A Wise Nation (Church)
W. Clarkson Isaiah 33:5, 6 The LORD is exalted; for he dwells on high: he has filled Zion with judgment and righteousness.… These verses supply us with three features by which a nation or Church that is possessed of true wisdom will be characterized. I. A PERVADING SENSE OF GOD - of his greatness, his power, his righteousness. "The Lord is exalted; he dwelleth on high; he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness." The result of the deliverance wrought by Jehovah would be the creation of this devout sentiment. The holy nation, the Church after the heart of its Divine Author, will strive to maintain this as an abiding, religious sense; it will cherish that feeling of reverential awe which fills the heart when the greatness of the Exalted One is realized, when the power of him that makes his judgments to be known is felt, when the righteousness of him who overturns iniquity is present to the mind. Well does it speak for the community, civil or sacred, when this sacred sense of God "hath filled" it from end to end, from the least to the greatest. This pervading conviction is, indeed, an essential thing; without it the most vehement protestations, the most honored creeds, the most ecstatic fervors, will soon be found to be as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." II. A DEEP SENSE OF THE TRUE SOURCE OF STABILITY AND STRENGTH. "Wisdom and knowledge," etc. It has always been the case that communities have imagined that their stability and strength rested in things material and visible - in seas and mountains, in armies and navies, in lands and houses, in large numbers of men and women, in goods and grants. But all these things prove to be of no avail when there is inward rottenness, when disunion has crept into the state or into the Church, when the process of demoralization has set in so that it cannot be arrested. No external resources of any kind, however numerous or strong they may be, will save a society that is giving itself up to that which is false and foul. Its defeat and dissolution are only a question of years - or days. The true source of stability and of strength is in heavenly wisdom - that "knowledge" of God which means, not only a perception of the truth but a love of it, a delight in it, an acceptance of it as the one thing that will cleanse the heart, and that should regulate the life. III. A RIGHT ESTIMATE OF PROSPERITY. "The fear of the Lord is his treasure." What is it that constitutes wealth or prosperity? According to the answer which we give to this question our spiritual position may be well determined. If we are indulging the illusion that our prosperity consists mainly in money, or in stocks, or in mines, or in acres; or if we seek for it in numbers, or in reputations, or in the patronage of the titled, and the strong, we are living in a "paradise of fools." "Surely our riches are not where we think, and the kind heart is more than all our store." Yes! and not simply the kind heart, but the pure heart, the heart (1) that has been purified of the love and tolerance of sin by the truth and by the Spirit of God; (2) that has been led to hide itself in the Divine mercy, and to lose itself in the love of a Divine Friend and Lord; (3) that lives to bear witness to his truth, and to magnify his holy Name. That Christian Church that holds itself rich, that finds its treasure in the fear of the Lord, in the consequent and complementary love of Jesus Christ, is the Church that is divinely wise. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning" - and a very large part also - "of wisdom." - C. Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. WEB: Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high. He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.