Expositions of Holy Scripture: Isaiah and Jeremiah Part 2

The third stage in the prophet's experience is the readiness for service which springs up in his purged heart. G.o.d seeks for volunteers.

There are no pressed men in His army. The previous experiences made Isaiah quick to hear G.o.d's call, and willing to respond to it by personal consecration. Take the motive-power of redemption from sin out of Christianity, and you break its mainspring, so that the clock will only tick when it is shaken. It is the Christ who died for our sins to whom men say, 'Command what Thou wilt, and I obey.'

III. The prophet's commission.--He was not sent on his work with any illusions as to its success, but, on the contrary, he had a clear premonition that its effect would be to deepen the spiritual deafness and blindness of the nation. We must remember that in Scripture the certain effect of divine acts is uniformly regarded as a divine design.

Israel was so sunk in spiritual deadness that the issue of the prophet's work would only be to immerse the ma.s.s of 'this people'

farther in it. To some more susceptible souls his message would be a true divine voice, rousing them like a trumpet, and that effect was what G.o.d desired; but to the greater number it would deepen their torpor and increase their condemnation. If men love darkness rather than light, the coming of the light works only judgment.

Isaiah recoils from the dreary prospect, and feels that this dreadful hardening cannot be G.o.d's ultimate purpose for the nation. So he humbly and wistfully asks how long it is to last. The answer is twofold, heavy with a weight of apparently utter ruin in its first part, but disclosing a faint, far-off gleam of hope on its second. Complete destruction, and the casting of Israel out from the land, are to come.

But as, though a goodly tree is felled, a stump remains which has vital force (or _substance_) in it, so, even in the utmost apparent desperateness of Israel's state, there will be in it 'the holy seed,'

the 'remnant,' the true Israel, from which again the life shall spring, and stem and branches and waving foliage once more grow up.

THE EMPTY THRONE FILLED

'In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.'--ISAIAH vi. 1.

Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of which he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in war, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later years of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a time of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of five-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were gathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder that the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself what was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands, which, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he took his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he brooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. 'In the year that King Uzziah died' is a great deal more than a date for chronological purposes. It tells us not only the _when_, but the _why_, of the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet saw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart, and the resolve 'Here am I; send me.' There are some lessons that seem to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of time that is appended to it.

Now, before I pa.s.s on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently audacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John gives us: 'These things said Esaias, when he had beheld _His_ glory and spake of _Him_.' Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the revelation of an eternal reality, and 'the vision splendid' does not 'fade but brightens, into the light of common day'; when instead of being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and walks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fas.h.i.+on, than ever Isaiah did amid the sanct.i.ties of the Temple. And the eyes that have seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of men, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm, silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand out, and the veil is drawn aside?

I. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow in preparing for the vision.

It was when 'King Uzziah died' that the prophet 'saw the Lord sitting upon the throne.' If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would not have seen the throned G.o.d in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned G.o.d. The possession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which our sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest purpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every gladness, of all love--the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But, just as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the sight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things which are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, G.o.d, we frost and darken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us.

And then a mighty and merciful hand s.h.i.+vers the painted gla.s.s into fragments, because it has been dimming 'the white radiance of Eternity.' And though the cas.e.m.e.nt may look gaunt, and the edges of the broken gla.s.s may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the gifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon G.o.d. When Uzziah dies the King becomes visible.

Is that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us?

Well for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession of the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the pa.s.sing of all that can pa.s.s is a means of revealing Him who 'is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'! The message to us of all these our pains and griefs is 'Come up hither.' In them all our Father is saying to us, 'Seek ye My face.' Well for those who answer, 'Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not Thy face far from me.'

Let us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us 'the things that are,' the realities of the throned G.o.d, the skirts that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the altar that purges.

II. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given for all losses.

As I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by this vision was not only the general one, of G.o.d's sovereign rule, but the special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the orphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special shape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was dead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.

So there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the consciousness of G.o.d's presence and work for us takes in each heart the precise shape that its momentary necessities and circ.u.mstances require.

That infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will a.s.sume any form for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature call. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think underlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether they be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or gravitation, the one same vision of the throned G.o.d, manifest in Jesus Christ, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there flashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together, there as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in motion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one G.o.d will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires.

He shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired. And the G.o.d, who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His _kingly_ power, because the throne of Judah was vacated.

So when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, 'The same is my mother and sister and brother,' and His sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him.

So, dear friends, let us learn G.o.d's purpose in emptying hearts and chairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself.

He takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the south are to-day pa.s.sing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may bring us out into the land where 'G.o.d Himself is sun and moon,' and where there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these lands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall see the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all from whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old word is true: 'Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'

Let me recall to you what I have already insisted on more than once, that the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the Incarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us G.o.d. Jesus Christ is the King of Glory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then losses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our hands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand that is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will more than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes behold the King, if we are like John the Seer in his rocky Patmos, and see the Christ in His glory and royalty, then He will lay His hands on us and say, 'Fear not! Weep not; I am the First and the Last,' and forebodings, and fears, and sense of loss will all be changed into trustfulness and patient submission. 'Seeing Him, who is invisible,' we shall be able to endure and to toil, until the time when the vision of earth is perfected by the beholding of heaven. Blessed are they who with purged eyes see, and with yielding hearts obey, the heavenly vision, and turn to the King and offer themselves for any service He may require, saying, 'Here am I; send me.'

A SERAPH'S WINGS

'With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.'--ISAIAH vi. 2.

This is the only mention in Scripture of the seraphim. I do not need to enter upon the much-debated, and in some respects interesting, question as to whether these are to be taken as identical with the cherubim, or as to whether they are altogether imaginary and symbolical beings, nor as to whether they are identical with the angels, or part of their hierarchy. All that may be left on one side. I would only notice, before I deal with the specific words of my text, the significance of the name. It means 'the flaming' or 'burning ones,' and so the attendants of the divine glory in the heavens, whether they be real or imaginary beings, are represented as flas.h.i.+ng with splendour, as full of swift energy, like a flame of fire, as glowing with fervid love, as blazing with enthusiasm. That is the type of the highest creatural being, which stands closest to G.o.d. There is no ice in His presence, and the nearer we get to Him in truth, the more we shall glow and burn.

Cold religion is a contradiction in terms, though, alas, it is a reality in professors.

And so with that explanation, and putting aside all these other questions, let us gather up some, at least, of the lessons as to the essentials of wors.h.i.+p, and try to grasp the prophecy of the heavenly state, given us in these words.

I. The Wings of Reverence.

He covered his face, or _they_ covered _their_ faces, lest they should see. As a man brought suddenly into the sunlight, especially if out of a darkened chamber, by an instinctive action shades his eyes with his hand, so these burning creatures, confronted with the still more fervid and fiery light of the divine nature, fold one pair of their great white pinions over their s.h.i.+ning faces, even whilst they cry 'Holy!

Holy! Holy! is the Lord G.o.d Almighty!'

And does not that teach us the incapacity of the highest creature, with the purest vision, to gaze undazzled into the s.h.i.+ning light of G.o.d? I, for my part, do not believe that any conceivable extension of creatural faculties, or any conceivable hallowing of creatural natures, can make the creature able to gaze upon G.o.d. I know that it is often said that the joy of the future life for men is what the theologians call 'the beatific vision,' in which there shall be direct sight of G.o.d, using that word in its highest sense, as applied to the perceptions of the spirit, and not of the sense. But I do not think the Bible teaches us that. It does teach us 'We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.' But who is the 'Him'? Jesus Christ. And, in my belief, Jesus Christ will, to all eternity, be the medium of manifesting G.o.d, and there will remain, to all eternity, the incapacity which clogs creatures in time--' No man hath seen G.o.d at any time, nor _can_ see Him.'

But my text, whilst it thus suggests solemn thoughts of a Light that cannot be looked at with undazzled eyes, does also suggest to us by contrast the possibility of far feebler-sighted and more sinful creatures than these symbolical seraphs coming into a Presence in which G.o.d shall be manifest to them; and they will need no veil drawn by themselves across their eyes. G.o.d has veiled Himself, that 'we, with unveiled faces, beholding His glory, may be changed into the same image.' So the seraph, with his white wings folded before his eyes, may at once stand to us as a parallel and a contrast to what the Christian may expect. We, _we_ can see Jesus, with no incapacity except such as may be swept away by His grace and our will. And direct vision of the whole Christ is the heaven of heaven, even as the partial vision of the partially perceived Christ is the sweetest sweetness of a life on earth.

There is no need for us to draw any screen between our happy eyes and the Face in which we 'behold the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father.' All the tempering that the divine l.u.s.tre needed has been done by Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christ's flesh, and therein does away the need for any veil that we can draw.

But, beyond that, there is another consideration that I should like to suggest, as taught us by the use of this first pair of the six wings, and that is the absolute need for the lowliest reverence in our wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. It is strange, but true, I am afraid, that the Christian danger is to weaken the sense of the majesty and splendour and separation of G.o.d from His creatures. And all that is good in the Christian revelation may be so abused as that there shall come, what I am sure does in effect sometimes come, a terrible lack of due reverence in our so-called wors.h.i.+p. What does that lofty chorus of 'Holy! Holy! Holy!'

that burst from those immortal lips mean but the declaration that G.o.d is high above, and separate from, all limitations and imperfections of creatures? And we Christians, who hear it re-echoed in the very last Book of Scripture by the four-and-twenty elders who represent redeemed humanity, have need to take heed that we do not lose our reverence in our confidence, and that we do not part with G.o.dly fear in our filial love. If one looks at a congregation of professing Christians engaged in their wors.h.i.+p, does not one feel and see that there is often a carelessness and shallowness, a want of realisation of the majesty and sanct.i.ty and tremendousness of that Father to whom we draw near?

