Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 837
Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 18, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“And Jacob their father said unto them, You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.” Genesis 42:36.
THE Patriarch must use the expression, “ALL THESE THINGS.” He had gone through the catalog—there were but three items at the most, and yet nothing narrower than, “All these things are against me” will suit him. Our notation of our trials is very apt to present them in exaggerated number, but when we come to count our mercies, as a usual rule our tendency is to diminish them. We magnify the hosts of our troubles and underestimate the armies of our benefits. It were well if it were not so, for the habit is most painful to ourselves and dishonorable to God. “All these things,” indeed! And what a little “all” compared with the benefits of God! What an insignificant “all” compared with the sufferings of our Covenant Head! What a trifling “all” compared with the amazing weight of Glory which shall soon be revealed in us!
However, allowing the timorous expression to stand, it shall be my business this morning to show that while, according to the verdict of unbelief, “all these things are against us,” yet there are other lights in which to look upon the multitude of our griefs—lights which shall enable us to perceive their benefit to us, and even to triumph in them through Him that loved us.
I. Our first text is THE EXCLAMATION OF UNBELIEF—“All these things are against me.” In Jacob’s case it was a very plausible verdict. Joseph he had long lost sight of. Simeon did not return from the journey into Egypt. His sons now requested that Benjamin might be entrusted to their thriftless care—and it might well appear to the anxious father as if, one by one, his children were sinking into untimely graves and that God was dealing severely with him. Even the insinuation by which he ascribed these bereavements to the malice or carelessness of his sons, “You have bereaved me of my children,” had an air of great likelihood thrown around it.
Yet plausible as was the old man’s mournful conclusion, it was not correct, and therefore let us learn to forbear rash judgment and never, in any case, conclude against the faithfulness of the Lord. There may be peculiarities in our case which look as if the Master had treated us with cruel harshness. There may be thorns of unusual sharpness in our pillow but we must not dream that anger placed them there. We may be pining under a grief which we could not tell into another’s ear. It may seem that our lot is singled out and separated for peculiar misery—and therefore it may seem just to conclude, “God has forsaken me. He has turned upon me in His fierce anger, and His loving kindnesses have failed forevermore.”
But rest assured, my Brothers and Sisters, that the most plausible is not always the most true, and the most natural is not the most sure. God is and ever must be love to His people. Let nothing disturb you in this belief. Believe not the clearest inferences from His Providence—believe HIM! Let outward circumstances say what they may. Even if your understanding should lead you to doubt the Lord, remember that God is greater than your understanding, that His ways are past finding out, and in the end His dispensations must prove to be wise, loving, and gracious. Yet I can well imagine that souls in distress feel it almost ungenerous to dispute the verdict at which they have arrived—for the evidence appears to be so multiplied and clear.
Sitting alone, silent in your sorrow, crushed out of all hope, you claim the unhappy right to declare, “All these things are against me.” And yet, Beloved, it is not so. Jacob’s exclamation was most evidently exaggerated—exaggerated in the term he used, “All these things,” for there were but three evils at the most—exaggerated, too, in most of the statements. He said, “Simeon is not.” Now, his sons had told him that the ruler of the land of Egypt had taken Simeon bound him before their eyes. But they gave him no reason to believe that Simeon was put to death. The old man jumps to a conclusion for which he has no warrant, and laments because, “Simeon is not.”
He added, “You would take Benjamin away.” Yes, but only to go into Egypt to buy corn—a short and needed journey from which he would soon return. You would suppose, from the Patriarch’s language, that beyond all doubt Simeon had fallen a victim in Egypt, and that Benjamin was demanded with a view to his instant execution! But where was evidence to support this assertion? We frequently talk of our sorrows in language larger than the truth warrants. We write ourselves down as peers in the realms of misery, whereas we do but bear the common burdens of ordinary men. We dream that no others have ever passed along our rugged path, whereas the road is beaten down with the footsteps of the flock.