Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3541
“Then He said to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and behold My hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered, and said unto Him, My Lord and my God.” John 20:27,28.
WE are, all of us, apt to fall into a wrong state of heart, not because we are unconverted, nor yet because we are false to Christ, but simply because of our natural infirmities. So long as we are in this body, exposed to trial and temptation, we shall be prone to start aside like a broken bow. Thomas was a true-hearted follower of Jesus. He loved his Master. It had been a severe shock to his sensitive disposition and his thoughtful mind to see his Master betrayed, arraigned, scourged, crucified, dead and buried. He could not, at once, rally from the agitation it caused him, or think it possible that Jesus could have risen from the dead. Pondering the matter scrupulously, it seemed to him to involve too great a miracle to be credited—far beyond anything to be expected! He would require, he said, very clear and satisfactory proofs before he would believe it. In like manner, you and I have, each of us, our characteristic faults. We may not be too thoughtful, like Thomas—we may, perhaps, be too thoughtless—and that is quite as mischievous. Even our pleasing qualities which adorn us as virtues may become our temptations. The best point about us, as a sound judgment was in the case of Thomas, may become the very snare that entangles us. Let no man judge his fellow. Above all, let no man exalt himself. He that is in his best estate, today, may be in spiritual poverty tomorrow! He who rejoices in God and walks in holy consistency may, before another sun has risen—few, though the hours of interval are—have felt his feet slide from under him and so fallen from his steadfastness as to have dishonored his God, and pierced himself through with many sorrows!
God grant that our meditation may be for the comfort of some present, while we proceed to notice the Master and the servant—Jesus and Thomas—narrowly looking at the actions of them both.
I. LET THE MASTER FIRST ENGAGE OUR ATTENTION—THE MASTER IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNBELIEVING DISCIPLE WHO HAS TREATED HIM WITH NO LITTLE PRESUMPTION AND RASHNESS.
How exquisitely touching, His gentleness! Does He upbraid Thomas? Is there indignation in His tone? Is there petulance in His chiding? Does He exclaim, “How dare you doubt that I am alive?” Or turns He upon him with some rough sentence, asking “Why this impertinence that you should speak of putting your finger into My wounds, and thrusting your hand into My side? Unworthy servant, from this moment I disown you for having spoken so disrespectfully of your Lord and Master.” No, far from it! He rather takes Thomas on his own ground, considers his infirmities, and meets them precisely as they are, without a single word of rebuke until the close—and even then He puts it very lovingly. The whole conversation was, indeed, a rebuke, but so veiled with love that Thomas could scarcely think it so. He speaks to him as if nothing had occurred to give any cause of offense, or by his presumption to occasion any estrangement.
Dwell for a moment on the mercy which our Lord must have shown—and the blessed patience He must have exercised, to bear thus with Thomas. Ought he not to have known from the Old Testament that the Christ would rise from the dead? Had he not been reminded once and again by his Master of the prophecies which spoke concerning the death of Christ, and the Glory that should follow? Had he not heard the Master, Himself, frequently say that the third day He would rise again? He must have been present with the other Apostles when they turned His oracular sentences over in their minds and said, one to another, “What does He mean by this, that He shall suffer and that He shall rise?” And had He not just before seen the women and conferred with the Apostles who testified that they had found an empty tomb, that they had been told by angels that Jesus had risen—yes, more—that when they were sitting together, Jesus had appeared
in their midst? Yet, so strong was his unbelief, that he puts his own judgment against their assertion of fact, against the Inspired Scriptures, against the thrilling words that fell from the Master’s own lips, against the united, concurrent acknowledgment of all the Brothers! And do you think not, Brothers and Sisters, that our willfulness is sometimes as irrational and unwarranted as his? We harbor doubts in the teeth of accumulated evidences and then credit ourselves with being wise and right, while we disparage all others as being foolish and wrong! The principle which lies at the root of all the heresies and the schisms that tear and divide the Church is just that self-confidence which will not let us yield, even though better men than ourselves—yes, though the united consent of the whole Church should bear testimony to a fact or a Truth of God to which we disagree! Through some lack of information or through some flaw of judgment, we judge differently from our companions and forthwith our self-approbation is unyielding, and our conduct is intolerant! It was no small scandal thus to put himself in opposition to the Master, in opposition to the Scripture and in opposition to all his fellow servants! Still, our Lord Jesus Christ forbears to utter a word of denunciation. He just says, “Reach here your finger and behold My hands; and reach here your hand and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing.” Softer words He could not have spoken! He responds without reproach. Such loving kindness and tender mercy as David was known to sing of old, did our blessed Redeemer show!