It is good to have a number of
visiting friends among us this morning as at
other times and we rejoice in your presence.
The word that I have to pass on
this morning is based upon Isaiah chapter 54
and verse 2.
I have been diffident to turn to this
again because I remember preaching on this text
here before.
I want to assure you it isn't the
same sermon, but there are certain things in
these words which have been, dare I say,
haunting my mind and my soul as I
have been thinking of this renewal of opportunity
to serve our Lord right here in the
heart of the city as the fall is
upon us.
It is an awesome responsibility that is ours
to be situated here and to contemplate the
kind of thing that God requires of us
as we come to this particular juncture in
our year's calendar.
And I found myself drawn to these words
and I beg your pardon that I'm returning
to a text which we've used before, but
none of you would remember if I hadn't
said so.
Now we're coming then to Isaiah chapter 54
and verse 2.
Enlarge the place of your tent.
Stretch your tent curtains wide.
Do not hold back.
Lengthen your cords.
Strengthen your stakes.
Fellows and girls who've been in camp recently
will know exactly what this means though some
of us may not be as familiar with
the language as they may be and as
ancient Israel would be.
But before we come to look at the
text I would like you to notice where
it comes.
It comes in a very significant place in
the book of the prophet Isaiah.
Chapter 53 is a chapter that describes the
amazing sufferings of Messiah who at that time
had not appeared on the scene but who
was prophesied as coming in the name of
the Lord.
And in that very remarkable chapter which we
were meditating upon earlier in the year you
remember we are looking at the very sorrows
and anguish of the one chosen of God
to bear away our sins.
In a sense this is a chapter that
strikes a chord of mourning and of sorrow.
Of course we come to a victorious conclusion
but before we come to that we have
words like this surely he took our infirmities
he carried our sorrows we considered him stricken
by God smitten by him and afflicted but
he was pierced for our transgressions he was
crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought
us peace was upon him and with his
wounds we were healed.
If ever there was a chapter that describes
anguish and sorrow and suffering surely it is
Isaiah chapter 53 but as I say before
we come to the end of Isaiah 53
we come to the dawn of a new
day and the prophet is not backward in
telling us after the suffering of his soul
he will see the light of life and
be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant
will justify many for he will bear their
iniquities and listen to these words therefore I
will give him a portion with a great
that's God speaking and he will divide the
spoils with a strong because he poured out
his life unto death and was numbered with
the transgressors for he bore the sin of
many and made intercession for the transgressors he
is to see of the travel of his
soul the end is not suffering as far
as the servant of the lord the messiah
was concerned he was to see of the
fruit of the travel of his soul in
a day then on board and then the
first verse in chapter 54 sing oh barren
woman you who never bore a child burst
into song shout for joy you who were
never in labor because more are the children
of the desolate woman than of her who
has a husband enlarge the place of your
tent stretch your tent curtains wide do not
hold back lengthen your cords strengthen your stakes
for you will spread out to the right
and to the left your descendants will dispossess
nations and settle in their desolate cities what
have we here well it's poetic language some
of us may love poetry others of us
may hate it this is poetic language that
describes something very very graphically and there are
two applications to it an immediate and an
ultimate the immediate application of these words would
be something like this these words were addressed
to the faithful remnant who had returned to
jerusalem from captivity in babylon as well as
some of the old people who had remained
in the land had never been taken into
captivity all the young folk were carried away
many of them died in in captivity but
the older people and they were all old
who were now in jerusalem and in the
in in the land the word comes to
them who are beginning to wonder what's going
to happen to their land it's it has
very little population there's very little hope of
anything good happening then comes the prophet with
this remarkable word god has not said his
last word to you prepare for an incoming
and the men gathering men and women are
going to come back from distant babylon however
difficult it may be to come and they're
going to come into your city and into
your into into your country and they're going
to inhabit places that have become long deserted
and so the prophet brings a word of
hope to the remnant community of the jews
there in jerusalem and in the land concerning
a day that was soon to come but
there is another application of these words coming
as it does especially in the wake of
chapter 53 it has to do with a
messianic age with a day when messiah will
have arrived undergone his sufferings and his anguish
on the cross especially and risen again and
has the spoils of his victory to share
with men and women in other words there
