New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 27
Delivered on Sabbath Evening, May 27, 1855, Exeter Hall, Strand.
“His name shall endure for ever.”—Psalm 72:17.
NO ONE HERE requires to be told that this is the name of Jesus Christ, which “shall endure for ever.” Men have said of many of their works, “they shall endure for ever;” but how much have they been disappointed! In the age succeeding the flood, they made the brick, they gathered the slime, and when they had piled old Babel’s tower, they said, “This shall last for ever.” But God confounded their language; they finished it not. By his lightnings he destroyed it, and left it a monument of their folly. Old Pharoah and the Egyptian monarchs heaped up their pyramids, and they said, “They shall stand for ever,” and so indeed they do stand; but the time is approaching when age shall devour even these. So with all the proudest works of man, whether they have been his temples or his monarchies, he has written “everlasting” on them; but God has ordained their end, and they have passed away. The most stable things have been evanescent as shadows, and the bubbles, of an hour, speedily destroyed at God’s bidding. Where is Nineveh, and where is Babylon? Where the cities of Persia? Where are the high places of Edom? Where are Moab, and the princes of Ammon? Where are the temples or the heroes of Greece? Where the millions that passed from the gates of Thebes? Where are the hosts of Xerxes, or where the vast armies of the Roman emperors? Have they not passed away? And though in their pride they said, “This monarchy is an everlasting one; this queen of the seven hills shall be called the eternal city,” its pride is dimmed; and she who sat alone, and said, “I shall be no widow, but a queen for ever,” she hath fallen, hath fallen, and in a little while she shall sink like a millstone in the flood, her name being a curse and a byword, and her site the habitation of dragons and owls. Man calls his works eternal—God calls them fleeting; man conceives that they are built of rock—God says, “Nay, sand, or worse than that—they are air.” Man says he erects them for eternity—God blows but for a moment, and where are they? Like baseless fabrics of a vision, they are passed and gone for ever.
It is pleasant, then, to find that there is one thing which is to last for ever. Concerning that one thing we hope to speak to-night, if God will enable me to preach, and you to hear. “His name shall endure for ever.” First, the religion sanctified by his name shall endure for ever; secondly, the honor of his name shall endure for ever; and thirdly, the saving, comforting power of his name shall endure for ever.
I. First, the religion of the name of Jesus is to endure for ever. When impostors forged their delusions, they land hopes that peradventure they might in some distant age carry the world before them; and if they saw a few followers gather around their standard, who offered incense at their shrine, then they smiled, and said, “My religion shall outshine the stars, and last through eternity.” But how mistaken have they been! How many false systems have started up and passed away! Why, some of us have seen, even in our short lifetime, sects that rose like Jonah’s gourd, in a single night, and passed away as swiftly, We, too, have behold prophets rise, who have had their hour—yea, they have had their day, as dogs all have; but, like the dogs’, their day has passed away, and the impostor, where is he? And the arch-deceiver, where is he? Gone and ceased. Specially might I say this of the various systems of Infidelity. Within a hundred and fifty years, how has the boasted power of reason changed! It has piled up one thing, and then another day it has laughed at its own handiwork, demolished its own castle, and constructed another, and the next day a third. It has a thousand dresses. Once it came forth like a fool with its bells, heralded by Voltaire; then it came out a braggart bully, like Tom Paine; then it changed its course, and assumed another shape, till, forsooth, we have it in the base, bestial secularism of the present day, which looks for naught but the earth, keeps its nose upon the ground, and, like the beast, thinks this world is enough; or looks for another through seeking this. Why, before one hair on this head shall be gray, the last secularist shall have passed away; before many of us are fifty years of age, a new Infidelity shall come, and to those who say, “Where will saints be?” we can turn round and say, “Where are you?” And they will answer, “We have altered our names.” They will have altered their name, assumed a fresh shape, put on a new form of evil, but still their nature will be the same; opposing Christ, and endeavoring to blaspheme his truths. On all their systems of religion, or non-religion—for that is a system too—it may be written, “Evanescent; fading as the flower, fleeting as the meteor, frail and unreal as a vapor.” But of Christ’s religion, it shall be said, “His name shall endure for ever.” Let me now say a few things—not to prove it, for that I do not wish to do—but to give you some hints whereby, possibly, I may one day prove it to other people, that Jesus Christ’s religion must inevitably endure for ever.