Open the gates so a righteous nation may enter--one that remains faithful. Sermons I. THE IMPREGNABLE CITY. Its walls and outworks are "salvation." A great word - negatively hinting deliverance from the enemy and the oppressor; positively including all the contents of sacred peace, prosperity, and happiness. But salvation is nothing without a Savior; it is the loving presence of Jehovah who girds about Jerusalem as a wall. In Zechariah 2:9 he is spoken of as a "wall of fire." In another magnificent image, "Round about are the everlasting arms." The idea of the Eden-garden may be compared with that of this fenced city. A "garden walled around, a chosen and peculiar ground," may represent the mystical Church here, the celestial state hereafter. The city is created and fortified by the Eternal. II. THE CELESTIAL CRY. The command is heard from heaven, "Open ye the gates!" As in Isaiah 40:1, from the same quarter, sounds the gracious word, "Comfort ye my people!" The righteous nation that keepeth faithfulness may enter the Divine city. The emphatic thought is that this city is to be the scene of righteousness, a contrast to the state of "this world which passeth away." "Open to me," exclaims the psalmist, "the gates of righteousness: I will go into them and praise Jehovah; the gate of Jehovah into which the righteous shall enter" (Psalm 118:19, 20). And again, in another sublime passage, "Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart" (Psalm 24:3, 4). This righteousness of mind and heart is the gift of the Divine grace. Purity in the human spirit is at once the reflection of God's nature and the condition of "beholding" him. If men are good and faithful, it is because their souls have kept walk and converse with the truthful God (Psalm 31:24). And this they have only learned to do as the result of chastisement and the experience of the evil of other ways. "The Church was always like a barn (Matthew 3:12), in which the chaff is mingled with the wheat, or the wheat overpowered by the chaff'" When the Jews came back from captivity, it was with purified hearts; a large portion of the filth of idolatry had been swept away. And so universally; it is "out of much tribulation," much sifting on life's floor, that we must enter the kingdom - that the pure wheat of chastened character must be gathered into the celestial barn. III. THE ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH. 1. The firmness of his purpose. The words in ver. 3 are differently rendered: "a steadfast mind thou keepest in;" "firm is the hope thou wilt form;" "a purpose established thou purposest." And this purpose is one of peace. He "thinks the thought of peace" (Jeremiah 29:11). Hence the attitude of the believer is one of fearless and fixed repose; "He shall not be moved forever... shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in Jehovah" (Psalm 112:6, 7). This being of ours, in itself frail, anxious, feverish, needs steadying, staying; and its only sufficient prop must be "Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truth' (Isaiah 10:20). The essential thing in faith is habitual dependence; the result, ineffable peace. "Peace, peace," are the prophet's emphatic words. "He refrains from epithets; such peace is indescribable." So in Isaiah 57:19, "Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near." And the Christian apostle takes up the thought of the profundity and unutterableness of this bliss of the soul, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7). 2. The constancy of Ms being. Jah Jehovah is a Rock of ages, and may be trusted in forever. One of the four places where our translators have retained the original name Jehovah, of which Jab is the abridged form (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2). The doubled name is used for emphasis, as in "Peace, peace," above; it expresses the perfection of his majesty, wisdom, holiness, which should reflect the utmost reverence and the most absolute trust in the mind of the believers. And" Rock, Rock of Israel," etc., is another of the sacred names of the Divine Being (Isaiah 30:29; see Deuteronomy 32:4, 15, 18, 80, 31, etc.). Actively, to protect, to throw the cool shade of his protection upon the suffering of his people; passively, to resist the utmost shock and assault of his foes. The noble image of one of our poets, too lofty to be applied to mortal, may be applied to him - "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 3. His irresistible power. He brings down the lofty and the proud. Bulwarks, armed hosts, enormous wealth, are of no avail against "moral influence." And when we thus speak, we mean nothing less than the just will, the fixed purpose, of the Eternal. No Babylon, no Rome, no empire built on force and fraud, need be a terror to the faithful. They, at the day of doom, must "melt like snow at the glance of the Lord," or be abased even to the dust. "We live amidst closing histories and amid falling institutions; there is an axe laid at the root of many trees; foundations of fabrics have been long giving way, and the visible tottering commences. 