English. Our English translators
have very wisely put in the word “though,” a little earlier than it occurs in
the Hebrew. The Hebrew would run something like this, “O Lord, I will praise
Thee; Thou wast angry with me.” Now we do this day praise God that He made us
feel His anger.
3. The song of our text contains in itself blessed certainties.
“Thine anger is turned away.” Can a man know that? can a man be quite sure that
he is forgiven? Ay, that he can; he can be as sure of pardon as he is of his
existence.
4. Our song includes holy resolutions. “I will praise Thee.” I will
do it with my heart in secret. I will praise Thee in the Church of God, for I
will search out other beliers, and I will tell them what God has done for me. I
will cast in my lot with Thy people. I will praise Thee in my life. I will make
my business praise Thee; I will make my parlour and my drawing room, I will
make my kitchen and my field praise Thee. I will not be content unless all I am
and all I have shall praise Thee. I will make a harp of the whole universe; I
will make earth and heaven, space and time, to be but strings upon which my
joyful fingers shall play lofty tunes of thankfulness.
5. This is a song which is peculiar in its character, and appropriate
only to the people of God. I may say of it, “no man could learn this song but
the redeemed.” It is not a Pharisee’s song--it has no likeness to “God, I thank
Thee that I am not as other men”; it confesses, “Thou wast angry with me,” and
therein owns that the singer was even as others; but it glories that through
infinite mercy, the Divine anger is turned away, and herein it leans on the
appointed Saviour. It is not a Sadducean song; no doubt mingles with the
strain. It is not the philosopher’s query, “There may be a God, or there may
not be”; it is the voice of a believing worshipper. It is not, “I may be
guilty, or I may not be.” It is all positive, every note of it. (C.
H.Spurgeon.)
The heart’s diapason
It is a full song--the swell of the diapason of the heart. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Grace upon grace
“Thou comfortedst me.” Persons may be liberated from slavery by
the arm of power; they may be rescued from oppression by the exercise of
justice; they may be relieved from want by the hand of bounty; but to pour
reviving consolation into the dejected mind is the kind office of pure
affection and pity (Isaiah 66:13). (R. Macculloch.)
The song of the ransomed
Such will one day be the song of a ransomed nation, and such is
even now the song of the ransomed soul. Until we can sing this song we do not
know what praise really means. It is a striking contrast indeed.
God, gazing down upon you, sees in your nature that which He
beheld of old in the sacred land, and which He will behold again one day on a
consecrated earth, the Plant of renown--Christ received into your nature,
Christ growing in the thirsty, barren soil of your fallen humanity, like a root
in a dry ground, and making all things fertile and fruitful by His
presence--when God, gazing down, sees within you a received Christ, He has
noanger, no judgment for that. You will be able to say, “Thou wast angry; Thine
anger is turned away: Thou comfortedst me.”
I. In reaching
this point the soul proceeds to make the most astonishing and glorious discovery
it is possible for us to make. “Behold, God is my SALVATION.” I suddenly
discover that I have no longer anything to fear in God. He bridges over in His
own blessed Person the vast chasm between my sin and His purity, and as I step
upon this wondrous bridge I find that it will bear my weight. God Himself
brings me to God. This salvation is offered to us for nothing. But it cost the
Son of God something. This salvation is to be appropriated by simple trust. “I
will trust, and not be afraid.”
II. But not only
does the happy soul find out that God is his salvation; he goes on to find out
that the Lord Jehovah is his STRENGTH. The very title which the prophet gives
to God suggests the eternal immutability of the great “I Am.” As we obtain
salvation by taking God for our salvation, so we obtain strength by taking God
for our strength with equally simple, childlike faith.
III. When you have
made the discovery that the Lord Jehovah is your strength, no wonder if you go
on to make yet a third. He is our SONG. God designs that from this time forth
you shall be perfectly happy; but, if you want to be really happy, God must be
your song. When we think upon God there is always something to sing about. His
faithfulness and truth; His unchanging love; His readiness to be to us all that
we want; the hope that He holds out to us, blooming with immortality.
IV. And, as the
result of this, we shall “WITH JOY DRAW WATER OUT OF THE WELLS OF SALVATION.”
Some have sat beside the wells of salvation, from time to time, as a matter of
custom and habit, and yet have never known what it was to draw water out of the
wells with joy. You have come to church on Sunday because it happened to be
Sunday. You were expected to be there, and there you were. Some of you have
read your Bible because it is a proper thing to do. Your life has been a life
of legal performances. Your prayers have been little better than superstitious
incantations. Now all that is changed. It is with joy, and not with murmuring,
that we are to find our wells. On more than one occasion the Israelites applied
for water in this spirit, and found a curse mingled with their blessing. Let us
dig our wells as they dug the well of old at Beer, when, though they lacked
water, they were wise enough to leave the matter in the Lord’s hands. Then it
was God undertook for them. (Anon.)
The present happiness of God’s people set before the unconverted
God, in His infinite mercy, has addressed the most various motives
to sinners in general, to induce them to turn to Him. He has been pleased to
set before sinners in His Word the immediate happiness that they may enjoy in
His service, as incomparably greater than any they can hope to have in this
world while absent and alienated from Him And this truth is not before us most
strikingly in these words.
I. We have to
consider THE JOY THAT FLOWS FROM THE SENSE OF PARDONED SIN.
1. The first thing here declared to us is, that God does pardon the
penitent believer. He was originally angry with him. God is, and must be,
according to His Divine perfections, angry with those who are living in a state
of rebellion against Him. But when a person is brought to believe in Christ
that anger is gone.
2. And as this is the blessing itself, so is the believer, when faith
is strong, assured of that blessing. But when I speak of this as a constraining
motive why sinners in general should turn to God, they may feel that ungodly
persons have no such burden. Yet though now the sinner may not feel his need of
such a consolation, he may be assured that it is a consolation surpassing in
value and in peace and in joy all that he has ever experienced in a life of
indifference and ungodliness.
II. THERE IS A JOY
ARISING FROM TRUST IN GOD FOR FUTURE BLESSINGS. “Behold, God is my salvation,”
etc.
1. God is become the “salvation” of a penitent believer. That is, He
accomplishes His entire deliverance from sin and its consequences.
2. God is his “salvation” from all present evil, and introduces him
to the possession of all real good (Psalms 121:7; Psalms 84:11; Romans 8:28). Hence, then, the Lord does
not reserve all the blessings of His people for the eternal world, but pours
out His treasures of mercy upon them even now. And as God bestows upon His
people this assurance that He is “their strength and their salvation,” it must
fill them with abiding joy. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
The joy of salvation
At the Southport Convention, 1901, the Rev.
W.Y. Fullerton told an amusing incident of a friend of his, not a
Methodist,but with enough fire for two, who wrote a post card to a friend, and
having filled up the back, wrote a closing message on the front of the card,
“Be of good cheer, brother.” And the Post Office authorities not only
surcharged the recipient, but stamped beneath the message, “Contrary to
regulations.” Christian joy is legitimate, and not opposed to the regulations
of heaven. (Methodist Times.)
Assurance of salvation
Assurance of salvation makes the firmest, the most active, the
most useful, the holiest, the happiest, the most even and regular Christians. (John
Bate.)
Verse 2
Behold, God is my salvation
Rejoicing in God
These words are used by the prophet, in the name of the Church, to
set forth the happiness and salvation of the Jews when they shall be gathered
in with the fulness of the Gentiles.
