Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2969
“For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11.
OUR subject this morning was the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb upon the lintel and the two doorposts of the houses of the children of Israel and Egypt. As soon as that was done and the lamb had been eaten, they had to start upon their journey to Canaan. They knew that they had to go and they were prepared to go. They had their loins girt and each man had his staff in his hand and his sandals on his feet. After being prisoners so long, they were set free in order that they might become pilgrims to the land which the Lord their God had given to their fathers.
We who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, are in a similar condition to theirs, for the Lord has redeemed us and we can sing the new song, “He has brought us up out of the house of bondage and with a high hand and an outstretched arm He has made us free.” And now we are pilgrims and strangers in this world, for we are on our way to a better land than the earthly Canaan ever was—a land that flows with something richer than milk and honey and where there is an eternal and abounding portion appointed for each one of the redeemed! We are pressing on, through this great wilderness, towards the land into which the Lord will surely bring us in His own good time. Our text is a promise to pilgrims. It most appropriately follows the text of this morning—“The blood shall be to you for a token.” You have set out upon the road to Heaven. You have entered the narrow way by Christ, who is the Gate at the head of the way, and now you are wondering how you will get on while you are on the road, and whether you will be proved in the right way so as to endure unto the end. This promise comes to you with much of real heart-cheer—“He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.”
I. My first remark is rather by way of implication from the text than in direct exposition of it. It is this—THERE
ARE SOME WAYS WHICH ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS PROMISE because they are not our ways and they are
not God’s ways. They are ways into which we may be tempted by Satan—and which we are to jealously avoid.
You know how, when the devil professed to quote this text to our Lord, he left out the latter part of it, “to keep you in all your ways,” because it would not have suited his purpose to mention that proviso. We, however, will begin with the words which the devil omitted since the very fact of his omission of them seems to show how essential they are to a right understanding of the meaning of the text! O Christian, if you keep to the King’s Highway, you will be safe! But there are byways and, alas, crooked lanes which you must not go down. If you do go there, you will go at your own risk. He who travels on the King’s Highway is under the King’s protection—but he who takes to byroads must protect himself—and the probability is that he will meet with robbers who will make him rue the day that he ever turned to the right hand or to the left!
So first we must take care that we never go in the ways of presumption. This is what Satan would have had Christ do. “Cast Yourself down,” he said, “for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over You, to keep You.” This temptation to presumption is by no means an uncommon one. I have heard of it from the lips of men who were evidently not the children of God, or they would have resisted the temptation and not have yielded to it as they did. They have said, “Well, we are God’s children, so we may do as we like. We are saved, therefore we may live as we please”—a dreadful inference from what, to other men, might be a precious Truth of God. O dear Friends, beware of tempting the devil to tempt you! Beware, too, of tempting the Lord, your God, as some do who venture a long way into evil company, or into doubtful paths under the mistaken notion that they are so prudent that they will not be overtaken as others might
be—that they are so sage and withal so experienced that they may go where young people must not venture, and may do a great many things which less-instructed Christians had better not do. Where you think you are perfectly safe, there you are often most in danger! Horses frequently fall just at the bottom of the hill, when the driver thinks that it is unnecessary to rein them up any longer. When you are so foolish as to say, “Now I am out of the reach of temptation,” you are in the very midst of temptation! And when you think you are not being tempted at all, you are being tempted the most by the very fancy that you are not being tempted!
O beloved Friends, beware of presuming! Some have been so favored in the dispensations of Providence, so prosperous in everything they have undertaken, that they have thought they might speculate as far as ever they pleased and, at last—well, they’ve had very shady characters at the end of their lives. They have done once what they never ought to have done and, because it succeeded, they have been tempted to do it again and yet again. But, I pray you, Sirs, never gather from the success of a wrong action, that God is willing for you to repeat it! Rather say, “God was very gracious to me in not punishing me that time, but I will never run such a risk as that again.” I do not believe that Jonah, after having been once thrown into the sea and been cast forth upon the shore by the whale, ever wanted to be flung into the sea again. He might not have felt certain about another whale coming along to carry him to land! If you have been miraculously delivered once from the great deep, do not put yourself into such a position again. If you do, you may find that the next great fish is a shark—not a whale—and, instead of being brought to land, you may be destroyed. In brief, beware of all presumptuous ways, for God has not promised to keep you there.