Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3332
“Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” Isaiah 35:6.
WHAT a difference Divine Grace makes whenever it enters the heart! We find here the blind, but they are not blind in one sense—Grace has touched their eyes and the eyes of the blind are opened! Men are said to be deaf—but they are not deaf after Grace has operated upon them—the ears of the deaf are unstopped! They have been lame before, but when once the Omnipotent influence has come upon them, they leap like a hart! And the dumb, so far from being dumb, have a change that must be radical, for its effects are surprising—the tongue of the dumb not simply speaks, but it sings! Grace makes a great difference in man when it enters into him. How vain, then, are the boasts and professions of some persons who assert themselves to be the children of God and yet live in sin! There is no perceivable difference in their conduct— they are just what they used to be before their pretended conversion. They are not changed in their actions, even in the least degree, and yet they do most positively affirm that they are the called and living children of God! Let such know that their professions are lies, that falsehood is the only groundwork that they have for their hopes, for wherever the Grace of God is, it makes a difference! A graceless man is not like a gracious man and a gracious man is not like a graceless one—we are “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” When God looks upon us with the eyes of love in Conversion and Regeneration, He makes us as opposite from what we were before as light is from darkness—as Heaven, itself, is from Hell! God works in man a change so great that no reformation can even so much as thoroughly imitate it. It is an entire change—a change of the will, of the being, of the desires, of the hates, of the dislikes and of the likes. In every respect the man becomes new when Divine Grace enters into his heart. And yet you say of yourself, “I am converted,” and remain what you were! I tell you once again to your face—you say an empty thing—you have no grounds for saying it! If Grace permits you to sin as you were known to do, then that grace is no Grace at all! That grace were not worth the having which permits a man to be, after he receives it, what he was before! No, we must always hold fast to the great Doctrine of Sanctification. Where God really justifies, He really sanctifies, too! And where there is a remission of sin, there is also the forsaking of it. Where God has blotted out transgression, He also removes the love of it, and makes us seek after holiness and walk in the ways of the Lord. We think we might fairly infer this from the text as a prelude to the observations we have to make concerning it.
And now we shall want you, first of all, to notice the sort of people God has chosen to sing His praises and to sing them eternally. Then, in the second place, I shall enter into a more full description of the dumb people here described. Then I shall try to notice certain special times and seasons when those dumb people sing more sweetly than at others. First, then—I. THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL SING. We make this the first point. Note the persons whom God has chosen to sing His songs forever. There is no difference, by nature, between the elect and others—those who are now glorified in Heaven and who walk the golden streets clad with robes of purity were by nature as unholy and defiled—and as far from original righteousness as those who by their own rejection of Christ and by their love of sin, have brought themselves into the Pit of eternal torment as a punishment for their sins. The only reason why there is a difference between those who are in Heaven and those who are in Hell rests with Divine Grace and with Divine Grace alone! Those in Heaven would inevitably have been cast away had not Everlasting Mercy stretched out its hand and redeemed them. They were by nature not one whit superior to others. They would as certainly have rejected Christ and have trodden underfoot the blood of Jesus as did those who were cast away, if Grace, Free Grace, had not prevented them from committing this sin! The reason why they are Christians is not because they did naturally will to be so, nor because they did by nature desire to know Christ, or to be found of Him—but they are now saints simply because Christ made them so! He gave them the desire to be saved! He put into them the will to seek after God! He helped them in
their seeking and afterwards brought them to feel the peace of God which is the fruit of Justification. But, by nature, they were just the same as others—and if there is any difference, we are obliged to say that the difference lies on the wrong side of the question. In very many cases, we who now “rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God,” were the worst of men!