THE GOSPEL FEAST
Isaiah 25:6-8. And in this mountain, &c.
The blessings of the Gospel are, with wise adaptation to our views and feelings, often compared to the objects in which men naturally take most delight; and here, as in other places, they are compared to a costly entertainment bestowed by the Sovereign of the universe on the children of His love. It was the custom of Oriental monarchs on great occasions to make rich feasts on a scale of magnificence, of which we in the West can form scarcely any idea (Esther 1:3-7) [1048] At these entertainments wise men were often assembled, and important questions in morals and literature were discussed: hence the benefits of knowledge and wisdom were often exhibited under the image of a great feast (Proverbs 9:1-5). The prophet, as our Lord Himself afterwards (Matthew 22:1-3.; Luke 14:16-24), speaks in accordance with the habits of thinking common in his time, when he sets forth the blessings of the Gospel under the image of a great feast.
[1048] Alexander gave a feast after his return from India of five days’ continuance, when ninety marriages were celebrated and nine thousand guests assembled. Diodorus Siculus describes the festivities with which Antisthenes, a rich citizen of Agrigentum (B.C. 414), celebrated the marriage of his daughter: all the citizens of Agrigentum were entertained at his expense on tables laid for them at their own doors, besides a great number of strangers. The festivities, as in the parable of the Ten Virgins, took place in the evening, and the whole city was one blaze of light. The Roman and Egyptian banquets were proverbial for their costliness and splendour. In Persia still, royal banquets are prolonged for many weeks; and a Chinese emperor used frequently to make a feast that lasted a hundred and twenty days.—Thodey.
I. A BANQUET OF GRACE AND SALVATION SPREAD FOR THE NEEDY (Isaiah 25:6).
1. It is a feast worthy of its Founder (Esther 1:7). He who studies it most closely, will be most struck by the vastness of the resources and the magnificence of the generosity of Him who spread it.
2. It is eminently a feast of reconciliation and restored friendship. The feasts of the ancients were often connected with sacrificial rites, were employed to confirm covenants, and to celebrate the reconciliation of those who had been estranged and at enmity with each other. We have an interesting illustration of all this in what we are told of Jacob and Laban (Genesis 31:43-55). When Joseph was about to reveal himself in love to his brethren, and to unite them all in a new bond of peace, he made a feast for them (Genesis 43:31-34). So did the father of the prodigal, to testify the perfectness of his reconciliation to his guilty but penitent child (Luke 15:23). The feast of which our text speaks, is a feast founded upon a sacrifice; it is a feast of reconciliation effected by means of sacrifice; it is the sublime and glorious realisation of the ancient symbol of the feast that followed upon the presentation of the peace-offering (Leviticus 7:11-16). It is the fact that it is a feast of reconciliation that gives sweetness and preciousness to all the sweet and precious things of which it is composed, just as it was the fact that they symbolised his restoration to his place in his father’s home and heart that made the ring, and the robe, and all the choice viands before him, delightful to the pardoned prodigal (chap. Isaiah 12:1; Romans 5:1-2; Romans 5:11).
3. Its magnificence and its delightfulness are heightened by the number of those who partake of it. The rich provisions of the Gospel are as widely spread as they are widely needed. This is a joy to the Christian, for to a noble mind happiness multiplied is happiness heightened.
II. ILLUMINATION FOR THE IGNORANT (Isaiah 25:7). There was a symbolical fulfilment of this prophecy in the hour of our Saviour’s death (Matthew 27:51); that which had hidden the Holy of Holies from the sight of men was rent in twain. A spiritual fulfilment of it is the need of the world and of each individual: by a veil of ignorance and prejudice men are hindered from beholding the truths which it would be to their highest interest to see clearly. This is declared concerning the Jews (2 Corinthians 3:15), but it is just as true of the majority of the Gentiles: they also see no desirableness in Christ, no preciousness in the salvation He offers them. But this destructive veil has been taken away from the hearts of millions, and shall yet be removed from the heart of a vaster multitude—by the diffusion of God’s Word, the preaching of the Gospel, and the accompanying agency of the Holy Spirit. The preliminary fulfilment of this prophecy at the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:5; Acts 2:41) shall have still more glorious counterparts in the not distant future.
