Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1405
“And Zacharias said unto the angel, How shall I know this?” Luke 1:18.
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be?” Luke 1:34.
ZACHARIAS and the Virgin Mary were both very dear to God and, therefore, highly honored and greatly favored. The points of likeness between them are many. They were both persons of eminent character, for Zacharias walked blameless in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord and Mary was equally gracious and devout. They were both visited by an angel and were both favored with the prediction of a marvelous birth. Their answers to the angel are our two texts and, at first sight, they seem to be alike. One does not see much less of faith or of unbelief in the one than in the other at first reading them and, yet, Zacharias was blamed and chastened by being made dumb for a season. On the other hand, the Virgin was indulged with an explanation and was afterwards praised by the Holy Spirit who spoke through her cousin Elizabeth and said, “Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
It appears very clear, then, that God can see differences where we see none. Though two persons may act very much alike and from their lips may fall similar expressions, yet their temper and spirit may be widely different Where you and I would put them together and say, “They are alike,” God sees a difference. While we judge sights and sounds, the Lord weighs the spirits. You must have noticed this in other parts of God’s Word. I will give you two instances in the life of Abraham. Lot was commanded not to look towards Sodom, but his wife, after looking to Sodom, was turned into a pillar of salt. And yet that morning Abraham got up early to the place where he was known to meet with the Lord and it is recorded that he looked toward Sodom.
The very thing which Lot must not do, Abraham may do. It is the same action but, if you think a moment, you can clearly see that the looking back of Lot would mean a lingering desire to return, but the look of Abraham had nothing of that kind in it and could have no evil significance. He was simply looking to the burning cities and admiring with solemn awe the justice of the Most High as he saw the heavens ruddy with flame and afterwards dark with dense clouds, while the smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace. The action was the same externally, but widely different in reality. The Lord God does not so much regard our outward acts as the motives which direct them and the spirit in which they are performed.
Perhaps a more remarkable instance is that of Abraham and his wife Sarah. When they each received a distinct promise of the birth of Isaac, it is said that Abraham fell upon his face and laughed. And then we read a little farther on, “Sarah laughed within herself.” We never find that Abraham was censured for laughing. He laughed rightly. It was the natural expression of a wondering and amazed delight. It was holy laughter and he was not censured nor called to account for it. But the Lord said unto him, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Sarah was censured for doing the very thing which in Abraham was quite right and did not need to be corrected!
They both laughed—the one was right, but the other was wrong. Why? Because there was a vital difference between them. Sarah’s was the laugh of unbelief—she thought it could not be that at her age she should bear a child, her lord also being old. She laughed at the very idea! It seemed altogether too absurd. The mere notion struck her as being perfectly ridiculous and, though a devout woman, she somewhat forgot the reverence due to Him who gave the promise and she laughed, though in a subdued and quiet way, “within herself.”
Abraham believed that the Divine promise would be performed and his was the laugh of joy to think that he should see a son born to his beloved Sarah who should be his heir and the inheritor of the Covenant. His soul danced within him
with delight because he believed what the Lord had spoken. Yet the two actions outwardly are so exactly similar that if you condemn one, you think you must condemn the other! But God does not, since He sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. We may apply this great Truth of God to ourselves. We all sang the same hymn just now to the same tune—and yet from one it may have been to God’s ear music and from another mockery. We closed our eyes just now and bowed our heads in prayer—anyone looking upon us might have supposed us to be all equally accepted—but the Lord knows in whose case the heart was wandering upon the mountains of vanity and in whose case the soul, with all its powers, was crying out unto the living God.
Judge yourselves, Beloved, but never judge yourselves according to the sight of the eyes! And never be satisfied with yourselves because externally everything is correct—because you have passed through the routine of religion and attended to the machinery of the outward form. Do not be content with postures, sounds and looks—the soul is the soul of the matter! Look at the heart and cry to God, also, that He would search you and make you clean in the secret parts— and in the hidden parts make you to know wisdom. Otherwise you may stand as God’s people do and go in and out of the House of Prayer even as the brightest of the saints do and never be separated from them until the trumpet rings out the Great Tremendous Day and you are sent to the left with the goats to be withered by a curse—while His people on His right hand shall receive the blessing forever!