Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1536
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 2, 1880
“But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:9.
WE are justified, dear Friends, in speaking about our own experience when the mention of it will be for the benefit of others. Especially is this the case with leaders in the Church such as Paul, for their experience is rich and deep and the rehearsal of it comes with great weight and is peculiarly valuable. We are all the better when we are distressed for discovering that such an one as Paul was also subject to heaviness—we feel safe in following the line of conduct which was marked out by the great Apostle and we are hopeful that if he came out of his troubles which were so great, we may, also, be delivered out of ours which are comparatively so little.
These footprints on the sand of time help us to take heart. By tracing the footsteps of the flock, we are helped to return to the fold and to the Shepherd. It would have been a great calamity if such men as David and Paul had, through a fear of seeming egotistical, withheld from us a sight of their inner selves. God has been pleased to fill a large part of the Bible with biographies and histories of human actions in order that we who are men, ourselves, may learn from them. Where a biography concerns mainly the inner rather than the outer life, as in the Psalms and in Paul’s Epistles, we are all the more strengthened, instructed, directed and comforted, for it is in the inner life that we are most perplexed and most in danger of going astray.
God grant us Grace to make good use of the treasure of experience which is stored up for us in His Word! How rich, how varied, how admirably selected! If one man can learn by the life of another, surely we ought to learn from such memorable lives as those immortalized in the Scriptures. Especially may we see ourselves as in a mirror while we steadily look into the heart of Paul. As to our own experience of trial and of delivering mercy, it is sent for our good and we should endeavor to profit to the utmost by it. But it was never intended that it should end with our private and personal benefit. In the kingdom of God no man lives unto himself. We are bound to comfort others by the comfort which the Lord has comforted us. We are under solemn obligation to seek out mourners and such as are in tried circumstances, that we may communicate to them the cheering testimony which we are personally able to bear to the love and faithfulness of
God.
Our Lord has handed out to us spiritual riches ofjoy that we may communicate to others who are in need of consolation through great tribulation. You may think that you are not called upon to preach and possibly you may neither have the ability nor the opportunity for such public witness bearing, but your experience is a treasure of which you are the trustee and you are bound by the law of gratitude to make use of all you know, all you have felt, all you have learned by personal experience for the comforting and the building up of your Brothers and Sisters in Christ. To be reticent is sometimes to be treacherous—you may be found unfaithful to your charge unless you endeavor to improve for the general good the dealings of the Lord with your soul. I would exhort every Christian to reflect the light which falls upon him.
Brother, echo your Master’s voice faithfully and clearly! What the Lord has whispered to you in your ear in closets, proclaim according to your ability upon the housetops! If you have found honey, eat of it, yet eat not the feast alone, but call in others who can appreciate its sweetness that they may rejoice with you! If you have discovered a well, drink and quench your thirst, but hasten forthwith to call the whole caravan, that every traveler may also drink! If you have been sick and you have been healed, tell the glad news to all sick folk around you and let them know where they, too, may find a cure.
Perhaps your telling of the news may have more weight with men than all our preaching—they know you and have seen the change which Grace has worked in you and you will, by your own experience, give them proof and evidence
which they cannot deny. May the Holy Spirit help you in this thing. Let this stand for the preface to our sermon and let us learn, once and for all, that, as Paul used his experience for the comfort and edification of the Churches, so is every Believer called upon to use their experience for the benefit of his fellow Christians. The particular experience of which Paul speaks was a certain trial, or probably series of trials, which he endured in Asia. You know how he was stoned at Lystra and how he was followed by his malicious countrymen from town to town wherever he went, that they might excite the mob against him.