Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3237
“The Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted.” Isaiah 61:1.
[Two more Sermons by C. H. Spurgeon on the latter part of the text are #1604 and #1605, Volume 27—HEART DISEASE CURABLE and JESUS KNEW WHAT HE WOULD DOg.] As this Sermon is so short, there is included with it an Address given by Mr. Spurgeon at a Prayer Meeting for Sabbath schools, which is just as timely and as much needed, now, as when it was delivered in 1877.]
OUR Lord’s anointing was with a special view to His preaching. Such honor does the Lord of Heaven and Earth put upon the ministry of the Word that, as one of the old Puritans said, “God had only one Son, and He made a Preacher of Him.” It should greatly encourage the weakest among us, who are preachers of righteousness, to think that the Son of God, the blessed and eternal Word, came into this world that He might preach the same glad tidings which we are called to proclaim!
I. We may profitably note, first, HOW EARNESTLY OUR LORD KEPT TO HIS WORD.
It was His business to preach and He did preach. He was always preaching! “What?” you say, “did He not work miracles?” Yes, but His miracles were sermons—they were acted discourses, full of instruction. He preached when He was on the mountain. He equally preached when He sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house. All His actions were significant— He preached by every movement. He preached when He did not speak—His silence was as eloquent as His words! He preached when He gave and He preached when He received. He was preaching a sermon when He lent His feet to the women that she might wash them with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head, quite as much as when He was dividing the loaves and the fishes and feeding the multitude. He preached by His patience before Pilate, for there He witnessed a good confession. He preached from the bloody tree—with hands and feet fastened there, He delivered the most wonderful discourse of Justice and of Love, of Vengeance and of Grace, of Death and of Life that was ever preached in this poor world! Oh, yes, He preached wondrously! He was always preaching—with all His heart and soul He preached! He prayed that He might obtain strength to preach. He wept in secret that He might the more compassionately speak the words which wipe men’s tears away. Always a Preacher, He was always ready, in season and out of season, with a good word. As He walked the streets He preached! As He went along and if He sought retirement, and the people thronged Him, He sent them not away without a gracious word.
This was His one calling and this one calling He pursued in the power of the Eternal Spirit. And He liked it so well, and thought so much of it, that He trained His 11 friends to the same work, and sent them out to preach as He had done. And then He chose 70 more disciples to go on the same errand. Did He shave the head of one of them to make Him a priest? Did He decorate one of them with a gown, or a chasuble, or a biretta? Did He teach one of them to say “mass,” to swing a censer, or to elevate the “host?” Did He instruct one of them to regenerate children by baptism? Did He bring them up to chant in surplices and march in processions? No! Those things He never thought of and neither will we! If He had thought of them, it would only have been with utter contempt, for what is there in such childish things? The preaching of the Cross—this is it which is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us who are saved, it is the wisdom of God and the power of God—for it still pleases God, “by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Nor, at the close of His career had our Lord lowered His estimate of preaching, for just before He ascended, He said, “Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” His last charge in brief was, “Preach, preach even as I have done before you.” He lived the Prince of Preachers, He died and became the Theme of Preachers! He lives again and is the Lord of Preachers. What an honorable work is that to which His servants are called!
II. Secondly, as you have seen that our Savior came to preach, NOW NOTICE HIS SUBJECT—“The Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek.”
And what good tidings did He preach? Pardon. Pardon given to the chief of sinners. Pardon for prodigal sons pressed to their Father’s bosom. Restoration from their lost estate, as the piece of money was restored to the treasury and the lost sheep was brought back to the fold. How encouragingly He preached of a life given to men dead in sin—life through the Living Water which becomes a fountain within the soul! You know how sweetly He would say, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life—He that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” He preached the absolute necessity of a change of heart and the need of a new creation. He said, “You must be born-again” and He taught the Truths of God by which the Holy Spirit works in us and makes all things new.