Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3281
“The broad wall.” Nehemiah 3:8.
IT seems that around Jerusalem of old, in the time of her splendor, there was a broad wall which was her defense and her glory. Jerusalem is a type of the Church of God. It is always well when we can see clearly, distinctly and plainly that around the Church to which we belong there runs a broad wall.
This idea of a broad wall around the Church suggests three things, separation, security and enjoyment. Let us examine each of these in its turn.
I. First, the SEPARATION of the people of God from the world is like that broad wall surrounding the holy city of Jerusalem.
When a man becomes a Christian, he is still in the world, but he is no longer to be of it. He was an heir of wrath, but he has now become a child of Grace. Being of a distinct nature, he is required to separate himself from the rest of mankind, as the Lord Jesus Christ did, who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” The Lord’s Church was separated in His eternal purpose. It was separated in His Covenant and decree. It was separated in the Atonement, for even there we find that our Lord is called “the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe.” An actual separation is made by Divine Grace, is carried on in the work of sanctification and will be completed in that day when the heavens shall be on fire and the saints shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air—and in that last tremendous day He shall divide the nations as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats! And then there shall be a great gulf fixed, across which the ungodly cannot go to the righteous, neither shall the righteous approach the wicked.
Practically, my business is to say to those of you who profess to be the Lord’s people, take care that you maintain a broad wall of separation between yourselves and the world. I do not say that you are to adopt any peculiarity of dress, or to take up some singular style of speech. Such affectation genders, sooner or later, hypocrisy. A man may be as thoroughly worldly in one coat as in another—he may be quite as vain and conceited with one style of speech as with another. No, he may be even more of the world when he pretends to be separate than if he had left the pretense of separation alone. The separation which we plead for is moral and spiritual. Its foundation is laid deep in the heart and its substantial reality is very palpable in the life.
Every Christian, it seems to me, should be more scrupulous than other men in his dealings. He must never swerve from the path of integrity. He should never say, “It is the custom—it is perfectly understood in the trade.” Let the Christian remember that custom cannot sanction wrong and that its being “understood” is no apology for misrepresentation! A lie “understood” is not, therefore, true. While the Golden Rule is more admired than practiced by ordinary men, the Christian should always do unto others as he would that they should do unto him. He should be one whose word is his bond and who, having once pledged his word, swears to his own hurt, but changes not. There ought to be an essential difference between the Christian and the best moralist, by reason of the higher standard which the Gospel inculcates and the Savior has exemplified. Certainly the highest point to which the best unconverted man can go might well be looked upon as a level below which the converted man will never venture to descend!
Moreover, the Christian should especially be distinguished by his pleasures, for it is here, usually, that the man comes out in his true colors. We are not quite ourselves, perhaps, in our daily toil, where our pursuits are rather dictated by necessity than by choice. We are not alone—the society we are thrown into imposes restraints upon us. We have to put the bit and the bridle upon ourselves. The true man does not then show himself—but when the day’s work is done, then
the “birds of a feather flock together.” It is with the multitude of traders and commercial men as it was with those saints of old, of whom, when they were liberated from prison, it was said, “Being let go, they went unto their own company.” So will your pleasures and pastimes give evidence of what your heart is and where it is. If you can find pleasure in sin, then in sin you choose to live and, unless Grace prevents, in sin you will not fail to perish! But if your pleasures are of a nobler kind and your companions of a more devout character. If you seek spiritual enjoyments. If you find your happiest moments in worship, in communion, in silent prayer, or in the public assembling of yourselves with the people of God, then your higher instincts become proof of your purer character and you will be distinguished in your pleasures by a broad wall which effectually separates you from the world!
Such separation should be carried, I think, into everything which affects the Christian. “What have they seen in your house?” was the question Isaiah asked of Hezekiah. When a stranger comes into our house, it should be so ordered that he can clearly perceive that the Lord is there! A man ought scarcely to tarry a night beneath our roof without gathering that we have a respect unto Him who is invisible and that we desire to live and move in the light of God’s Countenance. I have already said that I would not have you cultivate singularities for singularity’s sake, yet as the most of men are satisfied if they do as other people do, you must never be satisfied until you do more and better than other people, having found out a mode and course of life as far transcending the ordinary worldling’s life as the path of the eagle in the air is above that of the mole which burrows under the soil!