Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3478
“And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly country.” Hebrews 11:15,16.
Abraham left his country at God’s command and he never went back. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. There is a sort of faith which runs well for a while, but it is soon ended and it does not obey the Truth of God. The Apostle tells us, however, that the people of God were not forced to continue because they could not return. Had they been mindful of the place from whence they came out, they might have found opportunities to return. Frequent opportunities came in their way. There was communication kept up between them and the old family house at Padan-Aram. They had news concerning the family house. More than that, there were messages exchanged—servants were sometimes sent. There was also a natural relationship kept up. Did not Rebekah come from there? And Jacob, one of the Patriarchs, was driven to go down into the land, but he could not stay there. He was always uneasy, until at last he stole away from Laban and came back to the proper life, the life that he had chosen—the life that God had commanded him to live—of a pilgrim and stranger in the land of promise. You see, then, they had many opportunities to have returned, to have settled down comfortably and tilled the ground which their fathers did before them—but they continued to follow the uncomfortable life of wanderers with weary feet, dwelling in tents, who own no plot of land. They were aliens in the country which God had given them by promise!
Now our position is a very similar one. As many of us as have believed in Christ Jesus have been called out. The very meaning of a Church is called out—by Christ we have been separated. I trust we know what it is to have gone outside the camp bearing Christ’s reproach. Henceforth in this world we have no home, no true abiding home for our spirits. Our home is beyond the flood. We are looking for it among the unseen things. We are strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were—dwellers in this wilderness, passing through it to reach the Canaan which is to be the land of our perpetual inheritance. I shall this evening first speak to you upon—
I. THE OPPORTUNITIES WHICH WE HAVE HAD, AND STILL HAVE, TO RETURN to the old house if we were mindful of it. Indeed, in the text it seems to me as if the word, “opportunities,” were not, in our case, nearly strong enough. It is a wonder of wonders that we have not gone back to the world and to our own sin. When I think of the strength of Divine Grace, I do not marvel that saints would persevere, but when I remember the weakness of their nature, it seems a miracle of miracles that there should be one Christian in the world at a single hour. It is nothing short of Godhead’s utmost stretch of might that preserves a Christian from going back to his old unregenerate condition! We have had opportunities to have returned. My Brothers and Sisters, we have such opportunities in our daily calling. Some of you are engaged in the midst of ungodly men. You have opportunities to sin as they do, to fall into their excess, into their forgetfulness of God, or even into their blasphemies! Oh, have you not often strong inducements, if it were not for the Grace of God, to become as they are or if your occupation keeps you alone, yet, my Brothers and Sisters, there is one who is pretty sure to keep us company and to seek our mischief—the Destroyer, the Tempter! And how frequently will even solitude have temptations as severe as publicity could possibly bring? There are snares in company, but there are snares in our loneliness. We have many opportunities to return. In the parlor—in conversation, perhaps—in the kitchen about the day’s work or in the field, or at the market, on land and on sea. Where can we go to escape from these opportunities to return? If we should mount upon the wings of the wind, could we find “a lodge in some vast wilderness” where we
could be quite clear from all the opportunities to go back to the old sins in which we once indulged? No! Each man’s calling may seem to him to be more full of temptations than his fellows, but it is not so. Our temptations are pretty equally distributed, I dare say, after all. And all of us might say that we find in our avocations from hour to hour many opportunities to return.
But, dear Brothers and Sisters, it is not merely in our business and in our calling—the mischief lies in our bones and in our flesh! Opportunities to return in our own nature. Ah, who that knows himself does not find strong incentives to return? Ah, how often will our imagination paint sin in very glowing colors—and though we loathe the sin and ourselves for thinking of it, yet how many a man might say—“Had it not been for Divine Grace, my feet had almost gone, my steps had well-near slipped.” How strong is the evil in the best man, how stern is the conflict to keep under the body, lest corruption should prevail! You may be diligent in secret prayer and, perhaps, the devil may have been asleep till you began to pray, but when you are most fervent, then will he also become most rampant! When you get nearest to God, Satan will sometimes seem to get nearer to you. Opportunities to return as long as you are in this body will be with you to the very edge of Jordan! You will meet with temptations when you sit gasping on the banks of the last river, waiting for the summons to cross—it may be that your fiercest temptation may come even then! Oh, this flesh, this body of this death—wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from it? While it continues with me I shall find opportunities to return.