A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Evening, April 10, 1870, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. 5/24/2011*5/24/2011
Do not fear; for I am with you: do not be
dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes,
I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right
hand of my righteousness. (Isaiah
41:10)
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41:10")
1. If there should be nothing in the sermon this evening, brethren, there is enough in the text to satisfy your mouth with good things, so that your youth may be renewed like the eagle’s. May the Holy Spirit spread for you a table in the wilderness, and give you appetites to feed by faith upon these royal dainties, which, like the vegetables that Daniel and his companions fed upon, shall make you well favoured before God and man. To whom are these words spoken? for we must not steal from God’s Scripture any more than from man’s treasury. We have no more right to take a promise for ourselves that does not belong to us than we have to take another man’s purse from him. These words were evidently spoken in God’s name by the prophet to God’s “chosen” ones. Read the eighth verse, “But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” And again in the ninth verse: “You are my servant; I have chosen you.” So, then, if you or I should find anything that is gracious and comforting here it will come to us, not upon the footing of merit, but upon the basis of sovereign grace. It will not be ours because we have chosen Christ, but because he has chosen us. Our heavenly Father has blessed us with all spiritual blessings according as he has chosen us in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world. The eternal choice is the wellhead from which all the springs of mercy flow. Happy are you, my soul, if grace has inscribed your name in God’s eternal book! You may come to this text, like a child to his father’s own table, and you may draw from it all manner of comforts to sustain your spirit.
2. But since, dear friends, you and I cannot read the secret roll of God’s electing love, we are helped to judge whether this text belongs to us by another description; for those who are here called “chosen,” are, in the ninth verse, also described as being “called.” “You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from its chief men.” God’s chosen people of old were set apart for himself, and called out from all the rest of the world, and so they are now. They are a people called out by his special grace, with a gracious call which they have not been able to resist, and they have come out and declared themselves on the Lord’s side. “For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestinated, those he also called.” If you are called, depend upon it you are chosen. I do not mean if you are called in the common sense with the universal call of the gospel, for in that sense, “many are called, but few are chosen”; but I mean if you are effectually called, personally called, called by the Holy Spirit, called as Mary was when Jesus said to her, “Mary,” and that gracious voice thrilled through her soul, and she responded to it, and said to him, “Master!” Have you been so called that you have forsaken all for Christ, or are willing to do so? Have you left your old pleasures and your old companions, and are you now a separated one, set apart for Christ? Oh! if it is so, let nothing keep you back from enjoying the riches of my text, for every comforting sentence in it belongs to you.
3. Still, further to help us to find out to whom this text belongs, notice that the person described here is spoken of in the eighth verse as a “servant.” “You, Israel, are my servant,” and in the ninth verse, “And said to you, ‘You are my servant.’ ” Now, are you God’s servant, dear hearer? A servant does not do his own will. He would soon get his discharge if he carried out his own whims and wishes. He takes his guidance from his master’s mouth and his master’s eye. Have you submitted your will to God’s will? Are you no longer governed by a proud and high spirit, which cries, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?” But do you desire to know what God’s will is, and then to do just what he asks you? Do you consider it your highest honour to be called a servant of Christ? Is it for him that you live? Is his glory your highest purpose? If so, then you who are willing to labour, may come and feast upon the text, for every honey-dropping word of it belongs to you, since you serve the Lord Christ.
4. One more word to help you to
see whether you have a right to these promises. He says
in the ninth verse, “I have chosen you, and not cast
you away.” Now some of you have been professors of
the Christian faith for many years. Some of the younger
ones of us have now been twenty years maintained in his
house, for it is just that long since we were baptised
in Christ’s name. Surely, my brethren, we feel that,
judged by the strictness of the law, we deserved to have
been cast away, and yet, being under grace, we have been
preserved by the Lord’s salvation even until now. Still,
though faint, we are pursuing. We are bound to confess,
“My feet had almost gone; my steps had almost slipped”;
but we have been upheld even to this hour. Oh! then, we
have much to be grateful for, and much to rejoice in,
for perseverance is a great pledge and earnest of final
salvation.
To him that overcometh
The crown of life shall be.
