II. The deliverance of Christ’s people from sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,”—tears of sorrow for sin; of mourning under affliction, trials, and bereavements; of grief caused by the wickedness of men and the injury done to the cause of truth and righteousness: all shall be wiped away, every cause of sorrow brought to an end.

III. The deliverance of Christ’s people from the shame and contempt of the world.—Samuel Thodey.

A Sorrowless World.

xxv. 8. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.

The vision presented is that of a sorrowless world; a vision which has haunted the imagination of men in every age. The Bible declares that that which has been merely a bright but disappearing dream shall be a glorious fact.

I. Look at sorrow as a fact. How early we become acquainted with it. How our experience of it increases with every year of life. How numerous are its sources. How inevitable it is (H. E. I., 47–50). But the profoundest, heaviest, most oppressive, and most enduring sorrow of which we are capable is the sorrow of the soul which is caused by consciousness of guilt. Unlike all other sorrows, in the thought of death it finds no relief; by that thought it is unspeakably aggravated (H. E. I., 1334–1341; P. D., 1664, 1668).

II. Proceed to look at God removing sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” How great the enterprise! Yet how sufficient, though unexpected and startling, is the agency He employs: on this mission of mercy He has sent His own Son. God as His manner is, works from within outwards; He not only wipes off all tears, He removes their cause. That cause is sin. But how does He destroy sin in the human soul? 1. By revealing it, by showing its essential hideousness—one of the revelations of the cross of Christ. It is not until we perceive the costliness of the atonement of sin, that we begin to suspect its terribleness and hatefulness. 2. By showing that sin can be conquered. This is the glorious message and proclamation of the life of the Man Christ Jesus. 3. By furnishing a motive that shall stimulate us to the conflict with sin which will end in victory. That motive is found in the love for Christ which springs up in the soul when we view Him dying on the cross in our stead. 4. In the same marvellous spectacle we see that which alone can pacify conscience, and which does pacify it. Believing, our fears and our sorrows flee away; our mourning is turned into joy. The supreme need of the soul is met in reconciliation with God. A sorrowless life is begun. But that is not all. Having destroyed—in destroying sin in the soul, God implants righteousness (chap. xxxii. 17). He creates as well as destroys. He introduces into our thoughts, words, actions, a Divine order, and therefore a Divine beauty and blessedness. All sorrow springs from infractions of this order; this is seen in national, social, individual life. In proportion as it is restored, tears are wiped away. The great Agent by whom this work is accomplished is His own Spirit; but He works by means, and the chief instruments He employs are those who, in various ways, are promoting the knowledge and practice of the will of God in the world. In this work we may share; this possibility is the glory of our life. By the progress of Christian truth, how many tears have been already wiped away! In spite of every obstacle, the glorious work shall proceed, with ever-accelerating triumphs. There is a better day dawning for our race (H. E. I., 3421–3423). Nothing can bring it in but the Gospel. All other agencies—commerce, education, literature, art, legislation—have been tried and have failed. He who loves humanity will consecrate himself to the furtherance of the Gospel; and he who does so shall share in that joy of redeeming the world from sin and sorrow by the hope of which Christ was sustained amid the sufferings He endured for this great end.—Thomas Neave.

Advent Thoughts and Joys.

xxv. 9. And it shall be said in that day, &c.

Isaiah is here, as he is so often, the prophet not merely of future events, but of future states of mind and feeling; not merely of God’s dealings with His people, but of the way in which they would or should meet their God.