3402. The Nail in a Secure Place

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 16, 1914.

“And I will fasten him as a nail in a secure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. And they shall hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. In that day,” says the Lord of hosts, “the nail that is fastened in the secure place shall be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was on it shall be cut off: for the Lord has spoken it.” {Isa 22:23-25}

1. We have read, in your hearing, the occasion of these words. Shebna the scribe, having become proud and conceited, was to be put away, and his place to be occupied by a better man, on whom God promised to establish his favour. When Shebna the scribe was put away, it was like the pulling out of a nail which, apparently, had been well-fastened, and all that had been hanging on it came down with its fall; so all of Shebna’s family suffered for his sin. It is just so in the world today. It would be good if some men who have gone into evil ways had considered this. It is not only those who suffer. Such is the order and constitution of the commonwealth of manhood that, when the husband sins, the household must feel much of the smart. Often, for wife and children, there has been wrung out a cup of bitterness, of which they have been made to drink, not through their own fault, but through the fault of the head of the family. Should there be any man here who has strayed into this house tonight, who contemplates using his hand for what is not good, though he might dare to risk the consequences for his own sake, yet, for the sake of the children of his loins and the wife of his bosom, let him pause, lest, perhaps, he fills their lives with bitterness, or sends them to their graves prematurely in poverty and shame.

2. That is not, however, the subject on which I shall speak at this time. When Shebna was removed, there was room for Eliakim. Let this furnish the key to a spiritual lesson. It has been generally propounded and admitted by commentators and expositors that Eliakim is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. While this passage literally refers to Eliakim himself, it may, with very great instructiveness, be used as applicable to the Lord Jesus, and I am using it like that.

3. I. The first point will be this: — IN ORDER TO MAKE ROOM FOR JESUS CHRIST, THERE MUST BE AN OVERTHROW OF SOMEONE ELSE, just as, in order to make room for Eliakim, Shebna, who seemed to be like a nail fastened in a secure place, must be pulled out, and there must be a downfall of his glory.

4. Beloved, whenever Jesus Christ comes into the heart, before he rides in state into the Castle of Mansoul, there is a battle, a strife, a struggle, a casting down of the image of sin, and then a setting up of the cross in its place. All men, by nature, have some kind of righteousness. There is no man so vile who does not still wrap himself up in his rags and cajoles himself into the belief that he has some degree of excellence, spiritual or moral. Before Christ can come into the heart, all this natural excellence must be torn to shreds; Every single stone of the wall on which we have built previously must come down, and the foundations must be utterly destroyed before we shall ever build properly and surely for eternity on the corner-stone of Christ Jesus. All our conceit about our past righteousnesses must be completely overthrown. Perhaps we flatter ourselves that all is well, because we have been baptized, or have come to the Communion, like one who was visited, a few days ago, by an elder. Since she was sick, and close to death, he asked her, “Do you have a good hope?” “Oh! sir, yes; a good and blessed hope.” “And please,” he said, “what is it?” “Well,” she said, “I have taken the Sacrament regularly for fifty years.” What do you think of that in a Christian country, from the lips of one who had attended a gospel ministry? Her confidence was built on the mere fact of her having attended an outward ceremony to which, probably, she had no right whatever! There are hundreds and thousands who are resting on mere ceremonies like this. They have been church-goers or chapel-goers from their youth up. They have never been absent, except under sickness, from their regular place of worship. Good easy souls! are these the balloons on which they hope to swim in eternity, they will surely burst, to their everlasting destruction. Some base their confidence on the fact that they have never indulged in the grosser vices; others that they have been scrupulously honest in their commercial transactions. Some that they have been good husbands; others that they have been charitable neighbours. I do not know of what poor flimsy tissue men will not make for a covering to hide their natural nakedness. But all this must be unravelled — every stitch of it. No man can put on the robes of Christ’s righteousness until he has taken off his own. Christ will never go shares in our salvation. God will not have it said that he partly made the heavens, but that some other spirit came in to conclude the gigantic work of creation, much less will he divide the work of our salvation with any other. He must be the only Saviour as he was the only Creator. In the wine-press of his sufferings Jesus stood alone; of the people no one was with him: no angel could assist him in the mighty work; in the fight he stood alone, the solitary Champion, the sole Victor. So, too, you must be saved by him alone, resting on him entirely, and considering your own righteousness to be only dross and dung, or else you can never be saved at all. It must be down with Shebna, or else it cannot be up with Eliakim. It must be down with self, or it can never be up with Christ. Self-righteousness must be set aside to make room for the righteousness of Jesus; otherwise, it can never be ours.

