For then I will restore pure lips to the peoples, that all may call upon the name of the LORD and serve Him shoulder to shoulder. Sermons
(1) the cause; (2) the results of conversion. I. THE CONVERSION OF THE PEOPLES IS HERE TRACED VERY DIRECTLY TO THE AGENCY OF GOD. It is his doing, and that not merely indirectly, by the influence of the judgments that he has been threatening to send, but by an inward work of renewal wrought in the people. The judgments of God may convince the heathen of the vanity of their idols, or even show them that they should call on the Name of the Lord, and that they must do so if they are to be delivered; but then how shall they do so? The Lord is revealed as the just God, who will not do iniquity, and every morning doth he bring his judgments to light; but their lips, with which they should call upon him, are impure, they have taken up the names of other gods, they have been full of cursing and bitterness. May they not well feel as Isaiah did, when he saw the vision of the Holy One, that they are undone, for they are men of unclean lips, and dwell among a people of unclean lips? Who can enable such peoples, whose lips are accustomed to falsehood and profanity and uncleanness, to worship the God who is a Spirit, and seeketh such to worship him as will worship him in spirit and in truth? Who but that very God himself, who purged Isaiah's lips, who touched the lips of Jeremiah and put his words in his mouth? It must be he himself who enables them to call on him, by an act of gracious will and mighty power, purifying their lips and opening their mouths. The nature of this act of Divine power and grace is not more particularly described, but the language used suggests a comparison with what is said of Saul after he had been anointed by Samuel to be king over Israel, "God gave [Hebrew, 'turned'] him another heart" (1 Samuel 10:9). It is the same phrase as is used here, and so the meaning is that God will give to the peoples another lip, which shall be pure, instead of their former unclean lip. But a change of lip or language cannot be conceived apart from a change of heart, as, on the other hand, the new heart that God gave to Saul showed itself at once in his language, for when a company of prophets met him, he prophesied among them (1 Samuel 10:10). Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; and so, if the lips are to be pure, filled with the praises of God and calling on his Name, the heart must be changed. Now, this renewal of heart, showing itself in the utterance of the lips, is everywhere in the Bible traced to the Spirit of God as his special work. So it was with Saul. "The Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied." This working of the Spirit, too, is of God's sovereign and free grace. It comes on the most unlikely and unworthy objects. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." So it was with Saul. He seemed an unlikely person to receive such a gift, and men said "Is Saul also among the prophets?" and the answer was, "But who is their father?" Men receive not the gift by descent from any human ancestry, but by the direct bestowal of God; and so it may come upon any, and is to come at last, as Joel prophesied, on all flesh, even on the servants and handmaidens. Thus this prophecy is connected with these that point to the great manifestation of the grace and power of God's Spirit that was made at Pentecost, when the disciples of Jesus, speaking with new tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, testified of the new and pure language that the Lord was to turn to the nations. He will pour out his Spirit on all flesh; and even those nations that were most alienated from him, and sunk in impurity of heart and life, may receive the heavenly gift. But this, like all the promises of God, is given in Christ. He it is that sends the gift of the Spirit, as he is exalted a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins. Listen, then, to him as he graciously and freely offers it, and comply with his loving call, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive" (John 7:37-39). When we seek to determine in theory the exact relation of order between the gift of the Spirit and our faith, we run into difficulties that we cannot solve. But in practice these difficulties need not trouble us, or are solved by our actually coming to Jesus in faith. We need not wait till we are conscious of the renewing influence of the Spirit in order to come to Christ; we may be sure that any impulses that lead us to Christ are from him, and that the Lord's own gracious call is sufficient warrant for us to believe on him, that we may be fully conscious of the indwelling of the Spirit. II. THE RESULTS OF CONVERSION, AS HERE INDICATED, ARE SEVERAL. 