III. CONSOLATION FOR THE SORROWING AND LIFE FOR THE DYING (Isaiah 25:8).
This glorious prophecy is in the course of fulfilment all around us; but to us individually it may be as if God had not been faithful to His word. We may have no appetite for spiritual enjoyments, no craving for spiritual blessings (Colossians 2:18-19). In this case, so far as we are concerned, this feast will have been spread in vain (Luke 14:18). If any man is conscious that for him the Gospel has no attractions, if he can listen to this prophecy without a glow of thankful joy, let him cry mightily to God for that new heart without which all that God’s wonderful compassion has moved Him to do for our race will leave him still unblessed (H. E. I., 4090).—Samuel Thodey.
This beautiful passage may be taken as presenting some of the principal aspects of the establishment of Christ’s kingdom upon the earth. It expresses in a most lively manner the feelings of hope and joy which the Gospel is naturally fitted to call forth, and it unfolds the Saviour’s work to us under the ideas of a feast, a revelation, and a victory.
I. The Gospel speaks to men of a feast. It assumes that they are spiritually destitute, in actual danger of perishing, and it tells them of a feast.
1. A feast provided for all (Isaiah 25:6). Christ came not for the exclusive benefit of Jew or Gentile; He came for man (Luke 19:10). He invites all to share in the blessings He has provided (Luke 14:16), and declares that that invitation will not be given in vain (Matthew 8:11).
2. A feast of the best things. Suggested here by the richness and flavour of wines long preserved. We are apt to miss the truth that the blessings which the Gospel offers are of the richest quality and of the highest value conceivable; we act as if it required us to give up a certain good for a doubtful and visionary one. This accounts for the eagerness with which men seek first “the world,” regarding “the kingdom of God” as something to be made room for after all else has been obtained (H. E. I., 5006, 5007).
II. The Gospel is a revelation to men of God’s gracious purposes (Isaiah 25:7). A thing may be a mystery to us in two ways: because it is beyond all human comprehension; or, because though it is comprehensible a veil rests upon it. In the former case the mystery must ever remain what it is; in the latter, the covering has only to be removed, and the mystery is at an end. The morning dispels the mystery of the night. So the Gospel discloses eternal truths of which man had no suspicion (Ephesians 3:2-12). The central, supreme revelation of the Gospel is Christ; and this is so because in Him God, who had dwelt in thick darkness, stands manifestly before us (John 14:9; 1 Timothy 3:16.; H. E. I., 855–857, 2241–2243). In Him, too, man is for the first time disclosed to himself; for the first time he catches a glimpse of his nature, of his relation to God, of his glorious possibilities.
III. The Gospel speaks to man of an eternal victory. “He will swallow up death in victory;” or, “He shall utterly destroy death for ever.” Here we have suggested to us the crowning work of Christ (2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:14). In Him the believer has the promise and pledge of a final and glorious triumph.
1. How great, then, should be our confidence even in the midst of the deepest affliction! Doubts, fears, temptations threaten to destroy us; but with Christ strengthening us, our conflict leads to certain victory. He who has conquered will make us “more than conquerors.”
2. With what assurance, therefore, should we approach the hour of death itself! By Him who leads us on, death has been vanquished and captured. Hence death is one of our possessions (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). Death, as in the old time men thought of it, no longer exists; for the Christian it is swallowed up in victory (H. E. I., 1611–1614).—William Manning.
The parable of the Great Supper (Matthew 22:1-14) illustrates this prophecy. Consider—
I. The Founder of this feast: “the Lord of hosts.” Hosts—all creatures in the universe, rational and irrational; subject to His inspection; under His control; designed for His glory. What think you of the Founder of this feast? What feast ever had such a Founder? It is a feast worthy of its Founder. How wonderful that He should condescend to provide a feast for the world!
II. The nature of the feast. Not only the best, but the best of the best; bountiful supply; rich variety.
III. The persons for whom this feast has been prepared. All may partake of it; only those are excluded who exclude themselves.
1. Are you making excuses? Will your excuses stand the test of the day of judgment? You must partake, or perish! Delay not; for, as far as you are concerned, the feast will soon be over. Not now too late; “yet there is room.”
2. Are you participants? What present blessings; what future glories! Bless the Founder’s Name. Seek to bring others to the feast.—Henry Creswell.
I. THE AUTHOR OF THIS FEAST. Not a prodigal, squandering the fruits of the industry of others. Not a conqueror, satiating admirers with spoils unjustly acquired. Not a pompous Ahasuerus, whose only design is to set forth his own grandeur. God, moved with compassion for rebels against His authority, spreads a rich feast that they may not perish.
