Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2189
“I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: you that make mention of the Lord, keep not silent, and give Him no rest, till He establishes, and till he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:6, 7.
IN the opening verses of this chapter our Lord declares that He will not rest till His purpose of Grace is accomplished. “For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” His soul is set upon the perfection of His Church. There is never a moment when the heart of Christ ceases to beat high with desire for the salvation of His redeemed. From the dreadful work of making Atonement, He stayed not His hand, but set His face like a flint towards it, till He could say, “It is finished.” And now, the work of the gathering of His chosen He carries on with quenchless zeal, never staying His Divine intercession, never withholding His hands from wielding that “All Power” which is given Him in Heaven and in earth.
Mark well, Beloved, how He would have His people to be in tune with Himself! He will have no rest till salvation work is done! And He would not have us rest, but He would have us stirred with passionate desire and fired with holy zeal for the accomplishment of the Divine plan of Grace. Till He holds His peace, He will not allow us to be silent! You that have the Revised Version will be struck with the more literal and forcible rendering of our text—“You that are the Lord’s remembrancers, take you no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establishes, and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” A restless Savior calls upon His people to be restless and to make the Lord, Himself, restless—to give Him no rest till His chosen city is in full splendor, His chosen Church complete and glorious. Ah, when the three unite, the Son, the people whom He has redeemed and the Lord who works all things, then shall the golden age have come!
Learn from this fact a valuable lesson, that Christ’s determination to perform a work, His decree that it shall be so, is no argument for our idleness, but is the best plea and encouragement for our endeavors. “If it is to be,” cries one, “I need not do anything.” No, Friend, you argue slothfully! On the contrary, the earnest heart will reason itself into immediate and confident action. If it were not to be, to what purpose my zeal? Even if I do not know whether it is to be or not to be, if I think it desirable, I will labor for it with anxiety! But if I am assured that the Lord has appointed it, I labor with might and main, feeling a holy confidence in doing the work of the Lord! Since He wills it, we will it—and so it shall be.
Predestination, when rightly understood, never leads to sloth—it has frequently, in human history, been of tremendous force for the production of the most daring and determined action—and it shall be so again. “Deus vult,” God wills it, is a grand cry to produce a crusade! God wills it, therefore it shall be. Like thunderbolts flung from an almighty hand, Believers crash through every difficulty under the irrepressible impulse of fulfilling a Divine purpose. Oh, that our meditations at this time may bring us all to this resolve, that we will not rest, and we will give God no rest, till His decree is fulfilled and till He has established and made Jerusalem a praise in the earth!
I. In my text I see three things which I will mention one by one. The first is RESPONSIBLE OFFICE—“I have set watchmen upon your walls.” “You that make mention of the Lord, keep not silent,” or, as your margin and the Revised Version have it, “You that are the Lord’s remembrancers.” Here are three responsible offices—watchmen set upon the walls, speakers who never hold their peace and remembrancers who cease not to plead with their Lord.
May the Holy Spirit help us while we think of the Lord’s people as watchmen! In times of war every fortified city had upon its walls certain watchmen, so placed as to see eye to eye—that is to say, the eye of one sentinel reached to the eye of another and so they encompassed the city round about. Whoever passed that way by day or night, they challenged him!
And if he turned out to be a foe, they gave an alarm and straightway men-at-arms came forth from the guard rooms and the city was protected against surprise. God’s people and especially the stronger, the more instructed and the most experienced of them, should, for Christ’s sake, act as watchmen upon the walls.
Observe what manner of watchmen we ought to be. It is written, “I have set watchmen.” We are under Divine command! In the old Roman days, when a sentry was placed in his position by his centurion, he never thought of quitting his post. Rocks might roam, but not the sentinels of the empire! There was found in Pompeii, among the ashes, a sentry, standing in his place with his javelin in his hand—he had not flinched amid the deadly shower which fell from the volcano and buried the city. His centurion, in the name of the emperor, had set him there, and there he stood! How steadfast and immovable ought these to be, whom the Lord, Himself, has set in their place in connection with His Church! It is Jehovah who says, “I have set watchmen upon your walls.” By a Divine arrangement and by a sacred command, saints are set in their positions and they must stand fast and, having done all, must still stand, for they have received their charge from the King, Himself.