Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3452
“He is risen.” Mark 16:6.
OUR Lord always told His disciples that He would rise. They were astonished to hear that He would die at all—they did not think it possible that He could die by the terrible death which He often hinted at. Had they understood and really believed that He would rise again, they might not have been so surprised at His death. But as often as He spoke of it, their minds seemed to have been like their eyes, on some occasions—held back that they should not see! And if they perceived His meaning, it ran so contrary to all their ideas of a Kingdom for a Messiah, that they could not grasp it as a reality!
Now one of the first things that strikes the reader of the Chapter before us shall furnish us with our first head of contemplation tonight—
I. The Almost Universal Power of Unbelief in the Church
This is a good instance to illustrate a general fact, for our Savior had told them in plain terms that He would rise again. Yet on the third day not one that we know of expected Him to rise! When they were informed that He had risen, by eyewitnesses—persons whom they had been accustomed to treat as deserving of all credence, persons with whom they had been long acquainted—they, everyone of them, were incredulous! They could not believe it, though it were testified to them again and again. As you read this Chapter through, you meet with first one instance and then another of this general incredulity about a thing on which all ought to have been sound believers! You find, first, the women—very tender, very loving, always accustomed to minister to Christ’s necessities in the days of His flesh—now their very love leads them to an unbelieving act! If He is risen and He said He would rise, what need of grave cloths? What need of precious ointments, and spikenard, and spices in which to embalm Him? ‘Twas love that said, “Embalm Him,” but ‘twas unbelieving love that made them think the thing was necessary to be done! All through those tender hearts, wherein so much of heavenly ardor for Christ was found, there was also found this leaven of mischief. But the men—the stronger sex, will not they, also, their hearts being full of love and having walked with Christ, having strong judgments, many of them, having noticed and weighed what He said—will not they believe? No! Peter and John, though they went to the sepulch-er, went there with heavy hearts, evidently with no expectation such as would have been excited by the belief that Christ had risen. The whole brotherhood of the disciples appear to have gone altogether over to an unbelief of the thought that Jesus Christ would rise! But there were some favored ones—there were the eleven. These were the elect out of the elect, the spiritual lifeguard, the very bodyguard of the Savior! Surely, if faith is extinct everywhere else, we shall find it in them! They were in the Garden at His Passion, some of them were on Tabor at His Transfiguration, three of them, at any rate. They were in the chamber where He raised the dead. They had seen His miracles, they had, themselves, distributed the bread which by a miraculous power He had multiplied for the feeding of the multitude. They had seen Him walk the sea—one of them had, himself, walked on the liquid wave and found it marble beneath his feet when Christ had bid him come. They had marked the tempest hushed, they had seen devils expelled, many marvelous displays of Divine Power had they, all of them, beheld! These choice ones, especially those three mighty, those chosen three, would surely believe! Yet they also were tinctured with this same evil—they had not such a faith in their Master as they should have had. And now this was but, I think, a portrait of what has been, ever since—the great mischief in the Church of God. This sin of sins— unbelief—is still at this very hour too common among the people of God. Suppose I talk to the mass of God’s people, the
quiet, humble people, who go about their business and serve God in their households. Shall I find them all full of faith, giving glory to God? No, I am not long with some of them but I hear their doubts as to whether they are His or not! I hear some of them singing—
“Do Ilove the Lord or no; Am I His, or am I not?”
True, I see many of them happy and joyful, contented and trustful, but not always so, even they. Sometimes even these seem to give way to fears and suspicions—and they half think that He has forgotten to be gracious—will be mindful of them no more! Truly is it written, “If the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith upon the earth?” He may look for it, and look for it long, for among His own believing people, yet is faith all too rare a thing—hard to be found! It is true it is in its essence always in the Church, but yet so feeble that oftentimes the fire is rather that which trembles in the smoking flax and almost expires, than the spark that seeks the Sun, the Father, the flame from which at first it came! Now suppose I turn away from the mass of Christians and select for myself those that take office in Christ’s Church, appointed by Him, gifted, and given, as the result of the ascension, to the Church as the Church’s treasure? My Brothers, what shall I say about deacons, Elders, and such like in the Church of God? How do I find you? Do I not discover oftentimes in church officers a slackness of enterprise, a fear lest this should be too great a thing or that too venturesome? Have I not heard—though certainly I may say I have, by God’s Grace, not experienced—have I not heard that sometimes those that should lead the Church have held her back, and those that should be first and foremost to sustain the Christian ministry in every holy effort, have they not been, sometimes, a very drag upon the wheels to hinder it? And if it is so in their official acting, I fear it is not much better in their own private capacity before God. Alas, O Israel, your captains are weak! Your mighty men tremble!
But suppose I select those God has especially favored and made the winners of souls? Do I find these at all times confident in the God whose Gospel they proclaim? Are they always calmly reliant upon that eternal power which has ordained them to their work? We must, each man, speak for himself, but I fear the most of us might take up a wailing for ourselves and confess that we, also, too often must say, “Lord, I believe. Help You my unbelief.” The prayer of the Apostles is a suitable prayer for ministers, “Lord increase our faith,” for if our faith is not increased, we cannot expect that the faith of the multitude will be! Christ’s ministers ought to be to Christ’s army a sort of spiritual Uhlans that ride on ahead to investigate the country—to take hold of it before the main body comes up. They should be the men to lead the forlorn hope! They should be first in the trenches whenever a citadel is to be taken by storm. Their hearts should never fail them—they should be men of large conceptions and bold designs—men to fall back upon the Infinite and rely upon the unseen! Are we always such, or such to such a degree as we ought to be? No, I fear that the chapter of Church history which is being now written is, in the sight of God, much blotted by the unbelief of all His people. Faith there is—I bless God for it—and in some cases very eminent faith, but taking us all round, alas, we must make up a sorrowful confession of our shortcomings in the matter of our faith in the living God. Now, turning to the Chapter again, we shall get our second point of consideration—