Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1077
“You are blessed of the Lord [or of JEHOVAH] which made Heaven and earth.” Psalm 115:15.
WITHOUT any preface, (for where there is such a feast before us anything which detains us from the table will be out of place), let us come at once to the delightful words of our text and may the Holy Spirit lead us into their inner sense! Here is a blessing spoken of. The Lord that made Heaven and earth has been pleased to bless His people. And this blessing has several peculiarities about it of which we shall speak particularly. It will help us to reach the marrow and fatness of the text if we consider in detail the orthodox number of five points.
First, it is a blessing belonging to a peculiar people. Secondly, it is a blessing coming from a peculiar quarter. Thirdly, a blessing with a peculiar date. Fourthly, a blessing with a peculiar certainty, and fifthly, a blessing involving a peculiar duty. Where there is so much country to survey we must travel swiftly and make but a short stay upon any single thought.
I. First, we have before us A BLESSING BELONGING TO A PECULIAR PEOPLE. “You are blessed of the Lord.” “You.” Who are these distinguished persons? We would reply, first, that they are a people whom God has blessed because He willed to do so. He has given us no other reason as the first cause of their being blessed but the fact that He is good and that He is Sovereign in the distribution of His Grace. If you search to the very bottom of things you hear a voice proclaiming these words, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
If you go back to the first spring and wellhead of all blessing, you shall not find the merits of man as the guardian of the fountain, nor the will of man as the digger of the well—but you shall find there written, “Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The will of God, alone, is the source of the rich, eternal, saving blessing which abounds towards the Lord’s elect! If you are blessed of the Lord who made Heaven and earth, you are not a people who claim to have deserved His favor—you abhor all boasting in self and you magnify Divine mercy. Free Grace is the Shibboleth of the true saints—those who cannot speak out upon that point may well question their lineage!
If you talk of deserving, you belong to another race—you are of the seed of Hagar and belong to Sinai, in Arabia, and therefore you are under the Law and under the curse. No blessing comes to sinners by the way of the Law, but the very reverse. They only shall participate in this blessing who receive it by promise and by covenant, being the seed of Abraham by promise, even as Isaac was, who was born not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Glory, then, be to God at the very outset of our meditations, that He has been pleased to set apart unto Himself a people, elect according to His own eternal purpose in Christ Jesus! Of them and only of them has He said, “You are blessed of the Lord that made Heaven and earth.” This is true doctrine according to the Scriptures and the regenerate feel the truth of it confirmed in their own experience.
Furthermore, they are a people to whom this first will of God to bless them has been certified by countless acts of indisputable love. You who trust that you are blessed of the Lord remember how God’s blessing has come to you already. It waited for you before you were born—yes, it waited for you before this world was fashioned—from everlasting you were ordained to this benediction! The Covenant of Grace was made on your behalf with all its sacred stipulations and its immutable seals, and immeasurable promises of love. What says the Apostle in the first chapter of Ephesians, verses three and four?—“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
For you, in the fullness of time, Jesus came to tabernacle among men. Who shall doubt that you are blessed of the Lord that made Heaven and earth, since for you the Son of God laid aside His royalties to become the Son of Man? Union
with you in your nature was clear evidence that the heart of Christ was with you. Gethsemane and Calvary speak volumes concerning the reality of the blessings which God has given to His chosen, for there they were loved to the death and redeemed by blood. An Incarnate God, a Mediator covered with bloody sweat, a Redeemer wounded and slain—what do you say about this? “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift,” said the Apostle, and even so say we!
Nor was the gift of Jesus Christ’s dying, all, for Jesus’ living is still ours! His resurrection teems with the blessings of life and immortality. We are one with Him and He is forever our Head. And in Him, by virtue of His ascension, we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and will dwell in us forever. Through His indwelling we have “an unction from the Holy One,” through which we “know all things,” being taught of God and led into all Truth according to the office of the gracious Comforter.