And having overcome up until now, the promises of the text belong to us. He who has kept you, my brother, until this hour, invites you now to come and look into this choice cabinet, and take out the jewels and wear them, for they are all your own to adorn you, so that you may adorn his doctrine all the more. In a word, the text belongs to God’s chosen, who are his by being separated from the world, who are distinguished by their practical service for God, and who continue in that service, and by God’s grace will continue in it even until the end.
5. We now come to the text. I will read it again, “Do not fear; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.” There is here, first, a very natural disease — fear; there is here, secondly, a command against fear — “Do not fear”; and there is, thirdly, God’s promise to help us to overcome it, and that promise is given in three or four ways, so that we may chase fear away with a whip of many thongs.
6. I. First, then, we are reminded of A VERY COMMON DISEASE OF GOOD MEN — FEAR AND DISMAY.
7. This disease of fear came into man’s heart with sin. Adam never was afraid of his God until he had broken his commands. When the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of day, and Adam heard the Almighty’s footfall, he hurried to commune with God as a dear child talks with a loving father. But the moment he had touched the fruit that was forbidden, he ran away and hid himself, and when God said, “Where are you, Adam?” Adam came cringing and trembling, for he was afraid of God. It is sin, consciousness of sin, that “makes cowards of us all.” Though he who made us is a consuming fire, and we should always have a holy awe of him, yet the fear that engenders bondage would never have come into our spirit if we had not first of all transgressed his law. Sin is the mother of the fear which has torment.
8. And, brethren, fear continues in good men because sin continues in them. If they had attained to perfect love it would cast out fear, for fear has torment; but, since the flesh is still in them and its lusts still strive for the mastery, even the holiest of God’s people are sometimes afflicted with the mockings of the child of the bondwoman. Oh that he were cast out, for he can never be heir with the freeborn nature! As grace grows and increases in power, fear declines; and, when sin is cut up root and branch, then no doubt or fear will ever vex us again. Once strip us of these houses of clay, once deliver us from all indwelling sin, and our spirits shall seek God as the sparks seek the sun; but until then, since by reason of weakness sin sometimes prevails, fear also prevails, and we are sadly cast down.
9. Fear, coming in by sin and
being sustained by sin, readily finds food upon which
it may live. Let the believer look within,
and, my brethren, he has only to do that for a moment to
see abundant reasons for fear. “Ah!” says fear as it
looks within, at the heart still prone to wander, “I
shall never hold on my way.” “Ah!” says fear as it looks
at the besetting sin, “I shall still be tripped up; I
shall never persevere to the end.” Grace is there, it is
true, but fear is blind to the better nature, and fixes
his glance only on the body of this death. Looking
within upon the old nature is seldom a very pleasant
operation, especially if we forget that it is crucified
with Christ. I suppose if any man among us could see his
own heart as it really is, he would be driven mad. The
poet was right when he said —
Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himself,
That hideous sight, a naked human heart.
Faith looks at all the ruins of the fall, and she believes that the blood of Christ will get the victory, and she sings her poem of triumph even while the fight is raging, rejoicing with the apostle, that “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin has reigned to death, even so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” But fear says, “I shall one day fall by the hand of the enemy; such a poor frail bark as mine will never stem the flood and weather the tempest, but I shall make shipwreck after all.”
10. And then, my brethren, if
fear finds food within, it also very readily finds food
without. Sometimes it is poverty, sometimes
sickness, sometimes the memory of the past, and quite as
often dread of the future. Even those who have faith in
God may occasionally be weak enough to fear and be
dismayed about common circumstances to which they ought
to be indifferent, or over which they ought by faith to
exult. Desponding people can find reason for fear where
no fear is. A certain class of people are greatly gifted
with the mournful faculty of inventing troubles. If the
Lord has not sent them any trial, they make one for
themselves. They have a little trouble factory in their
houses, and they sit down and use their imaginations to
meditate terror. They weave sackcloth and scrape up
ashes. They know that they shall be bankrupt; there was
a little decline in their business last week. They
believe that they shall soon be too old for labour; it
is true they are older than they were a month ago. They
feel sure that they shall die in the workhouse; it is
clear they will die somewhere. They feel certain about
this dreadful thing and that, and fret accordingly. None
of these things have happened to them yet, and in the
judgment of others they are less likely to happen now
than they ever were, but yet they convert their
suspicions into realities, and torture themselves with
them though they are only fantasies. Oh! it is sad that
we should degrade ourselves to this.