1. "That they may all call upon the Name of the Lord" (ver. 9). The first movement of the renewed heart is towards God; the first utterance of the pure lip is prayer to him. So it was said of Saul, when the Lord arrested him in his career of persecution, "Behold, he prayeth." The tendency of the natural heart is away from God, and the lips are by nature slow and backward to call upon him. But when the Lord changes the heart, and turns to the peoples a pure lip, then they call upon his Name, they comply with the call formerly given by the prophet, to seek the Lord. Instead of endeavouring to hide themselves from his presence, or to find some refuge or defence against his judgments, they are led to see that there is none that can deliver them out of his hand, but that he himself is merciful and gracious, and that if they turn to him and implore his mercy, they shall be delivered. For his name is "the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means spare the guilty" (Exodus 34:6, 7); and that affords a strong encouragement to all the nations to call upon him. His Name is just the expression of his character, and that is one of grace and love, of mercy and forgiveness; so that even the most sinful may call upon him. 2. "To serve him." The words of the lips, the prayer of faith, may be the first result of the change wrought by God's Spirit in the soul; but that will not remain alone, but, if it is sincere and genuine at all, will lead to service in deeds. They shall not merely honour him with their lips, but shall serve him. He is the Lord, as well as the Saviour, of the world; and when they call upon his Name as their Saviour, they will further give themselves to him as their Lord. They have been refusing to serve him before, saying, "Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?" asserting that they were not in bondage to any man, but their own masters, yet really serving divers lusts and pleasure. But now, weary and heavy laden with the burden of the service of self and sin and the world, they come unto Christ, and take his yoke upon them; they enter that service in which alone is perfect freedom. It is a most essential characteristic of the converted, that they serve the Lord. They count themselves his servants, as Paul, for example, speaking of Christ, says, "Whose I am, and whom I serve." They are not their own, but bought with a price; and they seek to realize this by living, not for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for them. This does not imply that they go out of the world and separate themselves from its active work and affairs, to spend their time wholly and exclusively in exercises of worship. The service that the Lord would have given to him is to be carried on in the world; they are to be "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." By diligence in the duties of the calling in which God has placed them, by uprightness and sincerity in word and deed, by letting no corrupt communication proceed out of their mouth, but that which is good for the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers, by working with their hands that which is good, that they may have to give to him that needeth; and, above all, by walking in love, after the example of Christ, God's servants serve him; and this they are enabled to do by the work of his grace in their hearts. 3. Another result here indicated as flowing from conversion is unity and harmony among the nations. "They shall all call on the Name of the Lord, and serve him with one consent." The invocation of the true God is to be in common, and the service rendered to him a united and harmonious one," with one shoulder," as the words literally mean, as if bearing the yoke together, and equally taking part in the work. This implies a gathering together of the nations m peace and good will. Idolatry and polytheism ever go hand in hand with national exclusiveness and mutual hostility. Each people is supposed to have its own patron gods, each land its own local deities, and the servant of one god naturally becomes the enemy of the people of another. Religion, in this corrupt form, tends to separate men, and set one against another. Ungodliness, too, has much the same tendency. When men recognize and worship no god or power above the earth, their selfish passions and interests set each one against his fellow. But when the one universal Lord and Maker of all is recognized as God, then the consideration that we have all one Father, and that one God created us, forms a tie of brotherhood among all nations. And this is strengthened by the fact that, when his judgments are abroad on the earth against all nations alike, all am invited and encouraged to trust in his mercy and call on his Name. "For the same Lord over all is rich unto all who call upon him." This does away with every ground of separation, as if there were many local or national deities, as the heathen thought; it does away even with the special privileges of the seed of Jacob, which the Jews were apt to abuse, so as to foster a selfish and exclusive pride; for "in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, but Christ is all and in all." True conversion, also, by taking away the ungodliness of the natural heart, removes the great root of selfishness, and gives a ground, a motive, and an example for love to all men. In proportion as men am brought nearer to God am they brought nearer also to one another. He is the Centre and Sun of the universe, and the more the paths of any of the creatures depart from him; the more will they diverge from one another; while the nearer they come to God, the closer will they find themselves drawn to their fellows, who may have started from very distant points and been led by very different ways. These things, then - prayerfulness, diligence in God's service, and brotherly love - may be taken as genuine and sure evidences of that great change that must be wrought in every man ere he can ace the kingdom of God - a change that is secret and mysterious in its own nature, though known and recognized by its fruits. - C.
