God's Call to a Sleeping Church
C. Inwood. Isaiah 52:1-6 Awake, awake; put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city… 1. This chapter is a trumpet-call to holiness. Jerusalem is called the holy city, and yet the passage is full of her sins. She was holy in the intention of God. So we are called not to be famous or wealthy but to be holy. 2. Her condition was characterized by — (1) Unhallowed intercourse with the world (ver. 1). The uncircumcised and unclean in her midst. (2) Slavish subserviency to the world (Isaiah 51:23). The moment the world sees Christians turning to it for pleasure or patronage, It becomes a very tyrant, over them. (3) Utter helplessness and impotence. The figure of a "wild bull in a net" means strength reduced to helplessness by little things. Satan forged fetters of persecutions in early days, now he tries the "net business." Many Christians are worthless because caught in a net of little compromises with the world and with conscience. The "fainting" (ver. 20) points to the helplessness of the Christian Church in the presence of the moral and social evils of the day. (4) They were asleep to it all. 3. The man who called "Awake" to Zion, had previously cried "Awake" to God (Isaiah 51:9). 4. To be awakened is not enough. If we go no further we shall go back either into indifference, or into rebellion, or into despair. The call is "put on thy strength, put on thy beautiful garments." Garments of praise, cloth of zeal, beautiful covering of humility. In this the Christian must be always arrayed, for we are children of a King, and God wants us always to appear in Court dress. (C. Inwood.) Parallel Verses KJV: Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. WEB: Awake, awake, put on your strength, Zion; put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.