Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1295
“Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me.” Daniel 10:18.
WE are not able, as yet, to bear the full revelation of Divine things. If any intellect had been strong enough, if any heart had been pure enough to see the exceeding glory of the Covenant angel, surely Daniel possessed such a head and heart. But even he fell upon his face and was cast into a dead swoon, for he was unable to bear the sight of the man clothed in linen, whose “body was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning.” We ought to be thankful that our God has revealed no more. The Word of God is as excellent in its darkness as in its brightness. Had it unveiled more, its discoveries would have been no more beneficial—perhaps they had been less profitable. As it is, there is far more within this Book than you and I have seen as yet, and we need not wish that more had been written. If we entertain such a desire, our loving Lord may silence us with the words, “I have many things to show unto you, but you cannot bear them now.”
It appears from our text that, when weighed down under a sense of the Divine Presence, the readiest method of consolation is found in the touch of a certain sublime, mysterious, human hand. I know it is very usual to say that the personage who appeared to Daniel was the angel, Gabriel, but I cannot bring myself to believe that he is the angel of this chapter. Surely this glorious Being was that uncreated Messenger of the Covenant who, though not born into our nature in Daniel’s day, yet took upon Himself the similitude of a man for a time, as He had done before, when on special occasions He appeared to others of the saints before His actual Incarnation!
Even if we grant that an angel was the person who touched Daniel, still the truth which I wish to bring out will be none the less clear, namely, that even if an angel should wish to comfort us, he must assume a visible human form and he must lay upon us a sympathetic hand like our own so that there shall be, at any rate, “the appearance of a man,” or otherwise we shall not be strengthened. If this is granted as true, I shall not insist upon the text immediately referring to Christ, but I shed the general principle and say this—comfort is best brought to men by a man and if we are to be strengthened, the touch of “one like the appearance of a man” is needed.
Therefore we may, without difficulty, rise to the reflection that it is always to us the richest and highest comfort, as Believers in Christ, that the Lord Jesus is a Man and when He strengthens us, it is full often by laying His human hand upon us. He reveals His kinship with us and our spirit is consoled and strengthened by a sense of His union with us. My one objective is, by the Spirit’s aid, to draw water from the ancient well of our Lord’s humanity. The Son of God is also the Son of Man. We, none of us, doubt His Deity and, therefore, we shall be able to spend all our time in this sermon in musing upon His Manhood and the joys contained in that Truth of God.
Jesus is God. But Jesus was born, Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again and Jesus is in Heaven, as a Man. He is God and Man in one Person, but there is no confusion of Natures. He is neither a deified man nor a humanized God. His Godhead is altogether Godhead and His Manhood altogether manhood. We must not divide the Person, nor confuse the natures. He is as truly Man as if He were not God and as truly God as if He had never assumed the nature of man. It is of His Manhood that we are now about to speak. We shall not attempt to prove it, but shall simply endeavor to show how the touch of the hand of Jesus, the Man, strengthens us.
I. And, first, dear Friends, does it not cheer us WHEN WE LABOR UNDER A SENSE OF LONELINESS? If we are true to Him, we are strangers and sojourners with Him, as all our fathers were. Before His Cross we find ourselves to be strangers in this land, even as He was, for as the world knew Him not, so it knows us not, and as it placed Him outside the camp, so, also, does it make aliens of us. It is sweet to feel, when walking the separated path, “I am a stranger with
You”—a stranger in the world as You are, an exile as You were. In such solitude the Manhood of Jesus is a delicious cordial!
Some feel alone because they are the only ones of their house who serve the Lord. How you wish it were otherwise! It is your daily prayer that all your kindred may be followers of Christ, but they are not so. Perhaps they openly oppose you and make your life unhappy through their hard speeches. Well, there is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother! There is a Brother who will hear what you have to say, no, who knows all that is in your heart before you utter it! He is the antitype of Joseph and He knows what it is to be separated from His Brethren. Of all that ever lived He was the loneliest, by far, and therefore He sympathizes with the forsaken ones.