He giveth power to the faint
The Divine Helper
I. OUR SPIRITUAL CONDITION IS INTIMATELY KNOWN TO THE DIVINE FATHER. He knows the strong and the faint alike. As a wise Shepherd, He is acquainted with the state of His entire flock.
1. There is our inherent antagonism to evangelical truth. Man is prone to self-leaning. When we leave the Cross we faint; while we glory in its Sufferer we are armed with irresistible might!
2. There is the seductive influence of worldly association.
3. There is the fierce battle for daily bread.
4. There is our ever-recurring unbelief.
II. MORAL FAINTNESS DOES NOT INVALIDATE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. Were all the “faint” to be excluded, how many of you would remain as children of God? Does the parent cast off the crippled child? It will be necessary, however, to guard this assurance with two explanations--
1. It contains no encouragement to moral indolence. You are not to exonerate yourselves from the stern duties oF life on the plea that you are “faint.” The toiler grows strong; exercise develops muscle.
2. It affords no palliation for inconsistency. We are never allowed to plead weakness as a reason for sin.
III. INFINITE POWER IS ACCESSIBLE TO THE MORALLY FEEBLE.
1. God never communicates surplus power. “As thy days so shall thy strength be.”
2. God’s method of communicating power teaches the dependence of humanity. God’s alone is original; but it is enough for man if he can shine with radiance borrowed from the Fount of uncreated light.
3. God’s willingness to communicate power fearfully increases the responsibility of the Church. What power we might have! I regard the declaration in the following aspects
(1) As the sublimest encouragement to the Church. “He giveth power to the faint.” Who is this Being represented, in the pronoun?
(2) As the tenderest assurance to the penitent. “The bruised reed He will not break, the smoking flax He will not quench.”
(3) As the highest tribute to the work of Christ.
(4) As a glorious pledge of God’s interest in humanity.
(5) As a presumptive proof of man’s immortality. But how so? Can they who faint be immortal? Why all this feeding like a shepherd? Why this gentle tending--this inspiration of life--this sustaining of vigour--this communication of power? Is the mysterious process undertaken when God has determined that all shall end in dust? Does the Divine Being sustain merely that earthly life shall be prolonged? Why should Jehovah stoop to impart power to the faint, when He knows that in a few brief years the faint one will have crumbled to dust? (J. Parker, D. D.)
Almighty God helps the weak
The arguments which demonstrate the folly and guilt of worshipping false gods, and of confiding in them, equally demonstrate the duty and obligation of worshipping the true and living God, and of placing our confidence in Him. Indeed, to remove our adoration from an idol is doing but little, unless at the same time it be given to the Holy and Great Jehovah; it is but renouncing polytheism--a grievous and horrible delusion--for atheism, a delusion still more horrible and grievous.
I. JEHOVAH, THE TRUE GOD, IS A BEING OF UNLIMITED POWER (Isaiah 40:26).
II. THE POWER OF JEHOVAH, THE TRUE GOD, IS LIKE HIMSELF, UNDIMINISHABLE AND ETERNAL. “He fainteth not, neither is weary.” That the power of Jehovah, the true God, is undiminishable and eternal, is proved by the conservation of nature, as the existence of that power is proved by nature’s production. Were the hand which framed the universe utterly withdrawn, the universe would return to its original nothing. The motion, order, and safety of all things depend upon God. What a contrast does this perfection of undiminishable and eternal power form to the weakness of the creature--of fallen and helpless man especially! Weakness is the attribute of the human body. Man is no less weak as it relates to his mind. Sublime therefore in the highest degree is this account of Jehovah. He never lets fall the reins of dominion; He never retires, overcharged, by attention to His friends, resistance to His enemies, or the superintendence of all!
III. THE POWER OF JEHOVAH THE TRUE GOD IS CONDESCENDINGLY EMPLOYED IN BEHALF OF FALLEN, HELPLESS MAN. “He giveth power to the faint,” etc. Let us attend to some instances in which this truth is illustrated.
1. In His providential interpositions in favour of the more helpless of men. Some persons constitutionally feeble in body, or perhaps made so by disease, are often mysteriously succoured. The victim of oppression also ever finds a Friend in heaven.
2. In the work of our redemption by Christ Jesus. “When we were yet without strength Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6). One of the most afflictive circumstances attending man’s fallen state is that of utter helplessness. When sin entered into the world it not only erased from the soul of man the image of his Creator; it also annihilated, as far as man was concerned, all the means of his recovery. The nerves of obedience were cut, and the spirit of reverence and love utterly blasted.
