66 Edomites "in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and my garments shall be sprinkled with their blood; for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. In mine anger I will tread down the people," who obstinately trample my blood and my followers under foot. "I will make them drunk in my fury, and will bring their strength down to the ground." The prophet, struck with awe, breaks out into a song of praise to the Lord for his "great goodness towards the house of Israel," the righteous, to whom the Lord condescends to give rest from those who turned the earth into cruel habitations, and who made the very houses of God, dens of thieves, murderers, and hypocrites. Ver. 7, 8. This song of thanksgiving and praise was echoed back by St. John, when he had a prophetic view of the Messiah "coming in righteousness to judge and make war" on all the antichristian powers. Rev. xix. 1-11. Isaiah speaks next of the days of refreshing which shall follow those days of vengeance, which shall have such an effect upon the nations that they shall flock into the church as pursued doves to their windows. "The Lord," says he to the righteous, "shall appear to your joy, and those who cast you out for my name's sake shall be ashamed. A voice of noise from the city! A voice from the temple! A voice of the Lord who rendereth recompence to his enemies!" Now for the effect of these voices mixed with the sound of the gospel trumpet:-" Before she," the new Jerusalem, "travailed, she brought forth : before her pain came, she was delivered. Shall the earth, be made to bring forth in a day, or shall a nation be born at once?" Yes, "saith the Lord. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith thy God." It is done! "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, ye that love her: be glad with her, ye that mourned for her." Come, “that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the gentiles" converted, "like a flowing stream. Then suck; ye shall be borne on her sides, and dandled shall ye on her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish, when ye thus see the hand of the Lord towards his servants, and his indignation towards his enemies." Isaiah lxvi. 5-14. The dawn of this "day of refreshing" was seen in the earthly Jerusalem when three thousand and five thousand people entered at once into the “ new Jerusalem," the holy church, the spiritual "kingdom, which is righteousness, peace, and joy through the Holy Ghost, in whose comfort they walked," when "great grace was upon them all." 66 Isaiah points out these days of the Messiah in so many ways, that you will excuse me, sir, if I copy one more of his striking pictures. "Behold," says he, "the Lord" Jehovah our Saviour "will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire: for by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of Jehovah shall be many." What follows is his last description of the days of refreshing, which JehovahShiloh will usher in by the destruction of the wicked. "It shall come to pass that," after those days of vengeance, "I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory. I will send" my heralds, "those that shall escape" from the great tribulation, 'unto the nations and to the isles afar off," which have not heard "my fame; and they shall declare my glory among the gentiles. As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will" then "make, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come" by turns "to my holy mountain Jerusalem," "and shall worship before me, says the Lord. And they shall go forth" to the valley of Jehoshaphat, "and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence of all flesh." Isaiah lxvi. 15-24. Here ends Isaiah's account of that glorious reign of Jehovah-Shiloh, which the fathers called "the millennium," as being to last a thousand years, and during which it is probable that our Lord will use these extraordinary means to keep all the nations in the way of obedience :1. A constant display of his goodness over all the earth, but particularly in and about Jerusalem, where the Lord will manifest his glory, and bless his happy subjects with new manifestations of his presence every Lord's day and every new moon. 2. A distinguishing interposition of Providence, which will withhold the Messiah's wonted blessings from the disobedient: "For it shall be that whoso will not come up, of all the families of the earth, unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain." Zech. xiv. 17. 3. The constant endeavours of the saints, martyrs, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, raised from the dead, and conversing with men, as Moses and Elijah did with our Lord's disciples upon the mount, where they were indulged with a view of his glorified person, and of his "kingdom come with power." These glorified high priests and kings, as ministers and lieutenants of the Messiah, will rule all churches and states with unerring wisdom and unwarped fidelity. 4. The care that the Lord himself will take to set apart for the ministry under his glorified saints, those who in every nation shall distinguish themselves by their virtue and piety. This seems to be the meaning of his own words: "And when they shall come out of all nations to my holy mountain, I will take of them for priests and Levites, saith the Lord," speaking to the prophet in the language of the Jewish church. Isaiah Ixvi. 20, 21. 5. A standing display of the ministration of condemnation, as appears from Isaiah lxvi. 24, abové quoted, and from other parallel scriptures. 6. At the same time that the ministration of condemnation will powerfully work upon the fears of mankind to keep men in the way of duty, an occasional display of the ministration of righteous mercy will work upon their hopes. How will those hopes be fired when they shall 66 see the Lamb" of God "6 standing on the mount Sion, and with him" his "hundred and forty-four thousand" worthies "having his Father's name," divine majesty, irresistible power, ineffable love, and bliss inexpressible, written on their foreheads!" Rev. xiv. 66 But, 7. What will peculiarly tend to keep men from relapsing into rebellion against God, will be the long life of the godly, and the untimely death of those who shall offer to tread the paths of iniquity. The godly shall attain to the years of the antediluvian patriarchs; and the wicked shall not live out half their days, they shall not live above a hundred years, or, to speak after our manner, they shall die in their childhood. This seems to be Isaiah's meaning in the following description of the days of refreshing :Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered. But be you glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people" to be nothing but "a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her. There shall be no more thence" a burial of "an infant of days, nor" a godly "old man that hath not filled his days for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are speaking, I will hear." The very beasts of the field will partake of the happiness and glorious liberty of the sons of God. For "the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." Isaiah lxv. 17-25. Having dwelt so long upon the account which the evangelical prophet gives us of the day of vengeance, and of the days of refreshing, I shall dismiss this part of the subject by giving two or three short extracts from some of the remaining prophets. Daniel fixes, in the days of Messiah the Prince, the great tribulation which shall come upon the ungodly, of which the destruction of Jerusalem was but an emblem; God's judgments beginning at his own house. And when the Messiah shall thus have "sitten in judgment,” and shall have "consumed" and "destroyed" the wicked, or bruised the serpent's head in the person of antichrist and his adherents, "the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High,” of Jehovah-Shiloh, "whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; and all dominions shall serve and obey him," according to the decree recorded in Psalm ii. 7. Daniel vii. 26, 27. ‚”* Joel also describes, in the most lively manner, the work of the Messiah, both as he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the peaceful Shiloh, to whom the gathering of the people shall be. Speaking of our Lord under the first of these characters, he says, "In those days, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat," the valley of judgment, "and I will plead with them there for my people, whom they have scattered." "Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen. Come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen," saith the Son, the mighty God, to whom all judgment is committed, as he is Son of man. "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe, the press is full, the fats overflow, the wickedness" of the earth "is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake;" for, as the apostle expresses it in speaking of our Lord, "he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." Heb. xii. 26; Joel iii. 1, 2, 11—16. As Joel hath thus described the Messiah as son of David, shaking and destroying his adversaries, the wicked, so he represents him also as son of Solomon, procuring days of peace and prosperity to the Israel of God. Be glad, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God; "for the Lord will do great things" for you. Fear not; for "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem The word "Jehoshaphat" means "God is the Judge," or the judgment of God." |