Isaiah, lvii. 15-21. For thus saith the high and lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and
holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the
contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be
always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls
which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I
wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on
frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will
heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and
to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to
him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I
will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it
cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked.
This is part of Isaiah's prophecy. He is telling the Jews that they
should come back safe at last to their own land. He tells them why
God had driven them out, and why God was going to bring them back.
He had driven them out for their sins. But he was not going to
bring them back for their righteousness. He was going to bring them
back out of his own free grace, his own pure love and mercy, which
was wider, deeper, and higher, than all their sins, or than the sins
of the whole world. He had sworn to Abraham to be the friend of
those foolish rebellious Jews, and he would keep his promise for
ever. Their wickedness could not conquer his goodness, or their
denying him make him deny himself.
But one thing he did require of them. Not that they should turn and
do right all at once. That must come afterwards. But that they
should open their eyes, and see that they had done wrong. He wanted
to produce in them the humble and the contrite heart.
Now, as I told you last Sunday, a contrite heart does not merely
mean a broken heart; it means more. It means literally a heart
crushed; a heart ground to powder. You can have no stronger word.
It was this heart which God wished to breed in these rebellious
Jews. A heart like Isaiah's heart, when he said, after having seen
God's glory, 'Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell
among a people of unclean lips.' A heart like Jeremiah's heart,
when he said, 'Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a
fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of
the daughter of my people.' A heart like Daniel's heart, when he
confessed before God that, to him and all his people belonged shame
and confusion of face.
Why do I mention these three men? They were not bad men, but good
men. What need had they of a contrite heart?
I mention them, because they were good men. And why were they good
men? For any good works of their own? Not in the least. What made
them good men was, just the having the humble and the contrite
heart; just feeling that in themselves they were as bad as the
sinners round them; that the only thing which kept them out of the
idolatry and profligacy of their neighbours was confessing their own
weakness, and clinging fast to God by faith; confessing that their
own righteousness was as filthy rags, and that God must clothe them
with his righteousness.
Do you suppose that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel would have been
good men, if they had said to themselves, 'We are prophets; we are
inspired; we know God's law: and therefore we are righteous; we are
safe: but these people--these idolaters, these drunkards, these
covetous, tyrannous, profligate people round, to whom we preach, and
who know not the law--they are accursed.' If they had, they would
have said just what the Pharisees said afterwards. And what came of
their saying so? Instead of knowing the Lord Christ, when he came
they crucified him, showing that they were really worse at heart
than the ignorant common people, instead of better.
No, my friends, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, were, better men
than those round them, just because they had the humble and contrite
heart; because they confessed that the root of sin was in them too,
as much as in their fellow-country men; because they took their
share of the public blame, their share of the public burden.
And their work and wish was, to breed in their fellow-countrymen the
same humble and contrite heart which they had; to make them confess
that their only hope lay in turning back to God, and doing right.
But they could not succeed. Sin was too strong for them. So as
Isaiah had warned the Jews, God did the work himself. God took the
matter into his own hands, and arose out of his place to punish
those Jews, and to make short work with them, by famine, and
pestilence, and earthquake, and foreign invasion, till they were all
carried away captive to Babylon: to see if that would teach them to
know that God was the Lord; to see if that would breed in them the
humble and contrite heart.
But God says to these poor Jews, Do not fancy that I have taken a
spite against you. Not so. I will not contend for ever. I will
not be always angry; for then the spirit would fail before me, and
the souls which I have made. I have made you, God says; and I love
you. I wish to save you, and not to destroy you. If God really
hated any man, do you suppose that he would endure that man for a
moment in his universe? Do you suppose that he would not sweep that
man away, as easily and as quickly as we do a buzzing gnat when it
torments us? Do you fancy that God lets you, or me, or any man, or
any creature live one single instant, except in the hope of saving
him, and of making him better than he is; of making him of some use,
somewhere, some day or other? Do you suppose, I say, that God
endures sinners one moment, save because he loves sinners, and
willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted
and live? No. 'God our Saviour,' says St. Paul to Timothy,
'willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of
the truth;' and therefore if they are not saved it must be their own
fault, and not God's; it must be they who will not be saved, though
God wills that they should be, as Isaiah goes on to show. For he
says--God cries to men, Peace! I create the fruit of the lips; that
is, I give men cause to thank me. I create it. I make it without
their help. I do not sell them my mercy. I give it them freely. I
say, Peace, peace, to them all, To him who is near, and him who is
afar off; peace to all mankind; peace on earth, and goodwill to men.