is an application of my text of the
day when jesus christ will have suffered died
been buried risen again ascended to the right
hand of the father sent forth the dowry
the holy spirit and all the gifts of
grace to shower upon his people and i'm
going to use it this morning in that
particular context for our lord is risen and
he has ascended at the father's right hand
and he is lord of lords and king
of kings and he has gifts to impart
to man and i believe that this word
comes as a very real word of god
to any believing now mark this i want
to underline that word any believing community of
god's people any company of men and women
of face who have the some dim notion
of what messiah has done has accomplished as
we may be starting upon another fall and
winter's labors for our lord here is a
veritable word from the throne god is telling
us to get ready now the image itself
is very beautiful especially if you've been an
old-time camper you see the picture is
this enlarge the curtains here is a little
tent it'll only take about eight or ten
people shall we say the curtain doesn't stretch
very far but there are myriads going to
come in so you need to stretch the
canvas out to cover them all so that
they can all come under the roof and
they can all come in and join with
us under the same canvas stretch it out
says the prophet but be careful of this
he says there's a danger when you spread
out the canvas in order to keep the
canvas edifice if we may so speak safe
and secure for those who come under it
strengthen your tent pegs at the same time
you need tent pegs that will go deeper
into the soil so that when the wind
blows the edifice will not fall and crumble
now that's the picture and i pray that
the lord will help us as we come
to it and apply it very especially to
ourselves this morning and uh to the work
of the lord as we are summoned to
do it at this time now having seen
this pictorial language this graphic word this poetic
word let me now hasten to add this
the word is poetic but let me tell
you that the truths represented here are found
everywhere in the new testament everywhere the new
testament reflects a two-fold divine requirement of
god's people wherever they are whether you're from
toronto or the uttermost parts of the earth
it doesn't matter the new testament requires two
things from us evangelism of going out a
stretching of the canvas to receive men and
women into the fellowship into the christian home
dare we say the church and at the
same time to strengthen the edifice which is
edification sanctification growing up towards maturity and stability
now that's the language of the new testament
stretch out your canvas to bring in the
wayward and the returning to make them at
home to provide a place for them but
at the same time see to it that
the fellowship into which they come is strong
enough to nurse them and bring them to
maturity that the whole thing doesn't collapse on
top of them and they crumble and they
come into a tragic situation let me therefore
share with you the call of the hour
as i understand it the kind of rededication
that the lord requires of us as the
people of nox at this time and all
god's people who may be worshiping with us
this morning i want to say two or
three things and i want to continue this
theme this evening first of all god calls
us today to enlarge the cord of our
vision manward but at the same time to
strengthen the stake or the tent peg of
our communion godward and these two things must
go together now notice the balance here it
is not either or it is both and
we need vision of our duty but in
order to have the kind of vision that
god wants us to get we must concentrate
upon communion with himself a vision of the
need communion with a god who supplies that
need let's take these two first and in
order we start with the vision manward that
we need now it has been well said
in the old testament that where there is
no vision the people perish may god grant
us the kind of vision that we need
individually and corporately certainly if we do not
have such a vision then the consequences can
be grave for the future of our own
souls and of our own families as well
as the church to which we belong a
word of definition first what do we mean
by vision in this context now i want
to suggest that vision biblically understood has at
least and i say at least there are
other elements but it has at least two
elements to it we can speak of them
as sight and insight perhaps that helps us
to remember sight and insight sight and insight
a man of vision in the biblical sense
is a man who looks at the world
to see what's going on he's concerned for
the world because the spirit of god is
in his heart and the word of god
is being read by him and he's in
fellowship with god and god is concerned for
the world and so he's looking out upon
the world to see what's going on in
the world and he sees things he reads
his newspaper he listens to the news he
reads anything that will tell him about the
world and its events and its happenings because
he wants to know he wants a vision
in that sense he wants to have a
vision of the whole world because it's god's
world but now that doesn't make vision in
the biblical sense it's only the beginning of
it vision is not just simply having things
in view vision involves an insight an understanding
not only of what is going on but