They also express the experience of a believer--
I. WITH RESPECT TO
HIS MORAL STATE. “God is my salvation.” Some would have the aid, the
consolation, and the favour of God, but refuse His salvation, and remain in
sin. This, however, is vain and impossible. The privileges of a believer are
unspeakably great, but they all are founded on that change which the grace of
God makes in his nature, here called salvation. Salvation is deliverance, and
how does this show itself in a believer? He is delivered from darkness (2 Corinthians 4:6). From
insensibility (Ezekiel 36:26). From pride. From
creaturely dependence. From a sense of condemnation (Romans 8:1). From slavery (JohnRo 6:22).
He is delivered from misery, into union with God, peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost; no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow heir, rejoicing in
Christ Jesus, and in the hope of His glory. Observe, to whom the believer
refers us as the Author of this salvation--“God.”
II. WITH RESPECT TO
HIS AID. “The Lord Jehovah is my strength.” If we have not yet learned that our
own strength is weakness, and that we shall never be sufficiently strong until
the Lord Jehovah Himself strengthens with ‘all might in our inner man, we have
learnt little of Christianity. But he who knows that God is his salvation,
knows also that God is his strength.
Dost thou fall? “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I
fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto
me.” Art thou faint? “He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no
might He increaseth strength.” Art thou wounded? A touch of the Divine hand
shall heal thee. Art thou buffeted by Satan? God shall bruise Satan under your
feet shortly. In one word, behold a Divine and almighty power everywhere, and
always surrounding you, sufficient for all purposes to bless, support, deliver.
III. WITH RESPECT TO
HIS CONSOLATIONS. “And my song.” Here is an allusion to the ancient custom of
composing and singing sacred odes or songs upon occasions of any signal
deliverance, or the communication of any peculiar blessing. Such were the songs
of Moses and Miriam, when Pharaoh and his host were swallowed up in the Red
Sea; of Moses, after he had brought the Israelites to the borders of the
promised land; of many of the Psalms of David, etc. Observe, the subject of his
song, “the Lord Jehovah.” His nature; His dispensations.
IV. WITH RESPECT TO
HIS CONFIDENCE. “I will trust, and not be afraid.” (J. Walker, D. D.)
Salvation of the Lord
The physician may be the means of restoring to health, but it is
God who performs the cure. The counsellor may give good advice, but it is God
who guides by His counsel and conducts to glory. Soldiers may fight our
battles, but it is God who crowns them with victory. Friends may try to assist,
relieve, and comfort us, but their success depends entirely upon God. From
providences and ordinances we may derive much benefit, but for this purpose it
is absolutely requisite that they be accompanied with the Divine blessing. In
this manner we are taught that salvation is of the Lord. (R. Macculloch.)
Salvation
The word “salvation” is too narrowly defined in many instances.
People suppose that it means a kind of spiritual selfishness which, being
expressed in more words, would run in some such fashion as this: Thank God I am
safe, whatever may become of anybody else! Any man who can say that, or mean
that, or be in any way under such a delusion, simply knows nothing whatever
about the spirit of the Gospel. “Salvation” is one of the largest terms in
human speech. Emancipation does not mean--you are now no longer under
obligation to serve your old tyrant or your old master. That is but a negative
aspect of emancipation. The true meaning is--you are invested with all the
responsibilities of organised liberty; you have conferred upon you an
opportunity of developing your whole manhood; you may now show the very best
aspect of your character, and unless you do it, then slavery were for you
better than freedom. It is so with the fullest meaning of this word salvation.
Saved people are generous people, beneficent, charitable, anxious about others;
nay, the only explanation of their anxiety about others is that they themselves
are conscious of having been saved--not saved from fear only, but saved into
life, liberty, and conscious possibility of doing great and small things. (J.
Parker, D. D.)
The Old Testament interpreted by the New
“Behold, God is my salvation.” Jerome translates this, “Behold,
God is my Jesus.” Jerome was right in going back to the Old Testament with the
key of the New. In fact, we are entitled to begin at Genesis after we have
perused the whole Gospel story with the profoundest interest and have received
its spirit into our heart. The Gospels explain the Pentateuch. There are
arithmetics which are awful in their initial hardness. They are all questions.
Arithmetic is the most audacious interrogator I ever knew. But at the end of
the arithmetic, in some cases, there is a key. What different reading! There is
not a question in the whole key unless it be at the beginning of an answer, and
who, having read the answer, does not feel how easy it was to have worked out
the sum after all if one had only taken pains enough at the beginning? At the
same time there is a strong disposition just to appropriate what the key says,
and then, perhaps, to appear before the spectacled master as if we had never
heard of such a thing as a key. That would be illegitimate in arithmetic. There
have been young arithmeticians who have been guilty of that meanness. But we
are called to look at the key in open day; we are referred to the key; we are
invited and challenged to peruse it, and then to go back with the key in our
hand to work out all the mystery of the lock. This is what Jerome did; so he
did not hesitate to take out the word “salvation” in the second, verse and put
in the word “Jesus,” and say with unction and thankfulness, Behold, God is my
Jesus.” “His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
Salvation, the possession of God
If there is a man or a woman that thinks of salvation as if it
were merely a shutting up of some material hell, or the dodging round a corner,
so as to escape some external consequence of transgression, let him or her
learn this the possession of God is salvation; that and nothing else. (A.
Maclaren, D. D.)
God our salvation
The prophet has been looking forward through times of darkness and
captivity to the coming day of light and freedom; and in the hymn of which our
text is the keynote he shows what will be the spirit of the new age, what the
prevailing thoughts and emotions of the time. It is an exultant song, but
without a word of self-congratulation. It is the keynote of the kingdom of
heaven; and the regeneration of society for which ardent spirits long will not
be reached until this old song become again a voice of the time.
1. We are far enough from it now. We have the song in our Bibles, we
quote it in our pulpits, we sing it in our church services, but it is not in
our modern life. There is nothing of it in the current literature. It is the
function of the poet to give voice to the nobler thoughts and emotions of his
time. Now can you imagine a poet of our times bursting out into a song like
that; and if he did, would the editors of our first-class reviews be eager to
glorify their pages with it? Instead of exultation in the name of God, there is
all eagerness to avoid it. It is not that the age is indifferent: there is much
real earnestness. The word “salvation” is not much in vogue; but the thing meant
is by no means despised. If the spirit of earnestness now abroad had been
foreseen fifty years ago, men would have thought that the kingdom of heaven was
verily at hand at last. But now, here all around us, is the
earnestness--philanthropic, moral, even spiritual, earnestness to a
considerable extent; but where is the kingdom? Alas, it still seems very far
away!
2. We are better than we were. Year by year there is some
improvement. But not nearly enough. The end will not be brought within sight
till the spirit of this old song comes back to us; till the nation as a nation,
not one here and there among the people, but the people as a people, look
upwards to the hills from whence cometh their aid; till the inhabitant on every
side cries out, “Behold, God is my salvation.”
3. Let it be remembered that trust in God does not mean neglect of
ordinary means. We who believe in God are thoroughly with the humanitarians so
far as they go. We believe with them in heredity and in its power for evil and
for good; only we do not believe that there is any inheritance of evil so
terrible that the grace of God cannot reach and save its victim, nor any
inheritance of ancestral nobleness so excellent that the grace of God is not
needed to make and keep pure, and to raise to still higher things. We believe
in education, in refinement, in progress of all kinds, in all processes of
evolution which are moving in the right direction, onwards and upwards; only we
recognise that none of these, nor all of them together, quite meet the case, or
mean salvation. There remain with us mystery, unsolved; sin, crying for
forgiveness and cleansing; sorrow, scarce abated or diminished; death, with all
its victory--mystery, sin, sorrow, death: all present, patent facts, not to be
disputed, not to be conquered by the freest education, or the highest culture;
and then there is judgment to come, to which the con science is a witness not
in any case to be forever silenced, though it may be hushed and quieted for a
time; and there is the great eternity, the thought of which God has put into
our hearts. When we look at these things we see our need, not of education
merely, but of salvation, and heart and flesh cry out for God.
