Sermon XXIV.1 God’s withdrawing his presence, the correction of his church.
“O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.” — Isa. lxiii. 17.
These are words that carry a great deal of dread in them; — tremendous words, methinks, as any in the book of God. And, according as our concernment shall be found in them, they require very sad thoughts of heart. It is come now to the last; this is the last cast; if we miss in pursuing this great inquiry, we are undone for ever: “O Lord, why hast thou caused us to err from thy ways? why hast thou hardened our hearts from thy fear?” God is in this matter, whereof we have been complaining.
It is the true church of God that speaks these, words. This is plain in the acting of faith as to the great interest and privilege of adoption, in the verse foregoing, where they say, “Doubtless thou art our Father;” — “However things are with us, ‘doubtless thou art our Father.’ ” When all other evidences fail, faith will secretly maintain the soul with a persuasion of its relation unto God; as you see by the church in this place. They were “all as an unclean thing;” and their “holiness all faded away as a leaf,” Isa. lxiv. 6. And yet faith maintains a sense of a relation to God; and therefore they cry, “Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: O Lord, thou art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.” And I am persuaded some of you have found it so, — that faith hath maintained an interest in a relation to God, when all particular evidences have failed. So it is in our head, Jesus Christ, when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” When all particular evidences fail, he can still say, “My God, my God.” So is it here with this miserable and distressed church and people of God; — all is lost and gone, and yet faith cries, “Doubtless thou art our Father.” And if, in the matters of this day, God would help us to maintain and not let go our interest in him as our Father, by faith, we should have a bottom and foundation to stand upon. If it be so with us as hath been confessed to God (and I fear it is worse), we shall be at a loss for our particular evidences, at one time or other; but yet it will be a great advantage, when faith can maintain its station, and we be enabled to say, “ ‘Though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel will not own us,’ such vile creatures; and though ‘our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,’ and our holiness ‘fadeth away as a leaf,’ and our adversaries have trodden upon us; ‘yet doubtless thou art our Father.’ ” The Lord help us to say thus when we depart, and we shall yet have a foundation of hope.
I would observe here the condition of the church at that time. It was a state of affliction and oppression; — of oppression on the one hand, and of deep conviction of sin on the other. It is well when they go together.
First. It was a time of distress and oppression; as is declared, verse 18, “Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.” The adversary had grievously oppressed them; but that which the church was most concerned in was, that they had trodden down the sanctuary, — disturbed the holy assemblies, and broken up the worship of God. And it is well, brethren, if, under all oppression and distresses that may befall us, we do really find our principal concern is for the treading down God’s sanctuary. Whatever else lay upon them, this was that they complained of: “Our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.”
Secondly. It was also a time of deep conviction of sin with them. As the prayer is continued unto the end of the next chapter, you may see what a deep conviction of sin was fallen upon them, in verses 6, 7, “Behold, we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and melted us down, because of our iniquities.”
Well, then, suppose it be a state of great oppression, and a state of great conviction of sin, what is the course that we should take? We may turn ourselves this way and that way; but the church, you see, is come to this, — to issue all in an inquiry after, and a sense of, God’s displeasure, manifesting itself by spiritual judgments. And this, in truth, brethren, if I understand any thing of the state and condition of my own soul and yours, and of the generality of the churches of God in the world, is that which we are in particular called to, and where we are to issue all this business, — namely, to inquire into God’s displeasure, and the reason of it, manifesting itself in spiritual judgments. “O Lord, why hast thou caused us to err from thy ways? and why hast thou hardened our hearts from thy fear?”