Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1508
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, June 29, 1879
“New things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.” Isaiah 42:9.
GOD has often foretold things to come by the lips of His Prophets. I need not give you even a single specimen of the multitudes of instances in which events which could not have been guessed at—which, indeed, were highly improbable and unlikely—were nevertheless foretold by the Spirit of God through the Prophets and actually came to pass. The Lord claims this as a proof of His Godhead. It is His special prerogative to possess Omniscience, the knowledge of everything and, therefore, Prescience, or the knowledge of that which will happen in years to come. These are attributes of God, alone, and often He challenges idols to produce instances in which they have exercised foresight and predicted things to come. They had their oracles, which were the mimicry of prophecy, but they continually failed, whereas Jehovah’s Word stood fast even in jots and tittles and thus His eternal Godhead was proven.
The imitation of this attribute by the magicians and prophets of the false gods proved that they saw this to be an exclusive attribute of Deity and their perpetual confusion in their attempts proved, with equal clearness, that their mock deities did not possess it. I think it most admirable and it seems another instance of the foresight of the Holy Spirit, that the words of my text should stand where they do, for it may not be unknown to some of you that the modern critics, who always try, if they can, to tear the heart out of every text and are never satisfied until, like swine, they trample beneath their feet every cluster of Eshcol—these modern critics, I say, have dared to ascribe one part of the Book of Isaiah to a second Isaiah, as they call him, who wrote after the times of Christ.
They do this, you see, because the Prophecy so plainly describes our Lord Jesus Christ that men who will not believe in God, or in the Inspiration of His Holy Bible, are driven to invent the notion that a prophecy was written after the event. Truly, it might as well have been written afterwards, as before, for it is so accurate. But here, as if the Lord foresaw that there would come, in the last days, scoffers, He bids His servant, in these express words, claim that He speaks things before they come to pass—“Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
It remains, therefore, for these sham Christian critics either to accept the fact that Isaiah’s book contains actual Prophecies, or else to reject it altogether. Their specious pretense of believing the book to be authentic while they deny its prophetic character is exposed by the words before us. It is not, however, about Prophecy that I am going to speak at this time. I wish to bring forth a general principle—the principle that our gracious Lord usually gives a promise of that which He means to bestow. Before His favors come into our hands, the sound of them falls upon our ears! Since God is full of mercy and Grace, He has resolved to give great blessings to the sons of men, but He gives not without prudent arrangement and, therefore, His wisdom fixes times for the bestowal of His gifts.
A certain fullness of time of which He often speaks was necessary before the coming of Christ. Our Lord could not appear in human flesh until that appointed time had come. But while His wisdom bade Him stay, the fulfillment of His love was so great that He must begin to speak of the grand Covenant blessing! Before the Lord Jesus came, the Father was continually speaking of His coming! Before He had given Him from His bosom to die, He so delighted in what He was going to do and He took such pleasure in the result of His glorious gift that He must speak about it! And so in countless promises He spoke with the sons of men concerning the great deed of love. This seems to me a clear proof of how heartily He went about the great work of our redemption—because He dwelt so much upon the prospect of it that He revealed His thoughts in Prophecy and promise.
If you are going to do some kindness to a friend and the time has not quite come for it, yet you cannot keep your purpose a secret. If you think it will minister to his comfort to receive a promise of it, you are sure to give him some
cheering hint or comforting intimation. The thought is pleasant to yourself and you wish him to share your anticipation. You wish him to get a sight of the good thing before he gets a taste of it. Before he actually obtains the help, itself, you wish to see him cheered with the prospect and so you turn his mind hopefully in the kindly direction. Love is so fond of its object that it is not content with blessing it by a solitary act—before the time comes for the actual blessing, love casts forth a fragrance, as a forecast of the flower which is yet in bloom and not fully opened.