GOD’S WITNESSES
Isaiah 43:12. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.
Catch a view of the picture with which these words are connected, and then let us look at the sentiment in relation to ourselves. God is supposed to be observing the conduct of man in relation to Himself. He sees that almost everywhere He is virtually excluded from His own world, His place usurped by idols. He seems to say, “Shall this state of things be allowed to continue? Am I never to have my due? I will bring this matter to a test. I will assemble the whole world, and will call upon the nations who worship idols to produce their evidence of the deity of these things they worship, and I will call upon my own people to stand forth and give their testimony for Me. I have given you proofs of the reality of my existence; ye are therefore my witnesses. I will confront all idolaters with you, and you shall testify that I am God (Isaiah 43:8-13).
I. THE CHURCH, whose internal blessedness is in God, and whose experienced blessedness is from Him, is under obligation to stand forth to the world as giving a perpetual testimony for God. (H. E. I. 3903–3907.)
1. She is able to do this. Having been from the beginning the repository of the sacred documents, she can testify
(1) that He gave prophecies which have been fulfilled in her history (Isaiah 43:12); and
(2) that He has wrought miracles on her behalf (Isaiah 43:12).
2. She does this—
(1) By the very fact of the assembly of her members for worship, she testifies to the world her confidence that “He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”
(2) By her ordinances—preaching and the sacraments—she bears perpetual testimony with respect to the nature of religion, the condition of man, the claims of God, the principles on which God and man are to be harmonised and reconciled to each other.
II. THE INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN may be viewed in the same light.
1. The Christian may sometimes be called to give testimony for God in word, to a friend, or to an enemy (1 Peter 3:15).
2. Special calls may be made upon him to be a witness to God’s faithfulness to His promises, and to the fact that He is the hearer and answerer of prayer (Psalms 18:6; Psalms 34:6; Psalms 66:16).
3. Whether he will or no, by his habitual conduct he bears a testimony to the world as to his real belief concerning God. It ought deeply to impress our conscience that thus we are constantly giving either faithful or unfaithful testimony concerning Him.
III. In view of these facts, let us recognise and remember—
1. The honour God has put upon us in thus committing His character into our hands.
2. That thus we are brought into a wonderful resemblance to our Lord Himself. He is termed “the true and faithful Witness.” While He lived on earth He gave such a representation of the character of God that He could say, “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father;” and it should be our ambition, by a close imitation of Him, also to show forth the glory of God, “full of grace and truth.”
3. The obstacles, temptations, and dangers by which we are surrounded, that we may be on our guard against them.
4. The guilt of that professing Christian who by his inconsistencies gives a false witness for God, so that men looking at it can see nothing at all of the Divine character. How often have men of the world been hardened by regarding the false testimony which inconsistent Christians give (H. E. I. 1163, 1164, 4177).
5. The sinfulness of those divisions by which the power of the Church’s testimony on behalf of God is broken (H. E. I. 1225, 2450).
6. The greatness of the reward of faithful witnesses for God (Matthew 10:32).
IV. Consider the character, the duty, and the doom of those who render this testimony of the Church necessary.
1. Your character is—opposers of God, deniers of God; refusing His claims and His rights, expelling Him from the very earth He has made.
2. Your duty is immediately to receive the testimony of the Church, and be led by it to an earnest inquiry into the claims of God upon you, and to a penitent, believing acceptance of the salvation He offers you.
3. If you will not do this, your doom will be that God will triumph over you; He will glorify Himself, His power, and His justice in your eternal destruction from His presence (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Psalms 2:10-12).—Thomas Binney.
Before a great assembly—all the nations of the earth—the question to be decided is, which out of a host of rival gods is the living and true God? The mode of test is a crucial one, viz., which out of these gods has foretold the future? Plain prophecies are asked for—distinct predictions which could not be ascribed to human sagacity. The gods of the heathen fail; and Jehovah summons His people Israel to attest that the fortunes of their nation had been foretold and had fallen out as predicted (Genesis 15:12-16; Genesis 15:18-21).
Christian believers may be regarded as taking the place of ancient Israel; and in the widest sense they may be appealed to as God’s witnesses in the great controversy going on between God and the world. Let us note—
I. Some of the questions upon which Christians are called to give evidence in favour of their God.
1. One of the first is this: Is there distinct interposition of God on behalf of man, in answer to believing prayer? The world is ready—too ready—to ridicule the idea. “Providence is a blind Fate, impartial alike in its severities and its bounties.” Now, albeit there is the same event to the righteous and to the wicked, the former are ready to testify that in the same events there are distinct differences in God’s dealings.
But the precise question is, whether or no God answers believing prayer. How many witnesses might be called to answer, Yes!
2. What are the ultimate results of affliction? The Christian holds that the woes of unbelievers are very different from the chastening sorrows of believers. He believes that he gains by his losses; he is ready to prove it from his own experience.
3. Is the believer’s life a joyful one? What happy people other people must be, if Christians are melancholy! With all their trials they can rejoice in the Lord, and again and again rejoice.
4. The moral tendencies of evangelical Christianity are sometimes called in question. It is thought that the doctrine of free grace tends to make men think lightly of sin. “If God forgives sin so easily, men will sin more and more.” But the world abounds with proofs to the contrary! Men hate sin most at the foot of the cross; they love holiness most when they feel that God has blotted out their sins like a cloud.
5. The Christian religion is sometimes said to be antiquated: “it has had its day.” Now is the time for true believers to vindicate the manliness and force of their faith. They are “God’s witnesses;” can Christianity no longer nourish heroes? Let us teach the world that we retain the old power among us.
