ENCOURAGEMENT FOR REMNANT DAYS
I want to read one scripture from the New Testament, not in a way in connection with what I have read in Isaiah, nor to unfold what we are going to read in the New Testament, but I think you will see at once the force of what I am about to read in Romans 15:4: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning”—it is instruction for us; we learn by being instructed, as it is said, “that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”. So Isaiah 7 was written for our instruction, and the instruction is in view of giving us endurance and encouragement as Christians. It is a simple thing to say, but it is a blessed truth that every bit of scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 has been written for us; and I am sure, beloved brethren, of this—I could not speak about myself with any assurance, but one can speak about the Lord with the greatest assurance, and I feel assured that the Lord has brought us together in this room, at this time, for our encouragement; and I am sure, too, beloved, that there is abundant encouragement for us in the chapter I have read.
These seven chapters—I mean those from chapter 6 to chapter 12—form a distinct section of the prophecies by Isaiah. And the great theme of these chapters is the remnant. It is a very complete and definite history of the remnant; it is very precise at both ends; that is to say, at the beginning and at the end; for instance, mark the definite way it begins, “In the year that king Uzziah”—how the Spirit of God puts His finger, as it were, down on the exact time. And what is the next word? I—Isaiah; I, the prophet, the writer of this book: “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord [Jehovah] sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple”, chap 6: 1. Now there could not be a more precise and definite beginning than that. And what about the end? Turn to it for a moment: the end is in chapters 11 and 12. In chapter 11: 1 it says, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord... And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins ... The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them”, and so on. Now then, see chapter 12: 1, “And in that day”—mark what a definite end, for, as I have said, we get a very definite beginning and a very definite end. And, beloved, what a marvellous finish it is! So far as the actual statement of these seven chapters is concerned Christianity is not mentioned; but then we have just read that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our instruction”; and it is not for our instruction in ancient history or future history, but for our present instruction, “that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope”. What is the point? The remnant comes to light, and there are seven facts pertaining to the remnant brought out in chapter 7 which I want to call your attention to; but before I do so let me attempt to show you the bearing upon ourselves of what we have read.
There are two sides to the truth of the remnant as set forth in scripture. There is one which you may call a dark side; but if there is a dark side, there is a bright side also. The dark side is on the side of God’s people. There was no remnant in the days of King David and King Solomon. What would you want with a remnant then? God had just established His people. Whatever trouble there had been previously in connection with Saul, it was all wiped out, and now all the twelve tribes are there, and all are one, and we see the glory and magnificence of the kingdom as set up by God in the midst of His people. You do not want any remnant there; but another day comes. When does the remnant come to light? It comes to light in a day of failure, and breakdown, and declension. Did Isaiah live in that kind of day? Well, listen: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters! they have forsaken the Lord ... they are gone away backward”, God says, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and petrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire”, &c, chap 1: 1-7. That is Isaiah’s day. And what comes to light then? A remnant! But mark! There is the dark side, and there is, thank God, a bright side, and that is God’s side; the bright side is always God’s side; the dark side is ours, but the bright side is His. And if there is a dark side now—and there is—there is also a bright side; but if there is a bright side, I repeat it is not our side. We may bow our heads in shame and self-judgment and confusion of face as to our side, but we can lift up our heads on God’s side, for His is a very bright side, and we get that in Isaiah’s day. I am going to dwell just a moment on the beginning of the remnant.
Now, Isaiah, in chapter 6, describes his own experience; he testifies as a man can testify if he has seen anything; he can tell what he has seen, and if he has heard anything he can tell what he has heard. As John says: “That which we have seen and heard we report to you”, 1 John 1: 3. So, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne and what then? He saw the seraphim, and he heard them, and then he witnessed of what he saw and heard. But my point at the moment is this—Isaiah gives us here, in connection with his own experience, what he actually saw, what he heard, and what he was constrained, as the result of what he saw and heard, to confess—first about himself and then about the people.
But now (though it is not exactly right to speak about a remnant of the assembly), our own times are remnant times, and they have been remnant times for some time back, and that is the particular interest of this part of scripture on account of its application to us. The conditions and the principles of the remnant must be our conditions and principles, otherwise no matter what your outward position may be, and it might be that you would pass muster in a way; for instance, you are breaking bread; that is all right—(and hold on, beloved); but we must have things in reality. That is the particular value of this scripture.
