Summoned to an Exodus
‘Think not of rest, though dreams be sweet;
Start up, and ply your heavenward feet!
Is not God’s oath upon your head,
Ne’er to sink back on slothful bed;
Never again your loins untie
Nor let your torches waste and die?”
KEBLE,
(ISAIAH xlviii. 20.)
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E now reach the close of the first part of these wonderful prophecies. It really concludes at the end of the forty-eighth chapter, with the summons to the house of Jacob, called by the name Israel, which had come forth from the waters of Judah, to arise and go forth from Babylon. There has never been an era in which God’s people have not
been face to face with a great principle of evil, embodied in a city, confederation, or conspiracy of darkness. Always the same spirit under differing forms; always the deification of the human against the Divine; always the pride and vainglory of intellect against moral worth; always the effort of man’s prowess and scheming to build a fabric without the Divine keystone which alone can give solidity and permanence.
This great system is as strong to-day as when the massive walls of Babylon enclosed their millions, and proudly dominated the world. Some have identified it with the Church of Rome, or the spirit of ecclesiastical assumption; but it is better to consider it as that element which is ever working through human society, which is spoken of as “the world,” and of which the apostle said, ‘It is without hope and without God.” We are therefore warranted in applying to present surroundings every item in the description given of the olden foe of Israel, and of heeding the summons to go forth.
I. SENT TO BABYLON. — God’s ideal for the chosen people is set forth under a beautiful similitude (18).
Their peace might have been as a river. Not as the brook, as it gushes rapturously forth, breaking musically on the stones, and flashing in the glee of its early life; not as a streamlet hardly filling its wide bed, and scarcely affording water enough for the fish to pass to its higher reaches: but like a river far down its course, sweeping along with majestic current, deep and placid, able to bear navies on its broad expanse, to collect and carry with it the refuse of towns upon its banks without contamination, and approaching the sea with the sympathy begotten of similarity in depth and volume and service to mankind. Oh, rivers that minister perpetually to man — not swept by storm, not drained by drought, not anxious about continuance, always mirroring the blue of the azure sky, or the stars of night, and yet content to stay for every daisy that sends its tiny root for nourishment — in your growth from less to more, your perennial fulness, your beneficent ministry, your volume, your calm, ye were meant to preach to man, with perpetual melody, of the infinite peace that was to rise, and grow, and unfold with every stage of his experience! Such at least was God’s ideal for Israel, and for all who swear by his name and make mention of Jehovah as God.
Their righteousness might have been as the waves of the sea. Walk along the coast-line when the tide has ebbed, mark the wastes of sand, the muddy ooze, the black unsightly rocks. Not thus did God intend that any of his children should be. It was never his will that. their righteousness should ebb, that there should be wastes, and gaps, and breaks in their experience, that there should be the fatal lack of strength, and purity, and virtue. The Divine ideal of the inner life is mid-ocean, where the waves reach to the horizon on every side, and there are miles of sea-water beneath. No one can look upon the majestic roll of the Atlantic breakers, in purple he Secret of Peace. 87
glory, crowned with the white crest of foam, chasing one another as in a leviathan game, without realizing the magnificence of the Divine intention that all who have learnt to call God Father, should be possessed of a moral nature as fresh, as multitudinous, as free in its motion, as pure in its character, as those waves which, far out to sea, lift up their voice and proclaim the wealth of the power of God.
What a contrast this to the troubled sea to which the wicked are compared — sighing, chafing, moaning along the shore, and casting up mire and dirt! Give mea thousand times rather mid-ocean, where the breezes blow fresh over miles of sea, than the melancholy break of the waves on a low and sandy shore. The one is as the righteous man in the strength and glory of his regenerate and justified manhood; the other as the wicked, always churning, fretting, bringing forth that which will profit him nothing.
This ideal is within the reach of every one who will hearken to God’s commandments. There is a short and easy method by which that peace may begin to flow for thee and me, and the waves of that righteousness sweep in jubilant measure over our souls. Hearken and do. Have his commandments and keep them. Level your life to your light. But if we refuse, and turn aside and follow the devices and desires of our evil hearts, we shall miss inevitably and utterly the realization of that purpose which otherwise would make music in our hearts and melody to our God. Obedience to the least wish of the Lord, however and wherever expressed, is the golden secret, by the practice of which we may attain to this peace and this righteousness.
But if we refuse, we may have to pass, as Israel did, into the furnace of suffering in the Babylon of the world. God cannot be thwarted in the realization of his purpose. If we are obstinate, and our neck an iron sinew, and our brow brass (4); if we trust in our idol and graven image (5); if we will not hear, nor know, nor open our ear (8) — then we must go by a more circuitous and painful route, via Babylon, with its bitter anguish, where, as in a furnace for silver, the dross and alloy will be purged away. How many of God’s people are at this moment in the furnace, which would not have been required if they had been willing and obedient! Not that the furnace always indicates unfaithfulness; but if we are unfaithful, we must expect the furnace.
II. Lir — E in BaByLon. — The mighty city was called the Lady of Kingdoms. We must think of her with massive walls, broad spaces, colossal bulls guarding the entrances to vast temples with flights of stairs and terraces; with pyramids, towers, and hanging-gardens; her wharves receiving the freights of the Indian Ocean; her marts thronged with the merchants of the world; her streets teeming with tributary populations. But right across her splendour ran the fatal bars of cruelty, luxury, wickedness, and devil-worship.
Cruelty. When God gave his people into her hand, she showed them no mercy; but laid her yoke very heavily upon the aged, who staggered beneath their loads, or fainted in the horrors of the march to Babylon, whilst multitudes of the young were crucified among the smoking remnants of their city (xlvii. 7).
