THE GOSPEL AS ASSURING THE BELIEVER
[p. 439] THE GOSPEL AS ASSURING THE BELIEVER
Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 36:2-4; Isaiah 36:13,14; Isaiah 36:22; Isaiah 37:1-10; Isaiah 37:14,15; Isaiah 37:33-38
My message this evening is intended more for believers than for unbelievers, although God will not overlook the unbelievers, if there are any present. I am concerned as to believers, knowing that the enemy is abroad and active constantly to shake their confidence in God, and to rob them of the joy of their salvation; to rob them of the sense of security. He goes about, we are told, “as a roaring lion ... seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8) — figurative language but forceful. The “whom” specially includes Christians. Satan seeks to devour them. Young believers move about, and when sunshine is upon them and things go more or less well, they overlook the fact that the enemy of their souls is lurking about all the time, using what may come to light in themselves, or in their environments, to damage their souls; and hence such need the gospel that I hope to present — the gospel of assurance, that they may be preserved in what they have, and advance in it.
The verse I read in Isaiah 7, presents a general principle in this book — “a remnant shall return”. This is illustrated in a son by the side of his father who is a prophet: it is seen in a significant locality — “the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field”. That is where the prophet stands with his son by his side, whose name is Shear-jashub, meaning “a remnant shall return”. God is pleased to use various means of impressing the truth upon us, amongst these a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes a child or a babe; here it is the son of the prophet, and he is by the side of his father in a certain geographical position which has its own meaning — “the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field”. It is a position taken possession of, as it were, in the testimony. God is pleased to move out and take up positions in His grace so as to affect men and women and children, and the enemy’s effort will be to dislodge Him from that, as it were; not that the enemy could move God, but he can occupy the position in such a way as to becloud the testimony presented in it, and thus to baffle those who believe.
You see this in Rabshakeh who was in the exact position in which Isaiah stood with his son. Someone has seen Isaiah there, or has heard of him being there, and has believed and has returned to God; he says, “I see from this testimony that a remnant will return and I want to be amongst them”, and he joins them. This doubtless describes how some of you got blessing; you said, “Others are coming into it, why not I?” and so you have taken up your position with those who accepted Christ.
The position of Isaiah and Shear-jashub is light to your soul. You say, “That word, ‘a remnant shall return’, came in power to my soul. It is not that I have power in myself to return; the excellency of the power is of God, but I am responsible to return, and others are returning, so I will return”. To whom do I return? I return to God. As the watchman of Dumah says, “If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come”, Isaiah 21:12. If there be any inquiry as to Isaiah, or Shear-jashub, or the highway of the fuller’s field, or the conduit of the upper pool, the point in all that is, return. It is no matter for you to inquire of out of curiosity, the thing is for you to return; others are doing so but others returning will do you no good, it is for you to return; and so one has returned.
These chapters indicate that there was a remnant; Hezekiah speaks of “the remnant that is left”; these had returned and the enemy’s point is to get them, and take them off to a land like their own land, as he says; that is to get the believer diverted [p. 441] from the light that he has enjoyed, from the position he has taken up as of the remnant of the saved ones. There are such as are being saved; we are told in the New Testament that “the Lord added to the assembly daily those that were to be saved” (Acts 2:47): some had taken up that position, and some have taken it up today. Most of us here have taken it up, most of us here have truly returned to God.
But, beloved friends, while the salvation of God is assured to the true believer, it is a continuous thing — to be realised every day. The gospel of our salvation that is announced, is a gospel that takes account of us every moment of our lives in this world, until we are safely housed in heaven when the Lord Jesus Christ comes for us and takes us to be with Himself. The gospel of our salvation applies to every moment of our existence down here, and, therefore, we need assurance in it.
If there are those here who have not returned, there is a word for them. The inquiry is “Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said. The morning cometh and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come”. (Isaiah 21:11,12) That is the point in the book in the light in which I am looking at it. If there is any enquiry in your heart tonight, the answer of the Spirit of God to you is, “Return, come”.