II. THE SITE OF THIS FEAST. “In this mountain.” It is in the everlasting Gospel this entertainment is prepared. In coming to Christ for the pardon of our sins and the salvation of our souls, we come “unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” The figure of a “mountain” denotes the elevation, security, and publicity of the Gospel feast.
1. Its elevation. In coming to it, we leave all that is debasing behind.
2. Its security. In coming to it, we reach a place where we may rejoice without fear (Luke 1:71-75).
3. Its publicity. It is our own fault if we do not see it and reach it.
III. THE RICHNESS OF THIS ENTERTAINMENT. “A feast of fat things, of fat things full of marrow.” Carnal images that set forth spiritual truths. In the Gospel, and in the Gospel alone, is found that which satisfies the hunger of the soul and fills it with delight.
IV. THE GLADNESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT. “A feast of wines on the lees, of wines on the lees well refined.” A figure founded on the influence of wine on the human system (Psalms 104:15). The Gospel, when rightly understood and cordially embraced, makes a heavy heart light. What can raise men’s spirits so high, or make them so truly cheerful, as a sense that all their sins are forgiven them? The joy of a literal “feast of wines” is transient, and after the midnight revel come days of unpleasant reflection, reproach, and melancholy. But the joy of the Gospel is pure and permanent.
V. THE EXTENSIVENESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT. It is “unto all people.” Other entertainments may be confined to the rich, the great, and the noble; here all such distinctions are done away. Christianity is a universal religion, designed to redeem and gladden the whole world. Its invitations are extended to all (Proverbs 9:1-5; Revelation 22:17).—William Reeve, M.A., Miscellaneous Discourses (pp. 229–237).
I. THE FEAST. The blessings of the Gospel are compared—
1. To “fat things full of marrow.” What are they? Complete justification, adoption, the sustaining confidence of being an object of God’s everlasting love—a love which had no beginning and shall have no end, union with Christ (and all that great truth implies), the doctrine of resurrection and everlasting life. These are a few of the “fat things full of marrow” which the King of kings has set before His guests.
2. To “wines on the lees well refined”—symbols of the joys of the Gospel; such as a sense of perfect peace with God, the sense of security, communion with God, the pleasures of hope, of hope that falls far short of the reality. The description of the wines—“wines on the lees well refined”—reminds us that the joys of the believer are ancient in their origin [1051] that they are most excellent in their flavour and aroma, and that they are pure and elevating in their nature. The joys of grace are not fantastical emotions, or transient flashes of meteoric excitement; they are based on substantial truth, are reasonable, fit and proper, and make men like angels (H. E. I., 1082, 3052, 3053).
[1051] Old wines are intended by “wines well refined;” they have stood long on the lees, have drawn out all the virtue from them, and have been cleared of all the coarser material. In the East, wine will be improved by keeping even more than the wines of the West! and even so the mercies of God are the sweeter to our meditations because of their antiquity. From old eternity, or ever the earth was, the covenant engagements of everlasting love have been resting like wines on the lees, and to-day they bring to us the utmost riches of all the attributes of God.—Spurgeon.
II. THE BANQUETING HALL. “In this mountain.” There is a reference here to three things, the same symbol bearing three interpretations:—
1. The mountain on which Jerusalem is built. On a little knoll of that mountain—Calvary—that great transaction was fulfilled which made to all nations a great feast.
2. The Church. Frequently Jerusalem is used as a symbol of the Church of God, and it is within the pale of the Church that the great feast is made unto all nations.
3. The Church of God exalted to the latter-day glory. Then shall the glory of the Gospel be unveiled more clearly and enjoyed more fully than at present.
III. THE HOST OF THE FEAST. “The Lord of hosts.”
1. The Lord makes it, and makes it all. It is utterly improper for us to bring anything of our own to it; the Lord provides even the wedding-garment in which we are to sit at it, and no other will be allowed.
2. Only the Lord of hosts could have provided what man needed. But He has done it, and done it effectually.
3. As the Lord of hosts has provided the feast, it is not to be despised. To despise it will show our folly, and involve us in great guilt.
4. As He has provided all the feast, let Him have all the glory.
IV. THE GUESTS. “For all people.” For all, irrespective of national, social, intellectual, or even moral differences. The declaration, “for all people,” gives hope for all who wish to come. Between the covers of the Bible there is no mention of one person who may not come, no description of one person who may not trust in Christ. To him who trusts Christ the whole feast is open, there is not a blessing of which he may not partake.—C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 846.
THE TRIUMPHS OF CHRIST
Isaiah 25:8. He will swallow up death in victory, &c.
