Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1431
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, September 1, 1878
“Son of man I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel: therefore hear the word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me.” Ezekiel 3:17.
IN most places the seasons in the Church are the reverse of those of Nature. Our wintry season generally comes when our hearers are busy in the fields, or resting in their summer retreats. And our harvest time for the ingathering of souls comes to us in the winter when, during the long evenings, the people can come together and special meetings for prayer and exhortation can be held. Just now, as the damp of autumn begins to fall and the days are sensibly shortening, we ought to take note of the signs of the times and begin sharpening our sickles for a plenteous harvest. The time when kings go forth to battle is coming on and we must muster the host. The season when we can, with special ease, gather the people and hopefully labor for their conversion is now at our doors and it is well that we gird up our loins for it!
I feel deeply anxious, dear Friends, that every time these seasons come round, all Christians should be fully prepared for them! I feel that we should make the best of every opportunity and use with thorough-heartedness, every hopeful occasion if, by any means, we may save some! Now is our time to use all our powers that we may be the means of bringing glory to our Lord Jesus Christ and of setting Him on high in hearts conquered by His love! We should all desire to take some part in this gracious work! Of course there are and always will be, in the Christian Church, special watchmen— chosen men who are set apart by God for the warning of the people—whose one business it is to cry aloud and spare not, whether men will hear or whether they will not!
Let us be thankful that the Lord gives us such men and let us beseech Him to multiply their number. We prayerfully expect to have our Ezekiels to whom the Lord shall say, “Son of man, I have made you a watchman.” But still, Beloved, when the camp is in imminent danger, every man should turn watchman! And though the special sentinels must keep their posts, walk their beats and must with double vigilance act as if everything depended upon them—yet all the rest of the host must also mount guard and aid in keeping the watches both by day and night. It seems to me, Brother, that if the Lord has opened your eyes, you have become a Seer. And when you have become a Seer and can see, you should also become a watchman and watch for the good of the Church of God and for the salvation of souls!
If this country were invaded, which may God grant it never may be, we could not confine the defense to our professional soldiers. No, every man would grasp such a weapon as he could reach and use it vigorously to drive the intruder over our white cliffs! I might even venture to say every woman would do the same—and matrons would become Amazons! Dear are our hearths and homes and none of us would ask to be excused in the defense of our beloved isle! Even so in the work of the salvation of souls, every saved one longs to have a share! Can we let sinners perish? Can we permit our own kinsmen to go down into the Pit? No, not if our prayers, tears and earnest teaching can rescue them!
Jesus Christ, in mighty love has died to save sinners and He must be honored for His glorious deed of Grace—can we suffer His name to be trailed in the mire? Shall He still be despised and rejected by human hearts? Shall even the members of our own family refuse His gentle sway? No, not if our testimony may help to honor Him, nor if our earnest pleading may gain Him a throne in some human heart! We feel glad to think that Christ’s battles are not such as require strength of muscle and bone, nor do they need great mental capacity. Even the appointed watchman is set only to warn the people—he has not to charm them with eloquence, nor to electrify them with novelties of oratory! He is simply to warn them and the most plain language may suffice for that!
Surely it is a grave mistake of the present period that men think their preachers are bound to be oratorical and poetical. Why is such startling ability to be flaunted if the object is to warn a sinner to flee from the wrath to come? I fear that my Brothers are forgetting their real errand and are laboring to dazzle those whom the Lord sent them to warn! If a
man is asleep and I have to wake him, I need not cultivate a fine tenor voice with which to sing him out of his slumbers! I have but to call with sufficient loudness and distinctness until he is startled. I am glad that you Christian people can all take a share in the service of your Master since that service is the warning of those around you! You will never deliver sensational discourses and I am sure you need not regret the inability! But you can give men warning from God. You can warn children, your own children to begin with. You can warn your neighbors. You can warn those of your own rank and age. You can warn all who come in your path, for that is simply to tell of danger and to recommend the way of escape. Brothers and Sisters, with but slender knowledge and stammering utterance, we can warn and we will!