3. In that invigorating peace communicated to the heart of man, when he believes to the salvation of his soul. Perhaps we are never fully prepared for the mercy of God, through the sacrificial merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, until we see that there is mercy in no other way.
4. In that successful resistance which is made by the faithful Christian, to the assaults of our great spiritual adversary, the devil.
5. In the season of personal affliction.
6. In the case of every one who dies in the Lord. (J. Bromley.)
The aid of the Holy Spirit
No words can do justice to the feelings of joy and gratitude which this gift should excite in all those who partake in its inestimable benefit. When the heathen sage had sketched out virtue in her goodliest forms; when he had pointed to the steep and arduous path which must be trodden by her successful votaries; when he had urged his disciples to enter upon it by the most stimulating motives with which the light of nature could supply him, what could he do more? What words of cheering import could he address to them, when sinking with dismay under a sense of their own infirmity, when trembling with apprehensions of failure, from a comparison between their strength and the task allotted to them? He had no authority to refer them to one who “giveth power to the faint, and increaseth strength to them that have no might.” What he could not, the Christian philosopher can say. (J. Marriot, M. A.)
A spiritual tonic
I. THE SPIRITUAL HEALTH OF THE HEBREW CHURCH HAD FALLEN BELOW PAR.
1. They felt they had lost the favour of God. Their way was hidden from Him, and they walked in darkness, as if they were the sport of chance or the victims of fate.
2. They felt they were left to the mercy of man. It appeared as if judgment upon them and their way was transferred to caprice of men.
II. THE IMPAIRED SPIRITUAL STRENGTH OF THE HEBREW CHURCH MIGHT BE RESTORED. The people needed--
1. Faith in the power of God.
2. Hope in the pity of God. He does not crush the feeble and the faint, but increases their power.
3. Love for the service of God. As the hearts of the people became enthusiastic for the worship of Jehovah, and longed to get back to Zion to restore the temple and rebuild the city, their energies would revive as an incoming tide; revived spirit would bring revived strength.
III. WITH RESTORED SPIRITUAL HEALTH THE HEBREW CHURCH WOULD RESUME ITS WONTED ACTIVITIES. The people are promised--
1. Renewed vigour. Strength would come from waiting upon God.
2. Renewed vivacity. The people are told they shall “mount,” “walk,” “run,” without weariness or sense of exhaustion.
3. Renewed vitality. Though the body may grow old, and physical life decline, the soul shall remain young. (F. W. Brown.)
God’s power in the heavens and on earth
(with Isaiah 40:26):--These two verses set forth two widely different operations of the Divine power as exercised in two sadly different fields, the starry heavens and this weary world. The one verse says, “He is strong in power”; the other, “He giveth power.” In the former verse, “the greatness of His might” sustains the stars; in the latter verse, a still greater operation is set forth in that “to them that have no might He increaseth strength.” Thus there are three contrasts suggested; that between unfailing stars, and men that faint; that between the unwearied God and wearied men; and that between the sustaining power that is exercised in the heavens and the restoring power that is manifested on earth. There is another interlocking between the latter of these two texts and its context, which is indicated by a similar recurrence of epithets. In my second text we read of the “faint,” and in the verse that follows it again we find the expression “faint” and “weary,” while in the verse before my text we read that “the Lord fainteth not, neither is weary.” So again the contrast between Him and us is set forth, but in the verse that closes the chapter we read how that contrast merges into likeness, inasmuch as the unfainting and unwearied God makes even the men that wait upon Him unwearied and unfainting. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Unfailing stars and fainting men
(with Isaiah 40:26):--
I. A SAD CONTRAST. The prophet in the former of these verses seems to be expanding the thoughts that lie in the name, “the Lord of hosts,” in so far as that name expresses the Divine relation to the starry universe. The image that underlies both it and the words of my text is that of a commander who summons his soldiers, and they come. Discipline and plan array them in their ranks. The plain prose of which is that night by night, above the horizon, rise the bright orbs, and roll on their path obedient to the Sovereign will; “because He is strong in might, not one” is lacking. Scripture bids us think of God, not as a creative energy that set the universe in motion, and leaves it to roll or spin, but as of a Divine Presence. But in our second text we drop from the illumination of the heavens to the shadowed plain of this low earth. It is as if a man looking up into the violet sky, with all its shining orbs, should then turn to some reeking alley, with its tumult and its squalor. Just because man is greater than the stars, man “fails,” whilst they shine on unwearied. For what the prophet has in view as the clinging curse that cleaves to our greatness is not merely the bodily fatigue which is necessarily involved in the very fact of bodily existence, since energy cannot be put forth without waste and weariness, but it is far more the weary heart, the heart that is weary of itself, weary of toil, weary of the momentary crises that demand effort, and wearier still of the effortless monotony of our daily lives. It is ever to be remembered that the faintness and the ebbing away of might, which is the truly tragic thing in humanity, does not depend upon physical constitution, but upon separation from the Source of all strength.
