Waters Which do not Drown and Flames which do not Burn

Next Part Waters Which do not Drown and Flames which do not Burn 2

But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you– "O Israel, Fear not; for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." Isaiah 43:1, 2

But now, O Israel, the Lord who created you says: "Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. Isaiah 43:1-2

The promises are strewn thickly through the pages of God's inspired word– as thickly, and, viewed by a spiritual eye, more gloriously than the stars which stud the midnight sky. These promises, so countless in number, so glorious in nature, are more certain in the fulfillment than the very rising or setting of those heavenly orbs; for their full accomplishment rests not on fixed laws of creation, but on what is more stable than creation itself, even the eternal counsel, determinate will, and unchangeable faithfulness of the Almighty Promiser. The goodness of man, the unworthiness of the creature, no more hasten and no more arrest their fulfillment than they do the course of the stars or the movement of the sun. Were it so, not one of these promises could ever have its due fulfillment, for their basis would be as fleeting as a summer cloud. Did they rest in any measure upon such a contingency as the obedience of man, every promise that God has given must fall to the ground unaccomplished, for fallen man is inherently incapable of rendering a pure obedience, and no other is available or acceptable. But, resting as they do upon the faithfulness of an unchanging and unchangeable Jehovah, his very glory is concerned in their complete accomplishment.

But, apart from the question of their fulfillment, there are two things declared by the Holy Spirit of the promises generally, which are as important as they are blessed.

1. He says of them, by the pen of Paul, that "all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." (2 Cor. 1:20.) That is, all the promises are so ratified and established in the Son of his love; if I may use the expression, they are all so lodged by the will of God in the hands and heart of Christ, that they can no more fall out of his hands and heart than Christ himself can fall from his mediatorial throne. The promises can only cease to be fulfilled when Christ ceases to be the fulfiller, for he lives at the right hand of the Father to carry into accomplishment every promise recorded in the pages of inspired truth.

2. The second thing said of them is– "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises– that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:4.) Thus the promises provide for our sanctification as well as for our salvation; for when applied to the heart by the power of God, they instrumentally raise up a new and divine nature, and thus deliver us from the power and prevalence of those worldly lusts in which thousands live in present corruption, and die in everlasting perdition.

We have in the words before us a cluster of blessed promises made to Jacob and to Israel. But the question at once arises, Whom are we to understand by Jacob and Israel here? To elucidate this question, we must bear in mind that there is an Israel after the flesh, and an Israel after the spirit. Now Israel after the flesh, that is, the lineal descendants of Abraham, in the first instance inherited the promises, as the apostle declares– "To whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises?" (Rom. 9:4.) But these privileges they forfeited by rejecting the Son of God, for in rejecting him they cast away the promises made in and by him. Thus "they were broken off" as the apostle says in the same epistle, "because of unbelief." (Rom. 11:20.) They were once a good olive tree and stood in the garden of the Lord, bearing fruit to his praise; but they rejected the Son of God, for when he came unto his own, his own received him not (John 1:11); and therefore God for a time, for his rejection of them is not final, broke off the natural branches, and grafted into the stock the Gentiles, the believing Gentiles, that they might partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree. (Rom. 11:17, 18.) In this way, Israel after the spirit, that is, the election of grace among the Gentiles, passed into the place of Israel after the flesh. And it is for this reason that the promises of old addressed to Israel and Jacob now belong to the believing church of God; for the Gentile church has passed by grace and faith into that state before God out of which the Jewish Church passed by her unbelief and her rejection of the Lord of life and glory.

It is, then, to believing Jacob– it is to spiritual Israel– in other words, the living family of God, that the Lord the Spirit addresses those comforting and encouraging promises in our text, which he prefaces by the words which so often drop in the Scriptures– from his heart and mouth– "Fear not." Knowing how subject Israel is to fears; how weak and helpless she is, and how when the Lord is not present to sustain her footsteps, she falls into doubts, as a child falls into the road when the mother lets go her hand, he bids her "Fear not," that she may be encouraged to look up in faith and hope that he will never leave or forsake her, but still be with her even to the end.

But you will find all through the word of God– and our text is no exception– that the promises are usually adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the saints of God– that they are not, so to speak, cast before them without any discrimination; not tossed down at their feet heedlessly and carelessly, as grain is scattered in a field; but are addressed to them for the most part as passing through affliction and trial– as being in circumstances that need the promise, and require that help which it holds forth and gives. Thus, in our text, when the Lord has spoken to Jacob and to Israel, and bade them "fear not," he adds– "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you– when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you."

