3545. Our Glorious Leader

A Sermon Published On Thursday, January 4, 1917.

And when he had spoken this, he went ahead, ascending up to Jerusalem. {Lu 19:28}

1. It is a very beautiful sight to see the Lord Jesus marching in front, and his followers eagerly following on behind. They were going up to Jerusalem, where it is true he would receive some honour, but where also he would be betrayed into the hands of cruel men, and put to a shameful death; but he went ahead of them. Just as the shepherd goes ahead of the sheep, not driving, but leading; just as the captain goes ahead of his soldiers as taking the post of danger, so our Lord went ahead of them. It was far better that he should go first than that they should, for the disciple is never more out of place than when he outruns his Master. If he will follow his Master’s commands, he shall do well; but if he shall follow his own devices and invent his own way, he shall do badly. The pilgrimage behind the cloud is a safe one, but to rush ahead of the cloud will end in a disaster. The Master must go first, not the disciple. But then, when the Master advances, it is right to see the disciple follow, ready of foot, quick at his Master’s heel, delighted with his Master’s company. One likes to think of that journey up to Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ just a little ahead in the front, and his disciples closely following with him. I thought it was a picture that might serve us as a model throughout the whole year. I am not going to talk to you for long at this time, but wish just to sketch that picture before your mind’s eye, and say, “May it be so for each one of us.” May Jesus be with us, may Jesus lead the way, and may his own Divine Spirit give us grace to follow him, not like Peter, afar off, but as loving disciples who keep closely under their Master’s guidance! From the beginning of the year to the end of the year may we rejoice to feel that he goes ahead; but may we also with great alacrity follow close behind. I present it to you, I say, as the picture for this new year of grace, and may it be verified in your experience.

2. Very simply, then, I shall try to call attention to the blessed fact that Jesus goes ahead of us, and, having done so, I shall ask you, in the second place, to seek after a sweet fulfilment of this truth.

3. I. And the first truth, then, to consider is: THE BLESSED FACT—he went ahead of them.

4. We have already said that he was going the way of suffering. He was going up to Jerusalem to suffer. When you are in the way of suffering, he will go ahead of you. He was always in the way of service. There was more to be done at Jerusalem before he had finished his course. May we, in the way of service, always find him going ahead of us. And he was also, in the third place, on the way to death, and if we have any fears about our passage through the river, may this console us—he went ahead of us.

5. To begin, then, at the beginning, here is the blessed fact that Christ has gone “ahead” in the way of suffering. He has done so by his own actual experience while he was here in the flesh. “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” “In all our afflictions he was afflicted.” “He himself took our sicknesses and carried our sorrows.” Rest assured that, in whatever way of suffering you have to go as a result of your being a child of man, and especially as a result of your being a child of God, you will find that Christ has gone that way ahead of you. Are you full of bodily pain, stretched on the bed? Are you apt to think that no one ever suffered as you do? He suffered more than you; he went ahead of you along that flinty pathway. The pangs of his death must have been extreme. And remember his passion in the garden, his agony in Gethsemane. You have not in this matter yet come to having drops of blood oozing in sweat from your countenance. No; he has gone ahead of you there. In all the pangs of your bodily frame Jesus has preceded you. Read Psalm twenty-two with all its wonderful expressions—”I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” “You have brought me into the dust of death.” He knew the fever and its thirst on the cross when he was dying there. He said, “You have brought me to the dust of death.” You do not have one suffering that may be imagined to be more excruciating than what he had endured. Your griefs are molehills compared with the Alps of his sufferings.

