Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 489
“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: your eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down. Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King. He will save us. Your tacklings are loosed, they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided, the lame take the prey.” Isaiah 33:20-23.
THIS prophecy was uttered when the city of Jerusalem was reduced to the direst extremity. The Assyrian hosts threatened the city with utter destruction. Rabshakeh, a fitting herald for his tyrannical master, had advanced to inspect the walls while Sennacherib tarried at Lachish. False to all treaties, the heavy sum paid down by Hezekiah could not ensure the promised mercy from the ferocious despot. The treasuries of the city were exhausted, and therefore no further attempt in that direction could be made. No help could be looked for from any other nation. Even Egypt was in deadly fear of the great power of Nineveh.
The Assyrians were strong as lions, and cruel as evening wolves. No nation had ever equaled them in remorseless and wanton cruelty. Punishments the most horrible were constantly executed upon those whom they vanquished. Impalement, flaying alive, and piercing out the eyes were their ordinary amusements after the close of battle. Look at the stones disinterred from Nineveh, and you will see engraved there by themselves memorials of the horrible barbarities which they constantly perpetrated. Sennacherib’s army was exceedingly great. It had already stormed many cities.
Arphad and Sepharvaim, Hamath and Samaria had fallen an easy spoil—cities that were surrounded by rivers had been defeated by diverting the current and so drying up the streams. Or else by using galleys with oars, the Assyrian monarch had reached the walls and applied the scaling ladders. The army was so well equipped, so numerous, and so thoroughly well supplied with all munitions of war, that there was not the slightest hope of the escape of Jerusalem except by Divine power. Yet the Assyrians did not shoot an arrow there, nor did they cast up a mound against it, for at nightfall the angel of the Lord went forth and slew a hundred and forty thousand men, and Sennacherib hastened back to his own land.
Brethren, you know the analogy here, how the Church of Christ is every day surrounded by the most ferocious adversaries. She is like Jerusalem. All round about her the dogs of Hell are yelping for her as their prey. Satan has multitudes of faithful servants too glad to engage in battle against the Lord’s Anointed, and against the Church which He has redeemed by His own blood. They are well armed with an infernal protection. They are very skillful, determined and resolute. Not a stone will be left unturned to blot out the remembrance of Christ’s kingdom from under Heaven.
But rejoice! Even if the dark day should come, be not dismayed! God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The Church is not in danger. She is impregnably garrisoned. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her, and she shall abide in her place until He shall come who has made her beautiful for the situation, the joy of the whole earth. He shall come to translate her to the skies, to be the New Jerusalem—the Bride, the Lamb’s wife—to glitter forever in the brightness which far outshines the light of the sun.
Let us now with profound attention meditate upon our text, and notice that, as the existence of Jerusalem was imperiled, the first promise of Isaiah was that Jerusalem should still exist—“Your eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation,” and so on. But, further, inasmuch as during the siege many unbelieving persons had found fault with the position of Jerusalem, because it was not surrounded by a river, the promise is given that she shall have a glorious position—“There the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.”
No, more than this, as a climax of blessing, she is promised perpetual triumph over all her enemies, since in her streams, “shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.” Or, if they come, they shall prove a wreck—“Your tacklings are loosed. They could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail.”
I. The first promise made to the Church of God in our text is one SECURING TO HER AN EVERLASTING EXISTENCE. The Church is not a temporary institution—it shall never be removed, but abide forever.
1. From the words of the text I gather that the Jerusalem of God shall exist as she is. What was she in those days? She was the city of solemnities. She was the place where prayer and praise were custom to be made. So is she to continue throughout all generations. The Church of God is in this world the city of all true solemnities. Any prayer and praise that are not offered by the chosen of the Lord, who constitute the true and invisible Church of God, are but vain oblations.