In opening up the words before us, I shall, with God's blessing–

I. First, endeavor to show the broad basis, the strong foundation upon which the promises rest, which is in the Lord having done four things on behalf of his people–
1, He has created them;
2, He has redeemed them;
3, He has called them;
4, He has taken possession of them– the last being implied by the words– "You are mine." And because he has done these things for them, he virtually engages that he will be with them when they pass through flood and fire.

II. Secondly, the state, case, and condition of mind to which those promises are spoken, and to which they are so eminently adapted, which is, when Israel has to pass through the waters and wade through the rivers; when she has to walk through the fire, and to be encompassed with the flame.

III. Thirdly, the gracious promises which the Lord makes to Israel in these circumstances of distress and peril– that in passing through the waters he will be with her; as she goes through the rivers, they shall not overflow her; when she walks through the fire, she shall not be burned; and when surrounded by the flame, it shall not kindle upon her.

I. The strong foundation upon which the promises rest. The Lord does not give his promises in a promiscuous, indiscriminating way. He does not, if I may use the expression, throw them down for anybody to pick up; nor does he deal wantonly and heedlessly with these blessed treasures. But though he gives them, and that most lovingly and affectionately, yet it is only to those for whom he has designed them in his own eternal mind, and for whom he has done or intends to do a saving, sanctifying work.

A. He has CREATEDthem. Thus, before he gives the promise to Israel, the Lord lays a broad basis of interest in him by declaring that he has created him and formed him. He thus claims him as his peculiar property, as the express work of his creating hand. For who can have such a title to him as his own Creator? As he elsewhere speaks– "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise." (Isaiah. 43:21.) But this right of creation embraces various particulars.

1. God, in the operations of his Almighty hand, created both our body and soul; and holy writ tells us how he created both. In creating man's body, he formed it out of the dust of the ground. He gave it life, but he did not bestow upon it immortality. He made it capable of sin and death. But in creating man's soul, God breathed into it the breath of life, and thus made it an heir of immortality. Yet immunity from sin was no more given to the soul than to the body; though sin and the entrance of death by sin did not destroy the immortality that God gave it when he breathed into it the breath of life.

But in creating the soul immortal, how wonderfully has God formed it, and given it such qualities as to fit it for the eternal enjoyment of himself! What an understanding has he blessed it with– what affections he has given– what capacities of happiness– what powers of thought, reasoning, and expression– what faculties of admiration and adoration, which, when renewed by grace and developed, as they will be one day beyond all present conception, will be capable of apprehending and enjoying God in Christ in all his glorious perfections and eternal majesty.

How curiously, too, has he wrought our body! What consummate wisdom has he stamped upon every part of it! How wonderfully has he formed this earthly tabernacle that it may be a receptacle for our soul during its time state; and afterwards, when fully purified from the stain of corruption and perfectly conformed to the glorious body of the Lord Jesus, may be a fit companion for the immortal soul throughout the countless ages of eternity.

2. The time when, the place where, we came into being, were also ordained and arranged of God. In this sense he may be said to have "created" and "formed" us, by fixing the bounds of our habitation, giving us that station in society, and placing us exactly in that position of life which he saw were best adapted to our spiritual profit, most conducive to his own glory, and harmonizing most thoroughly with his own eternal good counsel. It is not by chance, then, that we are what we are as men and women. It was not blind fortune or casual accident which fixed your first birth, any more than that it was chance which fixed your second birth; so that what we are as present members of society, as occupying our various positions and stations in life, we are by divine appointment and in pursuance of the original design of him in "whom we live, and move, and have our being."

