Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2430
“Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O LORD have we waited for You, the desire of our soul is for Your name, and for the remembrance of You. With my soul have I desired You in the night; yes, by my spirit within me will I seek You early.” Isaiah 26:8,9.
IT is something when a man truly knows that there is a God. Behind the doubt of the existence of God, many men shield themselves and permit themselves to indulge in iniquities of which they might be ashamed if they did not make a cloak of their atheism. I would have no man live doubting the existence of God—such a doubt cannot help him to live better—it may cause him to live much worse.
It is a great deal more, however, when men so think of God as to fear Him. We say, concerning criminals—it is customary to say in legal terms—“not having the fear of God before their eyes.” There is a fear of God which, though it is a spirit of bondage, is, nevertheless, salutary, and works well for the common good. There are men, doubtless, who are restrained from excess of iniquity by the belief that God has judgments by which He can overthrow them and, that at the end they will have to appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. It will be a sad day for this world when that fear ceases to operate upon men!
But, Beloved, it is something infinitely higher and pertaining to quite a different sphere when we come truly to know God—when we have not merely a belief in His existence, but a distinct consciousness and realization of it—when we can speak of God, not as of some personage far away, but as of One with whom we are intimately acquainted, One who has been a Friend to us, One who has even communed with us as a man talks with his friend. Some of you cannot possibly reach to that point as you are, for God is a Spirit, and only spiritual men can discern Him—and as yet you are not partakers of the Spirit of God. Some of you here present are still carnally minded and the carnal mind cannot perceive spiritual things. Least of all can it perceive that highest spiritual object, the ever-blessed God! “You must be born again,” for, “except a man is born again (from above), he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” We may set it out before your eyes in glorious light, but it is not light that the blind man needs, it is eyes! And eyes must be given to you who are spiritually blind if you are ever to see God. There is One who has come on purpose to open the eyes of the blind and if your eyes are opened by Him, then shall you see God and truly begin to know Him! This spiritual vision makes a grave distinction between those who know God and those who do not know Him. And it is produced by a wondrous change called regeneration, in which darkness passes away and the true Light of God dawns upon the spirit.
I. Now, coming to our text, I shall have to say, first, that THERE IS, IN THE PEOPLE OF GOD, A PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNION WITH GOD.
For, first, this is where their spiritual life begins. “I will arise and go to my father,” was the proof that the prodigal was really restored in heart. When he cleansed himself, touched himself up and joined himself to a citizen of that country and began to work instead of wasting his substance in riotous living, it was a considerable improvement. It is always a good thing for a man to work rather than to waste his time in the indulgence of his vices. But he had not, then, begun to live spiritually. It was when he remembered his father and the cry of his spirit was, “I will arise and go to my father,” that the gracious work was begun in his soul!
Beloved, if any of you are seeking after righteousness by your own works, or by your prayers, I do not know that this is a token of a new life. It may be that you are even in the dark seeking after God if, perhaps, you may find Him there, but when there rises in your spirit this thought, “I must find God, I must come to God, I must confess my sin unto the Lord, I
must lay myself at the Lord’s feet, I must meet with Him,” then we hope the best things for you! So long as you are content with ministers, priests, sacraments, books, prayers and all that you can do, you are satisfied with the mere shell! But when there awakens in your spirit this desire, “It is God whom I have offended; unto God will I make my confession. It is from God that I need pardon, oh, that I knew where I might find Him! I would come even to His seat.” When there is formed within your spirit this resolve, “I will seek the Lord’s face until He turns to me in love and accepts me as His child”—then it is that spiritual life begins. Your first true dealings with God, after a spiritual fashion, are infinitely more important than all the outward forms of religion, whatever they may be! I am not judging one form more than another, but, if you are content with the externals and do not come to the internals. If you do not come to close grips with God and humble yourself before Him, you know not, as yet, what spiritual life really means! This, then, is where spiritual life begins—with coming into communion with God.