Shall the thin cloudlets of this transient life
Shut out the light of love immutable?
Shall unsubstantial mists of earthborn care
Conceal from saints the everlasting hills,
From which their speedy help shall descend?
Oh! shame, and sin most base, that heirs of heav’n,
Enrich’d with all the fulness of the Lord,
Should fret, and fume, and wear away their souls
With childish dreams of ills which ne’er may come;
Or coming, shall be laden deep with good!
11. In certain instances the habit of fearing has reached a monstrous growth. Indeed, I know some of my acquaintance who think it is the right thing to be always fearing, and are half suspicious of a man who has strong faith. They even call full assurance “presumption,” and are amazed that anyone should have confidence in God. But, if they only knew it, there is more presumption in unbelief than there can be in faith. It is gross presumption on a child’s part to disbelieve his father’s word. There is no presumption in a child’s believing what his father tells him; he then only does his duty. For me to accept the naked promise of a faithful God, and, despite my unworthiness, still to believe it to be true, is humility; but for me to take that promise from my father’s lip, and begin to quibble about it, and to question it, is nothing better than pride hiding its nakedness with the thinnest gauze of pretended modesty. Shun, I urge you, the unbelief that apes humility, and seek after that unstaggering faith which is the truest meekness in the sight of God!
12. Yet, I would not blame all those who are much given to fear, for in some it is rather their disease than their sin, and more their misfortune than their fault. Mr. Feeble-mind will never make a Great-heart even if you feed him on the finest of the wheat. Mr. Ready-to-halt will never stand so firmly, or run so nimbly, as Mr. Valiant-for-truth, do what you wish with him. There are some in God’s family who are constitutionally weak, and will probably never outgrow that weakness until they have entered into rest. I would do anything I could to encourage the fearing ones to rise above their weakness; I would even give just enough of the tonic of censure to make them feel that it is not right to be unbelieving, but I would not like to censure their despondency so severely as to make them think that they are not the people of God. I tell you, sirs, I would sooner you would go to heaven creeping on all fours, with never a song in your mouths, than go to hell presuming. It is better to be a broken legged lamb in Christ’s bosom than to be the strongest ram in Satan’s flock. May God deliver us from being strong and mighty in ourselves; but yet at the same time there are many evils connected with fearing, and every child of God should be on his guard against giving way to it. In every case much may be accomplished by arousing ourselves to cry to the strong One for strength to overcome our unbelief. Gloom need not be perpetual with us. I know it is said that some of God’s plants grow best in the shade. I believe they do, but I should like to try them in the sunlight a little, and see if they would not grow better there than their best has been so far. There are precious flowers of grace which are constantly watered with the tears of sorrow, but I think the dews of consolation would answer their purpose just as well. May the Lord visit such, and bring them up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. May they be of good courage, for the Lord says to them, “Do not fear; do not be dismayed.”