3. But the words "created and formed" have a deeper meaning than this. They have respect not merely to the body and soul which God gave us, and to our present position in life, but point also to our eternal standing in the Son of God's love.Christ is spoken of in Scripture as possessing a mystical body, of which he is the glorious Head, as the apostle speaks, "And not holding the Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God." (Col. 2:19.) Now every member of this mystical body has its appointed and determinate place in the mind of God, and is brought forth in time as he eternally designed it. I do not understand the words "creating" and "forming" here as referring so much to the work of regenerating grace, though I do not exclude that meaning, as to the mystical creation of the members of Christ, which "were written in his book and in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm. 139:16.) Thus the "substance" of Christ, that is, his mystical body, "was not hid" from the searching eye of God, when it was "made in secret," in the secret purposes of God, "and curiously wrought," that is, beautifully put together "in the lowest parts of the earth," as the place destined of God, where the members were successively to appear in their time state. (Psalm. 139:15.) As the covenant Head of his mystical body, the blessed Lord is represented as the Father's "daily delight, rejoicing always before him;" and "while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world," as "rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth, and his delight being with the sons of men." (Prov. 8:26-31.) There are "vessels of mercy which God has afore prepared unto glory" (Rom. ix. 23); and those were created and formed in the mind of God, as a potter forms in his mind the exact figure of the vessel, its size, shape, and use before he casts it on the wheel or moulds it, while lying there, with his fingers.

B. But the Lord also tells Israel that he has REDEEMEDas well as created her; and this has additionally engaged him to be upon her side forever and ever. This has made him a promise making and a promise keeping God; for it has engaged not only the love of his heart, but the faithfulness of his nature. But for the fall there would have been no promises; therefore no display of God's faithfulness in fulfilling them. The covenant of grace was made before the fall, but with a fore-view of it; and therefore all the promises made in the covenant regard man as a fallen sinner. Redemption was a part of the covenant; but the very meaning of the word points to a state of slavery and bondage. We were not created slaves. It is a state into which we sank through the Adam fall. Adam may be said literally to have sold himself to Satan; and for what? For an apple. He sold himself and all his posterity at that miserable price. He was tempted by Satan, through the instrumentality of his wife, to break the express command of God; and by that one act of willful, voluntary disobedience, "Brought death into the world, and all our woe;" and cast himself and us into a pit of misery and wretchedness, out of which we never would have come but for the blood shedding and obedience of the Son of God.

The Lord Jesus, we read, "loved the Church and gave himself for it." (Eph. 5:25.) But when did he begin to love it, if we may use such a word as 'begin' of love eternal? Surely before the fall. He saw her fall, as we might see a beloved wife fall into a river or from a window. So Jesus saw Adam fall into disobedience, and saw all the members of his mystical body ruined in the same dreadful crash. The abyss of sin and guilt, of misery and woe, of alienation and enmity, of separation and death, into which the Church at that moment sank, was not hidden from the eyes of the Son of God as he lay in his Father's bosom. He saw her wallowing in filth and guilt, under condemnation and wrath, and reduced to a state of hopelessness and helplessness of which we can form no adequate conception.

But this did not change the love of his heart. He loved her in the midst of, in spite of all her sin, filth, and folly. She never fell out of his heart; and this in due time he showed by coming into the world as her Redeemer to deliver her by his precious blood shedding and death from sin, death, hell, and despair. Though not only by original but by personal and actual sin, the Church was sunk into dreadful depths of guilt, yet he redeemed her, paid the full, the stipulated price for her– nothing less than his own life, his own blood; and by his sufferings and sorrows in the garden, and on the cross, by offering up in sacrifice his pure and spotless humanity, his holy body and soul, he redeemed her to God; he bought her back from death and hell, from sin and Satan, from the curse of the Law, and every pain and penalty which she had incurred as a trespasser and a transgressor, as a debtor and as a criminal. He washed away her sins in his most precious blood, worked out for her a robe of righteousness which he put upon her and in which she outshines the very angels, and will one day bring her with him in glory to astonish and judge a guilty world.

C. But the Lord adds also in the text that he had called her by her name;that is, he had specially and spiritually called her by his grace– had separated her by regenerating work upon her heart from a state of carnality and death. As God called Abraham to go out of Chaldea into a land which he knew not, so does he now call his people out of the world to a spiritual and experimental knowledge of himself as the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And this he intimates by the expression– "I have called you by your name;" for in calling her by her name, he had set upon her his own distinguishing mark. As a shepherd brands his sheep with the name of the owner, so when the Lord calls a soul by his grace, he puts his own mark upon it. Or as when a person calls us by our own name, it implies that he knows us and that we know him, so the Lord implies by the expression that he knows the Church with a knowledge of love and approbation.