6. But you will say that it is not exactly the pathway of personal bodily pain you are traversing, but you have endured much in the sufferings of others you have lost. You have had half your heart, perhaps, taken away at one time; friend after friend has been carried to the tomb; but he went ahead in this pathway also. Did you never read where it is written, “Jesus wept”? “Behold how he loved him,” said the Jews, as they beheld him at the sepulchre of the well-beloved Lazarus. He knows what bereavements means as well as you—he has gone ahead. “Ah” you say, “but as a result of the bereavement I have suffered I am left a widow. How shall I be provided for? In addition to the woe of the loss, I have to look forward to the future. Will these hands be able to find daily bread for me? My garments may become by degrees more and more thin and time-worn. I fear cold, nakedness, and hunger.” And suppose it should come to that, as it will not, I trust, yet he went ahead. You are not as poor as he was. Hear his voice tonight, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of man have nowhere to lay my head.” To pay the common tax, he must borrow money from the fish of the sea. His garment was the common seamless robe of peasants; he was very poorly clad; he was in all respects the child of poverty. First cradled in a manger, and then laid for his last sleep in a borrowed grave, for still he had nowhere to lay his head. In the sleep of death, Jesus went ahead of you. Oh son of poverty, oh daughter of need, you may see the print of his footsteps all along that thorny way.

7. “Indeed,” one says, “but still there is added to poverty in my case the fact that I have been forsaken by friends, and I am very fearful that even those who stood somewhat faithful to me will soon grow weary, and I shall be left alone.” And did you never hear him say, “And I shall be left alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me”? And have you never read how they all forsook him and fled, and Peter denied him with oaths and curses, and, worst of all, Judas, who had been trusted with his little money, sold him at the price of a slave? “He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.” Ingratitude most cruel, treachery most base! Your Lord has suffered it. You may see the prints of his pierced feet along that pathway if you will only look for them. Jesus went ahead of you in actual suffering.

8. And what if you have been serving your Lord with zeal and fervour, and you have been reproached, even by those who love him. You have been given the cold shoulder where you expected to find encouragement. If your motives have been misrepresented by the very people who ought to have supported you in your ardour, ah! what then? Was he not also a reproach among his mother’s brothers? When his zeal had eaten him up, they said that he was mad, and even his mother and his brothers stood outside desiring that they might see him, because they thought he was bereaved of his wits; and if the wicked world has reproached and reviled you, did they not call the Master of the house “Beelzebub”? Shall they have soft names and honourable titles for the men of his household? If they said of him, “He has a demon, and is mad; why do you listen to him?” do you think they will say great and flattering things about you? Oh you who are made ashamed for his sake, and made a spectacle to men and to angels, do not be afraid; no strange thing has happened to you; thousands of saints have passed along this road, and, chief of all, your Master, Christ, has gone ahead of you. In the path of suffering, then, Jesus has gone ahead of us, from the fact of having actually and literally experienced what we suffer.

9. He has gone ahead in another sense, namely, that now, though he reigns exalted high in the highest heavens, he still goes ahead of us in the intense sympathy of his sacred heart. Jesus is not separated from his people by the mere fact of distance. “Lo,” he has said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” and you know what mysterious, yet real union exists between Christ the head and all his members. It came out clearly in the case of Paul, when he said to him, “Why do you persecute me?” He was persecuting only a few poor people in Jerusalem, or in Damascus, whom he despised, but Christ said, “Why do you persecute me?” because persecuting the saints was persecuting Christ—Christ suffering in his members. Christ suffering on the cross was the head suffering, but when his people were torn to pieces in the amphitheatre, when they were burned at Smithfield, {a} and when today they are hooted and made a jest of, it is Christ suffering, still suffering in his members, and when any child of God suffers in any righteous cause, whenever affliction happens to a saint in any form, Christ sympathizes with him. Rest assured:—

   In every pang that rends the heart,

   The Man of sorrows bears his part.

In all their affliction he was afflicted. A finger never suffers without the brain participating, and no humble member of the true Church of Christ ever suffers without Christ, the glorious head, suffering in sympathy with it.