Brethren, if a seraph hides his face, surely it becomes us to see to it that, since we wors.h.i.+p a G.o.d who is a consuming fire,' we serve Him with far deeper 'reverence and G.o.dly fear' than ordinarily mark our devotions.

II. The Wings of Humility.

'With twain he covered his feet.' The less comely and inferior parts of that fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraph's feet from the eye of G.o.d, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of unworthiness that folded them across the feet, even though they, too, burned as a furnace. The nearer we get to G.o.d, the more we shall be aware of our limitations and unworthiness, and it is because that vision of the Lord sitting on 'His throne, high and lifted up,' with the thrilling sense of His glory filling the holy temple of the universe, does not burn before us that we can conceit ourselves to have anything worth pluming ourselves upon. Once lift the curtain, once let my eye be flooded with the sight of G.o.d, and away goes all my self-conceit, and all my fancied superiority above others. One little molehill is pretty nearly the same height as another, if you measure them both against the top of the Himalayas, that lie in the background, with their glittering peaks of snow. 'Star differeth from star in glory' in a winter's night, but when the great sun swims into the sky, they all vanish together. If you and I saw G.o.d burning before us, as Isaiah saw Him, we should veil ourselves, and lose all that which so often veils Him from us--the fancy that we are anything when we are nothing. And the nearer we get to G.o.d, and the purer we are, the more shall we be keenly conscious of our imperfections and our sins. 'If I say I am perfect,' said Job in his wise way, 'this also should prove me perverse.' Consciousness of sin is the continual accompaniment of growth in holiness. 'The heavens are not pure in His sight, and He chargeth His angels with folly.' Everything looks black beside that sovereign whiteness. Get G.o.d into your lives, and you will see that the feet need to be washed, and you will cry, 'Lord! not my feet only, but my hands and my head!'

III. Lastly-The Wings for Service.

'With twain he did fly.' That is the emblem of joyous, buoyant, unhindered motion. It is strongly, sadly contrary to the toilsome limitations of us heavy creatures who have no wings, but can at best run on His service, and often find it hard to 'walk with patience in the way that is set before us.' But--service with wings, or service with lame feet, it matters not. Whosoever, beholding G.o.d, has found need to hide his face from that Light even whilst he comes into the Light, and to veil his feet from the all-seeing Eye, will also feel impulses to go forth in His service. For the perfection of wors.h.i.+p is neither the consciousness of my own insufficiency, nor the humble recognition of His glory, nor the great voice of praise that thrilled from those immortal lips, but it is the doing of His will in daily life. Some people say the service of man is the service of G.o.d. Yes, when it is service of man, done for G.o.d's sake, it is so, and only then. The old motto, 'Work is wors.h.i.+p,' may preach a great truth or a most dangerous error. But there is no possibility of error or danger in maintaining this: that the climax and crown of all wors.h.i.+p, whether for us footsore servants upon earth, or for these winged attendants on the throne of the King in the heavens, is activity in obedience. And that is what is set before us here.

Now, dear brethren, we, as Christians, have a far higher motive for service than the seraphs had. We have been redeemed, and the spirit of the old Psalm should animate all our obedience: 'O Lord, truly I am Thy servant.' Why? The next clause tells us: 'Thou hast loosed my bonds.'

The seraphs could not say that, and therefore our obedience, our activity in doing the will of the Father in heaven, should be more buoyant, more joyful, more swift, more unrestricted than even theirs.

The seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the throne and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the Temple.

May we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes of wors.h.i.+p which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we should aim at harmonising even on earth? 'His servants serve Him and see His face.' There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the perfection of that heavenly state in which no wors.h.i.+p in service shall interfere with the wors.h.i.+p in contemplation. Mary, sitting at Christ's feet, and Martha, busy in providing for His comfort, may be, to a large extent, united in us even here, and will be perfectly so hereafter, when the practical and the contemplative, the wors.h.i.+p of n.o.ble aspiration, of heart-filling gazing, and that of active service shall be indissolubly blended.

The seraphs sang 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' but they, and all the hosts of heaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men are the chorus-leaders of the perfected and eternal wors.h.i.+p of the heavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin the song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that the living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can but say 'Amen!'

THE MAKING OF A PROPHET