A MEMORABLE ANSWER
Isaiah 14:32. What shall one answer? &c.
Translators and interpreters differ as to whether the answer in this verse was intended to be given by or to the messengers of the nations; as to the nations whose messengers are here spoken of; and as to the time when they came on their errand. Adopting the view which represents them as coming to Jerusalem to congratulate Hezekiah after the marvellous deliverance of that city from the Assyrians (chap. Isaiah 37:36-38), we remind you—
I. That the wonders of God’s love to His Church often surprise strangers as well as friends. For the deliverances wrought for her are often—
1. Surprisingly seasonable, e.g., the over throw of the Egyptian host in the Red Sea, when everything seemed to favour Pharaoh and to be against Israel (Exodus 15:13-15); the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib.
2. Astonishing because brought about by unlikely means. Who could have anticipated the manner of the deliverance of Jerusalem on this occasion? [Give other examples.]
3. Astonishing because vouchsafed in spite of great provocations and unworthiness. Every such deliverance is a work of grace as well as of power.
II. In such times of deliverance friends and enemies alike wonder at the secure foundations on which the Church is built. The literal Zion was a marvel of architecture (Psalms 48:13), and in this respect it was a worthy symbol of the Church [1027]
1. The strength and stability of the spiritual Zion is guaranteed by the character and resources of the Builder: “The Lord hath founded Zion.”
2. Therefore we should not fear the might of any of the adversaries that come up against her (H. E. I., 1246–1251).
[1027] See notes to outline: THE DUTY OF GLADNESS, chap. Isaiah 12:6.
III. The stability and security of Zion are sources of delighted satisfaction to the humblest of her inhabitants: “The poor of His people shall trust in it.” They know they are under the guardianship of One who is “mighty to save,” and who encircles the least as well as the greatest in the arms of His love. Their consciousness of poverty and weakness leads them to rest in Him with an undivided trust, and they thus attain unconsciously to the blessedness of those whose trust is in God only, the peace which rests on the only foundation that cannot be moved.—Samuel Thodey.
Mark what the text affirms, “The Lord hath founded Zion;” this is the guarantee of His love and of her stability: “the poor of His people shall trust in it,” or, as the margin has it, “shall betake themselves unto it;” this is the one purpose of her Divine mission upon earth—the care, the teaching, the education, the guidance of the poor.
I. THE SECURITY OF THE CHURCH.
1. The strongest, most fundamental title to protection is creation. Even among ourselves no one frames an object in order to destroy it; he who makes, makes that he may preserve. Thus is creation in itself a presumptive title to protection; and it is abundantly plain that the strength of such a bond will ever increase with the cost of the object produced. In one sense the whole material universe cost its Creator nothing, for its production was to Him a thing of infinite ease; but this cannot be said of the Church. He spoke to bid the one, He died to make the other exist. When He beholds His Church, He sees in it the monument of His own inexpressible sorrows; He feels this offspring of His Divine agonies drawn closer to His eternal heart by the thought of all it cost to give her being.
2. In this Church of His is His own honour pledged. He hath not covenanted with the world that now is to immortalise it; but He has passed His own word for the perpetuity of His Church (Matthew 16:18; Isaiah 60:20-21).
3. The Church, in its ultimate perfection, is set forth as the very reward of all the sorrows of its Lord. To “see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied” is His destined crown; this “joy set before Him” was that which enabled Him to “endure the cross, despising the shame.” (See also Ephesians 5:25-27.) Shall He be defrauded of His recompense?
4. There is more than creation to bind the Church to Christ, more than promise, more than reward; there is communion, oneness, identification. A man may desert his child; he cannot desert himself. Even though the Redeemer could forget His espoused bride; even though He could deny His plighted promise; yea, though He could abandon His own reward, He cannot abandon His own body (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 5:30). With such a union there can be no separation; if Christ be immortal, the Church is so; when He dies she shall perish, but not till then.
II. THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. “The poor of His people shall trust in it.” The Church of Christ is one vast institute for the benefit of the poor. The poor were the special objects of Christ’s solicitude and tenderness, and they have been, and should be, the special objects of the Church’s care. Even in her worst days she has had an open hand for the poor. She should ever follow the example of her Lord in caring for their temporal needs. But it is in the doctrine she preaches, and the way she preaches it, that the Church is indeed the poor man’s consoler [1030]William Archer Butler, M.A.: Sermons, Doctrinal and Practical, Second Series, pp. 227–237.
[1030] It is in meeting his sorrow with tidings of glory to come, in brightening the gloom of his humble home with the hallowed light of eternity, in soothing his days of hard and heavy toil with her peaceful Sabbaths, in watching over his bed of sickness with a patience as unwearied as if his poor chambers were gorgeous with gilded ceilings and silken tapestry; it is in these things that the Church carries on that loveliest attribute of Her Lord, “Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress.”—Archer Butler.