Most of us, as I said, have returned, but we need assurance. There is much more soul-trouble amongst us than is reported, or than is known. Wives do not know the soul troubles of their husbands, nor do husbands know the soul troubles of their wives, nor do fathers of their children, or brothers of their sisters. Soul troubles are very largely secret troubles, hence the great need of an assuring gospel. That, indeed, is what Luke had in mind in his great treatise which stands out as specially evangelical. It is written to one individual, and it is to assure him of the things into which he had been instructed; (Luke 1:4).
[p. 442] Possibly he lived in affluent circumstances — the enemy would get into those circumstances, such circumstances are very vulnerable, and Luke knew it; the Spirit of God knew it, and He would fortify Theophilus, as in them, against the inroads of the devil. The enemy would come and say to him, “Theophilus, are you quite sure that the Lord Jesus is a divine Person? Are you quite sure that He is not an imposter or a myth? Did you ever see Him? Maybe you have believed falsehoods”. How comforting Luke’s letter would be to him. Every believer should read Luke with that in view, so that he may be constantly in the enjoyment of the things the gospel proposes, in the good and enjoyment of his salvation. There can be no doubt that Theophilus gained by it, for the second treatise indicates plainly enough that he was getting on, it shows that he had gained by the first: Luke does not call him “excellent” the second time, he is nearer to him; the servant of the Lord is nearer to him in his spirit and can address him more simply.
But then it is not only circumstances of affluence that expose us to the inroads of the devil, the most ordinary circumstances can do this as we see here in Rabshakeh’s speeches. First he addresses Hezekiah — there is a message to Hezekiah the king, he would shake his confidence: but then he says, “I am not here only to speak to Hezekiah, I am here to speak to ‘the men that sit upon the wall’”, the commonality of the people, and he uses their language, their very vernacular; for it is nothing to the devil whether he uses slang or the most refined language — he can use both: his aim is to get at your soul and shake your confidence in God, and deprive you of the joy of your salvation, and consequently render you valueless in the testimony of God here.
You will see that in this position that Rabshakeh took up, the enemy is bent on nullifying the position [p. 443] of chapter 7. Think of the difference between Isaiah the prophet and his son, standing in the highway of the fuller’s field, and the Assyrian general standing there! It is a question of your soul. It is a question of either hearing the prophet of God, representing the testimony of God, the gospel, or what the enemy would say. How often it is that one’s mind, which had been opened to the testimony of God, and enjoyed it, is presently occupied by the devil in his whisperings. “What are you trusting in?” he says. “You were at a gospel meeting and the brethren were sitting around you, and you thought you believed, but you have been deceived; besides, what is there to trust in?” That is how the enemy shatters the joy of many believers — by introducing doubts; and then he flourishes Sennacherib — “The great king, the king of Assyria”, he says — I am only his servant, he is greater than I. Such are the enemy’s ways, he magnifies himself: as we read, he is a “roaring lion”; a lion is bad enough, but think of a roaring one!
So here he plants himself in the very position occupied a little before by the testimony of God. The testimony of God brought joy to your heart, peace to your conscience, deliverance to your soul: the enemy says, “I want to get that soul and rob him of all these things”. Is it not so? These chapters are to teach us how it may not be so, how we can overcome the enemy, we overcome him “by the blood of the Lamb”, as it says elsewhere; Revelation 12:11. We can overcome him with the testimony that we believe, as it says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”, James 4:7. How are we to resist him? By the word of God — the testimony we have received. If he challenges me as to the death of Christ, I have a testimony with which to answer him, the irrefutable testimony of the gospel: if he challenges me about my forgiveness, I have the word [p. 444] of God with which to answer him: if he challenges me about righteousness, I can answer him with the word of God. Whatever it be he challenges me about, I have the word of God with which to answer him, and he flees, for he has to do with what is greater than he is. “The virgin daughter of Zion”, for instance, is just a Christian.
