November 12, 1876
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)
"The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Isaiah 2:11
In the eternal past the Lord alone was exalted. When He dwelt alone of ever
the earth was, and when He commenced the mighty works of His creation, and the
universe sprang into being at the fiat of His unhindered will, He alone was
exalted. He made multitudes of creatures; perhaps we have no idea how many of
them there were, and in what varied forms intelligent beings were created; but
the Lord alone was exalted. Every angel adored Him: every creature knew its
Lord. It was an ill day when there broke out a rival spirit, and when evil began
to set up its throne in opposition to the God of good. The leader of the
angels-- the light bearer, sought to erect a rival throne. "How art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning" Isa 14:12. Then, by and by, in
process of time, upon this world God's glory was dimmed; here, too, another
spake and was believed, and God was doubted. Another claimed man's love and
gained it, and God was disobeyed; on earth no longer was the Lord alone exalted
as He had been in the quiet glades of Eden when our first parents worshipped
none but God, and counted it the very cream and flower of their being that they
might serve the Most High who had made them what they were. New, look where we
may in this poor, fallen world, the Lord alone is not exalted; but there are
lords many and gods many-- spiritual wickednesses and principalities of evil--
which set themselves up in opposition to the great King of kings and Lord of
lords. Yet as surely as Jehovah liveth, He will win the victory in this
conflict. Ere the drama of the world's history shall come to a close, it shall
be known throughout the entire universe that the Lord, He is God; and the Lord
alone shall be exalted.
It is a part of the work of grace-- nay, it is the main object of the work of
grace, and it is an object also of the work of providence to subserve this great
end-- that the Lord alone shall be exalted. For your comfort and for your
instruction then, first, notice the occasions when my text has been true. I
shall take the text out of its connection, not, I hope, unduly, and show that on
a large scale there are several days in which the Lord alone has been exalted,
and then we will come back to a little quiet meditation and look into our own
experience to see whether there have not been days with us when the Lord alone
has been exalted.
I. Come then, first, and notice WHEN THE LORD ALONE HAS BEEN EXALTED ON A
LARGE SCALE.
The Lord alone has been exalted among men whenever He has been pleased to reveal
Himself in the plenitude of His power. The revelations under the law were mainly
revelations girt with terror. Under the Old Testament dispensation you find God
coming out of His place to shake terribly the earth. When He bows the heavens
and comes down, the mountains flew at His presence. The Lord alone was exalted
in those days when He vindicated His justice and displayed His power against His
enemies. Remember the flood when, after so many years of warning, the ark being
prepared for the salvation of the believing few, God was pleased to draw up the
flood-gates of heaven and to bid the cataracts of earth leap upward instead of
downward, till over all the face of the world there was nothing but one mighty
all-devouring wave. When in majestic silence the ark floated over the bosom of
the world which had become the grave of Jehovah's creatures, then the Lord alone
was exalted in that day.
And when men had multiplied again upon the face of the earth, and His people had
gone down into Egypt; you know well the story, how proud Pharaoh said, "Who is
the Lord that I should obey his voice?" Ex 5:2. Then Moses came and with many
strokes of his mystic rod he afflicted the fields of Zoan, he turned their
waters into blood, and slew their fish. He spake and the flies came, and the
frogs and the locusts, and that without number; yea, the Lord smote all the
first-born of Egypt, the chief of all their strength, and in that night, when a
cry went up from every Egyptian household, and the people of Israel were led
forth like sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron, the Lord alone was exalted.
Then the nations knew that Jehovah wrought His will among the sons of men.
Nor was that all. When in their desperation the Egyptians pursued the Israelites
into the very depths of the sea, the Lord burned and looked upon them and
troubled the host of Pharaoh and took off their chariot wheels so that they
drove heavily, when the sea returned in the fullness of its strength, and the
depths had covered them until there was not one of them left, then Miriam's
song, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously" Ex 15:1,21, was
but an exposition of our text, "The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" Isa
2:11,17. Time would fail me to tell forth all His mighty works, nor is there any
need for me to recapitulate the records of the book of the wars of the Lord,
"for the Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name" Ex 15:3; and when He cometh
forth to battle, then the Lord alone is exalted in that day.
