Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1176
“Your sun shall no more go do wn, neither shall your moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.” Isaiah 60:20.
ISRAEL of old had light while all the rest of the world sat in darkness. In consequence of receiving moral and spiritual light from God, the nation prospered, and under the smile of Heaven it was greatly enriched and multiplied. But, alas, the sun went down and the moon withdrew itself, for Israel turned aside and followed after idols, and the land was terribly smitten by the hostile sword. Upon her repentance her sun arose again and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, but again they went astray, for the zealous judge, or the godly king, or the pious priest died—and the nation, prone to backsliding, again provoked the Lord—and the light of His Countenance was withdrawn. This typical Church of God abode not in the light continually, its history was checkered with alternate brightness and gloom, repentance and relapse, prosperity and adversity.
What a change from the glory of Solomon to the captivity of Zedekiah! From the Temple in its glory to the city in ruinous heaps! Truly, to those who knew Israel well, this prophecy of Isaiah must have sounded as rare music, and they must have devoutly cried, “Hasten it, O Lord, in our time.” Another dispensation came. Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem, “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of Your people Israel.” And the sun shone upon the earth as it had never done before. A visible Church was called out to walk in the light, which Church still exists upon the earth, and from the days of Pentecost until now its sun has never altogether gone down, neither has its moon withdrawn herself.
To us, the promise of the text has been fulfilled in a gracious sense, for to the Church of God there has never been an utter suspension of the Divine light. The light has not always been equally clear, but it has still been day. Somewhere or other God has had a visible Church on the earth—if not at Rome, yet in the valleys of Piedmont—not in palaces of bishops, yet in dens and caves of the earth. Yet the visible Church has had her dark days—the text has been only true of her comparatively—her sun has gone down in some sense. The long medieval night, with its heavy dampness, hung over the souls of the myriads and chilled them into crouching superstition, until the day when God sent us the Reformation, like a new daybreak.
Even now there are tokens of returning night, but may the Lord avert it. Shine out, you stars in the right hand of Jesus, and let your Lord, the Sun of Righteousness shine forth, also, and drive away those Romish bats and owls which are fluttering all around us in the hope that their beloved darkness will return! The history of the Church has not been a clear increasing light, like the growth of day from dawn to noon. Her glory has, for a while, departed. Her candlestick has been removed and it may be so, yet again. But, Beloved, there is a Church upon the earth which is within the visible Church and is its central life. I refer to the really elect, called and justified, which are a spiritual Church. There are to be found in the visible Church in all its sections—a people truly saved in the Lord, not a field of mingled wheat and tares— but all plants of the Lord’s right hand planting.
This secret Church, this Church Mystical, this true body of our Lord Jesus Christ may claim to have had this text fulfilled in its experience in a far larger sense. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.” There are Believers who know the meaning of that text, for from the day when they first believed they have not ceased to walk in the light. Though now and then a cloud has crossed their sky, yet, as a rule, no night of backsliding or deadly doubt has come upon them. They have believed fully and, therefore, have seen the salvation of God. Their sun has not gone down, for the Lord Jesus Christ has never hidden His face, and they have rejoiced in an abiding sense of His love.
I believe that this is the proper condition of all saints. And if saints were as they should be it would be fulfilled in them—“your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for Jehovah shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.” Oh, what a glad thing it would be if we could attain to this! “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God”—not, we “ought” to have it, but, “we have peace with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We have learned to glory in tribulations, also, crying, “Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” If we have learned the meaning of the exhortation, “Abide in Me,” and are so abiding, then is our fellowship continual and our course is as the shining light which shines more and more unto the full noontide—