Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2183
“And He said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:50.
THE main part of my subject will be—that gracious dismissal, “Go in peace.” To her who had been so lately blessed, the word, “Go,” sounded mournfully, for she would gladly have remained through life with her pardoning Lord, but the added words, “in peace,” turned the wormwood into honey—there was now peace for her who had been so long hunted and harried by her sins! Rising from the feet she had washed with tears, she went forth to keep her future footsteps such as those of a believing and, therefore, saved woman ought to be.
We like a motto to begin the year with and it has been useful to some spirits to choose a motto with which to enter on a new course of life. We climb the hill of enterprise, or dare the wave of trial with an inspiring word upon our lips. To certain young men, a word has come in life’s early morning, wet with the dew of Heaven—and that word of their dawn of day has stayed with them. The echoes of that life-evoking word have followed them long after it was spoken. Amid strange scenes it has come to them like a voice from the unseen. It has whispered to them within the curtains of their dying bed—it has murmured consolation amid Jordan’s swelling waves. That first word of joy and peace from Jesus with which they began the new life came to them, again, just as they were melting away into the invisible land. And so they began the service of the Redeemer—and so He declared that their work was finished. Perhaps that love-note will be their welcome at the very gates of Heaven!
Our Lord, in the instance before us, sent a penitent away from the chill atmosphere of self-righteous quibbling and thus relieved her of a controversy for which she was not fitted. But I see more than that in this benediction. It looks to me as if our Divine Master, when He found this poor sinner so full of love to Him that she washed His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, having by a parable explained to the Pharisee the reason for the greatness of her love, then said to her, “Go in peace,“—meaning that word not only to be cheering for the necessary purpose of the moment, but to go with her and to attend her all the rest of her life, until, when she came into the dark valley, she should fear no evil, for she would still hear that sweet voice saying, “Go in peace.” What music to have heard! What music still to hear!
Now, I would to God that the word which I shall speak at this time might be honored of the Lord to serve that sacred purpose to some here present. May it be a life-word to certain of you! May it be to others of us who have long known the Savior a revival of our rest—and may we get such a draught of peace from Jesus that we may never thirst again! The lips of our Divine Lord are a wellspring of delight! Each word is a chalice brimmed with sweetness. Imbibing this, we shall go our way, even to our journey’s end, after the manner of the hymn which we sang just now—
“Calm in the hour of buoyant health,
Calm in my hour of pain;
Calm in my poverty or wealth,
Calm in my loss or gain.
Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
Softly resting on Your breast,
Soothe me with holy hymn and Psalm,
And bid my spirit rest.”
Oh, that our life may be as a sea of glass! May the sacred circle of our fellowship be within the golden line of the peace of God! You who did bid us come to You and rest, now bid us, “go in peace.”
I am going to say a little in my opening upon a delightful assurance which constituted the reason why the woman went in peace—“Your faith has saved you;” or, as in the 48th verse, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Upon the strength of the assurance that she was saved, she might safely go in peace! When we have talked a little upon that subject, we will then come to a considerate precept—the Savior directed her, in the moment of trial, to, “go in peace.” There was an assurance for her comfort and a precept for her guidance.
I. First, then, consider A DELIGHTFUL ASSURANCE. The ground upon which the penitent woman might go in peace was that she had been saved. The Savior assured her—“Your faith has saved you.”
She was not saved by any other way than we are saved, but she received the common salvation by like precious faith. The way of salvation to her was faith in Christ—that is the same way for us, but she had what some of you, no doubt, would greatly like to have—she had an assurance that she was saved from the Lord’s own mouth! I think I hear some saying, “I should go in peace, I am sure, if the Lord Jesus would but appear to me and speak, and say with His own lips, “Your faith has saved you.” It is natural that you should think so. It must have been rapture to receive a benediction from the mouth of our King, our Savior! Yet, dear Friends, we must not hang our confidence upon a mere circumstance. For a mere circumstance it is, whether Christ shall literally stand before you in the flesh and say, “Your faith has saved you,” or whether He shall say it to you by the Infallible record of His own Word.