5. We must, with equal thoroughness, be ready to give up all confidence in our own resolutions, or vows, or endeavours, for the future, and come to rest the future where we rest the past, on Christ, and Christ alone. I know it is the idea of many that albeit that they have slipped and fallen in the past, yet they shall be able to stand upright in the future. Have they not resolved it? Can they not do it? Are they not able to do as they wish? Since they have had much ability for evil, have they not an equal ability for good? So self-sufficiency talks. But when a man comes to know himself, and to know Christ he sings another tune. “Ah!” said an aged saint, as he heard of men who were taken to the police station, and of some who were condemned to die, and others who were transported; {a} “Ah!” he said, “he today; I tomorrow, if the grace of God did not prevent it.” So every truly humbled man will say, when he hears of the great offences of others, “They today, and I tomorrow, unless grace shall intervene to keep me from following their bad example.” Brethren, our only hope for the future lies in this, that those who trust Jesus are in Jesus Christ’s hand, and that he is able to keep what they commit to him. Those who trust in Jesus have this promise that the Holy Spirit shall dwell in them, and walk in them, writing a law on their hearts, making their hearts new: moulding their natures into the nature of Christ, causing them to hate evil, and to choose what is good. You will never kill a single evil passion through your own strivings apart from the precious blood of Christ. Those vipers within our bosom will never die until they are sprinkled with the blood of the Great Sacrifice, and then they all depart. Jesus comes and fills the heart, and then evil is crushed beneath his feet, and is slain utterly, so that Christ becomes fully formed in us the hope of glory.

6. Now, it is hard for a man to give up these two things — all boasting about the past, and all hope for the future, in himself. It is hard to be a pauper, and to knock at Mercy’s door and ask for alms, and yet we can only come as paupers. I do not allude exclusively to you who have been great sinners outwardly only, but I mean you moral men and women, you who are good and excellent in a thousand ways. You must still come, just as the poor Publican came, with “God be merciful to me a sinner.” These are God’s terms, and he will accept you on no other. Oh! do not be proud enough to kick at them, but submit yourself to the dictates of eternal love, and let your vanity and self-opinion be abased so that Jesus Christ is your all in all.

7. Before I leave this point, let me remark that, just as this is to be done before we come to Christ, so all our lifelong it is one of the things about which we must always be vigilant, for the tendency of human nature, as long as we are in this world, is to get something to rest on in ourselves. We can hardly be indulged with the light of Jehovah’s countenance before we begin to make a confidence of it; and if our graces for a little while bud and bloom like seeming flowers, we very soon begin to compliment ourselves on our imaginary goodness. Borrowed though every excellence is, we begin to be proud of it, and to forget too much that in him is all our salvation, and all our confidence. This knocking down has to be persevered in, for the flesh lusts against the Spirit; and yet as fast as we can, in our pride, build up anything in which we can boast about, the Lord sends a terrible blast of some kind or other against the wall, and sweeps it all down, so that only Jesus Christ may be exalted in our experience.

8. So much on the first point. There must be a throwing down, a pulling out of one nail before there can be another for us to hang on.

9. II. Now, let us turn to a second thought, which is this: — THE NATURE OF OUR TRUE DEPENDENCE, as described in the words of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses.

