Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3021
“Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live.” Isaiah 38:1.
NOTWITHSTANDING that a thousand voices proclaim our mortality, we are all to apt to put aside the contemplation of it. Since we cannot escape from death, we endeavor to shut our eyes to it, although there is no subject whose consideration would be more beneficial to us. Altering one word of the poet’s line, I may say—
“‘Tis greatly wise to talk with our last hours.” To be familiar with the grave is prudence. To prepare for death it is well to commune with death. A thoughtful walk in the cemetery is good for our soul’s health. As Jeremy Taylor well observes, “Since a man stands perpetually at the door of eternity and, as did John the Almoner, every day is building his sepulcher, and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death, it will concern us to take care that the door leading to Hell does not open upon us, that we are not crushed to ruin by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a consignation of us to a sad eternity.” The most of men prefer to cultivate less fruitful fields and turn their thoughts and meditations to subjects trivial for the present—and useless for the future. “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”
Knowing this general aversion to my theme, I shall not treat it in a gloomy and heavy manner, but shall try to allure you to it by the use of pleasant and interesting similitudes. The subject shall supply the solemnity and I hope the metaphor will secure your interest. Forgive me, you spiritual, if I seem too flippant—my words are not for you, but for a class whose souls I trust you love—who cannot, as yet, bear the more serious thoughts of wisdom unless they are clothed in parable and picture.
OUR BODY, OUR PROPERTY, OUR FAMILY, THIS PRESENT LIFE AND ALL ITS SURROUNDINGS ARE, IN THE TEXT, DESCRIBED AS A HOUSE. This simile is not at all unusual either in the Old or the new Testaments. The Apostle Paul tells us that “Moses was faithful in all his house,” that is to say, in his lifelong charge and duty. Our Lord said of the Pharisees that they devoured widow’s houses, meaning their estates. And Paul, referring to his body, said, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We will see what instruction we can find in this most simple but comprehensive comparison.
I. This mortal life and its surroundings are likened to a house and the first point of the similitude will be seen if we enquire, WHO IS THE LANDLORD?
The first answer is that certainly we are not To all men, it may be truthfully said, “You are not your own.” We are tenants, but not freeholders. We are mere tenants at will without a lease. The earthly house of this tabernacle belongs to Him who built it. He who sustains it keeps the title deeds in His own possession. Our house belongs to God. Dear Friend, do you ever think of this? Do you remember, as a matter of fact, that you and yours are God’s property?. He created you and created you for His own Glory. Your soul was spoken into existence by Him. Your bodily powers were all bestowed by His hand. You are the creature of the Almighty! In every vein, sinew and nerve of your body there are traces of the Divine Embroiderer’s skill. You are God’s in all the most secret goings and issues of your life, for you owe the continued possession of your existence every day to Him. Your breath is in your nostrils, but He keeps it there. He has but to will it and the atoms composing your body, which He now keeps apart from their fellows, would return to the bosom of the earth. You are but a walking heap of dust and the cohesion of the various particles is maintained by the hand of Omnipo-
tence. Let the sustaining power of God be withdrawn and your bodily house would fall in the ruin of death and the utterly dissolution of corruption! All that you have around you is in the same predicament, for food and clothes, house and goods, are God’s gifts to you. The strength of hand or the nimbleness of brain that has enabled you to accumulate wealth, or to live in comfort has all come from Him! Day by day you are a commoner at the table of Divine bounty, a pensioner, hour by hour, upon the Infinite Mercy of God. You have nothing and are nothing but as God pleases! You owe all you have and all you are to Him.
It is most useful for each of us to know what are the rights of God towards us. Even if we do not acknowledge them, yet candor demands that at least we hear them defined. Sad is the reflection, however, that when we learn these rights, if we resist them, we become willful robbers and so increase our guilt! If we will not have God to reign over us. If, in our spirits we say, like Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord, that we should obey His voice?” it will go harder with us at the last than if we had never heard the claims of God proclaimed. Men and women, how is it that God has made you and yet so many of you never think of Him? Shall I bring against you the accusation which the Prophet of old brought against his people? “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.” Who among you would retain in your house a tool or a piece of furniture which was of no use or value to you? Who among you would keep so much as an ox or an ass if it rendered you no service? How much less would you nurture it if, instead thereof, it did you harm—if it had a spite against you and lifted up its heels against you?