Our text is Isaiah 60. The prophet is Isaiah.
Arise, shine; for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and gross darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon thee,
and His glory shall be seen upon thee.
And nations shall come to thy light,
and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see:
they all gather themselves together, they come to thee;
thy sons shall come from far,
and thy daughters shall be carried in the arms.
Then thou shalt see and be radiant,
and thy heart shall thrill and be enlarged;
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee,
the wealth of the nations shall come unto thee.
The multitude of camels shall cover thee,
the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
all they from Sheba shall come;
they shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall proclaim the praises of the Lord.
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee,
the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee;
they shall come up with acceptance on Mine altar,
and I will glorify the house of My glory.
Who are these that fly as a cloud,
and as the doves to their windows?
Surely the isles shall wait for Me,
and the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring thy sons from far,
their silver and their gold with them,
for the name of the Lord thy God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because He hath glorified thee.
And foreigners shall build up thy walls,
and their kings shall minister unto thee;
for in My wrath I smote thee,
but in My favor have I had mercy on thee.
Thy gates also shall be open continually;
they shall not be shut day nor night;
that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations,
and their kings led captive.
For that nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish;
yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee,
the fir-tree, the pine, and the box-tree together,
to beautify the place of My sanctuary;
and I will make the place of My feet glorious.
And the sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee;
and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet;
and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord,
The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
We will not read more just now. The rest of the chapter is very similar to the part that we have read.
Go back to the first verse of the chapter: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come.”
We are all familiar with the fact that there is a twofold interpretation of Old Testament Scriptures. That is, there is the historical, and there is the spiritual: that, on the one hand, which is after the flesh; and that, on the other hand, which is after the Spirit.
Very largely, it is language which relates to Israel naturally; and, on the other hand, that which relates to the church, as seen through and beyond that which relates to Israel, to that which relates to Christ.
This, of course, is very apparent in the prophets. We have not the time to give instances, but there are so many, and it is perfectly clear. Sometimes you do not know whether the prophet is speaking about himself, or Israel, or whether he is speaking about Christ.
You know, the very problem arose with the Ethiopian in the chariot in the desert: “Of whom speaketh the prophet? Of himself, or of some other?”
Many hold that Isaiah 53 relates to Israel. Perfectly clear that there may be a measure of truth in that, but that is not the whole truth by any means. Here is the fact: there are always two interpretations, and both are true. In other parts, this is very true here in the chapter from which we have read. It is an example of that fact.
Again, this chapter relates to the remnant of Israel which will be found at the end in Jerusalem. All right, we are not going to argue about that; hold that in question.
But it is as nearly impossible as anything can be to fail to see that there is another side, even to Isaiah 60. And it is that other side with which we are going to be occupied as much as possible in the time which we have.
There is Zion’s light and Zion’s wealth. You people are very familiar with that name, Zion.
And you know very well that the New Testament does tell us that we are come—not that we are coming, not that we are marching to—but we are come to Zion, the city of the living God.
And yet, I suppose it is true that we are, in a sense, on the way to Zion—not as a place, but as a spiritual state of fullness. We are come to Zion, if that is true; and we will not for a moment dispute with the apostle who says it.
Then may it not be equally true that the things which are said in the Old Testament, and here particularly about Zion, if they refer to some later literal Zion on this earth, certainly refer more to the Zion to which we have come?
And therefore the exhortation is to us, the people of this Zion, this city of the living God to which we are come—indeed, of which we are. The exhortation is to us: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come.”
We want just to look for a moment at the ground and the nature of this light which has come to us. Again, we are brought back to this open door to everything, when everything began: the resurrection of our Lord, and our resurrection with Him.
We read that wonderful chapter this morning—John 20. How moved we were as we read it. I confess that there is no chapter in the Bible which moves me more than that chapter. But the thing about it was the breaking light, was it not?
It is as though, after a very dark night, the light—the sun—suddenly rose over the horizon, gathering its rays over the sky. And there come the early morning, even before it was day, of hearts in darkness, waiting, longing.
Then we saw the day opening, the night breaking and spreading, and one by one caught in its rays and brought into transformation. Surely they did arise and shine because their light had come.
