Part 2 (1/2)

The third stage in the prophet's experience is the readiness for service which springs up in his purged heart. G.o.d seeks for volunteers.

There are no pressed men in His army. The previous experiences made Isaiah quick to hear G.o.d's call, and willing to respond to it by personal consecration. Take the motive-power of redemption from sin out of Christianity, and you break its mainspring, so that the clock will only tick when it is shaken. It is the Christ who died for our sins to whom men say, 'Command what Thou wilt, and I obey.'

III. The prophet's commission.--He was not sent on his work with any illusions as to its success, but, on the contrary, he had a clear premonition that its effect would be to deepen the spiritual deafness and blindness of the nation. We must remember that in Scripture the certain effect of divine acts is uniformly regarded as a divine design.

Israel was so sunk in spiritual deadness that the issue of the prophet's work would only be to immerse the ma.s.s of 'this people'

farther in it. To some more susceptible souls his message would be a true divine voice, rousing them like a trumpet, and that effect was what G.o.d desired; but to the greater number it would deepen their torpor and increase their condemnation. If men love darkness rather than light, the coming of the light works only judgment.

Isaiah recoils from the dreary prospect, and feels that this dreadful hardening cannot be G.o.d's ultimate purpose for the nation. So he humbly and wistfully asks how long it is to last. The answer is twofold, heavy with a weight of apparently utter ruin in its first part, but disclosing a faint, far-off gleam of hope on its second. Complete destruction, and the casting of Israel out from the land, are to come.

But as, though a goodly tree is felled, a stump remains which has vital force (or _substance_) in it, so, even in the utmost apparent desperateness of Israel's state, there will be in it 'the holy seed,'

the 'remnant,' the true Israel, from which again the life shall spring, and stem and branches and waving foliage once more grow up.

THE EMPTY THRONE FILLED

'In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.'--ISAIAH vi. 1.

Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of which he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in war, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later years of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a time of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of five-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were gathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder that the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself what was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands, which, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he took his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he brooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. 'In the year that King Uzziah died' is a great deal more than a date for chronological purposes. It tells us not only the _when_, but the _why_, of the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet saw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart, and the resolve 'Here am I; send me.' There are some lessons that seem to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of time that is appended to it.

Now, before I pa.s.s on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently audacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John gives us: 'These things said Esaias, when he had beheld _His_ glory and spake of _Him_.' Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the revelation of an eternal reality, and 'the vision splendid' does not 'fade but brightens, into the light of common day'; when instead of being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and walks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fas.h.i.+on, than ever Isaiah did amid the sanct.i.ties of the Temple. And the eyes that have seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of men, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm, silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand out, and the veil is drawn aside?

I. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow in preparing for the vision.

It was when 'King Uzziah died' that the prophet 'saw the Lord sitting upon the throne.' If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would not have seen the throned G.o.d in the heavens. And so it is with all our losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned G.o.d. The possession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which our sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest purpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every gladness, of all love--the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But, just as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the sight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things which are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, G.o.d, we frost and darken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us.

And then a mighty and merciful hand s.h.i.+vers the painted gla.s.s into fragments, because it has been dimming 'the white radiance of Eternity.' And though the cas.e.m.e.nt may look gaunt, and the edges of the broken gla.s.s may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the gifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon G.o.d. When Uzziah dies the King becomes visible.

Is that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us?

Well for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession of the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the pa.s.sing of all that can pa.s.s is a means of revealing Him who 'is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'! The message to us of all these our pains and griefs is 'Come up hither.' In them all our Father is saying to us, 'Seek ye My face.' Well for those who answer, 'Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not Thy face far from me.'

Let us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us 'the things that are,' the realities of the throned G.o.d, the skirts that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the altar that purges.

II. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given for all losses.

As I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by this vision was not only the general one, of G.o.d's sovereign rule, but the special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the orphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special shape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was dead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.

So there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the consciousness of G.o.d's presence and work for us takes in each heart the precise shape that its momentary necessities and circ.u.mstances require.

That infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will a.s.sume any form for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature call. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think underlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether they be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or gravitation, the one same vision of the throned G.o.d, manifest in Jesus Christ, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there flashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together, there as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in motion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one G.o.d will become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires.

He shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to each man as each man desired. And the G.o.d, who comes to us all, comes to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the manifestation of His _kingly_ power, because the throne of Judah was vacated.

So when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, 'The same is my mother and sister and brother,' and His sweet love compensates for the love that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our anodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all, and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each in Him.

So, dear friends, let us learn G.o.d's purpose in emptying hearts and chairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself.

He takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the south are to-day pa.s.sing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may bring us out into the land where 'G.o.d Himself is sun and moon,' and where there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these lands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall see the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all from whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old word is true: 'Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'