Beyond Humiliation
The Way of the Cross
By Rev.
J. Gregory Mantle
(1853-1925)
Excerpts
from Chapter 1
"...therefore will the
LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you,
and therefore will he be
exalted, that he may have mercy upon you:
for the LORD is a God of
judgment:
blessed are all they
that wait for him." Isaiah 30:18
Readers of Professor Adam Smith’s Isaiah
will remember that on several occasions... he calls attention to the word
ambiguously translated “judgment,” and reminds us that the word means
method, order, system, law; so that when we read in chapter 30:18, that “the
Lord is a God of judgment,” Isaiah means that God has His own way and time for
doing things, and that “having laid down His lines according to righteousness
and established His laws in wisdom, He remains in His dealings with men
consistent with these.”
“It is a great truth,” says he, “that the
All-mighty and All-merciful is the All-methodical too..." A full recognition of
the orderliness of God in His working would save us from much of the
disappointment which we now experience....
Alarmed by Isaiah’s predictions of the siege of
Jerusalem, the Jewish politicians were startled into doing something. Instead,
however, of returning in penitence to God, and relying upon Him in the
time of their threatened trouble, they sought to accomplish an expensive
and profitless alliance with Egypt. What scorn Isaiah pours upon this
suicidal intrigue! ...
It was not alliance they needed... but
reliance; for
“Thus
saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, 'In returning and rest shall
ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye
would not.'... And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious
unto you; and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you,
for the Lord is a God of method: blessed are all they that wait for Him.”
We sometimes congratulate ourselves on the
cleverness and ingenuity of our plans, as the princes of Judah did in
this instance; but Isaiah reminds them that
“God also is clever, and
will bring evil, and will not call back His words”
(31:2). Until we have learned that no individual, church, or nation can
play tricks with God, that He has His own way and time of doing things,
He will wait, that He may be gracious; and blessed are they who turn away from
Egypt, with her chariots and horsemen, and wait for Him.
The great sin of man has always been in this direction, a preference of
his own will to the will of God; a preference of his own inclinations
for God’s obligations. It is the sin of the Church today, and the explanation of
her enfeebled and pitiable position in the eyes of the world. When we think we
have discovered a short and easy road to success, and have
forsaken the Fountain of
living waters to hew out to ourselves cisterns,
we shall always find that our hewing has been labor lost, and that our cisterns
are broken and will hold no water.
Does the Church of Jesus Christ think she can accomplish God’s work in the world
without a definite experience of heart
purity and the
Pentecostal baptism?
It is admitted that the early Christians were thus made usable to the Master;
but there is an impression abroad that this qualification for successful service
can be dispensed with in these days. The result is failure,
disheartenment, disappointment; for the Lord is a God of method. The Holy Spirit
waits to show men and women how the Cross of Christ is the pathway of complete
deliverance from the guilt and power of sin; and He will stand aloof from His
people while they cherish those “low views” with which... it is as easy for the
devil to contend against God as with mortal sins.
These “low views” of sin
and of privilege explain the pride, the passion, the selfishness, the envy, the
jealousy, the resentment, the barrenness, the
worldliness, the
secret sympathy with sin over which thousands of really converted people
mourn, and from which, they sometimes think there is no deliverance. And God is
raising up, all over the land, witnesses to His power to effect a “double cure,”
not only to save from
wrath and to pardon actual transgressions, but to deal with that
moral depravity
which lies further back and deeper down in our nature, and is at the
fountain-head of all character and activity.
What command could be more imperative and explicit than that which the risen
Christ gave to His disciples:
“Tarry ye until ye are
endued with power from on high”?
They dare not go forth to their work without this power. To have done so
would have been to court defeat and to expose themselves to ridicule. When they
were thus equipped they reached the maximum of their usefulness, men and women
were saved by thousands, and the kingdom of Christ advanced by leaps and bounds.
Then the Church formed an alliance with the
world; she laid her head in the lap of Delilah, and being shorn of her true
strength, began making frantic efforts to do her work without the
all-essential credentials. Those credentials are the possession of power
over all the power of the enemy; and we vainly imagine that abiding work can be
done in our pulpits, Sabbath schools, mission halls, or in any other direction,
by activity minus the power of the Holy Spirit. Sooner or later we shall awake
to the fact that the Lord is a God of method, and that blessed are all they that
wait for Him.
