This title, taken from Isaiah 52:9, has a very cheering sound, especially in this drab world, where men’s hearts are failing them because of fear, and the shadows darken ominously on every hand. But amidst it all the Christian is in a position to sing with holy joy.
If you will turn to Isaiah 52:7-10 and Isaiah 54:1-10 you will find a good deal about singing. Please note carefully that between these two chapters we have perhaps the best-known chapter in the Old Testament—Isaiah 53. As you read through this article you will see that the position of this chapter between Isaiah 52 and 54 gives the key to all the rejoicing of God’s people.
Let us lead up to this. To begin with, the singing in Isaiah 52 is prefaced by a most delightful verse,
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says to Zion, Thy God reigns” (v. 7).
This undoubtedly refers in prophetic language to the advent of Christ. His second coming is primarily in view but we may apply it also to the coming into this world of Him, who “being in the form of God … made Himself of no reputation … and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8). In standing contrast to the humble circumstances in which our Lord was born was the wonderful sight of the very heavens filled with exultant praise, as the myriad hosts of angels praised God aloud, crying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14).
There was a fulfilment of Isaiah 52:7 when our Lord stepped into public service, being about thirty years of age. We turn for the record of this to the four Gospels. There we see how beautiful were His feet as He trod the land of Israel proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom. Did He not say in the synagogue at Nazareth, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears”? (Luke 4:21). What Scripture was this? Just what Isaiah had prophesied seven centuries before.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has appointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and restoring of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).
No wonder His feet were beautiful on the mountains. Our Lord’s forerunner, John the Baptist, that “burning and shining light” proclaimed sternly, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2), a needed message for his day. When our Lord spoke it was in a gracious way. The common people heard Him gladly, and they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, He preached the Gospel to the poor, and a perfect stream of beneficent miracles marked His every step.
And when He read this scripture He closed the book, just before it goes on to speak of the day of vengeance of our God, pushing back, as it were, that day, lengthening out the acceptable year of the Lord to this present time; though the gathering clouds presage that the day of vengeance is not far off. The day will come when His hand shall open the book again, but meanwhile grace flows on its blessed worldwide course, and men are offered salvation.
No wonder with such a Person, proclaiming such a message of grace and mercy, that singing should break forth. We read,
“Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord has comforted His people. He has redeemed Jerusalem” (Isa. 52:8-9).
It is true that this verse is in a Jewish setting, and will not be literally fulfilled till our Lord comes to reign on the earth, but the application of the passage to the present time is striking. The great trouble in the world today is that men do not see eye to eye. Ambition, selfishness, greed, lust, cause men to fall out about everything. The cynic has said that you cannot get three men to agree about anything, and there is a great measure of truth in this statement. But when the proclamation of our Lord shall be received by men they shall see eye to eye, a testimony to the only really uniting bond men can ever know, even the grace of God entering the human heart.
So we may have the wonderful privilege of hearing the footsteps of Him, who brings good tidings, and marking His gracious journeys as delineated in the four Gospels from the inspired pens of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
But here we must say a word as to Chapter 53. It is the despair of the Jewish expositors. It so plainly prophesies a suffering Messiah to come, whereas the Jewish nation waited for a mighty conquering Messiah, who would lift their little nation to the topmost place among the nations of the world. Their outlook was material and carnal. So hard put to it were Jewish expositors to explain away this Scripture, that when the prophecy of Isaiah was being read Sabbath by Sabbath, the minister would read Isaiah 52 one Sabbath, and the succeeding Sabbath he would read Isaiah 54, thus ignoring altogether Isaiah 53. We consider there can be no greater compliment paid to the plain surface meaning of this chapter than this omission.
Along with this refusal to receive the plain teaching as to a suffering Messiah, it carried with it the refusal of the solemn and most obvious meaning of the whole system of sacrifices on Jewish altars, setting forth prophetically that only through the sacrificial atoning death of our Lord on the cross can God be righteously free to pardon sinful man. To this the Jewish nation shut their eyes. The writer has been at some pains to discover if the same custom obtains in the synagogues today of ignoring Isaiah 53 in the manner described, and finds that it is so.
