Isaiah 26:2

Open ye the gates

A bunch of keys

(to children):--

1.

The gate of healing. What would you say is the key of that gate? Is it not our need? What, e.g., would give you admission into any hospital? Would it not be your need of the help that could be obtained there? Just so is it with Jesus, the good Physician. We have no claim except His own exceeding love and our exceeding need. There are no incurables so far as the Lord Jesus is concerned.

2. The door of hope. The key for that is promise. You may read about it in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” (Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle).

3. The door of help. The key is sympathy. Sympathy, as the meaning of the word implies, understands the situation. “Thou shalt not oppress a stranger,” was one of God’s commands to the Israelites, “for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” That was sympathy as the key to the door of help. They knew what it was to be strangers in a strange land, and therefore they could understand how a stranger among themselves would feel, how he would appreciate a friendly spirit, and how sensitive he would be to any coldness of treatment. Is it not His sympathy that makes Jesus the perfect Saviour?

4. The door of communion. For that we need two keys, just as in your house doors two keys are required to open them--the key that turns the lock and the key that lifts the latch. Prayer and obedience are the two keys.

5. The door of change, that door that stands at the end of “the well-trodden path to the grave.” What is the key for this door? We have none. God keeps it in His own hands. (J. B. Mayer, M. A.)

The righteous nation which keepeth the truth

Truth, and its influence upon society

Truth was not intended to be brought before the world by the God of truth for the mere purpose of influencing individual character. Hence we find the passage before us inviting not separate men in their respective capacities, but the righteous nation to enter in that keepeth the truth.

I. WHEN THE TRUTH SPREADS THROUGH SOCIETY IT WILL GIVE NEW VIEWS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. Looking at society as it stands at present where the truth has made but little way, we find those views of moral obligation that are adopted and acted upon, accommodated to the selfishness of individuals, and society has but little place in their consideration. But let the truth as it is in Christ influence society, and they will then begin to feel that the great source of moral obligation is not what they owe to themselves but what they owe to God.

II. If we find, therefore, that our sense of moral obligation is influenced by these higher considerations when we come to the truth, we have, in the next place, to look at THE WORKING OF TRUTH UNDER THIS HIGH SENSE OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. There is an enlargement of feeling from the man to his own family--from his own family to his own relatives--from his own relatives to his own social circle--from his own social circle to his nation--from his nation to the body of nations round him--there is an enlargement of feeling in the still widening circle to regions beyond these--an enlargement of feeling that carries the mind onward in a morally spiritual expansion to the whole human race, and after the feelings of the man under the power of truth have been thus far extended, his feelings experience still a desire for further enlargement. He looks unto another and an eternal world and feels that there is a fellowship due to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to angels that seek to learn from his condition the manifold wisdom of God. And while his mind is thus enlarged under the working of truth, there is the reflection back again of truth in all the peace that it propagates, in all the glories that it conveys, in all the safety that it confers, in all the spirituality that it kindles, in all the communion which it permits between the creature and God, which will be found to tell upon the man, so that instead of living in a sphere of selfishness where his light burns but dimly, and where the discoveries of the power of truth are very limited, he feels that he lives in a blaze of spiritual illumination, and when he finds so many kindred souls sympathise with him, and striking up an anthem to God, whence all has come, he feels that he is a greater man, a happier man, a holier man, than if he were to stand aloof even in solitary perfection in his insulated condition, to worship God alone. Instead of a community of nations, we find a community of parties, and each frowning upon the other, and each watching the other with an unworthy yet a constant and an anxious jealousy. But when the truth does begin to operate upon the condition of the nations generally, how will their temporal circumstances be changed! What a rising of a new spirit in the human community! If we find truth thus raising our sense of moral obligation, if we find truth thus calculated to open so many sources of happiness, let us look to the source whence this mighty element derives all its power. It is not the truth itself regarded merely as conveyed by so many propositions that can accomplish this mighty wonder. But it is the truth applying these propositions by the Spirit of glory and of God. Looking, therefore, to all these mews of truth upon society, we have another great reason to induce us to endeavour to “buy the truth, and sell it not.” (J. Burnet.)

National responsibility

(with Proverbs 14:34):--From these and suchlike passages it is evident that nations may be and ought to be righteous and truth keeping, and that nations which are of this character occupy the highest position in relation to other nations, and in the estimation of Him by whom kings reign, and to whom national as well as individual homage is due. That nations can possess such a moral character, and render such homage is denied by those who do not admit that nations, in their corporate capacity, are subjects of God’s moral government. They hold that nations or states are impersonal, that they have no will and no conscience, and that therefore no responsibility attaches to national action, if indeed there can be such action at all. This is a serious mistake, and one which cannot but prove most pernicious in its influence and consequences. For nothing can be clearer, alike from the teaching of God’s Word and the facts of universal history, than that nations are responsible subjects of Divine government; that they are dealt with by God according to their character and conduct, punished when they do evil, and blessed and prospered when they do well (Jeremiah 18:7). (Original Secession Magazine.)

National righteousness

I. Let us inquire WHAT THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS which should characterise a nation, and by which a nation is exalted. How does it manifest itself?

1. This righteousness has as its root--its essence--the foundation principle of all true religion--“the fear of God,” in the hearts of the people, of rulers and ruled. This must be the prevailing character of the persons of whom it is composed.

2. It includes, as one of its leading elements, the due observance of the worship of God, according to the rules lain clown in the Divine Word.

3. It includes a national keeping of the truth.

4. It includes the regulation of all national affairs, in the departments of legislation and administration, by the principles of God’s Word, which should be the rule of faith and practice to the nation as well as to the Church, the family, and the individual.

5. It includes the prevalence of Christian morality, or righteous dealings between man and man in the business of life, and the practice of all those moral virtues by which society is sweetened and adorned.

II. HOW RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTS A NATION. A two-fold exaltation results from national righteousness--exaltation in the estimation of men, of other nations, and exaltation in the estimation of God.

III. HOW THIS NATION-EXALTING RIGHTEOUSNESS MAY BE AND OUGHT TO BE PROMOTED.

1. By attending to the cultivation of personal godliness.

2. By attending to the duties of family religion.

3. By diffusing the Word of God and stirring up the people to read and study it for themselves in secret and private, and by securing that it be taught in all our schools.

4. By the faithful preaching of the Gospel by ministers of religion.

5. By the forth-putting of all legitimate moral efforts to counteract and suppress whatever is contrary thereto.

6. With all such means must he mingled fervent prayer for the blessing of God, which can alone make them efficacious for the advancement of the cause of righteousness. (Original Secession Magazine.)