10. The reliance of a really saved soul is on the person, the work, and righteousness of Jesus Christ only. This dependence is warranted by God’s appointment. Turn to the twenty-third verse: “I will fasten him as a nail in a secure place.” That other nail, in the twenty-fifth verse, God never fastened, but this is one that God fastens; and what God does lasts for ever. Do you, dear hearer, rest your soul’s salvation only on Jesus? Then, notice that, he can never fail you, for if he does, then it would be true that God had been mistaken. It would be blasphemy to think so. If the Lord appoints Jesus Christ to be a propitiation for sin, and yet he does not make that propitiation, then there is a mistake somewhere. If God tells me to lean my whole weight on his Son, and I do lean, and yet am not sustained, then there is a great mistake, not only on my part, but on the part of Infinite Wisdom. But we cannot suppose that. The Lord knew what he was doing when he appointed the Only Begotten to be the sinner’s pillar of strength, on which he might lean. He knew that Jesus could not fail; that as God he was all-sufficient; that as perfect man he would not turn aside; that as a bleeding surety, having paid all the debt of our sin on Calvary, he was able to save to the uttermost all those who come to God by him. I come into this pulpit so continually that it is a place to which I am more accustomed to than any other in the world, and this is the one cry I am always uttering in various ways; it is this one truth I present with unwearying interest. Jesus Christ the Son of God, died on the cross of Calvary, bearing on himself the sin of all who trust him, and for all who trust him he has made a full atonement, so that their sins are forgiven; Christ has paid their debts, they are free; he was punished for them; they cannot be punished. God cannot punish the same sin twice; if he punishes Christ, he will not punish any for whom Christ died. Now, if this statement were my own invention, if I promulgated it as coming out of my own thoughts, then it would be worthy of no acceptance; but inasmuch as God reveals it in his Word, oh! this is the soul and marrow of the Christian religion. Rest on it, and if you are deceived, if such a thing were possible, what a consolation you would have in appealing to the proclamation of divine mercy as an answer to all the terrors that menaced you. But that can never be. Impossible! It is the truth, oh sinner. However guilty you may be, believe this truth, that Christ is able to save you, and go and cast yourself on him. Rest on his finished work, and since God is true, he will not, he cannot, turn aside from his solemn oath and promise: “He who believes in Christ is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Son of God.” The Christian’s dependence, then, is of divine appointing.

11. Moreover, the believer’s dependence is of God’s sustaining, for notice, “I will fasten him as a nail in a secure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.” God ensures the future — that Christ shall always be to his people their glory and their defence. You know, we like good names to be attached to great contracts. In all commercial dealing, especially in large transactions, we like good and safe men to trust in, though, indeed, where are they to be found nowadays — since the best of them are sharper than a thorn-hedge. Oh! honesty, you are fled, perished, buried years ago, and the very rags you once wore are rotten now. But here, if nowhere else, here in the gospel we have a name in which we may trust, the name of the thrice-holy God who cannot lie, and he declares that he will sustain his Son as the Saviour of his people. Need I urge any rational spirit to depend where God pledges his word? “Let God be true, and every man a liar,” and if you have God’s word for it, cast yourselves unreservedly on his Word. You shall not find him to fail you; you shall rejoice as in heaven you sing of the faithfulness of the God who spoke, and the everlasting righteousness with which he fulfils every word he has spoken.

12. Further still; the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the believer’s great foundation and confidence, is also the Christian’s fountain of glory. “He shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.” All his father’s house was to be ennobled through the ennobling of Eliakim and so the Christian is ennobled through the ennobling of the Lord Jesus Christ. By nature what are we but despicable? If we consider the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, we are so minute as not to be worthy to be called specks in creation. If we look at our sinfulness, we are reduced still lower in the scale; and if we see our continued tendency to new sin, we are obliged to say, “Lord, what is man, that you are mindful of him at all?” But yet man is an honourable creature when he lays hold on Christ; then he is lifted up, and made to have dominion over all the works of God’s hands. All things are put under his feet in the person of Christ Jesus. There is no honour in the whole universe — no, not the honour of the angels themselves — that can exceed the honour that is placed on the man who believes in Jesus Christ. I wish we always thought so, for, indeed it is so. In the olden times, when one was brought before the magistrate to be accused and condemned to death for his Christianity, he did not blush to affirm his soul’s attachment to his Saviour publicly. When they asked him what he was, he said, “A Christian.” “And what is your name?” He said, “My name is Christian.” “And what is your occupation?” “My occupation is a Christian.” “And what is your wealth, what are your degrees and rank?” He said, “I am a Christian.” And to every question they asked, he only gave this one answer, “I am a Christian; I am a Christian.” All the wealth and all the glory of this world are nothing compared with the glory that comes to the very lowliest man who is really allied to Christ, and can truly be called a Christian. Lift up your heads, you poor and needy: rejoice, you downtrodden and oppressed, you toiling workers, you forgotten ones among the sons of men, for if your destiny is linked with the person of the once crucified, but now exalted, Saviour, you shall partake of his glory in the day of his appearing, and be for ever sharers of the splendour which eternally shall surround your Lord.