why things are as they are and if
things don't change what's going to happen and
what does god got to say to the
situation this is insight let me put it
to you in terms of a very simple
illustration a mother becomes concerned because she sees
some pimples on the skin of the child
takes the child to the doctor perhaps the
mother doesn't know what it is but when
the doctor sees them he immediately doesn't has
more than just external vision of what's there
he sees what lay behind them what lies
behind them he sees the cause he sees
the disorder in the blood or whatever the
case may be he his vision goes deeper
he knows why and wherefore what's more he
will know what will happen to the child
if they don't deal radically with this and
effectively and if he's a good doctor he
will know what to prescribe now that's vision
vision is reading and understanding what's going on
in the world in the light of the
word of god you see it's not pimples
that we see on the body politic today
we see more than that we see disfigurement
we see decay we see the marks of
sin upon the way people are thinking and
the way people are acting we see it
everywhere a man or a woman of god
must read the newspaper in the light of
the word many people read their newspapers instead
of the word i suggest to you if
that is true of you it would be
better to cancel the newspaper for a couple
of weeks in order that you may know
what the word of god has to say
to the affairs of the day but ultimately
you need to know what's going on in
the world and then bring your knowledge of
scripture to bear upon it so that you
can see this is why things are happening
in iran this is why certain things are
happening elsewhere in the world in northern ireland
or somewhere else and this is why things
are going out wrong in our family or
in our congregation or wherever i live that's
vision vision in the biblical sense is never
simply concerned with the superficialities though it takes
note of everything all the signs and the
symptoms but it sees beyond it sees beneath
brothers and sisters in christ what's the state
of your vision this morning do you see
things clearly at all is there a scum
over your eyes that you don't see things
through the mind and through the eyes of
your lord are you short-sighted have you
ever seen the world beyond your own doorstep
and your own little circle or are you
long-sighted there are some people who don't
see what's near at hand but they see
what's far away they read about distant things
and they're very interested now it's an anomalous
situation but there are people like that who
will support the work of god in the
distant places but not at hand and they
will never sought to evangelize the man or
the woman next door however pagan he or
she may be but they're interested in distant
needs where there is no vision that people
perish we need to see in the distant
scenes of course we do especially in the
third world that is so needy in things
material as well as spiritual but brothers and
sisters in christ we need a full vision
a total vision a clear vision and we
need to be careful that we are not
looking at the world with rose-colored spectacles
on the humanist does that there are many
so-called liberal christians who do that oh
yes the world's in a bad state but
it'll get better the kind of optimism that
people had just previous prior to the first
world war is a legacy of the past
of the victorian era always expecting things to
get better without any real basis for it
you and i need to have a vision
of things but now you will naturally ask
the question how are we going to secure
that kind of vision and that brings me
to the second part of this our vision
manward can only grow in so far as
we have communion with god communion with god
you see ultimately there is only one person
who knows what's really going on in the
world and why things are as they are
it's difficult for some of us to take
that in because our conception of god is
so small and so trivial that he is
not worthy of the name but if you
were a believer in the revelation that god
has given of himself in christ jesus and
in the bible then you will follow me
here this morning there is only one person
who knows what's going on throughout the whole
wide world and there is only one person
who knows why things are as they are
and we are going to catch his vision
only in so far as we get near
enough for him to be influenced by him
to hear his word to see through his
eyes to feel with his heart and to
want to do what he is concerned we
should do communion with god is the only
soil that produces spiritual fruitfulness of any kind
and particularly what we are speaking of this
morning a vision of the world our world
you know the fourth chapter of the book
of revelations starts like this i'm taking i'm
taking this out of its context really just
taking the principle the word of the lord
came to john and says john come up
hither and i will show you things now
stop there for a moment the book doesn't
stop there the statement doesn't stop there but
what god is saying to john come up
here he says and i'll show you things
he goes on to say i'll show you
things that must shortly come to pass but
you see there's a principle there if you
and i are to have the vision that
god wants us to have we've got to
come up to him we've got to come
near to him we've got to draw nearer
we've got to ascend into the hill of
