Isaiah 33:21-22 But there the glorious LORD will be to us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars… 1. To the eye of faith the Church has no enemies at all. "Wherein shall go no galley with oars." You ramble in your garden, perhaps, in the summer-time, and a spider has spun its stoutest web across your path; you walk along and you never think that there is anything to hinder you, and yet there are those spider's strong webs, which would have caught a thousand flies, but they do not impede you. So is it with God's glorious Church: there are barriers across her path, but they are only spider's webs; on she walks; she has no adversaries, for she counts her adversaries to be nothing. 2. When we are compelled to see that the Church has adversaries, yet, according to the promise, those adversaries shall be put to confusion. They have launched the bark; the galley with oars is on the sea. The text does not say that no galley with oars shall ever be there, but "no galley with oars shall go there." Now, in order to make it "go" they must fix the mast; they must gird the tacklings, or how shall they spread the sail, and how shall they proceed on their way? Ah! but they cannot (ver. 21). 3. And then faith not only sees the confusion of her adversaries, but she also believes they are so utterly destroyed that she may go out and spoil them. 4. What is to be the end of it all? Glory to a Triune God (ver. 22). ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. |
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