Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2386
“No man can come to Me, except the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto Me.” John 6:44,45.
THERE is something here which troubles many seeking souls. They hear the Gospel preached in this manner, “Look and live,” or, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” This comforts them and they say to themselves, “This is a way in which we can run. We delight to be told of salvation by faith in Christ.” By-and-by, they hear a discourse upon our Savior’s Words, “You must be born again,” or they listen to descriptions of the inward experience of a child of God. They are taught that there must be a brokenness of heart before there can be a true binding up. There must be a stripping before there can be a clothing. There must be death before there can be resurrection and then they say to themselves, “This, we fear, is true. But how different it is from the message we heard the other day! Are there two things equally true—salvation by simple faith in Christ—and yet the necessity of a new heart and a right spirit?”
They are equally true, and they ought to be preached with equal clearness, and equal earnestness! But I would say to every seeker, “You will find it very injurious to get worrying yourself with such difficulties as these. As a rule, you had better leave those questions for another day.” Suppose that you were puzzled concerning specific gravity, the weight of a body in water? if you were a drowning man, I would recommend you to waive the consideration of such a subject till you were safely on shore! It is hardly the time, I think, to enter into difficult disquisitions while you are in grave peril. And, in like manner, you may leave many theological questions until, by faith in Christ, you are saved. Then, going into His school, you may ask Him to teach you these other more advanced lessons.
Now, for your help, I desire to say that these two doctrines of Salvation by Faith and the Inward Drawing of the Spirit of God are equally true and, unless they are proclaimed in due proportion, mischief may come from the preaching of either the one, or the other. I think that when the preacher only says, “Believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe,” mischief may come of that imperfect declaration, for it is a one-sided form of the Truth of God, and other important Truths of God may be forgotten, and men may get into a superficial habit of imagining that they believe when they hardly know what it is that they believe—and their faith is not the living faith of God’s elect which works by love, purifies the soul and sanctifies the life!
On the other hand, I am quite sure that you may preach the need of inward experience and preach it very thoroughly and continually. But if this other matter of faith is left out, you may preach some of your hearers into despair, many of them into indifference and others of them into a kind of self-righteousness of feelings! I have met with persons who were certainly trusting in their feelings and who went so far as to condemn others because they had not endured the same amount of misery and passed through the same conviction of sin, or indulged in the same agony of despair. Truths of God are preached, we shall not stop to reconcile them—there is no need to do so, especially if they reconcile themselves to you while we preach! If the two doctrines are preached, they will act as a balance, the one to the other, and while men hear our Savior say, “He that believes on Me has everlasting life,” they will not misunderstand what He says if they also hear as the deep bass note of that musical scale the equally Divine utterance, “You must be born again.”
The text gives us good help upon this subject. I do not believe that there are any practical difficulties in the matter at all. I say, practical difficulties, for there are philosophical difficulties. Is there any subject about which there are not phi-
losophical difficulties? Can you not, if you think of anything—be it the most commonplace fact in natural history, very soon surround it with a cloud of obscurity which nobody can remove? A fool can set a stool where a wise man will tumble over it and you can soon raise a difficulty if you want to. Here is one. There is a bullock in the meadow and there is also a sheep in the same pasture. They will both eat grass and on the bullock that grass will turn to hair, and on the sheep it will turn to wool. How come? Can you tell me? No, and I do not want to know. It may be a very interesting point for discussion, but, practically there is no difficulty about it. Those who tan the leather, or those who dye the wool are not hindered in the least degree in their handicraft by the philosophical difficulty I have mentioned! So, there are philosophical difficulties about this matter of simple faith and salvation by it, and of the Spirit’s work and the necessity for it, but, practically, there is no difficulty at all, for the man who believes in Christ Jesus is born again! And every man who is born again believes in the Lord Jesus Christ! The two things come together, live together and are perfected together!