Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 654
Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 15, 1865
“This I recall to my mind, therefore ha ve I hope.” Lamentations 3:21.
MEMORY is very often the servant of despondency. Despairing minds call to remembrance every dark foreboding in the past and every gloomy feature in the present. Memory stands like a handmaiden clothed in sackcloth, presenting to her master a cup of mingled gall and wormwood. Like Mercury, she hastens with winged heel to gather fresh thorns with which to fill the uneasy pillow and to bind fresh rods with which to scourge the already bleeding heart. There is, however, no necessity for this. Wisdom will transform Memory into an angel of comfort.
That same recollection which may, in its left hand, bring so many dark and gloomy omens, may be trained to bear in its right hand a wealth of hopeful signs! She need not wear a crown of iron. She may encircle her brow with a fillet of gold, all spangled with stars! When Christian, according to Bunyan, was locked up in Doubting Castle, Memory formed the crab-tree club with which the famous giant beat his captives so terribly. They remembered how they had left the right road, how they had been warned not to do so and how in rebellion against their better selves they wandered into By-Path Meadow.
They remembered all their past misdeeds, their sins, their evil thoughts and evil words—and all these were so many knots in the club—causing sad bruises and wounds in their poor suffering persons. But one night, according to Bunyan, this same Memory which had scourged them, helped to set them free—for she whispered something in Christian’s ear and he cried out as one half amazed, “What a fool am I to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.” So he put his hand into his bosom and with much joy he plucked out the key and thrust it into the lock.
And though the lock of the great iron gate, as Bunyan says, “went damnable hard,” yet the key did open it, and all the others, too. And so, by this blessed act of memory, poor Christian and Hopeful were set free! Observe that the text records an act of memory on the part of Jeremiah—“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” In the previous verse he tells us that memory had brought him to despair—“My soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me.” And now he tells us that this same memory brought him to life and comfort yet again—“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”
We lay it down, then, as a general principle, that if we would exercise our memories a little more, we might, in our very deepest and darkest distress, strike a match which would instantaneously kindle the lamp of comfort! There is no need for God to create a new thing in order to restore Believers to joy. If they would prayerfully rake the ashes of the past they would find light for the present. And if they would turn to the Book of Truth and the Throne of Grace, their candle would soon shine as before. I shall apply that general principle to the cases of three persons.
I. First of all, to THE BELIEVER WHO IS IN DEEP TROUBLE. This is no unusual position for an heir of Glory. A Christian man is seldom long at ease—the Believer in Jesus Christ through much tribulation inherits the kingdom. If you will kindly turn to the chapter which contains our text, you will observe a list of matters which recollection brought before the mind of the Prophet Jeremiah and which yielded him comfort.
First stands the fact that however deep may be our present affliction, it is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed. This is a low beginning, certainly. The comfort is not very great, but when a very weak man is at the bottom of the pyramid, if he is ever to climb it, you must not set him a long step at first. Give him but a small stone to step upon, the first time, and when he gets more strength, then he will be able to take a greater stride. Now, consider, you sons of sorrow, where you might have been!
Look down now through the gloomy portals of the grave to that realm of darkness which is as the valley of the shadow of death—full of confusion and without any order. Can you discern the sound as of the rushing to and fro of hosts of guilty and tormented spirits? Do you hear their dolorous wailing and their fearful gnashing of teeth? Can your ears endure to hear the clanking of their chains, or your eyes to see the fury of the flames? They are forever, forever, forever shut out from the Presence of God, and shut in with devils and despair!
They lie in flames of misery so terrible that the dream of a despairing maniac cannot realize their woe. God has cast them away and pronounced His curse upon them, appointing them blackness of darkness forever. This might have been your lot. Contrast your present position with theirs and you have cause rather to sing, than to lament! “Why should a living man complain?” Have you seen those foul dungeons of Venice? They are below the water-mark of the canal! To get to them you must wind through narrow, dark, stifling passages. Then you creep into little cells in which a man can scarcely stand upright where no ray of sunlight has ever entered since the foundations of the palace were laid! They are cold, foul and black with damp and mildew—the fit nursery of fever and abode of death!