For then will I turn to the nations a pure lip, that they may all invoke the name of the Lord, and serve Him with one shoulder. "Then!" When? In the day in which God has risen up to pour out all the heat of His fury on the nations and kingdoms of the earth. No question more frequently and deeply frets our hearts than this, — What is the meaning, what the intention of the innumerable miseries by which we are tormented? What is the true function of the sufferings of which the world is full? The best answer is this, — The miseries of men are intended to purify and elevate them, to make them perfect. Springing from their sins, they are designed to correct their sins, and to lead them to the love and pursuit of righteousness. God deals with us as the goldsmith deals with virgin ore. He tempers it with an alloy, and thus makes it hard enough to endure "the file's tooth and the hammer's rap," and the keen edge of the graver. When the work is done, he washes it in "the proper fiery acid," which eats out the base alloy, and leaves the pure gold untouched. No grain of the precious metal is lost; but its value is indefinitely enhanced by the artistic labour bestowed upon it. And thus God deals with us. The miseries and calamities which come upon us are but as the edge of the graving tool, the rap of the hammer, the grating teeth of the file. By these He gradually and patiently carries out His conception of us, His purpose in us. And at last, like the fiery acid which separates the base alloy from the pure gold, death comes to divide the carnal in us from me spiritual, and to reveal the beauty and the value of the character which the Divine Artist has wrought in and upon us. "Cure sin, and you cure sorrow," say the reason and the conscience of man. And "the sorrow comes that the sin may be cured," says the Word of God. The mercy of judgment is the prophet's theme in the verso before us. To the image of the final clause of the text — they shall "serve God with one shoulder" — attention is now directed. The image the prophet had in mind was that of a number of men bearing a single burden. If they are to bear it without strain or distress, they must walk with even or level shoulders, no one of them shirking his part of the task, each of them keeping step with the rest. They must stand and move as if they had but "one shoulder " among them. Only thus can they move freely and happily, and make the burden as little burdensome as possible to each and all. The law of God is a burden which all men haw to bear; it rests on the shoulders of the whole world. Men can only bear it without strain or distress of spirit as each of them freely assumes it, as they all help each other to bear it, as they pace together under it with a happy consent of obedience,I. THE DIVINE LAW IS A BURDEN WHICH MEN ARE RELUCTANT TO ASSUME. Does that need proof? Do we not ourselves find it hard to cross our wills, in order to adopt the pure and steadfast will that rules the universe? The will of God is never so full of grace and attraction for us as when it is incarnated in the life of the man Christ Jesus. And yet even this is hard. To our self-will it is hard, and cannot but be hard, to submit even to the purest and tenderest will. Take any of the most distinctively Christian precepts, and there is that in us which resents and rebels against them. We delight in the law of Christ after the inward man; but we find another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind. We can only find rest as we impose a yoke on the flesh with its passions and lusts, and compel them to bear the burden of obedience to the higher law. In the flesh, or in the spirit, we must suffer. The only option before us is — in which? Of course it is the flesh that ought to be subdued and made to serve. Shall we let these weak wavering wills of ours be the sport of the impulses, now good and now evil, which rise within us, and try to be content with yielding at one time to the flesh, and at another time to the spirit? We must get unity into our life. II. THE TRUE FREEDOM CONSISTS IN A WILLING ASSUMPTION OF THIS BURDEN, A CHEERFUL AND UNFORCED OBEDIENCE TO THE DIVINE LAW. Doing the will of God from the heart. Sooner or later self-will makes us hateful both to ourselves and to our neighbours. It renders us incapable both of social and of spiritual life. Let a man acknowledge no higher will than his own, no law which he is bound to obey, and he becomes a burden to himself and to all about him. We must take up some burden; we must bear some yoke. All we can do is choose the law to which we will yield. The law of God it will be wise for us to accept. This is the law which really rules in human affairs. If we would enter into a true security and an enduring rest, we must make His will our will. It is not enough that