13. Before we leave this point also notice that even the strongest of God’s servants are sometimes the subjects of fear. David was a very strong man, and he overthrew Goliath, but we read that on one occasion when he was in battle, “David grew faint.” So the Lord’s mightiest heroes sometimes have their fainting fits. We used to talk of our “Iron Duke,” and there was one man in Scripture who was an Iron Prophet, and that was Elijah the Tishbite, and yet he sat down under the juniper tree, and, I had almost said, whined out, “It is enough; now, oh Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” The best of men are only men at the best, and the strongest men are weak if God’s mighty hand is withdrawn for awhile. Some of my dear friends will occasionally tell me, “We have suffered from doubts, and fears, and troubles, of which you have no conception.” They suppose that their minister, and others whom they love and respect, know nothing at all from experience about their infirmities. I wish it were so. We have something better to talk about than our own follies, we do not feel bound to turn the pulpit into a public confessional, and all experiences are not to be proclaimed abroad; but, for all that, permit me to say, that there are times with the boldest and the strongest, when they would give all they have for the very smallest evidence of grace, and consider themselves happy to creep to the foot of the cross, and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”
14. Yet, I do not say this to
encourage anyone in fearing, for, let me just give you
the opposite side. There is no reason why, if we lived
nearer to God, and walked more carefully, we might not,
as a rule, live above all this fear and dismay. I once
met with a dear brother in Christ, who is now in glory,
about whose truthfulness I never could have a doubt, who
told me that for thirty years he had not felt a doubt
about his interest in Jesus Christ. At the time I heard
him say it, I thought it was quite an unusual
circumstance, but I bless God that I have now met
several, “the excellent of the earth, in whom is all my
delight,” whose testimony is the same, that although
they may have been shaken they have never been moved
from their steadfast hold on Christ; though they may
have had a few tremblings, yet they have never been so
dismayed as to question their part in Jesus. They have
stood firm, and they have sung year after year, “Oh God,
my heart is fixed; my heart is fixed; I will sing and
give praise.” I hold that out as a goal for every
believer in Christ. Do try and see if you cannot rinse
your mouth out of all that bitter stuff which makes you
sing so often and so dolefully —
“’Tis a point I long to know”:
That is a very suitable song for Christian infants, a
hymn often sung by enquirers; but oh that you would get
beyond such juvenile ditties, and learn to sing better
music, such as this —
Now I have found the ground, wherein
Sure my soul’s anchor may remain:
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin
Before the world’s foundation slain;
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay,
When heaven and earth are fled away.
Oh love! thou bottomless abyss!
My sins are swallow’d up in thee;
Cover’d is my unrighteousness,
Nor spot of guilt remains on me.
While Jesus’ blood through earth and skies,
Mercy, free, boundless mercy cries!
With faith I plunge me in this sea:
Here is my hope, my joy, my rest!
Hither, when hell assails, I flee,
I look into my Saviour’s breast;
Away, sad doubt, and anxious fear!
Mercy is all that’s written there.
15. II. We shall now occupy a little while in considering GOD’S COMMAND AGAINST FEAR. “Do not fear; do not be dismayed.”
16. That precept is absolute and unqualified, we are not to fear at all. He does not say, “Fear so much, but not beyond that,” but he gives an unlimited exhortation, “Do not fear.” He does not say, “Do not fear so often,” but, “Do not fear.” It is an exhortation without any time to it, and therefore it applies to all times. “Do not fear.” Do not fear at all. “Do not be dismayed.” He does not say, “Do not be utterly dismayed”; there is no qualifying adverb, but it means, “Do not be dismayed at all.” This command, then, chides fear and forbids dismay.
17. Why should the child of God not be afraid? There are several reasons which justify the divine command, let us meditate upon some of them. First, my brethren, we may not fear because it is sinful. It is usually sinful to be afraid and dismayed, because such a state of mind almost always results from unbelief. Have you ever thought what a great sin unbelief is? No, we talk about it, and confess it, but we do not sufficiently consider the deep heinousness of it. We will confess unbelief of God without a blush, and yet nothing could make us acknowledge dishonesty to man. I urge you, my brethren, tell me which of these two is the worst fault? Is not unbelief a robbery of God, a treason felony against him? If I were in conversation with any one of you, and you should say to me, “Sir, I cannot believe you,” nothing you could say would sting me more. It is a very strong thing to say to any man, “I cannot believe you.” Why, if there were two of the lowest men or women, fighting in a street quarrel, and one of them said to the other, “I cannot believe a word you say,” the lowest individual would feel the insult. Every truthful man feels that he has a right to be believed. He speaks upon the honour of an honest man, and if you say, “I cannot believe you,” and even begin to lament that you have no faith in him, the reflection is not upon yourself, but on the person whom you cannot believe. And shall it ever come to this, that God’s own children shall say that they cannot believe their God? Oh, sin of sins! It takes away the very Godhead from God, for if God is not true, he is not a God; and if he is not fit to be believed, neither is he fit to be adored, for a God whom you cannot trust you cannot worship. Oh, deicidal traitor, you sin of unbelief! Oh, God-killing sin! May we be delivered from it, and not think it light or trifling, but shake it off from us as Paul shook off the viper into the fire.
