以赛亚书 26:3-4

PEACEFUL KEEPING

Isaiah 26:3-4. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, &c.

The delightfulness and the value of peace to the nation, the Church, the family, the individual (P. D. 2664). Consider—I. THE PROMISE.

1. It is universal in its range. It is made to any and every man who will trust in God.

2. It is sure. Men fail for various reasons to keep their promises, but every Divine promise is certain to be fulfilled (H. E. I. 4052, 4053).

3. The peace which is pledged and secured to all who will fulfil the condition of the text is perfect—so perfect that it can only be described by a repetition of the word, “peace, peace.” God never gives in driblets. His gifts are like Himself, perfect for their fulness, for their suitability, for their enduring qualities. God can keep His people in perfect peace when the devil accuses, when the world allures or threatens, when sickness tries, when adversity oppresses, even when the heart is sore tried, and when grim death would affright (H. E. I. 1253, 1893, 1894, 1911–1926; P. D. 2669, 2673).

II. THE CHARACTER DESCRIBED. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusted in Thee.” Trust unites. The mind will not be stayed upon God unless there be perfect confidence in His wisdom, power, and love. Trust and love go together. Love begets confidence, and confidence strengthens love. The whole nature must be stayed on God, and on God only. There must be no division in the heart’s affections: we cannot serve God and Mammon and be kept in perfect peace. There must be trust before there can be peace; God Himself cannot give perfect peace to the untrustful.

III. THE EXHORTATION. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever.” We trust in the Lord when, encouraged by His promises, we hold fast to Him. It is nothing deeper, nothing more difficult than that. Its very simplicity is its difficulty. As the limpet binds itself to the rock, and is not disturbed by the dashing billows, so let the soul by an ardent affection bind itself to the Rock of Ages. The word “ever” gives a wonderful expansiveness to our text. It points at once to God’s eternity and man’s immortality. He is a being capable of being trusted for ever, and for ever we shall be capable of trusting Him. Our trust is to be unlimited and unintermitted; it is to be exercised at all times, under all circumstances, through all ages.

IV. THE STABLE FOUNDATION OF THE BELIEVER’S CONFIDENCE. “For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” The peace must be perfect that rests upon, and rises out of, such a solid foundation. The mountains are “everlasting” only in figure, but the foundation on which we rest is everlasting in fact (Psalms 91:1-2).—W. Burrows, B.A.

The world needs the message contained in our text. Most faces that we see are careworn. They are so because behind them there are anxious hearts distressed by fears of various kinds—by fears concerning the body, by fears concerning the soul. The vast majority of men are destitute of true peace; for while in the world there are many ways—of pleasure, of sin, of disappointment, of misery, of death—there is no way of peace. The multitudes who throng past us are miserable because the way of peace they have not known.I. LOOK AT THE PERSON WHO IS KEPT IN PEACE. He is a person whose mind is stayed on God. A man’s self, sin, pleasure, false religion, vain hopes, are every one of them troubled waves in an ocean of disquietude, and no soul can stay itself upon them, though many souls have sought to do so. Who, lying down in the very midst of the sea, can find there repose? As he lieth down upon the waves, they yield beneath him—the billows roll over him; he is sinking in the mighty deep. So with the sinner lying down in the midst of the sea and of the storm of this world apart from God. But he who lieth down upon God is as a man upon a rock, or as one in a mighty fortress; he is at peace—secure in fact and in feeling. But it is only as God is revealed to us in Christ that we may rest upon Him. Apart from Christ, He is to sinners “a consuming fire.” Only through Christ may we find the blessedness we so much need, but through Christ we may find it.II. LOOK AT THE POWER WHICH KEEPS THE BELIEVER IN PEACE. It is not the power of his own faith (H. E. I. 1970, 1975). It is not the power of his own effort, struggling to obtain confidence. It is the power of God: “Thou wilt keep him,” &c. The sinner obtains peace by yielding himself to God (Romans 6:13). The believer has peace while he leaves himself in God’s hands, quietly submissive, cheerfully willing that God should lead him and do with him whatever is pleasing in His sight (P. D. 2966–2968, 2970–2972). Then all God’s attributes—His omniscience, His omnipotence, His faithfulness, His tender mercy—minister to his peace (P. D. 3379).

