Twenty-fifth Mountain Peak
"Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye- are hewn, and to the hole of the pit, whence ye are digged; Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody." Isaiah 51:1-3
THE LORD JESUS is that Rock (1 Cor. 10:4). When we repent of our sins and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, we become partakers of His very nature (2 Peter 1:4). By nature we were sinners, and God could not see in us any goodness as Paul testifies in Rom. 7:18. There is "no good thing" in our nature as human beings, and in the eyes of God there is also nothing good in us spiritually. There is nothing in our life which God can accept for His use.—it is like a rosy apple looking very nice, but when it is cut open it is rotten inside.
I was deceived like that once. While travelling, a fellow believer gave me a large costly apple, so nice to look at, red and with a nice smell too. When I cut the apple, I found it rotten. Because the apple was costly. I did not want to throw it away, so I began to scrape the apple to see if I could find a piece which could be eaten, but to my disappointment the whole apple was entirely rotten. and there was nothing good that I could eat. That is the condition of a sinner before God. By our standards of life and by the Word of God, our nature is full of evil. But the moment we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour and believe that He died in our stead, and rose again for our justification. His very life is poured into us and we are made partakers of His nature. The Prophet tells us: "Let us not look at ourselves, but at the Rock that has been hewn for us", because He Himself has become our righteousness. It is not Bible knowledge or simple clothes or fasting that make us righteous. None of these things can make us righteous. The Lord Jesus Christ coming into us can alone make us righteous, as in 1 Cor. 1:30. He rose again for our justification and He comes into us to be our righteousness. Do not look at yourself or your spiritual growth, for if you look at yourself you are going to fail, or with human qualifications only, you will surely fail. Look at the Rock from which you have been cut (Isa. 51:1). Now if you take a liny rock out of a big one and compare it with the big rock, all the qualifications are found in the tiny rock that are in the big rock:. In the same way, all the virtues of the Lord Jesus Christ and His qualifications are poured into us day by day. as we keep on looking unto Jesus. He is our example and our life. When we look to man as our guide and help and example, we are disappointed and offended. But we must constantly look unto Him as our life and righteousness, and He will bring into us the virtues which are His. If you want to be like Him. you have to say by faith: "Oh Lord! pour your life into me". If you want to be humble, say to Him. "Lord make me meek and lowly like yourself". If you want to love your enemies, say to Him, "Lord give me the same love with which you loved your enemies, when you said, Forgive them," they know not what they do". In the same way we turn to Him when we are reproached, and it is by that means that we receive divine virtues.
A Mohmedan once came to me and told me he wanted to become a Christian. It was a surprise to me and I asked him the reason for bis desire. He told me how he was once visiting a big city and had to cross a narrow verandah. There was a Christian sweeper, who had his basket in one corner, while with a broom he was sweeping. Then a bania in a white dhoti came along, and the basket touched his clean clothes and dirtied his dhoti. He got very angry with the hweeper and beat him, not once but twice. The Mohmedan said to the sweeper: "It was not your fault, why did you allow him to beat you," whereupon the sweeper replied, "Sir, the Lord who saved me. my Saviour, was spat upon and forgave those who spat upon Him. Then should not I? I do not want to wound him by hurtful words." The words and action of the sweeper made me wish to become a Christian. All these virtues and grace and long suffering are rot by our own efforts. If you say "I will humble myself", you will become very proud, and similarly if you say, "I won't be angry", you will lose your temper all the more. You can never succeed in getting any virtues by yourself. So by faith say to Him: "O Lord you are my righteousness. You have given me your nature. Now I find myself falling into temptation. Give me your own life and make me an overcomer". By that means, you will be victorious, and when we do not turn to Him, we fail.
In v. 2 the prophet says, "Look unto Abraham". Now Abraham was very old, about 99 years old, and at that time Sarah was very old also, yet the Lord promised to give them a son and Abraham believed, and his faith made him righteous. These old people did not become righteous by their own efforts. It was by faith, and Abraham's new strength and power continued. As a result, Abraham had six sons besides Isaac in his old age, as we see in Gen. 25:1 -2. He knew by experience that the Lord had poured into him a new power, which was not his own power. When the prophet says, "Look unto Abraham", we realize that the same power which the Lord poured into Abraham, can be poured into us. It is available for us, for all our daily weakness and shortcomings, and we can appropriate this power by faith; but remember, nobody becomes perfect in one day.
We see that animals, the very day they are bom are able to walk, like buffaloes, goats, or lambs. But human children, let them be from China, Japan. England, or Europe are all bor n with the same weakness. It takes at least ten months for them to crawl, and they have to go through many stages of development. In the same way you cannot become perfect spiritually, in one day. You have to grow slowly. All of us have troubles, difficulties and temptations, but we have this privilege of going on claiming daily the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, of which we are reminded in Col. 3:4—"Christ, Who is our life". Now we upon earth have the privilege to receive into us the very nature, life and character of the Lord Jesus Christ, every day, and not only on Sunday. We can ask Him to give us His love, longsuffering, patience, and joy. Tell Him, "Lord, now I see this temptation before me and I have decided to overcome it", and with that longing you go on claiming His strength and victory by faith. Then one day, we shall be like Him. With that life we will be given immortal, glorified bodies (1 John 3:2). If you want to look like Him, go on appropriating the very life of .the Lord Jesus. It does not matter, what may be your weakness or shortcoming, one day you will become spiritually strong. It is a slow process, as by faith you appropriate His life. Don't let the enemy deceive you. We may fall many times, but He is always ready to forgive us. The Lord expects us to forgive our neighbours four hundred and ninety limes. Matt. 18:21. If, I as a man, can forgive my neighbour four hundred and ninety times, then how much more will God forgive us. We find that, though we make many mistakes, if we go on claiming. His life again and again saying: "Lord. I know one day I will be like thee, by the same life which is being poured into me. Oh Lord, give me a greater measure of Thy life to overcome my failures and short comings," in that way we shall become overcomers.
v. 3. When the earth was created the whole world looked like the Garden of Eden, fertile and well watered, and that is how you and I can become, if we fully appropriate the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like the Garden of Eden we will become beautiful and fruitful.