Even the youths shall faint
The unfainting spirit
The Hebrew tendency to lean upon the most muscular arm accessible, to buy up horses from Egypt in imitation of the warriors of the plains, to form alliances with neighbouring peoples in a neighbourly, instead of acting in the true Israelite spirit--was a tendency not confined to Hebrew blood.
It is in human nature to live by eyesight, and to go on doing so even although everything should go to wreck under our very eyes. The true Israelite spirit felt--wherever that spirit prevailed--that God’s assuring word had more muscle in it than an army ofPhilistines; that Egyptian cavalry was an encumbrance; that Assyrian spears might be turned into withered blades of grass in a night’s time; and that the only solid ground that never quaked was the Rock that faith stood upon. For the unseen is harder, stronger--has more vitality and power of renewal in it--than the youngest, freshest, fairest, and most select powers that are seen. Our desire is to show wherein lies the power of renewed life and force in a soul and in a Church, so that the vigour shall be real and elastic, being the very strength of God.
I. THE PROPHET EXPECTS THE NATURAL FAINTING AND FALLING OF THE SELECT MEN. “Young men” reads literally “the select men,”--those picked out for an enterprise on account of their youthful vigour.
II. A SPIRITUAL EMPOWERING OF ALL MEN IS PROVIDED THROUGH WAITING ON GOD. Panic seized our Lord’s disciples on the arrest of their Master, and their flight revealed their lack of power. They were converted men, but they fainted and failed. They were young and select, but they fled. When about to part from them, Jesus bade them remain where they were, and not attempt the discipling of the world until they should receive power. The word “renew” in this place signifies “change.” The strength sufficient for one day, and its duty, may need to be exchanged for something larger, deeper, swifter for the next day and its severer trials. The same Spirit works, changing the force and form of His working. How is the Spirit of God working in the renewal of strength to-day? What are the best people feeling the need of, but a closer union among themselves through an intenser, completer fellowship with God?
III. ISAIAH DESCRIBES THE MANIFESTATIONS OF A NEW AND STRONG LIFE IN GOD. A cheering succession of Saxon sentences, precious powers, most desirable energies.
1. There is heavenly elevation. “They shall mount up with wings as eagles.” Theodore Monod says: “If you want to do something, do not try to be somebody.” Certainly, self-exaltation is not heavenly. It ensures your poor wings being clipped or broken very soon. We speak exclusively of the spiritual realm. Live looking unto Jesus, and He “will ere long set you with Him” upon His throne.
2. There is quickened activity. “They shall run and not be weary.”
3. There is the unfainting every-day walk. “They shall walk and not faint.” The unfainting walk, the steady march from hour to hour, is the sharpest, truest, final test of a strong life. It is in trifles that character is revealed. It is in small, monotonous duties that we oftenest break down. (G. H. Dick.)
The secret of immortal youth
I. THE DREARY CERTAINTY OF WEARINESS AND DECAY.
1. The words point to the plain fact that all created and physical life, by the very law of its being, in the act of living tends to death; and by the very operation of its strength tends to exhaustion. There are three stages in every creature’s life--that of growth, that of equilibrium, that of decay. You are in the first. If you live you will come to the second and the third.
2. The text points also to another fact, that, long before your natural life shall have begun to tend towards decay, hard work and occasional sorrows and responsibilities and burdens of all sorts will very often make you wearied and ready to faint. In your early days you dream of life as a kind of enchanted garden. Ah! long before you have traversed the length of one of its walks you will often have been tired of the whole thing, and weary of what is laid upon you.
3. My text points to another fact, as certain as gravitation, that the faintness and weariness and decay of the bodily strength will be accompanied with a parallel change in your feelings. We are drawn onward by hopes, and when we get them fulfilled we find that they are disappointing. Do you not think that, if that is so, it would be as well to face it? Do you not think that a wise man would take account of all the elements in forecasting his life, and would shape his conduct accordingly?
II. THE BLESSED OPPOSITE POSSIBILITY OF INEXHAUSTIBLE AND IMMORTAL STRENGTH. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” etc. The life of nature tends inevitably downward, but there may be another life within the life of nature which shall have the opposite motion, and tend as certainly upwards. Look on this possibility a little more closely.
1. Note, how to get at it. “They that wait upon the Lord” is Old Testament dialect for what in New Testament phraseology is meant by “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the motion expressed here by “waiting” is that of expectant dependence, and the New Testament “faith” is the very same in its attitude of expectant dependence. The condition of the inflow of this unwearied life into our poor, fainting humanity is simply the trust in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of our souls. True, the revelation has advanced, the contents of that which we grasp are more developed. No matter where we stand on the course of life, there may come into our hearts a Divine Indweller, who laughs at weariness and knows nothing of decay.
