ZEAL—THE BEST CLOAK
Isaiah 59:17. And was clad with zeal as a cloke.
The solitary champion here spoken of we cannot fail to recognise as the Prince of the house of David, our Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever may have been the first and primary meaning of the text, &c., of Him we may say beyond and above all others, that He “was clad with zeal as a cloke.”
When the grace of God has wrought in a man all other virtues, zeal is still needed to elevate and perfect his entire manhood [1740]
[1740] Behold the altar, built of unhewn stones, and after God’s own law; behold the wood laid thereon; see the victim slain and the blood flowing; but you cannot make a sacrifice without fire—unless the fire from heaven shall perfect the sacrificial preparations, all will be useless. Behold in the altar the figure of the man; he has faith, courage, love, consecration; but if he lacks the fire of fervent zeal his life will be a failure; he will remain an offering unconsumed, and consequently worthless and unaccepted.—Spurgeon.
One of the first requisites of an earnest, successful, soul-winning man must be zeal. As well a chariot without its steeds, a sun without its beams, a heaven without its joy, as a man of God without zeal.
I. ZEAL IS TO BE REGARDED AS CLOAK THAT COVERS ALL.
The Christian man is to wear zeal as we wear an outward garment which covers all the rest of our garments—a flowing robe which encompasses the entire person.
1. Zeal is all-enveloping. The Christian is to invest himself with faith, love, patience; but zeal must be over all these, just as the traveller in the snowstorm wraps himself up in his greatcoat, or binds his cloak about him.
2. Zeal is preserving. The cloak covers the arm, the breast, the heart, and all the more delicate parts of the body. Zeal is to wrap up the whole man, so that when he is subject to a furious hail of persecution, or a biting wind of poverty, or a torrent of down-pouring griefs, the pilgrim to the skies may hold on his way, and bid all weathers brave defiance.
3. Zeal is comforting, even as the cloak when wrapped about the traveller in the snowstorm. The man who is possessed by an irresistible passion for carrying out his life-work, will gird this gracious ardour well around him, and let the snow-flakes come as they may, they will only fall, as it were, into a furnace, and will melt before they can injure. You who have zeal for God in your Sabbath school, will find it protect you from the numbing influence that will come over you in the class.
4. Zeal endures. There is no more becoming garment to the Christian when he possesses all the virtues than an all-enveloping zeal. You will not be as Christians thought beautiful in the eyes of angels and perfect intelligences (and these are the best judges of beauty), because you coldly pursue the regular rounds of duty; but you will be beautiful to them if you glow, and flame, and blaze with intense affection towards God.
5. We must take care to put on zeal as a cloak and not as a hood. Nobody wears his cloak over his head, and yet I have known some persons whose zeal has entirely blindfolded their judgment [1743]
6. Zeal is a cloak, and therefore is not intended to supersede the other graces. We do not see the traveller climbing the Alps with nothing upon his body but his cloak—that would be most absurd; and so zeal cannot take the place of knowledge, &c. It is a cloak, which is a great thing, it is true, but it is nothing more than a cloak, and the rest of the garments must be carefully attended to.
7. Zeal is a cloak, and therefore we are not to regard it as an extraordinary robe to be worn only occasionally on high days and holidays. A man reckons his cloak not to be a thing in which to walk in state with my lord through the streets, but as a portion of his ordinary working-day dress; and so ought our zeal to be. If it be genuine zeal it will be like the cloak which always hangs ready on the nail in the hall. Nay, since the storm is always on, and we are always pilgrims, it will be like the cloak which we cannot bear to lay aside.
8. While I say that zeal is not everything, recollect that the cloak covers everything, and do not let your zeal be such a scanty thing that it will only hang like a girdle round your loins, but let it be a great wrapper in which to enfold all your manhood, apparent everywhere; not secret and inward alone, but revealed and active. Our Lord is said to put on zeal as a cloak; He manifested and displayed His holy fervour; He had not zeal in His heart merely, but He had zeal outwardly as well. Where there is grace in the heart, it soon shows itself in the life.
[1743] The zeal that God would have us cultivate is wise and prudent; it does not heedlessly leap into the ditch, though it would swim a river, yea, and the Atlantic to boot, if it felt that God had bidden it do so. Zeal is like fire, which is said to be “a good servant, but a bad master.” The fire in the grate, who shall say too much in its favour? But fire in the thatch of the house, who shall say too much against it? The flaming fire of zeal, burning and blazing in the soul, is a Christian gift and virtue; but when zeal takes away the judgment, the man does not wear zeal as a cloak, he makes a hood of it, and makes himself brother to a fool—Spurgeon.
II. OBSERVE HOW OUR LORD EXHIBITED THIS ZEA.
1. In His earliest childhood, you have tokens of His inward zeal. He is found in the Temple.
2. In after life, you see His burning zeal in leaving all the comforts of life. What but His zeal brought Him to such a condition that He said, “Foxes have holes,” &c. His very dress showed His zeal, because it was not ostentatious, but in every way suitable for incessant labour and humble service. He had given up all the dainties, ay, and all the comforts of life, for the one great object of accomplishing our redemption.
