Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2453
“For God speaks once, yes twice, yet man perceives it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds; then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.” Job 33:14-18.
HOW persevering is Divine love! “God speaks once.” I have heard many a father say to his child, “Do not let me have to speak to you again.” But the great Father has to speak again and when it is written, “God speaks once, yes twice, yet man perceives it not,” we see how great is the stubbornness of the human heart! And we also see the gentleness of Divine love. When Elihu said, “God speaks once, yes twice,” he meant that the Lord speaks repeatedly. Divine loving kindness has many voices. God often speaks to us in our childhood. Some of us hardly remember when first our Lord called us, as He called Samuel, saying, “Samuel, Samuel,” and each for himself answered, “Here am I.” We cannot forget the voices of our youth and boyhood—the messages that the Lord sent to us through loving parents and kind-hearted teachers, or the direct admonitions of the Holy Spirit. God spoke to us and spoke to us again, and spoke to us yet again—but we regarded not His voice. There are none so deaf as those who will not hear—and we were among those who would not hear even that voice to which Heaven and earth attend—that voice which even the dead will one day hear—when they that hear shall live!
Do we not admire the great patience of God with us? I am sure we ought to and if we do, it will make us repent of our negligence of the Divine voice, so that, henceforth, we shall say with David, “When you said, Seek you My face; my heart said unto You.” Note that, “my heart said unto You, Your face, Lord, will I seek.” Oh, for the quick ear to catch the faintest sound of the Divine voice! Oh, for a ready heart, waiting for those tender condescending admonitions which the Lord is waiting to speak to us!
But God has voices which He uses in such a way that men must and shall hear. There is not only the patience of love, but there is also the Omnipotence of love. God does not merely attempt to make men hear, but He succeeds in doing it. When the splendor of His love makes bare His holy arm and He puts forth all His force, the unwilling heart is made willing in the day of His power—the rebel spirit is led in chains of love a willing captive to His conquering Lord!
I am now going to speak somewhat of that matter and, keeping to our text, I want to say, first, that man is very hard to influence for good. His ear has to be opened. His heart has to be broken off from its evil purposes. His pride has to be conquered. There are many things to be done before men are fully influenced to their eternal salvation. Then, secondly, God knows how to come at them. By day or by night, by voices heard when they are in the midst of their business, or, “in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds; then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.” Thirdly, thus the Lord accomplishes great purposes for men—“That He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.”
I. So, then, first, let us begin with what is a very humbling consideration, namely, that MAN IS VERY HARD TO INFLUENCE FOR GOOD.
This is true, now, and it always has been true since sin entered the world, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil.” Still is the Savior’s sad complaint most true of very many, “You will not come to Me, that you might have life.” The noblest, the most tender, the most potent forces spend themselves in vain upon the heart of man! It is hard as the nether millstone. It is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” It does not seem, by nature, to be more amenable to heavenly influences than is the deaf adder to the voice of the charmers, for it will not listen, charm them ever so wisely.
According to the text, before God, Himself, can save men, He has to open their ears—“Then He opens the ears of men.” What? Are men’s ears stopped up?” Perhaps not their outward ears—there are comparatively few persons who are very deaf. The most of us can hear—we can hear the guineas jingle and are after them very soon! We can hear a complaint against our fellow men and repeat it very rapidly! We have very quick ears for some things that are not worth hearing. But towards God, men’s ears are often stopped up! They are as if they had a film over them. As there is a veil over the heart and scales over the eyes, so is there a plug in the ear and none of us who preach the Word of the Lord can take out that plug, or get through man’s ear to his heart! It is very sad that we should wear our lives away in constant thought of how to get and win men’s attention. And yet, though we may succeed in exciting an apparent attention for the moment, what we have said has not penetrated the heart. We have hurled our javelin at behemoth and his scales have turned aside the shaft! We have done our best to awaken the conscience and to fix the Truth of God in the heart, but, if the arm of the Lord is not revealed, we have to go back and cry with the Chief of the whole College of Preachers, “Who has believed our report?”