Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1719
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 6, 1883
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:1.
PAUL ranks among the bravest of the brave. We note, also, with admiration, how the hero of so many dangers and conflicts, who could glow and burn with fervor, was yet among the calmest and quietest of spirits. He had learned to live beyond those present circumstances which worry and disturb. He had stolen a march upon the shadows of time and entered into possession of the realities of eternity! He looked not on the things which are seen, but he set his whole regard on the things which are not seen—and by this means he entered into a deep and joyful peace which made him strong, resolute, steadfast, immovable. I would to God that we had all acquired Paul’s art of being “always confident”—his habit of having the inward man renewed day by day!
The most of us are far too like the insect of the summer hour which sports away its life of moments among the flowers and lo, all is over! Are we not too apt to live in the immediate present which is revealed by the senses? The ox projects no thought upward or beyond—to stand in the cool brook or lie down in the fat pasture is its all in all—even thus is it with the mass of men, their souls are tethered to their bodies, imprisoned within the circumstances of the day! If we could be completely delivered from the thralldom of things seen and felt, and could feel the full influence of the invisible and the eternal, how much of Heaven we might enjoy before the celestial shores are reached!
Paul’s life was rough and stormy, yet who might not desire it? Had there been no life to come, he would have been, of all men, the most miserable, for he was one of the poorest, most persecuted, most despised, most slandered, most wearied and most suffering of mortals! And yet, if I had to put my finger upon happy lives, I should not hesitate to select among the foremost, the life of the Apostle Paul, for whom to live was Christ! It is also to be especially noted, as to his happiness, that he had a reason for it. My text begins with the word, “For.” Paul is always argumentative—the leaning of his mind is in that direction. Therefore, if he is cast down, he has a reason for it and if he is calm, he can show just cause for his peace.
Some religionists are deliriously happy, but they cannot tell you why. They can sing and shout, and dance, but they can give no reason for their excitement. They see an enthusiastic crowd and they catch the infection—their religion is purely emotional! I am not going to condemn it, yet I will show you a more excellent way. The joy which is not created by substantial causes is mere froth and foam and soon vanishes away. Unless you can tell why you are happy, you will not long be happy. If you have no principle at the back of your passion, your passion will burn down to a black ash and you will look in vain for a living spark. Some professors have not enough emotion—their hearts are too small. Though I cannot say that their heads are too large, there are others whose hearts are their main force, who are soon on fire, blazing away like shavings and brushwood when first the flame lights upon them. But their brains are an uncertain quantity, never sufficient to manage the furnace of their emotions.
It was not so with Paul—he was a well-balanced man. If able to defy the present and rejoice in prospect of the future, he had a solid reason for doing so. I like a man who is fervent and enthusiastic and yet in his fervor is as reasonable as if he were some cool logician. Let the heart be like a fiery, high-mettled steed, but take care that it is curbed and managed by discretion. An instructed Christian man is rational even in his ecstasies—ready to give a reason for the hope that is in him—and that hope seems to rise above all reason. He is glad, most glad of the glad, but he knows the why of his gladness. And so he can bear the cruel tests to which the world exposes spiritual joy. The true Believer’s peace can answer the quibbles of time or devils. It can justify itself in its opposition to all appearances. This is a house built upon a foundation,
a tree which has a firmly settled root, a star fixed in its sphere—and thus it is infinitely superior to the house upon the sand, the tree plucked up, the fleeting vapor of mere emotion.
May God, the Holy Spirit instruct us so that we may know the Truth of God out of which solid happiness is sure to grow! I see in the text before us, first of all, a catastrophe which Paul saw to be very possible—“If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved.” Secondly, the provision which he surely knew to be made should that catastrophe occur—“We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” And thirdly, I shall dwell for a minute or two upon the value of this knowledge to Paul and to the rest of us in our present trying condition.