Now then, let us look at Isaiah for a moment. He begins individually, I saw and I heard; “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts”, chap 6: 2, 3. They said holy, not merely once or twice, but three times, and that gives a complete testimony—“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory”. There you are. And what is the effect upon you? You learn this—that if these are remnant times your individual history must be involved; for if your individual history is not involved you are not in it. If we turn to the New Testament—to 2 Timothy 2, we find “Let every one”—that is, every individual, not every two or three—but “let every one who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity”, and if a man—that does not mean a male; it means a person—an individual: “If therefore one shall have purged himself from these … he shall be a vessel unto honour”; as Mr Darby rightly says, it is ‘himself, not somebody else’. “If therefore one have purged himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour”. And now notice another thing about Isaiah, and a very important thing it is: What is the point of his experience here?—he learns deliverance. Is it deliverance from what he has done? No, deliverance from what he is. He says, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips”, chap 6: 5. And then being clear about himself, of course he is clear about his associations. You often find people finding fault with their associations. They grumble about others they do not like, the sects and the systems; but they seem to like themselves pretty well. Such people are not in the remnant spirit. We touch here a very practical point. Ah, beloved, it must be an individual matter, and it must begin with deliverance. Do not tell me that anybody can be right who is not in the experience of deliverance. It is not in vain that the Spirit of God puts it in the first person singular; the man in Romans 7 does not say, “for I know that in us dwelleth no good thing”. No; he says, “In me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell”. I do not want to be in a hurry, for this is a very important point. In our own day, there has been a wonderful movement of God going on for eighty years or more. The truth has been brought out with wonderful distinctness and clearness; and anyone who knows scripture must feel that it has been brought out with wonderful intelligence. You can have tracts, and pamphlets and books on scripture, and if you have a mind you can read them, and assent to them as you see they are scriptural, and further, you believe them and adopt them, and so you hold the right doctrines. But ah! that is not it. It is only when we know deliverance—deliverance—that we get into the good of these things. That is how Isaiah got it. What was the outcome of it? He says, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal [or a glowing coal, as Mr Darby’s translation reads] in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and he laid it upon …”. Does he say our mouths, and Lo, this hath touched our lips? No! but—“he laid it upon my mouth [Isaiah’s mouth], and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged”. It does not say sins, it says sin. Sin is purged. Do not read scripture loosely, if you do, brethren, you will suffer. The hindrance with many of us when we come to scripture is that we have already got our heads full and our minds full, and oftentimes we come to scripture to help up our doctrines. Mr Darby once, in a reading, turned on a young man, who was rather forward, and said to him, ‘Do not put your thoughts into scripture; seek to get God’s thoughts out of scripture’.
Well, to return to Isaiah, what does he say next? “Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me”. Ah, beloved, he was ready for it, and what do you find? The Lord says “Go”. He sends him. And what next? “Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it [in the land] shall be a tenth”. The tenth is the remnant, and chapters 11 and 12 give us the remnant. The remnant of Israel goes on to the end, and we have not come to the end of Israel yet, “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance”, Rom 11: 29. Anyone who thinks God has given up Israel is deeply mistaken.
Now I want to say a little as to what is God’s idea in the remnant. Let me tell you what it is. God does not institute an organisation. No; when people begin to say, “We are the people”, you may be sure that they are not in the remnant character. God does not bring in anything new in connection with a remnant. God’s thought as to a remnant is that it is God’s way of maintaining in principle that which He had established; that is maintained in the remnant, but it does not constitute the remnant. Now we are in remnant times; and if there is enough of a remnant in Belfast as to have three little meetings, what have you got? You have got three companies of individuals, and they have been delivered, and through deliverance they have come into the remnant character. If you have not the remnant character, you are not in it though you may be breaking bread; and you may know a great deal of scripture, more than I do, and you may be able to give me points and so on; but if you have not been brought into deliverance, you are not in the remnant character. What is deliverance? Look at Romans 6-8; the beauty of chapters 6 and 7 is, that though it is broken up into distinct elements, it is all one deliverance, but it involves complete deliverance from sin—sin not looked at as in you. Then the question of law is taken up, and the moment that law is taken up, out comes the flesh; because, when the question of law is taken up, you get to the bottom; and then, in chapter 8, you are in the good of deliverance. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made” us? Oh, no; no wholesaling things now, it has to be an individual matter; if it is not individual in my soul and in your soul, it is not there. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. If you have come to that, the remnant character will come out in you.