II. ANOTHER SAD CONTRAST, MELTING INTO A BLESSED LIKENESS. “He fainteth not, neither is weary.” “He giveth power to the faint.” Is that not a higher exercise of power than to “preserve the stars from wrong”? What are the consequences that the prophet traces to this restoring power? “They shall mount up with wings as eagles,” etc.
III. THE WAY BY WHICH THESE CONTRASTS CAN BE RECONCILED, AND THIS LIKENESS SECURED. “They that wait upon the Lord”--that is the whole secret. What does waiting on the Lord include? Keep near Him; keep still: expect. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Two operations of God’s power
(with Isaiah 40:26):--
1. The strength that restores is greater than the power that preserves.
2. The power that is given to the faint is greater than the strength that keeps the stars from falling, because there is in it an actual communication of actual Divine strength. God keeps the planet in its course by an act (for we must not speak about “effort” in regard to Him) of power brought to bear upon it. But He brings strength to us, not by ministration from without, but by impartation within.
3. Once more, this mirror gives us back the reflection of a power which is not only restoration and communication, but multiplication. “To those that have no might He increaseth strength.”
4. The power that redeems, ministers not only restoration and communication and multiplication, but assimilation. There is in the context a very remarkable play upon words. “Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the ever lasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” He stoops to the faint, and gives them strength, and what is the result in them? “They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” What God is, God’s child in his measure becomes, unfainting and unwearied like his Father in the heavens. God gives, not omnipotence, but something that is a kind of shadowy likeness of it. “All things are possible to him that believeth.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Encouragement to the weary
I. THE LORD SPEAKS OF HIS PEOPLE AS BEING SOMETIMES “FAINT.” The expression is very significant; it implies that there is life, yet life for a time dormant, inactive, powerless either for defence, service, or enjoyment. There is one, for instance, who has watched long by the bedside of a beloved sick one. Others, again, are sorely tried by anxieties connected with their business; by the difficulty of providing daily bread. There, again, is another deeply vexed and grieved with the plague of his own heart. Of such as these the Lord seems to be speaking. “He giveth power to the faint.” His people are further described as having “no might.” Self-sufficiency is one of the plainest marks of the ungodly. And thus are they led truly into the third mark of His people, which the Lord here mentions, “They that wait upon the Lord.”
II. HOW HE DEALS WITH THEM. Three expressions are employed to describe this.
1. To the faint “giving” strength, because, under their sore trials and afflictions, they have utterly fainted; their strength has for a time entirely departed--to them the Lord “gives” strength.
2. Then observe the other word describing His dealings--“He increaseth strength.” That is a very suitable word. It is the experience of every gracious soul, that his own strength decreaseth. He learns more fully that he hath in himself no strength. Wherever the Lord removes any of the props of the believer’s earthly pride and self-sufficiency, there He reveals Himself as the believer’s strength. So that growth in humility is necessarily connected with growth in spiritual strength.
3. They that wait on the Lord shall “renew” their strength. They renew their strength because the Lord renews it. He manifests Himself to them just at those times and in that manner in which they are led to see their need of Him.
III. THE BLESSED RESULTS OF THE LORD’S DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE. These also are described as three-fold--
1. “They shall mount up,” borne aloft heavenward, with a power in comparison with which the eagle’s mighty wings are powerless. And why? Because they are borne aloft by omnipotent grace. This is one blessed result to those who wait upon the Lord--heavenward tendency.
2. There is also promised zeal and rapid progress in their heavenly course. “They shall run and not be weary.” Waiting upon the Lord, they shall be so renewed in strength, that not only their affections, desires, and hopes shall be lifted up to heaven, but they shall also be carried forward swiftly and mightily in their gracious course. They shall run in the way of God’s commandments, and not be weary. Look at all mere human strength; how soon it fails, how quickly it is exhausted.