May we never live to see a pestilence sweep through this land! But should such a
visitation of God come upon us, then will our houses of prayer be thronged and
men will begin to cry unto the Most High. May we never hear the noise of war in
our streets! If such a calamity should befall us, and the Lord take the sword of
war out of the scabbard, men will begin to learn righteousness. May He be
pleased to have mercy upon us and lead us by gentle means to glorify His name.
Were He to come in judgement then would the spirit of atheism and of idolatry,
which now with brazen faces dare confront the gospel of Christ, betake
themselves to darkness in which they were begotten. When the Lord comes forth in
terror then is He alone exalted.
Let us change the theme now, and see, too, how whenever God comes forth in his
great mercy His name alone is exalted. The day when the infant Church of Christ
gathered in an upper room and sat there, all its members being of one heart and
of one soul, and the Lord revealed His grace by the baptism of the Holy Spirit -
when was heard the sound of the rushing mighty wind, when the tongues of fire
sat on the disciples-- when they began to speak as the Spirit gave them
utterance, and thousands were added to the Church, that was a day when the Lord
alone was exalted. Was there any whisper on that day of honour to be given to
Peter, or to John, or to James, in the Church of God? Think you there was any
trace of the spirit that could say, "I am of Cephas," and "I am of John"? Ah,
no. The name of the Lord was very precious to His people that day. They gave
glory to the Lord both in the temple and in their own houses, eating their bread
with gladness of heart. Only let the Lord show Himself in great blessing, then
He alone is exalted. Behold, His enemies fly before Him because of His grace.
Well, brethren, it will be even so by and by also "in that day" of which we were
reading just now with so much delight, when "the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be exalted on the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow unto
it" Isa 2:2. There is to come a day when Christ shall be known and loved of
every land. When the dwellers in the wilderness shall bow before him and His
enemies shall lick the dust. I am not going into any details or prophetic
descriptions of the millennium, but we do expect a day when the gospel shall win
its way over this whole globe, and the poor world, instead of being swathed in
mist and fog, shall come out of the cloud of her unbelief and out of the
darkness of her sin, and shine like her sister stars at the feet of her great
Creator. In that day the Lord alone shall be exalted. You will hear no more of
the name of Pope, or Patriarch, or great religious leader receiving the chief
honour; no great name set in the front of a section of the church shall be
shouted in that day; the Lord alone shall be exalted.
So again it will be when yet 'farther on in human history the end shall come,
when you and I and all of woman born shall stand before the dread tribunal of
the last great day; then shall the Lord alone be exalted. There shall be no pomp
of kings before that great white throne: there shall be no glare of riches there
before the prince of the kings of the earth: honour and fame were so feverishly
sought and so highly prized by the sons of men, shall melt away then like the
fat of rams. Kings and their serfs, princes and their subjects shall stand
together. There shall be no idol gods in that day, nor shall men receive homage
of their fellows, but while the earth shall be reeling to its doom, and the
heavens themselves dissolving, the Lord alone shall be exalted. Jehovah's great
and glorious name shall fill all ears and His majesty shall impress all hearts.
May we be found in Christ in that great day! The Lord grant it for His mercy's
sake.
II. Now, in the second place, I am going to talk to you on humbler topics,
endeavoring to bring our subject down to our own experience and to see WHEN THE
LORD ALONE HAS BEEN EXALTED ON A SMALLER SCALE.
When it is written, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, we may
understand that what is true on a great scale is equally true on a little scale
in God's kingdom. He works according to rule, so that if you split up some great
crystal of His providence into as small fragments as you please each fragment
shall be found to be crystallised in the same form. So, if in the grand events
of history God is to be exalted, you will also find that in the little world of
your own experience-- in the history which is only recorded in your own
pocket-book-- in the story of your own life-- that God is exalted too. Brothers
and sisters, many of you already know, and I pray that others here who as yet do
not know it may be brought to know it, that there have been red-letter days in
your life when the Lord alone has been exalted.
