Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3194
“Hearken to Me, you that follow after righteousness, you that seek the LORD: look unto the rock where you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit where you were dug.” Isaiah 51:1.
[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text, is #1050, Volume 18—A BRIGHT LIGHT IN DEEP SHADES.]
THESE words were addressed to those who were already the people of God. No others could be thus exhorted to look unto the rock where they were hewn, since they have never been hewn from it. Nor to the hole of the pit where they were dug, for they still are in the hole of the pit. They are lost and ruined and they still remain in that condition. But the people of God have been broken off that rock by a blow from the Divine hammer. They have been brought up from the horrible pit by the might of the Divine arm and their feet are now firmly fixed upon the Rock of Ages!
The people of God are here described as those “that follow after righteousness.” That is the direction in which their life generally flows. They are not perfect, but they want to be. They do not love that which is unrighteous, but they desire to be right in all things both before God and before men. They are also said to be those “that seek the Lord,” that is to say, they are those who could not live without seeking the Lord in prayer, or in public or private worship. Their great objective in life is to glorify God, to make Him famous among the sons of men—and they desire to devote all their time, talents and powers of every kind to His service and honor!
It is to such privileged people as these that the message of our text is addressed! And surely they will give good heed to it. Yet the form in which the message is put implies that there is need for a special call to attention. Lest those who are addressed should fail to attend as earnestly as they ought, the command, “Hearken to me,” puts the message before them in urgent and impressive tones. Come then, Beloved, and listen to it and let your inmost souls hear what the text has to say to you—“Look unto the rock where you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit where you were dug.”
So, first, let us look where we are told to look. And secondly, let us learn the lessons which that look is intended to teach us.
I. First, then, LET US LOOK WHERE WE ARE TOLD TO LOOK—“unto the rock where you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit where you were dug.”
Look back then, first of all, to your nature’s origin in the Garden of Eden. Look at that man and woman perfect in beauty, without blemish from head to foot, and altogether spotless in mind and heart as they came fresh from their Creator’s hands! They are placed in a garden which is as perfect as they are. All that is fragrant to the smell, gratifying to the taste and lovely to the eyes, they have in the greatest profusion. The man’s easy task was to dress and keep the garden which would have spontaneously yielded all that he and his required. And the tenure upon which he might have held that fair estate for himself and his heirs forever was very simple and clear—“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” To eat of that tree would show that man had revolted from his allegiance to his Sovereign, that he had ceased to depend upon the God who had created him and set up on his own account. And it would be, in fact, a declaration of war by finite man against the Infinite Jehovah! Alas for us that our first parents were not immune from temptation! Mother Eve, deceived by the serpent, took of the forbidden fruit and ate of it and gave some to her husband, and he also
ate of it—and then their eyes were opened and they perceived that they were naked to their shame before God—and they hid themselves when they heard His voice in the garden in the cool of the day.
Poor Adam, he was our Covenant head and there could not have been a Covenant that would have been more easy to keep—only leave the fruit of that one tree alone—and you and all your descendants shall enjoy perpetual happiness! Only be obedient to the God who made you, and you shall bring upon yourself and all your posterity continual holiness and joy! It is foolish for anyone to complain because Adam was made our representative, for had we all been present to chose the man who would stand as our federal head, we would certainly have selected Adam, for there has never been another man so well qualified as he was for such a responsible position. Yet, perfect man as he was, he fell—and terrible was the result of that fall both for himself and for all his posterity! Out of the garden he must go for he was no longer fit to remain in such a paradise as Eden was—and he must go where he would learn, by painful experience, the effects of his sin—where the earth would bring forth thorns and thistles and its scanty harvests (compared with the abundance of Eden) would only be gained by long and toilsome labor. This was a necessary discipline of love which was enforced by the very mercy of God, since Adam’s nature was no longer what it had been before. He began by doubting the truth of God’s word and then he went further and imagined that he might do as he pleased, and be his own god—that he might disobey God and yet be a gainer, for he believed the lie of the serpent—“You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”