Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2634
“Jesus only.” Mark 9:8.
THIS was the last sight the disciples had upon the mountain and it seems to me to have been the best. They saw “Jesus only.” Jesus was often with His people. He was usually with His disciples, but they did not often notice Him as “Jesus only.” They probably did so, in this case, because He had been accompanied by two great and notable personages, who, all of a sudden, withdrew themselves and then, “they saw no man any more, save Jesus only.” The disciples had seen their Lord transfigured and attended by Moses and Elijah, representatives of the Law and the Prophets. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah vanished from their sight and then, “they saw no man any more, save Jesus only.”
Beloved, we shall never see “Jesus only,” till, like the disciples, we have seen Moses and Elijah, too! Never was there an eye which saw “Jesus only,” until it had first seen Moses. We must first pass under the rigors of Sinai and the terrors of the Law of God—we must first look upon the awful countenance of that dread Lawgiver, whose words are thunder, and whose speech is fire. We must be made to tremble beneath the denunciations of the Divine Law and stand abashed, astonished and amazed while the thunders of the wrath of God roll over our heads. We must see Moses first, or else we shall never see “Jesus only.” We shall be trusting in our own self-righteousness, putting something with Christ—making it Christ and self—until Moses comes in and breaks self-righteousness into shivers, and stains self with the filth and mire of the streets. We must have the breaking down by Moses—the smashing hand, the terrible strife that the Law of God brings into the conscience—or else we shall never know the sweetness of relying wholly upon Jesus and placing our confidence in Him alone.
And mark you, Beloved, in another sense, we shall never see “Jesus only” till we understand something about the Prophets. We must see Elijah, or else we shall not see “Jesus only.” There are some men who have not yet seen Elijah— they do not understand the prophecies. They think they perceive in the future a great progress of civilization and they expect to see the spread of the Gospel. They expect to hear of great agencies employed, of multitudes of ministers going forth to preach the Word of God and of a gradual conversion of the world to the religion of Christ. But he who understands the Prophets and has seen Elijah, believes not in the immediate conversion of the world, nor in universal peace— he believes in “Jesus only.” He expects that Jesus will first come and, to him, the great hope of the future is the coming of the Son of Man. “I know,” he says, “that God shall overturn, and overturn, and overturn, until He shall come whose right it is to reign. I know that empires shall totter to their bases and that the world shall reel to and fro in terror and alarm until He shall appear whose name is Melchisedec, the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace, who shall set His hand upon the floods and His empire upon the rivers—and shall reign ‘from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.’” We shall not see “Jesus only,” as the world’s great Deliverer, as the sinners’ one Redeemer, as the earth’s bright Sun, as well as her Morning Star until we have studied the prophecies and seen how they all speak concerning Jesus, even of Him who is yet to come! We shall see Moses and Elijah first—and when we have seen them, their united testimony will lead us to see “Jesus only.”
And now, beloved child of God, we are about to approach the Lord’s Table. I shall only utter a few thoughts which may help you in your meditations there. When we come to the Communion Table, we are to think of “Jesus only.” We have no business with anything, tonight, except “Jesus only.” We are to forget that we have a wife and children, that we have a house or a barn, that we have fields or a shop. We are not to remember anything about these things, but to say, as far as we can—
“Fair from my thoughts, vain world, be gone!
Leave my religious hours alone.
Gladly would my eyes my Savior see—
I wait a visit, Lord, from Thee.
My heart grows warm with holy fire,
And kindles with a pure desire.
Come, my dear Jesus, from above,
And feed my soul with heavenly love.” By God’s Grace, tonight, you have nothing to do with any other set of people under Heaven. Remember that you are coming to the Lord’s Table simply as God’s saints. There are many religious controversies which shake the world, but you have nothing to do with them tonight. When you come to the Lord’s Table, you have nothing to do with the question whether Baptism is by immersion or by sprinkling, and nothing to do with the question whether church government should be Episcopal or Presbyterian. You have nothing to do with what anybody else in the whole world believes. Men may be Arminians and you may combat their errors in other places, but not here. You have nothing to think of, tonight, except these two things—you, a sinner, loved by a gracious Savior. Try, if you can, to fix your thoughts on these facts— “I was lost, perishing, and ruined through my own sins but, glory be to God, the all-sufficient Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ has set me free and made me an heir of Heaven!” Oh, make “Jesus only” the subject of your thought and your trust and, at this Table, cast aside everything else and come, just as you are, to Him—and then it will be a precious Lord’s Supper to you, indeed!