Studies in Isaiah - Part 5 — Harry Ironside

Not the crucifix, but the man that died, the son of God. Yes, he died for sinners. He died for you. And if you look to him in faith, he'll take you through to heaven. Oh, yes, that I never understood before.

And in a moment or two he closed his eyes and he was gone. Mr. Parker said, I put the crucifix back in his breath. I knew it couldn't do him any harm now. And he said to me, you know, and he's telling me about it, his face is just radiant, he's such a dear old thing.

He said, I knew that God thinks so much of the work of his son, he'll have everybody in heaven who'll give him the least excuse for getting them there. Because they'll be there to their praise and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Israel’s Future Restoration and the Call to Sing

Well, we never could get through a chapter like this, but I've just briefly gone over it. And now, will you notice the first word of the next chapter? Have you ever noticed it before? After all the darkness and the gloom and the suffering and the sorrow of the cross, you see what the first word of the next chapter is?

What is it? Sing! Yes. Oh, after all that Jesus has done. Sing! It's the Spirit of God calling upon people to rejoice. And here, of course, is directly addressed to the remnant of Israel in the last day.

Sing, O barren, how the bids not bear. Then he goes on to picture Israel turning to the Lord in that day and being used of God to bring a great multitude of Gentiles so that the desolate of more children than the married wife has been set aside for so long.

And the marriage hasn't yet taken place, she hasn't yet been united to her bridegroom, as she will be when gathered back to the land. But still God uses that remnant to bring a great host to the Lord in that coming day.

And all who ever save, both in millennial days and now, will be saved through the work of Isaiah 53. Now, the latter part of that chapter is a precious portion I'd like my wife to read. I wish I could carry it all, my memory.

Do you know, I think I've got a wonderful memory to work for me.

Genesis verse 4. Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed, neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame. For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.

For thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth when thou wast a few, saith thy God.

For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.

For this was as the waters of Noah unto me, for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be rocked with thee, nor adrift thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my family shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.

God’s Covenant Promises to Israel

What a wonderful promise this is. Remember, this is God's word to Israel. You know, we Christians are such thieves. We steal so many things that belong to Israel and try to apply them to ourselves. I don't know whether your Bible is like one I used to have.

I think mine was a Baxter Bible, and at the head of so many of these chapters in Isaiah, it would say, Curses on the Jews. Punishments on the Jews. Judgments on the Jews. And then when it came to the other side, it would say, Blessings of the Church.

Glory to the Church. All the judgment passages were definitely applied to the Jews, but all the glory passages were applied to the Church. But this passage refers to the day of Israel's blessings, and God is going to bring them back to us.

He'll not keep his fury forever. As the waters of Noah... He says, This shall be as the waters of Noah unto me. For he promised that never again should the earth be destroyed with a flood, just as truly he has promised that this nation Israel shall never be utterly destroyed, that someday a remnant will be saved, and that will become a great nation, and Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the whole earth with fruit.

Isaiah 55 and the Free Offer of Grace

Well, then we come to the next chapter, and again it begins with an interesting word. Do you notice what that word is? What is it? Ho! Ho! Yes. It's a call to other people. My old associate, Dr. Porter, used to preach a great sermon on this, I always thought.

I heard him do it three times on it. And he took that ho as hello. Ho! He would always read it that way. He said, This is a telephone chapter. It's a call to us. Send a message all over, calling people to hear.

Ho! Every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. He that hath no money, come! Buy wine and milk without money and without price. Tell me there's no grace in the Old Testament. Oh, this is pure grace.

Without money and without price. And it goes on, inviting people to come and receive the gospel message and believe it. And it's a call to the nation of Israel to put themselves in the place where then they appropriate the blessing which God has for them.

And it's here, and the nations, too, are invited to join with them in it. And so the word comes, Seek ye the Lord while ye may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

And let him return unto the Lord, and ye'll have mercy upon him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. And so the chapter goes on to show how ready God is to take up those who turn to him in confession of sin and trust his love.

First say, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, though your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not silver but water into earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may be its seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.

It shall not return unto me, God, but it shall accomplish that which I fear, and it shall prosper into things whereto I think it. For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into things, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands, and instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord by name, for everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

The Effectiveness of God’s Word

What a wonderful passage this is. No wonder my friend, the Cambridge man, said of Isaiah, how that fellow can swing the language. How beautiful Isaiah's periods are. How his own soul must have been stirred as he gave forth his proclamation.