D. The last stone, so to speak, laid in our text as a part of this strong foundation for all the promises to rest upon is, that he has taken possession of her; for he says "You are mine." Now this is the sweetest and most blessed declaration of all the four, for in it the Lord assures her that not only has he created and formed her, redeemed her, and called her by her name, but that, by manifesting himself to her soul, and revealing his love and blood to her heart, he has taken possession of her affections, and thus made her manifestly and eternally his; so that he can look down from heaven to earth, and say, "You are mine– mine by electing purpose; mine by redeeming love; mine by calling grace; and mine by possessing power. It is as when the bridegroom after a long and faithful courtship, when a thousand difficulties and obstacles are at last surmounted, and marriage has made them one, clasps his beloved bride to his arms and whispers into her ear, "Now, you are mine."

II. But to come to our second point. The PATH of God's people from earth to heaven is for the most part one of much affliction, sorrow, and tribulation; and thus they are called from time to time to pass through waters and wade through rivers– to walk through fires and be surrounded by the flame of hot furnaces. But when they are placed in those circumstances, then it is that the Lord's promises are suitable to them, and this is the season when those promises are applied and sealed upon their heart and conscience.

A. But what is it "to pass through the waters?" WATERS in Scripture are often used to signify trouble and sorrow. "I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me." (Psalm 69:2.) "All your waves and your billows are gone over me." (Psalm. 42:7.) Thus the Church here is represented as passing through the waters, that is, the floods of trouble and sorrow through which she wades heavenward and homeward.

1. Some of these waters are Temporal afflictions . Few of the Lord's people escape a large measure of those afflictions which spring out of and are connected with their earthly circumstances. As inhabitants of earth; as husbands, wives, and parents; as earning their bread with the sweat of their brow; as taking a part in the great battle of life in this day of unprincipled competition, where the weak are relentlessly trodden down by the strong; as necessarily in the world though mercifully not of it, the saints of God have assuredly a large measure of earthly anxieties, sorrows, and cares. But mercy meets them even here. They need to be weaned from the world– to have the strongest bitters put into the sweetest cup– to be divorced from that love of earthly things which is so natural to us. The Lord therefore sends upon them many painful and severe afflictions. And these sometimes break forth upon them as waters; the idea being that of a flood bursting forth unexpectedly and with such extreme violence that but for the repressing hand of God it would carry them away.

How many of the dear saints of God are now suffering under his afflicting hand! How many are now lying on beds of languishing and pain! We pass through the streets; we see the young, the healthy, and the strong, some bustling with business and some sauntering for amusement, with health and animation on every face. But do we see the pale sickly invalids, except now and then a poor consumptive one just come out for a little air? And who knows how many of these afflicted ones are the Lord's, and are now passing through these waters to that happy land of which "the inhabitant shall not say I am sick."

How many, too, of the Lord's people are depressed with troubles and anxieties that spring from their providential circumstances? And often hears the expression, "Riches cannot give happiness;" but we rarely find the converse added, "Poverty can bring great misery." The Lord can indeed support under the heaviest load of monetary troubles; but there can be no doubt that providential difficulties, and the anxieties connected with them rack and tear the mind almost more than any other temporal affliction.

How many too are clad in mourning both in body and mind under distressing bereavements, rending as it were their very heartstrings asunder. We see men's faces, and they may wear an outward show of cheerfulness; but could we read their hearts, we would see many of the Lord's family bowed down with sorrow and care, as being surrounded on every hand with difficulties and perplexities to which they see no present termination.

2. But these "waters" may also signify Spiritual afflictions ; for these are the most trying of all the griefs and sorrows that can befall the saints of God. When the Psalmist, or rather the Lord speaking in the person of the Psalmist, said, "I have come into deep waters" (Psalm. 64:2), he meant the waters of deep soul trouble. These waters are a deep and abiding sense of God's wrath as a consuming fire; the curse of a broken law drying up the spirit; the distressing weight and burden of guilt upon a man's conscience which he cannot get away from, and which seem a foretaste of the agonies of hell; the fears of perishing under the justly deserved anger of God, and sinking in death into the gloomy regions of endless despair.

3. "Waters" further signify great and powerful TEMPTATIONS.As we read of the dragon that "He cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." (Rev. 12:15); so, as in the case of Job, Satan casts floods of temptation into the soul to drown it, if possible, in unbelief, rebellion, and self-pity, until hope and help seem almost gone.

Next Part Waters Which do not Drown and Flames which do not Burn 2

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