13. Here, then, is much to comfort us; he on whom we depend is divinely appointed, divinely sustained, and all his glory he sheds on us.

14. III. But now pass on, and note that: — THE CHRISTIAN’S WHOLE DEPENDENCE IS PLACED ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, as declared in the twenty-fourth verse.

15. The metaphor is this: There is a nail in a palace, and on this there may be hung up suits of armour, or whatever else the owner of the palace chooses to put there; but instead of that, there are hung golden wine cups and goblets. Some of them are small vessels of not much capacity; others of them are large flagons adapted to hold large quantities, but they are all hanging on this bracket, all suspended there as trophies. If the nail is taken out, the smaller vessels fall, and so do the larger ones, too, for they all equally and alike hang on that nail. Their only support from falling, and being broken on the floor, is that one nail which holds them all. Such is Christ to all his people. All Christians are not equally capacious vessels of grace. Some can receive much; they are full of knowledge, zeal, hope, joy, and faith. Others will never be anything but little vessels. They have believed, but their faith is mixed with unbelief. They can do very little; they have very few talents, their knowledge is obscured; their progress in the divine life is very small. Still, for all that, they rest on nothing less than Christ. They need not rest on anything more, and the great ones depend on nothing less than Christ, nor can they rest on anything more. The little cup is quite as safe, for it hangs on the nail, as the flagon does. Truly, one might be ambitious to be a flagon, to hold a deeper draught for its Lord’s pleasure, but the littleness of the tiniest vessel does not affect its safety. The safety of all that hang there lies in the firmness of the nail, the strength and security of the nail. Not in the littleness of the one, nor the greatness of the other, is there either safety or danger, but everything rests on that nail. So it is with the whole Church of God. We are all hanging on the finished work of Jesus Christ. If we have served him well, and served him long, yet we have nothing of which to boast, but we cast everything aside, and rest, as helpless sinners on the blessed Saviour. If we have only just begun to serve him, and so are babes in grace, we rest entirely on him. If we have fallen into sin, and have been backsliders, yet still we come again and look to his merits so that we may be restored; or if we have lived a blameless life, through his abundant grace, yet still, for all that, we have no other dependence than the rest of the saints, but entirely, solely, only rest in Jesus. This is very simple doctrine, expressed in very simple talk, but I wish that someone had told me this years before I heard it, for I always had the notion that I was to be saved by something I did, and something I felt. I supposed it was a great mystery, a matter that took months and years to solve, and that, even then, it was attended with imminent risk, and that the dreary search for this inestimable prize might end in disappointment. Oh! I wish I had been told earlier that there was nothing whatever for me to do for myself, but simply to come, just as I was, and cast myself on what Christ had done for me, and for sinners like me, and that, if I rested entirely on him, I would be saved from my sins, and from the tendency to sin, and be made holy in Christ Jesus. Now, I feel inclined to put this, whenever I am talking about it, into the simplest language and the shortest sentences, in order that if there should be a lad here, a child here, who is seeking salvation, he may not be kept in darkness, as I was, month after month, and year after year, trying to know what to do to be saved. Man, woman whoever you may be, what is to save you is done; Christ has done it all. The robe you will wear in heaven is spun already; you do not have to sit at the loom, working away and making a garment with which to cover your sins. You do not have to fill the fountain in which you have to be washed, nor even to drop a tear into it to make it perfect. There it is, filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and all you have to do is only to step into it by simply trusting it. Trust Christ; rely on Christ; depend on Christ, and it is done, and you are saved. The flagons and the cups put on the nail are safe there. You who put on Jesus Christ now are safe now, safe tonight, safe all your life, and safe in everlasting glory.