And what an encouragement it should be for every servant of Christ to remember that God has declared that his word will accomplish that of which he has said it. You know, we sometimes may preach and we get a little bit discouraged and think maybe we're just talking, as it were, against a brazen wall, but God's word is never going to return to him void.

So the prophetic word is going to have a complete fulfillment in God's due time. Remember when the Ethiopian treasurer of Queen Candace was traveling down the Gaza road on his way back to Ethiopia from Jerusalem, he was reading in the book of Isaiah when Philip came, and he was reading this very passage, reading it in the Septuagint version.

That, of course, accounts for the slight difference of wording. He was reading it in the Greek version. And when Philip went to the chariot where he was reading, evidently heard to, evidently he was one of these men who have to read aloud.

Poor readers always move their lips when they read or read aloud. Good readers read the paragraph. They don't read word after word. And I'm so thankful that I was a good reader when I had some eyes, because if I hadn't, I don't know why I do today.

And I hope you'll cultivate the habit, as far as you can, of reading paragraphically. Don't just try to read word by word. You'll never get through. But grasp, look at the whole paragraph and get to then pass on to the next one.

That's the proper way to read. I'm going to stop here today, though it's not the end of the section. The section goes on to the end of chapter 57. But we have just three more class hours, and so that leaves us nine chapters with three more hours.

And then you'll have examination on Friday afternoon. And let me say, in view of the examination, that I don't want you to think I'm going to put any catch questions or anything like that, but I hope you'll have some of the outstanding things in mind that we've drawn attention to, like the structure of the book in its three great sections.

You know, you want to get that clearly in mind. And the number of chapters in each section. And then the divisions of the third section in chapter 40 to 48, and 49 to 57, and what they deal with. We've taken up all that.

And try and get fixed in your mind some of these great Messianic prophecies. Well, probably they are fixed there already. I'm sure that when the time comes you'll not have any difficulty in handling the examination.

Prophecy Must Shape Present Christian Living

With time permits, and I rather feel sure it will, I want to try to cover synopsically chapters 56, 57, 58, 59. Chapters 56 and 57 are the concluding chapters of the present section, which gives us God's controversy with Israel concerning their Messiah.

That section, as we've already seen, runs from chapter 49 through 57. But then the two following chapters, 58 and 59, are the very similar characters to the last two chapters of this section, though they introduce a third section in the last part of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.

These chapters don't require a great deal in the way of perhaps careful comment on an occasion such as this, because they're of such an exceedingly practical nature. Sometimes, however, we're inclined to look carelessly over a portion like this, our attention is more likely to be focused upon the passages that speak of great events that are to take place in the future, or maybe some of God's dealings with his people in the past.

But as we mentioned the other day, the great object of prophetic ministry is not simply to occupy people with coming events, but it is to bring the truths of the future to so press upon the conscience now as to enable God's people to live now in the light of the predicted future.

It was so with Israel of old, and it is so with us in this church age. You often find a great many people who have an intellectual interest in prophecy, and if you're giving a series of prophetic messages, they'll flock to your meetings and they're all eager to hear, and all that kind of thing.

Well, of course, prophetic messages are very important. I think any minister loses out a great deal who fails to give attention to the prophetic parts of the word of God. Don't think that so many professed Christians would be lost to orthodoxy if saved preachers, I use the term saved because there are lots of unsaved preachers, you know, but if saved preachers gave more attention to the prophetic word, people go up into these other systems because they're hungry to know.

There's a certain curiosity in regards to the future, and that's how the voice of prophecy appeals to so many people who hear it over the air. A lot of people don't even know that the voice of prophecy is the radio department of seven-day Adventism.

They listen to what comes over the air and it sounds pretty good to them, and they get especially thrilled if it has to do with an attempt to open up the future. Then, of course, the way that they really get hold of people is by suggesting now that you write in and take one of our Bible study courses, and people are impressed by the radio messages of prophecy, and so they write in and start in with the Bible study courses, and soon they're right into all the teaching of seven-day Adventism.

They never announce over the air that this is seven-day Adventist propaganda. They keep that hidden as closely as they can, and it's not until people get pretty well on in the Bible courses that they begin to see what it really is.

But thousands of people all over this country have swept into seven-day Adventism annually just because of a certain interest in prophecy. And if they had been properly instructed in their own churches, they wouldn't have been in the same danger of being carried away.

Jehovah's Witnesses work in the same principle. They try to hide their real views until they get people taking some of their courses and their teachers visiting from house to house, and then folk little by little get into it, and they have a great program for the future, which they begin opening up, and people who don't know their Bibles readily fall.