4. But is not this the watchword of the Churches? Do not they
sufficiently represent the Divine factor in the world’s salvation? Would that
they did. Look, first, at the national Church. What is its great message? Is
it, “Behold, God is thy salvation”? What we all want is to be so filled with
the Spirit of God, and so thoroughly saved ourselves, that the keynote of every
minister’s sermon, and of every Christian’s life shall be, “Behold, God is my
salvation.”
5. There is, indeed, a human side of Divine truth which is of very
great importance. If God is to be my salvation, He must be in touch with me. If
He show Himself to me, it must be in my likeness; if He speak to me, it must be
in my language; if He act on me, it must be through my faculties and in
accordance with the laws of my being. He is the God of nature as well as of grace.
But important as it is to show the Gospel natural, it is far more important to
hold fast to the supernatural. (J. Monte Gibson, D. D.)
God the soul’s salvation
A character in a modern book says, “I said I would leave the
saving of my soul to Him that made my soul; it was in right good keeping there
I’d warrant.”
Man’s Saviour Divine
Dr. Mason of America said--“I need such a Saviour; for I would not
trust my soul to the hands or heart of the brightest seraph that burns before
the eternal throne.”
Full assurance of salvation
Mrs. Edwards, wife of President Edwards, says, “In 1742 I sought
and obtained the full assurance of faith. I cannot find language to express how
certain the everlasting love of God appeared; the everlasting mountains and
hills were but shadows to it. My safety and happiness and eternal enjoyment of
God’s immutable love, seemed as durable and unchangeable as God Himself. Melted
and overcome by the sweetness of this assurance, I fell into a great flood of
tears, and could not forbear weeping aloud. The presence of God was so near and
so real that I seemed scarcely conscious of anything else. My soul was filled
and overwhelmed with light and love and joy in the Holy Ghost, and seemed just
ready to go away from the body. This exaltation of soul subsided into a
heavenly calm and rest of soul in God, which was even sweeter than what
preceded it.”
I will trust, and not be
afraid
Our liability to fear, and the power of faith to overcome it
Naturally any creature must be liable to fear. The finite nature,
however exalted, must always feel itself transcended and surrounded by the
infinite Unknown. There can be only one Being in the universe absolutely and
forever free from that liability--He who knows everything, and who controls
everything--who knows all beings, agents, facts, possibilities, and rules them.
We are manifestly far more liable to the inroads of this fear than those
creatures who have never fallen.
I. THE GREAT
MYSTERIES OF EXISTENCE HAVE A TENDENCY TO PRODUCE FEAR. Something depends, of
course, on the susceptibility of the individual; a strong practical nature is
not so much affected by mysteries; but there are few thoughtful persons who do
not sometimes feel the shadow of them on the path; and the continual
contemplation of them does not irradiate or dissolve them; they become only
more impenetrable and more densely dark, and then comes the fear lest this
aspect of them should never be relieved, lest they should be unfathomable and
unconquerable forever.
1. Has not every thoughtful mind bowed and almost trembled before the
great mystery into which so many others may be resolved--the existence of evil
in the universe, under the government of an infinitely powerful and infinitely
benevolent Being? We have, indeed, to consider that along with sin was
introduced the Gospel--the glorious, all-sufficient remedy, by which sin is to
be taken away and purity restored; but they exist together. The remedy,
although we have the utmost confidence in its perfect sufficiency, does not
destroy the disease in a moment; it struggles with it, and overcomes it only by
slow degrees, and in some instances the disease seems to return with increasing
virulence, and to reassert its supremacy after the cure has been more than half
effected; while, in a multitude of other instances, the remedy never takes
effect; at all, and whole generations of human beings are swept away by death,
in a moral condition that augurs ill for any future happiness. He who can say
that he has had no difficulties with such a subject, only shows that he has had
no thoughts about it. And yet it is not at all desirable to be under the
influence of this oppression of evil; it is very desirable, and quite possible,
to rise superior to it. But how? “I will trust, and not be afraid.” Many have
tried to reach the ground of satisfaction by knowledge. They have said, “I will
know, and not be afraid”; but they have had no success.
2. There is great mystery also about the plan of Divine providence in
this world. We see glimpses of Divine meaning shining out of the plan at
intervals, and we make our way with certainty to some of the leading principles
of that providence. We are sure, e.g., that God is the friend and
protector of the righteous man, and yet, see how some righteous men are tried!
And see, on the other hand, how ungodly men rise into influence sometimes. If
we gaze upon God’s great providence in the hope of being able to scan its parts
and explain all its movements, we shall be sadly disappointed. But if we cease
from the vain attempt to understand the complexities of providence and, looking
above all its visible movements, rest our faith on Him who conducts them all,
we shall begin to have peace. It would be easy to mention many other
providential mysteries which are very appalling and perplexing to the natural
understanding. Do you say, It is all according to law? But are you not afraid
as you see how stern and unrelenting law is? Where is your relief? Will you try
to vanquish nature and providence by thought? Will you resist and seek deliverance
by strength? Will you be wiser and trust? Ah, that is relief!
II. THERE ARE
CERTAIN POSSIBILITIES, THE THOUGHT OF WHICH HAS A TENDENCY TO DARKEN THE SPIRIT
WITH FEAR. Unsatisfied with past and present, we cast our hopes always within
the veil of the great tomorrow; but our fears go with our hopes. And it is not
merely that there are such bare possibilities in every man’s future, but these
are always shaping themselves into probabilities. Perhaps there is no one
person who cannot fancy, and who is not sometimes almost compelled to expect,
some particular form of ill, something which he shrinks from. What is the
remedy? “I will trust, and not be afraid.” There is yet one dread possibility,
the contemplation of which is more appalling than the very worst of earthly
calamities--the possibility of spiritual failure, ending in a final exclusion
from the presence of God and the joys of the blessed. There is but one way of
grappling with and overcoming this great fear. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Trust in relation to the will
A Christian lady of my acquaintance was at one time in her life an
apparently hopeless victim of doubts and fears. She knew she ought to trust the
Lord, and longed to do it, but she seemed utterly unable. After a long period
of suffering from this cause, she finally con tided her difficulties to a
friend, who, as it mercifully happened, understood this secret concerning the
will, and who told her that if in her will she would decide to trust, and,
putting all her will power into trusting, would utterly ignore her feelings,
she would sooner or later get the victory over all her doubts. The poor doubter
listened in silence for a few minutes, and then, drawing a long breath, said
with emphasis, “Yes, I see it. If I choose in my will to trust, I really am
trusting, even though all my feelings say contrary. I do choose to trust now. I
will trust; I will not be afraid again.” As she came to this decision, and thus
deliberately put her will on the side of God’s will, all the darkness vanished,
and her soul was brought out into the glorious light of the Gospel; a light
which was never dimmed again, until her eyes were opened in the presence of the
King. (Mrs. H. W. Smith.)
Trust in God
“How do you know that you are ready to appear before God?” was
once asked of one dying; and the answer was, ‘ Sir, God knows that I have taken
Him at His word.” (Prof. Laidlaw, D. D.)
Trusting
I once illustrated the act of faith by the experience of a friend
who was in an upper room of a hotel at night when the building took fire. He
seized the escape rope that was in his room, swung out of the window, and
lowered himself in safety to the sidewalk. He had a good opinion of that rope
during the day when he saw it coiled up by his bedside, but it was only an
opinion; when he believed on the rope, and trusted himself to the rope, it
saved his life. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
A definition of faith
An intensely interesting incident was related lately by Dr. J.G.
Paten of a discovery of a term in the language of Aniwa for “Faith.” It seems
that for a long time no equivalent could be found, and the work of Bible
translation was paralysed for want of so fundamental and oft recurring a term.