'The earth quakes and the heavens do tremble.' The sounds of great downfalls and great disruptions come from different quarters; old combinations start asunder; a great crash is heard; and it is some vast mass that has just broken off from the rock, and gone down into the chasm below. A great volume of time is now shattering, the roll is folded up for the registry, and we must open another. Never again - never, though ages pass away - never any more under the heavens shall be seen forms and fabrics, and structures and combinations that we have seen. The world is evidently at the end of one era and is entering upon another;" but the" Rock of ages" will remain, and the Church which rests upon him, "to enlighten ignorance, to fight with sin, and to conduct man to eternity" (Mozley). 4. His just dealings. A plain or straight path is made for the righteous - one free from obstacles and opposition, even as the path of the Eternal himself to the fulfillment of his purposes (cf. Proverbs 3:6; Proverbs 11:5; Proverbs 15:19). He is even said to make their path "plain with a level," i.e. to a nicety. It could not have seemed so to the Jews in captivity; and often it must seem, in the midst of perplexity and distress, far otherwise to the children of God now. Yet what seems to be a "roundabout" path in a mountainous country may actually be the shortest from point to point. So with the ways by which the Lord our God leads his children to the end. The direct line which haste and impatience would take is not really the "straight path" in the world of spirit. Here, when we seem to be turning back, we may be really moving forward; we may seem to be "fetching a compass," none the less certainly may be advancing by the safest and most direct road. IV. SONG OF THE CHURCH. A meditation on the ways of God, and the relation of the believing soul to him. Waiting for God. They had watched, as it were, for Jehovah to advance along the great way of judgment by which he was to proceed to open the Messianic kingdom. Longing for the revelation of him. Oh that his Name and memorial (two expressions for one idea) might be known! The Name of God is God revealed, "the side of the Divine Being turned towards man" (Psalm 20:1; cf. Psalm 30:27; 63:9). (For the meaning of "memorial," cf. Exodus 3:15; Psalm 30:4; Psalm 135:13; Hosea 12:5.) The Messianic hope. The judgments of God, the thought is, must prepare for the new kingdom, for the reign of righteousness in the world. Calamities are symptomatic of evils needing to be cleansed away, if significant of the hand of Jehovah at work in reformation, and so prophetic of a new era. The reign on Mount Zion will be ushered in by a series of judgments on the unbelievers and the unrighteous, i.e. the heathen as opposed to the worshippers of Jehovah. Those judgments are a necessity. Righteousness is not learned, the need of it, the beauty of it, are not experienced, except in the school of suffering, of Divine chastisement. The effect of wealth and honor and success is not to lead men to God, and to the paths of rectitude and religion. Neither the Divine mercy, nor the bright example of others, nor the general tone of moral society, have sufficient influence to attract the inveterate sinner to belier things. In vain the light is poured upon the morally blind, upon those who "will not behold the majesty of Jehovah." In vain his hand is lifted up in judgment; their insensibility prevents them from perceiving it, though they are acute enough in their observation of the trifling interests of the sensuous life. There is but one way of dealing with such insensibility. Those judgments will be effective. They shall see the jealousy of Jehovah for his people (cf. Psalm 69:9), for fire shall devour his adversaries. His jealousy is like fire (Psalm 79:5; Zephaniah 1:18). In consuming it purifies, in purifying it consumes (cf. Deuteronomy 32:22; Job 20:26; Job 22:20). Remorse, shame, envy, indignation, - those fires within the bosom reflect the judgment of God; resistance, rebellion, impenitence, make them unquenchable. Peace and deliverance for the chosen. The past supplies arguments of hope for the future. A work has been accomplished by the Church, but this is Jehovah's work in it and by it. The deliverance from a foreign yoke was his work also. They had been enslaved to other lords (cf. Isaiah 63:18), and they had done as they pleased with Israel. But they have been swept away into the kingdom of the shades, and are forgotten. "From past events and benefits received, we should reason to God's future kindness, and infer that he will care for us for the future. God is not like man, to be capable of weariness in doing good, or exhausted in giving largely; therefore the more numerous the benefits with which he has loaded us, so much the more ought our faith to be strengthened and increased" (Calvin); cf. Psalm 138:8; Genesis 32:10, 12; Philippians 1:6. "Thee only." Under the dominion of Jehovah alone is peace, blessedness, liberty, to be found. "He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 1. The gate of healing. What would you say is the key of that gate? Is it not our need? What, e.g., would give you admission into any hospital? Would it not be your need of the help that could be obtained there? Just so is it with Jesus, the good Physician. We have no claim except His own exceeding love and our exceeding need. There are no incurables so far as the Lord Jesus is concerned. 