Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2089
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, June 9, 1889
“For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Hebrews 4:2.
THE people that came out of Egypt were an interesting company, if we think of what God had done on their behalf and of what he proposed to do for them. They had been lifted up from a state of slavery into one of freedom and they were on their way to a country where they were to be settled, each one upon his own portion of land, therein to become priests and kings unto Jehovah. What an unhappy circumstance that the high ideal set before them was never realized by any of them save two lone men—Joshua and Caleb!
You hear them singing at the Red Sea, in exultant joy, and they are on their way to Canaan, the land that flows with milk and honey—loud are their songs and high are their hopes. But mark those lines of graves—those innumerable hillocks which were formed wherever the camp was pitched in the desert! That is the end of the generation which came out of Egypt—“Their carcasses fell in the wilderness.” Instead of reaching Canaan and settling, every man under his own vine and fig tree, they lie in dishonored graves outside of the land of promise. Ah me, so lofty a destiny before them and so sad a missing of it.
Let us not follow in their tracks. We are far too much inclined to do so. They were men and we are no better than they by nature. Oh, for Divine Grace to walk after a higher rule! Let a holy dread seize upon us at this time, such as that which Paul expresses in the following words—“Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” Let us not find a tomb when we might gain a throne. Let us not go down into the pit when before us lies the way to Heaven and multitudes are beckoning us there.
May great Grace be given that we may win where a whole nation failed! It will be Divine Grace, indeed, if Gentiles shall excel the seed of Abraham. May heavenly power create within our bosoms a holy caution, lest by any means we come short of the Grace of God! Let rebellious Israel be our beacon. From the graves of their lusting let us hear a voice of warning, lest we also tempt the Lord and constrain Him to shut us out of His rest.
First, I shall invite you to consider Israel’s hearing of the Gospel—“Unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them.” They heard good news from Moses, which was, at any rate, a Gospel. But to me it seems that they also heard the Gospel which we hear. Secondly, let us notice Israel’s failure to profit thereby—“The word preached did not profit them.” They heard but heard in vain. Thirdly, let us put our finger upon the fatal cause of failure, so plainly indicated here by the words, “not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” The hearing was alone and without the mixture of faith. It answered no practical purpose. May the Spirit of God prepare our hearts for this meditation and may we so consider the lamentable failure of Israel that we may not fall after the same example of unbelief!
I. First, then, let us think of ISRAEL’S HEARING OF THE GOSPEL. Whether you take it as our translators have put it in the Authorized Version, “Unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them,” or accept the Revised rendering, “Indeed, we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they,” it comes to much the same meaning. For the message of Moses and the reports of the faithful spies were both typical of the Gospel which was brought to us by our Lord and His Apostles. Our Gospel is more clear than theirs. Yet they had the Gospel also, in all the essential truths of it and had they fully believed it, it would have been a saving Gospel to them.
We shall notice, first, that the good news brought to Israel was a Gospel of rest for slaves, a promise of deliverance for men who cried by reason of sore bondage. This was a fit emblem of that news which comes to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Listen to the words of Moses in the sixth of Exodus—“Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will rid you out of their bondage and I will
redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments. And I will take you to Me for a people and I will be to you a God. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, which brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it you for an heritage. I am the Lord.”
This was exceedingly glad news to the bond slaves in Egypt. These men were made to labor to exhaustion. They had to work in making bricks and, as you well remember, they were denied the straw so necessary to their manufacture. And yet the count of their bricks was not diminished. They had no rest from toil by day or night. And if they did not supply the full number of bricks, they were cruelly beaten by their taskmasters. Truly the tribes of Israel were in a very evil case. They groaned by reason of their bitter bondage and that promise was a wonderful Gospel to them—“I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”