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VOL. LXXXVll. R1CHMON
TL~ T I
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Lit
"A bruised reed shall lie not break and the
smoking flax shall He not quench."?Isaiah 42: 3.
The Greek word for gospel is evangel. It
means the good news, the good news concerning
Christ and the salvation He brings to lost men.
The word "evangelical," therefore, means pertaining
to or occupied with the gospel." Isaiah is called
"the evangelical prophet." The name was first
given him by Jerome, the learned and devout man
who, in the fourth century of the Christian era,
translated the Scriptures into Latin. It was an
accurate and happy designation, and the appropriateness
of it has been so fully recognized that
to this day, as already stated, Isaiah is commonly
spoken of as "the evangelical prophet." As Jerome
worked his way through the book of Isaiah,
translating <it from Hebrew into the common
tongue of his time, he found so much there about
Christ and His work for sinners, that he said:
isaiau snouici ue reckoned a .New Testament
evangelist, rather than an Old Testament prophet'"
Mot that Micah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel
are not evangelical, for they are; but in Isaiah
there are so many references to Christ, and they
are so full, so clear and so rich, though written
seven hundred years before He was born, that
Isaiah is pre-eminently the evangelical prophet.
He foretells the virgin birth of Christ; he foretells
the spotless life of Christ; he foretells the
divine nature of Christ, and he foretells the worldwide
spread of Christ's kingdom.
T ? xl * -
in me passage before us, he is describing the
ministry of Christ as the servant of Jehovah. He
describes first His olivine endowment for His
work. God ?ays: "Behold my Servant, whom I
uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth.
I have put My spirit upon Him. He shall bring
forth true religion to the Gentiles/' "I have put
My spirit upon Him." That is His divine en
uinvment 'or I lis work. The passage next describes
the meek and unostentatious method of
His work. "He shall not cry nor lift up nor
cause His voice to be heard in the street." That
is, to use modern terms, He shall not be noisy
and loud and self-obtrusive. Many of the world's
great men have sought to achieve their ends by
solf-ohtrusion, by self-assertion, by force, by violence.
It is not so with Christ. His ways are
fjuiet ways. His religion spreads by gentle and
l>eaeeful methods. "The kingdom of God cometh
not with observation." Tts emblems are not the
whirlwind c?rvd tii/> ? '?1 '1 "
me catuHjumie, uui ine aew, trio
pped, the leaven. Having thus set forth His
divine endowment and His unobtrusive method,
the passage next describes His compassionate
treatment of the sin-broken and weak. "A bruised
reed shall He not break, and the smoking flav
"hall He not iquench." He is not impatient and
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rough, but gentle and tender in dealing with
broken lives and ieeble faith.
But perhaps some one may say, it would be
eomlorting to believe that, but are you sure it is
Christ who is here spoken of? The subject ol
tne prophecy is called simply the Servant oi' Cod,
but Israel is sometimes called Hod's servant, as
later in this very chapter. Muy not the Servant
of Jehovah spoken of in the text be Israel, or
one of the prophets? Is it certain that Christ
is the person referred to? Yes, it is quite certain.
We know it not only because what is here said
of the Servant of Jehovah goes as high as heaven
above all that Israel or any prophet ever was or
did, but also because the evangelist Matthew
(12:17-21) quotes this very passage, and applies
it directly to Christ when, in describing an incident
in the Saviour's ministry. hp a?v? thia w?c
done "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by Isaiah the prophet saying, Behold my Servant,
whom 1 have chosen, My beloved, in whom My
soul is well pleased. 1 will put My spirit upon
llim, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man
hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall
He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench
till he send forth judgment unto victory, and in
His name shall the Gentiles trust." The reference
of our text, then, is beyond a doubt to Christ.
A hrilioptl rwwl omnl-inn *" 1
v?* +. wu^ oiuvaiu^ na.v. /15 IlllS UHCll
l)een pointed out, we have two pictures here*?
lhe one an exterior, the other an interior; the one
an outdoor picture, the other an indoor picture;
the one a bruised reed, the other a smoking lamp.
The first picture shows us a shallow pond in a
fiat and marshy region, lonely and desolate, under
a gray sky, with heavy clouds flying before the
wind, and a tangle of reeds and rushes along the
shore, tossed and twisted and torn by the storm,
or battered and crushed by some heavy animal
that has come there to drink. A reed is an humble
una iran tiling at best?"a reed shaken with the
wind"?but here our attention is directed to a
bruised reed, so crushed that the head of it bends
over and hangs by a thread, though not yet broken
off from the stem.
The connection shows that the figure refers
to spiritual weakness, the miserable ruin of character
by sin. Men everywhere are bruised reeds,
1 J 1 "
cruhiiea dv pin, morally powerless in themselves.
They have been injured, deeply injured by sin,
hut that injury is not irreparable. It can be
healed by Christ "A bruised reed shall He not
break." The words mean more than they say.
The form of statement here is that known in
rhetoric as litotes?that is, a very itrong affirmation
by the negative of the opposite. It is fre
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ling With Broken
ith
quently used in Scripture. When Luke says,
"there arose no small stir about that way," he
means there arose a very great stir. When Isaiah
says of the king of Assyria, "it was in his heart
to destroy and cut off nations not a few," he
means that it was in his heart to cut olf a great
many nations. JSo here. "A bruised reed shall
lie not break." .Not only shall He not break it,
He shall restore it; not only shall He not break
oJf the crushed and daugling top, but He shall
tenderly care for it and press the bruised fibers
together and bind it up and cause it to grow and
flourish.
That is the picture of the bruised reed. The
other picture, as we have said, is an interior. It
shows us the inside of an oriental house, very
dimly lighted, so dimly indeed that we can scarce
make out the divans around the walls and the
persons seated on theni. In the center of the
room is a low table on which stands a lamp, not
of the shape of our modern lamps, but looking
more like a very small teapot with a spout, from
which there projects a wick of llax, to which the
llame is applied when it is desired to have light
in the house. But in the picture before us the
oil has been exhausted, the wick is almost dry,
so that, instead of performing itf? proper function
and giving light to those who are in the house,
it is only giving forth offensive smoke and is
about to die out. As the bruised reed represented
the ravages of sin, so the dimly burning lamp
represents the faint flickerings of the spiritual
life. Now, says our text, "the smoking flax He
will not mionfli *' Thin qIba io
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only will He not quench it, lie wiil revive it. Instead
of impatiently and roughly extinguishing
ihc useless and offensive wick, our Saviour pours
in oil, and causes the dying spark to live and glow
and shine. In this double metaphor, therefore,
we have set before us a deeply comforting truth- the
compassionate tenderness of Christ in dealing
with sin-broken lives and feeble faith.
T. And, first, that we may understand clearly
T i < r+t I v . .. -
>vinn is nere sain 01 unrisr. let us notice a certain
difference between the mercy of God as set forth
in the Old Testament and the mercv of Christ
as set forth in the New. It must not he supposed
that the revelation of God's mercy is confined
to the New Testament. The Old Testament
is full of it. Only those who are unacquainted with
the Old Testament can ever think of it as harsh
and vindictive. It is in fact a great unfolding
of the divine mercy. And that is as it should be.
The Bible is a hook for sinners. And surely,
in a book for sinners, the mercy of God should
have the central place. For, as has been truly
paid, there is no attribute of God which it so much
concerns us as sinners to understand. And yet
there is no attribute about which we are more
in the dark till God Himself speaks. And in this