the lord we've got to have communion with
him there are always two ways of looking
at the world from ground level and from
above the reporter's way standing alongside of the
event you know the reporter comes rushing whenever
there's been an accident or whatever it is
here they come with their cameras and their
pens and their pencils and their paper here
they come and they see they don't all
see the same thing because they're so close
to it and they're looking at it from
ground level they never have the whole truth
there is another vantage point it's taking your
place with your heavenly father and it is
sharing something of the breath of his spirit
and looking from his vantage point upon the
world and listening to what he says and
sensing how he feels and discovering what he
wants you to do and you see this
is why there is nothing more important in
the whole gamut of our christian disciplines than
this it is learning how to commune with
god how
deep is your communion how real is it
how effective is it has it given you
a vision of the need of men living
near or far can you read your newspaper
understanding what's going on vision
manward needs always to be accompanied by communion
with god because it is only in that
atmosphere that vision becomes clear and strong and
adequate now do i hear anybody say that
this is very difficult well yes of course
it is everything that's worthwhile is always difficult
but you know the only difficulty is the
difficulty of sanctification let me put it like
this it's the difficulty of getting sin and
its effects out of our lives and the
difficulty of receiving the grace of god to
beautify our lives and to strengthen the work
of grace begun in us and if you
and i are prepared to let sin and
every semblance of evil behind us and to
accept the word of god as it is
and the commands of god as they come
to us then at least the way is
plain it may still be difficult but it
is clear now that is the first thing
and i believe this is a very real
call to each one of us because you
see you influence men and women around you
all of us do and if you have
a clear vision of the need of the
world you can communicate it to people that
you sit with and talk with and commune
with from day to day and you are
part of the church of jesus christ now
that brings me to the second main thing
that i have to say this morning god
is calling us today to lengthen the cord
of our compassion for men but at the
same time to see that it is tied
to the tent peg of our utter dedication
to himself compassion compassion for men
now what is compassion someone has said that
compassion is an intense fire in the soul
that burns and burns and burns and burns
until it disturbs our emotions and drives us
into action well it is that at any
rate compassion can be the most discomforting of
all human experiences it keeps people awake it
makes people unhappy when they live selfishly i
have seen i have seen people unable to
eat their meals i won't mention names but
they're names that are known to you i
have seen people unable to eat a seven
course meal because of his conscience i'm thinking
of one man particularly compassion is a disturbing
thing when it gets hold of the soul
there are certain things you can't do to
heap riches upon yourself and to have pleasure
for yourself and yourself alone you can't when
compassion is in your heart when compassion is
accompanied by a clear vision gained in communion
with god then it will never be of
the purely sentimental kind nor will it take
the form of an indiscriminate activity a mere
activism it will set afire all the energies
of the soul and they in turn will
serve like a fire in the boiler of
an engine to make us go and do
what god requires see at the heart of
the word compassion there is the word passion
now what comes to your mind when you
think of passion well i wonder whether it
is this we speak of people who are
subject to their passions what do we mean
is it not something like this that they
they're controlled by them and they seem incapable
of saying no notice here it is come
passion and the first part of the word
come means passion alongside of or along with
someone what is compassion i'll tell you it
is passion that runs parallel with god's passion
it is intense feeling and concern that runs
in the same direction and has something of
the same momentum as the passion the concern
of almighty god that's compassion this deep feeling
of which we're talking then is something that
is to be gained alongside of god and
ultimately ultimately expresses itself in our beginning to
feel for people as god feel now there
may be someone here this morning who is
wondering how god feels and feels that perhaps
god is hard and callous and unjust who
have never recognized that all god's dealings with
us have to be understood in the light
of the one cardinal and central thing in
the history of the world namely this that
god gave his only begotten son the only
begotten of his bosom he gave him to
die the death of the wicked the just
in the place of the unjust god gave
him because he was concerned for us and
for a hell deserving world and everything else
in the in the whole history of men
and women has somehow to be understood in
the fact that our god is a god
of grace he's the god who gave his
son on calvary and he's a god who
loves us with a love like that compassion
