Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 730
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, JANUARY 20, 1867, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me.”- John 14:1.
THE disciples had been like lambs carried in the warm bosom of a loving Shepherd. They were now about to be left by Him and would hear the howling of the wolves and endure the terrors of the snowstorm. They had been like tender plants conserved in a hothouse, a warm and genial atmosphere had always surrounded them—they were now to endure the wintry world with its nipping frosts. And so it was to be proven whether or not they had an inward vitality which could exist when outward protections were withdrawn.
Their Master, their Head, was to be taken from them. Well might they cry with Elisha, “My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” We too, dear Friends, though we have not enjoyed, perhaps, so entire an immunity as did the Apostles, were at one time very graciously shielded from trouble. We had a summertime of joy and an autumn of peace far different than this present winter of our discontent. It frequently happens that after conversion, God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, gives to the weaklings of the flock a period of repose during which they rejoice with David, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters.” But for all of us there will come a time of trouble similar to that sorrowful occasion which led the Savior to utter these memorable heart-cheering words.
If our conscious communion with Jesus should not be interrupted, yet some other form of tribulation awaits us, for the testimony of earth’s poet that, “man is made to mourn,” is well borne out by the inspired declaration, “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.” We must not expect that we shall be exceptions to the general lot of our race! There is no discharge in this war. We must all be conscripts in the armies of grief. We, too, shall do battle with strong temptations and feel the wounds of adversity. Albeit that yonder ship so lately launched upon a glassy sea has all her streamers flying, and rejoices in a favorable wind—let her captain remember that the sea is treacherous, that winds are variable, and that the stoutest vessel may find it more than difficult to outride a hurricane.
I rejoice to see the courage of that young man who has but just joined the army of the Church militant, and is buckling on the glittering armor of faith! As yet there are no dents and bruises on that fair helmet and burnished breastplate. But let the wearer reckon upon blows, and bruises, and bloodstains! No, let him rejoice if he endure hardness as a good soldier, for without the fight where would be the victory? Brethren in our Lord Jesus, without due trial, where would be our experience? And without the experience, where would be the holy increase of our faith, and the joyful triumph of our love through the manifested power of Christ?
We must expect, then, to walk with our Lord to the gates of Gethsemane—both His and ours! We must expect to cross the Brook Kedron in company with our Master, and it will be well if we hear Him say to us as He did to His disciples on that eventful night, “Let not your hearts be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me.” My Brothers and Sisters, some of us live at this hour in the midst of trouble. We do not remember any period more dark with portents of evil than the present watch of earth’s long night. Few events have occurred of late to cheer the general gloom. Our hopeful spirit has been accustomed to say, all things considered, there are no times like the times present. Think about whether any times have been more vexatious and troublesome than those which just now are passing over our head.
The political atmosphere is far from being clear, no, it is thick and heavy with death-damps of mutual distrust which bring no increase to England’s greatness, but greatly the reverse. There are those who think that our trade, especially in its more speculative department, has become thoroughly rotten. And one thing is quite certain—many well-known infamous transactions have sapped the foundations of credit and stained our national honor. Is all England bankrupt, and our wealth a sham? Let us hope not.
But who can see without alarm the great portion of our trade which is going from us through the folly of the many who combine to regulate what ought to be left perfectly free? If our trade continues much longer to depart from us, we shall become a generation of beggars who will deserve no pity because we brought our poverty upon ourselves. There are,
we fear, dark days coming upon this land. In fact, the dark days are here, for in no year of the last twenty has there been, Brethren, such deep and wide-spread distress in London as at the present moment.