3. This is the third blessed result--a steady perseverance in the way to Zion. Whilst their progress is “running” for zeal and success, it is “walking” for steady persistency unto the end. It is harder sometimes to walk than to run. There are many who would gain heaven if it were to be won by a hasty run; but when the heavenly course requires not merely a short, quick, impulsive run, but the slow, weary, painful walk, they soon grow tired, and ready to give all up. (G. W. Hills.)
The influence of the Holy Ghost: the doctrine abused by neglecting means
The grand subject here is, “waiting upon the Lord.” The term is of frequent occurrence in God’s Word. It sometimes means nothing more than a quiet, restful frame of soul; and sometimes it will be found to set forth a waiting for the Lord, a patient waiting on Him in expectation of deliverance. But “waiting on Him” seems to imply more than this; it implies a diligent use of those means that He has appointed for the communication of His grace--waiting on Him in the use of those means. It is not an indolent waiting.
I. GOD’S GRACIOUS COMMUNICATION OF NEEDFUL HELP TO HIS POOR, TRIED, WEAK, AND HELPLESS PEOPLE.
1. Every creature is of necessity weak; it is not his fault--it is his nature. When Adam left his hold on God he necessarily fell; as necessarily as any branch would fall if cut off from the parent stem. The creature has no power to sustain himself, nor to help himself; and it was never intended that he should have.
2. If man as an unfallen creature is weak; well may we say, that as a fallen creature, he is altogether weakness.
3. But even as a renewed creature he is weak, and if left to himself, unable to cope with one enemy, or to maintain his own standing for one single moment. “Without Me ye can do nothing.”
4. Besides this, there are certain periods in which the believer is more than ordinarily faint and weak. There are many things that try him.
5. Oftentimes too, through want of watchful, prayerful, holy seeking and turning over the page of conscience, he weakens his little strength. But it is to these very souls that the Lord communicates strength. “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.” The necessities of God’s people seem to touch the very heart of God. But there is something in the very glory of God that constrains Him to grant them
His help in their hours of need. This was David’s plea: “pardon mine iniquity, for it is great,” but “for Thy name’s sake,” he says.
II. OBSERVE THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL IT COMES. It is not a natural channel; it is not the strength of nature, but it is in the way of waiting dependence on Himself. There is a wondrous analogy between the operations of God in grace and in nature. God has given to us the promise that “seed-time and harvest shall never fail” while the world remains; but does this hinder the necessity of casting in the seed? Does it hinder the necessity of ploughing the land before it, and of harrowing it in, and protecting it? The more I look at this appointment of God, the more I see of infinite wisdom in it. I am in great distress, in great need, no one knows of my pressure. Perhaps I tell my friend, but I find no relief at all. And now I cast myself on the Lord--God reveals Himself to me as my Father-it quiets me, it comforts me. See how the Lord makes one step preparatory to another, and makes one thing the means of obtaining another. Prayerfulness leads to strength; that leads to courage; that leads to submission; that leads to patience, and that leads to praise. Observe the same, too, of all other means of grace. Talk we of the Bible, or hearing the Word unfolded? In prayer we speak to God; in His Word He speaks to us by His Spirit. Look at the very means of grace themselves: there is the unfolding of the same wisdom in the means appointed. What a suitable and reasonable ordainment it is!
III. THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF THIS CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION. “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” When God puts forth His promise He pledges all that is in Himself to fulfil that promise. This is God’s appointed way. Perhaps we can say there are no instances upon record in which it was otherwise, but I dare not say that God may not in one moment so break in upon a man’s soul, by the holy anointing of the Spirit, as to give him the most perfect conviction that he is a child of God. See the greatness of the communication. They shall “run”; they shall “walk”; and they shall “mount up.” Concluding remarks--
1. Would that the saints of God did more deeply feel that they are fainting and full of weakness!
2. Though it is no small mercy to be deeply conscious of our utter weakness before God, take heed how you abuse this glorious doctrine of the blessed Spirit by living a life of ceaseless and useless complaint. There is an observation, I think in Owen, that the religion of some consists in little more than in going from house to house, from friend to friend, from saint to saint, telling one’s nothingness, sinfulness, and wretchedness. They make a sort of secret balm of it.
3. What vast encouragement is here! (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Causes and cure of fainting
I. WHAT MAKES US FAINT?
1. We will consider the case of the awakened sinner.
(1) They may very well faint, for they have made a most alarming discovery.
