Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1566
Delivered on Thursday Evening, October 28, 1880
“Then spoke the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak and hold not your peace: for I am with you and no man shall set on you to hurt you: for I have much people in this city.” Acts 18:9,10.
IT is clear from this, dear Friends, that even he who was not a whit behind the chief of the Apostles sometimes needed special comfort. It is possible that even the bravest of the brave may be afraid. Sinking of heart assailed even Samson while as yet the thousand slain lay in heaps around him. Moses was cast down in the desert and David on the throne. Even iron will melt, much more a heart of flesh. Remember the faintness of Elijah when he said, “Let me die, I am no better than my fathers,” and recollect that this was a lion-like man, one of those ministers of God who are as a flame of fire! The second Elijah, he who rebuked Herod to his face, was sadly staggered while he lay in prison. John the Baptist sent to Jesus to inquire, “Are you He that should come?”
No doubt those heroes who have fought the battle of the Truth of God and have driven back its adversaries have been men of like passions with us and some of them of more than ordinary sensitiveness of feeling. Luther said, “Because I seem to be always strong and merry, men think that I walk on a bed of roses, but God knows how it is with me.” Perhaps no man ever experienced such mighty joys and such tremendous despairs as did that mighty man who shook the papacy to its foundation! Even Paul was not without his tendency to fear. He writes in one of his Epistles: “When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears.” Do not think, therefore, my dear Brother or Sister, if, in working for Christ, you get thoroughly cast down and sick of yourself, that you are undergoing an experience unknown to the sons of God. It is by no means so.
Trembling takes hold on all in turns. Faintness is common enough on all hands. Fear, like the mist of the valley, steals over the very garden of the Lord and there is not a flower in all the borders which is not, at times, bowed down with the weight of the chilly damp. But the Lord took care to visit His servant when he was in a measure of trouble, or afraid of being so. He came to him in the visions of the night. We do not expect to see the Lord Jesus Christ in visions, now, for, “we have a more sure Word of prophecy to which we do well to take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place”—we have the Word of God, Inspired and Infallible! We have the whole of the Divinely written roll—we can read it when we will and from its pages God speaks with a clear and certain voice. A dream of the night might, perhaps, be only a dream, even in those olden times when God did speak in visions—but this Word of the Lord is no delusion! It stands fast forever and ever and every promise is sure, being made yes and amen in Christ Jesus.
When by faith we take the promise, it is as if Christ did speak it again to each one of us, for the promise is never exhausted. It is as fresh today, when I read it, as when the eyes of saints a thousand years ago found comfort in it! God is always appearing to you who have believing eyes! God is never silent until we are deaf. He speaks to us morning by morning and He has precept upon precept for the quiet hours of eventide. The Lord did but appear to Paul during one night, for visions are short and few, but any night you like to wake and open the Scriptures and seek for the power of the Spirit to rest upon them, you shall hear Jesus speaking to you—and any day you turn to that passage in Isaiah, you shall hear the very words that Jesus spoke to Paul, “Fear not, I am with you,” with these additional words, “I am your God. When you go through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you.”
Besides, visions and such like things belong to the infancy of the Church—now that she has grown strong, she exercises a greater faith in God and needs not that the Invisible should be supplemented by signs and wonders. If you plant a tree in an orchard, it is very common to put a big stake by the side of it to hold it up. Nobody thinks of putting a post to support an apple tree which has been there for the last 50 years! In fact, it could hold the stake rather than borrow support from it.
When a ship leaves the docks and passes down the river, you will see it towed out till it reaches the sea. But that same vessel will, by-and-by, spread all her sails and with a heavenly breeze to bear her along, she will need no tug to tow her to the desired haven. The Church of God, today, is a tree that needs no support of miracles and visions! She is a vessel that has braved for 2,000 years the battle and the breeze and will still, till Christ comes, outride every storm!