Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2776
“The children you willhave, after you have lost the others, willsay again in your ears, The place is too small for me; give me a place where I may dwell. Then will you say in your heart, Who has begotten these for me, since I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up?Behold, I was left alone; but these, where were they?” Isaiah 49:20,21.
I NEVER like to look upon the Bible as merely an old Book, a relic of the past. I like to read it and think of it as a new Book and one applicable to the present time. And I am continually compelled to regard it as such, for I find that it relates to the things passing around me—it deals with my present sorrows, my present doubts and my present joys. It is not merely a record of the saints in olden times—it is a Book of Direction for the saints of the present generation. It not merely gave consolation to those who received the promise centuries ago, but the same promise comes home fresh and sweet to us and we look upon it as being a new and present Revelation from Heaven to us. At least there are times when the Spirit takes of the words of Scripture and makes them as fresh and new to us as though an angel had just flown from Heaven and, for the first time, uttered the gracious words by whispering them in our ears! And the passage which I have read bears to me, just now, though it may not to you, all the freshness and sweetness of a passage made for the occasion. If this Book had been written yesterday, I am sure it could not contain truth more applicable to myself—no, if I had to have it, as Mahommed’s followers had the Koran, chapter by chapter, just as they required it, I could not have a Bible more adapted to my daily experience and my daily needs, for so does the Holy Spirit continually take of the things of Christ and not simply apply them unto us, but, apparently, He seems to adapt them to us, or else He brings out to our mind’s eye that old original adaptation which God had placed in them, foreknowing for what purpose they would be used in later days.
I propose to comment upon this text somewhat pointedly and I hope that the remarks I shall make upon it may be the means of leading others to take the passage as a subject of profitable meditation. I shall begin by observing that the Church is a mother When I have dwelt upon that idea, I shall notice that, like other mothers, the Church has, sometimes, to be bereaved. Then, in the third place, I shall observe that she has another trouble which mothers in England do not have—God grant they never may—she is sometimes, herself, a captive—she wears bonds and fetters, and groans in slavery. And then I have to notice, in the fourth place, the promise of the text, that this mother, despite her bereavement, despite all her captivity, shall see her family multiplied to a most extraordinary degree, so that she shall be overwhelmed with amazement and, lifting up her eyes, shall say, “Who has begotten these for me, since I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone; but these, where were they?”
I. Well now, first of all, notice that THE CHURCH IS A MOTHER. She has always stood in that relationship to all her members. Take each member of the Church individually, he is a child. Take us altogether, we make up the mother, the Church. The Church of Rome professes to be a mother and what a mother she has proved to be! Let the Inquisition tell how tenderly she has nursed her babes! Let conventual torture chambers tell how her little infants have been cared for! Let the stakes that once stood on Smithfield. Let the gallows and the fires all stand up and tell the story of that ten-
der and pitiful mother! Ah, but the Church of Christ is a true mother. Even when she is not continually using the name, yet is she a tender and affectionate nursing mother to all her offspring. I shall begin here very briefly to speak about this mother.
The Church is a mother because it is her privilege to bring forth into the world the spiritual children of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church is still left in the world that she may bring out the rest of God’s elect that are still hidden in the caverns and strongholds of sin. If God had willed it, He might have brought out all His children by the mere effort of His own power, without the use of any instrumentality. He might have sent His Grace into each individual heart in some such miraculous manner as He did into the heart of Saul, when He was going toward Damascus. But He has not chosen to do so. He, who has taken the Church to be His spouse and His bride, has chosen to bring men to Himself by means. And thus it is, through God’s using the Church, her ministers, her children, her works, her sufferings, her prayers—through making these the means of the increase of His spiritual Kingdom—she proves her right to take to herself the title of mother.