Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3003
“And every man went unto his own house.” John 7:53.
“Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.” John 8:1.
THESE verses furnish a striking illustration of the unwise way in which, in certain cases, the Bible has been divided into chapters. The meaning of many portions of Scripture would be much more manifest if Gospels, Epistles and even Prophecies were left in their undivided state. The two sentences which I have selected for my text ought never to have been separated—and we may rightly say of them, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” So we will consider them together as they should be considered—“Every man went unto his own house. Jesus went unto the Mount ofOlives.”
I. Here we have, in the first place, A FACT FOR OUR EARNEST CONSIDERATION. Let us turn it over in our mind under the Holy Spirit’s gracious guidance. While Christ’s friends and enemies had, everyone of them, a house to go to, He must go spend the night in the open air watching and praying on the Mount of Olives.
Observe, first, His extreme poverty. Among them all—friends or foes—there was not one without a house excepting Himself. No, more, among some of the meanest of His creatures, there was not one without a shelter. Foxes, though they were but worthy to be exterminated, had holes in which they could hide. And the birds of the air, though many ruthlessly sought to destroy them, had nests wherein they could rest—but the Son of Man had not where to lay His head. Possibly, in all Judaea, there was only that one houseless man! Certainly there was no other who was so voluntarily houseless as Himself. He had brought Himself down from the glories of His Father’s court, from the majesty of reigning with His Father in Heaven to become dependent upon the bounty of His own disciples for His daily bread—and He had no house that He could call His own, no home to which He could retire when His day’s work was done. Believers, admire His amazing condescension in that, “though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be rich.” If any of you are poor in this world, be comforted, for you are not poorer than your Master was! Remember that every true Christian is the image of Christ but the godly poor man is the expressimage of Christ! He has one quality beyond those which other Christians have, that is, his poverty, which makes him even more like his Master than they are. He who was born in a stable and cradled in a manger. He who wore the homely garb of the peasantry of Palestine, the garment which was without seam, woven from the top throughout. He who made fishermen His chosen companions, was the poor man’s Christ, poorer than the poorest of you and able, therefore, to sympathize with you in all the pangs and griefs which penury may bring upon you! And you great ones of the earth, despise not the unlettered and the poor, for “has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith,” to be “heirs of the Kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him”? And has He not “exalted One chosen out of the people,” even His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, to sit with Him on the Throne of His Glory?
Further, when “every man went unto his own house,” Christ had no house to go to! And this denotes not only His extreme poverty, but the forgetfulness and unkindness of His friends. Each of us is apt to say, “Had I been there, He would not have spent that night amid the cold dews of the Mount of Olives. He would have had the best accommodation my house could have afforded. I would always have had a chamber prepared for the Lord’s Prophet, like that of the
Shunammite woman, with ‘a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick,’ and I would have entertained this Prince of Prophets with the greatest joy!” So you think, but had you lived in Christ’s day, John might still have written, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” And the Prophet’s lamentation might again have become true, “He was despised, and we esteemed Him not”—even we, His own people, His blood-bought people, His beloved—“esteemed Him
not.”
Surely, never was such a friend used so terribly as the Lord Jesus Christ was used even by His friends and followers! His head must have been wet with the dew of Heaven and His locks with the drops of the night, yet no one gave Him shelter. Yet we must not blame His disciples for their neglect of their Master unless we are also willing to blame ourselves. He has often stood at our door and knocked! Perhaps He is knocking now, but we, in some form or other, refuse to give Him a lodging in our hearts and willingly keep in His place some darling sin. And so the Savior still has to stand outside, for He will not come into our hearts to dwell in peace with sin. He must remain outside until we expel the intruder, or call upon Him to do so.
Observe, too, in the fact of Christ having no home to go to, the loneliness of His spirit If He had asked one of His friends to entertain Him, probably none would have refused His request. Had not His mother Mary still a home? What had become of His reputed father, Joseph the carpenter? Were not His brothers with Him? Would not one of them entertain Him? There was James, who is called the Lord’s brother—could not he find Him a shelter? Peter had a wife, for we read of his wife’s mother lying sick of a fever and being cured by Christ—had he no place to which he could invite his Lord? The loving John had a home, for he took the mother of Jesus, after the Crucifixion, to his own home. Then there were the women who followed Jesus and ministered to Him of their substance. And Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus—would not they give Christ a shelter? Oh, yes, they would gladly have done so, but He was, just then, in the midst of trials—He was beset by the Pharisees. They were tempting Him on all sides and He needed something better than the companionship of men! He needed a place where He could rest, but there is not one disciple upon whose bosom He could lean His head. John may lean his head upon Christ’s bosom, but Christ cannot lean His head upon John’s bosom, so the Savior must go away by Himself to the Mount of Olives for He has a lonely spirit and no human being can fully enter into His grief and woes.