10. Now this is very cheering to those who have faith to receive it, because very much of the heart-breaking that comes into the world is from a sense of loneliness. When men feel that someone sympathizes with them; when those who are being beaten feel that others smart as they do, then they take courage. Oh! there is one who loves you more than you can love yourself, who sympathizes with you, you suffering saint, from the throne of his glory. Be, therefore, glad; be of good courage, and let this comfort your heart.

11. There is a third way in which Christ goes ahead of us in the path of suffering; that is, in the matter of providence. While he has himself suffered, and himself sympathizes, in a third respect he always goes ahead of us in our sufferings, in preparing them for us, and preparing us for them. Our Lord has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us, and I believe he has prepared all the road as well as a place at the end of it. You shall find, oh child of God, when you come into the deep waters, that Christ is there—there by his grace and Spirit, and there also by his providence, to take care of you. It was appointed that Jacob and his family should all go down to Egypt. To Egypt they must go, but Joseph went down there ahead of them, and became governor over all Egypt, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his brothers; for all the wealth of Egypt shall be used, if necessary, in order that Jacob and all his household shall be preserved during the time of famine. Now if there is an Egypt to which you are to go, Jesus, your Joseph, has gone ahead of you to make it ready for you, to find you a Goshen there, and to nourish you there until such a day as you shall come from it. God, even your Saviour Jesus, leads the vanguard. Just as the cloud, like a mighty fire-banner, went through all the mazes of the winding way of Israel over the desert, so Jesus marches ahead of us, the leader, the standard-bearer among ten thousand, always in the vanguard, and with his eternal power and Godhead making straight the pathway for his people’s feet. Let us be of good courage, then, in this respect. In the matter of suffering, he went ahead of you.

12. But now understand it in retrospect. If he goes ahead, then follow him. You do not love suffering. It would not be suffering if you did love it, but still if Jesus leads, do not look at the way. It would be better that that way should be full of thorns and briars which should tear your flesh, and Christ be with you, than that it should be a long green pathway, and your shepherd not lead you. Go on. He went to his sufferings without a murmur. Moreover, even his flesh shrank, and at last he said, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Say the same. Do you fear as you enter into the cloud? Within that cloud shall be the secret tabernacle of the Most High, where he will reveal himself to you as he never did before. Some of us owe much to the anvil, and the hammer, and the fire, much to suffering, much to trials, and we thank God we had them, and you will still have to do the same; but, oh! do not hold back. Remember, after all, a lack of resignation will not assist you in your suffering, but, on the contrary, nothing makes suffering so light as resignation to it, and a perfect acquiescence in the divine will does much to take away the gall from the cup. You must go where Jesus leads; go, therefore, willingly, cheerfully, trustingly, and even joyfully, for it is a triumph to a Christian to bear the cross after Jesus, and to be crucified and buried with him would be a high honour for any child of God. Go on, then, for Christ leads the way.

13. But now I must not tarry so long on that part, but I observe it is said Christ leads the way in service as well as in suffering. He was going up to Jerusalem to accomplish the rest of his life-work before he surrendered his spirit to his Father. Now you and I, and each of us, have a service to perform. We were redeemed and bought with a price so that we might serve the Lord. We are a royal priesthood, a special people. We have a priesthood to fulfil. All God’s children, all God’s servants are priests and kings, and they have a rule to discharge, and a priesthood to fulfil. Now we are beginning a new year of service. It will be a very sweet thing for us if we can know that Jesus Christ has gone ahead of us in the path of service. Beloved, I might take the same truth, and say that he has actually gone ahead of us, in having fulfilled the same service. If there is any good thing for you to do, Christ has done it ahead of you. Are we called to preach the gospel? You know how he was anointed to preach good news to the poor. Are you called to teach the little ones? Did he not say, “Permit the little children to come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven”? Do you have to feed the hungry? On what a large scale did he do it! Do you have to visit the sick, and to minister to their needs? Oh! how many thousands owed their opened eyes or restored limbs to him! Christ’s life anticipates all the service of the Church. One might very easily, in taking the life of Christ, find all the operations of a truly active Church prefigured there—all of them. There is nothing new under the sun, and when a man has found out something, and thought “Here is something that is new,” you shall find Christ has looked after the halt, and the blind, and the lame ahead of you, and if you seek to raise the fallen woman, you will be made to remember him who said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