One of the earliest of these blessed days was when you first had a sense of sin.
Ah, I had no thought how black I was until that day. I had never dreamed how
corrupt was my heart, how vile my nature, how desperate my condition, how near
the borders of hell I stood, till then. There came at length that day, in which
the light of God shone into my soul and I saw the evil of my state, the danger
of my condition, and the horrible rottenness of my whole nature even to the very
core. Do you remember such a day in your experience, beloved brethren? I know
you do. Oh, what a withering day it was. Your flesh is grass, and do you not
remember when the grass withered, and when the flower thereof faded away because
the Spirit of the Lord was blowing upon it? Surely the people is grass. Do you
recollect when you perceived in your heart a new rendering of that old passage,
"And we all do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us
away, when you found your righteousness to be only a fading leaf and the
strength of your passions to be like the wind that took you right away and
carried you-- you knew not whither? You seemed to be like a sear leaf blown away
in a tempest of sin. Before that, you had thought yourself to be very fine; very
few were more respectable or honourable than you; if you had not many glittering
virtues, yet you felt you had no degrading vices; there was much about you that
others might imitate, and if people did not respect you, you felt very angry;
you felt they ought to pay great deference to such a one as you were, But you
did not feel like this on that day-- not on that day! No. In that day you threw
your idols to the moles and to the bats; you wanted to forget that you ever
thought you were righteous; you felt ashamed of even your most precious golden
idol-- your self-righteousness; you wanted to disown it, and you were afraid
anybody should remind you that you ever worshipped it.
It seemed such a horrible thing that you should ever have talked about
acceptance before God by your good works. Good works! The very thought seemed a
sarcasm on God, an irony of the devil. Good works indeed! Your prayers, your
tears, your church-goings, your chapel-goings, all seemed like so much dung.'
You understood Paul's strong language that day, your own righteousness was as
offensive to you as his was to him. You put all your old hopes away with
abhorrence. Oh, I know what happened to you, the Lord alone was exalted that
day. If anybody had preached a sermon that day about the dignity of human
nature, you would have been inclined, like Jenny Geddes, to throw a stool at his
head. If anybody had talked that day of the great things man is capable of, and
of virtue that still remain in him after the slight mischief of the fall, you
would have felt indignant at such infamous falsehood, for God had stripped you
bare of all your glory. In that day you felt yourself to be cast into a ditch,
and your own clothes abhorred you. But, oh! if any one had preached of the
splendour of the great God that day, of the infinite majesty of His holiness,
and of His justice, you would in silence have bowed your head and shed tears of
contrition which would have been the best form of adoption from your penitent
heart. If they had begun to preach the amazing mercy and the love of God in
Christ, your heart would have leaped to hear the very sound of it, for there are
no two things that ever so sweetly meet together as an empty sinner and a full
Christ. When a soul sees itself it has got the eye with which to see Jesus. He
that can see his own deformities, shall not be long before he sees the Lord's
unspeakable perfections. In that day of self-humbling, and cutting away, and
casting down, I know the Lord alone was exalted in your soul.
Well, then there came another day in your experience which is very sweet to
remember, the day when you saw Jesus hanging on the tree; when you put your
trust in him and knew that he had taken away your iniquity and blotted out your
sin. Oh, I do remember that day, it was my best marriage day and birthday too;
the day when I knew that sin was gone and gone for ever. How bright the cross
shone that day! How bright were the eyes of Jesus, and how fair his wounds! Ah,
the Lord alone was exalted that day. Had anybody preached to me of the power of
sacraments and the magic of priests, I had abhorred them in my inmost soul, and
I would have spoken my horror of the thought of giving the glory of the Lord to
another. When the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin, where is
the dastard that dares ask me to let him wash me and to let him put away my sin
for me? The blood, the blood of Jesus hath taken all our guilt away, once and
for ever; and woe betide the man that dares to stand up and put himself side by
side with the all-cleansing Christ! That was how we felt. The Lord alone was
exalted in that day. We fell just the same today. I am sure if people knew the
power of the blood of Christ they could never become slaves to the superstitions
of men. If they felt the force of being justified by faith in Jesus Christ they
would be like Martin Luther when he sprang from his knees on Pilate's staircase,
never to go another step in the weary round of man-made ordinances. What have we
to do with these beggarly things when Christ our Lord has set us free and saved
us for ever from the wrath to come? A sight of thy cross, O Jesus, makes the
priests topple down like Dagon before the ark, and the sacraments that once were
trusted in, to be despised if placed side by side with thee. Thou alone are
exalted in that day.
Since then we have had some other very happy days. The life of a Christian has
many illuminated letters in it. Our roll is not written within and without with
lamentation. We have high days and holidays, and there are times of nearness to
Christ which hardly dare to describe here. I could venture to talk of them to
two or three choice friends that know the secret of the Lord, but these things
are not for all ears. These are days when we realise the meaning of the Song of
Songs, and bless God that ever the book of Canticles was written, else there
would have been in the Bible no expression for our ardent love to Christ. On
such days we say with rapture, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth"
SOS 1:2. "Thy love is better than wine" SOS 1:2. "He brought me to the
banqueting house and his banner over me was love" SOS 2:4. "Stay me with
flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love" SOS 2:5. "His left hand
is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me" SOS 2:6. "I charge you, O
ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye
stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please" SOS 2:7; 3:5. Read Rutheford's
letters if you know the secret beforehand; if not, they will be an enigma to
you, even as the Song of Solomon must always be. This much we may say, when
Christ draweth us near to him, "The Lord alone is exalted in that day." When he
wraps us in his crimson vest and shows us all his name and saith, "I have loved
thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
I have graven thee on the palms of my hands" Jer 31:3, O brethren, "the Lord
alone is exalted in that day." Then self has gone. We cry, "I am black but
comely;" and the blackness strikes us as much as the comeliness that Christ has
put upon us. We sink into nothing at his feet. The manifestation of his glorious
love makes us cry like Job, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but
now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes"
Job 42:5. The Lord alone is exalted in that day.
Well, you know, brothers and sisters, that after some of those high flights,
when we have been on the top of the mount of transfiguration, we get exalted
above measure, and then we have to be humbled. It is a wretched confession to
make, but God's people know how true it is. We wander from the Lord, and for a
while He leaves us to ourselves, when we exalt ourselves. But return from our
wandering, then the Lord alone is exalted in that day. You know how, perhaps,
there have been weeks of estrangement between you and your Lord; He has been
jealous of your heart, and you have been cold to him; you have gone perhaps into
the world with too worldly a spirit, and the sweetness of His word has departed
from you, and His voice is no longer heard in your soul. Then you begin to cry,
"Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit" Ps
51:12. You know what it is to cry:
"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still;
But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill."
"Return, O holy Dove! return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made thee mourn
And drove thee from my breast."
Ah! when you get your prayer answered, then the Lord alone is exalted in that
day. Do you know what it is to go creeping to the mercy-seat where once you used
to go so boldly; to go there with many tears and with much shame when you used
to go with a radiant face, and yet to find your Jesus waiting there? Do you know
what it is to turn to the grand old book that once you used to read with sacred
glee, and look there for a sinner's promise such as might suit a broken heart,
and to find it come home with just the old power, tall the bones which had been
broken began to sing again, and your heart once more was joyous in the presence
of your Lord? Ah, then I know your own beauty has been turned to ashes and all
your comeliness has disappeared, for when the Lord restores a soul that soul
also restores the Lord to His proper place, and the Lord alone is exalted in
that day.
