Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 632
“What king, going to make war against another king, sits not down first and consults whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and desires conditions of peace.” Luke 14:31,32.
EVERY sensible man endeavors to adapt his purposes to his strengths. He does not begin to build a house which he will not be able to finish, nor commence a war which he cannot hope to fight through. The religion of Christ is the most reasonable one in the world and Jesus Christ never desires to have any disciples who shall blindly follow Him without counting the cost. We always esteem it to be a happy thing when we can get men to sit down and consider. The most of you are so full of other thoughts and so occupied with the world—ever running here and there about your ordinary business—that we cannot get you to think, or calmly sit down and soberly look at things in the light of eternity and weigh them deliberately as you ought.
And yet it is only reasonable that the Master should ask you to do for Him, with regard to your spiritual matters, what you will admit that every sensible man does continually in his business! You are poor traders if you never count your stock. You are likely to be, before long, in bankruptcy court if there is no periodical examination of accounts. And so Christ would have you sit down, sometimes, and take stock as to where you are, and what you are. And then figure up by some sort of arithmetic by which you may come to a truthful calculation, what you are able to do and not to do. And what, therefore, it is reasonable and unreasonable for you to undertake and where your position ought and where it ought not to be.
I especially invite, this evening, those who are unconverted in this assembly to some few thoughts upon the war in which they are engaged with God. I am hoping that perhaps if they consider a little upon it, they will send a delegation and desire peace. When I have spoken upon that, there will be some, perhaps, who will he running away with the idea that they will at once be at peace with God and make war with Satan. But I shall want to pin them down a moment and make them estimate their chances of victory in such a war as that and see whether they are able to meet the Black Prince of Darkness in their own strength.
We will try, if we can, to make it tonight the subject of a little homely talk about our souls and a little earnest personal consideration about our future.
I. First, then, THERE ARE SOME HERE WHO ARE NOT THE FRIENDS OF GOD, and in this case he that is not with Him is against Him. If you cannot look up to God and say, “My Father,” and feel that your heart beats true to Him, then remember it is a fact that you are His enemy. If you could have what you wish there would be no God. If it were in your power you would never trouble yourself again with thoughts of Him. You would like to live, you say, as you wish, and I know how you would wish to live. It would be anyway but as God commands.
Now, as you are engaged in antagonism with Him, just think awhile—Can you expect to succeed? Are you likely to win the day? You have entered into a conflict with His Law—you do not intend to keep it. With His day, you do not regard it. You are thus at war with God! Now, is it likely that you will be successful? Is there a chance for you? If there is, why then, perhaps, it may be as well to go on. If you can conquer GOD, if the battlements of Glory may yet see the flag of sin waved triumphant there, why, Man, then try it!
There will be at least an ambition worthy of Satan who desired sooner to reign in Hell than to be ruled by Heaven! But is there any hope for you? Let me put a few things before you which may, perhaps, make you think the conflict too unequal and thus lead you to abandon the thought at once. Think of God’s stupendous power! What is there which He cannot do? We see but little of God’s power comparatively in our land. Now and then there comes a crash of thunder in a storm and we look up with amazement when He sets the heavens on blaze with His lightning.
But go and do business on the deep waters. Let your vessel fly before the howling hurricane! Mark how every staunch timber seems to crack as though it were but match board and the steady mast goes by the board and snaps and is broken to shivers. Mark what God does when He stirs up the great deep and seems to bring Heaven down and lift the earth up till the elements mingle in a common mass of tempest!
Then go to the Alps and listen to the thunder of the avalanche. Stand amazed as you look down some grim precipice, or peer with awe-struck wonder into the blue mysteries of a crevasse! See the leaping waterfalls and mark those frozen seas, the glaciers, as they come sweeping down the mountain side. Stay awhile till a storm shall gather there and Alp shall talk to Alp and those white prophetic heads shall seem to bow while the wings of tempest cover them! There you may learn something of the power of God amidst the crash of Nature.