Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2575
“For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life.” Deuteronomy 32:47.
(One of the nights when the regular hearers left their seats to be occupied by strangers).
THESE are among the last words of Moses before his death. He addressed the people in a most tender and affectionate manner before he went from them. “The old man eloquent” seemed as if he would never leave off—he kept on reminding the children of Israel of the goodness of God to them and telling them what they might expect at His hands if they would but serve Him. He pleaded with all earnestness again and again and, at last, used this master argument why he would have them keep the ways of God, “For,” he said, “it is not a vain thing for you”—it is a most essential thing— “because it is your life.”
It is very clear, from this passage, that there were some people in the days of Moses who thought that it was a vain thing to serve the Lord. Yet those were very amazing times, for, if men rebelled against God, they were smitten with terrible sicknesses and, sometimes, with sudden death. God was then so manifestly in the midst of the camp that great miracles were often worked and men were compelled to stand still and say, “This is the finger of God.” Besides, whenever men in those days kept God’s ways, they prospered. That was the dispensation of temporal rewards and immediate punishments, yet, though it was so—though the very bush in the desert glowed with the Glory of the Godhead, though the mountains smoked and trembled beneath the touch of Deity, though the uplifted rod of Moses had caused the Red Sea to be divided and had fetched water out of the flinty rock—yet even when Jehovah was so conspicuously with His people, there were some among them who said, “It is a vain thing to serve the Lord.” This proves that miracles will not convince men if the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not! And it also proves that if God were to make His religion a thing of eyes and hands, to be looked upon and to be handled, it would still be rejected by ungodly men, for their hearts are set against it and they are determined not to have God or Christ to rule over them!
Seeing that men thought it a vain thing to serve God in those olden times, I do not wonder that men should think the same now, for, in these days there are not such manifest judgments upon wicked men, neither are there always such apparent rewards for the godly as there were under the Mosaic dispensation. Nowadays the righteous man is often sorely tried and troubled. Sometimes he has more tribulation than his ungodly neighbors have and his trials come even as the result of his serving God! On the other hand, does not the wicked man often prosper? Have we not seen him “spreading himself like a green bay tree,” and covering the earth with his branches? This is the age of faith, in which God does not show Himself as He did in the olden time. It is the dispensation of spiritual things, wherein only spiritual men are cognizant of God’s Presence and working. And, therefore, it is no marvel that many turn upon their heels and say, “There is nothing in religion! It is a vain thing to serve the Lord.”
Now, dear Friends, I am not going to argue with you about this question, but I am going to bear my testimony concerning it. In a court of law, argument goes for much, but testimony is the thing which carries weight with the jury. They hear the evidence and if they believe that the witnesses are honest and truthful, they accept their testimony and give a verdict accordingly. If they have reason to think that the witnesses are only acting a part and speaking falsehood, they attach no importance to their evidence. I am going to give my testimony concerning the reality and blessedness of the religion of Jesus Christ, our Lord, in the hope that it will convince some of you of the truth of my text, “It is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life.”
I begin by admitting that there is a great deal of so-called religion that is a vain thing and that is nobody’s life. The religion of ceremonies is a vain thing. If any man shall tell me that by any act of his, he can convey Divine Grace to me, I will not believe him! If he says that by the application of water, he creates within an infant, membership with Christ and makes that child to be an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven, I will not believe him! I shall attach no more importance to what he does, if he pretends to convey Grace by it, than I should to the hocus-pocus of a gypsy, or the abracadabra of a magician. God does not convey His Grace in that fashion, but by the working of His Spirit upon the mind, will and heart. True religion is not a thing that can be conveyed by water, or by bread and wine, apart from the state of mind and heart of the person receiving it. If my religion consists in putting on a certain dress and showing myself as a mere performer, or thinking that some good thing can come to the people by the sweetness of music, or the beauty of architecture, my religion is vain! It was not so with Christ and His Apostles—they went everywhere preaching the Word and proclaiming that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”