14. I should be afraid to undertake any service in which I could not see that he has gone ahead. But what Christ has done, it is right for us to do, except only in that work of expiation where we cannot help him. There he treads the wine-press alone, and of the people there is no one with him; but in everything in which he is our example, it is always a safe thing for us to follow very closely, and we shall find that he has gone ahead of us. And truly he goes ahead of us in all our works by his Holy Spirit still actively proving his divine sympathy with us. I do not look on the Church of God as so many pious men and women at work by themselves, but I see God working by them, working in them, working through them. They are the workers to the eye, but no further. It is God who works in them to will and to do his own good pleasure. If Satan saw in the work only the man, he would laugh at him, but he perceives “the hand of Joab” is there—a mightier hand than the hand of man, and, therefore, that is why he is often put to the rout. Oh you who speak for Jesus, who pray for Jesus who give to his cause and work for his name, let this be your joy and your comfort—that Jesus Christ is with you and goes ahead of you in all this service.

15. And so he does in his providence. If we only had eyes to see it, and could know all things, we would perceive that when we come to preach the gospel, God has been preparing men’s hearts to receive it. Many a time a man will come up to the house of prayer, and it has been a trouble that has been ploughing him up and down, and the minister has a handful of seed to sow, which the birds would have devoured if they had fallen on hard soil, only God has ploughed the man, and made him like good soil, ready to receive it. He has gone ahead of us. If ever I see these benches full, I feel a little distressed, and yet elated, because I always think that I have a picked congregation, and each man is sent for a purpose. Though there may not be salvation in every case, yet there are some to whom God will bless the Word, to which the Word will be fitted to the very letter, for God will guide the preacher, and often as much reveals himself from the pulpit as ever a Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was revealed again by Daniel when it was gone altogether from his mind. You shall be sure that God is in the Word if it comes home to you in that way; and if you are a Christian worker, you may expect that the providence of God will prepare men’s hearts for that work which you are trying to do.

16. I wish that the Church of God would now remember that assuredly God is going ahead of her in all her service at this moment. The world is prepared for the gospel if we were only willing to present the gospel to the world. When our Lord Christ came into this world there was a universal peace, and the peace of the public mind and the state of the public pulse was just suitable for the preaching of the gospel by the Lord and by his apostles, and there is some such suitability as that now. Chains that long have galled unhappy nations have been filed through. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light; they have demanded liberty, and won it with a good right hand, and intend to hold on it; and now is the time when the darkness flies and light comes for those who have the even brighter light of the everlasting gospel of the ever-blessed God to spring into the gap and proclaim salvation by a crucified Redeemer to all the sons of men. Up, churches of London, and to your work! Even now the very demand for education among you, and the stir that there is among the people, the breaking up of hoary systems of abomination, the motion and commotion—all this means good to you. You have been embedded in the ice and frozen up these long wintry days, but, lo, the sun has risen, and the long summer days shall soon come, and your barque shall be freighted and put out to sea, and bring a blessed cargo of souls home to God their Father. Let us be up and doing, for Jesus goes ahead of us in the matter of providence. May he help us to always keep near him. What he would have us do, oh! may we do it, word for word what he would have us speak, thought for thought what he would have us to think, act for act what he would have us to do. Let us never have a glorious leader and be a laggard people. Oh! for the grace that is in him to bedew plenteously ourselves, so that as he goes ahead of us we may follow him in the path of service.