The natives apparently regarded the verb “to hear” as equivalent to belief. For
instance, suppose a native were asked whether he heard a certain statement.
Should he credit the statement he would reply, “Yes, I heard it,” but should he
disbelieve it, he would answer, “No, I did not hear it,” meaning not that his
ears had failed to catch the words, but that he did not regard them as true.
This definition of faith was obviously insufficient--many passages, such as
“faith cometh by hearing,” would be impossible of translation through so meagre
a channel; and prayer was made continually that God would supply the missing
link. No effort had been spared in interrogating the most intelligent native
pundits, but all in vain; none caught the hidden meaning of the word sought by
the missionary. One day Dr. Paten was sitting in his room anxiously pondering.
He sat on an ordinary chair, his feet resting on the floor; just then an
intelligent native entered the room, and the thought flashed to the missionary
to ask the all-absorbing question yet once again in a new light. Was he not
resting on that chair? Would that attitude lend itself to the discovery?
“Taea,” said Dr. Paten, “what am I doing now?” “Koihae ana, Misi” (“You’re
sitting down. Misi”), the native replied. Then the missionary drew up his feet
and placed them upon the bar of the chair just above the floor, and, leaning
back upon the chair in an attitude of repose, asked, “What am I doing now?
Fakarongrongo, Misi” (“You are leaning wholly,” or, “You have lifted yourself
from every other support”). “That’s it,” shouted the missionary, with an
exultant cry; and a sense of holy joy awed him as he realised that his prayer
had been so fully answered. To lean on Jesus wholly and only is surely the true
meaning of appropriating or saving faith. And now, “Fakarongrongo Iesu ea anea
moure” (“Leaning on Jesus unto eternal life,” or, “for all the things of
eternal life”), is the happy experience of those Christian islanders, as it is
of all who thus cast themselves unreservedly on the Saviour of the world for
salvation.
The Lord Jehovah is my
strength and my song
Jehovah the strength of His people
1. He is the strength of my understanding, whereby I discern and
acknowledge the great mysteries of salvation, and am enabled to perceive the
way in which I ought to go.
2. He is the strength of my heart, of which He takes the direction,
working in me to will and to do of His good pleasure; giving the willing mind,
which makes His work go forward with alacrity and cheerfulness.
3. He is the strength of my affections, which tie preserves from
becoming languid and feeble, and fixes them upon the proper objects on which
they ought to terminate.
4. He is the strength of my graces, who establisheth my faith,
enliveneth my love, animateth my hope and patience; who enableth me to resist
my spiritual enemies, to vanquish temptations, to mortify corruptions, to
perform duties, to sustain afflictions, and to surmount all the obstacles that
lie in the way to the kingdom of God. (R. Macculloch.)
The joy of the Gospel
At least twenty-one times in his letter to the Philippians,
written in prison, does St. Paul use such words as joy, rejoice, gladness,
while the whole letter is charged with the spirit of joy. This is the real
spirit of the Gospel. (Great Thoughts.)
Rejoicing in God
When the poet Carpani asked his friend Haydn how it happened that
his church music was so cheerful, the beautiful answer was: “I cannot make it
otherwise; I write according to the thoughts I feel. When I think upon God, my
heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen;
and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I
serve Him with a cheerful spirit.” (Great Thoughts.)
Jehovah His people’s song
The wife of Hawthorne, the American writer, said in a letter to
her mother: “Sunday afternoon the birds were sweetly mad, and the lovely rage
of song drove them hither and thither, and swelled their breasts amain. I kept
saying, ‘Yes, yes, I know it, dear little maniacs, I know it! There never was
such an air, such a day, such a God! I know it! I know it.’ But they would not
be pacified. Their throats must have been made of fine gold, or they would have
been rent with such rapture quakes.” Human beings are compelled to declare in
song the ecstasy which is at times in their souls because of the goodness of
God. They cannot help being tunefully demonstrative when the Infinite Being
comes into their souls, and makes Himself known as a gracious visitant by the
plenitude of blessing He bestows. If the great visitation be to them on the
week day, they give praise for it in the music which attested their jubilant
enthusiasm on the Sabbath. If the great visitation comes to them on the
Sabbath, they can scarcely tell whether they belong to earth or to the paradise
never darkened by evening shadows, and in their singing they endeavour to
emulate “the voice of harpers, harping with their harps.” (Gates of Imagery.)
Verse 3
Therefore with Joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of
salvation
Drawing water from the wells of salvation
The Talmudists refer the words, “With joy shall ye draw water out
of the wells of salvation,” to the custom of making an oblation of water on the
last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
But as it is not prescribed in the law of Moses, it has been doubted whether it
dates back earlier than the times of the Maccabees. It is, however, at least as
probable that the Asmonean princes should have restored an ancient as ordained
a new rite; such a rite, to acknowledge God’s gift of the water without which
harvest and vintage must have failed, would always have been a likely
accompaniment of the feast in which these were celebrated; and the like acts of
Samuel and Elijah, though for different purposes, perhaps go in confirmation of
the ancient existence of such a practice. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The prophecy and its fulfilment
Two events, separated from each other by fifteen hundred years,
bear upon these words. One was the origin of the peculiar form of this
prophecy, the other contains its interpretation and claims to be its
fulfilment.
1. The wandering march of the children of Israel had brought them to
Rephidim, where there was no water. Their parched lips opened to murmur and
rebel against their unseen Leader and His visible lieutenant. At his wits’ end,
Moses cried to God, and the answer is the command to take with him the elders
of Israel, and with his rod in his hand to go up to Horeb; and then come grand
words, “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock, and thou shalt smite
the rock, and there shall come water out of it.” It is not the rock, nor the
rod, nor the uplifted hand, but it is the presence of God which makes the
sparkling streams pour out. How the thirsty men would drink, how gladly they
would fling themselves on the ground and glue their lips to the glancing
blessing, or dip their cups and skins into it, as it flashed along! Many a
psalm and prophecy refer to this old story, and clearly Isaiah had it in his
mind here, for the whole context is full of allusions to the history of the
Exodus, as a symbol of the better deliverance from a worse bondage, which the
“Root of Jesse” was to effect. The lyric burst of praise, of which the text is
part, carries on the same allusion. The joyful band of pilgrims returning from
this captivity sing the “Song of Moses,” chanted first by the banks of the Red
Sea, “The Lord is my strength and song and He is become my salvation.” This
distinct quotation, which immediately precedes our text, makes the reference in
it which we have pointed out, most probable and natural. The connection of
these words with the story in the Exodus was recognised by the Jews at a very
early period, as is plain from their use in the remarkable ritual of the Feast
of Tabernacles. That festival was originally appointed to preserve the
remembrance of Israel’s nomad life in the wilderness. In the later days of the
nation, a number of symbolical observances were added to those of the original
institution. Daily, amidst loud jubilations, the priests wound in long
procession down the slope from the temple to the fountain of Siloam in the
valley beneath, and there drew water in golden urns. They bore it back, the
crowd surging around them, and then amidst the blast of trumpets, and a tumult
of rejoicing, they poured it on the altar, while thousands of voices chanted
Isaiah’s words, “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
2. So much for the occasion of the prophecy; now for its meaning and
fulfilment. Nearly eight hundred years have passed. Again the festival has come
round. For seven days the glad ceremonial has been performed. For the last time
the priestly procession has gone down the rocky road; for the last time the
vases have been filled at the cool fountain below; for the last time the bright
water has been poured out sparkling in the sunlight; for the last time the
shout of joy has risen and fallen, and as the words of the ancient chant were
dying on the ear, a sudden stir began among the crowd, and from the midst of
them, as they parted for his passage, came a young man, rustic in appearance,
and there, before all the silence-stricken multitude, and priests with their
empty urns, “in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” Surely such words,
in such a connection, at such a time, from such lips, are meant to point the
path to the true understanding of the text. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The wells of salvation
I. Consider what
we have to understand by THE WELLS OF SALVATION.