If they had been properly instructed in the word of God, in the prophetic word, they wouldn't be carried off into things of that kind. Imagine anyone who really had sat under a godly minister who opened up the truth as to the second coming of the Lord, particularly in its two aspects, ever being carried away by the ridiculous teaching of Pastor Ruckels, so-called, and Judge Rutherford, in that the Lord has already come and has been here now since 1874, but is only manifesting himself to those of special spirituality.

And if the millennium began in 1914, we're already in a wonderful millennium, isn't it? And so on. Kind of really began with a new deal, I guess. But who would be carried away by beggaries like that who have been well-instructed in clear Bible teaching of prophecy?

Now, but on the other hand, when one is teaching prophecy, it's thought that he should incorporate with every message something of an intensely practical character, because people get carried away with the glowing pictures of the future and the visions and so on set forth in prophecies like Daniel and Revelation, and they can be very careless and indifferent as to their lives.

I remember going to a certain place where I'd been asked to give some addresses, and the minister sitting beside me mentioned to me while they were singing, a certain man came in, he said, Now there is one of the most godless men in our community, and yet he's always on hand at anyone's lecturing on prophecy.

He's so anxious, he's so interested in finding out all about prophecy. So sure enough, when I got through preaching, he came right up to me, Well, I'm glad to know that you hold a second column. He says, I hold that too.

I said, Do you? Does it hold you? He said, What do you mean? Well, I said, You know, it's one thing to hold the second column, it's quite another thing to be held by it. The word says every man that hath this hope set on him purifies himself even as he is pure.

Does it have that purifying effect in your heart and life? He says, Who's been talking to you about me? Something is wrong. So there's lots of people, you know, they want to know all about the horns of Daniel and the beasts of Revelation, but they don't want you to probe their consciences.

Isaiah 56 and Practical Righteousness

But now you get prophetic ministry in a sharper proportion in a book like this book of Isaiah. We've already seen how again and again, after giving us pictures of the future, the prophet comes down to the actual condition of the people at the time when he was speaking.

So now if we turn to chapter 56, he begins a very practical section, points out the importance of living in a godly way in the then present, and also that in the future it is as the nations learn to seek after righteousness that the blessing of the kingdom is going to be theirs.

This 56th chapter, what's the first verse of it? Just come to my mind.

I say to you, Lord, keep your judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near to come and my righteousness to be revealed.

That gives just exactly the principle, you see, I've been trying to lay down. Keep righteousness, do justice, because these things are soon to take place. In other words, live now in the light of them.

Then he goes on to show that no one need fail of the coming blessing if he is sincere in turning to God. Certain ones were prohibited from having any part in the services of the Lord in the Old Testament times.

A eunuch could not have any part in the priesthood, and the stranger had no place there. But in the future, no matter what one's physical condition or what one's nationality, if there's earnest purpose of heart to seek the Lord and to do the will of God, you'll have the same place in the kingdom that anyone else can have.

It'll be open for everybody. And so this chapter emphasizes, as you go on through it, the importance of practical righteousness. Did we select a verse or two I want to read in the latter part?

Also, the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone that keepeth his Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their great offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar, for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

These are the words you'll remember referred to by the Lord Jesus Christ when he drove the money changers out of the temple. He said, it's written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people, but ye have made it a den of thieves.

And so he gives us the key to the practical application of this passage. It was God's word to Israel, that he was assuring the Gentiles that they too might come into blessings if they would seek his face and take hold of the covenant.

The covenant, of course, of which they were to take hold was the Abrahamic covenant, in thee and in thy feet shall all nations. The observance of the Sabbath, as long as the Jewish dispensation lasted, and I take it in the days of the coming great tribulation and on into the millennium, the observance of the Sabbath would be the outward sign of allegiance to the Lord.

It would be the recognition of his authority. We today do not recognize the Jewish Sabbath. Why? Well, because it was part of that law which was done away for us in the cross of Christ. The Lord took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

And so the word says, let no man therefore judge you of meat or drink or respective and holy days or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. The light of God of old was shining upon Christ, and Christ cast his shadow before his face.

And the Sabbath was one aspect of this shadow. Rest at the end of a six-day period of labor. The Lord Jesus was the glorious fulfillment when he said, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The Lord’s Day and Christian Freedom

Now we have, instead of the Jewish Sabbath, the Lord's day. I know that there are some who object to applying the term the Lord's day to the first day of the week, where John in Revelation says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.

They insist that the Lord's day and the day of the Lord are one and the same thing. And we might think so. We might take it for granted that the two expressions mean the same. The day of the Lord, the Lord's day.

