Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2534
“Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people. Behold, You shall call a nation that You know not, and nations that knew not You shall run unto You because ofthe LORD Your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified You. Seek you the LORRD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” Isaiah 55:4-6.
We are met together with two objectives. First, there is the preacher’s objective, that is, to set forth and to proclaim the blessings of the Covenant of Grace. It is my duty and it is my delight to stand here and cry, “Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money, come you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Then, there is the objective of the hearers—oh, that everyone here were heartily in pursuit of it! No, what is even better, I would that everyone here might attain this objective, for it is that you may feed upon the blessed Covenant provisions mentioned in our text. If there is water, my Brothers and Sisters, let us drink it! If there is wine and milk, let us be satisfied with it. Let us pray that every soul in this place may even now delight itself in fatness!
You who have already partaken of the provisions of the Covenant, receive them again! Come once more to the table which the Lord’s Grace has so richly spread. You have a daily hunger—let that hunger be again appeased. Your appetite grows if you are in good spiritual health—come, then, and let the appetite be again satisfied! If you do, it will grow again, and again you will want still more of the same heavenly food, for you will still hunger—blessedly hunger—after the royal dainties which the Lord has so bountifully provided for you! And oh, that some here, who have never feasted on the luxuries of true godliness, might get a taste of them while I am talking about them! It is my design to speak very plainly—not to try to say anything of my own, but just to set forth the Master’s words, explaining them and making them as clear as I can, that all who run may read, and yet speaking of them so earnestly that those who read may straightway run!
Why do we come to our places of worship? What is the objective of our Sunday gatherings? Surely not merely to hear a man talk and then to go away and ourselves talk about that talk! But this is a place of heavenly business where something real is to be done! Where men are to be lifted into a higher life and where those who as yet have not been quickened may come and receive that life! I pray that some may receive it this very hour! Time is flying. Death is near. Eternity is close at hand. It is time that we should be in earnest about these things if we have trifled up to now! It is time that we should come to a right and wise decision and partake of what God has so graciously provided! Without any further preface, I bid you notice that the three verses of my text speak of a Divine gift, a Divine promise and a Divine exhortation. These will be the three divisions of my subject.
I. First, here is A DIVINE GIFT—“Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people.” We are not now talking about payments or about what people deserve—the Gospel and all that it brings must be regarded as a gift Men rightly say that there is nothing freer than a gift and, truly, there is nothing freer than the free gift of God! What is that Divine gift of which our text speaks?
Well, first, the Father has given His Son. The words I have just spoken are very simple, but there is an infinite meaning in them. So great is sin, so tremendous is evil as to be unfathomable. So great is the ruin which sin has brought upon us that it is truly indescribable! And equally great, yes, even greater is the Remedy for the evil! He who made all things and who fills all things, willed not that we should perish and, therefore, He must give a redemption price to ransom us out of bondage. He must provide a Sacrifice to take away our guilt and, to do this, He gave His Son. He had but one, His Well-Beloved, equal with Himself, and One with Himself in all things. Yet He gave us His Son! What if I say He gave us Himself? That is also true, for there is such a mysterious Unity between the Father and the Son that, in giving the Son, the Father gave us Himself! Oh, listen, then, you who are lost in sin, and seem to be helpless! Must there not be hope for you when such a gift as this is given? Not simply, mark you, a gift of Grace, or a gift of love, or a gift of power, but the gift of the Godhead’s own Self, the gift of all there is in Him of whom we read, It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.” “Behold,” says the Father, “I have given Him.”
When Isaiah wrote those words, they could not be read quite as clearly as you and I can read them, for now, holding up this Scripture to the light of the Cross, and reading it by the lamps of those five wounds, I can see a marvelous meaning in it—“I have given Him.” Yes, the Father has given a Redemption for the bond-slave! He has given a Sacrifice for the guilty! He has given His Son! The words in which I speak of this great fact are very simple and they may seem very poverty-stricken, but the Truth of God, itself, is such as made the angels stand in amazement! All Heaven was bewildered with wonder that God, the Infinite, should give His Son for poor, sinful, dying worms like ourselves! It seemed too much to give—the infinitely-holy God to die for guilty sinners! The everlasting and eternal Son of God to suffer that His feeble, finite creatures might not perish!