Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2726
“And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness. And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord… ForIhave satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” Jeremiah 31:14,25.
THE subject of this morning [Sermon #1549, Volume 26—GOOD NEWS FOR THIRSTY SOULS] was spiritual’thirst, and the promises made thereto. I tried to encourage those who are not at rest concerning the state of their souls—those who have strong and ardent desires to escape from the wrath to come—I tried to encourage them to partake of Christ, by faith, that they might find peace of heart and so might be perfectly satisfied. I believe that some did find peace this morning. We shall be on the look-out for them and hope that they will speedily come and tell us what God has done for their souls.
But, on this occasion our subject is the very opposite of that of this morning. It is neither thirst nor hunger, but perfect satisfaction, not strength of agonizing desire, but rest of holy satiety of which I am about to speak, in the earnest hope that all of you who are believers in our Lord Jesus Christ may enjoy this perfect satisfaction even at this very hour. There are four forms of satisfaction described in the four sentences of the two verses which form our text.
I. The first is GOD’S SERVANTS ARE SATISFIED WITH THE APPOINTED SACRIFICE. Read the first sentence of verse 14—“I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness.”
God’s people are His children, but they are also His servants. And their service, viewed from one special point, is that of priests. Christ has made all of us who believe in Him to be kings and priests unto our God. It is the business of every Christian to be a priest. There is now no special order of priests apart from the general body of believers in Christ. We regard the use of the term, “priests,” as relating to any other persons as utterly misleading and untrue. Every man who is a Christian is a priest unto God and he daily offers unto God the acceptable sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving. In fact, his whole life should be a sacrifice—his ordinary garments should be his priestly vestments—and wherever he is, the place should be a temple for God’s worship. His own house and every room in it should be consecrated to the Lord’s service. And every action of his life should be the act of one who is holy unto the Lord and who does everything with a view to the Glory of God.
Priests, of course, must have a sacrifice, and it is the special privilege of the priests of God that they shall be satisfied by eating the fat of that sacrifice. If you read, when you are at home, in the 7th chapter of the Book of Leviticus, you will find that the Aaronic priests were forbidden to eat the fat of the sacrifice and, in fact, to eat any portion of the fat of a beast that had been sacrificed to God was a crime that was punishable with death! There were certain portions of the sacrificial animals that were allotted to the priests, but all that was described as, “the fat thereof,” was for God, and for God alone, so that, under the Jewish dispensation, the priest could never be satisfied with fatness. But Christ has made us priests after another order than that of Aaron—and the richest part of the Sacrifice, the very fat of it—is now ours to feed upon!
Dear Brothers and Sisters, what is the Sacrifice of which we speak today, but the Lord Jesus Christ? We know of no other atoning Sacrifice but the blessed Person, body, soul, spirit, and blood of Jesus Christ, our Incarnate God and Savior! It is with this Sacrifice that Believers are perfectly satisfied.
First, we are satisfied with Christ as our Sin-Offering. Brethren, He did really take upon Himself our sin and He did make an end of it upon the Cross. Believing in Christ Jesus, we have no more consciousness of sin so far as its guiltis concerned. A thing cannot be in two places at one time. When Christ took our sins, we had not one of them left. We were clear of them, in God’s sight, the moment that Christ became our Substitute. And when, by faith, we laid our hand on that dear head of His and made confession of our transgression, we received the personal assurance that our sin was made to meet upon Him more than 1,800 years ago. When He was nailed to the accursed tree, outside the gate, He presented a sin-offering for our sake and that one offering was effectual, for by it He has fulfilled the great prophecy concerning Messiah the Prince, “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.” Brothers and Sisters, you believe this great Truth of God, I know you do, but are you satisfied with it? If you are not, you ought to be, for what better fountain of cleansing can you desire than the precious blood of Christ? What better way of Atonement do you need than that Christ should bear the wrath of God for you— that He should take your sin and hurl it into the depths of the sea where it can never be found again? When He had done this, he cried, “It is finished!” And it was finished forever—so are you not perfectly satisfied with Christ as your Sin-Offering?