Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 870
Delivered on Sunday Morning, MAY 9, 1869, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Things present, all are yours.”- 1 Corinthians 3:22.
SOME of the Corinthians had attached themselves to one great religious teacher and others to another. There was a disposition among them to set up rival leaders of opposing parties—a band would follow Paul, another company admired Apollos—and a third extolled Peter. The Apostle, in order to take the minds of Believers off estimating any one of their blessings at too high a rate, leads them to contemplate the exceeding length and breadth of the treasures which God had given to them. Why should they glory in man when all things were theirs? It is the part of a poor man to set a great value upon the one thing in which he delights.
As in the parable of Nathan, the poor man had but one ewe lamb. This lay in his bosom, and was fed from his own table. He who was possessor of 10,000 sheep in the valley of Jezreel thought but little of any one lamb. Even so, if Believers were poor and God had given them but one mercy and that one mercy were either Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, it were but according to nature that they should exalt the gift and prize it at the highest conceivable rate. But when the bounteous Lord has given to His people all ministries and countless spiritual blessings, it becomes unseemly in those who are so rich, to glory in any one part of their portion.
Even as it has been said—
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring,” so the sense of possession exercised upon a little will contract and hamper the soul, but a sense of great, yes, infinite possession, will enlarge and ennoble us. If our mind, enlarged and stimulated by faith, can stretch its arms like seas and grasp the whole shore of the present and of the future—and seize upon all things as given us by the bounty of Heaven— we shall be cured of the tendency to exaggerate the value of our merely temporal mercies. And all shall so be delivered from covetousness.
How shall they thirst who swim in the cool clear stream? How shall they hunger who sit down at banquets where the provision is beyond all measure? Happy are they who are too rich to care for gold, too happy to hunt after joy, too exalted to be proud, too high to be lifted up! Among the matters which Paul catalogs as belonging to Believers, he enters this item, which contains a mass of mercy, “things present.” This is a huge nugget of virgin gold and one which the mind is ever ready to appreciate. We reckon present things at the highest rate—as the old proverb has it—“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Things present—though in very truth they may be far inferior to things to come, or even in certain respects less precious than the things of the past—yet usually exercise the greatest influence over us from their nearness. It is so even as the moon, though far less than the sun, has the greater power over the earth because she is so much nearer to it. A present mercy rates higher in the market than a great blessing which was received years ago and now only lives in our memory. A crust for present hunger is better than the festival of last year, and a small inconvenience, if pressing upon us at this present moment, will distress us far more than the great trial which is threatened, or the still greater affliction which has passed over us.
A slight shower of rain today will more inconvenience you than the heavy snowstorm which overtook you on the Alps seven years ago. The little present, to our apprehension, eclipses the great past or the greater future. Since, then, from the constitution of our nature, we are so out of all proportion affected by present things, it is well for us to look at them until we can see them in the bright light which this text casts upon them. Then we shall be all the happier and, being
the happier, all the stronger for good. Present things, then, Believer, be they bright or dark, present things—through the Covenant of Grace—are yours today!
I. Subdividing this great and comprehensive term, we shall first observe that in the ease of the true Christian, HIS TEMPORAL POSSESSIONS are his own. You will say that this is a most trite remark. So be it. Yet, as a brown husk may hide a golden seed, so may there be important truths within a plain sentence. The ungodly man for awhile engrosses the good things of this life, but they are sent to him oftentimes in anger. They bring a curse with them and are taken away again in wrath. They are not his in the same cheering sense in which they belong to the children of God.
As for you, O true Believer, whatever of earthly good the Lord has apportioned you is in a peculiar sense and in a most blessed manner, your own. I grant you that all our worldly goods belong to God and that we are but stewards of whatever He bestows upon us. Yet, for all that, the good things of this life are ours by a deed of gift far more valid than the title-deeds of noble families or the charters of kings! God gives us all things richly to enjoy, and rights established upon Divine gift are beyond dispute.