we yield to the will of God; we must heartily and cheerfully adopt it if we are to be free. Obedience involves self-denial, self-sacrifice. There is hut one way in which we can make the hard yoke easy, and the heavy burden light. It is the excellent way of charity, of love. When a true and pure affection has been kindled in the soul, the most difficult tasks grow easy. III. THE HAPPINESS OF OBEDIENCE DEPENDS LARGELY ON THE UNANIMITY AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE OBEDIENCE. Only when all men serve God with one shoulder that all sense of distress and effort will pass away. And that for two reasons — 1. If we really love God and His law, we must also love men, and yearn that they should keep His law. 2. Till they love Him and do His will, they will put many hindrances in our path, strew in it many stones of stumbling and rocks of offence which cannot fail to make obedience difficult and painful for us. When the Church serves God with one shoulder, and when all "the nations" serve Him with one shoulder, then at last the pain and effort of obedience will be over, and we shall serve God with unbroken gladness because we and all men serve Him with a single and a perfect heart. (Samuel Cox, D. D.) I. THE FIRST PRIVILEGE WHICH GOD GIVETH HIS PEOPLE IN THIS PROMISE IS PURE LANGUAGE. Pure Hebrew had become degenerate Hebrew in Zephaniah's time. The language of Adam in the garden had no sin in it; it was not capable of expressing falsehood, rebellion, or error. We speak the human language, but not as God gave it. We have learnt some of the language of demons. Let man alone, and his language would be a constant opposition to the Divine will; it would be full of envy, greediness, covetousness, murmuring, rebellion, blasphemy against the Most High. When grace comes, God will restore the pure language. What is this pure language, and how may we know it? By its very letters. In those letters Christ is Alpha, and Christ is Omega. Give the soul once the pure language, and it begins to talk of Christ as its beginning, and Christ as its end. Christ becomes all in all to that man who has received Christ into his heart, You may know that language by its syntax, for the rules of that language are the law of God. Its hardest words are such as these, — implicit trust, unstaggering faith. It is the language which Jesus spoke. You may know it by its very ring and tone. Wherein does its purity lie? You may discover its purity —1. When it is used towards God. Then a man must be humble, confident, and filial. There is a pure language with regard to providence. The child of God talks about God's providence as being always wise and good. 2. When it is used concerning the doctrines of the Gospel. 3. In reference to our fellow-men. Where is this pure language spoken? In the Bible; from the pulpit; in Christian society. II. OUR COMMON WORSHIP. All converted men and women do call upon the name of the Lord. 1. In public. 2. In private prayer. 3. In making Christian profession. III. WE SHOULD SERVE HIM WITH ONE CONSENT. When the Lord saves souls, it is that they may serve Him. "Serve and save" are two good words to put together, but you must take care which you put first. Note that the service is, and must be, altogether voluntary. It is not "with one constraint," but with one consent. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) To serve Him with one consent The right improvement of life consists, mainly, in two grand pursuits; our personal preparation to meet our God, and the proper employment of our talents lot edification and benefit to our fellow-men. These two pursuits will generally be found to prosper the most when they are duly carried on together. Hence it is necessary to press on your attention your Christian obligations. The manifold varieties of Christian benevolence will be found resolvable into two classes: the one relating to the temporal, the other to the spiritual good of our brethren of mankind. God's purpose is, the extension among mankind of "the knowledge of the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent"; His end is, that we, through Divine grace, should secure the eternal salvation of our perishing brethren.1. The foundation of all our hopes and confidence for success, in the purpose of God, as shown in revelation, concerning the universal extension of religious knowledge in the world. 2. There is a peculiar adaptation in the system of our national Church for the promotion, under the Divine blessing, of the gracious purpose of Jehovah. This is seen in — (1) (2) (3) (W. Scoresby, B. D.) 5164 lips A Sermon for the Time Present The Song of his Joy A vision of the King. The Mystery The Angel's Message and Song Love John Bunyan on the Terms of Communion and Fellowship of Christians at the Table of the Lord; |
    |