2. The door of hope. The key for that is promise. You may read about it in the "Pilgrim's Progress" (Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle). 3. The door of help. The key is sympathy. Sympathy, as the meaning of the word implies, understands the situation. "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger," was one of God's commands to the Israelites, "for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." That was sympathy as the key to the door of help. They knew what it was to be strangers in a strange land, and therefore they could understand how a stranger among themselves would feel, how he would appreciate a friendly spirit, and how sensitive he would be to any coldness of treatment. Is it not His sympathy that makes Jesus the perfect Saviour? 4. The door of communion. For that we need two keys, just as in your house doors two keys are required to open them — the key that turns the lock and the key that lifts the latch. Prayer and obedience are the two keys. 5. The door of change, that door that stands at the end of "the well-trodden path to the grave." What is the key for this door? We have none. God keeps it in His own hands. (J. B. Mayer, M. A.) The righteous nation which keepeth the truth. Truth was not intended to be brought before the world by the God of truth for the mere purpose of influencing individual character. Hence we find the passage before us inviting not separate men in their respective capacities, but the righteous nation to enter in that keepeth the truth.I. WHEN THE TRUTH SPREADS THROUGH SOCIETY IT WILL GIVE NEW VIEWS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. Looking at society as it stands at present where the truth has made but little way, we find those views of moral obligation that are adopted and acted upon, accommodated to the selfishness of individuals, and society has but little place in their consideration. But let the truth as it is in Christ influence society, and they will then begin to feel that the great source of moral obligation is not what they owe to themselves but what they owe to God. II. If we find, therefore, that our sense of moral obligation is influenced by these higher considerations when we come to the truth, we have, in the next place, to look at THE WORKING OF TRUTH UNDER THIS HIGH SENSE OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. There is an enlargement of feeling from the man to his own family — from his own family to his own relatives — from his own relatives to his own social circle — from his own social circle to his nation — from his nation to the body of nations round him — there is an enlargement of feeling in the still widening circle to regions beyond these — an enlargement of feeling that carries the mind onward in a morally spiritual expansion to the whole human race, and after the feelings of the man under the power of truth have been thus far extended, his feelings experience still a desire for further enlargement. He looks unto another and an eternal world and feels that there is a fellowship due to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to angels that seek to learn from his condition the manifold wisdom of God. And while his mind is thus enlarged under the working of truth, there is the reflection back again of truth in all the peace that it propagates, in all the glories that it conveys, in all the safety that it confers, in all the spirituality that it kindles, in all the communion which it permits between the creature and God, which will be found to tell upon the man, so that instead of living in a sphere of selfishness where his light burns but dimly, and where the discoveries of the power of truth are very limited, he feels that he lives in a blaze of spiritual illumination, and when he finds so many kindred souls sympathise with him, and striking up an anthem to God, whence all has come, he feels that he is a greater man, a happier man, a holier man, than if he were to stand aloof even in solitary perfection in his insulated condition, to worship God alone. Instead of a community of nations, we find a community of parties, and each frowning upon the other, and each watching the other with an unworthy yet a constant and an anxious jealousy. But when the truth does begin to operate upon the condition of the nations generally, how will their temporal circumstances be changed! What a rising of a new spirit in the human community! If we find truth thus raising our sense of moral obligation, if we find truth thus calculated to open so many sources of happiness, let us look to the source whence this mighty element derives all its power. It is not the truth itself regarded merely as conveyed by so many propositions that can accomplish this mighty wonder. But it is the truth applying these propositions by the Spirit of glory and of God. Looking, therefore, to all these mews of truth upon society, we have another great reason to induce us to endeavour to "buy the truth, and sell it not." (J. Burnet.) Original