Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3051
“Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” Isaiah 60:8.
THE chapter from which our text is taken predicts very glorious times for the true Church of God. The promises recorded in this chapter were, in a measure, fulfilled when Jews and Gentiles were gathered into the fold of Christ in great numbers in the days of the Apostles. But God’s promises are not like man’s. When a man has kept his promise once, it does not stand good any longer—but God’s promises may be fulfilled a hundred times over and yet remain just as valid as when He first gave them. So what God did for His Church at Pentecost, He is prepared to do today—and He will do it on a yet larger scale in those happy times that are yet to come—the latter days for which we look and long with joyful expectation!
I do not intend, however, to explain the text in its strict connection, but shall try to turn it to profitable account with regard to ourselves. You will notice that the question indicates a measure of surprise and that surprise reveals some dark fear which must have been lurking in the background. The Church sees an innumerable company of converts coming to join her ranks and she cries out in amazement, “Who are these that fly as a cloud?” She could not, therefore, have been expecting them. Her faith must have been weak and, in consequence, a great gloom had settled upon her mind. And a similar kind of gloom comes over our minds when our faith is weak and our expectations are slender. I think that all of us who love the work of God and who especially love that work in connection with our own branch of Christ’s Church are apt, at times, to feel a deep anxiety of soul and to fear lest God should forsake His work among us because of our sins. God may leave a Church that He has formerly greatly honored if it grows lukewarm, as did the Church at Laodicea, or has left its first love, as did the Church at Ephesus. There will always be a Church of God in the world, but there may not always be a Church in any particular place. There will always be a people whom He has chosen to show forth His praise and to proclaim His Gospel—but they may not be found in this place, or in any other where the Lord has been known to meet with them.
The idolatrous church of Rome calls itself the only true church, outside which none can find salvation, but although the church in Rome was once a bright and glorious church, God forsook it and for many a day it has been the very center of apostasy and abomination! It is like Shiloh where the Ark abode for a time, but concerning which God said, “Go you now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel.” And it may be so with any professed Church of Christ today—and my fear often is lest, in any measure, it may be so with us. Have we not, even in this Church, sins enough to provoke the Lord to leave us? Have we not, at any rate, sufficient sins of omission in our lack of earnestness, our lack of prayerfulness and our lack of Christ-likeness, to cause Him to say, as He is reported to have been heard to say during the siege of Jerusalem, “Arise, let Us go from here”? Then would “Ichabod” be written on these walls and we might make this building like the Jews’ place of wailing, for if the Lord should forsake us, we might well say, “The glory is departed. The Church has lost her strength, her honor and, indeed, her very life!” We fear, then, lest the Lord should leave us. But, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you turn your fears into prayersthere may be no longer any need for your fears!
My other fear has been lest converts should not continue to come into this Church and that appears to also have been the fear of the Church in Isaiah’s day, or else she would not have been so surprised to see them come. I watch, each month, and each week, with prayerful anxiety and ask—Will there be more Believers putting on Christ in Baptism? Will there be
more sinners crying out, “What must we do to be saved?” Will there be more of our hearers boldly but truthfully declaring—
“We are on the Lord’s side. We will serve the King!”?
I would rather suffer any personal affliction or calamity than that God’s work of Grace should be stopped among us. It is a terrible thing when a professing Church continues to exist, in a fashion, yet is unfruitful—a vine whereon hang no ripe clusters—a field that yields no harvest. There may be some ministers who can be content when their churches do not grow, but I am thankful to say that I am not one of them! My heart is troubled, and I trust, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that your heart is also troubled unless converts continue to come to us “as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows.”
There is another fear that often passes across my mind like a dark threatening cloud—and that is lest some of those already brought into the Church should grow cold and others should apostatize altogether because they never had “the root of the matter” in them—and lest the rest should stand still in mere dead formality and not live in the Light of God. We need to have churches and church members that are full of life! And if there really is true spiritual life within us, we need to “have it more abundantly.” Cold or lukewarm religiousness is to be found on all sides, but where can we find such holy fervor as blazed in England in the days of Whitefield and Wesley? Even on the old Methodist altar, it burns but very feebly. Oh, that everywhere it could be fanned into a vehement flame! We have some of this fervor here, but we pray that it may come with still greater force. Some of you, dear Friends, have had it and have been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts—are you growing cold? If so, may the Master revive you! Are you curtailing your efforts? Are you shortening your prayers? Are your offerings less generous than they used to be? Is your consecration to Christ less complete than it once was? Oh, for a great revival to begin with us at home—for if the Lord is not with us, warming our hearts, fanning our zeal and inflaming our love—we cannot expect that our efforts on behalf of others will be attended by any great measure of success! Paul truly wrote to Timothy, “The husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits.” The water must gush up at the fountainhead otherwise it cannot flow down the hills to make fertile the meadows and make glad the vales. May God grant that inasmuch as these fears of ours have good reason for existing, we may not put them away, but may turn them into earnest prayers such as these—“O Lord, do not forsake us! O Lord, do not leave us without continual additions to our membership! O Lord, do not let us, as a Church, be without many true conversions! O Lord, do not allow Your people to grow cold—to become dead—but ‘visit us with Your salvation!’”