Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3143
“And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.” Ephesians 6:15.
THE Christian was evidently intended to be in motion, for here are shoes for his feet. His head is provided with a helmet, for he is to be thoughtful. His heart is covered with a breastplate, for he is to be a man of feeling. His whole nature is protected by a shield, for he is called to endurance and caution. And that he is to be active is certain, for a sword is provided for his hand to use and sandals with which his feet are to be shod. To suppose that a Christian is to be motionless as a post and inanimate as a stone, or merely pensive as a weeping willow and passive as a reed shaken by the wind, is altogether a mistake! God works in us and His Grace is the great motive power which secures our salvation, but He does not so work in us as to chloroform us into unconscious submission, or engineer us into mechanical motion—He orchestrates all our activities by working in us “to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Grace imparts healthy life and life rejoices in activity! The Lord never intended His people to be automatons worked by clockwork, or cold and dead statues—He meant them to have life, to have it abundantly—and in the power of that life to be full of energy! It is true He makes us lie down in green pastures, but equally certain is it that He leads us onward beside the still waters! A true Believer is an active person—he has feet and uses them.
Now, he who marches meets with stones, or if as a warrior he dashes into the thick of the conflict he is assailed with weapons and, therefore, he needs to be suitably shod to meet his perils. The active and energetic Christian meets with temptations which do not happen to others. Idle persons can scarcely be said to be in danger—they are a stage beyond that and are already overcome! Satan scarcely needs to tempt them—they rather tempt him and are a fermenting mass in which sin exceedingly multiplies—a decaying body around which the vultures of vice are sure to gather. But earnest laborious Believers are sure to be assailed, even as fruit bearing trees are certain to be visited by the birds. Satan cannot stand a man who earnestly serves God—he does damage to the arch-enemy’s dominions and, therefore, he must be incessantly assailed. The Prince of Darkness will try, if he can, to injure the good man’s character, to break his communion with God, to spoil the simplicity of his faith, to make him proud of what he is doing, or to make him despair of success. In some way or other he will, if possible, bruise the worker’s heel or trip him up, or lame him altogether. Because of all these dangers, Infinite Mercy has provided Gospel shoes for the Believer’s feet—shoes of the best kind—such as only those warriors wear who serve the Lord of Hosts!
We shall at this time first examine the shoes and then try them on.
I. Our first duty is to EXAMINE THE SHOES which are provided for us by our Captain. And in doing so we are delighted to find that they come from a blessed Maker, for the feet of the Believer are to be shod with a Divine preparation. Many preparations and inventions are used for protecting feet, but this is a preparation in which infinite skill has been displayed and the same wisdom put forth as in the Gospel, which is the masterpiece of God! Every portion of the Gospel is from God and all the influence which makes it a Gospel of Peace is His—and we are therefore thankful to find that we are to wear “the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.” It would not be meet that he who is helmeted with Divine Salvation should be shod with a mere human production! Having begun in the Spirit, it would be strange to be made perfect in the flesh. We would not be like the image of the monarch’s dream whose head was of fine gold and whose feet were part of iron and part of clay. We rejoice that all the pieces of armor which compose our panoply come forth from the celestial Armorer whose productions are without a flaw!
We are glad to find that the shoes are made of excellent material, for they are composed of “the preparation of the Gospel of Peace”—and what better material can there be than the Gospel—the Gospel of Peace and that peace which grows out of the Gospel? This is what is meant. We believe in a Gospel which was formed in the purpose of God from all eternity, designed with Infinite Wisdom, worked out at an enormous expense, costing nothing less than the blood of Jesus, brought home by Infinite Power, even by the might of the Holy Spirit! It is a Gospel full of blessings, any one of which would outweigh a world in price—a Gospel as free as it is full, a Gospel everlasting and immutable, a Gospel of which we can never think too much, whose praises we can never exaggerate! It is from this choice Gospel that its choicest essence is taken, namely, its peace. And from this peace those sandals are prepared with which a man may tread on the lion and the adder, yes, and on the fierce burning coals of malice, slander and persecution! What better shoes can our souls require?