Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3348
“If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.” John 13:17.
The original scope of these words was just this—“If, as you say, you have understood the meaning of this—the washing of your feet by your Master—if you have comprehended My intention in so doing, then it will be to your lasting honor and happiness if you do the same. I have symbolically represented to you, by washing your feet, certain virtues. You shall be a happy people if these virtues are found in you and abound.” And have we not abundant proof that our Lord spoke the truth, for where are churches as happy as where they are knit together in brotherly love, where they have laid aside contentions about priority and distinction and where each one becomes a servant of all—everyone willing to take the lowest place and no one contending who shall be the greatest! May we prove, as I trust in our measure we have already done, how true these words are, and never may Diotrephes be in our midst to strive for the preeminence, nor a root of bitterness spring up to trouble us! May we, everyone, try to be like our Lord and happy, indeed, shall we be in such a case.
But the sentence before us is equally applicable to every other Gospel precept. If we understand anything which the Holy Spirit has revealed to us, happy shall we be if we follow its practical intention—if, being first taught and instructed—we afterward practically exemplify in our life and conduct the things which we have learned! That is the one thought I propose to lay upon our hearts and minds this evening! And that one thought may be enough.
You will notice in the text that there are two “ifs”—“If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.” It appears, then, first, that genuine and acceptable service to Christ should be based upon intelligent knowledge—“If you know these things.” And secondly, that all intelligent understanding of the things of God should lead us to the practice of them—“Happy are you if you do them.” The first “if shall be taken first—“If you know these things”—
I. All Service of Christ Is Based upon Intelligent Knowledge
Our first observation is that this is an “if even in this country. “If you know these things.” Alas, even in such a city as this, where the Gospel is to be heard in all our streets and Bibles are to be found in all our homes, it is so sad that tens of thousands do not know these things! They are so careless about what God has revealed that they will not even cross the threshold to listen to the Word of God! This day what a mass of Sabbath-breaking has grieved the Spirit of God! All around us there are those who are toiling hard six days in the week for themselves and cannot give to their God and, I may add, to their truer and nobler selves, this one day in which to think of Him. He has written to them the great things of His Law and they have trifled with it! He speaks to them and invites them to hear that their souls may live, but they would rather rest in their beds, or be found in any kind of pleasure sooner than seeking pleasure in the ways of God! Pity this poor city, you who know its sins! Pray for it, you who know its high privileges and solemn responsibilities! Work for it, you who have power with the heavenly Father, until at last the blessing shall come and men shall no longer need to say to their fellows, “Know the Lord.”
Alas, this is an “if,” however, which does not merely concern those who are outside our walls. There are many who know not these things, though they hear about them—and the reason is because while they come to the place of worship, and the sound of the preaching glides across their ears, they never give deep, earnest attention to it They say that preaching is dull—very possibly it is—but it is very amazing that it should not be still duller when people have no concern to get into its inner meaning, but find it quite enough to come and to go like a door on its hinges! Full often from the hum-
blest teacher something might be learned if we were but anxious to be taught. Or if we learned little by what he said, his very emotions might remind us and one thought, however commonplace, might engender another—and it would not be altogether without profit to sit together in the assembly of the saints.
Oh, how negligently do some hear! They are thinking of their homes, of their horses, of their cattle, of their farm and their merchandise. God gets no such attention from men as legatees give the lawyer when he reads the will. If men would listen to the preaching of the Gospel but half as well as they listen to sweet music, there might be hope of its being a blessing to them! But many understand not the things of God because of their negligent hearing of it.