Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2922
“The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” Isaiah 2:11.
IN the eternal past the Lord alone was exalted. When He dwelt alone before the earth was and when He commenced the mighty works of His Creation—and the universe sprang into being at the fiat of His unhindered will—He alone was exalted. He made multitudes of creatures. Perhaps we have no idea how many of them there were and in what varied forms intelligent beings were created, but the Lord alone was exalted. Every angel adored Him—every creature knew its Lord. It was an ill day when there broke out a rival spirit and when evil began to set up its throne in opposition to the God of Good. The leader of the angels—the light bearer—sought to erect a rival throne. “How are you fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.” Then, by and by, in process of time, upon this world God’s Glory was dimmed. Here, too, another spoke and was believed and God was doubted. Another claimed man’s love and gained it and God was disobeyed. No longer on earth was the Lord alone exalted as He had been in the quiet glades of Eden when our first parents worshipped none but God and counted it the very cream and flower of their being that they might serve the Most High who had made them what they were.
Now look where we may, in this poor, fallen world, the Lord alone is not exalted. There are many lords and gods— spiritual wickedness and principalities of evil—which set themselves up in opposition to the great King of kings and Lord of lords. Yet as surely as Jehovah lives, He will win the victory in this conflict! Ere the drama of the world’s history shall come to a close, it shall be known throughout the entire universe that the Lord, He is God—and the Lord alone shall be exalted.
It is a part of the work of Grace—no, it is the main objective of the work of Grace, and it is an objective, also, of the work of Providence to promote this great end—that the Lord alone shall be exalted. For your comfort and for your instruction, then, notice first the occasions when my text has been true. I shall take the text out of its connection, not, I hope, unduly, and show that on a large scale there are several days in which the Lord alone has been exalted. And then we will come back to a little quiet meditation and look into our own experience to see whether there have not been days with us when the Lord alone has been exalted.
I. Come then, first, and notice WHEN THE LORD ALONE HAS BEEN EXALTED ON A LARGE SCALE.
The Lord alone has been exalted among men whenever He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the plenitude of His power. The Revelations under the Law of God were mainly Revelations girt with terror. Under the Old Testament dispensation you find God coming out of His place to terribly shake the earth. When He bows the Heavens and comes down, the mountains flow at His Presence. The Lord alone was exalted in those days when He vindicated His Justice and displayed His Power against His enemies. Remember the flood when, after so many years of warning, the ark being prepared for the salvation of the believing few, God was pleased to draw up the floodgates of Heaven and to bid the cataracts of earth leap upward instead of downward until over all the face of the world there was nothing but one mighty all-devouring wave! When in majestic silence the ark floated over the bosom of the world which had become the grave of Jehovah’ s creatures—then the Lord alone was exalted in that day!
And when men had multiplied again upon the face of the earth and His people had gone down into Egypt, you know well the story, how proud Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” Then Moses came and with many strokes of his mystic rod he afflicted the fields of Zoan, he turned their waters into blood and slew their fish. He
spoke and the flies came—and the frogs and the locusts without number—yes, the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt, the chief of all their strength, and in that night, when a cry went up from every Egyptian household and the people of Israel were led forth like sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron, the Lord alone was exalted! Then the nations knew that Jehovah worked His will among the sons of men!
Nor was that all. When in their desperation, the Egyptians pursued the Israelites into the very depths of the sea, the Lord turned and looked upon them and troubled the host of Pharaoh and took off their chariot wheels so that they could not be driven—then the sea returned in the fullness of its strength and the depths covered them until there was not one of them left! Then Miriam’ s song, “Sing you to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously,” was but an exposition of our text, “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” Time would fail me to tell of all His mighty works, nor is there any need for me to recapitulate the records of the book of the wars of the Lord, “for the Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name”—and when He comes forth to battle, then the Lord alone is exalted in that day!