1. We are not to be content with any shallow and narrow
interpretation of either idea in that phrase. No doubt “salvation” in the Old
Testament often means merely outward deliverance from material peril. We shall
not strain the meaning here, if we take salvation almost in the fully developed
New Testament sense, as including, negatively, the deliverance from all evil,
both evil of sin and evil of sorrow, and, positively, the endowment with all
good, good both of holiness and happiness, which God can bestow or man receive.
2. Then if so, God Himself is, in the deepest truth, the Well of
Salvation. The figure of our text does not point to a well so much as to a
spring. It is a source, not a reservoir. So we have but to recall, the deep and
wonderful words of the psalmist”: “With Thee is the fountain of life, and
others not less profound of the prophet: “They have forsaken Me, the fountain
of living waters,” in order to be led up to the essential meaning of this text.
Salvation has its origin in the depths of God’s own nature. It wells up as of
itself, not drawn forth by anything in us, but pouring out as from an inner
impulse in His own deep heart. Surely, too, if God be the fountain of
salvation, the essence of salvation must be His communication of Himself. The
water is the same in the fountain as in the pitcher. But, God being the true
fountain of salvation, notice that Jesus Christ plainly and decisively puts
Himself in the place that belongs to God: “If any man thirst,” etc. Think of
the extraordinary claims involved in that invitation. Every craving of heart
and mind, all longings for love and wisdom, for purity and joy, for strength
and guidance, He assumes to be able to slake by the gift of Himself.
3. One other remark may be made on this part of our subject. The
first word of our text carries us back to something preceding, on which the
drawing water with joy is founded. That something is expressed immediately
before: “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and song,” etc. These words are quoted
from Moses’ song at the Red Sea, and there point to the one definite act by
which God had saved the people from their pursuers. In like manner, we have to
look to a definite historical act by which the fountain of salvation has been
opened for us, and our glad drawing therefrom has been made possible. The
mission and work of Jesus Christ, His incarnation, passion and death, are the
means by which the sealed fountain has been opened. For men, Jesus Christ is as
the river which flows from the closed and land-locked sea of the infinite
Divine nature. He is for us the only source, the inexhaustible, the perennial
source--like some spring never hot or muddy, never frozen, never walled
in,never sinking one hairbreadth in its basin, though armies drink, and ages
pass.
II. Consider again,
what is THE WAY OF DRAWING from the wells of salvation.
1. Christ has taught us what “drawing” is. To the Samaritan woman He
said, “Thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living
water.” So then Drawing is Asking. To the crowds in the temple courts He said,
“Let him come unto Me and drink.” So, then, Drawing is Coming. To the listeners
by the Sea of Galilee He said, “He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he
that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” So Coming, Asking, Drawing, are all
explained by Believing.
2. Now that faith which is thus powerful, must fasten on a definite
historical fact. The faith which draws from the fountain of salvation is not a
vague faith in generalities about God’s goodness and the like, but it grasps
God as revealed and becoming our salvation in the Person and work of Jesus
Christ.
3. The words preceding our text suggest another characteristic of the
faith which really draws water from the fountain: “He is become my salvation.”
That is to say, this believing grasp of Christ manifested in a definite
historical act is an intensely personal thing,
3. Consider, too, THE JOY OF THE WATER DRAWERS. The well is the
meeting place in these hot lands, where the solitary shepherds from the pastures
and the maidens from the black camels’ hair tents meet in the cool evening, and
ringing laughter and cheery talk go round. Or the allusion may be rather to the
joy, as of escape from death, with which some exhausted travellers press
towards the palm trees on the horizon that tell of a spring in the desert, and
when they have reached it, crowd to the fountain and drink greedily, no matter
how hot and muddy it may be. So jubilant is the heart of the man whose soul is
filled and feasted with the God of his salvation, and the salvation of his God.
Such a man has all the sources and motives for joy which the heart can ask. (A.
Maclaren, D. D.)
Salvation: how to get it
People have given many answers to the question, If God be the
fountain of salvation, how are we to get the water? if I may say so, pumps of
all sorts have been tried, and there has been much weary working of arms at the
handles, and much jangling of buckets and nothing brought up. The old word is
true, with a new application to all who try in any shape to procure salvation
by any work of their own: “Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is
deep.” But there is no need for all this profitless work. It is as foolish as
it would be to spend money and pains in sinking a well in some mountainous country,
where every hillside is seamed with watercourses, and all that is needed is to
put one end of any kind of wooden spout into the “burn” and your vessels under
the other. The well of salvation is an artesian well that needs no machinery to
raise the water, but only pitchers to receive it as it rises. (A. Maclaren,
D. D.)
Christ’s ordinances
I. WHAT IS
UNDERSTOOD BY A MEANS OF SALVATION. It is that by and through which the Lord
Jesus doth by His spirit convey grace and salvation into a soul. These means
are some outward, some inward; some ordinary, others extraordinary.
II. WHAT THESE
MEANS OF SALVATION ARE.
1. The inward means is faith (Hebrews 4:2). This ordinarily requires an
outward means to work it by. But being wrought, it is the great inward means of
communication betwixt Christ and the soul.
2. Extraordinary means are whatsoever the Lord in His sovereign
wisdom is pleased to make use of extraordinarily for conveying grace into the
hearts of His elect, as He did a voice from heaven for the conversion of Paul.
3. The outward and ordinary means are the Lord’s own ordinances Romans 10:14-15).
III. WHAT MAKES ANY
ORDINANCE A MEANS OF GRACE, a well of salvation, out of which one may in faith
look to draw water for his soul, or get spiritual good by.
1. No ordinance whatsoever can avail without a particular blessing;
for the efficacy of ordinances is not natural, or from themselves.
2. Men’s institutions or ordinances, in respect of God, are
forbidden, and condemned by the Lord’s word, namely, in the second commandment.
3. Men’s use of them is not only useless, but worse, not only to no
good purpose, but to ill purpose. That which makes any ordinance a means of
grace or salvation, is Divine institution only (Matthew 28:20). Therefore the first
question in all ordinances ought to be, Whose is this image and superscription?
IV. TO WHOM THE
LORD’S ORDINANCES ARE MADE EFFECTUAL.
1. Not to all who partake of them. “Who hath believed our report? and
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Many come to these wells who never
taste of the water. I think it an unwarrantable expression, that all God’s
ordinances do attain their end, in the salvation or damnation of all that come
under them; for damnation is not the end of any of God’s ordinances, but
salvation.
2. But to all the elect they are effectual, unto whom they come (Acts
John 10:26).
V. WHENCE THE
EFFICACY OF ORDINANCES PROCEEDS. It does not proceed from any virtue in
themselves, or in him that administers them, but from the Spirit of the Lord
working in them and by them (1 Corinthians 3:7). (T. Boston,
D. D.)
The wells of salvation
I. THE WATER. The
entire text refers to the great work of God in saving sinners by the obedience
and death of His Son.
1. Water is essential to life.
2. Water is purifying in its influence.
3. It has refreshing and fertilising properties. In this country
where water abounds we can hardly appreciate this. In the East a draught of
cold water was frequently invaluable. It was not only valuable to the body of
man, but fertilising to the earth. In this part of the world we have too much
water, and our ingenuity is taxed to drain the land, but in the East ingenuity
would be stretched to irrigate it.