16. Now, I should like to ask a question of two or three classes, and then send you home. There are a great many of us here tonight who are teachers of others. Some of you are deacons, elders, Sunday School teachers, street preachers. I thank God that you are a busy people, and you are doing much for Christ. There is a question I want to ask of you, and of myself: Are we who teach others sure that we have believed in Christ ourselves? Are we quite quite, quite sure that we are saved? It is good to ask that question, it is a very dangerous thing, indeed, for an unsaved man to begin to work for Christ, for the probabilities are that he will take for granted what he ought diligently to have proved. In many cases he never will seek to be saved; but go on, on, on, never pausing to examine himself, and so, while professing to work for God, he may be a stranger to the work of God on himself. There is an old story I remember reading somewhere of a lunatic in an asylum, who one day saw a very lean cook. Accosting him, he said, “Cook, do you make good food?” “Yes,” said the cook. “Are you sure?” “Yes.” “And does anyone get fat on it?” “Yes,” again was the reply. “Then,” said the man, “you had better be careful about what you are doing, or else, when the governor comes around, he will put you in along with me for if you make good food, and yet are so thin yourself, you must be mad, for you do not eat it, or else you would get fat, too!” There is some sense in that. You teach others, you say; you give them spiritual food; but why not feed on it yourselves? Teacher, what right do you have to teach if you will not first learn? Physician, physician, heal yourself! Brother, it will go hard with you and with me, if we are lost. What will become of us teachers of others, if, after having led others to the river, we never drink; after bringing others the heavenly food, we perish of spiritual famine ourselves? I cannot go around to all the members of this church, and all the workers, and take them by the hand and say, “My dear brother or sister, do not be deceived, and do not go on deceiving us”; but I sometimes wish I could do that, and I wish you would take it as done tonight, for there are some awful hypocrites among us. There are some who come in and behave very well apparently, who are nothing better than abominable hypocrites, rotten through and through; and yet in our charity we never suspect them, and if we occasionally discover one, we stand amazed and say “Lord, shall I be the next to be a Judas and betray my Master?” There never was a church in which such hypocrites have not at all times been exposed to view, unless they were all in the gall of bitterness together, dead in an empty profession, and then it is no marvel that there should be little inclination to exercise discipline. Christ’s twelve had a Judas, and all churches must expect to find the chaff that must be driven away into the fire when the wheat is purged by the great Master’s fan. I beseech you, my dear brothers and sisters, do not let membership with this church, or any other church, assist you in self-delusion, but do — oh! how shall I put it, how shall I put it? — do, before you think about the conversion of other people, see to it that your own conversion is accomplished. Consider yourself in no way safe until you hang on that nail. You need not talk to others about trusting in Christ until you have first trusted in him yourselves.

17. Out of the many hearers who have listened to me for so long, may there not be a great number who, though taught in the doctrine of the Word, have never yet been obedient to it? For a man to perish before knowing the gospel will be a dreary thing; but for him to die, when he knows the gospel, is something horrible — to be drowned with the life-jacket within reach, to perish in the dark, when the light is to be had; to die of famine, like Tantalus, {b} with the golden apples close to one’s lips; to perish of thirst with the water gurgling at one’s throat! Oh! it will be a sound of horror for ever in the lost ones’ ears when they shall hear the echo of the Sabbath bells — if such sounds can penetrate the murky regions where lost spirits dwell — the sound, I say, of the Sabbath bells, reminding them of the Lord’s days wasted and neglected; the sound familiar to them when on earth, of the preacher’s voice as he pleaded, entreated, thundered, threatened, wept, begged men to be saved. If there could be silence there, and everything could be forgotten, there might be a lull in the fierce hailstorm of Almighty wrath. But they can never forget, for it is said, “Son, remember; son, remember”; and they shall remember that they were called, but would not come; that they were invited, but declined the feast; that they were instructed, but shut their eyes; that they were wooed, but they hardened their necks and chose their own delusions. Oh! by the mercy of the blessed God, do not write your names, my hearers, among the guilty and terrible multitude.

