Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3323
“Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of BBether.” Solomon’s Song 2:17.
WITHOUT a sentence of introduction, I invite you, Beloved, to see herein,
I. A BLESSED SEASON HERE ANTICIPATED!—A time when the day shall break and the shadows shall flee away.
It is not every man who can count upon such a time as that, for to some there is no prospect of the day breaking. They are now in the shade and that shade will grow darker and darker with them till, in the hour of death, their sun will go down forever in a tenfold night—a night not gladdened by a solitary star—a night that shall never have an ending—a night of glooms more terrible than imagination itself could picture! I fear there are some in this place for whom we might utter such forebodings! The world is dark enough to them, now, but they have no hope of the Lord as though it would be brightness to them. Conscience tells them—and if conscience is not enlightened enough to do so—the Word of God tells them that the day of the Lord shall be darkness and not light to them. But, to every soul in this house that believes in Jesus, there is the delightful anticipation of the hour spoken of in the text—when the day shall break and the shadows shall flee away!
Let us take each expression and muse on it. ” Until the day breaks.” In a certain sense the Christian is now in the light, for he is a child of light and he walks in the light. And he may walk in the light as God is in the light, and so have fellowship with the Father and feel that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses him from all sin. But Paul, in some pages, calls this present estate darkness. “For,” he says, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand,” meaning thereby this present state of life to the Believer, which is far spent, and the daylight, the glorious daylight of eternity, is near at hand!
“The daybreak.” Why, this represents to the most of us, probably, the moment of death. To as many as shall be alive and remain at the coming of the Lord, it represents the coming of the Lord and the Glory of His people. “The daybreak!” It is the hour of joy. During the night the earth seems sad. She has covered herself with sackcloth, her eyes are full of the drops of the night. There is silence over the plains. The woods send not forth their grateful music. There is only heard the hooting of the owl, with, perhaps, now and then a stray note from the nightingale as though she remembered the day. Night is the time of the world’s gloom, but daybreak is the time of her festival! Then is her splendor abroad. Then—
“Morn, her rosy step in the eastern clime Advancing, sows the earth with orient pearl.” Ten thousand winged songsters of the grove waking up from their slumber begin to pour forth incessant streams of music! Every creature, beholding the light of the sun, wakes itself up and is full ofjoy! Such will the daybreak be to us. This is not our time of fullest joy. We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. We have trials without. We have conflicts within. The daybreak is coming when we who are not of the night, nor of darkness, though compelled to pass through it, shall emerge into our proper element—the Light of God—and our spirits shall bathe themselves in all that they can desire, being satisfied with favor and full of the blessing of the Lord! “I shall be satisfied,” says David, “when I awake in Your likeness.” We are looking for a time of ineffable delight! All the attempts that have ever been made to describe the joy and glory of Heaven have necessarily been failures—and if we were to attempt again, we should fall far below that which God has revealed to us by His Spirit—for eye has not seen, nor ear heard that which He has prepared for them that love Him! Thank God, our joy is coming nearer every time the tick of the clock is heard. Behold, on flying
wings it comes! Every day of winter’s sorrow or of summer’s joy brings it nearer. We said last Sunday evening, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed,” and we often sing—
“We nightly pitch our moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.”
This is one of the choicest consolations of the present—that we are getting nearer to the daybreak!
“The daybreak!” It is a summons to activity. The creatures waking up prepare themselves for their day’s work. All Nature is astir. She was lethargic before, as it were, frostbitten under the raven wing of night, but now that the bright beams of the sun have brought the light, they have also brought restoration to vitality! Now the workman girds up his loins and goes forth to his labor. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, those of us who are helped to do most for God on earth are not satisfied with what we can do. This seems to be a world of trying rather than of accomplishing. We are straining to be able to serve God. I feel myself constantly, if I can imagine such an experience, like the chick within the shell— chipping it, wanting to get out of it, doing all it can—no, not do all it can—but doing something and desiring to do more, feeling its circle to be circumscribed and itself to be cribbed, cabined and confined! But what a glorious thing it will be when the young eaglets hatch themselves, leave the nest and try their wings! Such is the happiness we are looking forward to at the daybreak—that we shall serve God day and night in His Temple without any weariness—that we shall serve Him without any sin! That we shall adore Him without any wandering thoughts! That we shall be dedicated to Him without anything that can stir the jealousy of His holy mind! We shall then move forward in the path of duty with as straight a persistency and as Divine a perseverance as the thunderbolt when it is launched from the hand of the Almighty! We shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left. We shall be swift as seraphs and strong as cherubs in the course of service—and that service shall be to us the Heaven of our delight! Oh, we may well long for the daybreak, because it will help His servants to serve Him!