Read Matthew 22.
(Notes of an Address by one now with the Lord.)
THE Word of God lays before you man in his real condition, and God’s all-sufficiency to meet it. It is everything to accredit God’s Word. “Through faith we understand the worlds were made,” &c. The Spirit of God anticipated all the circumstances through which each of us should pass, and calculated all our need to supply it.
Oh, the calm quiet of the soul that believes on God, that leans on His Word, and that is supported by the Almighty, whose power created the world! Oh, the interest with which we should approach it, we that are hastily passing down the poor river of time, making swift way into the ocean of eternity! That Word, the only light, the only beacon, that we have to steer by as we speed on!
What are we? We all do fade as a leaf, the wind passes over us and we are gone, and our place knows us no more! Oh, that God would give such power to His Word that you in weakness would look up and lay hold of it!
Turn to Matthew 22. There the Gospel is presented by Christ Himself. We often forget who it is who speaks; the One who said, “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day” (John 12:4848He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. (John 12:48)); the One who said, “Let us make man in our image.” Oh, to receive words of healing from God’s mouth! to hear Him say, “If it were not so, I would have told you”! If it was not all grace and love He would have told us, — He who came from heaven, shining like the sun, into the cold dead heart of man, bringing the message of love and peace to poor sinners.
“Come unto Me.” It could be none other than our God that said, “Come unto Me; I know you, it was I who made you, I put you together. Put your head on My bosom; I am your Maker, your Saviour-God, you are Mine. Come unto Me, all ye weary ones, and I will give you rest.” And this is what they world rob you of now-a-days. Intellect is set up to rob man of that rest in God, but they cannot do it; man wants, and must have, rest in God. We never wanted Him as much as He wants us; none would have been here tonight with happy hearts but that He wanted them, and He moved their hearts to want Him. Sin ruined us, — but God so loved us, and sent down the Son of His love to tell us of it; God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
Years roll on, time slips from under your feet; but, bit by bit, He will sweep away every refuge, and make you see how foolish you were to put hindrances between the sweetness of His love and your souls.
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto,” &c. Who could know it but He? The God of heaven alone could tell us of the joy of heaven. Oh, to be shut up into Christ, that we cannot move, nor turn, without Him! Blessed necessity! Would you not be shut up to Him? All fullness is in Him; He puts us in our place in His presence; and such a place, far better than our created place had it not been lost by sin! Far better to be put before God in His own righteousness!
Who could tell us what heaven is, what God is, save God incarnate? There came One from heaven to tell us about a marriage! How strange a thing to us, in this place of lamentation, and woe, and death! Man is as a flower of the field, here today and gone tomorrow. Go to many a hearth and home, many a well-remembered corner — GONE! no occupant there now. To speak of a marriage feast in such a scene of dilapidation and ruin, and a King making it too! And inviting whom? Sinners, undone, and hurrying into eternity! Yes, to you is offered this resting-place. Christ at the door invites you in.
But oh, they will not come! He sends the message again, He opens out His whole soul, and He takes you up as part of the Bride. He undertakes all for you, every burden, every circumstance. He provides all; “I have prepared my dinner,” &c., come and sit down to it.
Is it possible? Such an invitation from heaven to poor sinners on earth, and the One who brought it God from everlasting to everlasting! He came Himself with it; it is in receiving and believing Christ’s own Word, — mark it well! — that you have your place there.
He invites, but they scorned, and would not hear; they went their way, not God’s way; they balanced time against eternity, and threw up all!
The servants were slain; He sent forth therefore His armies and destroyed them, and that was the close of that dispensation. “To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” The doors are now thrown open. “Go into the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage.” If you had all the sins of the world on you, the goodness of God could meet and receive you. Oh, that you may receive according to God’s grace! He has declared that salvation is ours if we believe His Word, — it is God’s salvation; as many as you can find, bring in! And are not these the words of eternal life to as many as will receive them tonight? Poor sinners, in Christ’s name we bid you to the Gospel feast. Boundless grace has opened the channel for every poor sinner here, to float into heaven washed in the blood of the Lamb.
God’s glad tidings comes to you in this blessed invitation? But what is your answer? “Christ asked me to come; drawn by the Father I came, I am His.”
Is there a soul here rejecting, and Christ Himself proclaiming you are welcome? Can you kneel before God and say, “Christ met us this night, and we have refused His invitations; the door of mercy was opened, and we saw over it the superscription, but we would not read it. Put it in the fire! I’m for my farm, I’m for my merchandise”?
Do you forget that God’s Word is the savor of life unto life, or of death unto death? Remember, Christ has asked you to the marriage supper by the Holy Ghost. Turn not away, it is at your everlasting peril if you do. If Christ has with His own lips spoken, better were it for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck than that you should refuse to listen.
Can you lie down quietly this night, the clock ticking by your bedside, and every hour that strikes bringing you an hour, and an hour nearer to eternity, and yet say, “I have not accepted Christ’s invitation, I have not turned when He called”?
Poor perishing sinner, God’s heart yearns over you. Oh, that you may not be found “not having on a wedding garment”! God is for every one who can put his hand upon his heart and say, “The Lord Jesus is mine.” But oh, we find here a man that entered in without a wedding garment, without being clothed with Christ as his righteousness! And when the King came in to see the guests, he says, “How camest thou in hither, I see no trace of a garment washed in blood”! “He was speechless,” — no time then to make the excuses you would put God off with now.
“Bind him hand and foot, and take him away.” “Many are called, but few are chosen.”
Oh, if you are His, tell to all the tale of His unchanging love. Sweet will you feel it to serve Him, even saying, What can I do for Him who gave Himself for me? What shall I render unto Him?
T. W.