An organization rendering such unselfish, valuable and abiding service to the delinquents of the country brings the entire nation under a sense of obligation, and deserves the gratitude and coöperation of all people. To have its members as the guests of our city is an honor of which we are pardonably proud, and to be invited to preach their annual sermon is a privilege for which I make most grateful and humble acknowledgment. Leaving the technical discussion to appointed specialists--though to invade their province is a temptation--I shall bring you a message from the Book of books, which I pray and hope may be becoming this occasion, may be blessed to your spiritual enrichment, and may be pleasing to Him whose we are and whom we serve.
The greatest of the Old Testament prophets was Isaiah. No other climbed so high the mountain peaks of prophecy or saw so clearly as he coming events. His anointed vision beheld unfolded in panorama the program of the Messiah’s kingdom, and his purified tongue described the inner mission and the external glory of the Messiah’s reign.
In the olden times of which Isaiah told, Jehovah glorified his people in the building and adornment of the temple, but in the coming days which he foretold, Jehovah was to be glorified by the binding of broken hearts and the beautifying of soiled lives.
The prophet with inspired skill drew a picture of Him who was to be the liberator of the people. Seven hundred years passed, and one quiet Sabbath day, in a small town in Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth looked upon that picture and declared that He was its original. Even so did Hawthorne sketch the stone face in the mountain, which long afterwards was realized by the youth of the valley who had gazed upon it and prayed to be like it. The words of the prophecy referred directly to the period of Babylonian captivity. Israel, in exile, longed for political deliverance. Dry expositions of the Mosaic law could not satisfy captives who waited for the proclamation of their freedom. They could not sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
They craved the assurance of the _fact_ of God’s love. Our prophecy is the communication of that fact. It meant more than political deliverance; it meant the graciousness of Jehovah’s pardon, the beauty of his love and the pathos and triumph of his passion in their behalf. “Good tidings” and “proclamation” henceforth became the classic terms for all communications from God to man.