4. It is a thing of universal adaptation. There are some persons who
cannot take milk, others cannot take different kinds of food, and some cannot
take vegetables to any amount; and so on. But you never found anyone who could
do without water. It is a fact that not only can none of the human race do
without it, but all the human race can take it. In like manner, the Gospel is
for every class and condition of men.
II. THE WELLS OF
SALVATION. Wherever the pure Gospel is preached, it may be considered one of
the wells of salvation.
1. Properly speaking, the Deity is the well of salvation. Christ is
the great medium, the great procuring cause, the great efficient cause, and the
Holy Ghost is the water of life.
2. Again, the Scriptures of truth may be considered wells of
salvation. We moreover observe that in an emphatic manner, all through the Holy
Scriptures of revealed truth, Christ is preached, and they are thus wells of
salvation.
3. Further, Christ is essentially and emphatically the well of
salvation.
III. THE DRAWING OF
THE WATER.
1. If you want to draw water, you must come near to the well. If you
want to understand something about Christ, you must come to the Bible; you must
listen to the Gospel faithfully preached, or, rather, you must come to Christ
Jesus Himself.
2. There must be a personal application.
3. This drawing of the water must be continuous. That is a remarkable
passage in 1 Peter 2:4 --“To whom coming.”
“Coming” denotes continued application. We must not only come for justification
and sanctification to Christ, but we must continue to come.
IV. THE JOY. “With
joy,” etc. No wonder when you consider--
1. The unrestricted freeness of the Gospel.
2. The gratuitousness of this great blessing.
3. That this joy inspires a glorious hope of eternal bliss. (Hugh
Allen, M. A.)
A discovery of God's mercy in Christ
Let us consider the feelings which a discovery of God’s mercy in
Christ awakens in the breasts of believers.
I. IT GIVES JOY TO
THE BELIEVING SINNER WHEN HE FIRST DISCOVERS IT.
II. IT YIELDS JOY
TO HIM THROUGH HIS WHOLE LIFE AFTERWARDS. (G. Innes.)
Wells of salvation
I. THE METAPHOR BY
WHICH SALVATION IS HERE DESCRIBED. “Wells of salvation.” Water is a favourite
emblem in the sacred Scriptures for setting forth the blessings of salvation,
especially in the writings of the Old Testament prophets. Salvation, like a
well, is--
1. Invisible in its source. God prepares the water for the wells in
hidden springs. Man can make a well, but he cannot make a spring; so men may
form systems of religion of their own, but they are only wells without water.
Salvation is a well of God’s own construction, and He alone from His own hidden
resources can supply the life-giving water. There is much mystery in the source
of an ordinary well of water, yet we do not allow our inability to fully
understand it to present an insuperable barrier in the way of accepting its
great blessings; let us exercise the same common sense in our treatment of the
wells of salvation.
2. Inexhaustible in its supply. A stream may be dried up, a river may
fail to flow, a cistern may be exhausted, but a well is fed from hidden deep
springs. In the Gospel of Christ there is enough for each, enough for all,
enough for evermore.
3. Inestimable in its service.
II. THE MEANS BY
WHICH SALVATION IS TO BE OBTAINED. “With joy shall ye draw,” etc. It is not
enough for the thirsty to draw near to a well, not enough to look into it, and
listen to the music of its waters--an effort must be made, it must be
appropriated.
1. We must “draw.” God provides the well, but we must use the hand of
faith; by the rope of effort we must let down the pitcher of desire--and as we
draw the blessing up, we shall not thank the instruments by which we obtain the
water, but we shall thank Him who provided it so freely for us.
2. We must drink. Not enough to draw the water to the edge of the
well, not enough to lift it to the lips, the water must be drunk as well as
drawn.
III. THE SPIRIT IN
WHICH SALVATION IS TO BE RECEIVED. “With joy,” etc. The teaching of our text
harmonises with the inductions of reason, and with the dictates of common
sense. For how else could we draw water out of the wells of salvation? Will not
the sufferer go gladly to the physician who has the ability and willingness to
heal? Will not the fainting traveller go with joy to the well he discovers
close by? (F. W. Brown.)
Drawing water from the wells of salvation
The question naturally arising from these words is, What will make
us draw water with joy from these wells? In general we might remark, that these
being styled the wells of salvation is a sufficient reason for this joy,
provided it is kept properly in view. But more particularly, I remark--
I. That these
wells must be KEPT OPEN for this purpose. The Church of Christ, because devoted
to Him, and accessible to none other, is like a spring shut up, a fountain
sealed. Not so the ordinances of grace: they are accessible to all. To keep
these open, ministers must labour, travail as in birth, preach the Word, be
instant in season, out of season. Pointed careful attention on the part of the
hearers, accompanied with fervent prayer, must keep them open.
II. They must be
KEPT PURE, living, running clear from the throne, No admixture to foul them
must be allowed. No addition of ours, nothing kept back.
III. These waters
must be TASTED.
IV. We must HIGHLY
VALUE these wells, if we would draw water from them with joy.
V. A REWARD
APPLICATION to these wells is necessary to our spiritual comfort. We must
continue hungering and thirsting after righteousness. This application may be
made at all times, and in every state. In the public and private and secret
exercises of religion, in health and sickness, in the prison or the palace,
wherever God is, public ordinances must be preferred. Application:
The wells of salvation
I. THE WELLS OF
SALVATION. The value of the water yielded by these wells is found in the saving
effects to be met with in those who come hither to draw and to drink. These
waters impart strength to the worker, courage to the timid, joy to the mourner,
refreshment to the weary, and satisfaction to the dry, and the thirsty. There
is no evil in the spirit that this water will not cure. It would be a world’s
wonder if God’s own Spirit could not make man’s spirit as lively and happy as
its inherent limits will allow; as happy for man as God, as been happy in
Himself from eternity. Observe now that the great salvation which is in God--nay,
which is God in us by His Spirit--finds its way outwards to thirsty drinkers
through many outlets and notthrough one only. There are as many of these
precious wells as there are distinctly revealed truths on the page of
Scripture. Every promise of blessing, every call to duty, every story of God’s
dealings with Israel and the nations, every prediction, every verse of sacred
song, every miracle and parable of Christ, every word, indeed, that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God, is, through the Spirit, a well of salvation. In a
transferred sense, there are as many wells of salvation as there are living
Christians on earth at a given time. The heart that draws water from the wells
above mentioned, becomes itself a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Every Christian worker is, in an especial sense, a well of this kind.
II. THE JOYFUL
DRINKING OF THE WATER found in these wells.
1. The drawer of water from any well of salvation is anyone anywhere
who chooses. “Whosoever will, let, him take the water of life freely.”
2. The drawing and drinking impulse is the inward thirst of spirit,
which, in a general form, characterises all mankind, and shows itself in
spiritual minds in the form of thirst for this water in particular. “Let him
that is athirst come.”
3. The drawing power is communicated by the Holy Spirit acting in His
character as the promised Comforter and helper of our infirmities. In one point
of view He is the power through which we draw and drink, as in another aspect
He is the water we work with in this way for the refreshment of our souls and
their true life.
4. The drawing apparatus includes all outward means available for
help in our endeavours after the truth expressed in this or in that part of
revelation, parallel passages containing like ideas or identical expressions,
sound and able expositions, and along with these the lives and deeds of our
Lord’s faithful and enlightened followers. The intimation in hand lays special
stress upon the joy with which the drawing of this water is begun and kept up.
This joy comes of the thought that the water is pure, life giving, and
refreshing; of the ease with which the drawing machinery is used when all is
right with the man who works it, and when the hallowed practice is maintained;
of the fulness and constancy of the stream which flows toward us, after it has
been drawn up from the depths of the well that is being worked at the time; and
of the exhilarating effects of the water when taken freely. The joy prompts and
helps the work of drawing. The drawing enlarges and maintains the joy. (David
Lowe.)
