Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3329
“You prevent Him with the blessings of goodness.” Psalm 21:3.
OUR text is one of many instances of the way in which words change their meanings. The word, “prevent,” as we now use it, has a very different meaning from that which it had when our translators used it. It now signifies to get before one, to stop up his path, to prevent his going a certain way, just as the angel “prevented” Balaam, standing with his sword drawn in his hand that he might not pass that way. This is only the modern use of the word, but the real and ancient use of it was simply, “to go before.” “You go before Him with the blessings of goodness.” That is the real meaning of the word—and when we speak of, “preventing Grace,” we do not intend to describe the Grace that keeps us from sin, but the Grace which goes before our actually believing in Christ—“prevenient Grace,” as we are accustomed to call it theologically—Grace which comes to us while as yet we are not conscious of its power, or have no desire towards it.
The meaning of the text, then, is not that Christ was prevented, or hindered from doing anything that He wished to do, by God’s goodness, but that God’s goodness went before, preceded, heralded Him. That word, “preceded,” has taken in our language in the present age the force and meaning which the word, “prevent,” had at the time of the translation of our authorized version of the Bible, so that now we should say, instead, “You precede Him, got before Him with the blessings of Your goodness.”
I shall take the text on this occasion, then, in two ways. First, noticing its application to our Lord Jesus Christ, personally, and then its application to Him mystically—that is to say, to every believing soul that is truly in Him. First, then—
I. ITS APPLICATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST PERSONALLY. It is quite certain that God did precede Him with the blessings of goodness. That is to say, before our Lord Jesus Christ actually came into the world and bowed His head in death, multitudes of spirits were given to Him as His reward—that tens of thousands entered into God’s Redemption by virtue of an Atonement that was not as yet offered—and washed away their sins in a fountain filled with blood which had not been literally opened, but which was opened in the purpose of God and in its Divine Operation from before the foundation of the world, for is He not called, “the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world”? Brothers and Sisters, see the wondrous power of the death of our Savior! His blood not only cries from the ground when it is spilt, but it cried all down the ages which preceded the actual blood-shedding! It opened the gates of Heaven to sinners, it was sprinkled on the consciences of Believers and made sinful men to be “accepted in the Beloved” even before it had dropped in bloody sweat in Gethsemane, or had been made to flow in streams under the lash in Gabbatha, or had been poured forth from the five sacred wounds upon the Cross of Calvary! “You precede Him with the blessings of goodness.”
Just as some mighty conquerors, when they entered in triumph into Rome not only had behind them the trophies of their victory, but before them the streets were strewn with flowers and made sweet with the perfumes rained upon them before they came, so was it with the Savior. Before He came, the world was blessed by His coming! Before He, Himself, appeared, I may say that death and Hell were defeated in anticipation. Just as in our own land there is a brightness that covers the sky before the sun has actually risen above the horizon, so was it with the world—there was the Light of God in it before Christ came. It was Light, however, which came from Him, for He is the Light of the World, the Light that
lights every man that comes into the world—but it came before He, Himself, appeared! In this verse, then, it must be said of King Jesus, “You precede Him with the blessings of goodness.”
And to ponder another phase of this same thought, our Lord Jesus Christ was honored among the sons of men before He had performed His great work.
We honor our Lord because He has redeemed us, and it is this that makes them sing before the eternal Throne of God, “He has loved us, and redeemed us unto God by His blood.” But long before the Redemption price had been paid, I doubt not that Christ was honored by the saints in Heaven, for they knew that their coming there was on the same ground and footing as the saints do now! I believe, therefore, that long before He lived and died on earth, they cast their crowns at His feet and said, “You are worthy.” I have frequently heard it said that there was no faith in Heaven, but I have never been able to receive that idea. At any rate, there must have been faith in Heaven before Christ died! The celestial spirits must have had a firm conviction that Christ would come upon the earth and must have felt that their security depended upon the Infallible oath and promise that in the fullness of time He would offer Himself as a Sacrifice. Indeed, it seems to me that there is still faith in Heaven as to that matter, for they have to believe as we do in the Second Advent, in the resurrection of the dead and in many wondrous promises which as yet have not been fulfilled. Certainly, Beloved, we may say of the Master that His head was crowned with the Glory of the crown of thorns before it was crowned with the shame! And in this sense He was preceded with the blessings of goodness. Abraham saw His day. He saw it and was glad—and in that gladness of Abraham, Jesus Christ rejoiced! David sang of Him and rested upon Him with such faith that in that faith the Savior found a solace. All those who were able to look through that smoke of the types and ceremonies—and to see the substance of the true Redemption—all gave honor and Glory to Him, and this I say was before He had actually won that Glory by His death—“You precede Him with the blessings of goodness.”