Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1131
“Gather out the stones.” Isaiah 62:10.
“GATHER out the stones”—that is to say, out of the King’s highway. Clear the road. Make room for coming sinners. Take away all stumbling blocks. Make the Gospel plain and simple and come to the help of those who find hindrances and impediments in their progress to the Savior. Such stones are there and Satan tries to increase their number. The Lord’s servants must gather them out. That is my object. I do not intend to attempt anything beyond that. I shall only try, with great simplicity of thought and speech, to deal with those things which prevent sinners from getting to Christ, for perhaps while we are trying to do this the Eternal Spirit may bring them to Jesus and they may find salvation on the spot. To that end let all who are already saved cry mightily to the Lord for His saving health and consoling Grace.
Beloved Friends, when poor souls are coming to Jesus they are generally, themselves, their own worst enemies. They have a singular ingenuity in finding out reasons why they should not be saved. A strange infatuation seems to possess them so that they ransack Heaven, earth and Hell to find discouragements. They become inventive of difficulties where difficulties are not and often the pastor, whose business it is to look after the little ones, finds himself, notwithstanding his former experience with persons of like character, utterly bewildered. He is often put to a nonplus with the strange and novel difficulties which awakened sinners will imagine and the reasons which they invent why they should not believe in Jesus Christ.
One would hardly think that the human mind could twist itself into such knots. So many sinners, so many new arguments—for each one has a logic of his own by which he labors to prove the impossibility of his own salvation. Upon consideration, this will not appear very remarkable, for they have long been living in sin and it is no wonder that when they begin to see aright they should be bewildered with fear. Who would not be full of fear if all of a sudden he saw Hell opening right under his feet? They have been eating nothing lately but unsatisfying husks which may nourish swine, but cannot support men. No wonder that they are very weak and scarcely can stagger towards the Father’s house! Poor souls, their hearts are in their mouths, for they cannot tell what is to come next—only a dreadful sound is in their ears, as of the destroying angel pursuing them with vengeance!
They know that God is angry with them and they do not yet understand His great love to penitent sinners. And so they are like men in an upper chamber who start up in the night when a cry of fire is raised—they know not which way to turn. Or I may compare them to mariners in great jeopardy at sea, when they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wit’s end. I wonder not, I say, that they refuse the comforts which we offer them, for it is one of the effects and symptoms of great sickness that the patient refuses all manner of meat—he has lost his appetite—he is too ill to eat and his soul draws near unto the gates of death.
Moreover, in addition to fear and weakness, seeking sinners are generally the prey to severe assaults of the great enemy of souls. When Satan sees a soul coming to Christ, he hastens to aggravate that sinner’s doubts and fears. He raises a double tempest in his spirit. It is “now or never” with the devil—he perceives that if he does not tear poor souls in pieces, now, and drive them to utter desperation—they will soon be in Christ’s fold where he will never be able to touch them again. They are just escaping from the old slaveholder’s hand and if he does not bring them back and chain them up with fresh irons he will lose his captives, for they will follow the Morning Star and enter the land of Liberty where his whip cannot reach them. Therefore he uses double craft and cruelty to oppress and puzzle poor seeking sinners. They are in a state of mind in which they are ready to believe anything which he will tell them, and therefore, upon this string the arch-deceiver plays right horribly.
What with a troubled conscience and with Satan, it is no wonder that the seeking sinner falls into a maze and scarcely knows which way to turn! He sees no ground for hope, but a thousand reasons for despair! It is therefore a holy and necessary work to endeavor to remove some of the stumbling blocks out of the poor beginner’s way. When I have attempted this good work, I shall do far better still, for I shall point the coming sinner to Him who in His own Person has effectually removed every real stumbling block, so that there is nothing, now, that can keep a sinner from his God, if that sinner is but ready to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I. First, then, by way of LIFTING SOME OF THE STONES OUT OF THE ROAD, let us begin with a very old and very common difficulty—I refer to the doctrine of Election. Many will say, “Perhaps I am not one of God’s chosen. It may be that my name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” Unbelief hammers away at this! It is a favorite topic with doubters. And think not, my dear Friends, that I am about to attempt an explanation of the mysteries of predestination, or mean to deny the doctrine of Election for an instant! I believe the doctrine of Election to be as certainly true as the doctrine of the existence of God!