The wells of salvation
I. THE PREPARED
WELLS. A well differs from a spring in this: a spring is a natural outlet for
the waters in the earth; a well is an artificial one made by man. The well is
the result of design. So the wells of salvation represent a Divine design.
These wells are the varied “means of grace” provided by God for our highest
welfare. Two cautions deserve our serious thought.
1. We must not ignore, or neglect, any of these wells, for God in
wisdom has caused them to be dug.
2. We must not substitute for these wells any cisterns of mere human
digging.
II. THE REFRESHING
WATERS of these wells of salvation. Jesus Himself called it “living water.” It
is elsewhere called “the water of life”--a very expressive way of representing
that salvation which one receives through the appointed means of grace. For--
1. Like living water, this salvation is very refreshing to the
thirsty soul.
2. Like water, this salvation cleanses.
3. Like water, this salvation is free.
4. And this water is inexhaustible.
III. THE JOYFUL
DRAWING. (E. H. Witman.)
The wells of salvation
I. THE WELLS. God,
in carrying on His government, has seen it wise to act usually through agencies
and means. He has provided means for carrying out His great and gracious
purposes in redemption. These are here presented to us as “wells.”
II. THE DRAWING OUT
OF THESE WELLS.
1. The existence of the means of grace is not enough.
2. We never will appropriate those blessings until impelled by a
sense of need.
III. THE JOY. There
are many things in Christ fitted to inspire joy.
1. His adaptation to the wants of the sinner.
2. His fulness.
3. He is an eternal Christ.
4. There is cause of rejoicing in the terms on which He is tendered.
The Gospel is brought within the reach of the poorest, the most
abject, the most hopeless. Its language is not “Do,” or “Give,” but “Take.” And
if Christ be so free, is it any wonder if the sinner should appropriate Him
with joy? Application:
The means of grace to be diligently used
Drawing water is an employment which requires strength, labour,
and diligence, to which some means or instruments of conveyance are
indispensably requisite. From these and other circumstances attending this
operation we learn the import of the spiritual exercise here intended. The
blessings communicated by the Holy Ghost are obtained by diligent application
of the mind to prayer, attentive reading, hearing, and meditation; and by
rightly disposing and digesting the subjects read, heard, and contemplated, so
as believingly to apply them for the great purposes of spiritual improvement. (R.
Macculloch.)
The wells of salvation
The plural is used because God is as many wells, inexhaustible. (W.
Day, M. A.)
Wells of salvation: the Word of God
A young girl, going to be servant in a grand house, was discovered
one day in the servants hall reading her Bible. Her mistress, richly attired in
satin, with dazzling jewels, stood amazed at the sight of her poor domestic,
who had but one spare evening a month, employing it in the study of Scripture.
“Maggie,” she said, “what are you doing with that Book? It is not right that
you should read it tonight. You should be out, girl.” The mistress, though
thoroughly worldly, yet had a kind heart, and put her hand on the shrinking
girl. Maggie looked up with sweet and steadfast eyes. “This is enjoyment,
ma’am,” she said timidly.
Wells of salvation: the house of God
The camel, weary with his hundred miles’ travel across the burning
sands, eats a few dried leaves, drinks at the well, lies down on the hot earth,
and rolls about awhile, and is ready for another dash across the arid plain. So
the tired burden bearer comes to the house of God, drinks from the fountain of
life, and is renewed in soul and body too. (King’s Highway.)
Verses 4-6
And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord
Congregational praise
I.
WHO
ARE HERE CALLED UPON TO PRAISE GOD. The inhabitants of Zion and Jerusalem, whom
God had in a peculiar manner protected from Sennacherib’s violence (Isaiah 12:6). Those that have received
distinguishing favours from God ought to be most forward and zealous in
praising Him. The Gospel Church is Zion; Christ is Zion’s King; those that have
a place and name in that should lay out themselves to diffuse the knowledge of
Christ, and to bring many to Him.
II. HOW THEY MUST
PRAISE THE LORD.
1. By prayer. “Call upon His name.” As giving thanks for former mercy
is a decent way of begging further mercy, so begging further mercy is
graciously accepted as a thankful acknowledgment of the mercies we have
received.
2. By preaching and writing we must speak to others concerning
Him--not only “call upon His name,” but (as the margin reads it) “proclaim His
name”; let others know something more from us than they did before concerning
God, and those things whereby He has made Himself known. “Declare His doings”--His
“counsels,” so some read it. The work of redemption is according to the counsel
of His will and in that and other wonderful works that He hath done, we must
take notice of His “thoughts which are to usward.” Declare these “among the
people”--among the heathen, that they may be brought into communion with
Israel, and the God of Israel. When the apostles preached the Gospel to “all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem,” then this Scripture was fulfilled, that His
doings should be declared among the people, and that what He hath done should
be known in all the earth.
3. By a holy exultation and transport of joy. “Cry out and shout.”
III. FOR WHAT THEY
MUST PRAISE THE LORD.
1. Because He hath glorified Himself. “His name is exalted,” is
become more illustrious and conspicuous, and every good man rejoiceth in that.
2. Because He hath magnified His people. He “hath done excellent
things” for them, which makes them look great and considerable.
3. Because He is, and will be, great among them. (M. Henry.)
Verse 6
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion
Rapturous enthusiasm should characterise religion
Here is a call for enthusiasm, rapture, and what would generally
be denominated madness.
Still, the words are here, and they are perfectly clear as to their meaning and
purpose, and a reason is given for the cry and for the shout; that reason
is--“for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.” Men have been
infuriated by earthly deliverances, and rightly so, and brought into paroxysms
of thankfulness and joy why not so in their religious natures? It is recorded
by Plutarch that when the Romans delivered a certain people from the tyranny of
the Macedonians and the Spartans, the cry of the delivered men was so great
that it dissipated the very air, and birds flying across that plane of the
hemisphere fell down amazed. Have we ever rent the air with our cries and
shouts of delight and thankfulness? Our Christianity may have been formal, and
our atheism may have been the atheism of respectability. Respectability can
never be earnest. It is limited by a smaller word. If Sydney Smith said the
Church is dying of dignity, we may apply the rebuke to ourselves, and ask if we
are not falling into torpor through the opiate of respectability. Are we called
to silence? Who can describe the feeling of those who were imprisoned during
the Indian Mutiny? Is there not a page in the history of that rebellion which
makes every human heart thrill with excitement? We remember how the Europeans
were shut up, being beleaguered and invested, and within a hand breadth of
extinction; and we remember hearing of the deliverers’ approach, and of those
who were suffering catching the strains of music; they heard the pibroch and
the slogan, and their hearts came again, and every soldier was a hero, and
every woman a saint, and as the deliverers came on could you have said to those
who had been shut up in terror and darkness, Now restrain yourselves; avoid
everything sensational, and maintain a decorous and proper attitude in all
things--what answer would they have returned to your inane and unseasonable
address? We must pass through a certain class of circumstances before we can
understand the feelings of those who express gratitude for deliverance. The
singing of the Church should be loud, joyous, and sweet; all instruments should
accompany it now the clash of bells, now the blare of trumpets, now the lilt of
lutes, and now the throb of drums; strong men, gentle women, merry children
should unite their voices in one glad burst of religious joy. Thank God for
music. That will unite the Church when theology will divide it. There is no
disputable argument in music. The vanity of opinion is not touched by music.
The demon of heresy is left without a chance in music. Pedantic criticism is
ignored. The heart has it all its own way. All is harmony. All is praise. All
is love. If ever preaching be displaced or superseded, may it be by music! (J.
Parker, D. D.)
