Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2169
“Verily, verily, Isay unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto Him, Now we know that You have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the Prophets, and You say, If a man keep My saying, he shall never taste of death. Are You greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the Prophets are dead: whom make You Yourself” John 8:51-53.
IN the previous part of this chapter we hear the Jews, with malicious voices, assailing our blessed Lord with this bitter question, “Say we not well that You are a Samaritan, and have a devil?” How very quietly the Savior answered them! He did answer them because He judged it necessary to do so, but He did so with great patience and with sound argument—“I have not a devil; but I honor My Father.” Clear proof, this! No man can be said to have a devil who honors God, for the evil spirit from the beginning has been the enemy of all that glorifies the Father! Paul, who had not read this passage—for the Gospel of John was not written then—was nevertheless so filled with his Master’s spirit that he answered after a like manner when Festus said, “Paul, you are beside yourself; much learning does make you mad.” He calmly replied, “I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.”
This was a fine copy of our Savior’s gentle and forcible reply—“I have not a devil; but I honor My Father.” Brethren, whenever you are falsely accused and an evil name is hurled at you, if you must reply, “give a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Be not heated and hurried, for if so, you will lose strength and will be apt to err. Let your Lord be your model. The false charge was the occasion of our Lord’s uttering a great Truth of God. On they rush, furious in their rage, but He flashes in their faces the light of Truth. To put down error, lift up Truth! Thus their deadly saying was met by a living saying—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keeps My saying, he shall never see
death.”
Nothing so baffles the adversaries of the faith as to utter with unshaken confidence the Truth of God. The Truth which Jesus stated was full of promise and if they willfully rejected His promise, it became worse to them than a threat. Christ’s rejected promises curdle into woes. If these men, when He said to them, “If a man keeps My saying, he shall never see death,” yet went on reviling Him, then their consciences, when afterwards awakened, would say to them, “He that believes not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” If the Believer shall never see death, then the unbeliever shall never see life. Thus the Gospel itself becomes “a savor of death unto death” to those who refuse it and the very word which proclaims eternal life threatens eternal death to the willfully unbelieving.
I pray that, this morning, we may be put into a gracious frame of mind and may be so helped to keep Christ’s saying, that we may inherit this wondrous promise—“If a man keeps My saying, he shall never see death.” May the Holy Spirit specially aid me while I first speak upon the gracious character—the man who keeps Christ’s saying. Secondly, I would dwell upon the glorious deliverance—“He shall never see death.” Thirdly, taking the two later verses of my text, I would honor the great Quickener, for evidently, according to the Jews, our Lord was making much of Himself by what He said.
And in truth, the fact that the Believer shall never see death does greatly magnify the Lord Jesus. May He be glorified in our mourning hearts while we think of our departed friend as one who shall never see death!
I. First, consider THE GRACIOUS CHARACTER—“If a man keeps My saying, he shall never see death.” Observe, that the one conspicuous characteristic of the man who shall never behold death is that he keeps Christ’s saying or word. He may have other characteristics, but they are comparatively unimportant in this respect. He may be of a timorous nature; he may often be in distress; but if he keeps Christ’s saying he shall never see death. He may have been a great sinner in his early life but, being converted and led to keep Christ’s saying, he shall never see death! He may be a strong-minded man who keeps a firm grip of eternal realities and therefore becomes supremely useful—but none the more for that is this promise true to him. The reason for his safety is the same as in the case of the weak and timorous—he keeps Christ’s saying and therefore he shall never see death. Divest yourselves, therefore, of all enquiries about other matters and only make inquisition in your own heart upon this one point—do you keep Christ’s saying? If you do this, you shall never see death.
Who is this man who keeps Christ’s saying? Obviously, he is a man that has close dealing with Christ. He hears what He says. He notes what He says. He clings to what He says. We meet with persons nowadays who talk about faith in God, but they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as the great Sacrifice and Reconciler. But without a Mediator there is no coming to God. Jesus says, “No man comes unto the Father, but by Me.” His witness is true. Brothers and Sisters, we glorify Christ as God Himself. Truly, the unity of the Godhead is never doubted among us. And while “there is one God,” there is also “one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.” Forever remember that Christ Jesus as God-Man, Mediator, is essential to all our communion with the Father. You cannot trust God, nor love God, nor serve God aright unless you willingly consent to His appointed way of reconciliation, redemption, justification and access which is only through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.