I want to show you now, what comes out in Isaiah 7, and I shall attempt to show it to you briefly. I have read the chapter, and let the reading suffice. But all these circumstances are brought before us, especially in the beginning of the chapter: “it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it”. Well, those are the conditions. Well now, in connection with all that, what do we get? I must not lose sight of it, because “they are they” (saith the Lord Jesus, speaking to the Jews of the Old Testament scriptures) “which testify of me”, John 5: 39. He said, ‘You search them, because they testify of Me’. You might select a chapter where you might say, ‘Well, I cannot see Christ in that’, but any one should see Christ here. If you read Matthew’s gospel, you find there the name given Him here: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good”. There is Christ, and mark, it is Christ in identification with the remnant. Take the Lord when He was here; take His first public act; what is it? He goes down to Jordan and sees John baptising, and He is baptised of him. What is the great point in the baptism of the Lord? Identification with the remnant. He is with the remnant. But I drop that for a moment, for I want to show you what the prophet goes on to learn: “The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria”. Then he goes on to declare all the things that come to pass in that day—that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver pieces—why did he number the silver pieces? To show the value and the preciousness of the vines. But what now? It shall be nothing but thorns and briers. As to the people themselves, they hired a razor; and what does the razor do? It shaved the head and the hair of the feet, and it consumed the beard. What do the hair of the head and the feet and beard signify? The points of distinguishing beauty that God had put upon His people—all gone!
Now, beloved, that is a picture of the present condition of things. Look at what the church was at the beginning and look around now. Can you see anything like it? Why, the ruin could not be more complete than it is, as complete as it was in the land of Israel in Isaiah’s day, Well, the desolation in that day was complete. And now, what about the remnant? Listen: “And it shall come to pass, in that day”. Ah! we get another side now. It is not the Egyptian fly now, nor the Assyrian bee; it is not the thorns and briers now, it is the remnant: “And it shall come to pass, in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep”. What is the meaning of that? I think it refers to Solomon’s day. When the temple was being dedicated there were offered in sacrifices two-and-twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep in one sacrifice. Think of that! Then think of a young cow and two sheep! It was in the very same land that a man is said to nourish a young cow and two sheep. That is a very small thing, especially a young cow. A young cow does not give so much milk as an older cow. She does not reach her full milking until she is five years old. “A young cow and two sheep” was a very small thing. There was nothing to show in the remnant of that day, and so it is now. When you come to Philadelphia (Revelation 3) what do you find? I speak soberly and thoughtfully. There is not very much to be seen. The Lord says to Philadelphia. Thou hast—what? a great power? an abundance of power? No! He says, “Thou hast a little power”. But that little power is wonderful when you look at the results. It is but “the young cow and two sheep”. “And it shall come to pass, in that day, that a man”—it is ‘one’ here: the “man” taken up is only a symbol of the remnant, because you see it comes at last to this. “For butter and honey shall every one eat”; but who eats? Every one that is left in the land. I have no doubt that took place in that day; I have no doubt that a great many Jews emigrated and left the land, and some were found here and some there. And in this day, you can find that many Christians have migrated and have left the land. The point as to the remnant is; they are left in the land.
