Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1260
“Instead of your fathers shall be your children, whom you may make princes in all the earth.” Psalm 45:16.
WERE you ever perplexed by being drawn with almost equal force in two directions? I have been so. There is a bond which reaches from the cemetery which holds me very fast and, therefore, I desired again, this morning, to have made use of the solemn visitation which so suddenly removed one of our friends from us. But this is the beginning of the week set apart for prayer for the young, and I have felt duty bound to take a part in the celebration and to assist to stir up Sunday school teachers and the members of the Church in general to pray for the blessing of God upon the rising generation.
Now these mourning friends expect a consoling word from me—and these children demand that I plead for them, also! I realized the scene in my study. What was I to do? Between two subjects I might arrive at none and that was not a desirable conclusion. I watched, looked and prayed, and at last I resolved to yield myself to both influences, and I have as nearly as possible done so by selecting this text—“Instead of your fathers shall be your children, whom you may make princes in all the earth.”
The text begins with, “Instead.” It is a sad word. I do not enjoy the sound of it. “In stead”—well, then, we must expect to lose some if others are to come in their stead. Alas, these funerals will be repeated, new graves must be dug! New friends will arise, but we dread the exchange. Would it not be more pleasant to keep the old workers? Would it not be safer to have the same comrades in the day of battle? What a grand Old Guard the veterans would make! “Instead”! It is a prophecy that some must go that others may come! That some must decay, that others may flourish! That some must die that others may succeed them!
Our trembling faith hardly likes the change here hinted at, for we are apt to think that those who are to stand “instead” will be very slow in coming. Where are we to find men to fill the vacant places? By whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small? Indeed, there are some saints so eminently blessed of God that we ask ourselves the question, “Who can stand in their stead?” Moses! May Moses live forever, for who but he can rule and guide so great a multitude and, with mingled meekness and authority, conduct so great an army through the wilderness? Who but he can have such power with God as to stand between Israel and the Divine anger?
We hear a whisper of Joshua as his successor, but good as Joshua may be, we can hardly endure to see the leadership change hands. And Elijah, too, that bold iron Prophet, that man of fire and thunder. “I, only,” said he, “am left.” Shall we lose him? From where shall there come another? No, if it pleases the Lord, we would rather keep Elijah. We do not like that word, “instead,” even though we hear that there is an Elisha to follow Elijah. Too frequent is the fear that the one who comes instead will be a poor substitute and succeed only in name! After high hills come deep valleys, the second crop seldom equals the first and so great Grace and ability seldom continue long either in a family or in an office.
We know that Solomon died and was succeeded by Rehoboam—a wise man by a fool! We know, also, that Eli, good man and true priest of God, had most ungodly Phineas to succeed him. We would, therefore, keep Eli, if possible, and see Solomon forever on the throne. But it cannot be so and, therefore, it is of no use sitting down idly to fret over the future and lament the past! All our sorrow over changes caused by the mortality of our race will not alter it, for God has ordained that one must depart and another come in his place.
But, listen, I think that the word instead, if we listen to it with another ear, will sound out a note of gladness! If one falls, there is another to fill up the gap in our ranks. Comrades, is not this good news? If one laborer is taken from the vineyard, there is still a man in reserve to supply his place—does not this cheer you? We are encouraged by the belief that when the Lord supplants one set of servants by others He does not, after all, diminish the display of His love and Grace
and power! No, rather He shows His independence of any one company of men and His power to use whom He pleases! After all, He puts the same spirit upon the newcomers and the power remains the same though the weapon wielded differs.
Sometimes the change is manifestly for good. Eli was followed by Samuel, a great improvement upon Eli, after all. We remember, too, that Moses, albeit there was never a man born of woman greater than he, was yet followed by a hero more fitted for the new phase of Israel’s history than Moses would have been. I can hardly conceive of Moses, sword in hand, slaying Canaanites at his advanced age! That was fitter work for Joshua and though, in some respects, Joshua was an inferior man to Moses, yet he was more suitable for his times and more adapted for the peculiar work which the armies of the living God had to do.