Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 758
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, June 30, 1867,, Camden Road Chapel.
“According to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.”- 1 Timothy 1:11.
THIS verse occurs just after a long list of sins which the Apostle declares to be contrary to sound doctrine, from which we gather that one test of sound doctrine is its opposition to every form of sin. That doctrine which in any way palliates sin may be popular, but is not sound doctrine. Those who talk much of their soundness but yet, by their lives, betray the rottenness of their hearts, need far rather to be ashamed of their hypocrisy than to be proud of their orthodoxy.
The Apostle offers, in the verse before us, another standard by which to test the doctrines which we hear. He tells us that sound doctrine is always evangelical—“sound doctrine according to the glorious Gospel.” Any doctrine which sets up the will or the merit of man, any doctrine which exalts priest-craft and ceremonies, any doctrine, in fact, which does not put salvation upon the sole footing of free Grace, is unsound.
These two points are absolutely necessary in every teaching which professes to come from God. It must commend and foster holiness of life and, at the same time, it must, beyond all question, be a declaration of Divine Grace and mercy through the Mediator. Our Apostle was, by the drift of his letter, led incidentally to make mention of the Gospel. And then, in a moment, taking to himself wings of fire, he mounts into a transport of praise, and calls it “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.” Such is his mode of writing generally, that if he comes across a favorite thought, he is away at a tangent from the subject that he was aiming, and does not return until his ardent spirit cools again!
In this case, before he was aware, his soul made him like the chariots of Amminadab! His glowing heart poured forth the warmest eulogy upon that hidden treasure, that pearl of immense price which he prized beyond all price and guarded with a sacred jealousy of care. I think I see the radiant countenance of the Apostle of the Lord, as with flashing eyes he dictates the words, “The glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.”
Our subject affords us a fine ocean but our time is short, our boat is small, and the atmosphere is so hot and heavy that scarcely a breath of air is to be had, and therefore I will keep to one straightforward track and not distract you with many topics. To open up the text in all its length and breadth would be fit exercise for the loftiest intellect, but we must be content with a few experimental and practical remarks, and may the Lord enable us to weave them into a heart-searching discourse.
I. In the first place, then, Paul praises the Gospel to the utmost by calling it “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.” HAVE WE EXPERIENCED ITS EXCELLENCE? It is necessary to ask the question even in this congregation, for even to great multitudes who attend our Houses of Prayer, the Gospel is a dry, uninteresting subject. They hear the Word because it is their duty. They sit in the pew because custom requires an outward respect to religion—but they never dream of the Gospel having anything glorious in it—anything that can stir the heart or make the pulse beat at a faster rate. The sermon is slow, the service is dull, the whole affair is a weariness to which nothing but propriety makes men submit.
Some people do their religion as a matter of necessity—as a horse drags a wagon—but if that necessity of respectability did not exist they would be as glad to escape from it as the horse is to leave the shafts and to miss the rumbling of the wheels. It is necessary, then, to ask the question, and I shall put it before you in three or four ways. Paul calls the sacred message of mercy the Gospel. Has it been the Gospel to us?
The word is plain and I hardly need remind you that it means—“good news.” Now, has the Gospel been “good news” to us? Has it ever been “news” to you? “We have heard it so often,” says one, “that we cannot expect it to be news to us. We were trained by godly parents. We were taken to Sunday school. We have learned the Gospel from our youth up—it cannot be news to us.” Let me say to you, then, that you do not know the Word of Reconciliation unless it has been, and still is, news to you.
To every man who is ever saved by the Gospel, it comes as a piece of news as novel, fresh, and startling as if he had never heard it before. The letter may be old, but the inward meaning is as new as though the ink were not yet dry in the pen of Revelation. I confess to have been tutored in piety, put into my cradle by prayerful hands, and lulled to sleep by songs concerning Jesus.
But after having heard the Gospel continually, precept upon precept, here much and there much, yet when the Word of the Lord came to me with power, it was as new as if I had lived among the unvisited tribes of central Africa, and had never heard the tidings of the cleansing fountain filled with blood from the Savior’s veins! The Gospel in its spirit and power always wears the dew of its youth—it glitters with morning’s freshness—its strength and its glory abide forever!