Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 917
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, February 20, 1870
“Since you were precious in My sight you have been honorable, and I have loved you.” Isaiah 43:4.
THE first reference of this text is evidently to Israel. That nation was precious in God’s sight. He had been pleased sovereignly to make an election of the seed of Abraham, that they should be His portion, and He should be their portion evermore. They were precious in His sight because of the Covenant which He had made with their great forefather, saying, “In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
This word of promise elevated them to an eminent position before the Lord. They were precious in the Lord’s sight because His honor was concerned in their history. If the Covenant promise could be broken, there would be an impeachment of the fidelity of the Most High—if by any means the chosen people could be crushed by their enemies, then the Omnipotence of their Patron and Defender would also be in question. It was an important point that they should be preserved, because in the fulfillment of His Covenant with them the name of God would be glorified, as the God of faithfulness and Truth.
They were therefore precious in His sight. Many of the vast purposes of the Divine Being were intertwisted with the being and well-being of the chosen people. To them He had committed the sacred oracles—among them lived His holy Prophets, to them He revealed the Law—of them as concerning the flesh, Christ came, and out of them the first preachers of the Gospel were chosen. Scarcely any great event that glorifies the Grace of God can be dissociated from the Jewish people. Let me even remind you that the calling of the Gentiles is the consequence of the putting away of Israel for awhile because of unbelief, and that the future glory, whenever it shall come, will certainly be intimately connected with the restoration of the chosen people.
Very precious is Israel, because like a silver thread we see her story running through the whole line of God’s Grace as manifested to the sons of men. The Israelites of old were precious to God because He had done so much for them. He had brought them out of Egypt “with a high hand and an outstretched arm.” He had cast out the tribes of Canaan before them. He had oftentimes rebuked kings for their sakes, yes, and slain mighty kings that they might be delivered. The results of all this the Lord would not lose, and they, therefore for this cause also were precious in His sight.
Doubtless, one main reason of Israel’s preciousness lay in the fact that out of Judah should arise the Royal Man, the Son of God, in Whom the Father is well-pleased. For the sake of that Divine Seed, which I may call the vital kernel of Israel’s race, the Lord took pleasure in the descendants of Abraham, and they were precious in His sight.
Many other reasons might be given why God, having once elected the little nation of Israel by an act of distinguishing Grace, should look upon the people as peculiarly precious. But we pass on to observe that He next declares them to be honorable—honorable because, or from the time when they had been precious in His sight. Whoever God may elect for Himself, he is by that very fact rendered honorable, and the Jewish people in being set apart as the Lord’s own people, were by that very separation honored above all other nations on the face of the earth.
They, moreover, received the Light while the whole world was in darkness. Although some stray gleams fell here and there among the nations, yet the brightest illumination which enlightened the early ages from the Throne of God came to the Israelite people. While others worshipped gods that were not gods, Israel adored Him whose Throne is in the heavens and whose kingdom rules over all. Theirs were the commands written with the Divine finger—theirs a sacredly instructive ritual—theirs a line of priests ordained to stand between man and God. All this made them honorable.
Conjointly with this special privilege they were honored by being chosen to special service. They were to conserve the knowledge of the true God amid surrounding idolatry, and they were to maintain a testimony for holiness in the center
of abounding wickedness. They were ordained to be a holy nation, a peculiar people, sanctified unto the Lord to show forth the praise of Jehovah. They were honored by His constant Presence with them. No other nation saw God go before them in pillars of cloud and fire—nowhere else did the Shekinah blaze forth except between the wings of the cherubim overshadowing the Mercy Seat.
He had not so dealt with any other nation—only to His chosen people had He been pleased to reveal Himself. They were favored with special protections in Providence, with special guidance in all their difficulties, special supplies in time of famine. And if they sometimes had special chastisements, yet even these were but tokens of His peculiar regard. Israel was precious in the sight of God, and therefore, though small and inconsiderable, it was honorable among the nations, so that David could truthfully say, “What one nation in the earth is like Your people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself?”