Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2114
Delivered
“The burden of the Word of the Lord.” Malachi 1:1.
THE Prophets of old were no triflers. They did not run about as idle tellers of tales, but they carried a burden. Those who at this time speak in the name of the Lord, if they are, indeed, sent of God, dare not sport with their ministry or play with their message. They have a burden to bear—“The burden of the Word of the Lord.” And this burden puts it out of their power to indulge in levity of life. I am often astounded at the way in which some who profess to be the servants of God make light of their work—they jest about their sermons as if they were so many comedies or farces.
I read of one who said, ”I got on very well for a year or two in my pulpit, for my great-uncle had left me a large store of manuscripts, which I read to my congregation.” The Lord have mercy on his guilty soul! Did the Lord send him a sacred call to bring to light his uncle’s moldy manuscripts? Something less than a Divine call might have achieved that purpose.
Another is able to get on well with his preaching because he pays so much a quarter to a bookseller and is regularly supplied with manuscript sermons. They cost more or less according to the space within which they will not be sold to another clerical cripple. I have seen the things and have felt sick at the sorry spectacle. What must God think of such Prophets as these? In the old times, those whom God sent did not borrow their messages. They had their message directly
from God Himself, and that message was weighty-----so weighty that they called it, ”the burden of the Lord.”
He that does not find his ministry a burden now will find it a burden hereafter, which will sink him lower than the lowest Hell. A ministry that never burdens the heart and the conscience in this life will be like a millstone about a man’s neck in the world to come.
The servants of God mean business. They do not play at preaching but they plead with men. They do not talk for talk’s sake. But they persuade for Jesus’ sake. They are not sent into the world to tickle men’s ears, nor to make a display of elocution, nor to quote poetry—theirs is an errand of life or death to immortal souls. They have something to say which so presses upon them that they must say it. ”Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel!” They burn with an inward fire and the flame must have vent. The Word of the Lord is as fire in their bones, consuming them. The Truth of God presses them into its service and they cannot escape from it. If, indeed, they are the servants of God, they must speak the
things which they have seen and heard. The servants of God have no feathers in their caps-----they have burdens on their
hearts.
Furthermore, the true servants of God have something to carry, something worth carrying. There is solid Truth, precious Truth in their message. It is not froth and foam, phrases and verbiage, stories and pretty things, poetry and oratory, and all that. But there is weight in it of matters which concern Heaven and Hell, time and eternity. If ever there were men in this world who ought to speak in earnest, they are the men. Those who speak for God must not speak lightly. If there is nothing in what a man has to say, then God never commissioned him, for God is no trifler.
If there is no importance in their message----yes, if their message is not of the first and last importance-----why do they
profess to speak in the name of God? It is constructive blasphemy to father God with our nonsense. The true servant of God has no light weight to bear. He has eternal realities heaped upon him. He does not run merrily as one that has a feather-weight to carry—he treads firmly and often, slowly—as he moves beneath ”the burden of the Word of the Lord.” Yet, do not let me be misunderstood at the beginning. God’s true servants, who are burdened with His Word, right willingly and cheerfully carry that burden. We would not be without it for all the world. Sometimes, do you know, we
get tempted, when things do not go right, to run away from it-----but we view it as a temptation not to be tolerated for an
hour. When some of you do not behave yourselves and matters in our Church get a little out of order, I say to myself, ”I wish I could give this up and turn to an employment less responsible and less wearing to the heart.”
But then I think of Jonah and what happened to him when he ran away to Tarshish-----and I remember that whales are
scarcer now than they were then-----and I do not feel inclined to run that risk. I stick to my business and keep to the message of my God. For one might not be brought to land quite so safely as the runaway Prophet was. Indeed, I could not cease to preach the glad tidings unless I ceased to breathe. God’s servants would do nothing else but bear this burden, even if they were allowed to make a change. I had sooner be a preacher of the Gospel than a possessor of the Indies. Remember how William Carey, speaking of one of his sons, says, ”Poor Felix is shriveled from a missionary to an ambassador.” He was a missionary once, and he was employed by the government as an ambassador. His father thought it no promotion and said, ”Felix has shriveled into an ambassador.” It would be a descent, indeed, from bearing the burden of the Lord, if one were to be transformed into a member of Parliament, or a prime minister, or a king. We bear a burden but we should be sorry, indeed, not to bear it.