18. Doubts and fears also breed sin. It was said of Jeroboam, that he sinned, and made Israel to sin, and so does unbelief. It carries a thousand other sins in its loins. The man who believes in God will fight with temptation, but the man who does not believe in him is ready to fall into any snare. See that businessman, he is just now in low water through the depression of business. He is a believer in God, and he says, “I believe that God will carry me through it, if I keep to the straight line of integrity. I trust in God, and come what may, I will not pawn my reputation.” Now, whatever may come of it, that man’s character will be safe, because his faith is firm. But here is another man, he says, “Well, I am in a very awkward predicament, and I must look out for the main opportunity; I am not sure that God will be with me; I must help myself, for I am very likely to be ruined.” That man will take up with one of those dodges in business by which men raise money. I need not tell you what those dodges are, because I dare say a great many of you know them, either by using them yourselves, or by having them used upon you. They are part and parcel of the art of stealing other people’s money, without being locked up as a thief. Well, he avails himself of one of those schemes; of course he does, he who does not have faith is sure to have much craft. He who cannot trust God soon begins to trust the devil, and he who begins to trust the devil soon finds himself in the mire. It is faith that holds a man as the great bower anchor (a) holds a vessel when the winds are up. Believing that God will not fail you enables you to defy temptation. Now see how the man who has faith beats the devil! There the devil stands; he says, “If you will serve me I will give you” — “Well, what will you give me?” “I will give you the whole world.” “But I have that already, for this world is mine, given to me in Christ, and as much of it as is good for me I shall always have.” “Well, but I will make you great.” “I do not want to be great, my joy is to make Christ great, and my greatness is in him.” “But I will give you silver.” “Oh, then!” says the Christian, “put it down.” No sooner is the heap spread out than the believer covers it all over with ten times its weight in gold, and so laughs the fiend to scorn. I mean that for every blessing that sin could bring grace brings ten times as much of a greater blessing, and so faith checkmates Satan, and temptation is put away. Unbelief has no such power, but readily falls into the lion’s jaws. Therefore, do not fear, lest in the hour of trial you are overcome with temptation and rush into sin.
19. Do not fear, again, because it injures yourself. Nothing can weaken you so much, nothing can make you so unhappy, as to be distrusting. Nor is this a small thing, for Christian joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and he who causes it to wither robs the Lord of glory. Is it not written, “Rejoice evermore?” Fear weakens the believer’s influence, and so causes mischief to others. Converts are not brought to Christ through unbelieving Christians. It is faith that wins souls. Let me give you an example of it. There is a good woman over there who has lost her child, her only child. Now when her husband saw that dear child die, he was exceedingly mad against God, and said many a harsh and bitter thing, but his wife did not. She loved the child with as tender a love as the father did, but she laid it down on the bed, and she said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Good woman, your husband did not say anything, but he felt the difference between himself and you, and who can tell what good results will follow? Now, if a professed Christian under trial acts just like a worldling, the worldly man sums it all up and says, “There is nothing in religion.” But, if in the time of difficulty, the time of affliction, the time of bereavement, the Christian man’s faith makes him happy, resigned, content with the Lord’s will, why then even the coarsest of ungodly minds see the power of grace, and it may be that they will be led to reflect, and to ask themselves, “If there is such a choice grace as this in the world, why should I not have it?” and perhaps they will come to seek and find it. Oh, for your own sake, for your neighbour’s sake, for the church’s sake, for the world’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for God’s sake, do not fear, neither be dismayed!
20. III. Time fails me to dwell on this, and so now I must come to the very heart and soul of the text — THE PROMISES WHICH GOD GIVES TO PREVENT FEAR AND DISMAY.
21. Five times in this verse you find some form of the pronoun “you,” and five times you find the pronoun “I.” Whatever there may be of you, there shall be as much of God. Whatever there may be of your weakness, there shall be as much of God’s strength. Whatever there may be of your sin, there shall be as much of God’s mercy to meet it all. May the Holy Spirit reveal all the fulness of this wonderful verse to your hearts.
