Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 466
Amos 2:13.
THE other Sunday morning we went into the corn fields to glean with Boaz and Ruth. And I trust that many of the timid and faint-hearted were encouraged to partake of the handfuls which are let fall on purpose for them by the order of our generous Lord. We go, today, to the gate of the harvest field with another object—to see the wagon piled up aloft with many sheaves, come creaking forth—making ruts as the toiling horses drag it from the field. We come with gratitude to God, thanking Him for the harvest, blessing Him for so much of favorable weather and praying Him to continue the same till the last shock of corn shall be brought in and the farmers everywhere shall shout the “Harvest Home.”
What a picture is a wagon loaded with corn for you and of me, as loaded with God’s mercies! From our cradle up till now, every day has added a sheaf. What more could He do for us than He has done? He has daily loaded us with benefits. Despite the sad affliction in the North, we are nationally a favored people. Both in Providence and in gracious privilege, He has blessed us above all people that are upon the face of the earth. While other countries have been crushed by tyrants, ravaged by war, or left in the thick darkness of superstition, we are free—we are blessed with the light of Heaven—we have the Gospel in our streets, the Bible in our houses, and the Sunday as our choicest heritage.
O England! You are like a farm wagon creaking under the mercies of God! Brothers and Sisters, we are each of us like the cart that is pressed down because it is full of sheaves. The innumerable mercies of God are piled upon us high as the mountains, nor can our memory recount the tokens of the tenderness and loving kindness of the Most High. Let us adore His goodness and yield Him our cheerful gratitude.
Alas—and how many times shall I repeat that pathetic interjection—alas! alas! Alas—that such a metaphor should be capable of another reading? That while God loads us with mercy, we should load Him with sin? While He continually heaps on sheaf after sheaf of favor, we also add iniquity unto iniquity, till the weight of our sin becomes intolerable to the Most High, and He cries out by reason of the burden, saying, “I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.”
Our text begins with a “Behold!” and well it may. “Beholds” are put in the Bible as sometimes a hand is put in the margin of old books, to indicate to the reader something worthy of notice. Or, again, “Beholds” are put in the Scriptures as signs are put out in front of houses of business to attract attention. There is something new, something important, something deeply impressive and worthy of attention, wherever we see a “Behold” in Sacred Scripture. I see this “Behold” standing as it were, like a maiden upon the steps of the house of Wisdom, crying, “Turn in here, O you that are wise, and listen to the voice of God while He speaks to you.”
Let us open our eyes that we may see. Let us fix both our eyes intently that we may “behold,” and may God make a way through our eyes and ears to our heart—so that deep repentance and self-abhorrence may take hold upon us— because of our evil conduct towards our gracious God.
Now, it is to be understood, dear Friends, before we proceed farther, that our text is but a figure, since God is not to be oppressed by man. All the sin that man can commit can never disturb the serenity of His perfections, nor cause so much as a wave upon the sea of His everlasting calm. He does but speak to us after the manner of man and bring down the sublimities and mysteries of Heaven to the feebleness and ignorance of earth. He talks to us as a great father may talk to his little child, and He uses images which are rather adapted to human frailty than to Divine infinity.
Just, then, as a cart has the axles bent and—to use an old Saxon word—as the wheels “screak” under the excessive load, so the Lord says that under the load of human guilt He is pressed down, until He cries out, because He can bear no longer the iniquity of those that offend Him. We shall now turn to the first point, this morning. O that the Holy Spirit may make it pointed to our consciences!
I. The first and most apparent truth in the text is, that SIN IS VERY GRIEVOUS AND BURDENSOME TO GOD.
Be astonished, O heavens and be amazed, O earth, that God should speak of being pressed and weighed down! I do not read anywhere so much as half a suggestion that the whole burden of creation is any weight to the Host High. “He takes up the isles as a very little thing.” “He weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in balances.” Neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor all the ponderous orbs which His Omnipotence has created, cost Him any labor whatever in their sustenance. The heathens might picture Atlas as stooping beneath the tremendous load of the world—but the eternal God, who bears up the pillars of the universe, “faints not, neither is He weary.”