You believed a few weeks ago, or a few months ago, or a few years ago; you have been unconquerable through the testimony of the gospel held in your soul by faith, and you shake your head at the enemy, you laugh him to scorn; that is the great result of these chapters: a daughter of Zion is just one who is in the sense of the sovereign mercy of God. Scripture says, “According to his own mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”, Titus 3:5. The enemy says, “Look what you did yesterday; look what you thought”; but you reply, “I am no worse now than I was before God took me up”. I am not putting a premium on the least little bit of sin in any Christian, but suppose it happens, and it does happen, we are told “we all often offend” (James 3:2), and Satan charges you with the happening, you overcome him by the testimony of the death and resurrection of Christ. He will magnify the happening, he will make the happening greater than the death of Christ, greater than God. But we read “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things”, 1 John 3:20. And so, if you are a daughter of Zion, you can say, “God is as great now as He was before I was converted; He is as gracious now as He was before I was converted; He is the same to me now, I acknowledge my sin”. You say to the devil, “I own what you allege, but I am not going to allow you to make it any more than it is; nor will I allow you to make it so great that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse it”.
[p. 445] That is, in effect, what the daughter of Zion says, and the enemy has to flee: he must flee. Finally he goes down to Tophet that is prepared for him; Isaiah 30:33. After all, Satan is but a creature, maybe the greatest of creatures, but still a creature; and one day an angel will come down with a chain and bind him, and cast him into a pit, and leave him there for a thousand years; Revelation 20:1 - 3. It is extremely ignominious for Satan that one angel can imprison him, and after an appointed time, let him out again for God’s purposes. He is but a creature, but he goes about as a roaring lion to rob saints of the joy of the gospel they have believed, and make them as bad as they were before, so that sometimes they forget they were purged from their old sins (2 Peter 1:9), and they become blind and cannot see afar off. What a great triumph for the devil when he secures that in any Christian!
The words of Rabshakeh sound very effective, but what he finds is an ordered state of things. A characteristic Christian is well ordered; here we have one “over the household”, we have a “scribe” and we have a “chronicler”. To be disordered is to expose you all the more to the onslaughts of the devil. So these three men came out to meet Rabshakeh, and they act very wisely; it would not do to send the men on the wall to meet this great personage. Eliakim, the man over the house, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the chronicler, went. They represent the ordered way in which the true believer meets such an onslaught as this. Now, dear brethren, and young people especially, I would urge this — that you have your inward affairs ordered. I mean that the believer is to have the departments, so to speak, of his moral being rightly controlled. These three men represent the three-fold responsibility of the institution — if you will allow me to use that word. There was a great system at Jerusalem, there was the king, and all [p. 446] these department heads, and they are available as soon as the enemy attacks. Thus, God coming in, the enemy is utterly defeated.
To explain: sometimes we get up late in the morning and we have to rush off to business, there is hardly time to eat the breakfast; there is no prayer, there is no reading, there is no time for going over things with God. There is no Eliakim over the house, so to speak, there is no regulation, no authority maintained. Something happens on the way to business, or after you get to the business, and you give way to the flesh and thus there is defeat. You have been to the gospel meeting on Sunday night (maybe this happens on Monday) you have been, as it were, on “the highway of the fuller’s field”; you have been there on the Sunday evening, and on the Monday, as I said, there is neglect. Eliakim over the house has had nothing to say, there is irresponsibility to God. Maybe there is a sense of responsibility to your employer, for you are thinking of your salary and your progress in the business, but irresponsibility in-regard to God. There can be no headway made if there is disregard of responsibility to God. It is as sure as possible as you proceed on that way you will come in for defeat. Rabshakeh will be in the place of Isaiah, and Rabshakeh’s army instead of Isaiah’s son, Shear-jashub. You will be thinking of his power, and forgetting the testimony of God, forgetting the precious thought that you are one of the returned remnant, one of those who has a place with God, one added to those that are saved, as Scripture says, “The Lord added ... those that were to be saved”, Acts 2:47. You forget all that, and you come home in the evening a defeated Christian. Your countenance is little different on the train or on the bus or on the street, to the ordinary unconverted man or woman: you have lost your colour, you have lost your joy, you have lost the good of your salvation.
