Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1441
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 27, 1878
“I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten Me. Therefore I wiil be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the cage of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.” Hosea 13:5-8.
OUR text will lead me at this time to speak upon the perils of prosperity and, as those who are prospering in worldly circumstances make up a comparatively slender portion of any congregation, the sermon must mainly aim at a small class. Still, it is my duty to speak to these, for every word of Scriptural warning should have its tongue in a complete ministry and every condition of soul must be duly met by a watchful pastor. May the Holy Spirit enable me to make full proof of my ministry by declaring the whole counsel of God to all characters. Suffer me, however, to observe that if the subject should seem to take a narrow range, it is in your power to alter it very rapidly, for, while those who are prospering will kindly take note of the voice of God’s Word to themselves, those of you who are not prospering may be profited by becoming the more contented with your lowly lot since it will be plain to you that had you succeeded in life you might have fallen into the sins denounced in our text.
It may be that you would never have known the holy joy and sacred peace which you now possess if you had been allowed to climb to those heights of wealth which you have longed to reach. God, who knows your frame knew that you were not able to bear the trial of prosperity and, therefore, He has kept you where you are—more safe and more happy, though less enriched. Another class of persons may have enjoyed fair weather in times past, but now a cloud has come over them and they are troubled. Possibly they may be taught by our discourse to say, each one to himself, “God has taken me not so much out of the sunlight as out of the furnace. He saw that evils were generated by my success which would have caused me solemn injury and so He has removed me out of their reach. He has transplanted me out of the glare of the sunlight and set me in a place more shaded but more suited to my spiritual growth.”
There may also be some present who are eagerly aspiring after great things and these may learn a lesson of sobriety. A desire to rise is laudable, but the winged horse needs to be well bitted and reined lest it fly away with its rider. Some spirits are dissatisfied with moderate success—they pine to reach the front ranks and to climb to the high places of the earth. Ambition has become the star of their life—perhaps I had better say the will-o’-the-wisp of their folly! Let them learn from this morning’s Word of God that all is not gold that glitters, that outward prosperity does not make men truly prosper and that there is a way of growing rich without being rich towards God.
Another word remains to be said before I proceed further—Hosea speaks of Ephraim, or Israel, the kingdom of the 10 tribes—we may profitably view that people as a type of ourselves. Israel represents the Church and yet not altogether the true spiritual Church of God. They were not all Israel that were of Israel, for they were a seed according to the flesh and, therefore, they were a mixed multitude and represent, rather, the professing Christian world than the elect Christian Church. Now, I must take the text as I find it and use it for those to whom it can fairly be applied, namely, general Christendom, the nominal people of God. For this reason the lines of distinction, this morning, between God’s regenerated people and mere professors will be but faintly drawn in my address. It must be so, for I shall be speaking upon a Truth of God which relates to a mixed people—and you must be the more careful—in self-examination, so that each one may take home that which belongs to him.
I speak to all Israel this morning, whether they are of Israel in spirit or not—I speak to all the professing people of God, to all who meet with them at any time for public worship, or are numbered with them by general repute. “He that has ears to hear, let him hear,” and may the Holy Spirit bless the hearing! And now to our discourse.
I. The first subject suggested by the text is MEMORIES OF ADVERSITY. The Lord says to many of us, “I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.” Carefully consider this by taking a review of the past. Have you risen in the world? Have your circumstances changed? Have you been raised up from a sick bed, or delivered from depths of anxiety? Are your circumstances now happily abounding in good things and blessed with the temporal favor of God? I ask you to look back upon the way by which the Lord’s hand has led you. Look back upon your early trials and the mercy which sustained you under them.