Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3320
“And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.” 1 Kings 14:13.
WE must take the text, of course, with definite and full reference to its historical context. It seems that in the wicked house and family of Jeroboam, there was one godly child—and death, which very often mysteriously cuts down the green wheat, while it leaves the hemlock to ripen—seized upon this one and laid him low. Yet though he must die, there was this consolatory thought about his death, that it was the only one of the family that would ever have an honored burial, for all the others were to be slain by a death so sudden and violent that they were to be eaten by the fowls of the air or devoured by the dogs! This child was to be the only one who should have a funeral attended by mourners because he was the only child of the whole family in whose heart there was “found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel.”
We shall make several remarks upon this text, perhaps too numerous to call them divisions as a discourse, but they will be illustrations drawn from the narrative before us. The first remark we shall make is this—
I. God’s Electing Love Sometimes Has the Objects of Its Choice in Strange Places
Of all the houses of Israel, the palace of Tirzah was, surely, the last place one would think in which to look for a worshiper of the true God! The father of the family was a great sinner. He had set up gods of gold and said, “These are your gods, O Israel.” Though much distinguished by God’s Providential goodness and lifted up from the rank of an officer to that of a monarch, he forgot the God in whose sunshine he had flourished and must make the men of Israel bow down before an ox that eats grass! There could be in his palace no toleration for anything like true religion. There must have been a total neglect of all the hallowed engagements of the Sabbath and of everything else that looked like reverence to the unseen, but almighty God of Israel! And yet God’s Sovereign, electing Love was bestowed upon a child of this wicked and rebellious Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin! God’s everlasting mercy had designed that there should be a break in the line of sin and that there should be at least one who should be found among the choristers of Glory who had been nursed and nurtured among the degraded worship of calves!
What was the case in Jeroboam’s family is often seen in many others. Remember how Paul seems to dwell upon it? “Chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household.” Of all the human animals that ever disgraced the race, the Caesars, as a whole, were the worst. I suppose that three out of four of them ought to have been kept in the worst ward of a lunatic asylum, and yet they were lifted up to preside over the vast Roman empire! Their lives were not only tainted with iniquity, but they reeked with every form of infamy. And yet, in households of such wretches as Tiberius and Nero, there were found true and eminent saints of God! Grace sometime finds its choicest jewels on the worst of refuse heaps. Sometimes it is impossible to account for it, as it is in this case. How should the child know anything about God? Was it, do you think, through his nurse? It certainly was not through his mother, but might it not have been through his nurse? Does not God sometimes send to little children in godless families good governesses? If some of you are in such positions, may you not, instead of running out of the house because it is too godless, hope that God has sent you there to be an instrument of good to some tender little heart, to pluck right out of the fire some brand, to take right away from between the lion’s jaws some precious blood-bought lamb for whom the Savior died? It might have been so here. I cannot see how else this child could have known about the God of Israel, but this is certain—electing love had one of its objects in this strange household and it knew how to find that one out! I know there are some of you who belong to very strange families, where
the name of God is scarcely ever mentioned, except in profanity, where Christ is not loved and where His Cross is not reverenced, and yet you are saved. Perhaps it was curiosity that brought you here to hear that odd man who says such strange things against the world’s popish church—or for some other reason you dropped in here and God blessed you. Or else you took up some stray book, or you happened to light on a torn-out leaf of the Bible and there, Sovereign Grace met with you. Oh, how should we praise electing love and lift up heart and soul and voice to say—
“It was not that I chose Thee,
For, Lord, it could not be!
This heart would still refuse Thee
But you have chosen me.” Give the Glory, all the Glory, to the Sovereign, distinguishing, discriminating Grace of God!
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there seems much comfort in this little incident to the Christian minister and to all Believers. You think, sometimes, that the Church is getting to a low ebb and that there is a lack of bold, brave men. But we do not know where God may yet find such men. Years ago we said, and you believed, that God would find some of the best preachers of the Gospel among the very humblest classes of society—and did not that come true? Have there not been found some men with whose names the ears of England have been made to tingle, who were taken from the coalpit and other similar places to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, He can do the same again and what will be stranger, still—it may be that before many years or even months are over, He will find courtiers and men of noble blood and rank, after the world’s way of talking, who will be down, or rather up to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus! My Brothers and Sisters, we need never despair! The mighty arm of God can get into courts and houses of lords and reach the mightiest, the proudest, the most priest-ridden of men and lay them down at the foot of the Cross, saying, “I intended from before the foundation of the world to make you a vessel of mercy to bear My name to the Gentiles, and you shall do it—arise and go your way.” Never despair for the Church! Out of the house of Jeroboam, God will bring His Ahijahs, and out of the worst and most unpromising of places, where God is most forgotten, and His Truth least known and despised, the Lord will bring testifiers to the Truth of God as it is in Jesus! Have hope, then! Have hope in God and look up and expect His blessing!
We shall now turn to a second remark, namely, that according to the text—