III. LOOK AT THE PEACE IN WHICH SUCH A PERSON IS KEPT. It is “perfect peace.” Peace in spite of all that conscience may say, of the temptations that assail us, of the troubles of life, of the certainty and mystery of death. With the peace of pardon, all this peace flows into the soul, increasing more and more. It is the peace of Christ, the same peace which filled and sustained Him (John 14:27). You remember that we are shown Him with His head on a pillow, His eyes closed, His mind in unconscious repose, asleep in the midst of the wild storm at night upon the Lake of Galilee, when the waves beat upon the trembling vessel, and the wind strove to raise the waves still higher, and engulph them all. He slept, secure and peaceful, amid the storm. So does the soul of the believer that stayeth itself upon God. Upon what lay that peaceful head of Jesus but upon the unseen arm and heart of God? Men said of Christ mockingly, “He trusted in God.” He did trust in God, as the most exalted believer, and far more than the most exalted believer; and in that simplicity of faith He was kept in peace, sleeping amidst the storm. So is it with the believer. O believer! is it so with you?—Henry Grattan Guinness: Sermon in The Christian World, 1860.

Here is the secret of life—peace, perfect peace—and the sure way of attaining it. Consider—I. THE CHARACTER CONTEMPLATED. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee.” His mind is fixed with such intensity that it cannot be diverted from the object on which it is set. This object is not himself (Proverbs 28:26), nor his riches (Proverbs 23:5), nor his fellow-men (Ch. Isaiah 2:22; Jeremiah 17:4-5), but GOD, in whom he trusts unhesitatingly, exclusively, universally. He accepts all that the Scriptures reveal concerning God, and makes these revelations the foundation of his confidence and his prayers.

II. THE PROMISED BLESSING. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace.” See also Jeremiah 17:7. The idea suggested is that of habitual and continued blessedness. The elements of peace are begun in the soul, and they are brought to maturity in the whole course of the future life. The peace given is like a river (chap. Isaiah 66:12), both for abundance and permanence. That is, while, and only while, the mind is stayed upon God (chap. Isaiah 48:18). Then he is kept in peace, for God is its finisher as well as its author; and it is “perfect peace,” because it is peace of all kinds, in its highest degree, at all times, under all circumstances.

III. THE REASON FOR THE BESTOWMENT OF THE BLESSING. “Because he trusteth in Thee.” Faith honours God (Romans 4:21), and therefore those who exercise it are honoured by Him (1 Samuel 2:30; H. E. I. 4057, 4058).

IV. THE DUTY ENJOINED. “Trust ye,” &c. While we are listening to expositions of this text, this duty seems to be easy; but in actual life our faith is tried and often fails, because we lose sight of the promises and perfections of God. Here there come to us disappointments, difficulties, temptations to distrust But it is our duty to struggle with them all; and if we do so, it will be our blessedness to overcome them all (chap. Isaiah 40:27-31). “Trust ye in the Lord; trust ye in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.”—James Morgan, D.D.: The Home Pulpit, pp. 512–516.

There is sometimes a world of meaning in a single word: Country, home, peace! How it sometimes tells of booming cannon hushed into silence, of glittering swords sent back into their sheaths, of hundreds of homes relieved from distressing anxieties and fears, of thousands of lives respited at least for a time! How it sometimes tells of surging passions hushed into a calm, of vengeful purposes superseded, of the fires of enmity quenched, of despair giving place to hope and joy! Peace has its histories, many and pleasant; its triumphs, various and substantial; its heralds, divine, angelic, human. Ministers have messages of peace to deliver to their congregations, and in our text we have one of them.

I. THE CONDITION EXPRESSED IN THE TEXT. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee.” It is a mind resting on God as the God of grace reconciling sinners to Himself through the mediation of Christ, dispensing pardon, sanctity, salvation—a mind resting, after reconciliation, on His truthfulness, wisdom, almightiness, holiness—a mind resting on His rule and government over all the forces of Nature and all the events of daily life, both national and individual.

II. THE CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED IN THE TEXT. “Thou wilt keep,” &c. Thou wilt do it; not merely delegate and intrust this to any agency whatever. Thou wilt do it; there is no uncertainty or peradventure about it. “In perfect peace:” peace of all kinds, and in a superlative degree; peace flowing from reconciliation; peace in the midst of unexplained mysteries; peace in the midst of adverse providences; peace amid the uncertainties of the future.—John Corbin.