Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2095
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, July 14, 1889
“And I beheld and, lo, in the midst of the Throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the Throne.” Revelation 5:6, 7.
THE Apostle John had long known the Lord Jesus as the Lamb. That was his first view of Him, when the Baptist, pointing to Jesus, said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.” He had been very familiar with this blessed Personage, having often laid his head upon His bosom, feeling that this tender goodness of the Savior proved Him to be in nature gentle as a lamb. He had beheld Him when He was brought “as a lamb to the slaughter,” so that the idea was indelibly fixed upon his mind that Jesus, the Christ, was the Lamb of God.
John knew that He was the appointed Sacrifice, set forth in the morning and evening lamb and in the Paschal Lamb, by whose blood Israel was redeemed from death. In his last days the beloved disciple was to see this same Christ, under the same figure of a lamb, as the great revealer of secrets, the expounder of the mind of God, the taker of the sealed book and the looser of the seals which bound up the mysterious purposes of God towards the children of men. I pray that we may have on this earth a clear and constant sight of the sin-bearing Lamb and then, in yonder world of glory, we shall behold Him in the midst of the Throne and the living creatures and the elders.
The appearance of this Lamb at the particular moment described by John was exceedingly suitable. Our Lord usually appears when all other hope disappears. Concerning the winepress of wrath, it is He who says, “I have trod the winepress alone and of the people there was none with Me.” In the instance before us, the strong angel had proclaimed with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?” And there was no response from Heaven, or earth, or Hell. No man was able to open the book, neither to look therein.
The Divine decrees must remain forever sealed in mystery unless the once slain Mediator shall take them from the hand of God and open them to the sons of men. When no one could do this, John wept much. At that grave moment the Lamb appeared. Old Master Trapp says, “Christ is good at a dead lift,” and it is so. When there is utter failure everywhere else, then in Him is our help found. If there could have been found another bearer of sin, would the Father have given His Only-Begotten to die? Had any other been able to unfold the secret designs of God, would he not have appeared at the angel’s challenge?
But He that came to take away the sin of the world now appears to take away the seals which bind up the eternal purposes. O Lamb of God, You are able to do what none beside may venture to attempt! You come forth when no one else is to be found. Remember, next time you are in trouble, that when no man can comfort and no man can save, you may expect the Lord, the ever sympathetic Lamb of God, to appear on your behalf.
Before the Lamb appeared, while as yet no one was found worthy to look upon that book which was held in the hand of Him that sits on the throne, John wept much. By weeping eyes the Lamb of God is best seen. Certain ministers of this age, who make so little of the doctrine of substitutionary sacrifice, would have been of another mind if they had known more contrition of heart and exercise of soul. Eyes washed by repentance are best able to see those blessed Truths of God which shine forth from our incarnate God, the bearer of our sins. Free Grace and dying love are most appreciated by the mourners in Zion.
If tears are good for the eyes, the Lord send us to be weepers and lead us round by Bochim to Bethel. I have heard the old proverb, “There is no going to Heaven but by the Weeping Cross.” And there seems no way of even seeing Heaven and the Heavenly One, except by eyes that have wept. Weeping makes the eyes quick to see if there is any hope. And while
it dims them to all false confidences, it makes them sensitive to the faintest beam of Divine light. “They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.” Those who have laid eternal matters to heart so much as to weep over their own need and that of their fellow men, shall be the first to see in the Lamb of God the answer to their desires.
Yet observe, that even in this case human instrumentality was permitted, for it is written, “One of the elders said unto me, Weep not.” John the Apostle was greater than an elder. Among them that are born of women, in the Church of God we put none before John, who leaned his head upon his Master’s bosom. And yet a mere elder of the Church reproves and instructs the beloved Apostle! He cheers him with the news that the Lion of the tribe of Judah had prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals.