Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1798
“And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind.” John 9:39.
THE great Day of Judgment is not as yet. God, in infinite long-suffering, waits to be gracious, giving men space wherein to repent and to be reconciled to Him. Jesus has come into the world for judgment, but not for that last and eternally unchangeable judgment which awaits us all. That hour and that advent will arrive—we have the declaration of God’s Word for it. Read in Matthew 25—“When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His Glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them, one from another, as a shepherd divides His sheep from the goats.” There is no question as to this sure fact—even if many more centuries should pass away, the dread assize will be held in due season.
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness.” He is full of tenderness and long-suffering and, therefore, He tarries, but the vision will come, it will not tarry. Settle this in your minds and live as in the presence of that august tribunal. Though the Day of Judgment is not at this hour, yet our Lord Jesus is now carrying on a form of judgment in the world. “His fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge His floor.” He sits as a refiner separating ever and anon his silver from the dross. His Cross has revealed the thoughts of many hearts and His Gospel is everywhere—acting as a discoverer, as a separator and as a test by which men may judge themselves, if they will. It is a very happy circumstance when a man is willing to accept the Lord’s judgment, day by day, permitting the Law of God, itself, to judge him, before the Lawgiver ascends to the tribunal.
Happy are those people toward whom a present judgment is being exercised, of whom Paul says, “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” Saints are now judged by a fatherly discipline, that they may not be judged, hereafter, by a judicial condemnation. Our Lord’s great design in coming into the world is the salvation of men. “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved.” But, in order to that salvation, it is necessary that men should know the truth about themselves and should take up a truthful position before God—for God will not endure a lie—and neither will He save men upon false grounds. He will deal with all His creatures according to His Truth. If He condemns them, it will be because equity requires it. And if He saves them, it will be because He has found a way by which mercy and truth are met together.
So, then, everywhere throughout the world, wherever Christ comes—comes by His Gospel and the consequences of it—a judgment is going on. Men are set before the Judgment Seat of their Savior—they are tested, tried, made manifest and declared. Light no sooner comes into the world than it begins to judge the darkness. Scarcely had it been known to be darkness if the light had not revealed the contrast. Where the Gospel comes, some hearts receive it at once and are judged to be “honest and good ground”—men who are willing to accept the Gospel come to the Light of God that their deeds may be made manifest that they are worked in God. Other hearts at once hate the Truth, for they are the children of darkness and, therefore, “they love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” You see, then, how without its being the main intention of Christ’s coming into the world, it yet becomes a secondary effect and, so far, an incidental purpose of His coming that His very appearance among the sons of men should judge them!
In this glass they see their own countenances and discover their spots. By this plummet line they test their own uprightness and see how far they lean towards evil. Under the sign of the Gospel, the Lord has set up a public weigh-house.
Do you not see the great scales?—they are correct to a hair! Come here and test yourselves. Even in this banqueting house of love, Truth marks her own and sets her brand on counterfeits! God has a fire of trial in Zion and a furnace of test in Jerusalem. At this hour I pray that the Gospel may have a dividing effect in this house. Observe with care that wherever Jesus Christ comes, the most decided effects follow. “I have come that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind.” Neither to the right nor to the wrong is Christ indifferent. Whoever you may be, if you hear the Gospel at any time, it must have some effect upon you. It will either be to your soul, “a savor of life unto life,” or else, “a savor of death unto death.” It will be antidote or poison—curing or killing—softening the conscience or searing it. It will either make you see, or else, because you fancy that you see, its very brightness will make you blind, like Saul of Tarsus, who cried, “I could not see for the glory of that light.”