But at this rate my time will all be gone before I am half through my story. Let
me therefore hasten to say, dear brothers and sisters, that the Lord is exalted
when a church begins to sigh and cry for the Lord's presence. I hope that the
power of the Lord is not forsaking us in any measure here, but it is my fret, my
jealousy, lest He should in any wise depart from us-- lest the spirit of prayer
should go from us-- lest love to souls should leave us and there should not be
abundant conversions in the School and in the ministry, and everywhere around
our borders. Should such a time of dearth over come to us, it will be a grand
thing when a church can get together and begin to groan and cry for the Lord to
return in power. When a church fools it, must get a blessing - I hope we are
feeling it now - in proportion as that desire grows into an agony, the Lord
alone will be exalted in that day. The preacher will feel, indeed he does feel
every day more and more, his own unworthiness and inability for such a work;
every other worker will, in proportion as the desire for God's glory shall
increase, feel himself to be less and less and still less and less in his own
esteem. Oh, when we once come to wish for souls, nobody cares about being
important, nobody wishes to be in the front; everybody wants to be there if he
can serve God, but he does not want any place of honour, or court any badge of
distinction by which he shall be known. A church in agony for souls wants only
to see men converted, and she does not care how or by whom the work is done so
long as the people are but brought to Christ. Then is the Lord alone exalted.
When the blessing comes; and it is a notable day when it comes-- when the word
is with power and men are stricken down and begin to cry for mercy-- when the
inquirers are many and the converts are multiplied, and God blesses each brother
and each sister with success in soul-winning-- oh, then at such times the Lord
alone is exalted. I do believe that whenever God sends prosperity to the church
and of the members of the church begin to ascribe the success to themselves, the
blessing is almost sure to go. God will not bless proud workers. If you are
going to have a part of the fish for your self, you may cast the net where you
like but you shall take nothing; but when you are fishing for your master he
will fill your net to the full.
I often think - and therein am I glad in days of sorrow-- that when God means to
bless any one of us, He generally lowers us into the very dust. When we are
willing to be nothing, then the Lord alone is exalted in that day. If you that
are cooks were about to serve a dinner, you would not use a dish, I am sure,
until first of all you had cleansed it. You would first wipe it right out, then
you would set it on the shelf, and when you wanted a goodly dish with which to
serve up goodly meat, you would reach down the empty dish that you had well
wiped, would not you? Some of us do not get quite wiped out of our last success,
and so we have no more. We still retain a flavor of our last
self-congratulation, and so the Master will not use us. When He puts us in hot
water, makes us see our filth, and then wipes us right out, and we perhaps are
inclined to say, "Lord, I am good for nothing now," we shall be more likely to
be of some service to Him. Perhaps He will put us on the shelf for a while. He
can easily do that with some of us; a little twinge of pain and sickness, and we
are useless. We seem to say, "Lord, what am I but an empty, cracked dish?" Ah,
but then he comes and takes us down and use us, and that is worth waiting for. I
always expect a greater blessing when there is greater soul-humbling among us.
Would not you be glad to be humbled, dear brother, if God would use you more as
a consequence? Today I saw as I went home sores old crocks and broken bricks and
pieces of all sorts of earthenware put by the side of the road because the road
is going to be widened, and I thought to myself, "If the Lord would only use me
as an old broken crock to help to make a roadway for Him to ride through London,
so that He might be glorified, I would be glad to be thus honoured. Do not you
feel so too? Well, perhaps he will take you at your word some of these days.
Brother, if God humble you in order to use you, you may not like it as much as
you think you will, but still that is how we should demean ourselves. We should
be willing to be anything, or to be nothing, according to His will.