It is important at the very outset that we should clearly recognise the Person and the dignity of the Person of whom all these things are declared. Otherwise it will be impossible for us to look for the fulfilment of these marvellous promises. We have the authority of St. Paul for declaring that the Person is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. To HIM he ascribes the victory over death (1 Corinthians 15:54). Thus St. Paul authorises the most exalted conceptions we can form of the dignity of our Lord; for the work which he declares will be fulfilled by Christ is in our text ascribed to Jehovah: “The Lord God will wipe away,” &c. It is of “the Lord of hosts” that Isaiah speaks throughout (Isaiah 25:6-8). Thus we have here one of the invaluable incidental proofs with which Scripture abounds of the deity of our Lord. If He is “the Lord of hosts,” then we can believe all the things here declared of Him.
I. The deliverance of Christ’s people from death. “He will swallow up death in victory”—as the rods of the magicians were swallowed up by the rod of Aaron; as the hosts of Pharaoh were swallowed up by the waters of the Red Sea; as the darkness of the night is swallowed up in the brightness of the morning. True, God’s people must depart hence, like other people; but in regard to them Christ “has swallowed up death in victory.”
1. By imparting to them a spiritual life and blessedness which are not touched by the dissolution of the union of body and soul.
2. By sustaining and comforting them while that mysterious process is being accomplished. How often has the deathbed of the believer been a scene of triumph!
3. By utterly changing the character of death in regard to them. To them it is not a curse but a blessing (H. E. I., 1571–1594, 1594–1643).
4. By the promises which on the morning of the resurrection He will surely fulfil. “THEN,” &c. (1 Corinthians 15:54; H. E. I., 4334–4354).
II. The deliverance of Christ’s people from sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,”—tears of sorrow for sin; of mourning under affliction, trials, and bereavements; of grief caused by the wickedness of men and the injury done to the cause of truth and righteousness: all shall be wiped away, every cause of sorrow brought to an end.
III. The deliverance of Christ’s people from the shame and contempt of the world.—Samuel Thodey.
A SORROWLESS WORLD
Isaiah 25:8. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.
The vision presented is that of a sorrowless world; a vision which has haunted the imagination of man in every age. The Bible declares that that which has been merely a bright but disappointing dream shall be a glorious fact.
I. Look at sorrow as a fact. How early we become acquainted with it. How our experience of it increases with every year of life. How numerous are it sources. How inevitable it is (H. E. I., 47–50). But the profoundest, heaviest, most oppressive, and most enduring sorrow of which we are capable is the sorrow of the soul which is caused by consciousness of guilt. Unlike all other sorrows, in the thought of death it finds no relief; by that thought it is unspeakably aggravated (H. E. I., 1334–1341; P.Q, 1664, 1668).
II. Proceed to look at God removing sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” How great the enterprise! Yet how sufficient, though unexpected and startling, is the agency He employs: on this mission of mercy He has sent His own Son. God, as His manner is, works from within outwards; He not only wipes off all tears, He removes their cause. That cause is sin. But how does He destroy sin in the human soul?
1. By revealing it, by showing its essential hideousness—one of the revelations of the cross of Christ. It is not until we perceive the costliness of the atonement of sin, that we begin to suspect its terribleness and hatefulness.
2. By showing that sin can be conquered. This is the glorious message and proclamation of the life of the Man Christ Jesus.
3. By furnishing a motive that shall stimulate us to the conflict with sin which will end in victory. That motive is found in the love for Christ which springs up in the soul when we view Him dying on the cross in our stead.
4. In the same marvellous spectacle we see that which alone can pacify conscience, and which does pacify it. Believing, our fears and our sorrows flee away; our mourning is turned into joy. The supreme need of the soul is met in reconciliation with God. A sorrowless life is begun. But that is not all. Having destroyed—in destroying sin in the soul, God implants righteousness (chap. Isaiah 32:17). He creates as well as destroys. He introduces into our thoughts, words, actions, a Divine order, and therefore a Divine beauty and blessedness. All sorrow springs from infractions of this order; this is seen in national, social, individual life. In proportion as it is restored, tears are wiped away. The great Agent by whom this work is accomplished is His own Spirit; but He works by means, and the chief instruments He employs are those who, in various ways, are promoting the knowledge and practice of the will of God in the world. In this work we may share; this possibility is the glory of our life. By the progress of Christian truth, how many tears have been already wiped away! In spite of every obstacle, the glorious work shall proceed, with ever-accelerating rapidity, with ever-accumulating triumphs. There is a better day dawning for our race (H. E. I., 3421–3423). Nothing can bring it in but the Gospel. All other agencies—commerce, education, literature, art, legislation—have been tried and have failed. He who loves humanity will consecrate himself to the furtherance of the Gospel; and he who does so shall share in that joy of redeeming the world from sin and sorrow by the hope of which Christ was sustained amid the sufferings He endured for this great end.—Thomas Neave.