22. “Do not fear; for I am with you.” Many a man fears because he is afraid of loneliness. More or less we must be alone in the service of God. Christian companionship is a great comfort, but if a man becomes a leader in Israel, he becomes a lonely spirit to a certain degree. So, too, in suffering, there is a bitterness with which no stranger can intermeddle. A part of the road to heaven every man must tread with no companion except his God. Now, I know some of you are getting old, and your friends have died one by one, and you are saying, “I shall be left quite alone.” Others of you have come up to London from some country village where you used to have many Christian friends; and there is no place so desolate as this horrid London, when a man dwells in its teeming streets, and does not meet a friend among its millions of passers to and fro. I know well what your state of mind is. Or perhaps, you are going to the States, or Canada, or Australia, and the thought in your mind now is — “I cannot bear being separated from all I love.” Now, here is this precious word for you, “Do not fear; for I am with you.” The Lord of Hosts is the best of company. His companionship is the angels’ delight, and the bliss of glorified spirits. Be thankful, believer, that you are not alone, because the Father is with you, the Son is with you, the Holy Spirit is with you, and what does that mean? It means that omnipotence will be with you to be your strength, that omniscience will be with you to be your wisdom, that immutability will be with you to be your help, that all the attributes of God will be with you to be your treasury. “Do not fear; for I am with you.”
23. Another fear comes over men, and that is, that they may lose all they have in the world, and they know very well that if they lose their property, they usually lose their friends. Like the swallows which come to us in the springtime, and are gone when the summer has departed, such are our worldly friends; when our goods are gone they are gone. But here the second promise comes in, “Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” Jonah’s gourd was withered, but Jonah’s God was not. Your goods may go, but your God will not. Those around you may rob you of your loose cash of present comfort, but they cannot take from you your invested capital, your God. That was a sweet word of the child when he saw his mother month after month in her widow’s clothes sitting down and weeping, because her husband was dead. “Mother,” he said, “is God dead?” Ah! if our God were dead we would be poor orphans indeed, but while it rings out from the precious Book, and rings in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, “Do not be dismayed; for I am your God,” we have not come to absolute poverty yet. “Look,” said the ambassador of France to the Spanish ambassador as he took him into the French king’s treasury, “Look at my master’s gold; how rich he is!” The Spanish ambassador took his walking stick and began to thrust it down into the bags and into the money chest. “What do you do that for?” said the Frenchman. “I want to see if there is a bottom to it,” he said. “Oh!” said the French ambassador, “of course there is a bottom.” “Ah!” said the Spaniard, “but my master’s treasury has no bottom, for he has all the mines of Mexico and Peru.” Now, what the Spaniard said boastfully we may say truthfully. The treasury of our God is without a bottom, it is fathomless; and while you can hear God say to you, “I am your God,” you may laugh at penury and distress, at destruction and famine; for you shall lack no good thing; you shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and your mouth shall praise him with joyful lips.
24. Another fear that every good man has at times, unless he is buoyed up by faith, arises from a sense of personal weakness, “I have a battle to fight, and I am very weak; I have a work to do for God before I die, and I do not have sufficient power to perform it.” Now, here comes the next word of the text, “I will strengthen you.” The strength which I have to do my work with does not lie in me; if it did it would be all over with me. How little strength there is in this arm I sorrowfully know, but there is no man on earth who can tell me how much strength God might put, if he so willed, into that same arm. If he so willed it, he could enable me, a poor, weak, trembling man, to pull down Gaza’s gates as Samson did of old. He can put physical strength of the most gigantic kind into an infant’s arm if he wills it. But, my brethren, transfer the metaphor to spiritual strength. You have God’s command to preach. Ah! it would be only a poor sermon, if you were left alone to do the preaching; but no tongue can tell how God can make you preach if he pleases to help you. You have to take a large class of boys and girls, or of young men and young women, and you feel you cannot do it. Of course, without his help you cannot, but go and try; for he has said, “I will strengthen you.” There was a bush in the wilderness, and it was nothing to look at, nothing but a bush; but oh! how it glowed with splendour when God came into it so that it burned with fire, and yet was not consumed. God can come into you, my brother, and into you, my sister, and can make you blaze with glory like the bush in Horeb. He can make you so strong that you can endure anything. Why, he has done it up until now. If someone had told you years ago that you would have passed through your last trouble, you would have said, “I shall never be able to bear it.” But you have borne it. “Ah!” your unbelief would have said, “that will be the death of me.” But it has not been the death of you. You can at this very moment tell about the widow’s God; you can sing about him who strengthens the weak against the strong, who delivers those who are ready to perish, and makes the faint heart to sing for joy. Here is a word, then, for timid, trembling workers for God. “I will strengthen you.”