Now, you see, the setting of this chapter in Isaiah is just like that. There is a fragment in it, which we have read, about the dark night of God’s people in the past.
Suddenly, to use the language of one of the prophets, Ezekiel, the people had been in a dark grave—in a dark grave in their exile, their dispersion. It was a dark night, a night of spiritual death.
And it was therefore death to Zion during that time—Zion laid low under the terrors of the captivity. But here, again using Ezekiel’s language, the graves are opened. Resurrection had taken place.
The prophet Isaiah is a prophet of resurrection, looking through and beyond the Cross to the day. During the latter part of his prophecies, we have the morning, the morning greeting. Here is this cry: out come the shadows, the departing shadows—“Arise, shine; for thy light is come.”
You see, it is on the ground of resurrection that the light comes. That gives to the light its character, its nature. That being its ground, its nature is of that kind.
You see, as we go on, how tremendously potent this light was—what it did. We will look at that in a moment. But here is light that is not just the kind of mental grasp of things.
It is certainly not the light of collected truth, of studied matter, of intellect—even in the things of God. It is a different kind of light from that.
I do not want to press this. It is not just a statement, I think. Dear friends, light, if it is to be as effective as the light in this chapter seems to be, is going to be of this kind.
You may collect what is being said into your notebooks with your ministry in view. That will not be light of this kind.
I think too often, when we are reading and when we are listening, we have other people in view. We are thinking of how we are going to get this over to some other person. Thereby, we are more concerned for ministry and work, and having material to give to others, than we are for this fundamental thing: Christlikeness.
Because all real light springs from the realities of Christ born in our own experience. This light, clearly in the case of Israel, or the remnant, and presently even more so in the case of the church, is the light that comes out of a deep experience by which, and through which, resurrection was the only answer.
If God had not done what He said He would do for the remnant—“O My people, I will open your graves, and will bring you out, and will plant you in the land”—if the Lord had not opened their graves and brought them out, this prophecy would never have been written, because there would have been nothing to write about.
It would never have been possible, on any ground, to say, “Thy light is come.” The meaning of this is: thy light has come because you have been in the dark and have been delivered; because you have been in death and have come to know the power of resurrection.
Therefore, the very nature of light which is in thee—life after this order, life which is to have this effect—the nature of this life is that it is born out of an experience of resurrection, or out of continuous experiences of resurrection.
One thing we have been trying to say in this conference all the way through is just that one thing: that we have got, through this protracted exercise of faith, I think, again and again, to reach the ultimate thing of things. And the ultimate, the final, the last thing of faith is resurrection.
When the Letter to the Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter, is recounting the faith and the faith-activity of those of old and deals with Abraham, the last stage in Abraham’s faith is when he receives Isaac as from the dead. There is always the ultimate point to be reached by faith.
This is not faith in the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and not faith in the historic resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is faith in the resurrection of Christ as a present, active power.
The resurrection of Christ has got to be brought up to date. It has not to be remembered once a year, at Easter. This is not merely a sentimental or traditional thing. It has to be something for every day of our life.
Every new morning has got to be a new occasion for our proving the power of His resurrection.
And if that is to be so, then there will be a necessity for it. The Lord will keep us on the ground of a necessity for knowing resurrection power, resurrection life.
Let me say, dear friends, that if you are in any way engaged in ministry, in the work of the Lord, your ministry—no matter how much you study, how much you read up the subject matter, how diligent you are in your research—will count for nothing if there is not behind it an experience of resurrection.
That means a deep experience which makes resurrection the only way out.
God has not any place for mere mechanical teachers and preachers, reproducers of matter secondhand. The Lord’s principle is to bring everything right into experimental and experiential relationship to the person concerned, so that it is kept vital, impressive, and in reality.
For the very setting of Isaiah 60—“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee”—is the setting of resurrection in the experience of the people concerned.
May I repeat? Do not be more concerned with ministry than you are with knowing Him. And the only way to know Him is the power of His resurrection.
Be sure that if you have that as the basis and background of your life, you will have ministry without research. I am not saying that study is not important. I think you see what I am saying. God forbid that we should minimize it.
