Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3327
“For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself lest you be weary and faint in your minds.” Hebrews 12:3.
IF we regard the Christian as a racer contending for the great race, we see that he is subject to several dangers. He may give up the race and turn back unless everlasting mercy shall prevent so dreadful a calamity. He may leap out of the track and leave for a time the only path that leads to victory and reward. Or he may be so clogged and hampered with weights that though he may run, he may run altogether in vain. Or he may be tripped up and fall—and so others may pass him and take the prize of his high calling. But even if he shall fully have avoided all those dangers, if he shall keep to the course, if he shall be kept upon his feet, and if his racing should be of the best kind, yet there is still the possibility— for the best Christian is still flesh and blood—that he may faint.
A man when running for a prize exerts every nerve and sinew and muscle. He throws his whole being into the effort. If he may not pass his rival by several lengths, he will at least seek to pass him by a neck and to this end he strains and strives even to the point of agony, if by any means he may attain unto the first place and so win the reward. Now, while the body is in such a state of tension as that, it is possible that it may suddenly give way—that the overworked frame may not be able to endure the toil and stress, and the man, with the best of intentions, may yet lack the power to carry them out. He may grow weary and though just now he almost grasped the prize in the fond anticipation of hope, he may fall dead upon the ground like a stone through faintness. The Apostle knew this, for I do not doubt that even he, in his great fight with afflictions, when he had fought with beasts at Ephesus and when he had passed through trials of every shape and form, even he sometimes felt as if he might faint and might, after all, be unsuccessful. Hence it is that instead of merely exhorting us not to faint and bidding us not be weary, he does what is far better and more helpful—he supplies us with a double restorative whereby our strength may be recruited. Just as Antaeus is said to have revered his strength when he touched mother earth and, therefore, he could not be killed until Hercules held him in the air and strangled him there, so is the Christian strengthened by the act which the Apostle Paul here speaks of—by touching Christ, by looking again to Jesus, by considering Him—and the only possibility for the destruction of the Christian would be so to separate him from Christ that he would not be able to derive any strength from considering the great Apostle and High Priest of his profession! The Apostle does as good as say to us, “You are very likely to faint in your minds, and to grow weary in your spirit, so if you would prevent this, I recommend you to consider the Lord Jesus Christ, to think much of Him, to have Him constantly before your mind’s eye.” And he is very precise about this, for he not only bids us consider Christ, but he exhorts us to consider Him under a very special aspect, that is, as a Sufferer, and from one particular form of trial, namely, “suffering the contradiction of sinners against Himself.”
It seem to me as if the Apostle felt that one of the most likely things to make Christians faint would be the contradiction which they meet with from sinners. The persecution, the slander, ill-usage, bad return and recompense which they get from an ungodly world—all this would be likely to make them weary at heart in well-doing.
So he bids them look away to the Savior, bravely enduring the same trials. “Consider Him,” he says, “who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds.”
I am not able to speak to you this evening as I would gladly speak. I scarcely feel in the condition either of body or of mind suitable to the study and proclamation of so gracious a topic as the one before us, but in my weakness I desire also
to consider Him who was wearied and sat upon the well. And in speaking to you, I would ask His help that my weakness may not rob you of the blessing.
I shall introduce the theme to your attention in this way—first, let us consider the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured. Secondly, let us for a minute or two consider His endurance of it And then, thirdly, coming to the fullness of the text, let us consider Him who endured such contradiction. The particular form of trial of which we are invited to think is— I. THE CONTRADICTION OF UNGODLY MEN WHICH THE SAVIOR ENDURED.
Even early in His ministry He had to endure this. At the very first sermon which He preached in the synagogue of His own town, was he received with joy? No acclamations awaited Him who spoke as never man spoke, but the whole congregation gnashed upon Him with their teeth! And had it not been for His supernatural escape, they would have taken Him to the brow of the hill whereon the city was built and have cast Him down headlong! And yet it was not that He had said anything bitter against the town. It was not that He had inveighed against their favorite vices. It was only that He had committed that most unpardonable of all sins, namely, that He had preached the Doctrine of Divine Predestination! They listened to Him well enough until He said, “Yes, and many widows there were in Israel, but unto none of them was the Prophet sent except to the widow of Zarepta,” and when He thus declared the Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty— when He spoke of the giving of the blessing to the Gentiles who were the most unlikely individuals—then it was that they gnashed their teeth and would have cast Him down headlong from the brow of the hill! Nothing, it seems, excites some men’s envy like the Doctrines of Grace. Throughout the whole of our Savior’s life, this which was at the commencement followed Him! His speech teems with wisdom. He preeminently carried out His own teaching, “Be you wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” It is true His teaching was very bold, but at the same time it need not have irritated anyone. Those who thus took His teaching to themselves and perceived that He spoke of them, might be irritated apart from that. I suppose that never did man put the Truth of God in a better form, or after a fashion less likely to provoke prejudice, but the Pharisees were always contradicting Him. They endeavored to catch Him in His speech. Sometimes it is puzzling questions about the Law with some woman in the midst. At another time it is something about the government of the country. The Herodians joined with the Pharisees in the endeavor to embarrass, to perplex Him, to catch Him in His talk, to make Him an offender for a word. They plotted to draw Him out in speech, somehow or other, that they might get some sentence they could use against Him. Never did they listen with candor, never regarded Him with any honesty, but dogging His footsteps like bloodhounds, waiting for the first opportunity when they might tear Him in pieces! So, during His lifetime, He endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.