Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3274
“Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He saves them out of their distresses. He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing” Psalm 107:17-22.
WHEN a person is very ill, one of the greatest kindnesses that you can show to him is to tell him how you felt under a similar affliction, to what physician you resorted, what remedies he prescribed, through what processes you passed, what were the symptoms connected with your recovery and how long you have been able to rejoice over the cure which has been worked in you. This kind of practical, experimental talk will be far more valuable to him than any doctor’s opinions that you may read to him out of a book of medicine. Tell the sufferer what your experience has been and you will generally find that he will attach more importance to that than to any theory which you may propound to him, however well you may support that theory by argument!
I propose, this evening, as God shall enable me, to give you some of my experience. Indeed, I think that what I shall have to say will describe the experience of most of those who have been led to understand their state as spiritually sick, and who have been guided to the Great Physician and have found out how He works a complete and permanent cure. I have no doubt that this Psalm refers to actual bodily sickness and that it teaches us that we ought to praise the Lord very heartily whenever we are restored from any illness. It is no small mercy to have life preserved and health restored, especially if the end of life would be to us the beginning of eternal death and that our soul, when separated from the body, would have no “better land” to enter, and no right to a place in the home of the blessed where sickness is unknown! But while I think that the Psalm refers to bodily sickness, I am fully persuaded that it also applies to spiritual sickness and that we shall act in accordance with the mind of the Spirit if we consider the text as first, describing the spiritually sick Then, as showing the means by which they are cured. And lastly, as revealing what they do after they are cured.
I. So, first, we have in the text A DESCRIPTION OF THOSE WHO ARE SPIRITUALLY SICK.
First, we are told their name. It is not a complimentary one—“Fools.” But it is a name which they richly deserve! At least I know that I deserved it when I was in their case. God never calls a man a fool unless he is one. Why, then, are unconverted sinners rightly called fools?
They are fools because they prefer the shadow to the substance. They are as foolish as the dog in the old fable who dropped the solid meat that he had in his mouth and tried to seize the shadow of it that he saw reflected in the water. And men are indeed fools when they prefer the shadows of time to the substances of eternity!
They are fools, next, many of them, because they say that this world grew up by chance. “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” He said that because he was a fool—if he had not been a fool, he would neither have thought it nor said it. If I were to assert that this Tabernacle grew up by chance, without either architect or builder, I would be a liar as well as a fool! But I should have just as much reason to say that as to declare that the universe came into existence without the fiat of the great Creator. Men who deny the plain teaching of Scripture upon this point are indeed fools!
They are fools, too, because they make a mockery of sin. If men cut their fingers by playing with edged tools. If they put red-hot coals into their bosom, or fling firebrands about and say that they do it for fun, truly they are fools! But they are not such mad fools as those who play with sin and so ruin their souls forever, or who put into their lives sins that are like hot coals of juniper—and then laugh as though they had done a wise thing. They are indeed fools who prefer the pleasures of sin to the joys of eternity, for such pleasures will soon end—and then everlasting misery will be their portion. If you want to know how foolish they really are, you must view their folly in the light of eternity. Look down upon them from the heights of the Heaven which they appear so willing to lose, or try to imagine the depths and woes of the Hell which they seem determined to inherit, and you will straightway discover what fools they are! They think nothing of their never-dying souls, but Christ thought so much of immortal beings that He left Heaven with all its glories and endured suffering and shame of the most fearful character that He might deliver souls from going down into the Pit of woe forever!