[p. 447] Then there is not only the general thought of Eliakim over the house, but there is Shebna the scribe; a scribe is an accurate man, he is not loose, he does not generalise, he takes item by item. We have here two words, one is the scribe, and the other is the chronicler. They both allude, as is obvious, to accuracy, to the noting down of things and recognising in an accurate sort of way, things for which we are responsible. They represent the fact, that not only daily, but hourly, and minutely, we must have relations with God. God has had it in view that His people should be in constant relation with Him, making constant reference to Him, and referring in detail, with accuracy to Him. Our very life is made up of that. It is the joy of God to have His people in holy relations with Himself according to these principles.
Now these three men are in full view of the enemy, and they know what to do. They do not speak when they should not speak, they keep silent, and they tell others to keep silent; they are, we may say, in control. But then they have deep feelings; they represent responsibility in the Christian. So that we read in verse 22, “Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh”. You see how serious they are, and this specially enters into the lines on which a believer’s progress is made. Their clothes are rent, as you will observe; the enemy is attacking, and they are unable to meet him. Rent clothes signify a certain remissness, that something needs adjustment. I have to learn that the garments in which I have been appearing have to be rent; a change has to come about. The believer’s life is made up of that. If I speak of it positively we go from glory to glory — “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the [p. 448] glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory”, 2 Corinthians 3:18. And again, “They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God”, Psalm 84:7.
If I speak of it negatively, it is rending the garments; what I have been yesterday, I must not be today, I must progress. You will understand, that I am not putting you under law, I am showing you how you are to be preserved in the joy of your salvation; for certainly it is as important that Christians should be preserved in their Christianity, as it is to get others who are not Christians into Christianity. It is obviously a great matter to keep those who are in it, while not ignoring those who are not. Who can tell how many have dropped out? Is there not a gospel to prevent turning away, to prevent retrogression, to prevent apostasy? Surely there is! and these chapters are to show us that there can be no return, no washing white in the fuller’s field, save by the death of Christ; nor can there be any preservation in the salvation to which we have come, save by the same means. So we have in the book of Revelation, “Blessed are they that wash their robes” (Revelation 22:14), not that “have washed them”; we have that in the earlier part of the book; chapter 7:14. There are those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb; there are those who “wash their robes”. To omit the latter is to miss the joy of your salvation and to render yourself useless in the testimony of God. It is, therefore, a matter of the greatest importance that the gospel presented should make plain the provision made in the death and resurrection of Christ, that Christians should be preserved and go from strength to strength in Zion.
So, as I said, there is the rending of garments, and these men come to Hezekiah, and Hezekiah is moved; he is the most responsible of all, and he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth;
[p. 449] as responsibility increases, self-judgment increases. Sometimes Luke 15 is read as if repentance were a mere historical thing, whereas it is a continuous thing; it is a repenting sinner who causes joy in the presence of God. Who is it who has not anything to repent of? The light and power of the gospel must always be kept fresh in our minds, and this involves continual repentance. The gospel is needed by every one of us, till the last moment of our sojourn in this world. It is a question of going from strength to strength, of being preserved in that into which we have been introduced through the gospel. Our salvation is to be continuous, and these chapters show the way of it.
