Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2308
“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek Me daily and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.” Isaiah 58:1,2.
IF we would understand these words aright, we must remember that the people here mentioned were not good people—they were a set of hypocrites. This is quite clear if we read the verses that follow our text—“Why have we fasted, they say, and You see not? Why have we afflicted our souls and You take no notice? Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exploit all your laborers. Behold, you fast for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You shall not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily: and your righteousness shall go before you; the Glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”
It is a very pleasing sign when people like to go up to the House of God. I do not know of a more beautiful sight than the present congregation, with every seat occupied, and some people even willing to stand to hear the Word preached! There are many who would give all they have to see such a sight! How sad is the opposite of this! An empty place of worship—people loafing about at home all the Sabbath, not caring to listen to the eternal Truth of God—that is a very melancholy state of things. We take delight in seeing persons anxious to get in to hear the Word.
I know that there are some here who would not be absent from the assembly of God’s people on any account. When they are ill, their Sabbaths are always dull to them. And if they go into the country, they seem to miss the opportunity of hearing the Gospel as they have been accustomed to hear it. All this is most pleasant and most delightful, yet remember that there may be nothing at all in it! This congregation will soon scatter and break up—and when it is divided into its separate particles and nothing is left of it—it may come to pass that nothing will be left of it in another sense, that is, that there will be no result whatever from our meeting together. As I said in the prayer, it may be just one big wave breaking on the shore, dying away and leaving nothing behind. I pray God that it may not be so.
Yet, my dear Friends, you who are the most regular hearers of the Word and who have been so from your childhood, you need to be warned that the mere hearing of the Gospel will not save you! Yes, and the continuous hearing of it may increase your responsibility and do nothing more! If you are hearers, only, it may come to pass that, at the last, you will have heard for the worse, not for the better, for the only record that will remain of all those Sundays and of all those sermons, will be that you have just so many times willfully hardened your neck and continued in rebellion against the tender mercy of God!
What I am going to do, tonight, is not so much to preach Christ, though I trust I shall not fail to do that, as to deal with different classes of hearers and to show the difference that there is between those who hear without acceptance and without profit, and those who hear so as to please God—those whose hearing becomes a part of worship, those who hear
desiring benefit for themselves, and whose hearing becomes a saving act—for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God!
While I try to draw a few distinctions, not occupying too much of your time upon any one of them, I invite every person here to examine himself, whether he is in the faith. I invite every hearer to put himself into the crucible to see what is his true condition in the sight of God. Never mind your neighbor—let him use his own ears for himself—you use your ears for yourself just now. Better still, let each one of us go to the Lord with the Psalmist’s prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I. First, THERE ARE SOME WHO GET NO GOOD OUT OF THE HEARING OF THE GOSPEL BECAUSE THEIR HEARING IS SOON FOLLOWED BY FORGETTING. It is true that they hear and, for a time, they hear it with considerable attention. But it is only for a time. They regard the exercise of hearing as being confined to the time which the sermon occupies and, with some, the shorter that time is, the better they like the discourse! When the sermon is over, it is done with as far as they are concerned. They may happen to remember that they were at such a place, on such a day, and heard a sermon from such a text—but that is all that they remember. They are glad that the preacher’s words should drop as the dew, and distil as the rain—but they like it to be like the rain when it trickles off the leaf of the plant and leaves no mark—or like the dew which is exhaled before ever the sun is up. They do not want to have any abiding result from the hearing of the Word. It is a temporary thing with them. I was going to say it is a trumpery thing with them. They hear the preacher’s message, the service is over and, at the door of the sanctuary they leave behind everything that they have gathered there—in fact, they have really gathered nothing.