Bonar (A. A.), Wayside Wells, 97.
Brooks (P.), The More Abundant Life, 122.
Ingram (W. C), Happiness in the Spiritual Life, 98.
Little (J.), The Lay -Spring, 175.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Isaiah i.-xlviii., 64. „ The Secret of Power, 212.
Christian World Pulpit, viii. 408 (Maclaren) ; Ixxvii. 68 (Guttery).
Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., v. 266 (Woods).
Examiner, July-December 1905, 584 (Jowett).
Eomiletic Review, xxxix. 169 (Reid).
The Wells of Salvation.
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.— xii. 3.
This verse is taken from the Psalm of Redemption. It is welcome as a song in the night, full of charm, full of suggestion. It thrills the heart with the joy of a great discovery, the rapture of a great triumph. It is all the more welcome because of its startling contrast with the lurid and dreadful passages, full of condemnation and human catastrophe, which precede it. As you read you seem to stand in the pathway of storm, earthquake, and ruin. The fountains of the great deep are broken up. Panic seizes upon the soul. There seems to be no escape, as the prophet lays upon the conscience the awful burden of the wrath of God. The wrath of God ! We do not talk much of it now, yet it is an eternal factor in the government of human life, and in the shaping of human destiny. Let us not bind ourselves with mock comforting. Then the prophet breaks into this psalm. He bids us come from Sinai's stern heights to Calvary's gentler slopes.
The text looks two ways. It looks backwards to an event which happened seven hundred and fifty years before Isaiah lived ; and it looks forwards to an event which happened seven hundred and fifty years after Isaiah died.
The verse immediately preceding is quoted from the song which Moses and the Children of Israel sang after the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. xv. 2). Very soon after that event " they came to Elim, where were twelve springs of water, and three score and ten palm trees ; and they encamped there by the waters " (Ex. XV. 27). The text may be safely understood as a reference to these twelve springs of water. In course of time there grew up the custom among the Israelites of keeping a feast in memory
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of these wilderness experiences, which was called the Feast of Tabernacles. The whole nation left their homes and resided for an entire week in booths or tents made of the green leaves and goodly branches of the palm tree. It was a feast of joy, for it was also associated with the ingathering of the year's produce of corn and wine and oil. On the last day of the feast, its great day, the priests were accustomed to form a procession, arrayed in the white robes of their office. The Temple band marched in front, and to the sound of the timbrel and the note of the silver trumpet, they passed through the Water Gate, down the magnificent flight of steps, round the terrace, and along the rocky slopes of the hill of Zion, till they reached the pool of Siloam. Each separate priest produced a golden vase, and, stooping down, filled it from the quiet pool, lifted it upon his shoulder and fell back into rank. To the march of music the procession returned to the Temple and formed a circle round the altar. As each priest emptied his golden vase upon the sacrifice, the Levites chanted the words, " Behold, God is my salvation ; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."
One day, at the conclusion of this ceremony, Jesus stepped out of the crowd which filled the Temple courts, and stood and cried, saying, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."
I.
What is Salvation?
Salvation is three things ; and it needs all the three to make it complete.
1. It is Escape. " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." It is escape from that curse. " Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Eock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee. It is a hiding-place from the storm.
2. It is Deliverance. It is not only escape from the penalty of sin, it is escape from the sin itself. If a drunkard falls asleep
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in the street on a cold night in winter he is in danger of death from exposure. Eouse him and take him home, and you rescue him from the penalty of his drunkenness. But you do a greater thing for him than that if you persuade him to sign the pledge and deliver him from his drinking habit.
1[ One of the true histories of conversion which Mr. Harcfcd Begbie writes in his book, entitled Broken JEarthenware, is the history of " Old Born Drunk." He was " a true Miserable, lower than anything to be found among barbarous nations, debased almost out of humanity." Brought to a meeting, he heard some one " testify." " While I was listening to Joe," he said, " thinking of what he's been, and seeing what he's become, all of a sudden it took me that I'd find God and get Him to make me like Joe. It took me like that. I just felt, all of a sudden, determined to find God." " Determined" he repeated, with energy astonishing in this broken and hopeless creature of alcoholism. He tasted drink no more. " God has taken all the desire for it," he explained, " clean away from me."