Secession Magazine. (with Proverbs 14:34): — From these and suchlike passages it is evident that nations may be and ought to be righteous and truth keeping, and that nations which are of this character occupy the highest position in relation to other nations, and in the estimation of Him by whom kings reign, and to whom national as well as individual homage is due. That nations can possess such a moral character, and render such homage is denied by those who do not admit that nations, in their corporate capacity, are subjects of God's moral government. They hold that nations or states are impersonal, that they have no will and no conscience, and that therefore no responsibility attaches to national action, if indeed there can be such action at all. This is a serious mistake, and one which cannot but prove most pernicious in its influence and consequences. For nothing can be clearer, alike from the teaching of God's Word and the facts of universal history, than that nations are responsible subjects of Divine government; that they are dealt with by God according to their character and conduct, punished when they do evil, and blessed and prospered when they do well (Jeremiah 18:7-10).(Original Secession Magazine.) Original Secession Magazine. I. Let us inquire WHAT THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS which should characterise a nation, and by which a nation is exalted. How does it manifest itself?1. This righteousness has as its root — its essence — the foundation principle of all true religion — "the fear of God," in the hearts of the people, of rulers and ruled. This must be the prevailing character of the persons of whom it is composed. 2. It includes, as one of its leading elements, the due observance of the worship of God, according to the rules lain clown in the Divine Word. 3. It includes a national keeping of the truth. 4. It includes the regulation of all national affairs, in the departments of legislation and administration, by the principles of God's Word, which should be the rule of faith and practice to the nation as well as to the Church, the family, and the individual. 5. It includes the prevalence of Christian morality, or righteous dealings between man and man in the business of life, and the practice of all those moral virtues by which society is sweetened and adorned. II. HOW RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTS A NATION. A two-fold exaltation results from national righteousness — exaltation in the estimation of men, of other nations, and exaltation in the estimation of God. III. HOW THIS NATION-EXALTING RIGHTEOUSNESS MAY BE AND OUGHT TO BE PROMOTED. 1. By attending to the cultivation of personal godliness. 2. By attending to the duties of family religion. 3. By diffusing the Word of God and stirring up the people to read and study it for themselves in secret and private, and by securing that it be taught in all our schools. 4. By the faithful preaching of the Gospel by ministers of religion. 5. By the forth-putting of all legitimate moral efforts to counteract and suppress whatever is contrary thereto. 6. With all such means must he mingled fervent prayer for the blessing of God, which can alone make them efficacious for the advancement of the cause of righteousness. (Original Secession Magazine.) People IsaiahPlaces JerusalemTopics Doors, Enter, Faith, Faithful, Faithfulness, Gates, Keepeth, Keeps, Nation, Open, Preserving, Remains, Righteous, Stedfastness, Truth, UprightOutline 1. Trust in God's ProvisionDictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 26:1 5604 walls Library Our Strong City'In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.'--ISAIAH xxvi 1-2. What day is 'that day'? The answer carries us back a couple of chapters, to the great picture drawn by the prophet of a world-wide judgment, which is followed by a burst of song from the ransomed people of Jehovah, like Miriam's chant by the shores of the Red Sea. … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Song of Two Cities The Inhabitant of the Rock The Desire of the Soul in Spiritual Darkness The Song of a City, and the Pearl of Peace A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox. O, this is Blessing, this is Rest -- Sleeping and Waking From his Return from Russia to his Last Journey. I Fear, I Say, Greatly for Thee, Lest... Pleading "For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus Hath Made Me Free from the Law of Sin and Death. " The Nature of Spiritual Hunger Out of Sectarian Confusion His Journey to South Russia. Of the Last Resurrection. The Heart's Desire Given to Help Mission Work in China. The Love of the Holy Spirit in Us. "But if the Spirit of Him that Raised up Jesus from the Dead Dwell in You, He that Raised up Christ from the Dead, Shall Also Love Another Shorter Evening Prayer. The Iranian Conquest Links Isaiah 26:2 NIVIsaiah 26:2 NLT Isaiah 26:2 ESV Isaiah 26:2 NASB Isaiah 26:2 KJV Isaiah 26:2 Bible Apps Isaiah 26:2 Parallel Isaiah 26:2 Biblia Paralela Isaiah 26:2 Chinese Bible Isaiah 26:2 French Bible Isaiah 26:2 German Bible Isaiah 26:2 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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