Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2045
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, September 23, 1888
“Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a light of the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Acts 13:46-48.
DEAR friends, last Sabbath morning I tried to stir YOU up to sacred activity. I heard from many that they felt thoroughly motivated and I know of some who at once commenced to speak for Christ. I wish I could hope that our whole company kept step together in this. If what is said on the Sabbath were really carried out, what splendid advances we should make! But if not, it is as though a commanding officer spoke to his troops and the men did not march according to orders. However, I am thankful for what was done and for the many of you who did keep step together in an earnest march to conquer the powers of sin by making known the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word,” and I hope that you, as you scattered to your various abodes, did go everywhere teaching the Word of God according to your capacity. If so, you have already come far enough to have met with individuals upon whom your warnings and invitations have been spent in vain. I thought it would be well for us this morning to go with Paul to Antioch, in Pisidia, and just see how he was treated there and what he did when he met with an ill reception from the Jews.
By God’s Grace may we not be discouraged if our message has been refused, but might we be instructed by the example of Paul and Barnabas as to what we should do. And may we be comforted by the success which their perseverance achieved. The Jews of Antioch, after having heard Paul with considerable attention, made up their minds to refuse Jesus, the Son of David, and not to accept Him as their Messiah and Savior.
I. Our first point for consideration will be that THE REJECTION OF CHRIST IS A VERY SOLEMN BUSINESS. It has been a very solemn business for the Jewish nation. The history of the Jews since their rejection of our Lord may be written in blood and tears. No Gentile should read it without ten thousand blushes, for they have been evilly treated by all the nations, though through them the greatest blessing that ever came to men has come to us. Never should we forget that our Redeemer is of the seed of Israel. Yet, when the chosen people rejected Jesus deliberately, from that day a history of woe and sorrow began, which has gone on even to this day.
To the deep disgrace of Christendom, so called, there still remain countries in which they regard a Jew’s life as of less value than that of a dog and only force holds them back from massacre. They are still a people scattered and poor in many parts of the earth, although in others they take the lead in wealth. Oh, that they had received the Messiah, I shall not attempt to picture what would have been their history if they had accepted the Son of David as their Lord. It is not so—
“Oh, would our God to Zion turn! God with salvation clad, Then Judah’s harp should music learn, And Israel be glad.”
I am bound to talk about a people nearer home, about some here present, who have refused the Savior. Perhaps they will say, at the very outset, “We have not done so, we will receive Him one day.” Yes, but you refuse Him now. If you do not now believe in Him, you have up till now rejected Him. This you have done as they did at Antioch, against the evidence of honest men. They doubted whether Christ had really risen from the dead, although His resurrection was attested
by hundreds of true witnesses. His rising from the dead was a great miracle. But if He did not rise from the dead we have a far greater wonder to account for—Why did these hundreds of persons declare themselves to be eyewitnesses of His rising?
Those who declared that they had seen Him alive after His crucifixion, how came they to agree in such a statement and to persist in it so unanimously? They were simple folk, who had associated with Jesus for years. And they identified Him, after His rising, as the same Person who died. They were not ingenious enough to have invented such a story. They could have no reason in spreading the statement if they had not believed it, for they suffered for it. They were not gainers in any form, except as to spiritual things. They were thrust into prison and scourged and banished and most of them were slain for bearing this witness.
Some of them died by deaths too cruel to be described. But they none of them ever recanted, or admitted that they might be mistaken. Hundreds of witnesses asserted that this Jesus, whom they saw dead upon the Cross, did really rise again. And their belief of this fact filled them with a burning enthusiasm, which, while it produced in them a holy character, also caused them to speak with a marvelous boldness and full assurance which amazed their adversaries. They spoke earnestly, like men who felt that it was their life’s work to bear witness to a Divine fact.