Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3098
“Who are you that.. .have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?” Isaiah 51:12,13.
OBJECTS often influence us out of proportion to their value because of their nearness. For instance, the moon is a very small insignificant body compared with the sun, yet it has far more influence over the tides and many other matters in the world than the sun has simply because it is so much nearer to the earth than the sun is. The life that is to come is infinitely more important than the life that now is and I hope that in our inmost hearts, we reckon that the things that are seen and temporal are mere trifles compared with the things which are not seen and eternal! Yet it often happens that the less important matters have a greater influence over us than those which are far more important, simply because the things of earth are so much nearer to us. Heaven is infinitely more to be desired than any joy of earth, yet it seems far off and, therefore, these fleeting joys may give us greater present comfort. The wrath of God is far more to be dreaded than the anger of man, yet sometimes a frown or a rebuke from a fellow creature will have more effect upon our minds than the thought of the anger of God. This is because the one appears to be remote, while, being in this body, we are so near to the other.
Now, Beloved, it will sometimes happen that a matter which is scarcely worthy of the thought of an immortal spirit will fret and worry us from day to day. There is some oppressor, as the text puts it, whom we dread and fear continually, yet we forget the Almighty God who is on our side, who is stronger than all the oppressors who have ever lived and who has all people and all things under His control! The reason why we act thus is because we think of God as if He were far off, while we can see the oppressor with our eyes and we can hear with our ears his threatening words. I want, at this time, to be the means in the hands of God of turning the thoughts of His people away from the distress of the present to the joy and comfort which, though more remote, ought to still be more powerful over the mind and heart because of the real intrinsic greatness.
I. And first I want to speak upon this point—that MANY FEARS WHICH ARE ENTERTAINED BY GOOD MEN AND WOMEN ARE REALLY GROUNDLESS.
“You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy…and where is the fury of the oppressor?” The probable meaning of this verse is that the oppressor never came, so that they never did feel the force of his fury and, in like manner, many of God’s people are constantly under apprehensions of calamities which will never occur to them—they suffer far more in merely dreading them than they would have to endure if they actually came upon them! In their imagination, there are rivers in their way and they are anxious to know how they shall wade through them, or swim across them. There are no such rivers in existence, but they are agitated and distressed about them. Our old proverb says, “Don’t cross the bridge till you come to it,” but these timid people are continually crossing bridges that only exist in their foolish fancies! They stab themselves with imaginary daggers, they starve themselves in imaginary famines and even bury themselves in imaginary graves! Such strange creatures are we that we probably smart more under blows which never fall upon us than we do under those which do actually come! The rod of God does not smite us as sharply as the rod of our own imagination does—our groundless fears are our chief tormentors and when we are enabled to abolish our self-inflictions, all the indications of the world become light enough. It is a pity, however, that any who are taught of God and who have had faith in Christ given to them, should fall into so
guilty and, at the same time, so painful a habit as this of fearing the oppressor who does not come and who never will come!
Some are much troubled by the fear of man. That is exactly the case mentioned in our text—“the fury of the oppressor.” He was a very oppressive man—hard, unfeeling, proud, strong, exacting—and they were afraid of him. In addition to this, he must have been a person of impetuous temper, one with whom you could not reason and so passionate that they were not merely afraid of the oppressor, but of “the fury of the oppressor.” He is the kind of person whom you do not know how to meet or how to escape from. If you flee from him, he will pursue you in his fury. If you remain quiet, your patience will not make him quiet—and if you resist him, his fury will be so much the greater. That appears to have been the character of the oppressor feared by those with whom the Lord was at that time reasoning. And we have known Believers who have been afraid of what such-and-such a powerful man might do if they acted as their conscience told them they ought to act. He would turn them out of their farm, or they could lose his business from their shop.