6. It is our daily business to witness for God as to whether or no faith in the blood of Jesus Christ really can give calm and peace to the mind. Our hallowed peace must be the proof of that.
7. We shall be called one day to prove whether Christ can help a man to die well or not. A continuous faithful witness will make that last testimony indubitable.
II. Some suggestions as to the mode of witnessing. You must witness, if you be a Christian. You are subpœna: You will suffer for it if you do not.
1. As a witness, you are required to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Speak the truth, but let your life be true, as well as your words.
2. Direct evidence is always the best. Second-hand Christianity is one of the worst things in the world.
3. A witness must take care not to damage his own case. Some Christian professors give very telling testimony the other way; but we are God’s witnesses! Let our testimony be clear for Him.
4. Every witness must expect to be cross-examined. “He that is first in his own cause,” says Solomon, “seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.” Therefore, watch!
III. There is another witness beside you. “Ye are my witnesses, and my Servant whom I have chosen” (Philippians 2:7-8). Witnesses for God are not solitary (Daniel 3:25; Revelation 1:5). “I am the Truth,” said Christ; in Him was no sin (John 14:30); His witness-bearing was perfect; He witnessed to Divine justice; read Christ’s witness to God’s love (1 John 4:10); He could say—“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”
CONCLUSION.—
1. Christians, make your lives clear! Be as the pellucid brook—not as the muddy creek. You need not tell men that you love them: make them feel it.
2. Our witness to those to whom this subject does not apply is, Except ye seek God in Christ, ye must perish; but if ye seek Him, He will be found of you.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. xi. pp. 445–456.
(A Sermon to Young Men.)
“Ye,” men of Judah, people of Israel, “are my witnesses”—witnesses that I am, and of what I am. All the nations round about you have corrupted themselves and gone astray, and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. “Ye are my witnesses.”
But God has other witnesses:—
1. Nature (Romans 1:20; Acts 14:17).
2. Man’s own soul. Its capacities, its attributes, its aspirations, can neither be explained nor satisfied without God.
The world’s greatest want is God. Man is made for God, and without God he cannot be a true and perfect man—his nature will be at once defiled and incomplete, and his experience more that of the animal than of the angel. Sooner far will you succeed in covering the earth with fruitfulness and beauty without light, than make human nature and society bright, pure, and blessed without God. We call on you, then, for your own souls’ sake, for your country’s sake, and for the world’s sake, to become witnesses for God.—In those who would be witnesses for God, three things are necessary:—
I. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Unless you know Him—not absolutely and perfectly,—that no finite mind, not even Gabriel’s, can do; but as it hath pleased Him to make Himself known in His works and in His Word—you cannot bear witness of Him. If you would know Him truly, you must study the book in which He is revealed; study it as you would a history, a philosophy, or a science which you wish thoroughly to understand (H. E. I. 576–580).
II. STRONG FAITH IN GOD AND IN HIS CHRIST. Without such faith, Moses, the apostles, and the martyrs could not have witnessed for God as they did. Nor can you. The morals, practices, and spirit of our age render a deep and abiding faith essential to a stable and successful witnessing for God. Such a faith you cannot have by merely wishing for it. It is born of light and nursed in light. To be of the highest, truest, and strongest order, it must be born of the intellect and the heart. The surest means of begetting it is to have in your own souls the experience of the power of the Gospel to meet all the necessities of your moral nature. To this evidence of experience you should add a comprehensive knowledge of the varied and external evidences of your faith. Thus you will be able to give a reason for the faith that is in you (H. E. I. 1138–1149).
III. A WHOLE-HEARTED DECISION FOR GOD. “Be a whole man in everything,” said Joseph John Gurney to his son,—“a whole man in the playground, and a whole man in the schoolroom.” We must be whole men in witnessing for God. Vacillation and half-heartedness will make our testimony of none effect. There will be no need of roughness or ruggedness of character in order to all this. Jesus was very gentle. The most prominent Bible examples suggest to us, not the storms and tempest, but the quiet stream, ever deepening and growing, which flows on for ever. Moses, Joseph, the three true-hearted Israelites in Babylon—what they were in the fulness of their purpose to serve the Lord, and in the calm fearlessness with which they fulfilled their purpose, we must be. It is not required of us that, being firm as rocks, we should be as unfeeling. It is only required that we be as the well-rooted oak, which feels the stormy blast and tempest, but sends its roots the deeper, and grows the stronger, from the force which threatens its destruction.
Now, with these three things—knowledge of God, strong faith in God, and a whole-hearted decision for God—do you ask what you have to do as witness-bearers? You might almost as well ask what the sun has to do. What but to shine? The influence of the man in whom these three forces dwell will be felt, even if he put forth as little direct effort to make it felt as does the violet when it perfumes the air. And yet the Christian has this great superiority over the sun, which sends forth his light through millions of miles of space, and over the flowers which fill plains and valleys with their fragrance—that he knows what he is and does, and means it all. He may, and does, consciously aim at a character of greater brightness and sweeter fragrance, and at making himself a more efficient instrument of the divine beneficence to mankind (H. E. I. 1089–1095).
With such aims and endeavours, “How shall he bear witness for God?” He will connect himself with a Christian church; he will take part in the common labours of the church; in the business of life he will be honest and honourable; he will strive, through Divine grace, to embody in his life the spirit and morals of the Sermon on the Mount. The man who is all this, and in his heart aims at all this, will be prepared to bear witness for God in every form and way that Providence may determine. He will not need to write “Christian” on his forehead; men will take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus.
Among such witnesses for God, we want greatly to enrol you.—John Kennedy, D.D.: Christian World Pulpit, vol. i. pp. 424–427.