Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1882
“Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me until now.” Joshua 17:14.
The Pastor’s Return. Three Specially- Selected Sermons to His Church, Congregation, Readers and Friends, Consisting Of
A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT [No. 1883] AND AN EXHORTATION [No. 1884.]
IT is not an easy task to divide land among different claimants. Joshua divided Canaan with strict impartiality. He was a man of God and he was also shrewdly wise, as you may gather from many of his speeches. But, for all that, he could not satisfy everybody. He who would please all attempts the impossiblel God Himself is quarreled with. If it is the design of Providence to please men, it is a melancholy failure. Do we not find men everywhere dissatisfied with their portions? This man would like his lot if it were not where it is and that man would be perfectly satisfied if he had a little more. One would be contented with what he has if he could always keep it, while another would be more pleased if life could be shortened. There is no pleasing men! We are like the sons of Joseph in the chapter before us, ready to complain of our inheritance. It should not be so. We who have pined in the wilderness of sin should rejoice that we have entered the land of promise and we ought to be glad to have a portion among the people of the Lord. Contentment should be natural to those who are born of the Spirit of God, yes, we ought to go beyond contentment and cry, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits.”
Brethren, the best advice that I can give to each man among you is that he should endeavor to make the best of the portion which God has given him, for, after all, Joshua had not arbitrarily appointed Ephraim and Manasseh their lots, but they had fallen to them by the decree of God. Their portions had long before been marked out by a higher hand than Joshua’s. You and I ought to believe that—
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.”
Let us fall back upon predestination and accept the grand Truth of God that, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” An all-wise God disposes His people according to His sovereign will. Let us not seek to alter our destiny, but let us try to make the best of our circumstances. This is what Joshua exhorted Ephraim and Manasseh to do. “You have a hill country crowned with forests: hew them down. You have fat valleys occupied by Canaanites: drive out the present inhabitants.” O Sirs, if we would but thoroughly enjoy what God has freely given us, we would be happy to the fullest and even anticipate the joys of Heaven! We have a deep river of delights in the Covenant of Grace, yet we are content to paddle about its shores. We are only up to our ankles, the most of us, whereas the waters are “waters to swim in.” A great sun of everlasting love shines upon the globe of our life with tropical force, but we get away to the North Pole of doubt and fear—and then complain that the sun has such little heat—or that he is so long below the horizon. He who will not go to the fire ought not to complain that the room is cold! Did we heartily feed upon what the Lord has set on
our table, accept the ring which He has prepared for our finger and wear the garments which He has provided for our comfort, we might, here on earth, make music and dancing before the Lord!
I am going to speak upon my text thus—First, here is a confession, which I think many of us will be very happy to make—“Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me until now.” Secondly, here is an argument, which is stated after the manner of logic—“Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me until now, therefore,” so and so.
I. We look at our text, then, first of all, as A CONFESSION—“The Lord has blessed me until now.”
I will not at present speak to those of you upon whom the blessing of God has never rested. Remember, my dear Hearers, that every man is either under the curse or under the blessing. They that are of the works of the Law are under the curse. Those upon whom their sin is resting are under the curse, for a curse always attends upon sin. Though we read no denunciation service; though we do not speak to you from Ebal and Gerizim, with the blessing and the curse, yet rest assured that there is, before the living God, a separation of the precious from the vile, and each day there is a judgment which, in God’s apprehension, puts some upon the right hand with the, “Come, you blessed,” and others upon the left hand with the, “Depart, you cursed.” This will be finally done in “that day of days for which all other days were made.” At this hour, my Hearer, if you are not the blessed of the Lord, you are resting under the dark shadow of a curse from which I pray God you may at once escape! Faith in Him who was made a curse for us is the only way to the blessing.