is the passion of god seeping into me
as i stand alongside of god and walk
alongside of god and think alongside of god
god and i together move and he is
impressing himself upon me so that his passion
is in my soul but now compassion of
this order however will always involve the compassionate
in feeling or suffering along with the needy
having gained something of this compassion by being
alongside of god god will send us because
of that compassion to stand alongside men in
their sin in their rags in their need
in their misery see this is what god
himself did the creator of all the ends
of the earth he to whom all the
peoples of the world of the ages says
isaiah are as but the specks of of
dust on the balances he who counts the
numbers of the stars and as a name
for every one of them thy almighty god
the creator of the ends of the earth
who is neither who is never weary never
in need of a rest the almighty god
the self-sufficient and self-sustaining deity he
came into our world to stand alongside of
us to live among us and you shall
call him emmanuel was the message because god
is with us that is the mystery of
the incarnation it is a mystery but this
is the reality within the mystery but god
has come down alongside of men and ultimately
on the cross he died in christ christ
the son of god in our physical in
a body physical like ours died between two
thieves he couldn't come nearer to men than
that he's come under the burden of men's
guilt and shame i'll tell you what would
be most rewarding when you have the time
to do it read the gospel stories again
the gospel records and you will see something
of our lord's compassion he sees jerusalem for
example drawing towards the last week of his
of his ministry he sees jerusalem and he
begins to weep oh jerusalem jerusalem that killeth
the prophets and stonest them that are sent
unto you how often would i have gathered
your children together as a hen gathers its
brood under its wings but you would not
your house is left to you i'll let
you have what you want says jesus desolate
or he sees or and hears the sound
of of a man as he going into
jericho for the first time son of david
have mercy upon me was blind you remember
how the people got excited because this dear
man was shouting and making a noise making
as they thought a nuisance of himself but
he couldn't be silenced and jesus said he
had compassion on him we read he had
compassion on him and he said bring him
to me when he saw the people as
sheep without a shepherd he had compassion on
them what does that mean he he had
a passion for their well-being akin to
the passion of the unseen god god's passion
was seen in him we felt the heartbeat
of god in jesus christ and my dear
friends this is something of the call to
you and to me this morning oh we
are to preach the word and we are
to declare the gospel as correctly and as
as balanced as we can and that is
never to be abrogated in this age we
are to make disciples of all nations but
listen we are to be something we are
to adorn the doctrine that we proclaim there
is to be in us something of the
passion and compassion of god and his son
in other words we are to have the
fruit of the spirit and it all comes
in there god is calling us today to
lengthen the cord of our compassion that we
feel for people at hand who know not
christ whether they're rich or whether they're poor
you see i don't really know who is
most to be pitied is it the rich
man or is it the poor man without
christ there is no man to be pitied
more than the man who drives in his
marvelous limousine who lives in the most luxurious
palace and is let me tell you on
his way to hell and believes because of
his wealth or his academic achievement that he's
got everything when he's got nothing he's lost
and i'm not so sure that that man
is not more to be pitied than the
people who grovel in the dust and ashes
they know they haven't got anything i'm not
suggesting that we shouldn't look at them or
feel for them not for one solitary moment
but i am feeling increasingly that we should
think of these dear men and women that
are living in the castles of luxury and
they feel they've got everything and they're dying
without god and without his son and we
think of them as if they have everything
because we have become materialistic in our outlook
and because we see them in lovely cars
and lovely homes oh they're all right my
friends if the book is right they're not
and we need compassion we need to feel
we need the sensitivity of god and his
son and his spirit within us for the
rich as well as for the poor for
the cultured as well as the untaught so
much missionary effort and i i don't want
you to misunderstand this has been spent on
their very very deprived and surely they've deserved
it but the point that i am making
is this that very often we have thought
of them only and we have forgotten the
rich man in his castle living in total
ignorance of the things revealed in christ we
need a total vision we need a clear
vision and we need compassion my time has
gone but can i just say this to
close that long rope has to be has
to be tied to the tent peg of
a constant rededication of our lives to god
i'll tell you why it is one thing
to begin all right it's another thing to
continue and you and i may have this
vision clearly and we may have a sense
of compassion that will will bring us to
a point of consecration and we shall start