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL
(Missionary Sermon.)
Isaiah 25:6-8. And in this mountain, &c.
What the spirit of prophecy has here recorded is the testimony of Jesus and of His salvation, the subject presented to our view being the blessings of the Gospel of the Son of God. They are described in their general nature, in their unrivalled excellence, and in their universal extent.
I. The blessings of the Gospel are here described in their general nature, as including instruction for the ignorant, consolation for the sorrowful, and life for the dead. They thus correspond to the state of man without the Gospel, which is a state of darkness, misery, and death.
1. The natural state of fallen man is a state of moral darkness. A veil is upon him, by which those things which make for his peace and essentially affect his well-being are hidden from his eyes. It is a triple veil.
(1.) There is the fold of native ignorance. The merely natural man is totally ignorant of God and eternity. He knows not whence he came or whither he is going. He is altogether “sensual, having not the Spirit,” and cannot know those things of the Spirit of God which are only spiritually discerned. Hence, ever since the Fall, darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness the people.
(2.) There is the yet thicker fold of moral corruption. Sin has exactly the same tendency in each particular case as in the case of Adam. It darkens the understanding by its deceitfulness, as well as hardens the heart by its malignity. It tends to extinguish that candle of the Lord which shines in the conscience, and to render useless and unavailing those other means which God has provided for delivering us from the night of Nature. Those in whom it reigns choose the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (cf. Ephesians 4:17-18).
(3.) There is the fold of Satanic infatuation. “The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” He rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience; and his kingdom is the kingdom of delusion and darkness. He beguiled Eve through his subtilty, and he still labours to corrupt and darken the minds of men (2 Corinthians 4:4).
All this is true of all the unregenerate, however diversified may be their external condition and local circumstances. Hence multitudes even of nominal Christians are fit objects of our compassionate care and exertion. But the description of the text is still more applicable to the case of heathen nations not yet visited by the Gospel. They have not the light which nominal Christians do not allow to shine into them; in general, they have no effectual light. Over them is cast the veil not merely of ignorance and sin, but of superstition and false religion, than which nothing can be more fatally opposed to the entrance of light and the operation of Divine grace. Their very systems of religion are the means of perpetuating folly and vice, instead of reclaiming them to wisdom and righteousness. In many cases that “religion” sanctions and prescribes the most cruel of sacrifices and the most licentious of rites. In Christendom men may be superstitious and wicked, licentious and cruel, but it is because they neglect their religion. In heathen and Mohammedan countries, they are so because they attend to their religion. They breathe its genuine spirit and exemplify its proper tendency. All that is deemed sacred and authoritative in the name of religion unites with all the ignorance and depravity of fallen man, and with all the subtilty and power of the Prince of Darkness to produce and perpetuate a system of error and iniquity. False religion may pretend to be a sun which enlightens, but it is really a veil which darkens all who come under its power—a veil much more effectual to favour the ravages of sin, misery, and death than even any of the coverings previously mentioned.
2. Man is described in the text as the child not only of darkness and error, but also of misery and death. For ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of sin, in all its multiplied forms. And sin is invariably linked to misery! The wretchedness of men bears an exact correspondence to their ignorance and wickedness (Romans 3:16-17).
If this statement be true of natural men in general, it is still more awfully verified in the condition of the heathen world in particular. Infidel travellers who have cheated the public from time to time by highly-coloured pictures of the happiness of pagans, ought not on such a point to be believed. It cannot be that in the dark places of the earth, the habitations of cruelty, no groans should be heard, no tears be seen. The fact is, that while heathenism leaves its votaries to the unmitigated operation of all those natural and moral causes of distress which are common to man in general, it opens many new sources of misery, inflicts many additional desolations, creates many forms of terror, suffering, and destruction, which are peculiar to itself. All men are born to tears, because born in sin; but the tears of pagans are often tears of blood. Every groan they heave is big with double wretchedness.
The Gospel, in its provision of blessings for the human race, adapts itself to that state of darkness, wretchedness, and mortality which I have faintly described.
