Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1243
“As rivers of water in a dry place.” Isaiah 32:2.
I SUPPOSE it must be conceded that the surface sense of this passage refers to Hezekiah and to other good kings who were the means of great blessings to the declining kingdom of Judah. We can scarcely be thankful enough for a righteous government. If, for a few years, we could feel the yoke of despotism, we should better appreciate the joys of freedom. In the prophecy before us, very much is said in praise of a king who shall reign in righteousness and princes who shall rule in judgment. Such men are the protectors of the State, enriching it by commerce and blessing it with peace. They deserve honor and the Word of God renders it to them.
But I cannot bring my mind to believe that these expressions were intended by the Holy Spirit to have no other and higher reference. They appear to me to be far too full of meaning to be primarily or solely intended for Hezekiah or any other mere man. When the Holy Spirit declared, by the mouth of the Prophet, “A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of great rock in a weary land,” it can scarcely be conceived that he referred only to Hezekiah and his princes.
It cannot be that the Church of God has erred these many years in not applying such a passage as this to the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely the words are not only applicable to Him, but can never be fully understood until they are applied to His ever blessed and adorable Person. At any rate, this much is sure, that if a king who rules in righteousness brings so much blessing on his people, then Jesus, who is peculiarly the King of Righteousness, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” must bring these blessings in the highest conceivable degree and, therefore, these expressions are, beyond all possibility of exaggeration, applicable in their widest sense to Him whom this day we delight to hail as Lord of All!
Applying the language of the whole verse to the Lord Jesus Christ, the King in Zion, we are struck with the number of the metaphors. He is not merely a hiding place and a cover, and a river, but He is a shadow of a great rock. Yes, my Brothers and Sisters, if we attempt to set forth our Lord’s glories by earthly analogies we shall need a host of them, for no one can set Him forth to perfection! Each one has some deficiency and even all together they are insufficient to display His loveliness! We need a thousand types and images to depict the varied beauties of His Character, the manifold excellencies of His offices, the merit of His suffering, the glory of His triumphs and the innumerable blessings which He bestows on the sons of men!
Should you focus all the rays of nature’s sun, you could not equal a solitary beam of His splendor—
“Nor earth, nor sea, nor sun, nor stars, Nor Hea ven His full resemblance bears; His beauties you can never trace Till you behold Him face to face.” It is very pleasant to see that our Beloved is such a many-sided Christ. From all points of view He is admirable and He is supremely precious in so many different ways—for we have so many and so varied needs and our circumstances are so continually changing—and the incessant cravings of our spirit are so constantly taking fresh turns. Blessed be His name, these changes of ours, and needs of ours, and cravings of ours shall only put us in fresh positions in which to see, more fully, His surpassing excellencies, His superlative fullness and how completely He is adapted to meet the needs of our nature in every conceivable condition!
Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus that while He is One, He is many! While He is altogether lovely, He is also loveliness combined! While He is perfect under one aspect, He is equally complete under every other. The point to note in the
text, applying it to Christ, is this, that it is a Man who is to be as rivers of water in a dry place. Note that—a Man! We glory in the Godhead of Jesus Christ—about that we entertain no question. This is not the place in which to attempt to prove it, for we are all persuaded of it, and we know Him to be Divine by personal dealings with Him. We have found Him to be the Son of the Highest and He ever must be so to us—“Very God of very God.”
Yet, none the less, but all the more, do we tenaciously hold to the Truth of God of the true and proper Manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is as God in human flesh that He is to us as rivers of water in a dry place. Think of it for a minute. If God loves us so much as to become Man, then the blessings which He intends to bestow must be incalculable! The Incarnation is, in itself, a promise big with untold blessing. Gaze upon the Son of God in Bethlehem’s manger and you feel sure that if the Infinite has assumed the form of an Infant, His Incarnation betokens Infinite Love, foreshadows intimate communion, and foretells unbounded blessedness for the sons of Adam!