17. Now very briefly on one other point, which was the path of death. Our Lord was going to Golgotha, and there was to be, as far as this world was concerned, the end of his journey. To the cross he must be nailed, and in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea the Lord Jesus must sleep. Death is not a pleasant thing. It does not matter how you sugar-coat the pill, it is a pill. If the Lord does not come, however, before that time we shall have to pass through death, and we shall find it, if we are his people, to be infinitely less painful than the fear of death. We feel a thousand deaths in fearing one, and if our faith were greater, we should have no fear of death. “Ah!” one says, “what I dread is parting, leaving my friends.” He went ahead of them; he parted from them all, and from his mother; and he said to John, “Behold, your mother,” and to his mother, “Woman, behold your son,” as the light faded from his eyes. He went of ahead in the path of death.

18. “Ah! but I cannot bear to think of the pain of dying,” one says. You will never have such pain as his in death.—He went ahead of you; he had a sense of sin in dying; he was made a curse for us, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” but no curse can ever fall on you, believer. The blessing is yours because the curse was his. Oh! he has gone ahead of you; he has gone where you never shall go, for he suffered the wrath of God, which you never shall suffer, for that wrath is gone and passed away for ever. There are none of the surroundings of a death-bed which can suggest such horror as what surrounded the death of our Lord; so that he has gone ahead of you in everything that might alarm you in the prospect of your departure. He has gone ahead of you. Be content to follow him to the grave. It is no more:—

   A charnel-house {b} of sense,

   Relics of lost innocence,

   The place of ruin and decay;

   The imprisoning stone is rolled away.

It is now a nest of sweetness since Jesus laid in it. The grave is no longer unfurnished; there are his grave-clothes left for you; and, moreover, the stone being rolled away, you have the promise that you shall come out of it again. When the trumpet of the archangel sounds, those poor bones shall arise, and the body that was sown in weakness shall be raised in power. What joy it is then to think that he went ahead of you, and how obediently, no, triumphantly, may we follow him, even to death itself. Here, then, is the blessed fact, in suffering, or service, or departure, Christ goes ahead of us.

19. II. Now the point we close with is this:—MAY ALL OF US HAVE A SWEET FULFILMENT OF THIS TRUTH DURING THIS YEAR.

20. We believe a good deal of doctrine which we have never yet applied. We know much to be food which we have never fed on. Many Christians are like those who have sacks of flour in the house, but no bread. They have nothing available for present food. Some are like rich men who may happen to be abroad with thousands of pounds of gold, but no small silver, no spending-money. May you be able to coin the bullion of precious promise in order to use it in the journey of life. May you make practical application of precious truths, tasting the honey, drinking the wine, and being satisfied with it.

21. Now, then, to realize that Christ goes ahead of us is to realize that we are never alone. If I am in my study, and a problem staggers me, I am not alone—my Lord will teach me. You are in your little room with the needle, working hard for very scanty pay. You have to suffer—you do not have to suffer that alone. “I am with you when you pass through the fire; you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle on you.” But you have to go into the work-room, and there are those who point you out, and they have a jest for you, whom they know to be a follower of Christ. You do not have to bear that alone. He has the heaviest end of that cross, and he is persecuted in his persecuted members. But you are busy in business, and your cares afflict you. Blessed be God you have not have to bear those cares alone; no, nor yet at all, for concerning them he has said, “Cast all your care on him, for he cares for you.” I have to come here and preach. Who is sufficient for these things? But I am not to preach alone—”My grace is sufficient for you.” His strength shall be made perfect in your weakness. You have to go to that Sunday School class. Oh! how incorrigible those boys are, and how careless those girls, but you do not have to win those souls alone. Jesus will go, and his Spirit will be there, and you shall be helped in your work. Do try and realize all through this year that you are never alone.

