xxxii. 2. _As rivers of water in a dry place._
The surface sense of this passage may refer to Hezekiah and to other
good kings who were a means of great blessing to the declining
kingdom of Judah; but its declarations are too full of meaning to be
applied solely or primarily to any mere man. They are never fully
understood until they are applied to Christ, the true King of
righteousness, who confers the highest blessings upon His people. In
Him there is a fulness and variety of blessing such as the varied
metaphors of this passage fail to set forth. He is the true Man of
whom Isaiah speaks; the man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells
bodily, and who therefore can be, and is, "as rivers of water in a
dry place."
I. THE METAPHOR. This implies, 1. Great _excellence_ of blessing. How
valuable is a river to the land through which it flows! So Christ is
the source and the sustenance of the fertility, fruitfulness, and
beauty of His people. 2. _Abundance_ of blessing. Think of the vast
floods that flow through the Amazon, the Ganges, the Indus, the
Orinoco. So in Christ there is grace sufficient for all mankind.
3. _Freshness_ of blessing.[1] 4. _Freeness_ of blessing. Though
individuals may claim peculiar rights in rivers, all creatures drink
of them freely, the dog as well as the swan. So may all, however
vile, partake of the grace that is in Christ. 5. _Constancy_ of
blessing. Pools and cisterns dry up, but the river goes on for ever.
So it is with Jesus; the grace to pardon and the power to heal are
not spasmodic powers in Him, they abide in Him unabated for evermore.
II. A SPECIAL EXCELLENCE which the text mentions. "Rivers of water
_in a dry place._" Only the residents in a tropical country can fully
appreciate that phrase. But Christ came to such a place when He came
to our race. So He does when with His salvation He visits the
individual soul. Were it not for Him, the souls, even of His people
under the influence of wealth or of poverty, of the cares or of the
pleasures of life, would be always dry. But He refreshes, sustains,
and fertilises those who otherwise would utterly faint and fail.
III. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 1. _See the goings out of God's heart to man,
and man's way of communing with God._ God's heart is an infinite
ocean of goodness, and it flows forth to us through Jesus Christ, not
in streams and driblets, but in rivers of grace and mercy. These
streams we cannot purchase or merit, we have only to receive them;
when we drink of the stream, we partake of God. 2. _See what a misery
it is that men should be perishing and dying of soul thirst when
there are these rivers so near._ Some have never heard of them;
therefore help to the utmost the Missionary Society. Others who have
heard of them are smitten with a strange insanity that leads them to
turn away from them. 3. _Let us learn where, if we are suffering from
spiritual drought and barrenness, the blame lies._ It cannot lie in
Christ. 4. _If Christ is ready to be to us as rivers,_ drink of Him,
all of you.[2] Live near Him. Live in Him.[3]--_C. H. Spurgeon:
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit,_ No. 1243.