Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2954
“All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37.
A COUNTRY gentleman is expecting a number of persons to come and dine with him. He has as little side swing-gate at the entrance to the park through which people generally come, but, on the day when he expects company, he says to one of his men, “John, be sure that you set the big gates wide open, for we are expecting several people to come in.” And that is the order which I have received from my Master—He is expecting company! The evangelistic services in the South of London will, I trust, bring large numbers of people to feast with my Lord at His banqueting table and I believe it is His will that I should set the big gates wide open so that some sinners who might be passing by, would take that act as an invitation to them to come in! I feel sure that they will come in, for God is going to bring them in! He is about to stretch forth His almighty arm and to compel them to come in, that His House may be filled! So my objective in this discourse is to proclaim the fullness and freeness of the Grace of God—in the hope that some may be led to come to Christ and so to obtain eternal life!
But, first, our text sets before us a rather knotty point, yet it reveals to us an excellent way of untying the knot. This is the knotty point. It would seem from the text that the Father has given some souls to Christ and not only from this text, but also from a great many other passages of Scripture it is clear that God has a people whom He has chosen unto eternal life—and that Christ has redeemed a people from among men. It is no use trying to shut your eyes to this Truth of God, as some do, for it is there. And unless we really wish to twist the plain meaning of words and to make something out of Scripture which Scripture does not naturally teach, we shall never be able to escape from the Doctrine of Divine Predestination—the Doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life!
Now, if you like you can make any number of difficulties out of that Truth of God. If you wish to do so, here is a whole forest before you and you can easily find wood enough to make a gallows to hang yourself! It is true that if you wish to wrest the Scriptures to your own destruction, you will have to use very bad reasoning in order to do it—but it will be no worse reasoning than many other people have used before you. It is true that everything is predestinated and that everything that happens is ordered according to the unfailing purpose and will of God—yet you will go to bed tonight and get up tomorrow morning and go about your business, never thinking of that predestination, but, acting like people of common sense, guided by the ordinary rules of sound judgment. That is to say, you will do that in ordinary matters, but there are some of you who will not act in the same sensible way in spiritual’things—you will twist this Doctrine around and look at it in all manner of strange ways till you are dizzy with gazing at it and trying to make some excuse out of it for not coming to Jesus Christ!
My text, however, cuts the ground from under your feet, if you seek to act thus, for it tells you this, which is all you need to know, that all who are God’s chosen ones may be known by this mark—that they come to Christ. Just as He said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me.” So that those who come to Christ are God’s chosen people and those who live and die without coming to Christ are not God’s people. If you come to Christ and trust in Him, you are one of those whom the Father gave to His Son. If you refuse to come to Christ—it matters not what excuse you may make— your blood will be upon your own head. You will perish if you do not come to Christ! And if you do not come to Him, it will be because you were not one of His sheep and neither did the Father give you to Christ. Rowland Hill, when he was asked to preach only to the elect, said that he would do so if somebody would chalk them on the back. That cannot be
done. But God does, in process of time, mark them all—not on the back, but on the heart! He that believes on the Son has everlasting life and his faith proves that he was chosen of God to that life! But he that believes not on the Son, if he persists in that unbelief, will assuredly perish, for there shall be no deviation from this Divine declaration, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned.” That is the matter with which we have to deal. May God help us, like prudent men, to deal with it earnestly!
I. Leaving that knotty point altogether, I notice in our gloriously free and open text, “Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out,” that there is A NECESSARY ACT and that is, that we come to Christ.
Before we go any further, let me ask, “How many of us have come to Christ?” I believe that by far the larger proportion of those now present have done so and I am grateful that I am able to believe that. If any of you who have thought of coming to the Lord’s Table have never come to Christ, I implore you not to come to the Communion until you are truly converted. None have any right to the sacred emblems but those who have already enjoyed true communion with Christ by believing in Him! If you have not come to Christ, you must not act as if you had done so, for that would not benefit you and it would insult the Lord and bring great guilt upon your own conscience. No, Brothers and Sisters, we must came to Jesus Christ—that is our one business if we would be saved—to come to Christ is not only the main point in it, but it is the top, bottom, middle and whole of it!