Isaiah 49:4. Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
The Jews, as a nation, were not gathered unto Christ, the highly favoured people, as a whole, did not believe in him. He was expressly sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet John was obliged to write, "He came unto is own and his own received him not." So few became his personal followers that it really appeared as if his life-work had been a failure; but he did what all God’s true servants must do, he referred his work to the Lord. He said, "Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work (or, my record) with my God." If we are faithful, that is all that our gracious Master requires of us; we are none of us bound to be successful. If we bear our sincere testimony to the truth, and everybody rejects it, our reward will be none the less in the day when the Lord calls us to give as account of our stewardship. If you, my brother or my sister, are loyal to him whose servant you are, when your Lord comes again, he will say to you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: .... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Isaiah 49:4. Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
The Jews, as a nation, were not gathered unto Christ, the highly favoured people, as a whole, did not believe in him. He was expressly sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet John was obliged to write, "He came unto is own and his own received him not." So few became his personal followers that it really appeared as if his life-work had been a failure; but he did what all God’s true servants must do, he referred his work to the Lord. He said, "Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work (or, my record) with my God." If we are faithful, that is all that our gracious Master requires of us; we are none of us bound to be successful. If we bear our sincere testimony to the truth, and everybody rejects it, our reward will be none the less in the day when the Lord calls us to give as account of our stewardship. If you, my brother or my sister, are loyal to him whose servant you are, when your Lord comes again, he will say to you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: .... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."