Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1419
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, June 16, 1878
“He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you.” Isaiah 30:19.
THE great sin of man is his alienation from God. He has said in his heart, “No God,” and in his life he labors to escape from the Divine Presence. The journey into the far country is not only made for the sake of the riotous living, but that he may get away from the Father’s house. One would have thought man would turn unto the Lord in the day of trouble, even as Hosea said, “In their affliction they will seek Me early.” But this, alas, is not in truth and sincerity, for too often the sinner follows the example of Ahaz, of whom it is written, “In the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that King Ahaz.”
All the trials and troubles in the world will not, of themselves, drive a man to God, but will rather hurry him into rebellion, despair and hardness of heart! Man will look in all directions sooner than look to God. He will sooner, like Saul, seek the help of a witch or a devil than seek the living God. He will rather make a league with death and a covenant with Hell than turn his heart towards his best Friend and Helper. It is written, “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!”
Vain is the warning, for man still leans upon an arm of flesh and counts it a foolish and fanciful thing to rely upon the almighty God. Man shifts his ground of trust full often and now depends on this, then on that—and in due course upon a score of equally unreliable confidences. Very early he is deceived. The staff of the broken reed upon which he chose to lean pierces his hand. He smarts and bleeds. He repents of his folly in one direction and repeats it in another! He cries in the pride and stoutness of his heart, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.” Though again and again deceived by his false confidences, he returns to them like a dog to his vomit. He chooses his own delusions and attempts, again, to build upon that sandy foundation which the tide has already shifted so many times.
Nor is it only when he is deceived that he persists in his folly, for he continues in it when he knows that he has paid heavily for his folly and has been impoverished by spending his money for that which is not bread. Egypt has drained his treasure and has yielded him no assistance—and yet he sends more treasure to the same market only to be, again, ashamed of a people that could not profit him. He exercises painful thoughts. He spends his mental force. He schemes. He frets. He worries himself to find, in his carnal confidences, some little consolation. And so he wastes his life and dries up the very marrow of his bones in seeking for that in the creature which might so readily be found in the Creator! He rises up early, he sits up late and he eats the bread of carefulness—but he will not turn unto the Lord who alone gives His Beloved sleep.
Even when impoverished and worn out with unbelief, man will not look to the Lord! Even then he dotes upon some new thing which promises him assistance. He seems anxious to be duped and willing to be deluded! If, at last, all carnal trust is excluded by sheer failure of every hope, he will lie down and die sooner than seek the Lord! He suffers, ah, how cruelly, from the vain joys in which he trusted, yet would he still pursue them if he could. He faints, pines, is ready to die, for he cannot fill his belly with the husks the swine eat but yet he will not, until almighty Grace causes him, turn his face toward the house where there is bread enough and to spare! He will sooner perish with hunger than confess his sin against Heaven and begin to live by faith in God!
This is the fruit of the Fall, the black evidence of our depravity, the fruitful mother of destruction—“the carnal mind is enmity against God.” We must have something to rely upon which we can see with our eyes and touch with our
hands—the invisible Jehovah we cannot trust and yet He, alone, is the living and true God! Oh that we were wise, that we would understand this and say within our hearts, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for He has torn, and He will heal us. He has smitten and He will bind us up.” Now all this time, while man is struggling to get away from God, the Lord is willing enough to receive him, to forgive him, to bless him and to enrich him with every joy! Nor is He merely willing, but He is able, fully able to assist the troubled heart in every difficulty and to comfort under every distress.
Therefore does the Lord wait that He may be gracious and He is exalted that He may show mercy. If the unwillingness were on God’s part, we might very readily understand and, in a measure, justify the unwillingness of man to turn unto God. But when the Lord bids man return, invites him, reasons with him, entreats him and makes every preparation for his reception, why is it that man refuses? His Lord has given rich promises of every help that he can desire and it is inexcusable ingratitude and wicked obstinacy on the part of man that he still persists in keeping aloof from his Creator! He chooses to perish forever, sooner than trust his God! Is not this the case of some who hear these, my words?