22. Not only is it “You God see me,” but it is this, “Do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, I am your God.” And Christ is not with you behind, or pushing you into the danger, but he is with you before you; he goes ahead of you, he is the shield catching the fiery arrows on himself. You shall come behind the screen, and be sheltered by his precious promise. I do not know where you may be this year, but let this thought remain with you—he will be with you. Perhaps you will cross the sea. Your lot may be to help to colonise some distant land. Over the sea, and on the billows, and on the shore, so strange to you, he will be your close companion. Perhaps this year there is a trial awaiting you, very heavy, or perhaps a temptation arising out of some new joy or fresh prosperity. Do not fear it; you shall be safe on the hill-tops of joy and in the Valley of Humiliation. He is with you everywhere. A child is told, perhaps at nightfall, that he has to go a considerable distance; it is to a lonely farmhouse and the little one trembles to go across the moor in the dark. “Oh!” the mother says, “but father is going with you.” Oh! then that changes the aspect of everything. The boy is pleased to go; even the dangers that seemed so great, only attract him now; he will be glad to be with his father. Through the moorland of another year you have to go, and it may be dark and cold, but your heavenly Father and your blessed Elder Brother will be with you. Therefore, do not be afraid. You will have to contend this year for “the faith delivered once and for all to the saints,” and to do much service, too. If you are to render a good account at the year’s end, you are to try and live this year, not at a slow rate, like the cold-blooded frog, but to have hot blood in you. Regulated by prudence, and yet boiling over with a burning zeal, you are to serve the Lord. And it may be you think you cannot do it. Is anything impossible when he helps you? Is any sacrifice impossible when it is for him? Is any difficulty insurmountable when he himself gives the all-sufficient strength? Oh! this is a very choice thought, though a very simple one—that Jesus will be with you all the year through.

23. The only other thought is, take care that you remain with him. He is a quick walker. Idle souls will be left behind. He lives a holy life. Unclean spirits will find him part company with them. Be watchful, vigilant, sober, careful, zealous, and seek to have perpetual fellowship with Jesus Christ. I am sure those are the happiest who live nearest to God; I am certain of it. I know it is not the wealthiest who are the happiest. It is not those who have the most health who are always happiest, and those who are most esteemed among their fellow men. There is one rule without any exception: he who lives nearest to God has the most of that profound peace of God which surpasses all understanding. He says to you, “Abide in me.” May his words abide in you. May you abide in him, and may this be for each one of you, and for this Church, the very happiest year we have ever had. Oh! that some poor sinner would seek the Saviour! May the Lord’s lovely attractions entice him! And I shall close by saying this—that if any soul longs for Christ, Christ is already longing for him, and if you have a half of a desire towards him, he has a heart full of desire towards you. There never was a soul that had a head start on Christ in the matter of desire for salvation. May God grant you grace to touch Jesus, and then to follow after him, and to make his blessing remain with you, both now and for ever. Amen and amen.

{a} Smithfield: The place where the fires that Queen Mary (1553-1558) ordered to be lit to put to death such Protestant leaders and men of influence as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, but also hundreds of lesser men who refused to adopt the Catholic faith. See Explorer "http://www.britannia.com/history/narrefhist3.html"
{b} Charnel-House: A house for dead bodies; a house or vault in which the bones of the dead are piled up. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Isa 35; Heb 12:1-6}

Isaiah 35

1. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them.

They shall be so glad that they shall inspire gladness where all was desolation, and brooding, melancholy bat’s wing, and dragon’s howl. “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them.”

1. And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

God’s people are a happy-making people. They are a blessing in themselves, and they shall be a blessing to others, until everyone shall say, “These are the seed that the Lord has blessed.” “The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”

2. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.

