Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 394
“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank You, Father, Lord ofHeaven and earth, that You have hidden these thing from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.” Matthew 11:25,26.
THAT is a singular way with which to commence a verse—“At that time Jesus answered.” If you will look at the context you will not perceive that anybody had asked Him a question, or that He was indeed in conversation with any human being. Yet it says, “Jesus answered and said, I thank You, Father.” Now when a man answers, he answers a person who has been speaking to him! Who, then, had been speaking to Jesus? Why, His Father! Yet there is no record of it; which should teach us that Christ had constant fellowship with His Father, and often did His Father silently speak into His ear. As we are in this world even as Christ was, let us imitate this lesson. May we likewise have silent fellowship with the Father, so that we may often answer Him. And when the world knows not to whom we speak, may we speak to God, and respond to that secret voice which no other ear has heard—while our own ear—opened by the Spirit of God has attended to it with joy! I like the Christian to sometimes find himself obliged to speak out, or if not to speak out, to feel an almost irrepressible desire to say something though no one is near, because a thought has been brought to him by the Holy Spirit—a suggestion has been cast into the midst of his soul by the Holy Spirit—and he answers it. God has spoken to him, and he longs to speak to God—either to set to his seal that God is true in matter of Revelation, or to confess some sin of which the Spirit of God has convinced him, or to acknowledge some mercy which God’s Providence has given, or to express assent to some great Truth which God the Holy Spirit has then opened to his understanding. Keep your hearts, my Brothers and Sisters, in such a state that when God speaks to you, you may be ready to answer in spite of whatever troubles may ruffle you, or whatever trials may disturb you. Jesus Christ had just had a time of weeping, and it was succeeded by a season of grateful communion! Like He, maintain a ready ear to listen to the voice of God, and at that time answer thankfully, and bless the Lord your God!
Now it seems to me, in looking through these two verses, that the Savior would teach us three things. When we have learned these three things, I shall endeavor to turn them to practical account. He will have us first of all seek after an enlightened apprehension of the Character of God as Father, and yet Lord ofHeaven and earth. He would have us next observe carefully, the manifest discrimination of His Grace—“You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes.” He would have us, thirdly, cultivate a spirit entirely in harmony with the Divine Will, thanking Him that He has done all things according to His own purpose—“Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”
I. First of all, then, THE SAVIOR WOULD HAVE US ATTAIN TO AN ENLIGHTENED APPREHENSION OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD.
What gross mistakes men make concerning the Character of God! I believe it is a mistake about God Himself which has been the root and foundation of all the mistakes in theology. Our conviction is that Arminian theology, to a great extent, makes God to be less than He is. The professors of that system have come to receive its doctrines because they have not a clear understanding, either of the Omnipotence, the Immutability, or the Sovereignty of God. They seem to always ask the question, “What ought God to do to man, who is His creature?” We hold that that is a question that is never to be put, for it infringes on the Sovereignty of God who has absolute right to do just as He wills! They ask the question, “What will God do with His promises if man changes his habit or his life?” We consider that to be a question not to be asked. Whatever man does, God remains the same, and abides faithful though even we should not believe Him! They ask the question, “What will be done for men who resist God’s Grace, if in the struggle, man’s will should be triumphant over the mercy of God?” We never ask that question—we think it is blasphemous! We believe God to be Omnipotent and when He comes to strive with the soul of man, none can stay His hand! He breaks the iron sinew, and dashes the adamantine heart to shivers, and rules in the heart of man as surely as in the army of the skies. A right clear apprehension of the
Character of God, we believe, would put an end to the Arminian mistake! We think, too, that ultra-Calvinism, which goes vastly beyond what the authoritative teaching of Christ, or the enlightened ministry of Calvin could warrant, gets some of its support from a wrong view of God. To the ultra-Calvinist, His absolute Sovereignty is delightfully conspicuous. He is awe-stricken with the great and glorious attributes of the Most High. His Omnipotence appalls him, and His Sovereignty astonishes him, and he at once submits as if by a stern necessity to the will of God. He, however, too much forgets that God is Love. He does not make prominent enough the benevolent Character of the Divine Being. He annuls to some extent the fact that while God is not amenable to anything external from Himself, yet His own attributes are so blessedly in harmony that His Sovereignty never inflicted a punishment which was not just—nor did it ever bestow a mercy until justice had first been satisfied! To see the Holiness, the Love, the Justice, the Faithfulness, the Immutability, the Omnipotence, and the Sovereignty of God—all shining like a bright corona of eternal, and ineffable light—has never been given perfectly to any human being! And inasmuch as we have not seen all these, and as we hope yet to see them, our faulty vision has been the ground of many mistakes. Hence has arisen many of the heresies which vex the Church of Christ!