Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2662
“Your God has commanded your strength: Strengthen, O God, what You have done for us.” Psalm 68:28.
DEAR Friends, at this time there is a special stir among the people. I know, from what I have seen and heard, that many are beginning to seek the Lord and others, who are not yet actually turning unto the Lord, are at least resolved to break off certain grosser sins and seek after something better. Well, there is something to be thankful for even in the waves of hunger pains which the prodigal feels before he says, “I will arise and go to my Father.” I value even the pains he has to endure when he would gladly fill his belly with the husks that the swine eat. Before we can pronounce anyone’s experience to be proof of the working of God’s Grace, we are glad if we see any signs of what usually comes when Grace enters the heart. So I am thankful when an ungodly man says, “It is time I changed my course,” for I trust that this is the first chipping upon the marble block—and that the great Sculptor, who fashions us in His own glorious image, will carry on the work and complete it to His own praise!
Just now, when I see these signs of a stir among the people, I think it is my business to repeat the exhortation I have often given, “Make sure work of the change you are contemplating—make sure work for eternity! Do not put up with anything that will fail you at the last. If you are looking for something better than you already possess, mind that you get the best that is to be had.” No, more, I would bid you give heed to our Lord’s own words, “I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.” Mind that you buy all these things of Christ, for the terms on which you may have them are “without money and without price”—and you cannot get them anywhere else! I hope I am now addressing some who are saying, “We shall be glad and grateful if you will help us to judge as to our true condition and aid us to see whether we are Christians or not.” That is what I am going to try to do tonight.
The verse before my text describes God’s ancient people when they were assembled in the order of their tribes. “There is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali.” They belonged to various tribes of the children of Israel, but they were all numbered among the Lord’s people. And it is said of the whole of them, as if they were but one, “Your God has commanded your strength.” These words apply to all the armies of Israel, so you and I, dear Friends, had better consider and see whether we belong to His armies or not.
I. From our text, I learn that the first mark of the people of God is that THE LORD IS THEIR GOD.
Notice, the first two words—“Your God.” This proves that they have a God. We cannot be God’s people unless we know His name and know that He is the living and true God—and that all the rest of the so-called gods are but fictions or idols of the heathen! There is one God who made Heaven and earth, the sea and all that is therein. There is one God who has made us and from whom the breath in our nostrils has come. There is one God who has ruled in all past history and who is still the God of Providence, the Preserver and Director of His chosen people—the one God who, in the fullness of time, sent His only-begotten Son, who was equal with Himself, but who lived and died that the guilty sons of men might have their sins pardoned and their wandering feet directed back to the great Father’s house. The God of the Old
Testament and the God of the New—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob—the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! “This God is our God forever and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death.”
First, God’s people believe in this God. If any do not believe in Him, they may call themselves what they please, but they are not the people of the living God! They may be the people of philosophy. They may be the people of the many dreams which men dream, nowadays, instead of believing in God, but they are not His people. I hope, Beloved, that we have no question about this matter and that we can say, without the slightest hesitation, “Yes, Jehovah, He is the God; Jehovah, He is the God.”
He becomes our God, then, first, by our belief in Him, and next, by our reliance upon Him. This God is not merely an influence! Certainly, He is not a fiction. He is a real Person with whom we may speak and who will hear us and answer us according to His wisdom and goodness. The Apostle truly wrote, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets has, in these last days, spoken unto us by His Son.” And He is still speaking to us, through Him, words of Grace, love and kindness. And He becomes our God, I repeat, when, believing in Him, we come and rely upon Him—implicitly trusting Him that, seeing we are sinful, He may cleanse us. That, seeing we are ignorant, He may teach us. That, seeing we are feeble, we may lay hold upon His strength and may thereby be preserved unto everlasting life!