So we find in Hezekiah, not only the rending of his clothes, but the putting on of sackcloth. Now he sent these two men — “Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna, the scribe” — the third man is left out, that is Joah, instead of him we have “the elders of the priests”; showing that in responsibility exercised in this way, there is increase of holiness and intelligence; that is a great advance. The sense of holiness “without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14) is coming into the soul. There is approach to God only on the principle of holiness; but the believer as judging himself, as seen here, has the principle of holiness. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead “according to the spirit of holiness”, (Romans 1:4) and the spirit of holiness is in every true believer; the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit; Romans 5:5. The priests here (Isaiah 37:2) represent the feature of holiness. They come to Isaiah, the true representative of God, and Isaiah gives the most comforting word; there is not a word of rebuke, it is all grace; for this is a wanton attack of the enemy, and the enemy has no conscience, no feelings, no remorse, and God knows this. He knows the enemy is as a roaring lion going about seeking [p. 450] whom he may devour, and God is concerned that your soul might be preserved, so He has peculiar consideration for us in these circumstances. You are covered in sackcloth, your clothes are rent, you are not full of pride, you are not blaming anybody but yourself; and heaven loves such an attitude in the believer; there is indeed joy in the presence of the angels of God on account of that. So as you will observe in verse 6, Isaiah says to them, “Thus shall ye say unto your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land”. Is that not assurance? Need we fear him? No, beloved, we have means of meeting him. Indeed God here through His prophet indicates that He is going to do it.
Now, that is the first chapter, so to speak, in the process; the next is that the enemy is defeated, but not absolutely so. We have to watch these second attacks; he has to go, but instead of coming back, he sends a letter. The enemy has thousands of writers at the present time by which to damage the souls of the people of God, in letters, articles in magazines and novels; lying things are being constantly written about God and Christ and Christianity, at the same time exalting man as known in this world. All these things are intended to darken and baffle the saint. It is another mode of attack; he is not now attacking in the fuller’s field, he is dislodged from there; he is warring somewhere else. The Lord Jesus has annulled him through death; we have only to resist him and he flees; the Lord said, “Get thee hence, Satan”, (Matthew 4:10) and he had to go; so also has he to go from the Christian as he resists him. Rabshakeh had to go back, but in going he writes a letter. I would warn [p. 451] young people here about these letters written, by agents of the devil, these books that shake your confidence in God.
What does Hezekiah do about the letter? He spreads it out before the Lord. He does not send the elders of the priests any more, or Eliakim or Shebna, he goes himself, and he goes into the house of the Lord. How beautiful this is! How God would encourage every one of us to come into His own sphere, where the enemy has no power. He spreads the letter out before Him. I would urge you to read the whole passage from the standpoint of what I am saying. In verse 31 it says, “And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward”, Isaiah 37:31. That is what we all are through grace, if we are Christians. “Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city nor shoot an arrow ...”. That is the assurance the believer obtains as he goes direct to God as threatened by the devil. “He shall not come into this city”. What assurance! You say, “Do Christians get to that point?” They do: Paul says, “Unto us which are saved”, (1 Corinthians 1:18). I remember when I suffered from doubts as I believe some of you do; I do not now. Not that I want you to think of me, but of what is possible for the Christian. The enemy cannot shoot inside where deliverance is known; he shall never get an arrow there. Instead of being in the flesh, the delivered saint is in the Spirit — “Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit” (Romans 8:9); when I accept that, as I may, and maintain it in the power of the Spirit, Satan can never harass me inside. “If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you”, Romans 8:9. I ask every believer here to think of that. So that we are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”, 1 Peter 1:5.
[p. 452] No one who preaches a full gospel will fail to bring these things forward, that believers might be really and truly saved and assured of their salvation, and thus a living testimony to God. And so Jehovah goes on to say here, “By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake”. God is acting on account of Christ. And the Lord Himself says that we are in His hands, and in the hands of the Father, and none can pluck us out of Their hands; John 10. In our scripture we have God working for us in power through faith, so that we are delivered and kept by it.
The final confirmatory word is: “The angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses”; and the king himself is destroyed, as we see in verse 38. So that, beloved friends, you see here how faith lays hold of the thoughts of God, and proves that He is greater than the devil; as is written: “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4:4. God maintains the believer in this world in full salvation, and consequently in testimony for Him until the Lord comes.
May God bless these thoughts to us.