Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2827
“Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stink because there is no water, and die for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakens Me morning by morning, he wakens My ears to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD has opened My ears, and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting.” Isaiah 50:2-6.
WE spent this morning at the foot of the Cross. [Sermon #1362, Volume 23—MOURNING FOR CHRIST] I hope that some of us, at least, were helped by the Spirit of Grace and of Supplication to look unto Him whom we have pierced by our sins, and to “mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son.” I thought that as we then found it so good to be there, we would go there, again, the more especially as we are afterwards to gather around the Communion Table where we shall again be reminded of the sacrificial death which the sacred Supper so clearly symbolizes. Let us come, then, under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, very near to our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that the Spirit of Christ may aid our meditations while I try, once more, to speak about His glorious and matchless Person, and the wondrous condescension which made Him undertake such gracious offices on our behalf and bear for us such awful and shameful griefs.
I shall need no further preface to my discourse except to say that in my opinion these verses run on without any break, so that you are not to separate them and ascribe one to the Prophet, another to the Messiah, and another to Jehovah, Himself, but you must take the whole as the utterance of one Divine Person. That Jehovah-Jesus is the One who is speaking here is very clear from the last verse of the previous chapter—“I the Lord” (“I, Jehovah,” it is,) “am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” It is Jehovah, as the Savior and Redeemer of His people, who is here manifesting Himself to us—and we must take the whole chapter as being uttered by Him.
I. So, then, to begin with, let us BEHOLD THE MESSIAH AS GOD—“I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.”
I ask you again to link this 3rd verse with the 6th -“I clothe the heavens with blackness and I make sackcloth their covering…! gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting.” He, then, who suffered thus and whom we regard as redeeming us by His death, and as saving us by His life, is no less than the Almighty God who clothes the heavens with blackness, at whose rebuke the sea is dried up and the rivers become a wilderness!
I think the first reference in these words is to the miracles which were worked by the plagues in Egypt. It was Jehovah-Jesus who was then plaguing His adversaries. It was He who stood by the border of the Red Sea and dried it up. In a later chapter Isaiah says that “the Angel of His Presence saved them.” And who is that great “Angel of His Presence” but the Angel of the Covenant in whom we delight, even Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior? It was He who struck the rivers of Egypt till they began to stink and the fish died from thirst. It was He who called for an unusual darkness—even darkness which might be felt—and which lasted three days and nights—a supernatural darkness such as had never before been known. Think of the greatness of that God who can darken the great orb of day! The strongest eyes of man cannot bear to gaze upon the sun, for fear of producing blindness, yet Jehovah-Jesus does not only look the sun in the face, but He lifts His hand and shuts the light of the sun from off the face of the earth! And He bids the sun—“which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race”—to take off his bridal attire and to put on the garments of mourning, for thus said the Lord, “I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” This mighty miracle, which was worked of old, was worked by that same Jesus who, in the days of His flesh, was despised and rejected of men! Learn this lesson and adore the Lord who is so great in power and as gracious as He is great.
But we must not restrict the text to that which happened in the land of Egypt, for it has a far wider reference than that. All the great wonders of Nature are to be ascribed to Him upon whom we build all our hopes for time and for eternity. There are channels of great rivers to be found that are now perfectly dry. Travelers tell us of vast lakes and riverbeds that have become mere pans of salt. How came they to be dried up? “By the action of the laws of nature,” some people say. But laws have no power to act by themselves—they need force at the back of them to make them operate. And whose force is that? It is the energy of God—and that same energy dwells in the adorable Person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When the storm clouds come hurrying up, driven by the winds, and the crash of Heaven’s dread artillery is heard, and the dashes of forked lightning follow each other in rapid succession, we tremble at the power of the Lord who thus makes the earth to quiver before Him. But who is He that is thus driving in His conquering car? It is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior! All the elements of Nature are under His control and He rules all things according to the good pleasure of His own will. He sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, being Himself very God of very God!