Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2013
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, March 11, 1888
“The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” Isaiah 1:20.
WHAT Isaiah said was therefore spoken by Jehovah. It was audibly the utterance of a man. But, really, it was the utterance of the Lord Himself. The lips which delivered the words were those of Isaiah but yet it was the very Truth of God that, “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” All Scripture, being inspired of the Spirit, is spoken by the mouth of God. How ever this sacred Book may be treated nowadays, it was not treated contemptuously, nor negligently, nor questioningly by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and Lord. It is noteworthy how He reverenced the written Word. The Spirit of God rested upon Him personally, without measure and He could speak out of His own mind the Revelation of God and yet He continually quoted the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms.
And always He treated the Sacred Writings with intense reverence, strongly in contrast with the irreverence of “modern thought.” I am sure, Brethren, we cannot be wrong in imitating the example of our Divine Lord in our reverence for that Scripture which cannot be broken. I say, if He, the Anointed of the Spirit and able to speak Himself as God’s mouth, quoted the Sacred Writings and used the holy Book in His teachings, how much more should we. We who have no spirit of prophecy resting upon us and are not able to speak new revelations must come back to the Law and to the Testimony and value every single Word which “The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The like valuation of the Word of the Lord is seen in our Lord’s Apostles. They treated the ancient Scriptures as supreme in authority and supported their statements with passages from Holy Writ. The utmost degree of deference and homage is paid to the Old Testament by the writers of the New. We never find an Apostle raising a question about the degree of inspiration in this book or that. No disciple of Jesus questions the authority of the books of Moses, or of the Prophets. If you want to cavil or suspect, you find no sympathy in the teaching of Jesus, or anyone of His Apostles. The New Testament writers sit reverently down before the Old Testament and receive God’s Words as such, without any question whatever.
You and I belong to a school which will continue to do the same—let others adopt what behavior they please. As for us and for our house, this priceless Book shall remain the standard of our faith and the ground of our hope so long as we live. Others may choose what gods they will and follow what authorities they prefer. But, as for us, the glorious Jehovah is our God and we believe concerning each doctrine of the entire Bible, that “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”
Coming closely, then, to our text, “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it,” our first head shall be—THIS IS OUR WARRANT FOR TEACHING SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. We preach because, “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” It would not be worth our while to speak what Isaiah had spoken, if in it there were nothing more than Isaiah’s thoughts— neither should we care to meditate hour after hour upon the writings of Paul, if there were nothing more than Paul in them. We feel no imperative call to expound and to enforce what has been spoken by men. But, since “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, “it is woe unto us if we preach not the Gospel! We come to you with, “Thus says the Lord,” and we should have no justifiable motive for preaching our lives away, if we have not this message.
The true preacher, the man whom God has commissioned, delivers his message with awe and trembling because, “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” He bears the burden of the Lord and bows under it. Ours is no trifling theme but one which moves our whole soul. They called George Fox a Quaker, because when he spoke he would quake exceedingly through the force of the Truth of God which he so thoroughly apprehended. Perhaps if you and I had a clearer sight and a closer grip of God’s Word, and felt more of its majesty, we should quake also. Martin Luther, who never feared the face of man, yet declared that when he stood up to preach he often felt his knees knock together under a sense of his great responsibility.
Woe unto us if we dare to speak the Word of the Lord with less than our whole heart and soul and strength! Woe unto us if we handle the Word as if it were an occasion for display! If it were our own word, we might be studious of the graces of oratory. But if it is God’s Word, we cannot afford to think of ourselves—we are bound to speak it, “not with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” If we reverence the Word, it will not occur to us that we can improve
upon it by our own skill in language. Oh, it were far better to break stones on the road than to be a preacher, unless one had God’s Holy Spirit to sustain him—our charge is solemn and our burden is heavy.