Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1523
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, February 15, 1880
“He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the head of His enemies and the hairy scalp of such an one as goes on still in his trespasses.” Psalm 68:20,21.
WHATEVER may be said of the Old Testament dispensation, however dimly it may have revealed certain Truths of God, there was one matter about which it was clear as the sun. Under the Old Testament economy the Lord God of Israel is always most conspicuous. God is in all and over all—and from the pages of the Prophets, as well as from the lips of the temple choirs, we hear loudly sounding forth the note—“The Lord shall reign forever, even your God, O Zion, unto all generations. Hallelujah!” By priest and Prophet, saint and Seer, the one testimony is borne, “The Lord reigns.” You cannot read the Book of Job without trembling in the majestic Presence of the Almighty. Nor can you turn to the Psalms without being filled with solemn awe as you see David and Asaph and Heman adoring the Lord who made Heaven and earth and the sea.
Everywhere, from Abraham to Malachi, man is of small account and God is All in All. Very little consideration is given to any fancied rights and claims of man and wonder is expressed that the Creator should be mindful of him. We read no discourse upon the dignity of human nature, or upon the beauty of human character, but rather God, alone, is holy and when He looks from Heaven He sees none that does good, no, not one! Man is rolled in the dust from which he sprang and to which he must return. All his pride is cut down and his comeliness withered and over all is seen one God and none beside Him.
It will be a great offense if, coming into the brighter light of the New Testament, we are less vivid in our conceptions of the Glory of God. If God should be less clearly seen in the Person of our Lord Jesus than He was under the symbols of the Law, it will be the fault of our blinded hearts. It will be ill for us to turn day into night and, like owls, see less because the light is increased! Let it not be so among us, but let it be in our Churches as in Israel of old, of which it was said, “in Judah is God known. His name is great in Israel.” “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the Prophets, has, in these last days spoken unto us by His Son,” and by Him, as the Incarnate Word, He has revealed Himself with a sevenfold splendor and, therefore, it should be our soul’s great delight to perceive God in all things—to rejoice in His Presence and to magnify Him in all things as King of kings and Lord of lords!
The Psalmist, in this particular case, ascribes to the Lord universal action and power over us, for he ascribes to Him the mercies of life and the issues of death. He says, “Blessed is the Lord who daily loads us with benefits.” The Lord heaps up His favors till their number loads the memory and their value burdens the shoulders of gratitude. He gives us so many mercies that the mind is burdened in endeavoring to calculate their worth! We are overwhelmed with a sense of His goodness and the consciousness that we cannot return any adequate thanks for such abundance of daily Grace. Such is our God in life and what will He be in death? Shall we be without Him there?
No, blessed be His name, “Unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.” His kingdom includes the land of death-shade and all the borders thereof. We shall not die without His permission, nor without His Presence! Though temporal mercies will find their end when life ends, yet there are eternal mercies which throughout eternal life shall manifest the goodness of the Most High. And meanwhile, by rescues, recoveries and escapes, we shall be preserved from prematurely descending to the tomb. If any of you, dear Friends, have been brought near to the gates of death; if you have been laid low by wearisome sickness; if your heart has sunk within you in a sort of mental death, you will, in coming back to health and strength, most heartily bless the Lord who finds for us a way of return from the suburbs of the sepulcher!
He is not only the God of life but the God of death. He keeps us in life and makes life happy. He keeps us from death and from the fierce agencies which wait to drag us to the grave. There are issues out of the dark border-land of sickness and peril and despair—and the Lord leads us by His own right hand to cause us to escape. Does He not say, “I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring My people again from the depths of the sea”? We must and we will praise Him for this with a new song! I gather from our text that death is in the hand of God; that escapes from death are manifestations of His Divine power and that He is to be praised for them.
The outline of this morning’s discourse, as indicated by the text, is just this—first, the sovereign prerogative of God, “To God the Lord belong the issues from death.” Secondly, the Character of the Sovereign with whom this prerogative is lodged, “He that is our God is the God of salvation.” And then, thirdly, the solemn warning which this great Sovereign gives in reference to the exercise of His prerogative. Weighty are the words! May the Holy Spirit cause us to feel their power—“God shall wound the head of His enemies and the hairy scalp of such an one as goes on still in his trespasses.”