Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 750
Delivered on Thursday Evening, DECEMBER 13, 1866, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift them up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in.”- Psalm 24:9.
ON Monday evening we expounded this Psalm. We then enlarged upon the glorious ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and His triumphal entrance within the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem, to which we believe this verse is to be referred. Having on that occasion endeavored to set forth the literal and proper meaning of the words, amplifying them at some length, we trust we may be permitted to use them tonight rather by way of accommodation while we speak on quite another subject, and give a different turn to the flow of our thoughts. Not that we wish to supersede the natural sense of the prophetic song, although we think that without violence, and even with profit, we may borrow a sentence from it to point a moral of practical godliness.
It is worthy of observation that the Scotch commentator, Dixon, gives what I am about to suggest to you as the true meaning of the text, as also do some one or two other authors, to say nothing of our hymn writers who claim poetical license for the boldness of their paraphrases. I should myself very strongly object to tamper with the literal sense. The allusion of the Psalmist, no doubt, is primarily to the ascension of the Ark of the Covenant into Mount Zion, where it was permanently to be lodged, and that historical fact was a type of the ascension of Christ into the Jerusalem which is above, where He sits as the Representative of His people. Let the meaning be fully understood and admitted, then we shall feel at liberty to use the words we here find for certain practical purposes.
Give ear then, dear Friends, to the doctrine which I am anxious to set before you. The Lord Jesus Christ, in order to our salvation, must not only enter into Heaven but He must enter into our hearts. He must not only sprinkle the blood within the veil, but He must sprinkle the blood within our conscience. All that Christ has done for us will be of no use unless there shall be a great work done in us. It is not only Christ on the Cross who is our hope, but “Christ in you,” says the Apostle, “the hope of glory.
I. First, then, THE GREAT THING TO BE DESIRED BY EACH OF US IS THE ENTRANCE OF THE KING OF GLORY INTO OUR SOULS. Brethren, what if I should say that Heaven would not be Heaven without this? Certainly there would be no happiness here on earth, no Heaven below to any one of us unless we had Christ in our hearts!
There is nothing but mischief in man’s heart when Christ is not there and another lord usurps dominion over Him. In vain is the Gospel preached to any one of the sons of men so long as they, like the strong man armed, keep the gates of the castle of their heart. The eyes of the understanding are blind to the way of peace. Until Christ shall come and take that castle by storm, there is no doing anything for that man—the spirit that works in him is the “spirit that works in the children of disobedience”—he is deceived by Satan and made a willing slave to that tyrant of evil.
What you need, Sinner, for your salvation, is that Christ should come unto you, for if He should come unto you, then that dead soul of yours would live. His Presence is life. He quickens whom He will. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. When He comes into a soul, spiritual life is there. The sinner wakes up to consciousness and rises from the grave over the mouth of which his reckless indifference, like a great stone, has been rolled, and he cries, “What must I do to be saved?” When Christ comes into the heart, sin is seen to be sinful. In the light of the Cross man begins to repent. He sees that his sin has slain the Savior, and he loathes it. He now seeks to be delivered both from its guilt and from its power.
The coming of Christ does that. It takes away the guilt of man. Christ in the heart, revealed to the soul, speaks peace to the troubled conscience. We look to Him and are lightened, and our faces are not ashamed. We see the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness in Christ. Here we wash and are made clean—as for the reigning power of sin, nothing can ever conquer that but the incoming of Christ. If a man serves an evil master, the only way of getting rid of that hated despot is to bring in the rival Sovereign. “No man can serve two masters.” The introduction of the King of Glory, Christ Jesus, is the sure way of casting out that old master, Satan, the prince of the power of the air.
When the Lord Jesus comes, bringing life, and light, and pardon, He puts down the power of sin and every blessing comes in His train. Oh, when Christ rides through the streets of our souls they are strewn with flowers of hope and joy! Then we hang out the streamers of our sacred bliss! We sing of His praise! We are ready to dance before Him for holy mirth! Then straightway we love purity and seek for perfection! Then we adore the living God whom we had before forgotten, but of whom we can now say, “Our Father who are in Heaven.” We receive the spirit of adoption to which we had been strangers before!