As we read the chapter down we find the prophetic language treats what was still future then by long centuries, as if it were already past, so sure was the mind of Heaven that the prophecy would be fulfilled in the sacrificial death of our Lord. Note the past tense in verse 5,
“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed.”
Could there be one note of praise, one song of joy emanating from human hearts, did we not realise for ourselves the blessedness of that verse of Scripture?
No wonder John Calvin was converted when this verse came in power to his soul, as he poured over the Bible to learn the secret of soul-blessing; aye, and a countless host besides. No wonder that the late J.T. Mawson, for long the loved editor of Scripture Truth, practically never preached the Gospel, he so loved to proclaim, without sounding forth this wonderful verse, so clearly setting forth the only way of salvation. Here we get the secret of the singing, both of Isaiah 52 and 54.
We get this well illustrated in 2 Chronicles 29:27-28. It was a time of revival in the days of the good King Hezekiah. We read,
“And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also … and all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued till the burnt offering was finished.”
The burnt offering was typical of our Lord offering Himself without spot to God. It ceased, and with its ceasing the song ceased. But in the antitype, even the atoning death of our Lord, its efficacy will never cease, therefore the singing will never cease; it must be eternal, for ever and ever, never to die down. Hallelujah!
It is touching to remember that when our Lord left the upper room, where He instituted the supper in commemoration of His approaching death, they sang before going forth to Gethsemane with its inexpressible grief, and on to the far greater ordeal of the cross itself. We read,
“And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives” (Matt. 26:30).
Was this not a prelude to coming victory—to eternal song?
But if we go to the four Gospels, wherein to trace the footsteps of the One, whose feet were beautiful on the mountains, we must go to the Acts of the Apostles to trace the singing we get in Isaiah 54:1-3. No sooner do we leave the solemn prophecy of Isaiah 53, where we get the ground and cause of it laid in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord on the cross, than singing bursts forth. Listen to how it reads:
“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, that thou didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, says the LORD … For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inhabit the Gentiles.”
How is this, we may ask? You may remember when our Lord was here on earth He told His disciples,
“I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24).
And further, when our Lord chose twelve apostles, and sent them forth His instructions were similar to His own mission,
“Go not into the way of the Gentiles, … and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:5-6).
But now, since our Lord has accomplished the mighty work of redemption, is risen from the dead and ascended into glory, and has bestowed the Holy Spirit indwelling believers, enduing them with power from on high, everything is changed. No longer are they forbidden to go to the Gentiles, but the instructions our risen Lord before He ascended gave to His disciples were,
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations [Gentiles]” (Matt. 28:19).
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
“That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations [Gentiles], beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
Practically a synopsis of the whole of the Acts of the Apostles is condensed in the Lord’s own words, among the very few we find outside the four Gospels. We read,
“Ye shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
No longer are they forbidden to go outside the boundaries of the little land of Israel. At once we read of Philip, the evangelist, preaching in Samaria, flooding the city with the good news of the Gospel. We find him further preaching to an Ethiopian, whom he met reading Isaiah 53. The eunuch enquired of whom the prophet spoke, and Philip opened his mouth, and preached to him Jesus. And so he travelled back to his distant land, sunk as it was in the darkness of heathendom, with this precious Gospel in his heart, and to tell it forth to others.
Not only so but the Apostle Peter, the Apostle of the circumcision, was forced out by the dream God gave him, and the summons to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles whom the Roman centurion gathered together, the very first time on record that the Gospel was preached to a Gentile audience. True the preaching took place in the land of Israel, but the Gospel went out to the Gentiles nevertheless, and was the forerunner of much to follow.
And lastly the light of the glory of God struck down Saul of Tarsus, the arch-persecutor of the infant church of God, and in a moment he was converted, and straightway preached that Jesus was the Son of God. Moreover the Lord commissioned him to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. For years he did not go near Jerusalem, nor was he known by face to the churches in Judaea. We follow with deepest interest his missionary journeys as he went everywhere preaching to the Gentiles. The greater part of the Acts of the Apostles is taken up with the account of the labours of that great servant of Christ in Asia and Europe, preaching Christ where He had never been proclaimed before. In all this we see a fulfilment of Isaiah 54:1-3. And so the Gospel message has had free course and been glorified from those days to the present time in the mercy of God.