Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 649
Delivered on Sunday Morning, September 10, 1865, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
Isaiah 54:1.
IT was a great sorrow to an Eastern woman to be childless. In modern times that affliction is endured with cheerful equanimity, but in those days it was regarded as a dreadful curse and the feelings of those afflicted by it were of the most painful kind, as we find in the case of Hannah. Alas, for human nature! Those who were favored with children were often guilty of cruel haughtiness and taunting derision towards those who were not so blessed. We may instance the cases of Peninnah over Hannah and Hagar over her mistress, Sarah. We must therefore endeavor to bring our minds to the Eastern idea and we shall then have before us a case of very great, deep, constant, abiding, bitter sorrow. And yet the person in that case is bid to sing and to rejoice aloud, because the visitation of God’s mercy should soon come to make desolation itself glad!
I. The text shall first of all be taken in its reference TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. For a long season before the coming of Christ the Church of God was desolate. Few were her sons and daughters. Her solemn feast days were attended by a multitude of hypocrites and her courts were crowded with formalists—the genuine children of Israel were sadly few. And when the Lord, the Husband of the Church, Himself arrived, the Church was in no happy condition. And even while He remained with her, her joy was not complete, for Christ’s ministry was, with all reverence to His name, by His own appointment, doubtless comparatively an unsuccessful one.
After all His preaching there were but some hundred and twenty persons who believed on Him. “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” The children of the married wife were but very, very few. Isaiah’s wailing might have been heard all through the life of Christ, “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground: He has no form nor loveliness. And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”
What a dark night that must have been when the Savior was betrayed by Judas! Ah, Church of God, what will come of you now? While the Bridegroom was with you your children were but few and now that He is taken away to prison and to death, what will you do? As for your sons, you can not rely upon them. Yonder is Peter, denying his Master with oaths and curses. John—even the loving John—has forsaken Him and fled. They have all gone their ways. They have all turned their backs. Like the children of Ephraim, “being armed and carrying bows, they have turned their backs in the day of battle.”
Alas for you, Zion, for now you are desolate! Your Husband is led away captive. Your sons have forsaken you—your hour of mourning has come! Still darker must have been the hour when Salem’s daughters wept around the Savior, led away to a shameful crucifixion along the via dolorosa. See Him as He dyes the streets of Jerusalem with drops of blood trickling from His thorn-crowned head. He is taken outside the camp to the mount of doom. They fasten Him to the wood. They lift Him high upon the Cross—His enemies compass Him about. The bulls of Bashan roar upon Him and the dogs of Hell bark about Him.
Where are you now, O Zion? But for a few that cluster round the shameful tree, where are your sons and daughters now? Your sun has set forever and your candle is gone out in darkness! So Unbelief whispers, but not thus speaks the Lord! For after the Lord had been lain in the grave and risen again and ascended and left the Church, then were the days of refreshing and the times of the visitation of the Spirit! Suddenly when the saints were met together in an upper room, for they were so few that they could all be enclosed within one room, there was heard a sound as of “a rushing mighty wind,” and suddenly flames of fire sat on each chosen one.
Then was fulfilled the saying of the Prophet Joel, “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Rejoice, O Zion! Sing you barren, you that did not bear, for three thousand are your children in one day and there are multitudes yet to come! There are added to the Church daily of such as shall be saved. And the multitude increases! Persecution scatters them, but as they scatter they grow—in every land the Church of God has its sons and daughters.
Even in the palace of the Caesars the Truth of God is confessed. Mountains cannot stay the progress of Messiah’s kingdom. Goths and Gauls, uncivilized men of war, feel the potent power of the love of the Cross. From eastern coast to western, Jupiter and Venus fall from their thrones, and Jesus Christ is exalted. “From the river even to the ends of the earth” His name is known. Thus you see there was to the whole Church at Jerusalem a glorious fulfillment of this text, “Sing, O barren, you that did not bear.” And more were the children of the desolate Church in the absence of her Lord than when she was as a married wife having Jesus Christ the Bridegroom with her!