Isaiah 48:17-18 Thus said the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD your God which teaches you to profit… "Learn of Me" and "Follow Me" are two most impressive commands of Jesus Christ. I. THERE IS AN IMPORTANT RELATION BETWEEN THESE TWO OFFICES OF OUR DIVINE MASTER. Not every teacher is a leader, not every leader a true teacher. Theory and practice are often divorced. Words and works are not always wedded. But in our Lord there is perfection in both teaching and leading. Does Jesus teach us to "pray and not to faint"? He also leads in this, for He prayed. Does Jesus teach us to glorify God by our "good works"? He "went about doing good." Does our Master teach us to love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us? How grandly axe we led by His dying prayer, "Father, forgive them." Are we to "seek first the kingdom of God," according to His teaching? So, indeed, did He, for it was His meat and drink to do His Father's will. Would He have us patient under suffering, calm amid reproach, submissive under affliction, and alway resigned? So, indeed, was He. Let the Garden of Gethsemane bear witness. Let Pilate's hall testify. Let Calvary give answer. He truly "teaches us to profit, and leads us by the way we should go." These are the two great forces which aid us in the formation of the Christian character and the development of the Christian life. The teaching of our Master is sometimes out of the book of affliction and sorrow. He teaches us our folly, and weakness, and sin; and then leads us into His wisdom, and strength, and holiness. He teaches us in the valley of the shadow that He may lead us to the golden height of Divine light and love. He teaches us by the furnace that He may lead us to the palace. He teaches us by the noon-day heat, and then leads us to the sheltering rock. In multitudes of ways does our Lord teach His people, but ever to the end that He may lead them in the way in which they should go. But for His instructions we should be poor followers. If He beckoned to us in silence we should hardly dare to take a step. But He is not silent, for as He goes before us we can hear His voice. The thought of His instruction encourages us, while His leadership emboldens us. II. Let us now spend a little while in THE CONTEMPLATION OF THOSE SWEET WORDS, "WHICH LEADETH THEE." Here, indeed, is found soul-comfort and strength, such as we all need amid our feebleness and the bewilderment around. It will be well for us to read these words in the light of Scripture thoughts and incidents. How they remind us of God leading His people from the thraldom of Egypt. Only let faith's eye be clear, and the leading pillar will ever be discerned. In the Song of Moses we have a beautiful figure to help us in understanding our Lord s leading. There the mention of the eagle's care for her young in fluttering over them as they try to fly, and spreading her wings beneath them to give them confidence, and bearing them on her wings when they are weary, is followed by the declaration, — "So the Lord alone did lead them." As we pass on we come to the beautiful poem of the shepherd-king, and we hear his sweet voice singing, "He leadeth me beside the still waters." And then we find David's son putting into the lips of wisdom the words, "I lead in the way of righteousness." Let us take another example; now from the prophet Isaiah. There we find this precious promise of our God's: "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. Is not this what He has done and still does for us? How strengthening, again, is the promise recorded by this same prophet: I will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him; and how soothing the words written for us by Jeremiah: "With favours will I lead them; I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble." III. WHAT SPIRIT SHALL WE MANIFEST IN VIEW OF THIS PRECIOUS TRUTH? Let us take our place by the Psalmist, and with him in a spirit of humility, resignation, trustful. ness, and hope, put up these petitions: Psalm 5:8; Psalm 25:5; Psalm 27:11; Psalm 31:3; Psalm 61:2; Psalm 139:24; Psalm 143:10. Thus shall we on earth have a true foretaste of the unspeakable rest and blessedness of that sinless place where "the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall lead them, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (W. J. Mayers.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. |
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