There has got to be something more than that. There has got to be the experience of the thing that we are saying. And the experience is the experience of life having us in deep and desperate situations.
The Lord keeps His servants, His true servants, on that ground.
After all, light is not something objective to us. Light is what we are. Light is what we are. We are the light. “Ye are the light of the world.” It is what we are, and what we are through deep history with God in our experience, in our lives.
The light that is mentioned here is light which is vital—light which is power, light which is effectual. And now the rest of the chapter shows how effective the light is. Tremendous effectiveness is related to this kind of life, born out of this experience of resurrection.
I would like to spend time now with this character, but I have only two minutes. Look again: underline all the words in this chapter which refer to wealth.
“The abundance of the sea,” “the wealth of the nations,” “gold and frankincense,” “silver and gold,” “the wealth of the nations,” and so on.
That is the value, the effectiveness, of light after this kind. It means the possession of wealth; it means resources; it means the enrichment of people.
Oh, do believe this, dear friends. If you want to be able to help people, to enrich them, bring them into the wealth that is in Christ, to deliver them from their poverty—God knows how poverty-stricken His people are, and how little they know His wealth—if you want to know it, and if you want to help others to know it, to bring them into this, it is by way of this light which comes with resurrection.
Putting it more simply, if you are going through a deep and dark time, you may have very rich figures of darkness. If only we would take the right attitude toward our times of death and darkness, that this can be real: the Lord means more riches out of this.
This is going to be something for others, for their enrichment, that is going to come out of our times of spiritual death. It is like that always, but it must be like that.
It is effective light that enriches, that endows, that brings into wealth. And then, of course, it attracts.
Now, through the chapter, quickly, you see: “Thy sons shall come from far”; from the ends of the earth, the ships of Tarshish bringing them. They are all coming. They are all coming to Zion. Why? You have got something to give.
You have got the light which answers to their problems and their questions and their difficulties. You have got it. And as the light attracts the moths, so need is attracted where there is a supply.
Out of these experiences of death and darkness into resurrection, there is something that others want. They come for it. It is true, from the ends of the earth, if it is like that. It is after that right order: not teaching, not just interpretations, not just doctrines, but real living light born out of experience—the experience of resurrection again and again.
I do not believe, dear friends, that it is necessary to have tremendous attractions of other kinds to get people together for spiritual purposes. I believe that if there is real, vital light, they will come. They will come. They will be found there.
The answer to empty churches is living light, not entertainment and attraction. That can be proved. Oh, that there were more of this light! There might be a drawing.
Now, that is the point at which we are going to stop. The time is closed for the time being. Perhaps we will go on with that this afternoon.
But do recognize that the Lord has called us into this light, this life, this abundance of effective light. He has given it to us.
That is my last word. Of course, it applies and must always apply to individuals, because you can have nothing collective unless there are individuals to make it so. But it is a word to a company, a word to a group, a word to a collective vessel of light.
And what I find in saying that is this: that we not only go through deep and dark and trying experiences individually, but we go through them in relation to our fellow believers.
There is such a thing as companies of the Lord’s people going deep down into experiences where only the power of His resurrection can meet the need.
Let us therefore realize that we are sharers here in this ministry, that we are involved in something that may not just be our own personally.
Now, some of you are saying, “Yes, that is out there somewhere, out there in the air. It belongs, relates to somebody, some people, or something. I am just nothing. I do not signify, and all that does not apply to me.”
But it does in a related way. You are a part of that body of Christ which is to be the expression of His risen life. Therefore, you are a part of the suffering which comes upon the people of God, and the necessity for knowing His resurrection power.
We are suffering together with Him. Remember that “together” is not only that we are suffering with Christ; we are suffering together with Christ. It is our collective, or corporate, suffering with Christ.
And the reigning is to be collective and corporate. Suffering together, we reign together with Him. It is the church that is in view.
So what might never come to us individually and personally comes to us by reason of our relationship with something bigger that the Lord wants to use. We become involved in something that is not all our own personal responsibility.
The Lord is after a vessel, and we are a part of the vessel—a part of the vessel. In a related way, we have got to know this power of His resurrection. But the light must come.
We must leave it there for the time being.