moving out with god but if i'm not
mistaken what happens to every one of us
at some time or another is this having
started well we forget where we're going to
and we get stuck in the mud you
know this is true of every good and
worthy establishment in history it's tragic to think
of it and yet it's you can understand
it if you read your word we are
living in a world of evil and of
said rampant evil satan is our arch for
and within every believer there are still seeds
of evil and so what happens is this
yeah we acknowledge we acknowledge what god wants
of us we'll do everything we can to
procure this and to get it going in
the lord's way but we haven't gone very
far when we get cold again and we
forget and we need to come back to
the place of rededication let me illustrate this
i was thinking particularly of the and i'll
mention it otherwise otherwise the point will not
be made i was thinking particularly of the
young men's christian association i do so because
one of the things that stirred my soul
as a young man was the story of
how that dear man mr williams george williams
was it was that his first name george
i think it was started the young men's
christian association in england it was a sheer
heart burden for young men and women who
were coming into the city for the first
time leaving home had no friend nowhere to
go to everything was new and the temptations
of those days apparently were rampant and this
dear man began to gather young men around
him he was concerned for them if they
had need materially he would share his needs
his gifts with share his home with them
share anything with them but the main thing
was he wanted them to become men and
men of god and so he organized the
young men's christian association but you see the
sea has gone out of it by now
and it's just a young men's association it's
very rare nowadays in ymca circles to come
across anybody that has a passion for the
souls of young men things degenerate with time
you see you can say the same about
all our christian denominations let me speak of
our presbyterian community which goes back to john
calvin you go to geneva today and what
do you find i have worshiped there in
some of the deadest communities that i have
ever known even in the church dear john
calvin himself ministered come back to england where
is the passion of wesley and whitfield what
happens in our wesleyan churches in england today
well i wouldn't like to tell you come
to my own country daniel roland's william williams
of panther kelling and others with them were
involved in the beginnings of the presbyterian church
in wales where is the presbyterian church in
wales today i'll tell you it's got rid
of almost every evangelical from among its ranks
because it made it impossible for them to
stand for the truth of god and it
is standing for such an anemic message that
ill deserves the name christian having started so
wonderfully you see the same thing happens in
your life and mine how many times have
you been in a situation where you put
yourself on the altar to do anything that
god required of you and you started doing
it then you got cold again what i'm
saying is this the cord of our compassion
for men needs to be tied to the
tent peg of our constant rededication of ourselves
to god and i must end there this
is a day this is a moment when
god is calling upon us i believe to
place ourselves on the altar oh there is
work here in knox i really do not
know what to do when i see everything
there is to be done now we've got
quite a number of people on the staff
and so many who give of their time
and their talents people who come in from
distant places during the week to do this
to go there but listen my friend we're
hardly scratching the surface of it and this
is the church of jesus christ i want
to ask you have you got the vision
do you know anything about his compassion then
i ask you in his name come and
put yourself on the altar afresh christ has
died calvary has accomplished our redemption and the
redemption of all who will believe to the
end of the ages we must gather them
in we must go out and make disciples
of all nations we must build them up
and we need you as evangelists as teachers
to do this to do that in one
of the many segments or aspects of our
work i ask you in the name of
the lord come put yourself on the altar
let us pray oh lord our god and
our father a sense of privilege wells in
our hearts this morning that we are called
of yourself to be involved in your work
whereas naturally we are so undeserving and unworthy
of this high privilege we pray now that
you will pursue each one of us with
the claims of the christ upon us that
during the course of these coming months this
coming year if our lord should tarry there
will be no department in this congregation that
will lack workers or in the congregations represented
here but that men and women who listen
to the word of god and read it
have caught the vision of the need and
of the peril of the danger and of
the answer to that need and have sensed
something of the compassion of god and have
caught the spirit and are moving out with
god into a new era of opportunity our
father hear us as we place ourselves therefore
at your disposal and lead us to the
everlasting glory and praise of your holy name
lead us that we may be worthy of
the name we bear and fruitful in the
places where we are for jesus sake amen