25. Then comes the next consoling promise, “Yes, I will help you.” This is intended to meet the fear that friendly help will fail. There are some who say, “I believe that God can strengthen me personally, but I need to have those around me who will help me; I desire to see raised up in the church of God other ministers, other Christian workers; I want to have some at my side who will with equal earnestness and with greater talent contend for the truth.” Notice, then, this word, “I will help you.” I will not only give you strength to use yourselves, but I will exert my strength both in other men and in my providence to help you. Well, you know what a grand matter is God’s help. I told you once before a story I heard from a minister, but I must tell you again. He said he was one day bringing his books upstairs into another room, for he was going to have his study on the first floor instead of downstairs, and his little boy wanted to help father carry some of the books. “Now,” said the father, “I knew he could not do it, but since he wanted to be doing something, to please him and to do him good by encouraging his industry, I told him he might take a book and carry it up.” So away he went, and picked out one of the biggest volumes — Caryl on Job or Poli Synopsis I should think — and when he had climbed a step or two up the stairs, down he sat and began to cry. He could not manage to carry his big book any farther, he was disappointed and unhappy. How did the matter end? Why, the father had to go to the rescue, and carry both the great book, and the little man. So, when the Lord gives us a work to do, we are glad to do it, but our strength is not equal to the work, and then we sit down and cry, and it comes to this, that our blessed Father carries the work, and carries the little man too, and then it is all done, and done gloriously. It is a simple illustration, but may it comfort some desponding heart. “Yes, I will help you.”
26. The last word of the text
is, “Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my
righteousness.” Many a child of God is afflicted
with a fear that he shall one day bring dishonour
upon the cross of Christ, and in an unguarded moment
shall slip with his feet. This is a very natural fear,
and in some respects a very proper fear.
Ah! Lord, with such a heart as mine,
Unless thou hold me fast,
I feel I must, I shall decline,
And perish at the last.
It only needs, we think, the temptation to take us in the weak point, and then it will be all over with us. But now again I ask you to grasp this precious word, “I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness,” that is the very same hand which holds the stars in their place. That is the hand which bears up the unpillared arch of heaven, that spans both sea and shore. Can it not bear you up? Oh rest upon it, and you shall not be cast down! The right hand of his righteousness is the very hand that you and I once had cause to fear, lest our offended King should strike us with it, for we righteously deserved his wrath; but ever since the hand of Christ was pierced, the right hand of God has never struck a believer so as to destroy him. That same hand which might have crushed, is now placed under us to bear us up in all our afflictions.
27. I wish I could have clipped the wings of time, for this last half hour, so that we might have spent longer in these rich pastures, but dear friends, I give you the words of the text to take away with you. Here you have wafers made with honey, such as Israel fed on in the wilderness. Here you have angels’ food; indeed, the very bread of life itself lies within these choice words. The only fear I have is lest you should miss them through unbelief. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.” Do not merely “see” that he is good as you read the text, but “taste” the text. Let it lie on the palate of your soul; absorb it into your very nature. Try to know that it is true, and true to you, though you are the very least of God’s people in your own estimation, and the most unworthy sinner this side of hell. “Do not fear; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.” Go home, and take the text with you in the hand of faith. It shall prove to you like the widow’s barrel of flour and cruse of oil; it shall not fail you until the day when the Lord shall bring you out of this land of famine to feast in his kingdom with his dear Son.
28. My heart mourns to think that this text does not belong to some of you, because you do not belong to Christ. Oh my dear friend, how I desire that you may yet have the promises of the covenant for your own. If you believe with all your heart, you may. Trust Jesus Christ, and the promises are yours. I tried to preach my Master’s sacrifice for sin this morning. I have now set before you one of the sweet fruits that grow from the bitter tree upon which he hung. Oh come to the tree of the cross, and look up to his sufferings, and rely upon him; and then, when you have sat under his shadow with great delight, may this text, which is one of the fruits of that tree, be sweet to your taste.
29. May the Lord bless you, for
Christ’s sake. Amen.
[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Isaiah
54]
(a) Bower anchor: The name of two
anchors, the best bower, and small bower,
carried at the bows of a vessel; also the cable attached
to such an anchor. OED.