Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3086
“O sing unto the LORD a new song, for He hats done marvelous things: His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory. The LORD has made known His salvation: His righteousness has He openly showed in the sight of the heathen.” Psalm 98:1,2.
THE invitations of the Gospel are invitations to happiness. In delivering God’s message, we do not ask men to come to a funeral, but to a wedding feast! If our errand were one of sorrow, we might not marvel if men refused to listen to us. But it is one of gladness, not sadness—in fact, you might condense the Gospel message into this joyous invitation—“O come and learn how to sing unto the Lord a new song! Come and find peace, rest, joy and all else that your souls can desire. Come and eat that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” When the coming of Christ to the earth was first announced, it was not with sad sonorous sounds of devil spirits driven from the nethermost Hell, but with the choral symphonies of holy angels who joyfully sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!” And as long as the Gospel shall be preached in this world, its main message will be one ofjoy. The Gospel is a source ofjoy to those who proclaim it, for unto us who are less than the least of all saints, is this Grace given—that we should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ! [Mr. Spurgeon enlarged upon this theme in two Sermons on Ephesians
3:8. [See Sermons #745, Volume 13—THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST and #1209, Volume 20—A GRATEFUL SUMMARY OF TWENTY VOLUMES] The Gospel is also a source of joy to all who hear it aright and
accept it, for its very name means “glad tidings of good things.” I feel that if I am not able to preach to you as I would, yet am I thrice happy in being permitted to preach at all. And if the style and manner of my address may not be such as I desire them to be, nor such as you will commend, yet it will matter but little, for the simplest telling out of the Gospel is of itself a most delightful thing! And if our hearts were in a right condition, we would not merely be glad to hear of Jesus over and over again, but the story of the love of our Incarnate God and of the redemption worked by Immanuel would be the sweetest music that our ears ever heard!
In the hope that our hearts may thus rejoice, I am going to talk of many things under two heads. The first is, the marvelous things which God has done in the Person of His Son and, secondly, some marvelous things in reference to ourselves which are almost as marvelous as those that God has done.
I. First, I am to call your attention to THE MARVELOUS THINGS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT. If you read it carefully, you will notice that first, there are some marvelous things that are marvelous in themselves. Secondly, some that were marvelous in the way in which they were done—“His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory.” And then, thirdly, some that were marvelous as to the way in which they were made known—“The Lord has made known His salvation: His righteousness has He openly showed in the sight of the heathen.”
First, then, we will consider the things that are marvelous in themselves. “He has done marvelous things: His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory.” You know the story. We were enslaved by sin—we were in such bondage that we were liable to be forever in chains. But our great Champion undertook our cause and entered the lists, pledged to fight for us till the end—and He has done it. It would have been a cause of great joy if I could have come here and said to you, “The Lord Jesus Christ has undertaken to fight our battles for us,” but I have something much better than that to say! He has fought the fight and “His holy arm has gotten Him the victory.” It must have required more faith to believe in the Christ who was to come than to believe in the Christ who has come. It must have required no little
faith to believe in Christ as victorious while He was in the midst of the struggle. For instance, when the bloody sweat was falling amidst the olive trees, or when He was hanging upon the Cross and moaning out that awful cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” But the great crisis is past! No longer does the issue of the conflict tremble in the balance—Christ has forever accomplished His warfare and our foes are all beneath His feet—
“Love’s redeeming work is done— Fought the fight, the battle won!” What foes has Christ overcome? Our main foe, our sin, both as to the guilt of it and as to the power of it. As to the guilt of it, there was a Law which we had broken and which must be satisfied. Christ has kept the positive precepts of that Law in His own perfect life and He has vindicated the honor of that Law by His sacrificial death upon the Cross. The Law, therefore, being satisfied, the strength of sin is gone and now, O Believers, the sins which you saw in the day of your conviction you shall see no more forever! As Moses triumphantly sang of the enemies of the chosen people, “the depths have covered them,” so can you say of your sins, “There is not one of them left.” Even in God’s great Book of Remembrance there is no record of sin against any Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. “By Him all that believe are justified from all things.” Try to realize this, Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Let the great army of your sins pass before you in review—each one like a son of Anak, armed to the teeth for your destruction. They have gone down into the depths and the Red Sea of Christ’s blood has drowned them! And so He has gained a complete victory over all the guilt of sin! And as for the power of sin within us—alas, we often groan concerning it, but let us groan no longer—or if we do, let us also sing!