'But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers
and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall
gallant ship pass thereby.'--ISAIAH xxxiii. 21.
One great peculiarity of Jerusalem, which distinguishes it from almost
all other historical cities, is that it has no river. Babylon was on
the Euphrates, Nineveh on the Tigris, Thebes on the Nile, Rome on the
Tiber; but Jerusalem had nothing but a fountain or two, and a well or
two, and a little trickle and an intermittent stream. The water supply
to-day is, and always has been, a great difficulty, and an insuperable
barrier to the city's ever having a great population.
That deficiency throws a great deal of beautiful light on more than one
passage in the Old Testament. For instance, this same prophet contrasts
the living stream, the waters of Siloam, as an emblem of the gentle
sway of the divine King of Israel, with 'the river, strong and mighty,'
which was the symbol of Assyria; and a psalm that we all know well,
sings, 'There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of
God,'--a triumphant exclamation which is robbed of half its force,
unless we remember that the literal Jerusalem had no river at all. The
vision of living waters flowing from the Temple which Ezekiel saw is a
variation of the same theme, and suggests that in the Messianic days
the deficiency shall be made good, and a mysterious stream shall spring
up from behind, and flow out from beneath, the temple doors, and then
with rapid increase and depth and width, but with no tributaries coming
into it, shall run fertilising and life-giving everywhere, till it
pours itself into the noisome waters of the sullen sea of death and
heals even them.
The same general representation is contained in the words before us.
Isaiah's great vision is not, as I take it, of a future, but of what
the Jerusalem of his day might be to the Israelite if he would live by
faith. The mighty Lord, 'the glorious Lord,' shall Himself 'be a place
of broad rivers and streams.'
I. First, then, this remarkable promise suggests to me how in God there
is the supply of all deficiencies.
The city was perched on its barren, hot rock, with scarcely a drop of
water, and its inhabitants must often have been tempted to wish that
there had been running down the sun-bleached bed of the Kedron a
flashing stream, such as laved the rock-cut temples and tombs of
Thebes. Isaiah says, in effect, 'You cannot see it, but if you will
trust yourselves to God, there will be such a river.'
In like manner every defect in our circumstances, everything lacking in
our lives--and we all have something which does not correspond with, or
which falls beneath, our wishes and apparent needs--everything which
seems to hamper us in some aspects, and to sadden us in others, may be
compensated and made up if we will hold fast by God; and although to
outward sense we dwell 'in a dry and barren land where no water is,'
the eye of faith will see, flashing and flowing all around, the
rejoicing waters of the divine presence, and they will mirror the sky,
and the reflections will teach us that there is a heaven above us.
If there is in any life a gap, that is a prophecy that God will fill
it. If there is anything in your circumstances in regard to which you
often feel sadly, and are sometimes tempted to feel bitterly, how much
stronger and more fully equipped you would be, if it were otherwise, be
sure that in God there is that which can supply the want, and that the
consciousness of the want is a merciful summons to seek its supply from
and in Him. If there is a breach in the encircling wall of your
defences, God has made it in order that He Himself, and not an enemy,
may enter your lives and hearts. 'In the year that King Uzziah died, I
saw the Lord sitting on a throne,' and it did not matter though that
mortal king was dead, for the true King was thereby revealed as living
for ever, just as when the summer foliage, fluttering and green, drops
from the tree, the sturdy stem and the strong branches are made the
more visible. Our felt deficiencies are doors by which God may come in.
Do you sometimes feel as if you would be better if you had easier
worldly circumstances? Is your health precarious and feeble? Have you
to walk a solitary path through this world, and does your heart often
ache for companionship? You can have all your heart's desire fulfilled
in deepest reality in God, in the same way that that riverless city had
Jehovah for 'a place of broad rivers and streams.'
II. Take another side of the same thought. Here is a revelation of God
and His sweet presence as our true defence.
The river that lay between some strong city and the advancing enemy was
its strongest fortification when the bridge of boats was taken away.
One of the ancient cities to which I have referred is described by one
of the prophets as being held as within the coils of a serpent, by
which he means the various bendings and twistings of the Euphrates,
which encompassed Babylon, and made it so hard to be conquered. The
primitive city of Paris owed its safety in the wild old times when it
was founded, to its being on an island. Venice has lived through many
centuries, because it is girded about by its lagoons. England is what
it is, largely because of 'the streak of silver sea.' So God's city has
a broad moat all round it. The prophet goes on to explain the force of
his bold figure in regard to the safety promised by it, when he says:
'Wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass
thereby.' Not a keel of the enemy shall dare to cut its waters, nor
break their surface with the wet plash of invading oars. And so, if we
will only knit ourselves with God by simple trust and continual
communion, it is the plainest prose fact that nothing will harm us, and
no foe will ever get near enough to us to shoot his arrows against us.
