Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1734
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, August 12, 1883
“To testify the Gospel of the Grace of God.” Acts 20:24.
PAUL says that in comparison with his great objective of preaching the Gospel, he did not count even his life to be dear to himself; yet we are sure Paul highly valued life. He had the same love of life as other men and he knew that his own life was of great consequence to the Churches and to the cause of Christ. In another place he said, “To abide in the flesh is more necessary for you.” He was not weary of life, nor was he a vain person who could treat life as though it were a thing to fling away in sport. He valued life, for he prized time, which is the stuff that life is made of, and he turned to practical account, each day and hour, “redeeming the time because the days are evil.” Yet he soberly said to the elders of the Church at Ephesus that he did not regard his life as a dear thing in comparison with bearing testimony to the Gospel of the Grace of God.
According to the verse before us, the Apostle regarded life as a race which he had to run. Now, the more quickly a race is run, the better—certainly, length is not the object or desire. The one thought of a runner is how he can most speedily reach the winning post. He spurns the ground beneath him; he cares not for the course he traverses except so far as it is the way over which he must run to reach his desired end. Such was life to Paul—all the energies of his spirit were consecrated to the pursuit of one objective—namely, that he might, everywhere, bear testimony to the Gospel of the Grace of God—and the life which he lived here below was only valued by him as a means to that end. He also regarded the Gospel and His ministry in witnessing to it, as a sacred deposit which had been committed to him by the Lord, Himself. He looked upon himself “as put in trust with the Gospel” and he resolved to be faithful though it should cost him his
life.
He says he “desired to fulfill the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Before his mind’s eye he saw the Savior taking into His pierced hands the priceless case which contains the celestial jewel of the Grace of God and saying to him—“I have redeemed you with My blood and I have called you by My name—and now I commit this precious thing into your hands, that you may take care of it and guard it with your heart’s blood. I commission you to go everywhere in My place and to make known to every people under Heaven the Gospel of the Grace of God.” All Believers occupy a somewhat similar place. We are, none of us, called to the Apostleship—and we may not all have been called to the public preaching of the Word of God—but we are all charged to be valiant for the Truth of God upon the earth and to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Oh, to do this in the spirit of the Apostle of the Gentiles!
As Believers, we are all called to some form of ministry, and this ought to make our life a race and cause us to regard ourselves as the guardians of the Gospel, even as he that bears the colors of a regiment regards himself as bound to sacrifice everything for their preservation. Paul was a true hero—a hero of even a nobler stamp than those brave Greeks whose stories still stir the blood and fire the soul! Their heroism, to a large extent, depended upon public note, the present approval of their fellow citizens, or upon the animal excitement of the battlefield. But Paul’s heroism, so far as man was concerned, was self-contained—deliberate and as sure to display itself in the solitude of a dungeon as in the assembly of the faithful. He was parting with his weeping friends and going forward to trials of unknown intensity, but he was altogether unmoved by fear and advanced on his way without a question.
His leave-taking of the elders irresistibly reminds me of the old historian’s record of Epaminondas the Theban general who, when he was mortally wounded by a Spartan spear, the head of which remained in his flesh, bade his friends leave it alone a little, “for” he said, “I have lived long enough only if I die unconquered.” And when they told him that the battle was won and that his comrades were victorious, he bade them draw out the head of the spear, that his life might end. One observed to him that he had fallen but that he had not lost his shield and that the victory was won—to
which he replied with his last breath, “Your Epaminondas thus dying does not die.” So Paul has lived long enough if the Gospel is prospering in its course! And though he lays down his life, he does not die if his ministry is fulfilled!
Let me read you his words and you shall judge if they have not this heroic ring—“And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the Grace of God.”