(2) They have tried to escape from their dangerous position, but they have not succeeded.
(3) We have known some grow so faint through a sense of sin and a dread of its punishment and a consciousness of their own inability to save themselves, that they have even wished to die; yet, when they have looked at their condition aright, they have asked themselves what use death would be to them?
(4) Perhaps also, at such a time, a sore trouble may happen to the man; for, in the parable of the prodigal son, it appears that he was quite as much influenced by the peculiar circumstances without as by his sense of sin within.
2. I pass on to another character, namely, the child of God in his fainting fits. There is a degree of sinfulness about some of those faintings which is not found in others.
(1) Sometimes the children of God faint through want of faith (Psalms 27:13). So the cure of fainting is faith, and the best way to prevent fainting is to believe.
(2) Some are brought into a state of faintness through a selfish want of resignation e.g., Jonah and the gourd. It was not alone the heat of the sun that caused him to faint; it was also the heat of his temper. Some of those who have lost dear children seem as if they will not forgive God for taking them.
(3) There are children of God also who fall into faintness through trusting in themselves. “Even the youths shall faint,” etc. Why is that? Because the youths felt themselves able to do anything.
(4) Faintness may also arise from another cause which is sinful, namely, neglect of prayer.
(5) Children of God fall into faintness because of the length of the way.
(6) The heaviness of their burden.
(7) A sense of weakness.
(8) Another frequent cause is the spirit itself sinking (Psalms 42:1-11.).
(9) Some get faint through lack of spiritual food.
(10) Sometimes God’s children faint when they are in adversity.
(11) There are some who faint through increasing infirmity.
II. HOW THE LORD DEALS WITH HIS FAINTING PEOPLE. “He giveth power,” etc.
1. See how tenderly the Lord deals with His fainting people. He does not desert them, saying, They are no longer any use to Me; they can do nothing for Me; I will leave them where they are. He gives them power.
2. What sort of power?
(1) You may be sure that He does not give them any of their own. That has all gone from them.
(2) It will be sufficient for the emergency, for He has all-sufficient power. “As thy days,” etc.
(3) It is a power that the devil can neither defeat nor take away.
3. Why is it that He gives power to the faint?
(1) Because, in His great goodness, He looks out for those who need it most.
(2) Because they will praise Him most for it.
(3) Because they will be sure to use it. When a person who has been faint receives power from God he will be likely to be sympathetic, tender, and gentle towards others; at least, that is how he should be.
Conclusion--
1. If God gives power to the faint, let us be thankful if we have fainted and have been revived by Him.
2. Let us have done with fainting in the future, because we ought to have no more fainting now that we have received God’s power. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Strength attracted by weakness
We have seen a little weakling child draw to its cot some strong and burly man, the champion athlete of the country-side. Such a spell can weakness exert over might, and helplessness over helpfulness. It is the burden of Scripture that the strong should bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please themselves. Such is the law of God’s existence. All that He is and has He holds in trust for us, and most for those who need most. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
God’s strength for the weak
Many of us are too strong, self-reliant, and resourceful to get the best that God can do. Jacob must halt on his thigh ere he can prevail with God and man. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
God’s untiring patience
God is ever blotting out sins from His remembrance--never tiring. I will tell you what it is like. It is like the infinite, tireless patience of the sea. The children ply their spades upon the sands, to make work for the sea. They heap the sand up, they dig deep into it. Hundreds of them disfigure the hard, golden surface, and leave their scars upon it; and then quietly the old sea turns upon its course, and rolls its waves across the sands, and every trace of scar is obliterated, becomes as if it had never been; when the tide ebbs again there is no trace upon the smooth, shining surface of the sand to show that it had ever known disturbance. Day after day, day after day, the scene is repeated, and the sea is never tired of putting things to rights; it never complains, it never resents the new work imposed upon it. And the secret is that there is such infinite reserve of power that all that man can do frets it no whir. It is only a question of time, and it will put all things to rights again. Again and again, as I have stood by the sea, this sense of its tirelessness has come over me. It fainteth not, neither is weary. And it has seemed to me an emblem, as the stars are emblems, moving on their courses, as the world is an emblem, swinging through space, as nature is an emblem, pursuing so patiently and unweariedly her age-long business--of that mighty God whose glorious characteristic it is that He fainteth not, neither is weary; but He giveth power to the faint, and increaseth strength to him that hath no might. (C. Silvester Home, M. A.)