Well, if we translate it, perhaps that would be so. But the term Lord's, as many of you know, is not the possessive case there. It's not the Lord's day, but it's an adjective formed from the word for Lord.

It's the Lord, because you have an adjective formed from the word Christ. It's a Christian church or a Christian atmosphere and so on. So here, if you tried to make an English word out of it, you'd have to say Lordian.

Some have translated it Lordly, but I don't think that gives the thought. That suggests that it's the superior day to other days. But I don't think that's it. It's the Lordian day. It's the day that brings before us the resurrection of our blessed Lord from the dead.

Another thing is being equal. I take it for granted that the early Christians knew better what some of those cryptic expressions meant that are used in the book of Revelation than we might know in the 20th century if it came to us as something new.

And all down through the centuries, from the earliest days, the first day of the week was recognized by Christians as the Lord day, the Lordian day. In fact, the only name for it that the Greeks have is Piraeus, the Lord's day.

The Latins call it the Dominical day, the Lord's day, just the same thing. And it's been so known down through the centuries. You just take today, if you speak of the chair of the president and the president's chair, the two expressions mean the same thing.

If, for instance, we were in the White House and we're looking at the furniture there and the guy says, that is the president's chair, or that is the chair of the president, it would mean the same thing.

But if we speak of the presidential chair, then it's something altogether different. It's not a piece of furniture at all, you see. And so if you speak of the day of the Lord or the Lord, that means the same thing.

It's something different. The Christian church from the very beginning has kept, and gets this voluntarily, of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's the very voluntariness of it that gives it value in the sight of the Lord.

For instance, now, one of you has a birthday, we'll say, and some loving friend gives you a birthday present. Well, what gives that special value to you? What gives that special value in your life? Because it was the result of the kindly thought of that friend.

If you wrote to that friend and said, on such and such a date, I'm going to have a birthday and I'll expect a present from you, well, it would lose all its value, you see. And so the seven-day Adventists challenge us and say, show us a commandment in the New Testament telling you to observe the first day of the week.

We say, there's no such commandment. We're under grace, not law. Well, then why do you do it? Because of the gratitude of our hearts for the Lord Jesus, who rose from the dead on the first day of the week.

And we find in the first day of the week is given a special place in the Book of the Acts and in the First Epistle to Corinthians, and always have that special place from the beginning of Christianity to the present time.

And just as Israel of old, by their recognition of the Sabbath, manifested their love for Jehovah, their reverence for his name, so we, by the observance of the Lord's Day, manifest the same thing. I think we as Christians should be very careful about the use of the Lord's Day and should never allow ourselves to treat it just as a common day and be indifferent to its claims.

Because suppose that we're taken away from it. Suppose that this country ever became like Russia and that every day was a secular day and there were no special privileges such as we now enjoy. How we would miss them and how bitterly we would rue the memory of ever having treated that day in a careless kind of a manner.

So I think we get a spiritual lesson out of this for us, but for Israel of old it was absolutely literal. We're told that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

By redemption of the law through the body of Christ, yet every righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled in us as we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, was there anything else in that chapter especially wanted?

No, we didn't want the warning to please the Lord's Father.

Well, we haven't any fooling here, so we don't need to answer that. Now, the 57th chapter begins with a word of comfort for those who, while seeking to be faithful to the Lord, suffer at the hands of others even unto death.

Comfort for the Righteous Who Die

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men are taken away. None, considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come, reach the latter into peace. They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his own uprightness.

See, there's always a danger of thinking that those who die before the fulfillment of promises of future blessings have lost out. The Thessalonians had the same thought. They were concerned because some of their number had died before the second coming of Christ.

And so Paul wrote and said, I would not have you to be eaten in, brethren, concerning them which are sweet, that you sorrow not, even as others have no hope. They went on to show that they were going to have their part in the rapture with the rest, and would share in the kingdom when the Lord Jesus Christ descended to take the kingdom.

And so here, those in Israel would think, well, the promises are for the future, and one after another they're dying, and they're not going to enter into it. And then times of persecution would arise, and many would be put to death.

And they would feel, well, now they've lost out. They won't be here for the kingdom at all. Why, he says, the righteous are taken away from the evil to come. And though they're taken away from here, God has provided something for them.

And everyone shall rest in his uprightness before God, and have their place of blessing, so that after all one doesn't need to grieve for those who have gone, because they're under the care of the blessed Lord that's gone home to be with him.

Then in that chapter he goes on to stress the importance of godliness, as we'll see.

In verse 15 of chapter 57, for thus says the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite one.

I suppose you've all noticed that this is the only place in our English version where we get the word eternity. There are, of course, the Hebrew word that's here rendered eternity is found in many other places.