When Christian men feel they must live to the glory of God somehow, I know there
is a blessing coming-- ay, that the blessing has come, for then the Lord alone
is exalted. When the man of God says, "I must not live any longer for saving
money or simply to bring up my children respectably, or to get a subsistence for
myself," then the Lord is exalted. And when Christian men feel that they cannot
live for a party or for a section of the church, but that they must live for God
and Christ, and for the pure word of the gospel, and that everything else must
go overboard except that which is for the glory of God, then we may be sure that
the Lord has amongst us, and that He is working mightily. Behold, these are the
signs thereof. When He has insulted all pride, dimmed all human glory, and
magnified Himself, then indeed we have times of refreshing from His presence and
the Lord alone is exalted in that day.
Now I have almost done. But I want you to notice that there is a day coming; it
will come very soon to some of our venerable friends around me: it will come
very soon-- perhaps quite as soon-- to some of us in middle life who are still
in health, the day when we shall be called to go upstairs, because the Master
has a message for us. When we read the message, it will say, "The time has come
for thee to gather up thy feet in thy bed and to meet thy father's God." O
brothers and sisters, the Lord alone will be exalted in that day if we be indeed
His people. I fancy I see the dying minister when they bring up to him his
sermons. Can he glory in them? He says, "I bless God that He enabled me to
preach his truth. `Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this
grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ,' but I cannot glory in these." If you shall bring up to him the number
of his converts, and shall tell him of the churches that he built up, and the
places that he has evangelised; I will tell you what he will say, "God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" Gal 6:14.
There take the best saint among us and put him on the borders of Emmanuel's
land, and let him hear the bells of heaven ring out the never-ending Sabbath:
listen whether he will talk about himself or about the little church to which he
belongs as if it were the whole Church of God. Oh no, no, no, a thousand times
no. On the borders of Emmanuel's land all the glory is to the Lord alone.
Redeeming blood, love, effectual calling, persevering grace,-- all these will be
sung about, but there will be no songs about ourselves or aught else but God,
when we come there. Mother, are you making an idol of that babe? You will not be
able to do that when you come near your departing hour. Christian man, are you
making an idol of anything you have in this world? It will be utterly abolished
then. Anything wherein you are trusting and finding comfort will fail you then.
The Lord alone will then be your stay and your song! The Lord alone then! If you
feel the bottom as you wade into the river, you will feel that it is good. But,
by and by, you will be where there is no bottom; the river will be a river to
swim in, and then will you want to know that underneath you are the everlasting
arms. If you are sure of this you will take that mighty plunge as when a swimmer
stretches out his hand to swim, and you will be in glory in a moment.
And, beloved, when we get into the glory, the Lord alone will be exalted there.
What a difference will come over us in the matter of those little things wherein
we glory now. Petty trifles sometimes lift us up very high. Oh, how loftily we
carry our heads sometimes, poor fools that we are, because of this thing in
which we are superior to some fellow worm, or that thing in which we have not
erred as some other man has done. But oh, up there, up there, up there, all
harps will be for Jesus! All the vials shall be full of odors for Jesus. Harps
and tongues, voices and strings, all for the three-one God; all for the Lord
alone. Free grace begins to teach. us here that God alone mush be exalted, and
when we have learnt that lesson, well then, glory will come in to cap the whole
and make us feel that it were absurd even to imagine that any person or any
thing could share the glory with the infinite majesty of God.
There, now, I have done. Only I would ask you this-- Is there one here that will
not give God all the glory? If so, dear brother, you cannot be saved. Salvation
may almost hinge upon this question,-- Art thou willing to be saved so that the
Lord alone shall be exalted in thy salvation? Art thou willing no more to trust
in thy good works, thy prayers, thy tears, thy feelings, or anything else of
thine own, but to come and trust in the finished work of Jesus, and give thyself
up absolutely and entirely to be his. Art thou willing to be his servant, his
property for ever, that henceforth thy only glory may be in his dear name, thy
only boasting in his cross? If so, he accepts thee and he will save thee, but if
thou must have the glory then thou shalt not have the salvation. Where then will
thy glory be? He that glorieth in himself shall perish, but he that will glory
only in the Lord shall live for ever. God bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Spurgeon Collection" by:
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Bible Bulletin Board
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