Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1057
“For you have not passed this way before.” Joshua 3:4.
THEY had come out of Egypt. They had gone up and down in the wilderness, but they had never before crossed the Jordan. It was new ground to them, a new difficulty, and a new series of events lay before them. As a fresh emergency had arisen, they had new orders direct from the Lord, their leader, and Joshua and his officers were busy going throughout the host to communicate the Divine directions. Beloved, when it shall be our lot to come into new positions we shall always obtain renewed guidance from the Spirit of God if we will but wait upon Him for it and cry, “Show me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path.”
It is a most important matter with all of us who are Believers in Christ that our faith should be in a thoroughly sound condition. It is not only grievous to ourselves, but dishonoring to God when our faith falls to a low ebb. To see a distrustful Christian is to see a man who is robbing God of His Glory. Since the Holy Spirit so vehemently cries, “Comfort you, comfort you My people; speak comfortably to Jerusalem,” we may safely come to the conclusion that it is solemnly important that the saints should be comforted, and that for them to lose their comfort is a very grievous thing. He glorifies God most whose faith staggers least. To maintain faith in full vigor is, therefore, a most important matter.
Now there is one very severe trial of faith which will happen to us all, and probably has already occurred to most of us. It is that of a change of trials, a passing into new territory, an entrance into novel circumstances. There is a conservative tendency about most of us so that we build our nest and would gladly live and die in it. Even if we are ill at ease in our present circumstances, this feeling—
“Makes us rather bear the ills we have Than fly to others that we kno w not of.” Some spirits are given to change and would almost leap from the pan into the fire, but others of us take root deeply and dread transplanting. We know the present and we dread the unknown tomorrow. We are familiar with wilderness tribulations, but we shudder at the Jordan which lies before us and the giants and the chariots of iron which are yet to be encountered.
We are not given to change, but are far more likely to settle upon our lees. We would gladly abide where we are and make no experiment of novel circumstances. This principle is so strongly developed in certain minds that they have even been afraid to learn Truths of God which are new to them! From the milk diet of their spiritual infancy they are unwilling to be weaned even though strong meat awaits them. They were not taught certain sublime Truths in their early days, and therefore they wish not to be instructed now. Like the aged man in Solomon’s proverb, they are afraid of that which is high.
The doctrine of Election—they see how full of comfort it is, but not having heard it preached before, they feel afraid to hear it and accept it. That “wine on the lees well refined” they will not drink, because up to now it has not been poured into their cup. We have known such persons to be suspicious of spiritual attainments—they have been victims of doubts and fears so long that they are now afraid to believe! As for full Assurance, they are as much alarmed at it as if it were a crime rather than a Divine Grace! They regard it as dangerous presumption, and put it far from them. Holy courage, brave reliance upon God, fervent zeal, confidence in prayer, unspeakable joy—these and such like blessings are to their timorous souls perilous things which had better be let alone.
The high attainments which some of God’s people have possessed of access to the Throne of Grace, of close communion with God, of insight into the secrets of the Lord—those things our dear Brothers and Sisters have thought to be too good for them, too precious for present enjoyment—and they have even suspected that those who profess to
enjoy them were likely to have been deceived, or were carried away by carnal excitement! Because they have not yet gathered the grapes of Eshcol, they will not believe that such clusters exist! Because they have not passed this way before, they doubt whether there is, indeed, a highway of holiness undisturbed by ravenous beasts.
This fear of that which is new is more powerful, still, when we are called to enter upon new labors. We become accustomed to our present service, which at first was difficult—continual exercise in it has made it easy to us—and, therefore, when the Lord calls us to something else, we are afraid to venture. We feel as if we were quite competent for the work we are now doing, whereas we ought to know that even there, “our sufficiency is of God,” and we are not able, even in that, to do anything of ourselves. But we are afraid to sail upon seas which we have never navigated before, even though our unerring Pilot steers the ship in that direction! Like Jonah, we would sooner go to Tarshish than bear testimony for God in the streets of Nineveh. And, like the man of God at Horeb, we complain that we stammer and are slow of speech, and we are ready to forego the honor of the Lord’s service if we may escape its responsibilities.