Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2953
“Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more, but you see Me: because I live, you shall live also.” John 14:19.
IT is very noticeable in this verse and in many other parts of the New Testament, what a sharp line of demarcation the Lord draws between His people and the world—“The world sees Me no more, but you see Me.” We have the same Truth of God taught in John’s first Epistle. “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the Wicked One.” It is quite evident that our Lord kept prominent in His teaching the distinction between the regenerate and the unregenerate—the converted and the unconverted—those who have been quickened by the Holy Spirit and those who have remained dead in trespasses and sins. This distinction which our Lord kept up so strikingly, should always be made clear in every ministry. I feel that much evil comes of a mode of address which is adopted by some of my ministerial brothers in which they speak to the entire congregation as though all who were present were Christians. That is a false theory to go upon because it is not at all likely that any congregation ever gathered together will consist wholly of Christians. The mere coming together for public worship, nowadays, does not at all prove people to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they met in the Catacombs or in the caves of the earth and every worshipper had to carry his life in his hands, there might have been some excuse for addressing the whole assembly as Christians. In these days we know right well that there are unconverted persons in the audience and it is proper, therefore, to have one message to the saints and another message to the sinners—and to let it be seen, all through the sermon, that the preacher is aware that the Lord has made a distinction between Israel and Egypt—between them that fear Him and them that fear Him not.
The same rule ought, I think, to be observed in prayer. It is a radical mistake to have forms of prayer which take it for granted that the whole congregation is saved. In this way, many persons are comforted who ought to be awakened to a sense of their true spiritual condition. At the grave, especially, things are said of men who have lived and died in sin, which are calculated to make unsaved survivors think lightly of their own lost state. There should be one prayer for the saint and another prayer for the sinner—and all through the supplication, as well as the preaching, there should be such a distinction as Christ drew, in this verse, between His disciples and “the world”—between those who continue to see Jesus and those who will never behold His face with joy—either in this world or in that which is to come.
If you look carefully at our text you will notice in it, first, a fact which should solemnize the mind of every unconverted person here, namely, that the religious privileges enjoyed by the world will, sooner or later, be taken away—“Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more.” Secondly, the text very clearly tells us that the Holy Spirit has given to Believers a sight of Christ—“but you see Me.” And, thirdly, this sight is accompanied by a life which is linked with the life of Christ—“because I live, you shall live also.”
I. So the first lesson to be learned from our text is that THE PRESENT PRIVILEGES ENJOYED BY THE WORLD WILL BE TAKEN AWAY—“Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more.”
For a comparatively long time Jesus was seen here among the sons of men. I call His life a long time, for every moment of it must have been painful to Him, since, for His pure spirit to have dwelt in the midst of impurity such as pervades this world must always have been painful. Yet He tarried here and worked innumerable miracles of blessing. Sometimes He fed the thousands who crowded around Him. He was constantly healing the sick and doing everything that He could for man’s good—the summary of His life was that “He went about doing good.” He is gone, now, and the world sees Him no more. How shamefully the men of the world treated Him! It would not be right for Him to come back
to another persecution and a second Crucifixion. They said, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill Him and let us seize on His inheritance.” They did kill Him, but He will never come here to be killed again! When He comes the next time, it will be in a very different fashion and for a very different purpose. The world will never again see Him as it saw Him then—
“A lowly Man before His foes,
A humble Man, and full of woes.” No, Earth, you have lost your Miracle-Worker. You sick ones, you have lost your Great Physician. You hungry ones, you have lost Him whose blessed hands fed you! Never again will the weeping Mary and Martha see their brother raised to life. Never again will sorrowing widows have their dead sons restored to them from the grave’s mouth. No, Jesus has gone and all the blessings which He was known to bestow have ceased to be given, for the world sees Him no more. It will see Him again, certainly, but in a very different fashion—it will not see Him as Savior, a Friend and Physician—it will only see Him with the rod of iron in His hand, passing sentence upon those who said, “We will not have this Man to reign over us”!