Luxury. She was given to pleasures, and dwelt very carelessly. Her citizens were arrayed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls. Her merchandise was of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet, ivory and brass, cinnamon and spice (8).
Wickedness. In this she trusted: in violence and oppression, in drunkenness and excess, in the impurities of nature-worship; so that she made all the nations drunk with the wine of her abominations (10).
Devil-worshtf. She laboured with her enchantments and with the multitudes of her sorceries (12).
Amid such scenes the Jews spent the weary years of their captivity. Very bitter was their lot. They were for a prey or a spoil. Bills of slave-sales which have been recently deciphered contain Jew-names. The majority of them were probably employed in exacting toils, in building up the material strength and prosperity of Babylon, as their fathers had done for Egypt centuries before.
But through this awful discipline there was slowly emerging a nobler, loftier ideal, which was fostered by the ancient words that foretold their destiny. It was not possible that they should be long holden by their captors. Were they not the elect people of God, destined to bless the world? Were they not called to bear the Ark of God in the march of the race? Was not the Covenant, made of old with Abraham, still vital in all its provisions? Yes, they might be in Babylon like many another captive people, but they had a great hope at their heart. And in the light of that hope, under the searching fires of their anguish, they for ever abandoned their love for idolatry; they turned from the outward rites of worship, to cultivate a strong moral and religious life; and they gave themselves up to the study of their inspired Scriptures with an ardour which, from that moment, made the synagogue and the scribe an indispensable adjunct of their national life. Never again was the Jew an idolater. Always after conscience was quick and sensitive. Without exception, the Jewish Scriptures, kept with the most exact and scrupulous care, and the Jewish synagogue, accompanied the movements of the scattered race. In addition, there was a breadth of view, enlarged conceptions of the dealings of God with man, an expansion of interests, which prepared the way for the further revelations of the Gospel as to the catholicity of the love of God, and the brotherhood of man. As a river, in its flow over various soils, becomes impregnated with their products, so did the Jewish people receive lasting benefits from their painful sojourn in Babylon, with those waters they so often mingled their tears.
Some who read these words are now in their Babylon. They look back to a sunny past, which might have continued had they not stepped out of the narrow path of obedience. Their peace was then as a river, their righteousness as the waves of the sea; but, alas! all this is but a memory. They involved themselves in coils of difficulty and suffering, from which deliverance appears hopeless. The weary years seem destined to run out their slow and painful course without remedy. Yet let such still hope in God: they shall still praise Him; let them repent of their sins and put them away; let them learn the deep go Summoned to an Exodus.
lessons which God’s Spirit is endeavouring to teach; let them dare to praise God for the discipline of pain. In these dark hours light is being sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Presently the clarion call of the Exodus will ring out: “Arise and depart, for this is not your rest; cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans.”
II]. ExopuS FROM BABYLON. — The old order was changing and giving place to the new. In a magnificent apostrophe, the virgin daughter of Babylon had been summoned to come down from her imperial throne and sit on the ground. She was no more to be called tender and delicate. She must step down to ‘the level of the common household drudge, who grinds the meal and carries the burdens of the house. Loss of children and widowhood were to come to her in a moment — in one day; and neither the enchantments of magicians, nor the efforts of those who had traded with her, would avail to avert her calamities (xlvii. I, etc.).
From the ruins of the mightiest city that, perhaps, the world has ever seen the Jews are bidden to go forth. ‘“Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans.” The edict of Cyrus was only the countersigning of the Divine edict, which had already gone forth. And it is very remarkable that whilst Babylon has vanished, leaving no trace, save in the records of the past, the people whom they held for seventy years in thrall are not only in existence still, but have the control of the secret springs of the world, and are destined to play a great part in its future history. Amid the removing of those things which could be shaken, because they were made by the wit or power of man, they have received a kingdom that could not be shaken — the kingdom of moral force, of character, of spiritual power.
This summons for an Exodus rings out to the Church of the Living God from the heavenly watchers. “I heard another voice from heaven,” says the seer, “‘saying, ‘Come forth out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.’” And in the words that follow there is an evident reference to the overthrow of Babylon, with “Gome Out, and be Separate.” gt
an application to the Godless system of human society which confronts the Church in every age. In the early centuries it was represented by the Roman Empire; now it is present in the spirit of the world. The race of Babel-builders is not extinct. By his intellect and energy man is still endeavouring to rear a structure, independently of God; to make himself a name; and defy the waters of Time’s deluge from sweeping away his work. All human imaginings, strivings, energizings, man’s ceaseless activities, the outcome of human life, apart from the Spirit of God, constitute a fabric as real as that of Babel, or Babylon the Great; though no material fabric arises as its visible memorial.
From all this we are bidden to “come out and be separate.” “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” “Touch no unclean thing.” Let the spirit of a Divine love burn out the spirit of worldliness and self-hood. Come out — out from all fellowship with iniquity; out from all communion with darkness; out from all concord with Belial; out from partnership with unbelievers! Beyond Babylon lies the desert which must be traversed ere Jerusalem is reached, and we dread the privations through which we may be called to pass. The fear of these withheld large numbers of the Jews from obeying the edict of Cyrus. They remained in the land of their captivity till they lost their autonomy, and became the people of the Dispersion.
Let no such fear withhold thee, O Christian soul! It may seem as though the desert were to be traversed by thee, without break or intermission for many a weary year. But take heart! He will lead thee through the deserts; He will cause waters to flow from the rocks; He will cleave the rock, and the waters shall gush out. Supplies of which thou hast no conception shall surprise thee with their fitness and abundance. ‘Thy track shall be marked with flowers and trees, glades where now are wastes, wells where now are the dunes of the desert. The time is fulfilled. Thy discipline is complete. The year of thy redemption is come. Go ye forth from the captivity which has so long held thee, to a freer, nobler, diviner life.