A wonderful sight to see, for there is one of the most lovely sights in the world when the glory and excellency of God are to be seen in the works of his grace in his own people. It is such a sight that it makes men first rejoice in their hearts, and then rejoice with their tongues. They shall “rejoice with joy and singing,” which is the double rejoicing of the heart and of the lip. Well, those must be a favoured people who, wherever they go, can make others glad in this way. Brethren, they must be full or they could not overflow! They themselves must be alive, or else they could not quicken the desert places. They themselves must be in flower, blooming like the rose, or they could not make the wilderness so full of verdure. May the Lord grant that we may be in that state so that we may be able to go into the wilderness. There are some of God’s people who cannot trust themselves to go where they are needed, because they do not have enough grace. They are so weak that they are like the weak man standing on the river’s brink, who cannot leap in to pull out a drowning man for fear they should be pulled in themselves. But, oh! they are blest indeed who dare to go into wildernesses and into the solitary places, and carry the transforming blessing of heaven with them until the wilderness changes its dress, and the brown of the arid sand gives place to the ruddiness of the rose, because God has come there with his people.

3. Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

Are there such here tonight? No doubt there are—weak at work, and weak at praying. The two things go together—weak hands and feeble knees. May they both be strengthened.

4. Say to those who are of a fearful heart “Be strong, do not fear: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with divine retribution; he will come and save you.”

It is very exceptional how salvation and vengeance are so often associated together in Scripture. It is the day of salvation, “and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn.” Vengeance on the false is the best consolation to the true. When God strikes the sham, even to the heart, then he blesses where the truth is found. “He will come and save you.”

5, 6. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unplugged. Then the lame man shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness waters shall break out, and streams in the desert.

See what the presence of Christ does. See what the presence of Christ’s people will do when he comes in them and with them. They make the wilderness rejoice. But, besides that, the dwellers that are found in the wilderness—these lame and deaf people—get the blessing. Oh! may God make us to be a desert to others of this kind.

7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

The greenest places your eye ever rested on are just there where the grass is so rooted in the morass that it is always green with a delicate tinge, and the reeds and rushes spring up abundantly. Oh God, make poor parched hearts to become like this! You barren ones, you desolate ones, he can give you the best verdure that is possible. Your hearts shall be as green and fresh as the places where there is grass with reeds and rushes.

8. And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called “The way of holiness”; the unclean shall not pass over it: but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err in it.

Oh! what a blessing that is to us poor fools! We should err anywhere. To err is human, and we seem to have come in for a double share of it. The more we look at our lives the more we see the folly of our hearts. What a mercy it is that when we walk in the way of faith, in the way of Christ, fools as we are, we shall not err!

9, 10. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up on it, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy on their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Like frightened things. They kept us company for part of our road, but, when the Lord appeared they took wings and fled away. We could not tell where they had gone. We were surprised to find that they had quite vanished. Oh! for the appearing of the Lord tonight to his mourning people who may be here.

Hebrews 12

1. Therefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us.

Or “entangles us.”

1-3. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and faint in your minds.

The Lord does not wish his people’s hands to hang down, and their knees to become weak, so in this passage, as in many others, he administers gracious remedies. Among the rest, he tells us to consider his own dear Son. Shall we faint under our small afflictions when he endured so well under his heavy burdens? Come, be strengthened, my weak heart.

   His way was much rougher and darker than thine;

   Did Christ thy Lord suffer, and wilt thou repine?

4. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

It has hardly come to blows and bruises yet—certainly not to bloody strokes. You have not lost blood yet for Christ.

5. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, “My son, do not despise you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by him.

Neither think too little of it, nor too much of it—too little of it by despising it and not listening to the voice of the rod, nor too much of it by fainting when you are rebuked by him.

6. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.”

Oh! what comfort there is here! Whenever we are under the scourging hand of God, how we ought to be cheered with the thought that this is a part of the inheritance of the children. There are Elis who spoil their children. God is not one of them. He does not spare the rod, and the more he loves, often the more he corrects. A tree of common fruit may be left alone as long as there is a little fruit on it, but the very best fruit gets the sharpest pruning; and I have noticed that in those countries where the best wine is made, the vine-dressers cut the shoots very close in, and in the winter you cannot tell that there is a vine there at all unless you look very carefully. They must cut them back sharply to get sweet clusters. The Lord does this with his beloved. It is not anger. Afflictions are not always anger. They are often signs of great love.