Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 655
Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 22, 1865
“Who went about doing good.” Acts 10:38.
You will observe, if you read the chapter before us, that Peter’s sermon was short and much to the point. He preached Jesus Christ to Cornelius immediately and unmistakably. He gave a very admirable sketch of the life of Jesus of which he affirmed himself to have been an eyewitness and he brought forward, in his closing sentence, just that simple Gospel which it is our joy to preach. “To Him all the Prophets witness, that through His name whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins.”
This should be an instructive example to all professed ministers of the Gospel. We might say less about other matters without loss if we would say more about the Lord Jesus. If we should omit some other teaching, if there were more of a savor of the name and of the Person of Jesus Christ in our ministry, the omissions might be tolerated. It is a strange thing that men should profess to be sent of God and yet talk about everything except the great message which they are sent to deliver!
My errand as a minister is to preach Christ and it will avail me little to have been clear and earnest upon other points if I have neglected to set forth Christ Crucified. To put my own views of doctrine or moral practice in the place of Jesus is to put out the sun and supply its place with a farthing rush light—to take away the children’s bread and offer them a stone. We commend Peter as an example to all who preach or teach, either in the street, the sick chamber, or the House of Prayer—do as Peter did—come at once to the soul of your ministry, and set forth Christ Crucified in plain and simple language.
If any should plead that the subject should be adapted to the audience, we see from the narrative that there is sure to be something in the history of Christ applicable to the case before us. Peter purposely gave prominence to certain points in the history of the Master which would be most likely to enlist the sympathy of Cornelius. He says of Him, “He is Lord of all,” as much as to say, “He is not Lord of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, and therefore, O Cornelius, His dominion reaches to you. He is to be worshipped and adored and He is to become a blessing and a propitiatory sacrifice, not only to Israel’s hosts, but even to Italians. And therefore you, O Centurion, may take heart.”
Perhaps the words of our text were uttered by Peter concerning Christ because they also would be sure to attract the notice of a man who was “A devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always.” He did as much as say, “You go about doing good, Cornelius. It is the very soul of your life to help the needy, to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked—Jesus also went about doing good in a higher sense and I hold Him up to you as one to be beloved by every devout and generous heart.”
Other points are to be noticed in Peter’s address which were evidently adapted to the case before him, but we have said enough to prove that there is something in the story of Jesus suitable to win the attention and to gain the heart of any congregation, large or small. Only let the Holy Spirit help us to dilate upon the Gospel of the Lord Jesus and we have no need to wander abroad for foreign themes. We can sit at the foot of the Cross and find a perpetually profitable subject there. No need to gather the sheaves of science, or the sweet flowers of prose—Christ Jesus is both our science and our poetry and as ministers we are complete in Him!
When we come forth to preach Him and to lift Him up, we are armed from head to foot and rich with weapons for our spiritual warfare. Though learning and art have had no hand in fashioning our panoply, we need not fear that we shall meet a single foe who can withstand the terror of those celestial arms. God grant us Grace in all our teachings to keep close to Jesus Christ—for His love is a theme most fit for all cases and most sweet at all times.
The few words which we have taken for our text are an exquisite miniature of the Lord Jesus Christ. “He went about doing good.” There are not many touches, but they are the strokes of a master’s pencil. The portrait cannot be mistaken for anyone else. The mightiest conquerors may gaze upon its beauties but they cannot claim that it is intended to portray their lives. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon—these went about conquering, burning, destroying, murdering. They went about not doing good. Prophets too, who professed to have been sent of God, have compassed sea and land to make proselytes, but the good which they accomplished none could see.
Mahomet’s career was fraught with incalculable evil. The few good men and true, who, like Howard, have perambulated the world seeking to minister to the necessities of mankind, have wept over the heavenly portrait and sighed that they are not more like it. This is what they sought to be and so far as they copied this portrait, this is what they were. But they fall short of the original and are not slow to confess their shortcomings. What Peter here draws in words, God’s Divine Grace drew, in some measure, in lines of real life in the case of Howard and some other followers of Jesus of Nazareth.