Let me say this—when God set up the nation, He did not set up the nation in the wilderness, He set them up in the land, and He set them up in a wonderful way. And when God set up the church, He did not set it up in the wilderness, He set it up in the land. You say, What do you mean by the land? Well, what did the land mean for the children of Israel? It is very simple; if you want to know: read the scripture where He brought them out of Egypt to bring them in—where? Into the wilderness? He does not say so. He brought them out to bring them in. There is so much in that; do not miss its meaning; the Red Sea and Jordan coalesce; they are bound to coalesce. If you separate them, you have separated what God has joined together; for He brought them out to bring them in. Look at that wonderful chapter 15 of Exodus. Where did they sing that song? On the banks of the Red Sea, and there is not a word about the wilderness in that song; it is all about the land. In our individual souls we may have a history that will answer to the history of Israel from Egypt to Canaan; but if you speak of the assembly, God set the children of Israel in the land. Well, the land of Canaan was the sphere of God’s purpose for Israel, and the land represents now typically the scene and sphere of God’s purpose for us. That is it. Now, beloved, are we in the land? I would like to raise that question in a very simple way. Mark! you begin with deliverance; do not forget that you cannot go on without that. You say, perhaps, ‘I am in the land’. Well, see the Philistines!—they would never go and ford the Red Sea, they shirked it, and they are in the land, but they are still Philistines, they were not God’s people, they were not in the land according to God, nor by God. I repeat, you must know deliverance to be truly in the land. You may have your head full of the doctrines of scripture, but you are not in the land; you could not be unless you know deliverance; and that is just as true of the one who is speaking to you as of anyone else in this room. When you come to the truth of God, beloved, there must be no dodging it, no evading it, no exemption, no getting round it your own way; there is only one way. You must know deliverance to get into the land. Look at Romans 8. You touch the land there; and what marks you? The Spirit marks you! You do not walk according to the flesh, you walk according to the Spirit; you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit. It is only in the Spirit and in the power of the Spirit that we can touch the purpose of God, or reach those who dwelt here. The remnant are in the land, and mark! it is “in that day”. What day? The day of desolation, the day of thorns and briers, the day of the Egyptian fly and the Assyrian bee; I have seen bees settle down on a bush until they almost covered it. That is the figure the Spirit of God gives. The evil things settle down and all the distinctive marks of the beauty of the people of God have disappeared. And yet in that day, in the very presence of these things, in the very scene of desolation, the remnant comes to light. “A man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep; and it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they shall give that he shall eat butter, for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land”.
Now I call your attention for a moment to verses 14 and 15: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good”. We have read already “butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land”. That is identity of food. You must not take scriptural figures materially. Butter and honey simply stand as figures of the richness and fatness of the purpose of God. Look at the effect, “butter and honey shall he eat”, it is “that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good”. What was the matter with the Egyptians? They had no butter and honey. And what did Amalek lack? What does anybody lack that lives on Amalek (the flesh)? they will not know anything about the purpose of God; they will not know how to refuse the evil and choose the good. It is a solemn thing, a solemn fact but a true fact. How readily some Christians take up with any kind of movement and any kind of doctrine. It is a very solemn thing. I believe in being gracious, but I am suspicious of that kind of graciousness which will surrender the truth of God, and which will surrender good for evil, for that is what is at the bottom of it. I do not believe in that sort of graciousness. Paul said that meat belongs to those who are fully grown. That is—when you are so in the richness of the purpose of God that you are able to refuse the evil and choose the good. I wish, beloved brethren, to speak in grace, but I would say that the Lord would have us to be very real. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself to walk as He walked. And how did He walk? He walked in the absolute choosing of the good and the refusing of the evil. Ah, if we walk as He walked, we shall go in that way; He refused the evil and He knew how to choose the good. “Butter and honey shall he eat”.
One speaks with all holy reverence of Christ. That wonderful scripture is about Christ: and it is most searching, and at the same time a most encouraging scripture for us; it is, indeed, because it says also, “every one that is left in the land shall eat butter and honey ... and on all mountains”. You are maintained though there are “briers and thorns”. What is the remnant going to do? I will tell you what is left for the saints now; the mountains are left for the saints; “and on all hills that shall be”—what?—“digged with the mattock”. Oh, my brethren, have you learned to dig with the mattock? I know why the creeds are so popular; it is just like some who like to go to the ready-made tailors. We try the garments on. The garment seems to be the right size, down goes the money for the suit, and there is no question about it. So, some like creeds and doctrines, and think they are fine clothes, but such do not know how to dig with the mattock. They have not soul exercise. “On all hills that shall be digged with the mattock; [i.e. where there is individual exercise], there shall not come thither the fear of briars and thorns”. And what kind of place will it be? A place of soul prosperity: “It shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle”. My beloved brethren, it is marvellous; it ought to encourage us. May the Lord really enable us to take up what we have had before us, in exercise of soul with Him, so that the result may be endurance, and encouragement for our souls. Endurance means that though I know the land shall become briars and thorns all around, still, no other place for me but the land, for oh! if I have found out the mountains—the elevated places in the land—the heavenly heights, and the digging of them with the mattock, how blessed, how wonderful! That is the portion of the remnant!
May the Lord bless His people; may He encourage us greatly.