Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3422
“Shakeyourself from the dust, arise and sit down, O Jerusalem: loosen yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.” Isaiah 52:2.
I SHALL not attempt at this time to decipher the history of the prophecy with which these words are associated. To the Hebrew nation they were big with counsel, bright with hope. Apart, however, from the connection in which it stands, this verse supplies a pointed practical address of sterling value not to be limited by any private interpretation. Such a charge was well fitted for Israel of old. Such counsel would be suitable to any Church in a low condition. Such advice is equally adapted to any Christian who has fallen into a low state, who is groveling in the dust or among the ashes of Sodom. He is told to rise from the ground and sit down upon a throne, for Christ has made him a king and a priest. He is admonished to unbind all the cords that are upon him, that he may be free and happy in the Lord. To those of you, then, who have sunk into this distressing plight, my text contains a vigorous appeal! Let me try to interpret it. First of all, I notice the obvious fact—
I. Some of God’s True People Are in a Very Sad Condition
This is an important consideration to us just now. If just on the eve of battle a commander should discover that an epidemic has broken out among his troops, he will be extremely anxious that any available remedy shall be tried, for if the soldiers are sick, how can they be expected to behave well on the morrow? So it will sometimes happen that when we mean to serve our Master most, we are impeded in Church action by the prevalence of some spiritual disease among the members of the Church. Perhaps I may be the means, tonight, of finding out the sick ones, and indicating their symptoms, and—who can tell—perhaps this very night, before you come to the Table, the blessed remedy may be applied, and at the Table, while you are feasting with Christ, your souls may become perfectly restored!
Sometimes the children of God fall into a grievous state as to their faith and their assurance of their own interest in Christ. They doubt whether they are Christians at all, whether their experience is genuine, whether they ever did really repent with a truly broken heart, whether they have received the precious faith—the faith of God’s elect. At such times they question all their graces and they are not able to get a satisfactory answer from anyone. At the same time these people of God may be so walking in outward consistency that everybody else thinks well of them. No one has any suspicion of them, but they grievously suspect themselves and are tormented with the fear that they have a name to live, and are dead. I have known at such times that there will come at the back of all this some terrible doubts about the substantial Truths of our faith. “What?” You say, “doubts about the Godhead—doubts about the Savior—doubts about the world to come?” Yes, yes, and to the true people of God! They will hate these doubts and, in their hearts they will still believe all the great fundamental and cardinal Truths—but yet will they be sore put to it and be frequently distressed. Thoughtful minds, and men of reading will have philosophical doubts buzzing about them like mosquitoes on a summer’s day. Others who are ignorant of philosophy and, perhaps, it is well that they are, will be troubled with doubts of a rougher, coarser quality. Although they will not permit them so to dwell in their hearts so that they actually become unbelievers—yet they will be sorely distressed with questions which they cannot answer, with enigmas which they know not how to solve, and with strange intertwistings of difficulty which they know not how to untie. Perhaps, too, at such a time as this, there will be over all and worse than all, a state of dreadful indifference creeping over them. They want to feel, but cannot feel. They would gladly wring tears of blood out of their eyes, but not even an ordinary tear will drop. They want to be cut to pieces! They would welcome the most poignant sorrow, but they can only say—
“If anything is felt, ‘tis only pain, To feel I cannot feel.”
In such cases, true Believers are sure to resort to the extraordinary use of the means of Grace. I mean they will add to their ordinary use, something more. Have you never been in such a state that the Bible has become uninteresting, or the only passages of Scripture that seemed to strike you were dreadful threats concerning your Own coming doom, as you thought—not a word of comfort, not a syllable that makes glad your spirit? You have gone to prayer and the heavens have seemed to be brass! And worse still, your own heart seemed to be brass, too, and you could not stir it up to anything like an intensity of desire. You did not wonder that you got no answer. You would have wondered if such a prayer as yours could be heard at all! Ah, and then you have gone up to the assembly of God’s people where at other times your heart has danced within you with holy joy! The minister was not changed. Perhaps at first you thought he was, but on more attentive bearing, you noticed that there was the same Truths of God and spoken in the same honest fashion, but you could not hear it as you once did. Clouds without rain and wells without water—all the ordinances seemed to be to you. And all the while, though you felt that you could not live like this, and said—