18. And may there not be some who come merely as casual hearers now and then, who, instead of gleaning anything that is good out of what we have tried to say, only remember our mistakes, our mannerisms, our faults of gesture or of style? It may be sport to some of you to sit and hear, but it is awful as death for us to stand and preach. I mean, it is no child’s play for a man to feel “I stand in God’s place to these people tonight, and as though God beseeched them by me, I am to implore them, as in Christ’s place, to be reconciled to God.” He who can toy with his ministry, and consider it to be like a trade; or like any other profession, was never called by God. But he who has a charge pressing on his heart, and a woe ringing in his ears, and preaches as though he heard the cries of hell behind him, and saw his God looking down on him — oh! how that man entreats the Lord that his hearers may not hear in vain. Yet? alas! alas! by how many who come to hear, all that is good is forgotten, and only some worthless thing is treasured up. As among those who go to the goldsmith’s shop, while one is looking at a pearl, and another admires a ruby, and another would gladly purchase a diamond, there may be an idiot who picks up a coal from the floor, and thinks that shall be his, takes it home with him, and blackens his fingers with it, and then goes his way and finds fault with the jeweller who dropped it; so you are foolish people and unwise who are attracted by nothing that is precious in the gospel, but are diligent to collect any refuse that drops in the pulpit. Oh! sirs, if you must find fault with us, do so, and welcome, as much as ever you wish, but do not forgot that there is truth in the sentence that if you are to be saved, you must rest only on the work of Jesus. You need saving; you need it tonight. There may never be another occasion on which you may have an opportunity for finding salvation. The opportunity is given to you now. May the Holy Spirit give you the will as well as the occasion, and may you now say: — 

   I’ll go to Jesus though my sins

      Have like a mountain rose;

   I know his courts, I’ll enter in

      Whatever may oppose.

   Prostrate I’ll lie before his throne,

      And there my sins confess;

   I’ll tell him I’m a wretch undone

      Without his sovereign grace.

19. May God bless these words for Jesus’ sake.

{a} Sentence of Transportation: Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation"
{b} Tantalus: Name of a mythical king of Phrygia, son of Zeus and the nymph Pluto, condemned, for revealing the secrets of the gods, to stand in Tartarus up to his chin in water, which constantly receded as he stooped to drink, and with branches of fruit hanging above him which always fled his grasp; a rock is also said to have hung over him threatening to fall. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Isa 41:1-18}

God enters into a controversy with those who had fallen into the worship of idols.

1. “Keep silence before me, oh islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.

He challenges them to a debate. He gives them breathing time — tells them to prepare themselves, and come with the best arguments that their minds could find.

2, 3. Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his feet, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? He gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.

Who was it who raised up Cyrus, and who made him strong to defeat the foe? Did the false gods do it? Could they claim any share in it? He asks it of them.

4. Who has accomplished and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? ‘I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.’

Long before Cyrus was born, God spoke like this of him. It is declared what work he should do. What better proof could there be that God is God? Do the false gods foretell the future? Are their oracles to be depended on? Yet the Lord’s word is true and stands firm for ever. “I, Jehovah, first, and with the last, I am he.”

5, 6. The isles saw it, and feared: the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. Everyone helped his neighbour; and everyone said to his brother, ‘Be of good courage.’

When men fight against God, they get united. What a very sad thing it is that God’s children should ever fall out. There is one sin that I never heard charged on the demons, namely, the sin of disunity. Of all the evil things we have heard, I have never heard that among the principalities of the pit there has ever been any division into sects and parties. Oh! sad that in this respect we should fall short of them. Every one of the enemies of God helped his neighbour, “and everyone said to his brother, ‘Be of good courage.’”

7. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer and struck the anvil, saying, ‘It is ready for the sodering’: and he fastened it with nails, so that it should not be moved.

