ng
together of the scattered captive people and the leading them back in
triumph into the blessed land.

Such is the image which underlies my text. Of course I have nothing to
do now with questions as to any narrower and nearer historical
fulfilment, because I believe that all these Messianic prophecies which
were susceptible of, and many of which obtained, a historical and
approximate fulfilment in the restoration of the Jews from the
Babylonish captivity, have a higher and broader and more real
accomplishment in that great deliverance wrought by Jesus Christ, of
which all these earlier and partial and outward manifestations were
themselves prophecies and shadows.

So I make no apology for taking the words before us as having their only
real accomplishment in the office and working of Jesus Christ. He is
'the Breaker which is come up before us.' He it is that has broken out
the path on which we may travel, and in whom, in a manner which the
Prophet dreamed not of, 'the Lord is at the head' of us, and our King
goes before us. So that my object is simply to take that great name, the
Breaker, and to see the manifold ways in which in Scripture it is
applied to the various work of Jesus Christ in our redemption.

I. I follow entirely the lead of corresponding passages in other
portions of Scripture, and to begin with, I ask you to think of that
great work of our Divine Redeemer by which He has broken for the
captives the prison-house of their bondage.

The image that is here before us is either that of some foreign land in
which the scattered exiles were bound in iron captivity, or more
probably some dark and gloomy prison, with high walls, massive gates,
and barred windows, wherein they were held; and to them sitting hopeless
in the shadow of death, and bound in affliction and iron, there comes
one mysterious figure whom the Prophet could not describe more
particularly, and at His coming the gates flew apart, and the chains
dropped from their hands; and the captives had heart put into them, and
gathering themselves together into a triumphant band, they went out with
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; freemen, and on the march to
the home of their fathers. 'The Breaker is gone up before them; they
have broken, and passed through the gate, and are gone out by it.'

And is not that our condition? Many of us know not the bondage in which
we are held. We are held in it all the more really and sadly because we
con