Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2764
“Who are these who fly as a cloud, and like doves to their roosts?” Isaiah 60:8.
WE believe that, in the latter days, according to the Word of God, men will flock to Christ and to His Church in far greater numbers than they have ever done. At present, we have to go to them, but, by-and-by, they will come to us. Now we have to search them out, like lost sheep in a cloudy and dark day, but, in those days, they will feel a gracious drawing towards their God and His Church—and they will come in vast multitudes to worship with the people of God—yes, they will themselves become the people of God and bow down before the feet of Emmanuel, the Prince of peace! Why should it not be? Why should we not expect it and why should not the expectation greatly encourage us in laboring on through these weary years, being well assured that they that sow in tears shall one day reap in joy?
Yet, even at that time when, through the full preaching of the Gospel and the effectual working of the Holy Spirit, men shall come flocking to Christ in troops, even in that hour the Church will be astonished at the result! She will lift up her hands, and say, “Who has begotten me these?” She will cry, in the words of our text, “Who are these who fly as a cloud, and like doves to their roosts?” For, alas, God’s people are often very unbelieving. We have seen something of this spirit even in our own time. There are certain good old Christian people who, if they see a convert added to the Church, now and then, are pleased and satisfied. But if there should be a score added in a month—if there were to be a hundred—they would hold up their hands and say, “This cannot be the work of God! There are too many, it is all excitement!” And they would take counsel together and try to stop it. “Surely,” they say, “it cannot be the work of God because it is so great.”
Now my argument is that if we are to judge a work by its size, I should say that a little work was not the work of God. My method of reasoning would be this—the greater the work, the more likely is it to be of God. I do not insist upon that always being the case because God is in the least conversion—if there is but one, as much as in the conversion of thousands—but still, if a Brother begins to throw discredit upon a work in any place because large numbers are converted, I am ready to meet him and to prove that he is wrong! Pentecost was not the conversion of some one old woman in a chimney corner through reading a sermon—Pentecost was not the bringing in of one dear child of a deacon, one who had been in the Sunday school all his life—but Pentecost was the conversion, then and there, of three thousand sinners of every sort, through the preaching of the Word of the Lord! And I expect that where God is especially manifested, and where He gives His Churches, Pentecosts, we shall have thousands born in a day, multitudes flocking to Christ as the doves to their roosts!
Let us begin to enlarge our expectations. Already, in this house, we have had the prophecy fulfilled on a small scale. See how, these many years, the multitudes have pressed and thronged to listen to the Gospel! What other attractions have we had? We have not even that wonderful box of music with which men praise God with wind—we have nothing but the most plain possible singing. I am certain that the crowds do not come to hear that and, as for the preaching, I have purposely laid aside all the graces of oratory that I might have had—and tried to make my message as plain and simple as possible. One good man, who is going away from us, said to me, this morning, “I shall miss the plain preaching to which I have been accustomed. No doubt there are some rich people who would like to have it put very finely, but, you see,” he
said, “I have no education and I am glad you have preached so that I could understand you, because the other people can do the same if they like.” Yes, and they must, too, if they come here, for I will never get away from the simple preaching of Jesus Christ, as plain as I can make it! My one work is just to talk of Jesus Christ and of His blessed Gospel, as plainly as I can. And is there anything like it, in all the world, to draw the multitudes, to hold the multitudes, to impress the multitudes? Yes, and to lead them to fly, like doves, to Jesus’ wounds to find salvation there?
Now, coming to our text, I think that the passage refers, first of all, to the Israelite who sees multitudes coming to Jerusalem to worship the one living and true God. He stands on the top of Carmel and he looks across the Mediterranean and he sees the ships of Tarshish coming in such great numbers across the sea, scudding along before the wind, that he says, “Who are these who fly as a cloud?” Seen from a distance, the great fleet of vessels seem like a cloud, and as they come nearer, those long triangular sails which we who have been along the coast of the Mediterranean remember so well, suggest to him the second figure, “Who are these that are flying like doves to their roosts?” It was the promise being fulfilled, “the ships of Tarshish first”—the men from the far-off lands hurrying up that they might worship with the multitude that kept holy day in the sacred city!