3. He showed His earnestness in persevering in His work under all manner of rebuffs. He was constantly misrepresented. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Still He never turned aside from His work.
4. As a clearer proof of His zeal, all the blandishments of the world could not attract Him. The excited crowd would have taken Him by force, and have made Him a king, but such was His zeal for the one work He had in hand, that He counted royal honours to be less than nothing and vanity. Many a man has been zealous for God till he has met with fierce persecutions, and then he has turned his back; and many more have been zealous in the highest degree until wealth came in their way, and the possibilities of honour, and then they have stooped, and have licked the world’s foot, and have been mere poodles of fashion; their ardour for truth has evaporated, and their zeal has fled.
5. Look at His incessant labours. His life was very short—in truth, it consists of only three years of labour, as the former part of His life was spent in obscurity—and there we leave it as God has left it—but the three active years of His earthly sojourn, how they are crowded with incident!
6. Look at His preaching, and you see His zeal [1746]
7. You see His zeal in His prayers. What cries and groans; what strong cryings and tears were those that shook the gates of heaven, as Jesus prayed and pleaded for the sons of men! Ah! if you seek a pattern of zeal, you must stand in the garden, &c.
8. He proved His zeal again by giving up Himself. Having persevered alone when deserted by His friends, He persevered still when given over to His enemies. What zeal was that which makes Him stand so silent before the bar of Pilate? It was a wonderful triumph of Christ thus to hold His tongue. A master speaker feels an intense longing to speak when great occasions demand his voice, but Jesus was greater than a master speaker, for He was a great master of silence, and He restrained Himself, and uttered not a word. Then when they scourged Him, &c., a wish of His could have destroyed them all; but His zeal was with Him when covered with His dying crimson: it was wrapped about His naked body as a cloak, so that the shame He despised and the cross He endured, looking forward to the recompense of reward.
[1746] What words of love He uses! How gently He addresses the poor trembling ones, as He bids them come unto Him, and they shall have rest. He does not utter those blessed invitations in a sleepy manner, but His heart goes out with every syllable, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And when He turns to sterner oratory, and addresses those enemies of the truth, the Scribes and Pharisees, how He thunders and lightens at them! Were ever such indignant words uttered as those of the Master, “Woe unto ye, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites”? Why, there stood the men. He was not speaking of them, as I might speak of people who are in Abyssinia or Japan; but there they were, before His eye, gnashing their teeth at Him, looking indignant, and longing to tear Him down and drag Him off to death. But, “woe unto you!” came again from His lips, and yet again “woe unto you!” For a pretence ye make long prayers; ye strain at a gnat, and ye swallow a camel.” No man could speak more plainly than He did in the face of these hypocrites, for zeal was girt about Him as a cloak, and no fear of man could restrain Him.—Spurgeon.
Observe what His zeal was made of.
(1.) It was zeal for God (John 2:17).
(2.) It was also a zeal for truth.
(3.) For souls.
III. WHAT WAS IT THAT THE ZEAL OF CHRIST FED UPON?
1. Christ’s zeal was based upon a defined principle. It was not a hurried hasty zeal, excited in Him by the earnest addresses of eloquent pleaders; it sprang from fixed and intelligent principles; for He had set His heart upon a great purpose, He had weighed it, counted the cost, looked at it on all sides, and now He was not to be turned from it.
2. It was occasioned by intense love. He loved His Father; He could not, therefore, but do His will. He loved His people; He could not, therefore, do otherwise than seek their good.
3. It had an eye to the recompense (Hebrews 12:2). Christian, think of the recompense of the faithful servant—not of debt, but of grace. What joy, when you enter heaven, to be met by those who were converted to God through your means; to hear them hail you as their spiritual father or their spiritual mother!
4. Christ was so zealous because He had a greater spiritual discernment than you and I have. He beheld the spirits of men; He beheld not their bodies only, but their inner selves; and He looked upon men, not as flesh and blood, but as immortals. Best of all, He saw God. He could say, “I have set the Lord always before me,” &c. What a source of zeal this must have been!—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 832.
Isaiah 59:17. EXCHANGING CLOAKS.
The cloak, the seamless outer garment of Christ, is constantly used in Scripture as a symbol of certain things to be laid aside, and of others which are to be assumed.
I would speak—I. OF THE CLOAKS THAT ARE CAST OFF BY HIM WHO COMES TO CHRIST.
1. Taught of Christ, you will substitute this zeal of Christ for the cloak of sin (John 15:22).
2. For the cloak of maliciousness (1 Peter 2:16).
3. For the cloak of selfishness (1 Thessalonians 2:5). II. THE NEW COSTUME, THE CLOAK WE ARE TO PUT ON—“Clad with zeal as with a cloak.”
1. The material of this cloak.
2. Its appearance.
3. Its uses. Let me exhort you to make this change. It can be made now in a moment of time.—S. H. Tyng, D.D.
Christ the Champion of His people. I. His righteousness. II. His saving power. III. His judicial authority. IV. His unwearying zeal.—Dr. Lyth.