That is a truth for faith, and not for sense. Many a man, truly
compassed about by God, has to go through fiery trial and sorrow and
affliction. But I venture to appeal to every heart that has known grief
most acutely, protractedly, and frequently, and has borne it in the
faith of God, and with submission to Him; and I know that they who are
the 'experts,' and who alone have the right to speak with authority on
the subject, will confirm the statement that I make, that sorrows
recognised as sent from God are the truest blessings of our lives. No
real evil befalls us, because, according to the old superstition that
money bewitched was cleansed if it was handed across running water, our
sorrows only reach us across the river that defends.
Isaiah is full of symbols of various kinds for the impregnability of
Zion. Sometimes, as in my text, he falls back upon the thought of the
bright waters of the moat on which no enemy can venture to sail.
Sometimes he draws his metaphor from the element opposed to water, and
speaks of a wall of fire round about us. But the simple reality that
lies below all the poetry is, that trust in God brings His presence
around me, and that makes it impossible that any evil should befall me,
and certain that whatever does befall me is His messenger, His loving
messenger, for my good. If we believed that, and lived on the belief,
the whole world would be different.
III. Take, again, another aspect of this same thought, which suggests
to us God's presence as our true refreshment and satisfaction.
The waterless city depended on cisterns, and they were often broken,
and were always more or less foul, and sometimes the water fell very
low in them. Isaiah says to us: Even when you are living in external
circumstances like that:
'When all created streams are dry,
Thy fulness is the same.'
The fountain of living waters--if we may slightly vary the metaphor of
my text--never sinks one hair's-breadth in its crystal basin, however
many thirsty lips may be glued to its edge, and however large may be
their draughts from it. This metaphor, turned to the purpose of
suggesting how in God every part of our nature finds its appropriate
nourishment and refreshment which it does not find anywhere besides,
has become one of the commonplaces of the pulpit. Would it were the
commonplace of our lives! It is easy to talk about Him as being the
fountain of living waters; it is easy to quote and to admire the words
which the Master spoke to the Samaritan woman when He said, 'I would
have given thee living water,' and 'the water which I give will be a
fountain springing up into everlasting life.' We repeat or learn such
sayings, and then what do we do? We go away and try to slake our thirst
at broken cisterns, and every draught which we take is like the salt
water from which a shipwrecked-boat's crew in its madness will
sometimes not be able to refrain, each drop increasing the raging
thirst and hastening the impending death.
If we believed that God was the broad river from which we could draw
and draw, and drink and drink, for ever and ever, should we be clinging
with such desperate tenacity, as most of us exhibit, to earthly goods?
Should we whimper with such childish regrets, as most of us nourish,
when these goods are diminished or withdrawn? Should we live as we
constantly do, day in and day out, seldom applying ourselves to the one
source of strength and peace and refreshment, and trying, like fools,
to find what apart from Him the world can never give? The rivers in
northern Tartary all lose themselves in the sand. Not one of them has
volume or force enough to get to the sea. And the rivers from which we
try to drink are sand-choked long before our thirst is slaked. So, if
we are wise, we shall take Isaiah's hint, and go where the water flows
abundantly, and flows for ever.
IV. There is a last point that I would also suggest, namely, the
manifold variety in the results of God's presence.
It shapes itself into many forms, according to our different needs.
'The glorious Lord shall be a place of broad rivers.' Yes; but notice
the next words--'and streams.' Now, the word which is there translated
'streams' means little channels for irrigation and other purposes, by
which the water of some great river is led off into the melon patches,
and gardens, and plantations, and houses of the inhabitants. So we have
not only the picture of the broad river in its unity, but also that of
the thousand little rivulets in their multiplicity, and in their
direction to each man's plot of ground. It is the same idea that is in
the psalm which I have already quoted: 'There is a river, _the streams_
whereof make glad the city of our God.' You can divide the river up
into very tiny trickles, according to the moment's small wants. If you
make but a narrow channel, you will get but a shallow streamlet; and if
you make your channel broad and deep, you will get much of Him.
It is of no profit that we live on the river's bank if we let its
waters go rolling and flashing past our door, or our gardens, or our
lips. Unless you have a sluice, by which you can take them off into
your own territory, and keep the shining blessing to be the source of
fertility in your own garden, and of coolness and refreshment to your
own thirst, your garden will be parched, and your lips will crack.
There is a 'broad river,' and there are also 'streams'; which, being
brought down to its simplest expression, just comes to this--that we
may and must make God our very own property. It is useless to say
'_our_ God,' 'the God of Israel,' 'the God of the Church,' 'the Great
Creator,' 'the Universal Father,' and so on, unless we say '_my_ God
and _my_ Saviour,' '_my_ Refuge and _my_ Strength.' How much of the
river have you dipped up in your own vessel? How much of it have you
taken with which to water your own vineyard and refresh your own souls?
The time comes when Isaiah's prophecy shall be perfectly fulfilled,
according to the great words in the closing hook of Scripture, about
the river of the water of life proceeding out of the Throne of God and
of the Lamb. But, till that time comes, we do not need to wander
thirsty in a desert; but all round us we may hear the mighty waters
rolling everywhere, and drink deep draughts of delight and supply for
all our needs, from the very presence of God Himself.