Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 905
Delivered by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“If there is a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto men His uprightness: Then He is gracious unto him and says, Deliver him from going down to the Pit: I have found a ransom.”- Job 33:23,24.
WHEN God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy towards an individual, He often begins with stern discipline and brings him low by affliction and sorrow. As the good farmer cuts down the trees and makes a clearance of the soil before he sows the grain and prepares for a harvest, so does our God cut down all our goodly cedars, our pleasures, and our pride in order that the heart may be afterwards plowed, broken, harrowed and made ready to receive the good seed of the Word. Elihu describes this preparatory breaking-up process as being brought about by sickness. It is often so—I doubt not that a sickbed is one of God’s best orators to the sons of men.
But God is by no means restricted to any uniform method, nor is the experience of the redeemed precisely similar in its details though, notwithstanding all its diversities, it leads to one and the same result. Sometimes a storm at sea has brought men to their senses and aroused their conscience and so they have cried to the Lord in their trouble. At other times serious losses in business have brought men into such distress of mind that they have been driven to seek riches more enduring than silver and gold—a competence more to be relied on than the profits of trade or the stability of banks— and comfort more genuine and lasting than wealth.
Yes, and without either of these the Holy Spirit has not infrequently been pleased to convince men of their sin and reduce them to utter self-despondency and abject self-abhorrence. This He has effected in such a way as neither sickness nor poverty could have done of themselves. He has brought the man very low, even to the gates of Hell. In his own apprehension the man has been lost and then it is that Mercy has commenced her work, her blessed work that shall open to him the gates of righteousness and bring the soul up to Heaven itself!
I hope there are some here present whom God has been preparing for His Divine Grace—to such there will be good tidings in the sermon! I shall not delay you, but proceed at once to deal with the text in the natural order it suggests, as the welcome facts are marshaled before us. Does it not tell of a messenger—a message—a gracious disposition—a great deliverance—and an amazing ransom?
I. When God has thus, in the way of Providence, prepared any human heart for a work of Divine Grace, one of the first means of blessing the chosen man is TO SEND HIM A MESSENGER. I suppose the passage before us may be primarily referred to Christian ministers, who become, through God the Holy Spirit, interpreters to men’s souls. They should be men of a thousand, well taught. They should have high moral and spiritual qualifications. In fact, they should be the pick of mankind. When God sends a faithful Gospel messenger to a man, it is a sign of great love to that man’s soul.
I ask no honor for ministers as men, but this I do ask, that when they preach to you the Gospel of Jesus Christ they shall be accepted as God’s messengers and that their message, at least, shall be treated with the respect which God’s Word demands. But I prefer to believe, with many expositors, that the full meaning of these words will never be found in ministers of mortal race. We must rather refer it to the Great Messenger of the Covenant, the Great Interpreter between God and man whose Presence to the sin-sick soul is a sure prophecy of mercy. Where God the Father sends His beloved Son to a man—where Christ comes to the man’s conscience and talks with him, showing the credentials of a Savior and constraining the faith of the sinner—there it is that salvation is obviously intended by the Lord and will be effectually perfected in that man unto everlasting life.
With this view I proceed, regarding our Lord Jesus Christ as the herald of mercy. Mark well the titles, a Messenger, an Interpreter, One Among a Thousand. Is there any other than Jesus to whom they so fitly belong? Let us contemplate Him as a Messenger. That is just what Jesus Christ is. Now, a messenger comes not in his own name. He must be sent and
it is a great comfort to know that Jesus Christ did not come to save men merely on His own account, but He came commissioned by the Father. He was sent of God. God has appointed Christ to be the Savior. Those who accept Christ and trust in Him accept the very Person God, Himself, has ordained. Christ is no amateur Savior, who comes without a commission. In His hands He bears the royal stamp of the Divine authority. O trembling Sinner! Trust Him whom God has trusted! Lay hold of Him whom God has appointed!