God is everlastingly at peace with himself, and at peace with all
his creatures, and with all his works; and he wills, in his
boundless love, to bring them all into his peace, the peace which
passeth understanding; that they may be at peace with him; and,
therefore at peace with themselves, and at peace with each other.
But how can they be at peace, when there is no peace in them? If
they will do wrong; if they will quarrel; if they will defraud each
other; if they will give way to the lusts and passions which war
within them: how can they be at peace? They are like a troubled
sea, says Isaiah, when it cannot rest, which casts up mire and dirt;
and there is no peace to them. It is not God who casts up the mire
and dirt. It is they who cast it up. God has not made them
restless: but they themselves, with their pride, selfishness,
violent passions, longings after this and that. God has not made
them foul and dirty, but they themselves, with their own foul words
and foul deeds, which keep them from being at peace with themselves,
because they are ashamed of them all the while; which keep them from
being at peace with their neighbours; which make them hate and fear
their neighbours, because they know that their neighbours do not
respect them, or are afraid of their neighbours finding them out.
What says brave, plain-spoken St. James?--'Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man.' 'From whence come wars and fightings
among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your
members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and
cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask
not.'
But as for God, he says, from him comes nothing but good. Do not
fancy anything else. 'Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the
Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning. Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that
we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.'
My friends, all these things were written for our examples. God
grant that we may lay the lesson to heart. A dark night may come to
any one of us, a night of darkness upon darkness, and sorrow upon
sorrow, and bad luck upon bad luck; till we know not what is going
to happen next; and are ready to say with David--'All thy waves and
thy billows are gone over me;' and with Hezekiah--'I reckoned till
morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day
even to night wilt thou make an end of me.'
God grant, that before that day comes, we may have so learnt to know
God, as to know that the billows are God's billows, and the storms
his storms; and, after a while, not to be afraid, though all earthly
hope and help seem swept away. God grant that when trouble comes
after trouble, we may be able to see that our Father in heaven is
only dealing with us as he dealt with those poor Jews; that he is
all the while saying 'Peace!' to us, whether we be near him, or far
off from him; and is ready to heal us, the moment that he has worked
in us the broken and contrite heart. And we may trust him that he
will do it. With him one day is as a thousand years. And in one
day of bitter misery he can teach us lessons, which we could not
teach ourselves in a thousand years of reading and studying, or even
of praying. But our prayers, we shall find, have not been in vain.
He has not forgotten one of them; and there is the answer, in that
very sorrow. In sorrow, he is making short work with our spirits.
In one terrible and searching trial our souls may be, as the Poet
says--
Heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears;
And battered by the strokes of doom.
To shape and use.
Yes. He will make short work at times with men's spirits. He
grinds hearts to powder, that they may be broken and contrite before
him: but only that he may heal them; that out of the broken
fragments of the hard, proud, self-deceiving heart of stone, he may
create a new and harder heart of flesh, human and gentle, humble and
simple. And then he will return and have mercy. He will show that
he will not contend for ever. He will show that he does not wish
our spirits to fail before him, but to grow and flourish before him
to everlasting life. He will create the fruit of the lips, and give
us cause to thank him in spirit and in truth. He will show us that
he was nearest when he seemed furthest off; and that just because he
is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, for that very reason
he dwells also with the humble and the contrite heart; because that
heart alone can confess his height and its own lowliness, confess
its own sin and his holiness; and so can cling to his majesty by
faith, and partake of his holiness by the inspiration of his Holy
Spirit.
God grant that we may all so humble ourselves under his mighty hand,
whenever that hand lies heavy upon us, that he may raise us up in
due time, changed into his divine likeness, from glory to glory;
till we come to the measure of Christ, and to the stature of perfect
men, renewed into the image of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ our
Lord! Amen.