1. It removes darkness. It reveals to us the existence, character, and will of God, our own origin, immortality, and accountableness, the way of salvation and the path of duty; and, used by the Holy Spirit as His great instrument, it changes the heart of those who receive it, and delivers them from the delusions and dominion of Satan. In these several ways does the Gospel become the instrument of illumination. By it, and in connection with it, God destroys the covering which is naturally on men’s faces, and the veil that is spread over their understandings and hearts. The consequence is, in instances innumerable, that “beholding as in a glass,” with unveiled face, “the glory of the Lord, they are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
The glorious diffusion of light and purity which results from Christianity is still more striking when it obtains access to heathen nations. In proportion to the deeper gloom of their former ignorance is the splendour of the new illumination, when the Sun of righteousness arises upon them with healing in His beams. On such occasions, it may be said with peculiar emphasis, “The entrance of Thy Word giveth light,”—a light which is able to penetrate and destroy even the thickest veil of false religion.
2. It wipes away tears. This is here declared to be a part of its design, and experience proves it to be one of its actual operations (Psalms 89:15-16). It leads to repentance, and so to pardon, purity, and genuine peace. It comforts in sorrow. It cheers in death.
To the heathen it is peculiarly valuable and welcome. It opens to them, in common with others, the sources of spiritual enjoyment and the hopes of eternal bliss. And besides, it abolishes pagan cruelties and diffuses principles of humanity and kindness. Hence result the amelioration of their civil institutions, the increase of domestic happiness, and the improvement of social life (H. E. I. 1122–1133).
3. It swallows up death in victory. It delivers every believer from the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15; H. E. I. 1109–1111, 1589, 1594). God will most gloriously swallow up death in victory when He shall actually recover from the territories of the grave, by His almighty power, those spoils which death has won.
In proportion to its progress in heathen countries, the Gospel will not merely extract the sting of death, but arrest and diminish its most awful ravages. The waste of human life in many pagan lands is incalculable. As true religion increases, even in Christian countries, wars, which it has already rendered less sanguinary, will be less frequent too (chap. Isaiah 2:4).
II. The unrivalled excellence of the blessings of the Gospel. “A feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” Variety! richness! abundance! (See pp. 253–256.) Who does not recognise, in the unrivalled excellence of the blessings the Gospel conveys, the most powerful arguments for missionary exertion? Who can think of the Gospel feast, in contrast with the famine of the heathen, without wishing that they also might be bidden to the heavenly entertainment?
III. The universal extent of the blessings of Christianity. “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people a feast of fat things.”
1. They are adapted to all people.
2. They are sufficient for all people.
3. They were designed for all people.
4. The wide world shall, sooner or later, partake of them.
One result of this universal spread and triumph of Christianity is stated in the text: “The rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth.”
1. By the successful exertions of God’s people to evangelise the world, the reproach, which is at present too well-founded, of neglecting to care for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, shall become no longer just and applicable.
2. In consequence of the general spread and influence of Christianity, the reproach of Christ, the scandal of the Cross, shall cease; and the Church, formerly despised and laughed to scorn, shall be held in great honour and reputation (chap. Isaiah 60:13-16).
3. The particular reproach of spiritual barrenness—the reproach founded on the paucity of her converts, and the small number of her children—shall then for ever cease. At present “Jacob is small,” and the flock of Jesus is, comparatively, a little flock. This fact has been converted by infidels into matter of attack upon Christianity itself. They have tauntingly urged the narrow extent of our religion as an argument against its divinity. That argument admits, even now, of solid refutation. But in due season the fact itself shall be altered, and no shadow of plausibility be left for the reproach (chap. Isaiah 54:1-5).
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
1. The text should teach you your personal obligations and privileges in reference to the Gospel. The feast is spread out before you; to you are the blessings of it freely offered (chap. Isaiah 55:1-3).
2. The text teaches you the ground of missionary exertions. To partake of the feast ourselves is our first duty; but, while we “eat the fat and drink the sweet,” shall we not “send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared?” Can any duty be more obviously founded in reason and justice, humanity and piety, than that of sending the bread of life to our perishing fellow-creatures? The most hateful and inexcusable of all monopolies is the monopoly of Christian truths and consolations.
3. There are great encouragements to such labour.
(1.) The certainty of Divine approbation.
(2.) The certainty of consequent success (H. E. I. 1166–1168). But remember, if you would share in the triumphs of the Gospel, you must share in the labour and expense of their achievement.—Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 453–483.