“Thou inhabitant of Zion”
The Hebrew is feminine: the appeal is to a woman’s heart--Cry out
and shout, thou daughter of Zion! Without the womanly element the Church is
without charm, and without the Divinest passion. The woman must lead us, in
song, in music, in praise, and by the contagion of her enthusiasm must warm
others into responsive and cooperative zeal. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God’s precede with His people
Among the ancient people of God, Jehovah vouchsafed His immediate
and manifest presence, both in the continuance of His visible glory between the
cherubim, and, upon extraordinary occasions, in an extraordinary manner. Such
miraculous indications of the Divine presence are not to be expected in these
latter days. Now that God has blessed us with a revelation, so clear, so
completely suited to our necessities, and in all its doctrines and precepts so
manifestly Divine, that our own consciences cannot but acknowledge it as the
truth, He has withdrawn those miraculous tokens of His favour by which He
upheld the confidence of His ancient people, requiring us to walk by faith and
not by sight. The glory of the spiritual Zion does not consist in outward
manifestations of the Godhead, but in the real though invisible presence of the
King of Zion, according to His gracious promise, “Lo, I am with you alway.” He
is present by His Spirit in the hearts of all His faithful followers. What is
implied in this promise of the Holy One of Israel in the midst of Zion?
1. That God is ever with His people to strengthen and sustain them.
2. God, through Christ, is ever present with His people, to succour
and defend them.
3. Jehovah is ever present with His people to lead and direct them.
4. God is ever with His people to comfort them.
5. Jehovah is ever present with His people to command a blessing upon
the appointed means of His grace. Without this, the Scriptures are a dead
letter. (W. Ramsay.)
The Church of the living God
Civilised countries have many institutions of a voluntary kind for
useful purposes. There is, however, an institution in the world, where men are
laid under direct obligation to Him who has established the institution,
namely, the Church of God, in relation to which the earnest appeal in the text
is made.
I. THIS CHURCH
PRESENTS TO US THE WAY, UNDER GOD’S HAND, TO TRUE PERSONAL GOODNESS. Men devise
many recipes to correct evils and excite to virtue. But Zion accomplishes all
these results by one simple method. To be in the Church of God is to be in the
way of all goodness. Well may the inhabitants of Zion rejoice, for all
spiritual blessings of God’s kingdom are given to it.
II. Another logical
conclusion follows, namely, that ALL OF US OUGHT TO BE IN THAT ZION. We are to
be in it, not because the Church itself demands it; not because the minister
calls for it; not because the influences around us have inculcated it. We are
to belong to the Church because God, who founded the Church and created us, has
laid this obligation upon us. And we are not to be simply visitors to His
Church, or occasional attendants, and especially not to be patrons. We are to
be inhabitants, dwelling in it; being in it with our whole souls, and complying
with the obligations that are incumbent upon its inhabitants, if we would be
pure men. And this is no unreasonable command.
1. The way in which the word came is both significant and
instructive.
2. Another consideration is that, “Great is the Holy One of Israel in
the midst of her.” That is the culminating and crowning glory of God’s Zion.
Practical reflections--
1. We must see that this Zion is a home of great dignity. It is more
than a home, it is God’s kingdom.
2. If this be God’s Zion, then what have we to do to be in His Zion
and to feel the pleasures incumbent upon members of His Zion? We are to obey
Him. It is His presence, His power, His relation to us, that give sanctity to
God’s house and service.
3. Let me speak a word to any who are without God and without hope of
eternal life. This King summons you from rebellion; He summons you to peace and
goodwill to Him. (J. Hall, D. D.)
The character, privilege, and duty of the people of God
I. THE CHARACTER
here given of the people of God, couched in Old Testament language, in that
they are called inhabitants of Zion. To understand the meaning of the words,
“inhabitant of Zion,” as describing the people of God in every age, we should
first remember that Zion was literally a hill in the land of Judea. There was a
hill in the southern part of the promised land, on which, or on part of which,
the city of Jerusalem was built, and this hill had two peaks, the one called
Zion proper, and the other called Mount Moriah, and while Jerusalem stood on
one of these peaks, or Zion proper, the temple was built by appointment on the
other of these peaks, or Mount Moriah, but the whole together was called the
hill of Zion, of Mount Zion, and accordingly in the 2 nd Psalm we read, “Yet
have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion,” and again, “Beautiful for
situation, the joy of the whole earth; is Mount Zion,” plainly showing that
this was a hill in the land of Judea. But, as I have said, on one peak or top
of this hill the temple of Solomon was placed, and hence the word “Zion” came
by a common figure of speech to be transferred from the mountain to the temple,
the most prominent feature on the mountain, and in this sense I think we have
it in the 87 th Psalm, “The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the
dwellings of Jacob.” Understanding, then, by the word “Zion” the temple, an
“inhabitant of Zion” now calls up the idea of a person who lives in and about
the temple; and, indeed, the will of God was, that all His ancient people
should live as much as may be in and about the temple. But we must remember
that the temple was intended to be a type of the human nature of our Lord, or
of God in our nature (John 2:19-21). An inhabitant of Zion is
one who is much versant with Christ.
II. THE PRIVILEGE
connected with this character. “Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of
thee.” The Holy One of Israel, or the God that went out and in among the people
of Israel, the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and through a
variety of vicissitudes landed them at last in the Canaan of promise, was no
other than the Lord Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 10:9). But it is
particularly the privilege of all the inhabitants of Zion, that they have the
protection of Him at all times who is the Almighty, and who is, “therefore,
able to prevail against all opposition.” Great is the Holy One of Israel in the
midst of thee. These last words convey the idea of a garrison, which, being in
the very centre of a place fortified, contains armed men ready to run out from this
central point, whenever they are called or required. So Christ, the Holy One,
is in the midst of the Church, in the midst of the believer individually,
because quite prepared to run out to any point where His people are weak and
unprotected. If any of God’s people be poor in this world, they need not have
recourse to unlawful methods to secure for them and their families bread to
eat, and raiment to put on, for their Heavenly Father knows they need these
things, and He will give them to them, in the use of the lawful means put in
their power. It intimates God reconciled in Christ to provide for their souls.
He will provide for them the means of grace. But once more, it makes part of
the privilege of God’s people, that they are to see the greatness of the glory
of God ultimately. Now God says that the very greatness of His glory shines out
in the work of redemption--that there is more of that great invisible God
brought out to intelligent creatures, by the work of redemption, than by any
work which God created.
III. THE DUTY that
God expects of His people, in consequence of their understanding this. “Cry out
and shout.” And here we are taught--
1. That courage is our duty--boldness. “Cry out and shout.” Why?
Because there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
2. Cheerfulness.
3. Holding forth the Word of life.
Concluding remarks--
1. How very far below their privilege do some professing Christians
live!
2. Privilege always goes before duty.
3. The words are spoken to individuals. (J. Muir, D. D.)
Loyal joy
Speaking of the early days of Queen Mary’s reign, Mr. Froude says:
“When the lords with the mayor and heralds went to the Cross at Cheapside to
proclaim Mary as Queen, there was no reason to complain of a silent audience.
Pembroke stood out to read, and could but utter one sentence before his voice
was lost in the shout of joy which thundered into the air. ‘God save the
Queen,’ rang out from ten thousands of throats. ‘God save the Queen,’ cried
Pembroke himself when he had done, and flung up his jewelled cap and tossed his
purse among the crowd. The glad news spread like lightning through London, and
the pent up hearts of the citizens poured themselves out in a torrent of
exultation. Above the human cries, the long silent church bells clashed again
into life: first began St. Paul’s, where happy chance had saved them from
destruction; then, one by one, every peal which had been spared caught up the
sound; and through the summer evening and night, and all the next day, the
metal tongues from tower and steeple gave voice to England’s gladness.”
──《The Biblical Illustrator》