2. What is this strength that we thus get, if we will, by faith? It is the true entrance into our souls of a Divine life. We who have Christ in our hearts by faith shall share, in some fashion and degree, in His wondrous prerogative of unwearied strength. So here is the promise. God will give Himself to you, and in the very heart of your decaying nature will plant the seed of an immortal being which shall, like His own, shake off fatigue from the limbs, and never tend to dissolution. The life of nature dies by living; the life of grace, which may belong to us all, lives by living, and lives evermore thereby. The oldest angels are the youngest. The longer men live in fellowship with Christ the stronger do they grow. And though our lives, whether we be Christians or no, are necessarily subject to the common laws of mortality, we may carry all that is worth preserving of the earliest stages into the latest; and when grey hairs are upon us, and we are living next door to our graves, we may still have the enthusiasm, the energy, and above all, the boundless hopefulness that made the gladness and the spring of our long-buried youth. “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.”
3. The manner in which this immortal strength is exercised. There is strength to soar. Old men generally shed their wings, and can only manage to crawl. They have done with romance. Enthusiasms are dead. For the most part they are content, unless they have got Christ in their hearts, to keep along the low levels, and their soaring days are done. But if you and I have Jesus Christ for the life of our spirits, as certainly as fire sends its shooting tongues upwards, so certainly shall we rise above the sorrows and sins and cares of this “dim spot which men call earth,” and find ampler field for buoyant motion high up in communion with God. Strength to soar means the gracious power of bringing all heaven into our grasp, and setting our affections on things above. Life on earth were too wretched unless it were possible to “mount up with wings as eagles.” Again, you may have strength to run--that is to say, there is power waiting for you for all the great crises of your lives which call for special, though it may be brief, exertion. Such crises will come to each of you, in sorrow, work, difficulty, hard conflicts. And there is only one way to be ready for such times as these, and that is to live waiting on the Lord, near Christ, with Him in your hearts, and then nothing will come that will be too big for you. Strength to walk may be yours, i.e., patient power for persistent pursuit of weary, monotonous duty. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
How to grow strong
I. We have here UNAIDED NATURE AT ITS BEST PROVING A DISMAL FAILURE. Youths and young men are the personification of activity, agility, vigour, and “go.” Their eye is not dim, nor their natural force abated. Moreover, the word here employed signifies the pick of the people, the flower of the youth, the very first and foremost. These are the strongest of the strong, the bravest of the brave. But what happens to them? Even these shall faint and be weary; even these shall fail and fall. It is in spiritual things that this disappointment is most to be deplored.
1. This is a picture of those who, starting in their own strength, are presently disillusioned. Here, then, is a picture of ourselves in our unregenerate condition.
2. This is a picture, too, of how we were when, having been convicted of sin, we began to try to cleave our own way to heaven, and to pave it too; when from self-complacency we turned to self-righteousness.
3. I see here, also, an all too accurate picture of some true Christians. The boastful Christian is represented here, the man who fancies that his native courage will carry him through, who imagines that his wide experience will suffice in his extremity, who supposes his rigid orthodoxy is enough.
4. There are some well-nigh prayerless Christians, too, who seem to imagine that since they are already converted to God, and have had great experience of His dealings, they need no longer be as fervent and as frequent at the mercy-seat as in early days.
II. PRAYERFUL DEPENDENCE UPON GOD MEANS UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS. “They that wait,” etc.
1. What is this waiting upon God?
(1) It involves humiliation and lamentation, a consciousness of need, a confession of weakness, an acknowledgment of sin. Do not think to get to the other stages except by this route. It is most unwise to seek to build a castle in the air, of even on the sands. Deep digging must precede lofty building.
(2) Then comes supplication, an earnest pouring out of the inmost heart to God.
(3) Mingled with the supplication is expectation.
(4) Yet with supplication and expectation there is resignation.
(5) There is not necessarily inaction; indeed those that wait upon the Lord are the very ones who are most in earnest, and most active.
2. What is the result of waiting upon God?
(1) “They shall renew their strength.” This means that they shall change their strength. They shall put off their own threadbare, worn-out, poverty stricken strength, and they shall be clad with strength as with a garment, a garment that has been woven in celestial looms. It means among other things, that the strength they have, God-given, shall be adapted to special circumstances, and applied to peculiar conditions. I know how possible it is to have a goodly measure of strength, and yet not know how to use it. Those who wait on the Lord are taught spiritual economy. They make the most of the little they have, and by using it, it is increased. They are as those who, having a long journey to undertake, have made arrangements previously that at each stage there shall be a flesh horse awaiting them.
(2) “They shall mount up with wings as eagles,” that is, they shall fly. I have often wondered what the sensation of flying may be like. I have nothing to guide me except sundry dreams. It is a most delightful sensation, except when it ends, and then you wish you had not gone in for it at all. Alas! that so many of our fellow-men have set their minds on flying. They have invented flying-machines, so-called, with which they have almost invariably till now courted disaster. I know a flying machine worth all of these. I will not soar to heaven on wings of wax, which melt as they get near the sun, but on wings which God supplies, wings of hope, and faith, and prayer, and praise.
(3) “They shall run,” and however much they run, and however fast they run, they shall not be weary. What wonderful progress those make who trust God.
(4) “They shall walk and not faint.” Divine strength enables us for patient continuance in well-doing. What is the secret of all this? God is at the bottom of it. Compare Isaiah 40:6 with Isaiah 40:10; Isaiah 40:12, etc. There is nothing impossible to those who love God. (T. Spurgeon.)