Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2724
“You have the dew of Your youth.” Psalm 110:3.
WHEN you have walked in the garden, early in the morning, you must have noticed the singular freshness and beauty which a summer’s morning always seems to give to the earth. The dewdrops, like tears standing in the eyes of the flowers, as if they wept for joy to see the sun again after the long night of darkness, sparkle in the sun! The greenness of vegetation has about it a more than emerald hue and every “thing of beauty” looks more beautiful in the morning than at any other season. You have gone out again, perhaps, at noon, and you have noticed how dry and dusty everything appears, for the sun has risen and by his burning heat he has exhaled the dew and the freshness of the morning has departed in the drought of noon. Now, this is just a picture of all things here below—yes, and also a picture of ourselves. When we first behold many things, they have the dew upon them and they sparkle, but in a little while all their brightness is gone and their brilliance scattered. Some of you have entered into pleasure and you have found it a delusion—you have intermeddled with all kinds of knowledge and you have found that in the making and reading of books, there was much pleasure, but, before long you have discovered that in reading many books and in making them, there was no end and much study was a weariness to the flesh.
Everything terrestrial has its dew in the morning, but its burning heat at noon, and we too, Beloved—I mean those of us who have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit—is not this too much the case even with us? When we were first converted, what a sparkling dew there was upon our leaf! We could not sing God’s praises loudly enough! We could not sufficiently leap for joy before the Ark of the Lord. All the exultations of those who came before seemed utterly insufficient for us. There was, to us, such unction and savor in the Word of God that we could feast upon it everyday—yes, and all night long—and yet never be weary! We ran in the way of God’s Commandments without weariness and we mounted aloft as on the wings of eagles and never thought that we could ascend too high. But, alas, Beloved, is it not the case with many of us that much of that early freshness of the morning of our youth is scattered, and some, at least, of our excellence has proved to be like the early cloud and the morning dew? Though in some things we trust that we have grown, yet we are compelled to confess that in some other things we have diminished. While in the depths of self-knowledge we feel that we have made progress, yet in the heights of joy in Christ, in the sublimities of a full devotion to Him, we sometimes fear that we have gone backward and that we have not the bliss of our youth, the dew of the morning.
Our text, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, says He has the dew of His youth. We are certain that it is Jesus Christ who is spoken of in this Psalm, for, in arguing with the Pharisees, He quoted the first verse and applied it to Himself— “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit you at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” So that no doubt this third verse also alludes to Him—“Your people shall be willing in the day of Your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: You have the dew of Your youth.” Having, therefore, set ourselves and all terrestrial matters in contrast with Him, it only remains for me to now enter, as fully as God may help me, into the sweet doctrine of this text—that Jesus Christ always has had, and always will have, the early dew, freshness and brilliance of His youth. First, permit me to state the fact Secondly, to show the reasons for it And, thirdly, to deduce the lessons from it
I. First of all, let me STATE THE FACT, THAT CHRIST HAS THE DEW OF HIS YOUTH.
Let me first speak of Christ personally Has He not all the freshness, all the vigor, all the strength of ancient times? His goings forth were of old, even from eternity and, behold, He still goes forth, everyday, in the preaching of His Word, and in the ministrations of His Spirit. In the chariots of salvation He still rides forth and among the golden candlesticks He still walks. Have we ever imagined that He has lost the strength of His youth? Do His steps falter? Has His arm begun to feel the palsying influence of old age? Is there any sign of decrepitude or of wasting away upon His majestic brow? When John saw Him in Patmos, “His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow,” for He is the Eternal of Ages! Yet, as says the spouse in the Canticles, “His locks are bushy, and black as a raven,” for He has the strength of a youth, while He has the ages of eternity upon Him! Well might He now rise up before us and ask concerning Himself personally, “Is My ear heavy that I cannot hear? Is My arm shortened that I cannot save? Am I not today what I was yesterday? Was I the Creator of the world? Did I speak it out of nothingness and am I not still its Sustainer? Was I the Redeemer of the Church? Did I purchase her with My own blood and do not still sustain with power those whom I redeemed with blood? Did I not on earth, with cries and groans, offer up My prayer before My Father and do I not now plead, not with less vigor but with greater strength, when with authority I advocate My people’s cause before His Throne?”