Let us ponder, in conclusion, the four words which the prophet here uses
to indicate in what direction their salvation lay, and upon what terms they
might be sure of the Divine interposition and abiding protection.
The first is the word "RETURNING." Instead of
going to Egypt for help, and impoverishing themselves by an alliance, forbidden,
senseless, and unprofitable, they might be assured of God’s forgiveness and favor
by returning in brokenness of spirit to Him. Have we any reason to expect
any large outpouring of the Holy Spirit until we too return in true and deep
penitence to God? The place of confession is the place of forgiveness. It is
here God is pledged to meet us, and nothing is more striking throughout the
history of this rebellious and wayward people, than God’s readiness to
forgive and restore them to His favor on the first indication of true
repentance.
“Remember from
whence thou art fallen, and repent....”
Immutable is the promise:
“Return unto Me, and I will return unto you.”
The God All-methodical is the God All-merciful. He waits that He may be
gracious.
The next word is “REST.” The meaning is, of
course, such a resting in God as would prove the genuineness of their return to
him. Vain was their reliance on the multitude of chariots and the strong body of
cavalry to which they would point as a valuable addition to the fighting strength
of Judah; for, as Isaiah reminds them,
“The
Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit “
(31:3). Yet their perversity was such
that they preferred the horses of Egypt to the steeds of God.
Rest! Thousands of hearts are longing for
it! And it cannot be found, as some vainly dream, by flying away on the wings of
a dove from their surroundings. Rest comes through...
- true confession...
- determined forsaking of sin...
- the cleansing of the nature from its stains
for sin in every form is disease, the opposite of rest.
Material things are in a state of rest
while fulfilling the laws and purposes for which they exist. The least variation
of adjustment results in disquietude instead of repose. So rest comes to man
through an adjustment of his will to the will of God.
“Take My yoke
(i.e., My will) upon you . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
Matthew 11:29
The Romans forced their enemies to put their neck
under a yoke as a sign of defeat. Hence we get the word subjugate — sub,
under; jugum, a yoke. Rest comes through the subjugation of the whole
being to Jesus. The perfect emblem of rest is God, and in proportion as man has
his center in God he becomes a partaker of His rest (Heb. 4:3)....
The third word is “QUIETNESS.”
How the very word rebukes the haste, excitement, and trepidation with which they
had prepared for the siege of their city.
“He that believeth shall
not make haste.” What so surely indicates
the feebleness of our grasp of these eternal truths as the fretted, harassed,
feverish lives so many of us live! When all occasion for war has been put away,
and we drink deep draughts of heavenly life, we shall know what has been called
“the high pressure of the Holy Ghost,” which is not contrary to that reposeful
and quiet spirit which characterized the Lord Jesus Christ, and which He means
us also to possess.
The fourth word is “CONFIDENCE.” The word
means the assurance and courage which comes of the settling down of the soul
upon one who is known to be true and trustworthy.
“They that know Thy name
will put their trust in Thee” (Psalm
9:10). To know God is to trust Him; to know Him perfectly, is to have that
perfect confidence in Him which alone inspires courage, and is the secret of
all true spiritual strength.
“In confidence shall be
your strength.” There are two departments
in the school of grace where this confidence is acquired, and in both of them the
pupils must be taught, — one is the word of God, and the other is the walk with
God. What can explain the confidence of Judson; and many another noble
missionary, working steadily on for years without any sign of visible success,
but this settling down of the spirit upon God — an attitude which had, with
them, become a habit of life?
As we learn to tread the way of the Cross we shall enter more fully than
ever into the meaning of Paul’s words:
“We are the
circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and
have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil.
iii. 3). And loss of confidence in ourselves will be followed by a constant
glorying in Jesus as the source of all our life, the secret of all our
strength.
... to be continually stayed upon Him is restfulness, quietness,
confidence,
and strength.
"Therefore we also,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay
aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let
us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the cross..." Hebrews 12:1-2