Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3432
“The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.” Isaiah 9:7.
BEYOND all controversy, this is a most remarkable text. Zeal is an attribute which is attributable to man—we do not often think or speak of the zeal of the Lord of Hosts! At first sight, it might seem to be a misplaced word—God’s zeal, the Divine arm, the fervency of the Infinite. Yet, if we think a little as we commune together tonight, I do not doubt but that much of comfort will cluster round the word, “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts.” When I turn to Holy Writ, I do not find that, in connection with the Creation, the word, zeal, was ever used—and yet it was a glorious work, to make ten thousand, thousand worlds, to fill space with ponderous orbs, before whose dimensions human imagination, itself, is staggered! It was no small work to make this world, with all its varieties of skill and art, adaptation and beauty. The morning stars might well sing together at the sight of it, and burst forth into a new hymn, as the light first shone upon this, our planet. But the Lord seems to have done it much at His ease. In six days He finished it and rested from all His work. No element of hardness, no token of zeal! Indeed, what is there in the mere creative act to awaken those marvelous attributes which dwell in the bosom of the Infinite Jehovah? Wisdom? Why, it is but the play of wisdom! Power? It was but a mere freak of power. There is such boundless power in God, that all that He has created is but a drop in the bucket, and as a very little thing, compared with Him! Nor, if I remember rightly, does the idea ever come up in connection with the sustaining of worlds and the guiding of the events of Providence. It is true, He calls them all by their names, and by the greatness of His power, not one fails. Arcturus with his sons, Mazzaroth in his season, the Pleiades in their delightful influences—all these are swayed and governed by Him! But we find not that He was awakened up to zeal at all concerning them. And in the wonders of Providence which have been worked upon earth, it is remarkable how gently, how easily Jehovah seems to take them! Look at that splendid work at the Red Sea—a work which God, Himself, seems to have selected as a masterpiece of His skill and of His power, for even in Heaven they sing the Song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb—that song, “Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.” But how did He accomplish that stupendous work? “You did blow with Your wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in her mighty waters.” No enthusiasm, no stirring up of strength—just the tender breath of His mouth and it is all done—and the chivalry of Egypt sinks into the middle of the sea! Nor when I hear of angels being formed of the Lord, whenever that event may have taken place, do I hear of anything like the zeal of the Lord in connection therewith. Nor even the creation of Adam, when He took the man and placed him in the garden to till it. I pray I may use no expression which will dishonor the Most High, yet when we speak of Him, we are obliged to use language according to the analogies of human kind. It seems to me that when God created mere materialism, there was nothing to excite the Divine mind beyond a mere complacency when He looked upon it and said, “It was very good.” And when He created pure spirits that were incapable of singing such as angels, He rejoiced to see their happiness, but inasmuch as they could not have communion with Him, being so good as not to know good or evil, His soul does not seem to have been stirred. But He desired, if I may use such language concerning Him, to have a race of beings surrounding Him who should know both good and evil, who should know evil by having practically fallen into it, having so smarted under it as to know it to be evil in a practical and experimental sense—a race of creatures who should, from henceforth, never choose evil, who should voluntarily choose that which is good forever and forever because they should be so bound to Him, the source of all goodness, by an overwhelming obligation of love, that while they know evil, they shall bewail it—while they understand what it is to sin, they shall never, throughout eternity, either in thought or imagination, defile themselves with sin, but shall remain immaculately perfect through the constraint of a love which He shall reveal toward them, which shall be sufficient to wash their robes and make them white, world without end! It seems to me that He desired to have a race of creatures that should not be like angels or a race of creatures apart from Himself—but a race that should be His sons, that should be mysterious and wonderful—and His plan was this, that Jesus, His only Son, should come into this world and take upon Himself the flesh and nature of fallen creatures, that in that flesh He should die and put away the guilt of all their sin, and that by His flesh, when risen, He should establish a link between them and God, so that there should be nothing between God and man. God blessed first forever, and then Jesus, the Man, positively and really a Man, clinging by His Manhood through His Godhead to those chosen creatures whom He should have purified and made clean, who should forever exist, the children of God, partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust. It is not for me—it is not for anyoneto strike out the Divine idea and say this is what God meant and intended, but we have enough of Scripture to let us say that this was a part of His aim, at any rate, that in Jesus Christ there should be a race of creatures distinct from all others, because actually alive with the Deity—creatures who, to use the expression of the serpent, should “be as gods, knowing good and evil,” and be as gods always and forever, preferring the good, though they have tasted the evil, and might have chosen it, but were constrained by Divine Grace to bewail it and, henceforth, to keep close to God, world without end!
Now, Brothers and Sisters, it was such a plan as this that awoke the zeal of God! This was what could not have been done by mere power, but must bring forth all the attributes of God—the work that had to be achieved here was worthy of a great Creator—it was a work which would reveal the Deity as no other work had ever done and, therefore, if I may use the expression (I have often to excuse myself, not to you, but to Him), He seems to brace Himself up to a display of all the Divine Energy and Almighty Omnipotence, to accomplish His purpose, to carry out His plan and make Jesus the King of a chosen company! “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform this.”