But this is the only place, for some reason, I don't know why, where our translators have used the word eternity. Thus says the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, that inhabits the ages. In the 90th Psalm we'll read from everlasting to everlasting.

And they might have rendered it from eternity to eternity, thou art God. But here we have the word standing out, clear and definite. Thus says the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, God dwells in all the ages.

And that's what eternity is. Eternity is a succession of ages. Sometimes preachers, in trying to picture eternity, they speak of it as an unchanging period. Well, in one sense that's true. You know, they use the expression found in the 10th chapter of Revelation, time shall be no more.

And they think of time as embracing the ages through which mankind goes here on earth. And then, when at last one leaves this world, or the ages of time expire, then we go out into eternity where there are no more ages.

But that isn't true. There were ages past before this world came into existence. There have been the ages of time since. There will be the age of the ages and ages of ages throughout the great decade.

It's just one great age unfolding after another, manifesting in connection with the wisdom and the grace and the love and the power of a wonderful God. And he inhabits the God of eternity in the heart of him that's humble and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at the word of God.

And that's why we should be born to exercise people before God. Even today, as we preach the truth and the coming of the Lord for his church, we lead to the question, am I saying such a thing, to get into things that would be terribly before the first country giving prophetic lectures.

And he had a number of charts that he used to unfold the dispensation. And it happened that his lectures attracted so much attention that the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, who was really, in spite of many of his idiosyncrasies, quite a Bible student, you know, and in fact used to preach in the palace chapel on many occasions when some chaplain wasn't there to take the service.

And so Kaiser Wilhelm invited Professor Straker to come to his palace. Don't remember which one, when it popped them at Berlin. But to come to his palace and give him an idea of what this propaganda was that he was engaged in.

And so Professor Straker came and the Kaiser took him into his library and Professor Straker brought a roll of his charts with him. And he spread them out on the library table. And the Kaiser followed him.

They were interested. He pointed out the various things from then on to the coming of the Lord, the kingdom, and so on. And after quite a lengthy, lengthy conversation, the Kaiser suddenly said, well, now let me see, Professor.

Do I get you all right? Do you mean to say that Jesus Christ is coming back literally and that when he comes back all the kingdoms of the world are going to be destroyed and he's going to set up his kingdom or the ruins of them all?

Professor Straker said, exactly, your majesty. You've got my thought exactly. Who knows of the Kaiser? I can't have that. Why, that would interfere with all my plans. Professor Straker published the account of that interview after that his plans in a good way interfered with, you know.

There's a lot of people who, if they were honest, would have to say the coming of the Lord would interfere with all my plans. But if we're walking with God as we should be, if we're of a calm, frank heart and we tremble at the word, then we'll be in that attitude of soul where we can welcome the return of the blessed Lord.

For as I have practiced the importance of this spirit of waiting and readiness upon the people of his grace, then the next, nothing further there that I wanted to emphasize, was it? If that's all right, to bring before us certain passages that give outstanding thoughts and the rest you can easily go over for yourselves, sit in.

This is certainly a perception that there is no peace there. Oh yes, that concludes.

That section of the chapters from 49 to 57. God's Controversy with Israel Concerning the Messiah. I hope you've got those two sections clearly in your mind. From 40 to 48, we have God's Controversy with Israel Regarding Idolatry.

And that ends with There's No Peace Set Jehovah to the Wicked. Then, chapters 49 to 57, God's Controversy with Israel Concerning the Messiah. And that ends with There's No Peace Set My God to the Wicked.

That concludes chapter 57. Now, the next chapter begins the last section of this book. From chapter 58 through 66, we have, in the main, visions of the coming glory. The prophets setting before us the wonderful things that are going to take place at the coming of the Lord.

But in the introductory chapters, we still dwell on practical things. A call to the nation, to heed the voice of God and get right with Him, in order that judgment may be averted and blessing may be assured.

Isaiah 58 and the Meaning of True Fasting

And so, chapter 58 commences with the words, Cry Aloud. And the great thing that he stresses is there must be observance of ritual and ceremony when the heart was far from God. He takes up particularly the question of fasting.

Now, they had a great number of fasts, which they observed very conciliously. There was a definite fast set forth in Leviticus 23, connection with the appointed times of the Lord. But in addition to these, they had brought in other things, and added other fasts.

But, they were just, I'm going to have you read me, I'm sorry if you have time out, they were resting on the fact that they abstained from food and abstained from drink. For certain hours, for certain days, taking it for granted that this was the thing that pleased God.