What a sarcastic description of god-making this is! There is the carpenter, and then the goldsmith to spread the plates of gold over the wood, and then it is soldered, and it has to be fastened with nails. The simple facts about the making of gods are sufficient to pour ridicule on idolatry. May God deliver us from idolatry of any form or shape, whether it comes from Rome or Canterbury. May we have no symbol — no visible object of worship whatever, but get rid of all that, and let us bow before the great invisible Spirit, worshipping him in spirit and in truth. For the least touch of the symbolic soon leads on to the idolatrous, and what at first seemed harmless soon comes to be harmful so that well does the law say, “You shall not make for yourself any carved image for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Oh! to keep clear of this great and heinous sin!

8, 9. But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from its chief men, and said to you, ‘You are my servant: I have chosen you, and not cast you away.

The people of Israel were reserved by God so that they might worship him. While other nations went to their idols, the Israelites were to be his servants, chaste in heart towards him. It is so with the Lord’s believing people. You are elected and selected, chosen and ordained, and set apart. You may fear the Lord, and not give your hearts to any other. May God grant that we may be true to this sacred trust of ours. Notice how very sweetly in this text the Lord alludes to his friendship to Abraham, “The seed of Abraham, my friend.” When the Lord makes a friend of a man, he means it, and he keeps up that friendship to his children and his children’s children. Happy are those who have a father who is a friend of God. Just as David did good to Mephibosheth for the sake of Jonathan, so, doubtless, many blessings come to the children for the sake of their parents. The Lord keeps mercy to the third and fourth generation, yes, and throughout all generations to those who keep his covenant.

10. Do not fear: for I am with you:

What reason is there for fear now? If I am with you, you need not fear all the men on earth, nor all the demons of the pit. “Do not fear, for I am with you.”

10. Do not be dismayed: for I am your God:

“Your God.” Lay the stress there if you wish, or “your God, therefore your all-sufficient helper — your immutable, faithful, everlasting friend.”

10-12. I will strengthen you: yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.’ Behold all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them, and shall not find them, even those who contended with you: those who war against you shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught.

Go on, then, child of God. All your foes who resist your salvation shall disappear before your onward march. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Advance to meet your cares, and God shall take your cares away. Only be strong and of a good courage, and rest in the everlasting arms, and you shall be more than a conqueror.

13, 14. For I the LORD your God will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Do not fear: I will help you. Do not fear, you worm Jacob.’

Poor worm! How can it take care of itself? Even a bird can destroy it. “Do not fear, you worm Jacob.” You know what a worm does for its defence. It is all that it can do: it hides itself in the earth. Hide yourself in your God. Get into the rock, and there be hidden until the danger has past. “Do not fear, you worm Jacob.”

14. And you men of Israel: I will help you,” says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

How many times the Lord puts it, “I will help you!” How again and again, he says, “Do not fear!” For despondency is deeply inscribed in some spirits. There are some minds that seem to gravitate that way again and again, and again; and even the divine assurances have to be given repeatedly before they feel comfort. Have any of you been troubled because your children do not learn the first time you teach them? See how you are towards your heavenly Father! How many times he has to teach you, line upon line, precept upon precept — here a little, and there a little; and if he has patience with our infirmities, we may very readily have patience with the infirmities of our little ones.

15. “Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth.

He will make poor feeble worms to be like that great grain drag which they were accustomed to draw over the straw to separate out the wheat.

15, 16. You shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff: you shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the LORD, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.

Truly, when mountains are beaten into chaff, and blown away with the winnowing fan, there is room for rejoicing and magnifying God. If there were no difficulties, there would be no victories. If we had no trials, we should have no tests of Jehovah’s strength; but out of our afflictions we get our joys. The deeper our sorrows, the higher our exaltations when God helps us through them.

17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

What a blessed promise that is! God thinks of poor and needy men. When they are in their greatest extremity, with nothing to quench their thirst, and they are ready to die, then he is pleased to make the rocks run with rivers, in order that they may be supplied.

18. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”