Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3046
“But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart.” Matthew 14:16.
OF course the Master was right, but He appeared to speak unreasonably. It seemed self-evident that the people very much needed to depart. They had been all day long hearing the Preacher. The most of them had not broken their fast and they were ready to faint for hunger. The only chance of their being fed was to let them break up into small parties and forage for themselves among the surrounding villages. But our Lord declared that there was no necessity for them to go away from Him, even though they were hungry, famished and in a desert place. Now, if there was no necessity for hungry hearers to go away, much less will it ever be necessary for loving disciples to depart from Him! If these, who were hearers only—and the bulk of them were nothing more, a congregation collected by curiosity and held together by the charm of His eloquence and by the renown of His miracles—if these needed not to depart, much less need they depart who are His own friends and companions, His chosen and beloved. If the crowds needed not through hunger to depart bodily, much less need any of the saints depart spiritually from their Lord. There is no necessity that our communion with Christ should ever be suspended—
” To walk with Christ from morn till eve, In Him to breathe, in Him to live—
is no mere wish, no visionary’s prayer—it may be realized—we need not depart from Jesus! There is no need that the spouse of Christ should wander from beneath the banner of His love. Mary may always sit at Jesus’ feet. There is no Law which says to holy fellowship, “To here shall you come, but no further. Here shall your communion cease!” There is no set hour when the gate of communion with Christ must inevitably be closed. We may continue to come up from the wilderness, leaning upon the Beloved. We “need not depart.” Yet is it so commonly thought to be a matter of course that we should wander from our Lord that I shall ask for strength from Heaven to combat the injurious opinion.
I. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, THERE IS NO PRESENT NECESSITY FOR YOUR DEPARTING FROM CHRIST. At this moment we may truthfully say of all the saints of God, “They need not depart.”
There is nothing in your circumstances which compels you to cease from following hard after your Lord. You are very poor, you say. But you need not depart from Christ because of penury, for, in the depths of distress the saints have enjoyed the richest Presence of their once houseless Lord. Your poverty may be pinching you at this very moment—to be relieved from that pinch you need not break away from Jesus, for fellowship with Him may be maintained under the direst extremity of need. Indeed, your need increases your necessity to walk closely with your Lord so that patience may have its perfect work and your soul may be sustained by the mighty consolations which flow out of nearness to Jesus. Need shall not separate the soul from communion with Him who hungered in the wilderness and thirsted on the Cross! You tell me that in order to relieve your necessities, you are compelled to exercise great care and anxiety. But all the cares which are useful and allowable are such as will allow of a continuance of fellowship with Christ! You may care as much as you ought to care—and I need not say how little that is—and yet you need not depart from Him who cares for you. But you tell me that in addition to deep thought, you have to expend much labor in order to provide things honest in the sight of all men. Yes, but you need not depart from Christ for that reason! The carpenter’s Son is not ashamed of the sons of toil—He who wore the garment without seam does not despise the peasant’s smock or the servant’s apron. Labor is no enemy to communion—idleness is a far more likely separator of the soul from Christ. Not to the idlers in Herod’s court did Jesus reveal Himself, but to hard-working fishermen by the lake of Galilee. If Satan is never far away from the idle, it
is pretty plain that it is no disadvantage to be busy! A toil amounting to slavery may weaken the body and prostrate the spirit, but even when heart and flesh fail, the heart may call the Lord its portion. There is no service beneath the sun so arduous that you need depart from Christ in it! But rather, while the limbs are weary, the spirit should find its rest in drawing nearer to Him who can strengthen the weak and give rest to the laboring and heavy-laden. Do you tell me that you are rich? Ah, indeed, how often has this made men depart from Christ!—
“Gold and the Gospel seldom do agree— Religion always sides with poverty.” So said John Bunyan and his saying is true. Too often the glitter of wealth has dazzled men’s eyes so that they could not see the beauty of Christ Jesus. But O, you few wealthy saints, you need not depart! The camel can go through the needle’s eye for, “with God, all things are possible.” Men have worn coronets on earth and inherited crowns in Heaven! He who was the man after God’s own heart swayed a scepter. To grow rich in substance does not make it inevitable that you should become poor in Divine Grace. Do riches bring you many responsibilities and burdens—and are you so much occupied with them that your fellowship with the Lord grows slack? It should not be so. You need not depart from Him. You can bring those responsibilities and the wealth to Jesus and communion with Him will prevent the gold from cankering and the responsibility from involving you in sin. Very often the servant of God who ministers to the Church of Christ finds so much to do in watching over the souls of others—and in caring for the various needs of the flock—that he is in danger of losing his own personal enjoyment of his Lord’s Presence. But it need not be so. We can make all our many works subservient to our personal communion with our Lord and, as the bee flies to many flowers and gathers honey from each one, so may we, out of many forms of service, extract a sweet conformity to Him who was always about His Father’s business. We need not be “cumbered” either with much serving or with much suffering. Our surroundings are not to be our sovereigns, but our subjects. We are, in all these things, to be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”