Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3386
“He is our peace.” Ephesians 2:14.
THE true minister of Christ is not satisfied to be long away from his main theme. There are many things which it is very proper for him to speak upon in your hearing. We dare not forget the Doctrines of the Word of God, or the precepts, or the experiences of God’s people. But recognizing the claims of all these, God forbid that we should glorify save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is the preaching of Christ which is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Therefore, wherever we may wander around the circumference, we always feel a drawing in of our soul toward the center, which is “Christ in you, the hope of Glory.”
And if the preacher feels that he cannot go on long in the pulpit without preaching up his Lord and Master, I am quite sure that all the saints of God feel that they cannot be long content without this theme. They must constantly have Christ. As often as the table is spread in our homes, we need bread. We do not care to have the same meats and drinks in the morning, at mid-day and at the evening meal. We like to have a frequent change of food, but we always want the bread—and the table is badly furnished, let it have what it may upon it, if there is not there the bread which is the staff of life! So the Believer delights in the variety of God’s Word and there is no Truth which is not precious to him. He counts the very shavings of truth to be like the dust of diamonds. Let every particle of it be gathered up and treasured, yes, so treasured that men may be ready to die for the slightest fragment of a Truth of God! But still, the purest diamond, the Koh-I-Noor of the whole, is the Doctrine of the Savior suffering for our sins—and if we do not hear much concerning the Lamb of God, if this is not the big bell that is rung most often, we feel that none of the others can make up for the lack! If this silver trumpet of Jubilee is not blown, the year is dull and dreary, and the service of God’s sanctuary becomes an empty thing. Christ, Christ, Christ! Oh, that we may always make Him the sum and substance of our ministry and that you may always desire Christ as the Water of Life to your souls—your All-in-All, without whom you cannot be at rest! We come then, at this time, to our dear theme, praying God the Holy Spirit to take of the things of Christ and show them to us. It is His office—may He tenderly consider us and fulfill that office in our souls—here and now!
There are only four words in the text and, therefore, four things may suffice us for tonight. The first great word, or, at any rate, the second greatest, is the word, “peace,” and we shall think for a little while upon that, considering—
I. In What Sense We Are to Regard the Expression, “He Is Our Peace.”
The text compels us to begin with the thought, the Lord Jesus Christ is peace between the Jew and the Gentile. There was an old enmity between these two, an enmity on both sides. The Jew looked down upon the Gentile. He said, “I am of the seed of Abraham, the friend of God—ours are the oracles, ours the true God and the Covenant—as for you Gentiles, you are an idolatrous seed whom God has left, as He did your father, to carry out the devices of your own hearts and to perish in your uncircumcision.” The Jew called the Gentile a dog, thought him unclean, would have no friendly dealings with him, considered that uncircumcised men were little better than beasts and scarcely to be written down in the same list as the seed of Israel.
And the Gentiles, with equal earnestness and intensity, returned the enmity, for if the Jew taunted the Gentile with uncircumcision, much more did the Gentile ridicule the Jew because of his circumcision! The most severe edicts, especially under the Roman Empire, were passed against the Jews. Some of the Emperors expressed themselves as believing them to be the most detestable of all races! One of them said that he had seen the heathens of Sarmatia and had beheld the barbar-
ous tribes of the North, but he had seen all vices and all wickedness outdone among the Jews! It was not true—it was a gross lie—but it shows what was the enmity of the Gentile mind generally against the Jew, for the fact was that in those days the Jew was looked upon as unsocial. He never mingled with other nations. He could by no possibility be absorbed into other tribes, but held firmly to his nationality and would not be reckoned among the people. Hence there was a perpetual conflict. But my Brothers and Sisters, no sooner did the Lord Jesus Christ display the fullness of the Gospel in the Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit resting upon the Jew, than the Jew began to preach to the Gentile! There was a little tug in Peter’s heart at first. He hardly liked it, but still, God gave him a vision and immediately he went to preach the Gospel among those whom he had counted to be common and unclean! As for Paul, though a Pharisee of the Pharisees, though one of the strictest of Jews, yet he seems to have taken naturally to preaching among the Gentiles as soon as he was converted. He immediately went to these despised people and began to declare unto them the unsearchable riches of Christ! Now, in Christ Jesus, what fraternity there is, my Brothers and Sisters, between the seed of Israel and the Gentile stock! How we all feel that we are one! How many of the Jewish people has the Lord called! I hear it sometimes said that He called a larger proportion of the Jews than He has of the Gentiles, for, remember, the seed of Israel is but small, while the Gentiles at the present time number, I suppose, a thousand millions at least, so that a small number of Christian Jews make a large proportion to the bulk! But wherever you meet with a converted Jew, a true Believer, there is no more hearty lover of the Gentiles, no one more desirous to see the Gentiles saved!