Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2451
“Men shall be blessed in Him.” Psalm 72:17.
I wish that I could speak at my very best concerning the glorious Him who is mentioned in the text, but I have hardly got into full working order after my season of rest. One’s voice becomes rusty, like an unused key, and one does not, at first, feel quite at ease in speaking after a time of comparative quietude. Do not, however, think that my subject is a poor one—if there are defects in my discourse, remember that it will only be the speaker who is poverty-stricken—not the great King and Lord of whom he is speaking. “Men shall be blessed in Him.” O Sirs, if one had the tongues of men and of angels, and if one could only, for once, use that speech which it is not lawful for a man to utter—those words which Paul tells us that he heard when he was caught up to the third Heaven—if we could even speak as never man yet spoke, we could not fully set forth all the glories of Him of whom this text speaks!
David’s thoughts, doubtless, rested in part upon Solomon when he said, “Men shall be blessed in him”—and our Lord, Himself, spoke of Solomon in all his glory. But what poor stuff is human glory at the very highest! The, “Him,” mentioned in the text, the higher and the greater Solomon who is truly meant in these words, has a real Glory—not of earthly pomp and fading tinsel, nor of gold and pearls and precious stones, but the more excellent Glory of Character and the true beauty of Holiness. In Him all Divine excellences are blended. I cannot hope to set Him forth as He deserves. I cannot tell you all His virtues and His glories, but, oh, He is very dear to many of us! His name is engraved on the fleshy tablets of our hearts and when we lie upon our last bed and all other things shall be forgotten in the decay of nature, we shall still remember that dear name which is above every name! The contemplation of our Savior’s blessed Person shall then absorb every faculty of our being! “Men shall be blessed in Him,” the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Savior, the Redeemer, the God Over All, blessed forever, who is also bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh!
As I should fail altogether to speak of Him as He deserves, I will not attempt the impossible task, but will try to speak of men being blessed in Him. That is a note a little lower. If we cannot reach the highest octave, we may attain to a lower one. Yet, while we speak of the blessing that comes from Him, let us still think of Him from whom the blessing comes, and let us remember that as all blessings come from Him, it is because all blessings are laid up in Him—because every conceivable good is stored up in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, “and of His fullness have all we received, and Grace for Grace.”
I. My first remark concerning the text is that it makes mention of AN AMAZING CONDITION—“Men shall be blessed in Him.” It is an amazing condition to be blessed, for, by nature, men are not blessed. We are born under a curse. Our first father turned aside the blessing when he disobeyed God’s command and, in the early dawn of the day of our race, he darkened our sky once and for all. The curve still abides upon man, that in the sweat of his face he shall eat bread, and upon woman, that in sorrow she shall bring forth children. How much woe lies in the curse that falls upon us in consequence of our own personal sin! “Who slew all these”—these comforts and joys of life? Oftentimes, they have been slain by a man’s own hands through his own sin, or through the sins of those who surround him. The trail of the old serpent is everywhere! You cannot open your eyes without discovering that man is not blessed, but oftentimes abides under the curse. Put that Truth of God down before you and then read the text, “Men shall be blessed in Him.”
Apart from Him, they are accursed! They wring their hands and wish they had never been born—and some sigh and sorrow almost without ceasing. Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, and it is an amazing thing that any man should be blessed—so amazing, that no man is ever blessed until he comes to be connected with the Lord Jesus Christ—“Men shall be blessed in Him.”
Many people who forget all about the curse, nevertheless acknowledge that they are unhappy. Go up and down among the whole race of men and how few you will find really happy! I believe that none are truly happy until they are in Christ, but even if they were happy, that is not the word that is used in our text. It does not say, “Men shall be happy in Him.” It gives us a fuller, deeper, richer word than that—“Men shall be blessed in Him.” To be more happy may be a thing of time and of this world only. I do not mean that the happiness may not be true and real, but still, compared with all that the word, “blessed,” implies, the word, “happy,” has no eternity, no depth, no fullness, no force in it! So that, even if men were happy, they would not come up to the fullness of the promise in our text. But, alas, the mass of men are unhappy—sighing for this and mourning for that—never blessed, but only hoping to be so. The text, therefore, comes in with its sweet silvery ring, telling that men shall cease to be unhappy and that they shall rise even above merely being happy—they shall come to be “blessed in Him.”