Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2179
“But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit; therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them.” Isaiah 63:10.
THIS is a terrible case. When God is turned to be a man’s enemy and fights against him, he is in a desperate plight. With other enemies we may contend with some hope of success, but not with the Omnipotent. The enmity of others is an affliction, but the enmity of God is destruction. If He turns to be our enemy, then everything is turned against us. The stars in their courses fight against us and the stones in the fields are in league for our stumbling. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” But if God is against us, who can be for us? The words read like a funeral knell—“He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them.”
This shows us that God is not indifferent to sin. Men may try to persuade themselves that God does not care—that it is nothing to Him how men act—whether they break or keep His Laws. Men plead that He is “kind to the unthankful and to the evil,” and the same event happens to all, both to the righteous and to the wicked. And so, indeed, it seems for the present. Our shortsightedness may even assure us that the ungodly prosper and have the best of it—but this is only our blindness. God hates sin now and always! He would not be God if He did not. God is stirred with righteous indignation against every kind of evil—it moves His Spirit to anger.
Some believe in an impassive God, but certainly the God of the Bible is never so described. He is represented in Holy Scripture after the manner of men, but how else could He be represented to men? If He were represented after the manner of God, you and I could understand nothing at all of the description—but as He is represented to us in Scripture—the Lord notes sin, feels sin, grows angry with sin, is provoked and His Holy Spirit is vexed by the rebellion of men. Let me read the solemn test again—“But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit; therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them.”
God is always the same, but His acts vary. He changes not and yet He is represented in our text as turning. He turns in His actions though He does not turn in His purposes. He often wills a change though He never changes His will. He is always the same God, but He does not always show us the same side of His Character. Sometimes He manifests mercy, at other times justice—He is as much God in the one case as in the other. At one time He makes a world. At another time He destroys it—but He is the same Jehovah. A change in His outward dispensation does not argue any change in His inward disposition. He is an unchanging God of whom we read, “He was turned to be their enemy.”
Having said these two or three things as a helpful commencement, I would invite you to consider this remarkably impressive verse with very great reverence and awe. May the Holy Spirit help us! The current idea, now, is, “Never preach anything that is dreadful or terrible. If you do, you will earn as bad a character as Spurgeon.” Now, I am not ashamed, in the least degree, to have a bad character for preaching against the evil of sin and declaring the sure punishment of it. What have I to gain by such preaching? Shall I get the applause of men?
No, the whole current of this generation’s liking rushes the other way! Let the preacher tell men that they may live as they like and that it will be all right in the long run, and that will please them. Universal salvation is a very popular doctrine among the “cultured” folk. I want none of your popularity! I will preach to you, as long as this tongue moves in my head, God’s Truth, whether it offends or pleases! And the day shall declare who best loved your souls—those who could flatter, or those who spoke the unpalatable Truth of God.
Our text has in it very little, apparently, that may minister comfort to anybody and yet my persuasion is that if, with reverent heart, you lend your ear to what it teaches, it will lead you into a surer comfort than you will ever find in the
philosophies of men, yes—it will bring your conscience into a state of rest with God for which you will bless God as long as you live!
I. First, MY TEXT BELONGS TO THE LORD’S OWN OFFENDING CHILDREN. Let me try to find them out and lay this text home to them. There are some of God’s own people—really converted, saved people—who have, nevertheless, degenerated into such a state of sin that the Lord is turned to be their enemy! If you read this chapter, you will see that it is so. Let me begin at the seventh verse. “I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies, and according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses. For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not lie: so He was their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His Presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit; therefore He was turned to be their enemy.”