Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2683
“They…shall be in bitterness for Him.” Zechaariah 12:10.
You know, dear Friends, that this text primarily refers to the Jewish nation. They will not always be blinded as they are at present. The veil will ultimately be taken away from their eyes and their heart. And when it is taken away, it will not be by the enlightenment of mere reason, or through the process of argument by itself, but it will be through the outpouring of the Spirit of our God! The verse from which our text is taken makes this quite clear—“I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace and of supplications.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ can only be seen in His own light. The Grace of God must be given to us before we can see and understand Christ at all—and this shall be the great proof that Grace has been given to Israel—that they shall look upon Christ. It is good evidence that Grace has been given to any man when he looks upon Christ, obeying the great command—“Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.” This is the first sign and token of Believers and it is to be our continual distinguishing mark, for we are always to be “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.” There is much more in a look at Christ than many suppose—it is the index of everything that appertains to the Christian life. There must be life in an eye that can see and when there is life in the eye, there is life in the whole man who possesses that eye. When an eye can see Christ, it can see other things that He intends it to see. That eye which has been enabled to behold Him and which has taught the heart to cry, “My Lord and my God,” is prepared to see all the wondrous things that are in God’s Law!
The first mark of Grace, then, in the Jew, will be that he shall look to Christ. By that word, “look,” I do not understand a mere transient glance at Him, but a long, lingering, wistful, discerning, penetrating, loving look at Him and unto Him, as it is in that verse, “They looked unto Him, and were lightened.” At first, it may be only a furtive stolen glance, but when men come to see and feel the full power of Christ, they will want to have a long, fixed, steady gaze at Him. Blessed will be the day when the Jews shall be brought even to think seriously about Christ! At present, they will scarcely listen to the arguments concerning Him. They denounce the Nazarene and close their ears against His Gospel, but the day shall come when they will hear, when they will listen diligently and incline their ears and come unto Him that their soul may live. They shall look, and look, and look, and look, and look, until the vision shall, at last, break in upon their very soul—and then they shall say, “It is He! Yes, it is He of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write. This is no other than the promised Messiah, the Son of David and, alas, up to now, both we and our fathers have rejected Him.” And as they thus look and realize the greatness of their guilt, they will begin to weep and lament that they have so long refused their only Savior.
So the first effect upon the Jews of a true sight of Christ—and, as we are all constituted so much alike, the first effect upon any man who has a true sight of Christ—is that it produces sincere sorrow. “They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” I must confess that I have no love for a dry-eyed faith. The faith that never wept over sin will have to be wept over, one of these days. If you say that you have seen Christ and yet you have never bemoaned yourself, and mourned over your transgressions, I think you must have seen a false christ, and not the true Son of
God, for they who behold His wounds are, themselves, wounded. They who gaze upon His pierced heart are, themselves, pierced to the heart—no, they are pierced inthe heart. And they who, by faith, see the flowing of His precious blood, feel their very hearts bleed on account of Him and all that He endured on their behalf. A sight of His Crucifixion crucifies sin! A sight of His death—if it is a true sight—is the death of all love of sin! If, then, you have never felt the mournful effect of the sorrowful spectacle of the bleeding Savior, you still have need to stand and to look, and look, and look again, until you do feel it, for so it will always be—“They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn.”
That is the general thought of this verse—the Jews will look to Christ and they will mourn. And the same thing happens with Gentiles—they also look to Christ and mourn. So the theme we are to consider is the wonderful Truth of God that when we rightly look to Christ, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, we are “in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” It is quite true that of all sights in the world, the sight of Christ crucified is the sweetest. People say, “See Naples and die.” But it would be worthwhile to see Christ, by faith, even if that sight were necessarily followed by death. Of all that can be seen in the world, there is nothing so delightful as a believing sight of Jesus Christ. I appeal to all of you whose eyes have ever been ravished with that wondrous vision—do you not say to your Lord—