Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 911
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, January 16, 1870
“Now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put a way sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Hebrews 9:26.
WHEN the old dispensation was becoming worn out, and like a vesture ready to be laid aside. When the end of the typical twilight had come, then Jesus Christ came forth from the Father and brought the dawning with Him. When the often appearing of the Aaronic priests had not availed for the putting away of sin, He came whose once appearing perfected the work. As it was said to the master of the feast, “You have kept the best wine until now,” so might it be said of the great God of Grace, whose crowning gift to man came late, but not too late, to enrich the banquet of His love. There was a fullness of time before which the Messiah could not be cut off, but when that hour was come He was not slow with His sacrifice—He appeared in the appointed place to make Atonement for human guilt.
We have, this morning, to proclaim in the hearing of this congregation an old Truth of God to which you have listened many and many a time. But it is a Truth which should be and will be exceedingly delightful to all those whose consciences are troubled with sin. If there are any here who are conscious of the burden of their past guilt, are quickened so as to be sensitive of the curse, can hear the rolling thunder of the impending wrath of God—to them it will be a great joy to hear of One who can put away sin! It is for such as you are that the great Redeemer in the end of the world came among men.
He could not come to put away sin from those who had none, or from those who by their own efforts could put that sin away from themselves. It is, then, for such as you are who are hopelessly sinful. Hopelessly so, I say, if viewed from any aspect short of the work of Jesus Christ. It is for such as you that He has come. If your house were on fire you would rejoice to hear the fire engines coming down the street, for you would feel an absolute certainty that they were coming to you—because your house was in a blaze—if no one’s else might be.
If there were appointed, today, a commissioner for the relief of such traders as might be in difficulties, whose capital was little, and whose liabilities were great—if you were in that condition you would feel at once that a hope was held out to you—because the commissioner’s office supposes a condition of circumstances in which you are found. The news of Christ’s coming into the world to put away sin sounds like the joy blasts of the silver trumpets of Jubilee to those who know themselves to be full of sin, who desire to have it put away, who are conscious that they cannot remove it themselves, and are alarmed at the fate which awaits them if the sin is not by some means blotted out.
Listen, you anxious ones, and if there are no charms of eloquence about the speaker, and if he seeks out no gaudy words that might draw attention to himself, yet let the theme, so suitable to you, so necessary to you, chain your ear and win your heart! And may God the Holy Spirit make the preaching of Christ to you to be the opening of the prisons to them that are bound.
There is one thing in the text which should be sure to hold, as though spell-bound, the attention of every trembling sinner. It is this—the Christ of God, who in the end of the world has appeared, did not come to deny the fact of human sin—to propagate a philosophy which might make sin appear harmless, or define it as a mere mistake, perhaps a calamity, but by no means a Hell-deserving crime. I am sure that every sensitive conscience would loathe such teaching. It could yield no comfort whatever to a soul which had felt sin to be exceedingly sinful.
Jesus Christ did not come into the world to help you to forget your sin. He has not come to furnish you with a cloak with which to cover it. He has not appeared that He may so strengthen your minds, (as men would have it), that you may learn to laugh at your iniquities and defy the consequences of them. For no such reason came the Son of Man. He has
come not to lull you into a false peace, not to whisper consolation which would turn out to be delusive in the end, but to give you a real deliverance from sin by putting it away and so to bring you a true peace in which you may safely indulge.
If sin is put away, then peace is lawful. Then rest of spirit becomes not only a blessing which we may enjoy, but which we must enjoy, and which, the more we shall enjoy the better shall we please our God. O Sinner, the tidings that I bring you this morning are not the mere glitter of a hope that shall delude, not a present relief for the woe you feel, but a real cure for all your ills, a sure and certain deliverance from all the danger that now hangs over you!
I. We will proceed at once, then, to deal with our glorious text, and at the outset let us remember that IT IS A VERY HARD THING TO PUT AWAY SIN. Meditate awhile upon this Truth of God, for it will help you to magnify the power, the wisdom, and the Grace of Christ who has put it away. It is a very hard thing to put away sin, all the Jewish sacrifices could not do it. They were very costly—sometimes thousands of bullocks were slaughtered. They were ordained of God Himself.